01 February 2013

Reggie's photogram

Some time ago, my partner and I ran a series of photography workshops for a group of friends and neighbours with learning difficulties. It was a profoundly rewarding experience; their interest was intense and emotionally connected. Though some of them had difficulties with managing anger, they were consistent in their attention to producing images of gentle subtlety.
One of the sessions was spent on photograms: one off monoprint images made by exposing photographic emulsions directly to light whilst partially protected by shadows. Various artists have explored this technique, including Virna Haffir (who simply called them photograms), Man Ray* (who, with typical egotism, dubbed them “Rayograms”) and Christian Schad (who didn't call them anything, but whose variant is often known as a “Schadograph”). Our friends took the process, and the opportunity to exercise complete control over their vision, to their hearts.
I've recently found copies of some prints from that session. The one below, lovingly made by Reggie using a found piece of rubbish, is an example. (As always, click it for a larger view.)

* An exhibition of Man Ray's portrait (not photogram) work opens on Feb 7th at London's National Portrait Gallery.
though the popular belief that he invented them is false; it has its roots nearly two centuries earlier.

2 comments:

Geoff said...

Tell Reggie Geoffrey like sit, very much.

Anonymous said...

Fascinatingly beautiful. I'd call that piece "Alchemy--Garbage to Gold".