VISUAL COMMUN ICATION CASE STUDIES
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies View from the Window at Le Gras,1826 1765
Niepce 17th-century engraving of a man leading a horse, 1825
Niepce
Nicéphore Niépce was born Joseph Niépce in 1765 and was a French inventor. He is one of the inventors of photography and a pioneer in the field. He is most known for producing the world’s first known photograph in 1825.
Niépce served as a staff officer in the French army under Napoleon.
In 1822, he took what is believed to be the world’s first photogravure etching of an engraving of Pope Pius VII, but the original was later destroyed when he attempted to duplicate it.
The first surviving photogravure by Niépce is of a man with a horse. It was printed from a metal plate covered with a ground that was etched following exposure to sunlight.
He collaborated with Louis Daguerre and together developed the physautotype, a process that used lavender oil around 1829. He died in 1833 and Daguerre eventually developed a process that little resembled that of Niépce, naming this the “Daguerréotype”, after himself.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies 1800
Camera used by Talbot Photogravure of Victor Hugo, 1883
Fox Talbot
William Henry Fox Talbot born in 1800 was a British inventor and photographer known for his invention of the calotype process. His work in the 1840s on photo-mechanical reproduction led to the creation of the process of photogravure.
He was trying to make a print that would not fade therefore creating photographic images on plates that could then be etched. The etched plates could then be printed using a traditional printing press.
His “The Pencil of Nature” (1844–46) was the first book with photographic illustrations.
Six decades after his death in 1877 , the negatives of all his early photographs were discovered by his grand daughter Matilda Talbot, and given to the Science Museum, South Kensington. In 1977 an exhibition of Fox Talbot’s photographs was organized to commemorate the centenary of his death, with original photographs of the collections of the Science Museum, the Royal Photographic Society, the Fox Talbot Museum, and the Kodak Museum.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies 1820
“Revolving” selfportrait by Nadar, 1865
Félix Nadar
Félix Nadar was born in 1820 in Paris and was a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist and balloonist. He pioneered the use of artificial lighting in photography.
In April 1874, he lent his photo studio to a group of painters, making the first exhibition of the Impressionists possible.
Nadar became well known for his Panthéon Nadar, a lithographic panorama of contemporary French cultural celebrities, published in the Lanterne magique (1854) and the Le Figaro (1858).
Nadar established himself as a photographer with his brother Adrien. In 1854 they produced a series of portraits of the mime artist Charles Deburau, illustrating various expressions. Relations between the two brothers deteriorated and led to two lawsuits in 1856–7.
Nadar became the portrait photographer of his time who used well known personalities as his subjects.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies 1830
The Horse In Motion, 1878
Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muggeridge was born in England in 1830. He changed his last name in 1855 when he moved to San Francisco.
Muybridge’s reputation as a photographer grew in the late 1800s and he was asked to help former California Governor Leland Stanford figure out if all four hooves of a running horse left the ground by capturing it in camera. He experimented with an array of 12 cameras photographing the horse in a sequence of shots. Muybridge perfected his method of horses in motion, proving that they do have all four hooves off the ground during their running stride.
Because of this first experiment he worked at the University of Pennsylvania between 1883 and 1886, producing thousands of photographs of humans and animals in motion. He published several books featuring his motion photographs and toured Europe and North America, presenting his photographic methods.
Muybridge died in 1904. His innovative camera techniques have enabled people to see things otherwise to fast to comprehend. They have helped other inventors including Thomas Edison and Etienne-Jules Marey.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies 1830
Fading Away, 1858
Henry “Peach” Robinson
Henry Peach Robinson was born in 1830 in Ludlow, England. He was an English pictorialist photographer best known for his combination printing in which he joined multiple negatives to form a single image, known as photomontage.
Robinson began to make photographs that imitated the themes and compositions of the anecdotal genre paintings popular at the time. His earliest known work a photo titled “Juliet with the Poison Bottle (1857)” was made by combining separate negatives into a single picture. He encouraged other photographers to produce images that looked like paintings.
His third and the most famous composite picture, “Fading Away” (1858) was both popular and morbid, showing a young girl on her deathbed surrounded by her family. His book “Pictorial Effect in Photography, Being Hints on Composition and Chiaroscuro for Photographers” was published in 1868.
In 1891 Robinson and several others formed the “Linked Ring” and later died from poisonous effects of photographic chemicals.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies 1831
The first permanent colour photograph, taken by James Clerk Maxwell in 1861
James Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell was born in 1831 and was a Scottish mathematical physicist. He has been called the third greatest inventor in physics after Issac Newton and Albert Einstein, Einstein even keeping a photograph of Maxwell on his study wall. He found that electric and magnetic fields travel through space in the form of waves and at the constant speed of light.
Maxwell is also known for presenting the first durable colour photograph in 1861. He proposed that if three black-and- white photographs of a scene were taken through red, green and violet filters, and transparent prints of the images were projected onto a screen using three projectors, when superimposed on the screen the human eye would see it as a complete image.
