From the 1850s
through the 1890s photography was conceived of as a substitute for drawing
and painting. The earliest critical standards applied to photographs were,
therefore, those used for judging art, and it was accepted that the camera
would be of great use to artists because it could catch details more quickly
and with greater fidelity than the eye and hand; in other words, photography
was viewed as a shortcut to art-as Hill and Adamson had employed it. Indeed,
by the 1870s it was accepted practice to pose subjects carefully in the
studio and to retouch and tint photographs to make them more like paintings.
An interesting parallel to this exists in the practice of Indian photographers
from the time photography was introduced into India in the 1840s. As revealed
in a recent U.S. exhibition, "Through Indian Eyes" (1982), they
posed their subjects and manipulated their prints (largely portraits) to
make them resemble Indian miniature paintings, obliterating indications
of Western canons of space and perspective and painting in ornate backgrounds.
The Swedish photographer
Oscar Gustave Rejlander (1813-75) and the English professional photographer
Henry Peach Robinson (1834-1901) pioneered the method of creating one print
from several different negatives; Robinson, originally trained as an artist,
based his composite, storytelling images on preliminary pencil sketches.
His influence as an art photographer was pervasive; for example, some of
the works of his compatriot Julia Margaret Cameron-a series of allegorical
tableaus-were posed and costumed in emulation of contemporary painting
styles.
Cameron's portrait
studies are closeup, dramatically lighted photographs of her friends, members
of English literary and scientific circles, and are powerful revelations
of character. The work of Nadar (the professional name of Gaspard Félix
Tournachon, 1820-1910), a French caricaturist who became a photographer,
is another noteworthy exception to contemporary artificiality. His cartes-de-visite
(mounted photographs the size of calling cards) are a series of simply
posed, incisively direct portraits of Parisian intelligentsia. Shot against
plain backgrounds, with diffused light to bring out details, these photographs
are witnesses to Nadar's powers of observation.
