Photography

Pictorialism

refers to a style in which the photographer has somehow manipulated what would otherwise be a straightforward photograph as a means of "creating" an image rather than simply recording it. Artists used pictorialism to express their inner feelings and emotions, not to document real life events.

Manipulated Photography

Hovering between the abstract and the representational, the rayographs revealed a new way of seeing. Man Ray created the rayographs, the dada group was fascinated by these.

Response to Photography

Impressionism, an artistic style that offered an alternative to photography, searching for truth within a single moment but not at a fixed point in time. Impressionist artist worked to capture the essence of the moment in a pointing, which photography could not do. To do this they used color and texture.

Photography

Invented in 1830s (black & white)

Photojournalism

Photojournalism is communicating news by photographs. Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine used photojournalism to show effects of industrialization and urbanization on working-class Americans. Their work brought the need for housing and labor reform to the attention of legislators and the public.

Straight Photography

Pure photography or straight photography refers to photography that attempts to depict a scene or subject in sharp focus and detail. Alfred Stieglitz is considered the leading spokesperson of this form of photography. Straight photography called for sharp images, directly from nature and not manipulated, as faithful as possible to the original scene whereas pictorialism artists altered the original photo in order to exercise aesthetic interpretation. Paul Strand's photography, without any manipulation, showed ordinary objects in a way that caused them to transcend reality.

Daguerre and O'Sullivan

Daguerre used photography for art purposes and O'Sullivan used photography in order to document news, especially the battlefield in WW2