Two more artists

Jerry Uelsmann

This guy is called the “Master of Photomontage.” He has been doing his photo  manipulations since before Photoshop was even invented. These images are all surreal, and look completely natural (probably more so than actual Photoshopped ones). This is very inspiring. The use of black and white gives an interesting vibe. If you compare his surrealism to Salvador Dali’s, the black and white images versus Dali’s color ones, the black and white photographs win in my mind. I love the dreamy/nightmarish quality of the prints.

Here is the link: http://www.uelsmann.net/works.php

Eliot Porter

It is weird for me to think about how so many ‘classic-modern’ artists hung out together. Eliot Porter hung out with Alfred Steiglitz, who was married to Georgia O’Keefe, who all hung out with Ansel Adams. Anyway, Porter used color photography before it was popular, like Uelsmann used photomontage before it was popular. Both of the things these men did were difficult. Shooting in color was a much more intensive process than in black and white. Porter did it anyway, making his landscape photos some of the most innovative photographs taken in the past century. This work inspires me, not only to go back to Arizona, but to start using color again intently. For so many of us modern photographers, we shoot in color because it is the default. I want to start really choosing how to shoot again.

Since Porter died before the Internet was popular, he doesn’t have a website. Here is a link instead to his work on artnet: http://www.artnet.com/artists/eliot-porter/