The invention of photography provided a new picture-making process, which was based not on synthesis but on selection. The difference was quite simple because paintings were constructed from a storehouse of traditional schemes, skills and attitudes. However photographs, were taken. Baudelarie said "This industry, by invading the territories of art, has become art's most mortal enemy.", with this reference, he was actually half right. Since the early days of photography, it had been a method used by thousands who shared no common tradition or any training, who also considered their medium as a science in various ways, an art, trade, an entertainment. These thousands were often unaware of each others work. The people that had invented photographs were actually scientists and painters and the first camera was a daguerreotype. Some of the pictures were products of knowledge, skill, sensibility and invention, however there were also pictures that were products of accident, improvisation, and experimentation. Although, no matter if it were created by art or luck, each item was apart of traditional habits of seeing.
By the early eighties the refractory wet plate had replaced the dry plate process, requiring the plate to be ready before exposure and processed before the emulsion had dried. The dry plate created the hand camera and snapshot. A high number of the new images were memorable and also significant beyond initial intention. What was interesting about photography, was not only the way it was able to describe things, but also the things photographs chose to describe. A photographer was able to learn from 2 ways; from a worker's intimate understanding of tools and materials and from other photographs.
By the early eighties the refractory wet plate had replaced the dry plate process, requiring the plate to be ready before exposure and processed before the emulsion had dried. The dry plate created the hand camera and snapshot. A high number of the new images were memorable and also significant beyond initial intention. What was interesting about photography, was not only the way it was able to describe things, but also the things photographs chose to describe. A photographer was able to learn from 2 ways; from a worker's intimate understanding of tools and materials and from other photographs.
lThere are independent aspects of a single problem. The formulation of vocabulary and also critical perspective are unique to the phenomena of photography.
The thing itself-
The photographer learned he was dealing with the actual thing and that the world itself is an artist of incomparable inventiveness. The factuality of pictures are different to reality as a lot of it was filtered out, which suggests that the subject and the picture are not the same thing. This was all an artistic problem not a scientific one, as the public believed that the photograph could not lie. Therefore, it was also easier for the photographer if he also believed this. There was a rising idea from Hawthornes Holgrave which was that what our eyes saw was an illusion and what was seen through the camera was the truth. He was right to give more credence to the camera over his own eyes, seeing as the image would survive the subject.
The detail-
The photographer is restricted in the ability to try use facts to tell the truth. He was unable to pose the truth as it was only possible to record it if he found it. This was mostly found in nature, usually in a fragmented form, that was also difficult to explain as it was not as a story but more so clues. With this fragment, he could isolate, document and claim it special significance. With the past century declining a creation of a narrative in a painting, has been ascribed to the rise of photography, this relieving the painter from having to story tell.
The frame-
A photographers picture was never conceived and instead was selected and meant the subject was never discrete. The edges of film showed what he thought was most important, however the subject being shot was ectended in four directions. Then act of choosing and eliminating in photography forces concentration on the picture edge, which is highly important. This is because it all seperates and creates the shapes. During the frist half of the centuryof photography's lifetime, all photographs had to be printed at the same size as the exposed plate. A disadvantage was that enlarging was actually quite impractical as it meant that the photographer could not change his mind to only use a fragment of the picture, whist in the darkroom.
Time-
All photographs have been presented as time exposures of a choice of shorter or longer duration, which allows each to describe a discrete parcel of time to us. When looking at the history of pictures, a photograph only describes that exact period of time. Photography insinuates us singularly to the past and the future, in so far that they exist in the present. In the days of slow films and slow lenses being used, photographs described a time segment of several seconds or more. If the subject had moved, the result of the image was absurd and unrealistic, such as a dog with two heads and therefore considered as partial failures. Photographic material was made more sensitive, which included the making of lenses and shutters becoming faster, and making photography an exploration of rapidly moving subjects. Incapacitating these short moments of time has caused fascination and allowed discovery of the beauty in fragmenting time.
