This article runs down simple yet very effective tips and tricks discovered by the community. Sit back, read on, and create much more stunning AI Artwork on Stable Diffusion after our article.

What is Stable Diffusion?

Stable Diffusion (SD) is a text-to-image model capable of creating stunning art within seconds. It is a breakthrough in speed and quality for AI Art Generators. It can run on consumer GPUs which makes it an excellent choice for the public. 

Stable Diffusion is a product of the brilliant folk over at Stability AI. The launch announcement posted on August 10, 2022 highlights the progress of their team regarding SD. The project leaders are Patrick Esser from Runway and Robin Rombach from the Machine Vision & Learning research group at LMU Munich. 

Stable Diffusion is a product from the development of the latent diffusion model. Stability AI’s lead generative AI Developer is Katherine Crowson. Crowson combined insights from DALL-E 2 and Open AI towards the production of Stable Diffusion.

Weeks later, Stability AI announced the public release of Stable Diffusion on August 22, 2022. The developers listed down important points regarding its public release. The model is under a Creative ML OpenRAIL-M license. This allows people commercial and non-commercial usage. 

Next, they also pointed out a safety classifier for Stable Diffusion. This AI understands and filters concepts and generations that are sensitive for users. The developing team notes however, the parameters for this are readily adjustable. Lastly, Stability AI invites people for ethical, moral, and legal use of Stable Diffusion. 

Stable Diffusion Tips and Tricks from the Community

A wide variety of tips and tricks are available on the subreddit channel of Stable Diffusion. From the output’s appearance to its orientation, cool tricks and keywords specify each of these. Through experience, users share these for everyone to use. Here are the following useful tips and tricks for Stable Diffusion from the community.

Full Body

First, typing in prompts such as “standing” rather than “full body portrait” has more chances of yielding full body images. In addition to this, the following words also work fine : “wide angle” and “full-body shot”. 

There are more tips to create full body portraits. Including parts of the body you want also help. These include hands, eyes, legs, arms, and detailed descriptions of clothing among others. Again, in prompt building, the more specific your input is; the better the result.

Lastly, here is a final measure for your portrait artwork creation in Stable Diffusion. Set a portrait aspect ratio in the width x height settings. This proves more effective than other prompts.

Realistic

It can be a tedious task coming up with prompts that generate realistic results in Stable Diffusion. However, with a simple use of camera models seems to do the trick. Include the keywords “Nikon Z9”, “Canon 5d”, or any other camera model in your prompt. In an instant, a much realistic photo results from the AI Art Generator.

Consecutively, for historical and realistic photos,  use the keywords “historical photo”, “associated press”, and “high resolution scan”.

Drawings

Next, if you’re creating cartoons or editorial art, here are great prompts. The words “cartoon” and “editorial illustration” already provide great results. However, “new york times cartoon”, and any other famous newspaper followed by the word “cartoon” works well too!

Artist

Next, we talk about entering an artist keyword to your prompt. This usually adapts a certain artist’s style in generating an artwork. However, not all artists are in the database of Stable Diffusion. The following website lists the artists represented in the Stable Diffusion 1.4 Model. In Urania.AI, the list orders them by frequency.

Double Brackets or Parentheses “((prompt))” / “[[prompt]]”

Enclosing a keyword in double parentheses increases the model’s attention to it.  Alternatively, enclosing a keyword in double brackets decreases the model’s attention to it. Aside from this, enclosing them in the following format increases or decreases the model’s attention to it. A (word:1.5) or (word:0.25) either increases the attention by a factor of 1.5 or decreases it by 4 respectively.

Overall Look

Lastly, we often seek to increase the overall quality of the generated artwork. Entering words such as “Hasselblad award winner”, “award – winning photograph”, and “masterpiece” drastically improves the output. 

General Rule of Thumb

Remember that Stable Diffusion is a text-to-image generator. Thus, understanding prompts are most important. A prompt is a user input for AI Art Generators. This is a phrase or line of text that details the elements which the AI uses in producing an image.

