1

History of the Camera – Technological Progress

In 1839 the scientist Francois Arago first announced the discovery of

photography in a magazine, thereby referring to the inventions of Niépce
and Daguerre. However, this discovery was simply a combination of
various techniques that have already existed. The development of
photography actually dates back to renaissance or even further back. The
invention of photography arose from the need of a technique that allowed
the production of cheap mechanical images, such as portraits, or the
reproduction of already existing paintings, that everyone could afford.
(With everyone I mean only the middle and upper classes).

The Pantograph

Pantography can be compared with photography, as it was one of the first

means to mechanically produce an image. However, it still needed an
artist to operate the instrument. The pantograph is just a device to
simplify the process of painting – it does not produce an image fully
automatically. In 1603, the German optometrist and astronomer Christoph
Scheiner invented the pantograph in order to copy and scale diagrams.
This device is composed of several rods, which are linked by pivots. This
system is based on the transmission of movement by rods that are
arranged in parallelograms. The painter moves a stylus, thus creating an
image. The drawn pattern or shape is amplified and outlined by a pen. This
pen is attached to the other end of the device and simultaneously copies
the original at a different scale. 1

The Physionotrace

In 1786 the French artist, who specialized on copper engravings, Gilles-

Louis Chrètien, designed an instrument to simplify portrait-painting and
copper stitching. The sitter is illuminated by a candle or a fire and the
shadow is cast on a screen. The painter simply has to draw the silhouette.
Using a pantograph, the movement is brought forward and the shape is
etched into a copper plate. (The pantograph uses a needle instead of a

1
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p71, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantograph
2

pen). With this technique of portraying only one sitting is required. Later
the physionotrace was developed further, so that physionotrists were able
to present their works on wood and ivory, too. 2

The Camera Lucida

This optical device was invented in 1806 by William Hyde Wollaston. There
are claims that well-known artists have already used such a device before
(David Hockey: „Secret Knowledge”). The Camera Lucida is an optical
instrument based on semipermeable mirrors and lenses. This device is
mounted above the artist’s paper. An image is created, which is a
synthesis of two pictures: The scenery, which the artist wants to paint and
which superimposes the canvas or paper onto which the artist is drawing.
(Actually, he also sees his hand outlining the image.) So the artist simply
has to follow the lines he sees on the optical image. This method is similar
to the usage of tracing paper. Cameras Lucidas are still available today
and are still used by hobby-artists.3

The Camera Obscura

The camera obscura is the device that is most related to a photography,

as modern photo-cameras still apply the same principle as the camera
obscura. Camera obscura is a Latin word meaning „dark room“. It is a
dark box or an entire room, into which light enters through a small hole,
thus creating an inverted image on the opposite wall. (The principle of a
camera obscura is based on light refraction. When light passes through
the small hole it continues its way, thus creating an upside down image.)

This phenomenon was first recorded by the Chinese in the 5th century B.
C. Aristotle was the first to understand the principle of the camera
obscura. Before that, it was called “magic room” in China.) In his work
„Problemata Physica“ he described that the light forms a double cone on

2
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p71, http://en.wikipedia.org/wikiIPhsionotrace

3
http://www.cameralucida.org.uk/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_lucida, Photography: A Very Short
Introduction (Steve Edwards) p71
3

its way from the sun through the pinhole to the surface and therefore
produces an image which is upside-down. Whereas these theories included
only a single beam of light, the Arabian scholar Alhazen described that the
projected image in a pinhole-camera is the exact same as the one on the
outside. He was also the first one to be able to project an entire image
from outside the aperture on a screen inside a camera obscura. Yet the
camera obscura was not very well known in Europe until, in the
Renaissance, the mathematician Giovanni Battista della Porta added a
convex lens to sharpen and clarify the image and introduced the camera
obscura to well known artists of his time. The camera obscura was at that
time altered from an actual room to a small box or tube with a glass
screen, onto which the image was cast. However, the image still had to be
painted by hand. Although this method simplified realistic painting and
accelerated it enormously, the painters would rather paint static objects
than moving ones. Some of the most famous painters who used the
camera obscura as a helping device for their artwork are Canaletto and
Vermeer van Delft.4

