The Portrait

'Mr and Mrs Andrews' - Thomas Gainsborough 1750
Robert Adamson (1821-48) and David Octavius Hill (1802-70) - 'Mr Lane in Indian Dress' 1843-7


A Daguerreotype in a decorative case 19th Century

Julia Margaret Cameron has become famous for her prtraits. This is a photographic portrait of an Italian man, possibly an artist's model called Alessandro Colorossi. She had the ability to create simple and beautiful images, slightly out of focus with a romantic atmosphere. This image could be an advert for a fragrance - it almost looks like a modern advertisment or fashion shot.

Julia Margaret Cameron 1872
'Seth Kinman, California hunter', 1864. Carte de visite photograph by Matthew Brady
'Contortionist, posed in studio' Thiele's Photographic Rooms Circa 1880
Maria Germanova of the Moscow Arts Theatre, costumed for her role in 'Bluebird of Happiness'

Carte de Visite photographs--small albumen prints mounted on cards 2-1/2 by 4 inches--were wildly popular and made for decades in countries around the world. The format was an international standard; for the first time, relatives and friends could exchange portraits, knowing they would find a place in the recipient's family album--whether that album was located in Manchester, Berlin or Brazil. In addition, unlike earlier photographs made with such processes as the daguerreotype and ambrotype, cartes de visite could be sent through the mail without the need for a bulky case and fragile cover-glass. Their small size also made them relatively inexpensive, and they became so widespread that by 1863 Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes would write, "Card portraits, as everybody knows, have become the social currency, the 'green-backs' of civilization."
Joe Jefferson 19th Century Stage actor

The Carte de Vista were not meant to be made up images but by their very nature they ended up being fantastic. People would visit a photographers studio which is an artificial environment with artificial backdrops and props. People would also dress for the occasion from their best cloths, to costumes, to actors publicising their current role. These images would be sent out into the world, representing the individual - it only stands to reason that what appears on the card is an idealised version of the individual. The Carte de vista was the victorian eras version of the image on your Facebook page.
Chuck Close 'Big Self-Portrait' (273 x 212 cm)., 1967-68

Madame Yevonde circa 1930's

Madame Yevonde was a Portrait photographer who was a pioneer in photographic techniques, experimenting with solarisation and associated particularly with the development of the now-defunct Vivex process. Madame Yevonde, like Julia Margaret Cameron, used her high society connections to photograph key figures of her time often in elaborate set up photo-shoots. Yevonde's intention was to promote the artistic element in portraiture. British socialites loved to dress up and to play charades, and Yevonde combined this tendency with her knowledge of the new Parisian portrait style of Man Ray.
Cindy Sherman - 'Untitled Film Stills' 1977-1982
Cindy Sherman 'Untitled 96' 1981
By turning the camera on herself, Cindy Sherman has built a name as one of the most respected photographers of the late twentieth century. The majority of her photographs are pictures of herself, however, these photographs are most definitely not self-portraits. Rather, Sherman uses herself as a vehicle for commentary on a variety of issues of the modern world: the role of the woman, the role of the artist and many more. It is through these ambiguous and eclectic photographs that Sherman has developed a distinct signature style. Through a number of different series of works, Sherman has raised challenging and important questions about the role and representation of women in society, the media and the nature of the creation of art.
Sherman came to prominence during the 1970's when performance art was at its height. There is an element of performance to Sherman's images and the photograph is partly a recording of an act. Sherman's early work was black and white film stills from imaginary films. Interestingly as she has got older she has exaggerated the aging process and make up -the characters seem to become more ridiculous and grotesque. Her work as a whole makes you consider mortality and how we age in our own lives.

