WATCH: Videos on the Origins of Photography

Watch these videos discussing the origins and intentions of photography. These videos are supplemental viewings for our DISCUSSION: What Is Photography?

 

George Eastman Museum video on the history of early photographic processes.

From the ancient discovery of the camera obscura to the 18th century mechanical devices used to create silhouettes such as the physionotrace, this initial chapter explores the inventions and inventors that preceded photography. It recreates the experiments of Johann Schulze who proved the light sensitivity of certain silver salts and Thomas Wedgwood’s early attempts to make photographic images. These early pioneers contributed to the discovery of photography in 1839.

 

 

On Gordon Parks (The Photograph as Protest)

 

How Can Photographs Help Create Social Change?

San Francisco-based photographer Paccarik Orue carries out long-term documentary projects in various communities in the Bay Area and his home country of Peru. In this episode of Art School we tag along with Orue as he photographs on the streets of Richmond, California making intimate portraits of people he encounters.

 

LaToya Ruby Frazier Makes Moving Pictures

Employing and upending documentary traditions as a means to disrupt media stereotypes, Frazier collaborates with her mother and grandmother as fellow artists, giving them agency in depictions of themselves, their family, and the broader community.

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Hiroshi Sugimoto in "Memory"

“To me photography functions as a fossilization of time,” says Tokyo-born Hiroshi Sugimoto, who uses traditional photographic techniques to produce images that preserve memory and time.

Click on the image below to bring up the video from Art21