He was born in Leipzig in 1955, but he grew up in Düsseldorf, the son of a commercial photographer. In the early 1980s, at Germany's State Art Academy, the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Gursky received strong training and influence from his teachers Hilla and Bernd Becher,[1] a photographic team known for their distinctive, dispassionate method of systematically cataloging industrial machinery and architecture.[2] A similar approach may be found in Gursky's methodical approach to his own, larger-scale photography. Other notable influences are the British landscape photographer John Davies, whose highly detailed high vantage point images had a strong effect on the street level photographs Gursky was then making, and to a lesser degree the American photographer Joel Sternfeld.
[edit] Career and style
Before the 1990s, Gursky did not digitally manipulate his images.[3] In the years since, Gursky has been frank about his reliance on computers to edit and enhance his pictures, creating an art of spaces larger than the subjects photographed.[citation needed] Writing in The New Yorker magazine, the critic Peter Schjeldahl called these pictures "vast," "splashy," "entertaining," and "literally unbelievable."[4] In the same publication, critic Calvin Tomkins described Gursky as one of the "two masters" of the "Düsseldorf" school. In 2001, Tomkins described the experience of confronting one of Gursky's large works:[1]
"The first time I saw photographs by Andreas Gursky...I had the disorienting sensation that something was happening—happening to me, I suppose, although it felt more generalized than that. Gursky's huge, panoramic color prints—some of them up to six feet high by ten feet long—had the presence, the formal power, and in several cases the majestic aura of nineteenth-century landscape paintings, without losing any of their meticulously detailed immediacy as photographs. Their subject matter was the contemporary world, seen dispassionately and from a distance."[1]
Visually, Gursky is drawn to large, anonymous, man-made spaces—high-rise facades at night, office lobbies, stock exchanges, the interiors of big box retailers (See his print 99 Cent II Diptychon). In a 2001 retrospective, New York's Museum of Modern Art called the artist's work, "a sophisticated art of unembellished observation. It is thanks to the artfulness of Gursky's fictions that we recognize his world as our own."[5] Gursky’s style is enigmatic and deadpan. There is little to no explanation or manipulation on the works. His photography is straightforward.[6]
Gursky's Dance Valley festival photograph, taken near Amsterdam in 1995, depicts attendees facing a DJ stand in a large arena, beneath strobe lighting effects. The pouring smoke resembles a human hand, holding the crowd in stasis. After completing the print, Gursky explained the only music he now listens to is the anonymous, beat-heavy style known as Trance, as its symmetry and simplicity echoes his own work—while playing towards a deeper, more visceral emotion.[citation needed]
As of early 2007, Gursky holds the record for highest price paid at auction for a single photographic image. His print 99 Cent II, Diptych, sold for GBP 1.7 million (USD $3.3 million) at Sotheby's, London.[7]
mercoledì 2 dicembre 2009
Edward Steichen
His family moved to the United States in 1881 and he became a naturalized citizen in 1900. Having established himself as a fine art painter in the beginning of the 20th century, Steichen assumed the pictorialist approach in photography and proved himself a master of it.
[edit] Partnership with Stieglitz
Steichen met Alfred Stieglitz in 1900, on his first trip to New York City from his home in Milwaukee.[1] In that first meeting, Steiglitz expressed praise for Steichen's background in painting, and also bought three photographic prints of Steichen's.[2]
In 1902, when Stieglitz was formulating what would become Camera Work, he asked Steichen to design the logo for the magazine, with a custom typeface.[3]
In 1905, Steichen helped create the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession with Stieglitz. After World War I, during which he commanded the photographic division of the American Expeditionary Forces, he reverted to straight photography, gradually moving into fashion photography. Steichen's 1928 photo of actress Greta Garbo is recognized as one of the definitive portraits of Garbo.
[edit] Later Work
The initial publication of Ansel Adams' image Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico was in U.S. Camera Annual 1943, after being selected by Steichen, who was serving as "photo judge" for the publication.[4] This gave Moonrise an audience before its first formal exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1944. [5]
During World War II, he served as Director of the Naval Photographic Institute. His war documentary The Fighting Lady won the 1945 Academy Award for Best Documentary. After the war, Steichen served until 1962 as the Director of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
Among other accomplishments, Steichen is appreciated for creating The Family of Man in 1955, a vast exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art consisting of over 500 photos that depicted life, love and death in 68 countries. Steichen's brother-in-law, Carl Sandburg, wrote a "Prologue" for the exhibition catalog. As had been Steichen's wish, the exhibition was donated to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It is now permanently housed in the Luxembourg town of Clervaux. [6]
On December 6, 1963, Steichen was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson.
A show of early color photographs by Steichen was held at Mudam Luxembourg from July 14 to September 3, 2007.[7]
[edit] The Pond-Moonlight
Steichen's The Pond-Moonlight
In February 2006, a copy of Steichen's early pictorialist photograph, The Pond-Moonlight (1904), sold for what was then the highest price ever paid for a photograph at auction, U.S. $2.9 million. (See List of most expensive photographs).
Steichen took the photograph in Mamaroneck, New York near the home of his friend, art critic Charles Caffin. The photo features a wooded area and pond, with moonlight appearing between the trees and reflecting on the pond. While the print appears to be a color photograph, the first true color photographic process, the autochrome process, was not available until 1907. Steichen created the impression of color by manually applying layers of light-sensitive gums to the paper. In 1904, only a few photographers were using this experimental approach. Only three known versions of the Pond-Moonlight are still in existence and, as a result of the hand-layering of the gums, each is unique. In addition to the auctioned print, the other two versions are held in museum collections. The extraordinary sale price of the print is, in part, attributable to its one-of-a-kind character and to its rarity.[8]
[edit] Partnership with Stieglitz
Steichen met Alfred Stieglitz in 1900, on his first trip to New York City from his home in Milwaukee.[1] In that first meeting, Steiglitz expressed praise for Steichen's background in painting, and also bought three photographic prints of Steichen's.[2]
In 1902, when Stieglitz was formulating what would become Camera Work, he asked Steichen to design the logo for the magazine, with a custom typeface.[3]
In 1905, Steichen helped create the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession with Stieglitz. After World War I, during which he commanded the photographic division of the American Expeditionary Forces, he reverted to straight photography, gradually moving into fashion photography. Steichen's 1928 photo of actress Greta Garbo is recognized as one of the definitive portraits of Garbo.
[edit] Later Work
The initial publication of Ansel Adams' image Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico was in U.S. Camera Annual 1943, after being selected by Steichen, who was serving as "photo judge" for the publication.[4] This gave Moonrise an audience before its first formal exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1944. [5]
During World War II, he served as Director of the Naval Photographic Institute. His war documentary The Fighting Lady won the 1945 Academy Award for Best Documentary. After the war, Steichen served until 1962 as the Director of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
Among other accomplishments, Steichen is appreciated for creating The Family of Man in 1955, a vast exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art consisting of over 500 photos that depicted life, love and death in 68 countries. Steichen's brother-in-law, Carl Sandburg, wrote a "Prologue" for the exhibition catalog. As had been Steichen's wish, the exhibition was donated to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It is now permanently housed in the Luxembourg town of Clervaux. [6]
On December 6, 1963, Steichen was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson.
A show of early color photographs by Steichen was held at Mudam Luxembourg from July 14 to September 3, 2007.[7]
[edit] The Pond-Moonlight
Steichen's The Pond-Moonlight
In February 2006, a copy of Steichen's early pictorialist photograph, The Pond-Moonlight (1904), sold for what was then the highest price ever paid for a photograph at auction, U.S. $2.9 million. (See List of most expensive photographs).
Steichen took the photograph in Mamaroneck, New York near the home of his friend, art critic Charles Caffin. The photo features a wooded area and pond, with moonlight appearing between the trees and reflecting on the pond. While the print appears to be a color photograph, the first true color photographic process, the autochrome process, was not available until 1907. Steichen created the impression of color by manually applying layers of light-sensitive gums to the paper. In 1904, only a few photographers were using this experimental approach. Only three known versions of the Pond-Moonlight are still in existence and, as a result of the hand-layering of the gums, each is unique. In addition to the auctioned print, the other two versions are held in museum collections. The extraordinary sale price of the print is, in part, attributable to its one-of-a-kind character and to its rarity.[8]
Edward Weston
Weston was born in Highland Park, Illinois on March 24, 1886. [1] He was given his first camera, a Kodak Bull's-Eye #2, for his 16th birthday, when he began taking photographs. His favorite hangouts were Chicago parks and a farm owned by his aunt. Weston met with quick success and the Chicago Art Institute exhibited his photographs a year later, in 1903. He attended the Illinois College of Photography.
In 1906, Weston moved to California, where he decided to stay and pursue a career in photography. He had four sons with his wife, Flora May Chandler (whom he married in 1909): Edward Chandler (Chan) (1910), Theodore Brett (1911), Laurence Neil (Neil)(1914) and Cole (1919). In 1910, Weston opened his first photographic studio in Tropico, California (now Glendale) and wrote articles about his unconventional methods of portraiture for several high-circulation magazines.
