Abstract Photography: Post 3
What was the straight photography movement in photography? Why was it popular amongst photographers?
Straight photography is known for its candidacy. Whereas many other types of photography involve editing and manipulation to reach a final product, this movement promotes the rawness and realness of unprocessed images. Thus, straight photography is a movement that emphasizes the camera’s technical capability alone and often results in the creation of “sharp” photographs. This movement is popular for a few reasons.
Firstly, it gave photography a chance to speak for itself for the very first time. Freed from considerations of other aspects such as filtering, editing, and artistry, it allowed photographers to simply focus on the act of using a camera to capture an image.
Secondly, this type of photography upheld that, if you had a clear intention in mind and knew all the settings you wanted to adjust on the camera beforehand, the process of actually taking the picture was “automatic” and replicable. In this way, straight photography underscored the meticulous, conscientious, and systematic approach to constructing an image.
Lastly, many photographers believed that this philosophy highlighted the importance of “decisive moments”, and that it enabled them to capture the most meaningful, purposeful, and significant instances.
What was the Pictorialism Movement in photography?
Arguably the opposite of straight photography, pictorial photography transformed photography into an “art form”. Whereas the former emphasized realism, pictorialism preferred images to look like paintings. It promoted the use of techniques such as adjusting focus, altering tone, composition, and manipulations in the dark room, in order to produce a final image that looked artistic and unique.
How have Edward Weston and Aaron Siskind been influenced by the Straight Photography Movement?
Edward Weston is most famous for taking sharp images that visibly took much effort to compose and prepare for; this is directly connected to straight photography, for his photography stresses “sharpness”, detail, and meticulousness. He also especially favored taking pictures of landscapes and natural features, which is common among straight photographers. An example of his work is Dunes, Oceano (right), an image that does not seem to depict anything out of the ordinary but is still well-known for its use of sharp lines, grainy texture, and contrast in light. It seems almost to have captured one moment in a dynamic setting, which is common in straight photography.
Aaron Siskind is very renowned as an abstract photographer, and his work contributed much to the avant-garde movement in America. One of his strongest beliefs was that photography should be centered around “representation”; in this way, he aligned himself with the philosophies of straight photography. Indeed, he went on to produce many images that “represented” prominent sceneries or iconic natural features. Instead of focusing on the whole scene, he selected the most representative frames and compositions. An example of this is Utah 84 (left).
What makes the work of contemporary photographers Andreas Gursky and Uta Barth abstract? Can they be classified as pictorialists or straight photographers? Explain your response.
Andreas Gursky is known particularly for his large-format architecture and landscape photographs, the latter of which often consist of large blocks of solid color and simple, geometric features (left). One of the traits of abstract photography is its isolation of “fragments” of an untouched, natural scene in order to remove context from the viewer; Gursky utilizes this exact point to capture seemingly unsophisticated and random images of the natural world, so he would most certainly qualify as an abstract photographer. However, I would not say that he is either a pictorialist or a straight photographer. His images are too practical and direct to be described as pictorialist, but they are not practical enough to belong with straight photography—many of his images still involve photo editing and the utilization of artistic elements.
Uta Barth, on the other hand, is famous for her blurry images that convey themes such as optical illusion and perception (right). Again, the abstraction present in her work is very obvious—it is difficult for the viewer to pinpoint the subject or purpose of her photographs. However, I would also loosely associate her with pictorialism, for she uses tools that pictorialists prefer, like adjusting tone and focus, and being mindful of the colors and lighting. Her photos give off an artistic air and are almost painting-like due to their lack of sharpness. It goes without saying that Barth is not a straight photographer; she conveys not practical subjects but abstract ideas.
