digital truth

images in history

"A Ming vase can be well-designed and well-made and is beautiful for that reason alone. I don't think this can be true for photography. Unless there is something a little incomplete and a little strange, it will simply look like a copy of something pretty. We won't take an interest in it."
John Loengard, "Pictures Under Discussion"

images for fun

worth a thousand words?

Before the turn of the twentieth century, illustrations were used successfully for print advertisimg. During the 1920s the modern advertising industry emerged, and advertisers preferred the perceived "authenticity" of photography. The strength of advertising photography is due in large part to its ability to glorify an object or person.

 

Edward Steichen, 1927

Nickolas Muray, 1933

 

"The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality." Henri Cartier Bresson