Genius Of Photography Part 1

What is photographys 'true genius'?
Photography transforms what it describes, the art of photography is to control that transformation. Photography has delighted, served, moved, and occasionally dissapointed us, but mainly has intrigued us, by showing the secret strangeness that lies beneath our world of appearances.

Name a proto-photographer?
Henry Fox Talbert

In the 19th century, what term was associated with the daguerreotype?
Mirror with a memory

What is the vernacular?
A genre of photography whereby photographs are not produced as art. For example the amateur/holiday snapshot, documentary works, crime scenes etc.

How do you fix the shadows?
To 'fix the shadows' means to stop the process of exposure before the image is lost and the plate or paper continues to go completely black. Daguerre and Fox-Talbert pioneered processes that 'fixed the shadows' by different methods.

What is the 'carte de visite'?
First commercial innovation. A small portrait photograph, mounted onto card and sent by post over the world. The person was photographed 8 times by a camera with 8 lenses. This idea turned photography into a true industry.

Who was Nadar and why was he so successful?
Nadar was a portrait photographer from france. He photographed artists and up and coming stars with a unique style which people could recognise. He branded his name as Nadar, and signed his photographs in red as a branding technique, due to having red hair. This sitter was photographed as they are, with no use of costume or props, just a plain natural photograph to truly portray their personality.

What is pictorialism? 

A unique style whereby the photograph 'creates' the image rather than records it, typically lack of sharp focus, printed in one or more colours than black and white. It was an attempt to categorise photography as a branch of the fine arts.