Figure 1.--George Hendrik Breitner is a much admired impressionist artist. He acquired a Kodak camera (about 1890) and used it to capture the everyday life in the streets of Amsterdam that he was painting. Here in one of his photographs, children play in a sand dump near Prince Island.

George Hendrik Breitner was born in the Netherlands (1857). He is a much admired impressionist artist. He acquired a Kodak camera (about 1890). He used it to capture the everyday life that interested him in the streets of Amsterdam. He began shooting photographs to capture fleeting images on the street that interested him. He found photographs to be a useful tool for recording the fleeting conditions of street life and the atmospheric effects that he was trying to capture in his paintings. He was especially interested in overcast and rainy weather. Relatively easy to use hand held captures began to appear (1890s). No set up was required so the kind of candid scenes that inrersted him could be taken. All he had to do was point and shoot. But he soon learned how to psition hiself and fain perspective using th available lighting comditiins. His camera was the Kodak Model 1 Box with film preloaded. The No 1 was actually Kodak's second camera and was 1889 to 1895. So nuch of Breitners photograohic work dates to the 1890s. The photographs provide a wonderful view of Ansertdam street life in the 1890s. His sunstantial archive of photographs were unknown for a century until they were discovered (1996). While Breiner was an artist, clearly he ws a skilled photigraopher. A few were the inspiration for one of his paintings, but mostly he used his photographs as a kind of reference library on atmosphere, light effects, and weather.

Created: 6:10 AM 12/21/2021
Last updated: 6:10 AM 12/21/2021