Week 2: Early Portraits

    The introduction of photography came with strife when it was first introduced into the public. The first problem was whether the art media should be considered art or as a science. The outcome of the examination of photography could coexist in both planes. Another area where the history of photography can be contested is the industrial making of the cameras and the accessibility the camera and photographs and the effect it had on the masses. In, Walter Benjamin, “Little History Photography” he addresses these considers when talking about photography. How photography can be seen as an art form is the aura that a photography has. He speaks on how a photograph that give an aura it offers the viewer a permanent impression. “There was an aura about them, a medium that lent fullness and security to their gaze even as it penetrated that medium [photography]. And once again the technical equivalent is obvious: it consists in the absolute continuum from brightest light to darkest shadow. Here, too, we see in operation the law that new advances are prefigured in older techniques, for the earlier art of portrait painting.”1 It is the old techniques of painting light and shadow, which can be called tenebrism that originated during the Baroque era. That allows photography a pass into being an art form. It can feel familiar to the viewer when viewing a new art form because it been reputable. People do seek out what they know and for the old techniques of camera technology it did such a thing. Walter Benjamin who when writing this essay based his theories to match with his political view of Marxism. He says the mass production of the camera to be a threat since that mass production helped capitalism. He addressed that by mentioning how the mass producer comes to be a millionaire. However, towards the end Benjamin acknowledge how photography had become a collective instead of an solitary pursuit because it showed others a comprehensive range of people. A photograph that best encapsulates the struggles of photography as a science and, art from and as a collective rather than an individual pursuit is the first photograph of Earth from space. Taken in 1946 by United State sciences and soldiers at White Sands Missile Range.2 The photo captures a collective because there are people in this photo unseen but known. The light and darkness contrast each other like a tenebrism painting. The aura of the photograph is permit and long lasting because that is the same Earth we are all on right now. 

First photography Earth from Space (1946) 

Source

                                                                                                                                                                       Citation: 

1.) Walter Benjamin, "Little History of Photography," in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings vol 2, part 2 1931-1934, trans. by Rodney Livingstone et al., ed. by Michael W. Jennings, et al. (Harvard University Press, 2005). 

2.)“On This Day in Space History, the First Photo Is Taken from Space.” 2019. Space Center Houston.             October 24, 2019. https://spacecenter.org/first-photo-taken-from-space/.