ART 114 - 500 History of Photography

Instructor: Victoria Pendzick

Video/Reading Home Work Week 6

(Add more space if needed, or make a new document and please include name and class.)

Please answer questions below from my lectures:

1. In Germany after World War 1, what are the two aesthetic positions created and what photographers
created work in response to them?

The two aesthetic positions in Germany at the time were “THE NEW VISION”(of a new perspective) and
“NEW OBJECTIVITY (presentation of relatable subjects in a straightforward manner).

New Vision:
 Laszlo Moholy – Nagy
 Herbert Bayer
 Willy Otto Zielke

New Objecivity
 Albert Renger-Patzsch
 Karl Blossfeldt
 August Sander

2. Please choose one photographer from my presentation and research another photo taken by them that I
did not show you. Include the title, why you chose it and its significance?
Albert Renger-Patzsch / Archiv Ann und Jürgen Wilde, Zülpich / VEGAP, Madrid 2017

In this photographic exhibition, Renger-Patzsch reproduces fragments of nature with the maximum objectivity
and clarity possible, systematically resorting to very close perspectives, almost always on neutral backgrounds.
I chose this photograph because it is impressive how it is possible to distinguish the great technical and
compositional rigor of its author. It is an image that, despite the fact that it is on a black and white scale, the
colors are created in the mind without even being there, it is a photograph that manages to attract attention.

3. What was the “Group f/64” and who were a part of it?

It was a group of California photographers formed in 1932. It constituted a revolt against Pictorialism, the soft-
focus academic photography then prevalent among West Coast artists. The photographs were characterized by
recording life as it is, through “pure” unmanipulated documentation.
MEMBERS:
 Edward Weston
 Constantin Brancusi
 Charis Wilson
 Imogen Cunningham
 Ansel Adams
 Consuelo Kanaga
 Preston Holder
 Alma Levenson
 Sonya Noskowiak
 Henry Swift
 Willard Van Dyke
 Brett Weston

4. What are the key characteristics of “Straight Photography?”

 Attemps to depict a scene or subject in sharp focus and details , commensurate with the qualities that
distingish photography from other visual media , particulary painting.
 The photo is distinguished by the look that only she knows how to pose on the subject. A look focused
on the structures, shapes, light, recognized and captured from the real world, and that has a composition
in such a way that no artifice is required in the print.
 Images are without cropping
 Direct photography often relies on natural lighting to illuminate the subject, rather than artificially
created or enhanced lighting.