The second artist in which I feel their work has a strong impact on communities within the environment is Terje Abusdal as her work evolves around the different naturist environments that exist. She has realised several books such as slash & burn, Hope blinds reason and radius 500 meters.
One of Terje Abusdals projects in which she has done is called Finnslogen which translates to The Forest of the Finns. This is a large contiguous forest belt along the Norwegian Swedish border in Hedmark / Vãrmland where farm families from Finland were settled in the early 1600s. The Forest Finns were slash and burn farmers; ancient agricultural method yielded plentiful crop but they required large forest areas as the soil was quickly exhausted. This photograph project in which Terje Abusdal has done highlights the strong beliefs while also investigating what it means to be a Forrest Finn today.
Slash & burn – The Forest of the Finns – Terje Abusdal
Additionally another photography project in which Abusdal has done is called Hope Blinds Reason. I personally believe that Hope Blinds Reasons is one of her projects which stand out the most for me as they have a powerful meaning behind the photographs. Hope Blinds Reason is a visual narrative from a series of journeys made in India along the river Ganga, from its source in the Himalayas to its delta in the Bay of Bengal. It is a story about an attempt to come to terms with one of the most elementary of human experiences, love and loss. I feel that this therefore relates to the negatives and positive in which nature has and the strong influence it has on people.
Additionally I feel that the way in which the photograph has multiple different contrasts, as well as play on colours makes her photos more unique than other artists. The uses of harsh and warm lighting in her photographs adds specific detail which also creates a strong outline of the different textures.
In duo we each had a theme that represented the concept of Island identity. In my my duo we got the theme of Jersey’s environment. We learned: The character of the island countryside has been fairly well protected since the introduction of the planning legistation, 1964 dispite the large population growth. The natural environement is part of Jersey’s distinctive character.However the built environement can be remarkable cultural, social and economic resources, vitallyimportant for people’s identity and well-being. The board wanted to see distinctive Jersey architectural themes better preserved and new developments better harmonising with their historical and natural environment. They wanted to see more trees in public spaces, and better celebration of Jersey’s French heritage in the noming of buildings and streets.
For my personal study I have decided to link three artists work to earth and power. This will hopefully help me within my personal study with inspiration from other artist as well as developing my knowledge of this specific topic to a further extent.
Robert Adams – Robert Adams was born in New Jersey and moved to Colorado. He was a professor of English literature for several years before fully committing to his photography career in the mid 1970s. He also released multiple books such as; The New West, Summer Nights, Los Angeles Spring as well as several others. In 2009 Adams was awarded the Hasselblad foundation international award in photography. Robert Adams bought a 35mm reflex camera in 1963 and this is when he began to take pictures mostly of nature and architecture.
Personally I find Robert Adams work very aspiring due to the fact that each photograph in which he has taken is very unique in there own particular ways and has different morals behind each photograph. However they are all very similar to each other due to the minimalistic contrasts within the photos and the mutual tones used. Additionally I also feel that you can clearly see the main focus in each photograph as well as the non focus which is mainly based on the backgrounds. In my opinion I feel that the photographs which he has taken involving architecture are highly more interesting for one to look at as each building may portray a different story of who may coincide there.
Throughout my personal study, I aim to explore how the fashion industry impacts our social identity. I have always been interested in fashion, even from a young age. Fashion does outline, express, and shape our identity. Fashion and clothing are both there as a fundamental tool in which people construct themselves. Sometimes we all want to construct a new identity using fashion, the way we dress is like communicating without words.
An important issue within the fashion world is that most people shy away from statement pieces, or even clothing items that are a little out of their comfort zone as they are afraid of judgement, whether we like it or not, people will judge us by our appearance. The global editor of vogue claims it is important that you are happy in what you wear and to do it for yourself instead of others. However, some people are the opposite. When it comes to the people who aren’t totally sure who they are inside and don’t have the words to explain it, fashion can be one of the best ways of expressing who you are, with one simple glance from a stranger you begin to show a glimpse of your identity.
