insights into photography
By Jason D. Little on Lightstalking we bring you this very interesting article which briefly sums up a history of photography. Fascinating.
As humans we seem to have an insatiable need to document life — our actions, the actions of other species of animals, anything and everything around us. While the ever present, universally accessible nature of the camera in the modern world makes this all too easy, the drive to produce a permanent record of life’s meaningful — and not so meaningful — events is not at all a concept borne of recent technological achievement. Consider, for example, cave paintings dating back to 40,000 years ago, commonly depicting scenes involving wild animals and outlines of human hands. And you only have to go back to about the 4th and 5th centuries BCE to realize that the great ancient Chinese and Greek minds had already grasped the basic principles of optics and were quite familiar with the pinhole camera, or camera obscura. Unbeknownst to the ancients, their simple device would eventually give rise to what is arguably the single most compelling means of documenting our lives — photography.
What follows is a list of 12 events (out of, perhaps, thousands) that mark the technological, social, and cultural path of photography’s evolution. READ MORE HERE
Louis Daguerre: Boulevard du Temple, with unicorn by topquark22, on Flickr
‘Ur-Leica (Original Leica)’
At this time of the year many forthcoming competitions and awards are announced, this one comes from Vienna.
“The capital city of Austria, Vienna one of the most important cultural cities in Europe enjoys a good reputation in its music, literature, theater and fine arts for many years. However, in the field of contemporary photography Vienna has a rising demand to follow up with the rest of the world. Inspired by many international competitions in photography we therefore decided to set up and organize the annual Vienna International Photographic Awards « VIPA » for documentary photography.
In Vienna interest for photography has been there for a long time, the European Society for the History of Photography has its seat there, and the major Viennese museums feature important exhibitions of photography. It is therefore only logical that the Vienna International Photographic Awards « VIPA » have been founded in order to renew the photographic heritage of the city nowadays.
KUNSTNETZWERK (modern contemporary art gallery and network) and founder Raed Bawayah (photographer), in collaboration with « Eyes-On » the European Month of Photography Vienna will organize the first Vienna International Photographic Awards « VIPA » in 2012 for documentary photography. Our mission is to salute the achievements of the world’s finest photographers, to discover new and emerging talents, and to promote and enhance contemporary photography in Austria and all over the world. The « VIPA » conduct an annual competition for professional, non-professional and student photographers.
Besides the total value of 7.000 EUR in money prizes the short-listed winners will be able to take part in a group exhibition in November 2012 in Vienna (during the European Month of Photography) as well as in the publication of VIPA’s official catalogue. The awards will be divided into three sections: 1st prize (4.000 EUR), 2nd prize (2.000 EUR) and 3rd prize (1.000 EUR). The awards of the prices, the presentation of the official catalogue as well the opening of the group exhibition will be held on the 15th November 2012 in Vienna. Participants will choose the theme of their photo series submission.
The competition will be judged by a board of highly esteemed photo editors, curators, art directors and other luminaries from the international photography community.”
© Gregor Sailer
Oxford School of Photography 