Imogen Cunningham was an American photographer, born April 12, 1833 in Portland, Oregon. She is most well known for her photographs of botanicals, nudes, and industrial landscapes. She bought her first camera at the age of 18, but quickly lost interest and sold it to a friend. However, she was inspired to take up photography again 5 years later when coming across the work of Gertrude Kasebier. Her chemistry professor at the University of Washington assisted in helping her understand the chemistry behind photography and she began taking photographs of plants for the botany department. In 1907, Imogen graduated from UW and went to work at Edward S. Curtis' studio, which enabled her to learn about portraiture and practical photography.
 |
| Dream, 1910 |
She wrote a paper in 1910, entitled "About the Direct Development of Platinum Paper for Brown Tones". This paper detailed her own process for increasing printing speed, improving the clarity of highlight tones, and creating sepia tones. She eventually opened up her own studio and became a very in-demand photographer. In 1913, she exhibited her work at the Brooklyn Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the next year had portraits shown at an exhibit in New York, called "An International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography". The year after that she took nude photos of her husband, which were highly praised by critics, but were kept fairly private as the general public was not accustomed to such works yet.
 |
Callas, circa 1925
|
In 1932, she co-founded Group f/64 with some of her colleagues, such as Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, with the mission to "define photography as an art form by a simple and direct presentation through purely photographic methods.” Although she had started in the pictorial genre, she evolved to be somewhat of a "renegade," taking pictures of a variety of subjects while always aiming to catch them in a realistic light. She was still taking photographs at the age of 93, right before she passed away on June 24, 1976.
 |
| Tuberose, 1920s |
 |
| Magnolia Blossom, 1925 |
No comments:
Post a Comment