Loretta Lux




Picasso 'Portrait of Ambroise Vollard' 1910

This is Picasso's portrait of the art dealer Ambroise Vollard who championed and was painted by Cezanne (in 1899). Picasso would claim that this is a more truthful portrait than a traditional approach. The image is fractured and made up of geometric planes - like a piece of broken glass. Vollards bald head explodes and is elongated, his downcast eyes seem closed and his features are merely suggested. The whole image has a similar hue - flesh tones, browns, greens and blues. Picasso would move on from cubism (though a stylised version of it can be seen in his later works) - but ultimately Cubism is his key contribution to art.



Soundtrack Album artwork for the film 'Dancer in the Dark' (2000) dir. Lars von Trier



Daniel Crooks - 'Portrait #1 (Self), Portrait #2 (Chris), Portrait #3 (Chris)'  2007


Frederick Sommer - 'Max Ernst' 1946
This is a photograph of the artist Max Ernst by Frederick Sommer. Ernst was connected to the Surrealists who were interested in the world of the unconscious and dreams. In dreams the everyday mixes and creates strange juxtapositions. In this photograph Frederick Sommer has created a sandwich negative in the dark room by placing two negatives on top of one another. He would have had to alter the exposure time to compensate for using two negatives. Like the surrealists Sommer has Juxtaposed two images - an image of Hass and an old textured wall. Is he making a connection between the decay effects of nature on a man made wall and the ultimate aging effect of time on the human body?


El Lissitzky
Wanda Wulz - Self Portrait 1932
In this image Wanda Wulz has used the sandwich negative approach to merge herown image with that of a cat. The notion of a human turning into an animal is called anthropomorphism and has been used repeated in literature - for exam Franz Kafka's - 'The Metamorphosis'.
Warhol 'Triple Elvis' 1963. Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas
In 'Triple Elvis' a promotional photograph of Elvis is overlaid three times using the silkscreen process. This creates a visual Jump - creating movement in a static image. It also suggests that celebrity is shallow - that stars are turned into products to be consumed by the viewer. When you see a Warhol in the flesh you notice that each silkscreened image is slightly different to the next. Little imperfections give the initially mechanical image painterly qualities.

Dan Mountford - "Double Exposure Series"









avedon
thompson etc








Combinations and Alliances - Stage Design

David Hockney - Stage Design for 'Turnadot'
Hockney's 'Turnadot' set
'Sky Scrapers and Subway' 1930
Sketch for the Mobile Scenery of "The New Babel" 1930
Fortunato Despero - 'Sky Scraper and Tunnel' 1930 
The glory of technology! The fascination of speed! The thrill of new products! For the creators of the Futurist movement of the early twentieth century, this was what inspired them. Fortunato Despero joined the furists late but was inspired by it ideas throughout his career. This is a piece of Despero's theatre design - this stage set was never built. They represent the sense of vertigo in a city, sometimes by the means of skyscraper shapes placed in precarious perspective at acute angles, sometimes by showing the hidden underground subway system. Despero described a mass of people as "crowd confetti, crowd ants, crowds of human sand flowing, slipping, falling apart". This indicated that in the midst of this mechanical paradise there is a sense of alienation and solitude.
Kurt Schwitters - 'Mz 601' 1923
Kurt Schwitters created collages that were purely abstract and were made up of fragments of detritus from the streets. He called these collages Merz - taken from the words left on a fragment of torn paper. In this collage Schwitters has used a series of squares laid next to and on top of one another. Fragments of paper are joined by fragments of letters and numbers - the overall composition is dominated by a large number 23 just left of center. The image could be described as having a random nature but there also seems to be movement, animation and rhythm. There could be an order to this chaos - as if Schwitters has used elements of the golden rectangle in his work.

