Pictorial Effect in Photography. Being Hints on Composition and Chiaro-Oscuro for Photographers by Henry Peach Robinson, first published in 1881, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.
Each of the eight chapters takes a period of up to forty years and examines the medium through the lenses of art, science, social science, travel, war, fashion, the mass media and individual practitioners.-Back Cover.
A picture-rich field guide to American photography, from daguerreotype to digital. We are all photographers now, with camera phones in hand and social media accounts at the ready. And we know which pictures we like. But what makes a "good picture"? And how could anyone think those old styles were actually good? Soft-focus yearbook photos from the '80s are now hopelessly—and happily—outdated, as are the low-angle portraits fashionable in the 1940s or the blank stares of the 1840s. From portraits to products, landscapes to food pics, Good Pictures proves that the history of photography is a history of changing styles. In a series of short, engaging essays, Kim Beil uncovers the origins of fifty photographic trends and investigates their original appeal, their decline, and sometimes their reuse by later generations of photographers. Drawing on a wealth of visual material, from vintage how-to manuals to magazine articles for working photographers, this full-color book illustrates the evolution of trends with hundreds of pictures made by amateurs, artists, and commercial photographers alike. Whether for selfies or sepia tones, the rules for good pictures are always shifting, reflecting new ways of thinking about ourselves and our place in the visual world.
"Examines three projects in late nineteenth-century scientific photography: the endeavors of Alphonse Bertillon, Francis Galton, and Etienne-Jules Marey. Develops new theoretical perspectives on the history of photographic technology, as well as the history of scientific imaging more generally"--
Hagiography, or writing about and illustrating the lives of saints, was one of the most creative areas for artistic inspiration in the literature and arts of the Middle Ages. This book explores the sumptuously illustrated saints' lives that were made in medieval Europe. Cynthia Hahn discusses a broad range of manuscripts and other artifacts, many of which are reproduced here, and provides an analysis of their pictorial and narrative structure. Hahn's book is a virtual compendium of images-many rarely published-as well as a learned study that deepens our understanding of the role of various types of saints, the nature of their audience, and the historical moment when individual works were produced. After two informative introductory chapters setting the historical and narrative context of pictorial hagiography, Hahn considers the Lives of Martyrs and Virgins, Bishops, Monks and Abbots, and Kings and Queens, and concludes with an examination of the extraordinary chronicles and illustrations of the lives of saints by the English monk Matthew Paris. She considers such questions as: Why were illustrated saints' lives produced in such great numbers during this period? Why were they illustrated at all given the trouble and expense of such illustration? And to whom did the saints' lives appeal, and how did their readers use them? As she addresses these and other intriguing questions, Hahn traces changes that occurred over time both in the images and the stories, and shows how their creators, mostly the intellectual elite, were finely attuned to audience reception. This important aspect of hagiographic production has received scant attention in the past, and as she considers this issue in light of contemporary narrative theory, Hahn brings us to a fresh appreciation of these intricately illustrated manuscripts and their multiple audiences.
