The Art of Photography Photographs are taken for any number of reasons, which can be grouped into three main approaches: photography as reportage, to record the external world as it appears; photography as art, used for expressive, interpretive purposes; and commercial photography. Reportage includes documentary photography and photojournalism and is generally nonmanipulative in technique. The photographic reporter usually employs only those camera techniques and developing processes necessary to produce an image under existing conditions. While it is possible to describe this approach as objective, the eye behind any camera inevitably makes a selection of what is to be recorded; this selection may be planned ahead of time or calculated on the spot. The intention and ultimate use of photo reportage must also be taken into account; the most factual and presumably dispassionate of photographic images may be used for propaganda or advertising purposes. Art photography, on the other hand, is entirely subjective, although it may use either a nonmanipulative or a manipulative approach. In the latter case, lighting, focus, and camera angle may be manipulated to alter the appearance of the image; the developing and printing processes may be modified to produce desired results; or the photograph may be combined with other media to produce a composite art form.

      

Assorted Lenses Interchangeable lenses allow a photographer to capture a variety of pictures that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to obtain with a single camera. For instance, a zoom lens may be used to photograph individual drops of dew on a spider’s web. A telephoto lens might be used to shoot a close-up view of a dangerous or flighty wild animal. Other options provided by special lenses are wide-angle views, including the fisheye view in which the lens curves outward, showing a 180-degree range, but creating a distorted image. The Camera and Its Accessories Modern cameras operate on the basic principle of the camera obscura. Light passing through a tiny hole, or aperture, into an otherwise light-tight box casts an image on the surface opposite the aperture. The addition of a lens sharpens the image, and film makes possible a fixed, reproducible image. The camera is the mechanism by which film can be exposed in a controlled manner. Although they differ in structural details, modern cameras consist of four basic components: body, shutter, diaphragm, and lens. Located in the body is a light-tight chamber in which film is held and exposed. Also in the body, located opposite the film and behind the lens, are the diaphragm and shutter. The lens, which is affixed to the front of the body, is actually a grouping of optical glass lenses. Housed in a metal ring or cylinder, it allows the photographer to focus an image on the film. The lens may be fixed in place or set in a movable mount. Objects located at various distances from the camera can be brought into sharp focus by adjusting the distance between the lens and the film. The diaphragm, a circular aperture behind the lens, operates in conjunction with the shutter to admit light into the light-tight chamber. This opening may be fixed, as in many amateur cameras, or it may be adjustable. Adjustable diaphragms are composed of overlapping strips of metal or plastic that, when spread apart, form an opening of the same diameter as the lens; when meshed together, they form a small opening behind the center of the lens. The aperture openings correspond to numerical settings, called f-stops, on the camera or the lens. The shutter, a spring-activated mechanical device, keeps light from entering the camera except during the interval of exposure. Most modern cameras have focal-plane or leaf shutters. Some older amateur cameras use a drop-blade shutter, consisting of a hinged piece that, when released, pulls across the diaphragm opening and exposes the film for about 1/30th of a second. In the leaf shutter, at the moment of exposure, a cluster of meshed blades springs apart to uncover the full lens aperture and then springs shut. The focal-plane shutter consists of a black shade with a variable-size slit across its width. When released, the shade moves quickly across the film, exposing it progressively as the slit moves. Most modern cameras also have some sort of viewing system or viewfinder to enable the photographer to see, through the lens of the camera, the scene being photographed. Single-lens reflex cameras all incorporate this design feature, and almost all general-use cameras have some form of focusing system as well as a film-advance mechanism.

      

Reflex Camera Reflex cameras use mirrors to form an image of the scene to be photographed in the viewfinder. The 35-mm single-lens reflex (SLR) camera is one of the most popular cameras on the market today because of its compact size, speed, and versatility. Most models offer a combination of automatic and manual options. Exposure Control By adjusting shutter speed and diaphragm aperture, the photographer obtains just enough light to ensure a proper exposure. Shutter speed and aperture setting are directly proportional: a one-increment change in shutter speed is equal to a change of one f-stop. A “one-stop” adjustment in exposure can refer to a change in either shutter speed or aperture setting; the resulting change in the amount of light reaching the film will be the same. Thus, if the shutter speed is increased, a compensatory increase must be made in aperture size to allow the same amount of light to reach the film. Fast shutter speeds, 1/125th of a second or less, can capture objects in motion. In addition to regulating the intensity of the light that reaches the film, the diaphragm aperture is also used to control the depth of field. Also called the zone of focus, depth of field refers to the area in which objects recorded in the picture will be sharply focused. Decreasing the size of the aperture increases the overall depth of field; widening the aperture decreases it. When great depth of field is desired—maximum sharpness of all points in the scene, foreground to background—a small aperture and slow shutter speed are used. Since the faster shutter speeds needed to capture motion require, in compensation, larger apertures, the depth of field is reduced. On many cameras, the lens ring contains a depth-of-field scale that shows the approximate sharp-focus zone for the different aperture settings

      

Autofocus Camera Some cameras are able to automatically adjust themselves, focusing on the main figure in the field view. The autofocus mechanism usually bounces infrared light beams or ultrasonic waves off of a subject, taking rangefinding samples which are processed electronically.