In 1922, Weston experienced a transition from pictorialism to straight photography, becoming "the pioneer of precise and sharp presentation". His pictures included the human figure as well as items of nature, including seaside wildlife, plants, and landscapes. Tina Modotti, his professional (and romantic) partner, often accompanied him to Mexico, creating much gossip in the media. Weston's sons were also frequent companions, receiving lessons in photography from their experienced father. Brett and Cole later embarked on their own careers in the field, along with Weston's grandson Kim and great-children, Christine and Jason.
After 1927, Weston worked mainly with nudes, still life — his shells and vegetable studies were especially important — and landscape subjects. Henrietta Shore was a companion in the 1930s; her paintings influenced him to photograph her shells.[2] After a few exhibitions of his works in New York, he co-founded Group f/64 in 1932 with Ansel Adams, Willard Van Dyke and others. The term f/64 referred to a very small aperture setting on a large format camera, which secured great depth of field, making a photograph appear evenly sharp from foreground to background. Weston also achieved great sharpness by not enlarging. He made contact prints from his 4x5" or 8x10" negatives. The detailed, straight photography that the group espoused was in opposition to the pictorialist soft-edged methods that were still in fashion at the time.
In 1937 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation awarded Weston a fellowship, the first given to a photographer. In 1939, he married his assistant, Charis Wilson, with whom he had lived since 1934. They divorced in 1945.[3] During this time he received exclusive commissions and published several books, some with Wilson, including an edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass illustrated with his photographs. He also produced some of his few color photographs with Willard Van Dyke in 1947. Weston also collaborated on several volumes of his photographs with photography critic Nancy Newhall, beginning in 1946.
The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson houses a full archive of Edward Weston's work.
[edit] Illness and death
Stricken with Parkinson's Disease, Weston made his last photographs at Point Lobos State Reserve in 1948. 1952 saw the publication of a 50th-anniversary portfolio of his work, printed by his son Brett. Brett and Cole Weston, as well as Brett's wife Dody Warren, were appointed to print 800 of what he considered his most important negatives under his supervision in the years 1955 to 1956.
Edward Weston died in his house on Wildcat Hill in Carmel Highlands in Big Sur, California on January 1, 1958, age 71.[4]
[edit] Legacy
His comprehensive legacy includes the detailed and articulate Daybooks he kept regularly from the mid-1920s to 1934, which allow a very intimate glimpse into his personal life, his views on photography, and his working methods. Weston is generally recognized as one of the greatest photographic artists of the 20th century.
[edit] Images
Most Popular: "Pepper #30"; "Dunes, Oceano", "Nude, 1936"
The New York Times newspaper reported on April 14, 2008 that Sotheby’s sold an Edward Weston photograph to a New York art dealer for $1.6 Million.
Price History:
1970s: $500 - $1,500
1980s: $3,000 - $50,000
1990s: $10,000 - $300,000
Current: $5,000 - $1.6M
Most of his photographs are rare and unnumbered and few vintage photographs are available.
Even though he was a celebrated photographer he survived selling his photos for a humble price of $7-10.
[edit] Quotations
"Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it may be."
"The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh."
"I cannot believe I learned anything of value in school unless it be the will to rebel."
"I want the stark beauty that a lens can so exactly render presented without interference of artistic effect."
"The camera sees more than the eye."
In 1906, Weston moved to California, where he decided to stay and pursue a career in photography. He had four sons with his wife, Flora May Chandler (whom he married in 1909): Edward Chandler (Chan) (1910), Theodore Brett (1911), Laurence Neil (Neil)(1914) and Cole (1919). In 1910, Weston opened his first photographic studio in Tropico, California (now Glendale) and wrote articles about his unconventional methods of portraiture for several high-circulation magazines.
In 1922, Weston experienced a transition from pictorialism to straight photography, becoming "the pioneer of precise and sharp presentation". His pictures included the human figure as well as items of nature, including seaside wildlife, plants, and landscapes. Tina Modotti, his professional (and romantic) partner, often accompanied him to Mexico, creating much gossip in the media. Weston's sons were also frequent companions, receiving lessons in photography from their experienced father. Brett and Cole later embarked on their own careers in the field, along with Weston's grandson Kim and great-children, Christine and Jason.
After 1927, Weston worked mainly with nudes, still life — his shells and vegetable studies were especially important — and landscape subjects. Henrietta Shore was a companion in the 1930s; her paintings influenced him to photograph her shells.[2] After a few exhibitions of his works in New York, he co-founded Group f/64 in 1932 with Ansel Adams, Willard Van Dyke and others. The term f/64 referred to a very small aperture setting on a large format camera, which secured great depth of field, making a photograph appear evenly sharp from foreground to background. Weston also achieved great sharpness by not enlarging. He made contact prints from his 4x5" or 8x10" negatives. The detailed, straight photography that the group espoused was in opposition to the pictorialist soft-edged methods that were still in fashion at the time.
In 1937 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation awarded Weston a fellowship, the first given to a photographer. In 1939, he married his assistant, Charis Wilson, with whom he had lived since 1934. They divorced in 1945.[3] During this time he received exclusive commissions and published several books, some with Wilson, including an edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass illustrated with his photographs. He also produced some of his few color photographs with Willard Van Dyke in 1947. Weston also collaborated on several volumes of his photographs with photography critic Nancy Newhall, beginning in 1946.
The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson houses a full archive of Edward Weston's work.
[edit] Illness and death
Stricken with Parkinson's Disease, Weston made his last photographs at Point Lobos State Reserve in 1948. 1952 saw the publication of a 50th-anniversary portfolio of his work, printed by his son Brett. Brett and Cole Weston, as well as Brett's wife Dody Warren, were appointed to print 800 of what he considered his most important negatives under his supervision in the years 1955 to 1956.
Edward Weston died in his house on Wildcat Hill in Carmel Highlands in Big Sur, California on January 1, 1958, age 71.[4]
[edit] Legacy
His comprehensive legacy includes the detailed and articulate Daybooks he kept regularly from the mid-1920s to 1934, which allow a very intimate glimpse into his personal life, his views on photography, and his working methods. Weston is generally recognized as one of the greatest photographic artists of the 20th century.
[edit] Images
Most Popular: "Pepper #30"; "Dunes, Oceano", "Nude, 1936"
The New York Times newspaper reported on April 14, 2008 that Sotheby’s sold an Edward Weston photograph to a New York art dealer for $1.6 Million.
Price History:
1970s: $500 - $1,500
1980s: $3,000 - $50,000
1990s: $10,000 - $300,000
Current: $5,000 - $1.6M
Most of his photographs are rare and unnumbered and few vintage photographs are available.
Even though he was a celebrated photographer he survived selling his photos for a humble price of $7-10.
[edit] Quotations
"Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it may be."
"The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh."
"I cannot believe I learned anything of value in school unless it be the will to rebel."
"I want the stark beauty that a lens can so exactly render presented without interference of artistic effect."
"The camera sees more than the eye."
Wildlife photography
Wildlife photography is devoted to capturing interesting animals in action, such as eating, fighting, or in flight. Although usually shot in the wild, game farms are also a frequent location for wildlife photography.
The techniques of wildlife photography differ greatly from those used in landscape photography. For example, in wildlife photography wide apertures are used to achieve a fast shutter speed, freeze the subject's motion, and blur the backgrounds, while landscape photographers prefer small apertures. Wildlife is also usually shot with long telephoto lenses from a great distance; the use of such telephoto lenses frequently necessitates the use of a tripod (since the longer the lens, the harder it is to handhold). Many wildlife photographers use blinds or camouflage.
The techniques of wildlife photography differ greatly from those used in landscape photography. For example, in wildlife photography wide apertures are used to achieve a fast shutter speed, freeze the subject's motion, and blur the backgrounds, while landscape photographers prefer small apertures. Wildlife is also usually shot with long telephoto lenses from a great distance; the use of such telephoto lenses frequently necessitates the use of a tripod (since the longer the lens, the harder it is to handhold). Many wildlife photographers use blinds or camouflage.
Fine art photography
There are no universally-accepted definitions of the related terms "art photography," "artistic photography," and "fine art photography," as exemplified by definitions found in reference books, in scholarly articles, and on the Web.
[edit] Definitions in reference books
Among the definitions that can be found in reference books are:
* "Art photography": "Euphemism for nude photography"[1].
* "Art photography": "photography that is done as a fine art -- that is, done to express the artist's perceptions and emotions and to share them with others"[2].
* "Art photography": a definition "is elusive," but "when photographers refer to it, they have in mind the photographs seen in magazines such as American Photo, Popular Photography, and Print, and in salons and exhibitions. Art (or artful) photography is salable."[3].
* "Artistic photography": "A frequently used but somewhat vague term. The idea underlying it is that the producer of a given picture has aimed at something more than a merely realistic rendering of the subject, and has attempted to convey a personal impression"[4].
* "Fine art photography": "a picture that is produced for sale or display rather than one that is produced in response to a commercial commission"[5].
* "Fine art photography": "the production of images to fulfill the creative vision of a photographer. ... Synonymous with art photography"[6].
* "Fine art photography": also called "decor photography," "photo decor," or "wall decor," this "involves selling large photos... that can be used as wall art"[3].
