Seizing the Light: A Social History of Photography

by Hirsch, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780073379210
• ISBN10: 0073379212
• Additional ISBN(s): 9780697143617, 9781138944251
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-12-09
• Publisher: MCGRAW HILL
• More Book Details

Summary

Seizing the Light: A Social History of Photographyprovides a thought-provoking, accurate, and accessible introduction to the photographic arts for all readers. With stunning images and commentary by hundreds of international artists, the text clearly and concisely provides the building blocks necessary to critically explore photographic history from the photographers' eye, an aesthetic point of view.

Table of Contents

Preface

Advancing toward Photography: The Birth of Modernity

A Desire for Visual Representation Perspective Thinking of Photography Camera Vision

The Demand for Picturemaking Systems Proto-Photographers: Chemical Action of Light Modernity: New Visual Realities Optical Devices

Images through Light: A Struggle for Permanence Other Distinct Originators

The Daguerreotype: Image and Object What Is a Daguerreotype?

The Daguerreotype Comes to America The Early Practitioners Early Daguerrean Portrait Making Technical Improvements

Expanding U.S. Portrait Studios

The Art of the Daguerrean Portrait Daguerrean Portrait Galleries and Picture Factories African-American Operators Rural Practice Post-Mortem Portraits

The Daguerreotype and the Landscape

The Daguerreotype and Science

Calotype Rising: The Arrival of Photography

The Calotype Early Calotype Activity Calotypists Establish a Practice Calotype and Architecture: Mission Heliographique

The End of the Calotype and the Future of Photography

Pictures on Glass: The Wet-Plate Process

The Albumen Process The New Transparent Look

The Ambrotype Pictures on Tin The Carte-de-Visite and the Photo Album The Cabinet Photograph: The Picture Gets Bigger

The Studio Tradition Retouching and Enlargements

The Stereoscope

The Stereo Craze

Prevailing Events/Picturing Calamity Current Events Early War Coverage

The American Civil War How Photographs Were Circulated

A New Medium of Communication Photography: Art or Industry?

Discovering a Photographic Language Americans and the Art of Nature Positivism

Standardizing the Practice: A Transparent Truth Mechanical Photography

The Traveling Camera Picturing Industrialization Urban Life

The American West: The Narrative and the Sublime

New Ways of Visualizing Time and Space

The Inadequacy of Human Vision Locomotion Transforming Aesthetics: Technical Breakthroughs

The Hand-Held Camera and the Snapshot Time and Motion as an Extended Continuum Moving Pictures Color and Photography

Suggesting the Subject: The Evolution of Pictorialism Roots of Pictorialism Pictorialism and Naturalism

The Development of Pictorial Effect

The Secession Movement and the Rise of Photography Clubs

The Aesthetic Club Movement Working Pictorially: A Variety of Approaches American Perspectives

The Photo-Secession

The Decadent Movement and Tonalism Women Pictorialists

The Pictorial Epoch/The Stieglitz Group

The Decline of Pictorialism

Modernism's Innovations Industrial Beauty Cubism High and Low Art Futurism Time, Movement, and the Machine Towards a Modern Practice: Distilling Form Dada Exploring Space and Time: The Return of the Photogram Surrealism Collage Suprematism Art, Technology, and a New Faith Paul Strand and Straight Photography: Purity of Use

The New Culture of Light Teaching Modernism: The American Impulse Stieglitz's "Equivalents" Steichen Goes Commercial Form as Essence Straight, Modernistic Photography Film und Foto and New Objectivity Experimentally Modern New Vision Pathways of Light: Time, Space, and Form Surrealistic Themes

Social Documents An American Urge: Social Uplift Ethnological Approaches Emerging Ethnic Consciousness

The Physiognomic Approach The Great Depression: The Economics of Photography

The FAP Project: Changing New York

The Photo Booth: Self-Portraits for All Mass Observation

The Film and Photo League

Nabbing Time Anticipating the Moment

From Halftones to Bytes Pictures and Printers Ink Th

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