      

Shutter Speed and Aperture Settings The shutter is a sliding door that allows light to pass through the aperture (opening) onto the film. Different settings on a small dial on the top of the camera determine how long the shutter will remain open. The aperture selector is on the body of the lens. The numbers that indicate the size of the aperture are called f-numbers or f-stops. The f-stop is equal to the ratio of the focal length of the lens to the diameter of the opening. The shutter speed and f-stop determine the exposure—that is, the overall amount of light that will reach the film. However, even when the amount of light is constant, the effect may be different. Photographers experiment with different combinations to achieve various effects.

      

Artificial Light Sources In the absence of adequate sunlight, photographers use artificial light to illuminate scenes, both indoors and outdoors. The most commonly used sources of artificial illumination are the electronic flash, or “strobe”; tungsten lamps called photofloods; and quartz lamps. Another once-popular light source, the flashbulb, a disposable bulb filled with oxygen and a mass of fine magnesium alloy wire that fired only once, is largely obsolete, having been replaced by inexpensive, economical electronic flash units. The electronic flash consists of a glass quartz tube filled with an inert gas—a halogen—at extremely low pressure. When high voltage is applied to the electrodes sealed at the ends of the tube, the gas ionizes and produces an intense burst of light of very short duration, a flash. Although large, special-purpose units can produce a flash of about 1/100,000 of a second, most produce flashes lasting from 1/5000 to 1/1000 of a second. Flash units must be synchronized with the shutter of the camera so that the burst of light covers the entire scene. Synchronization is achieved through an electrical connection between camera and flash unit, either a bracket mounted on top of the camera, called a hot shoe, or a cord called a synch cord that runs from the camera's synchronization socket to the flash. Automatic flash units are equipped with sensors, photocells that automatically adjust the duration of the flash for a particular scene. The sensor, which measures the intensity of the flash as it occurs, cuts off the light when adequate illumination is obtained. The dedicated flash, a newer type of automatic flash, is designed to function as a unit with a particular camera. The electronic circuitry of the flash and camera are integrated. The sensor is located inside the camera and gauges the amount of light at the film plane, allowing more accurate measurement of flash intensity. Flash units vary in size from small camera-mounted units to large studio units. Generally speaking, the larger the unit, the greater the intensity of light produced. Camera-mounted flashes are adequate for illuminating small scenes, but to illuminate a large scene evenly, and with a single burst of light, a powerful studio unit is needed. Photofloods, incandescent bulbs with filaments thinner than those used in ordinary light bulbs, provide continuous light. For normal color rendition in color photography, photofloods must be used with either tungsten-balanced film or a light-balancing filter. Quartz lighting, the standard of the television industry because of the great intensity of light produced and relative longevity of the bulbs when compared to tungsten sources, is also popular among still photographers.

      

Filters Made of gelatin or glass, filters are used in front of a camera lens to alter the color balance of light, to change contrast or brightness, to minimize haze, or to create special effects. In black-and-white photography, color filters are used with panchromatic film to transmit light of the matching color while blocking light of a contrasting color. In a landscape photograph taken with a red filter, for example, some of the blue light of the sky is blocked, causing the sky to appear darker and thereby emphasizing clouds. Under a blue sky, a yellow filter produces a less extreme effect because more blue light is transmitted to the film. The No. 8 yellow filter is often used for outdoor black-and-white photography because it renders the tone of a blue sky in much the same way that the human eye perceives it. Conversion filters, light-balancing filters, and color-compensating filters are all widely used in color photography. Conversion filters change the color balance of light for a given film. Tungsten films, for example, are designed and balanced for the color temperature of amber tungsten light. Exposed in daylight, they will produce pictures with a bluish cast. A series 85 conversion filter can correct this. Daylight film, on the other hand, balanced for sunlight at noon, which has a greater concentration of blue wavelengths than tungsten light, will have a yellow-amber cast when exposed under tungsten light. A series 80 conversion filter corrects this problem. Light-balancing filters are generally used to make small adjustments in color. These pale-toned filters eliminate undesirable color casts or add a general warming hue. Color-compensating (CC) magenta filters can balance greenish fluorescent light for daylight or tungsten film. Another type of filter, the polarizer, is used primarily to reduce reflection from the surface of shiny subjects. Polarizing filters are also used in color photography to increase color saturation.

