History of Photography

Art and Photography

History of Photography

C. Jabez Hughes � : photography into three classes

•  1) Mechanical photography •  2) Art photography •  3) A photograph that can “instruct, purify and

ennoble.” •  Depiction vs imagination •  Objective description vs moral uplift •  Entertainment vs. Education

(textbook 3.6) Etienne Carjat, Charles Baudelaire, c. 1862. Woodburytype.

Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon), Portrait of Charles Baudelaire, c. 1863.

3.7. Nadar, Panthéon Nadar, 1854. Lithographic print, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York.

Nadar, “Revolving” Self-Portrait, c. 1865.

Nadar, pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, (1820 - , 1910), French writer, caricaturist and photographer. -best known for his photographic portraits.

Nadar, Paris from above in 1858.

3.9. Nadar, Theophilie Gautier, 1854-55. Albumen salted paper print, mounted on Bristol board, Musee d’Orsay, Paris.

*Gautier: proponent of art for art’s sake and author of the novel about Parisian bohemian life, Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835) *the writer’s antagonism toward the bourgeois. *Nadar’s photographic studio became a fashionable intellectual salon.

3.10. Nadar, The Sewers of Paris, 1864-65. Modern print from a glass negative.

Nadar, Catacombs, c. 1860.

Nadar, Sarah Bernhardt, c. 1860.

Nadar, Victor Hugo at Deathbed. 1885.

Tableaux Vivants (living pictures)

William Lake Price, An Interior, 1858.

High Art Photography

Tableux vivants

3.12. William Lake Price, Don Quixote in His Study. Early 1850s. Albumen print from a wet collodion negative. [Miguel de Cervante]

Tableux vivants

High Art Photography

(textbook 3.13) Oscar Rejlander, The Two Ways of Life, 1857. Combination Albumin print.

High Art Photography

Raphael, School of Athens 1509-1511, Vatican City

Thomas Couture, The Romans of Decadence, 1855. (see also your textbook for the scale of this painting, page 461.

13.31. Thomas Struth, Musee d’Orsay, Paris, 1989)

3.14. Henry Peach Robinson, Group with Recumbent Figure (Sketch with cut-out),

1860. Albumen print and pastel collage on paper. Gernsheim Collection.

Henry Peach Robinson (1830 – 1901)

Self-portrait, 1895.

Henry Peach Robinson, When Day’s Work is Done, 1877. A combination print made from six different negatives.

Henry Peach Robinson, Figures in Landscape, early 1890s, Combination albumen print

3.15. Henry Peach Robinson, Fading Away, 1858, Albumen composite print (Combination Print),

Science Museum, London.

•  Robinson, Henry Peach: “Pictorial Effect In Photography: Being Hints On Composition And Chiaroscuro For Photographers.” Piper & Carter, 1869

•  Robinson, Henry Peach: “The Elements of a Pictorial Photograph”. Lund, 1896.

•  Video: combination printing darkroom techniques.

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 – 1879)

Henry Hersschel Hay Cameron, Julia Margaret Cameron, c. 1870, Victoria and Albert Museum.

Julia Margaret Cameron, Julia Jackson, 1867. Albumen silver print.

3.19. Julia Margaret Cameron, Herschel, 1867. Albumen print, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Julia Margaret Cameron, King Lear allotting his Kingdom to his three daughters by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1872, with her husband Charles Hay

Cameron, staff in hand, cast as King Lear

3.20. Julia Margaret Cameron, Ophelia, Study no.2, 1867. Albumen print, Geroge Eastman House, Rochester, New York.

video

Early Modern Photography

History of Photography

6.2. John D. Howe, The front page of William Randolph

Hearst’s New York American, April 24, 1906. With a photograph

of San Francisco in flames on April 16, 1906, New York Public

Library, New York.

•  Half-tone process allowed publications to reproduce photographic images directly rather than through engravings.

•  Invention of Dry Plates: faster and easier; worked well with new, smaller, portable cameras (hand-held cameras) à greater mobility

•  By 1880s, photography has its place in the everyday life.

VIDEO

(left) No.1. Kodak Camera, 1889. (right) Kodak Menual, 1889.

The company’s slogan “You press the button - we do the rest.”

First Eastman Kodak camera

•  In 1888, Eastman Dry Plate Company in Rochester, NY began to manufacture the Kodak camera, intended for casual use by middle class consumers.

•  Camera had a fixed focus. •  Camera came loaded with a roll of paper coated

with light sensitive material. •  Video: Before the Brownie: the first Eastman

Kodak camera (circa 1888)

(left) a photograph taken from No.1. Kodak camera. (right) Robert W. Reford, Chinese seamstress,

1888, albumen print PA-118195

Using a Kodak No. 1 camera, Reford, an amateur photographer, documented the activities of the settlers in British Columbia.

6.5. Photographer Unknown, Untitled, c. 1888. Early Kodak print, Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, New York.

(left) Eastman Kodak No. 2 Brownie Camera and Original Box, circa 1910

(right)Detail from the end-flap of the carton used to market the No. 2 Brownie Camera to children

6.33. Advertisement for Kodak Cameras, c. 1910. Poster. George Eastman House, Rochester, New

York.

6.37. Advertisement for Pond’s Cold

Cream, from New York Times, February

8, 1925.

(textbook plate. 6.1) Frances Benjamin Johnston, Self- Portrait (as New Woman), c. 1896. Gelatin silver print, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

6.31. Photographer Unknown, Untitled (Is your wife a Suffragette?), postmarked 1908. Postcard.

6.32. Photographer Unknown, “Mrs. How Martyn Maks Jam,” from Suffragettes at Home, n.d. Postcard, Museum of London.