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Photography

Two-Dimensional and Graphic Arts
Photography

Photography is the process of recording the image of an object through the action of light on a light-sensitive material, producing a lasting picture. Its principle traces to the camera obscura, a darkened chamber with a small aperture projecting an image onto an interior surface, described by ancient Chinese and Greek writers, including Aristotle, more than 2,000 years ago. Photography proper began in France in the 1820s when Joseph Nicephore Niepce coated a pewter plate with a light-sensitive bitumen solution and placed it inside a small camera obscura; the resulting image, View from the Window at Le Gras, made in 1826 or 1827 after an exposure lasting hours to days, is the earliest photograph known to survive. From 1829 until Niepce's death in 1833, he partnered with the painter and physicist Louis Daguerre to refine the process, and Daguerre went on to develop the daguerreotype, in which an iodized silver plate exposed in a camera formed a latent image developed with mercury fumes and fixed with a salt solution. On January 9, 1839, the astronomer Francois Arago announced the daguerreotype process to the French Academy of Sciences, and it quickly became the first widely practiced photographic method. Photography's history since has been one of continual change in the light-sensitive material itself, moving from coated metal plates and glass to flexible film and, by the late twentieth century, electronic sensors.

Facts
Medium
Light recorded on a light-sensitive material, historically a chemically coated metal plate, glass or film that is developed and fixed, and in contemporary practice an electronic sensor, captured through a camera descended from the ancient camera obscura. 1
Signature Technique
Niepce's heliography: a polished pewter plate coated with a light-sensitive layer of bitumen of Judea. 2
Notable Example
Niepce's View from the Window at Le Gras (1826 or 1827), the oldest surviving photograph made in a camera. 2
Disputed
Place of Origin
France, generally credited to Nicephore Niepce and Louis Daguerre, though England's Henry Fox Talbot independently developed a rival photographic process around the same period. 2
Traditional attribution centers on the French daguerreotype process, formally unveiled in 1839; the recorded dissent names Talbot's independently developed calotype negative process, demonstrated in London with less publicity than the daguerreotype's formal unveiling.
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Who Invented Photography: Niepce, Daguerre, and a Contested First

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Photography does not have a clean origin story, though the encyclopedia entries usually give it one. The name attached to the invention in most popular accounts is Louis Daguerre, who announced his daguerreotype process to the French Academy of Sciences in January 1839 to enormous public sensation, secured a government pension for himself and, less generously, a much smaller one for a dead man's son, and saw his name become a synonym for the new medium within a year. The dead man was Joseph Nicephore Niepce, who had produced the earliest surviving photographic image, a view from an upstairs window at his estate at Le Gras, around 1826 or 1827, using a pewter plate coated in bitumen and an exposure that likely lasted several days. Niepce had been working the problem since at least 1816, entered a formal partnership with Daguerre in 1829 to develop it further, and died in 1833, six years before the world learned his partner's name attached to a refined version of their shared technique. Daguerre did real, independent work after Niepce's death, most importantly cutting exposure times from days to minutes by discovering that mercury vapor could develop a latent image, which is what made the daguerreotype commercially viable rather than a curiosity. That is a genuine technical achievement and Daguerre deserves credit for it. What he does not deserve is sole credit for the invention of photography itself, a framing his own promotional instincts encouraged and that history has mostly accepted uncritically. The matter is further complicated by William Henry Fox Talbot in England, who had been developing his own negative and positive process, the calotype, on a similar timeline and announced it to the Royal Institution within weeks of Daguerre's reveal, prompting a bitter priority dispute that consumed the 1840s. The honest account is that photography was not invented, in the singular heroic sense the word implies, but arrived through parallel, overlapping, and partly collaborative work by at least three men working from a shared body of optical and chemical knowledge that had been accumulating across Europe for decades. Treating Daguerre as photography's sole author is not wrong so much as it is a marketing success outliving its subject by nearly two centuries.