He photographed a tartan ribbon three times, through red, green and blue filters which became the first permanent colour photograph.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies 1832
Mary Todd Lincoln Master Herrod
William Mumler
William H. Mumler was an American spirit photographer born in 1832. His first spirit photograph was a self portrait which showed his deceased cousin. He took advantage of the large amount of people who has lost loved ones in the American Civil War.
His most famous photograph is of Mary Todd Lincoln which shows the ghost of her husband Abraham Lincoln over her shoulder. Another one is his photo of Master Herrod, showing three spirits.
In 1869 he was charged with fraud for selling photographs that he claimed included images of ghosts or spirits. Several photographers explained that the effects could be achieved by darkroom tricks. Though he was found not guilty of the charges his career was over, and he died in poverty.
Today, Mumler’s photos are considered to be fakes.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Shimazu Nariakira (Ichiki Shiro) 1857 1839
Daguerreotype built by La Maison Susse Frères in 1839 The first authenticated image of Abraham (Lincoln Nicholas H. Shepard)
Daguerreotype
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre invented the daguerreotype process in France in 1839.
The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process and is a direct-positive process, creating a highly detailed image on a sheet of copper plate with a thin coat of silver without the use of a negative. The silver-plated copper plate had to be cleaned until the surface looked like a mirror. Exposure times for the earliest daguerreotypes ranged from three to fifteen minutes, making the process impractical for portraiture. After alterations an exposure could be made in less than a minute.
The cases provided to house Daguerreotypes have a cover lined with velvet or plush to provide a dark surface that reflects into the plate for viewing.
Popularity of the daguerreotype declined in the late 1850s when the ambrotype, a faster and less expensive photographic process, became available.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies 1840
Talbot, William Henry Fox Bridge of Sighs, St. John’s College, Cambridge
Calotype
The Calotype also known as the “Talbotype,” was invented by Fox talbot in September 1840 and patented on the 8th of Feburary 1841. It was mostly used by amateurs, artists and scientists and was a technical breakthrough that helped stimulate the world-wide spread of photography allowing much shorter exposures than previous used photogenic drawing.
The Calotype proper is a negative image and is made by brushing the best quality image drawing or writing paper with a solution of silver nitrate, drying it and then immersing it in a solution of potassium iodide to form a light- sensitive layer of silver iodide. At this stage, the balance of the chemicals was such that the paper was practically insensitive to light and could be stored indefinitely.
To develop the image more of the “gallo-nitrate of silver” was brushed on while gently warming the paper. Once development was complete the calotype is was rinsed, blotted and either washed in a solution of potassium bromide or fixed in a hot solution of sodium thiosulfate then known as hyposulphite and commonly called “hypo”. This dissolved the silver iodide which washed it completely out leaving particles of the developed images and making the calotype completely insensitive to light.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies 1864
Winter on Fifth Avenue, 1893 Self-portrait, 1886
Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer born in New Jersey in 1864. He was an art promoter who helped to make photography an accepted art form such as sculpture or painting.
Stieglitz published work by other photographers in his New York art galleries and married painter Georgia O’Keeffe.
Stieglitz was known around America as a photographer who liked to overcome technical problems. This included taking the first successful photographs in snow and rain. He also experimented with flash powder so that he could take photographs at night.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Rockefeller Centre Construction Site,1930 1874
Leo aged 8 working in a textile factory in Icarus Atop Empire State Building Tennessee in 1910 “Empire State”, 1931
Lewis Hine
Lewis Hine was born in 1874 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Hine purchased his first camera in 1903 and established what became known as documentary photography.
He was a school teacher which meant he was very aware of the country’s child labour laws. In this time there were no laws to protect young workers so Hine became the National Child Labour Committee’s staff investigator and photographer. He produced two books in the subject, Child Labour in the Carolinas (1909) and Day Labourers Before Their Time (1909). Hine travelled the country taking pictures of children working in factories. As a true documentary photographer he took the images as they appeared as he believed people would be more likely to join the campaign if they felt his images were true to the situation.
Hine is most known now for his photographs of the construction workers who helped build the Empire State Building in 1930. His photograph “Rockefeller Center Construction Site” was taken in 1930 and remains to be one of the most widespread images that captures the way of life and culture during that period in American history.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Savings Bank Cashier, 1928 1876
Bricklayer, 1928 Police Officer, 1925
August Sander
August Sander was born in 1876 and was a German portrait and documentary photographer. Sander has been considered as the most important German portrait photographer of the early 20th century.
Sander worked as a miner and after a stint in the military, pursued photography professionally. In 1904 he had his own studio in Linz. His work includes landscape, nature, architecture, and street photography, but he is best known for his portraits.
