As it progressed, the art of photography began to develop its own unique
visual language, resulting in images very different from any images that
had been produced before the invention of photography. As seen in the first image below, unexpected cropping (allowing forms to be cut off by the edge of
the image) is something that photographers use quite often. This type of
image seems to come naturally to the medium of photography, and can be seen as a new/different idea of what can be beautiful in an image.
In contrast, the early daguerreotype (the second image down), represents the visual language of photography in its earliest years. Here, the main subject is carefully placed and contained near the center of the image. Unlike the first image, this type of composition owes a lot to the types of images that existed before the invention of photography (primarily painting).
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| As it progressed, the art of photography began to develop its own unique visual language, resulting in images very different from any images that had been produced before the invention of photography. As seen in this photograph by William Eggleston, unexpected cropping (allowing forms to be cut off by the edge of the image) is something that photographers use quite often. This type of image seems to come naturally to the medium of photography, and can be seen as a new/different idea of what can be beautiful visually. |
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| In contrast, this early daguerreotype represents the visual language of photography in its earliest years. Here, the main subject is carefully placed and contained near the center of the image. Unlike the first image, this type of composition owes a lot to the types of images that existed before the invention of photography (primarily painting). |