Fred R. Archer
Encyclopedia
Fred R. Archer was an American photographer who collaborated with Ansel Adams
to create the Zone System
. He was a portrait photographer
, specializing early in his career in portraits of Hollywood
movie stars. He was associated with the artistic trend in photography known as pictorialism
. He later became a photography teacher, and ran his own photography school for many years.
Along with Edward Weston
, whose portrait he took, Archer was known as one of the "two big names in art photography in those days out on the west coast". He socialized with and exchanged ideas with many other artists and intellectuals in Los Angeles for decades. He was "without a doubt, the individual with the longest history of participation in the Southern California Salon movement."
and Photo-era Magazine, which reported that he had exhibited five "somber" photos of the World War I battlefields of France at the Seventh Pittsburgh Salon.
In the early 1920s, he was hired as assistant head of the Art Title Department for Universal Pictures
and was promoted to head the department the following year. He soon moved on to motion picture photography.
. He also became a pioneer of advertising photography on the west coast.
In 1928, he wrote an influential article along with fellow photographer Elmer Fryer called "Still photography in motion picture work". Fryer succeeded Archer as head of photography at Warner Brothers in 1929.
Their article described the importance of still photography in advertising, marketing, production reference work and trick photography. According to Archer and Fryer, "A good 'still' will attract and hold attention where many poor ones will receive but a passing glance. Photography has striven for years to gain acceptance among the arts and the struggle has been long and hard. It is only within the last few years that photography has been raised from pure mechanics and given its well deserved place with the other arts." Their slogan was "the still sells the movies" which was a Hollywood truism for many years.
. Archer was considered "for many years a popular teacher and lecturer" who then went on to serve as director of education at his own Fred Archer School of Photography in Los Angeles, which he founded after World War II.
, which is a photographic
technique for determining optimal film
exposure
and development
. The technique is based on the late 19th century sensitometry
studies of Hurter and Driffield
, and provides photographers with a systematic method of precisely defining the relationship between the way they visualize the photographic subject and the final results. Although it originated with black-and-white
sheet film
, the Zone System is also applicable to roll film, both black-and-white and color, negative and reversal, and to digital photography
. Archer and Adams formulated the system while teaching together at the Art Center School
in Los Angeles.
Ansel Adams went out of his way to give Archer equal credit for the Zone System: "I take this opportunity to restate that the Zone System is not an invention of mine; it is a codification of the principles of sensitometry, worked out by Fred Archer and myself at the Art Center School in Los Angeles, around 1939-40."
The book has twenty-one chapters:
"who has contributed significantly to Pictorial Photography".
Archer's photos were featured in a 1980-1981 show "Southern California Photography, 1900-1965: An Historical Survey" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
, alongside the work of Edward Weston
, Man Ray
, Robert Frank
, Diane Arbus
, and Imogen Cunningham
. The show was part of the bicentennial celebration of Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has seven photos by Archer in its permanent collection, including a self-portrait, described as a "surrealistic image of his face merging with the front of a large format camera and an obedient fly resting on his trigger finger".
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....
to create the Zone System
Zone system
The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development, formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer. Adams described how the Zone System was developed: "I take this opportunity to restate that the Zone System is not an invention of mine; it is a codification...
. He was a portrait photographer
Portrait photography
Portrait photography or portraiture is the capture by means of photography of the likeness of a person or a small group of people , in which the face and expression is predominant. The objective is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the subject...
, specializing early in his career in portraits of Hollywood
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
movie stars. He was associated with the artistic trend in photography known as pictorialism
Pictorialism
Pictorialism is the name given to a photographic movement in vogue from around 1885 following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process. It reached its height in the early years of the 20th century, and declined rapidly after 1914 after the widespread emergence of Modernism...
. He later became a photography teacher, and ran his own photography school for many years.
Along with Edward Weston
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston was a 20th century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers…" and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his forty-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of...
, whose portrait he took, Archer was known as one of the "two big names in art photography in those days out on the west coast". He socialized with and exchanged ideas with many other artists and intellectuals in Los Angeles for decades. He was "without a doubt, the individual with the longest history of participation in the Southern California Salon movement."
Early life
Raised in Los Angeles, Archer was experimenting with pictorialist photography as early as 1915, when he made a portrait of Edward Weston. Archer served in a military aerial photography unit in France in World War I, and returned to the United States in May, 1919. He began studying commercial art, and photography was at that time a hobby of his. IN less than a year, Archer gained critical attention in two east coast photography journals, American Photographyand Photo-era Magazine, which reported that he had exhibited five "somber" photos of the World War I battlefields of France at the Seventh Pittsburgh Salon.
In the early 1920s, he was hired as assistant head of the Art Title Department for Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
and was promoted to head the department the following year. He soon moved on to motion picture photography.
Hollywood portrait photographer
He worked for Warner Brothers as a portrait photographer until 1929, and later worked for Paramount PicturesParamount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
. He also became a pioneer of advertising photography on the west coast.
In 1928, he wrote an influential article along with fellow photographer Elmer Fryer called "Still photography in motion picture work". Fryer succeeded Archer as head of photography at Warner Brothers in 1929.
