Category: Photography

Philosophy of Photography by Henri Van Lier is a recently published attempt at inducing theory from photography.

“A philosophy of photography could be taken to mean the act of philosophizing on the subject of photography. That is to say, one can examine photography on the basis of concepts philosophers have accumulated over a period of two and a half millenia. One could inquire into its links with perception, imagination, nature, substance, essence, freedom and consciousness. […] But the philosophy of the photograph can also designate the philosophy emanating from the photograph itself, the kind of philosophy the photo suggests and diffuses by virtue of its characteristics. ”

Henri Van Lier’s book includes a broad range of insights into photography, its physical and social implications.

“After having scrutinized all of its characteristics, it might be said that photography is best understood in light of the opposition often made today between the real and reality. Reality designates the real in so far as it is already seized and organized in sign systems, thus assuming the form of the actions, which are the designates that dominate or represent the signs in question. By contrast, the real is that which escapes this conception of reality. It is all that is before, after and underneath reality, it is all that is not yet domesticated by our technical, scientific, and social relations, and which Sartre, for instance, dubbed the quasi-relations of the in-itself. (p36). ”

From the chapter “The Initiative of the Spectacle: Photogenicity”,

“Even in a conventional photograph, often something will appear that neither the photographer nor the photogaphed actively looked for or even sensed in advance. A particular area of a face, a statement in someone’s shoulder or ankle, creases in clothes preceding any possible intention, not to be recovered by any notion of intentionality […] This etymologically defines photogenicity as the manner in which one is generated by light. (It is the word Talbot chose before Herschel proposed “photography”) (p.63)”

The introduction, written by Jan Baetens & Geert Goiris, refers to another work on this theme, Towards a Philosophy of Photography by Vilem Flusser. The editors praise Van Lier’s book as a comparable theoretical achievement to Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin and André Malreaux, André Bazin and John Berger. Interestingly, that opening introductory section “What we can learn from Henri Van Lier” begins with the following statement about the Internet,

“In our times of globalization, real-time communication, and increasing exchanges or mergers between cultures and traditions, it would be an illusion to think that all texts and ideas exist simultaneously and can be accessed freely in the universal library of Babel, aka Google.”

[Photomedia Forum post by T.Neugebauer from  Dec 02, 2008]

At the beginning of this year, a great discovery was made – I should say ‘recovery’, thousands of Robert Capa’s negatives that were thought to be lost were found.

“ To the small group of photography experts aware of its existence, it was known simply as “the Mexican suitcase.” And in the pantheon of lost modern cultural treasures, it was surrounded by the same mythical aura as Hemingway’s early manuscripts, which vanished from a train station in 1922. The suitcase — actually three flimsy cardboard valises — contained thousands of negatives of pictures that Robert Capa, one of the pioneers of modern war photography, took during the Spanish Civil War before he fled Europe for America in 1939, leaving behind the contents of his Paris darkroom. source: The Capa Cache (New York Times) ”

You can view some images of the negatives here:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/01/27/arts/20080127_KENN_SLIDESHOW_index.html

[Photomedia Forum post by T.Neugebauer from May 12, 2008]

While visiting the Tate Modern in London last month, I bought a copy of a recently published collection of short biographies and accompanying images with the title Masters of Photography – classic photographic artists of our time.

It is well written book with a good layout and paper quality. The author, Reuel Golden, is a former editor of British Journal of Photography who has lectured and published about photojournalism and the history of photography. He now lives and works in New York, as Executive Editor of the monthly Photo District News. This latest work is a compact book containing a pleasantly surprising quantity of short biographies of the photographers, as well as many images that are skillfully described within the context of the particular style or contribution to photography.

The following photographers are included in the contents: Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Eve Arnold, Eugène Atget, Cecil Beaton, Margaret Bourke-White, Bill Brandt, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, ALvin Langdon Coburn, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Curtis, Robert Doisneau, Tony Duffy, Elliot Erwitt, Lee Friedlander, Fay Godwin, Nan Goldin, Andreas Gursky, Ernst Haas, Bert Hardy, Lewis W. Hine, Horst P Horst, Eric Hosking, Hoyningen-Huene, Eric Hosking, Nadav Kander, Karsh of Ottawa, André Kartész, William Klein, Heinz Kluetmeier, Nick Knight, Dorothea Lange, Frans Lanting, J.H. Lartigue, O.Winston Link, Steve McCurry, Mary Ellen Mark, James Nachtwey, Helmut Newton, Norman Parkinson, Martin Parr, Rankin, Eli Reed, Marc Riboud, Herb Ritts, Alexander Rodchenko, George Rodger, Willy Ronis, Sebastiao Salgado, Cindy Sherman, W.Euguene Smith, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Weegee, Madame Yevonde.

[Photomedia Forum post by T.Neugebauer from  May 07, 2008]

Heliography is basically photography with natural light.

“ The term “heliography” was first coined by its inventor, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, to identify the process by which he obtained the first permanent photographic images. With its classical derivation from the Greek — helios meaning sun, and graphein denoting writing or drawing — the term encompassed both the source and the process in describing this first successfully permanent means of letting light record itself. source: HRC – Heliography ”

Lithography
is the practice of depositing a design in a greasy substance on a chemically treated stone or plate; the ink is applied such that it stays only on the grease.

“ Long before the first public announcements of photographic processes in 1839, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, a scientifically-minded gentleman living on his country estate near Chalon-sur-Saône, France, began experimenting with photography. Fascinated with the craze for the newly-invented art of lithography which swept over France in 1813, he began his initial experiments by 1816. source: HRC – Frist Photograph ”

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, inventor of a famous photographic process created some beautiful drawings before his invention. The Bibliothèque nationale de France has the following drawings credited to Daguerre:

Entrée de la galerie qui conduit à la chapelle du Château de Tournoël. 1er étage, 1829 
Grande cour du Château de Tournoëll
Abside de l’église de Volvic
Intérieur de l’église de Brou 

There seems to be some uncertainty as to Daguerre’s authorship, has anyone encountered these pieces before? What techniques and materials were used to create them?

[Photomedia Forum post by T.Neugebauer from Dec 30, 2005  ]

I have the impression that subjective photography is becoming more and more popular as a result of the digital camera boom. 

Otto Steinert was lecturer on photography at the Folkwang School in Essen, another very influential post-war photographer. Among his students were the already mentioned Timm Rautert and  Andreas Gursky (who later went to the Bechers after Steinert)

[Photomedia Forum post by T.Neugebauer from Mar 27, 2005 ]