      

Underwater Photography Underwater photography poses several challenges. Both the equipment and the photographer must be adapted to cope in a completely different environment. This usually involves a wet suit, fins, and breathing apparatus as well as waterproofed camera equipment. In addition, special lights and lenses may be needed to adjust for dark or murky water. Here, a photographer has “captured” a young turtle as it emerges from its hiding place on the sea floor. Jozon Michel/Agency Hoa Qui/Phototake NYC Recent Technological Advances New technologies are beginning to blur the lines between photography and other image-making systems. In some new forms of still photography, silver-halide emulsions have been replaced by electronic methods of recording visual information. The Sony Corporation has developed a still video camera called the Mavica, based on an earlier industrial model, the ProMavica. Unlike the conventional video camera, which uses magnetic tape, the Mavica records visual data—light reflected from objects in the scene photographed—on a floppy disk. The images are viewed on a monitor connected to the Mavica's playback unit. Canon U.S.A. has also entered the still-video-camera market. Its RC-470 camera requires a still video player for viewing, but the Xap Shot, which records 50 still images, with 300 to 400 lines of resolution, on a 5-cm (2-in) floppy disk, does not require any special equipment. It can be connected directly to a television receiver. Paper prints of the recorded images can also be made, using a special, laser-driver computer printer. Digitization of photographic images has begun to revolutionize professional photography, giving rise to a specialized field known as image processing. Digitization of the visual data in a photograph (that is, conversion of the data into binary numbers using a computer) makes it possible to manipulate the photographic image by means of specially developed computer programs. The Scitex image-processing system, the commercial and advertising industry standard in the late 1980s, enables the operator to move or erase elements in a photograph, to change colors, to fashion composite images from several photographs, and to adjust contrast or sharpness. Other, less-sophisticated systems, such as Macintosh's Digital Darkroom, allow similar operations. The quality of computer-generated images was, until recently, inferior to strictly photographic images. Most nonindustrial color printers and laser printers cannot yet produce images with the tonal range, resolution, and saturation of photographs. Some systems, however, such as Presentation Technologies' Montage Slidewriter and the Linotronic system are capable of producing magazine-quality images. Special Techniques By the end of the 19th century, photography was already playing an important specialized role in astronomy. Since that time, many special photographic techniques have been developed; they serve as important tools in a number of scientific and technological areas.

      