Note that the more detail you put towards your prompt makes way for a sophisticated photo. A vague prompt results in a chaotic output which lacks detail and design elements. Find out about the key parts of a prompt.

The anatomy of prompt includes the Raw Prompt, the Art Medium, the Art Style, and Prompt Details. Understanding these parts equips you the ability of composing your prompts for Stable Diffusion. In line with this, there are useful prompt builders available online for Stable Diffusion. This includes websites like Promptomania and Lexica.  A highly detailed guide regarding prompts and prompt building is available for you in this article.

How to Run Stable Diffusion

There are various websites that host Stable Diffusion for AI art generation. Most websites use “credits” for art generation. Credits cost membership but there are ways for earning them free. There are also avenues that host SD for free but there are minor downsides to them. This section lists down the most accessible websites for accessing Stable Diffusion.

Dream Studio

First, Dream Studio is an open-sourced image generation model that cultivates autonomous freedom in producing incredible imagery. It is a powerful image generation tool. This tool allows rapid ideation with precision control and flexibility. Mastery of it paves way for a variety of ways for design and creation of impossible things.

As of writing, Dream Studio is still in its beta phase. Even so, it runs smoothly and has a user-friendly interface. Users have the option for looking into the History of their works. These images are safe in your browser only. They will be lost when you clear the browser cache. 

Dream Studio lets you run Stable Diffusion for multiple artworks before requiring you for membership or credit purchase. You can log in with a new email address and you can continue creating more art. 

Night Cafe

Next, Night Cafe Creator is an AI Art Generator app with multiple methods of AI art generation. The program is also available not only online but also on Android and iOS devices. 

Apart from the same tools available in Stable Diffusion, Night Cafe also hosts other neural systems. These are CLIP Guided Diffusion and VQGAN+CLIP.  They also have an option for style transfer from one image to another. 

Night Cafe also lets users generate artwork with credits. They offer various options for credit purchase but also offer daily free credits. Lastly, Night Cafe encourages their users for collaboration. They host the Night Cafe Lounge which serves a social media function. Users can follow their favorite artist for their works to appear in their personal feed.

Hugging Face

Thirdly, Hugging Face is the home of machine learning. Users and organizations create, discover, and collaborate machine learning through this website. Hugging Face holds a Stable Diffusion demo which gives you a trial feel for the AI art generator. Unlike Dream Studio and Night Cafe, the response time for generating art takes a while. This website also does not require credits for generating images.

When using Stable Diffusion on Hugging Face, a Community tab is available for sharing your work. Here, users discuss functions and artworks regarding SD. Most people just post their AI generated artworks on there. Nevertheless, it still is a good avenue for sharing feedback about the program.

Replicate

Lastly, Replicate also hosts Stable Diffusion well. Even so, its generation time is fast and comparable to Dream Studio.  It has a simple and user-friendly interface too and just requires a login for use. After a certain number of generations, Replicate asks for the users payment method for creating more AI artworks.

Replicate hosts your generated artworks under the Dashboard tab. Here, you can find your previous generated artwork together with prompt details. This is extremely useful especially for tweaking and iteration. 

Conclusion

Stable Diffusion is a neural system capable of turning user input texts to images. Its developers are Stability AI, a company building open artificial intelligence tools. Stability AI is also the team behind Dream Studio, an online platform that runs the SD system. 

The most important concept regarding Stable Diffusion is prompt building. Understand the basic anatomy of a prompt consisting of the Raw Prompt, the Art Medium, and the Art Style. Online prompt builders help regarding adding details to your prompt. Promptomania provides a simple and easy to use interface for prompt building.

The Stable Diffusion community over at Reddit posts great conversations for tips with the neural network. There is always new stuff discovered by users. Collaborate and add new tricks to your arsenal for prompt building by visiting their subreddit.

Afterword

Art is a crucial part of society. It dates back in early signs of human life as seen on cave drawings and sculptures. Today, AI has the ability to create stunning artworks. Artificial intelligence uses algorithms from entered prompts by the user for generating artworks. The more detailed the prompt is, the more accurate and appealing the result becomes.