The camera obscura in combination with light-sensitive

chemicals

The French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, who is also known for the
invention of a prototype of the bicycle, succeeded in 1826. After an
exposure time of eight hours he at last could look at the result of years
and years of searching and trying: The first officially recognized
photograph.5

Niépce tried to find a process to copy existing pictures as a reproductive

technique to replace lithography. He experimented with a huge range of
different contact plates such as pewter or copper sheets that were treated
with silver. Other chemicals he investigated were silver chlorine and
iodine. He was most successful with a substance called Bitumen of Judea.
Bitumen of Judea is a kind of asphalt, which, when exposed to light,
4
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p71, p74-75, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-
Haytham, http://brightbytes.com/cosite/what.html
5
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p75-76, http://www.photohistory-
sussex.co.uk/NiepceJoephN.htm, http://www.tarawrobel.com/experiments.html
4

hardens. The parts that are not exposed can simply be dissolved with
lavender oil and be washed off with turpentine. Niépce used this technique
on metal plates, which he, after having washed off the bitumen, etched.
This process was very similar to the common metal etching. The only
difference was, that the coating was altered by exposure to light and not
by scratching, as it was normally done up to that point. The result was a
printing plate: When ink was applied and the plate was pressed on a sheet
of paper, the areas which had been etched away were dark. The areas,
where the bitumen had hardened, remained bright. Niépce called this
procedure “heliographs” or “sun drawings”. But as the “heliographs” with
an etched metal plate were not detailed and contrasty enough, he tried to
treat different metal plates by coating them with special chemicals.
Finally, Niépce found out that an alloy of tin and copper, known as pewter,
mixed with lead was most suitable for his purpose. He added other
hardening agents such as bismuth and antimony. In 1826 he placed such
a pewter plate coated in Bitumen of Judea on the back of a camera
obscura. He placed the camera on a sill and left it there for as long as
eight hours. Niépce then removed the plate and treated it in the same way
he had treated the plates that he had transformed into printing plates, but
instead of etching he subjected it to iodine vapors. As a chemical reaction,
those parts with no protective cover turned dark. This picture of the
backyard of Niépce’s studio is known as the oldest surviving photograph.
The term “photography” (light-writing) was introduced in the 1830s by
John Herschel, just like the terms “positive” and “negative”. (I will come to
that later.) When using these terms, I do so with their current definition.)

In 1829 Niépce started to collaborate with the French artist and painter
Louis Daguerre, who also had experimented with photochemical
processes. They exchanged the findings of their researches and developed
new chemical substances together. Their collaboration ended in 1833 with
the death of Nicéphore Niépce.

Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre continued his work on chemically produced

images. As the exposure time of several hours was inacceptable for him,
he abandoned pewter plates and concentrated on silver-plated sheets of
5

copper. He discovered a procedure to synthesize silver-iodide (AgI), which

is very light sensitive. If irradiated with light it resolves into its elements.
Silver-iodide was produced by exposing the silver-plated metal-sheets to
iodine-vapors. This was the first silver-halide-process. (Processes with
chemical compounds of silver and a halogen are the most common
processes in monochrome photography.)

The Latent Image and the “Daguerreotype”

