Surrealism

I found this image by Jerry Uelsmann while researching surrealism photographers. There are many key features that suggests that this is a surrealistic photograph. Firstly, the main theme and subject include a female in the nude which is very typical of surrealism. Secondly, the image is not natural and has been manipulated using multiple negatives in the dark room creating a very extraordinary theme within the photograph. I know it has not been processed in photoshop because digital photography was not discovered when the image was published. Black and white photographs are also very common in surrealism as well as photomontages as they create something we would never see. Black and white photography suits surrealism because we ourselves don't see objects in black and white unless it has been captured onto a image. So, straight away we are looking at something in a way we have never seen it before simply because there is no colour. 

The actual shot itself is well composed and leads the eye down from the woman into the mountains in the background. The black ground around the subject creates a high contrast against the pale model and there is a great tonal range throughout the photograph. A large depth of field has been used in order to keep the image sharp in the foreground and background.

Jerry Uelsmann Untitled [reclining nude woman, river waterfall and Yosemite landscape], 1992 source: http://leclownlyrique.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/faire-corps-avec-le-paysage/

How Was Photography Important to Surrealist Practise

Mary Warner Marian states in her book photography a cultural history ‘photography was central to surrealist practice’ (Warner Marian: 2010: 253) and was a self proclaimed movement unlike the Dada movement. The camera is used to reproduce thoughts in the mind either self consciously or not and used to represent the unconscious mind. Using photography to explore the mind suggests (because photography is capturing reality) that imagination can become reality and some photographers tried to work in the same way as the mind and work in their own sub conscious. 'Some surrealists pointed their cameras haphazardly, recording whatever happened to be in front of the lens' (Warner Marian: 2010: 253) However, this was not the only method used to capture surrealism. Man Ray experimented with photograms or Rayographs as they were also known. They mainly featured normal everyday objects that don't usually fit together or would be in the same place for example; a gun with a pair of dice in a quite random pattern. Although not everyone saw Man Rays work as surrealistic and Tzara said that they were just “pure Dada creations.” 

photogram from Man Rays work.

The Steerage 1907 by Alfred Steiglitz

The Steerage 1907 by Alfred Steiglitz 

The image appears to be a documentary photograph however, when Steiglitz composes his images he does not think about the people and whats actually going on in the image, he only sees the shapes created but the location. For example, the triangle created by the large metal pole in the left of the image, the mast across the top of the image and the railing people are leaning on are the reasons he has composed the photograph in that particular way. "A round straw hat, the funnel leaning left, the stairway leaning right, the white draw bridge with its railings made by circular chains, white suspenders crossing on the back of a man in the steerage below, round shapes of iron machinery, a mast cutting into the sky, making a triangle shape... I saw pictures of shapes , and underlying that the feeling I had about life." 

Many people would not see the image the way Steiglitz does as fine art, and just sees and explores the subjects. You can see the upper class people with bowler hats are on the top deck while the working class are in the bottom half of the picture in the steerage. This is documenting how immigrants were treated in America and were not deemed fit to mix with upper class people. Also how the different classes dressed. 

G Clarke wrote the book The Photograph and in chapter nine analyzing  The Steerage and Steiglitz thought behind it. He writes about how the photographer believes photographs should be strictly photographic (no soft focus images, brush marks or textured paper) avoiding manipulation. The photograph should be "pure" and that a subject should be photographed the way it is.

Susan Sontag - On Photography

Susan Sontag's book - On Photography is about how photography is a way of seeing and how it has changed over the years. Sontag writes about how originally photography was used to capture beautiful and attractive subject but, is now used to record everyday life and is used more to represent reality. Photography never used to be an everyday thing as camera's were only available to the rich as they were so expensive however, as the years have gone on they have become more accessible to everyone. The problem with this is that photography then becomes too commercial and anyone can take a picture and create art but, she writes about the differences between making a picture and taking a picture.

Because of commercialization photography has, in some peoples eyes, steered away from being a art form and just recording reality and history. She explores arguments also on how photography is "the strongest art form" because you cannot get away from the fact photography is not an interpretation it is reality, and does this by using opinions from numerous artists.

Our perception of how we see the camera has changed. When camera's were expensive and less accessible a less wealthy person may have never seen a camera before and is maybe shy or intrigued in the device which may create different expressions on their faces when being photographed. They are also much more likely to ok with having their picture taken by a complete stranger where as, today it is considered rude to take a photograph of a stranger without asking them first. Also, if you were to ask they would want to know why you have chosen them as a subject and want to look their best in the shot. Representing themselves how they believe they should appear.

Pictorialism

HP Robertson's photograph When the days work is done taken in 1877, shows a couple relaxing together after work. The couple are old and the house they are sitting in is quite small and a little cluttered which suggests that they are working class. The shadows on the subjects from the light shining through the window theorize that the lighting is natural. Photographing reality is one of the main aspects of the image. Quote from HP Robertson himself before the photo shoot. "One of the best models I ever employed was an old man of seventy-four. He was a crossing-sweeper. I should never have accomplished one of my best works if I had not seen him sitting at a table in my studio, waiting, till I could talk to him. I not only saw the old man there, but mentally, the old lady, and the interior of the cottage...The old man, by his attitude and expression, gave the germ of the idea; the old lady had to be found, and the cottage built, but they appeared to me then quite visibly and solidly." He was in search of a example of domestic rural life and was looking for the "genuine peasant" as he put it.

The visual information of the image is typical of pictorialism because sepia toning is used alongside soft focusing. Robertson used a technique called combination printing which involved multiple prints or negatives and joining them together to create one image; similar to a photomontage. This effect creates a fine art feel to the image hence making the image look more like a painting than a photograph and also showing that photography is not only used to capture truth but, by manipulating the final product this theory was forgotten.  

Robertson has been a huge influence in transforming photography into a form of art and was a supporter of the Photographic Convention of the UK, being a part of the debates that arose concerning this.