Kim Beil is an art history lecturer and associate director at Stanford University. Kim’s new book “Good Pictures” chronicles 50 of the most important photographic techniques over the past 170 years of American photography. Today we talk about just a few of them and dive deeper into how the past mistakes and successes of photography got us to where we are today.

This Episode is Sponsored by The Contract Vault. Do your business a favor. Check out The Contract Vault. You’ll find all the photography contracts you need right at your fingertips. www.thecontractvault.com and use promo code BPP for 20% off your first month.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How the rules for taking good pictures are always shifting.

• How the Vignette came to be

• Why foreground interest took the world by storm in the mid 1860s

• The impact Kodak had on the photography industry

• Why night photography wasn’t possible until 1890 and what were some of the major challenges.

• Why there was a swing from technical perfection to intentionally breaking long standing photography rules to create images in the 1950s and 60s

• Why capturing Candids was looked down upon by many established photographers for almost a century

• What the future of photography looks like.
  
  

Resources:

• Kim Beil’s website

• Kim Beil on Instagram

• Buy Kims Book “Good Pictures”

• The Contract Vault - Save 20% off your month by using the code BPP at check out
  

Did you enjoy this episode? Check out more recent interviews with other great guests!

Full Episode Transcription:

Disclaimer: The transcript was transcribed electronically by Temi.com and may contain errors that do not reflect accurately what the speaker said. Because of this, please do not quote this automated transcript.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:00 I know that today you teach art history at Stanford, but before you got here when did your love of photography start?

Kim Beil: 00:09 It started really when I was just 10 or 12 years old, my parents gave me a 35 millimeter camera and I loved running film through it. So especially taking portraits of my family and my friends, and I'm grateful that my sister was kind of willing subject. But it was, yeah, I have I've loved photography ever since then.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:34 So with that first camera was that, that was like a full manual camera. Was it like a point and shoot, what the, do you remember what it was?

Kim Beil: 00:41 Yeah, I think it was a Nikon F M and it had, it's still like one of my favorite cameras to use. It just feels like the manual focus really allows you to lock right in on it. I love the feeling of the world coming into focus so you can see it. You can really see it through the manual lenses. But after that, I, I went to undergrad for comparative literature at Brown. And at the same time, I was really lucky to get, to take some photo courses at the Rhode Island school of design. So that's where my, you know, hobby in photography. Well, it was still a hobby then, but at least then I got to take some formal, have some formal training.

Raymond Hatfield: 01:23 Right. So when you first had the Nikon FM and you were first given it as a, as a child, essentially, this is like a full manual camera. This is not something that you just point and shoot, essentially. What were some of the challenges that you, that you faced when it came to trying to expose an image on film?

Kim Beil: 01:42 Well, the camera store that sold these cameras used actually had a training class that my dad took me to. And I remember it was in a an old hotel conference room and it was me and a bunch of probably like middle aged men and my dad, and they taught us a lot about the controls. And so right away, I, I mean, I knew about aperture and f-stops but I don't know if I knew exactly how they worked. So one of the things was probably trying to recreate the effects that I saw in pictures, you know, in handbooks. And I remember being sort of confused about how you get that nice blurry background and sometimes achieving it and then sometimes not. But of course I wasn't, you know, taking a record of all my, I didn't have a shot list, so I didn't know what my aperture was, but I think that was probably the thing I was after originally

Raymond Hatfield: 02:38 Getting that out of focus background. It's not funny. Yeah. It's still today. That's like the number one thing requested by you know, by new photographers is how, how do I get my backgrounds to get out of focus and look beautiful? Yeah. Let's see what funny. So how did, did you, were you using taking any sort of film notes or anything like that to do any sort of reflection after you got your images back? No, I didn't

Kim Beil: 03:00 Do any of that until my classes at wristy and that really started in the dark room especially with making prints. So I started to understand like how you can change time and aperture to choose change the quality of the print. And then you work backwards and I started doing that to achieve a better negative. That's easier to print.

Raymond Hatfield: 03:26 Oh, okay. I see. Do you, do you remember maybe a time where you were, you had some sort of aha moment where everything just of sort of came together and going forward from that point? The technical side of photography just seemed to make more sense to you.

Kim Beil: 03:45 Wouldn't that be lovely? I, you know what, I don't think I have an aha moment. I think I'm still very much, I'm an amateur photographer, even if I'm a professional observer of photography. So maybe my aha moments come a little bit more when I can see other photographers using nice these techniques in their work, so that doesn't come up probably until grad school.

Raymond Hatfield: 04:14 Okay. I see. So tell me more about the, kind of that transition for you, because you said that you went to school for, or I'm sorry if I got this wrong, but you said that you went to grad school for literature, is that correct?

Kim Beil: 04:27 I went to undergrad for literature. And then, yeah, and surprisingly, I didn't take any art history courses. I just took my photo practice classes, which were, you know, incredibly rich and full of photographic examples. I was lucky to study with Stephen Smith. Who's a wonderful photographer and photo book maker. But then I went on a, and did like a postgraduate degree in photojournalism at Brooks in California. And while I was doing that is when I started sort of drifting away from making my own pictures and becoming more interested in the history of photography. And so I started interning at a museum in Santa Barbara. And so that, that's the transition from undergrad making pictures to grad school studying the history of photography.

