Mathew Cetta photogenic alchemy vs James Welling Filters

Untitled- Mathew Cetta 2012

Untitled- Mathew Cetta 2012

Mathew Cetta Is a photographer, he did a fine arts in photography degree in New York and originally wanted to be a retoucher . The set of work we are looking at is called photogenic alchemy, which was a process of destroying the film before you use it to take pictures, the effects of it is hard to repeat and work in different ways depending on the chemicals that you left the film in. 

The list includes Vinegar, olive brine, hydrogen peroxide,cough syrup, ginger juice febreze,cola, boil it, ammonia, tooth paste, bleach. And many other ways of destroying the emulsion on the colour film which messes up the colours in it.

 "I started out my career as a photographer wanting to become a retoucher and I was obsessed with perfection. But perfection is boring!” This was when Cetta was going through a rough patch in his life and just wanted to experiment and explore new ideas. Later lomography picked up his work and wrote an article on how to achieve this effect with the colour film and many other photography sites showed and interest in him.

Looking at his work, all the pictures that are shown all have different effect on them, showcasing all the different chemicals that were used to create that effect, even though it will change outcome every time. All the photogenic alchemy is done on film, and the colours are all surreal and obscure, it looks a lot like a filter. This first picture is of Brooklyn Bridge, the composition of the picture is taken from a street from the Brooklyn side, which gives the bridge a large presence in the picture, the picture isn’t clear and looks very over exposed, which could be to do with the chemicals affecting more than the colour layer on the film. All over the picture you can see streaks, which could be due to the chemicals creating stains in patches over the picture. Around the edge on the top there are stains which happens a lot when you don’t agitate the film when developing as the developer doesn't get moved around enough.

The second picture shows a satellite dish with a butterfly on it, it has a different chemical on than the previous picture. This one is more interesting due to how clear it is in the centre than the picture of the bridge. It has on the left a darker purple than the rest of it which shows how unpredictable this technique is, but also how fun it can be. As he developed his idea of the photogenic alchemy he got better at creating images that were in focus and you could clearly make out what is in the picture instead of silhouette type look, which is present in the bridge picture. 

He says on his blog he had no subject to take the picture of, he just takes his cameras around where ever he goes and takes pictures of things that interest him. He takes pictures of everything he can find that catches his eye.

untitled- James Welling -2006-9

James Welling was an artist we visited in unit 2, where he was an influence for colour. He uses filters to get contrasting and complementing colours around a glass house. His work is varied throughout his career, and the work I am looking at is Glass House. He produced this piece work  due to how this house hasn't changed since the 1950s, where as with the filters he has made it look and feel different depending on the colour, each individual colour makes you think something different about the house. This effect added with Welling revisiting the house to take pictures adds to the change and how it hasn't changed. I know this by the style of the house and its interior, which welling said hasn't changed from when it was first put in.

This picture was taken with a digital camera, and due to how similar the house is on all angles it is unknown which side it was taken from but majority was from the front. This was taken with Welling holding filters up to the camera, where he uses a mix of green, yellow and blue. This adds and interning effect to how the light from the sun is going through the filters.

Unlike Cetta, Wellings pictures includes no people for a subject as it all centerer around the house, although they chose film or digital due to the style of work thy were making, as they were both taken in the 2006 and onwards, where digital was around.It all came down to how they worked and what they wanted to achive.Both set of pictures look very surreal in their nature of chaining the normal to something very different. The difference in them is more, the digital is all very random. Where the filters are predictable and is very easy to recreate. 

Man Ray photograms Vs Scanography

Man Ray Untitled 

My first artists is Man ray was a painter originally and picked up a camera in 1915, he was 25, after seeing Alfred Stieglitzs work. He worked for vogue and began to experiment in the dark room,he created something similar to photograms which he called “rayographs" which differs due to the moment in them. He was apart of the surrealist movement, which links into is work in the dark room in the 1920s, the colours are all black and white which is how all film photography was in 1920. he constructs his pictures by laying objects on some photographic paper and when he is  exposing them he moves, or he moves is hands around crating shadows and parts of the paper which will be less exposed than the others, which would create a picture. 

