A Photo-Montage is a collage constructed from photographs.
In history photo-montage has often been used as a means of expressing a political agenda and used as propaganda. It was first used as a technique by the dadaists in 1915 in their protests against WW1. It was later adopted by the surrealists who exploited the possibilities photo-montage offered.
In 1923 the Russian constructivist Aleksander Rodchenko began experimenting with photo-montage as a way of creating striking socially engage imagery.
Other key components of the medium are John Heartfield,the German artist who reconstructed images from the media to protest against Germany’s Fascist regime and Peter Kennard, whose photo-montages explored issues such as economic inequality, police brutality and the nuclear arms race between the 1970’s and the 1990’s.
John HeartfieldHannah Hoch | Dadaism
Pop Art developments (USA and UK 1950s-)
Photo-montage was also used by various pop-artists in the mid 20th century. Pop Art was a reaction to abstract expressionism and was similar to Dada in some ways.
Abstract expressionism is the term applied to new forms of abstract art developed by American painters such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooningin the 1940s and 1950s.
Many Pop Art images and constructions tackled popular consumerism, advertising, branding and marketing techniques. Pop art also explored political concerns such as gender roles and war.
The exhibition at the CCA gallery has a purpose to show the response Clare Rae has made to the photographer Claude Cahun through her work. The exhibition does this successfully by separating the two artists work into adjacent rooms, even though kept apart both artists work are hung in the same way, both display the work without boarders to the photographs and each piece of work spaced differently and this was effective for the type of exhibition. The exhibition was successful in that Clare Rae had successfully responded to the work of Claude Cahun in matters of her style of work and the final finish of the work
The exhibition was successful in that Clare Rae had successfully responded to the work of Claude Cahun in matters of her style of work and the final finish of the works.
Clare Rae
This is one of the photographs produced by Clare Rae in response to Claude Cahun. From looking at the photograph I can understand and visually see where her influence has derived from. Her use of space shows a direct link towards one of Claude Cahuns own photographs. The photograph creates and effect and impression of the depth and use of the space around her as she crams herself under the top of the trolley. This is a similar idea that Cahun previously looked into as she placed herself into the self of a cupboard.
Claude Cahun
Above shows the photograph first created by Claude Cahun and it is the photograph that I believe has been the one to influence Clare Rae to produce the photograph she created above. I feel Clare Rae successfully responded to Cahun through her work as she has looked into the different elements Cahun used in her work and for this particular response it was her use of space and how she places her body into the unusual spaces.
I believe Clare Rae has been heavily influenced specifically in this project of her work by Claude Cahun and I also believe that she has successfully reproduced her own work in response by experimenting with how she places her body into the landscapes and into the spaces.
This is what I produced for my own personal photo-shoot in response to Hustlers. I have produced some images with a subject sat in their own bedroom. It is a little different to what Philip-Lorca diCorcia produced. With some okay outcomes I feel this has been a useful experiment for the process and could maybe be used later on in the project.
Contact Sheet of Outcomes
Below shows two of my better outcomes from the shoot, I feel that they have the more filmic qualities that I was trying to capture in response to Philip-Lorca diCorcia, although the images have not turned out completely clear I feel they could be something that I could work with and edit into if I came to use them in the future.
“Reality has become a parallel universe with photographers returning with different versions of what it truly looks like.
-Philip-Lorca DiCorcia
Philip-Lorca DiCorcia (born 1951) is an American photographer. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Afterwards diCorcia attended Yale University where he received a Master of Fine Arts in Photography in 1979.
DiCorcia alternates between informal snapshots and iconic quality staged compositions that often have a baroque theatricality. Using a carefully planned staging, he takes everyday occurrences beyond the realm of banality, trying to inspire in his picture’s spectators an awareness of the psychology and emotion contained in real-life situations. His work could be described as documentary photography mixed with the fictional world of cinema and advertising, which creates a powerful link between reality, fantasy and desire.
