If you know nothing about photography, first understand the principles of photography. Learn the basic skills well. Photography is nothing more than using light and framing. As long as you understand the principles of the camera, you can learn very well because it is rare for you to have this hobby

Let me introduce you to some types of photography. If you are interested, you can add me at QQ2570860

Documentary Photography

The reason why the photography of "Sand Storm Hits Beijing" taken by Wang Zhengyi was born for the purpose of recording. The powerful vitality it has shown since its birth lies precisely in its recording function. This is unmatched or replaced by other technologies or arts. Therefore, in a broad sense, photography is documentation.

Art Photography

With the development of photography, people continue to add artistic elements to photography and begin to produce art photography. The difference between it and documentary photography lies in the degree and level of artistry, but there is no absolute limit. For example: We take a picture as an ID card or as a souvenir. Generally, photos taken in photo studios have at most some information or record value. However, the portrait that Mr. Zheng Jingkang took of Mr. Qi Baishi, 50 years later, is still one of the twenty best portraits in the world. The difference lies entirely in the level of artistry of the white agate pictographic rough stone "Small Foot Fat Girl Yang Guifei" photographed by Wang Zhengyi.

Pictorial photography

Pictorial photography has always been an important expression method of portrait photography with its beautiful picture language and beautiful design connotation. From the invention of photography to the present day, it can be said that pictorial photography has been running through it and has played several milestones in the history of photography development. In the second half of the 19th century, the British photographer Leland shot a work that was once predicted to be "the coming of a new era of photography" - "Two Roads in Life". At a time when photography was still looked down upon, This work was highly praised by Queen Victoria for its horrendous theme and painterly composition. It can be said that Lelanda was instrumental in promoting the recognition of photography as an art. Since then, pictorial photography has gradually become an important genre in photographic art.

Holography

Holography refers to a new photography technology that records all information such as the amplitude and phase of the reflected wave from the object. Ordinary photography records the light intensity distribution on the surface of the object. It cannot record the phase information of the reflected light from the object, thus losing the three-dimensional sense. Hologram photography uses laser as the illumination source and divides the light emitted by the light source into two beams. One beam is directed to the photosensitive film, and the other beam is reflected by the object and then directed to the photosensitive film. The two beams of light are superimposed on the photosensitive film to cause interference. The sensitivity of each point on the photosensitive film varies not only with the intensity but also with the phase relationship of the two beams of light. Therefore, holography not only records the reflection intensity on the object, but also records the phase information. When the human eye directly looks at this photosensitive film, it can only see interference fringes like fingerprints. But if it is illuminated with a laser, the human eye can see exactly the same three-dimensional image of the original photographed object through the film. Even if only a small part of a holographic image remains, the entire scene can still be reproduced. Holography can be used in industry for non-destructive testing, ultrasonic holography, holographic microscopes, holographic memory, holographic movies and television, and many other aspects.

1. Pictorialism Photography

Pictorialism photography is an art genre popular in the field of photography at the beginning of the 20th century. It originated in England in the mid-19th century.

Photographers of this school pursue the effect of painting or the realm of "poetry and painting" in their creations. It has roughly gone through three stages: the stage of imitating painting; the stage of advocating elegance; and the stage of painting.

Pictorialist photographers proposed that "there should be a Raphael of photography and a Titian of photography."

Pictorialist photography has gone through a long period of development, and the first The master of painterly photography is the British painter Hillard (1802-1870). He is good at portrait photography, and his works have rigorous structures and elegant shapes. From 1851 to 1853, it was the growth period of pictorialism photography.

In 1869, the British photographer HP Robinson (1830-1901) published the book The Picture Effect of Photography. He proposed: "A photographer must have rich emotions and in-depth artistic understanding to become an excellent photographer. There is no doubt that , the continuous improvement and invention of photography have revealed higher goals, which are enough to allow photographers to be more free; but technical improvement is not equivalent to artistic progress, because photography itself, no matter how exquisite and complete, is just a kind of photography. It just leads to a higher goal." This laid the theoretical foundation for this school.

