Introduction
'Naturalism' is the term used to describe the style and approach to photography that the Australian photographer Laurence Le Guay (1917-90) promoted from the end of WWII. The style of much of the photography produced around mid-century has been labelled Documentary, but very little of it was motivated by social reform. Geoffrey Powell's and Edward Cranstone's post-WWII work are exceptions. David Potts and David Moore were influenced by the Social Documentary pictures of the Farm Security Administration photographers, and American Documentary films from the 1930s, and moved into photojournalistic work in the 1950s.
The 1940s and 1950s was a transition period in the development of photography in Australia: it fell between the supreme reign of Pictorialism in the photographic society salons and the widespread recognition in the 1970s of photography as an art form with an aesthetic distinct from painting. This turn around was urged on by many, but Le Guay's role in providing outlets for different types of photography within Australia, and publication of concerns about the medium and its uses within the art world and society, have been under-rated in the existing histories of Australian photography.
As editor of Contemporary Photography magazine, he encouraged both amateur and professional photographers to challenge Pictorialism by producing images that utilised the realistic qualities of photography. He wanted what he called 'documentary' photography to shrug off the label of mere historical record or advocate of social reform.
As a successful commercial photographer, Le Guay called for the recognition of photography as a vital medium of communication. 'Naturalistic' photography was based on a mixture of Documentary, photojournalism and commercial photography. Photojournalism and the photoessay were important pursuits for non-Pictorialist photographers in the 1950s, and the Family of Man's utilisation of this style of photography contributed to its widespread acceptance as an expressive medium.
The Daguerreotype was enthusiastically used to record realistic detail, and the nature of its single-positive process prevented the image from being manipulated in the manner photographers with artistic concerns were doing half a century later when the negative-positive process was adopted. The Linked Ring Brotherhood was formed in England in 1892, and members practiced a style which influenced the Pictorialists of the early twentieth century, who tried to escape photography's reputation of being a mere recording device, and looked to the Impressionists for artistic leadership in their aims to have photography recognised as a means of artistic expression.
Anne-Marie Willis places Pictorialism's decline as the pre-eminent style of artistic photography in the mid-1920s, when its soft-focused romantic scenes were considered out-of-touch and unexciting in a more and more industrialised and "modern" world.1 Its emphasis on pattern and the beauty of form were well suited to advertising, but Modernist photography still struggled for acceptance in the established photographic salons. Max Dupain, who turned to Modernist photography (but was also influenced by the Documentary philosophy),2 and Laurence Le Guay, who advocated the use of the Documentary style in a wide range of applications—were two commercial photographers who were prominent in their break away from Pictorialist values.
Documentary photography drew on the implicit authenticity of the photography process, but far from being an "objective" style, Documentary was used to produce highly subjective pictures which criticised systems of labour and government—beginning with Jacob Riis in the 1880s.3 In the 1930s and 1940s, the Documentary style was adopted by photographic departments like the Farm Security Administration (FSA) to serve governments in rallying support for reform programs in the Depression, as well as the recording of events during World War II for historical purposes and propaganda.
The production of elegant pictures of social situations increased the emotional and persuasive impact of a Documentary image over mere documentation. John Grierson defined the Documentary style of film as the 'creative treatment of actuality'.4 He believed that 'filmmakers should exploit the realistic properties of the medium and present facts about important social issues in a vivid and moving way'.5 The style of image produced in the Documentary films and photography of the 1930s directly influenced post-WWII Australian photography—especially David Moore and David Potts, who photographed the slum areas of Sydney in the late 1940s and then became photojournalists working overseas in the 1950s.
Forsyth Hardy's publication of Grierson On Documentary in 1946 (first edition) anticipated the post-war world's taste for Documentary treatments of social life. Le Guay defined 'Documentary' as 'a clear-cut statement; the factual but creative treatment of contemporary life; a clear, penetrating observation that understands and is understood',6 and believed Grierson's word had been 'misused and ill-advisedly tagged to the accidental candid shot, and to all manner of unimaginative, sensational, and superficial subject matter over a number of years'. He considered Brady, Atget, Stieglitz, Weston, Weegee, and Brandt to be real Documentary photographers, and noted that Dupain's post-WWII work showed 'signs of a healthy and vigorous attempt to portray Australia in true perspective'.
Geoffrey Powell, Damien Parer and George Silk (who all worked for the Department Of Information) were other Australian photographers who Le Guay deemed to have worked with similar aims.
In the 1940s professional photographers like Le Guay encouraged the utilisation of the truly photographic qualities of the medium, rather than the pictorial possibilities that came with manipulation of the final print.7
Gael Newton's Shades of Light: Photography and Australia 1839-1988 and Silver and Grey—Fifty Years of Australian Photography 1900-1950 are histories of a large period in Australian photography. They were produced to display the collections of the Australian National Gallery (now the National Gallery of Australia), and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, respectively. Anne-Marie Willis's Picturing Australia: A History of Photography is a more detailed critical analysis, which also covers the whole of Australian photographic history (up to 1988).
