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INTRODUCTION
In the fifty numbers of Camera Work, published between the years 1903 and 1917, there appeared some of the finest examples of photography and modernist art. Camera Work chronicled the introduction of modern European art into America — three years before the Armory show, it published plates of Rodin's and Matisse's drawings. It recorded public and journalistic reaction to this modern art by reprinting reviews from the newspapers. In addition, as a forum for the discussion and criticism of new work, it acted as a catalyst in the fight to have photography accepted as a medium of artistic expression. The editorial staff stated in issue number 1:
The time appearing ripe for the publication of an independent American photographic magazine devoted largely to the interests of pictorial photography, "Camera Work" makes its appearance as the logical outcome of the evolution of the phocographic art.
During this evolution of photographic art, one primary question had always been whether a machine could indeed produce a work of art. Various views were expounded, and while most people felt that photography could not rival the combination of creativity and hand work found in painting, they appreciated its ability co preserve people and places and the freedom it gave painting to explore new areas.
Lady Elizabeth Eastlake (1809-1893) wrote that photography's legitimate business was "to give evidence of facts, as minutely and as impartially as, to our shame, only an unreasoning machine can give." She stated the crux of the argument against photography as a fine art in 1857:
The power of selection and rejection, the living application of the language which lies dead in his paint-box, the marriage of his own mind with the object before him, and the offspring, half stamped with his own features, half with those of Nature, which is born of the union — whatever appertains to the free-will of the intelligent being, as opposed to the obedience of the machine, — this, and much more than this, constitutes that mystery called Art, in the elucidation of which phocography can give valuable help, simply by showing what it is not.
In an article written in 1859, Baudelaire declared that it was time for photography "to return to its true duty, which is to be the servant of the sciences and arts — but the very humble servant, like printing or shorthand, which have neither created nor supplemented literature." Baudelaire feared that by imitating the extreme accuracy of photography, art would fall away from its reliance on creative imagination and concern itself only with superficial reality.
But pictorial photography sought to break away from its designation as a mindless purveyor of facts and achieve control over its subject matter and mechanical shortcomings. Thus, through obvious manipulation, photographers hoped to show that they were part of the art tradition. Their first consideration was the choice of subject matter. "High Art" photography of the 1850s concerned itself with depicting scenes from literature, as in William Lake Price's Don Quixote in his Study, the Bible, in Head of St. John the Baptist by O. G. Rejlander, and allegory, such as Rejlander's Two Ways of Life. In these productions, models were dressed or undressed in accordance with the theme, with props and backgrounds also lending themselves to the illusion. Decisions about placing, draping and focusing all were made before the picture was taken. After the negative was developed, the photographer could retouch the negative to add or delete details, and could even combine negatives or paste-up prints and rephotograph them to form a new image.
Henry Peach Robinson (1830-1901) argued that to "admit that photographers had no control over their subjects would be to deny that the works of one photographer were better than another, which would be untrue." The method he proposed and taught was combination printing. This technique of printing several negatives by means of masks to produce one unified print allowed the photographer to arrange and select only those portions which added to the overall effect. By "building" an image in the darkroom not only could a photographer compensate for the film's inability to record true tones for both sky and land simultaneously, but he could construct idealized scenes by, for instance, introducing posed studio models into a pastoral background. Natural detail was of ma jor importance; Robinson stressed the use of "proper focus" for each portion of the composite picture, and taught that pictorial effect was achieved in photography with the same principles of composition used in academic painting. The photographer was instructed to learn the laws which governed the arrangement of the picture so that he would be capable of producing "an agreeable presentation of forms and tones, to tell the story which is to be elucidated, and to embody the spirit of what it is intended the picture shall represent or suggest."
In the 1880s, Peter Henry Emerson (1856-936) pas sionately rebuked any kind of constructed picture, in part because the separate portions of the picture printed with separate negatives failed to allow for a center of interest. Having everything in focus tended to diff use the power of the subject: "This 'sharp' ideal is the childish view taken of nature by the uneducated in art matters and they call their productions true, whereas, they are just about as artistically false as can be." Not only did Emerson feel that this was not art, but he also felt that it was not natural. He believed that when one looked at a scene the subject was clear, and that other sections fell away and were thus less defined. He therefore suggested a procedure called "differential focusing," also known as soft focusing (although he was careful to advise students not to abuse the technique by overdoing it). Robinson had also taught that detail was an inherent quality of photography and should be preserved. He advocated a dramatic approach to the staging of a photograph which resulted in a rather artificial look at life. R. Child Bayley later condemned mid-Victorian photography for these tendencies, claiming that "able workers lost themselves in morasses of false sentiment, and swamps of elaborate theatrical unrealities." Emerson, however, whose theory of composition was based on the ability to see and choose a beautiful subject, deplored the manipulation of the negative. He wanted the photograph to be true to the way he sup posed man saw. His approach was based on the scientific discoveries of Hermann von Helmholtz's Physiological Optics, and not on a desire to make painterly photographs.
Late Victorian photographers such as Emerson had the advantage of commercially made dry plates; these enabled the photographer to develop negatives at his convenience rather than only while the emulsion was still wet. The increased sensitivity of both paper and negatives brought new aesthetic possibilities, such as a wider tonal range, and along with the faster film hand cameras were developed. The photographer was finally freed from the studio as well as the posed subject and painted backdrop. But even though photographers now had new tools that provided sharp, vibrant prints, many pictorialists who felt they were following Emerson's advice produced out-of-focus, "impressionistic" images. Llewellen Morgan in The Amateur Photographer reported that "little details are interesting to the scientist, but of no value to the artist." For all pictorialists, the primary interest lay in artistic expression of a non-documentary nature. In other words, the pictorialist used the photographic subject as a means to an end: to achieve a satisfactory result, he might emphasize a certain feature of the composition to alter its significance and meaning.
To sum up the situation when Camera Work appeared on the scene, "pictorialism" was synonymous with "artistic" and applied to a wide variety of styles; and unlike today, when the distinctions between documentary and art photography have blurred, documentary work was seen as an objective method of recording or reporting facts which did not imitate painting, and consequently could not be aesthetic.
In the early stages of photography man's interest was captured by the camera's ability to record facts; today, the artist's aim is to make it record his impressions of the fact, and to express in the print his personal feeling.
Some groups of pictorial workers formed large camera clubs which sponsored photographic exhibitions. These organizations provided a place for photographers to meet and share their work. Sometimes darkrooms were provided on the premises, lectures given on various processes and theories, and small journals published showing the club's activities. And, of course, for these amateur photographers social functions were an important part of the appeal.
Over the years the largest of these groups dedicated to the advancement of photography became lax in their standards of achievement. Perhaps it was a question of becoming more democratic: rules regarding admission to shows were loosened, allowing for a greater cross section of work to be shown. Those photographers genuinely committed to photography as a means of personal expression became increasingly disgruntled with the large, conservative photographic establishments and began to break away.
The first important exhibit sponsored by a new group was the Viennese Photographic Salon of 1891 sponsored by the Vienna Camera Club, which included in its membership Heinrich Kiihn (1866-1944), Dr. Hugo Henne berg (1863-1918) and Hans Watzek (1849-1905). In 1892, fifteen members of the Royal Photographic Society with drew from the club and formed the Linked Ring. The Photo-Club de Paris was organized in 1894 and included Robert Demachy (d. 1937) and Commandant Fuyo. A group show at the National Arts Club in New York City in 1902 marked the founding of the Photo-Secession by Alfred Stieglitz.
By 1902, Stieglitz (1864-1946) was an internationally famous photographer. As a student in Berlin he had studied photochemistry with Professor Vogel and had won over a hundred medals in photography competitions. After returning to the United States in 1890 he became a partner in the Heliochrome Company (later the Photochrome Engraving Company), a photoengraving business. He also served as editor of the American Amateur Photographer from 1893 to 1896. When the Society of Amateur Photographers merged with the New York Camera Club he became vice-president of the new Camera Club of New York and created the quarterly Camera Notes.
Stieglitz had encountered difficulties during his man agement of the American Amateur Photographer because of his staunch insistence on a high standard of pictorial work. The same objection developed within the Camera Club of New York-it should be kept in mind that the group had given serious thought to becoming a bicycle club before Stieglitz became vice-president. Stieglitz tried to strengthen the club's interest in photography by reorganizing the Publications Committee and converting the club publication, a small journal of activities and meetings, into the full-scale commercial periodical Camera Notes. The magazine was successful in attracting those seriously interested in photography, but in doing so it created factions within the club. It became apparent that Stieglitz could not operate Camera Notes the way he felt he must, nor could he change the views of his opponents. So in 1901, when the opportunity presented itself to hang a "select" exhibition of photographs in New York City at the National Arts Club, Stieglitz accepted. He called it "An Exhibition of Photography Arranged by the Photo-Secession."
The term "Secession" was borrowed from a group of modern painters in Austria and Germany. Eduard Steichen (1879-1973) explained:
Secessionists of Munich ... gave, as the reason of their movement, the fact that they could no longer tolerate the set convictions of the body from which they detached themselves, a body which exists on conventions and stereotyped formulae, that checked all spirits of originality instead of encouraging them, that refused its ear to any new doctrine — such groups gave birth to secession.
In 1902 Stieglitz resigned as editor of Camera Notes and prepared a new, independent quarterly, Camera Work. The quarterly was the "mouthpiece" of the Photo-Secession, and as such Stieglitz pledged:
Only examples of such work as gives evidence of individuality and artistic worth, regardless of school, or contains some exceptional feature of technical merit, or such as exemplifies some treatment worthy of consideration, will find recognition in these pages.
The printing was of primary importance. In forty-eight of the fifty numbers published, a page was devoted to describing the printing methods of the illustrations. Stieglitz was particularly careful to point out which images were made from the original negatives; these were considered original prints. In a special insert in number 12, Stieglitz pointed out that the gravures were thought to be so fine that they were chosen to hang in the 1904 exhibition of the Société L'Effort in Brussels when the photographic prints from the Photo-Secession failed to arrive. Most of the gravures were printed on Japan tissue, which held the delicate tones of the original. These hand-pulled plates were then tipped into each copy by the small Camera Work staff. A. Radclyffe Dugmore's gravure A Stud y in Natural History (Jan. 1903, 1:55) is a good example of the time taken to create a beautiful magazine. The photogravure picture of young birds was printed on Japan tissue, which was mounted in the center of a heavy gray page over a cream-colored mount, all in order to enhance the soft white feathers of the birds' breasts. The illustration page often included a reference to the printer, a compliment if a difficult subject was well done and, in one case, a castigation. In number 4, Frederick H. Evans (1853-1943) was allowed to use an English printer to avoid sending his original prints to America. The result was completely unsatisfactory to Stieglitz, who wrote:
Imagine our consternation upon the arrival of the edition to find that the work was uneven, not up to proof, and in most cases far below that standard which we had every reason to expect. It was then too late to do aught than make the best of a bad job, feeling that we have only ourselves to blame for having broken our rule....
For our own sakes, who have striven to make the illustrations of Camera Work as perfect as possible, having spared no expense or pains, we feel disappointed that this number should leave our hands and we not satisfied with it. It shall never happen again.
But perhaps Camera Work's greatest contribution was as a forum for debate, both on the questions of what in photography could be admissible as art and on the theories of modern art in general. A solid basis for modern criticism was formed in articles written by such people as R. Child Bayley, Charles H. Caffin, Robert Demachy, Frederick H. Evans, Sadakichi Hartmann, Joseph T. Keiley, George Bernard Shaw and Eduard Steichen. Although most pieces were written especially for use in Camera Work, reviews and controversial articles from other magazines and newspapers were reprinted.
The photographic honesty vs. manipulation controversy, for instance, was a recurring theme in Camera Work's pages. In 1907 Robert Demachy, famous for his gum and oil prints, restated Lady Eastlake's objection to photography as being too mechanical to be art, but offered a way out-the manipulated print:
The photographic character is, and always has been, an anti-artistic character, and the mechanically-produced print from an unretouched negative will always have in the eyes of a true artist faults in values and absence of accents against which the special qualities so loudly pro claimed will not count for much.
George Bernard Shaw then replied that the photographer who uses painterly methods "fails in respect for his art. He is a traitor in the photographic camp." Frederick Evans pointed out that the basis of pure, straight photography was the perfect negative; how many "gummists," he wondered, could say that and also maintain that the gum print produced the ideal rendering of that perfect negative? Steichen, in an earlier article, had come out in favor of manipulation by maintaining that, due to lati tudes in exposure and development, all photography was manipulated to a certain degree. Each piece, Steichen claimed, should be regarded as an "original."
Stieglitz's position evolved slowly during the Camera Work years. During a talk at the National Arts Club in 1902, Stieglitz reportedly had taken the view that "the result was the only fair basis for judgment and that it was justifiable to use any means upon negative or paper to attain the desired end." However, the next year in Camera Work editorial opinion endorsed Gertrude Kase bier's work as "absolutely straight photography, being in no way faked, doctored or retouched." The critical language grew stronger, and in the last number of Camera Work Stieglitz wrote of Paul Strand's pictures: "The work is brutally direct. Devoid of all flimflam; devoid of trickery and of any 'ism;' devoid of any attempt to mystify an ignorant public, including the photographers themselves."
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Excerpted from "Camera Work"
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