[edit] Definitions in scholarly articles
Among the definitions that can be found in scholarly articles are:
* Two studies by Christopherson in 1974 defined "fine art photographers" as "those persons who create and distribute photographs specifically as 'art.'"[7][8]
* A 1986 ethnographic and historical study by Schwartz did not directly define "fine art photography" but did compare it with "camera club photography"[9]. It found that fine art photography "is tied to other media" such as painting; "responds to its own history and traditions" (as opposed to "aspir[ing] to the same achievements made by their predecessors"); "has its own vocabulary"; "conveys ideas" (e.g., "concern with form supersedes concern with subject matter"); "is innovative"; "is personal"; "is a lifestyle"; and "participates in the world of commerce."[9]
[edit] Definitions on the Web
Among the definitions that can be found on the Web are:
* The Library of Congress authorities use "art photography" as "photography of art," and "artistic photography" (i.e., "Photography, artistic") as "photography as a fine art, including aesthetic theory"[10].
* The Art & Architecture Thesaurus states that "fine art photography" (preferred term) or "art photography" or "artistic photography" is "the movement in England and the United States, from around 1890 into the early 20th century, which promoted various aesthetic approaches. Historically, has sometimes been applied to any photography whose intention is aesthetic, as distinguished from scientific, commercial, or journalistic; for this meaning, use 'photography'"[11].
* Definitions of "fine art photography" on photographers' static Web pages vary from "the subset of fine art that is created with a camera"[12] to "limited-reproduction photography, using materials and techniques that will outlive the artist"[13].
* Discussions of "fine art photography" in Usenet newsgroups[14][15], Internet forums[16][17], and blogs[18][19] have not come to a consensus regarding the definition of the term.
[edit] History
One photography historian claimed that "the earliest exponent of 'Fine Art' or composition photography was John Edwin Mayall" who exhibited daguerrotypes illustrating the Lord's Prayer in 1851[20]. Successful attempts to make fine art photography can be traced to Victorian era practitioners such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, and Oscar Gustave Rejlander and others. In the U.S. F. Holland Day, Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen were instrumental in making photography a fine art, and Steiglitz was especially notable in introducing it into museum collections.
Until the late 1970s several genres predominated, such as; nudes, portraits, natural landscapes (exemplified by Ansel Adams). Breakthrough 'star' artists in the 1970s and 80s, such as Sally Mann and Robert Mapplethorpe, still relied heavily on such genres, although seeing them with fresh eyes. Others investigated a snapshot aesthetic approach.
American organizations, such as the Aperture Foundation and the Museum of Modern Art, have done much to keep photography at the forefront of the fine arts.
[edit] Framing and print size
Until the mid 1950s it was widely considered vulgar and pretentious to frame a photograph for a gallery exhibition. Prints were usually simply pasted onto blockboard or plywood, or given a white border in the darkroom and then pinned at the corners onto display boards. Prints were thus shown without any glass reflections obscuring them. Steichen's famous The Family of Man exhibition was unframed, the pictures pasted to panels. Even as late as 1966 Bill Brandt's MoMA show was unframed, with simple prints pasted to thin plywood. Since about 2000 there has been a noticeable move toward once again showing contemporary gallery prints on boards and without glass.
Throughout the twentieth century, there was a noticeable increase in the size of prints.
[edit] Politics
Ansel Adams' The Tetons and the Snake River (1942).
Fine art photography is created primarily as an expression of the artist’s vision, but as a byproduct it has also been important in advancing certain causes. The work of Ansel Adams in Yosemite and Yellowstone provides an example. Adams is one of the most widely recognized fine art photographers of the 20th century, and was an avid promoter of conservation. While his primary focus was on photography as art, some of his work raised public awareness of the beauty of the Sierra Nevada and helped to build political support for their protection.
Such photography has also had effects in the area of censorship law and free expression, due to its concern with the nude body.
[edit] Current trends
There is now a trend toward a careful staging and lighting of the picture, rather than hoping to "discover" it ready-made. Photographers such as Gregory Crewdson, and Jeff Wall are noted for the quality of their staged pictures. Additionally, new technological trends in digital photography has opened a new direction in full spectrum photography, where careful filtering choices across the ultraviolet, visible and infrared lead to new artistic visions.
As printing technologies have improved since around 1980, a photographer's art prints reproduced in a finely-printed limited-edition book have now become an area of strong interest to collectors. This is because books usually have high production values, a short print run, and their limited market means they are almost never reprinted. The collector's market in photography books by individual photographers is developing rapidly.
According to Art Market Trends 2004 (PDF link) 7,000 photographs were sold in auction rooms in 2004, and photographs averaged a 7.6 percent annual price rise from 1994 and 2004.[not in citation given] Around 80 percent were sold in the USA. Of course, auction sales only record a fraction of total private sales. There is now a thriving collectors' market for which the most sought-after art photographers will produce high quality archival prints in strictly limited editions. Attempts by online art retailers to sell fine photography to the general public alongside prints of paintings have had mixed results, with strong sales coming only from the traditional "big names" of photography such as Ansel Adams.
[edit] Overlaps with other genres of photography
Although fine art photography may overlap with many other genres of photography, the overlaps with fashion photography and photojournalism merit special attention.
In 1996 it was stated that there had been a "recent blurring of lines between commercial illustrative photography and fine art photography," especially in the area of fashion[21]. Evidence for the overlap of fine art photography and fashion photography includes lectures[22], exhibitions[23][24][25], trade fairs such as Art Basel Miami Beach[26], and books[21][27].
Photojournalism and fine art photography overlapped beginning in the "late 1960s and 1970s, when... news photographers struck up liaisons with art photography and painting"[28]. In 1974 the International Center of Photography opened, with emphases on both "humanitarian photojournalism" and "art photography"[28]. By 1987, "pictures that were taken on assignments for magazines and newspapers now regularly reappear[ed] - in frames - on the walls of museums and galleries"[29].
[edit] Definitions in reference books
Among the definitions that can be found in reference books are:
* "Art photography": "Euphemism for nude photography"[1].
* "Art photography": "photography that is done as a fine art -- that is, done to express the artist's perceptions and emotions and to share them with others"[2].
* "Art photography": a definition "is elusive," but "when photographers refer to it, they have in mind the photographs seen in magazines such as American Photo, Popular Photography, and Print, and in salons and exhibitions. Art (or artful) photography is salable."[3].
* "Artistic photography": "A frequently used but somewhat vague term. The idea underlying it is that the producer of a given picture has aimed at something more than a merely realistic rendering of the subject, and has attempted to convey a personal impression"[4].
* "Fine art photography": "a picture that is produced for sale or display rather than one that is produced in response to a commercial commission"[5].
* "Fine art photography": "the production of images to fulfill the creative vision of a photographer. ... Synonymous with art photography"[6].
* "Fine art photography": also called "decor photography," "photo decor," or "wall decor," this "involves selling large photos... that can be used as wall art"[3].
[edit] Definitions in scholarly articles
Among the definitions that can be found in scholarly articles are:
* Two studies by Christopherson in 1974 defined "fine art photographers" as "those persons who create and distribute photographs specifically as 'art.'"[7][8]
* A 1986 ethnographic and historical study by Schwartz did not directly define "fine art photography" but did compare it with "camera club photography"[9]. It found that fine art photography "is tied to other media" such as painting; "responds to its own history and traditions" (as opposed to "aspir[ing] to the same achievements made by their predecessors"); "has its own vocabulary"; "conveys ideas" (e.g., "concern with form supersedes concern with subject matter"); "is innovative"; "is personal"; "is a lifestyle"; and "participates in the world of commerce."[9]
[edit] Definitions on the Web
Among the definitions that can be found on the Web are:
* The Library of Congress authorities use "art photography" as "photography of art," and "artistic photography" (i.e., "Photography, artistic") as "photography as a fine art, including aesthetic theory"[10].
* The Art & Architecture Thesaurus states that "fine art photography" (preferred term) or "art photography" or "artistic photography" is "the movement in England and the United States, from around 1890 into the early 20th century, which promoted various aesthetic approaches. Historically, has sometimes been applied to any photography whose intention is aesthetic, as distinguished from scientific, commercial, or journalistic; for this meaning, use 'photography'"[11].
* Definitions of "fine art photography" on photographers' static Web pages vary from "the subset of fine art that is created with a camera"[12] to "limited-reproduction photography, using materials and techniques that will outlive the artist"[13].
* Discussions of "fine art photography" in Usenet newsgroups[14][15], Internet forums[16][17], and blogs[18][19] have not come to a consensus regarding the definition of the term.
[edit] History
One photography historian claimed that "the earliest exponent of 'Fine Art' or composition photography was John Edwin Mayall" who exhibited daguerrotypes illustrating the Lord's Prayer in 1851[20]. Successful attempts to make fine art photography can be traced to Victorian era practitioners such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, and Oscar Gustave Rejlander and others. In the U.S. F. Holland Day, Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen were instrumental in making photography a fine art, and Steiglitz was especially notable in introducing it into museum collections.
Until the late 1970s several genres predominated, such as; nudes, portraits, natural landscapes (exemplified by Ansel Adams). Breakthrough 'star' artists in the 1970s and 80s, such as Sally Mann and Robert Mapplethorpe, still relied heavily on such genres, although seeing them with fresh eyes. Others investigated a snapshot aesthetic approach.
American organizations, such as the Aperture Foundation and the Museum of Modern Art, have done much to keep photography at the forefront of the fine arts.
