essential skills: digital photography in available light
Realism
In 1902 a photographer named Alfred Stieglitz exhibited under the title ‘Photo-Secessionists’ with
nonconformist pictorial photographs, choosing everyday subject matter taken with a hand-held
camera. These images helped promote photography as an aesthetic medium.
F64
Another member of the group, Paul Strand, pioneered ‘straight photography’, fully exploring the
medium’s strengths and careful observation of subject matter. Strand believed that the emphasis
should lie in the ‘seeing’ and not the later manipulation in order to communicate the artist’s feelings.
The work and ideas infl uenced photographers such as Edward Weston and Ansel Adams who
decided to take up this new ‘Realism’. They formed the group F64 and produced images using the
smallest possible apertures on large format cameras for maximum sharpness and detail.
Straight photography heralded the fi nal break from the pursuit of painterly qualities by
photographers. Sharp imagery was now seen as a major strength rather than a weakness of the
medium. Photographers were soon to realize this use of sharp focus did not inhibit the ability of
the medium to express emotion and feeling.
Dunes, Oceano, California 1963 - Ansel Adams © Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust/Corbis