Daguerre specialized on what is known as “latent image”: When certain

chemicals are exposed to light, they alter only a little bit, yet they register
the image. The change is invisible for the human eye, as it is scaled in
molecular dimensions. After exposure, this “latent image” is treated with
certain chemicals in order to bring out a visible one. The light rays cause
the electrons of the compound to dislocate out of the silver halide
molecule. The result is a certain state of conglomeration of silver elements
(called grain) that can be enlarged in order to become visible for the
human eye. In modern photography this treatment is called
“development”. Daguerre produced his so called “Daguerreotypes” by
exposing the copper sheets coated with silver-iodide to light and
subsequently treating them with mercury-vapor. To prevent any further
reaction with light, he stabilized his pictures by washing them with a
special salt solution. With this method, the exposure time from several
hours could be reduced to a few minutes. Although the “Daguerreotypes”
were a big improvement, some severe problems remained: The image was
very damageable. Images could be very easily rubbed or scratched off the
plates which carried them. So they had to be kept in special protecting
boxes. However, the main problem was, that every image was a unique
specimen. It was impossible to reproduce or copy those photographs.
Accordingly, a way had to be found, which made it possible to make many
copies of one single original This need led to the invention of the
negative.6

Development of the “Negative”

6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_image, http://www.photohistory-sussex.co.uk/dagprocess.htm,
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p76-77
6

William Henry Fox Talbot experimented since 1833 with the so called
contact print: He alloyed NaCl (usual cooking salt) with silver-nitrate
(AgNO3), which resulted in silver-chloride (AgCl), a very light sensitive
chemical. He coated sheets with this salt and pressed little objects such as
leaves, plants etc. directly on them. After he had exposed these sheets for
about 30 minutes the areas which were elucidated darkened and the areas
where the light was blocked remained in their original color.

In 1935 Talbot realized, that he could use this picture to create multiple
copies of it. He repeated the process (the contact printing), by using this
“negative” (Again, the terms negative and positive were created some
years after the invention by John Herschel.) to cover another coated sheet.
On the resulting “positive” the light areas of the “negative” were dark and
the dark areas were light, because no light could pass through. But Talbot
was not yet able to produce detailed and strong “positives” because his
negatives were not dense and sharp enough. So Talbot came up with
another process including silver-nitrate and acetic acid. Due to the very
sharp and detailed pictures and the exposure time of only a few seconds,
he called that procedure “Calotype”. The term derives from the Greek
work kalos which means beautiful/precious. 7

Although the pictures of the 1840s and the following 2 decades became
more and more precise, sharp, and the exposure time was reduced to a
minimum, there was one problem that remained until the 1860s. The
pictures which photographers were able to make were monochrome. It
was possible to produce pictures in different colors such as black and
white, sepia, cyan blue, but the image consisted of different shades of one
single color only. A very common way to produce colored images was to
colorize monochrome photographs. Many daguerreotypes and calotypes
were painted after development and stabilization. Finally, in 1861, when
the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell created a simple multi color
image of a ribbon, a new way of directly producing colored images was
found.

7
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p77-79
7

The Beginning of Color Photography

There are two main methods of color photography (in analog

photography):

1) In the 17th century, Isaac Newton formed a theory on light refraction:

He observed that white light is decomposed into a spectrum of
colors by a prism due to the different wavelengths of light. Maxwell
created a technique, which is called “separation processes”: Maxwell
broke one image into several colors. (In this technique, normally into
three colors – cyan blue, magenta and yellow – but it is also possible
to make more pictures of different colors.) He then superimposed
these different colored images. He now had a picture with several
layers, which, by additional color mixture was multi-colored.

2) The Second technique is again based on a chemical process called

chromogenesis. Here, molecules of dye react with silver salts when
exposed to light. When developed, the silver salts are removed and
only the colors stay. There are different ways of this technique, but I
will not explain them any further, as they involve complicated
chemical processes. It should be mentioned that the different
approaches lead to slightly different results. Still, it is important to
add, that in this process the colors are preset, meaning that the
photographers approximate the colors occurring in the world instead
of simply reproducing them. As a result, color photography will
never be able to show every color but only a limited amount instead,
depending on the need of the photographer. (e.g: It is not possible
to view infrared light and the visible light on one picture.)8

The following years have not brought any significant inventions, but only
enhancements of the already existing techniques and processes. In 1880
George Eastman brought out a camera, which was already loaded with a