To develop my project, I will research famous Vogue fashion photographers and create shoots that are similar to their work. The artists I aim to explore in detail and become inspired by are Guy Bourdin and Irving Penn. Bourdin is known to have widely changed the face of fashion photography forever and Irving Penn has been known to alter our perception of beauty. Within my personal study I will also explore Anna Wintour, the Global Editorial Director of Vogue, her use of the magazine shaped the fashion industry and she is known to have changed how the world gets dressed.
My final outcome of this project will be produced in a photobook.
FASHION
VOGUE Photographers
Charles Jourdan & Guy Bourdin
Between 1967 and 1981, Bourdin produced some of his most memorable work under the employment of shoe designer Charles Jourdan, who essentially became his patron. His work for Jourdan employed anthropomorphic compositions, suggestive narratives and explored the realms between the absurd and the sublime. His surreal aesthetics were delivered with sharp humor and were always eagerly anticipated by the media.
Widely considered to have changed the face of fashion photography forever, French photographer Guy Bourdin’s innovative voice and visionary work is no longer seen solely in the context of commercial photography but is well esteemed in the annals of contemporary fine art.
Guy Bourdin created impossible images long before photoshop, Some of Bourdin’s best-known pictures feature mannequin legs sawn off just below the knee. Those legs, says O’Neill, were “so brilliantly placed you can almost see the whole woman – the sense of her was so strong”. Usually the images were created by Bourdin drilling the mannequin’s feet through the ground then positioning them.
He was meticulous in planning his photographs, sketching out the composition and scouting locations in advance, and yet “he made it look so effortless. Today photographers can very easily make a model fly but when they do it it doesn’t have the same charge or aura.”
“An artist whose distinct style is instantly recognizable, Guy Bourdin’s use of color, frame and form is highly unique and utterly surprising.” ─── Torres, R. (January 4, 2021). Guy Bourdin, Independent Photographer.
As such, their work greatly compliments each other, both shooting contorted female bodies, scenarios tinged with a surrealist element, and employing the use of props, harsh lighting, bright colours, and pure melodrama. Bourdin continued to work for Vogue until 1987.
“I have never perceived myself as responsible for my images. They are just accidents. I am not a director, merely an agent of chance” —– Bourdin, G. (1981) Guy Bourdin, The Independent Photographer.
Horst P
Horst P. Horst (1906-99) created images that transcend fashion and time. He was a master of light, composition and atmospheric illusion, who conjured a world of sensual sophistication. In an extraordinary sixty-year career, his photographs graced the pages of Vogue and House and Garden under the one-word photographic byline ‘Horst’. He ranks alongside Irving Penn and Richard Avedon as one of the pre-eminent fashion and portrait photographers of the 20th century. His extraordinary range of work outside the photographic studio conveys a relentless visual curiosity and life-long desire for new challenges.
The 1930s ushered in huge technical advancements in colour photography. Horst adapted quickly to a new visual vocabulary, creating some of Vogue’s most dazzling colour images. Horst’s colour photographs are rarely exhibited because few vintage prints exist. Colour capture took place on a transparency which could be reproduced on the magazine page without the need to create a photographic print.
Annie Leibovitz
Over the last 50 years, Annie Leibovitz’ eye has helped direct, guide and capture the fashion industry’s greatest talents. Leibovitz has been described as an Artist Who Changed Fashion Photography Forever. She is an American portrait photographer best known for her engaging portraits, particularly of celebrities, which often feature subjects in intimate settings and poses.
In 1999, Vogue sent Annie to Paris to cover the couture collections for the first time and surprised her by casting Sean Combs alongside Kate Moss. The shoot was a cross-cultural straddling of two worlds: rap culture and high fashion.
