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the birth of photography
history of photography and photojournalism
History of photography Essay
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What makes something art? This may be one of the greatest unanswered questions of all time. Of course, many people have tried to answer it in their own way. If it’s beautiful, it must be art. But is it still art if you don’t see any of the beauty it was meant to contain? If it was created from a purely original idea, it must be art. But then what is realism? The concept of art becomes much more vast and complicated once a person starts digging for answers. Many people believe that photography should not be considered art, but why? Photography has power; special powers that can change how people think, what they believe, and how they see the world. It can make celebrities look like gods. It can make a landfill look like the apocalypse. Photographs can create stories, controversies, and decorations to put above your fireplace. However, since the invention of the camera, painters and other artists all over the world have rejected photography as an art form. Yousef Khanfar, author of “The Language of Light”, an article in World Literature Today, once said “Photographers are the Mont Blanc of the art enterprise, for they create with beauty what they see with truth.” So, photography must be art, for a photographer only does with shapes and light what a painter does with paint.
It began with a man named Reiners Gemma Frisius. He was a mathematician who used what’s called camera obscura to observe a solar eclipse, way back in 1544 (Verma). The camera obscura was basically a big box with a lens that worked like a projector. It didn’t save the images like the modern camera does, but it was able to place an image of something anywhere you wanted it, within reason. Fourteen years later, it was used as a drawing tool, a sort of giant traci...
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... If you do it with a computer, if you do it in the darkroom, there’s a variety of ways of doing it — it’s not like one is better than the other.” (Lawton).
Works Cited
BBC. "Gallery." BBC News. BBC, 1 Oct. 2007. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.
George Easton House, Inc.. "Image."Easton House. George Easton House, Inc., 1 Jan. 1962. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.
Heiferman, Marvin. "The Bigger Picture: Visual Archives and the Smithsonian."Smithsonian Institution Archives. Smithsonian Institution Archives, 2 Feb. 2002. Web. 4 Apr. 2014.
Khanfar, Yousef. "The Language Of Light. (Cover Story)." World Literature Today 87.2 (2013): 28. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.
Lawton, Jenny. "Faking It: Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor - Studio 360." studio360. N.p., 16 Nov. 2012. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.
Verma, Samidha. "Invention Story of Camera." EngineersGarage. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.
Practiced by thousands who shared no common tradition or training from the earliest days of taking photos, the first photographers were disciplined and united by no academy or guild, who considered their medium variously as a trade, a science, an art, or an entertainment, and who often were unaware of each other’s work. Exactly as it sounds photography means photo-graphing. The word photography comes from two Greek words, photo, or “light”, and graphos, or drawing and from the start of photography; the history of the aforementioned has been debated. The idea of taking pictures started some thirty-one thousand years ago when strikingly sophisticated images of bears, rhinoceroses, bison, horses and many other types of creators were painted on the walls of caves found in southern France. Former director of photography at New Yorks museum of modern art says that “The progress of photography has been more like the history of farming, with a continual stream of small discoveries leading to bigger ones, and in turn triggering more experiments, inventions, and applications while the daily work goes along uninterrupted.” ˡ
B/w Photographs, 1971. NYU Archives Photo Collection. 1971. Photograph. NYU Archives Photo Collection. Http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/collections/exhibits/arch/1971/1971-3.html. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.
Price, T. D., & Feinman, G. (2013). Images of the Past. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Art can be defined as the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.
"A photograph is not merely a substitute for a glance. It is a sharpened vision. It is the revelation of new and important facts." ("Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History."). Sid Grossman, a Photo League photographer expressed this sentiment, summarizing the role photography had on America in the 1940’s and 50’s. During this era, photojournalism climaxed, causing photographers to join the bandwagon or react against it. The question of whether photography can be art was settled a long time ago. Most major museums now have photography departments, and the photographs procure pretty hefty prices. The question of whether photojournalism or documentary photography can be art is now the question at hand. Art collectors are constantly looking to be surprised; today they are excited by images first seen in last week’s newspapers as photojournalism revels in the new status as art “du jour” or “reportage art”.
Unlike science, art is subjective. The artist leaves behind a part of himself in his work. Therefore, each piece has its own distinct perspective. Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits show her view on her life, on how she has faced so many struggles, yet managed to be a strong person. When we see or hear or read an artistic creation, it produces a mood such as calm or loud, fear or safety. For example, the Eiffel Tower gives Paris a majestic awe; everyone who passes by feels the strength of the 113-year-old grand structure. Art also has a texture. Photographs reveal much through their textures; grainy surfaces often make the picture more realistic while smooth ones seem softer. When we hear a piece of music or see a film, a rhythm carries us from one part to another. Not just true for these two genres, rhythm is present in any artistic work. These few properties are characteristic of everything we encounter in the world of art, the world of human expression. Most have other special features also. Most of the time, though, we do not think about these characteristics because we do not have enough time to pay attention to anything for more than a few seconds.
Donnell, Graham Courtney. Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago (1973-1982) , Vol. 75, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1981), pp. 1-3
"Digital Documents and Photographs Project." The Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum Homepage. Web. 14 Mar. 2010. .
What is art? Art is all around you, but you need to open your eyes to see it. It’s on the streets, on the walls, on the sidewalks, on the cars, and it’s basically everywhere. Art is subjective, and it has a different meaning for everyone. Some people think that art is just visual but there’s much more to it. Art is a form of expressing yourself; you can use colors, create paintings, or you can even write a song.
Art by definition is “the expression or application of creative skill and imagination, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power,” (Hacker, 2011).
1. Turn off all the lights in the darkroom and unwind the film. (Roll film, except 35 mm, must be separated from the protective paper). And then unroll the paper until the end of the film is reached which is not attached to the paper and will, therefore, form its own roll when separated.
Price, T. D., & Feinman, G. (2013). Images of the past. (7th ed., pp. 124-125). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
I am going to answer this question by first addressing what makes something art. For many it’s starting function was solely to express and ideology. It was made for churches and commissioned by royalty or religious leaders. That notion has thankfully changed, but no one could have prepared for the current situation art has been taken by the current wave of experimentation. Art is a fundamental human aspect that takes expression in many forms. This imaginative instinct that many have, to create has shaped who we are from as a country.
“Art” is an interesting and complex term. When evaluating the subject and trying to have a general understanding of what art is, one has to have a clear awareness of basic art theory and common art-related knowledge. In a textbook, art could be described as the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power; it could also be bluntly described as various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance. I agree with this definition to an extent—art is more than just a medium of appreciation. Art, in my opinion, is more about the message between the artist and the viewer.
Art can be defined in many ways by an individual. One can say that any creative output by a person is considered art. Others contend that art must conform to a societal standard and the basis of the creation should be understood by most intellectual people. For example, some contend that computer-generated images, such as fractals, are not art due to the large role played by a computer. E.O. Wilson states “the exclusive role of the arts is to intensify aesthetic and emotional response. Works of art communicate feeling directly from mind to mind, with no intent to explain why the impact occurs” (218). A simple definition may be that art is the physical expression of the ideals formed by the mind.