Four things to see: Photography

‘Four things to see’ is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, a free arts and culture platform that provides access to museums, galleries and cultural spaces around the world on demand. Download the Bloomberg Connects app here to access hundreds of digital guides and explore compelling audio and behind-the-scenes perspectives.

Each week we bring you four of the most interesting objects from the world’s museums, galleries and art institutions, hand-picked to mark significant moments in the calendar.

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, who was born 260 years ago this week, created the first known photograph in around 1826: an image of his courtyard that required an eight-hour-long exposure. From these painstaking beginnings, photography rapidly evolved thanks to a series of innovations, from Louis Daguerre’s daguerreotypes to William Henry Fox Talbot’s calotype technique and, eventually, the democratisation of image-making through Kodak’s consumer cameras.

Today, when billions of photographs are taken every day on smartphones, it’s worth remembering how the technique came about in the first place, through dark room transformations and careful manipulation of chemicals and light. This week we explore four works that speak to photography’s evolution from ambitious experiment to ubiquitous medium.

The Stillsautomat at the Centre for Photography in Edinburgh. Photo: Joseph Wilson; courtesy Centre for Photography, Edinburgh

Stills: Centre for Photography
Edinburgh

Scotland’s only surviving analogue photobooth is a delightful reminder of the mechanical age of photography. Taking five minutes to produce its signature strip of four black-and-white portraits, the booth continues a tradition that dates back to 1925. These automated self-portraits, once cutting-edge, have of course been superseded by digital photography, but remain as reminders of a lost age. Click here to find out more on the Bloomberg Connects app.

The artist’s van (1855), Roger Fenton. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

The artist’s van (1855), Roger Fenton
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

This remarkable image shows Fenton’s pioneering mobile darkroom, essential for his photographic coverage of the Crimean War. The horse-drawn van, with his assistant Marcus Sparling posed in front, housed the delicate equipment needed for wet plate photography. Each glass plate had to be prepared, exposed and developed while still wet, making this portable laboratory as crucial as the camera itself. Click here to learn more.

The Site of the Stolen Painting, Lissadell House, County Sligo (1996), Martin Parr. Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos

The Site of the Stolen Painting, Lissadell House, County Sligo (1996), Martin Parr
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

In this characteristically vibrant composition, Parr captures both presence and absence. The bright red rectangle on the wallpaper marks where a painting once hung, while the empty chair and crumpled cushion suggest recent use. The photograph is a meditation on photography itself – the red shape essentially a camera-less photograph created by years of light falling unevenly on the wall. Click here to find out more.

Untitled (1925–26), László Moholy-Nagy. Centre Pompidou, Paris

Untitled (1925–26), László Moholy-Nagy
Centre Pompidou, Paris

This photogram – a photographic print created without a camera – demonstrates how avant-garde artists experimented with the possibilites of photography. Moholy-Nagy placed objects, including his hand and a paintbrush, directly onto photosensitive paper and exposed them to light. Though the technique dates to photography’s earliest days, artists such as Moholy-Nagy reinvented it as a tool for modernist abstraction, paring down the medium to its most fundamental elements. Click here to read more.

‘Four things to see’ is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, a free arts and culture platform that provides access to museums, galleries and cultural spaces around the world on demand. Download the app here or scan the QR code to access hundreds of digital guides, anytime, anywhere.