The Camera Arts

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The Camera Arts

• Time and the Fourth Dimension

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a process of instant assemblage, instant
collage. - Robert Rauschenberg
Walker Evans, Roadside Store between Tuscaloosa
and Greensboro, Alabama, 1936
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Early History of Photography

• camera is the Latin word for room
• in the 16th century the camera obscura a
  darkened room was used by artists to copy
  nature accurately eventually small portable
  dark boxes came into use
• the major drawback images could not be
  preserved

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Camera Obscura
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The Birth of Photography

• Photogenic Drawing and
• The Daguerrotype

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Photogenic Drawing

• Invented in 1839 by William Henry Fox Talbot.
• Negative images are fixed on paper using light
  sensitive chemicals

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William Henry Talbot Fox, Botanical, 1839
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The Daguerrotype

• Invented in 1839 by two inventors Joseph
  Nicéphore Niépce and Louis Jacques Mandé
  Daguerre.
• The use of light sensitive chemicals on a
  polished metal plate produced a permanent
  positive image.

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Pros and Cons of Daguerrotype

• The medium was an instant success.
• It became the preferred medium for portraiture.
• The availability of portraits were no longer
  limited to the wealthy.

• The process of preparing, exposing and developing
  the plate was lengthy and time consuming.
• The sitter had to remain absolutely still during
  the exposure period (from 1 to 10 minutes) to
  avoid blurring.
• The image could not be reproduced.

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Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, Le Boulevard du
Temple, 1839
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From now on, painting is dead! Paul
Delaroche, painter
Richard Beard, Maria Edgeworth,
1841, Daguerrotype.
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Calotype

• Talbot improved upon the photogenic drawing
  process by using sensitized paper.
• The exposure time was greatly reduced (from
  minutes to seconds) and produced a latent image
  that could be developed by dipping the paper in
  gallic acid.
• This process is the basis of modern photography

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William Henry Fox Talbot, The Open Door, 1843
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Wet-Plate Collodion

• Introduced in 1850 and almost universally adopted
  in 5 years.
• A dark-room technique.
• Liquid collodion (pyroxyline dissolved in alcohol
  or ether) is poured over a glass plate bathed in
  a solution of silver nitrate.

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Wet-Plate Collodion

• Exposure time was short 15 minutes.
• Process cumbersome and TOXIC.

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Julia Margaret Cameron
Self-Portrait
I Wait, 1860s
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Documentary Photography
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Timothy OSullivan, Harvest of Death, Gettysburg,
Pa., 1863
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The tension between form and content.
Timothy OSullivan, Canyon de Chelly, Arizona,
1870
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The tension between form and content.
Alfred Stieglitz, Evening from the Shelton, 1931
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The tension between form and content.
Charles Sheeler, Criss-Crossed Conveyors Ford
Plant, 1927
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The tension between form and content.
Paula Martino, Steel Spiral-Alcratraz
Penitentiary, 2005
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Filo won the Pulitzer Prize in 1971 for this
photograph.
John Paul Filo, Kent State-Girl Screaming over
Dead Body, May 4, 1970
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Word and Image
Ron Haeberle, Peter Brandt, and the Art Workers
Coalition, Q. And Babies? A. And Babies., 1970
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Conflicts between the real and the ideal.
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Color Photography
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Joel Meyerwitz on the use of color photography

• Color makes everything more interesting. Color
  suggests more things to look at, new subjects for
  me. Color suggests that light itself is a
  subject.
• ..Theres more content! The form for the
  content is more complex, more interesting to work
  with.

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Joel Meyerowitz, Porch, Provincetown, 1977
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Digital Photography
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Andreas Gursky, 99 Cent, 1999
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From Still Pictures to Film

• The Birth of Movies

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D.W. Griffith, Innovator and Master of Film
Editing

• Griffith sought to create visual variety using an
  alternating repertoire of shots.
• He innovated the full shot, medium shot, close up
  and extreme close up, the long shot, the pan, and
  the traveling shot.

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The Birth of A Nation
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The Wizard of Oz, 1939
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The Sorcerers Apprentice, in Fantasia, 1940
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Video Art
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Nam Paik June, TV Buddha, 1974-1982
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Bill Viola, Stations, 1994
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Computer and Internet-Based Art Media

• .the immaterial is blending seamlessly with the
  material. William J. Mitchell, MIT

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John F. Simon, Unfolding Object, 2002
Mark Napier, net.flag, 2002
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Photography -

• A process of instant assemblage, instant collage.