8
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p47,
8

film. The so-called “Kodak” has yet again simplified the process of
photography enormously, as the development was now done by the
company itself. After development, the camera was sent back fully
reloaded. This service reduced the costs, as no laboratory was needed any
more. Therefore, the medium has been brought upon amateurs and has
spread widely. Also the introduction of the small format camera in the
1920s opened new possibilities for photographers. But still the small
format camera was not very common until the introduction of the Leica in
the 1940s. Using a small 35-millimeter film (which was originally
developed for movie shooting) in a small metal box, it allowed
photographers to shoot a large amount of pictures at one time. Another
important role in the history of photography plays the invention of the
flashlight powder and the subsequent invention of the flashbulb. This
allowed the photographers to work in dark areas and to capture faint
objects by enlightening them.

The development of the CCD chip (charge-coupled device), developed in

the 1970s in „Bell Laboratories“ marked the end of analog photography.
Due to the simple possibility of saving the images on memory cards and
the enormously fast increase of resolution (2008: on average 10 Million
Pixels on consumer cameras, but up to 60 Megapixels and more for
professionals) and the connection to personal computers and the powerful
applications for image editing, almost no one uses an analog camera any
more.9

9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge-coupled_device#History
9

Documentary and Art – The Use of Photographs

Now that we know how pictures are taken, it is important to focus on the
questions, “Why were they taken and what purpose did the photographer
have?”

There are two main classifications in photography:

1. The photograph as documentary.

2. The photograph as art.

Photography as Documentary

The purpose of a photographer who takes a picture in order to document

is mainly to view nature and events as objectively as possible and in the
utmost realistic way. With that criterion, the first problems occur: Some
photographers change the landscape or the sceneries they want to take a
picture of, in order to create a certain atmosphere and/or to arouse special
10

feelings. We can often find these processes in propaganda photography.

When is a photograph documentary and when can it be called art? This

line is hard to draw. In many cases these two classifications of
photography fuse.

The best example is the photographic portrait: On the one hand, portraits
are used for identification. Every passport or ID card carries a picture,
which was taken in order to be an icon of its owner. Together with
fingerprinting, photography became a new powerful technology of
observation and control by the police in the late 19th century. The by then
still inconsequence capturing of pictures of prisoners was first
standardized in the 1870s in Britain. Standards for background, clothing of
the prisoners, camera distance and angle were set, which are more or less
still valid today. The portraits were shot in such a way that allowed them
to be compared and differentiated.10

On the other hand, when the photographer uses special lighting which
brings out the expression of the face, a certain background that might
have an effect on the portrayed person or persons and combines all these
factors which elevate the resulting portrait above the status of a simple
document, we can call it art, in particular when the picture is set in an
historically relevant background.

Within a short time after its invention, photography was used to document
wars or criminal sights in order to help prosecution and jurisdiction. For
the first time it now possible to distribute pictures of historical sights,
monuments, or pictures of foreign countries among the “common folk” by
publishing them in magazines and newspapers. This created a broader
general knowledge and allowed newspapers and magazines to visualize
their articles. The first print of a photo took place in the “Daily Graphic”
(New York) on March 4th 1880. This was made possible by the use of a
printing technology called half-tone printing. 11

10
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p24-26

11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photojournalism, Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p30-31
11

Needless to say, photography is also used for scientific observation. Many

studies have only made possible by photography. Astronomical
photography, for example, is a tool which facilitates research: By multiple
exposure (several hours), very faint objects of celestial bodies become
apparent, even though they are invisible for the human eye (due to the
insufficient amount of light).

