Luminogram
A luminogram is the recording of traces of light from moving light sources on light-sensitive materials. For the creation of luminograms, neither an object to be imaged, as with the photogram , nor a lens, as with camera photography , is necessary.
technology
Due to the effect of lighting on light-sensitive materials, the luminogram is closely related to the photogram. The luminogram, however, is an independent light image that can be created by changing the light intensity. The light intensity can be modulated by the following measures:
- Changing the distance of the light source from the photosensitive surface
- Change in the power of the light source
- Use of filters or gels
- Movement of the light source (s)
The image is created by the shape variations and intensity fluctuations of the light rays. The photo paper itself can then be shaped in order to achieve the desired effects of the photo.
László Moholy-Nagy used this technique of experimental photography to create his numerous photograms and luminograms. The photo theorist Gottfried Jäger describes the luminogram as "the most original form of cameraless photography: a kind of self-representation of light."
history
From the beginning of the 1920s, the aesthetic and artistic values of photography came to the fore. Many experiments carried out with photographic processes during these years allow the introduction of completely new techniques. The result of the photographic experiments of this time is a completely new image composition that deviates from the existing conventions. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's photograms and luminograms are the best example of the expressiveness of the new technology.
Well-known artists and works
László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946), born in Austria-Hungary (in Bácsborsod), American painter, photographer, typographer and set designer. After his military service in the Austro-Hungarian army, he moved to Vienna at the end of 1919. In 1919 he and his wife Lucia Moholy (Czechoslovakia) began to develop a new technique in the field of experimental photography, which they later called "photogram".
From 1922 until his death in 1946, Moholy-Nagy created numerous photograms and luminograms. Chronologically, the pictures can be divided into three groups: Berlin Bauhaus period (1923–1928), exile in London (1935–1937), and the United States (1937–1946). Moholy-Nagy experimentally researched the “secrets” of the lighting effects and the analysis of space using the photogram and continued to develop his teaching throughout his life. (László Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion (1947)). The essence of Moholy-Nagy's luminograms is light and design. Moholy-Nagy's approach was to view the photosensitive photo paper as a blank canvas and artistically “paint” this surface with light.
Jo Bradford
Jo Bradford (born 1972), contemporary visual artist specializing in contemporary color reversal luminograms, glass cliché printing and photograms. Born in Hertfordshire, UK, lives and works in Cornwall, UK. Graduated from Staffel University College Falmouth (graduated with honors) Master's thesis from: Photographic Critical Practice, 2004. Bradford produces color luminograms called Lumigrams. He works in a private darkroom and has regular exhibitions. Bradford is a member of the Seeing The Light artist community. Bradford's and Martina Corry's works emerge from the spontaneity of hand and arm movements, which paradoxically are governed by a strict compositional order. During each individual exposure time, masks are placed where the light should not reach the surface and leave no traces. The change in the distance from the surface as well as the speed and direction of the hand and arm movements lead to the spontaneity of the work. Some of the works by these artists often cause discussion because they are classified as glass dab print, which is a contemporary revision of an older process. This technique became popular in the 1850s by such French artists as Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet, Théodore Rousseau, and Eugène Delacroix. The most prominent exponent of glass cliché printing of the 20th century was the Hungarian-American designer György Kepes, and the technique was also explored by Joan Fontcuberta in his "Frottogram" series.
Martina Corry
Martina Corry is a visual artist who lives and works in Ireland in the field of photography. She graduated from the University of Ulster in 1999 with an MFA (Honors) in the specialty of photography. She often creates black and white luminograms on aluminum that were exhibited in Ireland. These black and white works are more related to the earlier works of Moholy-Nagy than to the more modern color works of Bradford and Rob and Nick Carter.
Rob and Nick Carter
Rob and Nick Carter have spent a decade experimenting with a photogram, on the border between painting and photography. The color modulations are aligned around blue, green, orange and purple and are based on the artist's fascination for the complementary colors orange / blue on Goethe's color wheel .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gottfried Jäger: Primary forms of light design: Luminogram and photogram, Cologne 1988, p. 120.
- ^ Joan Fontcuberta (interview with AD Coleman). Journal of Contemporary Art 1991; 4 (1): 34-48. Retrieved 10 July 2008.
- ^ Andreas Haus ", László Moholy-Nagy, Photographs and Photograms," Pantheon Books, 1980, translation from the German by Frederick Sanson p. 51f.