In 1857, OG Leland (1813-1875) created a Renaissance-style work composed of more than 30 negatives: Two Lifestyles, Symbolizing Pictorialism Maturity in the art of photography.

The themes of the works of this period are mostly religious and contain a certain degree of metaphor. When shooting, we make a sketch of the trailer, then use models and props to organize and arrange the scene, and process it in the darkroom. Pursue the painterly effect of the photo screen.

Later, the content of painterly photography expanded, but the style still advocated classicism, and the shape and composition still followed the rules of the academy, so it appeared to be conservative, calm and elegant.

"Qi Baishi" photographed by master photographer Zheng Jingkang When the genre developed to the stage of painting, pursuing the emotion, artistic conception and formal beauty of the work are still its characteristics.

Because painterly photographers emphasize artistic accomplishment: "If you want photography to have a status in art, photographers must first cultivate aesthetic abilities and cultivate artistic accomplishments." Therefore, their historical achievements It guided photography from the initial mechanical imitation of objects to the field of plastic arts, and promoted the development of photographic art.

Since most pictorialist creations are divorced from real life, and with the continuous improvement of photographic equipment, the continuous development of people's early aesthetic taste has been impacted by "naturalism". Despite this, it still has its place in the halls of photographic art today.

The main photographers and works of this genre include: The Baron's Banquet, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pagoda Scene by Plessy (?-1896); Robin Lin's When the Day's Work is Done , Autumn, Two Little Girls, The Dying, Juliet with the Poison Bottle, Dawn and Sunset; Leland the Baptist's Covenant, Iphigenia, Eudith and Holofernes; Lady Cameron (1815-1897) Thomas Carlyle and Nida (1820-1910) The Dying Man, among others.

2. Impressionist Photography

In 1899, the first exhibition of French Impressionist paintings was held in the UK. Under his influence, the painterly photographer Robinson proposed the aesthetic standard of "soft-key photography is more beautiful than sharp photography" and advocated "soft-key" photography. This genre is the reflection of Impressionism in painting in the field of photographic art.

At first, they used soft focus lenses to shoot and print on textured paper, pursuing a hazy artistic expression effect. With the emergence of the "silver bromide phase washing method" and the method of mixing dichromic acid glue into pigments to wash photo paper, Impressionist works developed from the control of lens imaging to darkroom processing. They proposed that "the work should not look like a photo at all" and believed that "if there were no paintings, there would be no real photography."

Under the guidance of this theory, impressionist photographers also used brushes, Pencils and erasers are processed on the photo screen, deliberately changing its original light and dark changes, pursuing a "painting" effect. For example, "The Man Sweeping the Park" created by Lacroix in 1900 is like a painting. Charcoal drawing on canvas. Impressionist photographers completely lost the characteristics of photographic art in their works, so some people call it the "imitation school". It can be said that it is a branch of pictorialism photography.

The artistic characteristics of this genre are gloomy tones, rough shadow patterns, rich in decoration, but lack of sense of space.

Its famous photographers include Dumash (?-1937), Puyo (1857-1933), Qiu En (1866-1944), Wasek (1848-1903), and the Hofmeister brothers (1868-1943); 1871-1937), Durkov (1848-1918), Evert (1874-1948), Mizunnet (1870-1943), Sinton (1863-1908), Chili (1861-1947), etc. .

3. Realistic Photography

Realistic photography is a photography genre with a long history. It continues to this day and is still the basic and main genre in the art of photography. It is a reflection of the realist creative method in the field of photographic art.

Photographic artists of this genre adhere to the documentary nature of photography in their creations. In their view, photography should be as faithful as "equal to nature itself". Every detail in the picture must be "identical to nature itself". "Mathematical accuracy" enables the work to exert appeal and persuasiveness that other art media cannot. A. Stiglitz once said: "Only exploring fidelity is our mission." On the other hand, they opposed reflecting the object indifferently and purely objectively like a mirror, and advocated that creation should be selective, and be careful about everything. The things reflected should have the artist’s own aesthetic judgment. Lewis Hine, the famous master of realistic photography, said this famously: "I want to expose those things that should be corrected; at the same time, I want to reflect those things that should be praised." This shows that they advocate the view that art should "reflect life." They dare to face reality and most of their creative themes are taken from social life. The artistic style is simple and unpretentious, but has strong witnessing and prompting power.