In 1911 he did his first series of portraits for his work “People of the 20th Century.” His book “Face of our Time” was published in 1929 and contains a selection of 60 portraits from the series. In this series, he aimed to show a mixed society during the Weimar Republic. The series is divided into seven sections: The Farmer, The Skilled Tradesman, Woman, Classes and Professions, The Artists, The City, and The Last People
Sander died in Cologne in 1964
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Shell, 1927 1886
Pepper No.30, 1930 Pepper, 1930
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston was born in Chicago in 1886 and was a 20th century American photographer. He is considered one of the most innovative and influential American photographers and a master of 20th century photography.
Weston photographed a large range of subjects, including landscapes, still lifes, nudes, portraits, and genre scenes.
In 1937 Weston was the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, and over the next two years he produced nearly 1,400 negatives using his 8 x10 camera.
He was intrigued by the many kinds and shapes of kelp he found on the beaches near Carmel, in 1930. He began taking close-ups of vegetables and fruits. These included cabbage, kale, onions, bananas, and finally, his most iconic image, peppers. Over a four-day period he shot at least thirty different negatives of peppers. His photograph “Pepper No. 30” is among the all-time masterpieces of photography.
In 1947 he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, this caused him to stop photographing and instead he worked for 10 years overseeing the printing of more than 1,000 of his most famous images.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies 1890
Kodak Brownie Hawkeye with “Kodalite Flasholder” and Sylvania P25 blue-dot daylight-type flashbulb
Flash Bulb
The flash bulb was an oxygen-filled bulb in which aluminum foil was burned, with ignition by a battery.
French zoologist Louis Boutan was experiementing in underwater photography in the 1890s and used a lamp powdered by magnesium sealed in a glass and lit. Paul Vierkötter used this same principle in 1925, when he ignited magnesium electronically in a glass globe.
In 1929, the Vacublitz was made from aluminium foil sealed in oxygen and produced in Germany by the Hauser Company using Johannes B. Ostermeier’s patents. It was quickly followed by the “Sashalite” from the General Electric Company in the USA. The first photos using the “Sashalite” flashbulb were published by The ‘Morning Post.
Due to high quality of the invention, mass-market cameras were soon fitted with flashguns or synchronizers to fire a bulb when the shutter opened. This was a huge technological leap forward for photography and by the 1950s bulbs had virtually replaced flash powder on the market.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Salute of Innocence, 1942 1895
Migrant Mother, 1936 Couple Seated on Porch, 1953
Dorothea Lange
Dorethea Lange was an American photographer who was born in 1895. She attended the New York Training school for teachers where visits to the photographer Arnold Genthe influenced her decision to become one herself.
She she set up a successful portrait studio in 1918 in San Francisco and in 1934 she had her first solo show at the Brockhurst Studio of Willard Van Dyke in Oakland, Ca. In 1935 she began working for the Resettlement Administration where one of her most famous photographs from was taken,“Migrant Mother.” The image shows an anxious mother and three children.
In 1941, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. She was hired in 1942 by the War Relocation Authority to document the internment of Japenese-Americans during the Second World War. She worked for the Office of War information where she covered the United Nations Conference in San Francisco for the State Department. After the war Lange did several assignments for Life Magazine including “Three Mormon Towns” in 1954 with Ansel Adams. Lange died of cancer in1965, just before the opening of her major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Untitled from Konstruktionen. Kestnermappe 6, 1923 1895
Laboratory, 1938, Chicago Photogram , 1924
Moholy Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy, born in 1895 in Borsod was shaped by Dadaism, Suprematism, Constructivism and is one of the greatest influences on post-war art education in the United States. Throughout his career, he became innovative in the fields of photography, typography, sculpture, painting, printmaking, and industrial design. He had the opinion that photography could create a whole new way of seeing the outside world that the human eye could not. In 1923, Moholy-Nagy became an instructor at the Bauhaus which moved the school closer to its original aims of being a school of design. The Bauhaus became known for the versatility of its artists with Moholy-Nagy a prime example. One of his most enduring achievements is the construction of the “Lichtrequisit einer elektrischen Buehne” completed in 1930, a device with moving parts meant to have light projected through it in order to create mobile light reflections and shadows on nearby surfaces. After his death, it was dubbed the “Light-Space Modulator” and was seen as a pioneer achievement of kinetic sculpture. It might more accurately be seen as one of the earliest examples of Light Art. Moholy-Nagy moved to Chicago and started the “School of Design” in 1939 which became the “Institute Of Design” and was the first school in the United States to offer a PhD in design. Moholy-Nagy was a massive influence on design and continues to be today. “Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design” in Budapest is named in his honour as is the software company Laszlo Systems. Moholy-Nagy died of leukaemia in Chicago in 1946.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Winter Sunrise, 1944 1902
Oak Tree, Sunset City, 1962 Oak Tree, Snowstorm, 1948
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was born in 1902 and was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West.
Together with Fred Archer he developed the Zone System which was a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. Admas used large-format cameras as he liked the clarity and sharpness in his images.
He founded the group f/64 and used the very small aperture that gave a large depth of field. He focused on what he beleived was pure photography, showing very detailed photographs. His photographs were widely used in calendars, posters, and in books. He expanded his works, focusing on detailed close-ups as well as large forms from mountains to factories.
