Is photography art or science?

Is photography considered art or science?

There has always been this question; is photography art or science? Well, the question has never been answered. Some people say that it is art because it is a continuation of paintings/drawings and some people say that it is science. In my opinion it is both, because if it weren’t for science, photography doesn’t exist but at the same time, when someone is taking a photograph, he/she is creating an art work. The camera itself is science but the result that comes out of it is art. The scientists took a long time to discover how cameras work and they had way more different methods than today’s digital camera. On the other hand, the artist has to have vision and inspiration to create a photograph which is why it is art too.

Research

Research on practitioners:

Today I did some research about 5 artists. I found it interesting to get to know more about these artists.

Aleksandr Rodchenko

Aleksandr Rodchenko was born in l 1891 in St. Petersburg, Russia but later in 1905, he moved to Kazan with his family. He started studying art around that time where he graduated the Kazan School of Fine arts in 1914. He used to go to lectures by Russian Futurists during that year where he started supporting Futurism. Rodchenko moved to Moscow after a year the WWI began, (in 1915) where he attended the Stroganov School of Applied Art to study graphics. He took part in an exhibition of a magazine named The Store, organized by Vladimir Tatlin. He held his own exhibition named Exhibition of Works by Rodchenko in Moscow, from 1917 till 1921, where he created his first collages made by photography that he found from magazines and newspapers. Now he started working on abstract art with geometric shapes and instead of Futurist art work. Rodchenko started creating photomontages, posters, typography designs and furniture designs instead of paintings in the 1920s. He became a leader of a Constructivist movement in that same year in Russia and left quite an impact on the movement itself. It was important for Constructivists to be seen as useful in the society because at that time there were not any movements like theirs. He started designing graphics for books, posters and magazines like the Leaf, and also started taking his own photographs. ‘Pro eto’ was a poem done by Vladimir Mayakovsky where Rodchenko had one of his photo collages in. It lead him to be Mayakovsky’s book designer. In his art work, he most of the times used the same colours; black, red , white and grey and a lot of letters and pieces of photographs. Throughout his life, he continued working in photography and advertising and held about 50 art exhibitions. He died in Moscow in 1956.

Aleksandr Rodchenko, (2009). Aleksandr Rodchenko. [online] Available at: < https://aleksandrodchenko.wordpress.com/ > [Accessed 1 Nov. 2015].

Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was born in Blainville, Normandy and died in Neuilly on the outskirts of Paris. His father was a cubist sculptor, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and his brother was painter Jacques Villon. Duchamp studied at the Académie Julian from 1904 till 1905. Duchamp lived in New York from 1915 till 1923 and then moved to Paris in 1923 and stayed there till 1942 but then he went back to New York in 1942. His inspiration came from Matisse and Fauvism when he used to paint figures but then he created artworks of Cubism in 1911 which were influenced by Futurism and Cubism. He used earthy colours, mechanicals and forms in his work. His first readymade was created in 1913 when he stopped painting.  He used normal everyday objects which he sometimes changed a bit. Two of his first readymades were; ‘Bicycle Wheel’, created in 1913 which was a wheel in a stool and ‘In Advance of a Broken Arm’ (1915) which was just a snow shovel hanging. But his most famous piece was ‘Fountain’ which is a urinal with the name R.Mutt signed on it. In 1917, he put this art piece in an exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in New York. He used readymades as a personal symbolic language. May Ray was a good friend of his and together they publicised New York Dada in 1921. ‘The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass)’ was one of his most significant art work which was exhibited at a Brooklyn Museum at the International Exhibition of Modern Art but it was damaged during a journey but he mended it in 1936. It is now shown at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Richard Hamilton and Duchamp created an imitation of the art piece from 1965 till 1966. Duchamp is still considered one of the most important people in the art world. He continued working and organizing exhibitions like the ‘Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme’ in Paris. ‘The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even’ (Etant donnés)  was a 3D piece which he was secretly working on in his last years of his life. In 1937, he exhibited his own exhibition at the Arts Club of Chicago.

Riggs,T. (1997) Marcel Duchamp 1887–1968. At: < http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/marcel-duchamp-1036 > (Assessed on 07.11.15)

 

El Lissitzky

El Lissitzky was born in Polshinok but was raised in Vitebsk and died in Moscow. He was a Russian painter, typographer, architect and designer. He studied architecture at the Polytechnic in Darmstadt from 1909 till 1914. Later, he moved to Moscow and began working in an architect’s office. In 1917, he started making illustrations for children Jewish books. He took inspiration from Chagall and other famous prints. Later in 1919, he started teaching at an art school in Vitebsk applied art and architecture. One of his colleagues was Malevich who worked with him in the Unovis group. He started creating pictures called Prouns which were abstract images which were ‘the interchange station between painting and architecture’. In 1921 he was sent to Berlin because of contacts he made amongst artist in USSR and Germany. In 1923 he held his very first own exhibition at the Kestner-Gesellschaft in Hanover. He designed typography and photomontages for books and he stayed in Switzerland from 1924 till 1925 but then he moved back to Moscow. He stopped painting and committed himself to design periodicals and held exhibitions like the  Landesmuseum in Hanover.

