Carlyn Caruthers
Notes
04-12-11
History of Photography:
Recording the World
Maxime Du Camp
• French author and photographer
• Traveled to the Middle East from 1849 to 1851 photographing the great monuments.
• Used the Calotype process.
• Made the first photo book, illustrating his travels.
Francis Frith
• English photographer
• One of the first commercial photographers, using wet plate colodian.
• Photographed Egypt and Palestine
• Created transportable darkrooms in boats and carriages.
• Photographed towns and sold the prints to the public. They would buy the photos to remember.
Early War Photography
Roger Fenton
• British photographer used the wet plate colodian process.
• Documented the Crimean war (two years after).
• He never took pictures of death, instead staging the scene in a more appealing and sterile way.
• Example: “The Valley of the Shadow of Death” http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/the-valley-of-the-shadow-of-death/
• Intrigued by foreign cultures, he would attempt to recreate a scene in a studio, using models.
Felice Beato
• Photographed the end of the Crimean War.
• Concentrated on photographing in Asia.
• Photographed the aftermath of the Second Opium War, and the Sepoy Massacre in India.
• First true photojournalist and war photographer. Documented what was really happening, even if the images were shocking.
• Always photographed dead foreigners.
Nadar
• French photographer
• First aerial photographers, taking pictures from a hot-air balloon. Also the first photographer to take picture underground using lights.
• Photographed highly thought of individuals at the time
Mathew Brady
• Had a studio in New York where he photographed many famous and important people. They came to him.
• Famous Civil War photographer, though he did not take many of the photos himself, even though he is credited.
• Traveled with portable darkrooms and an outfit of photographers that he would send out to photograph war scenes. Truthful documentation.
• Invested a lot of money thinking this would be very profitable, it wasn’t. No one wanted to buy pictures of a war they would rather put behind them. He then donated all of his photographs to the government.
• Photographed Lincoln (1863) and Robert E. Lee (1865)
Timothy O’Sullivan
• Brady’s most famous assistant
• Shot the more iconic photos of war, “Harvest of Death.” Gettysburg. http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=64592
• Photographed the western expansion
• Photographed the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. He documented the places where it was most difficult for the railroad to get through.
• Photographed Yellowstone
Alexander Gardner
• Another acclaimed assistant to Brady.
• Famous photo, “Home of the Rebel Sharpshooter.” Showing a confederate soldier dead by a fence. This scene was constructed, changing the placement of the man’s body, adding a rifle in the background, and turning the man’s head towards the camera. http://www.life.com/gallery/58771/image/50596417
Edward Curtis
• Hired by JP Morgan to photograph Native Americans. Morgan was fascinated with Native Americans.
• Lived with different Native American tribes.
• Had 40, 000 negatives and 2,200 photos.
• He was known as an idealized photographer.
• Photographed the “best” of the tribe in a very stylized manner.
http://www.edwardscurtis.com/
Adam Clark Vroman
• Photographed Native Americans. Hopi, Navajo, Zuni, Laguna, and Acoma.
• Traveled to the Southwest to document Native Americans in a more realistic manner.
• Took pictures of life, as it was, “realistic photographer.”
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1663