AI art generators provide an avenue for people where they can turn concepts into a reality. Every person has creativity within them. However, not all pursued the path of dedicating time and effort for art. AI Generated Art is a testament of how the human mind can come up with ideas that translate well into art forms.

The continuous rise in popularity of AI Art Generators opens more doors for creativity. Art always played an important role in society. It’s mind blowing that in our generation today, humanity gained the ability of harnessing artificial intelligence for art generation.

The future of AI art generators is positive. With the increasing number of users by day, the neural system also learns more. The developers are constantly adding more stuff towards the AI. Just recently, new developments regarding CLIP models surfaced on the internet. This makes the AI categorize images much better than before. Therefore, this makes text-to-image prompts work better.

Lastly, thank you for reading this article. If you find this article interesting, consider checking out our recently published posts. They introduce the world of AI Art Generators as well as tips and tricks for Prompt Building. If you’re looking towards Photography, we also offer great articles for your inspiration.

Find them all here:

Midjourney : AI Art Generator Spotlight
starryAI : AI Art Generator Spotlight
World Photography Day 2022
Guide to Astrophotography
Best Outdoor Print and Signage Options
The Printing Mediums of Wall Art

The post Stable Diffusion Tips and Tricks appeared first on Photogpedia.

What is Aperture in Photography?

Aperture is a hole in which light travels. Essentially, we refer to this as the opening of the lens. The wider the opening, the more light is able to travel. 

In photography, Aperture can be controlled to adjust the amount of light in taking a photo. Moreover, Aperture can control the depth of field. This means making the foreground and background of your photo blurred or sharp. 

Previously said, Aperture is part of the exposure triangle together with Lighting and Shutter Speed. The following sections highlight the importance and interaction of Aperture with other photography elements.

1. Aperture in the Exposure Triangle

The exposure triangle consists of Aperture, ISO, and Shutter Speed. All of which correlate to each other. A proper balance between these values would yield to an exceptional image. One must not be sacrificed so that harmony and balance would be properly depicted in your photos.

In sports photography, it is essential to note that a fast shutter speed is required so that the subject’s quick actions are captured. But by making the shutter speed faster, the photo inherently becomes dark. To balance this, the Aperture should be largely opened thus taking in more light to the sensor making the photo brighter. The ISO then follows the trend of Aperture needing to be high in value to additionally compensate for the fast shutter speed.

2. Aperture and Exposure

As each of these exposure triangle pillars increase in value, a distinct increase in the brightness of the photo is visible. When Aperture, the opening of the lens, is larger; the brighter the photograph becomes. 

In bright environments, you can get away with using a smaller Aperture since light is abundant. In dark areas and at night, a bigger Aperture is greatly beneficial to take in as much light as possible.

3. Aperture and Depth of Field

A distinct property of portrait photography is how much separated the subject is to the foreground or background. The main factor of this is the depth of field. On the other hand, the main controlling factor to alter the depth of field is Aperture.

A larger aperture yields a greater background and foreground blur. Thus, portrait photography uses higher apertures.

Diving Deeper Into Aperture

After understanding the relationship of Aperture to the essential concepts in photography, it’s time to move forward. The next thing to tackle is the jargon and most importantly the camera settings to properly highlight Aperture in photography

1. F-Stops

The f-stops are the values that describe the aperture. These follow the format “f/number”. Typical values are f/1.4, f/2.8, f/4.0, f/5.6, f/11, and f/13. 

The weird thing about f-stops is that they are inversely proportional. A smaller number translates to a higher f-stop. A bigger number translates to a lower f-stop. It takes time getting used to, but what’s more important is the understanding of the concept of Aperture in photography.

A higher f-stop (f/1.4) would let in more light thus making the photo brighter. A lower f-stop (f/13) would let in less light making the photo darker. As previously discussed, a higher f-stop also produces larger background and foreground blur.

2. Camera lenses

Camera lenses also play a huge impact with regards to aperture. You’ll notice that lenses indicate an f-stop. This indicated f-stop shows the highest aperture the particular lens can go. 

