Introduction to the History of Photography

The advent of the portable camera allowed for changes in the practice of photography, in the methods and goals of photographers.  Photography leaves the comforts of the studio, its tempo or rhythms, its formal ideas and established procedures and searches for novelty in the cadences, the pulses and figures of everyday life. Photographers such as Giuseppe Primoli and Paul Martin stand in between the amateur art of their predecessors and the developing discipline of photojournalism, as observed by I. Jeffrey (1).    Roma - Via Ostiense 1890 self-portrait of Giuseppe Primoli photographing the flooded street The informal, the improvised, the ephemeral are made into new plastic values translating the energies of urban life, the heterogeneous world of modern civilization unified in the commodity form of its material products and social exchanges, and similarly equalized in the “democratic” vision of the camera, a vision more and more unconcerned with ...

George Hendrik Breitner, Girl in Red Kimono, Geesje Kwak, 1893–95 The Dam in Amsterdam, 1895 - 1898 pencil and brush on paper, 40 × 51 cm George Hendrik Breitner, "View of construction site in Amsterdam?" (n.d.),  modern scan from original negative. Collection RKD, The Hague George Hendrik Breitner : Afbraak hoek Wijde Steeg, Amsterdam, ca.1908-10, oil on canvas. Oudezijds Achterburgwal, Amsterdam (c. 1890–1900) Photograph, 30 x 35 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam  "View of Schiedamsedijk and the corner with Leuvebrugsteeg" (circa 1906), gelatin silver print. Collection RKD, The Hague George Hendrik Breitner, "Horses and a passerby on Cruquiusweg" (n.d.), modern scan from original negative. Collection RKD, The Hague link: Second-sight: The Photographs of George Hendrik Breitner Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard  

EMILE ZOLA. A Restaurant, Taken from the First Floor or Staircase of the Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1900. Emile Zola (1840-1902) learned the rudiments of photography in 1888 from Victor Billaud, a newspaper editor in Royan during a vacation period at the sea side locality, in the Atlantic coast of France. After the completion of his cycle of novels titled The Rougon-Macquart in 1894, Zola dedicated himself fully to photography as a devoted amateur with a quasi-professional zeal and knowledge of photographic technique. He developed his own negatives and made enlargements as well as duly recorded experiments with materials and methods. His photographs document the artist’s private environment, his travels, family life, friends and his interest in all things modern as a witness to a changing world and to the developments of modern culture and of modern life. Photography is not a central subject in his literary works, and yet his...

John Thomson (1837-1921) 'Street Life in London England, 1877-8 Carbon print (woodburytype) Victoria and Albert Museum The Photographs In the late 1870s Thomson embarked on his most well known project, photographing the lives the people living on the streets of London. 'Street Life in London' was published in twelve instalments throughout 1877 and the beginning of 1878. Three of Thomson's photographs appeared in each edition with three stories mainly written by the journalist Adolphe Smith, who held reformist views and worked as the official interpreter for the TUC from 1886 to 1905. With social problems gaining increased attention in the 1870s through the work of such men as Charles Dickens and the founder of homes for destitute children, Dr Barnado, these vignettes of survival among the poor proved popular with the public. The hopes and aspirations, values and needs of those portrayed were recognisable to the readers of other classes. The photogr...

John Thomson -Public Disinfectors from Street Life In London, 1877 image source: http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/Collection/Resources/40Photos   Technical developments during the last part of the 19 th century changed the context and the forms of production of photography: smaller cameras, more efficient (faster, economical) methods and materials for taking, developing and printing photographs allowed for a wider dissemination of the activity and of its products via the press, magazines, illustrated books, etc.  We see here the beginnings of photography as a “quotidian” practice. The vocation of photography to “immerse” itself in reality will be translated in the refashioning of the world as a “photographic environment”. Photography invests daily life with the its forms and is invested, in the same process, with the dominant perspectives and ideas about social reality, the particular points of view, perceptions, values, mental patterns, etc., and the pr...

A Manchu bride, Beijing - ca 1871      The Island Pagoda , Min River , Fukien, circa 1871. Street Gamblers , circa 1868 - 1871. Modern albumen print from wet-collodion negative   Through China with a Camera by John Thomson (1899) http://www.archive.org/details/throughchinawit04thomgoog John Thomson,   Honan Soldiers , 1871 (self portrait with Honan Soldiers) . Albumen stereograph from wet-collodion negative. Taken in Amoy in 1871, one of the few images of Thomson in the Far East, also considered one of the few self-portraits of the photographer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thomson,_Honan_Soldiers.jpg links: The photographs of John Thomson - National Library of Scotland John Thomson at the Victoria & Albert Museum

'Grand Prix de Circuit de la Seine', June 26th 1912

Street vendors in Rome Reception at the Quirinal Palace ( Palazzo Quirinale ), Rome, 1893 Hunting scene Photos of Degas in Paris, 1889 Link: Fondazione Primoli

Blind beggar at the cattle market, c.1890 Paul Martin British, 1864 - 1942 Platinum print 18 x 22.8cm Dancing to the organ, Lambeth, 1893 Platinum print 10 x 7.5cm The Old Empire Platinum print 17.5 x 23.5cm Southend Beach, 1905 Yarmouth sands, 1892 Link: Victoria and Albert Museum: Exploring Photography