Straight Photography or Pictorialism

[Chuck_P]

Discussions are neither the turf nor the responsibility of the persons that inititiate them.

jstraw,

That sounds cool--I like that.

Yeah, I was going back through the thread and it just seemed to be going way out there---far from where I thought it would go. But I guess that's how it goes in this kind of dialogue. Glad that you have found it an interesting one.

Chuck

 

[copake_ham]

......

Your photograph looks like a photograph to me. I never said all photos have to be tack sharp. I don't think anyone believes that photography indicates that a photograph cannot show selective focus. In fact, I believe, AA commented later in life that if you intend to throw a background out of focus, then make sure it is distinctly out of focus......

Chuck

I've followed the ups and downs of this thread with some interest.

I wonder if AA's comment late in life arose after his learning of the Japanese concept of bokeh?

From what I've read here, the Pictoralism v. Straight Photography of the f/64 group was almost exclusively an American argument. It seems to have a variety of elements that define the "camps" - particularly the "Western Rebellion" to the approach of the "Eastern Establishment".

But the f/64 "sharpness" concept does seem to run into problems when you then introduce the concept of bokeh - m/l the idea a "pleasant OOF" before and beyond the object of focus.

In fact, Jim Galli's phot seems to exemplify the concept.

What I'm trying to get at, by noting AA's late-in-life comment, is that as we become more aware of other approaches to photography from other cultures - perhaps the stark battles such as Pictoralism v. Straight Photography begin to lose the "edge" and even much of their meaning?

 

[Jonathan Brewer]

Selective focus is also a tremendous tool for editing out/focusing on what you want the viewer to 'focus' on, that's obvious, but it bears restating here, while Jim Galli has this image uploaded. Some folks ignore the background when composing subject matter, they compose the foreground no matter what the foreground it doing. I've seen Jim Galli's work, and like this photo, he composes with both the foreground and background in mind. Somebody else could've shot this, several inches to the right or left, chosen another exp./picked another focus point, and it might've looked garish.

I like this photo because he had a feel for the combo of 'how much' wide open, for 'so much' dof/selective focus, thus the dramatic 'coming at you' of the crank, compsed within the framework of the background, this shot of course can be done several ways, but the dramatic effect of selective focus, actually all of the choices were good ones whether Jim consciously thought of each choice or felt them or another level in executing this shot.

I would have loved to have seen the same shot executed with front element to the next galaxy sharpness to compare them, my gut tells me this one has more 'drama'.

And I'm not saying this is the right way to do the shot, but that his choices seem to be right for this particular shot.

 

[Kerik]

Whereas, in their view, the "pictorialists" of the day, were not being true to to the medium when they presented photography in a way that imitated another form of art.

(Emphasis added...) "True to the medium", like anything else subjective, is in the eye of the beholder. The medium of photography is very wide and encompasses many things from the daguerreotype to the gum print to the cyanotype, palladium, carbon, ambrotype, dye transfer, cibachrome and even the mundane f/64-style glossy, sharp gelatin silver print. The images can come from pinholes, soft-focus lenses, razor sharp super-mult-coated lenses or no lens at all. To pick one representation of photography from the long list of possibilities and declare anything else "not true to the medium" or "imitating some other art form" is a very narrow and naive view of the world, IMO.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

One of the goals of Pictorialism was to be more "painterly" in the approach to photography. By this it was meant that subject matter should be carefully chosen and composed, that it should be more than a mere record of what happens to be in front of the camera, and that one should not limit oneself to the strictures of commercially manufactured products in order to achieve a finished result. A major factor in the mindset of Pictorialists was the desire and the ability to get ones hands into the medium, and create something non-mechanical, something that reflected the spirit and intellect of the artist.

Interestingly enough, the very spirit of the above imbues the works of folks like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston - they too heavily worked and re-worked their images to imbue them with their personal spirit and intellect.

How would you classify color photography then? Is it Pictorialist? An argument could be made that color work is not "photographic", because it shares elements with painting. What about work by someone like Chip Simons who paints with light in strange colors? Nothing "natural" or "straight" about that, but it is still a photograph.

