Photography & Society BY GISELE FREUND

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1 Photography & Society BY GISELE FREUND

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3 Photography & Society " BY GISELE FREUND,Jo13oo<{ :)7 David R. Godine, Publisher Boston

4 First published in English in 1980 by David R. Godine. Publisher, Inc. }06 Dartmouth Street Boston. Massachusetts English translation copyright 1980 by David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc. All rights reserved. No pan of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and n.-views. This book was first published in France in 1974 under the ride Photograpbie et Societe by Editions du Seuil. Original edition copyright 1974 by GiseIe Freund. Godine wishes to acknowledge the collaboration of Richard Dunn, Yong-Hee Last. Megan Marshall, and Andrea Perera in the English translation of the book. Frontispiece: Jean Lanes, L'Oeil Perfilnt de Cartier-Bresson. library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Freund, Gisele Photography & society. Translation of Photographie et societe. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Photography-Social aspects. 2. Photography -History. I. Tide. TR147.F ISBN PHOTOGRAPHY & SOCIETY has been set in VIP Sabon by G & S Typeseners, Austin, Texas. The book was printed and bound by The Alpine Press, South Braintree, Massachusetts. The paper is a special making of acid-free Mohawk Vellum. The manuscript was prepared for the press by Quinn Moss, with design and typography by Howard I. Grana.

5 Contents PART ONE } The Relationship Between Art and Society 9 Precursors of the Photographic Portrait 19 Photography During the July Monarchy ( I 83 a-i 848) 35 The First Portrait Photographers 52 Photography During the Second Empire (I8F-I870) 69 Attitudes Toward Photography 83 The Expansion and Artistic Decline of the Photographic Profession 9 5 Photography as a Means of Art Reproduction PART TWO 103 Press Photography I I 5 The Birth of Photojournalism in Germany 141 American Mass Media Magazines 161 Photography as a Political Tool 175 Photography and the Law 181 The Scandal-Mongering Press 193 Photography As Art 201 Amateur Photography 215 Conclusion 219 Not 227 Acknowledgments 229 Index

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7 Preface Photography is a concrete example of how artistic expression and social forms continually influence and reshape each other. Photography and Society is concerned with this interaction. It covers the history of photography from the announcement of irs invention in 1839 to the present as reflected in individual photographic portraits and later in the portrait of sociery as a whole off d by the press. I..The uses of photography today are so varied that I could consider only a few of irs applications. For example, I have not dealt with the role f the women s press, or in advertisin. hotography in Ith rare exceptions, however, all photographs publis ed in newspapers and in magazines perform an advertising function, even if this is not immediately evident Photography and Society I have attempted to define this function through concrete examples, many taken from my own experiences as a photographer. The book's first section, which deals with nineteenthcentury photographic history, was originally my doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne. When published forty years ago, it was the first thesis ever presented on the subject; no books at the time dealt with photography as a social force. The thesis has been condensed and revised to include new material that has come to light. In conclusion, it is my hope that by examining certain aspects of the history of photography, I have illuminated the history of contemporary society as well. -GiseIe Freund

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9 PHOTOGRAPHY & SOCIETY

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11 The Relutionship BetlNeIl Art cli1d Societ), W'erner Bi Lhof. Hunger. Each moment in history has its own form of artistic expression, one that reflects the political dimate, the intellectual concerns, and the taste of the period. Taste is not an inexplicable whim. It is the product of well-defined conditions that characterize the social structure at each stage of its evolution. Thus the portraits commissioned by the bourgeoisie who prospered under Louis XVI strive for princely character. The taste of that period was determined by the class then in powe.r-the nobility. As the bourgeoisie rose in power, becoming an important force in the French economy, prevailing tastes were transformed. The ideal model for portraiture was no longer princely, but bourgeois in appearance. Lacetrimmed costumes and wigs gave way to the frock coat and top hat, the cane replaced the sword. The elegance of a court that had found its highest expression in the light, vigorous painting and pastels of La Tour and \'(.'atteau gave \\'ay to the solemn grays of David. Similarly. the meticulous drav,:ings of Ingres responded to the realist tendencies of his time and to the conservative taste of a bourgeoisie fond of formality and conscious of its responsibility. Each society thus develops characteristic forms of artistic expression that are born of the needs and traditions of the dominant social class. A change in social structure intluences not only the subject matter but also the techniques artists use in their \\'ork. Throughout the nineteenth century-the age of the machine and modern capitalism-changes occurred both 3

12 in the character of the faces in portraits and in the artistic techniques of portraiture. Technological progress outside the art world led to the invention of a series of processes that were to have considerable bearing on future developments in art. Lithography, invented in 1798 by Alois Senefelder and introduced to France a few years later by Philippe de Lasteyrie (who set up a studio in Paris), represented an important step in the democratization of art. But the most decisive factor in making art accessible to everyone was the invention of photography. "'!,hotggxaphy-piays an essenti.' role in gmremporary life. There is scarcely an aspect of human activity in which it is not used in one form or another. It has become indispensable to both science and industry. It provides the basis for mass media-movies, television, video. Thousarids of newspapers and magazines print millions of photographs daily. Photography is now so much a part of our daily lives that our familiarity causes us to overlook it. One of its singular characteristics is its acceptance in every social class. Photographs are as likely to be found in the homes of laborers and craftsmen as in those of government officials and industrialists., Photography's enormous political siguificance lies in its universal appeal. It is the perfect means of expression for a goal-oriented, mechanized, and bureaucratic society founded on the belief that each person has his own place in a standardized hierarchy of professions.. The camera1las become an instrument of major siguificance to our society. Its inherent ability to transcribe external reality gives it documentaty validity-it is, seemingly, both accurate and unbiased. More than any other medium, photography is able to express the values of the dominant social class and to interpret events from that class's point of view, for photography, although strictly linked with nature, has only an illusory objectivity: The lens, the so-called impartial eye, actually permits-evety 4 Photography & Society

13 possible distortion of reality: tbe character of tbe image is determined by tbe photographer's point of view and tbe demands of his patrons. The importance of photography does not rest primariiy in its potential as an art form, but ratber in its ability to shape our ideas, to influence our behavior, and to define our society.. In our technological age, when industty is always ttying to create new needs, the photographic industty has expanded enormously because tbe photograph meets modem man's pressing need to express his own individuality. Despite an ever higher standard of living, man in Western civilization feels less and less involved witb events around him and is forced into an increasingly passive role. For him, tbe photograph is an externalization of his feelings-a kind of creation. No wonder, tben, tbat tbe number of amateur photographers grows evety day and shows no sign of lerting up. In its special way, tbe photographic image has transformed our vision of the world. The Relationship Between Art and Society 5

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15 PAR T ONE

16 "'\! ", l Photography & Society

17 Precursors of the Photographic Portrait The physionotrace. invented by Gilles-Louis Chretien in combined two methods of portraiture: the silhouette and the en graving. The physionotiace could be made inexpen-. siveiy but achieved much the same effect as a painted portrait. The development of the photographic portrait corresponds to an important phase in the social development of Western Europe: the rise of the middle classes when for the first time, fairly large segments of the population attained political and economic power. To meet their resulting demand for goods, nearly everything had to be produced in greater quantities. The portrait was no exception: By having one's portrait done an individual of the ascending classes could visually affirm his new social status both to himself and to the world at large. To meet the increased demand for portraits, the art became more and more mechanized. The photographic portrait was the final stage in this trend toward mechanization. Around 1750 the nascent middle classes began pushing into areas that were formerly the sole domain of the aristocracy. For centuries the privilege of aristocratic circles, the portrait began to yield to democratization. Even before the French Revolution the bourgeoisie had already manifested its profound need for self-glorification, a need which provoked the development of new forms and techniques of portraiture. Photography, which entered the public domain in 1839, owes much of its popularity and rapid social development to the continuing vogue of the portrait. During this period of transition, however, when constant political upheaval and new production methods in all industries were dissolving the remains of the feudal system in France, the rising classes had not found a char- 9

18 acteristic means of artistic expression because they had not yet formed a clear self-image. The bourgeoisie still modeled itself after the aristocracy, which continued to set standards of taste even though it was no longer the dominant economic or political force. The rising classes adopted the artistic conventions favored by the nobility, modifying them according to their own needs. The nobility were difficult clients. They demanded technical perfection. To suit the tastes of the day, the painter tried to avoid all bold colors in favor of more delicate ones. Canvas alone could not satisfy the aristocracy: painters experimented with any material which might better render the rich textures of velvet or silk. The miniature portrait became a favorite of the nobility. It underlined the aristocracy's delight in personal charm. On powder boxes and pendants one could always carty about these tiny portraits of friends, lovers, or faraway members of the family. The miniature was also one of the first portrait forms to be coveted by the bourgeoisie for the expression of its new cult of individualism. In dealing with this new clientele, the portrait painter faced a double task: he must imitate the style of the court painters, and bring down his prices. 'Portrait painting in France at the time of Louis XV and Louis XVI is characterized by a tendency to falsify, to idealize each face, even that of the shopkeeper, in order to have him resemble the exemplary human type: the prince.' 1 Easily adapted to its new clientele, the miniature became one of the most successful minor arts. A miniaturist could support himself by turning out thirty to fifry portraits a year and selling them at moderate prices. But even though it was popular among the middle classes for a time, it still retained its aristocratic elements, and eventually, as the middle classes became more secure, it died out. By 1850, when the bourgeoisie had become firmly established, the miuiature portrait had all but disappeated 10 Photography & Society,

19 and photography deprived the last of the miniaturists of their livelihood. In Marseille, for example, there were no more than four or five miniaturists by 1850, only two of whom enjoyed enough of a reputation to be turning out fifty portraits a year. These artists earned just enough to suppnrt themselves and their families. Within a few years, there were nearly fifty photographers in town, most of whom devoted themselves to pnrtrait photography and earned a good deal more than the best-known miniaturists. The photographers turned out an average of twelve hundred pictures annually. Sold at 15 gold francs apiece, these brought a yearly total of 18,000 francs and a combined income of nearly one million. Equally dramatic changes took place in all the large cities in France and abroad.2 For one-tenth the price of a painted portrait, the photographer could furnish a likeness which satisfied the taste of the bourgeois as well as the needs of his pocketbook. Art forms in their origin and evolution parallel contempnrary developments in the social structure. The artistic efforts of the era with which we are concerned reflect the democratic ideals of the French Revolution of 1789, which demanded 'the rights of man and of the citizen.' The revolutionary citizen who helped take the Bastille and who defended the rights of his class at the National Assembly reflected the same ideals in posing for the physionotracists of Paris. The physionotrace, which represented a major step in the mechanization of the pnrtrait, had an interesting predecessor. During the reign of Louis XIV a new process had been invented for making pnrtraits. By curting profiles from black, shiny paper, the portraitist could finish his work in no time. Many skilled craftsmen took up this new method and worked as itinerant artists at festive gatherings, from court balls to local fairs. The cut pnrtrait, named silhouette after the finance minister of that time, achieved international pnpularity. Precursors of the Photographic Portrait I I

20 Monsieur de Silhouette was not, as has been claimed, the creator of the cutouts that put his name into common usage. The actual inventor is unknown. The word silhouette, which includes by extension all figures seen in shadowed profile, appeared in the middle of the eighteenth century. Its etymology is quite unusual. Named Controller General in 1750 when France was heading toward bankruptcy, M. de Silhouette levied, with some difficulry, cettain public taxes to boost government reve Dues. For a time he was considered the savior of the French State, but the deficit was too great and he was forced to delay certain payments while suspending others entirely. His populariry plummeted, and the public be- Silhouettes posed the first threat to traditional portraiture because they required much less rime, talent, and expense. These first 'mechanized' pomaits paved the way for the physionotrace. 12. Photography & Society

21 came spiteful. A new style of clothing appeared: narrow coats without pleats and breeches without pockets. Without money to store in them, what good were pockets? These clothes were said to be styled ii fa Silhoueue, and to this day, anything as insubstantial as a shadow is called a silhouette; in a short time, the brilliant Controller General had become no more than a shadow of himself.3 The silhouette cutter remained fashionable until the time of Bonaparte. Hawkers selling silhouettes could be found at public balls of the Directoty and Consulate. Artists improving on the new portrait technique embellished the cut shapes by retouching and engraving them with needles. An abstract form of representation, the silhouette portrait required no special training from the cutter. For a time, the public flocked to silhouette cutters, pleased with their fast service and modest prices. The invention of the silhouette did not lead to a largescale industty, but it did encourage the development of another new technique popular in France between 1786 and 1830-the physionotrace. The inventor of the new technique was Gilles-Louis Chretien. Born in 1754, the son of a court musician at Versailles, Chretien began in his father's profession but, hoping to make a better living, he soon chose to become an engraver. His choice may have been a disappointment at first, for the competition was fierce, and the work demanded much time and care. The few portraits which he produced at the start took too long to bring substantial remuneration, and commissions did not come frequently enough to cover expenses. Soon Chretien began experimenting with faster ways to turn out portraits. In 1786 he successfully devised an apparatus which mechanized the technique of engraving and saved considerable time. The invention combined two methods of portraiture, the silhouette and the engraving, thus creating a new art. He named his device the physionotrace. Precursors of the Photographic Portrait 13

22 The physionotrace was based on the well-known principle of the pantograph, an instrument which mechanically reproduces a drawing or diagram. The pantograph is made of rods in the shape of two joined parallelograms. The device moves in a horizontal plane, one parallelogram passing over a design, the other over a blank paper ready to receive the design. With a dry srylus attached to the comer of the first parallelogram, the operator follows the contours of the design. An inked srylus, attached to the second, automatically reproduces the design on the blank page at a scale determined by the distance between each stylus. The physionotrace was much larger than the pantograph and differed in two other respects: the device was held upright so that the features of a seated model could be traced, and it was fitted with an eyepiece in place of the dry stylus which could pick out the outlines of an object in space. After posing his model, the physionotracist, seated on a stepladder behind the apparatus, maneuvered it by aiming his eye at the features to be reproduced. The distance from the model to the device, as well as the position of the stylus, determined the relative scale of the final image.4 The artistic ability and the personality of the painter played a great role in the miniature portrait. But these qualities were drastically reduced in the silhouette cutter; his was merely a manual skill. At the most his talent can be seen in attful retouching of the features of a profile. The physionotracist did not even need that much skill. He had only to draw the contours of the figure which were then transferred and engraved on a metal plaque. Since a single session with the model was sufficient, these portraits were moderately priced. Many physionotracists sold them in series at even lower rates. In '788, Chretien came to Paris, hoping to benefit from his invention. He took on a miniaturist named Quenedey as a partner who, seeing the success of the new venture, soon left to start a rival establishment. Other Physionotrace portraits by Gilles-Louis Chretien and Quenedey, two of the bestknown physionotracists. The portraits tended to reduce every face to a stylized, static expression, a small compromise for such an inexpensive and oftentimes flattering product (clockwise from top: Chretien, J.p. Brisson, 1792; Quenedey, Young Woman, 1814; Chretien, A.J.A. RuiLhiere; Quenedey, Young Man). '4 Photography & Society

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24 engravers and miniaturists adopted the new technique because their own professions, closed out by the physionotracists, no longer provided a means of support. Quenedey, Gonord, and Chretien were the best known of all. The first two established themselves in the galleries of the Palais-Royal, at that time the center of fashionable Patis. Chretien opened his studio on the rue Saint-Honore. All the celebrities of the capital soon found their way to the physionotracists. The important personalities of the Revolution, of the Empire, of the Restoration, as well as a great number of unknowns posed in front of the physionotrace, which copied their profiles with mathematical exactitude. Among Chretien's productions one finds the heads of Bailly, Marat, Petion-all with the tricolor sash-robespierre, and many others. Quenedey traced the profiles of Madame de Stad, Louis XVIII, Saint-Just, Elisa Bonaparte, and numerous other notables.' The physionotracists were good businessmen. Soon they were offering small portraits on wood, ivory, or medallions to be sold at three gold francs apiece. The customer had to buy at least two portraits and make a deposit of half the payment in advance.6 For six gold francs they sold what they called silhouettes a fang/aise to which they added hairstyling and costume. The pose for these lasted only a minute. Gonord also made cameos and miniature portraits from silhouettes; his 'colored silhouettes,' as he called them, sold for twelve gold francs and required a pose of only three minutes.7 Physionotrace portraits had an increasingly detrimental effect on miniature painting and engraving. At the Salon of I793, one hundred physionotrace portraits were exhibited. Just three years later, there were twelve rooms showing fifty physionotrace portraits each. The physionotracists, especially the three best known, Quenedey, Gonord, and Chretien, maintained a bitter rivalty. Each accused the others of having stolen his most 16 Photography & Society

25 The physionotrace also pennirted a new kind of self-portraiture. Chretien produced these self-portrait engravings with his physionotrace from a portrait drawn by Fouquet (1792.). recent improvements, and they publicized their disputes in the Paris newspapers" Hoping to win the favor of the public, each claimed to be the sole inventor of the various technical processes. Realizing that there were many interested amateurs, Gonord began to manufacture sets of equipment as well. All the physionotracists made a good deal of money from the invention. Eager to have their portraits made, but unwilling to spend much time or money, most people preferred to go to the physionotracist who, after only a short sitting, could produce a portrait that was very similar to a painted miniature for a low price. Soon, the physionotrace portrait replaced the miniature. The same tendencies were evident throughout the French business world. The type and quality of merchandise on hand varied with the number of buyers; merchandise of poorer quality at a lower price replaced more expensive merchandise of superior quality. Luxuty, bought cheaply, became the best guarantee of good business. So far we have dealt with the social and technical side Precursors of the Photographic Portrait 17

26 of the evolution from miniature to physionotrace. But consider the difference between the delicate art of the miniature, where the artist spends days and weeks carefully reproducing a face, and this virtually mechanized process of reproduction. The portraits obtained with the physionotrace now are only of documentary value: they generally show the same flat, stylized, frozen expression. In the works of the miniaturist, one can always see more than a simple likeness between model and copy. The artist is free to emphasize whatever characteristics he chooses, and thereby can evoke the spirit of the sitter as well. The physionotracist can reproduce facial contours with mathematical precision, but the resulting portrait lacks expression because it has not been executed with an arttist's intuitive feeling for character. The physionotrace can be considered the symbol of a period of transition between the old regime and the new. It is the predecessor of the camera in the technical evolution that has led to the coin-operated portrait machines and Polaroids of today. There will always be a sector in the art world which is more concerned with speed and quantity than with art; the physionotracist of 1790 is not far removed from the passport photograpber of the twentieth century. Thanks to the physionotrace, a large portion of the French bourgeoisie gained access to portraits. But the process did not necessarily capture the interest of the majority of the middle class, much less the lower class. It does not, for example, seem to have beeri practiced in the provinces. Individual labor was still dominant there in the execution of a portrait. It was not until a totally impersonal teclmique came into use with the advent of photography that the portrait could be completely democratized. Although the physionotrace had nothing to do with the teclmical development of photography, it can be argued that it was its ideological predecessor. 18 Photography & Society

27 Photography During the July Monarchy (I830-I848) On IS June 1839, a group from the Chamber of Deputies proposed that the French government purchase the rights to the new invention of photography'o for public use. For the first time, photography made its appearance in public life. A knowledge of the political parties and social groups espousing the cause of photography gives yet another view of the relationship between the changes in society and the development of photography. Nineteenth-century revolutions in France were products of social changes that accompanied the growth of capitalism. The liberal revolution of 1830, which dethroned the oldest branch of the 'legitimate' dynasty and destroyed all hopes of its restoration, supported the rising bourgeoisie and its claim to 'natural' power. Massive economic changes took place during this period. The 1830 strike among Parisian printers, precipitated by job cutbacks due to the installation of improved machines, was only one indication of the dramatic changes in French economic and social life. 11 Mechanization took hold throughout France duting louis-philippe's reign: the number of mechanical spinning wheels, for example, grew from 466,000 in to 819,000 in 1851; there were only 2.50 power looms in 182.5, but little over twenty years later some 12.,12.8 had been installed in France.'2 Individual crafrsmen were being replaced by machines; France's small, labor-intensive factoties were becoming machine-dominated industries; and French society itself was becoming increasingly standardized. 19

28 Many French artisans were forced to join the ranks of the proletariat which, in the early days of industrialization, meant a life of misery and complete political insignificance. The petite bourgeoisie, or lower middle classes, also became more numerous, but with the expansion of industry and commerce they prospered along with the rest of the bourgeoisie, whose members were fast becoming the pillars of the social order. On 2.8 July 1831, a bourgeois Parisian proudly exhibited his portrait next to one of Louis-Philippe with the following insctiption: 'There is no real difference between Philippe and me: he is a citizen- king and I am a kingly citizen.' This anecdote points up the new selfawareness of the bourgeoisie whose ideas and feelings had become profoundly democratic." Grocers, haberdashers, clockmakers, hatters, druggists-men 'enclosed in the little world of their shops,' with little means and just enough education to keep their account books-these were the members of the bourgeoisie who were to find in photography a means of selfexpression conforming to their new ideals and econontic status. Their place in society would detennine the nature and direction of photography. This group established, for the first time, the economic base that allowed the art of the portrait to become accessible to the masses. Just as fashion is set by society's higher classes before reaching the lower, so photography was first adopted by those members of the French ruling class who wielded the most power: industrialists, factory owners, bankers, politicians, writers, scientists, and all those who belonged to the intellectual elite ofpatis. Then photography gradually filtered down through the lower ntiddle classes as they became more influential. Around 1840 France's toral population was 35 ntillion but only 300,000 had the right to vote.' The government, a constitutional monarchy known as the July Monarchy, was led by Louis-Philippe, a king who liked to 2.0 Pborography & Society

29 dress in the clothes of the bourgeoisie and carry an umbrella. Members of the two Chambers were chosen by a small number of electors and were primarily industrialists and merchants. Besides the government party, there were also members of the Legitimist and Republican oppositions in the Chambers. The Legitimist party, representing the nobles' and landowners' interests, no longer exerted the overwhelming power it once had. The Republicans, however, were an important influence in the political life of the day, particularly in the press. Their Paris newspaper Le National, was as respected as the venerable Journal des debats, the organ of the party in power. The Republican members of the Chamber came from the bourgeois intellectual elite: writers, lawyers, army officers, civil servants, and others. They were, above all, patriots who despised the Treaty of Vienna of 1815, which was designed to keep France weak in the European balance of power, and who looked back fondly at the old Republic founded by the French Revolution. I. Intellectuals have always had both a role to perform in history and a special function in their own society. Separated by knowledge and culture, they can understand their relative historical position and choose their own course in life accordingly. They can have a more open view of the world, a vision not available to other groups of society restricted by political and economic status.16 In the French parliament under the July Monarchy, intellectuals mose to represent the more humanitarian and liberal causes of the bourgeoisie. Although they did not constitute an entity strictly distinct from the bourgeoisie, they were the most forward-thinking representatives of the constitutional government. Their answer to the weak contemporary political regime 'whim, sensing its own weakness, had to hide behind the crown; was bourgeois republicanism. Because they were part of the opposition, this group of intellectuals was Dot con- PbotogriJfJ/ry During the July Monarchy 21

30 fined by the conservative politics of the juste milieu (the neoclassical conception of the Golden Mean, the happy middle ground). They were open to new possibilities." The liberal spirit is defined by an abiding faith in the potential of human intellectual and moral progress. Along with this faith in progress goes an effort to recognize the realities of the period in which one lives. Because of its flexible political position, the intellectual bourgeoisie, which attracted the artistic elite during the Revolution of 1848, could afford to be receptive to contemporary reforms and scientific or spirirual innovations. It also be came the most competent judge of the potential of new business venrures. It is not at all surprising, then, that The world's first photograph, Joseph Nicephore Niqx:e used modified lithographic techniques in his first successful recording of nature in 1826 in this photoengraving of his courtyard in Chalon-sur Saone: from left to right are the Niepce house. a pear tree, the bam (slanted roof), and another wing of the house. The image is faint because the metal plate etched with the image was very shiny and the picture underexposed. 22 Photography & Society

31 Fran ois Arago, one of the first public patrons of photography, suggested to the French Chamber of Deputies that the government buy Niepce's invention. these intellectuals were the first to propose that the State acquire the rights to the new invention of photography and introduce the invention to the public. The Republican party had a left-wing democratic faction 18 whose leader, Fran ois Arago, was an extraordinary scientist as well as politician. 'This scientist whom all of Europe admires is at the same time one of the most vigorous defenders of public freedom and the interests of the people,' wrote one journalist of the day. 'Since he has arrived in the Chamber of Deputies, he has opposed all the ministries and has fought against all reactionary and violent measures.' 19 Arago was one of the intellectuals most imbued with his party's pladorm of encouraging anything that might lead to progress. Not surprisingly, he was the first to understand the extraordinary role photography could play in the arts, the sciences, and other fields. It was Arago who most forcefully urged the Chamber to purchase this new process for the State. It is important to note that Arago's interest in photography was primarily scientific-the predominant position in the early days of photography. All inventions are the result of experimentation and discovery on the one hand, and society's needs on the other. To these two factors, we should also add the inventor's genius and often just plain luck. All of these factors contributed to Joseph Nicephore Niepce's invention of Born in 1765 at ChaJon-sur-Saone, Niepce was the son of an influential lawyer whose connections extended to many of the most important families in Burgundy. His financial and social position, the cultural tradition in his bourgeois intellectual family, and his education all provided him with the time and background to pursue his scientific interests. He was not unlike many other 'gentlemen-scientists' who carried on their research in the chateaux and country homes of the leisured bourgeoisie, among whom scientific experimentation was frequently Photography During the July Monarchy l. 3

32 encouraged In Arago's time no science was more fashionable than cbemistry. A popular pastime, half experiment, half parlor game, involved attacbing objects like flowers and leaves to pieces of paper treated with silver salts. When the paper was exposed to sunlight, the outline of the objects soon appeared in sharply contrasting black and white. However, these images disappeared rapidly because fixing techniques had not as yet been discovered. During this post-revolutionary era, the most firmly entrencbed traditions began to falter, and life itself seemed like an experiment. The nobles and those of royalist tendencies, who had largely been excluded from political life and who, like Niepce, preferred to retire to their country estates, now found plenty of time to devote to their scientific experiments. Photography was already beginning to emerge from their work. In 1814, lithography reacbed France and suggested to Niepce the last steps of his own work. living in the isolation of his country home, Niepce was unable to find the limestone necessary for his experiments with lithography. He began to use a metal plate instead of stone and sunlight in place of the lithographer's crayon.2t In 182.6, afrer many failures, Niepce finauy succeeded in developing a very primitive photographic process.22 Not until several years later, however, did the painter Daguerre perfect Niepce's tecbnique. Daguerre's invention of the diorama had drawn him into studies on the effects of light, and with his results he was able to make the new process available to everyone.'] Although Niepce had spent a lifetime of money and energy on his photographic projects, he received no public recognition and died impoverished on 5 July Daguerre, an acquaintance of Niepce, drew up an agreement with Niepce's son, Isidore, who received the invention as his only inheritance. Together, these two would exploit the discovery." Engraving of Niepce ( ), inventor of the first photographic process. Though his invention evenmally received recognition and government support. Niepce died impoverished.

33 Like Niepce, who had spent years looking in vain for financial backers, Daguerre was at first unsuccessful at finding the necessary support. Even an effort to go public ended in failure, as there was no way of convincing speculators to risk money on an invention that still did not inspire much confidence. The first photographic prints were difficult to appreciate because the image was affixed to a mirrored surface, which had to be held up against the light to be seen. And, in any case, lack of initiative among contemporary businessmen was typical of the period. Vast industrial expansion did not begin until the second half of the century. The businessman of the 1830S invested only in sure ventures and had little experience in speculation. The stock market was not yet the barometer of wealth into which it later evolved. But, as the former promoter of the diorama and an ambitious and clever entrepreneur as well, Daguerre knew how to sell a discovery successfully. He asked that his name be featured in any publicity given to the invention. And he soon succeeded in making the invention a favorite subject of conversation at exhibitions and gatherings of high society.26 Nor was it an accident that scientists became interested in photography during the 1830S, a period of great scientific progress. Fifteen years after its invention photography was at last introduced to the general public. 'Everything that leads to the progress of civilization, to the physical and moral well-being of man, ought to be the continuing goal of enlightened government. This government must rise to meet the fates of the citizens that are entrusted to it; those men who work toward this noble end should be honorably rewarded for their achievements.' 27 These words of Gay-Lussac, the French physicist, were typical of the liberal's attachment to the idea of progress. He delivered them in the Chamber of Peers six weeks after Arago had presented his proposal on the invention of photography to the Chamber of Dep- Photography During the July Monarchy 25

34 uties. Passed unanimously by both Chambers, the law offered Daguerre, now considered the inventor of the 'Daguerreotype,' and Niepce's son Isidore, annuities of 6,000 and 4,000 gold francs respectively.28 As was often the case at the time, the French government renounced its rights to a monopoly and left the invention open to the public. This gesture actually meant little: since the process was so simple, it would have been difficult to protect by any patent. On 19 August 1839, having acquired the invention, the French government made the process public during a meeting of the Academy of Sciences29 The intellectual elite of Paris, composed of scholars and the most important artists of the day, filled the hall. 'As early as eleven in the morning the crowd was considerable. By three o'clock an actual riot blocked the doors of the Academy. All the notables of Paris were crowded into the section reserved for the public: The presence of numerous foreign scholars at the lecture indicated the tremendous interest the invention had created in a short period of time and well beyond French borders.30 Arago himself presented the details of the technique and outlined the extraordinary role photography was going to play in the development of the sciences to the attentive audience. 'How archeology is going to benefit from this new process! It would require twenty years and legions of draftsmen to copy the millions and millions of hieroglyphics covering just the outside of the great monuments of Thebes, Memphis, Karnak, etc. A single man can accomplish this same enormous task with the daguerreotype.' 31 The artist would discover in the new technique a valuable tool, and art itself would be democratized by the daguerreotypen Arago read a letter of approval from the painter Delaroche. Astronomy would also benefit from this ne\\! invention: 'We can hope to make photographic maps of our satellite. In a few moments time one can achieve one of the longest and most difficult projects in astrono- 26 Photography 6 Society

35 l n\t';lit11ftroly,"oil "I[ Following Niepce's discm' ery of and Daglle re s. Improvements on pnmltlve photographic techniques, a Daguerreot ype craze spread throughout Europe and America (lithograph by T.H. Mallrisset, The D.:J guerreotypo11l.:jnia.1840). my: 33 The numerous possibilities Arago presented in his speech summed up the immense importance ofthe invention. Arago's foresight was evident in his prophetic final remarks: '\Vhen experimenters use a new tool in the study of nature, their initial expectations always fall short of the series of discoveries that eventually issue from it. WIth this invention, one must particularly emphasize the unforeseen possibilities.' 34 Arago's presentation was an important Parisian event, reviewed with lively interest by all the newspapers. During the weeks that followed, Paris was taken by a mad spirit of experimentation. With equipment and accessories weighing as much as 220 pounds, Parisians set out to search for subject matter. Dusk was greeted with little enthusiasm: the sunset ended the day's experiments. Photography During the July Monarchy 27

36 The Daguerreotype Camera; painter Daguerre ( ) improved Niepce's technique with the use of silver rather than pewter plates in his camera. However, the development of the film still produced dangerous iodized vapors, required long exposures, and needed precise timing. At dawn, from many a window, amateur photographers could be seen cautiously trying to capture an image of a neighboring roof or a panorama of chimneys on the sensitized plate. Soon cameras were routinely aimed at monuments in most of Paris's famous squares; scientists were successfully repeating the inventor's procedures. Everyone was predicting the end of engraving, and the opticians who displayed the first cameras were besieged by prospective buyers. The daguerreorype was an inexhaustible subject at salons. It was the rage of Paris.35 As soon as the photographic process was made public, inventors came along, each claiming to have discovered the process. In France, a civil servant named Bayard, and in England, the scientist Talbot, had both discovered a photographic process using paper: the first with silver iodide, the second with silver chloride. The fact that the photographic process was invented at the same time by three different individuals strongly suggests that photography responded to the needs of the time. The new invention aroused the interest and curiosity of men at all levels. Yet, the initial technical primitive- 2.8 Photography & Society

37 , -Long exposures meant extend uncomfortable sittings (lithograph by Honore Daumier, Position Considered to be Most Comfortable for having a Good Daguerreotype). ness and the extraordinary expense involved made it temporarily available only to wealthy amateurs and scientists. Daguerre's invention, moreover, was very inconvenient. First of all, the light-sensitive silver plate could be used only after its exposure to dangerous iodized vapors.36 In addition, the plate could only be prepared just before use and had to be developed immediately after exposure. Finally, exposure time was often more than half an hour. Arago indicated in his report that preparations alone took thirty minutes to three-quarters of an hour." To photograph landscapes the early photographers had to transport large tents and portable laboratories because the chemical preparations had to be made at the site. Taking daguerreotype portraits required Joblike resignation from patient subjects during long waits in full sunlight. Beads of sweat dripping from the foreheads and cheeks of the subjects left unartractive lines on their powdered faces that inevitably showed up in the final pictures.38 In addition to these problems, the daguerreotype had yet another basic disadvantage: the process resulted in only one plate, and copies could not be made. Built by Daguerre himself, and sold by the Paris optician Giroux, the first cameras were large and cumbersome, weighing 50 kilograms (over 100 pounds), including accessories. The price, no less imposing, varied between 300 and 400 francs, a sum vety few could afford. The tremendous public interest in photography as well as the early recognition of its economic importance led to the technical improvement of the process, and soon the price of cameras and equipment began to drop. Improvements began with the optical equipment. By the end of 1839, Baron Seguier was constructing a camera that weighed no more than 3 I pounds and was to some extent portable. Around 1840, the opticians Chevalier, Soleil, Leresbours, Buron, and Monrmirel developed equipment that could be produced at much lower prices, and by 1841 cameras were priced at 250 to 300 francs. Photography During the July Monarchy 29

38 Plates costing three to four francs just a year before were now selling for one to one and a half francs. Although annual sales in Paris had reached approximately 2,000 cameras and 500,000 plates by 1846, the number of enthusiasts was still limited by the price. Finally, the lens designed by the German optician Voigtlander became so competitive with French equipment that the French were forced to lower their prices and call the cameras they sold 'the German system.' The optician Leresbours's 1842 catalog listed the price as 200 francs.39 Reduced exposure time was another result of technical improvements. [n 1839, the year photography was introduced to the public, the required sitting time was fifteen minutes in full sunlight. A year later, thirteen minutes in the shade were sufficient. By 184 I, exposure was reduced to 1\\'0 or three minutes; by 1842 to only twenty to forty seconds. Finally, a year or two later, the length of sitting was no longer a problem in achieving a photographic portrait. -.f """, 30 Photography 6'- Society

39 Named 'Daguerreotypes' in a French law, the images produced by Daguerre's camera included nearlv everything from pano amas to portraits (opposite: Daguerre, The Louvre, 1839; clockwise from top: Daguerre, 'lieu' of Paris, 1839; unknown American photographer. Three Women; unknown photographer, Family Portrait, c. 184 ) Photography During the July Monarchy 3 I

40 The Daguerreotype in America: Fred Coombes's Montgomery Street, San Francisco, I8so. The daguerreotype was a great success all over Europe, but it was in America that it took hold and developed into a prosperous business. Atthe end of r839, Daguerre sent Fran ois Gouraud to the United States to organize daguerreotype exhibitions and to give lectures on the process. He was to promote the sales of the camera and other accessories manufactured under Daguerre's supervision by the Paris firm of Alphonse Giroux and Co. Daguerre's business interest explains his haste in introducing the invention abroad. In r840 American society had not yet become rigidly stratified, and initiative was the passport to success. Between r840 and r860, the period of the daguerreotype's greatest popularity, America was shifting from an agricultural to an industrial society as the result of numerous technical advances: refrigeration, the invention of the reaper, new developments in mass production, the expansion of the railroads, and other products of American ingenuity. It was the period of rapid urbanization in the East and of the gold rush and the frantic development of cities in the West. Proud of its Sllccess, the new country 32. Photography & Society

