A Short History of Photography.
The history of art is profoundly connected to the history of photography.  200 years ago, only the very wealthy could afford a family portrait by which to be remembered, or a pictorial record to commemorate a special event.  The average person had no way to visually record ordinary events.  Historical information from those times is all based on information created by artists, writers, and oral histories.  Photography has forever changed the manner in which celebration, documentation, persuasion, and other forms of communication take place in culture.

The camera was invented much earlier than photography.  There are descriptions dating three centuries before the time of Christ, explaining that an image can be formed by passing light through a pin hole. Alhazen , (footnote #1) a tenth century Arabian (footnote #2) found that he could produce images in a dark room with only a pinhole in the wall.  Inside the room he could observe a solar eclipse and trace an image of it.  Earlier scientists like Aristotle wrote that objects were scanned by rays sent from our eyes.  Alhazen rewrote the science of vision by proving that light travels in straight lines that do not get mixed as they all pass through the same opening.  By the time of the Renaissance in the 15th century camera obscuras (dark rooms and boxes) including lenses were commonly used by Leonardo Da Vinci and other artists and scientists.  A camera like this works the same as our eye does. These cameras may have been a major reason for the more realistic art styles that became popular during the Renaissance.

But how is a photograph made.  We know that light changes stuff.  Even our skin darkens from light. Sunlight  fades a bright fabric.  A piece of cherry wood darkens over time from the light.  If you shade part of the wood with a stencil, you eventually make a print on the wood using light.  You could also do it with a lens or a pinhole image with enough light and enough time.  This is all very slow, and image isn't very permanent.   A practical way of producing an automatic permanent picture fixed in a material wasn't invented until about 165 years ago.  Eventually very light sensitive materials were discovered and refined.  They capture an image rapidly.  Additionally, these images can be fixed with chemicals.  Photographic film and paper has a layer of microscopic light sensitive particles of silver halide suspended in a translucent emulsion gel coating on film or in the mordant coating on paper.

Recently electronic sensors have been perfected that can read high resolution light patterns and send them to be saved as a digital computer file.  The technology and costs are shifting in the direction of electronic digital photography for both still and motion pictures.  Our eye works this way by sending impulses to the brain from the live sensors in the back of the eye. Film photography, because of material costs,  will likely be relegated to artists.  This happened long ago in etching and other printmaking processes.  At one time etching and wood engravings were commonly used for everyday art as picture post cards and travel mementos.  Today these crafts still practiced by a few fine artists to create signed multiple original prints, while low cost photography and motorized printing presses are used to produce most post card pictures.

Today with mass production, everybody in the developed world can afford photography to commemorate, to record, and/or to tell a story visually.  Photographs, depending on their purpose, inform us, remind us, move us, entertain us, amaze us, sadden us, amuse us, and accuse us.

In a classroom setting today, it can be less expensive, safer, and more applicable to teach digital photography and video motion photography compared to using silver based film and chemistry.   Good art lessons and units can be based on film or digital processes.  The cost of basic digital and video cameras is affordable so that every school to own them. In-stead of a darkroom, enlargers, and hazardous chemicals; we can use computers and printers—something most schools are more likely to have.

THREE TYPES OF ARTIST-MADE PHOTOGRAPHS
There are many approaches to developing ideas for art.  These three types cover most artist-made photography.

A.  Some artist-photographers take lots and lots of exposures and select good ones before printing. They are good at editing out bad choices and selecting the best exposures.  Photographers like Gerry Winogrand are always looking and searching for a great picture.  They work very fast and intuitively, shooting lots of pictures and then making careful selection from the negatives or digital files.

B.  Others artist-photographers are much more deliberate. They search for only the best things to photograph and print most of what they take.  Ansel Adams, Margaret Bourke-White, Edward Weston, and Berenice Abbott worked with extreme care and skill to get the best possible framing and composing. They worked with large sheets of film in order to record minute detail and making it possible to print the negatives with relatively little if any enlarging.  They took the time to get exposures nearly perfect.  In making the print they did all they could to bring out the best tone and image quality. These artists pre visualize the photograph as they make the negative exposure.  Very little additional work is done in the darkroom or with the computer when printing.

C.  A third type of artist-photographers invent settings and create situations .  They script and produce them.  They invent the photograph based on something they want to say or express.  Sandy Skoglund constructs elaborate life-size sculptural sets (also called installations) and then records them with her camera.  Duane Michals produces sequences that tell a story.  He often writes comments in the margins explaining the thoughts and feelings of the characters in the photographs.  There can be many purposes for this kind of photography, but most of them seem to be interpretive photographs . Many of these works involve post visualization. In post visualization, the artist edits in the darkroom while printing or digitally on the computer.

Advertising photographs art not fine art, but they are almost always done by scripting and deliberately setting things up.  These commercial photographers can not afford to wait for the situation to simply appear in front of the camera for them.  They donut look for something interesting to photograph or wait for an event.  They design a set up and photograph it. Persuasion is generally the purpose of this photography.