Raymond Hatfield: 05:23 Why do you think it was that you were so captivated by the the history of, of, of art and photography?

Kim Beil: 05:31 Yeah, it, it took me a little while to come to that, but I think I love that it encompasses so many different histories. It's not just a history of a few, you know, battles or key technological innovations. It's really about how people interact with the medium, but also about how people interact with the world. So it's a really broad history and deep you get to experience different people's lives. So it's, it's a medium for understanding people and for understanding how they look at the world and each other.

Raymond Hatfield: 06:09 Oh, I love that. That is such a good, Oh, that's a good quote. I got to tell, I got to tell Jim to to write that down for me. So in, in your new book here that we're talking about good pictures, which is essentially it's the history of of American photography. Is that, is that an accurate representation or

Kim Beil: 06:25 Yes. Yep. I had to draw the line somewhere, so I focused on pictures made in the U S

Raymond Hatfield: 06:31 Perfect. So there is a little blurb on the back of the book that says that the rules for good pictures are always shifting. Now, I'm assuming that we're talking about the technical standpoint, is that correct?

Kim Beil: 06:44 Yeah, they could be technical rules, but they're also rules for content. Like what picture, what things are you allowed to take pictures of as PR Borgia would say, like, what is photograph bubble? So it's a rule for content, but it could also be composition or lighting. So they're, you know, tech in photography, the technical rules kind of overlap with the aesthetic rules.

Raymond Hatfield: 07:08 So then let's talk a little bit more kind of about where this book came about and why, or I take that back. Let's talk a little bit more about how you saw the rules for good pictures shifting and what kind of, some of the main overall arching themes have been in since, since the beginning of photography.

Kim Beil: 07:31 Yeah, it's interesting because as I was just saying, I think I, I felt those rules and I didn't question them for much of my experience in making pictures. So I wanted to recreate that blurry background. I wanted to make pictures like the pictures that I saw, and then, you know, when you start to study fine art, the thing that's prized is originality. So somebody who does something different than what, just following the rules. So I was already aware of that division between like taking pictures of sunsets and somehow making something into a new kind of art. But I think it was really the rise of the iPhone that started pointing out the changes in the rules, because so many more people were talking about what makes a good picture around 2010. And I remember specifically that there's a lot of anxiety about how to take a selfie.

Kim Beil: 08:30 Like how do you take a good selfie? And this I remember people telling me, you know, it has to be from a high angle. And specifically I had a friend who like demonstrated this thing that, you know, you put your tongue to the roof of your mouth and you get better cheekbones. And I just started wondering about all these rules, like, is this really the best or the only way to a picture? And so sure enough, when I started looking into the history, like just looking through life magazine or old, how to guide books, I saw that the high angle, wasn't the only style that low angle pictures were really popular in the late 1930s and the early 1940s. So you've got views like really triumphant figures framed against a blue sky and people thought they looked her ROIC, and that was the only angle to take a good portrait from. So that's when I started questioning the rules. And then I think your second part of that question was about what kind of general trends and rules have I seen?

Raymond Hatfield: 09:36 Yes. Yeah. Good memory.

Kim Beil: 09:38 So I think probably composition is one of the areas that seems most dogmatic. We've got the rule of thirds, you know, which interestingly was invented, not by a photographer. But by Joshua Reynolds the first president of the Royal Academy in London. So he was teaching painters how to organize their compositions, but I think photographers have really picked up on that rule and they take it pretty seriously. So I'd say, yeah, compositional rules. And th they're not always the same, but the rule of thirds I'd say is probably the most dominant role that I've seen.

Raymond Hatfield: 10:23 Right. It's, it's pretty easy to understand, you know, you can explain to a child, the tic TAC toe board, you know, overlay of a photo and try to you know, put your subject within those intersecting lines where it's harder to do something like, you know, the golden rule or, or something like that to, to fully understand. But let's, let's talk a little bit more about that, you know, really the early days of photography and it was really photography was kind of scoffed at wasn't it, it was can you talk about the relationship between photography and and painters?

Kim Beil: 10:58 Oh yeah, it was you're right. It was considered a challenge to the medium of painting originally. Mostly because, and you're saying it was scoffed at, and that's because it wasn't considered imaginative that it was simply technical and that the image was recorded by this machine and it didn't come out of any kind of learning or imagination on the part of the artist. And I'd say that, that way of thinking about photography was present all the way through the 19th century. And there were certainly some people who rejected it and tried to prove it wrong, but it was pretty widely agreed that a true artist had to be someone who makes an image from their own hand. And then let's see, where should we go from there?