Across more than 340 photographs, 90 of which have not been seen since their original magazine publication, Leibovitz’ fashion photography for publications such as Rolling Stone, Vogue and Vanity Fair is collated: including Sarah Jessica Parker in front of a mountain of pillows, Natalia Vodianova as Alice and Marc Jacobs as the Caterpillar, and Andrew Garfield, Lily Cole and Lady Gaga as Hansel, Gretel and the Wicked Witch.
Wonderland
“Looking back at my work, I see that fashion has always been there,” says Leibovitz in the preface to Wonderland. “Fashion plays a part in the scheme of everything, but photography always comes first for me. The photograph is the most important part. And photography is so big that it can encompass journalism, portraiture, reportage, family photographs, fashion… My work for Vogue fuelled the fire for a kind of photography that I might not otherwise have explored.”
“This is the way it is in photography. Most celebrities are forgotten but fashion lasts.” —– Danziger, J. (2006) The New York Times
I created a new mind map shown above. I mentioned points about friends, community identity and family. I highlighted family as I believe that is the route I would like to go down for my personal project.
Statement Of Intent
What do you want to explore?
I want to explore the idea of identity being a combination of your personality and the history of your family that came before you. I want to go into the idea of influence from different places/ people and how it defines who you are. I want to look into my personal family history and who I actually am as I think bringing myself closer with my history will give me a better understanding of the person that I am.
Why it matters to me?
This matters to me because I love history generally so looking into my family history is of great interest to me so that I can find out what kind of lives my close and distant relatives lived. It would be interesting to find out what parts of the world they come from and the struggles they may have experienced and overcome.
How do you wish to develop your project?
I want to use some of my favourite photography techniques with my project including photomontage, black and white photography, candid/ portrait and landscape photography. I will also make the photos vintage looking so they fit with the idea of family history and look as if my photo-book is an old family photo journal.
Two photographers I want to look at are Daniella Zalcman and Patrick Zachmann. They both look at the idea of family identity in two different ways but their methods are both unique.
Daniella Zalcman – Signs of your identityPatrick Zachmann
When and where you intend to begin your study?
I intend to start my project by speaking to my Grandmother who in the past has looked into our family history. I want to take photos of some of the documents/ old photos she has and try and recreate them or photomontage them.
1. Research a photo-book and describe the story it is communicating with reference to subject-matter, genre and approach to image-making.
“In the stately ways of our shining capital the dwellings of high and low raise their roofs in rivalry as in the beginning… how often does the mansion of one age turn into the cottages of the next.” (Kamo no Chomei) Tokyo is a visual journey through a city at once futuristic and obsolete, its visionary design worn out – like that of a past era. Johanasson uses photography to index the city, finding form and pragmatic order through accumulation and sequence, revealing the city’s hidden, modular logic: lego-like segments, a basic square unit repeated indefinitely and in various sizes. These images are unpeopled, showing only the architecture of the city, a container of 13 million people, organised around mass movement and the funnelling of human traffic. Between the concrete, glass and steel, the occasional green life sprouts – miniature gardens in the narrow alleyways, or a cluster of flower pots lining the sidewalk. The architecture creates its own topography, and the city is glimpsed as the last outpost of a fading, mechanised world.
2. Who is the photographer? Why did he/she make it? (intentions/ reasons) Who is it for? (audience) How was it received? (any press, reviews, awards, legacy etc.)
Gerry Johansson. a Swedish photographer who lives in Höganäs in southern Sweden. He makes “straight and pragmatic” photographs with “an objective view of a geographic location.”
His books include America, Sweden, Germany, Antartic, Toyko, and American Winter. His work is held in the collection of Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden, where he has had solo exhibitions. He has been awarded the region Skanes kulturpris and the Lars Tunbjork Prize.
Book in hand: how does it feel? Smell, sniff the paper. The book is a hardback, with smooth paper that is easy to flick through, and it smells like paper.
