Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Cirsium

Karl Blossfeldt
Cirsium
c. 1928-32
gelatin silver print
Getty

Karl Blossfeldt
Aesculus parviflora
1928
gelatin silver print
Getty

"Surrealism lies at the heart of the photographic enterprise: in the very creation of a duplicate world, of a reality in the second degree, narrower but more dramatic than the one perceived by natural vision." – Susan Sontag, Melancholy Objects

French photographer
Study of rocks
c. 1845
daguerrotype
Getty

French photographer
Flowers and leaves
1853
albumen silver print
Getty

Robert Macpherson
Bernini's colonnade, St. Peter's, Rome
1860s
albumen silver print
Getty

Robert Macpherson
Hall of Statues, Vatican Museum, Rome
1860s
albumen silver print
Getty

Robert Macpherson
Campagna near Rome
1850s
albumen silver print
Getty

"The photographer was thought to be an acute but non-interfering observer  a scribe, not a poet. But as people quickly discovered that nobody takes the same picture of the same thing, the supposition that cameras furnish an impersonal, objective image yielded to the fact that photographs are evidence not only of what's there but of what an individual sees, not just a record but an evaluation of the world. It became clear that there was not just a simple, unitary activity called seeing (recorded by, aided by cameras) but "photographic seeing" which was both a new way for people to see and a new activity for them to perform."  Susan Sontag, The Heroism of Vision

Gertrude Käsebier
Self-portrait
c. 1896-99
platinum print
Getty

Gertrude Käsebier
Charles O'Malley picking flowers
1903
platinum print
Getty

Henri Le Secq
Chartres
1852
photolithograph
Getty

Félix Jacques Moulin
Nude
c. 1851-53
daguerrotype
Getty

French photographer
Spring Flowers : Lilacs, Peonies
1853
albumen silver print
Getty

Prints are from photography collections at the Getty in Los Angeles.