[edit] Framing and print size
Until the mid 1950s it was widely considered vulgar and pretentious to frame a photograph for a gallery exhibition. Prints were usually simply pasted onto blockboard or plywood, or given a white border in the darkroom and then pinned at the corners onto display boards. Prints were thus shown without any glass reflections obscuring them. Steichen's famous The Family of Man exhibition was unframed, the pictures pasted to panels. Even as late as 1966 Bill Brandt's MoMA show was unframed, with simple prints pasted to thin plywood. Since about 2000 there has been a noticeable move toward once again showing contemporary gallery prints on boards and without glass.
Throughout the twentieth century, there was a noticeable increase in the size of prints.
[edit] Politics
Ansel Adams' The Tetons and the Snake River (1942).
Fine art photography is created primarily as an expression of the artist’s vision, but as a byproduct it has also been important in advancing certain causes. The work of Ansel Adams in Yosemite and Yellowstone provides an example. Adams is one of the most widely recognized fine art photographers of the 20th century, and was an avid promoter of conservation. While his primary focus was on photography as art, some of his work raised public awareness of the beauty of the Sierra Nevada and helped to build political support for their protection.
Such photography has also had effects in the area of censorship law and free expression, due to its concern with the nude body.
[edit] Current trends
There is now a trend toward a careful staging and lighting of the picture, rather than hoping to "discover" it ready-made. Photographers such as Gregory Crewdson, and Jeff Wall are noted for the quality of their staged pictures. Additionally, new technological trends in digital photography has opened a new direction in full spectrum photography, where careful filtering choices across the ultraviolet, visible and infrared lead to new artistic visions.
As printing technologies have improved since around 1980, a photographer's art prints reproduced in a finely-printed limited-edition book have now become an area of strong interest to collectors. This is because books usually have high production values, a short print run, and their limited market means they are almost never reprinted. The collector's market in photography books by individual photographers is developing rapidly.
According to Art Market Trends 2004 (PDF link) 7,000 photographs were sold in auction rooms in 2004, and photographs averaged a 7.6 percent annual price rise from 1994 and 2004.[not in citation given] Around 80 percent were sold in the USA. Of course, auction sales only record a fraction of total private sales. There is now a thriving collectors' market for which the most sought-after art photographers will produce high quality archival prints in strictly limited editions. Attempts by online art retailers to sell fine photography to the general public alongside prints of paintings have had mixed results, with strong sales coming only from the traditional "big names" of photography such as Ansel Adams.
[edit] Overlaps with other genres of photography
Although fine art photography may overlap with many other genres of photography, the overlaps with fashion photography and photojournalism merit special attention.
In 1996 it was stated that there had been a "recent blurring of lines between commercial illustrative photography and fine art photography," especially in the area of fashion[21]. Evidence for the overlap of fine art photography and fashion photography includes lectures[22], exhibitions[23][24][25], trade fairs such as Art Basel Miami Beach[26], and books[21][27].
Photojournalism and fine art photography overlapped beginning in the "late 1960s and 1970s, when... news photographers struck up liaisons with art photography and painting"[28]. In 1974 the International Center of Photography opened, with emphases on both "humanitarian photojournalism" and "art photography"[28]. By 1987, "pictures that were taken on assignments for magazines and newspapers now regularly reappear[ed] - in frames - on the walls of museums and galleries"[29].
Photographic Lenses
Most photographic lenses can be thought of as modified pinhole lenses. A pinhole lens would be excellent except for a few serious limitations. They are limited in their resolution because, while geometric optics says that making the pinhole smaller improves resolution, this also reduces light; furthermore, diffraction limits the effectiveness of shrinking the hole. Most photographic lenses can be thought of as an answer to the question "how can we modify a pinhole lens to admit more light and give higher resolution?" A first step is to put a simple convex lens at the pinhole with a focal length equal to the distance to the film plane (assuming the camera will take pictures of distant objects). This allows us to open up the pinhole a bit. The geometry is almost the same as with a simple pinhole lens, but rather than being illuminated by single rays of light, each image point is illuminated by a focused "pencil" of light rays. Standing out in the world, you would see the small hole. This image is known as the entrance pupil: all rays of light leaving an object point that enters this pupil will be focused to the same point on the film. If one were inside the camera, one would see the lens acting as a projector. The image of aperture is the exit pupil.
With a large pinhole, the image spot is large, resulting in a blurry image.
With a small pinhole, light is reduced and diffraction prevents the image spot from getting arbitrarily small.
With a simple lens, much more light can be brought into sharp focus.
Practical photographic lenses include more lens elements. The additional elements allow lens designers to reduce various aberrations, but the principle of operation remains the same: pencils of rays are collected at the entrance pupil and focused down from the exit pupil onto the image plane.
[edit] Construction
Main article: Photographic lens design
The zoom lens assembly of the Canon Elph
A photographic lens may be made from a number of elements: from one, like in the Box Brownie's meniscus lens, to over 20 in the more complex zooms. These elements may themselves comprise a group of lenses cemented together.
The front element is critical to the performance of the whole assembly. In all modern lenses the surface is coated to reduce abrasion, flare, and surface reflectance, and to adjust color balance. To minimize aberration, the curvature is usually set so that the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction are equal. In a prime lens this is easy, but in a zoom there is always a compromise.
The lens usually is focused by adjusting the distance from the lens assembly to the image plane, or by moving elements of the lens assembly. To improve performance, some lenses have a cam system that adjusts the distance between the groups as the lens is focused. Manufacturers call this different things. Nikon calls it CRC (close range correction), while Hasselblad calls it FLE (floating lens element)[1].
Glass is the most common material used to construct lens elements, due to its good optical properties and resistance to scratching. Other materials are also used, such as quartz glass, fluorite[1][2][3][4], plastics like acrylic (Plexiglass), and even germanium and meteoritic glass.[5] Plastics allow the manufacturing of strongly aspherical lens elements which are difficult or impossible to manufacture in glass, and which simplify or improve lens manufacturing and performance. Plastics are not used for the outermost elements of all but the cheapest lenses as they scratch easily. Molded plastic lenses have been used for the cheapest disposable cameras for many years, and have acquired a bad reputation: manufacturers of quality optics tend to use euphemisms such as "optical resin". However many modern, high performance (and high priced) lenses from popular manufacturers include molded or hybrid aspherical elements, so it is not true that all lenses with plastic elements are of low photographic quality.
The 1951 USAF resolution test chart is one way to measure the resolving power of a lens. The quality of the material, coatings, and build affect the resolution. Lens resolution is ultimately limited by diffraction, and very few photographic lenses approach this resolution. Ones that do are called "diffraction limited" and are usually extremely expensive.[2]
Today, most lenses are multi-coated in order to minimize lens flare and other unwanted effects. Some lenses have a UV coating to keep out the ultraviolet light that could taint color. Most modern optical cements for bonding glass elements also block UV light, negating the need for a UV filter. UV photographers must go to great lengths to find lenses with no cement or coatings.
A lens will most often have an aperture adjustment mechanism, usually an iris diaphragm, to regulate the amount of light that passes. In early camera models a rotating plate or slider with different sized holes was used. These Waterhouse stops may still be found on modern, specialized lenses. A shutter, to regulate the time during which light may pass, may be incorporated within the lens assembly (for better quality imagery), within the camera, or even, rarely, in front of the lens. Some cameras with leaf shutters in the lens omit the aperture, and the shutter does double duty.
[edit] Aperture and focal length
How focal length affects photograph composition: adjusting the camera's distance from the main subject while changing focal length, the main subject can remain the same size, while the other at a different distance changes size.
Large (top) and small (bottom) aperture settings on the same lens are shown.
The two main optical parameters of a photographic lens are the maximum aperture and the focal length. The focal length determines the angle of view, and the size of the image relative to that of the object, while the maximum aperture limits the brightness of the image and the fastest shutter speed usable. A popular third consideration is the shortest focal distance.
The maximum usable aperture of a lens is usually specified as the focal ratio or f-number, which is equal to the focal length divided by the effective aperture (or entrance pupil) diameter in the same units. The lower the number, the more light per unit area is delivered to the focal plane. Larger apertures (smaller f-numbers) provide a much shallower depth of field than smaller apertures, other conditions being equal. Practical lens assemblies may also contain mechanisms to deal with measuring light, secondary apertures for flare reduction, [3]and mechanisms to hold the aperture open until the instant of exposure to allow SLR cameras to focus with a brighter image with shallower depth of field, theoretically allowing better focus accuracy.
Focal lengths are usually specified in millimetres (mm), but older lenses marked in centimetres (cm) and inches are still to be found. For a given film or sensor size, specified by the length of the diagonal, a lens may be classified as
* Normal lens: angle of view of the diagonal about 50° and a focal length approximately equal to the diagonal produces this angle.
* Macro lens: angle of view narrower than 25° and focal length longer than normal. These lenses are used for close-ups, e.g., for images of the same size as the object. They usually feature a flat field as well, which means that the subject plane is exactly parallel with the film plane.
* Wide-angle lens: angle of view wider than 60° and focal length shorter than normal.
* Telephoto lens or long-focus lens: angle of view narrower and focal length longer than normal. A distinction is sometimes made between a long-focus lens and a true telephoto lens: the telephoto lens uses a telephoto group to be physically shorter than its focal length.