Paper and ink: use of different paper/ textures/ colour or B&W or both. Good quality paper, with black and white photos. The cover is a linen, cloth texture.
Format, size and orientation: portraiture/ landscape/ square/ A5, A4, A3 / number of pages. There is about 50-80 pages of black and white photos. There is one photo per double spread, that is quite big. There are some landscape photos that take up both pages. The orientation is portrait approximately A4 size.
Binding, soft/hard cover. image wrap/dust jacket. perfect binding/saddle stitch/swiss binding/ Japanese stab-binding/ leperello. It is perfect binding, that is sturdy and firm.
Cover: linen/ card. graphic/ printed image. embossed/ debossed. letterpress/ silkscreen/hot-stamping. The front cover has a image printed on the front with linen as the border, on the back there is a shiny imprinted text on blue linen.
Title: literal or poetic / relevant or intriguing. Literal: Tokyo (about Tokyo, title on the back of the book)
Narrative: what is the story/ subject-matter. How is it told? Images of the city and its architecture, not a clear connection to a story. The black and photos showcase Tokyo using minimalism, shapes, and texture.
Structure and architecture: how design/ repeating motifs/ or specific features develops a concept or construct a narrative. Every image is based off buildings, or close ups of walls that include interesting shapes. Images may juxtapose each other using different compositions.
Design and layout: image size on pages/ single page, double-spread/ images/ grid, fold- outs/ inserts. Its either 1 image per page with a thick white border, or 1 image on a double spread that takes up about 3/4 of he space. There or there is a combination of both, a full page image with a white page with a small caption on.
Editing and sequencing: selection of images/ juxtaposition of photographs/ editing process. There is only juxtaposition in how the image in presented, e.g. zoomed in that draws attention to its details.
Images and text: are they linked? Introduction/ essay/ statement by artists or others. Use of captions (if any.) There is no essay or text, there are only captions. For example, 044 Odabia. Most commonly there is one small caption on a small page, or several (3-6) captions in the corner of the blank page.
Pictorialists took the medium of photography and reinvented it as an art form, placing beauty, tonality, and composition above creating an accurate visual record. Through their creations, the movement strove to elevate photography to the same level as painting and have it recognized as such by galleries and other artistic institutions. In the 1880s, photographers strived for photography to be art by trying to make pictures that resembled paintings e.g. manipulating images in the darkroom, scratching and marking their prints to imitate the texture of canvas, using soft focus, blurred and fuzzy imagery based on allegorical and spiritual subject matter, including religious scenes.
Influences on Pictorialism: Allegorical painting
Allegory is a figurative mode of representation conveying meaning other than the literal. Allegory communicates it’s message through symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy.
Peter Henry Emerson 1856 -1936
In 1889 Peter Henry Emerson expounded his theory of Naturalistic Photography which the Pictorialist used to promote photography as an art rather than science. Their handcrafted prints were in visual opposition to the sharp black and white contrast of the commercial print. Emerson soon became convinced that photography was a medium of artistic expression superior to all other black-and-white graphic media because it reproduces the light, tones, and textures of nature with unrivalled fidelity. He decreed that a photograph should be direct and simple and show real people in their own environment, not costumed models posed before fake backdrops or other such predetermined formulas.
Hugo Henneberg
Hugo Henneberg was an amateur photographer originally trained in the sciences. Henneberg came to the medium from his study of physics, chemistry, astronomy, and mathematics. His knowledge of the technical aspects of photography served his aesthetic interests particularly well, as he created gum bichromate prints that involved multiple stages of development. The resulting prints possessed a rich, engaging texture that augmented a satisfying spatial sense, as in this landscape-Henneberg’s favourite genre.
Gum Bichromate
Gum bichromate is a 19th-century photographic printing process based on the light sensitivity of dichromats. It is capable of rendering painterly images from photographic negatives. Gum printing is traditionally a multi-layered printing process, but satisfactory results may be obtained from a single pass. Any colour can be used for gum printing, so natural-colour photographs are also possible by using this technique in layers.