Is Photography a Fine Art? A Debate Photography Never Quite Settled

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

For most of the nineteenth century, a working photographer who called their work art would have faced polite condescension from painters and critics alike, on the argument that a camera merely records what is placed in front of it, while a painter invents. The Pictorialist movement, active from the 1880s through the early twentieth century, answered that argument by making photographs that looked as much like paintings as the chemistry allowed, using soft focus, elaborate hand printing techniques such as gum bichromate, and painterly, allegorical subject matter, precisely so that a photograph could be judged by the standards already applied to painting rather than argue for new ones. Alfred Stieglitz, the movement's most influential American champion, eventually reversed course, and his Photo-Secession group came to argue instead for straight photography, images that looked unmistakably photographic and asked to be judged as their own medium rather than an imitation of an older one. That argument won within photographic circles well before it won in museums. The Museum of Modern Art in New York, now home to one of the world's most important photography collections, did not establish a dedicated photography department until 1940, a full century after the medium's public debut, and many encyclopedic art history surveys continued to treat photography as an appendix to painting and sculpture rather than a coequal subject well into the postwar period. It is worth asking what the debate was actually about, because the technical case against photography as art, that it merely records rather than invents, does not survive contact with what a photographer actually does: choosing a frame, a moment, a light, a print process, decisions as consequential and as unrepeatable as a painter's brushstroke. The more honest reading is that painting's claimed uniqueness, its exclusive hold on the category of serious visual art, was genuinely threatened by a mechanical medium that could produce a convincing likeness in a fraction of the time, and the debate over photography's artistic legitimacy was, underneath its aesthetic vocabulary, a debate about who got to keep that hold.

Photography
Filter Results59 entries
FAQs

Who invented photography?

Nicephore Niepce and Louis Daguerre in France are usually credited, though Henry Fox Talbot independently developed a rival process in England around the same time.

Photography's invention is usually credited to Nicephore Niepce and Louis Daguerre in France, whose daguerreotype process was formally unveiled to the public in 1839. England's Henry Fox Talbot independently developed a competing negative-based process, the calotype, around the same period, demonstrating it in London before the daguerreotype's formal unveiling but with far less publicity, so historians generally describe photography's origin as a case of parallel invention rather than a single breakthrough.
Connections

Associated With

Source Ambrotype (Wikipedia)
Source Calotype (Wikipedia)
Cyanotype, Artistic Techniques

cyanotype is a technique of the photography art form.

Daguerreotype, Artistic Techniques

daguerreotype is a technique of the photography art form.

Film, Art Forms
Film, Art Forms

gelatin silver process is a technique of the photography art form.

Source Tintype (Wikipedia)

wet plate collodion is a technique of the photography art form.

Genre Of

Influenced

Source Wikipedia
Additional Source Wikipedia: ImpressionismLead section

Long-Form Articles

Movements

Source Wikipedia
Additional Source American modernism (Wikipedia)American modernism, Wikipedia summary, expressed-in photography

