Man Ray Emmanuel Radnitzky also known as Man Ray was born August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976. His experiments with photography included rediscovering how to make "camera-less" pictures, which he called rayographs. He was an American modernist who spent most of his career in Paris, France.
One of Man Ray's Photograms
What is a photogram? A photogram is produced with light sensitive paper but without a camera, placing objects directly under the safe light; a red light. Objects that are opaque often appear white and semi-transparent or transparent often appears grey. Photograms was used by Man Ray in his exploration of rayographs, which he called in reference to himself. Other artists who've experimented with this technique; Christian Schad, Imogen Cunningham and Pablo Picasso.
My photograms We had a double lesson on Monday, which I went in the dark room with my partner. I was given a test strip to experiment on first, I placed my objects which were: a key, ears of my iPhone duck case and some earphones. I exposed it for a second and went to put it in the developer which I left in for 2 minutes, then I put it in the stop bath for a minute and finally leaving it in the the fix for 2 minutes. After that I put it in water and hung it up to dry. My first attempt didn't turn out so well, the key came out really well, it was all black with a little grey and white, i think it was because it was quite bold and the surface area was flat, the ears was very faint but you could make it out and the earphones didn't appear so well. Maybe because the it wasn't exposed enough, the aperture or it was how it was laid out.
László Moholy Nagy July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946He was a Hungarian abstract painter and photographer and also a professor. Became much involved with experimental photography, including photograms
One of Moholy-Nagy's Photograms
Process Firstly you have to turn off the normal light and put on the red light because the light sensitive paper can't be exposed to the normal light. We had to place the shiny side of the paper upwards and below the red light. We talked about how long we should expose the paper for and thought it should be for 1 second. We switched the red lens to the normal light for 1 second and switched it back. Quickly taking the objects off, we placed it in the developer which we then could see the photo forming and using the tongs we take the paper out and leave it in the stop bath for a minute and finally putting it in the fix and hanging it up after 2 minutes. Then we can turn the normal light on and take a look.
My second attempt I used the bigger sheet of light sensitive paper. I placed I turned the aperture to 2.5 and this time exposed it for 3 seconds, I placed the same objects; a key, piece of film, earphones. With the same procedure i placed the light-sensitive paper in the developer, stop bath and then the fix. My attempt on the bigger paper came out better but not brilliant. Fortunately the colours that had to come out did which were white, grey and faded grey. I tried quite a few times afterwards but it didn't improve so well, I think it was the light I was using but I'd like to improve in the future, I enjoyed doing photograms but being the darkroom for so long nauseated me a little but hard work= dedication.