Frankly, as an art form, I would find it very boring indeed if there were no interplay with other art forms and art media. I strongly resist the "conservative" impulse to keep photography "pure", because there is no growth, no forward momentum, and consequently, the medium will die. I want to see the medium live a long, productive and meaningful life.

 

[Chuck_P]

To pick one representation of photography from the long list of possibilities and declare anything else "not true to the medium" or "imitating some other art form" is a very narrow and naive view of the world, IMO.

And the Group f/64 certainly did hold a very narrow point of view in their practice of photography. A narrow view of the world, hardly, but a narrow view of photography as art, absolutely. That was what they did and they did it well.

Chuck

 

[vet173]

F-64 drifting toward fuzzy wuzzy. Sometimes I shoot so open I feel like a whore. ansel adams is standing on a pedestal. That pedestal is William Mortenson. Lucky for him as it gets him up to the level of a Brett Weston Print.

 

[Kerik]

a narrow view of photography as art, absolutely. That was what they did and they did it well.

True dat.

 

[Katharine Thayer]

Interesting thread; I've especially enjoyed Kerik's posts, and his beautiful pictorialist image, and the idea of the f63 group, with the slogan "ignore meaningless differences." Please sign me up.

But I think there's some confusion about terms and about history here. To (hopefully) clarify, here's an excerpt from an article I wrote about pictorialism, published in Lenswork #53:

"Pictorialism, as a movement in photography, was part of a general reaction against 19th century realism, against the industrial, scientific or survey photography of the time, and also against the “art photography” of the Henry Peach Robinson school. Although many people lump this art photography in with pictorialism, Newhall’s classic history presents them as two different movements, and I think the distinction is important.

P.H. Emerson, who insisted to the end of his life that he was the founder of modern pictorialist photography, and complained bitterly to Stieglitz that he wasn’t given proper credit for that, decried the use of the camera to make ersatz paintings and insisted that photography should be seen as an art in its own right, using only the camera, film, light, elements inherent in the photographic process, rather than borrowing methods belonging to other art forms. Although he taught that composition and relationships between tonal values were as important in creating a photograph as in creating a painting, he abhorred combination printing, fuzzy photographs, “gummists” who wielded paintbrushes to create “brush strokes” in their images, or any other kind of handwork or manipulation of the print. The straight photographers who made works of art using only the methods of photography were the direct descendants of pictorialists rather than their archenemies, as they are often portrayed. As Nancy Newhall pointed out, Stieglitz owed to Emerson his ideas about photography as an art form relying entirely on photographic controls.

Contrary to popular belief among photographers, P.H.E. never retracted his support for the pictorialist cause or its ends, as he defined them. What he did retract, in a pamphlet with a black border titled “The Death of Naturalistic Photography” was the idea that photographers could control the photographic negative and print by altering tonal values through exposure and development. He thought Hurter & Driffield, in their description of the characteristic curve, proved that such alteration was impossible and by extension, that there was no “art” possible in photography; it was simply a mechanical process over which the photographer had no control other than where to point the lens and when to click the shutter. Ansel Adams, of course, later proved him wrong, or more accurately I should say that Ansel Adams proved that Emerson was right in the first place and mistaken in his retraction.

Pictorialism, now often dismissed as “pretty pictures badly done,” deserves much more credit than it gets for its part in making classic straight photography what it became. And as for “pretty pictures badly done” anyone familiar with P.H. Emerson’s, Frederick Evans,’ Laura Gilpin’s and many other pictorialists’ excellent work can only shake one’s head at the ignorance of such a statement, even if it was Edward Weston who said it. Although there were excesses in pictorialism and without doubt many badly done pictures, as there is poor work in any school of photography, the pictorialists also made some of the most exquisite photographs ever made. The f64 group did everything possible to distance themselves from the fuzzy excesses of later, especially American, pictorialism, but their branches grew from the same roots and the same trunk."

