Man Ray: Constructed

 

He was a photographer born in Philadelphia who created many inventive works. He developed a method of making photographs directly with light, without using a camera, which he called “rayographs.” I saw these before at a MET exhibition. He created interesting images using springs and compasses. These were developed in 1922. In addition, some of his works express Surrealism in an analog way without any editing, which is also very inspiring.

In the photo I attached above, he probably didn’t use real tears. He placed glass, beads, or jelly-like drops around the eyes to make it look like tears. The idea itself is simple, but I was really impressed by the imagination to come up with it. Nowadays, with advanced technology, if you want a photo to look like someone is crying, it’s easy to copy and add tears from other images. But I think photos like his, more analog and not relying on editing, are really interesting too.

And this is the photo. When I saw it in class, I was really fascinated by him. I was amazed by his imagination of turning the curves of the body into a musical instrument. These works are always the kind of creations that come from observing various things as photo subjects and thinking carefully about how to capture them—something that doesn’t happen without deep thought. I was very inspired by them. I want to spend as much time as possible observing subjects, just like him, and study interesting ways to photograph different things so that I can create fun and unique works too.