Realism / Straight Photography
Realism photography grew up with claims of having a special relationship to reality, and its premise, that the camera’s ability to record objectively the actual world as it appears in front of the lens was unquestioned. This supposed veracity of the photographic image has been challenged by critics as the photographer’s subjectivity (how he or she sees the world and chooses to photograph it) and the implosion of digital technology challenges this notion opening up many new possibilities for both interpretation and manipulation. A belief in the trustworthiness of the photograph is also fostered by the news media who rely on photographs to show the truth of what took place.
Straight Photography were photographers who believed in the intrinsic qualities of the photographic medium and its ability to provide accurate and descriptive records of the visual world. These photographers strove to make pictures that were ‘photographic’ rather than ‘painterly’, they did not want to treat photography as a kind of monochrome painting. They abhorred handwork and soft focus and championed crisp focus with a wide depth of field.
Alfred Stieglitz
In 1907 Stieglitz took this picture, The Steerage and thereby rejected Pictorialism’s aesthetics and became in favour of what Paul Strand called ‘absolute unqualified objectivity’ and ‘straight photographic means’. Stieglitz and Strand was also influenced by European Avant Garde art movements such as Cubism and Fauvism and some of their pictures emphasised underlying abstract geometric forms and structure of their subjects.
Modernism
Modernism led to progress in many spheres of life by changing the approach of mankind towards culture, modernism attempted to free humanity from its historical baggage through the use of philosophy and science.
Early modernity is characterised intellectually by a belief that science could save the world and that a foundation of universal truths could be established. The common trend was to seek answers to fundamental questions about the nature of art and human experience. Modernity imbue all aspects of society and are apparent in its cultural forms including fiction, architecture, painting, popular culture, photography.
By the beginning of the 20th century, with the diffusion of illustrated magazines and newspapers, photography was a mass communication medium. Photojournalism acquired authority and glamour, and document-like photographs were used in advertising as symbols of modernity.
Surrealism
Surrealism was founded in Paris in 1924, by the poet Andre Breton and continued Dadaism’ exploration of everything irrational and subversive in art. Surrealism was more explicitly preoccupied with spiritualism, Freudian psychoanalysis and Marxism. It aimed to create art which was ‘automatic’, meaning that it had emerged directly from the unconscious without being shaped by reason, morality or aesthetic judgements. The Surrealist also explored dream imagery an they were an important art movement within Modernism involving anything from paintings, sculpture, poetry, performance, film and photography.
Rene Magritte (1898-1967)
René Magritte was a Belgian-born artist who was known for his work with surrealism as well as his thought-provoking images. In the 1920s, he began to paint in the surrealist style and became known for his witty images and his use of simple graphics and everyday objects, giving new meanings to familiar things. With a popularity that increased over time, Magritte was able to pursue his art full-time and was celebrated in several international exhibitions. He experimented with numerous styles and forms during his life and was a primary influence on the pop art movement. Magritte’s handiwork is bold and illustrative, it’s playful and mysterious: you’re never left wondering what is pictured, but you are often left wondering why.
Post – Modernism
Postmodernism was a reaction to modernism and was influenced by disenchantment brought on by the second world war. It refers to the state that lacks a central hierarchy and one that is complex, ambiguous and diverse. Grand narratives like freedom, societal progress, scientific progress were criticized by post modernists, who instead emphasized that difference should be celebrated, rather than forced unity. Post modernism represented a loss in faith in human reason, it provides a bleak prognosis of the human condition and offers no real solution.
Postmodernism also explores power and the way economic and social forces exert that power by shaping the identities of individuals and entire cultures. Unlike modernists, postmodernists place little or no faith in the unconscious as a source of creative and personal authenticity. They value art not for universality and timelessness but for being imperfect, low-brow, accessible, disposable, local and temporary. While it questions the nature and extent of our freedom and challenges our acquiescence to authority, Postmodernism has been criticised for its pessimism: it often critiques but equally often fails to provide a positive vision or redefinition of what it attacks.
