Pictorialism Movement:

The pictorialism movement was a photography movement and technique in which photographers used soft focus and darkroom tricks to create artistic, emotional images in the late 19th to 20th century to make digital photos look like paintings.

Straight Photography Movement:

Straight photography emerged in the 20th century, it focused on clear and sharp images with the camera’s ability to accurately depict reality.

Pictorialism: Artistic, soft focus, manipulated images.

Straight Photography: Clear, sharp, unmanipulated images.

Straight Photography was popular because it showed the unique power of the camera capturing reality clearly, without making the image look like a painting.

Influence on Edward Weston and Aaron Siskind

Edward Weston used sharp focus to capture and create detailed images of natural objects.

Aaron Siskind focused on textures and patterns, creating abstract but sharp images.

Gurskey & Barth

Gursky and Barth are more of modern abstract photography than traditional Pictorialism or Straight Photography photographers. Because Gursky focuses more on Straight Photography because of his sharp, detailed images and Barth’s work is abstract but doesn’t use traditional Pictorialist techniques like soft focus and darkroom manipulation.