High-Speed Photography and Cinematography Most modern cameras allow exposures with shutter speeds of up to 1/1000 second. Shorter exposure times can be attained by illuminating the object with a short light flash. In 1931 the American engineer Harold E. Edgerton developed an electronic strobe light with which he produced flashes of 1/500,000 second, enabling him to photograph a bullet in flight. By the use of a series of flashes, the progressive stages of objects in motion, such as a flying bird, can be recorded on the same piece of film. Synchronization of the flash and the moving object is achieved by using a photocell to trigger the strobe light. The photocell is set up so that it is illuminated by a beam of light that is interrupted by the fast-moving object as soon as the object comes into the field of the camera. More recently, high-speed electro-optical and magneto-optical shutters have been developed that allow exposure times of up to a few billionths of a second. Both types of shutters make use of the fact that the polarization plane of polarized light in certain materials is rotated under the influence of an electric or magnetic field. The magneto-optical shutter is made up of a glass cylinder that is placed inside a coil. A polarization filter is placed at each side of the glass cylinder. Both filters are crossed, and light that passes through the first filter becomes polarized and is stopped by the second filter. If a short electric pulse is passed through the coil, the polarization plane of the light in the glass cylinder is rotated, and light can pass through the system. The electro-optical shutter, built in a similar way, consists of a cell with two electrodes that is filled with nitrobenzene and is placed between the two crossed polarization filters. The polarization plane inside the liquid is rotated by a short electrical pulse at the electrodes. Electro-optical shutters have been used to photograph the sequence of events during an explosion of an atomic bomb. Very fast motion can also be studied by high-speed cinematography. Conventional techniques, in which individual still photographs are taken in a fast sequence, allow a maximum rate of 500 frames per second. By keeping the film stationary and using a fast rotating mirror (up to 5000 revolutions per second) that moves the images in a sequential order over the film, rates of a million pictures per second can be attained. For extremely high rates, such as a billion pictures per second, classical optical methods are abandoned and cathode ray tubes are used to make the exposures. Aerial Photography Special cameras are often equipped with several lenses and large film magazines and mounted vibration-free on airplanes. They are used in extensive land surveys for map-making, for studying the growth of cities for city planning, for detecting traces left by ancient civilizations, and for observing land use and the distribution of animal populations and vegetation. Cameras mounted in satellites are also used for such photography. A special application of aerial photography is military surveillance and reconnaissance; some reconnaissance satellites are equipped with cameras having objectives of long focal lengths that produce images, of very high resolution, on which cars and trucks can be recognized. Advanced satellite photographic methods, which until recently were used almost exclusively by military, intelligence, and weather agencies, are increasingly being employed by geologists to uncover mineral resources and by news organizations to obtain instantaneous photographs of distant news events. Underwater Photography Underwater cameras require a watertight housing with a glass or plastic window in front of the lens. Usually, during daytime, photographs can be taken at depths to 10 meters (more than 30 feet). Greater depths require artificial light, such as an electronic flash or floodlight. The quality of the photographs depends on the clarity of the water; in water full of particles, the light reflected from the particles renders anything but close-ups impractical. Underwater photographers often use wide-angle lenses to compensate for the effect that anything under water appears 25 percent closer than it is in reality, because the refractive index of water is greater than that of air. Recording the beauty of the underwater world with the camera is a popular activity of scuba-diving enthusiasts. Special underwater cameras in pressure-resistant housings are also used in deep-sea exploration. Scientific Photography In scientific research, photographic plates and films are among the most important recording tools, not only because of their versatility but also because the photographic emulsion is sensitive to ultraviolet and infrared light, to X rays and gamma rays, and to charged particles. Radioactivity, for example, was discovered because of the accidental blackening of photographic film. Many optical instruments, such as the microscope, the telescope, and the spectroscope, can be used to obtain photographs. Many other scientific instruments such as electron microscopes, oscilloscopes, and computer terminals are also equipped with devices to take photographs or with adapters that permit the use of a regular camera. In laboratory research, Polaroid cameras are often used to obtain quick results. An important research activity in particle physics is the study of thousands of photographs taken in cloud or bubble chambers in order to find interactions between particles of interest. Tracks of charged particles can also be recorded directly on special films. The photographic recording of X-ray pictures, called radiography, has become an important diagnostic tool in medicine. Radiography, using very energetic X rays or gamma rays, is also employed to detect welding defects and structural defects in pressure vessels, pipes, and mechanical parts, especially those that are critical for safety reasons, as in nuclear power plants, airplanes, and submarines. In many cases the film, wrapped in a light-tight envelope, is simply applied against one side of the object, while the object is irradiated from the other side. The photographic recording of X rays is also used in structural studies of crystalline materials. With the development of the laser, a technique called lensless photography, or holography, became available for producing three-dimensional images. Astronomical Photography In no other field of science has photography played a more important role than in astronomy. By placing the photographic plate in the focal plane of a telescope, astronomers can obtain precise records of the locations and brightness of celestial bodies. By comparing photographs of the same region of the sky taken at different times, proper motions of certain objects such as comets can be detected. An important quality of the photographic plate for astronomy is its ability to record, by means of long time-exposures, faint astronomical objects that cannot be observed visually. Recently, the sensitivity of photographic recording has been improved by image-enhancing techniques. Starlight liberates electrons on a photocathode that is placed in the focal plane of the telescope. The liberated electrons are directed to a photographic plate to form the image. Computer enhancement techniques create sharper, more detailed images from sometimes fuzzy and distant photographs from outer space. The computers digitize the photographic information and then reproduce it with greatly improved resolution. Microfilming Microfilming consists of photographically reducing images to a very small size. An early application was the photographing of bank checks in the 1920s; now the technique is widely used to store information that otherwise would require too much space. For example, newspapers and magazines are photographed on roll film and can be displayed on desk-top projectors equipped with systems that permit the desired pages to be found quickly. Another application is the microfiche, a piece of 10-by-15-cm (4-by-6-in) film on which up to 70 frames, each corresponding to one page of text, can be stored. Each frame can be viewed individually on a desk-top projector. This system makes possible the storage of the entire catalog of a library on a relatively small number of microfiches.

      

Daguerreotype Images In the early stages of photography, the daguerreotype image became popular. Pictures like these were created with silver-coated plates and treated with iodine vapor to make them sensitive to light. After the plates were exposed, mercury vapor developed the images and a salt solution fixed them. Dorling Kindersley Historical Development The term “camera,” as well as the apparatus itself, derives from camera obscura, which is Latin for “dark room” or “dark chamber.” The original camera obscura was a darkened room with a minute hole in one wall. Light entering the room through this hole projected an image from the outside on the opposite, darkened wall. Although the image formed this way was inverted and blurry, artists used this device, long before film was invented, to sketch by hand scenes projected by the “camera.” Over the course of three centuries, the camera obscura evolved into a handheld box, and the pinhole was fitted with an optical lens to sharpen the image. 18th Century The photosensitivity of certain silver compounds, particularly silver nitrate and silver chloride, had been known for some time before the British scientists Thomas Wedgwood and Sir Humphry Davy began experiments late in the 18th century in the recording of photographic images. Using paper coated with silver chloride, they succeeded in producing images of paintings, silhouettes of leaves, and human profiles. These photographs were not permanent, however, because the entire surface of the paper blackened after exposure to light.