ASSIGNED PREPARATION - due before lab.
For this assignment we are following C., the third type above.
A. Write and/or diagram some ideas involving people pictures. Use classmates as subject matter (actors or models) for your photograph.  You can use persons from your group in this class or you can cast the photograph from family or friends off campus if that works better for you.  Give some consideration to the place, setting, or “stage” to use.  You will be the final cut photographer, writer and director for your photographic production.  Encourage others in your team to help stimulate your ideas.  Reciprocate by raising issues for them to consider. Have fun, but definitely go beyond cliché clowning for the camera.

B. Select one of the following common sources for artistic inspiration as the basis for the content of your photographs (footnote #3)

1. Ordinary Experience. Your subjects will be acting out an everyday situation representing real things that happen to college students (or others).  If possible, select an ordinary experience which is not often photographed, or do it in the opposite way from the stereotypical fashion.  Think about the styles of art and consider expres-sionism.
2. Quest for Order. Your subjects might be arranged in some kind of rigid unnatural but orderly sequence.  You invent it.  Consider surrealism or Formalism.
3. Inner Feelings and Imagination. Your subjects act out a particularly sad event, reoccurring dream, bizarre event, frightening event, or another feeling.  You may use another art form (not photography) and preferably not a visual art as inspiration for the feelings or imagination.  Consider stealing feelings from music, children's literature, or poetry.  Consider expressionism or surrealism.
4. Other. Their are many other reasons for making photographs.  If you are inspired to follow another kind of photographic intention, do so.  Simply write a short explanation of how you got your idea and why you wanted to do it.  Say why you feel it is original.  If you know the source of your inspiration, note it.  A social issue could provide the motivation for this type of photograph.  When you teach you can help students use a similar source.  In VA room 22, are some a copy of Criticizing Photographs, by Terry Barrett.  In chapter 4 he describes 6 types of photographs.  Cindy Sherman, Duane Michals, Sandy Skoglund, amd William Wegman are a few examples of artist photographers who make intentional scripts for their work.  They are not making documents or news, they are producing concepts and ideas based on contemporary life.  They are artists who happen to use photography as their art form. They use film and paper or digital images as their media.

CAMERAS
Those working during lab will use digital still cameras checked out from ITS by the instructor.  Class members who have access to other digital camera may use them.  Students can also check out these digital cameras if they are needed at other times.

MAKE THE EXPOSURES
A.  With a digital camera, make 4 or 5 exposures of one photographic idea .  You'll want to make some kind of variation for each exposure.  Ask others in your group for creative input as you photograph.  The following are some possible variations.

1. Consider what you have learned from other composition practice.  We have studied the negative shapes between branches.  We have played with toothpick compositions to find good arrangements of negative spaces.
2. Aim the camera from a different direction to get more diagonals, motion and dynamic feelings.
3. Get much closer to fill the viewfinder with action.
4. Get down low to make the subject look bigger.
5. Ask people to change their position, their arms, legs, body orientation, etc. Be a director.
6. Move to eliminate the distracting background or to change the setting.
7. Turn around so the light hits your subjects from the other direction.
8. Experiment.  Search the scene for what it tells you.

In a computer lab, use the flash card reader to download the images to your own computer drive or disk.  Make a backup of the ones you are most apt to use.

MAKING THE PRINTS After preparing your best image, make one print in color and one print in black and white unless you need more than one to achieve your purposes.  To change an image from color to Black and White, use Image, Mode, Greyscale (in Photoshop).  Use SaveAs and name it with b-w in the filename so you know the new file is black and white.  This way the color image is perserved and a Black and White photo file is added.  See this page for preparation instructions for both the color and the black and white photo.
https://www.goshen.edu/~marvinpb/photPrep.html
DO NOT print until you study this instruction . https://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/Printing.html
Print one color and one black and white of the same image as large as the printer will allow.  Maintain a reslution of about 250 pixels per inch at the final size. Caution:  Never save it at 72 pixels once you have sized the image down from the cameral size.  To do so, will seriously degrade the quality of your prints.

SCHEDULE
A. By 2 p.m. bring a script and diagrams to class. Not everybody will be able to start at the same time, so if you get a better idea as you are assisting others, you are permitted to change your script.
B. By 3:50 p.m. everybody should have image files downloaded and saved to a computer disk.
C. By the following week, 2 p.m., classes discuss prints and photographer reports are presented.

If you encounter any technical problems or have other questions, call the instructor  533-0171 or e-mail: marvinpb

FOOTNOTES
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note #1 from the web site of the
BBC (British Broadcasting Corp)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/discovery/bypeople/alhazen_01.shtml

note #2 from the web site of the
National Museum of Photograph, Film & Television
Bradford West Yorkshire BD1 1NQ
Information sheet 5.3.62 © NMPFT 2000
http://www.nmpft.org.uk/insight/info/5.3.62.pdf

note #3 The Quest for Order, Inner Feelings and Imagination, and Ordinary Experiences are described by Laura Chapman. Approaches to Art in Education, 1978.  Harcourt Brace Jovanavich, Inc. pages 47 to 52 in Chapter 3, "Understanding the Artistic Process."

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