War Photography

Among several others, the probably most important category of

documentary is war photography. Ever since there has been photography,
photographers have tried to document wars to document and show us
their cruelty and the resulting poverty. We all know what war looks like.
Most of us do not know it because they have witnessed war, but due to
pictures in newspapers or, nowadays, moved pictures on television. One of
the first war photographers ever was Roger Fenton (1819–1869). In 1855
he was sent to the Crimean war in Russia in order to document it for the
“Illustrated London News”. Altogether he shot over 350 photos that were
used to counteract against the anti-war attitude among the British citizens
and to set an antipole to the war-criticizing newspaper “The Times”. The
first pictures of war were already used to create emotions and to affect
people. Therefore, Fenton avoided taking pictures of injured or dead
soldiers. His pictures were mainly of posing soldiers or empty battlefields.
The selection of his motifs was also influenced by the equipment that was
available to him. At this time, he still had a full-format camera, which
exposed plates. His greatest disadvantage was the fact that he had to
travel with a movable laboratory, because the plates needed to be
developed directly after exposure. In addition, the pretty long exposure-
time was a substantial handicap, which made it almost impossible to take
pictures of fighting soldiers. Therefore, Roger Fenton was often criticized
for not reporting about the real cruelty and bloodiness of war. His most
famous photograph of that war is definitely “Valley of the Shadow of
Death”. It shows a deserted battlefield with a road. There are two versions
of this photo: One version is full of cannonballs whereas in the other
version there are none. That picture is very controversial. There have been
12

many argues about which picture was taken first and how the cannonballs
have appeared on the scene. It is easy to say, that they are the result of a
battle, but there are claims that they have been moved there by Fenton
and his assistants in order to create a certain atmosphere. This is a
problem arises frequently: The impossibility to proof whether scenes have
been arranged or have been left in their original status. 12

Mathew Brady’s photographs of the American Civil war in the 1860s

caused the same conflict: Due to the inability of taking pictures of moving
objects (It is not possible to take pictures of moving objects when the
exposure time is too long, which was the case at that time), his assistants
carefully rearranged corpses and objects on the battlefield. Brady even
employed extras to act as troops that have died in the battle. So it is hard
for historians to tell what really happened, as they often use photos as
historical proof to make their investigations.

The problem of proof is omnipresent in documentary photography. Even

though there were claims at the beginning of photography that the
apparatus does all the work, and the photographer only has to press the
release, photographers have often chosen the scene in a way that creates
a certain ambience. Talbot’s statement “It is not the artist who makes the
picture, but the picture which makes ITSELF” is not true. Apart from art,
there are many cases where photographers have manipulated their
pictures – either by altering the scene, or by retouching the photograph
afterwards. Nowadays it is a lot easier to compose photos, due to image
processing applications on computers, but even in the first half of the 20th
century pictures have been composed in order to create special settings. A
very good example is a picture, taken by H. S. Wong in 1937 after a
bombing in Shanghai. The photo shows a half-naked, crying child, standing
lonely in front of the smoking ruins of a bombed house. It is known that
Wong shot several pictures and fused them. For example, he removed an
adult on the original take to emphasize the child’s loneliness. He also
added some smoke to let the horrible scene seem even more horrendous.
He edited the picture by cutting out the important parts of the

12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Fenton, A Critical Introduction (Liz Wells) p 62
13

photographs, putting them together and exposing them onto a new

negative. Furthermore, there was the possibility to brush away parts or to
add some paint. It cannot be denied that the bombings happened, but it is
hard to tell if Wong’s photograph can be used as historical evidence.

Is the selection or amplification of photographs falsification, or to which

extent can it be altered until it becomes falsification? This is a question
often discussed, especially because photos are a very powerful method to
influence people. Just think of propaganda or advertisement: In particular
looking at pictures with people involved, either happy or tragic ones,
creates feelings in us such as dislike and aversion, or on the other hand
great enthusiasm and agreement. Photographs have the power to
influence the public. This is the reason why photos of special events are
often banned and censored. One might think that this only happens in
dictatorial systems, but it is shocking to hear that in liberal, democratic
countries like the USA exactly the same tragedy of censoring happened:
During the occupation of Japan, after Word War 2, the publication of
pictures of Nagasaki and Hiroshima was strictly forbidden. It was not until
the withdrawal of the American troops that important documentations of
the bombings and their effects reached the world.