             

Infrared Photography With special dyes, photographic emulsions can be made sensitive to light in the invisible infrared portion of the spectrum. Infrared light cuts through haze and enables clear photographs to be taken from long distances or high altitudes. Because any object radiates in infrared light, it can be photographed in complete darkness. Infrared photographic techniques are used wherever small differences in temperature, or in absorption or reflection capacities for infrared light, have to be detected. Some substances, particularly organic ones such as vegetation, reflect infrared light more strongly than other substances do; infrared films tend to reproduce as white the tones of green leaves and plants, especially if used in conjunction with a deep-red filter. Infrared film has many technical and military applications, including the detection of camouflage, which in the infrared photograph appears darker than the surrounding area. Infrared photography is also used in medical diagnosis, in the detection of forgeries in handwriting as well as in paintings, and for the study of deteriorated documents. It was used, for example, in deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls. Ultraviolet Photography Normal film is sensitive to ultraviolet light. In one method of ultraviolet photography, an ultraviolet light source is used to illuminate the object, and the camera lens is provided with a filter that permits only the passage of ultraviolet light. The second method makes use of fluorescence caused by ultraviolet light; a filter used on the camera absorbs ultraviolet light and allows the passage of the fluorescent light. One important application of ultraviolet photography is the study of forged documents, because traces of erased writing become detectable in ultraviolet light. In several processes used to produce photographic images in the ultraviolet range of the spectrum, plastics and other chemicals that react to ultraviolet light replace the silver-halide emulsion of conventional film. In one process, surface areas of a plastic substance exposed to ultraviolet rays harden in direct proportion to the amount of exposure, and removal of the unhardened areas leaves a raised photographic image. In other processes, a thin film of chemicals is suspended between plastic sheets. When exposed to ultraviolet rays, these chemicals emit gas bubbles, in amounts proportional to the exposure received in the area. The bubbles expand and become visible on the application of heat to the sheets, creating a transparency in which the gas bubbles form the image. Another type of plastic, when heated, reacts chemically with the gas bubbles so that a stained positive image is obtained on the plastic sheets. In the photochromic film developed by the National Cash Register Company, a dye sensitive to ultraviolet light is used. Because the dye has no grain structure, enormous enlargements can be made. For example, enlargements can be made from film on which a complete book is contained in an area the size of a postage stamp. Photo Reportage In a sense, of course, all photography is reportage, recording an image of what the eye and camera lens behold. The earliest experimenters with the medium looked on it as no more than this; by the 1860s, however, a split in theory divided those photographers who continued to use the camera to record straightforwardly from those who claimed photography to be an alternative for the other visual arts. Documentary photography combines the use of pictures as record and as evidence; a subgenre may be distinguished as social documentary.

      

Migrant Worker's Family During the 1930s, the United States Farm Security Administration hired Dorothea Lange and other photographers to document the social devastation the Great Depression caused among migratory workers and sharecroppers. This photograph, taken by Lange in 1936, captures the despair and determination of a migrant worker and her children. Lange’s photographs from this period appear in An American Exodus, published in 1939. THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE Documentary Photography Among the earliest documentary photographs are those taken by the English photographer Roger Fenton, which vividly brought the Crimean War (1853-1856) home to English viewers. The grim realities of the American Civil War were documented by Mathew B. Brady, Alexander Gardner, and Timothy H. O'Sullivan. After the war, Gardner and O'Sullivan extensively photographed the western United States, along with Carleton E. Watkins; Eadweard Muybridge, better known for his studies of figures in motion; William Henry Jackson, whose images of the Yellowstone area were instrumental in making it the first national park; and Edward Sheriff Curtis, who did a series of studies of Native Americans. The clear, detailed prints of these photographers provide a permanent record of the unspoiled wilderness. Views of other scenic places and of exotic lands are preserved in the work of a number of 19th-century English photographers who traveled incredible distances laden with the cumbersome equipment of the day to record scenes and people. Francis Bedford photographed the Middle East in 1860; his compatriot Samuel Bourne made about 900 pictures of the Himalayas on three trips between 1863 and 1866; and Francis Frith worked in Egypt about 1860. His photographs of sites and monuments (many of which are now destroyed or dispersed) provide a record still useful to archaeologists, as do those pictures taken in 1849-51 by the French photographer Maxime DuCamp. A popular form of home entertainment in the 19th century was provided by the stereoscope pictures taken by these traveling photographers, using double-lens cameras. When viewed through a special holder, these photographs take on a three-dimensional quality. With Charles Bennett's invention of the dry plate negative in 1878, the task of the traveling view photographer became much less arduous. Instead of having to develop the plate on the spot, while it was still wet, a photographer could store the dry plate to be developed elsewhere at a later time. Interest in such view photographs has been revived in recent years, and they have been the subject of several exhibitions and books. Among these are Imperial China: Photographs 1850-1912 (based on a 1979 exhibition at Asia House Gallery, New York City); Princely India: Photographs of Raja Deer Lala Dayal, Court Photographer (1884-1910) to the Premier Prince of India (1980), edited by Clark Worswick; and Photographs for the Tsar: The Pioneering Color Photography of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II (1980). This last publication is a collection of photographs of czarist Russia between 1909 and 1914, purchased in 1948 by the Library of Congress. Social Documentary Instead of recording life in other parts of the world, a number of 19th-century photographers devoted themselves, with more subjective concern, to documenting life and conditions immediately about them. Thus, the English photographer John Thomson documented the ordinary life of London's working class during the 1870s in his volume of photographs, with accompanying text, Street Life in London (1877); and the Danish-born American police reporter Jacob August Riis did a series of photographs of the slums of New York City from 1887 to 1892. With the intent of forcing a change in slum conditions, Riis brought them to the attention of the public in two photographic volumes, How the Other Half Lives (1890) and Children of the Poor (1892). These pictures—and Riis's written commentary—were directly responsible for positive social changes. Between 1905 and 1910, Lewis Wickes Hine, an American sociologist and champion of child labor laws, also recorded the oppressed of America in his pictures of ironworkers and steelworkers, miners, impoverished European immigrants, and especially child laborers. Although his photographs were not consciously taken for documentary purposes, an invaluable record of the life of an American black community is preserved in the work of James Van Der Zee, who photographed residents of Harlem, in New York City, for many decades. The city photographs of the French photographer Eugene Atget stand halfway between social documentary and art photography; their superb composition and expression of personal vision transcend a purely documentary function. Atget, perhaps one of the most prolific of the documentarians at the turn of the century, made an enormous number of often poetic scenes of ordinary life in and around his beloved Paris between 1898 and 1927. The preservation and publication of his work is due to the efforts of another gifted documenter of the urban scene, Berenice Abbott, many of whose photographs record New York City of the 1930s. During the Great Depression, a group of photographers was hired by the U.S. Farm Security Administration to document those areas of the country hardest hit by the catastrophe. The photographers, including Walker Evans, Russell Lee, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, and Arthur Rothstein, documented the condition of the poverty-stricken rural United States. The result—pictures of migratory workers and sharecroppers, and their homes, schools, churches, and belongings—was extremely persuasive both as evidence and as art. Evans's contributions, with a text by the American writer James Agee, were separately published under the title Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941); the book is considered a classic in its field.

