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Hi Peter,
I have a question related to how you see your own work as a camera historian. Actually it's more of a comment on camera history writing in general, and I should add as a disclaimer that I haven't read your Canon book (yet), being not much of a Canon person.
In my opinion if we take the history of cameras, we have three major ways in which we can think about it. Firstly, we can look at the history of cameras within the history of photography and analyse how the evolving technical capabilities of the medium determined the way photographers saw the world at various points in history; then, for example, we can observe such things as the impact the Kodak Box had on the boom of private and family pictures in the late 19th century, or the impact of the Leica on documentary and constructivist photography in the 1930s, and so on. Or we could look at what cameras the average American, German or Soviet household bought for family photography at various points in time and draw conclusions on what they used the camera for and what photography meant to them. This would be an "art historical" and a "photoethnographic" approach to camera history. Secondly, we can look at cameras as a special case of industrial development and investigate the history of camera production and camera development within the broader context of the history of industrial culture - that way, for example, we could look at the history of FED camera production in Kharkiv as an example for 1930s Soviet industrial culture with its young communard identity and its determination to assert the young Soviet Union as an industrial center capable of producing world-class devices (even if they're largely copies). Or we could look at post-war camera production in Germany and analyse the decay of German camera building in terms of a general German industrial arrogance; the dominant object of such an analysis would not be the failure of companies to produce cameras that had or lacked certain features, but the interaction between engineering and management in German corporate culture. This would be the "industrial culture" approach to camera history. Thirdly, we can look at the history of the technical development of devices. This kind of analysis is usually concerned with who had the first camera for 35mm film, or who built the smallest interchangeable lens rangefinder, or who built the fastest production 50mm lens, or what intermediate rare project cameras were designed and built at KMZ between the Zorki 1 and the Zorki 3M. I call this the "collectionist" approach because it is often practised by people whose main interest is collecting cameras and estimating their respective particularities, their authenticity and rarity.
I'm a historian myself by profession. I have a gripe with most of the literature on camera history I've read so far in that it focuses too much on this third category. It looks like many camera historians take the camera as an object within itself. The broader context of its production doesn't matter too much to them, beyond the immediate history of the company that produced it (so e.g. we may actually learn something about the history of Nikon in the 1950s, but we don't get to see Nikon as a special case of a Japanese corporate and industrial culture developing after the war). Nor does it matter what the cameras were actually used for; as soon as the camera is produced, what happens with it largely ceases to be interesting. A case in point I have here (in PDF) is the second edition of Princelle's "Authentic Guide to Russian and Soviet Cameras". It's a good book, but as the introduction says it's a book "about the life and birth of the manufactured objects about which we are so passionate". Of course there are the little stories about the creation of the Dzherzhinsky commune and about the relocation of factories beyond the Urals, but that's it. We learn, for example, that KMZ had a stint of creativity between 1955 and 1965 when they produced lots and lots of highly interesting cameras, but we don't learn why this was the case (and this is actually a very easy question to answer) and what it meant in the broader context of the history of industrial and everyday life in the Soviet Union. We also don't learn what cameras the usual Soviet household was interested in and what reputation these cameras had (for example apparently many people don't know to this day that their FED-5 has interchangeable lenses, and the Zorki-6 was and is disliked by professionals because of its capriciousness). This kind of question is usually not related to the particular piece of gear itself and hence not interesting to collectors, which is why it isn't answered.
Personally I have a dream that one day, maybe after my retirement forty years down the road, I will write a book about cameras, photography and camera-making in the Soviet Union, answering precisely the questions from the first and second category underlined above - how do the availability and capabilities of devices shape the way photographers and ordinary people use images and see the world, and how can we think about cameras as more than devices with certain features and a certain value and rarity, but rather as instances of a corporate and industrial culture, dedicated to the production of consumer goods, that permeated society as a whole and shaped the lives of people working in it and with its products. We have a lot of gear-related literature already; maybe it's time to think about how and why the gear was made and how people used the gear. (It's probably somewhat unusual to make this kind of comment on a gear-related forum such as this; part of the reason is that I had a brilliant, if rather alcoholic, evening with some press photographers and photography artists here in Uzbekistan, where we spent a lot of time talking about photography and photographic life in the Soviet Union - in the end we didn't talk about gear at all except nostalgic comments about a FED-4 and a Smena-6, fetched from a dusty box, as the devices on which one learned to take pictures. I saw some brilliant pictures and made a couple of great friends, drinking vodka from film canisters.)
So by now I've talked about my own opinion, but what do you think about camera history writing? What is the job of the camera historian - is camera history about the history of gear, the history of photography, the history of industrial culture, or a combination of all of this? When you set out to write about photography, how do you go on about it and think about it? I would like to hear your stance on this, and maybe a comment or two on the many words outlined above.