41 found in photography an ideal way to preserve and promote its accomplishments. Enterprising Yankees set up photographic 'saloons' in the cities and converted covered wagons crossing the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains into daguerreotype srudios. It is estimated that by 1850 there were already 2,000 daguerreotypists. Just a few years later, in 1853, some 3 million photographs were taken annually, while the total output between 1840 and 1860 was more than 30 million photographs. Daguerreotypes cost between $2.50 and $ 5.00, depending on their size. Americans were estimated to have spent between $8 million and $12 million in 1850 for portraits alone, representing 95 percent of photographic production.4o In the young American democracy this new method of self-portrairure was perfectly suited to the pioneer taste, a taste proud of its achievements and eager to preserve them for posterity. However, it was only when Daguerre's nonreproducible metallic plate was replaced by the glass negative that the conditions necessaty for the development of the portrait industty were finally fulfilled. The wet plate collodion process, using glass negatives instead of copper plates, opened the way to mass production of photographic portraits. At the same time, it stimulated the development of such secondaty industries as the manufacture of cameras, glass plates, and chemical emulsions. Soon the paper industry and smaller businesses were taking advantage of the new demand for picture frames and photograph albums. The daguerreotype thus gradually fell out of use and a new phase in the histoty of photography began. Photography During the July Monarchy 33

42 \ \ \ ),.j : ;"!, 'I,. (. ) ( '

43 The First Portrait Photogre/phers F0hx TOllrnachun "'(J.QJ.r, IS lo- T ';J I C"..1rti t-photographer..1nj dcruiuut. \\",1, one of the tlr t respon iblc for ' rj.i51ng Phutogr..1ph to tht' height of.\rt through hi, POrtfJ.ltS : Daumier lithograph, IS65 : Eycry great technical discovery causes crises and catastrophes. Old professions disappear and new ones develop. But if old occupations arc threatenedl nev..' ones signify progress. The invention of photography began an evolution which ultimately rendered obsolete the art of the portrait as it was then practiced by painters, miniaturists, and engravers. Those who had adopted the old trades in response to the needs of a rising hourgeoisie rapidly lost their means of support. :\lany of these artists became the first photographers. Economic necessity led the artists who had once attacked photography as an artless tool \\-ithout a soul or spirit' to adopt the new profession when their own trades were threatened with extinction. Their previous experience as artists and craftsmen was partly responsible for the high quality of the photographic industry during its early days:h The usesboth commercial and artistic-these early photographers found for the new form were to direct the development of photographic techniques for the rest of the nineteenth century. Technically primitive, early portrait photography was exceptional in its artistic quality. As the technique became more sophisticated, the artistic quality of the work declined accordingly. 'It is certainly profoundly significant that these first "artist-photographers" were most active during those ten years which preceded the industrialization of photography.' 42 35

44 Around 1843, four years after photography had entered the public domain, the first proletarian intellectuals appeared in Paris-the Bohemians. Many of the first photographers came from this group of arrists. Painters who had failed to make a name for themselves, men of letters who eked out a living by writing occasional articles, miniaturists and engravers who had been deprived of a livelihood by the new invention, were all part of the group interested in early photography. In short, all sorts of second-rate talents who had never made it turned to the new medium, which seemed to promise a better way of life.43 By the middle of the nineteenth century, photographic technique had ceased to be experimental and had reached the point were photographers no longer needed any special knowledge. The necessary tools were now being manufactured by specialized industries, and the preparation of developing or fixing baths no longer required a parricular knowledge of chemistry. Equipment of varyingsizes was available in the shops of numerous opticians. A series of easily understandable manuals on photogra phy was published, providing an exact description of the necessary procedures. A photographic workshop could be set up in France for just a few hundred francs. Aesthetically, the photographic portrait developed in two contrary directions: one represented progress, the other regression. In this chapter we shall examine the portraitists of the first progressive phase of photographic history, the arrist-photographers. One of the most eminent photographers of the period was Felix Toumachon Nadar, an illustrator, caricaturist, writer, and aeronaut who opened a photography studio in 1853 on rue Saint-Lazare. His career was typical of the first group of arrist-photographers. Born in in Paris," he spent his earliest childhood in Lyons where his family had lived for generations. A member of the provincial intellectual bourgeoisie, his father was a bookseller, 36 Photography & Society

45 publisher, and printer by family tradition. The family was rich, royalist, and socially influential; there was every sign that the sons wo uld become good scholars. Felix Tournachon was sent to the College Bourbon in Patis to prepare for the university, but away from family pressure he studied only intermittently. He went on to study medicine at the secondary school in Lyons at the insistence of his parents, who found it an honorable profession. There, he worked harder at literature than anatomy. His student life ended abruptly when his father was forced into bankruptcy by the enormous expenses he had incurred in publishing, among other fiascos, a sevenlangnage dictionary.'s Tournachon certainly did not regret having to interrupt his studies, but now he had to find a way to earn his living. He turned to literature, which had been his chief interest since his school days in Patis. At eighteen he began to wtite short articles for the Journal et {anal de Commerce and the Entr'acte Lyonnais under the pseudonym Nadar. At twenty-two he returned to Paris where the population had almost doubled to over a million' since the time of the Revolution. Like many people drawn from the provinces to the city, Nadar hoped to find both intellectual stimulation and the chance to rise socially. He may have counted on establishing connections in the art world through his relative, the caricaturist Gavami, who was then a regular contributor to the famous satirical newspaper Ie Charivari, for which Daumier did some of his most acclaimed work. Gavami must have encouraged his young relative to follow in his footsteps as a caricaturist, but since Nadar didn't have any money to go to art school, he taught himself. Before long, his first caricatures began to appear in Parisian journals. Nadar was interested in anything relating to the arts: at the same time that he was publishing his first caricatures, he wrote articles for the magazines Vogue, Ie Negotiateur, I'Audience, and short stories for Ie Corsaire," and he began The First Portrait Photographers 3 7

46 , to study painting. He made many friends with young artists who, like himself, lived on little or no money in cheap hotels or attics in the Latin Quarter. With little thought for tomorrow, they were seduced by the romantic surroundings and the free life of the artist. The electric light had not yet been invented; just a few gas lanterns lit the narrow, badly paved streets of the Latin Quarter. Around 1836, the only means of public transportation was the horse-drawn bus, and there were only a few hundred of these in Paris. In the cafes and small restaurants of the Left Bank, amidst the civil servants, workers, artisans, and students, Nadar met the Bohemians of the Latin Quarter" and joined some of his ftiends (Murger, Champfleury, and Delveau among others) in the meetings of a group they had founded in 1843, which they ironically called Ie Club des Buveurs d'eau (the Water Drinkers' Club). The group, whose members in general led the 'very irregular life of the Bohemian,' 49 met to discuss art and literature. The presence of the Bohemians in French sociery was an interesting phenomenon, characteristic of the period. Although literature appeared largely unaffected by economic progress, industrialization did leave its mark. The first changes in literature appeared in newspapers and magazines with the expansion of advertising, incteasingly the most important source of revenue for the press, and the introduction of the serialized novel in Out of these changes grew a new industrialized literature. Following the market principle of capitalism, when the management of several French newspapers tripled their readership by enlarging their format and curting their subscription rates in half, other papers were forced to do the same. These changes transformed literature, especially that found in newspapers. S. Writers now had to conform to the taste of the public in order to attract and hold a readership. For the author, paid by the word, money often became the mea- 38 Photography & Society

47 sure of his literary 'merchandise' and in many cases determined the quality of his literaty 'output.' 5. As a result, the new bourgeois society presented an unexpected problem for the artist. Even at royal courts, artists had maintained a personal relationship with their patrons; their position was simply that of craftsmen. But with the rise of capitalism, the direct relationship between employer and employee vanished. The 'free' artist, working for whatever clients he could find, appeared with the further depersonalization of human contacts. If he did not try to comply with the taste of the time, he ended up either in the poorhouse or in the morgue. 52 Thanks to education, democratized by the bourgeois revolution, art ceased to be the special privilege of the nobility and a few important cultured bourgeois. The practice of art became open to all social classes and a decisive change took place in the milieu of the French intellectuals. Socially speaking, the Bohemians of the I840S were not a homogeneous group. The most successful among them, the circle known as La Jeune France, were in their late forties while Nadar and his friends were in their twenties. 53 Those of the first group who had already achieved some prestige and fame both as artists and writers exercised considerable influence on French public opinion. But the lower echelons of the Bohemians, the real 'intellectual proletariat,' met with little success. Some were of peasant origin or offspring of working-class craftsmen from the larger towns. Others, like Nadar, came from the failed bourgeoisie. 54 like his friends, Nadar had tried at first to eke out a living selling articles and drawings, but things soon turned out badly for him, as they had for most of his 6;iends. There were not enough journals to publish their work and one could scarcely live on the commissions. The bourgeoisie would have nothing to do with the disreputable Bohemians, and among the Bohemians 'bour- The First Portrait Photographers 39

48 geois' was the ultimate insult. 55 They felt alienated from society and their poverty did, in fact, make them social outcasts. Their generation, by virtue of its social origins and marginal position in society, was in direct opposition to the bourgeois class and its artistic values. To a large extent the young Bohemians were cut off from public expression of their artistic talents, because the majority of newspapers and magazines were slanted toward a bourgeoisie that favored the an of the juste milieu. With his paintbrush and pen, Nadar struck out against the hated bourgeoisie.56 In 1848, he joined those intellectuals actively supporting the February Revolution. Louis Blanc, one of its leaders, wa among his close friends at the time. 57 In the years preceding the Revolution, Nadar had accepted positions whim provided him with a secure income, including work as a secretary to Charles de Lesseps, and later, to the deputy V. Grandin, both of whom were Republicans like himself. When the Revolution broke out, he quit his post and left the next day for Posnauie with his friend Faumery, hoping to take pan in the Polish insurrection that had been inspired by the February Revolution in Paris. During the voyage through Germany, however, he had the misfortune of being arrested, possibly because he was suspected of being a revolutionary, and he was imprisoned at Eisleben during the entire period of the insurrection. 58 Upon his return to Paris, Nadar once again threw himself into his literary work. He also published drawings and caricatures. In 1849, he founded the Review Comique and contributed humorous drawings to Ie Journal pour rire and Ie Charivari. He married at a very young age, and because family responsibilities did not prevent him from squandering his small earnings, he was constantly in need of money. One day while visiting his writer friend Chavette, Nadar complained of his financial difficulties. Chavette told him that another friend was trying to sell his photographic equipment for a few hun- By the mid-nineteenth century, artist-photographers were attempting to make photography more than a mass production of portraits. Nadar's portraits of Gustave Dore (top, 1859) and George Sand (middle, 1859) and Carjat's portrait of Charles Baudelaire (bottom, 1859) come from the early period of artistic portraits, when many of the clients were artists and intellectuals. 40 Photography & Society

49 dred francs and suggested that Nadar become a photographer.59 Chavette pressed him to try, after all, the profession was very much in vogue and promised a good living. A bit taken aback by the proposal, Nadar resisted at first. Like most of his fellow Bohemians, he was prejudiced against photography: too many second-rate practitioners had already given the profession a bad name. Abandon art? Consider only money? Nadar hesitated. But compelled by necessity, he soon decided to take on the new profession, and in 1853, fourteen years after photography entered the public domain, the 33-year-old Nadar opened a photographic studio at II 3 rue Saint Lazare. He soon became a celebrity. Every important figure in the arts, literature, and politics flocked to his studio to be photographed. He knew everyone in Paris. Nadar's studio became the meeting place of the Parisian intellectual elite. The painter Delacroix, the engraver Doni:, the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer, the writer Champfleury, the criric Sant-Beuve, the poet Baudelaire, the revolutionary Bakunin, and many other celebrities of the period came to pose for him.60 His camera portrayed these faces of great character with the insights of a master, for Nadar was in close sympathy with most of his models whose friendship and artistic interests he shared. Nor did he abandon literature or caricatures for his new work, but continued to contribute regularly to a number of newspapers. The portrait photographer's earliest clients were mostly artists and intellectuals. Artists were willing to accept the novelty, for they were much less bound to tradition than the bourgeois, who regarded any technical advance with suspicion. One is fascinated by the images fixed on Nadar's plates. In a sense, Nadar discovered the human face with the camera. His sitters faces look out at you with startling, lifelike intensity-seem almost as if they could speak. The The First Portrait Photographers 4 I

50 lens seemed to dive into the very essence of their physiognomy. The pose served merely to underline the expres sion of the subject. What Nadar sought was not the exterior beauty of a face, but the inner spirit of a man. Retouching, which robs the face, and turns it into a dry, lifeless image, belongs only to the later stages of his work. Today as we admire these first photographic portraits, we wonder how the first photographers succeeded in turning their cameras into artistic instruments. Nadar was an arrist to the tips of his fingers; his extraordinary taste allowed him to use the photographic process with judgment. Above all, his arristry was the result of his close relationships with his models. A very personal in terest bound him closely to their future arristic and per sonal development. Friendships between the photogra- Paul Nadar's portrait of his father, Felix Toumachon Nadar, captured the personality and spirit of its subject much as his father's ponraits once did. 42 Photography & Society

51 pher and his models were not troubled by the question of money. Photography had not yet become a commodity; the value of the photographer's work did not depend on cash payments. Those artists who had themselves photographed came to his studio with good will. At this stage in the development of the photographic process, the success of the portrait still depended in large part on the efforts of the model himself. 'The power of expression, wrested from the sitter through a long exposure, gives [Nadar's 1 luminous and simple images their lasting, profound charm-the charms of a well-sketched or well-painted portrait, a verisimilitude that recent photographers do not possess.' 61 Nadar's portraits are typical of the style of the first phase in photographic portraiture. His photographs, like those of some of his contemporaries-carjat, Robinson, Le Gray, and others-are works of art: and like all true works of art, they were not produced for material reasons. A professional conscientiousness, an absence of pretension, a strong intellectual and cultural background made these early photographers the artists they were. Looking at Nadar's and Carjat's portraits of Baudelaire, one has to feel the same admiration and gratitude for the photographers granted all true artists. For Nadar, this kind of work was not without its problems. Most of his friends, like himself, had little money. As a result, Nadar made most of his first photographs out of friendship and received little money for his work. He returned to journalism for a short time, leaving his studio, now near the Pantheon, in the hands of his brother. But soon he was back in the studio:!photography could give the secure income he needed, t;;rt only if he catered to the taste of a new clientele. It is at this point that the second period in the history of photographic style begins. Photographers who wanted to make money were forced to adapt their artistic standards to the taste of a new clientele which consisted of the rich bourgeoisie] The First Portrait Photographers 43

52 Nadar's return to photography led to a lawsuit against his brother Adrien concerning the name, Nadar, which both wanted to use as their professional name. The court decreed that Felix alone had the right to the name. The name Nadar became so well known among the wealthy bourgeoisie that he could charge one hundred francs per portrait, allowing him a sufficient profit to hire a number of assistants. During this period, the Godard Brothers had become a favorite topic of conversation because of their interest in the great problem of aeronautics. All of Paris followed their first balloon excursion with great curiosity. Drawn to these exploits, as he was to many new inventions, Nadar zealously devoted himself to a new idea: he would take aerial photographs from a balloon."2 His first attempts failed because of the primitive camera he had to use. (It was still the time of the wet-plate collodion process.) In addition, he had to set up a darkroom in the basket of his balloon in order to sensitize the plates before exposure, and finally there was the problem oflengrhy exposure. Only in the spring of 1856 was Nadar able to take his first successful shots."3 His highly publicized experiments opened up a world of new possibilities, particularly for the militaty. Nadar took out a patent and was later named commander of a company of aeronauts during the German siege of Paris. He was responsible for following the enemy's movements from a balloon floating over the St. Pierre Square (where the Arc de Triomphe now stands) and, when possible, for taking photographs.m Nadar had become so fascinated by ballooning that he decided to learn the new art from the Godard Brothers. The three men signed an agreement whereby they would collaborate to improve the invention. After several flights in ordinaty balloons, Nadar constructed an enormous balloon with a rudder which he called Ie Geant (the Giant). He thought he had solved the great aeronautical 44 Photography & Society

53 Posed piaure of Nadar uk ing photographs from his balloon 'The Giant' (I863). problem of the day: how to steer the balloon, once it was in the air, without depending on air currents. On 4 October r863, all of Paris gathered to see him ascend in Ie Geant. Nadar's steering device failed and the balloon was forced to land at Meaux. On r 8 October he tried once again, taking his wife and some friends along for the ride. The balloon went all the way to Hanover, where Nadar was forced to land so abruptly that his family and friends barely escaped with their lives. He tried again the following September in Brussels and a year later at Lyon. The only clear result of these attemprs was that Ie Geant cost Nadar an immense fortune. Only after a long court bat" tie was he able to force his partners, the Godard Brothers, to absorb half the loss. This, however, was not enough to straighten out his finances.os After endless attempts Nadar still found himself debt-ridden and, without any other means of improving his finances, returned once again to portrait photography to rebuild his fortune. If Nadar's career epitomizes the early success of the arrist-photographers, then Le Gray's career illustrates their demise. Born in Paris, Gustave Le Gray was the student of the painter Pere Picot, whose studio was quite famous during the July Monarchy. Following in the footsteps of David and Girodet, Picot had found his niche in the painting of the period along with Alaux, Steuben, and Vemet, among other celebtities who were working to finish Versailles. Nor surprisingly, Le Gray found none of the stimulation he sought in the academic painting taught by Picot and his circle. Still young, but already a father, he was continually in financial distress and didn't know where to tum. Struggling with both arristic conflicts and money problems, he found pleasure only in the small laboratory he set up next to his studio. Like many contemporary painters, he performed chemistry. experiments, investigating the make-up of basic colors. His interest in chemistry led him to photography and The FiTSt Portrait Photographers 45

54 1 soon he was devoting all his time to improvements in the new process. Like many painters of his day and encouraged by family and friends, he then abandoned painting for photography in the hopes of financial success. Le Gray soon found a rich patron, the Count de Briges, who rented a studio for him near the Paris city line where the prosperous section of La Madeleine is now located. At the time, this part of the city was still sparsely inhabited; only occasional visitors wandered the streets or entered the few small shops. This was before the westward expansion of Paris when land could be bought for next to nothing. The location, as it turned out, was well chosen. Almost at the same time, two other photographic studios opened up in the same house. On the ground floor, the Bisson brothers opened an elegant shop where the public soon gathered to admire their views of Switzerland, among the most popular of their beautiful photography. Sons of a coat-of-artns painter, the Bisson Brothers were born in Paris, the first in 1814 and the second in The eldest, who had begun as an architect, entered the municipal service in 1838 and became interested in chemistry. He became a student of Dumas and Becquerel. In addition to his photographic experiments, he invented techniques for the brass and bronze coating of iron and zinc, which has since become a lucrative industrial practice. Like his father, who had been his first teacher, the younger brother started his career by drawing and painting coats of arms, but later he joined his older brother in his experiments with photography. Like Le Gray, they too found a rich backer, and around 1848 they opened a plush studio on the floor above Le Gray's. The success of the Bissons' studio was sensational; the public was attracted not only by its tasteful luxury but by the quality of their photographs displayed in the window. Their studio soon became the meeting place of brilliant thinkers and celebrated arrists. Seated on a great couch, passing A self-portrait by Le Gray, an early artist-photographer whose reluctance to produce commercially acceptable portraits forced him out of business. 46 Photography & Sodety

55 photographs from hand to hand, the visitors discussed the latest developments in photography. Writers, critics, and artists flocked to the studio to look at the pictures. Theophile Gautier, Louis Cormentin, Saint-Victor, Janin, Gozlan, Mery, Preault, Delacroix, Penguilly, the Leleux, and many other celebrated Frenchmen were among the regulars. After leaving the Bisson Brothers, the visitors would climb the stairs to the portraitist Le Gray's studio to see his most recent work. The buying power of this public, however, was as small as its understanding and appreciation for the new art was great. Generously Le Gray gave away his photographs to favorite visitors. One can imagine how much work went into a single print during the early days of photography, but the high price of each portrait frightened the bourgeois public whose prosperity could have guaranteed the photographers' future. The patrons of Le Gray and the Bisson Brothers withdrew their support, realizing that the new process was not going to bring in much money. Their lack of business acumen forced Le Gray and the Bisson Brothers to close their studios. The final blow came with the appearance of Disderi's new process that allowed him to sell photographs at one-fifth their price. The Bissons and Le Gray had to choose between meeting this new competition by mass producing portraits or giving up photography. Le Gray, for whom artistic concerns were always of primary importance, refused to capitulate to the demands of mass production. Discouraged and embittered, having no choice but to close his studio as quickly as possible, he left Paris for Egypt. There he found work as a drawing teacher and there he remained until his death in Only a few of his photographs, including some beautiful landscapes, remain. All of them testify to his great ability. His unretouched portrait of Napoleon III reveals more of the Emporer's personality than any of the numerous contemporary painted portraits. The First Portrait Photographers 47

56 48 Photography & Sodety

57 The Bisson Brothers and Le Gray had to dose their studio doors with the advent of Disderi's mass-produced portraits. Their dedication to photography as an art form yielded results such as the Sissons'!'yfont Blanc (opposite, top) and Le Gray's Empress Eugenie, c (opposite, bottom) for as long as their sponsors-in this case the Emperor and Empress-financed [hem. George Combe's portrait of David Octavius Hill, taken toward the end of the painter-photographer's life. Le Gray was typical of the first artist-photographers whose primary concern was not the commercial side of their art. Victimized by the industry of photography, which expanded along with the new bourgeois classes, they suffered the fate of many of the other artisans whose trades were changed or ruined by burgeoning industrialization. The first photographers did not claim to be artists. For the most part, they worked modestly for themselves, their works known only to a small circle of friends. It was the merchants of photography who had artistic pretensions, for even as their work lost its artistic merit, they sought to attract the buying public by calling their \\'ares art. Once the photographer Disderi had succeeded in substantially increasing the number of his clients by mechanizing through mass-production, Nadar adopted the new technique and the new price_ He hired assistants to retouch his photographs and devoted himself only to arranging poses and receiving his guests. Once again he became a rich man who could afford houses and land. Aesthetically, however, his photographs gradually became less interesting, for he began to cater to his clients' taste, which tended to favor exaggerated poses_ Only rarely in these later photographs do we see the qualities that distinguished Nadar's work among the great photographs. David Octavius Hill also belonged to this first generation of artist-photographers. Hill began his work in 1843, only four years after the official proclamation of the invention in France, when photography was still in the relatively primitive stage of the daguerreotype. With the technical help of Robert Adamson, Hill, a painter by profession, managed to achieve a beauty in his images that remains unsurpassed. The son of a bookseller, Hill was born in Perth, Scotland, in He spent most of his life in the quiet, beautiful city of Edinburgh until his death in Although of mediocre talent, Hill was The First Portrait Photographers 49

58 much admired by his countrymen for the romantic landscapes he painted in the style of the period. In May of 1843, he took part in the Edinburgh convention that led to the founding of the Free Church of Scotland. More than two hundred ecclasiastics gathered in the great hall of Tanfield to announce their,,;thdrawal from the Presbyterian Church and the founding of a new autonomous church. Hill was commissioned to record the first synod in a monumental painting, but realizing the enormity of the task, he decided to use photography as an aid. At this time, the most widely used photographic process in England was the calotype, developed by the scientist Fox Talbot. During a trip to Italy, Talbot had used the camera obscura as an aid in dra\ving landscapes. His subsequent research led to the discovety of the calotype process, which used a paper negative. These negatives could yield multiple copies, a distinct advantage over the daguerreotype, which was invented about the same time. Hill used the calotype process \vith a camera similar to Daguerre's, but his lens was so weak he was forced to have his models pose for three to six minutes in full sunlight. Despite subsequent improvements Hill continued to use his first lens throughout his career; he must have preferred the soft blurred image that resulted. His portraits for the 1843 Synod are remarkable, expecially because of the subjects' sincere, intense fervor. It's as if each figure were projecting the best of himself through some sort of religious trance. Hill's enormous painting of the synod, more than five meters (fifteen feet) long, and depicting almost five hundred people, took him over twenty years to complete. Today the painting is largely forgotten, but the photographs which served as preliminary sketches remain among the most stirring documents in the early history of photography. 66 The golden age of the artist-photographers came to an end fifteen years after the announcement of iepce's in- 50 Photography & Society

59 KrtK ;:J:1 I"'UL'( it-';ii:'l :C, L IN:)IIIUlt 350 Vi:;rC2:A ST., TC, i'-i-lj <tl. M58 2K3 D. O. Hill used photographs as preliminary sketches for his paintings. These pictures, including his panoramic view of the synod and numerous portraits, are some of the most compelling photographs of the era (above: The Disruption of the Church of Scotland, ; opposite, top: Mrs. Rigby, c. 1845; middle : }am es Nasymth, inventor, c. 1845; bottom: John Murray, publisher, c. 1845). vention. The early anist-photographers \vere either replaced by commercial photographers or they themselves became professionals for whom profit \\'as more important than quality. Despite anempts to disguise their financial motives in the shape of artistic enterprise, the controversy persisted: is photography an art? Though hotly debated, the questioning did little to raise the taste of the new generation of photographers. Technical progress in itself has never been an enemy of art. On the contrary, art benefits from technology. But in the case of photography, technical advances deprived the portrait of its artistic value for over half a century. As part of an increasingly standardized and bureaucratized economy, man and his \\'ork became progressively subservient to the machine. This trend is reflected in the second phase of the history of photography, a phase in which photography became as industrialized as the society it documented. The First Portrait Pho tographers 5 I

60 I,, f, j t fl

61 Phutugr,zphv During the Second Empire (r85 I-I 870; Father of commercial photography, Andre Adolphe Eugene Disdtri 181,}-1890'" made mass-produced portraits available within fifteen years of Niepce's invention. Around 1850, French social and economic structure went through serious changes that were reflected in the new needs of the rising cbsses. Initially, apoleon Ill's policies led France through a period of prosperity. He' felt it his task to support the bourgeois.::lasses by promoting industry and commerce. The State granted concessiom. to the railroads', gave out subsidies, and extended credit. New businesses sprang up everywhere; the wealth and luxury of the bourgeoisie increased. The first large department stores opened in Paris - Ron,\L1rche, Le Lottt're, fa Belle J.1rdiniere_ In 1852., Bon I\-1arche grossed only 450,000 francs, but by 1869 its profits had risen to 21 million.6; The effects of this economic policy were also evident among the petite bourgeoisie. apoleon Ill's administration created a giant machine of civil servants. This group provided a new clientele for portrait photography_ Having achieved financial security, they sought to display their new-found prosperity and photography \vas an ideal vehicle. The great Industrial Exposition of 1855, part of the Paris \Vo rld's Fair, included a special section on photography. Here, for the first time, the public at large was introduced to photographic technique. The display set the industrial development of photography in motion. Hitherto, the photographic process had been known only to a small group of artists and scientists. Arago's address at the Academy of Sciences in had been heard by 5 3

62 an audience of intellectual elite. The members of the first photographic society, /a Societe be/iographique, founded in 1851, were nearly all artists and scientists.6 8 Previously, only the initiated sat for the camera. New faces now began appearing in the picture. At the Exposition, the public gathered enthusiastically around the numerous photographs of important and famous people. Today it is hard to comprehend the impact of seeing for the first time, before one's very eyes, the personalities one had only known and admired from afar. The 1855 Exposition also revealed for the first time a new group of photographers who knew how to use the camera tastefully. Most of them brought skills from their former artistic careers that were especially useful to photography. The sculptor Adam-Salomon's portraits of politicians, financiers, and socialites attracted large crowds, as did the work of painters like Adolphe, Berne Bellecourt, and Louis de Lucy, the caricaturists Nadar, Bertall, Carjat, and many others. The public preferred large-format photographs, some of which were nearly half a meter (two feet) high. These were executed with extraordinary care, and never retouched.6 As the clientele changed, the photographers themselves began to emerge from different social backgrounds. The sudden arrival of Napoleon III and his self.proclamation as Emperor on 2. December 1852, served as an example for many. Those who had previously led financially insecure lives found sudden wealth in stock-market speculations. The early period of the Empire provided golden opportunities for men with business acumen who had nothing to lose and who knew how to profit from qnick turns of fortune. It was a time immensely favorable to all businesses, and one that catered especially to the demands of the middle class. When a new field opens up that promises a quick source of income, a flock of competitors frequently enters the arena from disparate backgrounds. Such new- 54 Photography & Society

63 comers are all the more numerous in professions where few skills are required. Because by this time it required little technical knowledge, photography had become such a field. Commercial photography attracted a mass of failures and incompetents who, lacking the training, could never hope to enter more prestigious ptofessions. New technical developments in photography were to help them in their search for commercial success. During the years 1852 and 1853, a man appeared in Paris who left an indelible impression on the history of photography. In the very heart of Paris on the boulevard des Italiens, a new photographic studio opened, owned by a man named Disderi. Born in 18 I 9 in Paris, Disderi was the son of an Italian clothier who had come to France in search of better business opportuniries. According to his contemporaries, Disderi had little education, but he was certainly a man of great native intelli gence and common sense. With his skills, he could have succeeded in any business during the mid-century years of prosperity, but he chose to make his fortune in photography. He was acquainted with the designer Chandellier, who had just inherited a large fortune from an uncle, an old country priest, and from him Disderi was able to borrow the funds needed to set up a large studio. It was by chance that the particular process Disderi developed brought about radical changes. Although the basic improvements had been in the air for some rime, Disderi happened to be the first photographer to sense the needs of the moment and to find ways of fulfilling them. Thus he imposed a new direction on photography. Disderi quickly realized two things: that photography was available only to a small group of rich people, and that the high cost of the large format then in vogue de manded enormous expenditures of time and effort. Pho tographers generally worked alone and had to charge high prices simply because it was impossible to produce work in sufficient quantity to make a living. Disderi un Photography During the Second Empire 55

64 derstood that photography would never reap its proper financial rewards until a broader clientele could be reached and the number of portrait commissions increased. To achieve these goals, he had to take into account the economic status of the masses. It was Disderi's ingenious idea to reduce the portrait photograph to carte-de-visite size, approximately six by nine centimeters (2'h by 4 inches). He was able to make a single negative with a dozen identical exposures on it for one-fifth of the usual cost. He charged 20 francs for twelve photographs. A single print had previously cost anywhere from 50 to 100 francs. By effecting this change in size and price, Disderi made photography ac- This uncut carte-de-visite of eight different poses illustrates the principle behind Disdhi's mass-produced ponraits. Because he was able to make a single negative with a number of different exposures, he could decrease the cost per print. 56 Photography & Society

65 : Disderi, Napoleon III, IIS9 cessible on a broad scale. Port raits were suddenly available to the lower middle class. Now, for a reasonable sum of money, a member of the economy-minded petite bourgeoisie could satisfy his desires bot h to emul at e the rich and pres erve his image for post erity. Disderi thus made a vogue of the phot ographic portrait, a fad whose popularity was increased furt her by a curious and unexpected circumst ance. On 10 May 1859, Napoleon III, whil e leading an army on its way to It aly, st opped at Disderi' s st udio for a portrait sitt ing. The whole army waited for him in tight formation. From that moment on, Disderi' s popularity knew no bounds. His innovat ions democrat ized the portrait: kings, st atesmen, scient ists, artists, civil servants, men of rich or modest means all were equal before the camera' s eye, and the endless lines of clients posing for his camera produced millions in revenue. In 1854, Disderi, good businessman that he was, took out a patent on the carte-de-visite portrait.70 His firm became the largest of it s kind in all Europe. He hired a crew of assistants and in addition to his two st udios (one of which occupied two floors), he opened a large photographic laborat ot y which al lowed him to offer fort y eight-hour service on hundreds of copies, for a relat ively low ptice. Following the principle that mass production reduces cost, Disderi pack aged port rait collect ions of contemporaty celebrit ies. The popularity of this scheme inspired him to dream up new projects. He suggested that the army organize a photographic department, and on 19 February 1861, he was authorized by the War Ministry to foll ow through with this proposal. Every regi ment from then on was ent it led to it s own phot ographer. 71 As earl y as 1855, Disderi realized the enormous impact photography would have on al l aspects of public life. He sensed the important rol e it was going to play in the fut ure of such industries as printed textiles and porcelains, as well as in the work of architect s, doctors, Photography During the Second Empire 57

66 , engineers, bnilders and others.72 The arts in general would _ become popularized by photography. At this stage in capitalism, whatever promoted individual interest seemed to profit the economy as a whole. It would be difficult to estimate the millions that Disderi made during his years of success; he was the kind of self-made man who spent his money as quickly as he earned it. His luxurious apartments, numerous country homes, and costly stables were the talk of Paris. His fall, however, was as sudden as his rise. He literally became the victim of his own invention; his new methods had ruined the artist-photographers who refused to follow Q u t. Finally, Disderi himself couldn't compete. Photographic studios now sprang up everywhete in rance, especially in Paris. Photography attracted men from all walks of life who left their professions to become photographers in the hope of making a fast fortune. Fortier had been a dyer; Tripier, the son of a lawyer; another, an office clerk, probably fired by his boss.73 All that was necessary was the capital to set up a studio, and purchase a camera and some equi pment - and capital during these prosperous times was not difficult to obtaiuj Competition stimulated even more sophisticated technical developments, for photographers now did everything possible to attract a clientele. Disderi basked in his glory and, like many of the nouveaux riches, played the part of the aristocrat, spending more time on land speculations than on his profession. His reputation waned as dissatisfied clients looked elsewhere for more conscientious practitioners. For despite Disderi's patent, others had begnn to make carte-de-visite photographs. Disderi lost his fortune, and finding himself as poor as he had been at the beginning of his career, was forced to give up his studio, sell his belongings, and leave Paris. In Biarritz and Monaco he tried unsuccessfully to exploit his once-famous name to attract a new set of clients, but it didn't work. He became a poor and insignificant re- 58 Photography & Society

67 sort photographer, his glory vanished, his career finished. He had ruined his health during the wild years of his fame. Deaf and nearly blind, he died in a public home in Paris. []'.he economic necessity of mass manufacture had shaped the qualiry and social importance of photography. It had become a large industry dependent on a vast bourgeois clientele; and it had to respond to this clientele's taste as well as to its own economic requirement!] The artistic taste of the bourgeoisie was epitomized in the yearly exhibitions begun by Louis-Philippe. They were presided over by a jury made up of museum directors, members of the Academy, and a few amateurs whose tastes corresponded with those of the government. Rejecting any threat to the artistic canon of the day, they excluded all the works of the Romantics, especially Delacroix, and landscape painting of any sryle. Louis-Philippe considered the promotion of patriotism and respect for his regime a major function of art. He remodeled the galleries of Versailles with frescoes depicting the past glories of France. His taste in art was guided by the same middle-of-the-road philosophy (Ie juste milieu) that guided him in affairs of state. He was a natural enemy of innovation.74 Of the historical painters favored by Louis-Philippe and the Academy, the most important are Paul Delaroche, Ikon Coignet, Robert Fleury, and Horace Vernet, the painter of bartle scenes. Their works filled every major exhibition, providing the focal point for public interest as well as the major subjects for reviewers and critics. Serious art, for the juste milieu painter, meant finding the truth, which amounted to filling the canvas with minute details. Design and color were determined by fixed standards. Subtle hues were unacceptable and for bright or striking effects, one simply added more color. On the other hand, because an excess of verisimilitude could alienate clients, the artist had to soften coarse fea- Photography During the Second Empire 59

