photography as a modern art

• first "art photography"

the two ways of life, oscar gustav rejlander

1857

copies what we would see in a history painting (poses, arrangement, etc.)

• modern changes in photography

pictorialist movement: julia margaret cameron

edward steichen:

-serves in U.S. army as photographer

-imitates established art forms

-1910: becomes fashion photographer

self-portrait w brush & palette- steichen 1903

the pond: moonlight- steichen 1904

rodin, the thinker- steichen 1905

balzac, the open sky, 11 pm- steichen 1908

• turns attention from pictorialism towards american subjects/sights

flatiron building- steichen 1905

• steichen meets stieglitz & they become proponents of american modernist photography

stieglitz:

the terminal- alfred stieglitz 1893

• creates 291 gallery
• stieglitz circle- circle of artists that stieglitz surrounded himself w 

here, this is stieglitz: faith & love- francis picabia 1915
diagram of a camera
published in 291 magazine
kind of making fun of stieglitz's desire to continue modernism

the steerage- stieglitz 1907
found composition of modernist aesthetics
higher class on top, lower class on bottom
stairway/walkway cuts through image
repeated circular forms

• embraced crispness & rich tones of camera
• 1900-1950: tug of war btwn NY & paris being capital of art world

straight/pure photography:

-find artistic events in every day phenomenon

-retain photography's truth-telling function

-clarity & composition

paula, or sun rays- stieglitz 1889

view from the el- paul strand 1915
unconventional & disorientating angles

abstract photography:

-shadows

-cropping

-medium specificity 

-new ways of looking at the world through orientation of camera

abstraction, porch shadows, twin lakes, connecticut- strand 1916

equivalent- stieglitz c. 1927

berlin radio tower- laszlo moholy-nagy 1928

at the telephone- rodchenko 1928

• focus on center of modern world: new york
• modes of emerging modernism

unprecedented photography- laszlo moholy-nagy:
-method of recording reality
-medium of scientific investigation
-way of preserving vanished events
-basis of the process of reproduction
-range of subtle gradations of light & dark
-new kind of visual power
-to elevate it to an artistic level, it should have no depedence on traditional forms of representation
-areas yet to be examined:

• unfamiliar views made by positioning camera obliquely
• experiments w various lens systems, changing relationships familiar to normal vision, distorting them to unrecognizability
• encircling object
• new kinds of camera construction- avoiding foreshortening effect
• adapting experience w x-ray for photography
• cameraless photos by casting light on sensitive surface
• true color sensitivity

-synthesis of these elements will be recognized as true photography
-first means of giving tangible shape to light through transposed & almost abstract form