BBC - The Genius of Photography (2006) Part 1 Fixing the Shadows

The first major television history of the most influential art form in the world, this landmark series explores the key events and the key images that have marked the development of photography. At the heart of the series is a quest to understand what makes a truly great photograph. What is it that makes a photograph by Nan Goldin or Henri Cartier Bresson stand out among the millions of others taken by all of us every single day? The Genius of Photography examines the evolution of photography in its wider context social, political, economic, technological and artistic. It also brings a critical perspective and a strong aesthetic sense to the subject. Beginning with the earliest days of the photograph in the 1840s and ending with an examination of the state of photography today and the effect that the 'digital revolution' will have, the series challenges not only how we look at a photograph but what it is in a physical sense. It examines all the different genres of photography from landscape and portraiture to news and reportage. It also tells the great stories behind many of the world's most iconic photographs and reveals the extraordinary characters — from Louis Daguerre and Cindy Sherman, Paul Strand and Robert Capa — who have made and defined this art form. Telling the stories behind the world's greatest photographs and photographers, the series takes us from the achievements of the first photographers to the acceptance of photography as a credible medium; from its adoption as an essential household possession to the impact and possibilities of the digital world. And, with interviews with some of the world's greatest living photographers including William Eggleston, Nan Goldin, William Klein, Martin Parr, Sally Mann, Robert Adams, Juergen Teller, Andreas Gursky and Jeff Wall, it seeks to understand what makes a truly great photograph. In six comprehensive episodes The Genius of Photography chronicles this magical, unpredictable and democratic medium that has transformed the way we see ourselves and our lives.

Part 1 Fixing the Shadows

Fixing the Shadows tells the story of the birth of photography itself and the profound question that it raised, and which has never been satisfactorily answered what is photography for? Detailing the rival methods of the pioneers Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre for 'fixing the shadows' in 1839, the programme examines how photography took its place alongside other new technologies like the railway and telegraph, paving the way for the practical application of what had previously been an abstract idea. It describes how pioneer photographers like the portraitist Nadar asserted the status of photography as an art only for this status to be transformed by the Kodak revolution, which put the camera into the hands of the masses who unlocked its potential for surreality, randomness and surprise. Finally it examines the case of Jacques-Henri Lartigue, the schoolboy photographer who demonstrated the true genius of photography in the hands of the amateur. Includes interviews with Chuck Close and David Byrne.

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