Raymond Hatfield: 11:51 Yeah. I was just thinking of a, of Bob bear and all those years when I was younger watching him paint landscapes. And I wonder, I wonder what Bob Ross would think about landscape photography, but yeah, I mean, it's really interesting when it comes to photography and how it was just looked at as, as just so technical and not imaginative. That is, that is crazy because now, you know, as we know today, at least as we know photography today, it's, it can be a very creative pursuit and very imaginative, I suppose. So just, it's just interesting how times, how times change like that. But I want to focus on, on your book here, because in the book you showcase 50 different techniques that really, you know, made some of the biggest advancements in photography. And I want to talk about just a few here today and the first one, which honestly, when I was reading the book, like I had to stop and think about it for a second. The first one that I want to talk about is the vignette. Now today, I mean, just a simple slider and Lightroom can give you a beautiful vignette with no effort and a lot of control, but originally, I mean, this is like a, this is a physical recording onto the film of, of, of a technique, I guess. So can you talk a bit, a bit about what a vignette is, where it came from, and then just the reaction to this brand new photographic technique?

Kim Beil: 13:13 Yeah. So I think one of the interesting things about where these techniques come from is sometimes they start out as accidents or failures within the technical process. So the vignette is actually the results of using a lens that's too small to aluminate the full image area. So I'm not saying negative because these, you know, these weren't film negatives that were being used, sometimes it was a metal plate or eventually a glass negative. But the, if you use a lens that doesn't allow enough light into your camera, you get these darkened corners because of course, all images are round. They come in the lens and some of it is around lens and some of it's cropped off at the corners. So originally if people saw an image that was dark and at the corner, it was considered a kind of failure. But it was later picked up as a way to make photographs look more artistic to make them seem more like paintings or drawings.

Kim Beil: 14:17 And so a couple of different techniques were developed to create the vignetting effect, even when you're using an appropriately sized lens. So one of the ways to do that would be to create a little frame that you could hold in front of the lens and you would move it around to make those softened edges. And that would make your picture look a little bit more like a hand drawn portrait bust, which was also popular at the time. So earlier you were talking about the way that photography was scoffed at by painters. And this was a, a response on the part of the photographic establishment to make the medium seem more like the established painting trends.

Raymond Hatfield: 15:03 That's so crazy. I love it. And just just a, just a way for photographers to say, to kind of legitimize what it is that they're doing, because now they are, they are using something with, with their imagination and their being able to create something. But just to, just to be clear, when you said we're making these frames are photographers, we're making these frames and then kind of moving it around in front of the lens, they were only able to do this because they had extremely long exposure times. Correct?

Kim Beil: 15:31 Yeah, that's a great point. So an exposure time of 30 seconds to a minute was not uncommon, especially if you're working indoors. And especially if you're working during the winter when the light is not as powerful. So you have enough time to put this little frame in front of the lens, move it around and get an exposure that looks more like a portrait painting than a photo.

Raymond Hatfield: 15:55 And today, you know, it's one of those rules that like, you don't want to go under like one 60th of a second, like such a small fraction of a second. And here we are I mean, I don't know what the map is, but you know, 30 full seconds compared to a 60th of a second is just insane to see how far, how far we've come in photography. So this is why, you know, I think when I was reading it, thinking about the photography, the history of photography and kind of where it came from are things that I never really had an interest in. I suppose I just knew how, like, today, like I know how to take a photo. I know that my couples like my photos and, and that's about it. But I think understanding where that vignette came from and the, the, the physical, moving of a frame in front of the lens to be able to create something like this is so, you know, almost barbaric, but now it's something that I don't take for granted, I suppose, just that one little slider there in Lightroom. But something that isn't, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Kim Beil: 16:55 Oh, I just, I love that Lightroom and Photoshop have preserved those historic terms. So a lot of the tools or the icons that we see in digital processing actually come from the analog or wet dark room, so dodging and burning. Yeah, exactly.

Raymond Hatfield: 17:13 Yeah. Yeah. Can you explain what the, what those two things are for those who are unaware?

Kim Beil: 17:19 Sure. So even though you can take a photo and, you know, one 60th of a second, often you want to develop a print in the dark room using a longer period of time so that you have time to get in there and manually manipulate the light. So if you have an area of an image, that's your negative is too thin, it allows too much light through too quickly onto the develop developing paper. You can put your hand in and kind of block the light while you allow the rest of the image to be exposed. So you see the fist is the icon for dodging. I believe in, in Photoshop and Lightroom. So that's, that's a way of blocking the light from this one area

Raymond Hatfield: 18:08 Physically with your hand, just Nope, no light right there. And that's gonna, that's gonna change the look of my image. That's right. That's wild. That's something that you don't get, you know, today in a, in digital photography, but you're right. It is cool that it was preserved, I suppose. I w you know, do you think that that's just simply to make the transition easier from the switch, from, from film to digital?

Kim Beil: 18:27 Yeah, I think it was actually when I had, before I went back to grad school, and even when I was studying photojournalism, it was the beginning of the digital revolution. And people were really reluctant. I mean, in museums and established photographers, I mean, there were definitely ways in which early digital work fell short of the qualities of analog photography. There wasn't as much detail the colors, weren't what we were expecting. And so I think that these tools and the carry over of certain terms, you're absolutely right. We're meant to make the transition easier.