68 , tures and touch up unattractive faces on occasion. His goal was to show a face the buyer would find pleasing while avoiding at all cost anything that could disturb the client's sense of decorum. The aesthetic views of these portrait painters, like the views of the people they painted, were neither realistic nor idealistic. They rejected the ugly without seeking ideal beauty. The better painters tried to strike a balance between the two extremes, hoping to make evetything pleasant. Success meant that the painter also had to be a good stage director and costume designer in order to produce a detailed and pleasing likeness. The client was impressed by the precision of the rendering, by the cleverness of the brushstroke, and by the trompe l' oei! effect. But most of all, he was impressed by the subject. Artists whose livelihoods depended on flattering bourgeois taste eventually produced paintings of lower quality. 'The pretty, the commonplace, the polite are what really please them most. The precisely drawn miniature, the flat and dty painting in pleasant reds and greens, the smooth sculpture, the faithful reproduction of the smallest detail....' 75 The great mass of the public that responded to this kind of precise, juste milieu painting was uneducated. Economic progress had indeed opened up the possibility of education for the masses, but intellectual freedom did not develop as quickly as economic freedom. The average Frenchman who wanted to own a work of art needed guidance, whether in buying a portrait, a bust, a medallion, a religious painting, or a tomb. He passively accepted the officially recognized painters. The livelihood of any painter consequently depended on his willingness to submit to the guidelines of the Academy. The taste of the general public was thus molded by a state institution which itself expressed the precise values of the bourgeoisie. It was exactly this average public that made up the bulk of the photographer's clientele. The photographer,, 60 Photography & Society

69 Disderi represented the new school in portraiture: props and full-length shots reduced the subject to a stereotype much as the physionotrace once did (clockwise from top left: The Actor, c. 1860; The Savant, c. 1860; The Writer, c. 1860; The Painter, c. 1860). who had risen along with his clients, was also uneducated. He could only do what his predecessors had done, which was to copy the accepted styles, bringing to the art of photography only acceptable aesthetic values. Disderi's merit as a businessman had lain not only in his ability to meet the economic requirements of his clientele, but also to understand their intellectual needs. What is most striking about Disderi's innumerable photographs is the total absence of individual expression so characteristic of Nadar's works. Members of all professions and all social classes parade before the viewer's eyes, but real personalities are almost entirely obscured, buried beneath conventional social types. While the artist-photographers had generally emphasized the head in their portraits, the new photographers photographed the entire body. Moreover, the props included in Disderi's portraits tended to distract the viewer from the subject in order to suggest a type rather than an individual. Disderi's portraits of writers and scholars invariably show the subject standing with his left arm leaning on a table (a vestige of the old days of uncomfortably long exposures), a quill pen in his right hand, his eyes lost in thought. Large tomes are piled up in carefully planned disorder on an elegantly shaped table that looks like anything but an actual worktable. The sitter himself seems to be nothing more than a prop in the studio. The pathetic gestures of a fat man in costume, wringing his hands, a dagger at his feet, is enough to make us recognize 'an Operatic Tenor.' The singer himself, no matter how famous, is no longer of interest. It is Disderi's model, indeed almost a caricature, of the 'Opera Singer' that eventually becomes the public's as well. To depict a 'Painter' all one needs is a brush and an easel, although a heavy curtain makes a picturesque background. The 'Statesman' holds a roll of parchment; his right hand rests on a heavy balustrade whose massive curves suggest his responsibility-laden thoughts. And so Photography During the Second Empire 61

70 62 Photogr':)phy 0- SOCIety

71 Di deri \\'d not alone in using props; "OIne phntographer used thein more effectivelv thj.n he, while others uch less so. Bertall\ skillful portrait of Charles Paul de Kock ':opposite) contr.lst5 with the contrived dnd melodr..1 - matie F.;uimg A./H.l)" b Henrv Peach Robimon (abo\:e). the photographer's studio became a theatrical prop room, ready to outfit any social role. The typical props of a photographic studio in 186" consisted of a column, ;) curtain. and.1 pedestal. Leaning against the pedestal. the suhject was photographed full-length. half-length. or bust-size. Picturesque and symbolic props indicating the social status of the model filled out the background. Pre\ ious studio arrangements had scarcely been so elaborate. In the early days, the first photographic victims had to sit under a skylight, dripping with sweat, as they sat through minutes of immobility. To improve the situation the..1pplti-tete was invented. a chair with a metal brace which held the skull steady from hehind and \\'a5 hidden from the lens. This rather surgical-looking device prevented the picture from being blurred during a long exposure. and with the magical command, 'smile please,' the already stiff face broke Photogr..lphy DUring the Second Empire 63

72 into a frozen smile. With these self-conscious and pallid smirks, the last individual trait in portrait photographs disappeared. There was no longer any individual expression; photographic portraits became parodies of human faces. The hands played an important role in mid-century photographs. Some subjects placed their right hand across their breast; others held it nonchalantly at their belts or let the hand drop to their thighs. One man plays with his watch-chain, while another plunges his right hand into his waistcoat in the manner of a great parliamentary orator. Even in the more natural poses, these figures appear inflated with pride and comically naive in their sense of self-importance. The bourgeoisie projected their sriff digniry even in the way they wore their eyeglasses.7 New technological advances generally developed in response to contemporary social needs. The bourgeois insistence on a 'pleasant,' pretrified self-image led to the practice of retouching. All the unpleasant details which the camera was unable to hide, freckles, an unattractive nose, or wrinkles, could be transformed or eliminated after the photograph was taken. The 1860s saw the appearance of the first anastigmatic lenses, capable of an unprecedented c1ariry. But this new c1ariry only reinforced the trend toward retouching. While the painter could make all the accidents of nature disappear, the camera reproduced such details minutely and exactly. Retouching now made it possible for the photographer to eliminate any feature a client found disagreeable. At the Industrial Exposition of I the first retouched prints were shown in Paris. The inventor Hampfstangl, a photographer from Munich, caused a sensation by exhibiting two photographs, the original and a retouched version. Retouching was to play a crucial role in the future of photography and also to hasten its downfall as an art. The abusive use of retouching stripped photography of its most basic asset, faithful reproduction. 64 Photography & Society

73 The following anecdote illustrates just how prevalent retouching was: 'If someone returns his photograph and points out to the photographer that he is sixty and not thirty, that he has wrinkles on his forehead and folds on his chin, as well as hollow cheeks and a flat nose that bears no resemblance to the aquiline nose thatthe portrait has given him, he is certain to receive the following reponse: "Oh!you wanted a portraitthat looks like you. You should have told us so. How could we have guessed!'" 77 The photographer who adopted the standards of justemilieu painting felt that the unlined faced he achieved through retouching was more artistic.78 The ruling taste of the period preferred the soft, well-rounded contours of Delaroche's paintings to Delacroix's tumultuous, colorful canvases. The photographer's principal assistants in these days were the retouchers and the color specialists who added color to photographs. Colored photographs had become the rage. While the photographer posed his model, he took brief notes similar to those for a passport-skin coloring, blue or brown eyes, chestnut-brown or black hair. A few days later, the colored photograph, framed and pasted on cardboard, was handed over to the client. In this way photography soon became a substitute for the miniature and the oil portrait. Disderi, who had first adapted photography to the needs of the new clientele, was also the first theoretician of this kind in photography. In.862, he published a book called L' Art de fa photographie in which he wrote that the photographer could, like the painter, recreate the spectacle of nature in all its forms, and in its accidents of perspective, light, and shadow. He defined the characteristics of a good photograph as follows: I. pleasant face!!]; 2. overall clarity; 3. well-defined shadows, halftones and brilliant light areas; Photography During the Second Empire 65

74 4. natural proponions; 5. shadow detail; 6. beauty!79 This list alone shows to what extent Disderi adopted the aesthetic ideas prevailing among the iuste milieu paint ers, and how he translated their ideas into photographic technique. Following the principles of contemporaty historical painting, exactitude in the representation of external events, and therefore in the use of accessories and furniture, became the basic objective of the photographic por trait. Delaroche, for twenty years the most celebrated painter of his time, prepared each of his paintings with great attention to accuracy. His first sketch was followed by a detailed watercolor. With the help of plaster or wax dolls, he planned the grouping of figures and the distribu tion of light and shadow. Sometimes well-known actors posed as the principal characters, and evety detail in their costuming and in the arrangement of the set was chosen for historical accuracy. The same principles inspired contemporary photographers. Disderi proposed that 'the physical attitude con form to the age, the stature, the habits, the manners of the individual.' 80 For painters like Delaroche art was historical description; the photographer simply followed this well-established attitude. At the 1855 Industrial Exposition some English genre photographs on view prompted Disderi to pose a question: 'Couldn't the photographer compose genre and historical pictures with intelligent and well costumed models in a large studio, equipped ideally with all lighting effects, blinds, mirrors, backgrounds of all sons, sets, props, and costumes? Couldn't he search for Scheffer's sentiment and Ingres's style? Couldn't he treat history like Paul Delaroche in his painting of La Mort du Due de Guise?' 81 But this approach to photography never caught on. 66 Photography & Society 'Like the painter with his brush, the truly professional photographer knew how to use his camera todisplay the full imponance of the bourgeois man in his frock coat.' Disderi photographed this bourgeois man, Monsieur Adolphe Thiers, a decade before the chief executive (of the provisional government) ordered the brutal suppression of the I87I Paris Commune, a group that, incidentally, participated in the early days of documentary photography (see page 108)...

75 Photography During the Second Empire 67

76 Since the client had first to be flattered, Disderi observed: 'The photographer must find the greatest beauty that the model is capable of projecting. It's a question of art, and art searches for beauty.' It was the photographer's readiness to satisfy this need that turned him into a popular man whose works filled family albums. From this time on, the debonair, smiling bourgeois himself appeared on mantelpieces, pedestals, sideboards, and apartment walls, along with photographs of his favotite statesmen, scholars, and actresses. Photographs were not simply mementos-they had become the symbol of democracy. Like the painter with his brush, the truly professional photographer knew how to use his camera to display the full importance of the bourgeois man in his frock coat Photography & Society i

77 Attitudes Toward Photography Photography was the child of advances in science and the rising classes' need for a new form of artistic expression. From the time of its invention it became the focus of violent controversy as to whether it was simply a technical instrument capable of mechanically reproducing what the lens saw, or whether it could be used in the expression of an individual artistic sensibility. The debate, ac companied by bitter personal attacks, was carried on in journals, in studios, and even in the courts. The church joined the argument. Its early hostile position inspired this passage from a German newspaper in 1839: 'To fix fleeting images is not only impossible, as has been demonstrated by very serious experiments in Germany, it is a sacrilege. God has created man in His image and no human machine can capture the image of God. He would have to betray all his Eternal Principles to allow a French man in Paris to unleash such a diabolical invention upon the world.' 82 The simultaneous development of industty and tech nology, and the growth of science to meet the needs of industrialization, required rational economic forms. This in tum transformed the values of the bourgeoisie. A new awareness of reality led to a hitherto unknown apprecia tion of nature. Art pushed toward objective representation, a goal which corresponded with the essence of photography. The petiod found its most characteristic expression in the philosophy of positivism. Art became charged with scientific precision and the faithful repro-

78 duction of an objectified reality. Taine's thoughts became the leitmotiv for the new aesthetic: 'I want to reproduce things as they are or as they would be even if I did not exist.' This new philosophical trend drew considerable attention to photography. Couldn't an artist, with the help of the new technique, achieve the objectivity he sought? Wasn't photography, therefore, a new form of att? In the belief that the camera equaled the palette, enthusiastic supporters of this viewpoint insisted that, despite the machinery, the photographer's artistry still prevailed. In matters relating to originality, composition, and the lighting of the subject, photographic artistry was obvious. Adverse opinion claimed that the camera was only capable of mechanically reproducing objects and had nothing in common with art. Photography would certainly not have attracted the lively interest of nineteenth-century artistic circles had social changes not brought about new tastes. The social changes resulting from the Revolution of 1848 created the beginning of class consciousness in the proletariat, and with the rise of the petite bourgeoisie, a new generation of artists expressed a new kind of social criticism. Just as it was becoming established, the bourgeois lifestyle became the target of this criticism. Starting in 1835, Henri Monnier tried his hand at describing bourgeois life with an almost photographic exactitude in his Popular Sketches. During the same period, Flaubert's Madame Bovary exposed the hypocritical life-style of the provincial petite bourgeoisie with a pitiless candor that triggered a social scandal. Around 1855, public discussions focused on a new movement in art called realism. Ironically, the same public that marveled at the faithful photographic copies of nature on display at the 1855 World's Fair and Industrial Exposition boycotted the paintings of the first realists. The Salon rejected Courbet, whose paintings bore 70 Photography & Society

79 the words, 'Without religion and ideals.' At his own expense, Courbet organized an exhibition on the avenue Montaigne and mounted the world 'realism' over the entrance to the gallery_ The magazine Realism, which first appeared in 1856, was the movement's manifesto.s3 The first realists' ideological position was inseparable from positivist aesthetics, which could in fact have been a result of the appearance of the camera_ Rejecting imagination as nonobjective and prone to falsification because of its subjectivity, they declared that one can only paint what one sees. Accordingly, one's attitude toward nature was to be totally impersonal, to the point where the art, ist should be capable of painting ten identical canvases in succession without hesitation or deviation. For these artists who professed boundless enthusiasm for nature, Courbet was the master, painting his subjects with the form and color that he felt optical realiry revealed.84 A work of art had to present objective contents drawn immediately from the surrounding environment. Everywhere the message was the same: the young artist must learn from close contact with nature. Drive him out of the dreary museums and away from lifeless art! Open-air pain ring was born simultaneously with photography. Refusing to call themselves artists, these realist painters thought of themselves as skilled crafrsmen and nothing more. Their aesthetic equation of visual reality with the reality of nature was also the premise of the photographer, for whom reality in nature was defined only by the optical image of nature. The resulting picture could only reproduce what the photographer saw. Imagination had little role in his work, which consisted only in choosing the subject matter, evaluating the best way to frame it, and selecting the pattern of light and shadow. His work ended there, even before the shutter clicked. The photographer fulfilled the realists' demand that the artist disappear discreetly behind his easel. The cam- Attitudes TOWOTd Photography 71

80 .. era defined a reality which the photographer could alter, but never basically transform. Because of its tie to the natural world, however, the lens of the camera revealed things that no one had ever noticed before. The evetyday realities of the visible world suddenly became important. The dogmatism of the realists was undoubtedly extreme, but so was the hostility of the critics and the public at large. Only much later was the movement they pioneered recognized and valued. Curiously enough, despite their love of objectivity, the realists refused to consider photography an art. In an article published in the Revue de Paris, Champfleury, a writer of realist novels, stated: 'What I see enters my head, descends to my pen, and becomes what I have seen... As a man is not a machine he cannot capture what he sees and feels in a me- 72 Photography & Society The nude in nineteenth-century painting and photography: realism reaches the most obvious mediums in the search for objectivity in art (above: Courbet, Le Repos; opposite: unknown photographer, Nude)...

81 chanical way. The novelist selects, groups, distributes. Does the daguerreotypist go to so much trouble?' Since photography was so closely connected with the theories of realism and naturalism, its influence on the arts became a topic of even more heated discussion. Around r850, the spokesman for official art began vehemently artacking the naturalists. In an article on the Salon of r 850, the critic Delecluze declared that 'the taste for Naturalism is dangerous to sublime art.' And yet he observed, 'We have to admit that for the last ten years a continually growing pressure has been exerted on the imitative arts-photography and daguerreotypy-the total effects of which artists are already being forced to reckon with.' 85 Despite this revealing confession of his respect for Attitudes Toward Photography 73

82 photography, Deleduze was compelled to fight the naturalists, for they represented social values opposed to his respectable and conservative family background. His father, an architect and former student of David, supported the views of the Academy and the conservative, traditionbound bourgeoisie. In his reviews of the Salon in the Journal des Debats, Deleduze slipped from his fortner standards of ideal beauty to those of the iuste milieu. He rejected the modern school of naturalism and whenever possible, he blamed photography for the dedine in art. The views of the septuagenarian Deleduze, whose age and background made it impossible for him to sympathize with the radical theory of the naturalists, were opposed to those of the critic Francis Wey, who was thirty-three years old. The difference in the two men's positions was typical of a generational difference in critical opinion. In his defense of photography, Du naturalisme dans rart, Francis Wey tried to differentiate between the true realists and the trend-following profiteers whom Deleduze, convinced of the pernicious influence of photography, had confused with the realists. Francis Wey believed that the new emphasis on nature rejuvenated art just when it had reached a point of stagnation. 'This forceful return to nature gives art some fresh life.... Moreover, the over-use of nature is considerably less dangerous than the under-use.' He asked ironically: 'Who is most guilty in the eyes of the Academic painters and critics? Who is the revolutionary, the pitiless leveler of modern art? Photography.' Wey felt that, used well, photography could help the artist to rise above the purely mechanical copying of objects. 'What makes an artist is never the drawing alone, nor the color, nor the fidelity of reproduction, but divine inspiration, whose origin lies outside of the material world. It is not the hand, but the mind that makes a painter; the instrument only obeys. In confronting artists with nature, photography has a 74 Photography & Society

83 good influence on them, because nature is an infinite source of inspiration.' 86 The differences between the attitudes of Delecluze and Wey were not simply personal. They were symptomatic of the general enrichment of art by new ideas in a broader-minded age. In his Philosophie de l'art and his essay la Fontaine et ses fables, Taine had prescribed an altogether new direction for aesthetics. 'To understand a work of art, an artist, or a group of artists, one must consider the intellectual climate and the customs of the period in which they developed.' 87 'Products of the human mind, like those in living nature, can only be explained by their environment.' 88 f.i.yen from the positivist viewpoint, art was not simply a matter of replicating nature. The positivist attitude toward photograph was proof enough. Taine continues: 'Is art always the exact imitation of nature? Must we conclude that imitation is the goal of art?... Photography is the art which reproduces in lines and tones the shape of the object to be imitated most completely and flawlessly against a flat background. Undoubtedly, photography is a useful aid for painting and is sometimes used tastefully by cultivated and intelligent men. But after all, it does not aspire to be compared to painting... "J At the Louvre, there is a portrait by Denner, who spent four years painting it. Nothing in the face is left out: the streaks on the skin, the imperceptible mottling on the cheeks, the blackheads scattered on the nose, the bluish coloring of the microscopic veins which curve under the skin, the gleaming eyes which reflect nearby objects. We are stupefied by the illusion: the head seems to emerge from the frame; we have never seen such success or such patience. But ultimately, a large sketch by Van Dyck is a hundred times more powerful; neither in painting nor in the other arts is the prize given to trompe l' oeil.' 8 9 Photographers who tried to get rich by exploiting the Attitudes Toward Photography 75

84 ), 76 Photngr.:Jphy.::,- Suciety

85 Antoine S.lmuel Adam-S'llomon used lighting to stress contours and features and thus made his photographic portraits morc than a mimicking of the siner. That he W.15 able to take portrait photography beyond the static c.lrte-de-t'isite to an exprcssiyc form convin-.:cd some contemporary artists of photography\ merits :Adam-Salomon, Ch,.1rlcs Ambruise ThumJs). vogue for portraits reinforced the bad reputation phot( raphy \\'as earning in the art world. The small groltv of conscientious photographers could not always be easily separated from the others. Thus the contemporary artist's judgment of photography often seemed contradictory. In 1858 the poet Lamartine condemned photography as 'this chance invention which will never be art, but only a plagiarism of nature through a lens.' He changed his mind after seeing Adam-Salamon's beautiful prints. Salomon's earlier experience as a sculptor had taught him how to achieve light effects. His sense of plasticity made his photographs especially attractive. Up to this time, subjects had almost always been placed in full light, which produced extremely harsh contrasts. In his portraits, Adam-Salomon revealed the immense importance of the proper use of illumination. The resulting effect instantly won Lamartine over. He wrote, 'Disturbed by the charlatanism of those \vho dishonor photography by their countless copies, I had anathematized the art. The photographer is the essence of photography. Since I have admired Adam-Salamon's marvelous portraits taken in a burst of light, I can no longer call it a trade; it is an art. It is more than an art; it is a solar phenomenon in which the artist collaborates \o,, irh the sun: 90 The arguments among nineteenth-century artists were based on divergent aesthetic values \\'ithin the intellectual elite. Thus the classicist Ingres condemned naturalism on the grounds that only 'the divine art of the Romans' counted. For Ingres, an Academician, the photographer was as despicable as all modern artists, the desecrators of the 'sacred temple of art.' In his eyes photography was a manifestation of an infernal progress: 'Kow they want to confuse industry and art. Industry! \Ve refuse to have anything to do with it! Let it stay where it is and not follow in the footsteps of our school of Apollo, dedicated solely to the arts of Greece and Rome.' 91 It Attitudes Toward Photography 77

86 / is not surprising to find Ingres's name among the arrists who condemned photography, maintaining that it had nothing to do with art. First catering to the intellectual elite, photography next reached out to the bourgeois middle classes. But when commercial photographers made pictures to please an uneducated public, even the initial supporters of photography became vehement critics. For Baudelaire photography became a pretext for bitterly condemning 'this class of uneducated and dull minds that judge things only according to their physical shapes.' Photography was only a means of flattering the vanity of a public that understood nothing about art and preferred trompe l'oeil images. 'Foul society has flung itself, like Narcissus, to gaze at its trivial image on metal.... The love for obscenity, as inveterate in the natural heart of man as self-love, did not let such a beautiful opportunity for self-satisfaction escape.' 92 Photography gave Baude laire a means for criticizing the decadence of mass taste. They 'plant themselves in front of a TItian or a Raphaelone of those painters immensely popularized thtough engraving-then leave satisfied, more than one saying: "I know my museum.'" 93 Baudelaire was an outsider, a bourgeois on the outskirts of the bourgeoisie. Much of his life he was haunted by pawnbrokers. He hated middle-class society, which was as unwilling to understand him as he was incapable of adapting to it. Considering himself an aristocrat, he was opposed to any movement that would make art more accessible to the masses, precisely the promise photography seemed to offer. 'Some democratic-minded writer must have seen a cheap means of spreading among the people a distaste for history and painting, thereby commirring a double sacrilege and insulting at the same time the divine nature of painting and the sublime art of the actor.' To Baudelaire photography was a form of industry that had nothing in common with art but was simply 78 Photography & Society

87 Charles Baudelaire ( ), one of photogca phy's first critics as well as one of its first patrons (photograph by Etienne Ca<jat). an 'invention resulting from the mediocrity of modern artists and a refuge for all unsuccessful painters.' He interpreted the naturalist movement as a symbol of the decadence of painting: 'In these deplorable days, a newly developed industry has confirmed the stupidity of our faith in it and destroyed what could remain divine in the French spitit.... I believe in nature and I believe only in nature.... I believe that art is and can only be the exact copy of nature.... Thus an industry that would give us an identical copy of nature would be the absolute art. A vengeful God has answered their prayers with Daguerre as his messiah. And now they say: "Since photography gives us all the guarantees for exactness we wish (they believe that, the fools!), art is photography.'' '.. Baudelaire argued that photography should return to its real place as a simple tool, a servant of the arts and artists. Neither printing nor stenography, for example, had created or produced literature. Attitudes Toward Photography 79

88 1 Delacroix considered photography a very valuable tool in teaching drawing. The daguerreorype was something to be used as a kind of translator, emphasizing the mys teries of nature. But despite its semblance of accuracy, photography could only reflect reality. Its precision made a photograph only a constricted and servile copy. In a review of Madame Cave's article, 'Drawing without a Teacher,' Delacroix observed that 'painting is a matter of one spirit speaking to another spirit, not science speaking to science.' Madame Cave's theory of photography took up the old quarrel between the letter and the spirit. She criticized artists who painted from daguerreotypes instead of using the device as a sort of helpful dictionary. She felt they considered themselves much closer to nature, when the original mechanical result was still obvious in their painting. Their despair seemed overwhelming when they saw the perfection of certain effects on the metal plate. The harder they tried to imitate it, the more they discovered their own weakness, for their work was only a lifeless copy of a copy that is imperfect in other respects. In short, the artist has become a machine harnessed to yet another machine.9s Delacroix rejected photography as a work of art; the essential was not external resemblance, but the spirit. The portraitist must reveal more than what is visible. 'Look closely at the daguerreotype portraits. Not one of a hundred is bearable. What is surprising and enchant ing in a face is much more than the facial features. A rna chine can never perceive what we can see at first glance.' 96 The artist must above all understand and reproduce the spirit of a man or the object he is describing. Delacroix's criticism of photography was the logical result of his general philosophy of art. He tried nevertheless to appreciate the qualities of photography, in which he saw more than just a new technique. Particularly interested in its development, he became a member of the first photographic society. Nadar was one of his 80 Photography & Society I

89 close friends (the photographer was also a friend of Baudelaire, about whom he published a book). While most arrists denied the arristic merits of photography, the iuste milieu painters were enchanted by the new technique. Upon seeing the first photographs, Delaroche exclaimed: 'From today, painting is dead.' In 1839, at a time when it was impossible to judge the artistic value of the earliest daguerreotypes, he was the first to insist on their artistic value. In a letter to Acago, which was read at the seminal meeting of the Academy of Sciences in 1839, Delaroche asserted that 'this new medium reproduces nature not only truthfully but also artistically. The lines are correct, the forms are exact-all is as precise as possible. A composition as rich in tone as in effect and an energetic figure can be reproduced... When this technique becomes widespread, the most accurate picture of any scene will easily be obtained in a few moments.'97 Photography proved an ideal tool for historical painters, to whom the question of exact reproduction was vital. The iuste milieu painters were the first to use photography for their work. Among them was the painter Yvon, a student of Delacroix, who played an important role in setting trends during the Second Empire. Famed for his paintings of French victories, he developed a precise and conventional style. As with the other battle painters of the period, he was greatly admired by Napoleon Ill. One day Yvon decided to reproduce the battle of Solferino. He wanted to portray the Emperor on horseback, surrounded by his Chiefs-of-Staff, but it seemed impossible to obtain the necessaty sittings from the Head of State. Accompanied by the photographer Bisson, Yvon went to the Tuileries. The Emperor posed for him. Bisson snapped the shutter, and the resulting painting became famous under the title of I'Empereur au kepi. The event had an unusual postscript. Bisson sold many copy prints Attitudes Toward Photography 8 I

90 from his negative of the Emperor. Yvon was furious, and the affair resulted in legal action. The painter claimed that the photograph was the result of his initiative alone, that he had composed the image, and that he alone could use it for his painting. Moreover, he had paid the photographer for his work and he objected to publication of the prints. His true motive however was the fear of seeing his own work drop in value. If the photograph was sold in large quantities, it would become obvious that the painter had copied it exactly. The court decided in favor of the painter and forbade the sale of the photograph.98 Many of the cries of protest that artists of the period raised against photography were motivated by self-interest. In a surprisingly short time, the metal plate had completely taken over portraiture. The competition with engravers, miniaturists, and painters was becoming dangerous for them, at a time when the portrait was becoming fashionable at all levels of bourgeois society. Commissions for portraits provided the principal source of income for all those artists. At the annual exhibitions, the growing number of portraits, in comparison to landscapes and still lifes, revealed the contemporary trend.99 As portraits multiplied, their dimensions grew smaller. They were no longer meant to decorate enormous galleries of ancestors, but rather the walls of middle-class apartments. The money-conscious and money-making class had come to prefer photographs, which were cheap and offered an exact rendering of the subject. For a few additional francs, clever photographers colored the prints with 'all-natural' pinks and blues. The artist who made his living painting portraits saw the number of his commissions drop daily. Photography was responsible for his diminishing business, and it is not surprising that the majority of such artists, especially those of little talent, harbored a deep resentment toward the invention that reduced their income. 82 Photography & Society

91 The Expansion and Artistic Decline of the Photographic Profession Competition and the desire to sell and buy to one's own advantage are essential features of capitalism. Fear of imagined competition as well as genuine aesthetic considerations led most painters to deny the artistic value of photography. Photographers, on the other hand, maintained that photography was related to art, not industry. This selfapprobation had a positive effect on the public, but when faced with competition within their own camp, photographers modified their positions whenever they thought it profitable, and this led to controversy. The question of art versus industry frequently served to camouflage economic rivalry. Competition increased as the photographic profession expanded. By r 864, rwenty-five years after the invention of photography, rwenty-five periodicals on the subject were being issued in six different countries.100 Almost as many photographic clubs had been founded to organize exhibitions, protect the interests of their members, create businesses, and sell photographs. French photographers founded a commercial organization primarily for marketing purposes that dealt with all aspects of photography: the manufacture of cameras, accessories, chemicals, and other products, and notably with the founding of publishing houses and newspapers dealing with photography. Founded in r862, it was called la Chambre Syndicale de Photographie (The Photographic Trade Union). With its headquarters in Paris, the organization

92 tried to act as the intermediary between the manufacturer and the photographer, and between the photographer and the public. One branch was involved in organizing the import and export of photographic materials. As a business, photography was making great strides. Aside from direct portrait commissions, an important source of revenue for the photographic studio came from the sale of portraits of well-known figures and actors reproduced in the then popular carte de visite format. Illustrated newspapers did not yet exist, and large newspapers had not thought to take advantage of the photographs that had so sensationally popularized the faces of important contemporaries. The public of 1860, finding it particularly charming to own a picture of some wellknown personage, boughtthe small photographic images. Unfortunately, not every photographer had good connecrions with the intellectual and political elite, and with out this entree this kind of business was impossible. Not every photographer, moreover, could survive on ordinary portraits of the bourgeoisie. Consequently, some photographers copied popular portraits made by their competitors, arguing that a photographic portrait was not an original work of art. These encroachments led to a famous trial and yet another debate over the eternal question; is photography an art or an industry. Because there were no special laws concerning photography in France in 1860, the courts were left to rule on an issue that had brought artists, artisans, and men of letters into violent conflict. Mayer and Pierson v. Bethe der and Schwabbe, one of the most famous trials involving photographers, grew out of a suit brought by one photographic firm against another. The defendants relied on the 'photography as non-art theory,' while the plaintiffs maintained the contrary view with equal bitterness. The court saw the matter as less cut-and dried, and the case went through several appeals, with the final decision establishing photography as art.'o'

93 In the course of the nineteenth century, the courts not only ruled on the artistic merits of photography but also on a special form of photography that was beginning to be of interest to the French government in its role as arbiter of morals. The carte-de visite format was particularly suitable for the circulation of certain images that were not always in conformiry with the standards of bourgeois decency. Some third-rate photographers, making little money from their portraits and more sensitive to market demands than to social virtue, found a means of building large fortunes in a short time. It was easy enough to find enthusiasts. Even respectable merchants (and more often their sons) were not above keeping photographs of beautiful,-scantiiy clad women in their breast pockets. The business, however, was not without its dan gers; anyone caught trying to sell such photographs was sentenced to a long term in prison. As early as 1850, a law had been passed prohibiting the sale of obscene photographs as an act offensive to both moraliry and tradition. Not surprisingly, the first nude photographs, which caused such a scandal and which were so vigorously condemned by the prosecutors, seem innocent today. Contemporary sex shops carry an altogether different level of obscene photograph, to which the public has become inured. Portrait photography made great strides in the last decades of the nineteenth century. By 189 I there were more than a thousand studios in France and more than half a million photographers employed. The total value of their output had risen to nearly 30 million gold francs. 10 other European countries, and especially in America, the change was even more apparent. But the very technical progress that made portrait photography so successful was precisely what would slowly kill it. One of the essential characteristics of photography is the technique of mechanical reproduction. As production methods became increasingly mechanized, manual labor and Expansion of the Photographic Profession 85

94 , the individual spirit that had so strongly influenced the early years of photography gradually disappeared. Photography became an increasingly impersonal trade. Toward the end of the century, cameras were developed that were even easier to operate. 'You press the button, we do the rest,' was the famous Kodak slogan that revolutionized the photographic market. Hundreds of thousands of people who had come to depend on the professional photographer for their portraits were now learning to take their own pictures. Amateur photography made great ptogress, opening up a source of such enormous profit for the photography stores that soon they appeared in every neighborhood of every city. The owners were mostly portrait photographers, who were no longer able to make a living from portrait commissions. They continued to take orders, but clients soon required professional work only for such special occasions as baptisms or weddings. Developing the work of The No. I Kodak Camera: the challenge to professional photography. Now anyone who could afford to buy a camera and pay for development could take a photo. The roll film in the foreground has been pulled OUt of the box only for illustration. 86 Photography & Society

95 Kodak produced a machine so easily operated and uansported that 'you press the button, we do the rest' became a reality. Because the camera competed with portrait photography, it could have forced professional photographers to become more innovative. Instead, they conformed more than ever to the tastes of their clients, perhaps one reason for the decline in artistic photography. Expansion of the Photographic Profession 87

96 amateur photographers and the sale of cameras and accessories were now the only secure sources of income in the photographic trade. In 1855 the anist-photographers still received 100 gold francs per print, but a few decades later the price had dropped to around 20 francs. Toward the end of the century, large depanment stores began to produce photographs at even cheaper prices, and became dangerous rivals of the professional photographer. Finally, the completely automatic photo-vending machine, capable of photographing, developing, and printing several copies on paper in a few minutes, has deprived the professional photographer of the considerable income he once made from identification photographs. During the first ten years of photography, when only a few skilled specialists could operate cameras, photography was bathed in the mystery of the creative act. But when the technique became so simple that anyone could easily operate a camera, photography quickly lost its prestige although not its appeal. By 1900 photographic ponraiture had become a limited field. Photographers were more dependent than ever on the taste of their clientele and obliged to work for even less money. Both factors were responsible for the artistic decline. During this period newly invented techniques using carbon, gum, oil, and bromoil printing were adopted to make photographs look more like oil paintings, drawings, etchings, lithographs, and other techniques similar to painting. Influenced by the impressionistic style in painting, photographers us d soft-focus imagery to add an 'artistic' touch to their prints. Ironically, the soft-focus technique eliminated the most characteristic feature of the photographic image, its clariry. The more the photograph looked like a substitute for painting, the more the uneducated public found it 'artistic.' All sons of retouching techniques and chemical processes were used to emphasize the soft-focus effect and A successful advertising campaign at home and abroad followed the invention of the Kodak portable. Reproduction processes still had not reached the point where photographs were feasible for use in the advertisements themselves. 88 Photography & Society

97 The new definition of artistic photography included soh-focus imagery, characteristic of impressionist painting and perhaps contradictory to photography's strongest feature, clarity. Techniques using carbon, gum, oil, and bromoil printing oontributed to the popular impression that photos could be transformed into paintings (Puyo, Land SC4pe, 1900). to create different tonalities in prints which today would be considered nonphotographic. To heighten the deception, photographs were put in massive bronze or silver frames decorated with complicated designs. During this period of artistic decline, there were two amateurs in particular who would in time become giants in the history of photography. They were the Parisian Eugene Atget (r857-r927) and the Berliner Heinrich Zille (r858-r929). Both came from modest backgrounds. Atget, the son of a provincial coach builder, was a sailor in his youth. He went to Paris in 1879 to enroll in the Conservatoire d'art Dramatique. For a time he worked as a touring actor and then he tried painting, without any success. In 1899 he became a photographer, using an inexpensive heavy-bellows camera, already Expansion of the Photographic Profession 89

98 old-fashioned at the time. Carrying an enormous wooden tripod, he scoured Paris every morning for subject matter, returning in the evening to develop his 8 x Io-inch plates in his kitchen. Above his door, he nailed a sign 'Photographs for artists.' For fifteen years, he photographed the streets of Paris with their monuments and fountains. Sometimes he photographed street peddlersa man selling umbrellas, a beggar with his street organ. Most of his clients were painters, but there were also shop owners who bought his photos for their display windows. Atget was quite successful until the First World War, when his business declined. By then painters had rejected naturalism and used photographs for sketches less often. In '920, Atget sold 2,000 plates to the Archives Nationales in Paris, asking ten francs per plate and copy, but receiving only five. As he grew older, he stopped taking photographs and lived on a meager income from the sale of his earlier photographs. Man Ray lived near Atget in a studio on rue Campagne-Premiere in Montparnasse. He bought some of Atget's photographs in '925, and a year later had three of them published in the avantgarde magazine La Revolution surrealiste. The photographer might have remained anonymous without Ray's notice, but the surrealists, headed by Andre Breton, admired the images of a bygone era which Atget had recorded so precisely. The majority of his photographs were street scenes. Atget was not interested in portraits. They are captivating images, detailed scenes of empty places reminiscent of still lifes. Until the '975 publication of an album by the Berlin photographer Heinriche Zille, Atget was considered the sole father of documentary photography. We know now that there were in fact two parents. The son of a locksmith, Zille was nine years old when his father moved to Berlin to take advantage of the industrial expansion in the German capital. His parents' basement apartment, 90 Photography & Society