Zoom lenses provide varying f-stops for different lengths. Typically, a zoom lens ranges from f/3.5 to f/5.6 in wide to longer focal lengths. As the price point goes higher for zoom lenses, it becomes capable of having higher f-stops.
Prime lenses on the other hand are fixed and not able to change focal lengths. The advantage of these are their capability to use higher f-stops. Usual f-stops for prime lenses are f/1.8 and f/2.0.

3. Camera Settings

Finally, after understanding the theoretical applications of Aperture, it’s time to put it into work. It’s highly recommended to manually control the aperture of the camera. This gives you an edge in producing photos than simply using the auto mode. 

The two modes capable of manually adjusting the Aperture are the aperture priority mode and the manual mode. On the top dial of cameras, “A” or “Av” stands for Aperture Priority mode and “M “for Manual mode.

The Aperture Priority mode lets you adjust the f-stops and automatically finds the proper settings for the Shutter Speed. The ISO posses the option for manual or automatic adjusting as well. This mode is a great tool to practice the exposure triangle. Go ahead and set different settings for Aperture then see how the ISO and Shutter Speed automatically adjust to balance it.

The Manual mode on the other hand lets you take full control of the exposure triangle. After understanding the importance and harmony of the exposure triangle, it is beneficial to master the manual mode as well. 

Applying Aperture in Photography

After fully grasping Aperture and all that comes with it, it’s time to put it into practice. When opting to use the Aperture Priority mode, we know that the camera automatically adjusts the ISO and Shutter Speed. This in turn brings out a balanced look to the photo – well lit with the depth of field of your chosen aperture. To bring our understanding of Aperture to the next level,

Being able to control all the elements in the exposure triangle gives us more creative freedom. We can use this fact to achieve much more imaginative scenes. Example of which is bringing out mood into a photograph. 

Composition wise, aperture takes part by controlling the depth of field. While maintaining the aperture to cast off the desired blur, the ISO and Shutter Speed can be manually set. These two can be set either higher or lower values to portray joy or drama. Though these moods can be achieved through post-processing, it is recommended to achieve these right from the bat.

1. Portrait Photography

Bokeh is a popular technique used in Portrait Photography. When taking photos outside or in a studio, bokeh is often used. Bokeh is the visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photograph. Low f-stops bring out the bokeh effect. 

On the other hand, higher f-stops bring out sharpness in the photo. This is used if the photographer wants to highlight elements in the scene. May it be the use of props or just a cool scenic background.

2. Landscape Photography

In Landscape Photography, it is of utmost importance to capture every detail. Looking back to the theories and fundamentals, the choice to go with is to minimize the blur. This is achievable with high f-stops. Typical ranges are f/22 to f/32 depending on the quality of lens used.

3. Wildlife Photography

Wildlife Photography uses telephoto lenses . Telephoto lenses allow the photographer to capture subjects from long distances. These lenses don’t possess wide apertures. 

Long focal point lenses generally possess shallow depth of field. Unable to use lower f-stops, the ISO and Shutter Speed compensate for it. In the wild, animals are fast moving creatures therefore a faster shutter speed is necessary. 

Thus, in wildlife photography, keeping the aperture as wide as possible is a benchmark.

4. Sports Photography

Sports Photography follows the same concept as Wildlife Photography. In both styles, the use of telephoto lenses as well as fast shutter speed is valuable. Both styles have fast paced action. The photographer’s distance to the subject is also a factor to choose telephoto lenses.

5. Macro Photography

In Macro Photography, the ideal depth is the mid range typically between f/5.6 to f/11. This allows sharpness of the whole subject matter. Even though macro lenses generally offer wide apertures, it does not mean you should set it that way. Generally, set the aperture to a value that would still be able to set a fast shutter speed to remove motion blur.

Aperture Side-Effect

Moving forward towards creativity, aperture can produce stunning effects to photos. A stunning phenomenon can be made more majestic by playing with aperture. The bokeh effects created on photos show the opening of the lens. The bokeh effect is changeable. 

