Chapter 8
A History of Photography

In this chapter, I look at the major innovations in photography using a timeline approach. This is followed by a look at the major aesthetic movements within photography, from the birth of pictorialism to postmodernism. I will conclude with a section on Alfred Stieglitz, who I feel was the most influential person in 20th century visual arts in the United States. Stieglitz was closely involved in the birth of both pictorialism and modernism and, as if this was not enough, he was responsible for bringing the work of the great painters Picasso, Matisse, and Cézanne to an American audience.

Camera Obscura: a darkened enclosure having an aperture usually provided with a lens through which light from external objects enters to form an image of the objects on the opposite surface.

– Merriam-Webster