Category Archives: History of Photography

Courses, History of Photography, Year Two

Final Paper Excerpt

Leave a comment

In the early history of photography, I was interested in the way early scientists used photography to capture and observe movement in their world.  The early use of photography as a tool of science interested me.  I enjoyed how Talbot and other early developers used it as a way to see the details and understand the natural world.  The famous Muybridge photographs of a galloping horse answered a question of painters and scientists, do all four legs of a horse leave the ground? The photographs also inspired Marey, who had been studying human movement, to invent “chronophotography” and analyze the movement of a human walking [Figure 1].  

Figure 1: Etienne Jules Marey “Joinville Soldier Walking, 1883, process and size not found
Figure 1: Etienne Jules Marey “Joinville Soldier Walking, 1883, process and size not found

His work was made placing a spinning disk in front of the camera, small cutouts in the disk would expose the position of a person walking onto one piece of film.  In Muybridge’s work, a sequence of images was would be laid out in a long filmstrip style like animation cells or layered on top of each other to analyze movement.  The photographers’ studies of human motion inspired other artists and scientists like Paul Richer and Marcel Duchamp to create artwork about dynamic movement.  Muybridge’s image sequences and Marey’s chronophotographs answered their questions about the world and inspired other artists to explore human motion more realistically in their work.  These photographs made me understand my interest was in the serial, objective approach to photography to observe the natural and social sciences.  The work of August Sander takes a social and economic perspective, he attempted to photograph the German population by profession to analyze their facial characteristics.  “Sanders methodical approach indicate his concern for unprejudiced and realistic representation.  …he saw the opportunity to bring out typical physiognomy and body languages ​​of different professions…”  I was taken by the portraits of the 1940s German population, the way his photographs show a range of  personalities linked with specific job types. [Figure 2, 3]

Figure 2: August Sander: Painter 1928, Gelatin silver print, 25.8 x 18.7 cm
Figure 3: August Sander National Socialist, Head of Department of Culture, 1938, Gelatin silver print,

 

This imagery examines its subjects in is shows the form of the subject, which made me interested in the precise photography of the Bechers.  [Figure 4]

 

Figure 4: Bernd and Hilla Becher “Watertowers”, Gelatin silver prints, each 42.6 x 37.1 cm
Figure 4: Bernd and Hilla Becher “Watertowers”, Gelatin silver prints, each 42.6 x 37.1 cm

 

The Bechers were interested in industrial architecture because of Bernd’s childhood in the Ruhr area of Germany, and began photographing factory and mine sites.  They documented the structures knowing they would soon disappear Germany moved into a new, postwar economic era.  Using black and white film and a large view camera, they photographed the architecture from the front, at the same distance, on cloudy days with flat light.  Without shadows and with a similar approach, the perception of the buildings is the same, allowing a comparison of the structure’s form.  Their approach allows you to see the similarity of the industrial design, the multitude of these structures speaks about the production demands on a capitalist economy.  I am interested in how these pictures compare the form of their subject and how the series of images informs us about German society and influenced artists’ ways of seeing.

 

Courses, History of Photography, Year Two

Photographer Presentation: John Thompson

Leave a comment

Scottish Photographer John Thompson, born in 1837 and grew up in Edinburgh.  His education was focused on Natural Philosophy. The majority of John Thomson’s photographic work was produced using what is known as the ‘wet-collodion’, glass plate negative process.

 

In 1862, Thomson moved to Singapore, where he lived with his brother, a watchmaker and photographer.  He began his work documenting the destruction caused by recent cyclones in Ceylon and India.

 

He continued to travel Asia, photographing the King of Cambodia and King of Siam.  Returning to England in 1866, he lectured on Ethnography and published his book on Cambodia.  The next year, he returned to Singapore then explored Asia until he finally settling in Hong Kong in 1868. Here, he began his project of photographing the people of China.

 

Thomson’s photographs fall into two broad categories: scenic views and types. Views encompassed both natural landscapes and built environments. He photographed the various classes, from royalty to laborers and examined unusual and exotic subjects.

 

Photographed Chinese laborers and punishments to create an exotic view of the east.  His practice included pictures of rickshaws, sedan chairs, people in traditional dress, and people in “the Cangue” (a wood neckpiece worn for punishment).

 

Thompson returned to London, where he collaborating from with social activist Adolphe Smith in producing the monthly Street Life in London (February 1877 – January 1878).

 

His final photographic series on the Street Life in London documented the fruit sellers, cab drivers, nomads and others in London who sold, provided services, or lived on the streets.  The purpose, to document objectively without omission or exaggeration.

 

The photographs were accompanied by detailed captions of what these people did and how they made their living.  “The crawler, …, whose portrait is now before the reader, is the widow of a tailor who died some ten years ago. She had been living with her son-in-law, a marble stone-polisher by trade, who is now in difficulties through ill-health. It appears, however, that, at best, “he never cared much for his work,” and innumerable quarrels ensued between him, his wife, his mother-in-law, and his brother-in-law, a youth of fifteen. At last, after many years of wrangling, the mother, finding that her presence aggravated her daughter’s troubles, left this uncomfortable home, and with her young son descended penniless into the street. From that day she fell lower and lower, and now takes her seat among the crawlers of the district.

 

Sources

 

Stephenson, Samuel. Biography of Thomson, John. [accessed via: Formosa http://cdm.reed.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/formosa&CISOPTR=1683&REC=1]

 

Hockley, Allen. “Illustrations of China and Its People, Photo Albums.” MIT Visualizing Cultures. Accessed September 15, 2015.

 

“The Photographs of John Thompson.” Digital Gallery. Accessed September 15, 2015.

 

Street Life in London, Thompson, John [accessed via: London School of Economics library site: http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/streetlifeinlondon]

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.



 medium

 

History of Photography, Photography, Year Two

Robert Frank: In The American Grain

Leave a comment

In History of Photography, we covered American street photography and the work of Robert Frank.  I found his working method and dedication to photography inspiring for myself.  In my final essay, I covered my interest in serial photography and working on large projects.  The following reading response discusses my interests in a reading from Bystander: A History of Street Photography, Chapter 18 on Robert Frank.

 

1. Robert Frank expanded his narrative skills in Peru and paired these pictures in his book later in his career. In Peru, he began to see the world as elemental, photographing it in an instinctual way. He found his pictures “dumb” since he did not speak the language or understand the culture. However, Frank created interesting pictures lacking meaning but with a strong visual style. These Peru images seemed to be more symbolic, (by evoking death or sadness) and were used in a cinematic structure when when he paired them with New York pictures in “Black, White, and Things”.

2. The abstract expressionist artist’s work is inseparable from his biography. Frank was an outsider searching for a place and perspective on America . It is interesting how Frank used these awkward, outsider perspectives to look tirelessly for people or experiences. Being the “lone individual staring at the crowd” in American society, he searched for meaning in the country and the world. It is interesting to see how he found himself in the crowd as a child, watcher, or some sullen, depressed individual looking for something. Frank photographed many different scenes throughout America, finding himself in the moments and experiences along the way.

3. The Americans lacks conventional structure but suggests connections throughout the book between photographs. Frank’s 800 rolls of film allowed him to see similarities in (his/America’s) world, he was able to understand and control his subject matter to shape his artistic statement. By arranging these photographs into “symbol, cars, cities, people, signs, cemeteries and others” he laid out the photos in sections beginning with a flag. His book used the flag and gestural, photographic signals to create connections throughout the book.