Web Work # 6- The most important German portrait photographer of the early 20th century

August Sander (1876 –1964) was a German portrait and documentary photographer who has been described as "the most important German portrait photographer of the early twentieth century." In the early 1920s, Sander began a project documenting contemporary society in a portrait series. His work, Face of our Time was published in 1929.

Sander’s work and personal life were impacted by the Nazis. “His son Erich, who was a member of the left wing Socialist Workers' Party (SAP), was arrested in 1934 and sentenced to 10 years in prison, where he died in 1944, shortly before the end of his sentence. Sander's book Face of our Time was seized in 1936 and the photographic plates destroyed. Around 1942, during World War II, he left Cologne and moved to a rural area, allowing him to save most of his negatives. His studio was destroyed in a 1944 bombing raid.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Sander)
Something that I find fascinating about Sander’s work is his categorization of his portrait subjects by profession or social class.

“Sander believed that society was organized into a hierarchy of occupations. One section of his project is dedicated to the skilled tradesman, including master craftsmen, industrialists, technicians, and inventors. Subjects associated with intellectual or "white-collar" labor were usually photographed indoors in three-quarter-length poses, while master craftsmen were portrayed in their working environment with the tools of their trades. Portrayed as he emerges from the dark basement of a building, the coal carrier in the image above belongs to the lower ranks of labor and is symbolically associated with the bowels of German society.” (http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/sander/)

Web Work #5 – Ansel Adams (1902 – 1984)

Ansel Adams, famous photographer and environmentalist, was born into a wealthy family in San Francisco, California. Adams was shy and socially awkward. He never really fit in at school and spent much of his time alone. This solitude enabled him find joy in nature. He spent nearly every day hiking around the Golden Gate area.

“If Adams's love of nature was nurtured in the Golden Gate, his life was, in his words, "colored and modulated by the great earth gesture" of the Yosemite Sierra (Adams, Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, p. xiv). He spent substantial time there every year from 1916 until his death. From his first visit, Adams was transfixed and transformed. He began using the Kodak No. 1 Box Brownie his parents had given him. He hiked, climbed, and explored, gaining self-esteem and self-confidence. In 1919 he joined the Sierra Club and spent the first of four summers in Yosemite Valley, as ‘keeper’ of the club's LeConte Memorial Lodge.” (http://www.anseladams.com/)

Although Adams became famous in the 1930s, he struggled financially. He turned to commercial photography and was quite skilled, but the work was not steady and his financial situation remained difficult until late in his life.

Here are a few very different examples of Adams’ wide range of nature photographs:

http://www.anseladams.com/PhotoDetails.asp?ShowDESC=N&ProductCode=1701092103

http://www.anseladams.com/PhotoDetails.asp?ShowDESC=N&ProductCode=1701112101

http://www.anseladams.com/PhotoDetails.asp?ShowDESC=N&ProductCode=1701115104

I appreciate Ansel Adams’ art, but I also respect his lifelong activism for the cause of wilderness and the environment. The stark beauty of Adams’ iconic black and white photographs have become symbols of America’s wilderness. His work even helped persuade President Franklin Roosevelt to establish the King's Canyon National Park. In 1980 Adams was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his efforts to preserve America’s scenic places.

Web Work #3 – Pictorialist Photography Pioneer

Henry Peach Robinson (1820 – 1901) was a pioneer of pictorialist photography and was considered one of the greatest photographers of his time. He was primarily known for his combination printing and was very influential until Peter Henry Emerson introduced naturalistic photography.



Robinson started out as a painter, but was introduced to photography in 1850 and decided to become a professional portrait photographer a few years later. Vignetting prints was his novelty. Here are some interesting examples of his portraiture using this technique:



Fading Away (1858) is one of his most famous compositions.

Fading Away - Source: http://www.geh.org/taschen/htmlsrc6/m197601160001_ful.html

Fading Away is a composition of five negatives, in which he depicts a girl dying of consumption (tuberculosis), and the despair of the other members of the family. This was a controversial photograph, and some felt that the subject was not suitable for photography. One critic said that Robinson had cashed in on "the most painful sentiments which it is the lot of human beings to experience." It would seem that it was perfectly in order for painters to paint pictures on such themes, but not for photographers to do so.

However, the picture captured the imagination of Prince Albert, who bought a copy and issued an order for every composite portrait Robinson produced subsequently. Fading Away is a composition of five negatives. If one examines a large copy of a print closely one can see the "joins", particularly the triangle of grey with no detail in it. One has to remember, of course, that these were contact prints - there were no means of enlarging at that time. (http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/robinson.htm)

Another famous Robinson picture is When the Day’s Work is Done, an albumen print from six negatives. When the Day’s Work is Done

http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=39351&handle=li

I like Robinson’s aesthetic because he approached photography like an artist might approach a painting, choosing simple objects or scenes, then capturing them in a way that turned ordinary subjects into artistic works.