Practitioners

Alberto Korda, Artists
Source Alberto Korda (Wikipedia)
Source Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist Names: Eisenstaedt, Alfred (American photographer, 1898-1995)
Source Alfred Stieglitz - Wikipedia
Andre Kertesz, Artists
Source Wikipedia: Andre Kertesz
Source Wikipedia: Andreas Gursky
Source Wikipedia: Annie Leibovitz
Ansel Adams, Artists
Source Ansel Adams (Wikipedia)
August Sander, Artists
Source Wikipedia: August Sander
Source Berenice Abbott (Wikipedia)
Bill Brandt, Artists
Source Wikipedia: Bill Brandt
Brassai, Artists
Source Wikipedia: Brassai
Cindy Sherman, Artists
Source Cindy Sherman - Wikipedia
Source Wikipedia: Daido Moriyama
Diane Arbus, Artists
Source Diane Arbus - Wikipedia
Source Dorothea Lange - Wikipedia
Source Wikipedia: Eadweard Muybridge
Edward Curtis, Artists
Source Wikipedia: Edward S. Curtis
Source Edward Steichen - Wikipedia
Edward Weston, Artists
Source Wikipedia: Edward Weston
Source Wikipedia: Garry Winogrand
George Segal, Artists
Source Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist Names: Segal, George (American sculptor, 1924-2000)
Gordon Parks, Artists
Source Gordon Parks - Wikipedia
Helmut Newton, Artists
Source Wikipedia: Helmut Newton
Source Henri Cartier-Bresson - Wikipedia
Herbert Bayer, Artists
Source Wikipedia: Herbert Bayer
Source Imogen Cunningham (Wikipedia)
Irving Penn, Artists
Source Irving Penn (Wikipedia)
Joe Rosenthal, Artists
Source Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist Names: Rosenthal, Joe (American photographer, 1911-2006)
Josef Albers, Artists
Source Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist Names: Albers, Josef (German-American painter and theorist, 1888-1976)
Source Wikipedia: Julia Margaret Cameron
Source Wikidata: László Moholy-Nagy
Additional Source László Moholy-Nagy (Wikipedia)Infobox: known_for
Lee Miller, Artists
Source Lee Miller - Wikipedia
Lewis Hine, Artists
Source Lewis Hine (Wikipedia)
Malick Sidibe, Artists
Source Wikipedia: Malick Sidibe
Man Ray, Artists
Source Man Ray, Wikipedia
Source Wikipedia: Margaret Bourke-White
Source Wikipedia: Marianne Brandt
Mathew Brady, Artists
Source Wikipedia: Mathew Brady
Nadar, Artists
Source Wikipedia: Nadar
Nan Goldin, Artists
Source Wikipedia: Nan Goldin
Paul Strand, Artists
Source Wikipedia: Paul Strand
Source Getty Research Institute, Union List of Artist Names: Getty ULAN record for Philippe Halsman
Source Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist Names: Magritte, René (Belgian painter, sculptor, and photographer, 1898-1967)
Source Wikipedia: Richard Avedon
Robert Capa, Artists
Source Robert Capa - Wikipedia
Robert Frank, Artists
Source Robert Frank - Wikipedia
Source Robert Mapplethorpe (Wikipedia)
Source Wikipedia: Robert Rauschenberg
Sally Mann, Artists
Source Wikipedia: Sally Mann
Source Wikidata: Sebastião Salgado
Additional Source Sebastião Salgado (Wikipedia)Infobox: occupation

Showing 1 to 50 of 59 in Practitioners, page 1 of 2.

Works In This Form

Afghan Girl, Works
Source Wikipedia
Dali Atomicus, Works

Staged photograph by Philippe Halsman.

Earthrise, Works
Source Wikipedia
Source Wikipedia
Source Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967 (Wikipedia)
Source Le Violon d'Ingres (Wikipedia)
Source Lunch atop a Skyscraper (Wikipedia)
Migrant Mother, Works
Source Migrant Mother (Wikipedia)
Source Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (Wikipedia)
Source Wikipedia
Pepper No. 30, Works
Source Pepper No. 30 - Wikipedia
Source Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (Wikipedia)
Rhein II, Works

Large-format color photograph by Andreas Gursky.

Tank Man, Works
Source Tank Man (Wikipedia)
Source The Flatiron (photograph) (Wikipedia)

Black-and-white street photograph by Robert Doisneau.

The Steerage, Works
Source The Steerage (Wikipedia)
Source Untitled Film Stills (Wikipedia)
Source V-J Day in Times Square (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases

Originated In

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.