      

Contrast and Photojournalism A black-and-white photo is particularly effective in capturing this 1968 protest march in Tennessee. The photographer achieves striking contrasts, framing the line of protesters between bayonets and tanks, emphasizing the theme of black and white with lighting, and singling out the white man with no sign and no glasses. UPI/BETTMANN Photojournalism Photojournalism differs from other documentary photography in that its purpose is to tell a particular story in visual terms. Photojournalists work for daily and periodical newspapers, magazines, news wire services, and other news publications covering events in areas ranging from sports to the arts to politics. One of the foremost of them is French photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson, who since 1930 has worked to document what he calls the “decisive moment.” His belief is that the dynamics in any given situation eventually reach a peak, at which time a photograph will capture the most powerful image possible. Sensing ahead of time that exact peak moment to trip the shutter is a technique of which Cartier-Bresson is a master; technological advances in the 1930s in equipment (notably improvements in small cameras such as the Leica) and in film sensitivity facilitated such recording of instantaneous vision. Many of Cartier-Bresson's images are as strong in design as they are in emotion and are considered fine art, photojournalism, and documents simultaneously. Another French photojournalist, the Hungarian-born Brassai, was also committed to recording the fleeting expressive moment—in his case, the more provocative side of Parisian nightlife. His photographs were collected and published as Paris de nuit (1933). The American war correspondent Robert Capa began his career photographing the Spanish civil war in the late 1930s; like Cartier-Bresson, he was interested in recording the impact on civilians as well as battle scenes. Capa also covered the landing of U.S. troops in Europe on D-Day in World War II, and the war between the French and the Indochinese, during which, in 1954, he was killed. More recently, the English photographer Donald McCullin produced a powerful indictment of war. His images of battle and its effects are collected in The Destruction Business (1971) and Is Anyone Taking Any Notice? (1973). In the late 1930s such pictorial magazines as Life and Look in the United States and Picture Post in England were established; these publications featured photographic essays with text based on and subordinate to the pictures. This widely popular form is particularly associated with Life's great staff photographers Margaret Bourke-White and W. Eugene Smith; an example of Bourke-White's work now recognized as an important American historical document is an 11-page spread devoted to life in Muncie, Indiana. These magazines went on to provide extensive photographic coverage of World War II and the Korean War (1950-1953), with pictures taken by Bourke-White, Capa, Smith, David Douglas Duncan, and several other American photojournalists. Subsequently, using photographs to bring about social change—like Riis before him—Smith documented the horrible effects of mercury poisoning in Minamata, a Japanese fishing village contaminated by leakage from a local industrial plant. Two documentary photographers who have produced extraordinarily expressive works are Ernest Cole, whose House of Bondage (1967) explores the miseries of the apartheid system, and the Czech Josef Koudelka, noted for his splendidly composed narrative pictures of Eastern Europe's Gypsies. Commercial and Publicity Photography Just as photography has been used to inspire and influence social or political opinion, it has also been used, since the 1920s, to encourage and direct consumerism and as an adjunct to publicity efforts. Commercial photographers produce photographs that are used in advertisements or as illustrations in books, magazines, and other publications. They use a range of sophisticated techniques to make their photographs attractive and compelling. The impact of this type of imagery has proved a strong cultural influence. Commercial and publicity photography also has been a driving force behind the evolution of high quality photographic reproduction on the printed page. Notable in this field are Irving Penn and Cecil Beaton, photographers of the fashionable rich; Richard Avedon, who achieved fame as a glamour and fashion photographer; and Helmut Newton, controversial fashion and portrait photographer whose work is frequently overtly erotic.