Tate. El Lissitzky, ‘1. Part of the Show Machinery’ 1923. [online] Available at: < http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/el-lissitzky-1519 > [Accessed 7 Nov. 2015].

 

Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Schwitters was born in 1887 in Hanover and died in 1948 in Kendal. He was a German painter, sculptor, typographer and writer. From 1908 till 1909 he studied at the School of Art and Crafts in Hanover and at Dresden Academy from 1909 till 1914. His artworks were inspired from cubism and expressionism. He used a lot of materials and textures like labels, bus tickets and wrecked wood to create a Dada collage named Merz. He was friends with Van Doesburg and Hausmann. In 1919 he issued Anna Blume which was a collection of poems and text pieces and a magazine a named Merz. In 1920 he held his very first own exhibition which was at the Galerie Der Strum in Berlin. He built Merz constructions in his home in 1923 in Hanover. In 1931, he lived in Norway but then he moved to Lysaker in 1937. Then in 1940, he went to England from seventeen months in internment camps and then in 1941 till 1945 he moved to London. He later went to live at Ambleside in the Lake District in 1945. Before he died, he started an additional Merz construction in a barn at Langdale.

Tate. Kurt Schwitters, ‘The Proposal’ 1942. [online] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/kurt-schwitters-1912 [Accessed 7 Nov. 2015].

 

Hugo Ball

Hugo Ball was born in Pirmasens in 1886 and died in Sant’ Abbondio, Switzerland in 1927. He studied at the Universities of Munich and Heidelberg; German literature, philosophy and history from 1906 till 1907. He went to Berlin to become and actor in 1910. Ball worked as a director and stage manager and worked with Max Reinhardt. He wrote expressionist journals  Neue Kunst and Die Aktion which later predicted Dada journals. After WW1 he and Emmy Hennings, who he married in 1920, went to Zurich, Switzerland. He met Hans Arp, Marcel Janco, Tristan Tzara, Richard Huelsenbeck and Walter Serner at the ‘Cabaret Voltaire’ which he started in 1916. Later in July, he went to a Swiss countryside and left the Dada circle but then he returned in 1917 to arrange an exhibition in Galerie Dada. Performances, lectures, dances and tours were held there.  He wanted the Dada movement to become international but then he left Zurich and did not return again.

Seegers, C. (2015). DADA Companion — Hugo Ball. [online] Dada-companion.com. Available at: http://www.dada-companion.com/ball/ [Accessed 7 Nov. 2015].

Constructivism

Before constructivism, there was suprematism. This art movement focuses on geometric forms (like rectangles, circle, square and lines) and used only some type of colours. They did not try to look like anything else. They are based on the artistic feeling not on the visuals.

Constructivism (1919 – 1934)

Constructivism started in Russia after the WW1.

In constructivism propaganda, posters, collage, photomontage and graphics are usually used. Everyone is a target. It is not about composition but about the technique and less about the art but more about the statement (message). It is a political movement in art; half politics and half aesthetic. They used the same colour palate (red, black, yellow, white and sometimes green) by cutting pieces of paper. Their style is quite simple, clear, abstract and eye catching. They used a lot of geometrical shapes. The photography that they used was normally taken from magazines and newspaper etc. When they used people in their work, they normally used working class people because it effected them the most.

Aleksandr Rodchenko – Lengiz, books on every subject (against book censorship) 1923. He was very famous and this work his most famous work. In this art work, he took a photo of Lilya Brik and cut out each shapes and colour to create a propaganda poster. It is very eye catching.

El Lissitzky – Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919). He uses a lot of block colours and block shapes to a make a construction.

During a lesson I created my own constructivist art work:

Shock Art

Shock Art

Shock art is meant to shock people.

Piero Manzoni – Artist’s Breath. The artit’s breath because the balloon was blown up by the artist himself.

After his father told him that his work was shit, he wrote a letter to his friend and after he put his shit in a can as art. Apparently, it is sold for millions of pounds.

