Unit 31: LO1

Connor Rogerson
Man Ray
Man Ray ( Born: August 27, 1890 -November 18, 1976) was an American
Filmmaker, painter but he was most famous for his photography, his career was very
distinctive for all reasons for his success, not only in the United states but as across
Europe He is perhaps most remembered for his photographs of the inter-war years.
For Man Ray, photography was often operated in the margin between art and life,
his work as a commercial photographer encouraged him to create fine, carefully and
composed prints. Dada and surrealism were the most important things in
encouraging his attitude to commercial photography.
The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse (1920)
Man Ray’s early, assisted readymade (a found object slightly altered) was created a year before Man Ray left
for France. Marcel Duchamp's influence and assistance are evident in this Dada object, in which a sewing
machine is wrapped in an army blanket, and tied with a string.

Ray did not reveal the “enigma” under the felt and intended the photograph as a riddle for the viewers to
solve with the title providing an hint, creating a sense of mystery for people to solve.
Le Cadeau- The gift (1921)
This piece was made in the afternoon on the opening day of Man Ray’s first solo show in paris. It was
intended as a gift to the gallery owner, the poet Philippe Soupault, and Man Ray added it to the show at the
last minute, but the object was received too much attention and therefore disappeared at the end of the
opening.

Another assisted readymade photo, Man Ray took a simple utilitarian in black and white, in which case was
an iron and made it evoke different specific qualities by attaching the tacks, Hence that the tacks which cling
and hold and also contrasts with the iron, which is meant to smoothly glide and both are rendered useless.
Rayography- The Kiss (1922)
This is one of Ray’s earliest Rayograms, a process that which objects are laid directly on to a photo- sensitive
paper then exposed to light.

To create this particular picture, he transferred the silhouette of a pair of hands to the photographic paper
then repeated the procedure with a pair of heads.

Rayograms gave Man Ray an opportunity to be in direct contact with his work and rect to his creations
immediately by adding one layer upon the next layer. He used inanimate objects as well as his own body to
create his earlier pictures and the pictures tend to sometime have an autobiographical quality.

The aperture for this shot will be quite low since the shot allows very little light in, the aperture is approx
f/16.
Jeff Wall
Jeffrey Wall, OC, RSA (born September 29, 1946) is a Canadian artist and
photographer best known for his large-scale back-lit cibachrome photographs and
art history writing. Wall has been a key figure in Vancouver's art scene since the
early-1970s. Early in his career, he helped define the Vancouver School and he has
published essays on the work of his colleagues and fellow Vancouverites Rodney
Graham, Ken Lum, and Ian Wallace. His photographic tableaux often take
Vancouver's mixture of natural beauty, urban decay and postmodern and industrial
featurelessness as their backdrop.
The destroyed room (1978)
The Destroyed Room (1978), is one of Canadian artist Jeff Wall's first and most iconic photographs. The
work consists of a large photograph printed as a cibachrome transparency within a fluorescent lightbox.
Around 5 by 8 feet in size, the work is both vivid and imposing. Offering a stark view of a seemingly
ravaged space the image forces the viewer to confront the destruction of items found within the typically
intimate space of a bedroom. Clothes are spilling out of the drawers of a wooden dresser, a bed is turned
on its side with its pale green mattress slashed horizontally across the mattress, possessions such as
clothing and accessories are strewn about the floor, and large pieces of the red wall are missing, exposing
the pink insulation underneath. The shutter speed of the shot will be very low since nothing is moving in
the shot.
Picture for women(1979)
The image reveals a reflection in a mirror of a sparse studio room, furnished with metallic office chairs, a work
table, uncovered lightbulbs, pipes, and cinder block.

Despite the mundane scenery, the composition of the image follows traditional aesthetic rules of photography
for instance dividing the picture into thirds, balancing the composition both horizontally and also vertically.

In the left third, a woman stands with her hands resting on a long table or bar, solemnly confronting the viewer.
Wall's camera is in the center of the image, and Wall himself stands in the right third; his body facing the camera,
but his face is turned straight towards the female. He holds the camera's shutter speed to release cable in his
visible hand, confirming his authorship of the image before us.
A sudden gust of wind(After Hakousi) (1993)
Wall's A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai), reinterprets the scene in a woodcut print by Japanese
printmaker and painter Katsushika Hokusai. Part of the larger portfolio called The Thirty-six Views of Fuji,
Hokusai's original image.

Wall's large-scale image is actually made up of multiple photographs taken over the course of several
months, then later digitally combined to create a final collaged composition. Four figures appear caught
mid-movement, situated at different points in front of a canal of water cutting through an otherwise barren
field. We see mostly flat lands stretch into the background, with a row of power lines receding on the right
side of the image, suggesting a more industrialized location than the site in the original woodcut.

The Shutter speed will be quite high since there are loads of movement whilst this shot was taken for
instance the gust of wind.
Andreas Gursky
Andreas Gursky (born 15 January 1955) is a German photographer and professor at the Kunstakademie
Düsseldorf, Germany.
He is known for his large format architecture and landscape colour photographs, often employing a high
point of view. Gursky shares a studio with Laurenz Berges, Thomas Ruff and Axel Hütte on the Hansaallee, in
Düsseldorf.The building, a former electricity station, was transformed into an artists studio and living
quarters, in 2001, by architects Herzog & de Meuron, of Tate Modern fame. In 2010-11, the architects
worked again on the building, designing a gallery in the basement.
Bahrain I (2005)
The photograph shows the track curving in a snake-like fashion through the deserted landscape, the black
asphalt forming a strong contrast with the beige sand surrounding it. No cars or people are visible in the
image, although a long horizontal grandstand with a white roof can be seen just above the centre of the
composition. A cluster of distant buildings are also very perceptible near the horizon underneath a hazy
grey-blue sky. The ISO would be about 400 since the photo is taken outside on a bright sunny day. The
shutter speed will be very low since there is barely no movement when this shot was taken. This shot also
uses high key lighting, this means an high aperture is used to capture all the lighting.
The Rhine II (1999)
The image is immediately legible as a view of a straight stretch of water, but it is also an abstract
configuration of horizontal bands of colour of varying widths. The horizon line bisects the picture almost
exactly in the middle. Above it the overcast sky is a blue-grey. In the bottom half of the image, the river is a
glassy, unbroken band between green stripes of grass. At the bottom of the picture in the immediate
foreground is a narrow path. Below it is another thin band of manicured green grass.

The aperture will be reasonable low since it is less in focus and shallower depth of field.

The shutter speed is quite low at about 1/16.

Chicago, Board of Trade II (1999)
This large colour photograph depicts the trading floor of the Board of Trade in Chicago. The floor is a dense
hive of activity and is packed. Brokers in brightly coloured jackets stand in groups around banks of monitors.
Their flurried actions give the image a blurred quality which means that the shutter speed is quite slow also
the apertureis really low which means a shallower depth of field.

Gursky double exposed several sections of the image to enhance this sense of movement and activity
around the edges of the pit rise banks of desks, behind which are seated rows of figures hunched over
telephones, staring at screens or gesticulating to their colleagues.