DiCorcia’s photographs straddle truth and fiction by combining real people and places. He insists that his pictures suggest rather than explain a full narrative. His brand of storytelling results in unstable, unfixed images that point in certain directions but never provide a definitive map.
DiCorcia’s series like Heads, Lucky Thirteen, A Storybook Life and Hustlers – can all be considered his dynamic explorations of conceptual and formal domains of interest. His images consists of black humour and can be interpreted in various ways by different viewers. His work is planted with issues and concepts like commodification of morality, identity and art, as the selling of reality.
Philip-Lorca diCorcia | Lucky 13Philip-Lorca diCorcia | Roy | ‘in his 20s’ | Los Angeles, California | $50 | Hustlers
In 1989, Philip-Lorca diCorcia shot his dark and defining series, Hustlers, that was shot against the backdrop of devastation and despair during the AIDS pandemic in the late 1980’s and early 90’s. In the 1990’s he visited Los Angeles five times in order to photograph Hollywood male escorts. Hustlers was a courageous foray into the twitchy tenor of the post-Reagan era. He sought out male prostitutes on Los Angeles’ Santa Monica Boulevard, offering them the money they would earn from having sex if he could shoot their portrait. He took the pictures starting out in motels and later moved to the streets. Philip-Lorca diCorcia admitted that some of the first subjects fleeced him out more than double the going rate, and professes he found the transaction process awkward. ‘Most of them didn’t believe I only wanted to pay them for their picture, they were like, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”.
In 1993, 25 photos from this project were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art. The show was titled, Strangers and each image was labeled with the subject’s name, age, hometown and money they charge. The photographs as a series are quite powerful and hold filmic qualities, this set of photographs of the male prostitutes look like stills from movies depicting the Hollywood reality as opposed to the dream that so few can harness.
I feel personally that Philip-Lorca diCorcia chose to shoot in Hollywood as Hollywood is where movies are created and ‘dreams are made’, I feel for me the locations and the filmic qualities are toying and playing with that idea as his photographs show the reality of what many have to live with in Hollywood.
In a moving coda, diCorcia shares a personal story in the new edition of Hustlers that puts this work in a somber new light: “During that period, 1990-1992, the government officially condemned homosexuality,” he writes, “while AIDS made death commonplace. My brother, Max Pestalozzi diCorcia, died of AIDS on October 18, 1988. How much is too much? My brother was very free. I loved him for it. Freedom has its price, and we never know at the onset what the toll will be. He died unnecessarily. I dedicate this book to him.” –(Found in an article on the Time)
Philip-Lorca DiCorcia | Ralph Smith | 21 years old | Ft. Lauderdale, Florida | $25 | HustlersPhilip-Lorca diCorcia | Robert “Sparky” Anderson | 47 years old | Detroit, Michigan | $25 | Hustlers
My Own Response
My Own Response
This was one of the photographs that I was able to produce from the shoot that I did, unfortunately I timed it wrong and it had gotten too dark for the photographs which made it difficult to be able to see the focus and get the right lighting for the photographs however this means that when I go to do my own personal shoot I will be able to time it better.
Tableaux: A group of models or motionless figures representing a scene from a story or from history; a tableau vivant.
A tableau vivant is French for ‘living picture’, is a static scene containing one or more actors or models. They are stationary and silent, usually in costume, carefully posed, with props and/or scenery, and may be theatrically lit. It thus combines aspects of theatre and the visual arts.
A tableau may either be ‘performed’ live, or depicted in painting, photography and sculpture, such as in many works of the Romantic, Aesthetic, Symbolist, Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau movements.
Ludovica Rambelli Teatro recreate paintings by Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
Above shows a tableaux photograph by the theatre company Ludovica Rambelli Teatro recreating one of Caravaggio’s paintings that would have been drawn from live actors. Many tableaux photographs are responded to and from paintings.
Below shows a different tableaux photography by Ryan Shude, his work is not so much recreated from paintings but is still set up and staged.
Ryan Schude
Class Response
As a class we produced a response to the painting ‘The Raft Of Medusa’. This is an example of tableaux photography, with the resources we had we tried to recreate this in a well way.
“I myself have always stood in the awe of the camera. I recognize it for the instrument it is, part Stradivarius, part scalpel.”
Irving Penn
Irving Penn (1917-2009) was an American photographer known for his fashion photography, portraits and still lifes. Penn’s career included work at Vogue Magazine, and independent advertising work for clients including Issey Miyake and Clinique. His work has been exhibited internationally and continues to inform the art of photography.
Irving Penn’s iconic covers for Vogue Magazine showcased the clean lines and tapered waists of Postwar Paris and New York, and transformed the aesthetic of the fashion industry. Penn removed everything from the shot but the clothing and the model. His dramatically lit figures are essentially living, breathing sculptures. Inspired by Surrealism, Modern dance, and film noir, his images register as provocative visual statements, not just commercial photographs. With a firm grasp on the geometry of the body, the psychology of consumerism, and an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of art, Penn lifted fashion photography into the realm of high art.
In the 1970s, the world still viewed commercial photography and art as two separate fields. By making high quality prints from some of his earliest photographs, Penn helped audiences see that the tonal richness and variation of his photographs could be just as subtle as a Goya or a Rembrandt etching.
Penn was the first artist to fully recognize the potential for blending elements of fashion photography with portraiture. More than just live mannequins for the clothes, Penn’s models became psychologically complex, if still otherworldly, individuals.
Irving Penn | The Queen of Freckles
Above is a famous photograph taken by Penn titled The Queen of Freckles. It showcases his technique of using a plain white background behind his subject to put all the focus on the model. The model in this picture has long eyelashes and thick lips, as well as an ornate ring on her finger. She fits with the style of most of his fashion photographs which is class and elegance. Penn used the freckles to his advantage, and instead of covering them up, he made them stand out. Penn created a new style of photography and redefined the image of beauty with this photograph, as ‘imperfections’ like freckles were often covered up in this time. The subject of this photograph is in the centre and takes up almost the entire frame. Our eyes are drawn to her eyes which are framed with thick lashes. The model is looking straight at the camera. This photograph represents beauty and that it has more than one definition.
Below shows one example of Penn’s ‘Corner Portraits’ where he would put celebrities or his models into tight corners and awkward poses that revealed unfamiliar elements of their personalities to the camera. This was a favourite setup of Penn’s in the 1940s, he would often put them at a very tight angle, sometimes alone, sometimes with a prop (like Capote’s chair). The lighting is very simple, the walls are a light colour, which act as a bit of a fill, bouncing light into some of the shadow areas and increasing the range of tones in the final image.
Irving Penn | Truman Capote | 1948
Personal Responses To Irving Penn
Set Up
Above shows the set-up that I used and started with for this shoot. I used one of the smaller lights with the soft box over it to diffuse some of the light. I also used some of the lights that came above from the lighting rig and down onto her from above. This set up worked for me as it allowed enough light to fill the area and also allowed me to move the smaller lights to where I needed them to light her.
Contact Sheet of Shoot
Above shows my contact sheet from the shoot in the studio. It shows the range of positions I placed Ellie in to either conceal her face with fabric or clothes or reveal it and pronounce it with her hands. Unfortunately not all of the photographs produced became as clear and sharp as I wanted however there were a couple of successful ones which I went forward to edit into black and white as a response to Irving Penn.
Best Responses Edited into Black and White
Own Response
Above is a direct response to Irving Penn’s photograph ‘Queen of Freckles’ however here I feel I am particularly interested in Ellie’s eyes instead of something like freckles, her eyes for me are a feature that stand out as they are large open and wide which is why I always had her lock eyes with the camera.
Own Response
Here above again I am trying to make the focus to Ellie’s eyes by having her hide her face behind the flower and having it sit just below her eyes to try and emphasis them in a different almost ‘conceal and reveal’ kind of way.
Own Response
This is a more subtle kind of ‘conceal and reveal’. Unlike the other photographs I wasn’t specifically trying to focus in on her eyes or anything specific however I still had her look directly at the camera.
