Process
Carleton Watkins Three Brothers, Yosemite National Park, 1861 Albumen Print 18”x22”
He was influential in helping to make Yosemite a national park
Click here to read more:
http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/exhibitions/photo/watkins.html
Eugene Atget, Wysteria 1920
Distinguishing characteristics of Atget's photography include a wispy, drawn-out sense of light due to his long exposures, a fairly wide view that suggested space and ambiance more than surface detail, and an intentionally limited range of scenes avoiding the bustling modern Paris that was often around the corner from the nostalgia-steeped nooks he preferred. The emptiness of most of his streets and the sometimes blurred figures in those with people are partly due to his already antiquated technique, including extended exposure times which required that many of his images be made in the early morning hours before pedestrians and traffic appeared.
In this image, it creates a cross. Symbol of rebirth.
His work is important due to his sense of light & space.
More Information here: http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/64208/eugene-atget-vieille-empire-21-faubourg-st-honore-antique-store-rue-du-faubourg-saint-honore-french-1902/
Charles Sheeler Ford Plant, River Rouge, Criss-Crossed Conveyors, 1927; gelatin silver print
Charles Sheeler (July 16, 1883 – May 7, 1965) was an American painter and commercial photographer. He is recognized as one of the founders of American modernism and one of the master photographers of the 20th century. Notice how his paintings and his photos are similar. His photo is important as he documented industry in america.
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/93789
Edward Weston Dunes Oceano 1936 silver Print
Weston was one of the great photographers of all time…He got famous by making pictures of the ocean and the coastline near Carmel California…here we see a series of sand dunes that he likens to ocean waves. His work is important as he captured nature in a way that the focus is on texture & repetition.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55OCbs5i3wo]
Berenice Abbott John Watts Statue looking toward Wall Street 1938 Gelatin Silver Print
Abbott was part of the straight photography movement, which stressed the importance of photographs being unmanipulated in both subject matter and developing processes. She focused mainly on New York City in the 1930’s. Notice how she juxtaposes the “free form” shape of the statue against the “geometric regular pattern” of the buildings?
What is straight photography? https://photohistory.wikispaces.com/Straight+Photography
Ansel Adams Moonrise over Hernandez, New Mexico 1941 Gelatin Silver Print
One of the most famous photographs ever...Adams had only one chance to make the image…just after he made the photograph the light changed…not giving him a second chance to try… Click here to hear about the process This photo is important as Adams is known for his landscape work and how it influenced society in the preservation of the environment.
https://www.sfmoma.org/watch/the-suspense-of-ansel-adamss-famous-moonrise/
Eliot Porter Redbud Tree in Bottom Land, Red River Gorge, Kentucky, 1968 Dye Transfer
Eliot Porter is a seminal figure in the eventual acceptance of color photography as art. The 1962 Sierra Club edition of In Wildness is the Preservation of the World is widely cited as one of the most influential photo books of all time, helping simultaneously launch the environmental movement and the advent of high quality color book reproductions.
Other images of Porter's:
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/porter/
Robert Adams Mobile Homes, Jefferson County, Colorado, 1973 Gelatin Silver Print
Click the link to see more of Adams work. Read his artist statement about the project in 1974. How are things different or the same today?
Artist Statement (by Robert Adams)
“Many have asked, pointing incredulously toward a sweep of tract homes and billboards, why picture that? The question sounds simple, but it implies a difficult issue—why open our eyes anywhere but in undamaged places like national parks?
One reason is, of course, that we do not live in parks, that we need to improve things at home, and that to do it we have to see the facts without blinking. We need to watch, for example, as an old woman, alone, is forced to carry her groceries in August heat over a fifty acre parking lot; then we know, safe from the comforting lies of profiteers, that we must begin again.
Paradoxically, however, we also need to see the whole geography, natural and man-made, to experience a peace; all land, no matter what has happened to it, has over it a grace, an absolutely persistent beauty.”
—R.A., 1974[13]
http://media.artgallery.yale.edu/adams/group.php?id=9047
Edward Burtynsky - oxford tire pile no 1 Westly, CA 1999
Burtynsky's most famous photographs are sweeping views of landscapes altered by industry: mine tailings, quarries, scrap piles. The grand, awe-inspiring beauty of his images is often in tension with the compromised environments they depict. He has made several excursions to China to photograph that country's industrial emergence, and construction of one of the world's largest engineering projects, the Three Gorges Dam.
Click here to see his Ted Talk:
https://www.ted.com/talks/edward_burtynsky_photographs_the_landscape_of_oil?language=en
Sabastiao Salgado Chinstrap Penguins -Pygoscelis Antarctica 2005 Digital Ink Jet Print
Genesis is a long-term photographic project, in line with the main bodies of work carried out previously by Sebastião Salgado; for example, the series of reportages presented in Workers or the series on the theme of the population movements around the world, that appeared in Migrations. This new project is about our planet earth, nature and its beauty, and what remains of it today despite the manifold destruction caused by human activity. Genesis is an attempt to portray the beauty and the majesty of regions that are still in a pristine condition, areas where landscapes and wildlife are still unspoiled, places where human communities continue to live according to their ancient culture and traditions.
Genesis is about seeing and marveling, about understanding the necessity for the protection of all this; and finally it is about inspiring action for this preservation. The shooting of this series of photographic reportages began in 2004 and is due for completion in 2012. Like other work of Sebastião Salgado, the Genesis reportages have been, and continue to be, published in, among others, France’s Paris Match, the USA’s Rolling Stone, Spain’s La Vanguardia, Portugal’s Visão, the United Kingdom’s The Guardian and in Italy’s La Repubblica.
See more of Salgado’s Work here…
http://www.amazonasimages.com/grands-travaux