In 1940, Ansel put together “A Pageant of Photography” which was the most important and largest photography show in the West to date. In 1943, he had a camera platform mounted on his station wagon to give him a different vantage point than the immediate foreground. Most of his landscapes from that time forward were made from the roof of his car.
Adams died in 1984 aged 82. An archive of Ansel Adams’s work is located at the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies NEHRU announces GANDHI’s assassination to a crying crowd, 1948 1908
Hyères, 1932 Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, 1932
Henri Cartier Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was born in 1908 in France and is considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. Cartier- Bresson wandered around the world with his camera, becoming totally immersed in his current environment. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format camera and helped develop the street photography style that has influenced generations of photographers.
Cartier-Bresson joined the army in 1940 and was soon captured by German forces and forced into prison-of-war camp for the next three years. In 1943 he escaped and immediately returned to his photography and film work. He was commissioned by the United States to direct a documentary about the return of French prisoners.
Cartier-Bresson travelled to India, where he met and photographed Mahatma Gandhi shortly before his assassination in 1948. This work became one of Life Magazine’s most prized photo essays. In 1947 he teamed up Robert Capa, George Rodger, David Seymour, and William Vandivert, and founded Magnum Photos, one of the world’s premier photo agencies.
Henri Cartier-Bresson passed away at his home in Provence on August 3, 2004 aged 95.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Meat Queue, 1946 1911
Sunbaker, 1937 Sydney Opera House, 1973
Max Dupain
Maxwell Spencer Dupain born in 1911, in Sydney is regarded as one of Australia’s greatest photographers. He used simplicity and directness in his work, creating images of sharp focus, boldness and graphic composition. He was one of the earliest and most outstanding photographers of modernism in Australia.
Dupain is best known for his photographs of Australians showing their way of life, particularly their beach culture. His 1937 iconic photograph “Sunbaker” is his most famous work.
Dupain went to the war which guided him towards documentary photography. He was commissioned by the Department of Information to photograph Australia’s way of life as part of a campaign to increase migration to Australia. These images became important records of Australia’s changing society. One of the most memorable is “Meat queue”.
From the 1960s he began to specialise in modern and historic architecture. He uses simple approaches which showed shapes within the structures. He was soon considered the premier photographer of architecture in Australia.
Dupain was honoured with an Order of the British Empire, and a life membership with The Royal Australian Institute of Architects. He died in 1992, aged 81.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Ur-Leica (“original Leica”), from 1914 1913
Reproduction of the Leica Prototype, 1913 Leica M
Leica
The first Leica prototype 35mm camera was built by Oskar Barnack in 1913. Development was delayed for years by World War I. The camera was put into production as the Leica I in 1925. The Leica was intended as a compact camera for landscape photography, particularly during mountain trips.
In 1930 came the Leica I with an exchangeable lens system and in The Leica II in 1932, which had a built in rangefinder.
The first digitally controlled Leica was presented in 1994, called the LEICA R7.
The newest camera to the Leica collection is the Leica M. It is a 24-megapixel, full-framed camera and goes up to a standard ISO of 6400. It also features 1080p HD video recording. The Leica M is expected be out next year for $US7000.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Leica I, 1925 1913
Retina 1, 1934 Canon 35mm rangefinder, 1936
35mm Camera
Invented by German-born Oskar Barnack who was an engineer, hiker, and an amateur photographer. He used to lug his equipment around while hiking and wanted something less bulky to carry.
As early as 1905, he had the idea of reducing the format of negatives and then enlarging the photographs after they had been exposed.
He built his prototype 35 mm camera (Ur-Leica) around 1913. Development was delayed for years by World War I. The camera was put into production as the Leica I in 1925. The Contax made in 1932 became the 35 mm choice for high-end compact cameras.
Kodak produced the Retina I in 1934, which introduced the 135 cartridge used in all modern 35 mm cameras. The Japanese camera industry began to take off in 1936 with the Canon 35 mm rangefinder. Japanese cameras became very popular in the West after Korean War veterans and soldiers stationed in Japan took them back to the United States and elsewhere.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies 1913
Falling Republican Militiaman, Spain 1936 Selection of the remaining 11 photos form Omaha Beach, 1944
Robert Cappa
Robert Capa was a Hungarian combat photographer and photojournalist born in 1913, Budapest. Capa became famous overnight for his remarkable picture of a dying Spanish soldier. He moved around from China, Sicily, America and Europe covering pictures at the battlefields.
On June 6, 1944, an assault barge landed Robert Capa on Omaha Beach. Here, he exposed four rolls of the most famous films in history. All but 11 of the frames were ruined by an emulsion spill in Lifes London darkroom. The surviving images were published and called “slightly out of focus.”
Once the war was over, together with Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour, George Rodger, and William Vandivert, Capa started Magnum photos and became an international businessman.