Katharine Thayer

 

[RobertP]

While Emerson's naturalism views were the precursor for the views of the f64 club's straight photographic renderings he did renounce these views toward the end of his career, stating that untouched photography was not art at all.But I find it hard to think that in any way Ansel Adams proved his retraction wrong when Adams was nortorious for red filtered skies and excessive darkroom manipulations.That is hardly a pure naturalism approach. The genius behind Steiglitz was the fact that he knew "straight photography" would not be accepted as an art form. This is what led to the formation of the secessionist movement. The main reason he chose or hand picked the members like Kasebier, White and others (aside from their talent) were for the fact that they were working in a pictorialist style and this would be the only way that the art world would ever accept photography as a high art form. In some circles still today it is not accepted. This is why I find the period after 1910 the most fasinating time in photography. As I said in a previous post the pictorialist of this era embraced moderism and commercialism and welcomed that genre into their mix of styles. Most people think that the Mortensen/ Adams feud pitted all pictorialist against all the modernist and that simply is not true. Ignoring meaningless differences was done long before the f63 views posed here. And thank god they did or everything would look like a travel brochure of exotic landscapes.

 

[jstraw]

But I find it hard to think that in any way Ansel Adams proved his retraction wrong when Adams was nortorious for red filtered skies and excessive darkroom manipulations.

The spectral response of photographic materials is not a product of the mind of god. The way they react to light is a function of engineering decisions and technical limitations. It's not sacrosanct. There is no "right" spectral response just as there is no "right" exposure or development time. All of these elements of exposure and processing are determined by human decisions, not by nature...even when the decision is to rely upon defaults. I agree that Emerson's retraction was wrong and nothing in Adams' methods suggests otherwise.

 

[Dave Wooten]

Welcome Katherine!

What a great 1st post!

 

[catem]

What a great 1st post!

Agreed

 

[John McCallum]

Katharine, thanks for filling in some blanks. Very interesting post.

A small point of order regarding Kerik's example using his image of the vase. I read it as an illustration of the confusion arising from assuming pictorialist is derived from technique rather than the resulting aesthetics and particularly the assumption that when the result isn't a realist aesthetic then it is probably trying to imitate a different medium, like say painting. But of course you may well have labelled the image quite knowingly. You've clarified the fact that there was never really incongruity quite nicely.

It is unfortunate this was so badly missinterpreted in the subsequent posts to Keriks.

 

[Katharine Thayer]

While Emerson's naturalism views were the precursor for the views of the f64 club's straight photographic renderings he did renounce these views toward the end of his career, stating that untouched photography was not art at all.But I find it hard to think that in any way Ansel Adams proved his retraction wrong when Adams was nortorious for red filtered skies and excessive darkroom manipulations.That is hardly a pure naturalism approach.

Robert, I think you may have missed my point, which was that what Emerson retracted was the idea that tonal values could be manipulated by manipulating exposure and development. When Hurter and Driffield's paper was published, Emerson thought it meant that such manipulation was impossible, but Adams proved him wrong with his development of the zone system.
Katharine

 

[Katharine Thayer]

Katharine, thanks for filling in some blanks. Very interesting post.

A small point of order regarding Kerik's example using his image of the vase. I read it as an illustration of the confusion arising from assuming pictorialist is derived from technique rather than the resulting aesthetics and particularly the assumption that when the result isn't a realist aesthetic then it is probably trying to imitate a different medium, like say painting. But of course you may well have labelled the image quite knowingly. You've clarified the fact that there was never really incongruity quite nicely.

It is unfortunate this was so badly missinterpreted in the subsequent posts to Keriks.

I too read Kerik's example as an illustration of the confusion around the term "pictorialist." I see Kerik's photo as a good example of a pictorialist photograph in Emerson's definition, meaning that it uses only the materials and techniques of photography to create something of beauty, something that can certainly be called art. I'm quite comfortable calling it a pictorialist photograph in that sense, but someone who thinks of pictorialism as something pejorative, like a fuzzy photograph or a photograph that's meant to look like a painting, might rather call it a straight photograph. The point is that it could be called either, and that the dichotomy that the thread started out with is really a false dichotomy. But you got that point, so there's no need to say it again.
Katharine (P.S. Thanks for kind words, guys)

 

[jstraw]

Robert, I think you may have missed my point, which was that what Emerson retracted was the idea that tonal values could be manipulated by manipulating exposure and development. When Hurter and Driffield's paper was published, Emerson thought it meant that such manipulation was impossible, but Adams proved him wrong with his development of the zone system.
Katharine

Ah, I misunderstood then. I thought you were saying that Emerson argued against manipulating exposure and development on ethical grounds...not that it couldn't be done.