99 , Noteworthy photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, Ed ward Steichen, and Anne Brigman worked in the genre of impressionist photography. Examples (opposite) include Stieglitz's The Street, 1903 (top); Stei eben's Landscape, The Pool, 1903 (middle); and Brigman's The Pool, 1912 (bottom), all of which appeared in the famous Cam era Work magazine. located in a densely populated section of the city, consisted of only one room. When the young boy left primary school at fourteen, his father wanted him to serve as an assistant in a butcher shop, but the young Zille was frightened by the bloodiness involved. At school, his teacher noticed his talent for drawing and suggested he become a lithographer. 'It is a trade where you can sit in a heated room, wearing a collar and necktie. At four in the afternoon, you are free to leave. After three years of apprenticeship, you are called "sir." What more can you want?' asked his teacher. Heinrich Zille later recounted that 'I really did not want more. The hope of being called "sir" decided my fate.' He perfected his drawing technique at night school, but was largely a self-taught man who became an excellent designer through hard work and perseverance. He worked as a lithographer for the Berlin Photographic Club for many years until his drawings eventually began to be ap- Eugene Atget's 'photographs for artists' were most often of empty streets (Paris, z900). Expansion of the Photographic Profession 9 I,-

100 92 Photography & Society

101 Heinrich Zille and Eugene Atget are considered the fathers of documentary photography. Unlike Atget, who focused on street scenes such as Passage de la Reunion, 1910 (top) and Hotel Lefebre, 1910/27 (bottom), ZiUe focused on people (opposite: Berlin, 1900), and unlike portrait photographers, Zille concentrated on everyday environments. His was a humorous view of the street, one that later characterized photography such as that in Life magazine. preciated. Ultimately he was elected a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts. Zille was a kind of popular Daumier. He drew his environment with a great deal of humor. Around 1890, he began to take photographs of the workers and the petit bourgeois in their own surroundings, which he used as models. While Atget photographed empty streets, Zille was interested in their inhabitants. In the marketplace, it was not the display of goods that attracted his attention, but the wo men making their purchases. At fairs he did not take pictures of the rides or shows, but of the spectators. This did not stop him from also photographing the backyards of unsanitaty houses, where workers lived and where the children of the poor walked barefoot. Forty years before Brassai, he photographed graffiti and humorous inscriptions on shops. He never thought of publicly showing his photographs. Moreover, no one would have thought them of any value at a time when only soft-focus photography was fashionable. This is the reason Zille's previously unexhibited photographs have only recently been discovered. Heinrich Zille was the first 'concerned' photographer for whom the message his subject matter conveyed was of most importance. He was the first in a line of incorruptible photojournalists who surfaced later, in the 1930S, and who followed in his footsteps without knowing of his existence. For all these photojournalists, the camera was thought to be more important than the photographer; the camera was the sensitive tool that would allow a situation or a personality to reveal itself. Expansion of the Photographic Profession 93

102

103 Photography as a Means of Art Reproduction The use of photography in an reproduction.lltered the way works of an were vie 'ed: a detail (auld appear as expressi e.. and complete as the whole piece. With rhe help of photography, any artvmrk had the potential to be as many artworks as it had angles, planes, or details ic!sde Freund photograph of Z.1- potheque dh1inity..\-lexica'.. The debate over the artistic value of photography, dating from the invention of the camera, seems only a limited problem in comparison to the importance of photography as a means of art reproduction. Until photography entered the scene, artworks had been accessible only to an elite few. But when they could be reproduced by the millions, art became a... ailable to everyone. This change began \"lith engraving and lithography, but only with the invention of photography did '>"'orks of art lose the mystique of the unique creation. Photography has not only altered the artist's vision, it has changed man's view of art. The quality of a photograph of a sculpture or a painting depends on the man behind the camera: his ahility to frame, to light, and to emphasize the details of his ubjea can completely change its appearance. Reproductions in art books change according to the scale of the reproduction. An unusually enlarged detail distorts the overall effect of the sculpture or a painting; a miniature can seem as large as 1ichelangelo's Dauid in Florence. In his,\...fusee imaginaire,!\'1alraux asserts that 'reproduction has created fictitious works of art by systematically falsifying scale and by presenting stamps of oriental seals and coins as if they were columns, or amulets as if they \vere statues.' 102 If photography can misrepresent a work of art by distorting its dimensions, it was immensely helpful in removing art from its isolation. After photography the reproduction of an artwork could be examined under 9 5

104 one's own lamp in the privacy of one's home, while the original remained in a museum thousands of miles away. As early as 1860, Disderi had recognized the financial possibilities of photographic reproductions. Inspired by his good business sense, Disderi offered to photograph the paintings in the Louvre for the French government. He tried to secure the right of reproduction for himself, but his booming portrait business did not allow him the time to put his idea into practice. Adolphe Braun was the first in France to undertake the photographic reproduction of artworks.,o3 Born in 18Il in the small Alsatian village of Dornach, near Mulhouse, Braun made designs of flowers and fruits for Alsatian textile factories. He contacted Daguerre immediately after the public announcement of photography, for he was quick to realize that the new technical process could be extremely useful in reproducing designs. The two innovations that helped his work were the 185 I development of the wet-plate collodion with increasingly sensitive emulsions, and the 1860 invention of carbon paper that assured the permanence of positive prints. Around 1862, he began methodically to reproduce museum drawings, copying those of Holbein at Basel first, then drawings from the Louvre, Vienna, Florence, Milan, Venice, Dresden, and other museums. Thanks to the variety of pigmenrs on the carbon paper, Braun achieved results of the highest order. He also began to edit the Autograpbes des Maitres. By 1867, Braun's studio, once a workshop outfitted for a few craftsmen, employed more than a hundred workers and the production methods began to take on an industrial character. Braun trained a group of photographers to take pictures of museum collections for him. Among the men he trained was a furmerpoliceman whom he sent to Rome in 1868 to photograph the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The project took six months to prepare and two years of work. Enthusiastic, curious, and dedi- Adolphe Braun was first made famous by his reproductions of museum drawings, possible only with the inventions of the wet-plate collodion and carbon paper, which increased the sensitivity of the photographic process and the durability of the print. Braun and his de scendents would later branch out to photograph frescoes and srulptures. thus popularizing works that had previously been seen only in museums (Braun photograph of Lowering Christ from the Cross). I 96 Photography & Society I I

105 Rl E:::, 1[ISmUTE The art reproductions that earned Braun bis reputation were preceded by his photographs of flower arrange ments and designs. cated, the former policeman was the delight of the Vatican. Even the Pope, it is said, became interested in the Alsatian's work, and visited the chapel several times a week to prowl around the scaffolding and to chat with the photographer.,q4 After the Sistine Chapel project, Braun took pictures of the Farnese Palace, the frescoes of the Roman churches, Michelangelo's sculptures, and Raphael's paintings, finally turning to the museums of London, Madrid, and Amsterdam. He had photographed the great and the minor masters, amassing a collection of more than 500,000 negatives. After his death in 1877, Braun's son and grandson succeeded to the family business, which grew and expanded into other areas, especially after the invention of gelatin silver-bromide plates in The Braun enterprise, exclusive distributor of all reproductions of works from the Louvre, offered thousands of pictures in its 55o-page catalog of Photography as a Means of Art Reproduction 97

106 The oldest process of heliogravure, done by hand, yielded only about 60 prints a day. With rotogravure and mechanical printing, 1,500 to 2,000 prints could be produced in an hour. In 1920, the 180 workers of Braun and Company produced hundreds of albums and guides and millions of postcards in color as well as in black and white, with the demand for color double that for monochrome. Beginning in 1930, the company, by now headed by fourth-generation Brauns, began to publish a seties of books called les Maitres (The Masters), better known as Musee de poche (pocket museums), with texts in three languages. Modern painters like Van Gogh, Gauguin, I 98 Photography & Society I

107 , An enormous industry that 'Prang from art-reproduction photography (more specifically, photocollography) was the manufacture of inexpensive picture postcards. Via the postcard, foreign vistas. museum collections. and girly pictures found their way into millions of homes (pre-i939 postcard of Kamakura).. Bonnard, Matisse, Braque, Picasso, and others were reproduced exclusively in color plates. The first were published as introductory library editions, but these were soon followed by the publication and distribution of high quality facsimiles that made the works of great painters from all periods accessible to everyone. The publication of Le Musee chez soi (the museum at home) allowed millions who could not afford original works to have their own collections at a reasonable price. A gigantic industry based on reproductions grew up all over Europe and America, with sales totaling many millions of dollars. Some tasteful printers reproduced only the best works of art, but there were many others who simply published mediocre works that appealed to the masses. The postcard, an offshoot of photomechanical reproduction, created yet another industry. In 1865, the German postmaster general proposed a law permitting the use of postcards. A similar law was passed in France in 1872; but widespread popularity of the postcard did not really begun until around Until then, the price of postcards had been high because the only available reproduction processes were drypoint, engraving, and lithography. With the invention of photocollography which provided for photogravure, photolithography, and phototype, the cost of the postcard was soon within everyone's means. Fran ois Borich was the first to market the tourist photographic postcard. He made a fortune with scenes of his native Switzerland. The turn-of-the-century production statistics were: Germany: population 50 million, 88 million cards; England: population 38.5 million, 14 million cards; Belgium: population 6.5 million, 12 million cards; France: population 38 million, 8 million cards. Eleven years later, in 1910, 123 million cards were estimated to have been printed in France alone, with 33,000 Photography as a Means of Art Reproduction 99

108 workers employed in the industry. Today the worldwide annual sale of postcards is measured in the billions. los Undoubtedly there is a psychological explanation for the postcard vogue, an interest that overtook the world so quickly. In his magnificent book I'Age d'or de la cartepostale (The Golden Age of the Postcard), presents a series of perceptive and amusing reflections: r'in choosing a postcard, the purchaser identifies somewhat with the artist who conceived it. Sending a postcard with the view of a landscape we are visiting is an affirmation of our leisure to travel and thus becomes a symbol of our social status. In writing personal things that we know consciously or unconsciously anyone can read, we take on an importance that removes us from the anonymous crowd; to some extent we become a published author. In addition, it is a kind of exhibitionism on the part of those who love, hate, or need to cry out their passion to the world. For centuries, men waited for the moment they could openly say "I love you" or "shit." The success of the postcard thus lies in the memory that we wish to prolong, the dream that we can buy for little money, and voyeurism with all its substitutes. Even laziness, for a card is more quickly written than a letter, and finally, the collecting craze contributed to its Lpopulariry: From its beginning the postcard became a collector's item. At the tum of the century, there were thirty-three magazines for card collectors in France. Similar magazines existed in Germany, Italy, the United States, Japan, and elsewhere. Tourism, which continues to grow, had an immense influence on the spread of the postcard; advertising had utilized it from the beginning. In the I 960s almost a billion cards were printed in France alone. Today most of them are printed in color. 100 Photogmpby & Society

109 " PART TWO

110

111 Press Photography Even as early as the 1860s, photographers used their medium to documenr society. Eventually, documentary photographers went beyond rhe simple recording of public events to portray the anguish, bewildennem, and despair of'" those affected by war and poverty (opposite: Ernst Haas, Homecoming Prison: ers of War, Vienna, 1946; above: Eugene Smith, Rescue on Saipan, 1944). The introduction of newspaper photography was a phenomenon of immense importance, one that changed the outlook of the masses. Before the first press pictures, the ordinary man could visualize only those events that took place near him, on his street orin his village. Photography opened a window, as it were. IThe faces of public personalities became familiar and th"ings that happened all over the globe were his to share. As the reader's outlook expanded, the world began to shrink. - Visual mass media came into being with the first periodical photographs. While the written word is abstract, the photograph is a concrete reflection of the world in which all of us live. The individual, commissioned portrait in the reader's home in a sense gave way to the collective press portrait. Photography became a powerful means of propaganda and the manipulation of opinion. Industry, finance, government, the owners of the press were abl to fashion the world in images after their own interests., The last decades of the nineteenth century mark the beginning of a new era. With the introduction of the electric motor and the subsequent invention of faster means of communication, industry developed by leaps and bounds. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in The network of railroads around the world covered over 618,000 miles by Also in 1880, a newspaper carried the first photograph reproduced by purely r03

112 mechanical means, a process that was to revolutionize the way events were seen and transmitted. Before 1880, illustrations in the press had been scarce, consisting of handmade wood engravings. Even photographs were reprinted as engravings with the notc, 'after a photograph.' The new process was known in America as halftone, and the first photograph to be reproduced in this way appeared on 4 March 1880, in the New York Daily Herald with the caption, 'Shantytown.' The halftone process uses a dot screen that translates the photographic image into a pattern of dotes on a negative, which is then transferred to a metal plate. Both the photographic image and the composed text can then be run through the press at the same time. Press photography owes its development to many discoveries besides the mechanization of reproduction: the invention of dty gelatin-bromide plates that can be prepared in advance (1871), improvements in lenses (the first anastigmatic lenses were made in 1884), roll film (1884), and the perfection of telegraphic transmission of photographs (1872). It is only many years after a process has been invented that all its implications can be understood.jn England it was not until 1904 that the Daily Mirror began illustrating its pages solely with photographs, and only in 1919 in America did New York's Illustrated Daily News follow suit. Halftone reproduction, discovered twentyfive years before, had finally caught on in newspape;0 contrast, weekly and monthly magazines that had more time to prepare each edition were already publishing photographs by 1885 :-]'Iewspapers were slow to adopt the new method be ard se processing usually had to be done outside the newspaper offices. Since deadlines were of the utmost importance, the press could not afford to wait for photographs, and newspaper owners hesitated to invest large sums of money in new machines. A similar problem exists today in color photography. The comforting portrayals of the Crimean War by Roger Fenton were among the first photographs chronicling the battlefield. Fenton's piolic-like photographs revealed none of the horror that some contemporary pictures recorded, mostly because Fenton was inhibited by his sponsors and by his bulky, fairly primitive equipment (The Crimean War, r855). 104 Photography & Society

113 Color photographs are now standard fare in magazines, but they are almost nonexistent in newspapers, because colorplates still have to be made in specialized printing plants. Ever since the invention of photography, men had been trying to capture public events, but for many years, primitive photographic techniques permitted only isolated images taken in favorable lighting conditions. The adventures of the English photographer Roger Fenton, a lawyer who became one of the first war photographers, illustrates the enormous obstacles the first documentary photographers faced. Press Photography 105

114 ,, Fenton left England to photograph the Crimean War in February He took four assistants with him, as well as three horses and a large wagon that had once belonged to a wine merchant, which served as his bedroom and laborarory. The wagon was loaded with thirtysix large cases of equipment, plus the harnesses and food for the horses! When he arrived at the front, Fenton discovered that the hot climate made his work almost impossible. The atmosphere in his laboratory was stifling. It was still the period of wet plates, when the emulsion had to be spread on each glass plate just before use. But Fenton's plates often dried up before he could insert them in his camera. The exposures took from three to twenty seconds in the broiling sun. After about three months of strenuous work, he returned to London with nearly 360 The photographs of Mathew Brady and his assistants portrayed the Civil War more realistically than the restricted works of Fenton and stand as some of the first candid (albeit sometimes posed) picrures of war. However, confusion surrounded the crediting of late nineteenth-century photographs. A case in point is Brady's Rebel Caisson Destroyed by Federal Shells. Fredericksburgh, 1863, which is also attributed to A. J. Russell, who worked for the government during the Civil War. 106 Photograph}' & Society

115 Timothy O'Sullivan, one of Brady's collaborators, photographed the Union dead with a graphic objectivity that few contemporaries matdted (Field Where General Reynolds Fell, Gettysburg,.863). '. plates. These images, showing only well-groomed soldiers behind the firing line, give a false impression of war. rfenton's expedition had been financed on the condition '\ that he photograph none of the horrors of war, so as \.-not to frighten the soldiers' families.'06 Unlike Fenton, Mathew Brady financed his war photographs himself. He brought back thousands of glass plates from the American Civil War, hoping to make up for his expenses by selling the photographs when the war ended. He used all of his own money, as well as some borrowed funds to pay for supplies and the twenty hired photographers who assisted him. While Fenton's carefully censored photographs make war look like a picnic, those of Brady and his collaborators (among them Timothy O'Sullivan and Alexander Press Photography 107

116 Gardner), convey its full horror. For the first time civilians saw the scorched earth, the burnt houses, the distressed families, and the unnumbered dead that had never been revealed in war reporting. We must remember, moreover, that Brady's photographs, which never seem posed even when they were, were taken with equipment not much more sophisticated than Fenton's. Unfortunately, the sale of these photographs did not live up to Brady's hopes. He lost his entire fortune to his principal creditor, the manufacturer who had furnished him with photographic supplies. The creditor printed and published the photographs for several years, but Brady was ruined financially. lo, During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the shortlived Paris Commune of 1871, hundreds of pictures were taken of the Communards, who willingly allowed themselves to be photographed on the barricades. When the Commune fell, the police used these photographs to iden-. tify the Communards, who were nearly all executed. For the first time in history, photography became an informer for the police. Also in 1870, the rwenry-one-year-old Dane, Jacob A. Riis, landed in America. Several years later, as a journalist for the New York Tribune, he was the first to use photography as a tool for social criticism. His most remarkable work was a series of articles on the New York slums, illustrated with photographs of immigrants living in crowded, unsanitary tenements. His first book, How the Other Half Lives, was published by Scribner's in 1890 and profoundly affected public opinion. Berween 1908 and 1914, the sociologist Lewis W. Hine, following Riis's example, photographed children working rwelve hours a day in the factories and fields and documented their miserable slum dwellings. ']:hese photographs helped convince Americans of the need for child-labor laws.?for the first time, photography was used" s= fully /as a weapon in the fight to belterthellving conditions ofihe Before photography was even 6hy years old, its speed and accuracy were turned against its subjects. The pictures of the Communards, many of which were taken by E. Appect, were used by the authorities to identify and condemn the surviving participants of the shortlived Paris Commune (unknown photographer, The Commune, 1871). r". \, ( Jacob Riis set a precedent for pictorial social commentary with photos such as Bandits' Roost, 591/2 Mulberry Street, New York (1888), which depicted 'how the other half lived.' 108 Photography & Society,

117 Press Photography 109

118 , I 10 Photography & Society

119 Lewis W. Hine's photo phic 1:lCWru:ntation of chlld-b.bor alerted th-e -public to- the plight of the poor '-toppo-site: Spln-ner at Frame, 1908; above: Group of Breaker Boys Outside the Mme, 1909i13). \ poor. The effort has continued. In the early thirties, under the auspices of the New Deal's Farm Security Administration, Roy Sttyker headed a team of photographers who were sent to document the rural regions most affected by the Depression. More recently, in 1975, the French government funded a group of photographerreporters to document the serious problems facing the poor living on the outskirts of Paris. Jacob A. Riis and Lewis W. Hine were amateurs who used photography in order to give their articles more credibility. As soon as photographs became a regular feature in periodicals, Q.r.QJessional photoreport.ts appeared to fill the new need. Th?;:a-ri.eaabad rep tation almost Press Photography I I I

120 112 Photography & Society

121 The Fann Security Administration employed photographers such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Jack Delano to investigate and expose the poverty in America's rural areas during the Depression. Two decades earlier, Jessie Tarbox Beals had taken similar photographs of northern urban life (opposite, top: Walker Evans, Bud Field's Family, 1936; bottom: Jessie Tarbox Beals, In a Tenement Flat, New York, 1910; right: Jack Delano, Hands of an Old Laborer, 1936). immediately. Since cameras were sti1l very heavy, photographers were selected for physical strengrh rather than talent. In order to take indoor photographs, they exploded small amounts of magnesium powder that produced a blinding light, a cloud of acrid smoke, and a nauseating smell. Surprised by the sudden blinding flash, subjects were often caught in unflanering poses, with their mouths open or their eyes blinking. The subject was of little impottance to these first photoreporters, whose editors measured the success of a photograph in terms of its clarity and suitability for reproduction. Social and political figures, who were the first to be victimized, quickly learned to despise photographers. Reporters had difficulty getting them admitted to help cover stories. None of their photographs were signed, and for almost half a centuty the press photographer was considered inferior, a kind of servant who took orders, but who had no initiative. It took a whole new generation of photographers to lend prestige to the profession that to this day is still viewed with suspicion and treated with contempt by Press Photography I 13

122 many. As in the years just after its invention, photogra phy continued to attract many uncultured individuals who found it a way of earning a living that required little training. They did not add to the prestige of photoreporters in the eyes of those whom they sought to photograph. In addition, a separate breed of reporter grew up in Italy during the 1950S whose ethics actually were suspect-the paparazzi. Their exploits only made the profession seem more disreputable. We shall return to them later. 114 Photography & Society

123 The Birth of Photojournalism in Germany r' With the development of lighter and less distracting equipment, photographers such as Erich Salomon were able to capture subjects offguard, even noteworthy subjects such as the delegates in his 1930 photograph, Conference at the Hague (opposite), which was taken at one a.m. \? V.,..... \ t ", "';,,,,,' I The task of the first photoreporters was SImply to pro- \. duce isolated images to illustrate a story. (It was only when the image itself became the story that photojournalism was born.) A group of German photographers were the first to report events with a series of photographs accompanied by a text that was often reduced to mere captions. Portrait photography had its origins in France, but photojournalism began in Germany, where the work of the first photoreporters truly deserving of the name gave the profession prestige, After the First World War, Germany went through a period of serious political and economic crisis. In November 19 I 8 the Kaiser's monarchy was replaced by the Weimar Republic. The majority of German people, who for centuries had been taught blind obedience to authority, did not understand the pluralistic party system on which republican democracy is founded. To them the new system was a sign of weakness, something that would undermine their government's authority. From the start the Social-Democrats, who headed the new Republic, were accused of betraying their country by having signed the Treaty of Versailles. Because its leadership was divided, the young democracy was weak. The left wing of the Social-Democratic party broke off to organize the Spartakusbund and threatened a revolution in Berlin, The government crushed the movement with the help of the Reichswehr, which was nothing more than the Kaiser's old army, commanded by reactionary officers. " 5

124 The Spartakusbund leaders, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, were needlessly and cruelly assassinated but the government's alliance with the army against the socialists was a fatal error that ultimately caused its downfall. In 1920 the government itself was forced to quell a rightist putseh in Berlin that the army had refused to put down. In 1923 Hitler and General Ludendorff fomented a putsch in Munich. Hitler was arrested and sentenced to a few years in prison, only to be pardoned several months later. He used his prison term to write Mein Kampf, soon to become the German bible. The economic situation was disastrous, partly because the Treary of Versailles demanded heavier reparations than Germany could pay. Moreover, in 1923, French troops moved into the Rbineland, Germany's center of heavy industry, with the intention of dismantling its factories. During' this period of inflation and financial ruin prices were calculated in the billions. It was not unusual to meet people in the streets carrying small suitcases full of the banknotes they could no longer fit into ordinary wallets. los The devaluation of the mark in 1923 (one billion Reichsmarks were worth one Rentenmark) affected those with large assets and substantial real estate as well as the average citizen, but for the latter it meant financial ruin. Not surprisingly, ten years later the middle classes voted en masse for Hitler. The Weimar Republic lasted scarcely fifteen years, but the liberal spirit which settled in Germany during this short period was the catalyst for extraordinary developments in the arts and letters. During the 1920S, a brilliant circle of writers flourished in Germany. In 1924, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain was published; in 1925, Franz Kafka's The Trial appeared one year after his death. In his incomplete, posthumous novel, Kafka prophetically described the reign of terror that would overwhelm Germany in the 1930S. The new musicians of the twenties included the com- II 6 Photography & Society

125 posers Alban Berg and Paul Hindemith, and the conductors Wilhelm Furtwangler and Bruno Walter. Albert Einstein received the Nobel Prize in The psychoanalytic research of Freud and his psychotherapy became famous throughout the world. The painters Franz Marc, Vasili Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Emil Nolde, Kathe Kollwitz, and George Grosz dominated new movements in art. Kurt Schwitters and Richard Huelsenbeck were foremost among the representatives of the Dada movement in Germany. In 1919, the architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus, whose influence rapidly extended beyond the German borders. Through the teachings of Moholy Nagy, the Bauhaus was to have a decisive impact on photography. We shall return to Moholy-Nagy later. Berlin, the capital of the young Republic, became the center of German artistic and intellectual movements. Its theater became celebrated for the plays of Bertolt Brecht, Ernst Toller, and Karl Zuckmayer and for the work of the directors Max Reinhardt and Edwin Piscator. The silent films of the U.F.A., directed by Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, and others were internationally known. FinaUy, the press, which had been strictly censored during the war, was allowed total freedom under the Republic. \ D1ustrated magazines began to appear in all the large j German cities. The two most important were the Berliner Illustrirte and the Munchner Illustrierte Presse. Both had press runs of nearly 2 million copies at the height of their success and were sold for only 25 pfennig (ten cents) a copy. It was the!><ginning of the golden age of modem photojournalism.1prawings gradually disappeared from \ magazines to be replaced by photographs of current WVents., Unlike the previous generation of reporters, the photographers working for this press were gentlemen who could scarcely be distinguished by education, diess, and manner from the diguitaries they photographed. When they attended the opera, a famous press ball, or any other The Birth of Photoi""""'1ism in Germany II 7

126 ,, I occasion where formal dress was required, the new photographers also appeared fashionably attired. Well-mannered, fluent in foreign langnages, indistinguishable from the other guests, they no longer belonged to a class of servile employees. They were themselves members of the bourgeois or aristocratic society that had lost money and political power after the war, but retained social status. " The most celebrated of these photographers was Dr. Erich Salomon who, as his title suggests, received a classical education. Aware of his counttymen's respect for titles, he insisted on being called 'Herr Doktor.' Born in Berlin in 1886, he came from a well-to-do family of bankers. The large number of photographs he took and the many subjects he covered during his brief period of activity, between 1928 and 1933, reveal a tireless energy and enormous talent. He studied law, was drafted in 1914, and for several years was held prisoner by the French. When he returned to Berlin in 1918, he found the postwar economic situation unfavorable for setting up a law practice. Because his family like much of the middle class had lost a great part of its fortune, Salomon tried to make a living in the business world. He joined the advertising department of Ullstein Publishing Company. One of his responsibilities was making sure that the peasants who rented c ut the walls of their houses for advertising billboards abided by their contracts. In connection with a trial that ensued, Salomon used a camera for the first time in his life when he borrowed one to take pictures that could serve as evidence in court. Asked how he decided to become a professional photographer, Salomon wrote, 'One Sunday, I was seated on the terrace of a restaurant along the banks of the Spree when a violent storm broke loose. A few minutes later, a newspaper vendor came by and described a cyclone that had uprooted some trees and killed a woman. So I took a taxi and found a photographer. I offered the pictures he had taken to the Ullstein Publishing Com-,,,, I 1 18 Photography & Society

127 The Ermanox, the first light weight, compact cam era, permitted photogra phers to venture indoors for candid pictures with the addition of a new lens. The new machine still had its drawbacks-the shutter was Doisy-but photographers such as Salomon were able to improvise and succeeded in taking the kind of candid shot that would revolution De photojournalism. Soon me 'secret' photograph, which caught public figures unawares at work and at play, would become the nademark of many news p ape rs. pany and received roo marks for them. As I handed 90 marks to the photographer, I realized that it would have been more worthwhile to have taken the photographs myself. The next day I bought my own camera.' lao In 1925 advertisements for a new camera began to appear in the newspapers, illustrated with a night photograph of Dresden: NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHS AND INDOOR PHOTOGRAPHY WITHOUT FLASH You can take photographs in the theater during a performance-short or instanteous exposures. With the ERMANOX camera-small, easy to handle, and not easily seen. ItO Lightweight, compact, and equipped with an F:2 lens which gave exceptional luminosity for the period, the Ermanox was a great invention. Photographs without a The Birth of Photojournabsm in Germany I I 9

128 flash had become possible and Salomon was the first to attempt candid indoor photography. His results were always lively, because they were unposed. Modem photojournalism was underway. It was no longer the clarity of the image that counted, but the subject matter. Taking interior photographs, however, still required a tripod and glass plates, since the existing film was not as sensitive. Moreover, a special bath solution was necessary to develop the plates. Finally, the depth of field was so limited that distance had to be measured down to the centimeter. To remain unnoticed, the photographer must be neither seen nor heard. Even without a flash, the shutter release on the Ermanox was much too noisy; the click immediately betrayed the photographer's presence. Salomon had a special shutter-release built that operated noiselessly, but the plates still required an exposure time of nearly a full second. Since photographs that sold to the papers had to be unique and up-to-the-minute, all these obstacles must often have seemed insurmountable; but Salomon triumphed. In 192.8, taking photographs in German courts was strictly forbidden. Salomon's first published picture, which appeared in the Berliner Illustrirte of 19 February was, however, taken in court. Slightly blurred, Salomon's single photograph of the trial appeared with the following caption: 'A much-talked-about criminal trial: the student Krantz in front of his judges.' Numerous articles had appeared before the trial using the Krantz scandal as a ploy to attack the educational system and to criticize postwar youth. The day after a surprise party that three teenage boys and a sixteen-year-old girl had attended, two of the boys' bodies were discovered. One of the dead boys, it turned out, had had intimate relations with the girl. The survivor, a seventeen-year-old high s<;hool student, was accused of having killed the others out of jealousy. Krantz was finally acquitted.'11 Years later, he would be known to the literary world for 12.0 Photography & Society I

129 the novels he published under the pseudonym Ernst Erich Noth. The 'unique' photograph of the Krantz trial brought Salomon as much money as he earned in a month at Ullstein's. He soon left publishing to devote himself entirely to photography. Four photographs of another murder trial appeared later in the same magazine and caused a sensation. Salomon had smuggled his camera into the courtroom in a box, and his tripod in his scarf. From then on, he took photographs wherever important events occurred. He became the official photographer for international conferences and attended sessions of the Reichstag, photographing all the important political and artistic figjires. He gained entrance everywhere. At the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact in the Hague he noted: 'I was seated at the place reserved for a Polish minister who had not shown up.' 112 Salomon quickly realized that it was more difficult to be expelled from a place than to be admitted. Infinite patience was necessary to be a good photoreporter. Salomon was enormously successful. During a long night session with German and French ministers at the second Hague Conference, for example, he took qnite humorous pictures of some of the participants who had fallen asleep. He photographed Lloyd George and Chamberlain in their London offices, and took the first photographs of the High Court of Justice in England. He was not contemptuous of the public, and some of his photographs look like Daumier's caricatures. Every notable in the arts was captured by his camera. He photographed Richard Strauss, Toscanini, Casals. In America, he photographed Randolph Hearst at San Simeon. Back in Berlin, he photographed Einstein and such writers as Thomas Mann. In 1931, scarcely three years after he began his work, he published an album of 102 photographs under the title, Beri4hmte Zeitgenossen in Unbewachten Augenblicken (Celebrated Contemporaries in Unguarded Mo- The Birth of Photo;ournalism in Gernldny 121

130 ments). In a long preface he explained his ideas and methods. Except for certain technical problems that have since been solved, his advice is still valid today: The work of a press photographer who aspires to be more than just a craftsman is a continuous struggle for his image. As the hunter is a captive of his passion to pursue his game, so the photographer is obsessed by the unique photograph that he wants to obtain. It is a continual battle against prejudices resulting from photographers who still work with flashes, against the administration, the employees, the police, the security guards, against poor lighting and the enofmous problems in taking photographs of people in motion. They must be caught at the precise moment when they are not moving. Then there is the fight against time, for every newspaper has its deadline that must be met. Above all, a photojournalist must have infinite patience, must never become flustered. He must be on top of all events and know when and where they take place. If necessary, he must USe all sorts of tricks, even if they do not always work. Salomon gave the following anecdote as an example: When I arrived at the first Hague Conference, in the summer of 1929, I learned that the ministers Henderson, Stresemann, Briand, Wirth, and the Belgian Foreign Minister Hymans would be meeting every afternoon at four o'clock on the balcony of the Scheveningen Grand Hotel. As I could not receive pennission to take photographs of this balcony from the inside, I could only photograph those talks from outside. The balcony was located fifty feet above a garage in front of which there were only the beach and the sea. There was no house facing it. I rented a sixty-foot fire ladder on wheels and borrowed a white shirt, a pail, and a paintbrush from the fout delivery men to make the Dutch police believe that I was going to repaint some billboards. I wanted to be raised on the ladder and, at a distance of forty feet, to photograph tbe diplomats on this historic balcony. To my great disappointment, the head of the team told me that I had to climb partway up the ladder first and secure it with a rope before I could go on to the top. When it was finally.' 122 Photography & So<iety I

131 in place, the angle was so steep that I would have fallen if I had had to use my two hands to photograph. I had to lean the ladder, but this maneuver seemed so dangerous and attracted so much attention that even Henderson noticed it through the window. Just as I was about to climb to the top, the head of the English press corps, followed by a secret agent, appeared and told me in no uncenain terms to remove the ladder immediately. In order to avoid a scandal, I had to agree. The only photograph I could take was of the ladder.l13 When no clever idea came to mind to help him gain access to a conference room, Salomon photographed the antechamber, taking funny pictures of hats and umbrel-. las, or of a sleeping guard. Again he surprised the 'Six Greats' of the period, Briand, Lord Cushendun, Hermann Muller, Scialoja, Hymans, and von Schubert, this time breakfasting at the Beaurivage Hotel in Geneva. The photograph appeared in September 1929 in the Berliner I1- lusttirte with the caption: 'A unique document!' At the time, it was indeed a novelty to photograph important people, or those considered important, in their private moments. Aristide Briand nicknamed Salomon 'Doctor Mephistopheles' because of the two gray tufts of hair decorating his forehead. Salomon became a celebrity whose photographs were all sigued. They were also all snapped up at high prices by various European picture magazines. The photographer was no longer anonymous. He had become a celebrity in his own right. Publication of 'secret' photographs became one of the attracrions of the illustrated press and, when that was really impossible, carefully posed photographs called 'ultra-secret' were published. Under the title 'the first photographs ever taken in the game rooms of the Monte Carlo Casino,' Salomon published a series of photographs in April 1929, each one of which had been posed. Under no circumstances would the casino management allow photographs of gambling celebrities, but it did per- The Birth of Photojournalism in Germany 123

132 mit its employees to pose when the gamerooms were closed. Salomon's skill consisted in making these photographs so vivid that they appeared to have been taken from life. The public could not distinguish the actual from the imitations. The attraction of the illustrated magazine was in printing sensational photographs. If necessary, one fabricated them. Kutt Korff was the editor-in-chief of the Berliner I/ [ustrirte, one of a group of newspapers owned by UlIstein. He had begun his career as an errand boy and owed his rise to his unerring memory and his journalistic instinct. One of the Ullstein brothers once asked him to report, as soon as possible, all the facts concerning a maritime disaster. Korff gave him all the details on the spot, including the exact measurements of the sunken boat. The astounded Ullstein started Korff on his quick rise in the Ullstein publishing empire. Stefan Lorant joined the Munchner Illustrierte Presse as the head of the Berlin office. In 1930 he became its editor-in-mief. Kurt Korff had invented the 'ultra-secret' and 'unique' photographs whim occasionally required a wiliness not always consistent with the truth. Stefan Lorant absolutely refused to accept any posed photographs. Up to this point, the illustrated press had only reproduced individual pictures. Now Lorant developed the idea of the photostory in which a series of images would depict one central subject. Photoreporting in these stories had to have a beginning and an end and was defined by place, rime, and action, just as in the classical theater. The difference is that in the theater the stage keeps the audience aware of the fictional nature of the action. The reader poring over a magazine, on the other hand, idenrifies what he sees in the photographs as real. Under Lorant's influence photographers began to fill entire pages of the magazine with groups of photographs on a single subject. He was the first to realize that the public not only wants to be infomied about famous per- 124 Photography & Society

