Photographic Theory

Introduction 1 1 Before Photography to Invention: c. 380 B.C.E.–1839 9 Camera/Vision 11 1.1 Excerpts from the Allegory of the Cave. In The Republic 12 Plato, c. 380 B.C.E. 1.2 The Function of the Eye, As Explained by the Camera Obscura 17 Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1520 1.3 Description of the Camera Lucida 19 William H. Wollaston, 1807 Art/History 23 1.4 Excerpts on Linear Perspective. In On Painting 24 Leon Battista Alberti, 1540 1.5 Account of the late Mr. [Robert] Barker 29 Anonymous, 1806 1.6 Description of the Process of Painting and Effects of Light Invented by Daguerre, and Applied by Him to the Pictures of the Diorama 31 Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, 1839 2 Invention to Pictorialism: 1839–c. 1880 35 What is Photography? 37 2.1 Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing 38 William Henry Fox Talbot, 1839 [March] 2.2 The Pencil of Nature. A New Discovery 44 Nathaniel Parker Willis and Timothy O. Porter, eds., 1839 [April] 2.3 Report [on the Daguerreotype to the Chamber of Deputies] 48 François Arago, 1839 [July] Art/History 55 2.4 Upon Photography in an Artistic View, and in Its Relations to the Arts 56 Sir William J. Newton, 1853 2.5 La Photographie 59 Antoine Joseph Wiertz, 1855 2.6 Photography 61 Eastlake, Lady (Elizabeth) 1857 Camera/Vision 67 2.7 The Stereoscope and the Stereograph 68 Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1859 2.8 Combination Printing. In Pictorial Effect in Photography 72 Henry Peach Robinson, 1869 2.9 Annals of My Glass House 76 Julia Margaret Cameron, 1874 3 Pictorialism to/and/vs. Modernism: c. 1880–c. 1920 81 Camera/Vision 83 3.1 Focussing. In Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art 84 Peter Henry Emerson, 1890 3.2 The Death of Naturalistic Photography 88 Peter Henry Emerson, 1890 3.3 The Hand Camera — Its Present Importance 91 Alfred Stieglitz, 1896 Interdisciplinary Approaches 95 3.4 Photo-Chemical Investigations and a New Method of Determination of the Sensitiveness of Photographic Plates 96 Ferdinand Hurter and Vero C. Driffield, 1890 3.5 Logic as Semiotic: The Theory of Signs 100 Charles Sanders Peirce, c. 1900 3.6 Intuition and Art. In Æsthetic: As Science of Expression and General Linguistic 105 Benedetto Croce, 1902 3.7 The Cinematographical Mechanism of Thought and the Mechanistic Illusion…. In Creative Evolution 108 Henri Bergson, 1907 What Should Photographs Look Like? 113 3.8 On the Straight Print 114 Robert Demachy, 1907 3.9 What is a “Straight Print”? 118 Frederick H. Evans, 1907 3.10 Photography and Artistic-Photography 121 Marius de Zayas, 1913 4 Modernism to Postmodernism: c. 1920–c. 1960 123 Camera/Vision 125 4.1 Photography and the New God 126 Paul Strand, 1922 4.2 Light: A Medium of Plastic Expression 130 László Moholy-Nagy, 1923 4.3 Seeing Photographically 132 Edward Weston, 1943 4.4 The Camera’s Glass Eye 136 Clement Greenberg, 1946 What Should Photographs Look Like? 139 4.5 Aims 140 Albert Renger-Patzsch, 1927 4.6 A Personal Credo 142 Ansel Adams, 1943 4.7 Our Illustrations 147 Frank R. Fraprie, 1943 4.8 Photography at the Crossroads 150 Berenice Abbott, 1951 Art/History 155 4.9 Excerpts from Perspective as Symbolic Form 156 Erwin Panofsky, 1927 4.10 The Age of the World Picture 161 Martin Heidegger, 1938/52 4.11 Excerpts from Museum Without Walls 164 André Malraux, 1947 Interdisciplinary Approaches 169 4.12 Photography and Typography 170 Jan Tschichold, 1928 4.13 The Making of a Film. In Film as Art 174 Rudolph Arnheim, 1932 4.14 The Ontology of the Photographic Image. In What Is Cinema? 176 André Bazin, 1945 What is Photography? 181 4.15 Mechanism and Expression, the Essence and Value of Photography 182 Franz Roh, 1929 4.16 Introduction to The Decisive Moment 188 Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1952 4.17 Photography 192 Siegfried Kracauer, 1960 5 Modernism and Postmodernism to Digital Imaging: c. 1960–c. 1990 199 Art/History 201 5.1 Equivalence: The Perennial Trend 202 Minor White, 1963 5.2 Perspective. In Languages of Art 207 Nelson Goodman, 1968 5.3 Can There Ever Again Be a History of Photography? 