Experimental photography
Experimental photography is a part of artistic photography . She emphasizes the playful, abstract, experimental. The depiction of reality or documentation as represented by classic photography is deliberately not their concern. Her goals are to explore the photographic possibilities and the effect of the interplay of aperture , light and shutter speed ; from intentional movement of the camera to alienation in the laboratory through classic laboratory techniques or with image processing programs on the computer. For the photographer, it's about the new, the unexpected, the surprising.
approach
The techniques of experimental photography include multiple and double exposure , pseudo-solarization , sandwich processes, chemograms , chemigrams , photograms , the use of color-changing infrared films, contrast, color and trick filters or light montages such as cloning.
Cloning can be done with the help of a flash unit. A person or an object is flashed several times at the previously designed location or according to the desired movement phases in the completely dark room, while the shutter of the camera remains open. The implementation of motifs in equidensitivity technology, the use of effect negatives, cross-development , and the use of the many sound separation, mixing and copying options from negative to positive are also part of the genre.
The photographic implementation of dynamics can also be an issue: dragging a camera ( motion blur photography or panning ) to get a blurred photo is one of the methods of targeted motion blur.
Styles
Movements in experimental photography are subjective photography , but also Dadaism and Surrealism . Other trends are pop art and contemporary art .
motivation
Experimental photography deliberately wants to modify the photographic image. It places demands on the photographer's creativity and creative imagination. Beyond experimentation, it is important to achieve a design goal or a desired aesthetic.
history
The historical models are photograms and photo montages, which were consciously created in the early days of photography. Experimental movement studies by Eadweard Muybridge can also be included here. In the 1920s it was the shadographs and rayograms, the collages and photomontages of the Dadaists and Surrealists that helped her breakthrough. An important exponent of early experimental photography was Man Ray .
After 1945 it was mainly a few representatives of subjective photography and the improved technical and chemical possibilities of color photography that animated the genre. In the same period, starting with the chemigram of Pierre Cordier from the late fifties, the boundary between painting and photography completed, final by the invention of chemogram the photo artist Josef H. Neumann , launch in 1974.
reception
The viewers differ in terms of experimental or abstract photography. While artistically oriented people respond to the presentation, objectively oriented viewers tend to feel a certain distance due to the degree of abstraction. In any case, experimental photography is an important part of photography training, as the use of methods contrary to classical photography trains technical understanding. Experimental photographs, like abstract paintings, can be art.
literature
- Reinhold Misselbeck : Photography of the 20th century. - Cologne 2001, Taschen-Verlag. ISBN 3-8228-5513-8
Individual evidence
- ↑ Reinhold Mißelbeck: Photography of the 20th century . Taschen-Verlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-8228-5513-8 , pp. 13 .
- ↑ Garching Photo Club, Glossary, "Experimental Photography" (definition)
- ↑ Reinhold Mißelbeck: Photography of the 20th century . Taschen-Verlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-8228-5513-8 , pp. 124 .
- ↑ Hannes Schmidt: Comments on the chemograms by Josef Neumann. Exhibition in the photography studio gallery of Prof. Pan Walther. in: Photo press. Issue 22, 1976, p. 6.
- ^ Gabriele Richter: Joseph H. Neumann. Chemograms. in: Color Photo. Issue 12, 1976, p. 24.