But various governments all over the world have also used the power of
documentary photography. To take the United States as an example
again: In the Vietnam War in the 1960s, official photojournalists were
employed in order to record the war. The US government regarded these
photographs as a good publicity against communism. But some
photographers were able to smuggle pictures out of Vietnam that had the
exact opposite effect. Among them were Larry Burrows, David Douglas
Duncan, Tim Page and several others. They all created studies of the
Vietnam War, which denounced the American citizens’ attitude towards
the war. The most known and most shocking photograph coming from
Vietnam is Eddie Adams’ photo of the execution of a communist suspect in
Saigon (Vietnam). Adams’ statement describes exactly what effect
photographs can have:
14

“The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still
photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe
them; but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only
half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, ‘What would you do if
you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you
caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three
American people?’“ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Adams_(photographer))

Robert Capa

One of the best known war photographers is Robert Capa. With his
photograph of a dying Soldier “Death of a Loyalist Soldier” he became
renowned all over the world. Andre Friedmann (later Robert Capa) was
born in Budapest in 1913. After he had immigrated to France he assumed
the name Robert Capa as a pseudonym, because he had been
unsuccessful with his old name. He started his career of success at the
time he was sent to Spain to report about the Civil War (1936–1939). His
photo of a soldier who had just been shot and was in the process of falling
to the ground (“Death of a Loyalist Soldier”) became an icon of the cruelty
of war. The very close position and the perfect moment he took the photo
at, caused many controversies and discussions as to whether this
photograph is true or a fake. As the soldier on the picture was later
identified, it turned out that it was no fake. Capa’s other famous
photographs document the landing of American troops on the French
shore, known as D-Day in June 1944. With his light-weight camera, he was
able to be in the middle of the action: He was directly on the battlefield,
among American soldiers, and took pictures of them killing and dying.
Shooting for the magazine “Life”, he took 106 pictures altogether.
Unfortunately most of his photographs were accidentally destroyed in the
laboratory of “Life” magazine. Only eleven pictures survived this mishap.
However, he published several photo books, among which were “Death in
the making” and “Slightly out of Focus”. He died while doing his job: When
he was at the Indochina his well known motto “If your pictures aren’t good
enough, you aren’t close enough.” was his doom. While trying to get the
15

best possible picture, he stepped on a landmine and was injured fatally.13

Social Investigation and the FSA

Apart from war-photography there is another category of photographic

documentary, or photo-journalism, which is social investigation. The best
known examples are the works from the Great Depression era in America
in the 1930s and 1940s. The Farm Security Administration is an institution
of the American government, which was founded to improve the miserable
life of the farm workers in the rural parts of America who suffered
exceptionally from the depression. Roy Stryker led the Information
Division, which employed journalists and photographers whose
assignment was to document the rural population’s hardship and to
circulate the pictures all over America to alert the upper classes. The goals
of the FSA were, among others, to grant loans to farmers, housing projects
conservation efforts, which all needed financial support. Therefore Roy
Stryker hired photographers like Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks and
Walker Evans (the only one who had had a photographical reputation
before the project). The resulting images were published in newspapers,
magazines like “Life”, “Look” and “Fortune”. Photographs shot by the
journalists were exhibited in local galleries and even in the Museum of
Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City in the year 1955. The FSA possessed
an archive of 165.000 prints, 265.000 negatives and 1.600 color slides –
probably the most extensive collection in the history of photography.
Especially Walker Evans’ photographs are known for recording the plight
of the American farmer’s. Together with the author James Agree he
published the “Let us now Praise Famous Men”, which chronicles the life of
three white sharecropper families. The book, together with the photos of
Allie Mae Burroughs, duly portrayed the miserable life of the American
farm workers. “Migrant Mother” by Dorothea Lange became another
symbol for the Great Depression in America. By positioning the children at
both sides of their mother, with their faces turned away, in order not to
13
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p30,31 A Critical Introduction (Liz Wells) p 62,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Capa
16

detract the attention from the main character, the mother, whose sad
eyes look in the camera, almost as if they were pleading for help, she
created a photograph with a depressing atmosphere that became one of
the main objects in the exhibition “The Family of Man”. This exhibition,
organized by Edward Streichen in 1955 for MoMA became one of the most
famous photo-exhibitions ever. The exhibition toured through Europe,
Asia, Africa and Russia.14