      

Art Photography The pioneering work of Daguerre and Talbot led to two distinct types of early photography. The direct positive daguerreotype, prized for its sharpness of detail, was widely used for family portraits, as a substitute for the far more expensive painted portrait. Later, the daguerreoty period was supplanted in popularity by the even more inexpensive tintype, which used thin iron sheets instead of glass plates. Talbot's calotype process, on the other hand, was less precise in detail but had the advantage that it produced a negative from which multiple copies could be made. Although the calotype was primarily associated with view photography, a notable use of the process for portraiture was made from 1843 to 1848 by the Scottish painter David Octavius Hill and his photographer-collaborator Robert Adamson. Commissioned to do a group portrait of Scottish clergymen, Hill enlisted Adamson's aid in making a series of photographic studies on which eventually to base his painting. These photographs are today valued as masterful revelations of character and of the life of the day. Photography as an Alternative Art Form From the 1860s through the 1890s photography was conceived of as an alternative to drawing and painting. The earliest critical standards applied to photographs were, therefore, those used for judging art, and it was accepted that the camera would be of great use to artists because it could catch details more quickly and with greater fidelity than the eye and hand; in other words, photography was viewed as a shortcut to art—as Hill and Adamson had employed it. Indeed, by the 1870s it was accepted practice to pose subjects carefully in the studio and to retouch and tint photographs to make them more like paintings. An interesting parallel to this exists in the practice of Indian photographers from the time photography was introduced into India in the 1840s. As revealed in a U.S. exhibition, “Through Indian Eyes” (1982), they posed their subjects and manipulated their prints (largely portraits) to make them resemble Indian miniature paintings, obliterating indications of Western canons of space and perspective and painting in ornate backgrounds. The Swedish photographer Oscar Gustave Rejlander and the English professional photographer Henry Peach Robinson pioneered the method of creating one print from several different negatives in the middle and late 1800s. Robinson, originally trained as an artist, based his composite, storytelling images on preliminary pencil sketches. His influence as an art photographer was pervasive; for example, some of the works of his compatriot Julia Margaret Cameron—a series of allegorical tableaus—were posed and costumed in emulation of contemporary painting styles. Photography in Its Own Right Cameron's portrait studies are closeup, dramatically lighted photographs of her friends, members of English literary and scientific circles, and are powerful revelations of character. The work of Nadar (the professional name of Gaspard Félix Tournachon, a French caricaturist who became a photographer, is another noteworthy exception to contemporary artificiality. His cartes-de-visite (mounted photographs the size of calling cards) are a series of simply posed, incisively direct portraits of Parisian intelligentsia. Shot against plain backgrounds, with diffused light to bring out details, these photographs are witnesses to Nadar's powers of observation. An interesting reversal of the early pattern of art influencing photography occurred with the work of English-American photographer Eadweard Muybridge. His sequence of shots of animals and people in motion revealed to artists and scientists physiological details previously unobserved. The American painter Thomas Eakins also experimented with motion photography, although mainly as a reference tool for figure painting. The approach to photography as a substitute for the visual arts was challenged by the English amateur photographer Peter Henry Emerson, who urged photographers to turn directly to nature for inspiration and to limit their manipulation of inherent photographic processes. His book Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art (1889) was based on his belief that photography is an art in itself, independent of painting. Later, he modified this statement, theorizing that mere reproduction of nature is not art. Emerson's other writings—distinguishing art photography from photographs produced for nonaesthetic purposes, and discussing the arrangement of photographic exhibitions—further defined the art aspect of photography. Photo-Secession As a judge of an amateur photographic competition in 1887, Emerson awarded a prize to Alfred Stieglitz, an American photographer then studying abroad, whose work exemplified Emerson's own views. Stieglitz returned to the United States in 1890 and made a series of straightforward pictures of New York City in different seasons and weather conditions. In 1902 he founded the Photo-Secession movement, which championed photography as an independent art form. Members of the group included Gertrude Käsebier, Edward Steichen, Clarence White, and many others. Their official publication was the superbly produced Camera Work (1903-1917). After the Photo-Secessionists disbanded, Stieglitz continued to foster new talent by exhibitions at his gallery, 291—at 291 Fifth Avenue in New York City. Among those whose works were shown there were the American photographers Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Ansel Easton Adams, and Imogen Cunningham. Before World War I (1914-1918), Stieglitz, Steichen, and Strand had used soft focus and printed their photographs on paper with a special texture, in order to produce impressionistic images reminiscent both of Japanese prints and the atmospheric paintings of the American artist J.A.M. Whistler. In the 1920s, however, they turned to capturing minute details and abstracting natural forms, with precision and deep emotional effect; Steichen, in particular, turned to portraiture. They wanted, as Strand wrote, to free “the photograph from the domination of painting.” Some of Strand's work was published by Stieglitz in the last two issues of Camera Work; they represent a break with the traditional subject matter of art photography and a move toward recognizing the aesthetic value of everyday objects. A few years later, the German photographer Albert Renger-Patzsch, working independently, reached the same conclusion. In 1922 Renger-Patzsch began making closeup photographs of natural and manufactured objects.

