History Lecture #3

• Paul Strand, straight photography
• published 1917 last issue of Camera Work
• direct approach to picture making
• abstract images of street scenes, objects, shadows
• Stieglitz "pure and direct"
• photo secession
• Toadstools and Wet Grasses, 1928
• grew through WWI
• Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Ansel Adams
• members of Group F64 in 1932
• promote the straight photography aesthetic
• typically a large view camera with small aperture for sharp image, no cropping, worked very hard to have perfect neg,minimal burning and dodging
  show the world as it was
• Oak Trees, Yosimite 1935
• St. Francis Church, New Mexico
• Imogen Cunningham
• Magnolia Bud, 1920
• Edward Weston
• Dunes, 1936
• stayed true to straight photography aesthetic
• landscape and studio work
  Alvin Langdon Coburn, photo secession
• exhibition 5 photos of New York
• Trinity Church, 1912
• cubist art
• optical device vortoscope based on a kaleidoscope
• vortoscope 3 mirrors
• vortograph 1 and 2
• Christian Schad, 1918 cameraless abstractions made photographs
• schadographs
• laid out cut pieces of paper
• Manray and Lazlo Maholy-Nagy were surrealists
• referred to Bauhaus as well
• Maholy-Nagy was a professor at Bauhaus
• the objects he used were based on evocative value
• interested in using extreme angles and unusual viewpoints
• optical true distortions
• our brain makes sense of the scenes
• emphasize form, shape and line
• House Painting
• Untitled, 1928
• Manray photographed an entire scene and would only print a small portion, which led the end result being grainy
• wanted to show part of the photographic process
• first to work with the Sabbatier process
• solarization also referred to as
• Lillies, 1933
• subject the print to raid change in temperature, reticulation
• melted the emulsion, gelatin
• in camera double exposures, photographing reflections
• dream-like, ethereal, photo montage, collage with non-photographic elements
• Jealousy
• Leda and the Swan, 1925, photo montage
• read pages 285-292, 273-284
• social documentary photography, war photography, photojournalism and social landscape (photographing people, buildings and events that represent society at its time) all fall under the same umbrella as straight photography
• influence of surrealism, unusual viewpoints
• pictorialists, soft focus
• Eugene Atget, social landscape
• people overlooked by pictorialists
• Portrait, 1890
• unknown, after death, his work was recognized
• photographed in 1898, Paris and surrounding areas
• worked published in 1926, a year before he died
• Corner, 1924
• House, 1927
• Notre Dame, 1925
• Cafe Entrance, 1901
• Cafe, 1908
• Store, 1925
• St. Claude, 1915
• Versailles, 1901
• democratic approach to photography
• Lampshade Peddler, 1900
• Prostitute, 1921
• Organ Grinder
• posed, long exposure, tripod, achieved clarity
• used glass negatives and a view camera
• "...new process went fast than he could think"
• Jacques Henri Lartigue
• small hand-held camera
• 1963 his work was discovered, took pictures in 1911
• received a view camera when he was 6 years old
• rich, little boy in Paris
• received a Block-Notes camera for Christmas, collapsible, took 4-6 glass plates c. 1/60 of a second
• 4.5x6
• photographed between 6-7 to the age of 12
• Untitled
• The Beach at Vilavil
• Paris DeArcacia, 1912
• My Cousin Jean
• photographed for himself like Atget
• Experiments with Aeroplane
• Grand Prix
• had a focal plane shutter
• not exhibited or published until 1963
• seen as prophetic
• Brassaï, Cartier-Bresson, Kertesz used small hand held cameras, part of social landscape
• capture segments of the flow of life
• Paris 1930s
• Loners, Budapest 1915
• Wandering Violinist, Hungary
• Siesta, Paris 1924
• Eiffel Tower, 1924
• "...the moment always dictates in my work"
• often photographed from buildings looking straight down
• in 1937-38 immigrated to the US
• worked as a chimerical photographer
• Brassaï first studied sculpture, did not not photography
• Paris' night life was his interest
• didn't get into photography until he saw the work of Kertesz
• 1963 portait of himself by his friend Kertesz
• Female Couple, 1932
• Henry Muller, 1932
• Salvador Dali, 1933
• Street Walker
• straight forward presentation
• shot with a flash and on a tripod
• altered light existing at the scene
• used indoors and outdoors
• Gate, 1932
• Prison Wall, 1932
• Henri Cartier-Bresson, in Paris
• epitomizes the ability to capture the moment
• started as a painter,started photographing in 1932
• "align the head,the and the heart"
• work shown in New York in 1933
• described as taken accidentally, criticism
• seen as unreal and no deliberate
• Paris, 1932
• coined the phrase "the decisive moment"
• subject and form coming together
• describe the camera as extension of the eye
• "for me the camera is a sketch book"
• Paris, 1954
• Far From Home, Santa Clara Mexico 1934
• Istanbul, 1965
• "a simplicity of expression"
• environmental portraits
• photographed Matisse, 1944
• more like his street photography, spontaneous
• William Falkner, Mississippi 1945
• India, China
• "...when emotion and form collide"