Category Archives: U3AC Photography Courses

Five Facets of Photography – Photographs that Changed the World: Rontgen’s X-Ray

Posted on February 25, 2022 by Brian

A medical X-ray photograph of Anna Bertha Röntgen hand made by her husband Wilhelm in 1895. The discovery of x-rays won Wilhelm the first Nobel Prize ever granted for physics in 1901. His breakthrough quickly went into use around the world, … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography – Ideas that Changed Photography: Conceptual photography

Posted on February 23, 2022 by Brian

Conceptual Photography is often considered to derive from Conceptual Art of the late 1960s, but it has been around longer than that.  It is photography that is staged or created to represent an idea; it is not primarily intended to depict and … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography – Ideas that Changed Photography: The Decisive Moment

Posted on February 21, 2022 by Brian

The course I’m running for the Cambridge U3A, Five Facets of Photography, starts this week with ‘Ideas that Changed Photography’.  This post comes from that module.  Posts over the next five weeks will include material from subsequent modules. Henri Cartier-Bresson … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography – Ideas that Changed Photography: New Documents

Posted on February 12, 2022 by Brian

The New Documents exhibition at MOMA in 1967, small, framed black-and-white pictures by Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand, was modest by today’s standards.  The work had a casual, offhand quality and the subject matter was apparently random and … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography – Ideas that Changed Photography: Photojournalism

Posted on January 23, 2022 by Brian

Photojournalism is journalism that integrates images and text to tell a news story.  It is distinguished from other close branches of photography by having a rigid ethical framework which demands an honest but impartial approach that tells a story in strictly journalistic terms. In the … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography – Ideas that Changed Photography: Straight Photography

Posted on January 11, 2022 by Brian

In the early years of the 20th Century it was increasingly realised that photography would not be taken seriously if it simply aped painting.  Ironically, Alfred Stieglitz, a supporter of the pictorialist Photo Secession in the US, was midwife to … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography – Ideas that Changed Photography: Marketing/Advertising

Posted on January 6, 2022 by Brian

Advertising in the 19th century relied mainly on the power of the description of the product’s excellence and occasional unconvincing illustrations.  Recognition of the value of pictures, the improved technology of reproduction and the growth in newspapers and magazines provided … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography – Ideas that Changed Photography: Tabloids

Posted on January 3, 2022 by Brian

In 1903 Alfred Harmsworth started the first modern tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mirror, in London. Appealing to the mass market, it presented the now familiar mix of crime stories, human tragedies, celebrity gossip, sports, comics, and puzzles.  Photographs were an essential … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography: Ideas that Changed Photography – The Web

Posted on December 17, 2021 by Brian

The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989.  On 18th July 1992 he uploaded a promotional image of four slickly dressed women, the first photograph to be published on the web.  The most radical innovation in disseminating … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography: Ideas that Changed Photography – William Eggleston

Posted on December 13, 2021 by Brian

In 1973-74 William Eggleston discovered dye-transfer printing. The process resulted in some of Eggleston’s most striking and famous work, such as his 1973 photograph The Red Ceiling, of which Eggleston said, “The Red Ceiling is so powerful, that in fact, I’ve … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography: Photographs that Changed the World – Alexander Gardner

Posted on December 11, 2021 by Brian

The American Civil War Battle of Antietam, 17th September 1862, was the bloodiest day in American history, with a combined tally of 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing.  The photographer Alexander Gardner arrived there two days later and set up his … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography: Ideas that Changed Photography – Doreen Spooner

Posted on November 30, 2021 by Brian

Doreen Spooner (1928-2019) was the first woman to work as a staff photographer on a Fleet Street newspaper during a forty-year career, mostly on the Daily Mirror. Spooner’s photograph of George Bernard Shaw won the British News Picture of the … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography: Ideas that Changed Photography – George Rodger

Posted on November 20, 2021 by Brian

George Rodger was a founding member of Magnum Photos in 1947. He travelled to Africa and photographed of indigenous people of the Nuba Mountains, the Latuka and other tribes of southern Sudan, in 1948 and 1949.  The results are regarded as, ‘some of the most historically … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography: Women in Photography – Germaine Krull

Posted on November 12, 2021 by Brian

Germaine Krull (1897 – 1985) was an avant-garde photographer, political activist, and hotel owner. Her nationality has been recorded as variously European, though she spent many years in Brazil, the Republic of the Congo, Thailand, and India. She is one of a number … Continue reading →

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Five Facets of Photography: Women in Photography – Miwa Yanagi

Posted on November 7, 2021 by Brian

Looking for someone to include as an example of the art/conceptual practice in photography, I found Miwa Yanagi. She is a Japanese photographic artist (b 1967) who examines self-image and stereotypes of women in contemporary Japanese society.  In her third … Continue reading →

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