211 Peter C. Bunnell, 1975 5.4 Introduction to Before Photography: Painting and the Invention of Photography 214 Peter Galassi, 1981 5.5 New Metaphorics: Spirit and Symbol in Contemporary Landscape Photography 219 Gretchen Garner, 1988 Camera/Vision 225 5.6 Introduction to The Photographer’s Eye 226 John Szarkowski, 1966 5.7 Post-Visualization 232 Jerry Uelsmann, 1967 5.8 Introduction to New Topographics 235 William Jenkins, 1975 Interdisciplinary Approaches 239 5.9 Excerpts from The World Viewed 240 Stanley Cavell, 1971 5.10 Notes on the Index: Seventies Art in America 246 Rosalind Krauss, 1977 5.11 Photography and Fetish 251 Christian Metz, 1985 5.12 Film, Photography, and Fetish: The Analyses of Christian Metz 256 Ben Singer, 1988 What is Photography? 263 5.13 On the Nature of Photography 264 Rudolf Arnheim, 1974 5.14 Photography, Vision, and Representation 269 Joel Snyder and Neil Walsh Allen, 1975 5.15 The Directorial Mode: Notes Toward a Definition 276 A. D. Coleman, 1976 5.16 Selections from Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism 284 Kendall L.Walton, 1984 5.17 The Photograph as Post-Industrial Object: An Essay on the Ontological Standing of Photographs 290 Vilém Flusser, 1986 Identity/Politics 295 5.18 The Traffic in Photographs 296 Allan Sekula, 1981 5.19 Of Mother Nature and Marlboro Men: An Inquiry into the Cultural Meanings of Landscape Photography 302 Deborah Bright, 1985 5.20 Excerpts from Right of Inspection 310 Jacques Derrida, 1985 5.21 Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction 315 Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, 1987 6 Postmodernism and Digital Imaging (Return to Pictorialism?): c. 1990–c. 2010 319 What is Digital Photography? 321 6.1 The Transcendental Machine? A Comparison of Digital Photography and Nineteenth-Century Modes of Photographic Representation 322 Diana Emery Hulick, 1990 6.2 Photojournalism in the Age of Computers 329 Fred Ritchin, 1990 6.3 Phantasm: Digital Imaging and the Death of Photography. In Metamorphoses 334 Geoffrey Batchen, 1994 6.4 Escaping Reality: Digital Imagery and the Resources of Photography 338 Barbara E. Savedoff, 1997 6.5 Fixing the Art of Digital Photography: Electronic Shadows 344 Ellen Handy, 1998 6.6 Digital Ontologies: The Ideality of Form in/and Code Storage — or — Can Graphesis Challenge Mathesis? 350 Johanna Drucker, 2001 Identity/Politics 355 6.7 Do Not Doubt the Dangerousness of the 12-Inch-Tall Politician 356 David Wojnarowicz, 1991 6.8 The Politics of Focus: Feminism and Photography Theory 359 Lindsay Smith, 1992 6.9 Re-Picturing Photography: A Language in the Making 365 Aphrodite Désirée Navab, 2001 6.10 A Painful Labour: Responsibility and Photography 370 Sharon Sliwinski, 2004 Camera/Vision 377 6.11 Clement Greenberg and Walker Evans: Transparency and Transcendence 378 Mike Weaver, 1991 6.12 The Shadows on the Wall. In The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era 382 William J. Mitchell, 1992 6.13 Of Fish, Birds, Cats, Mice, Spiders, Flies, Pigs, and Chimpanzees: How Chance Casts the Historic Action Photograph into Doubt 384 Robin Kelsey, 2009 Art/History 389 6.14 The Invisible Dragon: On Beauty I 390 Dave Hickey, 1991 6.15 The Idiom in Photography as the Truth in Painting 394 Rosemary Hawker, 2002 6.16 “Impressed by Nature’s Hand”: Photography and Authorship 399 Douglas R. Nickel, 2009 Photography and Memory 407 6.17 Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory 408 Marianne Hirsch, 2001 6.18 Visualizing Memory: Photographs and the Art of Biography 412 Deborah Willis, 2003 6.19 Remembering September 11: Photography as Cultural Diplomacy 415 Liam Kennedy, 2003 6.20 Through a Glass, Darkly: Photography and Cultural Memory 421 Alan Trachtenberg, 2008 Interdisciplinary Approaches 425 6.21 Curiosity and Conjecture: Mathematics, Photography, and the Imagination 426 David Travis, 2003 6.22 Image as Trace: Speculations about an Undead Paradigm 429 Peter Geimer, 2007 6.23 The Photographic Argument of Philosophy 436 Alexander Sekatskiy, 2010 Works Cited and Further Reading 440 Credits, Sources, and Acknowledgments 449 Acknowledgments 454 Index 456