By placing a cutout paper to alter the aperture opening, the shape of the bokeh changes. The bokeh follows the shape of the lens opening. The circular opening of lenses causes the usual circle bokeh. Creative shapes such as hearts or stars and even letters can be casted off.

Summary

• Aperture is a pillar in the Exposure Triangle together with ISO and Shutter Speed.
• It deals with the sharpness of the subject matter as well as the depth of field.
• Aperture follows the notation of f-stops in the form of “f-number”. These represent the fraction of the aperture opening.
• Camera Lenses affect the maximum aperture you’re able to use. Prime lenses usually have wider apertures than zoom lenses.
• Use the Aperture Priority mode and Manual mode to fully practice the fundamentals of aperture in photography.
• The choice of aperture changes together with different photography styles.

Conclusion

Understanding the fundamentals in photography is essential to improve your craft. Aperture is undoubtedly of the highest importance in this field. Stunning imagery with the play of depth of field is achievable by proper understanding of aperture.

Aperture is an important pillar of the exposure triangle. The understanding of one pillar must always come with understanding the whole. Using aperture priority mode on your camera is a great way to practice and fully understand the exposure triangle relationship.

You must also understand your gear, especially your lenses, to properly execute the fundamentals of aperture in photography. Understand the variation between prime and zoom lenses as well as their indicated f-stops. 

All of these theories together with time spent on practice will definitely bring you confidence in capturing photos. Always remember that improvement in photography takes not only by research but importantly, practice.

Also check out:
1. Lighting in Photography
2. Tips and Tricks to be A Pro in Mobile Photography

The post Aperture in Photography appeared first on Photogpedia.

What is Lighting in Photography?

Lighting in photography manifests how your light source is oriented with respect to your subject. This can be seen in whatever light source you use. There are numerous ways on how to set up your lighting in photography such as natural light, front light, back light, etc. 

Types of Lighting

Lighting comes in different forms. These can be utilized in the field of photography. As photography literally translates to “drawing with light”, it is of utmost importance to have a solid understanding of this concept.

1. Natural Light

Natural light comes from the sun. Both Professional and Amateur photographers find it best to use natural light for their photos. This is due to the fact that the setup time when utilizing natural light is shorter than setting up when using artificial lighting. 

Natural light also manifests even at night time and can mostly be seen with astro-photography. Taking photos of the stars and galaxy uses the long exposure technique which allows the camera to take in more light for a long shutter speed.

This type of lighting is also imminent in landscape photography as well as street photography. This is because the use of artificial lighting in these photography styles is not feasible.

2. Artificial Light

Artificial lighting is achieved by purposely setting up light sources to illuminate a scene or subject. The use of artificial lighting provides distinct outputs. You’re able to cast shadows and highlights to your subject that is not achievable by simply using natural light. 

The use of artificial light is usually done inside studios, where natural light is absent or at minimum. Others also prefer doing photoshoots at night which totally eliminates natural light. Though all of these are best practices with the use of artificial lighting, the use of artificial light together with natural lighting can also produce stunning results

One can debate the use of reflectors as a source of artificial lighting. I believe that this is a form of artificial lighting as well. When taking a photo with your camera against the sun, it’s noticeable that your subject will be dark. The use of a reflector to use the natural light source to light up your subject will minimize this. Thus, artificial light together with natural light eliminates certain flaws and lets the photographer take control of their output.

Light Orientations

The placement of your light source, may it be natural or artificial, can make or break your photo. It’s important to have a full understanding of the effects and details these orientations bring forward.

1. Front Light

This utilizes the use of a light source by placing it directly in front of the subject. Front lighting is used if all the details of the subject are concentrated on its front view. 

The use of the camera’s flash is the exact definition of front lighting. This is a straightforward approach to lighting but it comes at a cost. The subject may look flat because of the absence of shadows and highlights.

2. Back Light

The use of a backlight produces the rim lighting effect. Rim lighting casts light that outlines the shape of the subject. This gives off a stunning attention to detail of the subject’s shape.

