The image I chose for this blog post is Man Ray’s Rayograph from 1927. I first saw this image while looking at a book about Man Ray during my High School Photography class. When I saw this image I was memorized by its tones and texture. After staring at it for a few moments I began to wonder where was this image take. Was it an abdomen building, or an attic of an old house. As I looked to the bottom of the page for the title all I saw was Rayograph, 1927. I soon learned that a Rayograph is an image taken without a camera and instead materials are placed on top of photographic paper and exposed to light. After seeing this image I spend numerous hours in the darkroom placing anything I could lift and find on photo paper to see what develops.
One of the things that this image made me realize is that for long as there has been photography their has been manipulation. It could be the photographer asking a woman to take of her wedding ring before photographing the woman and child, it could be to crop something out when you place the image in the enlarger, zooming in so you don’t show the environment you are in, or over/under exposing a certain area of a print.
This image not only made me want to explore the world of photography more, but it also made me realized that we never really know how a photographic image came to be unless we are the ones creating it. For me, even after all of these years it still amazes me that this image was created by dropped items on a piece of photo paper.
http://library.artstor.org.lesley.ezproxy.blackboard.com/library/welcome.html#3|search|1|Man20Ray|Multiple20Collection20Search|||type3D3126kw3DMan20Ray26id3Dall26name3D
Margaret
No comments:
Post a Comment