Pictorialist Photography

Camera Contraption and Filters made with wrappers, colored plastic,
textured plastic and envelopes filled with toothpaste

Wellington Church

Gateway Ironwork at University of Glasgow

Ascending Gothic Spires

Crow-stepped Gable

Towering Spires

Exit to the city through the Gothic Arch

Gothic Arch Detailing

Gothic Details of a Glasgow University Building

Unicorn Monument at the University Chapel

Pictorialism was the first artistic photography movement.  It was driven by an aesthetic approach to Photography considering aspects of the photograph like composition, tone, contrast, movement, obscurity and form.  This era of photography was not meant to record a reality or space in time, but rather the splendor of a subject.  It took place from the late 1800’s to the early 1920s.¹  Just as photography had influenced the art world by becoming a catalyst for the Impressionist movement, the Impressionist movement had its own influence, which is very evident in Pictorialist photographs.

The Bridge at Ipswich
Fig 1

 Before I went to create my own Pictorialist images, I looked for inspiration and influence.  The first photographer I connected with was Alvin Coburn.  Coburn’s work is characterized by intense contrast.  Many of the objects are silhouetted or implied tonally.  Many have a blurry focus, which is evident in The Bridge at Ipswich (Fig 1).  This soft focus gives the photograph a painterly style, almost as if you can see the brush stokes that were never made.  Coburn also experimented with a lack of horizon line, which gives the picture a mystical and timeless appearance.  Above all, Coburn encouraged further experimentation by other photographers.  He asked “If we are alive to the spirit of our time, it is these moderns who interest us; why should not the camera also throw off the shackles of conventional representation and attempt something fresh and untried?”² 

Nocturne: Blue and Gold
Fig 2

I also searched for inspiration from those who

influenced the Masters of Pictorialism; Impressionist and Tonalist painters.  I took interest in the work of James Whistler, an American painter from the Tonalism movement.  Whistler documents architecture through silhouetted shapes and figures.  Looking at Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge(Fig 2)³, Whistler has provided an entire cityscape using only form and line.  Although the Old Battersea Bridge was demolished, this scene could have taken place on any rainy London night, today or one hundred years past.  The timelessness of Whistlers are unmistakable.   These were techniques used by Pictorialist photographers during their movement. 

My first step in creating Pictorialist photography was to make filters for my digital camera.  I experimented with many different filters as you can see in the first image of this post.  I created abstraction through colored filters, textured filters and some semi opaque lenses.  Each of these filters slid into a cardboard contraption that attaches to the front of my camera.  This way they are easily layer and changed during the creative process.  After many different trials, I settled on using a green and yellow filter stacked.  These two filters gave me many of the effects I desired.  By layering the two filters, my images were softer.  Sharp edges and details were diffused as light passed through not a single lens of a camera, but two filters and a lens.  The soft focuses of my images are reminiscent of Coburn’s Bridge at Ipswich (Fig 1).

The combination of my filters also created extreme contrast and limited the color pallet.   Photography was in its infancy during the pictorialist movement, so almost all of the images were monochromatic or completely unsaturated.  The green and yellow neutralized the appearance of the colors in my actual scenes, giving them a monochromatic appearance.  The layering of the filters also silhouetted many of the buildings and figures.  I often had to wait for a glimpse of sun to maximize the contrast between foreground and background in my images.  This is clearly illustrated in my image The Unicorn Monument at University Chapel. 

Struggle
Fig 3

The final technique that I used with my filters was tilting and rotating them when I was taking the pictures.  By tilting the filters, reflections from the sky, light through foliage and silhouetted buildings was projected onto my images.  Many pictorialist photographers like Robert Demachy in his picture Struggle (Fig 3) used post production techniques like applying brush strokes or layering multiple photographs.⁴  Although we were not given the opportunity to manipulate our images after they were created, the reflections of other scenes in my images give a hint of that effect.  You can see this clearly in Towering Spires and Crow Stepped Gables.  I really enjoyed looking at this era in photography.   I have always been inspired by the Impressionist movement and it was really interesting to learn about the push and pull of painters and photographers during that time period. 

1         "Pictorialism". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 30 Jun. 2014
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/752375/Pictorialism>.

2         Urban Photography. "Alvin Langdon Coburn - Famous Photographers Of Urban Scenes."Alvin Langdon Coburn - Famous Photographers Of Urban Scenes. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 June 2014.

3         Tate. "James Abbott McNeill Whistler Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge C.1872–5." Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge. Tate, n.d. Web. 30 June 2014.

4         "Robert Demachy | Struggle." The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d. Web. 30 June 2014.