Postmodernism:
Modernism:
The end of Pictorialism ended at different stages for different artists. For example in 1917 Stieglitz dissolved the photo-secession and Camera Work.
Alfred Stieglitz prompted modernist photography as straight, manipulated and documentary photography rather than Pictorial photography that involved fictional images of what could be. Him prompting this meant that the materials where true, by materials I mean the shutter, lens and chemistry between the subject, photographers and camera.
Stieglitz most signature work was ‘The Steerage’. This was due to the fact that it is a photograph where he was more interested in documenting the images that he had in his mind. This image formed and his eyes court it, then he decided to reach for his camera and capture the image. This was a very significant image as during that era photography was not excepted to show the poor or weak rather the contrary due to the fact that photography was employed by the rich for portraits. However, this image shows a change in the times and how photography was changing to show the truths of life. Through the image ‘The Steerage’ Stieglitz decided that the idea that photography can be a fine art is a very crucial thing, as this meant it was his personal mission to get everyone to accept this. Of course not many people did to begin with.
Paul strand had an interesting idea behind modernism as he was mostly influenced by 19th Century high art. However, after Stieglitz chanlanged Stands photography concept, Strand was moved into the idea of Straight photography. Meaning that he was looking into more documentary photography. Strand did still follow the idea of high art but it is not was prominent in his photographs from this point on. Paul Strand was a very early modernism photographer and was classed in the pure/straight photography group. Straight photography has four key visual features these being High contrast, sharp focus, no cropping and structure.
The image above is an image that was produced by Paul Strand. This image was published in 1917 in the magazine ‘Camera Work’. This image was very interesting as it started to show the reality of life that not many people had seen before. This was classed as social documentary which had become a very bold form of modernism.
Paul Strand had a set of images published in the last issue of ‘Camera Work’ which apparently nailed the Pictorialism coffin forever shut a this is because straight photography as been put in its place.
American Modernism:
Edward Weston is a very important figure for American modernism as all of hix photography had an element of soft focus which was a high factor of straight photography. In 1924 Weston abandoned the idea and use of soft focus and moved onto photographing natural forms, this would have been from nudes to landscapes.
Europe Photography:
In Europe the idea of photograph soon became a blend with other art forms and art movements. There was a very little separation between photography and art. This was the moment that photomontage was created and introduced to others. photomontage was the idea that photography and art where incorporated together. This was first created by having two images cutting them out and joining the image together physically to make another image. This then could have lead to anther photograph being take to show the final image of the photomontage together.
Hannah Hock was an artist that experimented with photomontage. I personally don’t lime what she created as I feel that they are a very odd distortion of an image. However, I feel that her work was a very important development of photomontage.
I think that this lecture was very interesting about what happened between the era of how Pictorialsm came out of the photography concept and modernism came into existence.
rkg morris photography 