Canonical Image of the week: LACE by William Henry Fox Talbot

William Henry Fox Talbot
Lace
1845

MediumSalted paper print (photogram)

Dimensions 6 1/2 x 8 3/4" (16.5 x 22.3 cm)

William Henry Fox Talbot, Lace, was first published in Talbot's The Pencil of Nature, 1844.

To make this picture, Talbot laid a piece of lace on chemically sensitized paper and allowed the light of the sun gradually to fix its negative image precisely, down to the smallest fold or imperfection. This simple operation had never been possible before photography was invented.

Talbot's Lace is not merely a copy of unprecedented ease and fidelity. It is also a picture, which transposed the lace from the realm of objects to the realm of pictures, where it has enjoyed a new and unpredictable life.

Response

Writing Response: Man Ray film

A  Documentary Film by Jean-Paul Fargier 1998 covers photographer Man Ray’s life and art. I was pleased to learn more about Man Ray, who I know best from his fashion photography. Now I have learned that he used fashion” to further his art”, that he started as a painter, bought a camera to capture his art and finally found photography and radiography. He was also a poet and filmmaker. He used the same principal in his photography as in his art work, the aim was to show rather an idea than an object and rather a dream than an idea.

Man ray was American, who spend half of his life living in France.  After moving to Paris his first exhibition did not succeed as he expected. Radiography gave Man Ray the ability to paint directly with light, using everyday object in his works, he started to get fame.

His success in the commercial photography was due his high work ethic, he works with the commissioned photographs with the same ambition as in his own art. He had three rules: prepared the lightning before the ”patience” arrived, shoot from 3 meters from the patience to avoid disturbing the subject face and asked them to close their eyes and to suddenly open them. Ray took maximum of 12 photographs of each subject and cropped then carefully in the dark room setting. He was able to capture the personality of his Subjects, the real nature of their existence.

 Accidentally Ray Man discovered solarization, which inverse the value of the negative. Man Ray used this technique to paint his photographs, and they came more like a drawing. It was a risky technique, since Ray Man may add the paint straight from his negative. With time Man Ray became a master of solarization and used it in many of his work.

                                                         

Man ray defined a good photo as a play of contrast, a lesson Ray learned from chess” Between a white and black square is fundamentally beautiful”.  In his photography and radiography there is the playfulness of shadow and light, straight lines and curves, symmetry in how hands and faces are distributed. One great example is the photograph of the face and mask.

For me the most interesting thing I learned while watching the film was that Man Ray made his commercial photography extension for his art. He lived double lives as the narrator said, a life of a painter and a life of a photographer. With his commercial works he was able to afford his Avant garde art, which I found encouraging. In my opinion part of his success in fashion was only because he was interested in arts, and he was able to make commercial photography art as well. 

- Sanni

Response to Man Ray Film

From the start of the film I began to understand and relate to Man Ray's comments on living a double life as both a painter and a photographer. I think it's interesting that he had to distinguish that in his time since artists today seem to do that less, people don't just get stuck in one media, they work in various ways and learn to work an interdisciplinary manner. This duality (double life) that Ray dealt with is even more relatable in the life of a student of the arts. As students we tend to live a double life, often having friends and other interests outside of art that we often don't mix with our artistic life; for me that is the case.

What I found the most interesting was Ray's attempt at making a film using the methods that he pioneered with Rayographs. Return of Reason was applauded and was interesting because he challenged the status quo of film making of the time. His Rayographs (photograms) were interesting to me in that they were a direct response to what Duchamp was working on with his ready-made. Making photograms of existing items and changing their meaning and making new meaning with the relationship between the objects. 

- Andres Ramirez

Man Ray Video Response

Man Ray was a multi-media artist who ended up specializing in photography. This documentary discussed his life leading up to his success in celebrity and fashion photography, his rayograph invention, and his solarization experiment. The fact that he lived in Paris and the US for equal amounts of time leads me to believe that he had a very well-rounded view of artwork and the art world in general. American artists and European artists were going through many changes and creating different genres of art during his time. When the documentary started to talk about how he began being hired to photograph fashion and celebrities, I understood how he could afford to live his avant-garde lifestyle. Though photographing celebrities seems to be more of a commercial approach versus an artistic one, I believe his ability to use recognizable faces while experimenting with photographic styles led to other photographers being able to view his work as inspiration. Along with his somewhat stylistic photography, his rayographs were also seen as inspirational at the time. The ability to create a photograph without having to use a camera was an idea that had not previously been discussed or seen. What interests me most about rayographs is the ability to use everyday objects for their shadows and to produce an image from them that can be almost impossible to decipher. After seeing some of the rayographs shown in this documentary, I am now thinking about the objects I want to use and how I want to stack them in my own rayographs. There was a part towards the end of the documentary where a statement was made that Man Ray would give the cold shoulder towards people who entered his studio and did not notice or make mention of his paintings. This was kind of funny to me, because it made him sound like a bit of a diva. Though, I can understand the thought that he took pride in his paintings and wanted other people to recognize his talent. The most interesting part of this documentary was the section about solarization. The thought of a photograph turning out to look like a drawing is fascinating. The process he ‘accidentally’ stumbled upon is also pretty genius. It makes me wonder if he was just experimenting with different photo processes and found this one that worked. The images that were shown in regards to this process were much more interesting than the previous photos shown. The contrast between the highlights and shadows created a dramatic image that commanded my attention. The dark black outline around the images also added to the ‘hand-drawn’ feel and made the subject seem to pop off of the paper (or out of the screen, in this case). Overall, this documentary was interesting and informative. Aside from it being an older documentary, the one thing I did not like was the strange lyrical stuff going on behind the instruments in the middle of the documentary. I feel like it distracted from the subject a bit.

