Keavey Henshaw
Unit Four Photography
Man Ray
“It has never been my object to record my dreams, just the determination to realize them.”
Examples and Analysis
Man Ray was born on the 27th of August in 1890 and died on the 18th of November in 1976. He was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in France. He contributed significantly to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself a painter and photographer above all. He was best known for his photography, and he was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. Man Ray was also noticed for his work with photograms, which he called "rayographs" in reference to himself.
To the right you can see one of Man Ray's images. This is had been double exposed using film. One image has been inverted and one has been left the same, due to Man Ray dabbling in surrealism and this image give off a ghostly, un natural feeling and therefore lends itself to the surreal movement.
The use of tonal range and colour palette is extremely effective in this image even though it's monochromatic palette.
Contrast and the use of a central focus draws the eye towards the models four eyes in the image. Heavy use of black in the background and in her fair forces the audience directly look at the eyes of the model, which are in fact the lightest thing in the whole image.
This is also another abstract image and it lends itself heavly to the surrealist photography movement of the time.
This is also another image by Man Ray, although this one isn't double exposed like a lot of his other pieces of work. For this image he took a picture of a womans face and then places beads and clear marbles on her face. This gave the image a crying effect even though she wasn't. Again, he images continue to be in the monochromatic colour pallete with abstract imagery contained in each image.
Within the image the main things which are contoured are her eyes, and not much else, this brings the audiences eyes directly to the focus of the image.
This Man Ray image is one of his which has a brilliant composition. It highlights the female figure but also helps exsentuate the would-be curves of the cello / bass in which he is trying to represent.
The use of F-hole placed on the models back show the audience looking at the image that she is meant to represent a musical instrument and I believe this is something Man Ray was trying to present.