Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

exaMINING the ICONIC aND reDISCOVerING the phOtOGraphY Of 297
SpaCe expLOratION IN CONtext tO the hIStOrY Of phOtOGraphY
Brooklyn Bridge: 1915. (Eugene de Salignac/Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives)
and pretense. this new found spontaneity augmented the photographer’s access
with the given subject, thereby facilitating the telling of a story with depth
and understanding. photographic reporting and documentation—since the
era of Curtis, Strand, and de Salignac—had now progressed to the point of
actually capturing the immediate and even intersecting with the very fabric
of life, war, industrialization and, on the not-too-far horizon, the exploration
of space. at the same time, the increasing portability and decreasing cost of
photography lead to the mass consumerization of home photography and the
resulting cultural emergence of snapshot photography.
and with the snapshot, a new kind of photographic aesthetic evolved: a quality
of imagery that has a kind of throwaway immediacy. typically, they were images
that were neither studied nor anticipated, but could be. for the casual amateur,
the immediacy brought with it a freedom from the formal rules of photography.
Since rules did not necessarily have to be adhered to, standards by which to
measure quality changed. hence evolved the notion that a good photograph is
one that is not only technically correct, but easy to make. In all respects, it is the