The Genius of Photography: Episode One

I have obtained the DVD series of The Genius of Photography and also the accompanying book. I will be watching first, then writing brief notes on each episode along with my own response to what I have seen. I will enjoy reading the book after watching the series, as I expect it will go into further detail on the issues that arise on the tv series.

The Genius of Photography: Episode One

Photography as we know it was invented in 1839 by William Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre, who created rival processes. The general process of photography was known well before, however; the camera obscura, where light enters a darkened room through a pinhole and projects the outside scene onto the inside wall, upside down, was known for centuries. Experiments with light-sensitive chemicals such as silver salts had also been taking place for a long time; in 1802 'momentary' photography was being accomplished with silver salts where an image was temporarily created before turning to black. This problem, solved by Talbot and Daguerre, was how to 'freeze' the exposure at the correct time.

Talbot's process was paper-based, and produces a negative. Talbot realised the value in being able to reproduce prints for the masses. Daguerre's process used a mirrored metal plate. This created a one-off image, and was coined 'The Mirror with a Memory'. The determinates of which process would triumph ultimately came down to how quickly, cheaply, and accurately images could be made, and how widely they could be distributed. Talbot process of producing a negative had clear advantages.

Photography was part of a group of technologies being developed at the time, such as the telegraph and railroad, which was speeding up the world.

Eadweard Muybridge created a series of photographic motion studies; the precursor to cinema. Businessman and racehorse owner Leland Stanford hired Muybridge to settle the popular debate on whether all four of a horses hooves left the ground when trotting. He used an array of 12 cameras to take a sequence of shots of a galloping horse, proving that all four hooves are in the air at a given time; something that cannot be established by the human eye. Muybridge realised he could utilise this concept to create an encyclopedia of zoological motion.

By the 1850's commerce had taken over. For the next half century or more, the overwhelming majority of photographs were taken for commercial reasons.

In 1854 André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri patented the carte-de-visite, thin paper photographs mounted onto thicker cards. He used a camera with 8 lenses on it which was able to produce 8 different poses in only a few minutes. These small cards proved immensily popular, and millions flowed back and forth between the united states and europe. It was a true industry.

Photographers could make money out of all different aspects of photography, such as war, documentary, portraiture and architecture. It was a global phenomenom; almost since the day Daguerre announced his invention, cameras were being shipped around the world.

In its first decades photography had proven itself to be able to do almost anything, but one doubt remained then as now - is it art? 'Photography is the easiest medium in which to be compentent, but the hardest in which to have personal vision'. 'When someone nails down a vision to the extent that they own that vision, you know they've really done something'. - Chuck Close.

As photographers had turned to painting for inspiration and reassurance, putting their tripods where easels had previously stood, photography was also making an impression on painters. They were inspired by the view captured within a photo frame, and the influence is evident in paintings by artists such as Edgar Degas. Large-scale photographs of street scenes recorded people's natural postures, which then infused in artist's paintings, such as Degas' The Dance Class.

George Eastman revolutionised photography by degrees. First he produced what is now familiar as a 'roll of film'. He then took this concept and remarketed it in 1900 as an amateur camera called the Kodak Brownie, with the slogan 'You Press The Button, We Do The Rest'. The user simply had to press the button to take images, post it to Kodak, who would then develop the images and mail back the camera with a new roll of film loaded. The camera cost only $1, and caused a 'Kodak Revolution'. It produced the distinctive circular prints of the first generation of amateurs. Snapshots were in abundance - for the first time people looked the camera in the eye and said 'cheese', encouraged by Kodak advertisements. In the hands of amateurs, photography revealed its true nature as an open-ended, unruly medium. People were finding things out by trial and error; there are no accidental masterpieces in painting, but there is in photography.

The snapshot is a subcategory in a genre of photography known as the vernacular. This means photography for any use except for art. This genre contains some of photography's greatest naturally occuring riches. The camera has the ability to produce unintentional but attractive styles, that is more a gift of the medium than a product of the photographer.

Jacques Henri Lartigue is hailed as one of the founders of modern art photography; in reality he was the ultimate amateur. As a young boy in a wealthy family, he had access to all the best photography equipment, and a father who was passionate about photography. He recorded his friends and family at play; doing what everyone else was doing but with more flair and daring.

Pictorialism as a genre is mean, moody, occasionally magnificent - but photography at its most po-faced. Recoiling from the vernacular explosion, it tried to establish photography as a branch of the fine arts. The pictorialism elites withdrew into a very narrow world that was imitating print-making, drawing, whistler etc.

My Response

Much of this episode was a history of the origins of photography. It is a very interesting and formative look over its inception and development, and I particular enjoyed seeing how Pictorialism developed as a reaction to how everyone was now able to attempt photography. The pictoralists were worried that if everyone could do it, it would not be regarded as art. The episode suggests in strong terms however that it was actually vernacular photography that was the 'great creative achievement' of the period.

Speaking of vernacular photography, I found the discussion on 'accidental masterpieces' interesting. Presumable due to the sheer volume of images being taken around the world, there were bound to be many times when all the right elements came together in an image; not necessarily on purpose.

The section that dealt with photographers and painters inspiring each other was intriguing. I already knew that inevitably photographers would have looked at what the painters were doing, but seeing that the reverse also happened was very interesting.