I frankly don't understand how anyone could have ever thought that it was impossible.

 

[RobertP]

Robert, I think you may have missed my point, which was that what Emerson retracted was the idea that tonal values could be manipulated by manipulating exposure and development. When Hurter and Driffield's paper was published, Emerson thought it meant that such manipulation was impossible, but Adams proved him wrong with his development of the zone system.
Katharine

Katherine, I was referring to Emerson's renouncing his views advocating naturalism, where nothing is used to manipulate the image. Like you say a mechanical process where the only control the artist has is framing and focus. And you are speaking to some of the methods that would help convince him. Thanks for clarifying that for me. I'm sorry I misunderstood you.

 

[jimgalli]

This has become quite an excellent post. Thank you all. As a direct result of what was being said earlier on I purchased Christian A. Peterson's "After The Photo-Secession. It just arrived. I'm excited to learn more as I go.

 

[RobertP]

I too read Kerik's example as an illustration of the confusion around the term "pictorialist." I see Kerik's photo as a good example of a pictorialist photograph in Emerson's definition, meaning that it uses only the materials and techniques of photography to create something of beauty, something that can certainly be called art. I'm quite comfortable calling it a pictorialist photograph in that sense, but someone who thinks of pictorialism as something pejorative, like a fuzzy photograph or a photograph that's meant to look like a painting, might rather call it a straight photograph. The point is that it could be called either, and that the dichotomy that the thread started out with is really a false dichotomy. But you got that point, so there's no need to say it again.
Katharine (P.S. Thanks for kind words, guys)

Katherine, In Emerson's first treatise "Naturalistic Photography" He writes that a photograph should not be manipulated in any way beyond the natural occurring variables such as light and atmospheric conditions. In his second treatise 'The Death of Naturalistic Photography" he states that the artist should be allowed to contrive and design with photographic images. This clearly is advocating what the pictorialist of the day were doing, using contrived poses, soft focus lenses, dramatic lighting, negative manipulation. I think your description of Kerik's image as using only the materials of photography is more along the lines as to what Emerson was referring to in his first treatise than what he was referring to in his second. But technically you are right in that it can be both. Simply for the fact that you can argue that it is a contrived image and so it can't be natural. Many styles over lapped which have resulted in many a debate. After the secessionist the pictorialist welcomed almost all styles and this made it even more difficult to attach specific labels. No longer were the pictorialist held to the stringent aesthetic guidelines that was imposed on them as secessionist. This opened up a whole new world to the photographer and helped in developing some unique individual styles. In these gray areas where styles overlap you will always have contradictory opinions and it will continue to fuel debate with the usual conclusion of... you're both right

 

[RobertP]

Jim, that's a great book. I've read it a couple of times. Another one that may interest you is, "Pictorialism into Modernism: The Clarence H. White School of Photography" Bonnie Yochelson and Kathleen A. Erwin.

 

[Katharine Thayer]

Ah, I misunderstood then. I thought you were saying that Emerson argued against manipulating exposure and development on ethical grounds...not that it couldn't be done.

I frankly don't understand how anyone could have ever thought that it was impossible.

It's funny; he had the right idea, that somehow tones could be changed by altering the process, but when he saw the characteristic curve, it stopped him dead in his tracks; he thought it meant that those tones were set in place and couldn't be altered. he couldn't see how to change the curve, so he gave up on that part of his pictorialist idea.

But he never gave up on the rest of his idea of pictorialism, as one can see by reading the later edition of his book on Naturalistic Photography, which shows his continuing commitment to pictorialism and naturalistic photography, even some years after the publication of his pamphlet. He was given to bombast and hyperbole and it probably never occurred to him that titling his pamphlet "The Death of Naturalistic Photography" would give people the idea that he was renouncing his whole idea of naturalistic and pictorialist photography. That he wrote Stieglitz much later (all that source material is in storage and I can't check the date, but to my recall it was quite late in his life, in the late 20s or early 1930s), bitterly complaining that he had never been given proper credit for founding the pictorialist movement, shows that the pictorialist idea was dear to his heart to the end. But he was also vehement in his denunciation of fuzzy and painterlike photographs, from beginning to end.