Rick Gibson – Sniffy the Rat. He proposed that he was going to squash a rat with a machine. Lots of media show up to see what was going to happen but then people stole his machine and he did not end up doing.

Tracey Emin – My Bed. After her breakup, she was suicidal and did not leave her bed for a long time, but after she made this art with her bed. It is very personal and exposing a lot of things about her.

Marco Evaristti – Helena. They are goldfish in a blenders. He left it totally up to the people to press the button. If someone presses the button, the goldfish gets blended. There are sources that say that someone actually did press one of them but it is not publically announced.

Cubism, Futurism and Dada

Cubism: A lot of different viewpoints and 3D forms.

Georges Brague. He used a lot of earthy colours and geometric shapes.

Pablo Picasso. He said: “The world today doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?”

Futurism: Speed, technology and industrialization. It was very modern for that time. They used geometric shapes, sculptures, paintings etc. It was all about movement and speed.

Art + Action + Life = Futurism

Cubism and futurism both lead to dada.

Dada

Dada was named by artists in Zurich in 1916. That same year, Hugo Ball wrote the manifesto.

It was considered mockery of the industrial. Dada was the reactions of the horror of WW1 which damaged the order of the world.

Its philosophy is still adopted today.

Dada sounds the same in every language. Dada is a sound, it has no meaning. It is anti-art, anti-establishment and anti-war. Dada is an art movement but it is anti-art.

“Dada is nothing”.

Dada is a mix of different mediums. There is no definite way to define dada art.

Paintings, drawing, collage, sound, ready-mades, sculpture, visual art, literature, theatre, photomontage and assemblage were all forms of expression in the dada art movement.

Collage: (from the word coller, ‘to glue’ in French). Collected things and made them into a collage. It was very different at that time from what was called art.

Photomontage: A collage but made from photos, mainly taken from press. For the first time images are everywhere and they were seen as disposable.

Hannah Hoch. Cut with the dada kitchen knife 1919.

The image has people, text, machines/wheels (symbols of industrialisation) taken from newspapers, tabloids and magazines. The image is very busy, it does not have a lot of negative spaces. It has very earthy and nude colours and has the word ‘dada’ written. The image criticizes society.

Assemblage: A sculpture made up of everyday things.

Paul Hausmann. Mechanical Head 1919.

There are random objects that have nothing to do with each other.

Ready-made: Everyday things that are already made which are normally bought.

There is also assisted ready-made. It is an object that is already made but the artist added something else to it.

Marcel Duchamp. The Fountain 1917.

He didn’t make it, he just bought it. He claimed it to be art by taking a photo and writing a name on it and placing it in a gallery. The name written is not his actual name.

Typography: Words and texts of random fonts, letters and symbols. They used the word ‘dada’ many times. A lot of things do not make any sense.

Chance: They embraced accident and improvisation. They let go of conscious control.

Hans Arp. Untitled (Collage with squares arranged according to the laws of chance). He randomly dropped squared on a piece of paper.

Sound poem: A poem made up of random sounds. Example FMSBW by Raul Hausmann.

Dada poetry: A poetry made up from random words. If ones reads it, it does not make any sense.

During today’s lesson, we made our own dada poetry. This is mine:

How it is done:

Hugo Ball invented dada performance (sound poem).

Marcel Duchamp. ‘In Advance of a broken arm’- readymade. He bought a shovel and put it in a museum and claimed that it was art.

Research and Summary

Research

The four main methods of research:

Primary research: Research that you create yourself (interview or questionnaire). Example, if one is at an exhibition and he/she takes pictures of the place, that is primary research. Autobiographies, oral records and dissertations are also primary research.

Secondary research: Information that already exists.

Quantitive research: Research shown in numbers (example: charts and graphs)

Qualitative research: Information on people’s personal opinion

Summary

Prediction – title -what kind of text

Question

Compare

Visualize – information to understand

Summarize

Essential information- pick out main points and dates, figures and details.

Avoid: Plagiarism, copy and paste, personal opinions and paraphrasing.

In class we wrote a summary from a website that we choose ourselves.

Original text:

Landscape photography is both challenging and an extremely rewarding genre of nature photography.

Rarely does blind luck alone lead to captivating or evocative landscape photography. Snapshots of the landscape taken from a car window or the side of the trail seldom translate into images that stir the soul or the imagination. Planning, scouting, perfect timing and a little bit of luck, all contribute to getting consistent successes.

The good news is that landscape photography doesn’t require any highly specialized equipment like wildlife or macro photography, for example. In fact, a camera body and a kit lens is more than enough to get started. The closest essential piece of equipment that is extra is a good, sturdy tripod. Landscape photography is often all about using small apertures and relatively long shutter speeds in low light, so stabilization is essential.