Own Response
Below shows an experiment that I produced with the flower being the only part of the photograph in colour which is something I think was good to experiment with not necessarily in response to Irving Penn but as a quick experiment that I could maybe explore more in portraits.
John Rankin Waddell (born 1966), also known under his working name Rankin, is a British portrait and fashion photographer and director. Rankin is best known as the founder of Dazed and Confusedmagazine (along with Jefferson Hack), and for his photography of models including Kate Moss and Heidi Klum, celebrities such as Madonna and David Bowie and his portrait of Elizabeth II. His work has appeared in magazines such as GQ, Vogue and Marie Claire.
Rankin visited South Africa in 2010 with BBC to make a documentary titled, South Africa in Pictures. In the same year, Nike and Bono’s R.E.D commissioned Rankin to shoot for Nike’s global campaign to fight and spread awareness against HIV/AIDS. The campaign was called, Lace Up Save Lives.
In 2011 Rankin started the biannual fashion, culture and lifestyle magazine, Hunger and launched Rankin Film to produce and direct his own commercial and editorial film work.
Rankin |
Practical Responses to Rankin
Contact Sheet of Shoot
One Point Lighting:
Studio Lighting | 7772Studio Lighting | 7759
These photographs are examples of 1-point lighting as one soft light was used to light the subject. I feel these work well as studio lighting examples. due to the lighting and the positions the subjects are in.
Chiaroscuro, in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects and figures.
The term chiaroscuro originated during the Renaissance as drawing on coloured paper, where the artist worked from the paper’s base tone toward light using white gouache, and toward dark using ink, bodycolour or watercolour.
Below is an example of chiaroscuro being used in early renaissance paintings.
“The Adoration of the Child” by Gerard van Honthorst
Chiaroscuro also is used in cinematography to indicate extreme low key and high-contrast lighting to create distinct areas of light and darkness in films, especially in black and white films. Classic examples are The Cabient Of Dr Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1922), and Metropolis (1927).
For example, in Metropolis, chiaroscuro lighting is used to create contrast between light and dark mise-en-scene and figures. The effect of this is primarily to highlight the differences between the capitalist elite and the workers.
In photography, chiaroscuro can be achieved with the use of “Rembrandt Lighting”. In more highly developed photographic processes, this technique also may be termed “ambient/natural lighting”, although when done so for the effect, the look is artificial and not generally documentary in nature.
Rembrandt Lighting:
Rembrandt lightingis a lighting technique that is used in studio portrait photography. It can be achieved using one light and a reflector, or two lights, and is popular because it is capable of producing images which appear both natural and compelling with a minimum of equipment. Rembrandt lighting is characterized by an illuminated triangle under the eye of the subject on the less illuminated side of the face.
Below are two examples of our own experiments with Rembrandt lighting and chiaroscuro. Together we worked in a team to create these images, one taking the photographs and focusing the camera, one modelling for the portrait and the other changing the lights and altering them to get the effect wanted and needed.
We started with the lights in front facing at an angle to the left of the model however found that this caused too much light to fall upon the right side of the face, to alter this we moved the light right the way around her body to the back almost behind her and this enabled us to be able to keep the right side of her face in the shadows creating tones and contrasts that come with rembrandt lighting.
I feel these photographs work well for this style of lighting as they have the dark and light contrasts needed for this style of portraits and I feel the shadows and the light areas work well together and don’t clash or fight each other.
Rembrandt Lighting | 7698Rembrandt Lighting | 7699
Experiments with Colour
Rembrandt Lighting | 7717Rembrandt Lighting | 7710
Natural Light: Using natural light means to use the light that is naturally available to us or already there without the use of artificially placed lighting. But we must be aware of different kinds of natural light and learn how to exploit:
Intensity of light
Direction of light
Temperature of the light
Studio Light: Using studio lighing or artificl lighting can offer different possibilites as we can change things and alter them:
Size and shape of light
Distance it is from the subject
The angles and direction
Filtered lights
It also gives the opportunity to work with Soft-Boxes, Umbrella lights and Spot Lights.