These photographs above were taken of Schwitters 'Merzblau'. From 1923 Scwitters began work on what he regarded to be his life's work. In his home he began to place collages on the walls, eventually adding and expanding them all over his home. He gradually connected them with string, wire, wood and plaster. His home eventually became a 'Merzblau' (a Merz Building) - both his home and a giant three dimensional sculpture/installation. The flat angles from his collages became sculptural forms, wall became distorted planes like a german expressionist stage set. As with many key German artists Schwitters fled to escape the Nazis' in 1937. Never one to be put off by the tyranny of fascism Schwitters built more Merzblau in Norway (1937 -1940) and Cumbria, England (Merz Barn 1947).
The three dimensional angles of Schwitters Merzblau and German expressionism are found in this visually rich building. This is the Nestle Chocolate Museum designed by Rojkind. The exterior is made up of rich primary red prefabricated sections pieced together. Many of the skins of buildings combine different materials like a Scwitters collage. When Collage moves into three dimensions it becomes an Assemblage.


'The Cabinet of Dr.Calligari' (1920)

In these two scenes from 'The Cabinet of Dr Calligari' the use of dramatic diagonal lines to break up the composition is a characteristic of GermanExpressionism.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
'Potsdamer Platz' 1914 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
In this painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner you can see the warped perspective of the city streets almost tipping the scene over. You can see how Kirchers dramatic distortion of space was used in the stage sets of German cinema. Kirchner was one of the prolific of the German Expressionist artists who were opposed to the academic art that surrounded them.

Jaromir Funke 'Abstract photo' 1928-29
These images show how German expression not only took the form of painting, printing, film but also avant guard photography. Jaromír Funke (1896–1945) was one of the foremost photographers of the 1920s and 1930s in Czechoslovakia, a country that stood at the forefront of creative photography during these two decades. In many ways he was an amateur in the true sense of the word. These simple light experiments combine diagonal lines and triangles with circles to create dramatic compositions. The use of strong contrast between the areas of light and dark adds to this dramatic effect. The influence of German expressionism has reached art (Neo Expressionism), animation (Lotte Reiniger's - fairy tale films), modern cinema (Film Noir, Sin City) and even video games (via film noir - LA Noir - here).
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Combinations and Alliances - Juxtaposition

Frederick Sommer - 'Max Ernst' 1946
This is a photograph of the artist Max Ernst by Frederick Sommer. Ernst was connected to the Surrealists who were interested in the world of the unconscious and dreams. In dreams the everyday mixes and creates strange juxtapositions. In this photograph Frederick Sommer has created a sandwich negative in the dark room by placing two negatives on top of one another. He would have had to alter the exposure time to compensate for using two negatives. Like the surrealists Sommer has Juxtaposed two images - an image of Hass and an old textured wall. Is he making a connection between the decay effects of nature on a man made wall and the ultimate aging effect of time on the human body?
Album cover for Travis '12 Memories' 2003 - photographs by Anton Corbijn
This album cover is similar to Sommer's image. Each band member has been photographed from a distance (a view that includes some kind of texture) and then this images has been merged with a close up portrait. Here we see a trickle down effect from early twentieth century pioneers to early 21st century commercial packaging. However, even in 1949, when Sommer created his image of Hass, the act of combining images together was already established.
Some of the earliest examples of merged images are found in cinema. Early films were often just one long take but soon film maker were editing several scenes. Pioneers such as George Melies (and others) creatively experimented with the way you could cut from scene to scene and the art of editing was born (watch 'The Cutting Edge - The Magic of Movie Editing').  Also watch Lois Weber's 'Suspence' 1913.
El Lissitzky
Dziga Vertov 'Man with a Movie Camera 1929
An eye is superimposed with a lens ('I am kino-eye, I am mechanical eye') and a mans face is superimposed with a machine. Dziga Vertov's revolutionary film 'Man with a Movie Camera' (watch an ongoing modern remake here) experimented, expanded and reinvented what could be done with a camera and how you could edit the film. The moving image is the ultimate Photomontage but rather than a static image you have multiple images, one after the other, creating strange juxtapositions and new meanings. Vertov's films are like a living Dada Photomontage. Vertov wasn't making art - he was making work for the people. In doing so he helped create the language of cinema. Like the juxtaposition used in Surrealism, editing film together creates new meaning.