The 35mm film format is so prevalent that a 90mm lens, for example, is sometimes assumed to be a moderate telephoto; but for the 7×5cm format it is normal, while on the large 5×4 inch format it is a wide-angle. In general, the smaller the film or sensor surface, the smaller the angle of view. This can be corrected with lenses with shorter focal lengths.
28 mm lens
50 mm lens
70 mm lens
210 mm lens
An example of how lens choice affects angle of view. The photos above were taken by a 35 mm camera at a constant distance from the subject.
A side effect of using lenses of different focal lengths is the different distances from which a subject can be framed, resulting in a different perspective. Photographs can be taken of a person stretching out a hand with a wideangle, a normal lens, and a telephoto, which contain exactly the same image size by changing the distance from the subject. But the perspective will be different. With the wideangle, the hands will be exaggeratedly large relative to the head. As the focal length increases, the emphasis on the outstretched hand decreases. However, if pictures are taken from the same distance, and enlarged and cropped to contain the same view, the pictures will have identical perspective. A moderate long-focus (telephoto) lens is often recommended for portraiture because the perspective corresponding to the longer shooting distance is considered to look more flattering.
[edit] Number of elements
Main article: Photographic lens design
Distinct reflections are visible from the surfaces of different lens elements in this 45mm f/2 MD-Rokkor lens. The lens contains 6 elements in 5 groups.
The complexity of a lens—the number of elements and their degree of asphericity—depends upon the angle of view and the maximum aperture, among other variables including intended price point. An extreme wideangle lens of large aperture must be of very complex construction to correct for optical aberrations, which are worse at the edge of the field and when the edge of a large lens is used for image-forming. A long-focus lens of small aperture can be of very simple construction to attain comparable image quality; a doublet (with two elements) will often suffice. Some older cameras were fitted with "convertible" lenses of normal focal length; the front element could be unscrewed, leaving a lens of twice the focal length and angle of view, and half the aperture. The simpler half-lens was of adequate quality for the narrow angle of view and small relative aperture. Obviously the bellows had to extend to twice the normal length.
Good-quality lenses with maximum aperture no greater than f/2.8 and fixed, normal, focal length need at least three (triplet) or four elements (the trade name "Tessar" derives from the Greek tessera, meaning "four"). The widest-range zooms often have fifteen or more. The reflection of light at each of the many interfaces between different optical media (air, glass, plastic) seriously degraded the contrast and color saturation of early lenses, zoom lenses in particular, especially where the lens was directly illuminated by a light source. The introduction many years ago of optical coatings, and advances in coating technology over the years, have resulted in major improvements, and modern high-quality zoom lenses give images of quite acceptable contrast, although zoom lenses with many elements will transmit less light than lenses made with fewer elements (all other factors such as aperture, focal length, and coatings being equal)[4].
[edit] Zoom lenses
Main article: Zoom lens
Some lenses, called zoom lenses, have a focal length that varies as internal elements are moved, typically by rotating the barrel or pressing a button which activates an electric motor. Commonly, the lens may zoom from moderate wide-angle, through normal, to moderate telephoto; or from normal to extreme telephoto. The zoom range is limited by manufacturing constraints; the ideal of a lens of large maximum aperture which will zoom from extreme wideangle to extreme telephoto is not attainable. Zoom lenses are widely used for small-format cameras of all types: still and cine cameras with fixed or interchangeable lenses. Bulk and price limit their use for larger film sizes.
[edit] Lens mounts
Main article: Lens mount
Many Single-lens reflex cameras, and some rangefinder cameras have detachable lenses. A few other types do as well, notably the Mamiya TLR cameras. The lenses attach to the camera using a lens mount, which often also contains mechanical or electrical linkages between the lens and camera body. The lens mount is an important issue for compatibility between cameras and lenses; each major camera manufacturer typically has their own lens mount which is incompatible with others; notable exceptions are the Leica M39 lens mount for rangefinders, M42 lens mount for early SLRs, the later Pentax K mount, and the Four Thirds System mount for dSLRs, all of which are used by multiple camera brands. Most large-format cameras take interchangeable lenses as well, which are usually mounted in a lensboard or on the front standard.
[edit] Special-purpose photographic lenses
A tilt/shift lens, set to its maximum degree of tilt relative to the camera body.
* Apochromat (APO) lenses have added correction for chromatic aberration.
* Process lenses have extreme correction for aberrations of geometry (pincushion distortion, barrel distortion) and are generally intended for use at a specific distance.
Process and apochromat lenses are normally of small aperture, and are used for extremely accurate photographs of static objects. Generally their performance is optimized for subjects a few inches from the front of the lens, and suffers outside this narrow range.
* Enlarger lenses are made to be used with photographic enlargers (specialised projectors), rather than cameras.
* Lenses for aerial photography.
* Fisheye lenses: extreme wide-angle lenses with an angle of view of up to 180 degrees or more, with very noticeable (and intended) distortion.
* Stereoscopic lenses, to produce pairs of photographs which give a 3-dimensional effect when viewed with an appropriate viewer.
* Soft-focus lenses which give a soft, but not out-of-focus, image and have an imperfection-removing effect popular among portrait and fashion photographers.
* Infrared lenses.
* Ultraviolet lenses.
* Swivel lenses rotate while attached to a camera body to give unique perspectives and camera angles.
* Shift lenses and tilt/shift lenses (collectively perspective control lenses) allow special control of perspective on SLR cameras by mimicking view camera movements.
[edit] History of photographic lenses
The first permanent images produced by Daguerre and Fox Talbot in 1830 were almost certainly made using a single double convex lens which were in common use at that time in Camera obscuras. As photography developed the simple lens was replaced by achromatic couplets taken from telescope objectives. By 1840 Chevalier, a Parisian optician, and Wollaston in Britain had developed meniscus achromats. However in 1841 Voigtlander and Professor Petzval from Vienna had developed and sold commercially the first portrait lens comprising a cemented planoconvex couplet separated by a fixed diaphragm from an air separated couplet at the rear. Modifications of this design were soon in production by Dallmeyer and Grubb. By 1885 lenses having an intermediate couplet instead of a diaphragm had been introduced which became the model for the Dallmeyer triplet which has been the inspiration for many lenses since.
The first modern doublet lens in which the aberrations of the outer elements was carefully balanced by the corrective actions of the inner elements were designed by Ross and were subsequently developed by other manufacturers to provide such lenses as the Zeiss Tessar and the Leitz Elmar.
Subsequent developments lead to the production of wide-angles lenses and a substantial increase in effective aperture led by the work of Steinheil which enabled lenses with apertures as wide as f2.5 to be in use by 1890. [6]
With a large pinhole, the image spot is large, resulting in a blurry image.
With a small pinhole, light is reduced and diffraction prevents the image spot from getting arbitrarily small.
With a simple lens, much more light can be brought into sharp focus.
Practical photographic lenses include more lens elements. The additional elements allow lens designers to reduce various aberrations, but the principle of operation remains the same: pencils of rays are collected at the entrance pupil and focused down from the exit pupil onto the image plane.
[edit] Construction
Main article: Photographic lens design
The zoom lens assembly of the Canon Elph
A photographic lens may be made from a number of elements: from one, like in the Box Brownie's meniscus lens, to over 20 in the more complex zooms. These elements may themselves comprise a group of lenses cemented together.
The front element is critical to the performance of the whole assembly. In all modern lenses the surface is coated to reduce abrasion, flare, and surface reflectance, and to adjust color balance. To minimize aberration, the curvature is usually set so that the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction are equal. In a prime lens this is easy, but in a zoom there is always a compromise.
The lens usually is focused by adjusting the distance from the lens assembly to the image plane, or by moving elements of the lens assembly. To improve performance, some lenses have a cam system that adjusts the distance between the groups as the lens is focused. Manufacturers call this different things. Nikon calls it CRC (close range correction), while Hasselblad calls it FLE (floating lens element)[1].
Glass is the most common material used to construct lens elements, due to its good optical properties and resistance to scratching. Other materials are also used, such as quartz glass, fluorite[1][2][3][4], plastics like acrylic (Plexiglass), and even germanium and meteoritic glass.[5] Plastics allow the manufacturing of strongly aspherical lens elements which are difficult or impossible to manufacture in glass, and which simplify or improve lens manufacturing and performance. Plastics are not used for the outermost elements of all but the cheapest lenses as they scratch easily. Molded plastic lenses have been used for the cheapest disposable cameras for many years, and have acquired a bad reputation: manufacturers of quality optics tend to use euphemisms such as "optical resin". However many modern, high performance (and high priced) lenses from popular manufacturers include molded or hybrid aspherical elements, so it is not true that all lenses with plastic elements are of low photographic quality.
The 1951 USAF resolution test chart is one way to measure the resolving power of a lens. The quality of the material, coatings, and build affect the resolution. Lens resolution is ultimately limited by diffraction, and very few photographic lenses approach this resolution. Ones that do are called "diffraction limited" and are usually extremely expensive.[2]
Today, most lenses are multi-coated in order to minimize lens flare and other unwanted effects. Some lenses have a UV coating to keep out the ultraviolet light that could taint color. Most modern optical cements for bonding glass elements also block UV light, negating the need for a UV filter. UV photographers must go to great lengths to find lenses with no cement or coatings.
