A History of Photography in Canada, Volume 2 : A Medium Unleashed, 1919-1969

By the early twentieth century photography had emerged as a ubiquitous medium with deep cultural, social, and political force. A Medium Unleashed shows how photography moved beyond recording events to actively shaping them, transforming how Canadians imagined themselves and their country.

Drawing on the work of photographers in Canada and Newfoundland, foreign correspondents, and Canadian-born artists active abroad, Martha Langford relates a lively and richly researched history of the medium. The First World War had greatly expanded the reach of photography – already in use for four generations – introducing photojournalism as well as aerial, industrial, and reconnaissance photography. Professional practice grew alongside widespread amateur enthusiasm, supported by clubs, communal darkrooms, classes, contests, and salons. During the Second World War photography became more organized and specialized as information units laid the groundwork for the postwar commercial studio. The medium also moved into public and commercial life, from medical and advertising uses to more provocative explorations of the human body. But socialization begins at home, where participation is varied: not just taking or making but staging, posing, and talking about pictures. Across twenty-five chapters devoted to distinct photographic practices, the second volume of this comprehensive history puts people, places, events, and objects in the frame: at home or on the move, on the ice or in the ring, from farm to factory to laboratory, shipyard to outport to far North, from the Winnipeg riots to Expo 67. By 1969 photography had secured creative recognition, mass appeal, practical utility, and persuasive authority, embraced by both establishment institutions and countercultural movements.

This is the history of a transnational medium seen through a national lens. Langford moves fluidly between incisive readings of individual photographs and the broader transformation of the Canadian imaginary, vividly expanding the definition of photographic experience.