First Blog, Brace Yourselves for the Excitement...

Ok so here's my first blog. I'm new to this blogging business so am not entirely sure what i'm supposed to fill this space with. I will use it to note down ideas and inspiration and share any work, mine or of others, that might be of interest to others.

I will start off by giving you a taste of some of the photography that I like by surrealist photographer Herbert Bayer. They are shot on black and white film and would have been created in a darkroom. They remind me that you don't need a computer or technology in order to create great surreal images. Growing up in the digital age I have become accustomed to forgetting how easy we have it in terms of photographing and editing our images. With a digital camera you can see then and there on the LCD screen roughly how your image will look and change your technique accordingly, you don't have the mystery and suspense that comes with film photography. Once home you can pop your memory card in the computer and photoshop it to your heart's desire. Problems? There's a help section and endless "Photoshop for Dummies..." style books on hand to spoon feed your way through to the final edit. I'm not against Photoshop, I think that to learn it well is an art form in itself but I like to look back at old photos like these and remind myself to not take this for granted and appreciate the hard work that would have gone into images like these.

(left) Bayer's Self Portrait in Mirror. The use of photomontage to fragment the body makes it seem almost fake and plastic, like a doll. Bayer was one of the modernists who used the process of collage and photomontage to deconstruct the apparent "realism" of photography.








(right) Lonely Metropolitan is probably Bayer's most well known image. I love the juxtaposition of all the elements, the strange arrangement presents us with a dream like image that conveys a sense of loneliness and alienation in an urban landscape. I think the eyes looking straight into the camera are quite haunting.

Lonely Metropolitan was the inspiration for the monster in the Guillermo del Toro film Pan's Labyrinth (below left). This is an image that I am constantly being seen reproduced by amateur and student photographers. Below right is what I would consider to be a good homage to this, photographed/created by friend James Sheppard. This is also an example of how art/photography/film all feed off each other and continue to borrow and recycle old ideas.