PURE AND STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY
Modernity; 'Form follows function'
Pure and straight photography was a style in the 1900's to the 1930's that overlapped Pictorlialsm moving away from the pictorialism style. The pure and straight photography was basically that the photograph should look like a photograph and have the chractertisitcs of a photograph. For example it needs to include, all the visual elements of Depth of Feild, detials in contrast, and no hand manipulations. Narrowing down to what the camera can do, and using the technical elements to make the image interesting.
Pure and straight photography also seemed to have abstract elements within the photographs. Paul strand, Wall St Newyork, 1915 image is very basic and straight to the point. It is a clear detailed image of city life at Newyork of this time, however the copossition fits perfectly into pure and straight photography because half of the image contains these repeated dark rectangles that appear to be windows. These windows gives alot of structure to the image creating this abstract style. Also from the posisotning of the sun in this image the dark figures have shadows which again creates this abstraact sense to Pure and Striaght Photography.
Another example is William Van Dykes, still from the city 1938 it becomes very abstract from again the shadows on the figures, and a realistic view comes within the image, which is Pure and Straight Photography
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The F.64 group
The F.64 group was a association in US San Francisco created in the early 1930's. It was founded by Willard Van Dyke and Ansel Adams who are also member of this group. This group consisted of photographers who worked in the Style of Pure and Straight photography. The name F.64 came from the technical element of aperture on the camera, which meanings the smallest
aperture ,creaating maxium depth of feild. Therefore their images consisted characteristics of sharp focus, detial throughout the print with contrasting areas, a full tonal range and as much as the image in folcus as possible.
IMAGE ANALYSIS
This image 'The Steerage' 1907 by Alfred Steilgitz was taken in the time period where the Pure and Straight photography style began. 'The Steerage' was taken from a first class deck of a ship , overlooking people board the ship. This viewpoint easily demonstrates the status of the people boarding the ship, and you can see the contrast in their characteristics and appearances. The upper class people wearing suits and trillbys and the lower class people in complete contrast wearing rags and shawls. Another indication of the subjects on the lower deck being lower class, is that they are hanging their clothes up suggesting that they are living their for a long time. The small bridge in the middle of the image, beaks the image up and we can see a detailed clear division of these classes. The image was taken when Steiglitz was on board of the ship on its way back from Europe and he saw a group of figures in the steerage after being refused into entry of the United States.
When the photograph was being taken, Steiglitz didnt take into consideration the social implications of this image, and wasn't aware of the atmosphere and surroundings. He basically took the image from the simple shapes and figures that were formed having an abstract interpretation to the image. ''.. round shapes of iron machinery, a mast cutting into the sky making a triangular shape... i saw a picture of shapes..''
This indicating that he was picking out the shapes in the composition and how the lighting in the image impacted these shapes. This image fits into the style of pure and straight photography because of the wide depth of field it has keeping every subject in the image in focus, from all this detail it makes the image to a high quality and a sharp focus. 'The Steerage' is also broken up into different parts from the abstract large shapes that help makes the image look less busy, the large wooden pole on the right, plank in the middle and the ladder on the left helps bring the image together. This creating an abstract way to look at the image, a more pure and straight way. The lighting involved in this image also helps break it up, as it illuminates key features, for example the plank in the middle, and the upper class subjects hats. This creates a lot of detail within the image, and creates a large tonal range, as the deep blacks and bright whites fade into different shades of grey which again give detail within the image.
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