More than any other type of photography, landscape photography requires the greatest attention to the direction, intensity, and color of the available natural light. Choosing or waiting for the right light and paying attention to how it falls on the land is essential to creating powerful and meaning landscape images. Patience is a personal trait that will serve you well.

In addition to light, close attention to composition is paramount to good results. Keeping the primary focal point from the center, using the Rule of Thirds, and incorporating the use of lines in the composition, all can contribute to the perceived flow, balance, and aesthetic value of the image. These suggestions are simply guidelines and often must be broken to be successful, but they are good places to start.

Landscape Photography can be difficult to truly master, but the rewards of each success are often the most powerful and inspiring images.

http://www.naturephotographers.net/landscapephotography.html#

The summary I wrote in the classroom:

Nature photography includes landscape photography which is demanding but fruitful. When someone takes a quick picture from behind a car window or from an edge of a trail, the photo rarely captures the eye. Timing, perfect location and organization are all assets for capturing a good image. To shoot landscape photography, one does not need any special equipment, like when shooting macro or wildlife photography, all one needs is a camera and lenses and maybe a stable tripod. The best way to capture a great landscape is to use small apertures and long shutter speeds when shooting in low light. One has to chose the right light by looking at how it hits the land, so natural light is also very important. Composition is vital, so one has to make sure to use the rule of thirds. There are also other rules but some can be broken if one knows the rules well.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is when you put a text or someone else’s work into your own words. One cannot summarize or quote without citing the source. Plagiarism is theft and cheating.

Quotations: if a quote is longer than three lines, it needs to be indented.

When writing a bibliography, one has to take notice of from where he/she is citing and use the Harvard Referencing System.

Chapter/essay in a book, website/ online documents, journal articles printed, journal articles online, dictionary/ encyclopedia all have different referencing.

Some examples that I made in class:

Book:

Harrison,C.(1997) Movements in Modern Art Modernism.1st edn. London: Tate Gallery

Chapter in a book:

Harrison,C.(1997)’What Is Modernism?’ In: Harrison. Movements in modern Art. London: Tate Gallery.pp. 6-15

Website:

Nicholson,A. (2015) 8 ways to get sharp photos at night. At: http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2015/10/05/8-ways-to-get-sharp-photos-at-night/ (Assessed on 19.10.15)

Pictorialism

Art movements in photography

Pictorialism (1840-1850)

Pre-pictorialism: Photographers wanted photography to been seen as art.

Some artists:

Gustave le Gray. He composed his image from two negatives.

Oscar Rejlander. The two ways of life. The image looks more like a painting than a photo. It is made from around 30 different negatives.

Lady Filmer. First ever photomontage artist.

Pictorialism. It was an international photography movement. They wanted to give a response to those who said that a photograph was nothing more than a record of reality but a creation of visual beauty and who said that photographers just point and shoot. Photographers wanted to be seen as artists.

Julia Margaret. She took her ideas from paintings and literature. She also made a book of illustrations.

Robert Demachy. His photos do not look like photos at all. He used different textures so the photos came out differently. He brushed the papers with his chemicals, hence the lines that looks like brush strokes.

International Pictorial Groups:

The Linked Ring – UK

Photo-Secession – US

Photo-club de Paris – France

The Linked Ring (created by Henry Peach Robinson in 1892)

The main aim was to see photography as art. The photos looked like painting and were dramatic and they used very brown tones.

Henry Peach Robinson’s most famous photography is ‘Fading Away’ where he is trying to tell a story. the image has three different negatives. He also created a story of a little red riding hood. It was the first ever narrative done using photography. He is trying to use it as an art form.

James Craig Annan. He uses textured papers and negatives, very soft focus (very still) and silhouettes. His subject matters were taken from literature.

Fredrik H.Evans. He photographed Churches, theaters and cathedrals. His images still looked like paintings even though he did not use that much negatives. Most of his work was taken in the dock town, where he lived.

Photo-Secession (started by Alfred Stieglitz in 1902)

“Photo-secession means a seceding from the accepted idea of what constitutes a photograph”

Alfred Steiglitz really pushed for pictorialism and wanted photography to be as an art form. He was seen as abstract. He did a series named ‘Equivalents’ – the studies of clouds.

“Every photograph has an equivalent idea/emotion attached to it”

Edward Steichen. He started as a trained painter and he was the first fashion photographer. He used very soft focus and his photos are very minimalistic. Portraits are not looking at the camera. His work is very dark and mysterious. He worked close with Stieglitz and they changed how photography was seen worldwide. They had the very first photography publication – Camera Work magazine, the first gallery – Gallery 291 and the very first camera club.

