Why did Emerson's road to photography change dramatically?

Strangely, just as the "revolution" was about to succeed, Emerson suddenly chickened out. 189 1 year, he completely denied his original ideas and theories in a pamphlet entitled The Death of Naturalistic Photography. He wrote: I used to think that real light like nature could be obtained and could be changed at will through development. However, this is actually impossible.

Emerson's dramatic changes surprised everyone. The reason for this change is that he understands that photography has a fixed range of tones, and the limit that photographers can control is limited.

Later, critics commented on Emerson, saying that his behavior reflected his honesty, because art is not a copy of nature. So his contribution to photography has not been shaken.

Emerson was the first to foresee that photography would become an independent art, and asked photography to explore its own artistic language and gain the dignity of real art, thus liberating photography from the shackles of painting. As a pioneer in studying photography aesthetics according to the characteristics of photography, his "documentary" photography concept has opened the curtain of modern photography.