Photography Timeline (1970-1979)

1970

David and Labert Maysles's Gimme Shelter, is part of an emerging genre of "rockumentaries."

The IMAX process is introduced at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan.

African filmmakers create the Fédération Pan-Africaine des Cinéastes (FEPACI), an association of more than 30 countries aiming to solve common problems.

American photographer, Eliot Porter publishes the collection of wildlife photos, Appalachian Wilderness.

The Canon F-1 is introduced, Canon's first professional SLR camera forming the core of an SLR system.

The Fujica ST 701 is the first Japanese SLR camera to employ a silicon photocell which was much more effective than conventional systems for light readings in low-light conditions.

1970s

As American horror and science-fiction films are revived, the Western and the movie musical go into decline.

Formation of "New Cinemas" in West Germany, Australia, and the USSR.

German-born British photographer Bill Brandt and American photographer Jerry Uelsmann practice the movement toward the fantastic in photography through manipulation.

1971

Melvin Van Peebles's independently made Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, is a breakthrough in black film and it establishes the black hero within popular American cinema.

Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, is the first film to employ the Dolby noise reduction system during sound recording.

Hollis Frampton's (nostalgia), is a key work of American Structural cinema examining elements of film form.

Photographer Larry Burrows (photo is his work) dies in Vietnam while covering the war.


The Voyager I & II space probes are launched.

8th of March, Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, both undefeated, fight at Madison Square garden. Muhammad Ali is defeated. Life Magazine has stars, like Frank Sinatra, take photographs of the fight.

Nippon Kogaku Kogyo K.K., forerunner of Nikon, introduces the Nikon F2, the second version of the popular Nikon F. The Nikon F remains in production.

The Asahi Pentax ES is the first SLR camera to have an electronic focal-plane shutter. It is the first camera to have an aperture-priority exposure control system.

1972

The U.S. Federal Courts imposes a permanent injunction ordering paparazzo Ron Galella to stay at least 25 feet away from Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and at least 30 feet away from her children.

Luis Buñuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, is a lucid and absurdist commentary on social pretensions.

Jean-Luc Godard and Edgar Morin's Tout va bien, is an exemplary work of Brechtian cinema.

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is the first of a series of "Hollywood revisionist" political melodramas directed by West German, Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather.

British researcher Godfrey Hounsfield develops a computerized axiom tomography CAT scanner to cross sectionally x-ray the brain.

Terror of War: children on Route 1 near Trang Bang by Huynh Cong(Nick) Ut.

Kodak's Pocket Instamatic Camera-110 is introduced.

Polaroid introduces one-step instant photography with the SX-70 camera. The SX-70 is a big hit.

In July, the compactness and lightweight Olympus OM-1 (M-1 in Japan) camera is introduced.

The Japanese version of Life magazine ceases publication in December.

1973

Bernardo Bertolucci's Italo-French coproduction Last Tango in Paris generates controversy for its sexual frankness.

Enter the Dragon, the first Hollywood kung-fu film and the last of a series of internationally successful martial arts movies starring Asian-American Bruce Lee.

Color negative process C-41 is introduced and replaces C-22.

Erotic film Deep Throat ruled indisputably and irredeemably obscene.

The Second Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals upholds the permanent injunction ordering paparazzo Ron Galella to maintain at least 25 feet of distance between himself and Jacqueline Onassis.

The Vietnam peace agreement is signed.

1974

The commercial and critical success of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Part II proves the viability of sequels.

Erotic and pornographic films reach widespread, international audiences with Just Jaeckin's Emmanuelle and Gerard Damiano's Deep Throat.

Ousmane Sembene's Xala.

West German government signs the Film and Television Agreement, earmarking state funds for script development and offering favorable terms for joint productions between film and television.

Stan Brakhage's experimental film The Text of Light.

The two-year Watergate crisis ends. Nixon resigns.

After 15 years in production, Nippon Kogaku Kogyo K.K., forerunner of Nikon, discontinues the legendary Nikon F.

1975

Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and Marguerite Duras's India Song, influential in the development of modern feminist film practice.

The "event" status of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, the first film to surpass $100 million in rentals, marks the arrival of the New Hollywood: saturation advance television advertising, commercial tie-ins, enormous budgets, and summer release become strategies for creating blockbusters.

With the launching of America's first commercially available geo-stationary orbit satellite, SATCOM I, Home Box Office (HBO) initiates pay-cable television boom.

Sony Corporation introduces Betamax videotape.

India surpasses Japan as the world's most prolific film-producing nation.

The Contax RTS camera is introduced, a joint effort by West Germany's Zeiss and Yashica.

Kodak engineer Steven Sasson invent the first digital still camera, which used a Fairchild 100×100 pixel CCD.

1976

Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses directly challenges the Japanese system of film censorship that conceals sex and permits violence.

Taxi Driver propels director Martin Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro to stardom.

The Steadicam, a camera stabilizing system, is first used to film sequences in Rocky.

American photographer Richard Avedon publishes the collection Portraits.

The Fujicolor FII400 color negative film is marketed. It is the world's first ISO 400 color film.

The first 35mm camera with built in microprocessor, the Canon AE-1, is introduced.

1977

The success of George Lucas's Star Wars leads theater owners to install Dolby sound systems.

John Badham's Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta, demonstrates the multimedia potential of movie hits and keys a shift from the traditional Hollywood musical to the "music movie."

Matsushita Electric Industrial Company introduces its video home system (VHS), setting off a battle for the home-video market.

Launching of the Hong Kong Film Festival.

American photographer Cindy Sherman creates the photographic series Untitled Film Stills.

The Konica C35AF, the world's first practical autofocus 35mm compact camera, is marketed in November by Konishiroku Shashin Kogyo. It incorporates Honeywell's patented autofocus technology, the VAF module.

1978

John Carpenter's Halloween, initiator of a cycle of stalker-slasher films.

Egyptian Youssef Chahine's Alexandria... Why?, is the first of a celebrated trilogy of autobiographical films that form the fullest self-portrait yet achieved by a Third World filmmaker.

New German films delve into Germany's Nazi legacy: Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun and Hans-Jürgen Sybergberg's Hitler: A Film from Germany.

The Canon A-1 is introduced, the first camera in the world to have all exposure functions controlled by a microcomputer. It enables aperture-prority and shutter-priority autoexposure.

1979

George Miller's Mad Max launches the career of Mel Gibson and generates a cycle of masculinist action films to replace the period film, the flagship genre of 1970s Australian cinema.

Launching of the International Festival of Latin American Cinema in Havana, Cuba.

Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

The Canon Sure Shot compact camera with an infrared rangefinding system is introduced.

1960-19691980-1989

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