Source Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncyclopaedia Britannica editors
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
  • entry: history of photography
  • Daguerreotype / History of Photography, britannica.com/technology/photography
  • History of Photography, britannica.com/technology/photography
View the Source
2. Wikipedia
Wikimedia Foundation
  • History of photography, Niepce's earliest fixed images section, view from Le Gras
    The oldest surviving photograph of the image formed in a camera was created by Niepce in 1826 or 1827.
  • History of photography, Niepce's earliest fixed images section, heliography
    It was made on a polished sheet of pewter and the light-sensitive substance was a thin coating of bitumen, a naturally occurring petroleum tar
  • History of photography, Early monochrome processes section, Talbot
    When the metal based daguerreotype process was demonstrated formally to the public, the competitor approach of paper-based calotype negative and salt print processes invented by Henry Fox Talbot was already demonstrated in London (but with less publicity).
  • Works In This Form: Guerrillero Heroico
  • Works In This Form: Earthrise
  • Works In This Form: Napalm Girl (The Terror of War)
  • Works In This Form: Afghan Girl
View the Source
V-J Day in Times Square (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationWorks In This Form: V-J Day in Times SquareView the Source
Lunch atop a Skyscraper (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationWorks In This Form: Lunch atop a SkyscraperView the Source
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationWorks In This Form: Raising the Flag on Iwo JimaView the Source
Tank Man (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationWorks In This Form: Tank ManView the Source
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (Wikipedia)
WikipediaWorks In This Form: Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, lead paragraph
Quote, Works In This Form: Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, lead paragraph
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico is a black-and-white photograph taken by Ansel Adams, late in the afternoon on November 1, 1941, from a shoulder of highway US 84 / US 285 in the unincorporated community of Hernandez, New Mexico, U
View the Source
Le Violon d'Ingres (Wikipedia)
WikipediaWorks In This Form: Le Violon d'Ingres, lead paragraph
Quote, Works In This Form: Le Violon d'Ingres, lead paragraph
Le Violon d'Ingres (French for Ingres' Violin) is a black-and-white photograph created by American visual artist Man Ray in 1924. It is one of his best-known photographs and of surrealist photography. The picture was first publish
View the Source
Migrant Mother (Wikipedia)
WikipediaWorks In This Form: Migrant Mother, lead paragraph
Quote, Works In This Form: Migrant Mother, lead paragraph
Migrant Mother is a photograph taken in 1936 in Nipomo, California, by American photographer Dorothea Lange during her time with the Resettlement Administration (later the Farm Security Administration). The 28.3 by 21.8 cm (11 1/8
View the Source
The Steerage (Wikipedia)
WikipediaWorks In This Form: The Steerage, lead paragraph
Quote, Works In This Form: The Steerage, lead paragraph
The Steerage is a black and white photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1907. It has been hailed by some critics as one of the greatest photographs of all time because it captures in a single image both a formative document of i
View the Source
Pepper No. 30 - Wikipedia
WikipediaWorks In This Form: Pepper No. 30, lead paragraph
Quote, Works In This Form: Pepper No. 30, lead paragraph
Pepper No. 30 is a black and white photograph and is one of the best-known photographs taken by Edward Weston. It depicts a solitary green pepper in rich black-and-white tones, with strong illumination from above.
View the Source
Ansel Adams (Wikipedia)
Practitioners: Ansel Adams, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Ansel Adams, Lead section
Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 - April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating "pure" photography which favored sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph.
View the Source
Dorothea Lange - Wikipedia
Practitioners: Dorothea Lange, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Dorothea Lange, Lead section
Dorothea Lange (born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn; May 26, 1895 - October 11, 1965) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA).
View the Source
Henri Cartier-Bresson - Wikipedia
Practitioners: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lead section
Henri Cartier-Bresson (French: [ɑ̃ʁi kaʁtje bʁɛsɔ̃]; 22 August 1908 - 3 August 2004) was a French humanist photographer and artist. He was considered a master of candid photography, and was an early user of 35mm film.
View the Source
Gordon Parks - Wikipedia
Practitioners: Gordon Parks, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Gordon Parks, Lead section
Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks (November 30, 1912 - March 7, 2006) was an American photographer, composer, author, poet, and filmmaker, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s-particularly in issues of civil rights, poverty and African Americans-and in glamour photography.
View the Source
Diane Arbus - Wikipedia
Practitioners: Diane Arbus, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Diane Arbus, Lead section
Diane Arbus (; née Nemerov; March 14, 1923 - July 26, 1971) was an American photographer. She photographed a wide range of subjects including strippers, carnival performers, nudists, people with dwarfism, children, mothers, couples, elderly people, and middle-class families.
