More Man Ray

Here's another example of Man Ray's work that i found where he seems to have used a fairly similar technique as i'm planning. He's produced this photogram by solarizing the film to give a negative effect. As i'm using digital images i made the photo look like a negative on photograph but in the end they'll look like they've been through the same process.

Man Ray

Probably one of the best known photogram photographers was is Man Ray so i decided that i really should take a look into his work and see what knowledge and inspiration i can gain from it. My first impression when looking at his work is that his pieces range from being very basic and obvious to complex and thought provoking as to how he created these shapes. A lot of his photograms also look like they've been created around the features of a face but i can't find anything to back this theory. What i've learned from Man Ray is that photograms don't need to have an obvious meaning but can just look very simplistic allowing the viewers to read into them. Here are a few of my favourite pieces of Man Ray's work. My reason for them being my favourites are his uses of shapes.

Trial Photographs

I started taking photographs of my surroundings as i went places focussing on nature. I then cropped and edited them to make them ready to be transferred onto acetate. I wasn't sure if it was best for them to be in negative form or simply in black and white with full contrast so i edited each photograph twice ready for some experimenting. Here are a few examples of my edited work-

 

Adam Fuss

These are just a few more of his photogram’s that have inspired me to do something similar. I then went on to find out how he produced these pictures and learned that for a while he spent time experimenting light and other materials like placing the photo paper in water. One of his more recent photogram’s (the rabbits) came about as the blood and body heat causes a reaction with the chrome chemicals and turns them into vibrant colours. He also carried out other various experiments involving placing the photo paper in water and causing disturbances to it as it's developed.

Adam Fuss- Inspiration

Below is the photograph that inspired my idea. It wasn't the picture itself but the idea the picture gave me which was to capture an image and transfer in onto acetate so when i went to develop it i'd get a nice shadow effect.

Evolution- Initial Idea

My initial idea for this project was to produce a video based on time and movement. As i started exploring this idea i found some of Adam Fuss' work. This quickly made me change my idea from video to photogram photography. I still liked the idea of time but rather than capturing the movement of time i decided to capture a moment in time or something that has been produced over time. This gave me the idea of photographing nature.