Camera-Less Photography

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The theme that I explored for my particular artwork was ‘light and shadow’. As a student with a passion for photography, I wanted to incorporate my photographic skills into my artwork and explore the history of photography and the different photographic techniques that other artists and photographers use to create certain artworks. When doing my research I came across the Shadow Catchers Series, where camera- Less photography is used. Contemporary artists such as Adam Fuss, Garry Fabian Miller and Floris Neususs, all work with photography, however none of the artists work with a camera and they explore varying forms of camera-less photography.
I found that Camera-Less Photography can be in the form of a Photogram. This is the placement of
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Floris Neususs’s work portrays the technical, visual and conceptual possibilities within Photograms. I loved the impression that his female nude, shadow figures gave me as they floated effortlessly on the 2 metre length paper. A photogram always portrays the subjects to scale unlike photography, where the size of the image is uninformed and depends on the size of the print rather than the object that was photographed. In my charcoal drawings, I wanted to express the confrontation of a life size image in front of the viewer and the emotions one might feel when confronted. The life sized image creates a sense of intimacy with the viewer; however a sense of detachment is also created through the lack of identity and detailed features. I wanted to create a similar effect in my charcoal drawings of different life size shadows, as one’s shadow often appears larger than the figure itself depending on how close the object is to the direct light, therefore connecting to the theme of ‘Light and Shadow’. I decided on the medium, charcoal, for my first artwork, Fighting Shadows as I was inspired by Floris Neususs’s quote, “ Photography records an image projected through a lense: all that is captured is reflected light. A photogram is a kind of drawing with light.” I therefore decided on four charcoal drawings of silhouettes that …show more content…
He creates unique Photograms and daguerreotypes made of smoke and light and deals with issues of life and death, birth, love, and its loss. Fuss mainly relies on the use of chance method in his Photogram series, My Ghost. The mystery of smoke is stilled and recorded directly on silver photographic paper by a flash of light. Each image of the series represents his memories and the subject is displayed in a different way either with defined shapes, articulate edges or hazy, translucent airiness to create a ghostly effect. Fuss aims to produce what is usually not visible. The negative images vary in shade where white represents the areas that received no light and the darker shaded areas were exposed to and received full light. I was fascinated by one of the images from the series, Untitled (silhouette from My Ghost) 1961. A beautiful white figure silhouette of a woman with her head held high and her hair flowing behind her is shown against a black background, where the daguerreotype method was used. The contrasting colours of harsh black and white encouraged me not to use any colour in my large figures done in charcoal, and I used a black and white filter on my digital camera when taking the photos beforehand. For me, the contrast in