Ana

The Photograph That Foreshadowed the Future, "Le Violon d’Ingres," Man Ray, 1924.

Before there was Photoshop, there was Man Ray. Ray experimented a lot when it came to his photography.

"Le Violon d’Ingres" is his most famous photograph and a good visual pun. By drawing f-holes on his model’s back, he points out the similarities between the body of a woman and the body of a violin.

Ray’s work was ahead of its time. This can be seen when looking at his experiments and literal interpretations seen within his photography.

The Photograph That Made the Surreal Real, "Dalí Atomicus," Philippe Halsman, 1948.

Although this photograph may appear to be Photoshopped, it's just been planned and executed efficiently.

Halsman is famous for his portraits of people jumping as he felt that getting them to do this revealed a truth. The photograph is Halsman’s acknowledgement to the physicist’ then-recent announcement that all matter hangs in a constant state of suspension) and to Dalí’s surrealist masterpiece "Leda Atomica" (seen on the right, behind the cats, and unfinished at the time). It took six hours, 28 jumps, and a roomful of assistants throwing angry cats and buckets of water into the air to get the perfect exposure.

I believe that Halsman's outcomes and methods are influential even now. These can be seen in photographs in the present day as well as in digital art.

Perou, is a British fashion, portrait and music photographer. He took part in a series called "Dirty Sexy Things." Perou set out to create a series of stunning photographs challenging his own abilities as well as the models.

The above image (2011) is a successful photograph taken from one of the shoots. The image is reflective of the influence of Halsman's work and method of getting his subjects to jump. Here the two models had to jump whilst paint was thrown on them. They only had one shot at this and it turned out well. With the technology available now, it was much easier to create an image like this with the use of a digital camera which can take multiple shot by the second. Furthermore, with today technology this image could be edited (i.e. contrast etc) whereas back then it could not.

Brief History of Photo Manipulation

The history of manipulating photographs dates back to the 1860s. This portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is composed of Lincoln’s head and the Southern politician John Calhoun’s body.

Around the 1910s, composites of different images were made by photographic studios to bring family members together into one picture when they were not together for a joint portrait shoot.They were cut out of other photos and pasted on top of a photo. Then this was re-photographed to create a composite image. An example of this technique can be seen when looking at the image on the left. Here it appears that the third person in the image was added to the original photograph at a later date.

Adolf the Superman: Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk — John Heartfield, 1932

“To create the image… Heartfield overlaid a widely published photograph of Hitler with a chest X-ray. The caption reads, ‘Adolf, the superman, swallows gold and spouts tin.’ Heartfield’s image reveals the contradictions between Hitler’s financial support and his workingman rhetoric.

Photomontage is about making a composite photograph by cutting and joining a number of other photographs. Photomontage is another way of manipulating a photograph and in this case as well as many others it was used for political propaganda.

Benito Mussolini had the horse handler removed from the original photograph to change our perception of him as more heroic.

In this National Geographic magazine cover story on Egypt, photographer Gordon Gahen took a horizontal picture of the Great Pyramids of Giza, which had to be “squeezed” together to fit the magazine’s vertical format.

This is another example of image alteration you wouldn't easily detect. Furthermore, it expresses the advantage that comes with image manipulation which is that an image can be scaled to fit into any format available.

This cover of TV Guide shows a picture of Oprah Winfrey. This picture was created by placing the head of Winfrey onto the body of actress Ann-Margret, taken from a 1979 publicity shot.

Photo manipulation has raised copyright issues. In this case the composite was created without the permission of Winfrey or Ann-Margret.

The beginning of the 90's bought about high-resolution digital cameras, powerful personal computers and photo editing software. From this point on, photo manipulation became more common and harder to detect. It's the same case even in the present day.

This digitally altered photograph of OJ Simpson appeared on the cover of Time magazine shortly after Simpson’s arrest for murder. This photograph was manipulated from the original mug shot that appeared, unaltered, on the cover of Newsweek. Time was accused of manipulating the photograph to make Simpson appear “darker” and “menacing.” Here is another example of how photo manipulation can be used to alter peoples perceptions even their opinions.

A photograph of CBS news anchor Katie Couric was digitally altered from this original to give Couric a trimmer waistline and a thinner face. Here is further evidence that we are surrounded by these alterations in everyday life.

This photo of Heath Ledger and Christopher Nolan appeared in Vanity Fair. The photo of Ledger, is from 2005 as he was promoting the film “Brokeback Mountain.” Nolan (shown on the left) was digitally inserted into this photo. This idea of putting someone into a photo who wasn't originally there goes all the way back to 1910 as mentioned before.

Photography within Graphic Design

Photography within Graphic Design has existed for a long time now. This can be seen in older examples such as the AIZ magazine cover by John Heartfield (below left) & Herbert Bayer's poster (below right). Here John Hearfield has used a combination of typography and photography to create an effective piece of graphic communication. The use of both image and type enhances and expresses the meaning of information more effectively. Herbert Bayer's poster uses an photographic image within this graphic piece of work to convey the person the poster is about which in this case is Kandinsky.

Contemporary Examples

Storm Thorgerson is a graphic designer and film maker. The image on the left is the album cover for the band Muse and their album Absolution (2003). The photograph was taken by Rupert Truman & Storm Thorgerson. Design by Stormstudios. It's a good example of how photography exists within graphics. This use of photography adds a more realistic feel to the design and the use of spray painted figures adds the illusion of shadows from people in the sky above.

This is a poster created by Sagmeister for Warner Bros. titled Set the twilight reeling, 1996. Here the photograph has been used as a canvas for the typography. The type has been placed over the original image and follows the shape of the facial features. The image itself is striking and the overlaying type draws you in further.

This is an invitation card for Balenciaga Fall/ Winter 2002/03 collection created by M/M (Paris). Here the photographs have been drawn over in order to change the message of the image. The overall look is surreal with unusual elements stemming off from various features. Photography here gives us a chance to combine the reality with creative thinking.

Photography in advertising: Coca Cola

The image on the left is a Coca Cola advertisement from 1889 and the image on the right is an ad from 2006. The left image uses paint to create the work whereas the right image uses mostly photography and manipulation. Advertising has gone in the way of using Photography as it clearly demonstrates the product, with full detail and now can even be edited to be more aesthetically pleasing. Whereas back in 1889, photography hadn't been developed to the point where photography would be able to display the product is such strong and detailed vibrancy which paint could do.

Photography has became a key feature of most graphic applications. This can be seen when looking at most film posters, where the image displayed is usually a photograph depicting a character. The same applies most of the time for product advertisements. Now these images are always manipulated in some way. A few examples can be seen below: