A Brief Introduction to Photography

Photography began in the late 1830’s. The word photography is derived from the Greek words for light and writing, and loosely translates to ‘drawing with light’. When photography came along, it marked a major shift into the modern world – distinguishing old and new worlds.

The Pioneering Days/Pictorialism

In the early pioneering days, photography spread very quickly throughout Europe and North America. It appealed to a few professional scientists and artists, but most early photographers were amateurs who had very little in common with each other in terms of their intentions. Because early photographers were largely unaffected by academia and didn’t have the commercial demand of creating a uniform product, the first two decades of photography were full of pictoral experimentation.

The term “pictorialism” refers to an early 20^th century approach that subscribed to the idea that art photography had to look like the paintings and etchings of the time. To create this look, photographers used soft focus, lens coating, heavy manipulation in the darkroom, and scratching or drawing on negatives and prints.

Straight Photography

As a reaction to pictorialism, some photographers began shooting and printing what they saw in the world. The term ‘straight photography’ originated around the turn of the century when photographers were urged by critics to create photographs that looked like photographs as opposed to paintings or etchings. The objective was to depict a scene as realistically and objectively as possible. Straight photography demanded a purist approach, with unaltered shooting and printing.

The great modernist tradition of straight photography resulted in vivid black and white photographs ranging from portraits to landscapes to everyday people in American cities.

Documentary Photography

Straight photography was often considered the equivalent to documentary photography, which thrived in the first half of the 20th century with projects like the government-sponsored portraits of the Depression-era poor by Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange.

Challenges to Straight Photography

Straight photography is so familiar that it is easy to forget that it is an aesthetic, no less artificial than any other. After WW II the conventions of straight photography began to be challenged. Unconventional approaches emerged, including an interest in wild lighting, blurred images of motion, and tilting of the frame for expressive effect.

In 1973 Lucas Samaras discovered that the wet dyes of Polaroid prints were highly malleable, allowing him to create what he called "Photo-Transformations." He made these images in his modest New York apartment that also served as his studio. Samaras photographed and manipulated his own image to create multi-faceted, distorted and sometimes terrifying self-portraits.

Many others went on to experiment with the Polaroid camera, including Andy Warhol and Canadian artist Evergon. Warhol documented celebrities and friends, saying that the more we see beautiful people, the more interesting he becomes because he’s not beautiful. But that he ultimately becomes beautiful because he’s unique.

Evergon created large scale homo-erotic images that used mythology and art history as their starting point. He was offered the use of a Polaroid camera the size of a room to make this Ram Boys series. He also worked with black and white 35mm film and installation. We’ll look at a video of his work later.

The Snapshot Aesthetic

While experimentation with photographic materials was making a come back in the Polaroid work of Lucas Samaras (remember the early pictorialists also experimented), there was also a widespread interest in the snapshot aesthetic.

The vast majority of 20^th Century photographs have been either photojournalistic images or snapshots taken by amateurs. The amateur snapshot follows certain conventions determined by the camera itself and by popular ideas about what a photo should look like. Snapshots are almost always of people or landscapes, taken at eye level, with the subject in the middle, in natural light. The central placement of the subject often allows random bits of reality to sneak into the edges of the picture. It is this unplanned ‘marginalia’ that gives some snapshots a great sense of complexity and humanity (Atkins, Artspeak).

During the 1960s and 70s this approach had a tremendous influence on art photography. It worked to disrupt romantic representations found in previous approaches, though it remained a camera driven, unembellished stream of the straight photographic mainstream. The irony and detachment of this approach attempted to present the world as it is, rather than how it ought to be (Atkins, Artspeak).

Many artists have adopted this aesthetic in recent photography, including Nikki S. Lee and Wolfgang Tillmans.  It is an approach first brought into focus by artists like Larry Clark and Nan Goldin, who said that the snapshot is the only form of photography taken purely out of love.

Assignment

Create a series of black and white darkroom prints that construct or imply a narrative.

Content is to be determined by you.

You must shoot and print your own images.

Black and white prints are to be a maximum of 16” x 20” each.

Film development is to take place at a local lab of your choice; the cost of development is your responsibility.

Printing will take place in the studio darkroom. Your lab fees cover chemical costs, but you are responsible for paper and small tools (refer to the photo supply list in your course pack).

Chemical Printing in the Darkroom

Filters

2 ½ filter is standard contrast

High contrast 5 (for a thin neg)

Low contrast 0 (for a dense neg)

Contact Sheet

Make a Contact Sheet of all your negatives before deciding what to print. A contact sheet will allow you to see your negatives in positive form. Use the glass ‘sandwicher’ to make contact with your photo paper and the negative sheet. Remember ‘emulsion to emulsion’.

To know the correct exposure, make Test Strips

Test Strips

1. Threshold of Black (TOB): no longer a visible change in the blackness on the clear edge of the film around the sprocket holes.
2. Set enlarger head about half way up
3. Set aperture on enlarger to F8
4. Emulsion side down in neg carrier if making Test Strips from a single negative (you can also make test strips for your contact sheet leaving your paper and sheet of negatives sandwiched together)
5. Blow single negative with compressed air
6. Use good easel
7. Use the grain focuser and focus the image
8. Make a 2 second test strip moving a card along your photo paper at 2 second intervals
9. Evaluate
10. If too dark, switch to F11 or decrease time
11. If too light, switch to F 5.6 or increase time
    

Shooting Tips

• For shooting a TV screen – no higher than 1/15 sec shutter speed
• For shooting a computer monitor – no higher than ¼ sec shutter speed
  

Photo Supply List

1. loop
2. white cotton gloves
3. fine paint brush for spotting
4. black spotter
5. scissors
6. plastic archival negative holder sheets (minimum 2)
7. 25 pack of 8x10 photo paper and/or 16x20 photo paper
8. BW film (100 ASA) (minimum 2)
   

9. cotton hand towel

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