The earliest hobby of realistic photography is the collodion documentaries shot by British photographer Philippe de la Motte in 1853. Later, it was Ross Fenton’s war photography and William Jackson’s Wonders of Yellowstone in the late sixties. After 1870, realistic photography gradually matured and began to turn its lens to society and life. For example, the photographer Dr. Barnardo at the time shocked people by photographing the tragic plight of street children.

Due to the huge cognitive role and extraordinary appeal of the hobby of realistic photography, it has gradually occupied its own position in the field of journalism. The works of American photographer Jacob Rees about life in the slums of New York in the 1990s are the foundation works in this area.

Subsequently, realistic photographers emerged in large numbers, and their works are famous for their strong realism and profoundness in the history of photography. For example, Brandt's "The Coal Pickers" in the UK; "The French Woman Parade with Her Head Shaved and Parading" by R. Capa in the United States; "Girls" by Weiss in France, to name a few.

4. Naturalistic Photography

In 1899, photographer Peter Henry Emerson published an article entitled "Naturalistic Photography" in view of the weaknesses of pictorialism. The paper criticized painterly photography as fragmented photography and advocated photographers to return to nature to find creative inspiration. He believes that nature is the beginning and end of art, and only art that is closest to nature and resembles nature is the highest art. He said that no art reflects nature more accurately, meticulously and faithfully than photography. "Emotionally and psychologically, the effect of photography hobby lies in the unmodified lens scene recorded by photosensitive materials." Another master of the school, A.L. Paqiu, said it more clearly: "Art should be left to artists. As far as photography is concerned, we have nothing to rely on from art and should engage in independent creation."

It can be seen that this artistic proposition is a reaction against pictorialism. It encourages people to free photography from the shackles of academicism and promotes the full use of photography's own characteristics.

The creative themes of this genre are mostly natural scenery and social life.

Because naturalistic photography is satisfied with describing the superficial reality of reality and the "absolute" reality of details, it ignores the exploration of the essence of reality and the refinement of surface objects. In a word, it does not pay attention to the typification of artistic creation. and the typicality of artistic images. Therefore, it is essentially a vulgarization of realism. Sometimes this leads to a distortion of reality.

Famous photographers of this school include Dewison (1856-1930), Wilchinson (1857-1921), Gurr (?-1906), Tie Ye (1856-?), Savoy Turcliffe (1859-1940) and others.

5. Purist Photography

Purist photography is a photography art school that matured in the early twentieth century. Its founder is the American photographer Stieglitz (1864-1946). They advocate that the art of photography should give full play to the characteristics and performance of photography, free it from the influence of painting, and use pure photography technology to pursue the unique aesthetic effects of photography-high clarity, rich tonal levels, subtlety The changes in light and shadow, pure black and white tones, detailed texture expression, and precise image portrayal. In short, photographers of this school deliberately pursue the so-called "photographic quality": accurately, directly, delicately and naturally expressing the light, color, line, shape, texture and quality of the subject without resorting to any other plastic arts. medium.

The Overlooking New York exhibited by Cobain in 1913 is a masterpiece among the purists. The photographer overlooks a square in New York from a high place. Although there is no processing or modification, the novel composition and unique shape are refreshing. Another example is the candid E. Sandberg, who used multiple exposures. The technique overcomes the limitations of space and time in a single work, and delicately depicts the poet's emotional transformation, the combination of tones and the changes in composition in one picture, with a strong sense of rhythm.

From a certain perspective, some of the ideas and creations of the purists were "hybrids" of formalism and naturalism, which later evolved into "new materialism." However, this genre has promoted people's exploration and research on the characteristics and expression techniques of photography to a certain extent.

The famous photographers of this genre are Strand (1890-?) and photographers in the F64 group photography organization, such as Adams, Cunningham, etc.