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Robert Capa - Wikipedia
Practitioners: Robert Capa, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Robert Capa, Lead section
Robert Capa (; born Endre Ernő Friedmann, Hungarian: [ˈɛndrɛ ˈɛrnøː ˈfridmɒn]; October 22, 1913 - May 25, 1954) was a Hungarian-American war photographer and photojournalist. He is considered by some to be the greatest combat and adventure photographer in history.
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Alfred Stieglitz - Wikipedia
Practitioners: Alfred Stieglitz, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Alfred Stieglitz, Lead section
Alfred Stieglitz (; January 1, 1864 - July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was known for the New York art galleries that he ran in the early part of the 20th century, where he introduced many avant-garde European artists to the U.S.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Walker Evans
Practitioners: Walker Evans, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Walker Evans, Lead section
Walker Evans (November 3, 1903 - April 10, 1975) was an American photographer and photojournalist best known for his work for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (FSA), for whom he documented the effects of the Great Depression.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Edward Weston
Practitioners: Edward Weston, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Edward Weston, Lead section
Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 - January 1, 1958) was an American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers" and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his 40-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes, and even whimsical parodies.
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Wikipedia: August Sander
Practitioners: August Sander, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: August Sander, Lead section
August Sander (17 November 1876 - 20 April 1964) was a German portrait and documentary photographer. His first book Face of our Time (German: Antlitz der Zeit) was published in 1929.
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Wikipedia: Margaret Bourke-White
Practitioners: Margaret Bourke-White, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Margaret Bourke-White, Lead section
Margaret Bourke-White (; June 14, 1904 - August 27, 1971) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist. She was known as an architectural and commercial photographer for the first half of her career, representing corporate clients and highlighting the success of industrial capitalism with black and white images of steel factories and skyscrapers.
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Wikipedia: Marianne Brandt
Practitioners: Marianne Brandt, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Marianne Brandt, Lead section
Marianne Brandt (1 October 1893 - 18 June 1983) was a German painter, sculptor, photographer, metalsmith, and designer who studied at the Bauhaus art school in Weimar and later became head of the Bauhaus Metall-Werkstatt (Metal Workshop) in Dessau in 1928.
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Wikipedia: Herbert Bayer
Practitioners: Herbert Bayer, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Herbert Bayer, Lead section
Herbert Bayer (April 5, 1900 - September 30, 1985) was an Austrian and American graphic designer, painter, photographer, sculptor, art director, environmental and interior designer, and architect. He served as a design consultant to and then Chairman of the Department of Design at the Container Corporation of America.
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Edward Steichen - Wikipedia
Practitioners: Edward Steichen, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Edward Steichen, Lead section
Edward Jean Steichen (Luxembourgish: [ˈʃtɑɪ̯ɕən]; March 27, 1879 - March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter and curator and a pioneer of fashion photography. His gown images for the magazine Art et Décoration in 1911 were the first modern fashion photographs to be published.
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Imogen Cunningham (Wikipedia)
Practitioners: Imogen Cunningham, Article text
Quote, Practitioners: Imogen Cunningham, Article text
Imogen Cunningham (; April 12, 1883 - June 23, 1976) was an American photographer known for her botanical photography, nudes, and industrial landscapes. Cunningham was a member of the California-based Group f/64, known for its dedication to the sharp-focus rendition of simple subjects.
View the Source
Berenice Abbott (Wikipedia)
Practitioners: Berenice Abbott, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Berenice Abbott, Lead section
Berenice Alice Abbott (July 17, 1898 - December 9, 1991) was an American photographer best known for her portraits of cultural figures of the interwar period, New York City photographs of architecture and urban design of the 1930s, and science interpretation of the 1940s to the 1960s.
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Lee Miller - Wikipedia
Practitioners: Lee Miller, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Lee Miller, Lead section
Elizabeth "Lee" Miller, Lady Penrose (April 23, 1907 - July 21, 1977) was an American photographer and photojournalist. Miller was a fashion model in New York City in the 1920s before going to Paris, becoming a fashion and fine-art photographer there.
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Robert Frank - Wikipedia
Practitioners: Robert Frank, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Robert Frank, Lead section
