History of Photography

The last note summarizes the positive reaction to the war after World War II-the humanistic attitude represented by magnum photos, which reached its peak in MoMA's exhibition "Human Family" from 65438 to 0955. This paper will sort out the negative reaction to war-existentialism. Like the method of splitting into two in the past, the embodiment of existentialism in photography is divided into two clues: Europe and the United States, each with two representatives.

Europe

The photographic novel "We Are 17 Years Old" published by John Van de Cooken in 1955 is an example of the snapshot mode. From 1956 to 1958, the Dutch studied movies in Paris. During this period, thousands of photos he took on the streets of Paris became the basis of his "Paris Mortel" published in 1963, which also became an immortal work of stream-of-consciousness photography in Europe.

Paris on Earth is divided into six chapters. No matter how you take a picture or compose a composition, you use the method of making a movie. Kuken did become more famous as a film director. Baidu and Douban have hardly discussed his article. I found the inside page scan of Paris on earth through Wikipedia.

Ed van der Erskine published the photographic novel Love on the Left Bank in 1956. He filmed a group of friends living in Saint-Germain, the hometown of existentialism, which condensed the Bohemian life and many love stories in the cafe culture.

Photonovel is an invention of Dutch photographers and can be said to be the pioneer of private photography. When photography is used as a diary medium, the method of stream of consciousness is often used. It is neither a documentary nor a complete fiction. For commercial reasons, it can be published as a movie story, but because of its limited virtuality, it can also be regarded as a documentary photo collection.

United States of America

American existentialism has its own manifestation-the beat generation. In the face of McCarthyism, the Cold War and the dreary Eisenhower era, their response is: "divorced from society, divorced from the roots, and on the journey without marking the voyage, they went to the rebellious self." In the 1950s, not only photography, but all American art turned inward and stopped talking to the outside world. Art has become a natural expression of one's inner thoughts.

Robert frank's French version of "The American" was published in Paris on 1958, and an English version was published one year later, adding a preface written by Kerouac (the author of On the Road). Frank made good use of visual metaphors and edited them together with extraordinary wisdom and vitality. Kerouac said: "This is a sad poem learned from America."

William klein's "new york" published in 1956 is considered to be full of vitality despite violence, cynicism and provocation. Interestingly, new york and Americans was first published in Paris.

The stream-of-consciousness photographers, represented by the four just introduced, have pushed photography from decisive moment to non-decisive moment. Most of their photos are loose, unbalanced, rough and out of focus, but they always look full of vitality. What they present is exactly the opposite of the positive attitude or humanistic optimism in the human family.

Robert frank and william klein have a great influence on the future direction of photography history, which will be introduced in more detail in the next chapter "On the Road". But here, as the content of this chapter and the end of this note, it is necessary to sort out the profound influence of existentialism and stream-of-consciousness photography on the first generation of Japanese photographers after the war.

Japan

In the 1960s, Japan's love and hate for the United States reached its peak since the19th century, and its anger against the American occupation violently collided with the cultural charm brought by the occupiers. Coupled with the influence of French existentialism in the 1960 s, Japanese photography has revived.

These photo collections may be able to stretch any definition of the ultimate goal of photography to the breaking point. But there is no doubt that they are a response to a historical moment-the schizophrenic nature of post-war Japanese society.

Domon Ken and Shomei Tomatsu's Hiroshima Nagasaki Documentary 196 1, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Rose Punishment 1963, William Klein? And two stream-of-consciousness photographers, Ed van der Erskine, representing the United States and Europe respectively, began to visit and work in Japan.

1968 1 1 provocation 10 was published in October, aiming at liberating photography from the "autocratic rule" of words. Only three issues were published, but it had a great influence on Japanese photography later.

1970 For the Coming Language by Zhong Ping Zhuo Ma (one of the founders of provocation) and Farewell Photography by Daido Moriyama 1972 pushed the style of stream of consciousness to the point of incoherence. Farewell Photography draws a line for the era of "provocation". Daido Moriyama said: "I intend to go to the end of photography."

The next note will enter the fourth chapter of this book, "On the Road", and then move towards the social picture.