Geoffrey Batchen critiques Shades of Light and Picturing Australia in his 1989 article 'Australian Made'. He positions these two books in the context of Australia's lack of published photographic histories, citing Jack Cato's 1955 survey of Australian photography as the only predecessor, but notices the lack of detailed discussion of 1950s and 1960s developments in Australian photography in both Willis's and Newton's books.8 Batchen believes both books tend to portray Australian photography as operating in the shadow of American trends, although he notes that Willis does discuss the change in status for photography and the diversity of its uses in this period.9
Willis criticises Newton for summarising the post-WWII period in terms of the Family of Man, photojournalism and fashion illustration, and describes Newton's understanding of the history of photography during the twentieth century as an orthodox chronological progression of one movement replacing another: the trichotomy of Pictorialism—the New Photography— and Documentary.10 Whereas, it was more of a blending of several sets of values and approaches to photography, running concurrently from the 1930s to 1960s.
Willis explains that Modernist photography did not overthrow Pictorialism, but was used along with previous Pictorialist subjects and approaches. The content in photographic salons of the 1930s and 1940s is evidence of the popularity, in traditional artistic circles, of Pictorialist concerns with depicting character and mood, with an idealised effect.11 Dr Julian Smith's reputation and the popularity of his character studies (which were extensively imitated) is an example that Modernism did not dominate the photography in this period, although it did have a larger impact on the style of commercial photography being used than a widespread following in the salons.12
Willis explains that the Australian amateur movement was isolated from overseas trends and developments in photography, while professionals were more informed.13 She believes the Family of Man exhibition had negligible effects on Australian professional photographers, and that camera club salons played little role in photography's rise to "Art".14
Anne-Marie Willis stated that Grierson and the Documentary movement had little impact on Australia,15 whilst Newton believes that Grierson's writings on Documentary 'were influential on Sydney photographers in the post-war years', and cites the examples of Damien Parer and Max Dupain.16 Newton contrasts Grierson's philosophy of Documentary as having high moral and social uses, and the New Photography's valuing of beauty and form in themselves.17
Eric Riddler's thesis on the photographic publications of Oswald Ziegler includes accounts of Australian Photography 1947 and Australian Photography 1957. Ziegler specialised in commercial photography, but this area was, nevertheless, important for the change in status photography underwent around mid-century. Willis acknowledges the role of commercial photography over the amateur movement in the push for art-photography,18 and Riddler has documented the interdependence between the commercial pursuits of photographers around this time and the acceptance of creative photography as an art form in the 1970s. He points out that the proliferation of commercial photography at this time led to the consideration of most mid-century work as 'Documentary',19 as the term was used to describe a growing movement away from the romanticism favoured by the salons.
Newton only briefly mentions Contemporary Photography in her section on 'The Documentary movement 1940s and 1950s'. She explains that a past was sought for Australia's taste for the Documentary in the 1940s and 1950s with the reprinting of Cazneaux's Sydney pictures and the Holtermann collection, but she summarises the period by emphasising the photo-journalistic hopefuls, David Moore and David Potts, and Max Dupain's adoption of the middle path between Documentary and Modernist commercialism. The social work of Cranstone and Powell makes an appearance at the end of the section, but is discarded after a single paragraph as 'left-wing politics'.20
Both Willis and Newton have written books covering the whole history of Australian photography, and their relatively brief treatment of mid-century is understandable. Willis does go in to more depth about Contemporary Photography magazine, but criticises it for not being a complete advocate of radical documentarism.21 Le Guay and this magazine were important, nevertheless, in providing guidance and publication outlets for those photographers dissatisfied with the salons and uncredited picture magazine assignments.
The first chapter of this paper explains the role that the advances in photographic technology had on the style, subject matter, and quality of photography in mid-century. The experience of WWII, and the practical applications for photography that were utilised, changed the way many professional photographers looked at their medium. The style of naturalism can be seen as a reaction to Pictorialism, rather than an easily definable aesthetic.
The second chapter explores the role of Contemporary Photography magazine in photography's development as an artistic medium, and is placed in the context of the Australasian Photo.-Review.
At last, in the 1950s, a breakthrough is imminent: the salons slowly adapt to the demand for a wider-ranging application for photography, however, it is not until the mid 1970s than the photography boom occurs, and it is acknowledged on all grounds as a medium of creative expression.
- Anne-Marie Willis, Picturing Australia: A History of Photography, Sydney, 1988, p148.
- Ibid., pp192-3.
- Beaumont Newhall, The History of Photography, London, 1982, p235.
- Forsyth Hardy (ed.), Grierson On Documentary, London, 1979, pi 1.
- Willis, Picturing Australia, 191.
- Laurence Le Guay, Editorial, Contemporary Photography May-June 1948, p1lO.
- Gael Newton, Shades of Light: Photography and Australia 1839-1988, Sydney 1988,1, p123.
- Geoffrey Batchen, 'Australian Made—Photographic History in Antipodes', Afterimage May 1989, pp13, 15.
- Batchen, pp17, 14.
- Willis, Picturing Australia, pp265-6.
- bid.,p172.
- Ibid.,p175.
- Ibid.,p217.
- Ibid., p219.
- Ibid., p265.
- Gael Newton, Silver and Grey: Fifty Years of Australian Photography 1900-50, Sydney, 1980, Introduction,unpaginated.
- Newton, Shades of Light, p121.
- Willis, Picturing Australia, p219.
- Eric Riddler, Fine Arts IV thesis, Sydney University, 1990, p4.
- Newton, Shades of Light, p128.
- Willis, Picturing Australia, p194.