There is much talk about Robert Capa’s well known image “Falling Republican Militiaman” being a fake. Historians began to challenge the picture’s veracity and raise questions about Capa’s reputation. It has never been proven either way if the image was staged or captured as it happened.
In 1954 Capa went to Japan with a Magnum exhibition. While he was there he volunteered for Life to photograph the Indochina front in which he lost his life, camera still in hand.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Vivien Leigh by Shmith, 1948 1914
Beauty (1950s) Untitled (Model Patricia Tuckwell) 1949
Louis Athol Shmith
Louis Athol Shmith was born in Melbourne in 1914 and was a studio portrait and fashion photographer. His father gave him a camera as a teenager and what was a hobby became a profession in his late teens. He started a studio in St Kilda and for the first five years he specialised in theatre work and wedding portraits.
His professional job came in the early 1930s when he was contracted to take portraits of visiting celebrities for the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
He prided himself on his skill in lighting and often lit subjects from the top, and back being influenced by Californian photographer George Hurrell.
Through the 1960s he was dynamic in his development of fashion work. He took on roles in photographic heritage and education. In 1968 he helped to establish a photography department at the National Gallery of Victoria and in 1971 took on a role as head of the Photography Department at Prahran College of Advanced Education.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Untitled, 1955 1918
A Walk To Paradise Garden, 1946 USA. November, 1948 Harry Truman
Eugene Smith
Eugene Smith was an American photojournalist born in 1918 in Wichita, Kansas and was known for his brutally vivid World War II photographs.
Smith photographed battle conditions of U.S Marines and Japanese prisoners on the front line in World War II where his most dramatic photos were taken. Smith documented the life of the working class, the rural poor, war, and the effects of mercury pollution on the Japanese village of Minamata.
He worked for Life Magazine and Magnun photos. He often didn’t get along with editors and art directors as he had huge passion for the truth and integrity of the picture and regarded this much more important than monetary gain. This dedication saw him injured in mortar fire in Okinawa.
His photo essays during the decade after the Second World War remain memorable and probably represent the highest success that photography achieved within the format of the magazine photostory. He documented the work of Albert Schweitzer, which led him to leave “Life Magazine” because of the way they used him images.
Smith died in 1978 from a stroke, most likely caused by his use of amphetamines and alcohol. His legacy lives on through the “W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund” to promote humanistic photography.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Untitled, 1982 1934
Untitled, 2000 Apocalypse II, 1967
Jerry Uelsmann
Jerry Uelsmann was born in Detroit in 1934. Jerry was the forerunner of photomontage in the 20th century in America. Uelsmann is a master printer, producing composite photographs with multiple negatives using up to a dozen enlargers at a time to produce his final images.
Uelsmann was criticized for his early work as people didn’t believe it should be called photography. A major break for Uelsmann occurred in 1967, when his images were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His work that had earlier been critiqued was now viewed by a dedicated faction as avant-garde and boundary breaking.
Despite digital photography programs such as Photoshop, Uelsmann still continues to work in the darkroom, as he says watching that print come up in the developer is magic, wonderful and a challenging experience.
Uelsmann’s work has been exhibited in more than 100 individual shows over the past thirty years. His photographs are in the permanent collections of many museums worldwide.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies A typical plastic 35mm Kodachrome slide 1935
Afghan Girl,1984 (Steve McCurry) Shaftesbury Avenue,1949 (Chalmers Butterfield)
Kodachrome
Kodachrome was invented in the early 1930s by two professional musicians, Leopold Godowsky, and Leopold Mannes, who were trained scientists. It was introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935 and was known for its rich hues and lifelike textures.
When stored in darkness, Kodachrome’s long-term stability under suitable conditions is superior to other types of colour film. Images on Kodachrome slides over fifty years old retain accurate colour and density. It was manufactured for 74 years in various formats to suit still and motion picture cameras.
Because of the uptake of alternative photographic materials, its complex processing requirements, and the widespread transition to digital photography, Kodachrome lost its market share, its manufacturing was discontinued in 2009 and its processing ended in 2010.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies 1948
The Polaroid Land Camera model 103
Polaroid Camera
The invention of the first commercial polaroid camera in 1948 is credited to American scientist Edwin Land who also founded The Polaroid Company which originally made polarized sunglasses. In 1963 Polaroid released coloured film and by 1976, sales of Polaroid cameras exceeded 6 million dollars.
Instant cameras have been produced to use three main categories of film: rollfilm, packfilm, and integral film. All of these films can be expensive, usually costing about $1 per shot, or print.
In February 2008, Polaroid announced it would discontinue production of film, shut down three factories and lay off 450 workers. Fujifilm is now the only remaining supplier of instant film in the United States.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies One Big Snake, 1991 1951
Emmett, Jessie, and Virginia Candy Cigarette, 1989
Sally Mann
Sally Mann was born in Virginia in 1951. She has photographed in the American South since the 1970s, producing series on portraiture, architecture, landscape and still life. She is best known for her intimate portraits of her family, her young children and her husband, and for her landscape work in the American South.
