Book Reviews of A Brief History of Photography

Writing an overview of the history of photography is fraught with difficulties. Photography classics recognized by the world do exist, such as American Alfred Stieglitz (Aifred Sander), Paul Strand (Paul Strand) and Walker Evans (Walker

< p>Evans), Germany's August Sander, France's Engene Atget and Britain's Bill Brandt, among others. But no one can say with confidence that we know all the important photographers, or that we can do so. When photo agencies, libraries, and newspapers undergo organizational restructuring or change of address, entire professional experiences are wiped out. Sometimes the photograph is relocated or reassessed, but the complete process of the photographic past is always lost.

Photograph collectors and historians also dislike this approach. Architectural photography, for example, has only begun to gain respectable status in recent years. In 1978, the Rheninisches Landesmuseum in Bonn exhibited photographs from the 1920s and 1930s by Werner Mantz, one of many outstanding architectural photographers of that period.

Photojournalists have also been overlooked, especially if they work for local newspapers or high-circulation media outlets. Few of them have the time or interest to care about their reputation as artists. They work non-stop under the pressure of deadlines, and as a result, their negatives disappear into archives, often never to see the light of day again. He had some great artists on his plate: James Arche, for example, was one of the most adaptable photographers in Britain in the 1930s.

Other difficulties arose. There is a question here about photography’s basic unit of measurement, which historians and critics often understand as individual photographs—as if the history of photography were a miniature history of painting. Not all photographers feel this way about their work, however. The photos they take are arranged by photo editors into a theme, series or grouping.

Therefore, a "photographic work" can be a photo, or it can also be a book or an article about pictures. One of the important achievements during this period was Walker Evans's American Photographs (1938). Evans's photographs are beautiful and interesting individually; when viewed together in the order compiled by Evans and his advisers, they form a first-rate work of art. However, it's quite difficult to reacquaint yourself with how things looked in the beginning, as photos are often republished in new formats or new contexts. Never-before-seen material is used and printed beautifully; through careful editing, some dull experiences are given a startling new look.

In Europe and America, photographic archives provide us with a wealth of original materials from which we continue to create new images of the past, which are often used as a kind of pastoral era to educate the younger generation. Perfect now.

Photography has never been mainstream, only short-term trends. For a period around 1900 there was an international movement involving Europeans and Americans, in which photographers influenced each other through exhibitions and photo publications. There was also an internationalist phase in the late 1920s, during which the Germans, French, Soviets, and Americans had the same style and interest in architecture and design. There are also vigorous local movements, such as the project initiated by the Farm Security Administration in the United States in the 1930s. But photography never pushed forward into a broad front, and some of the best exhibits are the work of independent artists who were willing to stick to the styles they drew on in their early years.