Stream of Consciousness Response to Man Ray

I recognize your name. The transformation from your given name to the amalgamation you took on reminded me of the Biblical stories of many characters that after divine transformation took on new roles and were given new names. Will I too take on a new name, or have I already begun my new role and am carrying a name I don’t recognize?

Your transformation seemed slow and thoughtful, but maybe in your heart it was drastic and so it was worthy of a new identity. Did people respect it? Did new customers and celebrities call you by one or both names? Did they piss you off while they were in front of the camera? Did you feel like their puppet servicing them? Or was it more of a power play on your behalf, did you hold their vanity within your lens. Did it hurt to let go of the paint, and move forward with technology? It looked like it. It almost seemed like an epic story of loss, your documentary.

The black and white definitely nudged it more into that direction. To me it feels like acute torture to be in a constant state of pondering the great and the small. It’s like trying to look at your feet while you walk, while at the same time keeping track of what’s coming around the corner, or what you must look like from an aerial perspective at the moment. You seemed to do it just fine. Study the minute details of objects and their existence in space while also pondering how they fit within greater schemes. But maybe it’s all

The same thing.

Isn’t that what most contemporary artist do these days anyway. Study greater ideas through the creation of objects. Is that what you did? Is that what I want to do? Doesn’t that make every piece an exercise? I’ve heard it again and again lately that calling things ‘Projects’ or ‘Experiments’ is a good idea, because the label allows you to fail and therefore the freedom to act. But is that really just an excuse for it to be less than what it could be. Probably, but what’s the likelihood of one actually doing said project if you ‘had’ to follow all the requirements you would probably set out for yourself.

Is being prolific the genius achievement of somebody that manages to achieve BOTH quality and quantity, or is the term prolific too, subjective. I think so. The camera has all the qualities that would allow to be prolific, but still and artist can stop all creation by a simple thought of fear. You only made 12 shots on your contact sheets. I like that. Is that lazy? I don’t think so. I’m not a fan of repetition, maybe it’s the rebellious and stubborn child in me. It drives me crazy. I think that’s pretty sound. 300 shots in one shoot seems ridiculous and boring. I would rather do 300 shoots for 12 good shots.

Pleasure seemed like a huge motivator for you. Is that what made it fun? What kept you coming back to the camera, and away from the paint? I could definitely see that.

When you paint and shoot, you can begin to compete with the camera. You seemed to eventually address it as part of your painting process, leading towards what would eventually happen. Did you think that painting would die? I would have probably thought so too. I don’t fully understand why it hasn’t already either.

Man Ray Response

The concept of pleasure is deeply rooted in Man Rays work. Stated in the beginning of the film, Man Ray wanted to liberate pleasure, and then again at the end of the film, Duchamp described him as a man of pleasure, playing and pleasuring.  For me, the fact that classic and then distorted music was played while viewing his photographs was very fitting in how the progression of his works went on. The music began very classical, and mannered, as did his photographs when he began taking portraits of the dada members and then artists and wealthy members of society. It quickly changed to distorted noise when he began to experiment with photograms and playing with light and shadows. The statement at 17:28 stood out to me because it mirrors what I look for in my own work. The idea of photographing what the mind looks like. To capture on paper the shapes of his dreams. Reality wasn’t enough for Man Ray, which can be seen largely in his surrealist painting style. Working from the photographs of real life objects and distorting them in ways that weren’t capable in real life.

In his photos, especially his portraits, he often sought out the truth of his subjects. Capturing them as they are, no illusions to distort the viewer’s eye. It was said he even set his camera back to avoid distortion of the human face and form. Man Rays photos are so captivating due to their dreamlike state. He would have the model close their eyes, and then suddenly open them, allowing him to capture an unrehearsed movement, a middle ground of reality and imaginary. Working in commercialized fashion only enhanced his skills. Spending as much time researching the fashion industry and the way the clothes felt, or were able to be folded, allowed him to be able to fully contrast and define the garments. Looking at the colors of the outfits or jewelry, and contrasting them with a backdrop or even props if he was allowed. I think having commissioned work, especially with specific parameters, helped Man Ray focus in on the simplicity of the lighting, lines, shapes, and colors of what was in front of the camera. Making more out of the less that he was given.

Then at 30:26, the process of solarization was introduced. The process involved turning on the white light while a photo was developing to inverse the whites and blacks. Furthering interest of my ideas of creating dream like qualities, as this process gives an almost drawing like effect as it creates a seemingly pencil drawn outline around the figure. Still, even with his success as a photographer, he was always upset his paintings never got such recognition. Strangely enough, while his photos heavily involved the human form, his paintings didn’t rely on them as much and when they did appear in his work they were distorted and made into a more symbolic and metaphorical form. And still in the end, his art works were laced in the ideas and concepts of pleasure, whether it be between the photographer and the model, the model and the object, or a series of photos that worked together to tell a story of time, love and death.

photogram artist to research, reviewed in Art Forum:

Writing Response: Man Ray film

Due at noon on Wed Jan 18th:

Write a 500 word response to 'Photographer Man Ray' viewable here, and post your response on this blog.  Make a screen shot of a profound moment and include your thoughts to that moment in your response!  I picked this movie because it covers more than his Rayographs, including his work in many other mediums, his iconoclastic approach, and how he afforded to be an avant-garde artist: