Re: [Leica] Some history

["Mike Durling" <durling@widomaker.com>]

It is interesting that Stieglitz and the other early pictorialists
eventually repudiated soft focus and other "painterly" techniques.  They
found that they could form abstract images and provoke emotional responses
via "straight" photography.  Stieglitz told Weston "You see my prints, the
eye is able to wander all over them, finding satisfaction in every portion,
the ear is given as much consideration as the nose, but it is a task, this
desire to obtain detail and simplification at the same time."

In his day Stieglitz was much more influential and controversial than Susan
Sontag ever hoped to be.  Unlike her he did pick up a camera from time to
time.  Mighty nice work.

Mike D

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Erwin Puts" <imxputs@knoware.nl>
To: "L U G" <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 4:43 PM
Subject: [Leica] Some history


> At the beginning of the 20th century photography was dominated by the
> socalled Pictorialist School, that insisted upon the artistic
possibilities
> of camera-made imagery, giving photographs that represented a personal
> vision, by selecting subject, light and atmosphere.
> This movement brought the world the aesthetically motivated photography
that
> gave photography the respect of an artform.
> These Pictorialists however deplored intensily the utilitarian banality of
> of Realist or Straight Photography.This style   gave us sharply focused
> pictures with unblinking realism. This approach yielded images full of
> details, enlarged and crisply purified of their functional context and so
> lens filling that the images border on pure design.
> This text above is a condensed abstract from the book  'A History of
modern
> art'by Arnason.
> The two positions, Pictorialism and Straight Photography, are in my view
at
> the heart of the current topic if one is allowed to use the image
potential
> of Leica lenses and when doing so, one is still being a true photographer.
> As Pictorialists seem to despise the Straight Photographers, this emotion
> nicely summarises what is going on on this list lately.
> I have no dispute with, nor objection to photographers who wish to foster
> their personal expression by whatever means and tools.
> I do object however to the assertion that a Realist approach, that is
using
> the tools to represent reality with unblinking realism, should be
> considered a banal way of using the Leica.
> I also do object to the notion that the Leica is the proper instrument for
> pictorialist photography and may only be used to reach that goal.
> So maybe the Pictorialists will allow that Realists do exist and can
proceed
> with their goals without being deplored and ridiculed at every step. And
> maybe they will even accept that the Leica is a tool that can be used for
> both types of Photography and that neither type is superior in itself.
>
>
> Erwin
>
>