      

Manipulative Photography Photography had not freed itself entirely from the influence of painting, however. In Europe in the 1920s the rebellious notions of the Dada movement found expression in art photography in the work of the artists Laszlo Moholy-Nagy of Hungary and Man Ray of the United States, both of whom employed the manipulative approach. For their photograms or “Rayographs” they even dispensed with the camera itself, making abstract images by arranging objects on light-sensitive surfaces. They also experimented with solarized prints, a method of reexposing a print to light during the developing process, resulting in partial or total reversal of black and white tones and exaggerated outlines. As photography had originally freed painting from its traditional role of recording visual facts, new principles adapted from Dada and surrealist painting and from collage released art photography from simple, nonmanipulative techniques. Straight Photography At the same time, however, there remained a group of American photographers who, following Stieglitz, pursued straight—that is, nonmanipulative—photography. In the 1930s several California photographers formed an informal group called f/64 (f/64 is the diaphragm aperture on a lens that gives great depth of field). The members of f/64, who included Weston, Adams, and Cunningham, shared the belief that photographers should exploit the inherent, unique capabilities of the camera to produce an image capturing faraway details in as sharp focus as objects close at hand. These photographers produced straightforward images of natural objects, people, and landscapes. Adams was preeminently the photographer of the effects of light on scenery of the western United States; Weston and Cunningham were more concerned with abstract natural forms. Recent Trends Several trends have developed—most noticeably in the United States—since the 1950s, as the distinction between documentary and art photography has become less clear. A tendency toward introspection characterized the work of such photographers as Minor White and Aaron Siskind. They used photographs as “equivalents” (Stieglitz's description of his own late work) of personal emotions and thoughts. Other photographers, such as Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand, became concerned with the social landscape. The photographs in Frank's book The Americans (1959) make an ironic comment on modern life in the United States. A third trend is toward manipulative photography. From the early 1960s on, drastic experiments in manipulative photography tended more and more to the impersonal and abstract. Many of the printing devices used in the very early years of photography—such as making composite prints, retouching, and painting over photographs—have been revived. Examples include the “phototransformations” of the Greek-born American artist Lucas Samaras, the eerie, dreamlike images formed from multiple negatives characteristic of the American photographer Jerry Uelsmann, and the expressionist, disturbing images of Cindy Sherman. Other sorts of manipulation are seen in the work of William Wegman, who coaxed his dog, Man Ray, into an extraordinary series of attitudes for his book, Man's Best Friend (1982). In the opposite direction, neorealist painters have incorporated actual photographs in many of their paintings. The work of color photographers is beginning to overcome the earlier critical prejudice against the use of color in art photography. These photographers include the American Eliot Porter, known for his exquisite landscapes; Marie Cosindas, who has created elegant and haunting still lifes and portraits with Polaroid color material; William Eggleston, noted for his vibrant images of commonplace subjects; and Stephen Shore, known for his urban landscapes.

      

Recognition of Photography as an Art Form Photography is now firmly established as an art medium. A growing number of schools offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in fine arts with an emphasis on photography. Original photographic prints are sold to collectors by galleries, and photographs (as well as pieces of photographic equipment) of historical interest come up for sale regularly at auctions. Critical essays on photography and histories of its development, as well as books reproducing the work of leading photographers, are published in great numbers each year. Periodicals devoted to photography as an art (as opposed to instructional magazines for the hobbyist or professional) publish studies of the aesthetics of photography. Major museums throughout the world have extensive photographic collections, and special museums also exist, such as the International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York, the International Center of Photography in New York City, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, California, and the Museum of Photography in Riverside, California. Microsoft Illustrations & Literature Courtesy of: "Photography," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.