Pictorialism Essay

Pictorialism in photography began in the latter half of the 19^th century when photographers sought to elevate photography to the level of high art by imposing personal artistic expression on the straight mechanical reproduction of the camera. This personal expression was achieved by using pre- and post-exposure techniques such as soft focus, heavy darkroom manipulations, printing on rough textured “art papers” and even scratching the photograph or negative with fine needles. While the general purpose was broad in scope, i.e., to allow whatever form of result the photographic artist wished to express, in actual practice most pictorialist efforts sought to produce something reminiscent in mood and feeling to fine art paintings or etchings. The popularity of Impressionists paintings at that time exerted a heavy influence on pictorialist efforts, further narrowing the type of results produced. As a result, much of pictorialist work, particularly in landscapes, can be described as photographs that emphasize atmosphere over actual subject matter content or detail.

Originally, pictorialism was embraced by many prominent photographers from Steiglitz (who founded the Photo Secessionist movement based in part on pictorialism), to Weston. Even Ansel Adams started in that area. These same supporters later abandoned the pictorialist style in favor of straight photography, which emphasized making the best use of (rather than masking) the unique inherent qualities of photographic process. The most organized challenge to pictorialism as a legitimate method of photographic art from the members of f64, anchored by Ansel Adams himself.

The difference between pictorialist and straight photography prints is often reduced to that of manipulation in the former case vs. no manipulation in the latter. In reality however, the difference between the two on this dimension is more a matter of the intent of manipulation rather than it’s presence or absence. Ansel Adams was a master of darkroom manipulation and spent many hours, even years perfecting prints of specific negatives. His prints often produced results that were very much different from the view afforded to the human eye when the shutter was pressed. His intent however was to produce a sharply focused personal interpretation of the light and physical composition of the scene. His prints have tremendous atmosphere of a different type, accomplished through manipulation that produces in a sense a hyperphotographic image, one that takes ultimate advantage of the unique characteristics of a photograph compared to a painting (e.g. sharp focus, clarity of detail) but one that presents a reality that has been altered according to his own artistic tastes. Certainly his photographs are beyond anything that could be considered strictly documentary in nature. The difference then, is that the straight photographers seek to express themselves artistically by maximizing the unique characteristics of photography vs. other fine art while pictorialism essentially seeks to lose those qualities in the resulting image.

The notion of pictorialism in photography needs to be separated to some degree from the term “painterly” that has seen increased usage in the recent photographic literature. Originally, painterly had nearly the same meaning as pictorialism, in that it might be used to describe photographs with the kind of atmosphere that paintings induce. More recently however, it seems painterly is used to describe any photograph that looks like painting in a physical way, regardless of any emotional context. The advent of digital photography has had a lot to do with this shift in usage as it is now possible to imitate painting down to the particular kind of brushstroke used. In the popular photography literature of today, a photograph might be referred to as painterly simply because someone applied a watercolor or oil painting look to the photo using a software tool such as photoshop. These photos may have the look of a painting but not necessarily the emotional feel. Beyond these superficial painterly effects, digital photography has provided a new set of tools for executing true pictorialist images. As a result there is a resurgent interest among photographers, including myself, in pursuing pictorialism as a means of personal artistic expression.

A lot of my photographs, exhibit at least minimal pictorialist effects, most notably soft focus and a slightly ethereal glow. However, by far the most pictorial of my images in the traditional sense are wider angle landscapes taken most often in somewhat adverse weather conditions. I have chosen to emphasize and elaborate on the emotional qualities naturally inherent in such scenes.

In enhancing my pictorialist photos, I am not attempting to make a photograph look like a painting in terms of superficial characteristics such as brush strokes etc. I am more interested in emphasizing the emotional atmosphere of the photos. In many cases the interest in atmosphere is quite literal, i.e., it is the quality of the air itself in the photo rather than the tangible subject matter that is responsible the general feeling it imparts. These are typically photos containing haze, fog, rain, or snow in which I have chosen to accentuate the physical presence of the air itself. The common result is to present a more dreamy image. It is in this sense that these photos most emulate paintings. Additional changes that enhance the images are usually limited to color adjustments and other manipulations that are commonly applied to all digital photographs (whether done automatically by the camera or printer software or carefully controlled by the photographer during the production process.) While not purposely trying to make the photographs look like any particular artistic medium (e.g., oil or watercolor paintings), it is the case that, due to the treatment applied, many of these photographs take on the look of multi-plate fine art lithographs.