This is the THIRD part of an article from Popular Photography magazine published in February 1944. More to come if you want to see it! THE COMING WORLD OF PHOTOGRAPHY Nine Outstanding Personalities in the Field Express Their Views and Expectations of Postwar Photography WILLARD D. MORGAN, ELLOT ELISOFON, BERNICE ABBOTT, C. B. NEBLETTE, PAUL STRAND, L. MOHOLY-NAGY, H.A. SCHUMACHER, JOHN S. ROWAN, Sgt. ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN Photography spent its first hundred years slowly developing its mechanics, its lenses, cameras, emulsions, and lights. But war speeded progress will place the camera in the forefront of man's technical devices when victory comes. To determine the new uses, new methods, new viewpoints that will give camera work its direction in the postwar period, POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY has asked a trusted photographic editor, a war correspondent, documentary photographer; teachers of photography, manufacturers, and a soldier to contribute to this symposium. Their opinions differ. Yet somehow all seem to feel that the second hundred years will see the camera put to use as never before with the amateur often leading the way. THE EDITORS BERNICE ABBOTT IT IS TO BE hoped that photography in the postwar world will make great strides forward technically, as well as expressively. Serious workers in the photographic field, one after another, have level of technical development of the art-science medium, photography. All the way from cameras and lenses through materials down to accessories, our tools are downright primitive. To be just a bit specific. Film slowness: We want to photograph dark machinery in motion at dusk, if necessary. Can we? Graininess: Excessive grain alone will fog important detail, besides being ugly as Hecuba. It should be eliminated. Latitude: A dark deep foreground should have as much tonality as a bright sky, without sacrificing one or the other. Artificial lights: Where are our physicists and other scientists? We need lights a thousand fold more powerful. In a country which boasts itself to be the most advanced technically, I for one fail to understand why the best marvels of blessed mass production produce only cardboard box cameras. Consciously or unconsciously, our mass photographic enthusiasts show their dissatisfaction with the implements offered them, by the fact that photographic magazines are jam-packed with gadgetries and schemes galore on "how to do it." It is well known that our present day printing papers have nowhere like the tonal range (latitude) and brilliance which the older gold chloride and albumin papers had. And what good is a photograph as a serious expression, unless one can count on the print's surviving at least a generation or two? Photography must realize its destiny as the "language" of the 20th century. I suggest that photographers get together, therefore, and redesign the whole works, since the entrepreneurs of our mass production industry don't make the improvements we need. No doubt the above-mentioned gentlemen, after reading this, will name me Cassandra. But history proved her right. - prepared and posted on this list by ADavidhazy - andpph@rit.edu