It was in scene Transitions in cinema where we see images that look like a sandwich negative or a multiple exposure.
Stills from Pather Panchali  (directed by Satyajit Ray) 1955
Satyajit Ray first ever film, made with an inexperienced crew and untrained actors, is one of the most beautiful films ever made (sit back have a cup of tea and watch it here). At several key stages transitions are used - blending scenes into one another - mixing everyday reality with a dreamlike quality. These moments pass quickly in the film but frozen they reveal themselves as rich, layered multiple exposures. Many modern films use this technique - there will probably be one in the next film you see.
Still from Pather Panchali
As well as transition shots 'Pather Panchali' juxtaposes images within the same scene. In the famous train scene Apu and Durga run to catch a glimpse of a train. Apu and Durga come from a poor traditional rural village and the train represent industrialisation and the future. By contrasting the modernity of the train with the children's simple life style juxtaposes the traditions of the past with the possibilities of the future. Today a lot of people pine for a simpler less consumer led life but here industrialisation is shown as a positive force.
Rene Magritte was a surrealist painter who often combined or juxtaposed two images together. Most of us have seen rain and we have seen men in suites (Magritte used these figures as short hand for the bourgeois) – they are both everyday sights. In our dreams it could rain business men - as in this above painting by Magritte. These are the kind of Juxtapositions the Surrealists liked to play with.
Rene Magritte 'The Explanation' 1954
Rene Magritte 'le modele rouge' 1935
These images by Magritte show how he would juxtapose two images to create a new strange image. A carrot becomes a bottle or shoes become feet (man made objects merged with natural forms). Magritte was a Surrealist who were interested in dreams and the unconscious. In a dream you will combine everyday things but by combining them they become strange. You may dream of a hat or a piece of cheese - both very ordinary. However, in your dream they appear to you as a hat made out of cheese - this is an element of surrealism.
Surrealist inspired Smirnoff Advert and here
Edward Weston 'Pepper' 1930
Edward weston 'Nude' 1936
Both of the images above are by Edward Weston. Whether Weston was photographing a natural form, a human figure, a car engine or a toilet (he create a series) he considered curves, light and form. Although he has not combined the images, by photographing them in the same way, he encourages us to compare them.

