Photography manifestos give a movement its voice, but many lists of them mix real texts with later labels. This article keeps only statements that we could tie to a date and an author or group: the Photo-Secession (1902), Anton Giulio Bragaglia (1911 and 1913), László Moholy-Nagy (1925), Alexander Rodchenko (1928), Group f/64 (1932) and Hito Steyerl (2009). For each, it says what the text argued and how well we could check it.
An earlier version of this page listed fifteen “manifestos,” including several that we could not document. Therefore, we removed those. In short, this is a shorter article, but every entry now rests on a source.
Photography manifestos at a glance
| Year | Author or group | Text or event | Main claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1902–1903 | Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession | Founding of the group; aims in Camera Work no. 3 (July 1903) | Photography is a fine art that expresses personal vision |
| 1911–1913 | Anton Giulio Bragaglia | Fotodinamismo futurista (1911); “La fotografia del movimento” (1 April 1913) | Photography should record movement itself |
| 1925 | László Moholy-Nagy | Malerei, Photographie, Film | Photography and film deserve the rank of painting |
| 1928 | Alexander Rodchenko | “Against the synthetic portrait, for the snapshot,” Novyi LEF | Many snapshots replace the single idealised portrait |
| 1932 | Group f/64 | Statement at its first show, 15 November 1932 | Sharp, direct, purely photographic work |
| 2009 | Hito Steyerl | “In Defense of the Poor Image,” e-flux Journal no. 10 | Low-resolution images carry political value |
Photo-Secession, 1902: photography manifestos and personal vision
Early on, Alfred Stieglitz formed the Photo-Secession on 17 February 1902, according to Wikipedia. The core group included Edward Steichen, Clarence H. White, Gertrude Käsebier and Frank Eugene. The group argued that a photograph’s value lies in the photographer’s manipulation of the image to express a personal vision, and it aimed to advance photography as a fine art. The July 1903 supplement to Camera Work published its aims and membership lists.
In practice, its members followed pictorialism, which treated the photographer like a painter or etcher. Methods included soft focus, darkroom editing and alternative printing processes. However, the group fell apart. Several photographers left around 1910 over Stieglitz’s management, and he dissolved it formally in 1917.
Bragaglia, 1911–1913: photography manifestos on movement
In 1911, Anton Giulio Bragaglia published Fotodinamismo futurista, a treatise that drew on Marinetti’s 1909 Futurist manifesto, Étienne-Jules Marey’s chronophotography and cinema. He then issued the manifesto “La fotografia del movimento” on 1 April 1913. Meanwhile, Futurist figures sat for the Bragaglia brothers’ portraits, and Marinetti supported their experiments financially.
Nevertheless, the Futurist group expelled the brothers in October 1913, at Umberto Boccioni’s request. The source we read does not give the reason. This case shows that a manifesto can name a movement and still divide it.
Moholy-Nagy, 1925: photography beside painting
Painting, Photography, Film appeared in 1925 as Bauhausbücher 8, edited by Walter Gropius and László Moholy-Nagy. According to the Bauhaus-Kooperation page, it argues that photography and film deserve recognition at the level of painting. It also calls for a rethinking of the visual arts, and its illustrated appendix surveys what the two media can do, from press and scientific images to his own photograms and “New Vision” photographs.
Rodchenko, 1928: against the synthetic portrait
Later, in April 1928, Alexander Rodchenko published “Against the synthetic portrait, for the snapshot” in Novyi LEF no. 4. He argued that a photograph records a precise moment, whereas a painted portrait combines many moments and reflects the artist’s idealisation. He therefore rejected photographs that imitate painting by blurring detail. Instead, he wanted many snapshots of a person taken at different times, and he used Lenin as his example.
A caution applies here. We read the essay through a blog reprint by Ross Wolfe on The Charnel-House, which gives no translator and contains some spelling errors. Therefore, check names and dates against a scholarly edition before you cite it. Moreover, the essay is polemical, so its sweeping claims are rhetoric rather than balanced analysis.
Group f/64, 1932: a photography manifesto of sharp focus
Ansel Adams and Willard Van Dyke organised Group f/64 in 1932. According to Wikipedia, the founding members were Adams, Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak, Henry Swift, Van Dyke and Edward Weston. The name refers to a very small aperture on a large-format camera, which keeps the whole image evenly sharp.
For example, the group presented its statement at its first show, which opened on 15 November 1932 at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum and ran six weeks. The statement said the group would admit only work that pursued photography as an art through direct, purely photographic methods. Likewise, it rejected work derived from painting and the graphic arts. Group f/64 formed largely in opposition to pictorialism, and it dissolved by the end of 1935.
Steyerl, 2009: defending the poor image
Finally, Hito Steyerl’s essay “In Defense of the Poor Image” appeared in e-flux Journal no. 10 in November 2009. She argues that culture ranks images by resolution, so that high-definition, high-cost works count as valuable and everything else as lesser. The poor image, a low-resolution copy that circulates online, escapes that hierarchy. Piracy and file sharing keep marginalised work visible and connect dispersed audiences.
In addition, she warns that the same circulation can feed commodified, attention-driven information capitalism. Therefore, she treats the poor image as politically ambivalent. Unlike the older manifestos, it defends imperfection rather than craft or sharpness.
What photography manifestos share
The six photography manifestos differ widely, but they share two moves. First, each defines photography against something else: painting for f/64 and Rodchenko, the Futurists’ static image for Bragaglia, and high-resolution culture for Steyerl. Second, each links a technical choice to a claim about value, whether it is soft focus, a long exposure, a small aperture or a compressed file.
Today, the question of generative AI has produced debate but no equally clear manifesto that we could verify. For documented positions, see our article on the AI photography debate. For related reading, see our essays on the collapse of photographic truth and on Flusser’s philosophy of photography.
Sources and limits
- Wikipedia: Photo-Secession
- MoMA Object:Photo: Anton Giulio Bragaglia
- Bauhaus-Kooperation: Moholy-Nagy, Painting, Photography, Film
- The Charnel-House: Rodchenko, “Against the synthetic portrait, for the snapshot” (blog reprint)
- Wikipedia: Group f/64
- e-flux Journal no. 10: Hito Steyerl, In Defense of the Poor Image
Overall, we rewrote this article on 10 November 2026. Our research tools return summaries of web pages, so check details against the originals. We did not read the manifestos in full, and several come to us through Wikipedia or a blog. The earlier version also listed “manifestos” for humanist, social documentary, surrealist, conceptual, mobile and post-photography movements, plus a 1931 manifesto of German press photographers. We could not document those texts, so we removed them. The three original illustrations are AI-generated or of unknown origin, as their captions say.