Jerry Uelsmann is known for his photomontages from the 1960s that combine different themes and sensibilities through double exposures and layering. His images depict familiar places but with strange framing that take the viewer on an imaginative journey. Most contain hands framing the scene to convey a message of unlimited potential. Hannah Höch was a pioneer of photomontage who critiqued ideas of beauty in the early 20th century. She created collages by cutting up photos and rearranging facial features and body parts, often of women, to make statements about gender and society. Anna Bodnar takes traditional photos and heavily manipulates them digitally to create symbolic, emotional art

1. Experimental photography
Case studies

2. Jerry Uelsmann:-
Photomontages, double exposure and layering
Jerry Uelsmann’s photomontages are considered to be the most significant printing
since the sixties. They contain a hybrid of themes and sensibilities. The images will often
contain aspects of pop, expression, fantasy and conceptual experimentation. His
photographs are meant to depict a familiar place which the viewers can recognize
or relate to, but instead use strange themes and framing techniques which can take
the viewer on a journey to what most people wouldn’t consider doing. Most of his
images contain hands as the framing device, this could be telling the viewer anything
is reachable if you try hard enough and that the whole world is at your
fingertips, waiting for you to go out and catch it.
Jerry’s work has a contemporary approach to it but could easily have been created
similarly through historical techniques, using an old film camera. Although his work is
more likely to me non-traditional as he probably used digital production and
manipulation software to create the crisp images on a black background, this style of
photography can be created traditionally through a film camera where you shoot
two images over the same section of film then use a dark room to gain the correct
exposure and develop the images. This style of photography is more likely going to be
fine art and Jerry will have probably also intended for them to be viewed this way as
he appears to have no intentions of using them in promotional or commercial ways.
However, this style could be used as commercial in a more modern era as it could be
used for beauty advertisements or possibly album art.
This technique can be created through the use of Photoshop or any other image
manipulation software. It is created through layering two different images together
then changing the blond mode until they seemingly fit together. Cutting round the
hands is important as it ensures that they are the frame of the image and that the
image will not run over the edges of them. Using the black background helps to make
the image stand out and lowering the opacity of the foreground image slightly (the
building or what you want framing) helps to draw out some finer details in the hands
such as finger spaces and gives more depth to the photographs.

3. Hannah Höch:Photomontage
Hannah Höch was a German artist and pioneer for the photomontage technique
in photography. Her works are said to critique and define the idea of beauty and
fashion at the time when the media was starting to create their own depictions of
beauty and how women look. Women were always at the centre of Hannah’s
work and her pieces occasionally depicted same sex couples and made
statements even if the statement was not always an obvious one.
Hannah’s work is contemporary with a traditional method. She worked with
photographs which she would cut up into sections and then glue different pieces
together than were not necessarily from the same photograph or same person’s
facial features. Although the more modern day technique of creating this style of
image would be through image manipulation software in which you can cut things
out and place them over this image, Hannah’s style of using paper collage works
effectively as you are literally cutting and sticking things together. It is more
effective than using Photoshop because while you have layers in Photoshop
meaning you can move various bits and pieces around since they are never
securely stuck down, it doesn’t have the same look or appeal which gluing and
sticking by hand does. The different tones and textures stand out clearly through
cutting and sticking bots and pieces by hand whereas with Photoshop you can
blend the layers together and change levels, giving more of a professional and
polished off look to the image.
Throughout the years Höch’s works have been found in exhibitions all around the
world and some pieces can still be viewed in Whitechapel gallery, London today.
She has been critiqued and reviewed in various newspapers such as The Guardian
and also occasionally been seen in various magazines such as Classic Modern
Art, Art and Design, and Punk Design magazines.

4. Anna Bodnar:-
Pure photography and digital photo-manipulation
Anna Bodnar is a polish photographer who used traditional photographic methods
and then heavily manipulates them digitally to make them more artistic and looking
less like a traditional photograph. Anna tries to “create a rich, symbolic layer which
awakens deep emotions within the spectator” rather than shock people with what
she calls a “worthless scene” in which she feels the viewers attention is always
attracted by something which isn’t intended to be a main eye catching point. Anna’s
photographs try to depict individuality and show society as it really is rather than how
it appears in magazines where the images are heavily airbrushed and never look how
a real person/scene does. She tries to capture raw mood and personality within her
artistic and abstract art form.
Anna’s work is contemporary art as she uses a more modern photographic approach
whilst using non-traditional approaches as she used digital production heavily within
her images. Her works could be viewed as fine art as her photographs are art work
which has been created within themselves. They capture Anna’s emotions and
perceptions on life rather than being created just out of publicity or to
promote/advertise something.
Her technique is simple to recreate, as she photographs a person or object with her
camera using basic settings or techniques. She then heavily manipulates them into an
artistic form. Using Photoshop or any other digital software she could insert images into
other images to create an abstract look as, shown in image 1, or can remove parts of
the image and change them around, as shown in image 2. For the first image, Anna
appears to have photographed a female and then removed their facial
features, replacing them with the simplistic image of an apple. She has also appeared
to have removed the subjects hair, placing in it’s place tree branches or a bush.
Image 2 is much more simple yet still holds a lot of power and meaning. Anna has
photographed her model then manipulated it into black and white, removing the
subjects head and neck to create a strange looking image.
Anna’s work typically displays in photographic exhibitions and can often be found
within magazines, for both photography and fine art.