The document discusses three experimental photographers: Tierney Gearon, known for double exposure images that provide intimate looks into her family and relationships. Melinda Gibson analyzes photography textbooks by rearranging cut out images to create haunting new works that question concepts of authorship. Clarence John Laughlin photographed decaying buildings in New Orleans in the 1930s, capturing their "lost" authenticity before renovation through ghostly images emphasizing destruction and the passage of time.

1. Experimental Photographers

2. Tierney Gearon
Tierney Gearon was born in
Atlanta, GA, and is a contemporary
photographer who is based in Los
Angeles. She acquired images of her
family on various trips around the
world, where she was then discovered by
Charles Saatchi. Her images became an
overnight sensation when the images of
her kids suffered public scrutiny. Her
other work also gives the viewer and
intimate look into her relationship with
her mentally ill mother. They capture the
raw intensity but also her free spirit. Her
work titled “EXPLOSURE” she pushes
herself and uses double exposure to
produce amazing narratives. Her projects
acted as personal journals for her and her
family, following the birth of her two
children and the breakup of her marriage.
Her exposure work was created
manually, inside the camera, and each
image has been carefully composed by
combining two images that act as
counterparts to each other.

3. Melinda Gibson
Melinda was born in the UK and studied
photography at the London College of
Communication. From 2006 onwards, she
assisted various photographers including
Martin Parr and Wolfgang Tillmans. During
this time she also continued to develop her
own photographic practice. Her well-known
work, titled “The Photograph as
Contemporary Art” analyses the educational
text by Charlotte Cotton. Each of Melinda’s
images for this project contain a trio of
images taken from the book. It shows various
images made into one as Melinda literally cut
pieces out and stuck them together to create
pieces that are both playful and
haunting, sparking questions in our minds.
The audience begins to question our
educational system, copyright and
licensing, and also their own participation
into such work. Gibson said that by
slicing, cutting, and decontextualising these
images she gained a greater appreciation of
the other photographer’s work. She claimed
to then understand why the images were
created and how they were created.

4. Clarence John Laughlin
Laughlin was an American
photographer who was best known for
his surreal photographs taken of the
Southern U.S. In his work Lost New
Orleans, which began in 1937, Clarence
attempted to capture the authenticity
of the old buildings in New Orleans. The
buildings in this imagery were not
renovated or modernised for the tourist
trade, instead they were “lost” in time.
He approached these building as if they
were poetic documents, and shunned
narrow viewpoints of their history and
architecture. I think that these images
are quite ghostly and eerie. I may think
this because these are much older to
me than they were to Clarence when he
photographed them, but the
destruction and order comparison is
very interesting. The shadowy figure in
the top right image makes it look more
mysterious, and the two bottom images
show the impact of destruction and
gives you an interesting perspective of
the chaos shown in the photograph.