Surrealist Photography

And Jerry Uelsmann wife Maggie Taylor

She works in a complete digital way, scanning small objects and assembling than the images in PS.

https://www.westongallery.com/original-works-by/maggie-taylor

For the "purist" photohgraphers perhaps it is a little bit too far from conventional photography, I admit.

But they are an interesting couple, both creative working with different tools. I think it is worthwhile to look at their works anyway :)
 
Google likes Philippe Halsman, Dora Maar and Jerry Uelsmann.

I would add Josef Sudek, Rodchenko, Moholy-Nagy, Lissitzky, and Manuel Alvarez Bravo.

Critcs in the past liked to divide up the field among Pictorialists, Straight Photographers and Surrealists. However, there was a lot of cross-pollination. For instance, I (and others) see a lot of Surrealist influence in the subject choices and treatments of Weston and Strand.

I wonder what more recent photographers people would see as being part of the Surrealist tradition? Howabout Diane Arbus?
 
The trouble is that digitally everything is possible. I find digital tampering with photos very annoying.

Diane Arbus' photography is the least imaginable surrealism there is. It's pure reality, that's the power of it, but Josef Sudek owes a lot to surrealism.

Surrealism is a very narrow path between realism and kitsch.

Erik.
 
Edinburgh 2008
Kodak 400CN - Zenit 12XP


3330586922_ed24da9939_o.jpg
 
Thanks, Joao. I took this shot many moons ago. They are members of a troupe of circus performers playing for orphaned children in Chisinau Moldova.
 
It seems to me there are two pretty distinct categories of pictures displayed in this thread. One is a rather straight documentation of a bizarre scene, often accurately portraying performers who are intentionally acting out a surreal script. The other category is images which rely primarily on choices by the photographer in regard to focus, shutter speed, perspective, and juxtaposition. Sometimes, of course those lines are blurred as when aspects of a performance are recorded through unusual choices made by the photographer at the time or in processing and later manipulating of the image. The picture above by Pan of the fellow on stilts seems like a pretty straight-forward shot, but the fact that nobody seems to be paying attention to the bizarre event adds a surreal note. Similarly, I have made quite a few pictures of masked and costumed people at Day of The Dead celebrations and I would not consider most to be of a surreal nature. A few of those images however do communicate a strange aura because of tight cropping or juxtapostion of bizarre costuming with ordinary surroundings.
 
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