Test 1 (Lectures 1-4)
What was the name of the influential exhibition of landscape photographs curated by William Jenkins in 1975? What united the photographers involved in this exhibition?
- "New Topographics: Photographs of a Man Altered Landscape" - Robert Adams
What did Ansel Adams name his working method which was founded in the idea that a photographer should know, before a picture was made, how that scene should appear as a black-and-white print?
- "Pre-visualization" - Zone system: exposing the pic to ensure detail
On what grounds did some early critics of photography argue that photography could not compare with painting as a medium for artistic expression?
- Asked how photos could possibly convey the same feelings as paintings
Who invented the first color photographic process? What was the name of this process?
- Auguste and Louise Lumiere - Autochrome
How does the critic Max Kozloff explain the remarkable power of images of the earth from space? (96-98)
- Being able to take a picture in space would have been historically unimaginable
What was the primary difference between Daguerre's process and Fox- Talbot's?
- Calotype produced a negative image on paper as opposed to Daguerre's unique image on metal - Multiple prints could be made from a single negative
What was the name of the process invented by Adolphe Eugene Disderi? How many images were made on a single plate?
- Carte de Visite (visiting card) -8
Why would Nadar's experience as a cartoonist have helped him as a portrait photographer?
- Cartoonists need to be able to seize the essential features of their subjects and reduce them to the things that make them most recognizable - Reveal themselves
What did Etienne Jules Marey call his process? (96-98)
- Chronotography
What was Eugene Atget's primary subject matter?
- City of Paris - "Old Paris"
Why did Edward Weston feel self-conscious about the image he titled "Shell and Rocks (Arrangement)"?
- He moved the shell from the beach into the rocks - Had "altered" the world to make picture
Why did Lewis Baltz want his pictures to "conform to the conventions of ordinary seeing"?
- He'd like his viewers to only consider the object of the picture and not the thoughts of the person making
Rebecca Solnit described Eadweard Muybridge's panorama of San Francisco as "an impossible sight"? What was it specifically made that made it so unusual? (96-98)
- It was a 360 of the city - All directions
What did Edward Weston mean when he described one of his images as "a pepper but more than a pepper"?
- Literal description of subject may also suggest other things - Imagination
Why are the photographs of Edouard Baldus largely empty of people?
- Long exposure time -People walking through moved too quickly to leave an impression on the negative
Most of Muybridge's human subjects were nude or semi-nude, seen against a plain or dark background. Why did Muybridge choose to set up this way? (96-98)
- Made it easier to clearly see the muscles involved in activity
What was the reason behind Edward Weston's decision to use glossy paper to make his prints?
- Made retouching possible
What was the primary inspiration for Marcel Duchamp's painting "Nude Descending a Staircase"? (96-98)
- Marey's work, cubism
Which photographer was influenced by Stieglitz's cloud pictures and believed that photographs could be a means to transcend everyday reality and open the doors to mystical experience?
- Minor White
What was the name of the international movement in photography that embraced soft-focus?
- Pictorialist movement
What was the name of the camera that could capture the first moments of an atomic explosion? (96-98)
- Rapatronic camera
What did photographers do to get around this limitation?
- Softened focus of photos - Pictoralists - Gum bichromate process - Soft focus filters + lenses
Which photographic process proved to be the most commercially successful? Why?
- The Daguerreotype proved to be the most popular - Anyone could make them - Produced a more sharper image (detailed)
- What is the name of the telescope that was launched in 1990, enabling us to see deeper into outer space than ever before? (96-98)
- The Hubble telescope went into orbit
What was the name Alfred Stieglitz used to describe his cloud pictures, which he believed were metaphors for his inner state when the image was made?
- Theory of the Equivalent
Who were the primary influences on Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz?
- Timothy O'Sullivan and William Henry Jackson
Why did Robert Adams decide to include evidence of humans in every picture of his book "From the Missouri West"?
- To show the damage and violence humans have done to our land (the world)
Etienne Jules Marey was a French physiologist who was inspired by Muybridge to make how own motion studies. While he initially used the same process as Muybridge he soon sought other methods. How did Marey's pictures differ from Muybridge's? (96-98)
- Ways to reduce exposure time - Completely realistic but also bizarre
Henri Cartier- Bresson was an early enthusiast for the 35mm camera. What was the term he used to describe his belief that a picture should be made when the subject and the composition come together in perfect harmony?
"Decisive moment"
What was the slogan that was so successfully used by George Eastman to market the first hand camera?
"You push the button, we do the rest"
In 1835 Louis Daguerre discovered latent development. How did this improve his photographic process?
("Latent"=hidden) He was able to stop his exposure before the image appeared and then chemically develop it to make is visible.
What did John Szarkowski mean when he said, "Photographs describe everything and explain nothing"?
- We know that something is unfolding, but have no idea what it is - Suggests a narrative but its different for everyone
What newly invented photographic process was used to argue that spirit photographs were real? What was the name of the person who invented this process? (96-98)
- Wilhem Rontgen, X-Rays
What was the name of the man who started the 19th century fad for the spirit photographs? Who was the subject of his most well-known photograph? (96-98)
- William Mumier - Mary Todd with the ghost of Abraham Lincoln
What was the name of the hand-cranked projector that Muybridge used to try an turn his sequences into motion pictures? (96-98)
- Zoopraxiscope
What is the subject of Nicolas Nixon's series The Brown Sisters? (96-98)
- same order - shows the nature of time - 40 year old time laps, can be viewed at your own pace
Timothy O'Sullivan was one of the many photographers who were employed by the U.S. Geological Survey. What was the purpose of the expeditions on which O'Sullivan and the others embarked?
-Bring back geological, archeological and anthropological information -Images that could be student by scientists in D.C
Why did early photographers often include buildings and other man-made structures in their pictures?