Their article described the importance of still photography in advertising, marketing, production reference work and trick photography. According to Archer and Fryer, "A good 'still' will attract and hold attention where many poor ones will receive but a passing glance. Photography has striven for years to gain acceptance among the arts and the struggle has been long and hard. It is only within the last few years that photography has been raised from pure mechanics and given its well deserved place with the other arts." Their slogan was "the still sells the movies" which was a Hollywood truism for many years.
Teacher and photography school
In 1935, Archer helped found the photography department and served as professor of photography at the Art Center SchoolArt Center College of Design
Art Center College of Design is a private college located in Pasadena, California, and was cited by BusinessWeek as one of the 60 best design schools in the world. The college’s industrial design program is consistently ranked number one by both DesignIntelligence and U.S...
. Archer was considered "for many years a popular teacher and lecturer" who then went on to serve as director of education at his own Fred Archer School of Photography in Los Angeles, which he founded after World War II.
Zone System
Archer collaborated with Ansel Adams to codify the Zone SystemZone system
The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development, formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer. Adams described how the Zone System was developed: "I take this opportunity to restate that the Zone System is not an invention of mine; it is a codification...
, which is a photographic
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
technique for determining optimal film
Photographic film
Photographic film is a sheet of plastic coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive silver halide salts with variable crystal sizes that determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film...
exposure
Exposure (photography)
In photography, exposure is the total amount of light allowed to fall on the photographic medium during the process of taking a photograph. Exposure is measured in lux seconds, and can be computed from exposure value and scene luminance over a specified area.In photographic jargon, an exposure...
and development
Photographic processing
Photographic processing is the chemical means by which photographic film and paper is treated after photographic exposure to produce a negative or positive image...
. The technique is based on the late 19th century sensitometry
Sensitometry
Sensitometry is the scientific study of light-sensitive materials, especially photographic film. The study has its origins in the work by Ferdinand Hurter and Vero Charles Driffield with early black-and-white emulsions...
studies of Hurter and Driffield
Hurter and Driffield
Ferdinand Hurter and Vero Charles Driffield were nineteenth-century photographic scientists who brought quantitative scientific practice to photography through the methods of sensitometry and densitometry....
, and provides photographers with a systematic method of precisely defining the relationship between the way they visualize the photographic subject and the final results. Although it originated with black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
sheet film
Sheet film
Sheet film is large format and medium format photographic film supplied on individual sheets of acetate or polyester film base rather than rolls. Sheet film was initially supplied as an alternative to glass plates...
, the Zone System is also applicable to roll film, both black-and-white and color, negative and reversal, and to digital photography
Digital photography
Digital photography is a form of photography that uses an array of light sensitive sensors to capture the image focused by the lens, as opposed to an exposure on light sensitive film...
. Archer and Adams formulated the system while teaching together at the Art Center School
Art Center College of Design
Art Center College of Design is a private college located in Pasadena, California, and was cited by BusinessWeek as one of the 60 best design schools in the world. The college’s industrial design program is consistently ranked number one by both DesignIntelligence and U.S...
in Los Angeles.
Ansel Adams went out of his way to give Archer equal credit for the Zone System: "I take this opportunity to restate that the Zone System is not an invention of mine; it is a codification of the principles of sensitometry, worked out by Fred Archer and myself at the Art Center School in Los Angeles, around 1939-40."
Fred Archer on Portraiture
Archer's only book, Fred Archer on Portraiture, was published in 1948. The book was a "popular text" that "remained in print for a number of years", and was reviewed in several national photography magazines.The book has twenty-one chapters:
- Introduction to Portraiture
- Features and Character
- The Studio
- The Subject
- Posing and Placement
- Light
- Lights
- Lighting
- The Three-Quarter Lighting
- Camera Adjustments
- Exposure
- Developing the Portrait Negative
- The Side Light
- Front Lighting
- The Back Light
- Individual Physiognomy and Corrective Portraiture
- Makeup for Portraiture
- Retouching
- Portraiture by Controlled Daylight
- Glamour
- Creative Portraiture
Legacy
In 1959, Archer won the annual Stuyvesant Peabody Memorial Award, given to a member of the Photographic Society of AmericaPhotographic Society of America
The Photographic Society of America is one of the largest, non-profit organization of its kind. Despite its name it is an International organisation open to anyone with an interest in photography. Established in 1934, it has expanded to include members of over 70 countries. The Society includes...
"who has contributed significantly to Pictorial Photography".
Archer's photos were featured in a 1980-1981 show "Southern California Photography, 1900-1965: An Historical Survey" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
, alongside the work of Edward Weston
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston was a 20th century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers…" and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his forty-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of...
, Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
, Robert Frank
Robert Frank
Robert Frank , born in Zürich, Switzerland, is an important figure in American photography and film. His most notable work, the 1958 photobook titled The Americans, was influential, and earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and skeptical outsider's view of American...
, Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971) was an American photographer and writer noted for black-and-white square photographs of "deviant and marginal people or of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal." A friend said that Arbus said that she was "afraid.....
, and Imogen Cunningham
Imogen Cunningham
Imogen Cunningham was an American photographer known for her photography of botanicals, nudes and industry.-Life and career:...
. The show was part of the bicentennial celebration of Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has seven photos by Archer in its permanent collection, including a self-portrait, described as a "surrealistic image of his face merging with the front of a large format camera and an obedient fly resting on his trigger finger".