Jeff Wall
The most famous practitioner of “staged photography”, camera artist Jeff Wall is one of Canada’s greatest photographers of the 20th century. Challenging the notion of photography as a medium that records the “real”, Wall has been producing carefully staged photos since the end of the 1970s. Largely involving everyday scenes conveying an iconographic link to classical painting, they are often presented as large-format back-lit cibachrome photographs. His lens-based tableaux often feature a mixture of natural beauty, urban decay and industrial wasteland as their backdrop.
We were ask to write a Statement of Intent that contextualise; What you want to explore? Why it matters to you? How you wish to develop your project? When and where you intend to begin your study? We need to describe our chosen theme about Identity & Community, subject-matter (topic, issue), artists (inspirations, references) and final outcome (photobook, film). And plan our first photo-shoot as a response to our initial ideas.
Remember Your culture: American Latinos in Jersey
What reminds you of your culture , how would you represent it? Identity and community is a very interesting theme since there are multiple ways to interpret it. After all, we all have diverse communities and identity. So we have variant opinions on this subject. When I was little I travelled and lived in many countries where the cultures were distinct. I had the opportunity to meet different communities. Today those communities are part of my identity. With this project I will have the opportunity to represent the cultures I grow with. I would like to focus on the Mexican culture because this culture represent me more and I think it would be fascinating to play with fashion. Today Mexican’s are represented in a certain way in the medias. The media portrayed Latin women as exotic and hot-blooded passionate in both love and in war arose In he cinema she is spicy, combative and hypersexual. She always speaks her mind she has no filter and often loud she has a temper that’s barely under control and she often violent and destructive when she’s angry. Latin men are very often represent it like mafias or are in gangs. There is Physical stereotype as well, e.g. in the medias we usually see Latin woman with tan skin, brunette hair, pouty lips and her body is voluptuous. And sometimes if when we don’t fill those categories we are not consider Latinos. The aim of this shoot is to make fun of these stereotypes and show that they are ridiculous because they shouldn’t define if you are Mexican or not. It reminds me a bit of Sherman’s work, more specific in ‘untitled film skills’. Sherman does self-portraits with various costumes and poses. She represents female stereotypes found in film, television and advertising – all of her photos are in black and white. What is special about her images is that they don’t come from recognizable films, nor from specific actresses’ interpretations, but they do show the types of personalities they have in general. Martine Gutierrez is an artist I find intriguing for my project. Her series “Indigenous Woman” is a reflection of her high-fashion and glamour. Her project is a mixt of humour/absurdity and fashion. It is something I would like to recreate in mine, making links to stereotyping of Mexican culture. She is her own model, photographer, stylist, creative director a challenge that I plan to do. Another photographer similar in the fact that they make their own self-portrait to show their own identity is Zanele Muholi. I find their project inspiring and very beautiful, I think I will be able to learn a lot.
Plan
what? I’m planning to do several shoots(16) in different locations, (different stories) of Mexico in a fashionable and Stereotypical way.
why? Its important to me to show that being Mexican doesn’t involve on those stereotypes and make fun of those stereotypes. Mostly just show my culture plus I’m able to work with fashion something that appreciate a lot .
how? I’m planning to do self-portrait because I want my project to about my point of view on my culture.
when? I’ll start to do my shoots during Christmas holidays.
where? I want each photo to be a different story so for me it would be more suitable if I do each photo in a distinct location, They mostly be in house but I want to be spontaneous so anywhere that reminds of Mexico or I think is a perfect place for one of my stories would be great.
Photography was invented in 1839, however, it goes back much further than this. Camera Obscura is a process that has been around for centuries before photography was invented. A dark room with a small opening on one side creates an inverted projection of what is outside the room.
