A New Era Of Postmodernism

After a steady progression, pictorial photography as a movement emerged. Pictorial photographers believed that their field is more than just an objective, mechanical media. Photography was not just about capturing the documentation and information contained by an image, but rather, about the effect and the mood they translate. The images began to have meaning and a reason for their capture, completely transforming the images produced.

period where people had a new found freedom to follow their own path in life, whether it was

Another significant reason that has played a vital role in photojournalism of recent times is the emergence of imaging technologies. Imaging technologies has undoubtedly played a major part in the works of a photojournalist today. Based on earlier accounts on how photography itself is an inherent manipulation, the question is no longer directed on ‘how has imaging technologies manipulate photojournalism' but ‘how much more has imaging

Photography was an ideal medium with which to explore the payers of the unconscious mind. Modernist photographers experimented with double exposure and unusual new effects similar to those of visionary Surrealist painters and sculptors. A champion of the technique, Raoul Hausmann, called photomontage “the ‘alienation’ of photography”. By this, he implied that photomontage destroyed the role of photography as a medium of recreating physical reality. But the statement also suggests that by its dependence on fragmentation and dislocation, photomontage offered a visually and conceptually new image of the chaos of an age of war and revolution.

Uelsmann’s work was not well received in the photography community. His creations were not considered photography; however, he was well received in the art community. John Szarkowski hosted a solo exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in 1967. Uelsmann was considered “iconoclastic” and “set out to convince critics that photography offered alternatives to the conventional “purist” sensibility…” Uelsmann debated that photos could “evoke elusive states of feeling and thinking triggered by irrational and imaginative juxtaposition” (Kay). Uelsmann has succeeded in finding a following among photographers and artist alike. In the past forty years, Uelsmann’s work has been exhibited in over 100 solo shows throughout the US and overseas. He has permanent instillations in museums worldwide (Taylor). Uelsmann’s photos are now revered for their original technical form as well as their surreal matter (Johnson).

Some people refer to Alfred as the father of photojournalism because his photos were good. One could observe classical balances, sharp inequalities of light and shadow, and dominant vectors of confining and expansion, as in the active movement up the street into the space and light of Times Square. Those are the artistic illusions that the photojournalists emulate up to date and will continue into the future (Clpgh.org, 2015).

The photograph is a very powerful medium. The French painter Paul Delaroche exclaimed upon seeing an early photograph “from now on, painting is dead!” (Sayre, 2000). Many critics did not take photography seriously as a legitimate art form until the 20th century. With the

Men were expected to live a public life, whether it was working in a factory or socializing with ‘likeminded’ men in public places, like parties or out and about taking photographs. On the other hand, women were usually expected to live their lives largely at home, taking care of the cooking, cleaning, and child nurturing. ‘Free time’ for women was not meant to be spent socializing but rather only doing things related to the maintenance of the family. Even though men basically assumed their uselessness out of the household, women were oddly the ultimate photographic subjects. The rise of Pictorialism was what some would call the movement that birthed modern photography. Pictorialist desired to separate photography as art from scientific means to which it had been applied; the suggested subject matter and compositional strategies usually consisted of nude women.

A worldwide movement encompassing all disciplines, postmodernism arose in response to the dominant idea of modernism, which is described as the social condition of living in an urban, fast-changing progressivist world governed by instrumental reason.

Photographs are also manifestations of time and records of experience. Consequently, writings on photographic theory are filled with references to representations of the past. Roland Barthes (1981, 76), for instance,

Though elders may scold the Millennials for being stuck in a plastic universe filled with social media and indirect communication, they fail to see what we, the youngest generation, may have to offer. In past times, the population had lacked an awareness that we are now able to grasp with our fingertips. Thanks to Millennials and some of the generations previous to us, all things are worthy of discussion, even if we choose to do so on a screen instead of through our voices. From music to television, movies to blog posts, society as we know it today is much more progressive than ever before.

Although Sturken and Cartwright claim it is quite easy to fall for the misconception that photographs are “unmediated copies of the real world” (Sturken & Cartwright, 17), this is no longer true, if it ever was. While cumbersome, even before the advent of image editing software, it was possible to modify photographs. Furthermore, in contemporary society, we have completely lost faith in mass media representation; rarely do people expect images to be completely unmodified anymore. This is especially visible in western culture since people are pressured to conform into highly specific aesthetics where even a “natural” look is artificially crafted with makeup and digital filters. Even disregarding direct manipulation to a print through methods such as Photoshop, photographs are manipulated in such obvious ways, it almost seems absurd to point it out. The framing, lighting, and positioning are always adjusted by the photographer. Therefore, people themselves are a type of manipulation; a representative filter through which biases are imbued. In effect, Sturken and Cartwright’s conclusion that all camera-generated images bear an “aura of machine objectivity” (Sturken & Cartwright, 16) stemming from “the … legacy of still-photography” (Sturken & Cartwright, 17) is

Postmodernism is a universal movement, present in every art and discipline. In architecture, postmodernism is precise as well as ambiguous thereby in need of an explorative pursuit for a consensus of what is meant by the movement in this perspective - between the works of Charles Jencks, a primary theorist of this architectural turn; Heinrich Klotz, a leading architectural critic; and William Curtis, an architectural historian. The progression of this paper is highly influenced with Jencks’ studies as his works are often times referenced as well by both Klotz and Curtis in their individual interpretations and further accompanied with either supporting statements or contradictions.

Henry Peach Robinson, born on July 9th, 1830, was a British photographer and prominent author on photography. Known as “the King of Photographic Picture Making,” he began his life’s work as a painter but would become one of the most influential photographers of the late 19th century. He was a prolific advocate for photography as an art form and is well known for his role in “pictorialism,” which, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, is “an approach to photography that emphasizes beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality.”

Postmodernism was a reaction against the modernism philosophical values and assumptions. Although many agree that there is a thin line between modernism and postmodernism, postmodernism is not modernism. In modernism, scientific theories were used to determine what is true. However, postmodernism allows individuals to question the theories and not take them as facts (Duignan, 2014). While modernism emphasized on objectivism, postmodernism allows extensive subjectivism in all aspects of life.