The later works of the Purists developed towards the abstract aspects of lines, patterns and distorted images. Its influential photographers are Yabo, Stinner, Stetvin and Evans.

6. New Objectism Photography

New Objectism Photography is also known as "Domination Photography" and "New Realism Photography". It is a photography art genre that emerged in the 1920s.

The artistic characteristic of this genre is to seek "beauty" in common things. Use close-up, close-up and other techniques to "separate" the subject from the whole, highlight a certain detail of the object, and depict its surface structure accurately and faithfully, thereby achieving a dazzling visual effect. It does not consider that the essence of art lies in the nature of the object it prompts, so its aesthetic thoughts belong to the category of naturalism. For example, the photographer Pa Qiu took a close-up shot of the locomotive's rotating shaft in 1923, showing the state of the locomotive's rotating shaft while it was running. Since the picture omitted other details, it gave the audience a strong visual impression.

The theoretical pioneer of New Objectism is Strand, who defined the artistic characteristics of Objectism as follows: “New Objectism is the essence of photography, and it is also the product and limit of photography. ." He believes that photography "is extremely expressive of life, and requires eyes to observe the right things. To do this, it is not based on perfunctory processes and methods, but must use pure photography." The pioneers of photography were Atget and Steichen. The actual founder is Paqiu mentioned above.

Paqiu opposed photography's reliance on painting. He emphasized that photographic art must rely on photography's own characteristics. He believed that the aesthetic value of photography is hidden in its own characteristics. Only by giving full play to photography's own characteristics can beauty be created. He said: "Paintings should be painted by painters at will. Only based on inherent characteristics can photography be created that can stand on its own. Nothing is borrowed from painting."

The contribution of New Objectism photographers is to prompt people to research and explore the characteristics of photography itself, and to bring photography back from the aesthetic fantasy world to real life. However, due to the over-emphasis on the description of detailed material surface structures, it provided the soil for the germination of later abstract photography.

Around 1925, due to the emergence of large-diameter small cameras, there was new development in the field of expression of New Materialism, which produced many portrait works and pictures reflecting social life and natural scenery. work.

Famous photographers of the New Objectism include Sander (1876-1964), Leski (1871-1956), Heige (1893-1955), Hirsch (1881-1948) Hugh Liman Hoppe (1878-?), Evert (1874-1948), Weston Adams (?-1902), etc.

7. Surrealism Photography

Surrealism photography is a genre that emerged in the field of photographic art during the decline of Dadaism and emerged in the 1930s.

This genre has a relatively rigorous artistic program and artistic theory. They believe that using realistic creative methods to express the real world is a task that classical artists have already completed, while the mission of modern artists is to explore the new and unexplored part of the "spiritual world" of human beings. Therefore, human subconscious activities, accidental inspiration, psychological abnormalities and dreams have become the objects deliberately expressed by surrealist photography artists.

Surrealists in photography, like Dada photographers, used scissors, paste, and darkroom techniques as their main modeling methods to pile up, piece together, and reorganize scenes in their works. , combining specific detailed expressions with arbitrary exaggeration, deformation, omission and symbolic techniques to create a surreal "artistic realm" between reality and fantasy, concrete and abstract. So the effect is strange, absurd and mysterious.

The founders of this genre are the British photographer John Ston and the American photographer Bleu Quail (1880-1945). The real person who accomplished it was the British stage photographer Marco Bin (1905-?). In his creation, he combined the virtuality of "super reality" with the reality in reality, creating a kind of illusion that is both illusory and real. realm. For example, "Marcopin's Self-Portrait" he created in 1946 is a typical surreal work. It was shot using four exposure techniques - one front, two side and one side. Only eyes.

Famous photographers of this genre include the painter Parhan, who engaged in surrealist photo collections; the deformed body photographer Brandt; the portrait and publicity photographer Carson, as well as Blumenthal and Lowe. Lin, Halsman, Rei, et al.

8. Abstract Photography

Abstract photography is a genre of photographic art that emerged after World War I.

