How You Look At It

Nicéphore Niépce, View from the Window at Le Gras, 1826

The above image is arguably the first photograph ever created, that is to say it is the first picture to be captured and preserved on a light sensitive surface.  It was taken using a Camera Obscura, a box (or enclosure) with a hole in the front.  The name of the device derives from Latin language, Camera meaning room or chamber and Obscura meaning dark.  Historians credit the image to Nicéphore Niépce who titled the work View from the Window at Le Gras and it dates all the way back to 1826.  For our French friends, the image was made in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, in the region of Burgundy, France.

Harry Shunk, Leap Into the Void, 1960

Now that you know all there is to know about the history of photography, we can move on to more interesting topics such as contemporary photography, which we shall call from the post-war period (1945) to present day.  Where to start? No where in particular!

 Bernd and Hilla Becher, Cooling Towers, 1972

Bernd and Hilla Becher use the camera as an objective recording device, to document and compile archives of different architectural structures. Note the grid!

Otto Steinert, A Pedestrian, 1950

Here Steinert choose his composition, framed the scene and then waited for the right instant to make the photograph.  This is known as decisive moment, a term coined by Henri Cartier-Bresson, whom you should also check out.  The effect was of course created using a slower shutter speed.

Dan Graham, Homes for America, 1966-1967

These images are part of a ground breaking series Graham shot for Art in America magazine about the seriality of American homes and life in American suburbs.

David Lamelas, The Violent Tapes, 1975

Here is a good example of the cinematic qualities photography can have, especially when combined with a narrative of sorts. (Click to enlarge!)

Sherrie Levine, After Walker Evans: 3, 1981

Here is proof that you don't even have to take your own photographs to become successful.  In 1980 Levine set about rephotographing Walker Evan's iconic work from the 1930's including this one here titled Floyd Burroughs, Cotton Sharecropper.  By appropriating these images, Levine can be said to be raising questions about class, identity, the political uses of imagery, the nature of creativity, and the ways in which context affects the viewing of photographs.

This is part one of many, check back soon for more artists!

Feel free to look at the artist's other work if you should be inclined...

Or find your own to share with the class!