Between 1984 and 1994, she worked on the series Immediate Family (1992) which later became a book. It consists of 65 black-and-white photographs of her three children, all under the age of 10. While the series touches on ordinary moments in their daily lives- playing, sleeping, eating - it also speaks to larger themes such as death and cultural perceptions of sexuality. She used a 8 x10 camera and it is quite facinating that she was able to acheive candid images of her children with such a large intimatating camera. There was controversy on the books release that included accusations of child pornography.
Sally Mann still lives and works in Virginia and has won a Guggenheim award as well as being a three-times recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. She was named “America’s Best Photographer” by Time magazine in 2001. Her photographs can be found in many public and private collections.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Untitled #8, 2007-08 1955
Untitled #16, 2009-2010 Untitled #25, 2008- 2009
Bill Henson
Bill Henson was born in 1955 and is an Australian contemporary art photographer. Henson uses chiaroscuro throughout his works, through underexposure and adjustment in printing.
In 2008, the opening night of Bill Henson’s 2007–2008 exhibition at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Paddington, Sydney, was cancelled because complaints were made to police about photographs that showed a naked 13 year old girl. This was widely covered in the media and images were removed from the gallery with the intention to charge Henson or the gallery for “publishing an indecent article” under the Crimes Act. This started many debates with high profile members of the community who argued about the photographs having artistic merit. Henson was not charged for anything as they were labelled with a PG rating.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies The Movie Star: David Gulpillil,1985 1955
Image from “Something More”, 1989 Image from “Something More”, 1989
Tracey Moffatt
Tracey Moffatt was born in Brisbane in 1960 and is an Australian artist who primarily uses photography and video. She first became known when she was commissioned in 1989 by the Albury Regional Art Gallery and produced a series titled “Something More.”
Moffatt’s work in film and video has included short films, experimental video and a feature films.
In 2000, Moffatt’s work was included in a major exhibition of Australian Indigenous art which was held in the prestigious Nicholas Hall at the Hermitage Museum in Russia.
She has worked on many films including “Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy” 1989,“Bedevil” 1993, “Heaven” 1997, “Lip” 1999, “Artist” 2000, and “Revolution” 2008.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Chicago Board of Trade II, 1999 1955
Rhein II, 1999 99 Cent II Diptychon, 2001
Andreas Gursky
Andreas Gursky born in 1955 and is a German visual artist known for his large format architecture and landscape colour photographs. He often took his images from a high view point. This trait was influenced by British landscape photographer John Davies, whose painted highly detailed high vantage point images.
His photography is very straight forward and has strong aesthetic qualities. His photograph titled Rhein II taken of a stretch of the river Rhine outside Düsseldorf, sold for $4.3m in New York in 2011, becoming the most expensive photograph ever sold. Another one, 99 Cent II, Diptychon, 2001 was auctioned for over $3.3 million.
He first exhibited his work in Germany in 1985 and has since exhibited throughout Europe.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Untitled #8, 2007-08 1955
Fred Payne Clatworthy, “Navajo Men on Horseback” Taj Mahal reproduced in The National Geographic Magazine, 1921.
Autochrome
Autochrome was a photographic transparency film patented in America in 1906 by the Lumiére brothers.
It consists of a glass plate coated on one side with a random mosaic of microscopic grains of potato starch dyed red, green and blue which act as color filters. Unlike ordinary black-and-white plates, the Autochrome was loaded into the camera with the bare glass side facing the lens, so that the light passed through the mosaic filter layer before reaching the emulsion.
Autochrome plates required much longer exposures than black-and-white plates and films, due to loss of light from all the filtering. This meant a tripod needed to be used and therefore wasnt very good for capturing moving subjects.
If an Autochrome was well made the color values can be very good however because of the dyed starch grains there was often a course and hazy look, mostly in lighter areas like skies. Although the costs were very high, Autochromes were quite easy to use and were popular among enthusiastic amateur photographers.
Autochromes enabled illustrated magazines like National Geographic to feature their pages with natural colour photographs showing dramatic tales of adventure which could dazzle audiences in a way that black-and-white projections could not.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Amelia Rose (9 weeks). Image from “A Labor of Love.” 1956
Julia (3 weeks) Image from “Down in the Garden.” “Cabbage Kids”
Anne Geddes
Anne Geddes was born in Queensland, Australia in 1956 and is a self taught photographer. She moved to Hong Kong with her husband Kel which was when she first professionally started photographing children of neighbours and friends.
She returned to Australia and then on to New Zealand, as her husband was offered a job there. She created some personal shoots which became known as her “Cabbage Kids” one of her most recognized photographs around the world.
She started the Anne Geddes Card Collection with Kel in New Zealand and won many awards and accolades. This success together with a request to raise money for the prevention of child abuse led to the famously known Anne Geddes Calendar, first released in 1992.