Aside from rim lighting, another effect of backlight is the production of silhouettes. This is also very useful in highlighting the shape of your subject. In addition to these, backlight can also produce lens flares. If you look for something to add spice to your photo, maybe a lens flare is what you’re looking for!

3. Side Light

Side light corresponds to the placement of light of approximately 90 degrees with respect to the camera. The use of side lighting is most efficient to bring forth dimension to the subject. It captures one side of the subject well lit and the other with shadows. 

Side light also brings forth contrast in photos. The transition between light and dark within the subject portrays difference in light value thus showing contrast. 

To minimize the darkness of the other half of the subject, a countermeasure is the use of a reflector. It bounces the side light softly, and with this still provides contrast and light value difference.

Lighting Properties

Properties in your photo that are related to lighting should be taken into consideration when processing your photos. These are exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks.

Exposure

Exposure is the amount of light reaching your camera’s sensor, creating visual data over a period of time.^[1] We see this in photos through how bright or dark it appears. A photo is overexposed if it appears extremely bright that most of the elements in the photo looks white. On the other hand, a photo is underexposed if it appears extremely dark such that the elements inside the photo are too dark it cannot be seen at all.

Contrast

In essence, contrast means difference. This property of lighting in photography is the difference of tones and colors. If your photo has multiple colors then it could be referred to as a high contrast photo. Understanding the color wheel and its various relationships would yield better contrasting photos. Meanwhile, contrast in tones refers to the difference of brightness of the elements in your photo. 

Highlights

Highlights refer to the already visible bright areas in your photo. These are points in the photo where your light source hit greatly. Changing the distance of your light source to your subject adjusts this. This property of lighting in photography helps with improving tonal contrast to your photos.

Shadows

Shadows in photography are the areas in which the light source is unable to hit. These are the dark areas in the photo that are always affected by the light placement. When this is utilized, it is able to not only create contrast but also provide depth. 

Outside of photography, shadows manifest distance with relation to light. At certain times of the day, shadows appear to be longer or shorter. This is an example of how shadows could help portray distance.

Whites

Whites as a property of lighting in photography refer to the brightest part of the photo. The difference between whites and highlights are their brightness. Highlights relate to the bright areas of the photo while Whites relate to the brightest ones.^[2]

Blacks

On the other hand, Blacks is the property of lighting in photography relating to the darkest part of the photo. In a similar way, Blacks and Shadows signify the darkest and dark areas of the photo respectively.

Post-processing of Photos

In this section, we’ll talk about adjusting these properties in software editing programs. Most photo editing software are capable of adjusting these properties of lighting in photography. Here, I demonstrate how the various adjustments of these affect the output of your photo. Adobe Photoshop Express – a free to use photo editing software by Adobe is the program used in this demo.

I. Exposure Adjustments

Bumping up the exposure property causes the whole photo to become brighter. Lowering it makes the entire photo darker. These images show how increasing (left photo) and decreasing (right photo) the value of exposure affects the image. A balance between the two is what we look out for!

II. Contrast Adjustments

Remember that contrast shows difference. Here is a look of how adjusting this property of lighting in photography affects the image. A high contrast value makes the photo more vibrant and makes the colors distinct. Meanwhile, in the low contrast photo the difference between the flower and its surrounding elements are not drastic thus making the photo look flat.

III. Highlights Adjustments

In adjusting the highlights, note that this affects the bright parts of the photo. After adjusting this, the area on top of the flower and the stem differ after adjustments are done.

IV. Shadows Adjustments

With shadow adjustments, the dark parts of the photo are changed. These are mostly found in the background. The most visible changes directly affect how depth is perceived.

V. Whites Adjustments

Toggling the “Whites” value changes the brightest parts of the photos. Increasing it makes the areas brighter while decreasing it reduces the original brightness of these areas.

VI. Blacks Adjustments

Blacks affect the darkest parts of the photo. Adjusting this property of lighting in photography takes those areas and adjusts how dark or bright it appears. In the photo, these areas are the shadows from the plant and also the background.

