- Main difference between photography in the 1800's and today, 2012?
- Which photographer/subject from the Victorian days is still a subject of photography today?
- Impact on the technology in the 1800's have on todays technology.
The biggest difference I saw between photography in the 1800's and now was time and quality. It took much longer to develop pictures we can now develop in seconds. The quality of the photograph as well as the time and effort it took to capture a picture was a fraction of what we have today. Though this is an inconvenience to us today, back in the 1800's this was the hight of their technology. To take and print a photo in 2012 it takes under a minute. To take a photo, edit it in Adobe Photoshop save it and print it takes under 5 minutes. These photographers created amazing works of art without the fancy, yet convenient methods we use today.
Out of the photos I read about this week my favorite was "The Two Ways of Life" and "Hard Times" by Oscar G. Rejlander. The process of combination printing (which would be a simple image overlay in todays Photoshop) was breath taking. In this day and age most people, like William Newton practiced photography to be a help to artists not an art in its self. Today we can recognize these these photos as art though they were not praised in that time the way they are today. For instance, "The Two Ways of Life" is true art. Its intricacy, time and passion oozes from the morbid, ominous photo. Though today photos are a known form of art, it does not take this level of work for one to be praised. Six weeks and thirty images later in the case of "The Two Ways of Life" we have really fascinating photo to ponder. With out these artists continuously pushing the envelope back in the Victorian age we would not have advanced in the same way we have today. These ways would not have been able to be honed by an amateur photographer and produce a fantastic result as we now can with our computer software. Our photographing technology would not be what it is today without these veterans of photography that provided us with such beautifully moving stepping stones to move forward from, allowing us to take photography to the next level.
If you have any questions or opinions on my post please feel free to comment on this blog post or reach me on our class discussion boards.
Works Cited:
Icevska, Gordana. "Week 3 Readings." Weblog post. Photography Shooting the Truth. George Brown College, 9 Jan. 2009. Web. 20 Jan. 2012.
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