Good Pictures: A History of Popular Photography

333 Pages·2020·21.938 MB·English

by  Kim Beil

G O O D P IC T U R E S
G O O D
P I C T
STANFORD
UNIVERSITY
PRESS
U R E S
G O O D
A HISTORY OF
P OPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY
P I C T
KIM BEIL
U R E S
stanford university press
Stanford, California
©2020 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
All rights reserved.
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Wyeth Foundation for
American Art Publication Fund of CAA.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Beil, Kim, author.
Title: Good pictures : a history of popular photography / Kim Beil.
Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2019051251 (print) | lccn 2019051252 (ebook) |
isbn 9781503608665 (paperback) | isbn 9781503612327 (ebook)
Subjects: lcsh: Photography—Philosophy. | Photography—Social aspects—History. | Aesthetics.
Classification: lcc tr183 .b39 2020 (print) | lcc tr183 (ebook) | ddc 770.1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019051251
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019051252
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press.
Frontispiece: How to Make Good Pictures (Rochester, NY: Eastman Kodak Co., 1933). Cover.
Source: Author’s collection. Courtesy: Eastman Kodak Co.
Designed by Kevin Barrett Kane
Typeset at Stanford University Press in 11/15 Crimson with Fira Sans display

C O N T E N T S
How To: An Introduction to Good Photography 1

PART I PART II PART III
1839–1860 1861–1900 1901–1929
1 The American Process 21 8 Foreground Interest 55 18 Figures in the Landscape 109
2 Portrait Props and Poses 25 9 Stereoscopic Depth 60 19 Wildlife Photography 114
3 Hand Painting 30 10 Tintype Types 65 20 Painterly Photographs 120
4 Crayons and Vignettes 35 11 The Rembrandt Effect 71 21 Soft Focus 124
5 Intensifying Negatives 39 12 Retouching Cabinet Cards 76 22 Straight Photography 129
6 Cloudy Skies 43 13 Photomicrographs 80 23 Night Photography 134
7 Solar Enlarging 48 14 Permanent Carbon Prints 85 24 Panchromatic 139
15 Instantaneous Photographs 90 25 Candids 143
16 Magnesium Flash 95
17 The Kodak 100
PART IV PART V PART VI
1930–1965 1966–1995 1996–2019
26 New Angles 151 34 Lens Flare 191 43 On-Camera Flash 233
27 Modernistic Compositions 157 35 Full-Frame Prints 195 44 Squares 236
28 Hollywood Glamour 163 36 Close-Cropped Portraits 199 45 Food 241
29 Distracting Color 168 37 Polaroid Manipulations 203 46 Selfie 245
30 Television Pictures 171 38 Sepia 208 47 Desaturated 249
31 Motion Blur 176 39 Fish-Eye 213 48 Ruin Porn 254
32 Contact Sheets 179 40 Golden Hour 217 49 Drone Photography 258
33 Graininess 183 41 Cross-Processing 222 50 Digital Filters 263
42 Boke 226
Acknowledgments 269
Notes 271
Further Reading 303
Index 311
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HOW TO
AN INTRODUCTION TO GOOD PHOTOGRAPHY
Kodak published a series of instructional guide-
FOR NEARLY A CENTURY, 1
books, How to Make Good Pictures, that were updated regularly from 1912
until 1995.1 Like thousands of other amateur photographers, I learned
from these books. Paging through them now, I find that their sample
FIGURE 1. Photographer unknown,
pictures bear a strong relationship to photos in my own family albums. “Window Light,” in How to Make
Good Pictures (Rochester, NY:
Pictures of people posed in soft window light or gazing at dramatic
Eastman Kodak, 1936), 98.
landscapes look uncannily familiar, despite the fact that the Kodak
Source: Author’s collection.
subjects are strangers to me. As a child learning how to
take pictures, I followed Kodak’s advice and directed my
friends and family: “Don’t look at the camera! Act natural!”
Some rules like these are still in circulation, but the soft-
focus, backlit portraits from the Kodak handbooks of my
childhood are as outdated as the models’ feathered hair-
styles. These pictures just aren’t fashionable anymore.
They’re no longer considered “good pictures.” This book
is about those stylistic rules and how they change.
The look of old pictures has become a style in itself in
recent years. Digital filters can easily simulate the effects of
time on color prints or the lens aberrations associated with
nineteenth-century photographs. Initially, critics accused
social media photographers of nostalgia or a “fetishiza-
tion of the past.”2 Quickly, though, criticism dissipated as
these pictures became the new “good pictures.” Aesthetic
trends saturate social media rapidly; users are inundated
with popular styles and quickly learn to emulate them.