Introduction to the History of Photography

"Leaving aside the mysteries and the inequities of human talent, brains, taste, and reputations, the matter of art in photography may come down to this: it is the capture and projection of the delights of seeing; it is the defining of observation full and felt." Walker Evans Walker Evans began to photograph in the late 1920s, making snapshots during a European trip. Upon his return to New York, he published his first images in 1930. During the Great Depression, Evans began to photograph for the Resettlement Administration, later known as the Farm Security Administration (FSA), documenting workers and architecture in the Southeastern states. In 1936 he traveled with the writer James Agee to illustrate an article on tenant farm families for Fortune magazine; the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men came out of this collaboration. Throughout his career Evans contributed photographs to numerous publications, including three devoted solely to his work. In 1965 he left Fortune, ...

"Paul Strand's debut in photography coincided with the first stirrings of modernism in the visual arts in America. Born in New York in 1890, he attended both the class and club in photography taught by Hine at the Ethical Culture School in 1908. A visit to Stieglitz's 291 gallery arranged by Hine inspired Strand to explore the expressive possibilities of the medium, which until then he had considered a hobby.  Although he was active for a brief period at the Camera Club of New York, whose darkrooms he continued to use for about 20 years, his ideas derived first from the circle around Stieglitz and then from the group that evolved around the Modern Gallery in 1915, including Sheeler and Schamberg. Strand's work, which was exhibited at 291, the Modem Gallery, and the Camera Club, gained prizes at the Wanamaker Photography exhibitions and was featured in the last two issues of Camera Work.  From about 1915 on, he explored the visual problems that were to become fundamen...

Peter Henry Emerson  b. 1856 Sagua la Grande, Cuba, d. 1936 Great Britain 
 Born in Cuba and raised there and in the United States before moving to England as a teenager, physician and scientist Peter Henry Emerson took up photography at age twenty-six. Often described as a difficult zealot, he vocally championed a naturalistic approach to imagemaking. He favored rural subjects presented in a simple, direct manner. Emerson's influential 1889 book Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art outlined his thesis that photography's ability to record nature truthfully was its most expressive one. He argued that the photograph should imitate nature rather than alter it. 

Emerson was a passionate lecturer and writer about photography, never mincing words and thus earning as many foes as supporters. He was an early and tireless champion of photography as a fine art, and he became the unofficial godfather of the Photo-Secessionist movement, founded by Alfred Stieglitz in 1902. ...

Alexander Gardner The home of a Rebel Sharpshooter, Gettysburg (1863)   Alexander Gardner   Dead Confederate sharpshooter at the foot of Round Top.  Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1863.         Alexander Gardner. Richmond, Virginia. "Ruins of Gallego Mills." April 1865 The Lincoln Conspirators, 1865 Alexander Gardner, Lincoln 1865

  Mathew Brady upon his return from the First Battle of Bull Run, wearing a saber given to him for defense by New York Fire Zouaves. Date 22 July 1861 unknown author in Mathew Brady's studio source: Wikipedia American Civil War Photographs source: http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/brady-photos/ Abraham Lincoln link: Mathew Brady Portraits Mathew Brady : Photographs of the Civil War   source: YouTube Smithsonian Magazine

" Originally trained as a painter, engraver, and illustrator, Charles Marville ( b. 1816 Paris, d. 1879) became known as a landscape and architecture photographer. He traveled to Italy, Germany, and Algeria and used both paper and glass plate negatives. In the late 1850s the city of Paris commissioned Marville to document the ancient quarters of the city before encroaching urban modernization changed them forever. He photographed renovations and new construction, including the new Paris Opéra. Marville was also commissioned by the Musée du Louvre to make reproductions of artworks in their collection. He was named official photographer of Paris in 1862. " source: GETTY Edu   Charles Marville rue de Constantine, Paris, 1865   Charles Marville Paris 13e Arrondisment c. 1865 Charles Marville rue de la Ferronnerie, Paris c. 1865   Charles Marville Hotel de Ville 1871 after the combats of the Commune of Paris   Charles Marville Ingres in his d...

Progress of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, 1854 Philip Henry Delamotte (British, 1820–1889); Henry Negretti (British, born Italy, 1818–1879) Albumen silver prints Source: Philip Henry Delamotte: Progress of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham (52.639) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

" The photographic career of Roger Fenton (1819-1869) lasted only eleven years, but during that time he became the most famous photographer in Britain. Part of the second generation of photographers who came to maturity in the 1850s—only a decade after the process was invented—Fenton strove to elevate the new medium to the status of a fine art and to establish it as a respected profession. He was the first official photographer to the British Museum and one of the founders of the Photographic Society, later named the Royal Photographic Society, an organization he hoped would help establish the medium's importance in modern life."   source: http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2004/fenton/index.shtm    Roger Fenton Self-Portrait, February 1852 Albumen silver print from glass negative The Metropolitan Museum of Art source: http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/fenton/exhibition.shtm     Roger Fenton, Seated Odalisque, 1858   Roger Fenton, D...

  Roman Arch at Orange], 1851 Édouard Baldus (French, born Prussia, 1813–1889) Salted paper print from paper negative 35.3 x 26.2 cm   "In 1851, the Commission des Monuments Historiques, an agency of the French government, selected five photographers to make photographic surveys of the nation's architectural patrimony. These Missions Héliographiques, as they were called, were intended to aid the Paris-based commission in determining the nature and urgency of the preservation and restoration of work required at historic sites throughout France. The French rail network was still in its infancy and many of the commissioners had never visited the monuments in their care; photography promised a record of such sites that would be produced more quickly and accurately than the architectural drawings on which they had previously relied. " Malcolm Daniel Department of Photographs, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Source: Mission Héliographique, 1851 | Thematic Essay | Heilb...

  Gustave Le Gray Self portrait, c. 1852 "Though he was trained as a painter, Gustave Le Gray made his mark in the emerging medium of photography. An experimenter and technical innovator, Le Gray pioneered the use of the paper negative in France and developed a waxed-paper negative that produced sharper-focus prints. In 1851 he began to use collodion on glass negatives, which further increased the clarity of his images. He became one of the first five photographers, along with Édouard-Denis Baldus and Hippolyte Bayard, to work for the missions héliographiques, a government-sponsored commission to document the state of repair of important French monuments and buildings. Le Gray is credited with teaching photography to many important French photographers in the 1850s. In 1851 he became a founding member of the Société Héliographique, the first photographic organization in the world, and later joined the Société Française de Photographie. In 1860 Le Gray started to tour the Med...