Experimental Photographers and Technique Research

Courtney Day

Dr. Harold Eugene Edgerton

Dr. Harold Eugene Edgerton was a professor of electrical engineering. He used multiple studio electronic flash units to take his images. One of his most famous and noted image is Milk Drop Coronet which was created by stroboscopy. Stroboscopy is instant bursts of light that are repeated. The flashes of light meant that the camera recorded a very detailed image of something happening at a very fast speed, too fast to be seen by the human eye. As the image was taken in 1935, the image used historical and traditional methods, as nothing was enhanced digitally and the effect which has took place was created using just a camera. The image uses traditional monochrome film and this will have been developed using traditional methods such as a dark room. This type of work and photography will mainly be displayed in galleries and magazines. Many of Dr. Harold Eugene Edgertons work was displayed in Life Magazine and the National Geographic Magazine, who named him the man who made time stand still.

Edmund Kesting

Edmund Kesting was a German photographer known for his non-realist work, which would not of been shown in the German Democratic Republic between 1949-1955 due to the controversy between socialist realism and formalism. His photograph, Professor Jan Van Beek, demonstrates his interest in bold, experimental, photographic portraits. He would often use the traditional method of photomontages to create a more warped, expressionist image. This image was created by photomontage which is the creating of an image using smaller images. Lots of photographs would have been taken up close and then stuck together or overlapping to be able to create this warped portrait. Dark rooms will also have been used to change the opacity and darkness of some of the images. Images such as this one will be displayed within galleries and magazines.

Miki Takahashi

Miki Takahashi is a photographer and digital artist from Japan. Her work focuses on creating layered portraits using both double exposure photography and more modern, digital manipulation. This photo is from one of her themed projects in nature sense which uses both double exposure and digital manipulation. Double exposure is repeated exposure of the film or plate to light. The effect which this creates is often ghostly, more than likely used when taking images of the background in this photograph. This image could have been created on Photoshop by layering the images on top of each other and using the blending options to bring all the layers together. This type of work will be shown in specific art and photography magazines and exhibitions. Images like this one could also be used in magazines to show readers how to create this type of image. Digital manipulation can create images that have been used for album and film artwork.

Kennard Phillips

Kennard Phillips is a collaboration that started their work in response to the invasion of Iraq. It then went on to produce art to represent the war and power all over the world. This piece of work which Kennard Phillips created is aimed at the relationship between bankers and people. It uses photomontage to put all the image together but not the regular photomontage which is normally of one image looking pretty distorted. This one creates a bigger image with different photographs to show the artists representation pretty much literally. This can be done on Photoshop by adding and blending layers. This type of work can be found in exhibitions, album artwork and film posters. It can also be used as propaganda or political art to try and change someones opinion of a political party or law.

Alex Cowper

Alex Cowper is the Senior Art Director for EMI music. He is in charge of all the creative development and music campaigns across EMI, some of these including Parlophone and Virgin Records. He used photography to design Placebos album Meds. He used a long exposure time to record the track in which she moved her face. The long exposure time meant that anything moving in the frame would have been recorded, in this case her body stayed deadly still and her face moved from one side to the other. The colours and effect of the image over all would then have been digitally manipulated to look darker and more distorted. Saturate may have been one of the effects used in this particular image.

High Speed Photography

High speed photography is the capturing of images faster than the human eye. The shutter speed can be as fast 1/8000 of a second which means it capture clear images that to the human eye would just seem like a blur. To take these types of images you will need make sure you preferably have a dark background in order to see the effects clearly. For example taking an image of something white such as milk, you will be able to see the shapes much more clearly. The same goes for something clear like water. The subject its self would also have to have a lot of light shone on it. As the shutter speed is so fast it doesnt have a lot of time to let any light in. In order to perfect this type of photography it is helpful to have continuous shooting. The fast, continuous shooting mean that you can capture the whole motion. The shooting must start before the the motion though otherwise it may miss it.

Multiple Exposure Photography

Multiple exposure photography combines two different images into one, normally one image over the other. This can create a ghostly effect as well as add past to a present image. To achieve multiple exposure photography there are many ways to go about it. Using film based photography, in a dark room, you can layer film on top of one another and shine light through both images onto photographic paper. This will make both exposures combine together as one. The camera shutter can also be opened more than once to expose the one film more than once. Using Photoshop you can layer each digital image over one another and change the opacity and filters to create the effect of double exposure. Multiply mode will add the colours together to rather than making them pale and translucent. Multiple exposure techniques can also be achieved using long exposure times and scanners

Scanography

Scanography is the capturing of images using a scanner. Images captured using scanography usually have a very high resolution within the limits of the scanner. It is useful as it can take images of very small items which are too hard to photograph. The subject can be placed on the scanner bed and the scanner then takes the image. As the artist can not see into the scanner due to them working from behind it can be hard to get the desired image. The scanner can also capture moving images and this creates a distorted effect. It is important to not have eyes open while the scanner take the images as the light is too bright and will damage your sight.