Page 113 - Expanded Photography

Expanded Photography Bob Cotton 113/146
So, let’s recap the variety of ways in which the medium of photography is expanding in the Tween-Wars period (1919-1939). It is a multi-dimensional expansion, with new concepts and technologies of photo-mechanical reproduction; of the status of the photograph as an art-me- dium; of democratic (social) access to the medium; of the military, social and criminological ef- fectiveness of photographic ID, and aerial surveillance photography, and filing systems; of the scientific value of photography as a recording and documentation tool, and as a device for evi- dence of new ways of making visible aspects of the electro-magnetic spectrum (infra-red, x-rays, micro-photography etc)of the commercial potential of photo-related product marketing, adverti- sing; of the power of photo-related propaganda; of the effectiveness of the photo-documentary in creating and mapping social change - often on a multi-national or even global scale, and of the increased power of colour photography in many of these areas..
And of course, this is just the beginning. The real harbingers of ‘social’, popular photography - the photo-collage scrap-books, screens, family albums and collectibles of the 19th century - and the industrial production of cheap, easy-to-use camera and film-processing systems, home co- lour-stereo viewing devices, the Xerox and other photo-copying and tele-printing, the Polaroid ‘instant’ photography. And there were also the ‘workers’ photo clubs - like the NY Photo League and the worker-photographers associated with the German Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung in 1924...
Berenice Abbot: Pike Street at Henry Street 1936 + Financial District 1938.
Living and working in Paris, Abbott visited New York in 1929 and saw the radical transition under-
way as the old 19th century city was transformed into a 20th century metropolis - a transition that
had also fascinated Fritz Lang and inspired his movie of the same name. Abbott however was fas-
cinated, as her friend Eugène Atget had been in Paris, with the fragility and loss as the old city was
torn down and covered by the new build modern city. And like Atget, she wanted to document this
transition, and she sells up in Paris, moves to New York, and for the next decade she builds a de-
tailed photo-essay, using 10x8 inch negatives in a Century Universal bellows plate camera. The jux-
taposition of old (and soon to disappear) and the new City form a powerful portfolio entitled Chan-
ging New York. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/50435
This other expansion of photography - as a documentary medium - had of course been invented back in the 1890s by Jacob Riis with his How the Other Half Lives (see p.42)