Photography as Art

Photojournalists were photographing in order to bring knowledge to the

public, to create emotions and feelings about certain events, by staying
realistic and (most of the time) staying as close to reality as possible. It
was dishonorable to manipulate photos in order to “create a new reality”
or to take photos, which were not focused correctly. Some photographers
tried to do the exact opposite: They tried to alter photos to make them
look different, unlike reality, they tried to take their pictures from angles
from which nobody would look at an object. Combining all these factors
and maybe even setting them in an historical background and thereby
making statements, turned photography into art.

The problem with photographic art was that the artists could not, unlike
the artists in fine arts, create other, fantastic worlds in their artworks.
They had to stick to expressing reality and, again due to the lack of
technical advance, were limited to motionless objects. So they had to stick
art like still life, artistic portraits, and picturesque landscapes and views.
Unlike in many paintings, the main object of an artistic photograph had to
be in the center of the picture. All objects of minor importance had to be
blurred and out of focus. The attention should be attracted to the main
item. As the famous English pictorialist Henry Peach Robinson put it in
1869:

“The principal object, must come out to the strongest relief; the rest must
be subordinate; and thus should obtain unity which is necessary to
pictorial effect.”

14
American Photography (Miles Orvell) p109-115
17

Combination Printing

In an effort to turn photography into a distinguished creative art, artists

like H. P. Robinson started to work on altering the negatives. An artistic
flow called “combination printing” was established. By carefully cutting
out and combining parts of several negatives, the artists created collages
which were full of items and persons. Robinson’s “Bringing home the May“
joined the parts of 9 different negatives. Moreover, the British artist
Rejlander combined parts of over 30 pictures in his work “Two Ways of
Life”. They were often criticized of creating false lighting and incorrect
proportions in their pictures, but finally there was a photographic art,
which could act like fine art and create fantastic and creative images. One
critic once called Robinson’s pictures “patchworks”.15

Pictorialism

Deriving from the desire to be regarded as a “producing” art, a worldwide

artistic movement among photographers emerged, known as pictorialism.
An exhibition by the Vienna Camera Club in 1891 is regarded as the
beginning of this trend, because the exhibition aimed at showing only
artistic photographs. The first pictorialists formed a group called the
“Linked Ring Brotherhood”, led by Robinson. They agreed that the pictures
were not simple reproductions of reality, but a creation by the artist.
Robinson explained:

“It must be admitted by the most determined opponent of photography as

fine art that the same object represented by different photographers will
produce different pictorial results and this invariably not only because the
one man uses different lenses and chemicals than the other bur because
there is something different in each man’s mind which somehow gets
communicated to his fingers’ ends and thence to is pictures.”(A critical
introduction (Liz Wells) p209)

The way pictorialists worked was slightly changing the negatives by

removing uninteresting parts and brushing to create a soft focus all over
the image, thus producing hazy effects. (Frank Eugene used an etching
15
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p44, A Critical Introduction (Liz Wells) p209
18

needle to scratch away unwanted details). A very common printing

process at this time was the gum-bichromate process: A certain chemical
was on a carrier plate was exposed to light which passed through the
negative and then with a brush or a sponge. The artist could then wash
away as much details as he wanted. The resulting pictures often seem
rather painted than photographed.

