Man Ray and Rayographs
Man Ray is a russian Photographer who specialised in Photograms so much so that they named Rayography in his name. . From an early year, Ray showed great artistic ability and after finishing high school in 1908, he followed his passion for art. Man Ray went into photograms. These are made by placing objects or material on photosensitzed paper and exposing it to light. The shape and density of the objects filter, block, and shadow light to create linear, correct and beautiful images. "Man Ray had photographed everyday objects before, but these unique, visionary images immediately put the photographer on par with the avant-garde painters of the day. Hovering between the abstract and the representational, the rayographs revealed a new way of seeing that delighted the Dadaist poets who championed his work, and that pointed the way to the dreamlike visions of the Surrealist writers and painters who followed." -Metropolitan Museum of Art
Laszlo Moholy- Nagy
Laszlo Moholy- Nagy, is a Hungarian artist born in 1895. After serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army and being severely wounded in the first world war, Moholy began to draw and paint in 1917. Drawing influence from Malevich and Lissitzky, he painted abstract images and had his first solo exhibition in 1922 in Berlin. After this, he became more interested with experimental photography, including photograms. Below are some of these, Click to enlarge...
My Rayographs Session 1:
Evaluation
WWW: This small set of images, in my opinion were technically successful. The photograms I made were all near perfectly exposed, not too light, not too dark, so I think I have the technique down well. Compositionally, I think the images are good. Its difficult finding things to say that praise your own work when it has no theme, so I think that I will try and give myself a brief on what the photographs should represent or mean before I take my next set... However I love the effect rayograms have on the objects. It makes them look so delicate, especially the metal hoops. Also, in terms of detail, they capture everything including dust and small threads of cloth.
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EBI: Next time, I think that I should attempt to create more actual images in the sense that they portray something rather then being just aesthietically pleasing. Although this set was successful, I believe that I could experiment with a more varied set of materials to increase the range of textures, tones and shadows. Also, I think a good thing to try out would be to add more objects to make the images more detailed. I found it hard when trying out compositions because with photograms, everything becomes flat and the textures that you can see on the objects are no longer visible and I think its hard to remember this when you are in the process. Next time, I will definitely try and remember this and take into account what the image might look light after it has been developed and attempt to see the objects I use as just shapes.
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