Synopses & Reviews
Seizing the Light: A Social History of Photography provides a thought-provoking, accurate, and accessible introduction to the photographic arts for all readers. With stunning images and commentary by hundreds of international artists, the text clearly and concisely provides the building blocks necessary to critically explore photographic history from the photographers' eye, an aesthetic point of view.
About the Author
Robert Hirsch is an artist, author, curator, and educator.
Hirsch is the author of Seizing the Light: A History of Photography; Exploring Color Photography: From the Darkroom to the Digital Studio published by McGraw-Hill and Photographic Possibilities: The Expressive Use of Ideas, Materials, and Processes published by Focal Press.
He is a former associate editor for Photovision magazine and is a contributing writer for Afterimage, Digital Photography (UK), exposure, Ilford Photo Newsletter, and The Photo Review.
He was the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Art (CEPA Gallery) in Buffalo, NY.
Hirsch is on the art faculty of SUNY Buffalo and teaches history of photography online through Eastern New Mexico University.
Recently his images have been shown at: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM; Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro, VT; Artspace, New Haven, CT; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; Williamsburg Art & Historical Center, Brooklyn, NY; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD; and Stefan Stux Gallery, NY, NY.
Table of Contents
Preface CHAPTER ONE - Advancing toward Photography: The Birth of Modernity A Desire for Visual Representation Perspective Thinking of Photography Camera Vision The Demand for Picturemaking Systems Proto-Photographers: Chemical Action of Light Modernity: New Visual Realities Optical Devices Images through Light: A Struggle for Permanence Other Distinct Originators CHAPTER TWO - The Daguerreotype: Image and Object What Is a Daguerreotype? The Daguerreotype Comes to America The Early Practitioners Early Daguerrean Portrait Making Technical Improvements Expanding U.S. Portrait Studios The Art of the Daguerrean Portrait Daguerrean Portrait Galleries and Picture Factories African-American Operators Rural Practice Post-Mortem Portraits The Daguerreotype and the Landscape The Daguerreotype and Science CHAPTER THREE - Calotype Rising: The Arrival of Photography The Calotype Early Calotype Activity Calotypists Establish a Practice Calotype and Architecture: Mission Heliographique The End of the Calotype and the Future of Photography CHAPTER FOUR - Pictures on Glass: The Wet-Plate Process The Albumen Process The New Transparent Look The Ambrotype Pictures on Tin The Carte-de-Visite and the Photo Album The Cabinet Photograph: The Picture Gets Bigger The Studio Tradition Retouching and Enlargements The Stereoscope The Stereo Craze CHAPTER FIVE - Prevailing Events/Picturing Calamity Current Events Early War Coverage The American Civil War How Photographs Were Circulated CHAPTER SIX - A New Medium of Communication Photography: Art or Industry? Discovering a Photographic Language Americans and the Art of Nature Positivism CHAPTER SEVEN - Standardizing the Practice: A Transparent Truth Mechanical Photography The Traveling Camera Picturing Industrialization Urban Life The American West: The Narrative and the Sublime CHAPTER EIGHT - New Ways of Visualizing Time and Space The Inadequacy of Human Vision Locomotion Transforming Aesthetics: Technical Breakthroughs The Hand-Held Camera and the Snapshot Time and Motion as an Extended Continuum Moving Pictures Color and Photography CHAPTER NINE - Suggesting the