Anne had a book published in 1996 called “Down in the garden” a fairy tale told through photography which led to her appearing on the “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” The success of the book launched Anne’s international career as a bestselling author. Her work has since been published in 83 countries including North America, Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Anne’s books have sold over 19 million copies worldwide.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Ghost, Antelope Canyon, Arizona 1959
One, Pele’s Whisper, 2008 Androscoggin River, New Hampshire Kilauea, The Big Island Hawaii
Peter Lik
Peter Lik is an Australian Landscape photographer, born in 1959 who is entirely self taught and world renowned. Lik moved to the United States in 1984 which was a defining moment in his career and where he was introduced to a medium format panoramic camera. Lik moved back to Australia and opened his first gallery in his hometown of Cairns. In 2000 Lik took a trip to photograph all 50 states of America. Highlights of this trip can be found in his book “Spirit of America.”
Lik has been awarded “Master of Photographer” from both the AIPP and PPA. He has also been awarded fellowships by the BIPP and the RPS.
His photograph “One” was sold for $1 million and resembles an impressionist painting. His masterworks “Ancient Spirit,” “Sacred Sunrise,” “Angel’s Heart,” “Tree of Life” and the highly acclaimed “Ghost” were greeted with enthusiasm by collectors with record breaking sales.
Lik has sold hundreds of millions of dollars of his artwork, has 13 galleries of his own and his TV series “From the Edge with Peter Lik”, has established Lik as a household name.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Image from “Minutes to Midnight” 2003 1971
Image from “The Seventh Wave” 2000 Untitled, 2001
Trent Parke “I am forever chasing light. Light turns the ordinary into the magical.”
Trent Parke was born in Newcastle 1971. He is the only Australian to be represented by Magnum Photos and his series “Welcome to Nowhere” was included in their 60th anniversary exhibition “New Blood”. He has worked as a photojournalist for The Australian newspaper and won several awards in his field. He is well known as a street photograpger.
His book “The Seventh Wave” (with Narelle Autio) was published in 2000. The 126 pages of black and white photography shows people in and around the Australian waters.
In 2003 he and his wife, photographer Narelle Autio, made a 90,000 km trip around Australia, shooting a series and book “Minutes to Midnight” it displays disturbing portraits of twenty-first century Australia. Trent won the prestigious Eugene Smith Award for the series. In 2006 the National Gallery of Australia acquired Parke’s entire Minutes to Midnight exhibition.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies 1975
Untitled #16, 2009-2010 Kodak DCS 100, 1991
Digital Camera
Steven Sasson an engineer at Eastman Kodak invented and built the first digital camera 1975. He later received the National Medal in Technology and Innovation for the invention. A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs by recording images on an electronic image sensor. Most cameras sold today are digital and are incorporated into many devices like mobile phones and vehicles.
His invention weighed 8 pound and was as big as a toaster of those times. It had a resolution of 0.01 megapixels, and produced black and white pictures. The camera took 23 seconds to write an image on a digital cassette tape, and another 23 seconds to read it back from the cassette to view on a television screen.
By 1991, Kodak had refined Sasson’s idea into the first professional digital camera. The DCS-100 was the first commercially available digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) camera and has a cost of $13,000.
Today digital cameras are made in a wide range of sizes, prices and capabilities. Some include, compact digital cameras, bridge cameras, mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera, DSLR cameras, digital rangefinders, and waterproof cameras.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies Lake colours in early fall, 2009 (Miao)
Burning Man, 2006 (James Bell)
Gigapan
The Gigapan camera is a simple robotic platform for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel) panoramic images from a standard digital camera. It is sponsored by Google, CMU and the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group.
An earlier version of this imaging technology was developed for the Mars Exploration Rovers; the panoramas created from Mars enabled a simulated experience of being on another planet.
These images are downloaded to a personal computer where free software stitches the images together into a single super-image. These massive images can then be uploaded to the free user community www.gigapan.com which allows high-resolution images to be stored, shared and embedded on any website.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies 2007
iPhone 3, 2007 iPhone 4, 2010 iPhone 5, 2012
I-Phone
The first iPhone was announced on January 9, 2007 by Apple’s Steve Jobs at the MacWorld convention in San Francisco. The interface was built around the device’s multi-touch screen, including a virtual keyboard rather than a physical one and a one button design with a 2MP camera. It was called the iPhone 3 and was sold in two models: a 4 GB for $499, and an 8 GB for $599. The iPhone includes popular music system iTunes and also the capability to download Apps.
In 2008 it was discontinued as the iPhone 3G was introduced. The add on froms the original were 3G networking and built-in GPS. This however this meant reduced battery life when using 3G, something the latest iPhone also suffers from.
In June 2010 the iPhone 4 came out, introducing a slimmer rectangular case, a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, a front-facing camera, and a new LED-backlit display, branded the “Retina display.” It was available in 8, 16 or 32GB.
