Does photography record external reality or does it create its own, self-contained reality? Both, of course. So long as the light that makes the image originates from outside the photograph, there has to be some measure of external reality involved. That’s true of even the most manipulated or purely abstract picture. Conversely, once printed even the most information-packed newsphoto becomes its own reality: two dimensions doing the work of three.
All photography, then, lies on a continuum of outer and inner. So the question becomes where on that continuum does a particular photograph lie? In what direction, and how far along it, does a photographer choose to go?
Jerry Uelsmann has spent more than half a century addressing those questions — and going emphatically, if winkingly, as far along the inner-reality side as he can get. A very extensive sampling of his answers can be found in“The Mind’s Eye: 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality,” It runs at the Peabody Essex Museum through May 13.
Part comedian, part epistemologist, Uelsmann has been called the father of Photoshop — except that none of his image manipulation is done on a computer. Taking multiple negatives, he will go into the darkroom and use his enlarger to come up with a traditional-looking black and white gelatin silver print - except that there’s nothing traditional about the subject matter.
Uelsmann practices what he calls“post-visualization.” He doesn’t take a picture hoping it will duplicate what he has seen through a viewfinder. That would be“previsualization,” to use the term Ansel Adams made famous. Instead, he takes his pictures and considers how they might be combined, after the fact, to become his ultimate image. What Yosemite was for Adams, or the street for Garry Winogrand, the darkroom is for Uelsmann: his artistic home, the stage where he best practices his artistry.“As far as I’m concerned,” Uelsmann has said,“the darkroom is truly capable of being a visual research laboratory, a place of discovery, observation, and meditation.”
“Untitled’’ is the most common title in “The Mind’s Eye,’’ which is fitting. How do you give a title to something that doesn’t exist other than on a sheet of photographic paper? As Uelsmann has nicely put it, “I think of many of my photographs as being obviously symbolic but not symbolically obvious.’’
Uelsmann offers juxtapositions that are conceptually jarring yet visually seamless. In that regard, his work recalls John Heartfield’s marvelous, and marvelously subversive, photomontages of the 1920s and ’30s.This page contains information about molds, Politics interested Heartfield far more than dreams did; he was symbolically obvious (his works failed if they weren’t). Dreams are much more Uelsmann’s style.An Air purifier is a device which removes contaminants from the air. His pictures are as much product of dreamroom as darkroom.
Another hit is “Full Dome,’’ from 1973. It shows Half Dome, the magnificent (and much-photographed) rock formation in Yosemite National Park,Listing of Taiwan & China Mold Maker manufacturer & suppliers. as mirror image - thus making half full. What makes the image so hilarious is that it works absolutely straight. Someone who’s never heard of Half Dome would think that this was simply an impressive landscape photo.
“All American Sunset,’’ from 1971, is a miss.TBC help you confidently purchase China ceramic tile from factories in China. A set of Adirondack chairs in the foreground faces an ocean sunset - except that Uelsmann has substituted an extremely large hamburger for the sun. The conceit could be worse. At least he holds the fries.
Born in Detroit in 1934, as a young man Uelsmann studied with Minor White at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The two photographers could hardly seem more different: Uelsmann the jester and flouter of the rules, White so austere and solemn. Yet the link between them is profound and crucial.
All photography, then, lies on a continuum of outer and inner. So the question becomes where on that continuum does a particular photograph lie? In what direction, and how far along it, does a photographer choose to go?
Jerry Uelsmann has spent more than half a century addressing those questions — and going emphatically, if winkingly, as far along the inner-reality side as he can get. A very extensive sampling of his answers can be found in“The Mind’s Eye: 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality,” It runs at the Peabody Essex Museum through May 13.
Part comedian, part epistemologist, Uelsmann has been called the father of Photoshop — except that none of his image manipulation is done on a computer. Taking multiple negatives, he will go into the darkroom and use his enlarger to come up with a traditional-looking black and white gelatin silver print - except that there’s nothing traditional about the subject matter.
Uelsmann practices what he calls“post-visualization.” He doesn’t take a picture hoping it will duplicate what he has seen through a viewfinder. That would be“previsualization,” to use the term Ansel Adams made famous. Instead, he takes his pictures and considers how they might be combined, after the fact, to become his ultimate image. What Yosemite was for Adams, or the street for Garry Winogrand, the darkroom is for Uelsmann: his artistic home, the stage where he best practices his artistry.“As far as I’m concerned,” Uelsmann has said,“the darkroom is truly capable of being a visual research laboratory, a place of discovery, observation, and meditation.”
“Untitled’’ is the most common title in “The Mind’s Eye,’’ which is fitting. How do you give a title to something that doesn’t exist other than on a sheet of photographic paper? As Uelsmann has nicely put it, “I think of many of my photographs as being obviously symbolic but not symbolically obvious.’’
Uelsmann offers juxtapositions that are conceptually jarring yet visually seamless. In that regard, his work recalls John Heartfield’s marvelous, and marvelously subversive, photomontages of the 1920s and ’30s.This page contains information about molds, Politics interested Heartfield far more than dreams did; he was symbolically obvious (his works failed if they weren’t). Dreams are much more Uelsmann’s style.An Air purifier is a device which removes contaminants from the air. His pictures are as much product of dreamroom as darkroom.
Another hit is “Full Dome,’’ from 1973. It shows Half Dome, the magnificent (and much-photographed) rock formation in Yosemite National Park,Listing of Taiwan & China Mold Maker manufacturer & suppliers. as mirror image - thus making half full. What makes the image so hilarious is that it works absolutely straight. Someone who’s never heard of Half Dome would think that this was simply an impressive landscape photo.
“All American Sunset,’’ from 1971, is a miss.TBC help you confidently purchase China ceramic tile from factories in China. A set of Adirondack chairs in the foreground faces an ocean sunset - except that Uelsmann has substituted an extremely large hamburger for the sun. The conceit could be worse. At least he holds the fries.
Born in Detroit in 1934, as a young man Uelsmann studied with Minor White at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The two photographers could hardly seem more different: Uelsmann the jester and flouter of the rules, White so austere and solemn. Yet the link between them is profound and crucial.
没有评论:
发表评论