Salvado Dali 'Telephone - homard' 1938
This is a photograph of Salvador Dalí's 'Téléphone-homard (Lobster Telephone)', 1938. Dali was a Surrealist and one of the key themes of Surrealism was the unconscious mind. Again Dali, like Magritte, has used juxtaposition. We have all seen a plastic lobster and we have all seen a telephone but by combining them together Dali has created something Surreal. The surreal look has slowly merged with popular culture and many adverts today have a surreal quality. Surrealism is now the norm.
Rene Magritte - 'Empire of Lights' 1953-54 
In this painting Magritte explores the relationship between night and day in one image. The sky is blue and scattered with cloud but the ground is dark apart from a single street light illuminating the scene.
Jerry Uelsmann 'Untitled' 1982
Jerry Uelsmann 'Untitled' 1969
An old house grows from the stump of a tree and another tree floats above an island. These Photo montages by Jerry Uelsmann have the surreal quality of a Magritte and seem to have been pieced together smoothly using a layer mask in Photoshop (read tutorial here or see video tutorial here). However, they have been made in a darkroom using burning and dodging, masks made out of cardboard and patience. Uelsmann came to prominence during the 1960's during the Pop Art era. Photography is famed for its objective, mechanical eye. It can be used as evidence in a court of law. However, these images are clearly fantastical - and with the invention of Photoshop most photographs are altered in some way. In the digital age is photography still an objective medium?
Wanda Wulz - Self Portrait 1932
In this image Wanda Wulz has used the sandwich negative approach to merge herown image with that of a cat. The notion of a human turning into an animal is called anthropomorphism and has been used repeated in literature - for exam Franz Kafka's - 'The Metamorphosis'.
In this contemporary advert a human figure has been merged with a collection of brass instruments. The curves of the figure has been replaced with the curves of object. In this instant Photoshop has been used.
E.J. Marey 'Geometric Chronophotograph of a man in a black suit' 1883
Etienne-Jules Marey created images of the moving figure (also see Eadweard Muybridge). Marey was a scientist who used art whereas Muybridge was an artist who created pseudo-scientific images. However, Marey's images were slow shutter speed shots and he used a strobe light. As the strobe flashed it created an image of the figure - therefore creating multiple figures showing the subject move though time and space.
Photography is, in many ways, where art and science meet and these images show Harold Edgerton’s experiments with high speed photography. This image was created by having the camera on a tripod and using a slow shutter speed. However, Edgerton used a strobe light – each time it flashed it captured the figure in mid movement.
Umberto Boccioni 'Unique Forms of Continuity in Space' 1913
In this sculpture above the futurist artist Umberto Boccioni has captured in three dimensions a figure moving through time and space. Notice how the calf muscles are repeated - like a slow shutter speed photograph made solid. It is similar to Marcel Duchamp's 'Nude Descending a Staircase' where we see a figure repeated going down stairs.
'Duchamp Descending a Staircase' Life Magazine 1952 by Eliot Elisofon
Marcel Duchamp 'Nude Descending a staircase (No2)' 1912
'Nude descending a staircase (No2)' was the painting that changed Marcel Duchamp's life. The figure hardly looks nude because it hardly looks human. You can just about make out the form of a figure move diagonally across the composition. triangles and semi circles of brown and yellow hues add vibrancy to the image. When Duchamp submitted Salon des Independants, it was coldly received. The cubist painter and theorist Albert Gleizes asked Duchamp's brother to ask him to 'Voluntarily' withdraw it. It did not conform to what the cubist circle wanted to represent their ideas (Cubism showed the world from multiple viewpoints). It seemed too futurist to them since it contained movement (Futurism, although sharing a certain look of Cubism, showed objects moving through time and space). 
The Cubists wanted to clarify and strengthen their position against other 'ism' that were cropping up. Embarrassed Duchamp's brother asked him to concede, which he did without making a fuss. However, the incident did affect Duchamp -
"This affair helped me to totally escape my past, my own personal past. I said to myself, 'Well, if that's how the way they want it, then there's no question about me joining a group; one can only count on oneself, one must be a loner.'"
Soon after Duchamp would turn his back on painting and start to question the very nature of art. He started placing objects from the world into gallery spaces, he called them 'ready-mades', most famously in 1917 with 'Fountain'.
Cecil Beaton - 'T.S.Eliot' 1956
Cecil Beaton often used Multiple exposures in his portraits to show different views of the same person in one image. He would have used a tripod to keep the camera in the same position so the back remains the same but the figure moves. This could be achieved by exposing the film four times in the camera (though you have to lower the exposure time accordingly), exposing the same piece of photographic paper with three different negatives or blending Layers in Photoshop.
Alvin Langdon Coburn 'Ezra Pound' 1917
This photograph by Alvin Langdon Coburn creates a vortex effect from a simple portrait shot. It is an image of Ezra Pound who was a key member of the English Vorticism group (Vorticism shared qualities with Cubism and Futurism). In the darkroom the paper has been exposed three times - with each exposure the image has been re sized and refocused. Exposure time would have to be reduced so the paper did not become over exposed.
Alvin Langdon Coburn 'Vortograph' 1917
At his best Coburn experimented with unusual viewpoints and created some of the first abstract photographs with his 'Vortographs'. They were created by using three mirrors to create a kaleidoscopic images.
Warhol 'Triple Elvis' 1963. Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas
In 'Triple Elvis' a promotional photograph of Elvis is overlaid three times using the silkscreen process. This creates a visual Jump - creating movement in a static image. It also suggests that celebrity is shallow - that stars are turned into products to be consumed by the viewer. When you see a Warhol in the flesh you notice that each silkscreened image is slightly different to the next. Little imperfections give the initially mechanical image painterly qualities.
Eugène Thiébault - 'Henri Robin and a Specter', 1863
"The Ghost of Bernadette Soubirous," circa 1890, by an unknown photographer
"Partial Dematerialization of the Medium Marguerite Beuttinger," ca. 1920, by an unknown photographer.
These images above are from the exhibition 'The Perfect Medium - Photography and the occult'. These images are from the late 19th and early 20th century - an age when photography was relatively young. The fact that some people believed these images were true could say something about gullibility, but also the magical power of photography. In our age of Photoshop manipulation these images are obviously fake. However, we forget how these images would seem unfathomable to their contemporary audiences. Slow shutter speeds, double exposures and photographic trickery were used to create these strange images.
Idris Khan
Idris Khan is a contemporary photographer who overlays the work of others on top of one another. The top image shows where Khan overlaid the Bechers water tower series. This has given the image the feel of a charcoal drawing and the images have an eerie, ghostlike atmosphere. Although these images are not fast shutter speed examples they show a life times work in an instant – warping time by showing the work in an instant.
Harry Callahan 'Alley, Chicago' 1948
Edward Steichen 'Rockefeller Center, New York' 1932
Edward Steichen has sandwiched two negatives together to create abstract forms from the urban environment. Geometric black forms are created and contract with softer patterned areas. 
Charles Sheeler 'New York No.2' 1951 Oil on Canvas
Charles Sheeler 'Study for Improvisation on a Mill Town' 1948
Charles Sheeler 'Study for Improvisation on a Mill Town' 1948
Charles Sheeler 'Improvisation on a Mill Town' 1949
In the three images above we can see the process of the artist Charles Sheeler. Sheeler worked across a variety of mediums throughout his career. His sharp and tonal black and white photographs of industrial buildings and machinery have a stark beauty. These photographs have a look of the work of Paul Strand (who he collaborated with in his early career on the film 'Manhatta' 1921). During research for his painting 'Improvisation on a Mill Town' (1949) he created a photomontage by using the sandwich negative process. Where the two images merge new dramatic shapes, forms and lines are created. He then used these photomontages as the basis for final painting.
Charles Sheeler 'Millyard Passage' Photomontage 1948
Charles Sheeler 'Manchester' 1949 Oil on Canvas
Dylan Culhane
Dylan Culhane (EB&Flow gallery)
Dan Mountford - "Double Exposure Series"
Aspects of Dylan Culhane's and Dan Mountford's experiments with multiple exposure have a similar feel to the work of Sheeler. Frederick Sommer created a sandwhich negative in the darkroom, Jerry Uelsmann used the burning and dodging technique in the dark room but Culhane and Mountford have exposed the same piece of negative twice in the camera (all these techniques can also be done very easily on Photoshop). You could also put one film through a camera twice (you could retrieve the leader with a film retriever). Many old cheap cameras like a Holga, a Sprocket Rocket, a Matchbox Pinhole, an old box brownie allow you to open the shutter as many times as you want and wind the film on when it suits you.
Double exposures from a Lomo Camera
Double exposure using a Holga
Tara Dash - double exposure on a matchbox pinhole camera
Double exposure taken on a Sprocket Rocket 
Mark Adamson - 35mm film through a Kodak Dualflex

Yuheikawaguchi - double exposure on a Kodak Box Brownie
My Double Exposures experiments using a Box Brownie No2 with 35mm film.

Images are rarely scene on their own. From the moment we wake up we are bombarded with images - serial packets, breakfast news, billboards, bus stop adverts, the morning paper - and that is before you have started the day or looked at the Internet. By juxtaposing images together you encourage the viewer to make links and connections in their own mind. This happens in moving images (from scene to scene), gallery walls (the way you walk from picture to picture/room to room) and photo books from (page to page) - we view these images in a sequence.

However, with a merged image we see it within one image - a build up of several images, juxtaposed, in one frame.
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