The Diamond Cameo photograph was created around 1864. Four small oval portraits were placed on a carte de visite (a type of small photograph) in the shape of a diamond, each portrait being of the same person photographed in a different position. A special camera made by Dallmeyer was used in which the one glass negative was moved to a new position in the back of camera after each portrait had been taken, and when the paper print had been pasted on the card a special press was used to punch the four portraits up into a convex cameo shape.
CREATING A DIAMOND CAMEO
I created a diamond cameo on photoshop using the shape tool to cut out a circle. I pasted my photos from my headshots project underneath and used a clipping mask tool to combine the shape and photo so I just adjust it however I wanted.
I experimented with different colour palettes and backgrounds to create a diamond cameo – I used a black background on bright colours to create contrast and did the opposite with unedited photos to show simplicity and inspiration towards the standard 1800’s diamond cameos.
