Joshua White - Learning From Artists of The Past

Recently as of November 2024, I made the dreaded decision of fully diving into anything and everything film photography by purchasing my 2nd film body that I consider my workhorse, for lack of better word. This exploration, through a series of purchasing different photobooks of many photographers who of course used film led me to Edward Steichen. A 20th century photographer that I have come to learn a lot from mainly through reading his book "A Life in Photography". Now I'm not going to totally go into Steichen because I'm not trying to write an essay as I already have to write enough of those. Edward J Steichen was an artist through and through as he started in painting and then picked up photography. For a while and pretty sporadically he tried to use painting to inspire his photo work before giving up on that idea. Which I can relate to as someone whose early life was spent drawing before I made the grave financial mistake of picking up a camera and now tries to use drawing as a gateway for photos. A lot of what I learned from my time reading about Steichen was really a philosophy of trying. Trying things I may not like currently or styles and compositions that are a bit foreign to me personally. Trying to understand the technical aspect of photography and how I can add the emotion I already feel to the scene. Giving myself room to learn styles and philosophies of past works gives me a greater sense of what I like in my work and that's so desperately needed in today's photo ecosystem. Steichen spent a lot of time in his studio photographing a wide range of people, connecting with them, and as well coming away with interesting stories. And I think that's a key t area of learning I did from him was his experiences and how I can apply and relate them to myself. Steichen's time also opened me up to printing styles like "Photogravure" and even the early days of color photos like Autochrome. Speaking of color film it also was not very well recieved and I put that in perspective of today where color is the norm and black and white is sort of the black sheep in mosts' eyes. That understanding of the artistic culture back then is another important piece of the learning process. Understanding people's points of view towards their and their peers works back then can give another layer of thought process if you take it into account that is. The best example being how photography was not seen as an art in Steichen's time so he made it his little personal goal to seek that art in photography because he knew it was possible. Now it was already an art from the moment someone took the first picture but we'll brush off their ignorance. Steichen also led me to Alfred Stieglitz another great photographer, who had many differing opinions to Steichen but despite that still being very good friends. Stieglitz ran "Camera Work"(1903-1917) which was a magazine publishing different photographers throughout the world including Stieglitz himself and Steichen. This led me down a rabbit hole of photographers which reading and researching on has given me a new fire for the medium of photography, whether that's with my new interest in studio work, the technicalities and physicality of the medium, galleries which Steichen was a big fan of, or landscapes which I really never have been a fan until I came across Steichen and even Steiglitz; who were both equally obessed with in their own way. There's quite a lot to be learned from past artists and probably most importantly it helps you learn yourself too.

I've included some of my favorite works by Steichen and Steiglitz along with work from others found through either Steichen or Steiglitz's "Camera Work" magazine.