Aboriginal Portraits ('Kings' style and way of shooting)

This photograph shows not only a mother and child from the aboriginal community, but also highlights King’s style; in terms of taking his photographs in an outdoor setting, as well as recognizing the significance of treasuring family portraits and records of material culture. This image also portrays the establishment of the British Colony, which show through the way that both subjects are dressed (in comparison to the traditional aboriginal custom etc.). The background also supports this suggestion, as they seem to be standing not behind a house/backyard etc; but standing in their natural and traditional environment, which encourages you to compere. 

o   Aboriginal woman holding child, three-quarter-length, full face

o   Date(s) of creation: [1933] Photograph printed in 1933 from original negatives taken by Henry King in the 1890's.

o   Photograph: 21.6 x 16.6 cm.

o   Reproduction rights owned by the State Library of Victoria

o   Accession No: H20918/29

o   Image No: a15093

Pictorialism

In the late 1800s, a group of photographers who became known as pictoralists wanted to make there shot stand out They altered their images by hand scratching the negatives and using brushes to soften and blur parts of the photographs during the printing process. The Pictorialist's main concern was not their subjects but, rather to make photography a viable art form.

The term Pictorialism is used to describe photographs that make images not about what’s in the photo but about how it comes together For Pictorialists it was about the emotional impact of the image and how it was made,(they thought that was more important that was in front of the camera).

It was using a group of photos to create one.

Henry Peach Robinson

 one of the greatest photographers of his time. His most famous photograph is “Fading Away”, is a composition of five negatives, in which he shows a young girl dying of tuberculosis surrounded by her family. It was very controversial, because many felt that it was acceptable for the painters to approach this kind of tragic and intimate moments, but it was not appropriate for a photographer to do so.

http://www.vrestrepo.com/two/page7.html

Henry Peach Robinson
 “Fading Away” (1858)

Early Photographic Processes

• Thomas Wedgewood and Sir Humphrey make some of the first images recorded using light and publish findings in the journal of the royal institution.

• In 1826 Joseph Nicephore Niepce creates hellographic images

 • Louis Jacques  Daguerre team up with Joseph Nicephore Niepce to develop both the hellographic technique and the Daguerreotype technique.

• In 1839 the French government recognize Daguerre and Isidore Niepce a pension for the technology of the Daguerreotype and offered the discovery to the world

• 1834 William Henry Fox Talbot began experiments with silver chloride

• In 1839 both Dagurre hurry to get their experiments published.

• in 1839 Hippolyte Bayard make a direct positive process on paper

• In 1840 a few independent discoveries discovered that different combinations of chlorine, bromine and iodine fumes could produce daguerreotype plates much more sensitive.

• Improvement in lenses and a charged formula to use silver iodide, which was more sensitive

• By the late 1840’s the Daguerreotype was being used  in the world.

• American Daguerreotypists in particular produced superior portraits by using a technique called galvanizing.

• In 1847 a new negative process produced the niepceotype was published in

• In 1848 Frederick Scott Archer, an English sculptor and amateur calotypist, experimented with collodion

• In 1864 the carbon process patented by Sir Joseph Wilson Swan was universally adopted.

• The last quarter of the 19th century introduced gelatin emulsion plates, papers and flexible films. This became technology that was accepted until digital technology.