Raymond Hatfield: 19:06 I wonder what's going to be next because literally yesterday, my son, he's in second grade, but he's doing all of his learning virtual this year. And in one of his little online tutorials, it showed him how to save a document. And it's just a picture of a floppy floppy desk. And he, he literally asked me, he said, you know, what is that? He's like, I know what the laptop is right there. I know what the headphones are, but what is that thing? And I had to explain, you know, what a, what a floppy disc is. And obviously that's just some sort of carry over to make it easier during that transition, but surely in the future, something's going to have to be different or changed. And it's going to be interesting to see what those things are. Yeah. But going back to photography I want to talk now again about, let's go back to the 18 hundreds in the 1860s when the world was just taken by storm, when photographers started using foreground interest in their photos, this was a concept that had never been done before. So what were we doing before with photography that made foreground just so fascinating.

Kim Beil: 20:13 I think in that chapter, I describe the fact that these photo editors of the industry publications were really frustrated with the quality of American landscape photographs. And I think it wasn't that they were avoiding foreground interest, but that they were focusing on other things. So they were concentrating on getting a perfect exposure and, you know, avoiding the darkening of the corners. And so there were so many ways in which photographs could be, could be failures at this point, you know, they could be slightly out of focus. Your developing times could be wrong. Things could move in the frame. And so they were so concentrated on all these other issues. That composition was not at the forefront of their minds. And I think there's, there's a second reason for that too. And that's the people who picked up photography in the 1840s, fifties, and sixties.

Kim Beil: 21:13 That's really just the first three decades of its life as a public, publicly accessible medium. Those people were not artists for the most part. I mean, they were like dentists or tinkers. They were people who would travel around and fix your pots and pans from one village to another. They were sometimes, you know, experimenters scientists, entrepreneurs, but not very many of them started out as landscape painters. And so people really hadn't had a lot of exposure to what what foreground interest is and what you would even have in a picture. So this is like the, the development of a kind of aesthetic training that finally comes to photography.

Raymond Hatfield: 22:01 Hmm. I see. Interesting. So it, wasn't the, I always, I guess just assumed that some of the first photographers were maybe failed painters or even experienced painters who you know, just couldn't be out in nature long enough to capture the painting. So it was almost like a form of documentation so that they could go back and possibly replicate it later. But hearing this, that really changes things, you know, that it's a, that it was really just those interested kind of in trying something new. And then the art came after the fact does that, is that pretty fair to say?

Kim Beil: 22:37 Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. And there were certainly technical limitations in the beginning too, that made it impossible to take pictures outside. So landscape photography was really only becoming possible at this time, again, because of the long exposure times, but also because of the unwieldiness of the camera, it's this giant wooden box that has to be on a tripod, again, a giant wooden tripod, you have glass or metal plates, some which have to be prepared in the field. So you have to pour your light sensitive chemicals over the plate while you're out in the field. So that means you have to bring multiple chemicals in their glass bottles, in a tent, a dark, like a portable dark room. And then you have to put the sticky plate inside your camera while you're out there. So it's not something that a painter would use to save him any effort. It's like a big undertaking. Right.

Raymond Hatfield: 23:38 So when did that change? When did, when did landscape photography become more predominant? Was it after we moved away from glass and a metal plates?

Kim Beil: 23:52 The glass and metal plates were still used throughout the 1880s. And I'd say, yes, there were a lot more landscape photographers working in the 1860s, as you mentioned, but in the early 1880s, we have the production of dry plates. So those were pre-prepared plates that you could buy from a manufacturer. And I think that's when people were amateurs were more able to take their cameras out into the field.

Raymond Hatfield: 24:22 I see. I see. So this, this brings me to my next question, which is just simply that, well, this part is in the question, but we can't talk about the history of photography and not talk about one of the biggest camera manufacturers or photographic manufacturers, which is just Kodak. So can you talk about maybe, what is it that Kodak did that made such a big impact in the photography community and even the world?

Kim Beil: 24:46 Oh yeah. Yeah. This is one of the big things about the way we describe photography and history classes that I think needs to be clarified. And that's that camera's originally, and the whole process of photography was really cumbersome and really re involved a lot of technical and chemical savvy and a place to purchase these chemicals and dispose of them. And so Kodak's major innovation was the development of the photo finishing process. So you would buy your camera loaded with film from Kodak, and then you could send that whole thing back to Kodak and they would process, they would develop the film and make the prints for you. So before that, you had to do all that work and be set up to do all that work at home on your own. And so that's the, that's the major innovation. So the Kodak number one camera is invented in 1888. And that I think marks the beginning of photography becoming much more readily accessible and becoming really a democratic medium the way it's described today.

Raymond Hatfield: 25:58 Oh, okay. But there was actually a, quite a bit of pushback against Kodak as well from other established photographers. Is that correct?

Kim Beil: 26:06 Yeah. So I think photographers like Alfred Stieglitz at the turn of the century, they thought that the pictures that were being made by Kodak photographers, these amateurs were not art, and they were concerned that they were dragging down the possibility of the mediums success. So that's this, this period where the photographers start kind of going back to the more labor intensive processes and rejecting the ease of the photo finishing industry. So if anybody is frustrated with the market expanding so quickly, it would be those folks who were arguing for photography to become like a kind of elite and artistic medium,

Raymond Hatfield: 26:50 Which sounds eerily similar to when the transition to digital was made with the argument from the, from film photographers, right?

