Who is the founder of modern photography?

The early photography art is inextricably linked with painting. Photo photography once swept the world and dominated the world photography salon for 30 years. However, just when pictorial photography was complacent, there was a "revolution" in European photography, which was initiated by Henry Emerson (1856 ~1936).

First, "naturalistic photography"

As one writer put it, "It's like a bomb falling on a tea party". This "tea party" is that Robinson and his companions are trapped in the past world. And this "bomb" is Emerson's naturalistic photography.

Emerson 1856 was born in Cuba to an American mother and an English father. He lived in America when he was a child, and later went to England, where he studied medicine and obtained the qualification of a doctor.

1882, Emerson became interested in photography and took many simple photos: a land composed of mist, water and a flat horizon, dotted with fishermen, boatmen, reed cutters and short farmers. These photographs about rural scenery and farmers' life, like a fresh air, blew into the photography salon at that time and attracted people's attention. From then on, Emerson began to be active all over Britain and became a celebrity in photography.

1886, Emerson delivered a speech entitled "Photography is the Art of Realism" at a gathering of the Photography Club, and made a fierce attack on photo photography. He called photo photography a poor technique of "fragmentation" and thought that it relied entirely on editing and composition to piece together photos. The old theme and empty content make photography a handmaiden of painting. He also believes that the works of Robinson, the pioneer of photo photography, are "concentrated expressions of artistic fallacies".

In the book Naturalistic Photography written by 1889, Emerson advocated "naturalistic" photography. He believes that no art can reflect nature as accurately and meticulously as photography. Photography is an independent art, and it is not advisable for photographers to imitate the themes and methods of painting. Photography should return to nature to find inspiration, express the image of natural beauty in a realistic way, and achieve artistic effects through photography means such as composition, lighting and focusing, rather than overlapping, splicing and remaking.

Photography should also conform to human vision. Emerson, a photographer turned doctor, pointed out that at a certain moment, the eyes usually focus on a certain part of the scene. The scenery in vision is clear in the center and fuzzy in the edge. Therefore, it is unscientific for the images to be all clear. Make some objects clearer and fuzzy, and the effect will be more natural and closer to reality.

Emerson dropped this "bomb", which fundamentally shook the photo photography, thus causing the dissatisfaction of Robinson and his companions. They retort that Emerson has no imagination at all, "healthy eyes will never regard any part of the scene as virtual" and photography will never conform to the real nature. According to the exposure of the ground film, the sky part must be overexposed and there is no hierarchy. However, if one negative is exposed according to the sky and the other is exposed according to the ground scenery, and then the two are superimposed and enlarged, the result will be closer to the original scenery.

The debate between naturalistic photography and photo photography lasted for five years, and both sides concentrated their strongest firepower to attack.

Second, dramatic changes.

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:

At one time, I thought that the true brightness 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.