Flat Light: When you have your light source facing directly at the front of your subject, meaning your subject is well lit and you are unable to see any shadow along their face.
Split light: A type of side lighting as it hits your subject from the side, leaving half of the subject being lit and the other half in shadow.
Back light: Light that comes from the back and behind your subject and there are ways to use it:
Semi-Silhouette: To let the light just barely creep into the frame, creates a glow and welcomes a contrast.
Reflector: If you want the strong light filling the frame from the back but it loses clarity on the subjects face so there is the use of the reflector to push some of the light back onto the subjects face.
Flash: Flash units offer a range of possibilities in both low and high lighting scenarios…we will explore
flash “bouncing”
fill-in flash
TTL / speedlight flash
remote / infra-red flash (studio lighting)
fast + slow synch flash
light painting c/w slow shutter speeds
Why do we use studio lighting?
Using studio lighting gives us control over the lighting more than you would have with natural lighting and this thus gives more full control over the final outcome of the photograph.
What is the difference between 1-2-3 point lighting and what does each technique provide / solve.
1 Point:
Most of us experience one-point lighting in nature every day, talking about sunshine. In many occasions, a single source of light creates a very natural, sometimes dramatic look that will draw people’s attention to the single lighted person or surface. A single source looks two dimensional or flat, and rarely hits people straight on, so it creates shadows.
2 Point:
When you want the subtleness of a single light source but want your people to stand out in 3D, two-point lighting can be a great way to add dimensionality without going overboard on your lighting. here is still quite a potential for shadowing if a person turns their head either direction, but where a little shadowing is okay, this can be an effective way to bring focus.
3 Point:
The goal of three point lighting is to create the illusion of a three-dimensional subject in a two-dimensional image. Three point lighting also helps to eliminate shadows.
What are the three points of light we’re talking about?
The Key Light – This is the main light used on your subject.
The Fill Light – The purpose of this light is to fill in the shadows created by the key light, preventing them from getting too dark.
The Back Light – This is used to separate the subject from the background.
What is fill lighting?
Fill light is form of supplementary light mainly used to lighten shadows in an image. Fill light is often used in portrait photography to create a contrast between the image subject and image background giving the scene a sense of depth despite the final product being 2 dimensional. In this situation the use of fill light also reduces the overall dynamic range of the scene allowing for easier selection of the exposure settings required to capture an image. When fill light is correctly applied it does not significantly impact the main light source of an image.
For the street photography shoot we went out into town to try and capture some photographs and portraits.
Below is the contact sheet of the photographs I was able to capture. Not all of the images came out successful as there was some issues with motion blur and the camera taking too long to focus and not being able to capture someone as they were moving however there were some successful photographs where motion blur became a happy accident and some images worked well.
Contact Sheet from shoot
Outcomes of the Shoot
Below I have my most successful outcomes of the shoot, not all are completely in focus but I feel they work with the images that they are and I can relate them to some other professional photographers that also use motion blur to their advantage in their photographs.
Own Photograph | DSC-0003
DSC-0003: For this photograph I feel it works well due to one man being in focus and still at the back of the image but having the man that is towards the front of the image out of focus due to motion I feel it creates a different perspective and depth as usually the background is slightly out of focus and the foreground is sharp, however it is swapped for this photograph and I feel that it is that which helps to make it a successful photograph. I have experimented and placed the photograph into black and white to see how the photograph plays out without the colour which I also feels works with this image.
DSC-0003 | Black and White VersionOwn Photograph | DSC-0004Own Photograph | DSC-0033Own Photography | DSC-0012
DSC-0012: For this photograph my initial intention was to have the woman in focus however due to the act of her moving and the background being more still she become slightly out of focus and the background very clear, however I still feel that this image works well as we can pick up on some visual connections between what the lady is wearing and the coloured stripes that can be seen in the background and this is a visual connection that can work well. I feel I could relate this photograph to ones like Bruce Gilden’s as some of his photographs also contain motion blurs.