Things always get oversimplified over time, to the point that now when people think of pictorialism, they think "fuzzy pictures" or "pictures made to look like paintings" but that wasn't how it was in the beginning; it was much more nuanced than that.
Katharine

 

[Katharine Thayer]

Katherine, In Emerson's first treatise "Naturalistic Photography" He writes that a photograph should not be manipulated in any way beyond the natural occurring variables such as light and atmospheric conditions. In his second treatise 'The Death of Naturalistic Photography" he states that the artist should be allowed to contrive and design with photographic images. This clearly is advocating what the pictorialist of the day were doing, using contrived poses, soft focus lenses, dramatic lighting, negative manipulation.

Since PHE published a second edition of Naturalistic Photography, some... five or six years, to the best of my recall, after the publication of the "Death of Naturalistic Photography" and since the second edition retained the language of the first edition, I think the above assertion, that the pamphlet announced a change in his thinking from the philosophy he held when writing the book, is simply incorrect. Also, the assertion that he ever bought into the techniques of what later became known as pictorialism, is not supported by his writings.

He did believe in the use of composition and chiarusco (in other words, using light as an element of composition) and other principles of art in the practice of photography, but he believed in those in the first edition as well as the second; that was part of what he meant by "pictorial" photography. But while he believed in using the principles of art in the production of artistic photographs, he never advocated using the techniques of painting; he was adamant that photography should be its own kind of art, using only its own materials and techniques.
Katharine

 

[RobertP]

[. Thayer;445540]Since PHE published a second edition of Naturalistic Photography, some... five or six years, to the best of my recall, after the publication of the "Death of Naturalistic Photography" and since the second edition retained the language of the first edition, I think the above assertion, that the pamphlet announced a change in his thinking from the philosophy he held when writing the book, is simply incorrect. Also, the assertion that he ever bought into the techniques of what later became known as pictorialism, is not supported by his writings.

He did believe in the use of composition and chiarusco (in other words, using light as an element of composition) and other principles of art in the practice of photography, but he believed in those in the first edition as well as the second; that was part of what he meant by "pictorial" photography. But while he believed in using the principles of art in the production of artistic photographs, he never advocated using the techniques of painting; he was adamant that photography should be its own kind of art, using only its own materials and techniques.
Katharine[/QUOTE] At the time Emerson wrote both of those treatise. ( only some two years apart, I think) pictorialism was already in vogue. Emerson rants about how the contrived, staged images of the time has no place in photography and a photograph should depict only truth and realism. He continues that the only variables that should have any effect are the available light and atmospheric conditions. The only control the artist/photographer has is the framing and focus. He clearly recants this in his second paper when he states that the artist should be able to contrive and design with photographic images. Once you allow this you have broken the cardinal rule of naturalism. Now you have altered the truth by posing or staging. With a contrived image you no longer have the realism that he was advocating in his first paper. These stringent guidelines he placed on the naturalistic movement are nearly always broken in pictorialism and was so even at the time he wrote these papers. That is why the title of the second paper is fitting, "The Death of Naturalistic Photography" The idea of connecting pictorialism and naturalism together is odd because the pictorialist will almost always break the guidelines of the naturalist. As far as the second printing or later printings of his book I think there was a significant change. I'll have to do some searching but in the first edition the title of the last chapter was something like "A Pictorial Art" In the later printings I think it was changed to something like " Not Art at All" Now hopefully I'm not remembering what I've read from some critique. I'll have to try and find the first and second editions. But that is a significant change if that is the case. His letters to Stieglitz laying claim to being the founding father of pictorialism was probably pretty amusing to Stieglitz since contrived imagery was being done since the 1860's. But his work did have a big influence on Stieglitz. His use of the term pictorial art may be where the connection of naturalism to pictorialism comes from, what he was stating was that naturalism was a pictorial art.(at least in the first edition anyway) But as far as genres go they were two entirely different movements. It would have been far easier for a pictorialist to accept a naturalist work but a naturalist would never accept the contrived images of a pictorialist

 

[jstraw]

paragraph breaks are your friend