In her studio in New York, Gertrude Käsebier (1852–1934) produced many

images that are perfect examples for pictorialism. 1903 she finished her
picture, “The Road to Rome”, starring a little child standing in grass, and a
small road leading through the picture. The child is the only object in the
image that has remained sharp. All the rest seems blurry, even painted.
Especially the clouds in the background do not appear to be a photograph
at all. Many of Gertrude Käsebier’s works have been exhibited by the
Photo-Secession, another pictorialists’ group led by Alfred Stieglitz.
Stieglitz was a noteworthy man in art-photography. He ran the “291”
gallery in New York, where the works of pictorialists were shown, later
paintings by famous artists like Picasso and Matisse were exhibited there.
He published a magazine called “Camera Work”, that printed important
photographs, using printing techniques of outstandingly high quality.16

At that time a big rival of artistic photography came to be: The amateur
photography. With the development of rather cheap lightweight cameras
such as the Kodak (as described earlier) everyone was able to take photos.
As Stieglitz claimed, “every Tom, Dick or Harry could, without trouble get
something on a sensitive plate” including “no work and lots of fun”.
Therefore and due to the mass-production of images he believed that
photography was not accepted as art.17

Avant-garde

The final issue of Stieglietz’s “Camera Work” 1917 focused on works of

Paul Strand, who was known for changing photographic art. Unlike the
pictorialists he did not try to create great sceneries or unreal views. With
16
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p46-47

17
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p47
19

his pictures he did not follow the rules of conventional art but tried to take
pictures that reflected what he considered as elementary qualities of art.
He focused on sharp, direct images which often portray scenes from
everyday life.

“At every turn the attempt is made to turn the camera into a brush, to
make the photograph look like a painting, an etching, a charcoal drawing
or whatnot, like anything but a photograph…” (Paul Strand), (Photography: A Very
Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p49)

Paul Strand tried, like many others later, to turn photography away from
the usual means of art, because, “if an art photography was possible, it
would have to follow its own independent path, and not imitate painting or
etching”. (Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p50). He led photographic
art to a completely new, independent state, the avant-garde photography.
Edward Weston and Ansel Adams as well were keen to keep photography
away from every purpose but expressing the imagination and feelings of
the photographer. Avant-garde photography went hand in hand with the
avant-garde movement in other realms of art. Avant-garde is usually
linked with Surrealism, Dadaism, Futurism and Constructivism. Many
artists of these periods turned to photography, as it was a rather
inexpensive and simple technology, which they regarded as perfect way to
express their perception. It was also very easy to bring the works among
their audience, by designing advertisements, posters or books. As the
critic Werner Gräff put it in 1929, good photography should not be ruled
on aesthetic rules from “bygone eras of painting” but should be
autonomous. In avant-garde photography it was not the subject, the
contents of the picture, which was important, but the way it was taken.
New technologies in photography became popular, such as double
exposure, close-up pictures and unusual angles and perspectives, such as
the worm’s-eye view, where the pictures are taken from the ground,
looking up. Popular motifs were architectural views, objects from everyday
life and patterns, created by simple subjects such as vegetables or
flowers. Edward Weston took photos of peppers, cabbage and mushrooms,
not focusing on their original shape, but on the patterns and lines that
20

were created when he cut them. He also centered on seaweed and stones,
before he widened his interest on the area that surrounded his
documented objects. Although we regard the photographers of that period
as artists, they were not artist for all intents and purposes. August Sander
for example was a portrait photographer, Karl Blossfeldt an art teacher,
who photographed in order to create models for his art classes. Avant-
garde photography is more or less an invented category. An important role
has Walter Benjamin, who brought these photographic artists together in
his book “Small History of Photography” (1931) and praised them for their
extraordinary presentation of common objects.18

Since the avant-garde movement, photography has gone a long way, both
in technical and artistic means. What combines all photographs, those
from the earliest beginning of photography to highly advanced
photographs of today, is the fact that they arouse feelings and emotions in
us, and help to keep memories alive. When taking a photograph, a certain,
special moment is captured and preserved. Photography is often talked of
as reflection of reality. In 1859 Oliver Wendall Holmes described
photography as a “mirror with a memory”, meaning that the photograph is
a reflection, but one that has been fixed and frozen in time. 19
This
statement still holds true today.

18
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p49-53

19
Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Steve Edwards) p88