Robert Frank (Swiss Standard German: [fraŋk]; November 9, 1924 - September 9, 2019) was a Swiss American photographer and documentary filmmaker. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled The Americans, earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and nuanced outsider's view of American society.
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Alberto Korda (Wikipedia)
Practitioners: Alberto Korda, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Alberto Korda, Lead section
He got his first taste of photography when he took his father's Kodak 35mm and began taking pictures of his girlfriend.
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Wikipedia: Richard Avedon
Practitioners: Richard Avedon, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Richard Avedon, Lead section
Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 - October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. He worked for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and Elle specializing in capturing movement in still pictures of fashion, theater and dance.
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Wikipedia: Vivian Maier
Practitioners: Vivian Maier, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Vivian Maier, Lead section
Vivian Dorothy Maier (February 1, 1926 - April 21, 2009) was an American street photographer whose work was discovered and recognized after her death. She took more than 150,000 photographs during her lifetime, primarily of the people and architecture of Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles, although she also traveled and photographed around the world.
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Wikipedia: Nan Goldin
Practitioners: Nan Goldin, lead paragraph
Quote, Practitioners: Nan Goldin, lead paragraph
Nancy Goldin (born 1953) is an American photographer and activist. Her work explores in snapshot-style the emotions of the individual, in intimate relationships, and the bohemian LGBTQ subcultural communities, especially dealing w
View the Source
Wikipedia: Weegee
Practitioners: Weegee, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Weegee, Lead section
Arthur Fellig (born Ascher Fellig; June 12, 1899 - December 26, 1968), known by his pseudonym Weegee, was a photographer and photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography in New York City. Weegee worked in Manhattan's Lower East Side as a press photographer during the 1930s and 1940s and developed his signature style by following the city's emergency services and documenting their activity.
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Wikipedia: Garry Winogrand
Practitioners: Garry Winogrand, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Garry Winogrand, Lead section
Garry Winogrand (; January 14, 1928 - March 19, 1984) was an American street photographer, who portrayed U.S. life and its social issues in the mid-20th century. Photography curator, historian, and critic John Szarkowski called Winogrand the central photographer of his generation.
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Wikipedia: Annie Leibovitz
Practitioners: Annie Leibovitz, lead paragraph
Quote, Practitioners: Annie Leibovitz, lead paragraph
Anna-Lou Leibovitz ( LEE-bə-vits; born October 2, 1949) is an American portrait photographer best known for her portraits, particularly of celebrities, which often feature subjects in intimate settings and poses. Leibovitz's Polar
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Calotype (Wikipedia)
Associated With: Calotype, lead paragraph
Quote, Associated With: Calotype, lead paragraph
Calotype or talbotype is an early photographic process introduced in 1841 by William Henry Fox Talbot, using paper coated with silver iodide. Paper texture effects in calotype photography limit the ability of this early process to
View the Source
Ambrotype (Wikipedia)
Associated With: Ambrotype, lead paragraph
Quote, Associated With: Ambrotype, lead paragraph
The ambrotype, also known as a collodion positive in the United Kingdom, is a positive photograph on glass made by a variant of the wet plate collodion process. As a cheaper alternative to the French daguerreotype, ambrotypes came
View the Source
Tintype (Wikipedia)
Associated With: Tintype, lead paragraph
Quote, Associated With: Tintype, lead paragraph
A tintype, also known as a melanotype or ferrotype, is a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a thin sheet of metal, colloquially called 'tin' (though not actually tin-coated), coated with a dark lacquer or enamel and
View the Source
The Flatiron (photograph) (Wikipedia)
WikipediaWorks In This Form: The Flatiron (photograph), lead paragraph
Quote, Works In This Form: The Flatiron (photograph), lead paragraph
The Flatiron is a colored photograph made by Luxembourgish American photographer Edward Steichen. The photograph depicts the recently erected Flatiron Building in New York, taking inspiration from fellow photographers like Alfred
View the Source
Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967 (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationWorks In This Form: Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967, lead paragraph
Quote, Works In This Form: Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967, lead paragraph
Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967 is a noted photograph by photographer Diane Arbus from the United States. Since its debut Identical twins, Roselle, N. J., has become the image most closely associated with her large body
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Untitled Film Stills (Wikipedia)
WikipediaWorks In This Form: Untitled Film Stills, lead paragraph
Quote, Works In This Form: Untitled Film Stills, lead paragraph
Untitled Film Stills is a series of black and white photographs by American visual artist Cindy Sherman predominantly made between 1977 and 1980, which gained her international recognition. Sherman casts herself in various stereot
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Wikipedia: Stanley Kubrick
Practitioners: Stanley Kubrick, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Stanley Kubrick, Lead section
Stanley Kubrick (July 26, 1928 - March 7, 1999) was an American filmmaker and photographer. A prominent figure of the New Hollywood era, Kubrick is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers.
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Robert Mapplethorpe (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationPractitioners: Robert Mapplethorpe, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Robert Mapplethorpe, Lead section
Robert Michael Mapplethorpe ( MAY-pəl-thorp; November 4, 1946 - March 9, 1989) was an American photographer and artist. Best known for his black-and-white photographs, his work encompassed celebrity portraits, self-portraits, erotic photographs, and still lifes of flowers.
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William Eggleston (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationPractitioners: William Eggleston, lead paragraph
Quote, Practitioners: William Eggleston, lead paragraph
William Eggleston (born July 27, 1939) is an American photographer. He is widely credited with increasing recognition of color photography as a legitimate artistic medium. Eggleston's books include William Eggleston's Guide (1976)
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Yousuf Karsh (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationPractitioners: Yousuf Karsh, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Yousuf Karsh, Lead section
Yousuf Karsh (Armenian: Հովսեպ Քարշ, romanized: Hovsep K'arsh; December 23, 1908 - July 13, 2002) was an Armenian-Canadian photographer, known for his portraits of notable individuals. He has been described as one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century.
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Irving Penn (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationPractitioners: Irving Penn, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Irving Penn, Lead section
Irving Penn (June 16, 1917 - October 7, 2009) was an American photographer known for his fashion photography, portraits, and still lifes. Penn's career included work at Vogue magazine, and independent advertising work for clients including Issey Miyake and Clinique.
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Lewis Hine (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationPractitioners: Lewis Hine, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Lewis Hine, Lead section
Lewis Wickes Hine (September 26, 1874 - November 3, 1940) was an American sociologist and muckraker photographer.
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Thomas Eakins (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationPractitioners: Thomas Eakins, Lead section
Quote, Practitioners: Thomas Eakins, Lead section
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 - June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists.
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Wikipedia: Impressionism
WikipediaInfluenced: Impressionism, Lead section
Quote, Influenced: Impressionism, Lead section
Photography encouraged painters to exploit aspects of the painting medium, like colour, which photography then lacked: "The Impressionists were the first to consciously offer a subjective alternative to the photograph".
View the Source
American modernism (Wikipedia)
Movements: American Modernism, American modernism, Wikipedia summary, expressed-in photographyView the Source
Wikipedia: Robert Rauschenberg
Practitioners: Robert Rauschenberg, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Robert Rauschenberg, Lead
but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking and performance
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Wikipedia: Andreas Gursky
Practitioners: Andreas Gursky, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Andreas Gursky, Lead
best known for his photography
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Wikipedia: Julia Margaret Cameron
Practitioners: Julia Margaret Cameron, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Julia Margaret Cameron, Lead
was an English photographer
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Wikipedia: Nadar
Practitioners: Nadar, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Nadar, Lead
was a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist and balloonist
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Wikipedia: Eadweard Muybridge
Practitioners: Eadweard Muybridge, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Eadweard Muybridge, Lead
was an English photographer
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Wikipedia: Paul Strand
Practitioners: Paul Strand, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Paul Strand, Lead
was an American photographer and filmmaker
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Wikipedia: Malick Sidibe
Practitioners: Malick Sidibe, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Malick Sidibe, Lead
was a Malian photographer from a Fulani (Fula) village in Soloba
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Wikipedia: Daido Moriyama
Practitioners: Daido Moriyama, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Daido Moriyama, Lead
is a Japanese photographer
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Wikipedia: Bill Brandt
Practitioners: Bill Brandt, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Bill Brandt, Lead
was a British photographer and photojournalist
