Faster films, better lenses

Jessica Johnston, curator in the George Eastman House photo department, has selected a new round of photographs to share with us in The Commons.

Women Bowling
   
Portrait of Matty McIntyre, baseball player

Atlantic City Beach
   
Dog Training

In the 1890’s faster films, better lenses, hand cameras, and the availability of commercial developing and printing services not only made it much easier to make photographs, but to make photographs that captured a wider range of events of everyday life. This fueled a huge explosion in photographic practice; first by significantly expanding the number of amateur photographers and then by irrevocably altering and expanding the nature and practices of professional photography. A greatly expanded world of images—very different in concept and in form—suddenly became an inextricable part of the visual world.

See more in the new William M. Vander Weyde set.