Thanks in advance -
Philipp
I have a question related to how you see your own work as a camera historian. Actually it's more of a comment on camera history writing in general, and I should add as a disclaimer that I haven't read your Canon book (yet), being not much of a Canon person.
In my opinion if we take the history of cameras, we have three major ways in which we can think about it. Firstly, we can look at the history of cameras within the history of photography and analyse how the evolving technical capabilities of the medium determined the way photographers saw the world at various points in history; then, for example, we can observe such things as the impact the Kodak Box had on the boom of private and family pictures in the late 19th century, or the impact of the Leica on documentary and constructivist photography in the 1930s, and so on. Or we could look at what cameras the average American, German or Soviet household bought for family photography at various points in time and draw conclusions on what they used the camera for and what photography meant to them. This would be an "art historical" and a "photoethnographic" approach to camera history. Secondly, we can look at cameras as a special case of industrial development and investigate the history of camera production and camera development within the broader context of the history of industrial culture - that way, for example, we could look at the history of FED camera production in Kharkiv as an example for 1930s Soviet industrial culture with its young communard identity and its determination to assert the young Soviet Union as an industrial center capable of producing world-class devices (even if they're largely copies). Or we could look at post-war camera production in Germany and analyse the decay of German camera building in terms of a general German industrial arrogance; the dominant object of such an analysis would not be the failure of companies to produce cameras that had or lacked certain features, but the interaction between engineering and management in German corporate culture. This would be the "industrial culture" approach to camera history. Thirdly, we can look at the history of the technical development of devices. This kind of analysis is usually concerned with who had the first camera for 35mm film, or who built the smallest interchangeable lens rangefinder, or who built the fastest production 50mm lens, or what intermediate rare project cameras were designed and built at KMZ between the Zorki 1 and the Zorki 3M. I call this the "collectionist" approach because it is often practised by people whose main interest is collecting cameras and estimating their respective particularities, their authenticity and rarity.
I'm a historian myself by profession. I have a gripe with most of the literature on camera history I've read so far in that it focuses too much on this third category. It looks like many camera historians take the camera as an object within itself. The broader context of its production doesn't matter too much to them, beyond the immediate history of the company that produced it (so e.g. we may actually learn something about the history of Nikon in the 1950s, but we don't get to see Nikon as a special case of a Japanese corporate and industrial culture developing after the war). Nor does it matter what the cameras were actually used for; as soon as the camera is produced, what happens with it largely ceases to be interesting. A case in point I have here (in PDF) is the second edition of Princelle's "Authentic Guide to Russian and Soviet Cameras". It's a good book, but as the introduction says it's a book "about the life and birth of the manufactured objects about which we are so passionate". Of course there are the little stories about the creation of the Dzherzhinsky commune and about the relocation of factories beyond the Urals, but that's it. We learn, for example, that KMZ had a stint of creativity between 1955 and 1965 when they produced lots and lots of highly interesting cameras, but we don't learn why this was the case (and this is actually a very easy question to answer) and what it meant in the broader context of the history of industrial and everyday life in the Soviet Union. We also don't learn what cameras the usual Soviet household was interested in and what reputation these cameras had (for example apparently many people don't know to this day that their FED-5 has interchangeable lenses, and the Zorki-6 was and is disliked by professionals because of its capriciousness). This kind of question is usually not related to the particular piece of gear itself and hence not interesting to collectors, which is why it isn't answered.
Personally I have a dream that one day, maybe after my retirement forty years down the road, I will write a book about cameras, photography and camera-making in the Soviet Union, answering precisely the questions from the first and second category underlined above - how do the availability and capabilities of devices shape the way photographers and ordinary people use images and see the world, and how can we think about cameras as more than devices with certain features and a certain value and rarity, but rather as instances of a corporate and industrial culture, dedicated to the production of consumer goods, that permeated society as a whole and shaped the lives of people working in it and with its products. We have a lot of gear-related literature already; maybe it's time to think about how and why the gear was made and how people used the gear. (It's probably somewhat unusual to make this kind of comment on a gear-related forum such as this; part of the reason is that I had a brilliant, if rather alcoholic, evening with some press photographers and photography artists here in Uzbekistan, where we spent a lot of time talking about photography and photographic life in the Soviet Union - in the end we didn't talk about gear at all except nostalgic comments about a FED-4 and a Smena-6, fetched from a dusty box, as the devices on which one learned to take pictures. I saw some brilliant pictures and made a couple of great friends, drinking vodka from film canisters.)
So by now I've talked about my own opinion, but what do you think about camera history writing? What is the job of the camera historian - is camera history about the history of gear, the history of photography, the history of industrial culture, or a combination of all of this? When you set out to write about photography, how do you go on about it and think about it? I would like to hear your stance on this, and maybe a comment or two on the many words outlined above.
Thanks in advance -
Philipp