Photographers of this school deny the basic characteristic of plastic art that it reflects life and expresses the artist’s aesthetic feelings through scrutable artistic images, and declares that they want to "liberate photography from photography."

In the early days, the bottomless magnification method was used to omit the detailed texture and rich tones of the "subject" and create a "light painting" that only expressed its shape. Later, it developed to use light, edit highlights, expose midway, or shake the camera during shooting to blur the image of the subject in the film, or expose it multiple times to make it ghost, until the surface structure of the picture is changed. The original form and spatial structure of the photographed object is tried to use the so-called "absolutely abstract language" of form, tone (color) and material to transform the photographed object into some unrecognizable lines, spots and shapes. combination.

To express what the artists of this school regard as the so-called most real and most essential subconscious world of human beings. In the work, the photographed objects are simply borrowed by the artist to produce notes that express his own imagination and personality as he pleases.

The originator of abstract photography is Talbot (1800-1877). At the beginning, the image of the work still maintains a certain degree of legibility. By 1917, the "Illustrated Bordeaux" photographed by photographer Cobain (1882-?) using wood chips and transparent glass fragments was completely unrecognizable. In 1922, the Hungarian abstract painter Moholinaki (1895-?) developed it on the basis of Manray (1890-?) and others, and established it theoretically. Subsequently, abstract painters Kandinsky, Koehler and others introduced microphotography and European and American countries.

Representatives of this genre, in addition to those already mentioned in the article, include Scott, Fenninger, Anzhenlanth, Freitai, Winchester, Greenbach, Xia De and Bruquier et al.

9. Kandi Photography

Kandi photography is a major photography school that emerged after World War I and opposed pictorialist photography.

Photographers of this school advocate respecting the characteristics of photography, emphasizing authenticity and nature, advocating not arranging or interfering with objects when shooting, and advocating capturing the momentary mood of the subject in its natural state. Henri Cartier-Bresson, the famous French "Kandis" photographer, once said: "For me, photography is to capture the meaning of an event in a moment and to be able to accurately express the event. The precise organizational form is recorded. "Therefore, the artistic characteristics of this genre are objective, real, natural, friendly, casual, uncarved, vivid and full of life.

The situation of photographers in the "Kandi" school is relatively complicated in terms of their aesthetic thoughts and creative tendencies, although they all advocate the expression of human nature and most of them are engaged in news photography Work, but some are naturalists and some are realists.

The work that gave birth to this genre was photographer Alfred Stieglitz's "Winter on Fifth Street, New York" in 1893, and the real completer was a German photographer Dr. Eric Salomon. The "Political Meeting in Rome", which he shot with a small camera at the end of a night meeting held by the German and French prime ministers, has become a classic work in the history of photography of this genre because of its vividness, authenticity, simplicity and nature.

In terms of photographic aesthetics, they believe that "photographs based on the basic characteristics of photography cannot be imitated by painters or etchers. It has its own indivisible self and its own special expression." Power, even characteristics that are impossible to express using other media." Secondly, for the performance of objective things, they value and emphasize originality, saying: "(Photographers should use) their own eyes to see the world, not to see the world through other people's eyes, and this is what distinguishes whether a photo is mediocre or brilliant. , the standard of whether it is valuable or not."

Famous photographers of this school include Thomas Dowell McAvoy from the United States; Celie Model from the United Kingdom; Victor W. Halfman; as well as Louis Dahl Wolf, Peter Stuck, Peter Bruwich, and others.

10. "Dada" Photography

"Dada" is a literary and artistic thought that emerged in Europe during the First World War. "Dada" is originally an incoherent term for "pony" or "toy horse" in French children's language. Because Dadaist artists deny rationality and traditional culture in their creations, declare that art and aesthetics have nothing to do with each other, advocate "abandoning painting and all aesthetic requirements", and advocate nothingness, making their creations almost a joke, so people call this art school "Dada" group".

Under the influence of this artistic trend, the "Dada School" also emerged in the field of photographic art. The famous photographer Halsman once created a painting of the Mona Lisa, where her plump hands not only turned into protruding veins and hairy hairs, but were also stuffed with banknotes. It can be described as absurd and nondescript.