Gertrude Kasebier. She photographed a lot of natives and she used to concentrated on family life (mother and child). She was one amongst few women in the pictorialist movement.

Heinrich Kuhn. Kuhn experimented with different perspectives and viewpoints like no one else at that time and he liked to photograph a lot his own children. He used textured paper for soft, ghostly effects and experimented a lot in colour (auto chrome). The colours that he used are very subtle and changed them over time.

Clerance White. He was an educator and he thought the very first photography classes. He manipulated pictures and created narratives with his images.

Pictorialism is starting to change and photography is starting to inch away from paintings and look more like photos. Visual characteristics in pictorialism found in most photographs: picturesque, textured paper, soft focus, shallow depth of field, romanticism and sentimentality. The beauty of the subject, tones and compositions are more important than showing the reality.

Birth of Photography

Birth of photography:

People say that the birth of photography was in 1839 but this is just when successful photographs were announced publicly. In fact, there has always been a debate about who invented photography and when.

Photography -> Obscura + recording medium

Johann Heinrich Schulze (1687-1744) was a German professor and scientist who used light instead of heat and proved that silver compounds darken when they are exposed to light. He used chalk, nitrate acid and silver compounds.

Thomas Wedgwood was the first person to try and take images with the camera obscura. He was also the first person to use the light sensitive silver compounds on leather and paper.

Joseph Nicephore Niepce was a French inventor. He was the first guy to make successfully a permanent photo, shown in the image below. It took him 8 hours to take the image, that is why the sun appears on both sides of the photo.

The view from the Window at Le Gras – 1826

Louis Daguerre. He created the daguerreotype (announced in early 1839). The daguerreotype had an image of sharp detail with mirrored glass plates. It took a few minutes of the a photo so it had shorter exposure time.

He took the first picture of people but no one appeared in the photo because of the long exposure. It took him about 5 hours to take the picture. The only man that appeared in the picture was a man who spent a long time shining his shoes who was the first man ever to appear in a photo.

William Henry Fox Talbot was a scientist who claimed that he invented the system first. He invented the salted paper and calotype process. Henry Fox Talbot was friends with John Herschel and he told him about the calotype. John Herschel was an English mathematician, chemist and inventor. He discovered sodium thiosulfate solved silver halides. He later concluded that pictures can be fixed and made permanent by using hyposulphite of soda.

Calotype was a system of leaving a negative photo outside in the sun.

There was the age old debate between Henry Fox and Louis Daguerre.

After Birth:

Collodion process. It is a more advanced/mashed up version of daguerreotypes and calotypes. Frederick Scott Archer (1851) used a wet plate, glass plate and a negative.

Richard Leach Maddox. He invented the dry plate process. It took up to two to three seconds of light exposure to make an image. At the time of exposure, plates had to be sensitized while the emulsion was still wet. After the exposure in the camera the image had to be processed right away. It was the end of the portable dark room.

George Eastman. Eastman changed everything about photography. He is the inventor of Kodak. In 1889, he invented the roll of film and pictures became much faster. In 1900, he invented the Kodak brownie which made circular images. These photographs were aimed at everyone. One could even send Kodak the image he/she wanted to develop and they would develop it.

Kodak brownie:

The History of colour photography

At first, artists used to paint photographs to create a photograph in colour. Colour photography was invented in 1861 by James Maxwell with commissioned photographer Thomas Sutton. They created a photograph in colour because they took three black and white photos with different filters of primary colours (RGB -red, blue and yellow) and they projected all the photos and merged them together to create different colours. The system was called projecting.

Prokudin- Gorskii invented the process of a normal image (no more projecting). He used one camera with three different filters. He used digichromatography – RGB.  He merged three plates together to create an image in colour, like shown in the image below.

Lumiere Brothers. They had a process called ‘bichromated glue’.

Kodchrome – The first ever colour film used commercially in 1935.

Birth of Digital Photography

Digital Photography use sensors instead of film and more exposures. It changed the way we photograph, see, communicate and think.

Steven Sasson. He worked for Kodak and he invented the first digital camera.

In 1995, the digital camera became more public but it took a while to catch on. The camera is casio QV-10.

In 1990, Photoshop was invented and it replaced the dark room.

 

Camera Obscura

Today we created another camera obscura but instead I used a can of Pringles. I really liked the idea of it because it is something that I have never done. It makes it more understandable how the obscura works. First we cut the can from one end, the we cut a piece of paper to cover the end and we taped the can from both ends. From the one end one can see an upside down picture. The process: