History of Photography

This history of photography is designed to help students survey the greatest 19th and 20th century photographers across different countries.

This survey is not, for now, designed to provide technical training.

General Questions:

What sort of subject matter did this photographer focus on? What does that reveal about their personality and worldview?

Are there any motifs or techniques that they used that set them apart from their peers?

Is there any sort of story implied by this photo or by the recurring themes across this photographer's work?

How does this photography reveal the spirit of the time and place in which the photographer worked? How is that cultural atmosphere different from yours today?

How can this photography help us interpret the history of that time, and vice versa, is there information available about the historical context that can better inform how we interpret these photographs?

What sort of compositions, framing, and blocking does the photographer present? Is it staged or spontaneous?

How does the photographer juxtapose different textures, patterns, and forms of motion?

How are the colors, or even simply black and white, arranged vividly?

How are light sources being used? How are shadows?

What is the photographer not showing you?

Is the photographer glorifying or mocking the subject matter, or just capturing it how it is?

Early Photography

British

Hill & Adamson

Francis Meadow Sutcliffe

20th century

Camera Work Magazine

The Linked Ring

Magnum Photos

Pictorialists

George Seeley

Robert Demachy

Edward Steichen

Margrethe Mather

Adolph de Meyer

Gertrude Käsebier

Alvin Langdon Coburn

Clarence Hudson White

Straight Photography

Alfred Stieglitz

Paul Strand

Edward Weston

Ansel Adams

Imogen Cunningham

Willard Van Dyke

Berenice Abbott

Surrealists, Avant-garde & Abstract

Man Ray

André Kertész

Bill Brandt

Alexander Rodchenko

Claude Cahun

Josef Koudelka

Cindy Sherman

Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Minor White

Aaron Siskind

Henri Lartigue

Andreas Feininger

Martin Parr

War Photography & Photojournalists

Cecil Beaton

Dorothea Lange

Walker Evans

Margaret Bourke-White

W. Eugene Smith

Robert Capa

Gordon Parks

Lee Miller

Sebastião Salgado

Inge Morathe

Don McCullin

Portraitists

Henry Grossman

August Sander

Robert Mapplethorpe

Eve Arnold

Annie Liebowitz

Glamour & Fashion Photography

George Hurrell

William Klein

Irving Penn

Richard Avedon

Guy Bourdin

Ellen von Unwerth

Street Photography

Alfred Eisenstaedt

Brassaï

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Helen Leavitt

Weegee

Diane Arbus

Garry Winogrand

Joel Meyerowitz

Robert Frank

Mary Ellen Mark

Ernst Haas

Robert Doisneau

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Herb Ritts

Bruce Weber

Helmut Newton

Steven Meisel

Landscapes

Wynn Bullock