He was apart of the surrealist movement in paris which was formed from the dissipation of dada, this was a time when people were challenging the norm of art. Surrealism was a way of producing abstract pieces of work, mostly from ideas and visions which a group of artists and writers in France, which Man Ray was apart of. 

Man Ray Untitled

The work is very abstract which reflects his experimentation. He was trying lots of different ways of exposing his objects and moving them. The work I'm looking at is mainly untitled mainly because of the amount he did, from experience in the dark room I can see that a lot must have gone wrong when he was in the dark room. There is a lot o movement in the picture, it  looks like a spring has been dragged across the picture, and in the top left corner there is hand movement. 

This would have not been posible without the use of a darkroom. which the first dark rooms were made in the early 19th century when people were first experimenting with photgraphy, but it wouldnt be intill the 1920 where the 35mm became avalable that man ray had better access to a dark room to create his photograms.

A photogram is using the projectort in the dark room to expose light sensitive paper, when you put objects on it it create a silhouette in white of the image. What Man Ray did was he moved the images around creating movement in his photograms. This light sensitive paper would only be used in a dark room until you develped them.

I think that the work looks very abstract, compared to his other work, as in them a lot of the objects are static and has no feel of movement. This picture to the left almost looks like it could be depicting a scene with how he has purposely placed his objects but has no movement in it as he was making the photogram. 

Roberta Bailey

A modern day version of this look and feel is using a scanner to produce images without a camera, the technique involves covering the scanner to make it dark and placing objects on it, this recreates a digital version of photograms. A photographer that uses this is Roberta Bailey, who was inspired by photograms but was unable to have access to an enlarger or a dark room to process a photogram, Her bio explains ‘I am in total awe of Nature; it’s beauty, design and colors.’ which was her inspiration for her set of photographs which she has produced. She comes form an design and art background with university which is where she first started doing photography and working with colour.Her pictures in this set are all flowers that have a wide range of colour and textures. Due to the method, which was to pit the flowers into a glass tub or tank and place some paper or fabric behind the flowers to create a background with different feels and textures. The flowers are nearly all pressed up against the glass which gives it a real look but very much like a painting without any depth.

Thomas Mc Donnell- Houses

Another Photographer that uses scanners but in a different way is Tomas McDonnell who had the idea of using a scanner outside, which produced some strange effects, as he was holding the scanner it has wobbles in add to this surreal effect of all of his work. This photographer isn't a photographer by profession, but he was experimenting with using cameras photography. The colours in the pictures look very washed out as looks much like a dream world than real life. He started taking pictures as a way to relax after his high stress job and he found that initially he was scanning in flowers, such as orchids, and wanted to try to be more creative that he had been. The picture is of 3 houses, of a typical American setting. The picture is very surreal due to the motion in the picture, I think this links to Man Ray very well due to how he is experimenting with the medium at the time he was working, really just experimenting because he could, much like man ray. The rest of his work can be found on flicker which have a verity of panorama the looks to them using the scanner, called outside scanorgaphy. His other pictures that he does are scans similar to Roberta Bailey, but with a black background. 

This is something that differs from he photograms of man Rays, due to the availability to use colour, and even if he could have it is a far more complicated method of developing and printing than just black and white. I find that Man Ray has more context that the modern day examples, as he was doing it to be apart of a surrealist movement. 

Unit 3

For unit 3 we have to choose our own starting point.  I looked into doing lots of things, including some studio work, with portraits or doing more techniques such as light trails , looked at using photoshop. Which would play to my strengths but I would like to try new things and work with different styles

From the unit 1 work I really enjoyed using the dark room and experimenting so I have chosen to compare digital to film, and have started off developing film and using 120 and 35 mm film. I have also started using cameraless photography with the dark room and scanners.

I have looked into artist such as Man Ray who tried to coin the word Raygram which we now know as a photogram. I have also looked into Lomography who at the moment is a big player in producing and influencing the film world with their large user base and don't think and shoot outlook on photography