Vantage point-
Photography has taught to look for beauty of a subject from an unexpected vantage point, and let us see pictures that show us the sense of the scene, however still clasping onto the narrative meaning of the photo. As photographers, they choose the necessity only from options availanle to them, which may sometimes result in pictures of the other side of the proscenium.
The thing itself-
The photographer learned he was dealing with the actual thing and that the world itself is an artist of incomparable inventiveness. The factuality of pictures are different to reality as a lot of it was filtered out, which suggests that the subject and the picture are not the same thing. This was all an artistic problem not a scientific one, as the public believed that the photograph could not lie. Therefore, it was also easier for the photographer if he also believed this. There was a rising idea from Hawthornes Holgrave which was that what our eyes saw was an illusion and what was seen through the camera was the truth. He was right to give more credence to the camera over his own eyes, seeing as the image would survive the subject.
The detail-
The photographer is restricted in the ability to try use facts to tell the truth. He was unable to pose the truth as it was only possible to record it if he found it. This was mostly found in nature, usually in a fragmented form, that was also difficult to explain as it was not as a story but more so clues. With this fragment, he could isolate, document and claim it special significance. With the past century declining a creation of a narrative in a painting, has been ascribed to the rise of photography, this relieving the painter from having to story tell.
The frame-
A photographers picture was never conceived and instead was selected and meant the subject was never discrete. The edges of film showed what he thought was most important, however the subject being shot was ectended in four directions. Then act of choosing and eliminating in photography forces concentration on the picture edge, which is highly important. This is because it all seperates and creates the shapes. During the frist half of the centuryof photography's lifetime, all photographs had to be printed at the same size as the exposed plate. A disadvantage was that enlarging was actually quite impractical as it meant that the photographer could not change his mind to only use a fragment of the picture, whist in the darkroom.
Time-
All photographs have been presented as time exposures of a choice of shorter or longer duration, which allows each to describe a discrete parcel of time to us. When looking at the history of pictures, a photograph only describes that exact period of time. Photography insinuates us singularly to the past and the future, in so far that they exist in the present. In the days of slow films and slow lenses being used, photographs described a time segment of several seconds or more. If the subject had moved, the result of the image was absurd and unrealistic, such as a dog with two heads and therefore considered as partial failures. Photographic material was made more sensitive, which included the making of lenses and shutters becoming faster, and making photography an exploration of rapidly moving subjects. Incapacitating these short moments of time has caused fascination and allowed discovery of the beauty in fragmenting time.
Vantage point-
Photography has taught to look for beauty of a subject from an unexpected vantage point, and let us see pictures that show us the sense of the scene, however still clasping onto the narrative meaning of the photo. As photographers, they choose the necessity only from options availanle to them, which may sometimes result in pictures of the other side of the proscenium.
At the cafe - Roberto Doisneau
The thing itself in this image is two people at what seems like a cafe, with some glasses of wine, and they are the main subjects if the image. However I thing the women is the more important character in this image, because she is more in focus than the man and can see her more clearly and in extra detail. The detail is sort of as i mentioned the small pieces that represent facts to allow a story line. The small detail of the lady being more focused could suggest she is the main character in the story line, her positioning of being turned to the side from the man he seems to be speaking to her, suggests maybe she is not very interested or she is thinking about what to answer him. She is fiddling with her wine glass, which could say she is anxious or worried about there topic of speech. The frame in this is important as the photographer has most likely cut off people that may of been to the sides of these two people, as they are the main subjects and more important. They are a bit higher up then the centre of the image, as at the bottom he has left in some of the bar they are sat at, allowing us to make assumptions of where they are and think of why they have met there. There are people behind the man and woman, however they are not in focus, showing they are just in the background and have no importance to the storyline. The time that is being represented is the past as it was most likely a conversation that has happened. It looks quite a few years ago from the attire of the people in this image. For the vantage point, the photographer has chosen to take the image from the left side straight on, this as mentioned, allowing the women to look as the important subject of the image as we are on her side in the frame. |