The History of Landscape Photography

The History of Landscape Photography

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The History of Landscape Photography

Introduction

In his catalogue , Weston Naef termed the period between 1860 and 1885 the "golden age of photography " and characterized the photographs produced during this early period as works of art . His essay on "Landscape Consciousness " related developments in American landscape painting and the natural sciences to the emergence of landscape photography . Moreover he singled out the work of several photographers for extended formal analysis in the tradition of most art historical publications

(201-218 . After some historical background on American landscape photography in 19th century , brief discussion and criticism the further turns to the works of prominent American landscape photographers of the 19th century : Carleton E . Watkins , Timothy O 'Sullivan , and William Henry Jackson . Finally , some conclusive remarks are presented

Historical Background

At the same time that photographic technologies progressed to the point of allowing for "field " work , the United States government began to survey the West in to determine the potential resources these lands held . Photographic documentation quickly proved indispensable in this survey process , and photography became the voice through which the world learned of the unique topologies of the West . While photography was invented in the late 1830 's , the immediate uses of the medium were overwhelmingly focused on portraiture . Aside from the huge demand for portraits , there was also a technical reason for the limited number of landscape daguerreotypes : the unwieldy and dangerous daguerreotype process greatly inhibited any attempt to move photography out of the studio (Current

Another limitation was the small size of the daguerreotype image . Since daguerreotypes became light sensitive by exposing the photographic plates to toxic mercury vapors , the use of large plates and the subsequent increase in vapors required to sensitize them simply exposed the photographer to too much danger . The small images (2 3 /4 " x 3 3 /4 although detailed , were limited in their ability to convey a sense of space . A further limitation on the daguerreotype 's landscape capabilities was the inability to reproduce the image . Since daguerreotypes were a one of kind positive image , their ability to communicate to a mass audience was restricted (Mitchell

With the invention of the collodion or "wet plate " process , field photography became a realistic possibility although still a complicated and laborious ordeal . The collodion process used glass plates coated with a layer of collodion , a mixture of gum cotton dissolved in ether The plate was made light sensitive by dipping it in a liquid solution of silver-nitrate . The difficult part of the process was that the plate had to be exposed and processed before it dried or it lost its light-sensitive properties . As a result , plate preparation had to be done immediately prior to exposure and then quickly processed . This necessitated taking a "darkroom " into the field , usually in the form of a wagon or tent (Mitchell

The other advantage offered by the collodion process was its reproductibility . The collodion process produced a negative that could then...