PICTORIALISM

From the 1880s and onwards, photographers wanted photography to be art by trying to capture images that are similar to paintings. For example, manipulating images in the darkroom, scratching and marking their prints to imitate the texture of canvas using blurred and fuzzy images including imagery based on spiritual subject matter and religious scenes. Pictorialism reacted against mechanisation and industrialisation.

ALLEGORICAL PAINTING

Allegory convey meaning which are not literal. It communicates its message by symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representations. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious or political significance and the figures are often personifications of ideas such as greed, charity or envy.

JULIA MARGARET CAMERON

Julia Margaret Cameron was a photographer in the Victorian era. Her work can fit into two categories such as closely framed portraits and illustrative allegories based on religious and literary works. Her photographs were out of the ordinary since she created blur through long exposures, where the subject moved and sometimes by leaving the lens out of focus.

PETER HENRY EMERSON: NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY

In 1889 he presented his theory of Naturalistic photography which the Pictorialist used to promote photography as an art form.

SALLY MANN

From her personal experiences she has created a haunting series of photographs about the loss of life. What Remains is a body of work that depicts landscapes, decomposing bodies and portraits of her children. She explores the divide between body and soul, life and death, spirit and earth through her photography.

Various photography groups and associations were involved in pictorialism such as: The Vienna Camera Club, The brotherhood of the Linked ring and Photo-Secession

STRAIGHT

Photographers who believed in the photographic medium to provide accurate and descriptive records of the visual world. These photographers wanted to create images that were only photographic rather than artistic. They focused on capturing clear images with great detail and sharpness.

REALISM

Associated with straight photography, it claims that photography has a special relationship to reality and the camera’s ability to record objectively was unquestioned. The media relies on photographs to show the truth of what took place.

WALKER EVANS

He was the leading American documentary photographer of the 20th century. He rejected Pictorialism and focused on serious subject matters such as photographs of three Sharecropper families in the American South during the 1930s Depression.

SOCIAL REFORM PHOTOGRAPHY

A number of photographer’s such as Lewis W Wine and Dorothea Lange began to document the effects of industrialisation and urbanisation on working class Americans. Their work brought the need for housing and labour reform to the attention of legislators and is what we now call photojournalism.