by Abby Bisbee
Over the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries, photography has not only progressed in technique because of advancements in technology, but also in ideology. When the practice of photography was first created in the early version of the daguerreotype, the focus on the artist was to capture the reality that the element of light presented. The subject matter centered on either still lifes or human subjects posing for a portrait. As the quality of the technology around the camera and the lens progressed, however, so did the subject matter as the importance of various techniques shifted as well. A comparison between two photographers from extremely different historical backgrounds will help elaborate upon how both technology, technique, and relative importance of subject matter has changed since the first half of the twentieth century and the first decade of its predecessor.
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer that is considered to be the founder of street photography, or the photojournalist style. He started his work in the 1930s and responsible for capturing some of the most powerful photojournalist style photographs of the twentieth century. Cartier-Bresson was one of the first photographers to venture outside of the studio to capture the exciting moments on the street, framing the pinnacle of action. His photographs are defined by his recognition of geometric shapes created by light and shadow. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, the film gauge that is most “commonly used for chemical still photography and motion pictures” (Wikipedia). Even though the gage was accepted internationally as the standard gauge in 1909, Cartier-Bresson was one of the first to use it with a photojournalist approach. In Images à la Sauvette, Cartier-Bresson’s capture of a couples’ kiss at the train station captures what is the “Decisive Moment” of an event. What is pivotal to this approach is that Cartier-Bresson did not stage his photographs, but instead he relied upon his camera and artist’s gaze to capture the most important element of everyday events. The focus of the photographs then moves to the geometric shapes, the action of the subjects, and the contrasting and framing elements of the light.
From Images à la Sauvette by Henri Cartier-Bresson.
In high contrast to Cartier-Bresson, we can examine the artwork created by the artist-duo Nicholas Khan and Richard Selesnick. These two artists capture the direction photography has taken since the mid-1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century. The two artists use the photographs that they take to create “a series of complex narrative photo-novellas and sculptural installations” (kahnselesnick.com). Unlike Cartier-Bresson’s artwork that depends on capturing a moment scene that has come to fruition without the artist’s hand, Kahn and Selesnick returned in the late 1990s to staged photography. In a postmodern approach, the artists addressed the past and the future through staging scenes that challenged preconceptions about reality. Technologically, their photographs differd from Cartier-Bresson because instead of capturing a single frame with a 35 mm camera lens, the duo chose to create epic panoramas because they could “more faithfully create a truer, more cinematic sense of place, while…[the]…manipulation of costume, props and period color would help alter the sense of time” (kahnselesnick.com).
Two particular works not only demonstrate how the progression of technology between Cartier-Bresson and Kahn and Selenick was extreme, but even how technology has affected postmodern photography. In the first example from Eisbergfreistadt is ‘The Circular River, the R.E.C. Siberian Expedition of 1945-46’ (1998-1999) the Kahn and Selesnick continue a narrative from an earlier staged panorama project. The panorama project is brought together in a seven foot wide leather bound book that included “laser-color prints on cotton but had the appearance of vintage folded panoramas, collaged together by hand, stained and inscribed with notes from the expedition” (kahnsalesnick.com). This project demonstrates how photography has taken a hybrid approach and that the capture of natural elements no longer can embody the postmodern photograph. Instead, the postmodern photograph relies on the integration of referential subject matter and also a referential and in this case also simulacral manner of production. These photographs were taken with a non-digital camera and collaged together by hand.
From Eisbergfreistadt from Richard Selesnick and Nicolas Kahn
Kahn and Salesnick’s later “post-apocolyptic whisky-dark epic ‘Scotlandfuturebog’” takes the use of technology to another level. While the earlier works relied solely on staged photography that created the image through camera and lens work, the duo introduced the computer. This new technology allowed them to overlap and merge photographs from various locations such as Ireland, Isle of Skye, and Cape Cod to create the setting that they were looking to create for their photographic novella (kahnselesnick.com). In addition to the new technology to create the photographs, another element that was critical in their creation of this story was the materials used to print them. These images were originally printed as “giclee prints on translucent Gampi rice paper up to twelve feet long and two feet high” that enhanced their “future historical impossibility.”
Sumpfinselwormloch from Scottlandfuturebog by Nicolas Kahn and Richard Selesnick
It is decisions such as these that separate photographers from people who capture images on modern technology, whether it is a digital camera or a mobile device. The social purpose of photography has been and will continue to be an artistic one, while the act of image making rather serves to capture social rituals and interactions. Both of these artists represent different historical movements in photography, but they both strive to create the photograph that speaks to the viewer beyond the subject matter. Interestingly, both seem to take a photojournalistic approach, capturing the past, present, and future. The question that postmodern brings to the forefront, however, is the veracity of a photograph and the reality that it depicts.
Works Cited:
“Henri Cartier-Bresson.” Wikipedia, 2013. Web. 5 Nov 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson>.
“Kahn & Selesnick.” Kahnselesnick.com, 2013. Web. 5 Nov 2013. <http://www.kahnselesnick.com>.
Continuing this thought process, if we compare the work of Bresson and that of Annie Leibovitz, their way of understanding reality is quite different from each other. For Bresson, photography was meant to be “an instant drawing” without the artifice of technical manufacturing. This is in contrast to photographers such as Leibovitz, known for her work done with celebrities and the fashion magazine Vogue, who polish that “instant drawing” with technical techniques such as Photoshop. 
