I was talking with a photo student the other day.  She was taking on-line courses and one of the classes was History of Photography.  She was loving the program, overall, but didn’t like the history class and saw no relevance to the art she was learning.  It got me thinking….

History is important.

And for photographers serious about the art and / or the profession, “our” history is important.

I have to pose a disclaimer here…I am a history buff.  Any history.  I love reading about the founding of our country, the civil war, American Indians and the old west, even the history of the monarchy.  Doesn’t matter, I just love history.

That being said, the history of photography is more than just a passing interest.  I think it is important for anyone serious about photography, the art and the industry, to know our history.  Not just the technical advances, which changes so fast now that “history” is last week.  The process, the art and more importantly, the artists that came before us.  It is though their work that we are where we are today.

From the first image produced by Frenchman Nicéphore Niépce in the early 1800’s, (yes, I am name dropping and if you don’t know him, look him up!), scientists and artists have experimented, tested and created ways to record the real world and stop time for all to see.  And while the process and the equipment has changed, the physics that are in play to record light haven’t changed.  Sure, we can bend and even break the rules of composition, but just try to break the laws of physics when it comes to photography.  Early photographers harnessed light.  They engineered means by which we can control it.  Not only does it behoove us to learn the science in the development of photography, but learning about the art, the history of those great masters that have come before us can be very enlightening.  Their contributions can seen in the work we produce today.

We owe a lot the Club f64.  Ansel Adams, Edward and Brett Weston, Imogen Cunningham and the rest of that group are chiefly responsible for photography being accepted as serious art form, rather than being just recorded images.  Adams, along with Fred Archer, created a method of “pre-visualizing” black and white images that is still used today.  We owe much to George Eastman. (If you don’t know Eastman, find another hobby).  Publications like Life, Vogue and National Geographic, to name a few, gave the world a view of amazing work, opening up our eyes to what was possible with a camera.

Penn, Capa, Halsmen, Karsh, Stieglitz, Arbus, Cartier-Bresson, Avedon, Turner, Erwitt…you may not recognize the names, but if you are serious about photography, you have seen their images.  The science they pioneered and the creativity that they explored are the bedrock for what we do now.

To a photographer, our history is important.  Without it, all we have is light and a recorded image. A snapshot and nothing more.