Title: Confederate Dead at Devil's Den Gettysburg
Artist: Alexander Gardner
Medium: 1 negative: glass, wet collodion
Year: June- July 1863
Give a brief description of the movement, photographer, or term you researched. How are they significant to the history of photography (50-75 words)?
Gardner was born in Scotland in 1821, and moved to New York in 1856. He decided to stay in New York for a while because a lot of those who were close to him were either near death or dying of tuberculosis. Matthew Brady got him interested in photography, and so later Gardner moved to Washington D.C. to work at Brady's gallery there. This sparked his interest even more, and at the time was surrounded by the political side of the war, thus being in Washington D.C. His photograph that I've researched was taken during Gettysburg, along with many of his other photographs. He was fascinated with war, and so many of his pictures reflect that.
Write a short personal reaction to the movement, photographer or term you researched. What is interesting or not interesting about the work (50 – 75 words).
My reaction to this picture was that it doesn't interest me very much, although Gardner's background was very interesting. I find his work beautiful, but it just isn't something that I would find myself wanting to take pictures of. It is very important that we know what happened during that war, and I believe that a picture is worth a thousand words especially this one.
Name (please only include if it is ok to publish on blog): Haley
Haley -
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to point out that some historians question whether or not the gun in the image was authentic. Evidence suggests that the photographer had a gun he used as a prop and left it place to make the image more dramatic.