Commences with images from WWI. Post WW1 photography became more mechanical with emphasis on process.
Also became an organ of propaganda.
But then photography realised the human side of troubles times (eg Sander).
Abbott felt the camera made her "the contemporary being par excellence".
Agee: "the central instrument of our time"
In Germany Blossfeldt's Art Form of Nature showed variation in plant forms. This was an example of typology and they are around still eg Wylies photographing watchtowers in NI using same framing, same point of view, removes photographer from the image.
Typologies discipline photographers eg Bechers -shows mine shafts have shape A but it is different every time.
Becher likes blast furnace "seem like animals".
Sander created human typology in 1920s became modernist in The Face of the Times. Obsessive collector of images, like entomologist. His subjects were photographed in same amount of frame. Used seven human types - it was a classification system. His images are "full of implications, world full of things that cannot be spoken of reflecting the chaotic environment of Germany.
In Soviet Union, Rodchenko declared painting dead and turned to photography - art was bourgeoisie. The camera is tool of new man. He even wore a special uniform. Leica produced hand held cameras meaning freed from tripod. Social life became fluid. Rodchenko rejected "bellybutton" photo so make apparent that viewing the world differently.
USSR in Construction glorified the regime's achievements. Rodchenko used Photomontage. Conjured up visions of the future.
Best was UiC on White Sea Canal. Shows rehabilitated political prisoners building canal. Was a 140 mile gulag, in the image you can see the unsmiling faces in the original photo.
In Paris Atget documented the old Paris before it was swept away by redevelopment. He took 10000 images of old Paris using archaic techniques even albumen prints. Could not use modern materials. Single greatest artist of photography - the photographer's photographer.
Pushing into unreal was Man Ray in Montparnasse. Natural maverick, in tune with surrealism. Used solarisation process in late 1920s giving people metallic robotic look. Knew artist Marcel Duchamp.
Man Ray took image of Duchamp's Large Glass. Man Ray discovers Atget. Bought 50 of his photos and excited interest in found objects (created from undisguised, but often modified, objects that are not normally considered art, often because they already have a non-art function).
Bernice Abbott took Atget's portrait in 1927.
In USSR propaganda publications had to be kept up to date. Rodchenko had to doctor images he had taken - blacking out people who were now "non people". Get many obliterated photos.
Sander fell foul of those who planned a master race. Nazis used photography to produce typologies of races.
Sander's images of concerned people were not popular and his printing plates destroyed.
Sander wanted to document the Nazis as well as the Jews.
Walker Evans (US) took photos of people using same size in the frame, pretending he is just giving you the facts, but influencing your understanding of the world by his choice of subject.
Walker Evans picked up avant style of photos in Paris. Saw Atget's work and started to use tripod as taking longer meant you saw more.
In 1935 Walker Evans and others were commissioned to portray the Images for the Farm Securities Agency, propaganda images for the rural farming effort. Includes Allie Mae Burroughs taken in 1936, her weathered face matching the weathered wood she has as background. In 1937 he was sacked because did not conform to FSAs requirements.
When war returned Bill Brandt recorded the human side. Brandt used surrealist ideas learnt from Man Ray.
