History of Photography Podcast

Welcome to the History of Photography Podcast 2.0!

Having retired from my college teaching job, I’m no longer teaching the photo history class, but I have lots of other irons in the fire and want to continue the podcast with some new topics and ideas.

A complete semester of the History of Photography class will still be available online, as well as some other resources.

Links for this episode:

The 15th and final class session examines documentary and conceptual photography, looking at the motivation and rationale behind them. We also try to tie up the ideas of the course with some concluding remarks.

During his 29-year tenure as Director of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the great curator and photographer John Szarkowski (1925 to 2007) changed the way the world saw photography.

This short class session introduces Szarkowski’s work and was followed by a film about him.

The middle of the 20th century was a time of tremendous change in all areas of the world and especially in the world of photography. This class session looks at the changes that photography experienced during the atomic age through an examination of the cultural, political and artistic climate of the time.

Is any photograph real? This question comes up as we trace the trajectory of the manipulated image in this class session. We also try to see if we can figure out where our digital photographic age is taking us and whether we want to go there.

Is anatomy destiny? This class session looks at women’s photography by examining the work of various female photographers as well as by looking at the bigger issue of whether the photographer’s gender changes the images that are made.

This week, we examine photographers using large cameras and those using small cameras and try to examine the importance of the choice of tools to the photographer. Does the tool drive the idea, or the idea drive the tool?

One of the great characters in the history of the medium, Alfred Stieglitz was also one of the most influential photographers and promoters of photography of the 20th century. In this class, we look at Stieglitz and the group of photographers and other artists he gathered around him. We also try to examine why what Stieglitz did and what he said were often two different things.

Stop-motion photography as practiced by Edweard Muybridge and Etienne-Jules Marey and others is the topic of this class session. These scientific experiments ultimately led to the development of motion pictures by Edison.

A slightly shorter class session, as we cover three smaller topics: 1) the ideas surrounding stereoscopic photography, 2) the way 19th century photographers handled photographing standard subjects; once you take away subject, what other choices do photographers have to make? and 3) Rephotography: how does subject matter change over time and what does that mean for photographers?