A lens will most often have an aperture adjustment mechanism, usually an iris diaphragm, to regulate the amount of light that passes. In early camera models a rotating plate or slider with different sized holes was used. These Waterhouse stops may still be found on modern, specialized lenses. A shutter, to regulate the time during which light may pass, may be incorporated within the lens assembly (for better quality imagery), within the camera, or even, rarely, in front of the lens. Some cameras with leaf shutters in the lens omit the aperture, and the shutter does double duty.
[edit] Aperture and focal length
How focal length affects photograph composition: adjusting the camera's distance from the main subject while changing focal length, the main subject can remain the same size, while the other at a different distance changes size.
Large (top) and small (bottom) aperture settings on the same lens are shown.
The two main optical parameters of a photographic lens are the maximum aperture and the focal length. The focal length determines the angle of view, and the size of the image relative to that of the object, while the maximum aperture limits the brightness of the image and the fastest shutter speed usable. A popular third consideration is the shortest focal distance.
The maximum usable aperture of a lens is usually specified as the focal ratio or f-number, which is equal to the focal length divided by the effective aperture (or entrance pupil) diameter in the same units. The lower the number, the more light per unit area is delivered to the focal plane. Larger apertures (smaller f-numbers) provide a much shallower depth of field than smaller apertures, other conditions being equal. Practical lens assemblies may also contain mechanisms to deal with measuring light, secondary apertures for flare reduction, [3]and mechanisms to hold the aperture open until the instant of exposure to allow SLR cameras to focus with a brighter image with shallower depth of field, theoretically allowing better focus accuracy.
Focal lengths are usually specified in millimetres (mm), but older lenses marked in centimetres (cm) and inches are still to be found. For a given film or sensor size, specified by the length of the diagonal, a lens may be classified as
* Normal lens: angle of view of the diagonal about 50° and a focal length approximately equal to the diagonal produces this angle.
* Macro lens: angle of view narrower than 25° and focal length longer than normal. These lenses are used for close-ups, e.g., for images of the same size as the object. They usually feature a flat field as well, which means that the subject plane is exactly parallel with the film plane.
* Wide-angle lens: angle of view wider than 60° and focal length shorter than normal.
* Telephoto lens or long-focus lens: angle of view narrower and focal length longer than normal. A distinction is sometimes made between a long-focus lens and a true telephoto lens: the telephoto lens uses a telephoto group to be physically shorter than its focal length.
The 35mm film format is so prevalent that a 90mm lens, for example, is sometimes assumed to be a moderate telephoto; but for the 7×5cm format it is normal, while on the large 5×4 inch format it is a wide-angle. In general, the smaller the film or sensor surface, the smaller the angle of view. This can be corrected with lenses with shorter focal lengths.
28 mm lens
50 mm lens
70 mm lens
210 mm lens
An example of how lens choice affects angle of view. The photos above were taken by a 35 mm camera at a constant distance from the subject.
A side effect of using lenses of different focal lengths is the different distances from which a subject can be framed, resulting in a different perspective. Photographs can be taken of a person stretching out a hand with a wideangle, a normal lens, and a telephoto, which contain exactly the same image size by changing the distance from the subject. But the perspective will be different. With the wideangle, the hands will be exaggeratedly large relative to the head. As the focal length increases, the emphasis on the outstretched hand decreases. However, if pictures are taken from the same distance, and enlarged and cropped to contain the same view, the pictures will have identical perspective. A moderate long-focus (telephoto) lens is often recommended for portraiture because the perspective corresponding to the longer shooting distance is considered to look more flattering.
[edit] Number of elements
Main article: Photographic lens design
Distinct reflections are visible from the surfaces of different lens elements in this 45mm f/2 MD-Rokkor lens. The lens contains 6 elements in 5 groups.
The complexity of a lens—the number of elements and their degree of asphericity—depends upon the angle of view and the maximum aperture, among other variables including intended price point. An extreme wideangle lens of large aperture must be of very complex construction to correct for optical aberrations, which are worse at the edge of the field and when the edge of a large lens is used for image-forming. A long-focus lens of small aperture can be of very simple construction to attain comparable image quality; a doublet (with two elements) will often suffice. Some older cameras were fitted with "convertible" lenses of normal focal length; the front element could be unscrewed, leaving a lens of twice the focal length and angle of view, and half the aperture. The simpler half-lens was of adequate quality for the narrow angle of view and small relative aperture. Obviously the bellows had to extend to twice the normal length.
Good-quality lenses with maximum aperture no greater than f/2.8 and fixed, normal, focal length need at least three (triplet) or four elements (the trade name "Tessar" derives from the Greek tessera, meaning "four"). The widest-range zooms often have fifteen or more. The reflection of light at each of the many interfaces between different optical media (air, glass, plastic) seriously degraded the contrast and color saturation of early lenses, zoom lenses in particular, especially where the lens was directly illuminated by a light source. The introduction many years ago of optical coatings, and advances in coating technology over the years, have resulted in major improvements, and modern high-quality zoom lenses give images of quite acceptable contrast, although zoom lenses with many elements will transmit less light than lenses made with fewer elements (all other factors such as aperture, focal length, and coatings being equal)[4].
[edit] Zoom lenses
Main article: Zoom lens
Some lenses, called zoom lenses, have a focal length that varies as internal elements are moved, typically by rotating the barrel or pressing a button which activates an electric motor. Commonly, the lens may zoom from moderate wide-angle, through normal, to moderate telephoto; or from normal to extreme telephoto. The zoom range is limited by manufacturing constraints; the ideal of a lens of large maximum aperture which will zoom from extreme wideangle to extreme telephoto is not attainable. Zoom lenses are widely used for small-format cameras of all types: still and cine cameras with fixed or interchangeable lenses. Bulk and price limit their use for larger film sizes.
[edit] Lens mounts
Main article: Lens mount
Many Single-lens reflex cameras, and some rangefinder cameras have detachable lenses. A few other types do as well, notably the Mamiya TLR cameras. The lenses attach to the camera using a lens mount, which often also contains mechanical or electrical linkages between the lens and camera body. The lens mount is an important issue for compatibility between cameras and lenses; each major camera manufacturer typically has their own lens mount which is incompatible with others; notable exceptions are the Leica M39 lens mount for rangefinders, M42 lens mount for early SLRs, the later Pentax K mount, and the Four Thirds System mount for dSLRs, all of which are used by multiple camera brands. Most large-format cameras take interchangeable lenses as well, which are usually mounted in a lensboard or on the front standard.
[edit] Special-purpose photographic lenses
A tilt/shift lens, set to its maximum degree of tilt relative to the camera body.
* Apochromat (APO) lenses have added correction for chromatic aberration.
* Process lenses have extreme correction for aberrations of geometry (pincushion distortion, barrel distortion) and are generally intended for use at a specific distance.
Process and apochromat lenses are normally of small aperture, and are used for extremely accurate photographs of static objects. Generally their performance is optimized for subjects a few inches from the front of the lens, and suffers outside this narrow range.
* Enlarger lenses are made to be used with photographic enlargers (specialised projectors), rather than cameras.
* Lenses for aerial photography.
* Fisheye lenses: extreme wide-angle lenses with an angle of view of up to 180 degrees or more, with very noticeable (and intended) distortion.
* Stereoscopic lenses, to produce pairs of photographs which give a 3-dimensional effect when viewed with an appropriate viewer.
* Soft-focus lenses which give a soft, but not out-of-focus, image and have an imperfection-removing effect popular among portrait and fashion photographers.
* Infrared lenses.
* Ultraviolet lenses.
* Swivel lenses rotate while attached to a camera body to give unique perspectives and camera angles.
* Shift lenses and tilt/shift lenses (collectively perspective control lenses) allow special control of perspective on SLR cameras by mimicking view camera movements.
[edit] History of photographic lenses
The first permanent images produced by Daguerre and Fox Talbot in 1830 were almost certainly made using a single double convex lens which were in common use at that time in Camera obscuras. As photography developed the simple lens was replaced by achromatic couplets taken from telescope objectives. By 1840 Chevalier, a Parisian optician, and Wollaston in Britain had developed meniscus achromats. However in 1841 Voigtlander and Professor Petzval from Vienna had developed and sold commercially the first portrait lens comprising a cemented planoconvex couplet separated by a fixed diaphragm from an air separated couplet at the rear. Modifications of this design were soon in production by Dallmeyer and Grubb. By 1885 lenses having an intermediate couplet instead of a diaphragm had been introduced which became the model for the Dallmeyer triplet which has been the inspiration for many lenses since.
The first modern doublet lens in which the aberrations of the outer elements was carefully balanced by the corrective actions of the inner elements were designed by Ross and were subsequently developed by other manufacturers to provide such lenses as the Zeiss Tessar and the Leitz Elmar.
