Photo: A History from Behind the Lens

Season 12009

Explores the development of photography from its beginnings to more recent times.

12 Episodes

E01 Surrealist Photography

They include names such as Man Ray, Dora Maar, Alvarez Bravo, Brassaï, André Kertész and Henri Cartier-Bresson, who gure among the greatest names in photography of the 20th century. In the 1930s, their images embodied the epitome of Surrealism.

December 13, 2009

E02 The Primitives of Photography, 1850-1860

In the middle of the 19th century, 25 years after its invention, photography is still considered as a simple scientific curiosity. But between 1850 and 1860 a dozen of photographers, in France and in England, will get in a struggle to get photography acknowledged as an art. It will be the decade of Nadar, Le Gray, Baldus, Robison, Rejlander, Fenton. They will be the first ones to explore all posibilities of photographical creation and of its relations to reality.

November 4, 2012

E03 The New German Objectivity

This episode recounts the New Objectivity evolution in photographic practice, the symbol of which is the Dusseldorf school. For the Bechers, photography was documentary in nature.

November 11, 2012

E04 Staged Photography

For almost the entire 20th century, photography was mainly realist. But from the 1960s, "staged photography" was no longer considered naïve or passé, and made a major comeback, enriched by the external influences of film, theatre, performance and sculpture. This photography that was "infused" by other mediums played on the ambiguity of photographic realism.

November 18, 2012

E05 Pictorialism

50 years after it was invented, photography once again sought to rival painting. The debate was as old as photography itself: is photography merely a simple, mechanical "imitation" of reality, or can it interpret reality subjectively, as drawing and painting can?

November 25, 2012

E06 New Vision: Experimental Photography of the 1920s

Criticism of the 1920s heralded the arrival of "The New Photographer", which was a typically European phenomenon. This photographic avant-garde, often politically located on the far-left, was embodied by Moholy-Nagy, Umbo, El Lissitzky and Rodtchenko.

December 2, 2012

E07 Photographing Intimacy

Photography would appear to be extravert in nature, done to show us reality, the world at large and the “other”. But in the eighties, a movement appeared that sought to escape this “objective” vocation, and to transform the camera into a daily logbook, an apparatus of introspection, a personal diary.

November 3, 2013

E08 The Inventors

1839 marked the "official" birth of photography. Some seek to reduce the invention of photography to an obstacle course from which the shrewd Daguerre emerged triumphant, once the good-natured Niepce had abandoned his pursuit, and thanks to the slowness of the perfectionist Talbot and the discreet Bayard. Photography, which featured myriad technical and artistic possibilities, was multi-faceted and progressive. It revolutionised our perspective and transformed our relationship to reality.

November 10, 2013

E09 Found Images

From the 19th Century, painters have collected documentary photographs using them as models for their own works. The artistic avant-garde of the 20th Century takes hold the principle. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, a lot of artists are widely using the scrapbooking . These collections regularly leave the private circle and become a work base.

November 17, 2013

E10 Press Usage

The alliance of signature photography and mainstream press led photography to become the popular image of the 20th century. The magazines that started appearing in the 1920s - such as BIZ in Germany, Vu in France, the Weekly Illustrated and Picture Post in England, and Life in the United States - broke away from the routine of the first illustrated magazines that used photography merely as an accompaniment for text. With these new magazines, photographs became primary vehicles of information.

November 24, 2013

E11 Conceptual Photography

Instead of criticising photography in the name of painting, as had been done in the past, painters (from Andy Warhol to Ed Rucha and Bruce Nauman) used photography to criticise painting, engaging in an outright attack on the notion of “fine-arts” and the elitist character of artistic creation.

December 1, 2013

E12 After the Photo

Will photography survive the 21st century? With the progressive but inevitable disappearance of traditional photography, the question has been asked since the 1980s.

December 8, 2013

Photo: A History from Behind the Lens

E01 Surrealist Photography

E02 The Primitives of Photography, 1850-1860

E03 The New German Objectivity

E04 Staged Photography

E05 Pictorialism

E06 New Vision: Experimental Photography of the 1920s

E07 Photographing Intimacy

E08 The Inventors

E09 Found Images

E10 Press Usage

E11 Conceptual Photography

E12 After the Photo

The Mandalorian

The Walking Dead

Game of Thrones

House

WandaVision

The Witcher

Squid Game

The Simpsons

Only Murders in the Building

The Flash

Breaking Bad

Arrow

Peaky Blinders

Euphoria

Anne with an E

Person of Interest

The Big Bang Theory

Chernobyl

Arcane

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

E01 Surrealist Photography

E02 The Primitives of Photography, 1850-1860

E03 The New German Objectivity

E04 Staged Photography

E05 Pictorialism

E06 New Vision: Experimental Photography of the 1920s

E07 Photographing Intimacy

E08 The Inventors

E09 Found Images

E10 Press Usage

E11 Conceptual Photography

E12 After the Photo