133 sonalities, but is also interested in subjects concerning everyday life. Several years later, this idea was to become a factor in the success of the American magazine Life. From this time on, not only celebrities and historic events were to be depicted in the illustrated magazines, but also the life of the man in the street. The illustrated magazine became a symbol of the liberal spirit of the time. A group of young photographers grew up around Salo mon, who was forry-four in They were free-lancers, independent photographers who often proposed their own stories. Each of their photographs was signed, indicating the artention that was now being paid to the photographer's personaliry. Like Salomon, they were not only photographers, but also editors of their own texts and captions.114 The majoriry of them were middle class, had university educations and had turned to photography because of the economic difficnlties that Germany faced after the War. Some of these photographers were part of the Dephot News Service'15 (Deutscher Photodienst) which worked closely with the illustrated magazines, and particularly with Stefan Lorant. The Dephot News Service was a veritable treasure trove of talent, and almost all its photographers later became famous. Hans Baumann was one of these photographers. The son of a banker, he was born in 1839 in Freiburg. He began studying art, but was drafted in After several years in the army, he found himself in the same postwar quandary that faced so many other young men whose families had lost their fortunes during the great inflation. Forced to abandon his studies to make a living, he became an illustrator for the Berlin newspaper B. Z. am Mittag in 1926, specializing in spotts events. When his paper, like others, began to attach increasing importance to photographs, Baumann decided to become a photographer. His father had given him a camera at the age of ten, and as a child, he had developed a passion for working with it. As an art student, he had used photographs The Birth of Photo;ournaJism in Gennany 125

134 to aid him in his drawings."" He met Stefan Lorant through the Dephot News Service and began working in 1929 for the Munehner IIIustrierte Presse, using the pseudonym of Felix H. Man in order to separate his new career as free lance photographer from his previous profession as illustrator. In 1929 he did the first photostory on night life under the title 'Between Midnight and Dawn on the Kurfiirstendamm' (Berlin's main boulevard). The Munich magazine guaranteed him a minimum salary of 1,000 marks a month,117 under the condition that he outline his stories beforehand. It was an extraordinary sum for the time, when a civil servant's salary averaged around 500 marks. Between 1929 and 1933, he completed more than 80 photostories, including stories on public swimming pools, factory workers, restaurant scenes, boxing matches, the Lunapark, and many other subjects of interest to the general public, who recoguized their concerns and their pleasures in his photographs. Man was one of the first photojournalists to work closely with Stefan Lorant in defining the modem formula for photoreporting.118 In the early thirties, Lorant sent him to Rome to do a story on Mussolini, who until then had only been seen in pretentious poses. Man spent a fnli day with II Duee, from seven in the morning until ten in the evening, and took a series of photographs that inspired a whole generation with a taste for candid shots. 'Mussolini's office was enormous, filled with marble columns and pillars like the entrance to a museum; Man recalled. 'He treated his ministers rather badly... One of them brought him a stack of papers including certain lerters marked "important." Mussolini looked at the envelopes, and if he thought a letter might be interesting, he read it; if it didn't interest him, he tossed it in the air and expected the minister to run and fetm it.' The story was a sensation and brought Man 3,000 marks.' 1 9 The German illustrated magazines of the twenties carried many names that are famous today: Moholy Nagy " 12.6 Photography & Society

135 Hans Baumann (known by his pseudonym Felix H. Man) photographed Mussolini in picrures that were the first to show the Italian leader in his everyday routines (opposite: two pages of Man's photographs from Muncbner IIlu.strierte Presse, 1931; above: Mussolini's Workroom, 1931). of the Bauhaus; Alfred Eisenstaedt, chief photographer for the Associated Press in Berlin at the time; Andre Kertesz; Martin Muncaszi; and Germaine Krull. There were others who are not as well known today: Umbo, a former Bauhaus student; Wolfgang Weber; Marian Schwabik; the Gidal Brothers; and such aristocrats as Helmut Muller von Spolinski; von Blucher; and Freiherr von Bechmann. Each specialized in a specific area such as sports, the theater, or political events. In 1929, the majority of photojournalists still used the Ermanox. At the beginning of the thirties, however, Salomon, Man, and others began to use the Leica, a new camera that radically changed photojournalism. The Leica was invented by askar Barnack, who manufactured pre- The Birth of Photoiournalism in Germany 12.7

136 Oskat Barnacl,'s invention, t the Leica camera, was far more versatile and allowed many more exposures than its predecessors. It was not immediately accepted as a t professional camera I:>y photographers and clients be- cause of its unimpressive size, but the smaller camera made it easier to be inoonspiwous and thus shoot 1.1 difficult news stories. t; cision instruments of all sorts. 120 Born in 1879, he had been interested in photography as a youth. He loved to take long walks carrying his 7 X 9-inch camera, the double wooden film holders, and a tripod. Not baving a strong constitution, Barnack dreamed of a camera that could be camed in one's pocket, an idea that obsessed him throughout the years he worked in the optical industry. Finally in 191 I, he became the director of the Leitz factory research laboratories at Wetzlar, where micro scopes and telescopes were manufactured, and at last had the opportuniry to realize his dream. He built a small camera using 35mm film, half the size of the photographic negatives then in use, and capable of multiple exposures. Years of research were still necessary before the Leitz Company could manufacture the new camera. In 1925, the Leica was finally introduced at the Leipzig Indusrtial Fair where it was an immediate success. Equipped with a I:3.5'50mm lens, the Leica was already being sold in 1930 with several interchangeable lenses that gready increased its versatiliry. The film allowed 128 Photography & Society I 1

137 thirty-six exposures without reloading. The Leica revolutionized the work of the professional photographer. Accustomed to working with single plates, most illustrated press editors did not at first allow reporters to use the Leica. The flash technique had been improved in recent years and large cameras yielded good large contact prints. Even a magazine like Life, founded in 1936, initially disapproved of the use of the Leica. Thomas Mc Avoy, a member of the first team of Life photographers, recounted the difficulties in having the new camera accepted: 'I had brought a Leica back from a European trip. The editor-in-chief, thinking it a toy not to be taken seriously because of its small size, forbade me to use it. At an official reception in Washington, I defied him and took a whole series of photographs in front of my bewildered colleagues with their large cameras and flashes. Comparing my prints with theirs, the management admitted that my photogtaphs were much more atmospheric and lively because, without the flash, 1 had caught the guests unaware. From then on, the Leica was appreciated; and all the photographers followed my example.' had a similar experience with my own first official assigument. In 1936, Julien Cain, then director of the Bibliotheque Nationale, asked me to photogtaph all of the libraries in Paris for the 1937 World's Fair. When 1 arrived at the Nationale, the librarian saw my small Leica and exclaimed: 'You can't be serious. Come back with a real professional camera.' He threw me out, but 1 had an idea. 1 went to the flea market and bought an old 8 x lo-inch wooden camera for about 50 francs (ten dollars). This time the librarian was satisfied and the camera was positioned on a cumbersome tripod. My head buried in a black scarf, 1 pretended to adjust the setting, although the camera did not have any plates. When 1 was left alone, 1 quietly took a whole series of photographs of the old bookworms bent over their books with my Leica. As 1 did not use the flash, 1 worked unnoticed. The Birth of Photojournalism in Germany I2.9

138 My first victim was a distinguished old man with a long white mustache, asleep and snoring peacefully; a monk in his robe hunched over his work was my second, followed by others. The literary pavilion at the World's Fair used many of my photographs, and the story on the Bibliotheque Nationale appeared in the 463rd issue of Vu magazine on 2.7 January 1937, entitled: 'An important photostory by Vu at the Bibliotheque Nationale, the world's leading intellectual factory.' Production figures show how rapidly the Leica took over the market. In 192.7, the company put out 1,000 cameras; 10,000 in 1928; 50,000 in 193 I and 100,000 in Today its production has reached more than a million. Constantly improved, the Leica has made the Leitz company famous all over the world. As a result, the camera is copied almost everywhere. Since the Second World War, Japanese companies in particular have be come lively competitors of the Leica. Founded in Wetzlar in 1848, the German Leitz company is a family business now in its fourth generation. Leitz produces more than 6,000 high precision instru ments made up of 70,000 different parts. Technicians are highly specialized and well paid. In the company realized that manufacturing the Leica body, which alone involved more than 700 parts, was no longer profitable, since its retail price was no higher than the manufacturing costs. The Leitz company became associated with the Japanese company Minolta, and Leica bodies are now made inexpensively in Japan because of the low wages and mechanized production. Leitz has also worked out an agreement with Advanced Metals Re search Corporation in Bedford, Massachusetts; and it has signed a contract with the Swiss company Wild/Heerburgg for the manufacture of electron microscopes. 122 In 1974 the owners of the Leitz company were forced to dispose of 5 I percent of their stock, thus losing control of the business to the Swiss finn of Schmidheini, which in, 130 Photography & Society

139 r tum is part of a powerful trust. Today family businesses, however large, are often doomed to failure unless they become part of mnltinational enterprises. The new democratic spirit embodied in the German illustrated press reached a brutal end with Hitler's rise to power. Germany had hardly begun its recovery when the Depression began in the United States. The New York stock market crash on Black Friday in October 1929 seriously affected the large American capital investments in Germany. Unemployment in Germany during the following years increased so dramatically that in 1932 nearly six million people were out of work. Their poverty was one of the decisive factors in Hitler's rise to power. As a result of pressing economic problems, political life became so radically polarized that all parties, particularly the Nazis and the Communists, included paramilitary organizations. Chancellor Bruning governed by emergency decrees alone, and virtually ruled without the powerless Parliament. On 30 January 1933, Hindenburg, president of the Reich, asked Hitler, who had just become chancellor, to form a new government. In Berlin, the S.A. staged their famous public burning of books by the bestknown writers, and Germany was plunged into a period of 'night and fog.' Thousands of members of the artistic and intellectual elite went into exile. Those unable to save themselves in time were arrested and sent to concentration camps. The press was muzzled. Anyone suspected of doubting the ideas of the Third Reich was dismissed, along with those who could not prove that they were of pure Aryan blood. The editors of major magazines were all replaced. Kurt Korff fled to Austria and later to America. Stefan, Lorant was imprisoned. He was released a few months later, but only after he could prove his Hungarian back i "- ground. Lorant fled to England where he founded IIIus trated Weekly and later, in 1938, Picture Post, both of which were enormously successful. With his wife and The Birth of Photoiournalism in Germany 13 I

140 two sons, Dr. Erich Salomon fled to Holland where he had relatives. A Jew, he and one of his sons were murdered at Auschwitz ten years later. Almost all the members of the Dephot News Service left. Felix H. Man, an avid democrat who happened to be abroad at the time of Hitler's rise to power, never returned to Germany. He became Lorant's colleague in England along with Kurt Hubschmann, who changed his name to Hurton. Ina Bandy worked for the magazine Vu in Paris. Alfred Eisenstaedt and Fritz Goro settled in America, where they became staff photographers for Life. Andrei Friedmann, who had begun his career as a photographer with the Dephot News Service at seventeen, went to France where 132 Photography & Society

141 he took the pseudonym Capa -a name that would soon Lucien Aigner used a Leica to catch Hitlers lazy reb f C ded All th sponse to the salutes of the ecome amous.'23 He loun Magnum in e athletes' parade at the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany. Thinking Hitler creators of modem photojournalism in Germany spread their ideas abroad, exerting a decisive influence on the 1 '11 ustrate d press In ' France, Eng I an d,an d t h e U nite d States. would appear as a blur in, Chosen for their loyalry to the Third Reich, the new the photo, Aigner did not ', editors of German magazines were permitted to publish print the negativeunrilyears ' only photographs that were sent to them by official orlater, many years after Hitler had driven some of Ger- i gans. The most powerful figure in the new illustrated many's best photographers : press was Heinrich Hoffmann, who had been born in 1885 from the country.!' at Furth near Darmstadt, where his family owned a pho- Co tography business. In 1908, at the age of twenry-three, he set up his own business as a photographer in Munich. Early in 1919, a revolutionary movement proclaiming a Sovict republic broke out in Bavaria, but was suppressed by the Reichswehr in a bloody battle. One of the revolurionary leaders was assassinated and others fled. During these months of civil war in Munich, Heinrich Hoffmann took many photographs that he sold to newspapers all over the world for large sums of money. Toward the end of 1919, when Hitler's newly founded parry was made up of only half a dozen followers, the powerful Hearst newspapers offered Hoffmann $ 5,000 to obtain photographs of Hitler. Hoffmann joined the Nazi party in order to get these photographs. He became one of Hitler's most intimate friends, won his absolute confidence, and was allowed to photograph the FUhrer in all sorts of poses. Hitler studied Hoffmann's pictures to determine the most advantageous movements and gestures for his speeches., When he came to power in 1933, Hitler gave Hoffmann, his early companion, the exclusive right to publish photographs of him. That same year Hoffmann was named a member of the Reichstag and in 1938 he received the title 'Herr Professor.' An astute businessman, Hoffmann exploited his exclusive rights to the utmost by creating a press service, forming a publishing house for Nazi propaganda, and surrounding himself with a staff The Birth of Photo;ournalism in Germany 133

142 of photographers who were alone authorized to take pictures of Hitler and of official events. All photographs for the illustrated journals had to pass Hoffmann's inspection-even those intended for the rest of the world. He made an immense fortune, bought a great deal of property, acquired a collection of paintings, and married his daughter to the FUhrer of the German youth movement, Baldur von Schirach. When the war broke out, Hoffmann organized a central photographic bureau in Berlin where all photographs taken at the front were sent for approval. He selected only those he deemed most appropriate for German propaganda. His bureau was a veritable factory, processing copy prints for the entire world press. Only he could collect the reproduction fees. Duringthe American occupation of Bavaria, the American army confiscated Hoffmann's archives and used them to identify war criminals. In 1946, at the time of the German war trials, Hoffmann was arrested and condemned as a proven profiteer of the Third Reich. He was given the maximum penalty of ten years at hard labor and the loss of his entire fortune. On 25 June 1948, the decision was reversed by another court, and his sentence was reduced to three years in a work camp. This decision was overturned on another technicality. The office ofthe director of public prosecution in Munich increased Hoffmann's sentence once more, to five years, but released him in recognirion oftime served. Hoffmann was stripped of reproduction rights to his photographic archives for a ten-year period and lost his title of 'Herr Professor.' Out of his immense fortune he was allowed to keep only 5,000 marks for the support of his family. Eventually another court ruled that his name should be struck from the list of war criminals, on the grounds that he had only been an instrument of Hitler's policies. In 1957, all proceedings against him were dropped. Hoffmann died at the end of that year, at the age of seventy-rwo.'24 Un- 134 Photography & Society

143 Heinrich HoHmann and his photographs helped Hitler establish an image that the world would not forget. Hoffmann had exclusive rights to publish pictures of Hitler and profited greatly from that right throughout the regime's existence. doubtedly, he was one of the Nazis who had profited most from the Hitler regime. In 1947, part of Hoffmann's confiscated archives was transferred to the National Archives in Washington. In the early sixties his son and heir, also named Heinrich, who remembers having sat on Hitler's lap as a child of three, won his suit to regain the reproduction rights to his father's photographic collection. Hoffmann fils now owns the negatives that news services around the world profited from for so many years. The liberal-spirited German magazines that flourished under the Weimar Republic were emulated elsewhere in Europe. The French magazine Vu was founded in 1928 by Lucien Vogel ( ), editor, journalist, printer, and talented designer. In 1906 he joined the art department of Femina magazine. Several years later he became the director of Art et Decoration. In 1912 he founded la Gazette du Bon Ton and Ie Jardin des Modes. Lucien Vogel was a man of strong personality and very original ideas. He was affable, with bright blue eyes that reflected his great generosity and his resolute character. His fashion magazines carried the imprint of his refined Parisian taste and his liberal outlook. Starting with the first issue of Vu, he broke away from the use of the single photographs that had appeared for many years in Illustration, one of the oldest French magazines. Vogel surrounded himself with first-rate colleagnes, capable writers and journalists such as Philippe Soupault, whom he sent to Germany, or Madeleine Jacob, who had begun as a secretary on the editorial staff and was later sent as special correspondent to Austria. Ida Treat, an American, was his correspondent in Asia. He used the best photographers of the period, among them Germaine Krull, Andre Kertesz, Laure Albin-Guillot, Muncaszi, Lucien Aigner, Felix Harman, and Capa, whose celeb rat- The Birth of PbotoioumaJjsm in Germany 13 5

144 ed picture of a Spanish Republican soldier falling under gunfire was first published in Vu in I936. The first issue of Vu appeared on 28 March I928, with Vogel's statement of intent: 'Conceived in a new spirit and executed by new means, Vu brings a new formula to France: illustrated reporting on world events.... From any place where important events occur, photographs, dispatches, and articles will reach Vu linking our readership with the entire world... and bringing the universality of life to the eye... pages packed with photographs translating foreign and domestic political events into images... sensationally illustrated photostories... travel stories, analyses of causes cei'ebres... the most recent discoveries, carefully selected photographs...' 136 Photography & Society

145 Lucien Vogel attracted talented photographers such as Raben Capa, Germaine Krull, and Andre Kertesz to his Vu, founded in 1928 after the model of the pre Hitler German photomagazine. Intended as a vehicle for eye-opening ne'"-"s paired with numerous photographs (oftentimes as many as four to a page), \'u lasted only a decade due to Vogel's unpopular politics and his successors' inability to maintain the editorial and reproduction quality of the early \'u, tvio indications that the magazine depended more on its audience than on its advertisers for support (left: Capa, Death of a Spanish Soldier, 19:;6; right: Gennaine Krull, Untitled; page 138: Andre Kertesz, Park in the Snow, 1928). The Birth of Photojournalism in Germany 137

146 t t 138 PhotoK'aphy & Sodety

147 Andre Kertesz, Park in the Snow The first issue contained more than 60 photographs and sold for 1.5 francs. Starting in 193 1, Vogel produced special issues presenting perceptive and courageous analyses of world events. Views of Soviet Russia and America Fights (dedicated to Roosevelt's New Deal) appeared in 193 I. The April 1932 issue on The German Enigma carried 438 photographs in 125 pages. For the first time, the French public was warned against Nazism. A special issue on Italy, The Eleventh Year of Fascism, appeared in 1933, and Examination of China in May But the tone and subject matter of Vu (Vogel was simultaneously editing Lu, a kind of press digest) did not please its Swiss financial backers and failed to attract enough advertising, the financial backbone of magazines in a capitalist society. He alienated the large industries that might have bought advertising space by his undisguised support for the Left which, united in the Popular Front, had just won the 1936 election. At last the appearance of his special issue on the Spanish Civil War in the fall of 1936, supporting the Republican point ofview, utterly outraged Vu's backers and Vogel was forced to resigu. The magazine continued until 1938, but its quality dropped, and most of its readers drifted away. When Lucien Vogel died in 1954, stricken at his desk, Henry Luce cabled Vogel's family: 'Without Vu, Life would never have been created.' The ultimate tribute was thus paid to the man who had founded the first modem photographically illustrated magazine in France. The Birth of Photo;ournalism in Germany 139

148 LIFE BEGINS Tl ' "","r.'..,"'! ",-.l,.".1 ",,,,,,,,,,1 '".,,' I". I., I, C'" "-_'M" 'H,,_.".,,1 ;..,,.I. \.." ",.. I.,,,', I,,' ",_,,j. ",,,1.,;,,.1,-. I 'I""., i,,,1,.-,. 'I",,,.1.,,,,,,:,I!., ', ""I ",. _ lh' " "hi I""... l,,,.",,1 _Ltd , -.,,.., I,.I '",1,-.. " 11,, "",,...,,. ',.'I,,,,," I.,;:.., It. )".' W'''...,._ 1.,,,1.,. l"......,!,'i, I.t I' 1'_ ' ;. ".,.,,-I "" 1_ '.' 140 Photography & Society

149 American Mass Media Magazines 'Life begins': the caption beneath this opening photo of the first issue of Life magazine (November 2.3. I936) read: 'The camera records the most vital moment in any life: Its beginning.' A photomagazine after the Gennan and Vu model, Life would succeed not only because of its photographs but also because of an advertising network that spanned the country. Life continued to survive until television took over the advertising market in the late I9605. Three years after Hitler's takeover and the subsequent muzzling of the entire German press, a new illustrated magazine appeared in America that would become the most celebrated of its kind throughout the world. The first issue of Life magazine appeared on 23 November I936, with an initial printing of 466,000 copies. Circulation reached one million a year later, and more than eight million by I972. Its success was unique and its format imitated almost everywhere. Life was not the first American magazine illustrated entirely with photographs. In I896, the New York Times had begun to publish a weekly photographic supplement, and other newspapers had followed its example. Mid Week Pictorial, Panorama, and Parade had all appeared, but none had Life's success. The idea itself was not new. Its realization was the result of many influences, the development of the cinema being the foremost. From the beginning of the twentieth century, film had gone beyond the vaudeville stage and had begun to attract millions of spectators to movie theaters daily. Photographic images were becoming familiar to the public and were beginning to shape its vision. The new style in photojournalism, that began with the German illustrated magazines of the early thirties and was taken up later by the French magazine Vu, profoundly influenced Life's creators in their decision to illustrate stories with groups of photographs. Photographs by Dr. Salomon and Felix H. Man had already appeared in American magazines and become well known. Life hired many of the excellent photographers who fled Hitler and

150 consulted former contributors to the German illustrated press such as Korff and Szanfranski, both of whom had been with the Berliner Il/ustrirte. Finally, technical developments in photography, new monochrome printing and color processes, and the invention of the teleprinter for the rapid transmission of photographs all played important roles in the creation of the new photographic magazine. But the most crucial factor in its success was its modem advertising system. Nearly all American magazines are entirely financed by advertising. Their profits depend on it. The advertising empire in America grew out of the shift from an agri cultural to an industrial economy. As new industries grew, consumer goods were standardized and manufactured in large quantities. The expansion of highways and railroads brought producers and consumets closer together. Because the country is so large, there were few national newspapers. Each region has its own daily papers, specializing in local news. Weekly or monthly magazines, on the other hand, can be distributed throughout the country and are easily available to everyone. National corporations began to place their ads in magazines. Between 1939 and 1952, the number of advertisers grew from 936 to :',538, and the number of products advertised jumped ftom 1,659 to 4,47:..125 Magazines were profoundly affected. Until the end of the nineteenth century, publishers had had complete control over the content of their magazines. As America increasingly became a society of consumers, the powerful economic incentive of advertising forced changes in the publishers' role. From the time advertising became their major source of profit, publishers were no longer interested in the reader as reader, but in the reader as consumer. Periodicals no longer simply published stoties and illustrations. They became promoters of advertising copy and magazines became an integral part of the American marketing system :' Photography & Society

151 Since advertising rates depended on circulation, publishers were concerned with increasing their profits by increasing their circulation. They sought to make their magazines attractive to the majotiry of reader/consumers. With the advent of television these factors also changed; but we shall discuss that development later. During the sixties, fourteen out of every 100 advertising dollars invested in American magazines went to Life, which was read by approximately 40 million Americans. Life was founded by Henry R. Luce, who had been born in China in 1898, the son of a Presbyterian minister. Luce's puritanical, Calvinist education, the austeriry of his upbringing, and his later studies at Yale all combined to make him a staunch conservative. His ideas were reflected in all his publications. From its poor beginnings his life drastically changed in a few decades. He became one of America's press lords, a transformation in the purest tradition of liberal American sociery during the first third of the century. l 27 Luce and his Yale classmate Britton Hadden founded lime, Inc. in The name 'lime' occurred to him one evening while reading a subway ad. The young founders, in their twenties at the time, realized that there was no magazine adapted to the fast pace of contemporary work life. Most people had little time to keep up with current events. Their idea was to create a magazine that would summarize the events of the previous week. Its beginning was modest. They had trouble finding the $85,000 they needed to publish their first issue in March Since the magazine did not yet have its own news network from which to draw, stories in the first issues were taken from the New York Times and rewritten in a special sryle. This was possible at the time because the U.S. Supreme Court had recently ruled that news that had been public for more than twenry-four hours had entered the public domain.12 Time was an enormous SllCcesS, and when Life ap- American Mass Media Magazines 143

152 peared in 1936, it was organized along the same lines. The editorial staff was divided into seventeen departments: domestic news, music, books, nature, sports, scieoee,.fashion, feature articles, editorials, and so on. These departments were further subdivided: movies and theater, for example, were grouped under entertainment; art and religion under culture. Each department was headed by an editor and a researcher, to whom other assistant editors and researchers reported. While all the researchers were women, the writers wefe generally chosen from among young male university graduates, especially from Luce's alma mater, Yale. Members of each department submitted a weekly report in which planned and finished stories were listed. The stories were then placed in the 'bank' (i.e., held in reserve), in many cases to be published much later or perhaps not at all. The editor-in-chief sent the most important feature stories to the printer and, with these selections in mind, chose the rest of the material for the week. If the feature news article seemed a bit long or heavy, he looked for lighter subjects to fill the remaining space and balance the issue. Other departments then got the chance to take stories out of the 'deep freeze' of their 'bank' and possibly see one published. These decisions were often made in the final hours before the magazine went to press. The news department was responsible for assembling news clippings that might lead to a stoty and for sending these on to the proper departments. The researchers then forwarded these press clippings to the national or international news bureau chiefs who, if the subject seemed important, immediately wired them to Life correspondents around the world. When information on a particular subject was needed, researchers used the 'morgue,' where all press clippings and information on many subjects were filed.12' The head of the photography department dealt with all Life photographers and acted as liaison between them 144 Photography & Society

153 and the editorial departments. In addirion to distributing assignments, he was responsible for planning their work and travels and had the right to hire and fire. His position within the magazine depended on his ability to elicit the utmost from his photographers. He had to be a good psychologist to be able to handle photographers, who are often touchy or anxious about their difficult tasks. Press photographers work under difficult and ttying circumstances and are always pressed for time. They must have iron constitutions, a good deal of courage, and qnick reflexes to be able to adapt to all kinds of situations. Their lives are often in danger, and many have paid for their boldness with their lives. They deal with people from all classes, and must know how to behave with equal ease at a royal court or with a primitive tribe. Relations berween the head of Life's photography department and his photographers were not always smooth. While they were in the field, often struggling with difficulties that seemed insurmountable, he issued orders from his office. Perhaps the most influential head of Life's photography department was Wilson Hicks, who held the position for thirteen years, from 1937 to 1950, during which time he groomed a whole generation of photographers, many of whom became famous. He was often unpopular with them because of his brusque carrot-and-stick manner; but those who worked with him had the deepest respect for his knowledge of photojournalism and for his rich imagination. 130 When a stoty was to be used, the photographs were sent to the art director for page layout and to an editor, who had to write the text in an exact number of words. He composed it on special yellow paper calibrated for the exact number of letter-spaces and lines that fit the predetermined text lengrh. Researchers checked out evety word and marked a red spot above each as it was verified. Copies of the article were then sent to a special of- l American Mass Media Magazines 145

154 fice where the contents were again checked by Life specialists: historians, doctors, psychologists, educators, and others. In addition to staff photographers, Life also used photographic agencies and &ee-lancers. What made Life's great success possible was the enormous organization of lime, Inc. The corporation included all of Luce's enterprises and was further expanded during the Second World War, when lime-life International was founded with nearly 360 offices around the world, staffed by 6,700 people. Henry R. Luce began his journalistic career in I92I as a reporter for the Chicago News with a salary of $16 a week. In I 967, from his office on the thirty-fourth floor of New York's Rockefeller Center, Luce controlled a vast empire of businesses and publications that figured among America's 500 largest industries. More than 3 million copies of Time were printed weekly by then, and more than 8 million copies of Life. Luce also owned SPOTts Illustrated and Fortune, a magazine exclusively for businessmen, both totaling over I3 million in circulation. In addition he owned a book publishing department, with annual sales around I7 million, five radio stations, six television stations, paper factories, forests, and oil wells in Texas. lime, Inc. earned more than $I5 million annually, and Luce's personal yearly income was more than $1.25 million. When he died suddenly in I967 at the age of sixty-nine, he was at the height of his success. III GO see life; to see the world, to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things-machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man's work-his paintings, towers and discoveries, to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to s and be instructed.' With these words, Henry R. Lu';..-l I46 Photography & Society

155 Like Vu, Life attracted some of the world's most talented and most famous photographers: Margaret Rourke White's Fort Peck Dam, Montana, 1936 (top) appeared on the front cover of Life's first issue and Peter Stackpole's Golden Gate Bridge, c (bottom), appeared during the first year. had introduced the first issue of Life.'32 It was made up of ninety-six pages, one-third devoted to advertising. The cover photograph was by Margaret Bourke-White. Along with Alfred Eisenstaedt, Thomas McAvoy, and Peter Stackpole, she was part of the team of photojournalists employed by the magazine. The cover photograph showing Fort Peck Dam in Montana introduced the feature stoty of the issue: nine pages on the New Deal's work relief program at Fort Peck. Not long after, Henty Luce became one of the New Deal's most bitter opponents and used his magazine to fight its policies. A single photograph filled the first page-a newly born child held by an obstetrician, with the caption: 'Life begins,' a pun introducing the first issue. The caption continued: The camera records the most vital moment in life: its beginning.' Two pages on Chinese schoolchildren in San Francisco followed, after which there were photographs of Franklin Roosevelt. Four pages (three in color) on a popular painter named Curty came after the President, then four pages (one in color) on the 'greatest living actress; Helen Hayes, and two pages on Rockefeller Center and its radio station. There were also five pages devoted to Brazil, four to movie star Robert Taylor, one page on Saralt Bernhardt, and two on a new world weather map. One page showed a one-legged man climbing a steep ridge in the mountains. Then there were two pages on Russian life, followed by two pages on the black widow spider, and finally a section entitled 'Life goes to a party,' which showed photographs of French aristocrats at a garden party. The first issue set the tone for Life. Months of work had gone into deciding what would please the greatest number of readers throughout the United States, what would awaken their curiosity and touch on their emotional preoccupations and dreams of success. Life wanted to be understood by all, to be a magazine read by the entire family, and to popularize the sciences and arts. American Mass Media Magazines 147

156 It carried such features as A Look at the Wo rld's Week and the memoirs of such celebrities as the Duke of Windsor. The work of great writers, including Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, as well as essays on the world's great religions, would also be published there. 'I am a Presbyterian, a Republican and a capitalist. I am biased in favor of God, the Republican parry and Free Enterprise... Hadden and I invented Time. Therefore we had a right to say what it would be. We're not fooling anybody. Our readers know where we stand. We're telling the story to the best of our knowledge and belief.' 133 Henry Luce's knowledge and beliefs corresponded to the ideas of the small class of imporrant capitalists who controlled America's destiny. Luce never hid his ideas. As he willingly admitted, Life was created first to make profits and then to help the political programs which he thought best. Like his Presbyterian forebears, he, too, wanted to educate the masses. His magazine's success was based on thorough study of mass psychology. Man is above all interested in himself: any human and social condition affecting his own life will move him. When conditions are miserable, he must be given the hope of a better future. From such reasoning flowed the nine pages on the New Deal program in Montana, which promised work for a large group of poverry-stricken people. 1)te pictures of children struck a sentimental chord, while the photographs of the President symbolized the father-protector. The lives of actresses and movie stars showed that talent would always be rewarded; and the Life reader was taught that science performs miracles. The adventures of a one-legged man responded to the need for sensation; the photographs of Brazil, to the taste for the exotic. Finally, the garden parry photographs of aristocrats brought the lives of the elite into everyone's home. The world reflected in Life was full of light and had only a few shadows. It was ultimately a false world, one.! 148 Photography & Society

157 Life's famous photographer catches Life's famous war correspondent at a pensive moment: Alfred Eisenstaedt's Ernie Pyle. the C.l.'s Favorite War Reporter (1944). that inspired the masses with false hopes. It is equally true, however, that Life popularized the arts aod sciences, opened windows onto hidden worlds, and in irs own special way educated the masses. It contributed to the public's acquaintaoce with art, spending more thao $30 million on color art reproductions. Luce was a fervent patriot, and in his magazines nationalism played a central role. The vast majority of other magazines in America were created with the same point of view, but what gave so mu$ credibility to Life was irs extensive use of photographsl]9 the average man photography, which is the exact reproduction of reality, cannot lie. Few people realize that the meaoing of a photograph can be chaoged completely by the accompanying caption, by its juxtaposition with other photographs, or by the maoner in which people aod evenrs are photographed. We shall discuss this point later. 1 r The popularity of tiris' new journalism based almost usively on photographs grew out of the changes that had taken place in the condition of modern man aod the tendency toward greater standardization of modern life. As the individual became less important to society, his need to affirm himself as an individual became greate') For example, the enormous success of war correspondent Ernie Pyle's stories from the front lay in the fact that instead of describing the lives of GIs in general, he wrote about what happened to Bob Smith from Brownsville, Texas, or to Jim Brown from Nashville, Tennessee. Millions of readers had the moral satisfacrion of being able to identify the fates of their own brothers, husbaods, or sons with those of the GIs described by Pyle. Readers could visualize their loved ones among the mass of aoonymous soldiers because the characters in Pyle's stories were specific people they could imagine knowing. The success of the illustrated weeklies is based on the same phenomenon. In addition to current events, they present stories about ordinary people whose names are Amenam Mass Media Magazines 149

158 always mentioned. As the relations among men became more dehumanized, the journalist tended to give the individual an artificial importance. Life was enormously successful and was read by the masses. It was a family magazine that refused to publish anything shocking. But toward the end of the sixties, Life, Look, Holiday, and other general-interest magazines were having problems. Of all the lime, Inc. properties, Life had been the most profitable. Now it began to lose money. One of the causes was inflation. The price of everything needed to produce a magazine had risen considerably. In 1971 it was estimated that expenses had increased 35 percent over the previous year. The owners of large American magazines were forced to take drastic measures. Life shut down offices in America and abroad, reduced the number of its staff, and terminated the unprofitable Spanish edition. Soon the international edition also folded. Previously, Life had maintained a 'blanket coverage' policy under which the most detailed research possible was carried out on each subjecr by as many as twenty journalists and photographers who were sent wherever necessary. Here is an example of Life's methods of assuring complete coverage of an exclusive story: On Monday, 5 February 1965, 65 million Americans (at the time Life was printing around seven million copies) were offered twenty-two-and-a-half pages, twenty in color. on Wmston Churchill's funeral. The story required seventeen photographers, more than forty journalists and technicians, a dozen motorcyclists, two helicopters, and one DC-S. Two years earlier, a researcher had drawn up a highly confidential list of all that was to happen upon the death of Wmston Churchill-the nature and location of the ceremony, the parade route, the site of the tomb, and the day of the funeral, which had a 90 percent chance of falling on a Saturday.'A list was prepared of private rooms in which Life photographers could work in total secrecy. As soon as Churchill feu ill, the 150 Photography & Society l

159 Ufe"s 'blanket coverage' of stories such as Wmston Churdilll's funernl (pages 15>-153) Iccpt the magazine afloat and popular with readc;rs. despite the compe tition with lv. Life faltered not because it declined in popularity but because the advertisers who financed the magazine switched to 1V to reach a larger audience. rooms were rented. Life ordinarily appeared on Mondays, putting the issue to bed on the previous Wednesday evening. Special arrnngements were made to hold off prinring the Churchill issue until Saturday night, and to provide for distribution by air rather than by surface mail. There was nothing else left to do but to wait for the old lion to die. As predicted, the burial took place on Saturday. Every photographer was in his place. The films were to be picked up at five points-westminster Hall, Saint Paul's, Trafalgar Square, a wharf on the Thames, and Blandon, where the burial took place. Fifteen days earlier, rooms in three houses with windows overlooking the cemetery had been rented, and three photographers were on location forry-eight hours before the announcement came that photographs of the burial itself were forbidden. (Life did not publish these photographs.) Motorcyclists carried the films to the airpon, where the specially rented airplane was waiting. Its interior had been transformed into an editing room with typewriters and tables. A comfortable laboratory was installed in the front of the plane, and hooked up to a special electrical system. A very large table had also been set up to display the photographs for page layout, and light boxes were ready for examining the developed color slides. Finally, there was a small reference library for correspondents, containing the ten volumes of Churchill's works. The airplane left New York the day before the ftmeral with 40 members of the editorial staff on board, among them the six specialists who would develop the 70 rolls of color film. It took the airplane slightly more than eight hours to cross the 8,500 miles between London and Chicago, where the Life printing plant was located. Selected documents, page layouts, and the accompanying detailed captions were prepared during the trip. In order to avoid the winds that could have caused a delay, the airplane headed north and flew just below the Arctic Circle. Page after page was prepared. When Lake Michigan, with Chicago on its banks, appeared, the work was finished.l34 American Mass Media Magazines IS I

