Author Question: Discuss the early history of photography, noting those who first used the medium and the first ... (Read 48 times)

futuristic · **on:** Jun 23, 2018

Discuss the early history of photography, noting those who first used the medium and the first photographic processes.

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Choose an example from the chapter and discuss the tension between form and content in a photographic work.

What will be an ideal response?

triiciiaa · **Reply #1 on:** Jun 23, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. The camera obscura enabled an artist to capture, but not preserve, an image.
2. In the nineteenth century, ways of preserving the image were introduced in England and France.
3. In England, William Henry Fox Talbot presented a process of fixing the image on paper treated with chemicals. Using paper, Talbot was able to create multiple prints.
4. In France, Daguerre invented a method of preserving an image on a metal plate, called a daguerreotype. The daguerreotype could not be reproduced.
5. In the mid-nineteenth century, Frederick Archer introduced a new wet-plate collodion process, pouring liquid collodion over a glass plate.

Answer to Question 2

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. One example is Charles Sheeler's photographs of the Ford Factory at River Rouge in the late 1920s.
2. Sheeler was hired by Henry Ford to aestheticize the plant. Sheeler was influenced by the geometric beauty of Alfred Stieglitz's photographs, such as The Steerage.
3. Sheeler's photographs represent the plant and its smokestacks, conveyers, and ironworks, with the intention of celebrating industry.
4. The text compares the images to the grandeur and proportion of the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe.