Debating Modern Photography: the Triumph of Group f/64

In 1930s, a small group of California photographers challenged the painterly, soft-focus Pictorialist style of the day. They argued that photography could only advance as an art if its practitioners exploited characteristics inherent to the camera’s mechanical nature. This small association of innovators – named Group f/64 after the camera aperture which produces great depth of field – included Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Sonya Noskowiak, Willard Van Dyke, and others. The Center for Creative Photography now revisits this debate in the exhibition Debating Modern Photography: The Triumph of Group f/64. In addition to major works by members of Group f/64, it includes images by such Pictorialists as Anne Brigman, William Dassonville, Johan Hagemeyer, William Mortensen, and Karl Struss.