160 THE PROCESSION MARCHES THROUGH HISTORY HE HAD MADE H by ALAN MOOREHEAO

161 THEN TO BLADON

162 The coverage cost about $250,000. 'Our readers are first to benefit,' wrote the publisher. 'The story has shown that all the parts of the chain linking the event to the reader held up. We have scored a point against television.' Competition with television was already beginning to haunt Life's publishers at the beginning of Several years later, it had become a serious problem, forcing them to reduce their staff considerably. In the hope of making the magazine profitable once again they experimented with various changes. More emphasis was placed on the text, for example. PhotogIaphic stories designed for twelve-page coverage were cut in half. On one occasion Life even strayed from its customary moral code by publishing reports on the Mafia and corruption, in order 'to please young readers.' But most readers protested vigorously, and this kind of yellow journalism was abandoned. The crisis seems incomprehensible in view of Life's extraordinary success with the public. At its peak, there were close to 8.6 million subscribers, a number never achieved by any other illustrated magazine. Too many subscribers, however, are not an asset, especially in inflationary times. Postal expenses increased 170 percent in five years, while advertising contracts, negotiated for relatively long periods of time and providing sustained revenues, were frozen. Advertisers, moreover, had lost confidence. In 1966, Life had sold 3,300 pages of advertising for close to 170 million dollars. Two years later it sold only 2,761 pages for about $ 1 54 million, reflecting a loss of sixteen percent. In 1969, the deficit glew to $10 ntillion, and losses conrinued in the following years.ils On 3I October 1970, the New York Times reported that Time, Inc. had sold eleven local radio and television stations for $80.1 ntillion. The report pointed out that the sellers, surprisingly enougii, were getting rid of profitable businesses to keep others, like Life, that were losing money Photography & Society

163 The managers of TIme, Inc. had not lost hope that the magazine would once again show a profit.136 In 1970 a four-color full-page ad in Life cost $64,000 and reached a readership of 40 million. For the same amount of money, an advertiser could buy one minute of television time on one of the most popular programs, for example Laugh-In, reaching 50 million viewers. On 9 December 1972, a front-page headline in the International Herald Tribune read, 'Life magazine dead at 36.' TIme Inc. had finally decided to terminate publication, much to the surprise of the enrire world press. Every newspaper, television, and radio station reported the end of the most important illustrated weekly. The last issue came out on 28 December The death of Life signaled the end of a whole period of photojournalism. At the New York Stock Exchange, the sudden rise of TIme Inc. stock indicated that the large American publishing conglomerate had regained the confidence of investors by ridding itself of Life's deficits. Since its beginnings in the 1940s, television had made immense progress, becoming a formidable rival to magazines. In 1949, there were 69 stations in America; by 1970, more than 800. The French newspaper Le Monde recently published statistics indicating that every Frenchman between the ages of two and sixty-five will spend eigiit years of his life in front of a television set. The image on the small screen, however fleeting, does communicate the news, often at the very moment that events occur. Life, on the other hand, appeared ouly once a week, filling out news and political events already known to millions of television viewers. The only magazines unaffected by this crisis were the higiily specialized ones like those financed by drug companies and read by doctors. Women's magazines, pornography, and magazines catering to regional interests are among the few independent magazines that can hold their readerships today. Specialized magazines which provide depth coverage suffered American Mass Media Magazines 155

164 ,1 less competition from television. The lime Inc. managers accordingly decided to consider several possible magazines specializing in the areas of health, vacations, food, film, money, and children. The first of these magazines, Money, appeared in October In April 1972, when the managers of lime Inc., Hedley Donovan and Andrew Heiskell, announced the new monthly magazine to the press, they pointed out that most people did not know how to manage their finances. In his statement to the stockholders, Donovan declared that 'Money will not make you rich, no magazine of conscience can promise that. But a reading of successive issues should help the reader to gain a greater measure of control over his personal finances.... Money will begin with a minimum national circulation of 225,000 copies, mostly in prepaid subscriptions...' 1 37 Using the same format as Time, Money appeared containing 104 pages, 48 of which were devoted to advertising. Readers in the United States had been accustomed to low prices for magazines. 'Departing from traditional consumer magazine economics, we are asking our readers to pay a substantial share of the magazine's costs,' the stockholders were told. They hoped this would allow them a cenain financial independence from advertising. In the early seventies, inflation began to reach Europe, where illustrated magazines were hit hard for the same reasons as those in America. In Europe, too, television had become a threat despite the restrictions on TV advertising in France and in other countries where television is a nationalized industry. In 1956 Paris-Match, the largest French illustrated magazine, was printing 1.8 million copies. In 1967, its circulation had dropped to 1,382.,000, and in April 1972, its printing was no more than 810, For many years, Paris-Match, Le Figaro, Tel" Sept Jours, Marie-Claire, Parents, and radio Luxembourg all belonged to the textile magnate Jean Prouvost. He sug- 156 Photography & Society

165 gested a change in formula to help save Paris-Match, whose goal had always been to imitate Life. During this crisis Prouvost turned once again to America, and invited the graphic designer of the immensely successful New York Magazine (founded in 1968) to come to his aid. The size of Paris-Match was slightly reduced; photographs now filled no more than 50 percent of the magazine, and the text was expanded to include new sections written expressly for the French. Articles were written on technical and scientific innovations that would affect French life. The pages devoted to Patis gossip were also increased. Paris-Match began to cover such sensational stories as the scandal involving the publication of nude photographs of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, or the history of Playboy. Its price was raised but according to the editors, the sale of these first revamped issues also increased. The former Life team, however, was skeptical. They, too, had tried in vain to save their magazine by introducing new formats. The success of an illustrated magazine remained problematic because the public had lost interest not only in this kind of magazine but in the press in general. As the pace of life quickens, the time for reading diminishes. According to official statistics, 85 percent of the French population keeps up with the news through government radio and television broadcasts, or through radio programming from ouwde France, which is also regulated by the governmendlhe mass media, while claiming to be objective, in reality are managed by people who are constantly censored or forced to censor themselves. News broadcasts on national television or radio networks are bound to manipulate public opinion in the name of those in power. J The professional photojournalist was deeply affected by the changes in the illustrated press. In order to remain in the field, the photojournalist had to find other markets. Some of the photographers who had worked for the large American magazines were able to find work with trade American Mass Media Magazines 157

166 ,I journals published by industrial giants. Corporate pub lications had previously been rather tiresome reports mainly filled with figures, but in recent years their makeup and contents had been changing radically. Today they are interesting magazines produced with considerable care and expense, carrying articles by well-known writers and journalists. Photographic coverage is assigned to important and well-paid photographers. Most of these publications are given away upon request, while others are house organs especially written for thousands of compa ny employees. The goal of these magazines, to publicize the company's products, is often disguised in articles and photostories that appear to have no direct relationship to the company. mm, for instance, is never mentioned in its magazine Think. In Europe, many similar magazines are published by large concerns-/' Electricite de France, Credit Foncier, or those published by the drug industry. Other photographers have been recycled into jobs with publishing houses that need photographs to illustrate their books. A few photographers have turned to television and specialize in documentaries, but selling these films is difficult unless they deal with exceptionally up-todate subjects. A new market for photographic archives has been created by the numerous encyclopedias that have been published all over the world in the last few years. Their publishers had the clever idea of selling encyclopedias in weekly installments at newsstands, at the same price as weekly magazines. At the end of the year, the publisher provides a binding for the volumes. These encyclopedias are highly marketable because they offer quantities of color photographs at a reasonable price. (International co-publication considerably reduces production costs.) The text is written in a pseudoscientific style, easily understood by everyone. These encyclopedias are successful primarily because they manage to give the reader the impression that he is achieving a better 158 Photogmphy & Society

167 understanding of our world and the increasingly complex technological environment in which we live. In the last few years, astute social observers have noticed a change that seems promising for the photojournals, assuming that television was one of the essential elements in the death of Life magazine in While it seems probable that many mothers use TV as a babysitter, and that it has become a daily companion for the older generation, the generation in between may be turning its back on the tube. A young man who works for the post office in France bitterly complained, 'I grew up in a small village where people gathered every night to sing or tell stories. Now every family is closed off in its house, watching TV. My generation sees this as the destruction of human relations.' The trend can be seen not only in France, but in other countries as well, the u.s. included. Marketing analyses have found that although people can get quick information from television, they want not only more time to look at images, but want to keep them as well. Another factor in this evolution is the tremendous interest in photography as an art. For these reasons among others, the publishers of Life have reissued the magazine as of October They have raised its price considerably to avoid complete de pendence upon the advertisers who previously abandoned the magazine for television, and they will publish it monthly; but television is no longer the overwhelming competitor of the illustrated magazine. American Mass Media Magazines 159

168 ADOLF- DER OBERMENSCH.1 SCHLUCKT GOLD UNO REDET BLECH

169 Photography as a Political Tool Photography in its many forms proved to be viable political tools, not only to propagandize but also to express public outrage, encourage national confidence, and ridicule public figures. John Heartfield's photomontage left little to the imagination in his portrayal of Hitler's biological needs. However, contrivances were not always necessary to make a comment-simple photographs taken out of context or positioned in a calculated way could likewise affect the enormous magazinereading audiences. The current demand for press photographs has led freelance photographers to join photographic agencies that serve as intermediaries between the photographer and the press. One of the first such agencies was set up in America by George Grantham Bain ( ). Bain began as a magazine writer who also photographed his own stories. He soon realized that publishers almost always held onto his prints, but discarded his articles when they received others on the same subject. At the time sending photographs alone to the press was still an unknown service. Sensing the business potential, Bain founded several agencies in 1898, including the Montauk Photo Concern. He hired professional photographers, among them, Frances Benjamin Johnston ( ), one of America's first female photographers to make a name for herself. She was the only woman delegate at the Third International Photographic Convention in Paris in With Alfred Stieglitz, she represented America.'39 The ever-increasing demand for photographs led to a proliferation of press agencies all over the world. They hired photographers or signed contracts with free-lance photographers. Most agencies took a 50 percent cut, sometimes more, claiming that they had to share their profits with other agencies around the world. The photographer, who had taken all the material risks, had no way of controlling the sale of his photographs. It was for this reason that Robert Capa and a few colleagues founded the Maguum Agency in 1947.

170 For the photographers of the Magnum Agency, to which I also belonged between I947 and I954, photography was not only a way of making money but a means of expressing their own feelings and ideas about contemporary problems. Capa, for example, refused publication of an important photostory entitled World Youth, which had been the result of an expensive Magnum effort on a worldwide scale. The publisher who originally accepted the idea wanted to impose changes that would have altered the spirit of the article. It was finally published six months later in Holiday, which agreed to reproduce it exactly as it had been conceived. Few photojournalists, however, are able to impose their own points of view. It takes very lirtle on the part of an editor to give photographs a meaning diametrically opposed to the photographer's intention. I experienced this problem from the outset of my career. Before the Second World War, share trading at the Paris Stock Exchange still took place outdoors, under the arcades. One day I took a series of photographs there, using a certain stockbroker as my principal target. Sometimes smiling, sometimes distressed, he was always mopping the sweat from his round face and urging the crowd with sweeping gestures. I sent these photographs to several European magazines with the harmless title, 'Snapshots ofthe Paris Stock Exchange.' Sometime later, I received clippings from a Belgian newspaper which, to my surprise, had printed my photographs with a headline reading: 'Rise in the Paris Stock Exchange: stocks reach fabulous prices.' Thanks to some clever captions, my innocent little story took on the air of a financial event. My astonishment bordered on shock when I discovered the same photographs sometime later in a German newspaper with yet another caption: 'Panic at the Paris Stock Exchange: fortunes collapse, thousands are tuined.' My photographs illustrated perfectly the stockbroker's despair and the speculator's panic as stock value dropped. I62 Photography & Society

171 The two publications had used my photographs in opposite ways, each according to its own purpose. The objectivity of a photograph is only an illusion. The captions that provide the commentary can change the meaning entirely. 140 In December 1956, under the headline 'Information or Propaganda?' the weekly I'Express published a double series of identical photographs taken during the Hungarian rebellion. The pictures are identical, but their order had been changed and the captions had been modified by the editor. The idea was to show how various government-run television stations could have used the same pictures to give absolutely contradictory but apparently truthful versions of the same eveut. For example: Under a photograph showing a Russian tank in a street: First caption: 'In contempt of the people's right to selfdetermination, the Soviet government has sent armored divisions to Budapest to suppress the uprising.' Second caption: 'The Hungarian people have asked the Soviets for help. Russian tanks have been sent to protect the workers and to restore order.' Under a photograph of Janos Kadar: First caption: 'Under the protection of Soviet tanks, the Stalinist Janos Kadar has formed a new government and established a reign of police terror.' Second caption: 'Thanks to the drastic measures taken by the new government, formed by Janos Kadar and unanimously supported by the populace, the rebellion has been put down.' Under a photograph of two young Hungarians: First caption: 'Despite the bloody repression by Soviet troops, Hungarian youth continues to fight, shouting, "Death rather than slavery.'" U Photography as a Political Tool 163

172 Second caption: 'Despite government appeals, fanatic counterrevolutionaries have refused to lay down their arms and have continued their hopeless struggle.' In September 1967, during the Biafran War, the West German magazine Stern published an investigative piece entitled 'The Mercenaries and Their Paradise.' The artide was illustrated with photographs taken mostly in the Bukavu region by the photographer Paul Ribeau. A week later, the Paris-based magazine Jeune Afrique reproduced excerpts from this artide along with one of the photographs showing the tortured bodies of two Mricans hanging by their arms from a tree. Within the week, the same photographs had dunged captions. The Ger man readers had read: 'Soldiers of the Congolese Na tional Army took these Katanga policemen prisoner and hung them from trees, leaving them to starve to death. Schramme's white mercenaries saved their lives.' Readers of Jeune Afrique, a weekly with a considerable Mrican readership, read the caption: 'Soldiers of the Congolese National Army, prisoners of the mercenaries.' On 4 October 1967, Le Monde published a letter to the editor signed by Paul Ribeau entitled: 'The Truth about a Controversial Photograph': The men hanging from the tree are neither Congolese soldiers nor Katanga policemen. As the photograph clearly shows, one of the two is in civilian clothes-light pants and a dark shin. In this country where mercenaries, Katanga policemen, and Mobutu's policemen 3re au sensitive to the prestige of the uni onn, fighters do not wear civilian clothes. In fact the two men were civilians who had committed the crime of working as servants to the mercenaries. They had heen captured by the Congolese National Anny who treated them as traitors, tortured them and hung them still alive from the branches of a palm tree. They were freed by mercenaries who had unexpectedly returned to the area. I should add that it is extremely rare for the Congolese National Anny to be satisfied with simply torturing its enemies. Torture usually >, I 164 Photography & Society I I.

173 precedes the cutting up of the parts of the body with a machette which, in rum. is sometimes followed by a cannibal festival. While this is not frequent, human bones have been found near Bukavu, right next to a wood fire. I have photographs showing what remains of men, women, and children executed by the Congolese National Anny. Unfortunately, human life is cheap in the Congo today. I would like to point out that I am not the author of the captions attached to my photographic essays as they recently appeared in various French, English, American, German, and Italian publications. I was surprised to read in Jeune Afrique the essay from the Gennan magazine Stern... Calculated juxtaposition is another way of changing the meaning of photographs. In 1936, Life published a photostory I had done on the distressed areas of England. These highly industrialized regions had been the centers of prosperous industries during the last century, but they were hard hit by World War I and the great economic crisis that followed. Most of these industries dated from the nineteenth century and used antiquated methods. They were unable to meet competition from modem factories, and found it more expedient to abandon rather than to modernize the old factories. The owners left the region but the population remained to suffer. In 1936, there were more than two million unemployed in England. When I arrived in Newcastle-upon-T yne, the entire ciry was unemployed. The naval shipyanls, with their buildings almost in ruins, looked as thouglt they had gone througlt a war. Among the tangled and rusry rails, rank weeds and a few flowers were growing wild. I felt as if I were visiring a cemetery. I took photographs of miserable men in rags, weakened and reduced to inactiviry for years, who lived on subsidies which barely kept them and their families from starving to death. At Witton Park, in Bishop Auckland's diocese, I photographed families with more than eigltt people living in one room. The women Photography as a Political Tool 165

174 with ravaged faces did not have the money to pay their rent or feed their families. 'What will become of our children?' they kept asking me in despair. During the same period the Simpson scandal broke out. King Edward was in love with an American divorcee. All the newspapers raged against him. English morality, still imbued with strict Victorian standards, could not accept Mrs. Simpson as queen. America was deeply offended by British public opinion. Life published my photographs under the innocuous heading: 'This Is What Englishmen Mean by the Depressed Areas.' Right next to my pictures of povertystricken people they had inserted a full-page photograph of Queen Maty in a lace dress and covered with jewels. With a four-strand pearl choker around her neck, she was holding one of her grandsons on her lap and was flanked by the two princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, who were entrancing in their immaculate dresses. The brutal contrast made any caption pointless. Mrs. Simpson was avenged in the eyes of liberal America. Here is another example which shows how a photostory can be subtly turned into advertising. In Canada, military service is not obligatory. To encourage young men and women to enlist, the Canadian army launched a sizable billboard advertising campaign during the 1950S. Its goal was to identify military service with tourism: 'Enlist and See the World.' Weekend Magazine, a Sunday supplement for a chain of Canadian newspapers with a circulation in the millions, rushed one of its best journalists to Europe to write the article. I was assigned to take the photographs. As soon as we arrived at Zweibrucken, Gertnany, where the Royal Canadian Air Force base was located, the journalist advised me to concentrate on the young women's barracks. 'Study them carefully and choose the one who best represents the ideal young Canadian woman: a typical girl parents can recognize as their own daughter, and brothers as their sister.' A case study in calrulated juxtaposition of photographs: Life's coverage of the depressed areas of England shared the same pagespread as the bejeweled Queen Mother in an article which was originally intended to document the economic crisis suffered by post-war Britain but which ultimately served to criticize the British for their failure to accept an American divorcee as their queen (photographs by Gisele Freund). l! Photography & Society "

175 --"'--. lie IIrI6SII lids -----_... - ".111"".w_ Photography as a Political Tool 167

176 The young woman who seemed to fit these requirements best was named Sonia Nichols. She was unassuming, smiling, photogenic. She had blond hair and blue eyes and she became the heroine of the article which appeared several weeks later under the title 'Airwomen Overseas.' The story told how twenty-year-old Sonia, born in Berwick, Novia Scotia, had never had the opportunity to leave her native town before joining the R.C.A.F. Since joining the army, she had seen a good part of her own country and had traveled through Germany, Paris, and Switzerland. Before the end of her tour of duty, she would undoubtedly visit Italy and Scandinavia. At the base, she learned foreign languages, mingled with the local people, went with friends to see the countryside and other points of interest. She participated in sports in an ultramodern gymnasium and swam in a beautiful pool. Sonia's life had become altogether exciting and full of experiences that she would never have otherwise had. My photographs, which took up several pages of the text, showed Sonia holding the baby of her new German friends, swimming in a pool, playing basketball, walking in the country, and studying peasant life. All these photographs were in black and white, except for one of Sonia talking with a young soldier. The caption read simply: 'With A.C.I. Peter Colliver, Streetville, Ontario, who is pulling a Saber Jet onto the runway.' The photograph clearly suggested the possibility of meeting other young people in the army and prompted all sorts of sentimental daydreaming. Judging from my photographs, taken according to the directions of the Canadian journalist, life in the army was a real picnic. I had not neglected to photograph Sonia at her secretary's desk, but the publisher had left out those pictures. The full-color cover photograph showed a smiling Sonia in uniform saluting against a blue sky. Sonia became the celebrity of the week in Canada. She received numerous letters, including several marriage proposals. Canadian army enlistments in- Another means of. manipulation: the eclectic choice of photographs to illustrate an event. 'The camera angle detennines whether a person appears likeable. repulsive, or ridiculous,' as Duncan's critic demonstrated in his choice of Nixon ii1ustrarions.,,,i!.' 168 Photography & Society

177 creased. This photostory was what Daniel J. Boorstin would call a pseudo-event, and Sonia was a pseudocelebriry entirely fabricated for a particular cause. tot A political figure can easily be ridiculed by an unattractive photograph. The most intelligent man can appear idiotic if he is photographed with his mouth wide open or with his eyes squinting. Here is just one example among thousands: In October 1969, the New York Times Book Review published a long article on David Douglas Duncan's Selfportrait U.S.A., a book containing more than three hundred photographs taken during the 1968 Republican and Democratic Conventions. The review was illustrated with four of the book's least flattering photographs of Richard M. Nixon, the Republican Party candidate. Taken out of context, these images made Nixon appear stupid and unattractive. The critic's commentary was as follows: 'There are perhaps a dozen Richard Nixons here who to the best of my knowledge have never been encountered before. (It's a small world and an improbable one: Navy Lieutenant Nixon and Marine Lieutenant Duncan met in the Solomon Islands a few wars back and became fast friends. Thus it came to pass that Duncan, and Duncan alone, was given the run of the Nixon penthouse at Miami Beach. Historians may learn as much by consulting these Nixon pictures as by studying tons of correspondence: 142 What the reviewer failed to mention was that the four photographs printed with his article were counterbalanced in the book by other flattering photographs of Nixon. The camera angle determines whether a person appears likable, repulsive, or ridiculous. A photograph of General de Gaulle, for example, taken from above, lengthens his nose, but taken from below, his chin is enlarged and his forehead broadened. The use of the photographic image thus becomes an ethical problem because it can be used deliberately to falsify. In June 1966, Paris-Match, with a circulation of more Photography as a Political Tool 169

178 than 1.2 million copies, published an eight-page article called 'With the Nazis in 1966.' Everyone at the time expected that the extreme rightist German National Democratic Parry would do very well in the provincial elections scheduled to take place a month later. Twenry years had passed since World War II, but the French, still traumatized by the Nazi atrocities, felt threatened by the parry that played on nostalgia for the Third Reich. As the subject was very topical, the Paris-Match edirors considered the story important enough to feature on the cover. The picture story began with a full-page color photograph of a young man wearing a swastika armband around his white shirt, who was raising a toast to three other young men. An immense Nazi flag hung on the wall in the background. The caption read, 'German Nazis with Third Reich relics, drinking beer and singing Horst Wessel Lied in chorus.' Pictures of Bavarian villagers and their mayor followed; captions explained that they were former Nazis, although nothing in the photographs suggested it. The story ended with some photographs of the new parry's founder and a sensational two-page spread in black and white showing young men in SS uniform. The caption read: 'At the home of Peter Breuer, a citizen of Munich, who owns a collection of 400 SS and SA uniforms. A great enthusiast of the Third Reich, he salutes the bust of Hitler.' A few days later, the English Daily Express (more than 4 million copies) printed the first of these sensational photographs, and in the U.S.S.R. the same photograph was shown on television, reaching IOO million viewers. But the photographs were frauds. One of the Paris Match editors had rented costumes from a dealer by the name of Breuer and had convinced some young Germans to pose as a joke. The group of men raising their beer glasses were firemen from a Bavarian village who had 170 Photography & Society

179 been given a barrel of beer by the French editor and told to drink to Franco-German friendship. The German government protested through its press, publishing many articles denouncing the hoax in detail. But Paris-Match never retracted the article, and millions of French, English, and Russians who had seen these photographs be lieved them to be genuine. In the summer of 1975, another affair took place which also caused a stir. During a strike at the Chausson factory in Paris, several French newspapers published front-page photographs of men leading dogs with the caption 'Policemen inside a factory with dogs trained to attack the strikers.' Later it was learned that the photographs were taken at the guard's entrance to the Paris Fair. The meaning of a photograph can also be distorted by using a paintbrush or a pair of scissors. A few examples of falsification through retouching and cropping were published in the magazine Photo in June In one photograph, Alexander Dubcek, who had fallen into disfavor following Czech 'normalization,' had been removed from the otiginal negative so that he was no longer shown beside President Svoboda receiving the salutes of the crowd. Only the flagstones, which did not fit together properly, and the different position of a building bore witness to the deception. With drawings, the magazine showed how the photograph had been faked. During the two world wars, both the German press and the Allied press were filled with doctored photographs. As a rule, only carefully chosen, encouraging photographs were published. The censors on both sides suppressed photographs showing anything that might hurt the war effort, such as camouflaged factories, fortifications, artillery sites. They also avoided showing photographs of the destruction and suffering caused by their own armies in enemy countries. John Morris, a Life pho- Photography as a Political Tool 171

180 tographic editor in London during the last war, wrote in an article published in Harper's Magazine in September 1972: The faces of the severely wounded and the dead were taboo. so the 'next of kin' would not be offended... Finally, and this is crucial to an understanding of the fonnulation of public opinion at long range, the photographer did not show his side being ghastly. I recall the candor of the British censor through whom I attempted to pass some pictures of the charnel of air-raid victims in Berlin. 'Very interesting,' he said. 'You may have them ilier the war.' The statement did not reflect the censor's personal feelings, but it was part of a carefully planned effort to prevent the publication of photographs capable of awakening the public's conscience and making the war unpopular. The indoctrination of the photographers themselves was so great that, convinced they were fighting for a just cause, they censored themselves and did not photograph scenes that appeared unfavorable to the countries they represented: 'The standard operating procedure established during WWII was to show our side fighting cleanly-bombs away in the brilliant sunshine of daring daylight raids. We could show a certain amount of suffering from their wanton attacks, but never so much as to lead to despair. 'Photographically, their side lived by similar rules. You will never find a picrure of Hitler inspecting die gas ovens of a concentration camp. And the Japanese were not shown picrures of die men diey maimed at Pearl Harbor; diey saw die spectacle of their victory from die air. Just as we gave our people the beautiful mushroom cloud over Hiroshima.'143 This state of mind changes only when a war becomes openly unpopular. John Morris asserts that the change was first noticeable toward the end of the war in Korea where photographers witnessed a double tragedy: the 172 Photography & Society

181 As photography began to exhibit its potential to reveal more and more, it was manipulated to show less and less. War-time photography is a perfecr example: pictures of cheering crowds, such as Werner Bischofs Children of Hiroshima Cheering their Sovereign (1951), were used to boost national confidence at a time when suffering at home threatened the nation's morale. first was that of American GIs who had to fight in a war they did not understand; the second that of a people tom asunder by war in their homeland.144 The conflict reached its height with the Viemam War, which caused such serious divisions in American public opinion. The photographic press and television played an important role in awakening the public conscience, but only to a certain extent. There is no official censorship in the United States; but during the two world wars photographers censored themselves because they believed it was necessary to support the cause. As years went by, however, and as the destruction in Vietnam by American bombers became so horrifying, press photographers on locarion were overwhelmed. Non-American photographers, who had even less reason to believe in the war, were the first to denounce it. Their heartbreaking photographs showing the misery of the civilian population and the suffering of the GIs awakened the American conscience to the arrociry of the war. Photography as a Political Tool 173

182

183 Photography and the Law The history of Robert Doisneau's controversial photograph demonstrates the problems of a photograph's captions and context. Described by a number of different (and usually inaccurate) captions, a photo could be used contrary to the photographer's intentions and the subject's wishes. This phorograph was used to portray intemperance in one case, prostitution in another-the court held both the magazine and Doisneau's agent responsible for the photograph's abuse; Doisneau was ex Olsed as an 'innocent artist.' In addition to the continual problem of finding work, press photographers are perpetually forced to defend their rights. Reproduction rights to a photograph are protected by law, but these rights vary from country to country and there is no international copyright law that offers automatic protection all over the world. The International Copyright Convention, to which sixty-two countries have subscribed since 1971 (the Soviet Union since February 1973), does not attempt to rule on the basic rights of photographers. It simply guarantees a photographer's rights in accordance with the laws of the country where his picture is published. In France, the law of II March 1957 includes photographs among creative works and protects them for fifty years after the photographer's death. This copyright term was later extended by eight years (the duration ofthe two Qrld wars). In America, photographers cannot claim exclusive n ts to their photographs unless each print carries the copyright notice: followed by the name of the author and the year the picture was takeh)until recently, the copyright term was twenty-eight years, beginning with publication and renewable by the author or his heirs for an additional twenty-eight. In September 1976, a new law was passed. Copyright protection for those works created after 1 January 1978 would cover the lifetime of the creator plus fifty years. For works published before that date, the original renewable period was increased from twenty-eight to forry-seven years. 175

184 In West Germany the law is different. A photograph, whether published or not, is automatically protected from the moment it was taken for a period of twenty-five years, after which time it falls into the public domain. If it is published at any time during this twenty-five-year period it is protected for another twenty-five years from the date of publication. In Russia, the decree of 21 Februaty 1973 guarantees the author's rights throughout his lifetime and for twenty five years after his death. However, government legislation in any of the federal republics can shorten the dura tion of the author's rights to photographic works to ten years from the date of publication if a photograph is considered publicly useful or culturally interesting. In other words, ten years after the first publication, photographs can be used without any payment to the author. The present situation is chaotic. Even in countries where the photographer's rights are clearly defined by law, these rights are continually ignored. In France, for example, photographs are protected by law against all reproduction defects or abuses such as unauthorized duplication or resale. In addition, the law expressly provides in Article 6 that the author shall enjoy the right to demand the use of his name. But many newspapers systematically fail to print names along with photographs not taken by 'house photographers.' Some offer double pay for unsigned photographs, which can be reused easily. It is not vanity, however, that leads a photographer to insist that his name be mentioned. The omission opens the door to all sorts of copyright infringements production techniques today have become so sophisncated that copies can be made of anything. When the photographer's name is omitted, the users of the photograph feel no obligation to pay for the author's rights despite the fact that the free-lance photographer's chief source of revenue is the sale of reproduction rights of his pictures:-' Many good journalists, publishers, 1iiid advertising t i 176 Photography & Society

185 people consider the photographer's contribution to their publication negligible in spite of the growing use of photography to attract the public. The publishers' contempt for photography can be explained psychologically. Photographs have lost their prestige as countless amateurs have begun to snap shutters daily, even though in most cases there is an enormous difference in quality between amateur and professional photography. Judicial interpretations of the copyright laws have caused further problems. For example, the question has arisen as to whether the photographic reproduction of a painting is a creative work. In one case, a photographer published a reproduction of a masterwork with the permission of the owner, who had bought it at auction. The reproduction rights were paid to the photographer, but the painter's heirs objected on the grounds that they alone had the rights to the photograph, even though the picture itself no longer belonged to them. The court decided in their favor, drawing a distinction between reproduction rights and reproduction costs. r A further problem: certain agencies sell photographs u';iaer their own name and collect royalties, although the photographs may have fallen into the public domain many years before. Under the law, the agencies in this case have rights only to the reproduction costs and an additional profit margin. As long as publishers, iguorant of the law, agree to pay royalties for photographs in the public domain, unscrupulous agencies will profit from them.., MallY legal charges have been brought by those who have been photographed unawares in the streets or- in such public places as restaurants or theaters. The law indeed protects one's right to privacy, but in France public figures, including statesmen and well-known artists, cannot refuse to have their pictures published. Who, then, is to decide on the importance of a person? Obviously the judge must give his own interpretation of the Photography and.he Law 177

186 law. The photojournalist's work is singularly complicated by these difficult legal problems. The photographer Robert Doisneau saw one of his photographs used in a different context from his intention. For him, Parisians had always been the most fascinating of subjects. He loved to wander the streets and stop at cafes. One day, in a small cafe on the rue de Seine where he was accustomed to meeting his friends, he noticed a delightful young woman at the bar drinking a glass of wine. She was seated next to a middle-aged gentleman who was looking at her with a smile that was both amused and greedy. Doisneau asked and received permission to photograph them. The photograph appeared in the magazine Ie Point, in an issue devoted to cafes illustrated with Doisneau's photographs." 5 He handed this photograph, among others, to his agency. All sorts of publications call on agencies when they need pictures to illustrate an article. Sometime later, Doisneau's photograph appeared in a small magazine published by the temperance league to illustrate an article on the evils of alcohol. The gentleman in the photograph, who was a drawing instructor, was not pleased. 'I shall be taken for a boozer; he complained to the apologetic photographer who had no control over how his photographs were used. Things went from bad to worse when the same photograph appeared in a scandal sheet which had reproduced it from Ie Point without the permission of either the agency or the photographer. The caption accompanying the photograph read: 'Prostitution in the Champs-Elysees.' This time the drawing teacher was furious and sued the magazine, the agency, and the photographer. The court fined the scandal magazine a large sum of money for fraud, and the agency, which had not released the photograph, was also found guilty. But the court acquitted the photographer, ruling that he was an 'innocent artist. The stoty has an epilogue. A well-meaning journalist 178 Photography & Society

187 who was the Paris correspondent for a newspaper in the south of France published an article recounting the story. He vehemendy accused the photographer of hiding behind curtains to take scandalous shots." Doisneau does not work this way, but the paparazzi do. Numerous errors are made daily by the press and publishing houses when they choose photographs for stories they were never intended to illustrate. A German publisher once asked me for a color photograph of an Indian for the cover of one of his books, without specifying the rype of Indian. I sent him a picture of a very beautiful Mexican woman. Imagine my astonishment at later seeing this photograph on the cover of a book on India, although I had clearly indicated to the publisher that she was a native Mexican. The following are just a few examples of the many suits between photographers and publishers: A large color photograph of General de Gaulle, published in Paris-Match, had been copied by a designer, reproduced as gold souvenirs and sold in large numbers. The designer admitted to copying, and a penalty was amicably paid to the photographer. Recently, a photographer saw a television program on a children's book, the first page of which carried a painting made from a photograph he had taken. Authorization was required from the photographer for both the painting and its copies. This affair, too, was amicably settled. An influential weekly once purposely neglected to print the name of the photographer under his picture illustrating an important article. On 7 April 1967, a small claims court in Paris found against the weekly and ruled that placing the name of the photographer among the names of other photographers and agencies at the end of the article did not constitute proper identification of the photographer for each picture. A famous producer bad used some photoreporters' prints in one of his films without their permission and without men- Photography and the Law 179

188 tioning the photographets' names. In a judgment tendered on 13 December 1968, the court ordered the producer to pay a large sum of money in damages and interest. The ruling pointed out that photographets, like authots, had the right to recognition for their work, and that their names had to either appear on the photograph or be listed in the credits. In another case, the court ruled that the use of aerial photographs as posters without mentioning the source or the name of the photographer was an attack on the integrity of his work and the respect due his name. A photographer filed a complaint against a newspaper that used his photographs without his name and resold them to other publications without authorization and without mention of his name. In a decision on 17 May 1969, a Paris court fined the newspaper, ruling that the newspaper had infringed not only upon the photographer's financial rights, but also upon his moral rights, making it difficult for him to require that his name be mentioned on other reproductions of his photographs. In all these cases, the court decided in favor of the photographers; hut there are countless cases of fraudulent reproduction that are never spotted and never tried. The photojournalist must continually be on the alert in order to prevent infringements of his rights., 180 Photography & Society

