After looking at the black and white photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson, I was inspired to revisit one of my favourite photos I studied in high school.
Who is the practitioner (what is their name?) and when were they practicing?
This photo was taken by Jerry Uelsmann, an American photographer who used photomontage and darkroom effects to create surrealistic images, like the one above. He practiced from the mid-20th century and still currently practices photography today.
What is the title of the photo or video you have chosen to analyse (can you provide a link?)
This photo is untitled, perhaps intentionally, to allow the audience freedom of interpretation. It can be found online here.
With the photo or video you are examining when was it produced (date)?
It was produced in 1976.
How was the photo or video authored?
Uelsmann, practising before the era of Photoshop, used composite photography techniques, like multiple negatives and enlargers in a darkroom, to create this surreal image. Here, he combines photos of a study, a sky and a person.
Where Henri Cartier-Bresson took his photos decisively in the present, waiting for that one perfect moment, Uelsmann used a process he called ‘post-visualisation’, composing and creating the perfect image after all its pieces have been photographed, not photographing with an image already in mind.
If we look at photography as the ‘active practice of cutting through the flow of mediation’ (Zylinska 2016, p.13), Uelsmann is making several cuts, then combining them into one new image, ‘stabilising [the] data as images and objects’ (Zylinska 2016, p.13).
How was the photo or video published?
It is difficult to find information on where the photo was originally published, but now, it has been published to both Jerry Uelsmann’s official website and the websites of various art museums like The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Telluride Gallery of Fine Art. This photo was produced in 1976 before the rise of the Internet and back then, it would’ve most likely been presented in one of Uelsmann’s books, or in a gallery as a print, much like a painting.
These days, the fact that the photo is so easily to discover on the Internet, just a Google search away, is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it allows people from a non-photography background, like me, to stumble upon this image and delight in its beauty. On the other, it reduces its uniqueness and allows for replicas and imitations to be made, and even allows for people to illegally profit off his work.
How was the photo or video distributed?
Currently, this photo is distributed to viewers via the Internet via the avenues I listed in the above question. Printed copies can be bought online from places like artnet for prices up to $3000 (currency unknown).
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References
Zylinska, J 2016, ‘Photomediations: An Introduction by Joanna Zylinska’, Photomediations: A Reader, Open Humanities Press, http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/ titles/photomediations/.
