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.