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Wikipedia: Helmut Newton
Practitioners: Helmut Newton, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Helmut Newton, Lead
was a German-Australian photographer
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Wikipedia: Brassai
Practitioners: Brassai, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Brassai, Lead
was a Hungarian-French photographer, sculptor, medalist, writer, and filmmaker
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Wikipedia: W. Eugene Smith
Practitioners: W. Eugene Smith, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: W. Eugene Smith, Lead
was an American photojournalist
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Wikipedia: Mathew Brady
Practitioners: Mathew Brady, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Mathew Brady, Lead
was an American photographer
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Wikipedia: Andre Kertesz
Practitioners: Andre Kertesz, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Andre Kertesz, Lead
was a Hungarian-born photographer
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Wikipedia: Edward S. Curtis
Practitioners: Edward Curtis, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Edward Curtis, Lead
was an American photographer and ethnologist
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Wikipedia: Sally Mann
Practitioners: Sally Mann, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Sally Mann, Lead
is an American photographer
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Cindy Sherman - Wikipedia
Practitioners: Cindy Sherman, Lead sentence
Quote, Practitioners: Cindy Sherman, Lead sentence
Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters.
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László Moholy-Nagy (Wikipedia)
Practitioners: László Moholy-Nagy, Infobox: known_for
Quote, Practitioners: László Moholy-Nagy, Infobox: known_for
Painting, photography, sculpture, film
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Sebastião Salgado (Wikipedia)
Practitioners: Sebastião Salgado, Infobox: occupation
Quote, Practitioners: Sebastião Salgado, Infobox: occupation
Social documentary photographer
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Seydou Keïta (Wikipedia)
Practitioners: Seydou Keïta, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Seydou Keïta, Lead
was a Malian photographer known for his portraits of people and families
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Man Ray, Wikipedia
Practitioners: Man Ray, Lead
Quote, Practitioners: Man Ray, Lead
He was a photography innovator as well as a fashion and portrait photographer
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Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist Names: Eisenstaedt, Alfred (American photographer, 1898-1995)
Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist NamesPractitioners: Alfred Eisenstaedt, Record heading
Quote, Practitioners: Alfred Eisenstaedt, Record heading
Eisenstaedt, Alfred (American photographer, 1898-1995)
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Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist Names: Rosenthal, Joe (American photographer, 1911-2006)
Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist NamesPractitioners: Joe Rosenthal, Record heading
Quote, Practitioners: Joe Rosenthal, Record heading
Rosenthal, Joe (American photographer, 1911-2006)
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Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist Names: Magritte, René (Belgian painter, sculptor, and photographer, 1898-1967)
Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist NamesPractitioners: René Magritte, Record heading
Quote, Practitioners: René Magritte, Record heading
Magritte, René (Belgian painter, sculptor, and photographer, 1898-1967)
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Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist Names: Albers, Josef (German-American painter and theorist, 1888-1976)
Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist NamesPractitioners: Josef Albers, Roles
Quote, Practitioners: Josef Albers, Roles
photographer
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Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist Names: Segal, George (American sculptor, 1924-2000)
Getty Research Institute Union List of Artist NamesPractitioners: George Segal, Roles
Quote, Practitioners: George Segal, Roles
photographer
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Getty Research Institute, Union List of Artist Names: Getty ULAN record for Philippe Halsman
Getty Research Institute, Union List of Artist NamesPractitioners: Philippe Halsman, Record heading
Quote, Practitioners: Philippe Halsman, Record heading
Halsman, Philippe (American and Russian photographer, photojournalist, and teacher, 1906-1979)
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Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Place of Origin

The attested claim credits France (Nicephore Niepce and Louis Daguerre) with photography's invention, following the daguerreotype's formal public unveiling in 1839. This dissent records that England's Henry Fox Talbot independently developed a rival paper-based process, the calotype negative and salt print, and had already demonstrated it in London before the daguerreotype's formal announcement, though with far less publicity. Historians of photography therefore treat the invention as a case of parallel, independent origin in two countries rather than a single French breakthrough.

A dissenting reading, from an independent laneWikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation

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