Author : Pam Morris March 15 2015
“You don't take a photograph, you make it.” Ansel Adams
Photography was spawned from two very different parents; it is the result of a convergence of science and the arts. Up until the birth of photography around 1839, these two disciplines were clearly distinguished by ethics, ideology and technology. Whereas, artistic expression is based on passion, perception and prejudice, science is concerned with the discovery of empirical facts, and conceptual interpretation of these facts to develop theory to explain reality of the natural world. Whilst science seeks to explain reality, art is a personal quest of an attitude that may support or deny reality (Morris 1986, pp.1 – 8)[i] However, the synergy between science and art can be seen in their need to involve creative thinking. Whilst science may seem to be purely analytical most of the worlds most significant scientific discoveries have been through imaginings of creative thought.
The early photographers were typically artists who used the technology of capturing light to further their pursuit towards realism. It is therefore not surprising that early photographs look ‘painterly’ and with the advent of the invention of the camera, painting and art became more ‘realistic’. However the realism of the photographic image was often found to be too detailed and accurate, as with painting people wanted likenesses which flattered their vanity and did not want to be offended by the stark reality of their defects. This customer demand for photographs to emulate paintings meant that in the very early days of photography photographers painted in backgrounds and ‘fixed’ portraits to satisfy the egos of their subjects. As in paintings, where artists combined disparate subjects into the one composition; photographers ‘cut and pasted’ negatives to create aesthetic works. The Henry Peach Robinson image “Fading Away” (Figure 5) was a deliberate creation of composite of figures “as he attempted to realize moments of timeless significance in a "mediaeval" setting”[ii].
Figure 5 (Henry Peach Robinson, Fading Away 1858)
In the 1850s and 1860s the debate on the artistic value of photography continued as it was disputed that the mechanical and chemical means of producing photographs was at odds with the imaginative, creative and expressive requirements of true art[iii]. However photographers argued that their artistry was in their ability to compose what the camera recorded. This need for staging the subjects for early photography was not only to satisfy aesthetics but was necessary due to the long exposure times imposed by the technology, so the outcome of a photographic portrait in its formality and stiffness was not unlike that resulting from a formal sitting of the subject for a painting. As the popularity of the Pictorialism movement grew photographers sought to intensify photography’s expressive potential through the use of soft focussed lenses, textured papers, multiple exposures, cutting and pasting negatives and manual manipulation techniques.
However in parallel with the artistic element in photography there was an early recognition that it is the value of photography to accurately capture in detail an instance in time that sets it apart from a piece of art. François Arago the French physicist, astronomer and politician who secured French Government assistance for the Daguerreotype, was so impressed with these attributes of a photographic image that he postulated that it could be used for scientific purposes to accurately record archaeological research and restoration and also employed as an ‘objective retina’ where scientists could record the properties of light (Eskilden, 1980, p.7).[iv] So from the first dawn of photography it is has had two masters, it has had to serve an artistic purpose to satisfy aesthetics and creativity and a scientific purpose of accurate recording of an instance in time.
As photographic applications expanded, as early as the 1860s, the value of photography as a reliable representation of the world and its credibility of evidence increased. Photographic evidence of personal identity, clothing, locales and signatures were increasingly used in courts of law where photographic affidavits successfully challenged hearsay evidence. It was purported that photography made earlier forms of evidence ‘superseded by reality’ (Warner 2010, pp. 160 – 161). [v]. However this trust in its capabilities was soon to be eroded.
[i] Morris B 1986, Images Illusion and Reality, Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, Australia.
[ii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Peach_Robinson Retrieved Feb 26th 2015
[iii] http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2012/faking-it/artifice-in-the-name-of-art Retrieved Feb 14th 2015
[iv] Eskilden U. 1980, “The A-I-Z and the Arbeiter Fotograph ; Working Class Photographers in Weimar” Image vol. 23, no. 2 December. P. 7.
[v] Warner M 2010, Photography : A Cultural History, Laurence King Publishing Ltd. Great Britain