189 The Scandal-Mongering Press The growing popularity of scandal magazines in Italy during the fifties led to a new breed of photographers called the paparazzi. Fellini showed them at work in La Dolce Vita, which criticized an idle and degenerate segment of Roman society. To pry into people's private lives, the paparazzi use telephoto lenses, which were perfected during the last war to spy on the enemy. The German army used the telephoto lens to film the English coast. Further improvements were made through space science. Scandal sheets exist in all capitalist countries. They are known as the 'rainbow press' in Germany, where they are all the rage. In socialist countries, these magazines are considered immoral and cannot be published. France Dimancbe, lei-paris, or Noir et Blanc are a few of the French scandal sheers that carry love stories and gossip. Photographs are essential for documentation, and such magazines pay dearly for them. The subjects of most of these articles are members of the jet set: movie actresses such as Liz Taylor, Brigitte Bardot, and Zsa Zsa Gabor; playboys; rich businessmen; and even princesses and queens such as Soraya, Margaret, Farah Dibh, or Prince Rainier's wife, Grace Kelly. The paparazzi plant themselves in front of the stars' homes day and night, and near the hotels and fashionable night clubs where they have the best chance of surprising their victims. These periodicals feed millions of readers, mostly women, with stories about the love affairs and intimate lives of famous and rich people, allowing them to dream of escaping the 181

190 mediocrity of their own evetyday existence. Scandal sheets also serve as an outlet for the reader's frustration with life's problems and her envy of those with better luck, for while readers want to daydream about the lives of celebrities, they also want to be privy to every bit of j,otographers who specialize in this kind of reporting kfen take their photographs with the consent of their subjects. When a photographer is well known in this set, he is often apprised of an event, a meeting, or the appearance of a celebrity in a particui r lace by the persons themselves or by their press agen trial are rare. The actor Samy Frey, Suits leading to e then husband of Brigitte Bardot, sued lei-paris for libel as the result of a series of articles and photographs that had been taken against his will. The article accused him of 'destroying' Bardot.'47 In 1971, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis pressed charges against the photographer Ronald E. Galella. He was forced to appear in court, where she hoped to put an end to the pursuit to which she and her children were continually subjected. In a deposition given to the judge, John F. Kennedy, Jr., then eleven years of age, declared that Galella 'dashed at me, jumped in my path, discharged flashbulbs in my face.' Caroline, then fourteen years old, claimed that 'I do not feel safe when he is near.' Galella, for his part, sued Jackie Kennedy and her three secret service agents for $ I. 3 million for preventing him from making a living. 'I don't want to bother them; he told the judge. 'I try to photograph celebrities as they are-in spontaneous unrehearsed moods. This is what I call my paparazzi approach.' 148 The judge decided that in the future Galella had to stay more than 150 feet from Mrs. Onassis and her children. In 1972, Jackie Kennedy Onassis was once more a victim of the paparazzi. P/aymen, an Italian erotic magazine, ran fourteen nude photographs of her in one issue that sold 750,000 copies in twenty-four hours. Despite all 182 Photography & Society

191 the precautions taken to prevent the paparazzi from approaching Scorpios-an enormous island where the Onassises lived protected by armed guards and a flotilla of motorboats-photographers in skin-diving outfits, using telephoto lenses, had succeeded in surprising Jackie sunbathing in the nude. 'What a beautiful body! What a pretty woman,' exclaimed Madame Tattilo, the editor of Playmen, after she had decided to print the pictures. Jackie did not even make an attempt to sue this time. The photographs were eventually printed in scandal magazines au over the world (except in Playboy, which refused them!). Even magazines like Paris-Match, which do not consider themselves scandal sheets, profited from the occasion. Magazines today are fiued with pretty nude young women, but to find the former wife of the tragically slain American president among them was enough to shock many and cause a scandal. Under the guise of naturisme, a nudist health move ment, all sorts of magazines filled with nudes were sold in the thirries. Every newsstand carried them, although vendors never displayed them openly. (In France, the photographic reproduction of a nude body is punishable by law, if a judge considers it indecent.) With the gradual lifting of sexual taboos in the fifties, however, pornographic magazines sprang up everywhere. Playboy, the most famous of all, was founded in America by Hugh Hefuer, the twenry.seven-year-old son of a preacher. The first issue was undated when it appeared in December 1953, because Hefuer had borrowed $Il,OOO to cover publicarion costs, and had to wait until the first issue was sold out before being able to produce the second. Ioo Hefner introduced the 'Playmate,' a photograph of an enrirely naked young woman. The first of these beauties was Marilyn Monroe. Monroe was Hefuer's prototype of the Playmate; her expansive curves inspired his choice of all those who followed. In 1971, A. C. Spectorsky, the editor-in-chief of Playboy, declared that if all the nude The Scam:L:l1-Mongering Press r83

192 girls published during the eighteen years of Playboy's existence could be rolled into one, she would weigh 11'1l tons and have a bust of 7,242 inches.'so By the end of 1972, Playboy had attracted 6.5 million male readers. Its great success came from playing on sexual conquest and social advancement, the two biggest aspirations of the American middle-class male. By following Playboy's advice on dress, for instance, one was assured of social success. From the outset, Playboy suggested that its readers' wardrobes include at least seven to ten shirts, 'assuming you wear a clean shirt every day, a practice we recommend.' Again, in the fall of 197 I, readers learned that in fashion 'leather is still king.' 151 Sexual problems are treated in the ' Playboy Forum,' a section devoted to an exchange of ideas and advice between readers and editors based on Playboy 'philosophy.' The exchange is not unlike its counterpart in women's magazines. What kind of man reads Playboy? According to a recent survey, 50 percent of its readers are less than thirtyfive years old, with an annual income of more than $ I 5,000, among whom 64 percent are married. The rypical reader is a man who is bored with his domestic life and who has no special interests. Above all, the magazine's attraction lies in the dispariry between its de scription of life and the lives of its readers, for the life described by Playboy is entirely imaginary. Playboy's adverrising is revealing. For the most part, it shows young, handsome, e1egandy dressed young men, photographed near powerful cars or yachts, generally receiving admiring glances from pretty girls. Yes, the world says Yes to Benson & Hedges Gold. Have you already said Yes? This cigarette advertisement is illustrated with a color photograph of a foppish young man in front of a chess ), 184 Photography & Sodety

193 set (symbol of intelligence) looking at an open package of cigarettes he is holding in his hands. A young girl, leaning on his shoulder, follows his gaze. In January 1973 Playboy carried an ad for a stereo fearuring the intertwined bodies of a young man and woman. The woman's ample chest is well displayed. Playboy's primary attraction is its talk about sex and the abundant illustrations thereof. The issue of January 1973 contained 2.60 pages, 78 of advertising. Among the illustrations, there were 41 pictures of nudes; 12. draw ings and pornographic cartoons; 7 pages of Charles Bragg's erotic drawings illustrating the Apocalypse; nude photographs from the film The Sense of Life, 'with an abundance of flesh and fantasy; according to the editors; and finally the famous erotic comic strips. The 41 nude photographs included all the monthly Playmates of the previous year. Under eaclj picture of these naked young girls, there were pictures of them in their 'civvies' with a listing of their names, their jobs, and their hopes for the future. For example: Ellen Mic1Jaels, Miss MarclJ 1972., had received a degree in art from Queensborough College and had temporarily stopped her work, but planned to continue toward her B.A.: 'I'll probably end up teaching; she explained, 'but right now I'm encouraged by my progress in modeling here in New York City.' Miss August, Linda Summers, left work in her stepfather's health-food store for a new career as an escrow officer in Chula Vista, California. All the Playmates in Playboy seem to come from respectable families who supposedly find nothing odd about their daughters appearing nude for the delight of millions of men. A true measure of Playboy's respectability lies in the number of famous contributing writers and journalists, who include Vladimir Nabokov, Jean-Paul Sartre, Alberto Moravia, John Kenneth Galbraith, and others. Even the Roman Catholic ChurclJ uses Playboy to proselytize. Father Joseph Lup of Pikesville, Maryland, a member of The Scandal-Mongering Press 185

194

195 Hugh Hefner capitalized on the lifting of sexual taboos in America in the 1 ';);; OS to illustrau hi ll1agazi e with photographs of scantily dad \vomcn. He is shown here,>urrounded by some of the bunny fa mily \'hich bc.:ame his tr dema k and the basis of his multi-million dollar empire. the Order of the Holy Trinitv, took out a full-page ad in T971 at a cost of S10,000 to recruit young priests '"conscious of their social duty.' The effect was 'fantastic and totally unpredicted.' Only twenty years ago, the average American would han been profoundly shocked bv a magazine like PL,yboy. In today's 'plastic society; Hugh Hefner, along with \X talt Disney, is considered one of the 't".o great puritan entrepreneurs of culture in the twentieth century,' 152 and Playboy is ranked high among other WASP-style magazines. 'How has Hefner managed to rank next to Disney?' asked the very serious Protestant magazine Christian Century in dismay.15j Hugh Hefner took over 'those things that the puritan had ah.'ays imagined joy to be, yet had repressed, and embraced them as healthy and valuable, and advertised them as freedom and selfexpression.' In the past, you could feel guilty for just having sex; today, thanks to Hefner, you feel guilty if you don't. Disney and Hefner represent a closed and guiltless \\'orld, controlled by a mechanical and simplistic imagination.154 Playboy Inc has founded many businesses, clubs, hotels, and a publishing house. The corporation has invested in a record company. financed films, and launched European editions of the magazine. Other magazines copying its formula have already appeared. England's Penthouse has been printing an American edition since 197T; Italy has Playmen; and France Lui. In 1971, eighteen years after the appearance of Playboy, Hefner offered one million shares of stock at $24 each, keeping seven million shares for himself. Wtth a fortune estimated at around $ I 64 million,ls5 Hefner is today among the half-dozen American multimillionaires who o\ve their success only to themselves. In the mid-seventies, however, Playboy Inc.'s profits registered a loss of almost 50 percent, the first loss since Playboy was founded. In an article printed by Time in The Sc,mdJI-.\fongering Press 187

196 August 1975, it was noted that the men's magazine had had to reduce its subscription base, which reached its peak at 7 million in 1972, to 5.8 million. This represents the largest loss of subscribers ever registered in all of magazine history. The decline is explained not only by the economic crisis, but also, ironically by the success of the sexual revolution for which Playboy fought so hard. Once extremely provocative, Playboy seems curiously old-fashioned today, in comparison with its competitors. In 1946 there was much publicity about the stoty of an American soldier who had killed a prostitute in Paris after spending a night with her. Psychiatrists claimed that the young American, brought up in his country's puritanical tradition. had killed the woman to free himself from his feelings of guilt. A few years later, Hefner's genius sensed the end of sexual taboos in America. Photography struck him as the perfect means of manipulating and satisfying the erotic desires of his contemporaries, while at the same time projecting himself as the great moralizer of his day. The liberation from sexual taboos has not taken on the same explosive form in France that it has in the Anglo Saxon and Nordic countries, dominated for centuries by repressive Protestantism. The French have a reputation as lovers, and sex has never been considered sinful in France. On the other hand, bourgeois morality is strictly defended by French law. The public display of a photo graph showing a nude backside can cost dearly as the pop singer Michel Polnareff found out. In 1972 Polnareff was scheduled to gi\'e a concert at the Olympia, the largest music hall in Paris. \'V'ith his publicity agent, he dreamed up a photographic poster of himself \... ith sunglasses, \\learing a \\'oman's broadbrimmed hat and a lace shirt descending to just about his nude buttocks. Six thousand of these posters were plastered on the walls of Paris. Half of Paris laughed ".;hile the other half was indignant. Henri Lariviere, a The uneven acceptance of sexual freedom is highlighted by photographs. In America, bare-chesred bunnies have appeared in large centerfold photographs since 19 'i" while in France the picnir e of a man's exposed derriere caused a ruckus in If the picture had been drawn rather than photographed, there might have been less opposition, but since it appeared in a country where a photographed nude could be deemed indecent by the court and punishable by law, the artist, his agent. and his record company were fined for the poster. i j I \ I j 188 Phutogr..Jphy 0 Society

197 1 "I

198 professional poster-hanger, undoubtedly outraged by the singer's backside, had it covered with a white square, imitating the French television signal which warns parents that films have been judged harmful for youngsters. Polnareff was brought before a judge and accused of exhibiting an obscene poster. The following excerpt from the dialogne between the judge and the singer is worthy of Courteline, the French comic writer of the early twentieth century. JUDGE: POLNAREFF: JUDGE: POLNAREFF: JUDGE: POLNAREFF: So you wanted to score a publicity hit and shock the bon bourgeois? Not at all. It was simply a joke. I just wanted to make people laugh. There's too much moroseness [a word used by former Premier Jacques Chahan-Delmas to descrihe the current atmosphere in France] in this country. In sum you're out to provide a remedy for everything that has gone wrong in France. Why not? The image of my country shouldn't be limited to the fountains of Versailles and Camembert cheese. Do you think of yourself as an historical monument? France's glories are not only in the past. i JUDGE: Your poster is indecent. POLNAREFF: I didn't think so. JUDGE: That's because you can't see yourself. After two weeks of deliberation, the judge fined the singer 60,000 francs (10 francs for each poster), the record company 60,000 francs, and his press agent, who had supported the scheme with 30,000 francs, a sum total of 150,000 francs ($30,000) for having posted a completely I r 190 Photography & Society

199 nude rear end on the walls of Paris. Today, this poster has become a collector's item. What scandalized the judge and many Parisians was the fact that it was a photograph. A drawing would have undoubtedly gotten by more easily, but the basic realism of the photograph (the singer's buttocks were much whiter than his tanned legs) had made this advettising message too aggressive. The Scandal-Mongering Press 191

200 .

201 Photography as Art Claims that photography is art are made for a number of different techniques, from the simple, early compositions of Stieglitz to the photocollages of John Heartfield, from the use of photographic processes without a camera to the unedited recording of something which could be considered artistic in itself, such as Brassai's picture of graffiti (1945). Today, there are tens of thousands of professional photographers, some of whose works are of outstanding documentary value, artistic quality, and imagination. Two major groups have emerged from among these photographers: the 'concerned' photographers, for whom photography is a way of expressing their involvement with social issues; and those who have chosen photography as a medium of personal artistic expression. In both cases, they can be creators or simple craftsmen, but all are descendants of those who, after its half-century of stagnation, had revitalized the prestige of the photographic medium. These predecessors were intimately involved in the artistic and political movements of the twenties. The tremendous upheaval in Europe and America following the First World War gave birth to many often contradictory movements that influenced artistic trends of the period. In America, writers such as Dreiser, Sinclair, Hemingway, and Steinbeck, pushed toward an aggressive, almost documentary realism that would reflect their personal crises in confronting the brutaliry of American life. They were often reproached for their 'photographic' sryle. In Russia, the films of Eisenstein and Pudovkine were charting a new course for the art of the cinema. Russian writers of the twenties described Soviet life and glorified the revolutionary epic. For the first time, enormously enlarged photographs were distributed to fix the leaders' images in the minds of the people forever. In France, the surrealist movement linked 19 3

202 real facts of daily life to unconscious motives. Man Ray made photographs without a camera using the primitive technique of assembling objects on a piece of sensitized paper and then exposing them to light. Rediscovering the process by chance, be named these photograms after himself, calling them rayographs. Influenced by surrealist theory, he thought of them as a kind of automatic writing, the result of the chance placement of objects." o Several years earlier, Christian Chad had been experimenting with the same technique in Germany. When photographs began to appear in newspapers at the beginning ofthe century, people clipped them out and pasted them in albums. In this purely mechanical juxtaposition of images, the photograph's meaning was not changed. Later, the Dadaists of the twenties made collages by assembling pieces of clipped photographs and drawings. They used photographic images out of context as a way of attacking conventional art. In photomontage, on the other hand, the photograph retains all of irs significance. The form was created by John Heartfield, who was born in Germany in During the First World War he was an avowed pacifist who, in protest of official propaganda against the English, decided to Anglicize his name by changing it from Helmut Herzfeld to John Heartfield. He became a friend of George Grosz, the painter whose aggressive drawings criticized bourgeois society. Together they created collages, first against the war and then against the Weimar Republic which had crushed the November Revolution of After 1920, Heartfield used photography exclusively to unmask the reactionary character of the ruling class. He began making photomontages and called himself a monteur, partly to suggest his editorial function, partly after the German mechanics and electricians who wore clothes called Monteuranzuge. Using carefully chosen photographs, without changing the significance of any, he juxtaposed them on a single backing to create a new collec- Man Ray ( ) cre ated photographs (or what hecalledrayographs) by rna nipnlatinglight, objects, and light-sensitive paper. His conception of the cameraless process-'automatic writing" -contrasted with I...aszl6 Moboly-Nagy's approach of calrulated experiments (see pages I96-I97), although both used the same materials (Man Ray, Rayograph, 19")' I I',, 194 Photography & Society

203 John Heartfield used photography in an unconventional way to make political commentaries. The constituent photographs of his photomontages retained individual significance while suggesting ironies and criticism by their juxtaposition (John Heartfield, Untitled rotogravure, I 9 3 6). tive meaning for the whole. John Heartfield joined the rank of the extreme left, and his photomontag appeared in the illustrated communist weekly A.I.Z., on book covers from the Berlin publishing house of Malik, and on posters around the country. Their impact lies in the simplicity of their composition, which makes his ideas accessible to everyone. In his hands, photography became a formidable weapon in the class struggle.'57 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, the great photographic theoretician, was the first to understand the new creative possibilities photography had opened up. In his 1925 Bauhaus publication, Painting, Photography, Film, he prophesied the future of photography and contemporary art.'5. More than thirty years before his time he defined artistic movements that only began to develop in the second half of the twentieth century. His early ideas on the role of photography, based on practical expetience, were later confirmed by the philosopher Walter Benjamin in his significant say, 'The Work of Art during the Age of Technical Re production; '59 and his Short History of Photography. Born in Hungary in 1895, Moholy-Nazy studied law, but soon left school to devote himself entirely to painting. He joined the Hungatian avant-garde artistic movement Ma ('Today'), whose goals were similar to the French esprit nouveau ('New Spirit') through which Le Corbusier and Ozenfant explored the interdependence of painting, sculpture, and modem industrial technology. In 1920 Moholy arrived in Berlin and joined the Dada movement. It was during this period that, unfamiliar with the work of Chad or Man Ray, he too created photograms without a camera. For Man Ray, they were sort of automatic writing, as I've noted; but for Moholy the composition of photograms was a carefully thought-out process, with each effect calculated and nothing left to chance. He aimed at specific forms and tonalities, moving from white to black, while touching upon the entire spectrum of intermediary grays. In 1922 his first exhibition Photography as Art 195

204 of abstract paintings and photograms was held in Der Sturm, the avant-garde gallery in Berlin. Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus, visited the exhibition and invited Moholy to teach at his state school in Weimar. Moholy accepted and in the spring of 1923 he joined an illustrious teaching staff that included Paul Klee, Johannes Inen, and Oskar Schlemmer. His ideas became pan of the Bauhaus spirit and ultimately had a decisive influence on modem art. Moholy was a painter, sculptor, film maker, and photographer with a particular interest in the prol'llems of light and color. He made experimental films, the most famous of which is significantly titled Light-play, blackwhite-gray. In 1933, after the Nazis came to power, he emigrated to Amsterdam, then to London, where he continued his experiments with color film and produced posters and documentary films. He also began to experiment with Plexiglas in his three-dimensional paintings, which he called 'space modulators.' From 1937 on, as director of the New Bauhaus in Chicago, he had a considerable influence on the American artistic scene. He constructed mobiles and other kinetic sculptures and continued ro spend a large part of his time on light experiments. He died of leukemia in Chicago at the age of fifty-one in After a century of debate over the artistic value of photography, Moholy put the question in its proper perc;- spective. 'The old quarrel between anists and photogra, phers concerning whether photography is an an is a false problem. It is not a question of replacing painting with photography, but of clarifying the relations between photography and contemporary painting, and showing that the development of technology out of the industrial revolution has materially contributed to the rise of new forms of optic creation.' 160 Until MohoIy's time, interpretations of photography had been influenced by aesthetic and philosophical ideas relating to painting. Now Mohaly-Nagy experimented with cameraless photography at the same time as but independently of Man Ray. There was nothing automatic about Moholy-Nagy's light plays, which were carefully calculated to reproduce the many gradations of light and shadow possible with threedimensional objects (above: Self-portrait photogram, profile, 1922; opposite: Photogram, 192.2).,i I96 Photography & Society

205

206 it was time to recognize the special laws of photography. Light in itself must be considered a creator of forms, and photography and film must be judged from this new point of view. Photography opens up new perspectives. It can freeze fleeting light and shadow on a piece of paper, even without the use of intervening equipment. It can reveal the beauty of the negative image. In his 1938 book New Vision, Moholy explained his theoty of light gradation and his discovety of new angles and perspective which corresponded to modem machine technology. Photography is subject to its own laws, independent of the opinions of art critics. These laws will be the only valid measurement of its future value. What is important is our participation in new experiences of space. Thanks to photography, mankind has acquired the power to view his surroundings with new eyes. A photograph's value cannot be measured from an aesthetic point of view alone; it must also be judged by the human and social intensity of its visual representation. The photograph is not simply a means of discovering reality, because nature seen through the camera is different from nature seen with the human eye. The camera influences our way of seeing and creates a 'new vision.' 16 1 Moholy's ideas have greatly influenced social theorists, notably Marshall Mcluhan, as well as two generations of photographers, many of whom do not even know his name. Just as Freud's discoveries have molded our habits of judging certain human reacrions-the idea of a 'Freudian slip' seems natural to us today-so the ideas ofmoholy Nagy have become inseparable from our way of seeing. To his contemporaries in 1925 his 'new vision' seemed a utopia, but today we are familiar with his vocabulaty and ideas as they have been realized in contemporaty art. Photography's place among the graphic arts is no longer in dispute. Moholy has rightfully shown that it has its own aesthetic. Its artistic decline toward the end of the last centuty resulted from an error of judgment on 198 Photography & Society

207 the part of those photographets who wanted to imitate painting. To day there are movements in painting that use technical processes borrowed from photography. It is no longer a matter of sticking a photograph in the middle of a painting, as the cubists and surrealists had done, but one of painting with the eyes of a camera. It is not surprising then that the public which crowds into the exhibitions of the photorealists takes them for copies of photographs. (This school has little do to with those conceptual artists who also use photographs as a means of expression, but with very different techniques and intentions.) PaintetS have used photographs as documents since the camera was invented, but for the first time we see paintets plagiatizing the photograph. It might even be asserted that, thanks to this.school of painting which began with the photo realists, photography itself has found greater prominence. A certain distance in time is always needed to pick out the superior talents among the multitude of artists in each generation. It took at least thirty yeats for the great photographets of the twenties and thirties to gain recognition as the mastets of visual exploration they were. Thanks to their talent, photography has been revived as a valid means of artistic expression. Some had backgrounds in photojournalism, others in a movement called 'The New Objectivity,' but each had a different way of interpreting the environment, colored by their own experiences. The majority of them, living in a Europe which was tom apart by social crimes, the Spanish Civil War, and the Second World War, found their subjects in the street. For the Americans, who had suffered in their own way during the Depression, a more introspective vision seemed more valid. Today we realize that this generation gave us the pioneets of modem photography. Late in the sixties, a new Photography as Art 199

208 generation of photographers began searching for a different means of photographic expression. They experimented with sequences and the juxtaposition of images in an effort to evoke personal memories and extremely intimate views of the problems of contemporary society. The photograph will always remain a document, but the interests of this 'New Wave' point out photography's vitality. Despite the myriad masterpieces of the past centuries, contemporary painters remain undaunted, and rightfully dream of creating new forms. Similarly, thousands of professional photographers aspire to new directions. Today photography is entering the museums with the approval of those whose profession it is to preserve art. On their walls, photography has recaptured the artistic aura that it once possessed. By contrast, certainly what most gives photography its special relevance today is that it continues to provide a means of expression for millions of amateurs. 200 Photography & Society

209 Amateur Photography Amateur photography has been in existence since the invention of the camera, but it was only in 1888, with George Eastman's introduction of the first Kodak, that amateurism made headway. Priced at $25, the Kodak was loaded with a roll of 100 exposures. Once the film was exposed, the unopened camera was to be sent to the Rochester factory, where the film was developed and printed, the camera reloaded and the lot returned to the sender, all for $10.'62 Many amateur models have appeared both in America and Europe since then. During the last few years, cameras and film have undergone revolutionary improvements, but Kodak was the first to exploit the mass-market potential. Several decades ago traveling was the privilege of the well-to-do. Today, thanks to leisure time, paid vacations, and improved methods of transportation, millions of people travel each year. For the affluent society, automobiles and airplanes are no longer a luxury. In 1972, many millions of tourists traveled around the world, invading famous capitals, exotic sites, beaches, forests, and mountains. T wenty countries in twenty days,' advertised a large tourist agency selling package tours. Like migrating birds, tourists travel in groups. During the summer months they are everywhere, sprinting around historical monuments while long lines of buses wait for them. Modem tourists speak in many languages and do not know each other, but they all have in common the cameras hanging from their necks. 201

210 Everything is preplan ned on organized tours. The bus stops at places chosen ahead of time, spots where photographs should be taken, such as Notre-Dame in Paris, the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, and the pyramids in Egypt. The next day will bring other monuments, other sites, other countries. The tourists have just enough time to get out of the bus and snap the shutter. They become passive objects transported from place to place. If the human mind has limitations and cannot absorb so many new impressions in so short a time without confusing them, no matter. Once home, the photographs will 202 Photography & Society

211 Certainly no amateur, Henri Cartier-Bresson cleverly linked amateur photography to tourism in this picture. Tourists, like many amateur photographers, used the camera primarily to capture and preserve memories rather than for artistic or commercial purposes. be developed and the visits will be remembered. There is no need to look-the camera sees for you. Today the photographic industry flourishes for legions of amateurs. Its rate of development is among the fastest in the world. According to the '974/75 Wolfman Report on the photographic industry, American amateurs took over 6 billion pictures that year, 87 percent in color. In 1974, total world revenues for the industry were estimated at $5.7 billion. Americans make up 42 percent of the world market, and each American family spent $, 5 on photographic products for the year. Among seventeen leisure activities, photography ranked fourth, after listening to the stereo, fishing, and camping. In France, there were 10.3 million cameras in use in That means close to one out of every two French adults is a photographer. Photography has become a popular hobby today. We can predict that this infatuation Vvrith the camera will grow in years to come, and by 1980 an estimated 300 million tourists will be traveling around the world taking pictures. Large companies in the photographic industry are expanding their research to satisfy the growing demand which will, of course, lead to higher profits. During the last decade, in fact, technology has made spectacular progress. In '963 Kodak brought out their new 'lnstamatic' line of cameras. The majority of amateurs, for whom photography is little more than a means of keeping pictorial souvenirs of family members, friends, and travels, enthusiastically adopted these inexpensive, easy-to-operate cameras. Between 1963 and 1972, close to 60 million Instamaties were sold throughout the world. Amateurs prefer them to the more sophisticated and expensive German and Japanese models. In 1971 only one million Japanese cameras were sold in the United States, a figure representing just 10 percent of the total sale in America. German cameras are more expensive and sell even less readily. Amateur Photography 203

212 In 1972 Kodak took another giant step by introducing a new line of Instamatics small enough to carry in one's pocket like a wallet or a package of cigarettes. Calling it 'a revolutionary change,' Time magazine declared: 'The era of pocket photography is here...'63 The model will meet the new needs of those amateurs who travel more and more with less and less baggage.' The pocket camera is nothing new. Minox, another pocket camera, has been manufactured in Germany for many years. But the tiny film used in the Minox was incapable of producing first-class prints. Above all, there was no color film available for the reduced size. Kodak researchers developed a film for the pocket camera that could produce as good a color print as any made from larger format film. In 1974, 87 percent of the film bought by amateurs was for color impressions. Within the foreseeable future, color may replace black-and-white film entirely. Color film for amateurs is a recent development. In the mid-1930s Kodak introduced Kodachrome and Agfa Agfacolor. Few amateurs used either because the film, in addition to being much more expensive than black and white, generally produced slides requiring the use of a projector. Color reproductions on paper were tremendously expensive. With few exceptions, professionals in Europe did not use color either because most magazines were not yet equipped for color printing. It was only after World War II, toward the end of the forties, that European magazines began to print color pages regularly, thereby stimulating the public's interest in color photography. In 1949 in America, and in 1952 in France, Kodak introduced Kodacolor, a color negative film from which good prints could be made inexpensively. From then on, color photography took off. The pocket Instamatic weighs only 3 ounces. Because its film is 30 percent smaller than that used in ordinary Instamatics, it requires 30 percent less manufacturing t > > > > > 204 Photography & Society

213 material. By selling the new film for the same price, Kodak dears a profit of an additional 30 percent on each roll sold. Wonderful business! The New York Stock Exchange's response, the barometer of American industrial enterprises, was volatile. During the first months of 1972., following the announcement of the pocket camera, Eastman Kodak shares rose 41.5 points to $ In Kodak was the sole manufacturer of the new machines for developing and making prints from the pocket camera. The new projectors for amateurs who preferred to make color slides from their Instamatic neg atives were also made by Kodak. In 1974, Kodak could declare a net profit of $62.9,519,000 afrer taxes. Despite inflation, operating costs, the shortage of certain materials, the energy crisis, the company's products et!joy remarkable success. One of the company's ambitions is to open up the Chinese market. Perhaps the time is not far off whet! 800 million Chinese will be brandishing pocket Instamatics instead of the Little Red Book. Kodak, the largest manufacturer of film in the United States, derives 80 percent of its profits from the sale of film, but it is not the only colossus of the photographic industry. Polaroid is another American giant. Three months afrer Kodak's heavily advertised announcement of its new pocket Instamatic, Polaroid created a sensation by introducing its own pocket camera, the SX-70. Larger and heavier than the Instamatic, the SX-70 is nevertheless capable of developing and producing a finished print in just a few seconds. This miraculous camera was invented by the scientist Edwin Robert Land. Born in Bridgeport, Connecricut, in 1909, Land studied physics and originally made a name for himself during a colloquium at Harvard in 1933, where he presented a new theory based on his experiments in light polarization. His scientific work, induding penetrating studies on color, is highly valued and has earned him honorary degrees from eleven universities and countless distinc- Amateu, Photography 2.05

214 tions from all over the world. His research experiments in light polarization with new materials led to the construction of a new camera to which he gave the name Polaroid. As to how Land conceived of constructing such a camera, in an article dated 26 June 1972, Time magazine gave this explanation: 'While vacationing in Santa Fe with his family in 1943, Land had his three-year-old daughter Jennifer pose for some pictuies. The child asked how long it would be before she could see them. Land, who had been interested in photography since childhood, immediately began wondering how photos might be developed and printed right inside the camera. He now claims jokingly that by the time he and Jennifer returned from their walk, he had solved all the problems "except forthe ones that it has taken from 1943 to 1972 to solve.'" In 1947 Land demonstrated his invention before a group of incredulous scientists. The first Po laroid was put on sale in America the following year. Weighing fourand-a-half pounds and priced at $90, the new camera printed sepia pictures. The principle involved placing an exposed negative in contact with a sensitized paper and then passing the two sheets together through a pair of rollers. The sheets emerged from the camera in a few minutes. Nothing remained but to separate the papers and spread a small amount of liquid on the finished print to fix it. In 1950, Land added an automatic device for setting exposure time, and in 1963 he offered color film. The latest of the Polatoid cameras, the SX-70, is based on an entirely new process. Land invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the project and built new factories for mass producing the new camera. Its novelty lies in the automatic development of the image right under the photographer's eyes without leaving any waste. (For our affluent society with its agonizing waste disposal problems, this was an important consideration.) The latest Polaroid achievement was made public in It is a camera 206 Photography & Society t l t I l

215 that does not even have to be forused. To detennine the distance of obj ects from the camera, it uses a system of ultrasonic sound. The company is ranked among the fastest growing industries in the United States. Polaroid stock purchased in 1938 for $1,000 would be worth $3.6 million today. '64 At present, Kodak and Polaroid, the two rival giants of the American photographic industry, jointly face even more dangerous competition from Japanese camera manufacturers. Since the end of the Second World War, Japan has devoted itself wholeheartedly to the photographic and motion picture markets. In less than fifreen years, the Japanese have succeeded in becoming the world's largest manufacturers in these areas, just as they have excelled in the manufacture of electron microscopes, sewing machines, and motorcycles. In 1972 there were over a hundred Japanese companies specializing in the production of cameras and equipment. Between 1966 and 1970, camera production alone had risen from 3.3 to 5.8 million. Fiiry-six percent of total production is exported, mostly to North America, followed by Europe. Supported by funds from large Japanese firms and with the help of computers, thousands of techuical specialists are devoted to perfecting complicated zoom and automatic focusing lenses. In order to remain competitive in their pricing, they are obliged constantly to improve their products. The Japanese compauies, like those in America and Europe, are merging, creating enormous industrial complexes as the larger firms absorb the smaller. As labor has become increasingly expensive, manufacturers have begun to set up new factories abroad where labor is less expensive, for example in Singapore and Hong Kong. Japanese compauies are still offering unbeatable prices at present, but the specter of Chinese competition is already looming on the horizon. Just as the Japanese started out in the photographic industry by copying German cameras, the Chinese are now copying Japanese cameras. Amateur Photography 2.07

216 In 1972, Seagull, a Chinese manufacturer, developed an exact copy of the Minolta SRT-101 that sold at a price that undercut all competition_ Japanese amateur photographers are legion_ Unlike Western amateurs, they buy the most sophisticated cameras because they are cheap in Japan, within everyone's price range_ Eleven Japanese periodicals are devoted to photography, and 10,000 photographers graduate each year from Japanese schools.ls Cameras constructed with the help of electronic equipment are becoming increasingly sophisticated inside. Yet, even a child can quickly learn to use them, since all settings are automatically self-regulating. From the technical point of view, no one can ruin a picture. This explains in part the tremendous public interest in photography. The growing monotony of everyday life is another factor. Lives have become regimented, dominated by a technostructure that allows less and less initiative. In the days of the craftsman, a man could still find satisfaction in expressing his personality and his hopes in his work. Today he is reduced to little more than a cog in one wheel of an increasingly mechanized society. Photography has attracted so many enthusiasts in part because it gives them the illusion of being creative. Numerous amateur clubs and photography magazines exist all over the world. lime-life recently published a series of lavishly illustrated books on photographic subjects, which was translated into several languages and sold throughout the world by the millions.finally, the massive advertising campaigns by the photographic industry have contributed significantly to the increased number of amateur photographers. America is the most advanced technological society in the world. It was in America, toward the end of the fifties, that a movement began which made headway among the more sophisticated amateur photographers. They began to buy up the most complex cameras, the Leica, Nikon F, even Hasselblad and Linhof. GIs return- I 208 Photography & Society

217 ing from Vietnam brought back inexpensive Japanese cameras. Attics, garages, and bathrooms were refurbished as darkrooms and filled with expensive equipment. Galleries devoted entirely to photography have opened in all important American cities. In 1977 there were forty-eight galleries in New York alone that organized exhibitions or sold photographs to the public. Until recently, collectors have been exclusively interested in the works of nineteenth-century photographers. Now a growing number of collectors are also drawn to contemporary photographs. Artworks are selling at such high prices that young people in patticular do not have the means to purchase them. The price of a photograph, on the other hand, is rarely more than an original lithograph. Columns on photography have begun to appear in most important newspapers, and the New York Times publishes an entire page on photographic exhibits and galleries every Sunday. Since the spring of 1975, criticism on photographic exhibitions has appeared in the Times art column, thereby publicly consecrating photography's place among the graphic arts. Besides the specialized magazines that appear every month, articles on photography and its importance as an art appear in such magazines as the New Yorker, Newsweek, Time, and the New York Review of Books. Even the very serious Wa ll Street Journal, which deals with finance, carries some articles on photography. Moreover, speculation in photographs has caught on with financial advisors, who encourage their clients to buy photographs as investments. In 1975, there were more than 400 photographic exhibitions across the country. Public sales of photographic collections are held at the prestigious Parke-Bernet Gallery in New York, the Hotel Drouot and the Palais Galliera in Paris, at Sotheby's and Chtistie's in London, and at the important auctions in Cologne, Germany. As with sales of paintings and rare books, catalogs are prepared. In 197 l one sale brought receipts of more than $ 3 mil- Amateur Photography 2.09