Kim Beil: 26:59 Yeah, you are absolutely right.

Raymond Hatfield: 27:01 So even 120, some odd years before the invention of digital photography, photographers were still arguing about the the exact same thing. So this is, this is good to know. This is good to know.

Kim Beil: 27:13 That's right. Just wait, it'll get better.

Raymond Hatfield: 27:15 It always gets better. It's just, I don't know. People are so scared of change, I suppose, I guess, I guess that's it. Now let's talk about a little bit about night photography, because today, when it comes to nine photography, I have no concerns, you know, going out and shooting at night, you know, doing it at weddings and even in a paid profession, you know, but before the 1890s, this idea, it wasn't even possible. Right. So what was it that made it possible and why did photographers even want to shoot at night at that point?

Kim Beil: 27:46 Yeah, this was really fascinating to me too. So night photography becomes a genre around the 1880s, nineties, late 1890s, when photographers bring their cameras out into the street, they set them up on tripods and let them go for a long time. So yes, you have these dry plates that I was just talking about. They're much more light sensitive. But you're still looking at an exposure of 30 minutes or more. And one of my favorite quotes that I found in these two books describes a photographer who would measure his exposure by the number of times he had to refill his pipe. So it was, Oh, I know, but it also gives you a good sense probably of how long that would take.

Raymond Hatfield: 28:41 Yeah. If it's a multiple, multiple times. Yeah. That's not a, that's not a very quick endeavor for sure. So what were some of the, what were some of the challenges, I guess that prevented us from shooting at night before, was it just simply that the dry plates were more sensitive to, to light?

Kim Beil: 28:58 Yeah. Initially, like you need to have a plate that's sensitive to light to some degree in order to record anything. And then the second development that came about it's interesting because at first it's embraced and then it's rejected and that's the creation of these anticoagulation plates. So Haitian is this kind of halo effect that you get around a light that's shining directly into the lens. So it's, it's extra bright around the center of this overexposed light. So photographers were cautioned initially by these how to guides to cover up the lights. So you get lots of pictures where there's like a streetlight, but it's hiding a tree or there's a person, you know, it was posed perfectly to block the light. So you get a shot, a silhouette and that light glowing behind them. But then when the anticoagulation plates were invented, photographers started to think, well, actually, these don't look, these don't look like night photographs. It doesn't look like my experience of seeing at night. And so people started to kind of backtrack and add back in some of that Haitian to give you a more kind of pictorial effect. The sense of being out at night and seeing the atmosphere carry the light away from whatever light source you're looking at.

Raymond Hatfield: 30:22 Oh, isn't that too funny. We always want what it is that we can't have. I suppose, like we get this new thing. My wife brings us up all the time, you know, with, with the growth of phones, it's like phones, keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger, bigger. And then I was like, you know what, I'm going to go back to like the tiny, the tiny iPhone se it just small. It fits in my hands. And she's like, what? I'm like, we spent all this time getting bigger, bigger, bigger. Now you just want to go back to the to the smallest one. It sounds, it sounds very similar. And that must just be like a human trait, I suppose. I don't know. That's interesting, but when I was reading this this chapter on the on night photography I found it really interesting.

Raymond Hatfield: 31:02 And I don't know if, if, if maybe I'm looking too deep into this or whatnot, but you mentioned that a lot of the times the photographers would rather shoot either in wet or rainy conditions or even snow, just because of the added amount of light. And when I think about being out at night in those conditions, there is typically a, I dunno if it's humidity or I don't know what it is, but there's some sort of atmosphere that is more than maybe a summer night or something like that. And I think that the Haitian kind of lends itself to that. Do you think that may have any part of it or am I just, just crazy?

Kim Beil: 31:37 Oh yeah. I think you're right. That the app having some moisture in the atmosphere creates more illumination. And so instead of just a, an expanse of darkness, you get areas of varied gradation throughout the image, and I'm sure that they were looking for that too.

Raymond Hatfield: 31:56 Cool. I'm glad that I'm not a, you know, absolutely just bonkers on on some of my thoughts here that's that helps me out. So shortly after, you know, night photography, there's kind of a period between the I guess the 19 hundreds and then into like the 1950s or so we're really, we're kind of experimenting with a lot of things, but photographers are still kind of generally keeping to a lot of the same rules as before. But then during the late fifties and sixties, we see this huge swing from seeking technical profession or technical perfection to now using our limitations and previously kind of standardized rules of photography and breaking them for artistic effect. Can you tell me what it was that caused this major shift? And I don't know, maybe give me an example of one such rule that became popular to break.

Kim Beil: 32:52 Yeah, yeah. It's, you've described that perfectly. There was a, there was always interest in reappropriating, some of these failures, but I noticed that that picked up and frequency in the fifties. And I think it's because we reject recent technological advancements. So it's, we want to introduce some of those failures, but only when it's absolutely clear that that we're not failing ourselves. So I think one of my favorite ones is motion blur. So blur had been a problem in photography since the 19th century. When, you know, we're talking about these really long exposure times, so you get any kind of movement in the image and it's going to result in blur. So in the late 1930s, a scientist at MIT named Harold Edgerton had pioneered this technology making an electronic stroboscope which is just what we think of as an electronic flash today,

Raymond Hatfield: 33:54 Such a long name. Yeah.

Kim Beil: 33:56 So it was much better than the old magnesium flashes because it wasn't fire. And because it could be timed to the shutter on the camera electronically. So with Edgerton's discovery and his popularization of making flash photos like this in the late 1930s, that technology is adapted during world war II and after world war II, it becomes accessible on the consumer market. So everybody has access to electronic flashes after world war II. So I think as soon as that happened, people then started reintroducing motion blur into their pictures. Cause it's, they got tired of seeing like pictures of kids jumping and balls being thrown in the air. And instead they started deliberately blurring their pictures and that it wasn't just that they allowed those objects to appear blurry, but that they would pan the camera with the moving object. So you went to film school, you know, this technique if you open up or if you slow down the shutter speed and you move the camera at the same exact, you pan it at exactly the same speed as the moving subject, the background blurs while the moving things stays apparently still.

Kim Beil: 35:17 And so that was a really exciting technique for photographers in the 1950s and 1960s.

Raymond Hatfield: 35:24 Yeah. I gotta say one of my in recent years motion blur has become one of my favorite things as well. And I actually didn't know that a little fact there about you said it's Edgerton, correct? Yes. About creating this, this electronic flash as this is something that today I use at every single wedding, you know, when you're shooting the reception, you know, you want that fun party atmosphere and lots of motion and people kind of, you know, people have usually had a few drinks, so it's kind of blurry and fuzzy, but when you use that flash and the, the, the duration of the flash is so short that you can freeze whatever your subject is while still getting the background, you know, with that beautiful blur and maybe some colors there's nothing better. And now I know that I have edge, you tend to think for for that exact thing that I use every, every single day in my wedding. So thank you for sharing that I'm guessing Edgerton is, is no longer alive.

Kim Beil: 36:23 That's right. But there's, there's a great selection of his images available online, though.

Raymond Hatfield: 36:29 I'm going to check that out. I was going to send him an email, but it sounds like it's not going to go anywhere. So I'm going to have to look at those. So next I want to talk about candidates. Candids are, are something that many photographers today are actively sought after for, but in the beginning, you know, when, when I guess cameras got smaller and people were able to take candid images, they were widely criticized in the beginning. Why was the photography community so adverse to candid images?

Kim Beil: 36:59 Well, I think there was a concern about privacy that these CA these cameras, the small 35 millimeter cameras were described as miniature cameras. They were also called detective cameras. And so that gives you a sense of like, just what people thought these cameras were being used for. And some of them were so small, you know, they call them vest pocket cameras, but this is new to people in the like 1920s. Prior to that, you'd see a gigantic camera. It'd be sitting on a tripod and you knew if you were going to be in a picture. So I think there's some real ambivalence about what this improvement photography, whether this improvement in photography was in fact an improvement.

Raymond Hatfield: 37:49 I see. So, so I'm sorry, go on.

Kim Beil: 37:53 Yeah. So the, the other reason is that like you say about Edgerton, when you take a photo with that really quick shutter speed, you kind of capture somebody in a pose that they wouldn't normally see themselves in, and that maybe even other observers wouldn't see themselves in. So I think there's something about the fact that you are unaware of the picture being made, but also that it might represent you in a way that seems untruthful to your character. That was also pretty challenging for our viewers in the early 20th century.

Raymond Hatfield: 38:23 Oh, wow. Being captured in a way that is untruthful to your character when literally it's, it's at your, at one of your truest moments, perhaps that's.

Kim Beil: 38:32 Yeah, it could be. So

Raymond Hatfield: 38:36 It's funny. Cause with, with candid photography, I mean, this is something, again that like many photographers today are sought after for. So do you have any insight as to why you think maybe that perception changed?

Kim Beil: 38:52 Yeah. I mean, I think somebody who's looking for candidates and somebody who's known for making candidates is probably trying to take those most representative moments and not just any moment. And I think in the beginning photographers who were making candid pictures were interested, especially in the, in the tech technical aspects of it and not necessarily the representation of the subjects. So yeah, you do have to choose between, you know, taking a picture of somebody like stuffing a fork full of cake in their mouth versus one where they're the heads thrown back and laughing and they're having a great time. That was, there are lots of moments. And maybe they are all, we are the same people in all of them, but some of them are better representations of us than others.

Raymond Hatfield: 39:45 Oh, okay. That, that that's fair. That's fair. I guess, even though we are kind of true to ourselves, I suppose I've seen a few photos maybe that I've taken it, weddings that are less than savory, I guess is probably the best. Well what about the, what about the Polaroid camera? Cause again, this is one of those major innovations in photography. Like the Kodak camera. I don't, when I think photography, those are pretty much the two companies that really stand out Kodak and Polaroid, but what pull are, what Polaroid did was they really shook up the industry, you know, decades after Kodak did. So what was the impact that Polaroid made on the made on the world of photography? Why was it so why did it catch so quickly?

Kim Beil: 40:32 I think people were excited about Polaroid because it was more of an experience. And then Kodak. So even if you're used to posing for pictures as part of your, you know, celebration you don't get to see that picture until later. So I think Polaroid collapsed that time scale and made it possible to see the result of the picture immediately, which made posing for pictures, probably that much more exciting. And, and something that people really look forward to doing.

Raymond Hatfield: 41:06 Yeah, that's, that's one of the things that I, that I know that my kids love is when I, I know it's not a Polaroid, but when I pull up my little Fuji instant camera, they love seeing the results, just moments after it. It comes out of the camera and even though they can still, you know, take a picture with their phone and see it literally immediately. There's something about, I don't know if it's the tangible aspect of it today, but, but there's, there's something that is still very fun and interesting about the instant, the instant film. But one thing that I found really interesting about your book and maybe I'm, you know, a little bit embarrassed to say it, but I had no idea about the world of Polaroid manipulation. I had no idea that this was even a thing. I feel like images that I've seen of, you know, that you shared within the book, the effects that were created. I feel like I've seen those. I thought that those were just simply mistakes made by the camera, you know, maybe a light leak or something like that, but where you're going in the book is that there was a, there was a large portion of photographers who would take the Polaroids and then manipulate the images themselves. Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe why they were doing it and how big of a how big of a thing this was?

Kim Beil: 42:25 Yeah, that's really interesting. I think it was probably a short-lived trend, but it was, it's something. I remember the appeal of taking a Polaroid camera and making it into a watercolor transfer by peeling off the plastic and putting on a bond watercolor paper. But I hadn't realized that there were so many other methods for manipulating them. I think one of my favorites is the one that Ralph Gibson describes that you can put a Polaroid in a toaster or in the floor in the freezer. So there's all these ways of kind of breaking down this perfect supposedly perfect print. That's supposed to be ejected from the Polaroid. But at, this is again, one of those moments where the technology suddenly promises something new and perfect and photographers say, wait a minute, but we don't want it that way. We're going to try to make it, we're going to take some of that control back and we're going to do something to the surface of the print. And so it's in that way, it's not unlike motion blur or even vignetting because it's almost a, it's an intentional step backwards for aesthetic effect,

Raymond Hatfield: 43:36 An intentional step backwards for aesthetic effect. It seems kind of like an overarching theme of, of the growth of photography now that now that you say that, I mean, I mean, you're right. Why are we, why are we as photographers taking these quote unquote seemingly perfect things and messing with them? Why do you think that is?

Kim Beil: 43:59 I think it's, again a need to have some imaginative or creative intervention. So maybe it's still a little bit of a fear over, you know, how creative is this mechanical art, but it's also, I mean, especially with iPhones and other digital photography today. So much of what makes a good picture is actually built into the camera and you don't really have a choice. And I, that this is a place where you can exert some control and have some creative license. And so, I mean, it's really only an accident or a failure if we call it that otherwise, you know, we could describe it as it's just another, it's another tool. But what makes it wrong or right, is only just a definition.

Raymond Hatfield: 44:56 Wow. I, you know, I've never thought of photography that way. I've never thought of photography that way, but it kind of lifts the weight off of my shoulders. I guess there's been many a times where I've tried something new and you know, maybe it didn't turn out right the first time or the first 10 times, you know, but I see a maybe years later somebody else doing it and then just, just doing a fantastic job at it. And that that does help. That does help. One thing I wanted to say though about the whole Polaroid thing is after again, after I read that little chapter about Polaroid manipulation, I actually had to Google it because I was so unaware of what exactly I was, what exactly was being manipulated and how it was being manipulated, I suppose. And there, I found a video from a man named Mike Ducasse, who I suppose, at least according to the video was the Polaroid chief.

Raymond Hatfield: 45:52 It wasn't the chief technical officer, but he was like the chief like imaginative officer or something like that, like some made up title. And he made a series of videos in the nineties of how to manipulate Polaroids, where he was taking like eight by 10 Polaroids and just like putting them on shirts, Wiki, like that's how he would make shirts. And I was I was shocked by this. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna put a video in the show notes of this episode for anybody to check out, but it's worth it just to see the, the awesome nineties fashion of like all white. I mean, in the camera's at like a 20 degree like angle, just all crooked. It was, it was, it was fascinating to watch. And it honestly made me sad that a lot of these instant films aren't being produced today because I got really excited about this creative aspect of photography.

Raymond Hatfield: 46:37 And now, you know, I, I suppose the, the, the type of instant film that we have today, isn't something called zero time or time zero film. And that it can't be, it can't be done in the same way. So this is just something that, that now lives in the past and can't, can't be done again. So this is why, you know, the, the art history is so important because I will say that even though I can't do this exact thing, learning about this, you know, in, in your book here gave me creative ideas that I can do, even though it's not the same, maybe on my iPad, maybe in, you know, procreate, maybe I bring a photo into procreate and I, I do something unique with it. And that, that got me really excited about photography again. So so I thank you for that.

Kim Beil: 47:23 Oh, good. I'm so glad. Yeah. I find these how to books really inspiring as well. And it's surprising to me that even things that were made in the nineties are actually part of history. Now

Raymond Hatfield: 47:36 I know isn't that weird. I feel, I still feel like, I mean, I'm not I'm only 32, but when I think back to the nineties, it just doesn't seem very long ago. And I saw somebody post on Facebook the other day that was like the time between 1960 and 1990 is the same between 1990 and 2020, you know? And it just, I can't, you know, you can only imagine what maybe my parents were thinking about 1990 and how we feel today, but that's, that's totally off track. I apologize for that. Moving forward we got the Polaroid, we've talked about candids. We've talked a lot about the history of photography, but now I want to switch gears and see what having seen the history of photography and why we kind of choose to design the elements that we did. Where do you think photography is going from here,

Kim Beil: 48:27 Man? That's really interesting. I am not good at predicting the future if 2020 has taught me anything it's that. But I think, you know, virtual reality is still really exciting also augmented reality. So what kinds of objects can we put in our spaces? And how do those images, you know, interact in different ways already, you know, with zoom calls and even like Instagram stories, it feels as if other people are like sharing space with us, even when we're distant today. But I think that photography can, or should, you know, take more of an active role in that space. We need to think about how we project ourselves into the world, even if our interaction with that world is kind of limited in the time of COVID-19.

Raymond Hatfield: 49:28 Wow. Well, that's a, that's a very honest look, I suppose, as far as, as far as what the future is gonna look like for photography, I had just seen a few weeks ago, I interviewed a photographer named Shane bulky, which have you, do you know who Shane book, which is I don't sorry. So no, no, no worries. So he is a photographer in North Dakota who he started doing wet plate photography again. So he's one of only like a few hundred, maybe a thousand photographers in the world who does like legitimate wet plate photography. And he was telling me all about it and obviously the, the amount of work that has to go into it. And it was just a really fascinating look. I had somewhere that I was going with that and now I lost it. But again, you know, a lot of it is really interesting to see kind of where we came from in photography, because it does give you perspective as far as where we're at today.

Raymond Hatfield: 50:20 You know a lot of these things we don't even question and kind of being forced to look at the has been really eyeopening for me. And I think moving forward as well as going to change a lot of things. So I got one last question for you because I know that you've been super gracious with your time. As far as all of the trends that you have seen in photography, right from how we got to the daguerreotype to here we are today, you know, being able to instantly take a photo of a major world event and it being seen around the world within minutes what do you think was one of the biggest advancements that we've made in photography?

Kim Beil: 51:03 I think without a doubt, it's portraits, just the ability to take a picture of a person and have that image outlast. The person is huge. I mean, we, we can see what people looked like and know that they, you know, they really looked like that it's as long as it's not a candid, they really looked like that up until, you know, after 1839, we have access to people that we didn't have access to before. And it's not just that we get, you know, an unvarnished look at them because there's no painter's hand involved, but I think it's also because eventually it's widely accessible and anybody can have their portrait made. So it's not just elite or aristocratic people, but everybody can have a picture. And I think that's, that was the biggest transformation for photography. For me, at least

Raymond Hatfield: 52:02 That was a real concern there in the beginning as well, right. Between people who got their pictures or their portraits painted in those who got photographed because allegedly people were too concerned that, or people were concerned that they really didn't look good. And that a photograph was going to paint them in a pretty negative light. Isn't that right? Yeah.

Kim Beil: 52:19 Yes. I mean, we all know this, right? Like not every picture is good. And again, you're defining that good for yourself, but initially it required so much light and people had real ideas about what a good portrait could be and how to, you know, represent yourself, not only accurately, but ideally so lots of things like how to use shadows effectively what kind of angle or dress or expression on the face. So it's not just things that photographers had to learn, but also sitters for portraits had to learn how to compose themselves. In, in pictures. I mean, it's not that far removed from my friend who told me how to pose for a selfie,

Raymond Hatfield: 53:09 Just hold the camera up high and just, you know, wide cheeks. And then you're good to go. That's it. That's too funny tongue on the on the roof of the mouth. I'm going to have to remember that. I haven't I haven't heard that one before. That's good.

Kim Beil: 53:19 I don't think people do that one anymore. That was pretty short lived.

Raymond Hatfield: 53:22 Okay. Well, that would make sense. I feel like that's, you know, I've heard the smile with the eyes and I've heard the, you know, all those sorts of things, but that one, I hadn't though that that's new to me, but Kim, again, I want to, I want to say thank you for coming on and sharing just your wealth of infinite knowledge when it comes to the world of photography and the history behind it. And, and forcing us to take an honest look at where we're at today so that we can move forward, maybe with a little bit more education and a little bit more, I don't know, poise, I guess. So I want to say thank you very much. And I want to invite you to kind of share with the listeners where they can find you online and find your book. Good pictures as well.

Kim Beil: 54:04 Yeah. Well, thank you, Raymond. This has been a really pleasant conversation. You've really, you've been a great reader of this book and I appreciate it. And likewise, I'd love to talk to other people. Who've read the book or who see trends in contemporary photography. You can find me on Instagram at K E B E I L that's K E Beale. And also my book is available on amazon.com. The book is called good pictures, a history of popular photography, and it's published by a Stanford university press. I also have a website if you need to find me by email it's Kim beale.com.