-Easier subjects to death with (did't move) -Represented extraordinary achievements of engineering
How was Gustav Le Gray able to get around the fact that early photographic processes were unable to expose both deep shadows and highlights?
-Make 2 exposures and combine them in the printing process
What is the name of the group of contemporary photographers who, in 1977, located and photographed the sites of many early landscape pictures?
-Mark Klett -Rephotographic Survey Project
What was the name of the French photographer who was commissioned by his government to travel to Egypt to make pictures of important monuments? Which photographic process did he use?
-Maxime Du Camp -Calotypes?
What is meant by the term "picturesque"?
-Pictures, (mostly natural scenes) intended to stir fine thoughts and feelings in the viewer
Which photographer was responsible for making pictures that are said to have been responsible for Yellowstone being named the nation's first park?
-William Henry Jackson
What was the name of the person who invented the stroboscope? (96-98)
- Harold "Doc" Edgerton
There are two primary reasons that some critics questioned Winogrand's reputation. What are they?
- He didn't edit his own work - He was only doing half the job
How did people make extreme close-up photographs in the early years of photography? (96-98)
- Had to put their cameras to microscopes, same with telescopes
Hippolyte Bayard's process of making direct positive prints on paper was suppressed by Francois Arago. In response he made "Self portrait of the Photographer as a Drowned Man." Why was this image radical for its time?
- Direct prints --> process positive - Radical move because it was the first instance of someone using the camera to suggest an idea or feeling, as opposed to showing what things looked like.
How were spirit photographs produced?
- Double exposures and dark room manipulation - No good evidence a photograph has ever been produced
What is the name of the photographer who in 1790, broke with prevailing attitudes and published a book of photographic sequences in which the pictures had been posed, set-up and directed? Why did this person choose to work in this manner? (96-98)
- Duane Michals, much like a film director - Driven by the desire to explore the crucial questions of life
How did Hiroshi Sugimoto achieve the effect of completely white screens in his pictures of movie theaters and drive-ins? (96-98)
- Due to the exposure from the length of the movie itself
Why was this process so appealing to photographers who sought recognition for photography as a medium capable of making art?
- Each pair was different - Impossible to make twice - Pictorialism
At what time of day did Atget typically go out to make pictures? Why did he choose to work during these hours?
- Early hours in the morning - He was able to avoid crowds + nice lighting
How did Eadward Muybridge's eventually solve the problem of photographing a galloping horse? (96-98)
- Exposure time 1/25th of a second (enough to freeze motion) - Set up 12 cameras with trip wires
Why was it impossible to freeze motion in the early year after photography was invented? (96-98)
- Exposure times were very long
What was the name of the group formed in 1909 by disaffected Italian Youth? What role did they believe machines would play in changing the world? (96-98)
- Futurists (movement) poets, artists and composers - Wanted the world to be destroyed and rebuilt
What was the name of the club of straight photographers of which Ansel Adams was a founding member? Why did they choose this name?
- Group f64 "straight photography" - Number of like-mind individuals
James Ambrose Cutting invented a process that produced a one of a kind positive image on glass. What is the name of this process?
Ambrotypes
What was the nature of the work for which Michael Wolf won an honorable mention for the 2011 World Press Photo Award?
Angered many people because they were just images from google maps
What was the name of the photographer who produced a book titled Paris at Night?
Brassai
What was the name given to the images Talbot made with a camera?
Calotype or Talbotype
The camera obscura was followed by an even more portable device. What was its Latin name and what do these words mean in English?
Camera Lucida= light room
What do the latin words "camera obscura" mean in English?
Camera= room Obscura= dark
After returning to the U.S., bringing Atget's work with her, Berenice Abbot set about making an extended documentary study of New York City. What was the title of the book in which these works were eventually published?
Changing New York
What is the name of the process that was announced in 1839 by Francois Arago at the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Paris?
Daguerreotype
Unlike Daguerre's process which used other copper plated and Talbot's which used paper, Archer's used what material as a support for the emulsion?
Glass plates
What was the name of the process that Edward Steichen used to make his picture of the Flatiron Building in New York?
Gum-bi-chromate
Early photographic processes did not have enough latitude to expose for both deep shadows and highlights. At the Cloister of St. Trophime, Edouard Baldus found a way around this difficulty. What did he do?
He exposed 10 different negatives and combined them
What was the name of the organization established by the French Government to document that country's rich architectural heritage?
Historic Monument's commission
W. Eugene Smith often argued with his editors at Life and other magazines. Why did he think he, rather than an editor was better equipped to make critical decisions about what images to include in a story?
How can an editor put together a story when they had never even been at the scene?
What was the name of the person who made the first successful photograph?
Joseph Nicephore Niepce
In 1925, the first 35mm camera went on sale. What was the name of the company that manufactured it?
Manufactured in Germany by Leica
Which photographer has been accused of pioneering what has become known as "invasive street photography"?
Mark Cohen
Who took the portrait which Abraham Lincoln believed helped him ascent to the presidency?
Matthew Brady
Nadar argued that two essential skills required for photography could not be learned. One was the ability to size up a subject and find ways to make an intimate portrait. What was the other?
Must be able to get the subject to reveal herself
What was the name that William Henry Fox-Talbot gave to his images of objects, such as twigs, made without the use of a camera?
Photogenic drawings
Which African-American photographer spent much of his career recording black life in America, focusing on people's grace and dignity?
Roy De Canva
David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson pioneered a form that is common today. What is the name we now use for this type of photography?
Social documentary photography
What was the name of the process that Frederick Scott Archer invented in 1851?The wet collodion process
The wet collodion process
What was the of the photographer whose exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art changed people's attitudes towards color photographs?
William Eggleston