Add to ORKGThis article examines a wide array of aesthetic values associated with accidental and intentional uses of overexposure by a few American photographers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Originally considered a technical aberration, overexposure tends to mythify the American land (Timothy O’Sullivan), leading to forms of divinizing and mystical illumination in 19th century landscape photography. In its deliberate use by photographers of the 20th century, the technique emphasizes the artificialness of the photographic act by negating mimetic illusion. In Robert Frank’s work, overexposure suggests the threat of erasure in an increasingly disenchanted world. In Lee Friedlander’s and Ralph Eugene Meatyard’s photographs it is instrumentalized in par...