Subsequent developments lead to the production of wide-angles lenses and a substantial increase in effective aperture led by the work of Steinheil which enabled lenses with apertures as wide as f2.5 to be in use by 1890. [6]
Annie Leibovitz
Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, Leibovitz is the third of six children. Her mother, Marilyn Leibovitz, was a modern dance instructor; her father, Sam Leibovitz, was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force. The family moved frequently with her father's duty assignments, and she took her first pictures when he was stationed in the Philippines.[1]
In high school, she became interested in the various artistic endeavours, and began to write and play music. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied painting. She became interested in photography after taking pictures when she lived in the Philippines, where her Air Force father was stationed during the Vietnam War. For several years, she continued to develop her photography skills while she worked various jobs, including a stint on a kibbutz in Amir, Israel for several months in 1969.[2]
[edit] Career
[edit] Rolling Stone magazine
When Leibovitz returned to the United States in 1970, she started her career as staff photographer, working for the recently launched Rolling Stone magazine. In 1973, publisher Jann Wenner named Leibovitz chief photographer of Rolling Stone, a job she would hold for 10 years. Leibovitz worked for the magazine until 1983, and her intimate photographs of celebrities helped define the Rolling Stone look.[2] While working for "Rolling Stone", Annie became more aware of the other magazines. Richard Avedon's portraits were an important and powerful example in her life. She learned that you can work for magazines and still do your own personal work, which for her was the most important thing. It is much more intimate and tells a story for her as she works with people who love her and who will "Open their hearts and souls and lives to you." [3]
Photographers such as Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson influenced her during her time at the San Francisco Art Institute. "Their style of personal reportage - taken in a graphic way - was what we were taught to emulate." [4]
[edit] The Rolling Stones
Leibovitz photographed The Rolling Stones' in San Francisco in 1971 and 1972, and served as the concert-tour photographer for Rolling Stones Tour of the Americas '75. Her favorite photo from the tour was a photo of Mick Jagger in an elevator.[5]
[edit] Lennon and Ramudanus
On December 8, 1980, Leibovitz had a photo shoot with John Lennon for Rolling Stone, promising him he would make the cover.[6] After she had initially tried to get a picture with just Lennon alone, which is what Rolling Stone wanted, Lennon insisted that both he and Yoko Ono be on the cover. Leibovitz then tried to re-create something like the kissing scene from the Double Fantasy album cover, a picture that she loved. She had John remove his clothes and curl up next to Yoko. Leibovitz recalls, "What is interesting is she said she'd take her top off and I said, 'Leave everything on' — not really preconceiving the picture at all. Then he curled up next to her and it was very, very strong. You couldn't help but feel that she was cold and he looked like he was clinging on to her. I think it was amazing to look at the first Polaroid and they were both very excited. John said, 'You've captured our relationship exactly. Promise me it'll be on the cover.' I looked him in the eye and we shook on it."[7] Leibovitz was the last person to professionally photograph Lennon—he was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman five hours later.[8]
[edit] Other noted projects
Leibovitz at "Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990–2005", San Francisco, California, 2008
* In the 1980s, Annie's new style of lighting and use of bold colors and poses, got her the position with "Vanity Fair" magazine. Leibovitz photographed celebrities for an international advertising campaign for American Express charge cards, winning her a "Clio award" in 1987.
* In 1991, Leibovitz mounted an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. She was the second living portraitist and first woman to show there. Annie had also been made Commander des orde des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government. [9]
* Also in 1991, Leibovitz emulated Margaret Bourke-White's feat, when she mounted one of the eagle gargoyles on the 61st floor of the Chrysler Building in Manhattan, where she photographed the dancer David Parsons cavorting on another eagle gargoyle. Noted Life photographer and picture editor John Loengard made a gripping photo of Leibovitz at the climax of her danger. (Loengard was photographing Leibovitz for the New York Times that day).
* A major retrospective of Leibovitz's work was held at the Brooklyn Museum, Oct. 2006 - Jan. 2007. The retrospective was based on her book, Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990 – 2005, and included many of her professional (celebrity) photographs as well as numerous personal photographs of her family, children, and partner Susan Sontag. This show, which was expanded to include three of the official portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, then went on the road for seven stops. It was on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., from October 2007 to January 2008, and at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco from March 2008 to May 2008. In February 2009 the exhibition was moved to Berlin, Germany.[10] The show included 200 photographs.[11] At the exhibition, Leibovitz said that she doesn't have two lives, career and personal, but has one where assignments and personal pictures are all part of her works. This exhibition and her talk focused on her personal photographs and life. [12]
In 2007, The BBC misrepresented a portrait shooting by Leibovitz of Queen Elizabeth II to take the queen's official picture for her state visit to Virginia. This was filmed for the BBC documentary A Year with the Queen. A promotional trailer for the film showed the Queen reacting angrily to Leibovitz's suggestion ("less dressy") that she remove her tiara, then a scene of the Queen walking down a corridor, telling an aide "I'm not changing anything. I've had enough dressing like this, thank you very much."[13] The BBC later apologised and admitted that the sequence of events had been misrepresented, as the Queen was in fact walking to the sitting in the second scene.[14] This led to a BBC scandal and a shake-up of ethics training. See The Tiaragate Affair.
* In 2007, the Walt Disney Company hired her to do a series of photographs with celebrities in various roles and scenes for Disney Parks "Year of a Million Dreams" campaign. [15][16][17]
Annie never liked the word "celebrity". "I've always been more interested in what they do than who they are, I hope that my photographs reflect that." She tries to receive a little piece of each subjects personality in the photos. [18]
On April 25, 2008, the televised entertainment program Entertainment Tonight reported that 15 year old Miley Cyrus had posed topless for a photo shoot with Vanity Fair.[19][20] The photograph, and subsequently released behind-the-scenes photographs, show Cyrus without a top, her bare back exposed but her front covered with a bedsheet. The photo shoot was taken by photographer Annie Leibovitz.[21] The full photograph was published with an accompanying story on The New York Times' website on April 27, 2008. On April 29, 2008, The New York Times clarified that though the pictures left an impression that she was bare-breasted, Cyrus was wrapped in a bedsheet and was actually not topless.[22] Some parents expressed outrage at the nature of the photograph, which a Disney spokesperson described as "a situation [that] was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines."[22]
In response to the internet circulation of the photo and ensuing media attention, Cyrus released a statement of apology on April 27:
“I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed. I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about."[22]
Leibovitz also released a statement saying:
"I'm sorry that my portrait of Miley has been misinterpreted," Leibovitz said. "The photograph is a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup, and I think it is very beautiful."[23][22]
[edit] Archive
Since 1977, Leibovitz licensing images have been represented by Contact Press Images, a photojournalism agency based in New York City. Her assignment work is represented by Jim Moffat at A Corporation for Art & Commerce in New York.
[edit] Personal life
Leibovitz had a close romantic relationship with noted writer and essayist Susan Sontag. They met in 1989, when both had already established notability in their careers. Leibovitz has suggested that Sontag mentored her and constructively criticized her work.
After Sontag's death in 2004, Newsweek published an article about Leibovitz that made reference to her decade-plus relationship with Sontag, stating that "The two first met in the late '80s, when Leibovitz photographed her for a book jacket. They never lived together, though they each had an apartment within view of the other's."[24]
Neither Leibovitz nor Sontag had ever previously publicly disclosed whether the relationship was familial, a friendship, or romantic in nature. However, when Leibovitz was interviewed for her 2006 book A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005, she said the book told a number of stories, and that "with Susan, it was a love story."[25]
In the preface to the new book, she speaks in greater detail about her romantic/intellectual relationship with Sontag, briefly discussing a book they were working on together and describes how assembling her new book was part of the grieving process after Sontag's death. The book and accompanying show include many photographs of Sontag throughout their life together, including several on her deathbed.
