The Early Years
"The photograph was the ultimate response to a social and cultural appetite for a more accurate and real looking representation of reality, a need that had its origins in the Renaissance". - Naomi Rosenblum, A World History of Photography.
Camera Obscura
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Camera Lucida
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Impressionism:
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PICTORIALISM:
Pictorialism is the name given to an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. Pictorialism, an approach to photography that emphasises beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality. The Pictorialist perspective was born in the late 1860s and held sway through the first decade of the 20th century. It approached the camera as a tool that, like the paintbrush and chisel, could be used to make an artistic statement. Thus photographs could have aesthetic value and be linked to the world of art expression.
these three images below are all from the pictorialism time of photography.