Week Four. What's a Photograph?

What makes a photograph? 
Is it an idea? A concept? A piece of equipment? A name? A subject? A stray red thought in a grey  cloudy world?
I love that after 170 odd years we still can't answer that question, we are still struggling to define what we do and what we love. 
It was once said;

"To hold a camera in your hands in the 1920's was to hold the future."

I'm unsure of who said this but I believe it is one of the truest things I have ever heard. 
There were no set rules or etiquettes about photography, it was purely about if you could fix the shadows. 
I have a great love for Eugene Atget as his albumen types are phenomenal, he documented the mundane tasks of day to day life and made them beautiful, he remained unknown for most of his life but still made such an impact after he was gone, he struck a cord with me as he was just a quiet artist who had nothing to sell or promise people with, he just had his camera, his chemicals and his eyes. Simply intriguing. 


Before this class I had a simple idea of what Pictorialism was but until I saw Silvia get into the bare bones of the movement I had no clue of what It really is. 

Pictorialism largely subscribed to the idea that art photography needed to emulate the painting and etching of the time. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictorialism

As a photographer, the last thing I want is for my photographs to look like paintings and that's something the Pictorialist's felt was necessary at the time. Maybe they were sick of being segregated from the other artists such as the sculptors and painters, they probably thought they could do the same thing, if not better, as the impressionists of the time with their hand cut lenses as they could do with their primitive brushes. 
I'm so glad we live in time where photographs can be photographs and not laughed at or scoffed at because they're photographs and not paintings.

Click, Week 3

This lesson felt like the history of everything that ever was to do with photography.

I loved it.

I have this real respect for early photographers as they started with nothing, absolutely nothing but they conquered the world with a few chemicals, glass, metal, mirrors and hand cut lenses. Oh. And eggs. 

I found the process of sitting for a portrait really interesting as so much went into this one portrait, it was a real art. They didn't know if they'd got it right, if the subject had blinked, if they'd moved, if the lighting was right, it was a risk. The whole process was an art in itself and now it's so sterile and simple. If we don't like what we see on the display screen we can delete and tell our assistance to move the lights, use reflectors, Photoshop and re-shoot. Where's the risk? Where's the faith gone? We take everything for granted and don't hope any more. We know how it will turn out since it's right there in our hands.  


I was born in the wrong era.