This process was used as far back in history to where it was believed to have been used to inspire paleolithic cave paintings where tiny holes in animal hide would create a camera obscura in a cave. It was then again heavily used by renaissance artists in the 15th century. The scientific knowledge of light sensitive materials also dated back far before 1839. The combination of these two past times in the exploration of light is what lead to the first photograph ever taken in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Niépce developed a technique he used to create the world’s oldest surviving product of a photographic process called heliography which uses light sensitive printing plate to produce an image. In 1826, he used the camera obscura technique combined with heliography to produce the oldest surviving photograph of a real-world scene. The image is simply titled View from the Window at Le Gras and it can be seen below.
However this technique was highly impractical, the image took 8 hours of exposure to create, but it was a quintessential leap into the invention of photography.
1839 was the year that a Frenchman, Louis Daguerre and an Englishman, Henry Fox Talbot introduced rival processes that would accomplished what the called ‘fixing the shadows’
Louis Daguerre Henry Fox Talbot
Henry Fox Talbot was an accomplished inventor however he couldn’t draw. Henry wanted a way to capture what he was seeing before him and therefore started thinking about camera obscura and the chemical processes of light sensitive materials. He began experimenting with paper coated in silver salts and shoe-box sized cameras nicknamed ‘mousetraps’. This developed something called a negative. This is when the tones in an image are reversed.
Talbot realised he could produce multiple prints from these exposures which made him realise it would be possible to reproduce images for the masses which would go on to shape modern photography. These prints are called Calotypes. Louis Daguerre was an academically trained French painter who had an alternative response to Henry’s process. Louis was described as a showman who was interested in spectacle. At the same time he started experimenting with photography he was selling tickets to see his large scale paintings like an early cinema experience. Due to this Louis wanted to be the person who gained the fame and commercialisation while Henry was more a private person trying to meet a private need. What ended up was the complete opposite. Louis developed a method of printing onto a silvered copper plate creating an image that was much clearer and sharper than that of Henry’s calotypes, these were named Daguerreotypes. However, Talbot realised producing daguerreotypes was a dead end and that human communication was through paper. Daguerreotypes did not have the ability to create a multitude of prints like the calotypes, they were also very fragile and if they you don’t guild them the image wipes right off, making it a less commercially successful process. Because the early days of photography were largely financially motivated, the beginnings of photography were all about the Darwinian struggle to see which process will prosper in the industry. Overall, Talbot ended up becoming the showman that Daguerre wanted to become.
First Photo of a human – daguerreotype
The Photograph world was a strange place for the public. It had a magical element and there was a lot of mystery regarding the process of photography. The development of photography was a part of a boom in technology in the mid 19th century. Industrialism was changing the world as people knew it and photography was a huge part of this, being able to freeze a moment in time changed the way people understood the world. With developments from a man named Richard Maddox who developed lightweight gelatine negative plates for photography in 1871, photography was moving along in leaps and bounds starting to make it more commercially understood and available to the public.
This leads onto the George Eastman. George is seen to be the man responsible for turning photography from a specialised craft haunting the doorstep of the art world into a mass market industry.
Eastman revolutionised photography by degrees, first by developing photographic film rolls.
A few years later Eastman took this concept and put into into a compact amateur camera he called the Kodak.
He marketed this towards the masses making photography an easy process for anyone with the money to do. The slogan for Kodak was “You press the button. We do the rest”.
Kodak offered a service where customers would post their camera to Kodak and they would send back the developed images and the camera with a new roll of film loaded. He later offered a cheaper product originally marketed at children called the brownie.
George Eastman made photography what we know it as today with film photography returning in popularity by a generation who never got to experience it.
Steven Sasson, brings us to where we are today. He was an engineer who worked in Kodak, created the world’s first digital SLR camera. It was made from different camera parts, weighed 3.5 kilos, and took 0.01 megapixel B/W photos, recording them to a cassete tape.
