Exercise 2.1 "Territorial Photography"
For other students looking for this essay I found it here in the OCA Student forum:
Joel Snyder's essay entitled "Territorial Photography" introduces photography and advances in printing during the mid to late 19th century as being "precise, accurate and faithful!" to the scene captured by the camera. I see this as being opposed to methods of capturing landscapes such as drawing and painting where perhaps the artist may have been seen to have a greater opportunity of artist interpretation, particular the common theme of pictorialism" during this period. The key difference discussed was photography was mechanically and therefore more trusted to be a reflection of reality.
One of the challenges for photographers of this period was according to Snyder two fold:
1. "how to make a picture resolutely photographic yet";
2. "beautiful and stunning and attractive"
Carleton Watkins merged "technical virtuosity", for its time, with both the "picturesque and sublime modes of landscape depiction.
Watkins took up photography by chance when working in a store close to the studio of Robert Vance and due to a vacancy took over the running of the studio
Carleton Watkins - Magenta Flume
In the image I've selected depicts what appears to be a roller coaster styled log flume for moving logs quickly and efficiently down the hillside. Carleton's technical photographic prowess included the use of "mammoth" photographic negative plates. These were produced using his stereoscopic camera and the images when viewed in a binocular fashion brought "the images" alive.
Following from assignment 1 there is a definite touch of the sublime in this image in the capture of what looks like a formidable and practical engineering feat. The scale of the construction can be easily understood and appreciated when viewing the buildings in the bottom left of the image emphasising the sense of scale. In addition we have a landscape image far removed from pictorialism and the placement of the flume in the frame gives a great sense of perspective and depth to the scene. The construction material of the flume very evident and its impact on the nearby surroundings likely a result of the materials required for its construction. Snyder states in his essay that Watkins " managed to anaesthetize and overwhelm the apparently ugly or non-natural by plying man made designs against a ruined environment. Whilst Snyder specifically associates this with Watkin's images of mining scenes his words are very apt in relation to the image I have used to example Watkins work.
Timothy H O'Sullivan began a career in photography aged 18 at the start of the Civil war. & years later Snyder credits him with photography most of the Civil War battlefields and was regarded as one of the best field photographers in the country during this war.
Timothy H O'Sullivan - Field Where General Reynolds Fell, Gettysburg
Snyder details that O'Sullivan's images "portray a bleak inhospitable land, a god forsaken anaesthetising landscape.", denying the viewer of being able to see a positive relationship between humans and the landscape.
O Sullivan was not producing images for large audience and therefore able to produce images much diverse from mainstream. Critics have described his work as not confirming to any specific genre, perhaps as Snyder suggests embracing what is known as within the Modernism genre. Rosalind Krauss as I have read in an earlier exercise suggested his work neither belonged in a museum or gallery but of a scientific value. Personally I would O'Sullivan's work as more landscape documentary. In the image I've used above it documents events at Gettysburg but the scene encompasses expanse of the field, appropriately titled. This image demonstrates Snyder's view that O'Sullivan's work disassociated man with the landscape, the remnants of man's disputes left as in-compassionate blots on the landscape, very much the anti-thesis of "pictorialism".
Snyder's description of how O'Sullivan "staged" the scene for the image " Sand Dunes near Carson City" and how the early impressions of landscape photography was its ability to truly reflect a scene, this still remains true but elements of the scene as in this image have been created by man to full fill the purpose of of the image required.
I've enjoyed reading Snyder's essay, though in parts I've found it difficult to fully understand. However he clearly demonstrates using 2 of the photographers I've used above, to show how some landscape photographers diversified from traditional pictorialistic landscape genres following both a technological approach with Watkins stereoscopic a camera, and a dysotopian view at times from O'Sullivan demonstrating with his images a dissociation between man and landscape.
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