In the 16th Century during The Renaissance, artists at that period of history grew increasing curious and interested in exploring the reality of nature and how it is represented. One of the most famous artists during The Renaissance period Leonardo Da Vinci acquired the status he had in the field of art due to his well known anatomical drawings and took a great interest in contemporary advances in science
Camera Obscura
In order for realism to be successfully attempted and accomplished, in attempts to accomplish this artists developed various instruments such as the camera obscura. This artistic instrument consisted of a dark room or space which an inverted image was projected onto a surface and would therefore help artists succeed in their quest for realism
Industrial Revolution
Due to the Industrial Revolution society changed drastically in the 1800s with mass-production leading the way forward, scientists endeavoured to reproduce reality in a fixed format. In 1827 the scientist from France Joseph Nicephore Niepce was successful in fixing the first projected image of his view from his window in Le Gras which is located in the South of France
The inventions of Louis Jacques Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot
Louis Jacques Daguerre in January 1839 officially announced his new invention the Daguerrotype, it was a type of photograph which was laterally reversed and monochromatic printed onto a metal plate. The benefits of the Daguerrotype was that it obviously helped laterally reverse a photograph, however it acquired major draw backs such as the acids used to create the photograph were very dangerous, also the image formed was only a one off and could not be reproduced and even when they were produced the photograph were very delicate. During the same period of history while the Daguerrotype was being used in the world of photography, English scientist William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839 developed another type of photograph called the Calotype. The process consisted of photographic experiments which involved producing photograms or what he referred to as 'Photogenic Drawings'. In comparison to the Daguerrotype the photograph was able to be reproduced in a mass amount.
My Photograms:
The rivalry between France & England
Themes
During the early years in the world of photography, documentation was a massive concern for photographers and therefore continued to focus on traditional fine art themes such as portraiture and landscape. Photographers over time adapted to new forms of photography and therefore started to assemble their own identities, separate to that of contemporary artists
Well done. Neat work, with all key points included.
Pictorialism, Secessionism and Straight Photography
Pictorialism:
Pictorialism which during the later 19th and early 20th Century is the process of which the desire to express and engage feelings of senses is wanted to be implemented in photography, felt images should be be connected with beauty rather than facts. It was also a mechanical mean to show reality. The technique's which were used in this process was smearing vaseline, scratching in darkroom (negatives) and different chemicals in order to implement the process of pictorialism into their photographical projects. One of the main menebrs of the movement were Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen.
Secessionism:
The movement secessionism was founded by Stieglitz in 1902, it had the ideals of pictorialism but photographers also wanted the mechanical origins to be apparent
Straight Photography:
The founder of straight photography which was a photography concept founded by Paul Strand. The concept of it is to not manipulate the photo in any way and to just leave the photo as it was even if you were to see the camera shot with the human eye, so to basically not change the reality of the photo. The beliefs of straight photography was to capture reality and not manipulate it, also that photography was the art so it should not be manipulated and to capture shape and form
F64:
The ideology of F64 is to place emphasis on 'pure' photography. Photos were taken using a very small apeture therefore making the photo darker as there is less light exposure for the photograph, also the use of a small apeture while taking a photograph is that it makes the photo a lot more focused and helps improve the quality of the photograph. The first members of the group which formed the concept of F64 were Edward Western, Imagen Cunningham and Ansel Adams
Lanscape Photography
Impressionism:
The whole invention of the camera meant that artists no longer had to depict the world in a realistic way. However, the whole concept of impressionism and especially the impressionist artists decided to instead focus more on capturing the changing qualities of light and atmosphere
Pictorialism:
Pictorialism and pictorialist artists in particular hoed to express and engage feelings and senses and felt that their images should be concerned with beauty rather than fact