Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1917 (Heft 49-50))

PHOTOGRAPHY*

PHOTOGRAPHY, which is the first and only important contribu-
tion thus far, of science to the arts, finds its raison d’etre, like all
media, in a complete uniqueness of means. This is an absolute
unqualified objectivity. Unlike the other arts which are really
anti-photographic, this objectivity is of the very essence of photog-
raphy, its contribution and at the same time its limitation. And just
as the majority of workers in other media have completely misunder-
stood the inherent qualities of their respective means, so photographers,
with the possible exception of two or three, have had no conception of
the photographic means. The full potential power of every medium
is dependent upon the purity of its use, and all attempts at mixture
end in such dead things as the color-etching, the photographic painting
and in photography, the gum-print, oil-print, etc., in which the intro-
duction of hand work and manipulation is merely the expression of an
impotent desire to paint. It is this very lack of understanding and re-
spect for their material, on the part of the photographers themselves
which directly accounts for the consequent lack of respect on the part
of the intelligent public and the notion that photography is but a poor
excuse for an inability to do anything else.
The photographer’s problem therefore, is to see clearly the limita-
tions and at the same time the potential qualities of his medium, for
it is precisely here that honesty no less than intensity of vision, is the
prerequisite of a living expression. This means a real respect for the
thing in front of him, expressed in terms of chiaroscuro (color and
photography having nothing in common) through a range of almost
infinite tonal values which lie beyond the skill of human hand. The
fullest realization of this is accomplished without tricks of process or
manipulation, through the use of straight photographic methods. It
is in the organization of this objectivity that the photographer’s point
of view toward Life enters in, and where a formal conception born of
the emotions, the intellect, or of both, is as inevitably necessary for
him, before an exposure is made, as for the painter, before he puts
brush to canvas. The objects may be organized to express the causes'
of which they are the effects, or they may be used as abstract forms, to
create an emotion unrelated to the objectivity as such. This organ-
ization is evolved either by movement of the camera in relation to the
objects themselves or through their actual arrangement, but here, as
in everything, the expression is simply the measure of a vision, shallow
or profound as the case may be. Photography is only a new road
from a different direction but moving toward the common goal, which
is Life.
Notwithstanding the fact that the whole development of photog-
raphy has been given to the world through Camera Work in a form
uniquely beautiful as well as perfect in conception and presentation,
there is no real consciousness, even among photographers, of what has
♦Reprinted, with permission, from “Seven Arts.”

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