In 2011 the iPhone was updated to the 4s which included a massive under the hood tecnical upgrade. It came with a 8 Megapixel camera, Bluetooth 4.0, and a new voice-activated assistant, called “Siri.”
The latest iPhone was released in September 2012 and called the iPhone5. The new model features a taller 4-inch screen with a resolution of 640 x 1136 pixels, has a much smaller connector, and is faster than any of the previous iPhone’s.
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies References
Images http://www.christianfletcher.com.au/2012/04/09/the-canon-5d-mk3/ http://henryartcollections.org/detail.php?t=objects&type=all&f=&s=Calotype&record=2 http://www.annegeddes.com/2010/04/12/julia-snail/ http://www.annegeddes.com/2010/04/04/cabbage-twins/ http://www.annegeddes.com/2010/04/04/country-pumpkin/ http://www.moma.org http://news.byu.edu/releases/archive11/Jan/lange/Couple%20on%20Porch.jpg http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/images/wcf092.jpg http://www.lik.com/thework/canyons-arches/ghost.html http://www.lik.com/thework/lakes-rivers-waterfalls/one.html http://www.lik.com/thework/volcanoes/peleswhisper.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leica-I-1.jpg http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Kodak_Retina_I http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/history/canon_story/1933_1936/1933_1936.html http://www.geh.org/fm/lwhprints/htmlsrc2/m197701650069_ful.html#topofimage http://www.visualsoc.net/archives/1102 http://www.uelsmann.net/works.php http://www.geh.org/fm/amico99/htmlsrc2/ http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=68722 16fc4cecae42f4bd76bb5aad916b07v http://artblart.com/tag/albert-schweitzer-man-of-mercy/ http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/03/07/photographs-of-the-famous-by-felix-nadar/ http://www.ssplprints.com/image/133213/robinson-h-p-henry-peach-fading-away-1858 http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/press/releases/2001/nr091301robinson.html http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1912110,00.html http://anthonylukephotography.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/photographer-profile-robert-capa.html http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_p/1_photographers_talbot_smm_cameras_1835-1839.htm http://www.afterimagegallery.com/bresson.htm http://inventors.about.com/od/weirdmuseums/ig/Eadweard-Muybridge/ http://www.atgetphotography.com/The-Photographers/Eadweard-Muybridge.html http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/18/Bill_Henson/1222/ http://www.google.com.au/search?q=Tracey+Moffatt&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvnsob&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa =X&ei=zt2mUIO_F6PriAeCqIHoCA&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=1151&bih=818 http://www.google.com.au/search?q=Autochrome&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvnsl&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X& ei=W-CmUODXMM2TiAfe84GwDA&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=1151&bih=818 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/hamdi002/blog/2011/12/flashbulb-memory.html http://www.techradar.com/news/cameras/photography-video-capture/how-kodak-invented-the-digital-camera-in-1975-364822 http://www.edward-weston.com/ http://www.anseladams.com/ http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2K7O3R15WKIQ http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&q=Polaroid%20Camera%20history&bpcl=38625945&biw=1151&bih=7 70&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&noj=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=zFenULrJFsXliAfFqIDgBw
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies References
Text http://dig.henryart.org/photography-and-new-media/www/innovation/calotype/#0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calotype http://www.annegeddes.com/about-anne-geddes/ http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=3373 http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAPlange.htm http://www.lik.com/theartist/biography.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_camera http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRhine.htm http://www.uelsmann.net/about.php http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Moholy-Nagy http://www.moholy-nagy.com/ http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/tag/w-eugene-smith/ http://www.atgetphotography.com/The-Photographers/Eugene-Smith.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Eugene_Smith http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=4196 http://www.photo-seminars.com/Fame/capa.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogravure http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/max-dupain http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/William_Henry_Fox_Talbot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Dupain http://www.biography.com/people/eadweard-muybridge-9419513 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Henson#cite_note-roslynoxley9-22 http://home.bway.net/jscruggs/auto.html http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/history/a-brief-history-of-photographic-flash/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_camera http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/photography/articles/33452.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicéphore_Niépce http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAPstieglitz.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Stieglitz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Weston http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Gursky http://nymag.com/arts/art/reviews/31785/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Sander http://www.photographymuseum.com/mumler.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Mumler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clerk_Maxwell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansel_Adams http://www.cv.vic.gov.au/stories/athol-shmith/ http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/KarshShmith/Default.cfm?MnuID=2&ArtistIRN=12439&GalID=2 http://archive.mocp.org/collections/permanent/mann_sally.php http://www.gagosian.com/artists/sally-mann http://metrophotobooks.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/the-seventh-wave-by-trent-parke-and-narelle-autio/ http://www.polaroid.com.au/history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_camera http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/daghtml/dagdag.html http://gigapan.com/ http://en.leica-camera.com/culture/history/ http://apple-history.com/iphone_4s http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/iphone-5-announced-apple-new-ipods-369822 http://1000words.kodak.com/thousandwords/post/?id=2388083
Stacey Courtney 01: Case Studies