Leibovitz acknowledged that she and Sontag were romantically involved. When asked why she used terms like "companion" to describe Sontag, instead of more specific ones like "partner" or "lover," Leibovitz finally said that "lover" was fine with her.[26] She later repeated the assertion in stating to the San Francisco Chronicle: "Call us 'lovers'. I like 'lovers.' You know, 'lovers' sounds romantic. I mean, I want to be perfectly clear. I love Susan."[27]
[edit] Children
Leibovitz has three children: Sarah Cameron Leibovitz (b. October 2001) was born when Leibovitz was 51 years old. Her twins Susan and Samuelle were born to a surrogate mother in May 2005.[27]
[edit] Financial troubles
In February 2009, Leibovitz borrowed $15.5 million, having experienced financial challenges in the recent years.[28] She put up as collateral, not only several houses, but the rights to all of her photographs.[29] The New York Times noted “one of the world’s most successful photographers essentially pawned every snap of the shutter she had made or will make until the loans are paid off.”[28] In July 2009, a breach of contract lawsuit against Leibovitz was filed by Art Capital Group in the amount of $24 million regarding the repayment of these loans.[30] In a follow-up article[31], the Times explores why an artist of her standing could be in such financial straits, despite a $50 million archive. They cite a "long history of less than careful financial dealings," and "a recent series of personal issues." The latter include the recent loss of her father, her mother, her companion (Susan Sontag), the addition of two children to her family, and the controversial renovation of three properties in Greenwich Village. In early September 2009, an Associated Press story quoted legal experts as saying that filing for bankruptcy reorganization might offer Leibovitz her best chance to control and direct the disposition of her assets to satisfy debts.[32] On September 11th, Art Capital Group withdrew its lawsuit against Leibovitz, and extended the due date for repayment of the $24 million loan. Under the agreement, Leibovitz retains control over her work, and will be the "exclusive agent in the sale of her real property and copyrights."[33]
In high school, she became interested in the various artistic endeavours, and began to write and play music. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied painting. She became interested in photography after taking pictures when she lived in the Philippines, where her Air Force father was stationed during the Vietnam War. For several years, she continued to develop her photography skills while she worked various jobs, including a stint on a kibbutz in Amir, Israel for several months in 1969.[2]
[edit] Career
[edit] Rolling Stone magazine
When Leibovitz returned to the United States in 1970, she started her career as staff photographer, working for the recently launched Rolling Stone magazine. In 1973, publisher Jann Wenner named Leibovitz chief photographer of Rolling Stone, a job she would hold for 10 years. Leibovitz worked for the magazine until 1983, and her intimate photographs of celebrities helped define the Rolling Stone look.[2] While working for "Rolling Stone", Annie became more aware of the other magazines. Richard Avedon's portraits were an important and powerful example in her life. She learned that you can work for magazines and still do your own personal work, which for her was the most important thing. It is much more intimate and tells a story for her as she works with people who love her and who will "Open their hearts and souls and lives to you." [3]
Photographers such as Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson influenced her during her time at the San Francisco Art Institute. "Their style of personal reportage - taken in a graphic way - was what we were taught to emulate." [4]
[edit] The Rolling Stones
Leibovitz photographed The Rolling Stones' in San Francisco in 1971 and 1972, and served as the concert-tour photographer for Rolling Stones Tour of the Americas '75. Her favorite photo from the tour was a photo of Mick Jagger in an elevator.[5]
[edit] Lennon and Ramudanus
On December 8, 1980, Leibovitz had a photo shoot with John Lennon for Rolling Stone, promising him he would make the cover.[6] After she had initially tried to get a picture with just Lennon alone, which is what Rolling Stone wanted, Lennon insisted that both he and Yoko Ono be on the cover. Leibovitz then tried to re-create something like the kissing scene from the Double Fantasy album cover, a picture that she loved. She had John remove his clothes and curl up next to Yoko. Leibovitz recalls, "What is interesting is she said she'd take her top off and I said, 'Leave everything on' — not really preconceiving the picture at all. Then he curled up next to her and it was very, very strong. You couldn't help but feel that she was cold and he looked like he was clinging on to her. I think it was amazing to look at the first Polaroid and they were both very excited. John said, 'You've captured our relationship exactly. Promise me it'll be on the cover.' I looked him in the eye and we shook on it."[7] Leibovitz was the last person to professionally photograph Lennon—he was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman five hours later.[8]
[edit] Other noted projects
Leibovitz at "Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990–2005", San Francisco, California, 2008
* In the 1980s, Annie's new style of lighting and use of bold colors and poses, got her the position with "Vanity Fair" magazine. Leibovitz photographed celebrities for an international advertising campaign for American Express charge cards, winning her a "Clio award" in 1987.
* In 1991, Leibovitz mounted an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. She was the second living portraitist and first woman to show there. Annie had also been made Commander des orde des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government. [9]
* Also in 1991, Leibovitz emulated Margaret Bourke-White's feat, when she mounted one of the eagle gargoyles on the 61st floor of the Chrysler Building in Manhattan, where she photographed the dancer David Parsons cavorting on another eagle gargoyle. Noted Life photographer and picture editor John Loengard made a gripping photo of Leibovitz at the climax of her danger. (Loengard was photographing Leibovitz for the New York Times that day).
* A major retrospective of Leibovitz's work was held at the Brooklyn Museum, Oct. 2006 - Jan. 2007. The retrospective was based on her book, Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990 – 2005, and included many of her professional (celebrity) photographs as well as numerous personal photographs of her family, children, and partner Susan Sontag. This show, which was expanded to include three of the official portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, then went on the road for seven stops. It was on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., from October 2007 to January 2008, and at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco from March 2008 to May 2008. In February 2009 the exhibition was moved to Berlin, Germany.[10] The show included 200 photographs.[11] At the exhibition, Leibovitz said that she doesn't have two lives, career and personal, but has one where assignments and personal pictures are all part of her works. This exhibition and her talk focused on her personal photographs and life. [12]
In 2007, The BBC misrepresented a portrait shooting by Leibovitz of Queen Elizabeth II to take the queen's official picture for her state visit to Virginia. This was filmed for the BBC documentary A Year with the Queen. A promotional trailer for the film showed the Queen reacting angrily to Leibovitz's suggestion ("less dressy") that she remove her tiara, then a scene of the Queen walking down a corridor, telling an aide "I'm not changing anything. I've had enough dressing like this, thank you very much."[13] The BBC later apologised and admitted that the sequence of events had been misrepresented, as the Queen was in fact walking to the sitting in the second scene.[14] This led to a BBC scandal and a shake-up of ethics training. See The Tiaragate Affair.
* In 2007, the Walt Disney Company hired her to do a series of photographs with celebrities in various roles and scenes for Disney Parks "Year of a Million Dreams" campaign. [15][16][17]
Annie never liked the word "celebrity". "I've always been more interested in what they do than who they are, I hope that my photographs reflect that." She tries to receive a little piece of each subjects personality in the photos. [18]
On April 25, 2008, the televised entertainment program Entertainment Tonight reported that 15 year old Miley Cyrus had posed topless for a photo shoot with Vanity Fair.[19][20] The photograph, and subsequently released behind-the-scenes photographs, show Cyrus without a top, her bare back exposed but her front covered with a bedsheet. The photo shoot was taken by photographer Annie Leibovitz.[21] The full photograph was published with an accompanying story on The New York Times' website on April 27, 2008. On April 29, 2008, The New York Times clarified that though the pictures left an impression that she was bare-breasted, Cyrus was wrapped in a bedsheet and was actually not topless.[22] Some parents expressed outrage at the nature of the photograph, which a Disney spokesperson described as "a situation [that] was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines."[22]
In response to the internet circulation of the photo and ensuing media attention, Cyrus released a statement of apology on April 27:
“I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed. I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about."[22]
Leibovitz also released a statement saying:
"I'm sorry that my portrait of Miley has been misinterpreted," Leibovitz said. "The photograph is a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup, and I think it is very beautiful."[23][22]
[edit] Archive
Since 1977, Leibovitz licensing images have been represented by Contact Press Images, a photojournalism agency based in New York City. Her assignment work is represented by Jim Moffat at A Corporation for Art & Commerce in New York.
[edit] Personal life
Leibovitz had a close romantic relationship with noted writer and essayist Susan Sontag. They met in 1989, when both had already established notability in their careers. Leibovitz has suggested that Sontag mentored her and constructively criticized her work.
After Sontag's death in 2004, Newsweek published an article about Leibovitz that made reference to her decade-plus relationship with Sontag, stating that "The two first met in the late '80s, when Leibovitz photographed her for a book jacket. They never lived together, though they each had an apartment within view of the other's."[24]
Neither Leibovitz nor Sontag had ever previously publicly disclosed whether the relationship was familial, a friendship, or romantic in nature. However, when Leibovitz was interviewed for her 2006 book A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005, she said the book told a number of stories, and that "with Susan, it was a love story."[25]
In the preface to the new book, she speaks in greater detail about her romantic/intellectual relationship with Sontag, briefly discussing a book they were working on together and describes how assembling her new book was part of the grieving process after Sontag's death. The book and accompanying show include many photographs of Sontag throughout their life together, including several on her deathbed.
Leibovitz acknowledged that she and Sontag were romantically involved. When asked why she used terms like "companion" to describe Sontag, instead of more specific ones like "partner" or "lover," Leibovitz finally said that "lover" was fine with her.[26] She later repeated the assertion in stating to the San Francisco Chronicle: "Call us 'lovers'. I like 'lovers.' You know, 'lovers' sounds romantic. I mean, I want to be perfectly clear. I love Susan."[27]
[edit] Children
Leibovitz has three children: Sarah Cameron Leibovitz (b. October 2001) was born when Leibovitz was 51 years old. Her twins Susan and Samuelle were born to a surrogate mother in May 2005.[27]
[edit] Financial troubles
In February 2009, Leibovitz borrowed $15.5 million, having experienced financial challenges in the recent years.[28] She put up as collateral, not only several houses, but the rights to all of her photographs.[29] The New York Times noted “one of the world’s most successful photographers essentially pawned every snap of the shutter she had made or will make until the loans are paid off.”[28] In July 2009, a breach of contract lawsuit against Leibovitz was filed by Art Capital Group in the amount of $24 million regarding the repayment of these loans.[30] In a follow-up article[31], the Times explores why an artist of her standing could be in such financial straits, despite a $50 million archive. They cite a "long history of less than careful financial dealings," and "a recent series of personal issues." The latter include the recent loss of her father, her mother, her companion (Susan Sontag), the addition of two children to her family, and the controversial renovation of three properties in Greenwich Village. In early September 2009, an Associated Press story quoted legal experts as saying that filing for bankruptcy reorganization might offer Leibovitz her best chance to control and direct the disposition of her assets to satisfy debts.[32] On September 11th, Art Capital Group withdrew its lawsuit against Leibovitz, and extended the due date for repayment of the $24 million loan. Under the agreement, Leibovitz retains control over her work, and will be the "exclusive agent in the sale of her real property and copyrights."[33]
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