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
French
British
Hill & Adamson
Francis Meadow Sutcliffe
American
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