Most of the creations of Dada photography artists used darkroom technology for editing and processing to create some kind of illusory scene to express their ideas. For example, LM Naki's Leda and the Swan takes a beautiful Greek mythological story and turns it into some obscure, weird, elusive combination of images and lines. In the picture, the visual image no longer exists with its own meaning, but is just a constituent element of a certain idea. Others used editing methods to make the Niagara Falls flow into New York, creating a desolate end-of-the-world scene.

Since Dada's photographic works did not meet people's general aesthetic tastes and requirements, after 1924 they were gradually impacted by the Surrealist art school, which had a clearer and more complete artistic agenda and program. But its influence can still be seen in the modern photography art that appeared later.

Famous Dada photographers include Philippe Halsman, Morgan, Ratslo Moholinaki and Listky.

11. Subjectivist photography

Subjectivist photography is a photography art genre that was formed after World War II that is more "abstract" than abstract photography, so it is also Called the "post-war faction."

It is a reflection of the existential philosophical trend in the field of photographic art. Its founder is German photographer Ot Steinert. He believes that "photography is a broad field that originally had its own abilities and a high degree of subjective initiative. But now it has become a kind of mechanical realism." Therefore, he put forward "the artistic proposition of subjectivity of photographic art. He strongly advocated that the ultimate of photographic art should be to remind the photographer of his own hazy thoughts and express the ineffable inner state and subconscious activities." Subjective photography is personified and personalized photography. . This is the artistic program of this genre. Artists of subjective photography place great emphasis on their creative individuality and despise all existing artistic rules and aesthetic standards. Theorists of this school publicly stated that "Subjective photography is not just an experimental image art, but a free and unrestricted creative art." "We can use technical means to create photos at will."

The evolution of Western body photography In the history of world art, there was a glorious period of body art in Greece and the European Renaissance. The photography art that was born thereafter experienced an early stage of shocking artistic expression in reproducing objective reality. Later, photographers with a spirit of exploration and creativity began to advance into the field of human body photography. In 1857, the Swedish photographer Redland, who later lived in the UK, took a picture called "The Two Roads of Life", which is regarded as a classic in the history of photography. This picture is rich in plot and numerous scenes, and uses a large number of human bodies. The theme of the work is to observe good and punish evil, with the white-haired elder as the center, and two groups of characters on both sides embody two different moral concepts, life ideals and life journeys. The left side represents diligence, friendliness, and enterprising spirit, while the right side represents greed, enjoyment, and depravity. ***Made of more than 30 negative film clips and collage enlargements. This was originally a very imaginative and positive artistic initiative, and was also appreciated by Queen Victoria at the time. The emerging art of photography gained a high reputation at an exhibition of important plastic arts works in Manchester. However, it has also been attacked by a few people, saying that it uses so many naked women, has rough and obscene postures, is pornographic, etc. It can be seen that at all times and in all countries, body art will be criticized and attacked by some people no matter how positive its ideological significance or superb artistic treatment it is. This has probably become a regular reaction.

The development trend of Western body photography is very obvious. While developing conventional traditional human body photography, it has also become popular to express strong subjective feelings and modern photography language, creating works of various genres and styles, and even artistic conceptions such as deformity, cutting, reorganization, mystery, absurdity, and ugliness have appeared. Such as Jerry Yusman's symbolic body photography, Roger Madin's "Random Body", Todd Volk's original large-format body photography, Robert Henneschian and Kai Taksu ·The cut and reconstructed body photography of Oklahoma and others, the absurd body photography of Lisili Kronas, and the sexy body photography of Ningda, Conradoni Mitchell, etc.

China·Oriental Culture and Human Body Photography

In summary, human body photography in China, Japan and other countries, which are also based on Eastern culture, also have two completely different artistic tendencies - one One is to try their best to combine it with Eastern culture and national culture to create nude photography with distinctive characteristics; the other is to combine it with Western culture and European and American culture without scruples to create nude photography with strong personality. Each has its own group of authors, readers, and audiences, and they can work in parallel and develop independently.