Wrote this for a essay at college, most of you will find it boring but I thought someone may enjoy it so posted it.
The original version is illustrated.
Photography today is up there with some of the most popular of hobbies. Cameras are everywhere; the street, shops, busâ and on our mobile phones. From our childâs first step to a family get-together, these events are remembered and enhanced with the use of a photograph.
The media is able to show us events and happenings thousands of miles across the world in a matter of seconds. Using images we can acquire a first hand account of exactly what is happening. If we pick up the newspaper it is full of photographs to support and illustrate the articles. Photography is one of the worldâs largest and most effective way of communicating and sharing information throughout the world.
Photography has not always been this effective or popular. In the early 1800âs when photography was first being discovered by pioneers such as Niepcé, Daguerre, and Talbot the art world instantly dismissed it as an art form and saw it as a threat to the conventional methods of art. Famous art critic of the time Charles Baudelaire dismissed photography as âthe refuge of failed painters with too little talent.â He went on to declare: âIf photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether.â This would not be the reaction Fox Talbot and Daguerre would of been anticipating upon the realise of their revolutionary new inventions.
Louis Daguerreâs process was first to be presented to the public and quickly gained popularity in Daguerreâs homeland, France. The daguerreotype process was the first commercially usable photographic process, although Fox Talbots calotype was not far behind.
Although Louis Daguerreâs daguerreotype process offered a superior image quality to Fox Talbots calotype process, the daguerreotype produced images directly on to a glass or tin plate meaning there was no negative. Copies could not be created easily and the photographs created were very fragile. When Fox Talbots calotype process was ready to be unveiled it quickly replaced the daguerreotype as the most popular process of photography for the fact copies could be created using the cameras paper positive-negative system.
The main problems that the art scene had with photography was the element of truth the photography entailed. It captured a precise moment in ways that a painting could not. They also dismissed it as an art form because multiple originals were possible or at least by the time the calotype process had gained popularity over the Daguerreotype which only allowed for a one of a kind image to be created. The art world saw all photographs as not originals, but a form of reproduction.
A year prior to Niépceâs first permanent image of the view from his window, the worldâs first passenger railway opened at Stockton and Darlington and only a few years after was the forming of the first modern police force. This helps put into context how primitive Britain was at the time in terms of invention. The unveiling of photography on the world would have been exciting but people would have also been extremely wary of it.
Prior to Photography the majority of art was being taken up by the Romanticism movement. Romanticists painted extreme emotion filled pictures expressing deep horror, trepidation and awe which were exaggerated from any sort of reality.
The development of photography led the art world into the realism movement. These pictures and paintings showed life for what it was. A man who worked on a field or a woman with her children. Although by the time photography had established its place in the world, art had resorted to Impressionism to try and counteract the truth of photography. Photography may have been freeing the artists to move away from naturalism were photography was particularly strong and create more and more abstract interpretations of scenes.
The painting Vespers by artist Jon Singer Sargent shows a man, who appears to have entered the scene by accident which gives the painting the snapshop or candid feel of a photograph.
The first few photographers such as Fox Talbot and Hippolyte Bayard used photography to document places such as Paris and Egypt rather than as a form of art or a way for them to express themselves. These photographers were attracted by symmetry and reflections which created ready-made compositions before later focusing on signs and symbols to give their pictures more meaning. Fox Talbot went on to publish his photographically illustrated book The pencil of nature in 1844 which included twenty four mounted photographs from his various travels and observations each accompanied with text.
According to Ian Jeffrey in Photography A Concise History 1981, Talbot analysed his images in great detail, enjoying random incidentals such as the hour of the day being recorded in the photograph by a distant sundial. Although he enjoyed this aspect of his work he also perceived it as a weakness of the medium. Claiming âif these incidentals could be recorded despite of the photographerâs intentions, how could the photographer claim to be artists?â
Photography A Concise History also refers to another weakness photographers became aware of was how difficult it was to capture a specific scene without the picture being overwhelmed by incidentals The eighth picture in the first French photographic book entitled photographique de lâartiste et de lâamateur shows this particular weakness. What was intended to be a picture documenting the towers of Notre-Dame cathedral had been clouded by a long row of delivery carts parked along the kerb. Looking back over these images in cotext, it is these flaws that give them there value, showing life and culture in ways that a simple picture of the cathedral or another landmark could not.
The American Civil war of 1861 was when photography first really proved its strength and uses to the world. Photographer Matthew Brady showed the true realities of war and the toll it took on the soldiers for the first time. This helped support the statement of âthe camera never liesâ which people were associating with photography at the time. Before this the publicâs only way to get an idea of what was going on with the war was to believe what they were told by the media. Taking photographs of the battlefield at that time was extremely difficult. Each photograph required two photographers as well as a portable darkroom to prepare and develop the exposures. The American civil war ended in 1865 and as a direct result there was an abolishment of all slavery.
Photography has had its doubters from the very first permanent image; in despite of this it has remained at the forefront of the media and art world changing and shaping the world we live in and influencing some of the most iconic art movements between the 19th and 21st century. Its popularity and effectiveness has only increased with time. Along with its ongoing technological advancements it has continued to do so throughout the decades. It has documented war, revolutionised the media and made sharing lifeâs best moments with the world accessible to everyone.
I have taken photography serious for around three years now, 2007 â 2010. This is such a small amount of time in comparison to the vast series of events that led photography to where it is today. The advancements to digital photography have made it even more accessible to everyone than ever before. With photography being such an over saturated medium now in comparison to the times of Talbot and Daguerre the meaning and impact of an image can be lost. This is why it is more important than ever for a photographer and artist to develop there own unique and individual style, using not only modern and top-of-the-range digital methods, but also by exploring the traditional methods of the past. Only then can a photographer have a true appreciation of the art form.
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