218 lion. At a sale in February 1975 where twentieth-century photographs were being sold for the first time, Alfred Stieglitz's photogravure 'The Steerage; which he considered his best picture, sold for $4,500. His magazine Camera Work ( I7), in fifty volumes (incomplete), went for $24,000. The photographs of Man Ray, Ansel Adams, Brassai, Walker Evans, and Margaret Bourke-White were among those that sold for high prices, sometimes more than $ I,000 for an original print. Important photographic collections exist in many American museums. At the Museum of Modem Art in New York, a department devoted to photographic history organizes exhibitions of contemporary work. Other American museums have followed their example. The International Museum of Photography in Rochester, housed in the large private mansion previously owned by George Eastman, is devoted solely to photography. In the fall of '974, all the newspapers carried long articles on Cornell Capa's International Center of Photography (I.c.P.), the first museum in New York City devoted entirely to photography. Since the beginning of the seventies, annual symposiums have taken place in the United States and Europe for curators, critics, and photographic specialists to study methods of collecting and classifying photographs as well as many other issues concerning the medium. The importance accorded to photography in the United States is reflected in the schools. Today an estimated 80,000 students study the subject in 675 schools, colleges, and other institutions, 177 university programs among them. It is a field in which diplomas range from simple certificates to the highest university degrees. In '97' New York University offered the first doctoral degree in photography. Other signs of photography's public success are the hundreds of books published each year and the popularity of photographic posters. A few publishers specialize in 210 Photography & Society

219 Following the lead of John Szarkowski, director of the Photography Depanment of the Museum of Modern An, the directors of many museums began to recognize photography as an an form wonhy of special attention. The George Eastman House's International Museum of Photography has one of the richest early photographic collections in existence. limited edition portfolios of lavishly displayed original prints, most including some dozen photographs, with prices varying from a few hundred to six thousand dollars. These limited editions generally consist of thirty to sixty signed and numbered prints. More than ten years after the photography boom started in America, European interest is beginning to extend beyond a limited group of professionals. As in America, the growing number of amateur photographers has triggered the change. Specialized galleries have opened in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, London, Milan, Basel, and Amsterdam. Publishers who had been hostile to the idea of photographic books because of previous disappointments are changing their minds. Gallety collections devoted entirely to photography are beginning to appear. In 1978, Amateur Photography 211

220 I J! the French government established a National Foundation in Lyons to promote the photographic medium as a fine art. Since the late sixties European museums have been exhibiting photography regularly. The Photokina is the most important fair in the photographic industry. Begun in '950, it is held every other year in Cologne, Germany. In September 1978 it reached gigantic proportions. 'Arriving by car, train, bus, charter plane, the visitors were so numerous that it was impossible to find hotel accommodations in Cologne without reservations made months in advance. Thousands of visitors had to sleep in neighboring cities while others camped in trucks along the Rhine. What a- success!' wrote a correspondent for a French newspaper who felt lost in the immensity of the exhibition. With so many countries rep- Fonner director and curator of George Eastman House's photography collection, Beaumont Newhall (left) is shown here reviewing photographs with professional photographer Yosef Karsh (right) at George Eastman House. 2 I 2 Photography & Society

221 resented, it was a Tower of Babel. He continued, 'Photography and film making no longer remain the domain of artists and professionals. Everything is so easy that the consumer quickly uses up dozens of feet of film without realizing it. It is an expensive habit, very profitable for the manufacturers.' In former years, many exhibitors had unfortunate experiences. Their stands were stormed by crowds of amateur enthusiasts who came just to look, and who scared off serious buyers. The Photokina's organization had to be changed. Since 1974 cultural events and the many exhibitions of photographs have taken place outside the commercial fairgrounds, attracting many thousands more visitors than the industrial exhibitions themselves. AmateuT Photography 2 I 3

222

223 Conclusion Photography and society: Marc Riboud's camera recorded a panoramic sea of faces that even D. O. Hill would not have envisioned. Both understood, however, the camera's potential to document and at times influence the social, political, and cultural environment in which they lived. During the Renaissance it was said of a cultivated person that he had 'a good nose.' Today we say that he has 'vision; for sight is now the sense most often called upon. A picture is easy to understand and accessible to everyone. Its most special characteristic is its immediate emotional effect. It leaves little time for reflection or for the reasoning a conversation or the reading of a book requires. This immediacy is both its strength and its danger. Thanks to photography, the number of images the average individual confronts has been multiplied a millionfold. The world is no longer evoked. It is directly represented_ The Vietnam War was sadly symbolized by a photograph of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, a small girl of nine, severely burned by a napalm attack, fleeing with other children on a South Vietnamese road. It was printed all over the world, eliciting horror and hatred for war in a fashion infinitely more powerful than dozens of pages written on the subject would have been. lbe photograph's effect was so immediate that it was reproduced in the 29 December 1972 issue of Life among the most memorable photographs of the year. To cushion the emotional shock, Life printed a color portrait of the little Vietnamese girl smiling along with it, with the explanation that Kim Phuc had been in a Saigon hospital for fifteen weeks receiving skin transplants and physical therapy. 'But the war was not done yet with the little girl,' reported Life. 'Incredibly. South Vietnamese planes struck again in November, this 215

224 time demolishing Kim Phuc's home... [the napalm attack was also the result of an error on the army's part]. Kim Phuc returned again to her home, which has now been partially rebuilt. Her scars are healed, and she is going to school again. Her memories lie hidden behind an easy, cheerful smile.' Despite the reassuring photograph, the picrure of Phan Thi Kim Phuc tearing off her burning clothes and runuing naked on the road will remain forever engraved in the memories of all who have seen it. c:::-photography's tremendous power of persuasion in addressing the emotions is consciously exploited by those who use it as a means of manipulationj:n his book Confessions of an Advertising Man, Davi<l"Ogilvy, one of the best-known advertising men in America, recommends that his colleages suggest the use of photography to their clients in selling their products because it 'represents reality, whereas drawings represent fantasy, which is less believable.' Yet we have seen many examples of the ways in which photographs can be altered and manipulated, to carry the opposite meaning of the original intention. Millions of amateurs, both consumers and producers of photography, who imagine they have captured reality by snapping the shutter and rediscovering it in their negatives, do not doubt the truth of the photograph. For them, the photograph is irrefutable evidence. It is this false belief in the objectivity of the image that gives the photograph its enormous power and explains its widespread use in advertising. The advertising industry has hired the 'depth boys' to explore human reactions to ads. Psychologists are aware that the unconscious is filled with symbolic images that have a profound influence on behaviour. A few years ago, some media executives sought to exploit this faculty with 'subliminal' advertising. Images flashed at a thirtieth of a second, not consciously seen by the viewer, were inserted in movies to sell products. This diabolical form of advertising has since been outlawed as an immoral violation of human 2I 6 Photography & Sodety

225 rights. If it takes only a thitrieth of a second to influence a man's will, it is easy to understand the strength of the image and its drawing power as a seller of both goods and ideas. Not only the so-called liberal capitalist countries but also the dictatorships, both left- and right-wing, have exploited photography's persuasive power. The photograph of the chief of state carried over the crowds in parades and demonstrations, or decorating state offices, is for some the symbol of the father and for others the Orwellian 'Big Brother.' It inspires love or hate, confidence or fear. Its intrinsic value is based on its power to arouse one's emotions. Nineteen-sevenry-six marked the sesquicentennial of photography. In this book, I have tried to trace its history. Photography began modesdy as a means of selfrepresentation but very quickly became an all-powerful industry that has penetrated every aspect of society. As a means of reproducrion, photography has democratized art by making it available to everyone; but at the same time, it has changed our view of art. Used to externalize a creative urge, it is not always a simple copy of nature. Otherwise 'good' photographs would not be so rare. Among the millions of pictures published every day in periodicals and in books, only a few go beyond simple representation. Photography has helped man discover the world from different angles. It has condensed spacewithout it, we would never have seen the surface of the moon. It has democratized man's knowledge, bringing people closer together. But it has also played a dangerous role as an instrument of manipulation used to create needs, to sell goods, and to mold minds. The invention of photography marks the starting point of the mass media, which play an all-powerful role today as means of communication. Without photography there would never have been movies or television. Sitting in front of the 'tube' daily has become a drug without which Condusion 217

226 millions of people could not exist. Although the first inventor of photography, Nicephore Niepce, tried desperately to have his invention recognized, his efforts were in vain and he died in misery. Few people know his name today. But photography, which he discovered, has become the most common language of our civilization. 2.I 8 Photography & Society

227 Notes I. Wilhelm Waetzold, Die lumst des POTtTiits, Leipzig, I ')OIl, p Vidal, 'Memoire dela seancedu 15 novembre 1868 dela sociere... tisrique de Marseille,' Bulletin de /a sociite frrmt;ljise dephotographie. 1871, pp , Cf. Rene Hennequin, Etlm. Quenedey, portraitiste au physionotrace, Troyes, Cf. Cromer, 'Le secret du physionotrace,' BuUetin de la socrete archiologique. historique et artistique, 'Le Vieux Papier,' 26th year, October Cf. Cabinet des estampes de la Bibliotheque nationaie, Paris. 6. Cf. Gonard's advertisement in Journal de Paris, 2.8 July Cf. Quenedey's advertisement in Journal de Paris, 21 July Vivarez, Le pbysionottace. 9 Cf. Journal de Paris, 2I July Cf. Moniteuruniversel, 16 June I. Jean Jaures, Histoire socialiste, 'Le regne de Louis-Philippe.' 12.. Cf. E. Levasseur, Histoire des clllsses ouvrieres et de l'industrie en France, Paris, Jean Jaures, op. cit. 14. Cf. E. Levasseur, Histoiredu commerce de lafrance, Paris, Ci. Karl Marx, Le IS Brumaire de Louis Bonaparte Karl Mannhei ldeologie und Utopie, Bonn: F. Cohen, Cf. Karl Marx, op. cit. 18. Cf. Session of 1839 (Nouvelle Legislative), Paris, Cf. Bibliographie politique et pariementaire des deputes (Guide des electeurs) by one of the editors of Le Messager, Paris, 1839, P Cf. Victor Fouque, 'Niq,ce, la verite sur I'invention de la photographie,' Chalon-sur-Saone, Ibid Letter from Niepce to Lemaitre, 23 October Cf. Arthur Chevalier, Etude sur Ia vie et les travaux scientifiques de Charles Chevalier, Paris, On 8 December 1827, Niq,re had already tried. unsuccessfully to publicize his invention in a speech to the London Royal Scr ciery. 2I9

228 2.5. Cf. Isidore Niepce, Histoirede la decouverte improprement nommee daguerreotype, Paris, <There is much talk about Daguerre's invention. Nothing is more amusing than the explanations of this wonder proposed by our scientists of the salon. Daguerre should be reassured that his secret will not be stolen... 1his discovery is troly worthy of great admiration, but we do not understand anything about it. It has been overexplained to us.' Lettres parisiennes, 12 January 1839, by the vicomte de Launais. Oeuvres completes of Mme Emile de Girardin, vol. IV, pp Gay-Lussac, Rapport de la samcedu 30 juillet de /a o,ambredes Pairs Historique et description des procedes du daguerreotype et du diorama, concerning Daguerre's Paris, r Cf. Moniteur universel, 16 June Cf. Comptes rendus des seances de l'acljdemie des sciences, second semester Another example of state support of new and useful inventions is the subsidies granted to the railroads. These were in the hands of a few members of the financial aristocracy. The Chambers voted for the authorization to build the railroads. including the length of the concession. the dividends to be paid. and the state subsidies. h should not be forgotten that the representatives of the financial aristocracy had a decisive influence in the Chambers and that it was in their interest to realize these projects (parlementary debates, ). ;0. TheAcademy<justreceivedtheapprovalofthemostdistinguished and honored English scientists, most notably Herschel, Robinson, Forbes, Wats., Brisbane.' Comptes rendvs des seances de tacij Jemie des sciences, 15 June 18; Comptes rendus des seances de l'academie des sciences. 19 August 1839, vol. IX, pp ;1.. "We shall soon see beautiful prints that were once found only in the living rooms of rich amateurs, decorate even the most humble residence of the worker and the peasant; La Revue frant;aise, Cf. Comptesrendus desseances de I'Acadi:mie des sciences, Ibid. 35. Cf. Le Feuilleton du sieck, 1839; Ie Feuilleton national, 1839; Ia Gazette de France, 1839; and similar publications. 36. Cf. Daguerre, Historique et description des procedes du daguerreotype et du diorama. Paris, 1839: 37. Cf. Comptes rentlus des seances de facademie des sciences, second semester, I839' 38. "The photogenic images, as delightful as they are, leave something to be desired, especially the pom.i".' E. Foucaud, Physiologie de l'industrie fran(jl1ise, Paris, p Gaudin and Leresbours. Derniers perfectionnements apportes au daguerreotype, Paris Richard Rudisill. Mirror Image. the Influence of the Daguerreo- HO Photography & Society

229 type on American Society, Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, Cf. Walter Benjamin, 'Petite histoire de la photographie' in Poesie et revolution, editions Denoe1, Paris, 1971, published for the first time in Literarische Welt, nos , Berlin, 193I. 42. Ibid. 43. 'Any declasse or classless person was setting himself up as a photographer: the office clerk who had come in late on collection day, the coffeehouse tenor who had lost his voice, the concierge who fancied bimseh an artist-they all called themselves artistic! Painters and sculptors who had not made it flocked to photography... Nadar, Quand fetais pbotographe. p 'I was born at the beginning of that age of innocence when a cabinet minister stole no more than 100,000 francs.. At the time when it was considered distinguished among the lower middle class to have their children in mourning for the duc de Berry, 1 was among those in mourning.' Ibid., pp Cf. Pierre I..arousse, Grand dictionna;,e du XIX" siecle, Paris: Administration du grand dictionnaire uoiverse Cf. E. Levasseur, Histoire du commerce de la France, 'La bourgeoisie au pouvoir,' Paris: A. Rousseau. 19II-I Around 1845, the principal writers of la Boheme collaborated on Ie Corsa;re-Satan. Under the leadership of Arsene Houssaye, this literary newspaper became an opposition paper, both famous and often attacked. 48. 'The truth is that until 1848 our office was usually located in the cozy cafes where we arrived with hearty appetites at nine o'dock in the morning, not to leave until midnight.' Champfleury, SOIIvenirs et portraits de jeunesse. Paris: E. Dentu p Cf. Histoire de Murger, pour serv;, a rbistoire de la vraie Bo heme par trois buveurs d' eau, Paris: Nadar, Lalioux, Noel, 'Boheme is a word popular in In the language of the day, it was synonymous with artist or student, pleasure-seeking, joyous, unmindful of tomorrow, lazy, and rowdy.' Gabriel Guillemot, La Boheme, Paris, 1868, pp 'Industrial literature has succeeded in silencing criticism and in OCOJpying an almost unrontradictory position as if it existed alone... As a result, most newspapers, even those who would willingly be classified as puritanical, have spawned an array of violations and a purely mercenary management who foments literary quarrels and really lives off them.' Sainte-Beuve, Revue des deux mondes, 1 July 1839, 'De la Iitterature industrielle,' pp. 678, 68I. 51. 'Money, money, it is impossible to calculate how much it is the nerve-center and god of taday's literature: the effects of its twisting and turning can be detected even in the most minute details. If a clever writer occasionally indulges in an empty, overblown, endless style with sudden bursts of important neologisms or scientific expressions taken from God knows where, it is because he Notes 221

230 learned early how to build up his phrasing, to triple and quadruple it (pro nummis) while giving to it the least amount of thought possible: Sainte-Beuve, Revue des deux montles, 1843, <Sur la situation en litterature; p <La Boheme is a phase of artistic life, it is the preface to the Academy, the hospital or the morgue: d. Histoire de Murger. 53. Theophile Gautier, Camille Rogier, Gerard de Nerval, Ourliac, Celestin Nanteuil, etc. belonged to <Ia Jenne France: 54. Murger was the son of a concierge-tailor; Champfleury, the son of a secretary at the Lyon town hall; Barbara, the son of a modest music salesman; Bouvin, the son of a rural policeman; Delveau, the son of a tanner in the Paris suburb of Saint-Marcel; and Courbet, the son of a peasant. 55. <It is very different among artists: the word bourgeois isno longer a name, meaning or qualification. It is an insult, and the most vulgar to be heard in the artist's srudio. An art srudent would prefer a thousand times over to be called a scoundrel of the worst sort than to be called a bourgeois.' Henri Monnier, Physiologie du bourgeois, Paris, 1842., p Cf. Nadar, Pierrot ministre, pantomime, Told by Nadae's son to the author. 58. Cf. Biographie nah"onale des contemporains under tbe general editorship of Ernest Glasser, Told by Nadar's son to the author. 60. <When I conceived of the idea of the Nadar pantheon containing a thousand portraits in four consecutive pages-men of letters, dramatists, painters. sculptors and musicians- I was on intimate tenns with au the illustrious men of the period: Nadar, Quand j'etais photographe, pp. 2.4[ Walter Benjamin, <Petite histoire de la photographie.' 62.. Nadar was also the first to think of photographing with artificial light. In 1860, he was thus able to photograph the catacombs of Paris. 63. <From the first days of the following spring in 1856, I obtained on first try a dozen pictures and a negative of the Bois de Boulogne with a piece of the Arc de T riomphe, views of the Ternes, Batigoolles, Montmartre.' Nadar, op. cit. 64. <Here they inflate a tied-up balloon and I see Nadar running around in a naval officer's cap and a military raincoat.' Journal des Goncourt, Sarurday, 19 November 1870, vol. V. 65. CI. N_d_r, The Giant Balloon, London' W. S. Johnson Co., This text on D. O. Hill was published by the author in the magazine Verve, No. 516, edited by E. Teriade, Paris, O. Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France, Boston & New York: D. C. Heath & Co., The club included among its members the scientists de Laborde. Ferdinand de lasteyrie, the baron 5eguier, Becquerel, the painters Delacroix, Beranger, the writer Theophile Gautier, and so on. 222 Photography & Society

231 69 '7. Any colored printsorthoseprintsin which manual retouching has ocwrred will also be excluded from the exhibition.' Bulletin de la sociite fran(ijise de pbotograpbie, 25 January 19I8 70. 'Everyone knows how I suddenly became popular by inventing the carte-de-visite which I had patented in I854.' Disderi, L'Art de la pbotographie, Paris, published by the author in 1862, P I. Disderi, Renseignements photograph;ques indispensables ii taus, 1855, p Disderi, L'An de fa pbotograpbie, pp. 150, 152, d. Nadar, Quand j'itais photograph 74. 'Alanx paints wdl and draws wdl. Moreover, he is not expensive and is a colorist.' Statement by Loois-Philippe quoted by Theaphile Silvestre, Les Artistes {rant;ais, Paris: Charpentier, I878, P Cf. Leon Rosenthal, Du romantismeau realisme. essai sur revo lution de fa peinture en France de r830 Ii I848, Paris, Victor Fournel, Ce qu'on voit dans les rues de Paris, Paris: A. Delahays, I Alfred lichtwark, Die Amateurpbotograpbie, HaDe, 'The bourgeois are especially frightened by the model's shadows in which they only see what darkens and saddens the face... No half tints, but a uniformly white flesh tint with shades of pink around the cheeks!' Fournel, op. cit., p Disderi, L'Art de la pbotographie. 80. Ibid. 81. Ibid. 82. Cf. Leipziger Anzeiger, Cf. Courbet, Le Realisme, catalog of the exhibition and sale of thirty-eight paintings and four drawings from the work of G. Courbet. 84. 'A critical, analytical, synthetic and humanitarian painter, Cour bet is an expression of the time. His work parallels Auguste Comte's positivist philosophy and Vacherot's positivist metaphysics which claim that human law or justice is inherent to th self...' P.-j. Prudhon, Du principe de l'art et de sa destinatim sociaie, Paris, 1865, p Deleduze, Feuilleton from Le Journal des debats, 21 March IS5!. 86. Francis Wey, Du naturalisme dans l'art; de son principe et de ses consequences; ii propos d'un article de M. DeJecluze dans "La Lumiere,' 6 April ISS!. 87. Taine, Philosophie de fart, p Ibid., p Ibid., pp. '3-" A. de Lamanine, Cours familia de liuerature, vol. VII, xxx VIlt' entretien, Leopold Robert, Paris, 1859, p Cf. Ingres, Reponse au rapport sur!'ecole imperiale des Beaux Arts, Paris, IS63. Notes 223

232 92. Cf. Bauddaire, Salon T859. lepublicmodemeetlaphotographie. 9}. Ibid. 94. Ibid. 95. Ddacroix, Revue des deux mondes, 15 September 1850, 21St year, vol. Vll, p Ibid. 97. Comptes rendus des seances de l'academie des sciences, 19 August 1839, vol. IX, pp Cf. Journal de l'industrie photographique, organ of the trade- Wlion committee on photography, January Cf. Revue des deux mondes, 1 April 184I Cf. Le Moniteur de la photographie, no. 24, I March I. Cf. Recueil general des lois et des arren, I October Andre Malraux had asked me to photograph a Mexican srulpture of the goddess of com for his book Le Musee imaginaire de la sculpture montuale. ] photographed from different angles and in changing light conditions, which made the same srulpture appear to be several different srulptures. ] did this to prove to him that his idea concerning a work of art changing according to photography was altogether correct. Malraux chose one of these reproductions for his book, but his choice was conditioned by his own taste and his percqn:ion of this srulpture. The reproduction of an anwork depends on the perception not only of the photographer but of the viewer as wdl Un siecle de technique, Paris: Braun and Co Ibid Ado Kyrou, L'Aged'orde fa cartepostale, Paris: Andre Balland, Record photographs of the Crimean War, '07. Paul Vanderbilt, Guide to the Specific Collections of Prints and Photographs in the Ubrary of Congress, Washington, D.C., Library of Congress, pp Told to the author by her father Cf. Vu, November MUnchner Illustrierte Prt!S5e, no I I I. Cf. Wilhelm Carle, Weltanschauung und Presse, Leipzig: Hirschfeld, '9} I. I I 2. Cf. Erich Salomon, Beri4mnte Zeitgenossen in Unbewachten Augenblicken, I. Stuttgart: Engelhoms Nach. I93I. II3. Ibid Told to the author by Marian Schwabik. I 15. Today. the founder of the Dephot Service is over 80 years old and lives in London. where he formed a press service after the Second World War. His office. situated on the second story of a house in the business district of London. is filled with a jumble of photographs and papers. resembling what the Dephot Service must have looked like in the thirties. When ] arrived in London to interview him, I found an old gentleman with a sharp look who refused to give me the smallest bit of information. On the con Photography & Society

233 trary, he had me sign a paper stipulating that his name would not be menrionedin this book. But] did havethe right to refecro rum as the 'secretary' of the Dephor Service. The 'secretary' played a crucial role in thebistory of photojournalism. Under his influence and thanks to his gifts as a journalist, the photographers belonging to this service ddined modem photojournalism. Although the Service was financed by Alfred Marx, the 'secretary; as clever as he was in thinking out a reportage. was not a very good businessman. Some of his best photographers had to sign contracts directly with the picture magazines in order to be paid. It was the 'secretary' who gave Raben Capa his first chance, who, like so many others educated by the 'secretary,' later became famous Told to the author by Felix H. Man Told to the author by Felix H. Man. II8. Muncbner Illustrierte, Interview with Felix H. Man in The New York Times, 14 May ] 20. Kleine LeiC4-Chronik. Die Entwiddung dec Leica und des loasystems. Ernst Leitz GmbH Wetzlar, nos <>-91.cR Told to the author by Thomas McAvoy. the Life photographer The magazine Photo, no. 59. Paris, }. a. Gisele Freund. The World in My Camera. New York: Dial Press, Munziger-Arcbiv. Lieferung 9158, I March Cf. Theodore Peterson, Magazines in the Twentieth Century, Urbana, 01.: The University of Dlinois Press Ibid Cf. Gibbs, Wolcott. Time. Fortune. Life, HenryLuce,E.B. White and Katherine White, editors, New York: Cowaro McCann, Ibid Cf. Jeanne Perkins Harman. Such Is Life, New York: Thomas Y. CroweD Co., I }O. During my 6rsttrip to New York in 1948, Hides received me with his feet on the table and his face hidden behind a newspaper. He took his time acknowledging my presence and sent me to the 61es to bring back. all of my published reportages. Humiliated. I decided not to return, which did not stop Ufe from publishing my other stories. See also, Infinity, August a. John Kobler, Luu. His Time. Life and Fortune, New York: Doubleday, Ibid a. Kobler, op. cit. 134 Life, no. 5, vol. 58, February Paul Wilkes, <Running Left to Right' in New York Magazine, April }6. According to TelevisionlRadio Age, 16 November 1970, lime, Inc., sold its radio and television stations in order to invest in videocassettes. Notes 2.2.5

234 137. A press release from Time, Inc., by Hedley Donovan and Andrew Heiskell, 2.0 April Le Monde, December 3'4, Paul Vanderbilt, Guide to the Specific Colleaions of Prints and Photographs in the Library of Congress. Minutes of Le Congres International de photographie, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 19<) a. GiseIe Freund, The World in My Camera Ibid The New York Times Book Review, ; October 1969, p Cf. john Morris, 'This we remember. Have photographers brought home the reality?' Harper's Magazine, September Ibid. 14;. Le Point: BislTots, vol. LVll, Paris: Souillac, Lot, Art and literary review Told to the author by Robert Doisneau L'Express, ; July Time, 2; October 1971, p Newsweek, 2 March I ;0. Quoted by Richard Todd, Gathering Bunnyside, The Atlantic Monthly, january Ibid Cf. PeterSchrag, The Decline of the Wasp, New York: Simon and Schuster, The Christian Century, 19 january O. Schrag, op. cit. ISS. Time, 2.7 September I ;6. Man Ray, Autobiography, Paris: Laffont, ;7. John Heartfield, Photomontagen, Ausstellungskatalog der Deutschen Akademie der KUnste, Berlin, ;8. a. Moholy-Nagy, Painting, Photography, Film. A Bauhaus book, London: Lund Humphries, Translation of the original appeared in as volume 8 of the Bauhaus publications Walter Benjamin, 'Petite histoire de la photographie.' 160. Cf. Moholy-Nagy, op. cit. 16I. Richard Kostelanetz, ed., Moboly-Nagy, New York: Praeger, This volume contains articles by Moholy-Nagy and articles about him by different authors George Eastman, 'A Brief Biography of the Founder of Easnnan Kodak Company: in fmage,}ournal of Photography and Motion Pictures of the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, 26 june Cf. Time, J.6 June Ibid Cf. Photographie nouvelle, March Photography & Society

235 Acknowledgments All the photographs and iuustrations in this book appear courtesy of the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House. Rochester, New York, except those provided by the following collections., agendes, and individuals: Lucien Aigner: p Archives Photographiques, Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques, Paris: pp. 41 (top), 45- Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich: p Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris: pp. 31 (bottom left), 9I. Brassai: p Collection Siror. Paris: p. los. Diese Foto 1St Figentum, Munich: p. 92. Robert Doisneau: p Gisele Freund: pp. 8, 12, IS (top, middle leh & right), 17 (left), , 49, ,60, 61.67, 73.94, 95,167- The Gemsbeim Collection, Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin: p John Heartfield, p Jean Lanes: frontispiece. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.: pp. Io6, 1I3' Magnum: p. 169; MagnumlBischof: p. 2; Magnum/Cartier-Bresson: p. 202; Magnum/Haas: p. 102; MagnumlRiboud: p. 214; MagnumlSalomon: p Museum of the City of New York: p. 112 (bottom). National Armed Forces Museu Smithsonian Institution. Washington, D.C.: p Photo Keystone: pp

236 Sipa-Prcss p Societe Fran se de Photographie, Paris: p. 89. S.P.A.D.E.M., p Peter Stackpole: p. 147 (bottom). Time, Inc.: pp. 140, 147 (top), 149, 152. H. Roger Viollet: pp. 30, 72. Ellen Kuiper photoresearched all the materials provided by George Eastman House. u8 Photography & Society

237 Index Adams, Ansel, 210 Adam-Salomon, Antoine Samuel, Adamson, Roben, 49 Aigner, Lucien, Albin-Guillot, Laure, 135 Appert. E., r08 Arago, Fran is, L' Art de Ia photographie (Disderi), Alget, Eugene, , 93 Bain, George Grantha 161 Bandy, Ina, 132 Barnack, Oskae, Baudelaire, Cltarles, 40, Bauhaus, Baumann, Hans. See Man, Fdix H. Bayard, Hippolyte, 28 Beals, Jessie Tarbox, 113 Bechmann, Freilierr von, 12.7 Berliner Illustrirte no, Il.4, 142 Sertall (Vicomte d'amoux), Berl4hmte Zeitgenossen in Unbewachten AMgenblicken (Salomon), Il.I-1.3 Bischof, Werner, 173 Bisson Brothers, h-8:z. Blucher, von, 127 Borich, Fra is, 99 Bourke-White, Margaret, Brady, Mathew, Brassai, BraWl, Adolphe, Brigman. Anne, 91 Calotypc, 50 Cameraless photography, 194- '96 Camera obswra. 50 Cameras, II3, , , 201, Camera Work. 91, 210 Cameron. Julia Margaret. 43 Capa, Cornell. 210 Capa. Robert, , Carbon paper, use of. 96 Carjat, Etienne, Carte-de-visite Cartier-Bresson. Henri, 203 Cave, Madame. 80 Chad. Christian. 194 Chamhre Syndicale de Photographie, 8J -84 Chretien, Gilles-Louis '7 <lturchill. Winston, I Gvil War (American) Collodion process, Combe, George 49 Communards. See Paris Commune Coombes. Fred. 32 Copyright, '75-78 Coucbet, Gustave, 70-71, 72 Crimean War, Cropping of photographs, '7' Dadaism, '94 Daguerre, Louis jacques Mande, 24-26, 28, 29, 31. J2 Daguerreotype, Daumier, Honore Delacroix, Eugene, 80 Delano, jack, II J Delarod>e, Paul, 26, 59, Ddeduze, Etienne jean, Deutscher Pbotodienst. See Dephot News Service Dephot News Service, Diorama, 24 Disderi, Andre Adolphe Eugene, , 96 Doisneau, Robert. 175, Du Naturalisme dans ran (Wey), Duncan, David Douglas, 168,,69 Eastman, George, 201, 210. See also Kodak Eisenstaedt. Alfred, 127, 132, 147, 149 Ermanox camera, II9-21, 127 Evans, Walker. II3, 210 Exposure time, 29-30, Farm Security Administration, III. 113 Fenton, Roger,

238 Film, , Fra Prussian War, 108 Freund, Gisele, 95, , Friedmann, Andrei. See Capa, Robert GaleUa, Ronald E., IS2. George Eastman House, 2.11, 2.I2. See also International Museum of Photography Gidal Brothers, I 2.7 Giroux. Alphonse, 29, 32. Godard Broth""" Gonord (physionotracist), 16- '7 Goro, Fritz, ] 3 2 Gouraud, Fra, 32. Gropius, Walter, II Haas, Ernst, 103 Hadd Britton, 143 Halftone uproduction, ]04 Hannan, Felix, 135 Hearst newspapers, 133 Heartfield, John,,6" '94-95 Hefner, Hugh, 183, IS7, 188 Heliogmvure, 98 Herzfdd. Hdmut. See Heartfield, John Hicks, Wdson, '45 Hill, David Octavius, 49-50, 5' Hine, Lewis W., 108, III Hider, Adolf, [31-]35, 161 Hoffman, Heinrich, How the Other Half Lives (Riisl, '08 Hubschmann, Kurt, See Hutton, Kurt Hutton, Kurt, lustTated Weekly. 131 Impressionism, 88-89, 91 Industrial Exposition of [855, 53-54, Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique, 3, Instamaric camera, International Center of Photography, 210 International Museum of Photography, 210 Johnston, Frances Benjamin,,6, Juste milieu painting, 59-60, 65, 81 Karsh, Yose, 212 Kertesz, Andre, I 27, I 35, I 3 7, 86, 87, 88, 2.01, 203-5, 2.07 Korean War, 172. Korff, Kurt, , 142 Krull, Germaine, 127, 135, [37 Kyrou, Ado, ]00 Lamartine, Alphonse Marie Louis de, 77 Land, Edwin Robert, Lange, Dorothea, I I 3 Lasteyrie, Philippe de, 4 Le Gray, Gustave, Leica camera, , 'H Leitz factory, , 30, 64, 104, 12.8, 2.07 Life, 129, , , lltbogmphy, 4, '-4 LoIaDt, Stefan, ] Luee, Henry R., ] 3 9, 143, McAvoy, Thomas, Magnum Agency, 133, Malraux, Andre, 95 Man, Fdix H., , 141 Maurisset, T.-H., 2.7 Miniature, 10-11, 14, Minolta 130, 2.08 Minox camera, 204 Moholy-Nagy. L:iszl6, 117, 126, 194, Money, 156 Montauk Photo Conc:em. 161 Morris, John Mun ri, nttn, I2.7, 135 Munchner IlIustrierte Presse, 117, Musee imaginllire (Malraux), 95 Museum of Modem Art, 2.10 Mussolini, Benito, 126, 12.9 Nadar, Felix Toumachon, 35, , H, 80 Nadar, Paul, 42 Napoleon Ill, 47, 57, Naturalism, 73-75, 77 Negative, 33, 50, 56, 128, 206 Newhall, Beaumont. 212 New Vision (Moholy-Nagy). '98 Nii:pce, Isidore, Nii:pce, Joseph Nicephore, 22, Nixon, Richard M., 168, 169 Ogilvy, David, 216 Ona.ms, Jacqueline Keooedy, O'Sullivan, Timothy, 107 Painting, Photography, Film (Moholy-Nagyl, '95 Pantograph, 14 Paparazzi Paper. use of, 28, 96 Paris Commune. 66, 108 Paris-Match Paris World's Fair of See also Industrial Exposition of 1855 Photo. 171 Photogram, Photography, cameraless, 194. [96 Photokina I 3 Photomontage, 161, Physionouace, 9, Picture Post, 131 Plate, photographic, 2.2., 2.8, , 104-6, 120 Playboy, r Photography & Society

239 Polaroid, Polnareff. Michel, ISS-91 Postcard, 9S, 100 Prouvost, Jean, Puyo, Emile Joachim Constant, 89 Pyle. Ernie, 149 Quenedey, Edmund (physionotracist), Ray. Man, Rayograph, 9. Realism, Realism, 71 Retouching, SS, ". Revolution surrealiste, 90 Ribeau, Paul, Riboud, Marc, 2.I 5 Riis, Jacob A., los Robinson. Henry Peach, 43, 63 Russell, A. J., 106 Salomon, Erich, lis, IIS-2..4, 132., 141 Scbwabik, Marian, I17 Self-portrait U.S.A. (Duncan),.69 Senefdder. Alois, -4 Silhouette, II -1 3 Smith, W. Eugene, 103 Societe hetiographique. S4 Soft-focus, 50, Spolinski, Hdmut MUller von, "7 Stadcpole, Peter, 147 Steichen, Edward, 91 Stieglitz, A1fred, 91, 161,2.10 Stryker, Roy, 111 Surrealism. 90, SX-70 camera, 2.0S, 2.06 Szarfranski Szarkowski, John, 2.1 I Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe, 70, 75 Talbot, William Henry Fox, 18, 5 Trme. 143 Tunc, Inc., Toomachon, Felix. See Nadar, Felix Toumamoo UlIstein Publishing Company, lis-i" Umbo, 117 Vietnam War, 1 73, us-16 Vogel, Lucien, '35-39 Vu, qo, 131, , 141 Weber, WoIfpng, 117 Wey, Francis, World War U, '7' Yvon, Adolphe, 8I-S2. Index 2.3'