The Output

A combination of adjustments of these different properties increases the overall look of your output. First, understand how each property affects the visual appearance of your photo. Then, apply them through editing. Next, understand that photo editing software provides more properties that could be adjusted. A firm grasp on these properties of lighting in photography already makes your photos distinct. 

Post-processing your photos also provides a style that you can consistently show. Saving the values on the different properties and applying them to your other photos make these photos similar in style. Have a try and see how good it appears when looking at these photos side by side! 

In conclusion, lighting is a vital part of photography. A great understanding of it together with its properties benefits the improvement of your photos. Also, remember that knowledge alone isn’t enough. Application of these provides security to truly reap its benefits. 

Practice taking your photos to the next level by post processing them with any editing software. Wide varieties of photo editing software are available that can definitely do this. See for yourself the kind of results you can get with adjusting the properties of lighting in photography!

Sources:

[1] Exposure in Photography

[2] Highlights Versus Whites

Also check out:
Phone Photography Easy Tips & Tricks To Be A PRO

The post Lighting in Photography appeared first on Photogpedia.

Jeff Wall Quotes

I like photographs that don’t look altogether the way photographs are supposed to look. We don’t really know how photographs are “supposed to look.”

Painting has to do with touch… That’s the eros specific to painting… Photography is about the distance, the inability to touch, maybe.

I’m not sure any of us has made photographs as good as Evans’.

Jeff Wall on Walker Evans

I see [photography] as a kind of untheorisable medium, a kind of polymorphic, multivocal and multivalent construction.

Most photographs cannot be looked at very often. They become exhausted. Great photographers have done it on the fly. It doesn’t happen that often. I wasn’t interested in doing that. I didn’t want to spend my time running around trying to find an event that could be made into a picture that would be good.

For a long time it was necessary to contest the classical aesthetic of photography as too absolutely rooted in the idea of fact… I accept that claim, but I don’t think that it itself can be the foundation for an aesthetic of photography, of photography as art. They way I thought I could work through that problem was to make photographs that put the factual claim in suspension, while still creating an involvement with factuality for the viewer.

A picture is something that makes invisible its before and after.

If you are capable of making good pictures it’s immoral not to do so, for whatever reason or excuse you might give.

Because image traffic has become so heavy and so continuous, it now seems as if these millions of images came into being by themselves, without the agency of a person.

Subjects and Staged Photography

I don’t find my own experiences very interesting. I find my observations interesting. Maybe that’s why I’m a photographer. Maybe an observation is an experience that means more to you than other experiences.

My practice has been to reject the role of witness or journalist, of “photographer,” which in my view objectifies the subject of the picture by masking the impulses and feelings of the picture-maker. The poetics or the “productivity” of my work has been in the stagecraft and pictorial composition – what I call the cinematography.

I’m struck by things I’ve seen, but I don’t photograph them. If they persist in my mind, I try to recreate them.

Meaning does not interest me and has almost nothing to do with my decisions or judgments.

I guess you could say I’m like a film director but my movies have only one frame.

Wall on the Process

I begin by not photographing.

The essential model, for me, is still the painter, the artisan who has all the tools and materials they need right at hand, and who knows how to make the object he or she is making from start to finish. With photography this is almost possible.

… electronic image traffic has become present in the relation between the photographer and the picture he or she sees in a viewfinder.

Digital photography provides certain obvious technical advantages and allows you the freedom to do photography either as it has always been done or to do it in rather different ways, and to still be practicing photography.

One paradox I have found is that, the more you use computers in picture-making, the more “hand-made” the picture becomes. Oddly, then, digital technology is leading, in my work at least, toward a greater reliance on handmaking because the assembly and montage of the various parts of the picture is done very carefully by hand.

Jeff Wall Quotes on Art and Photography

Art inherently involves artistry. I prepare certain things carefully because I believe that’s what’s required. Other things are completely left to chance. Anything that is prepared, constructed, or organized is done in order to allow the unpredictable “something” to appear and, in appearing, to create the real beauty of the picture, any picture.

The spontaneous is the most beautiful thing that can appear in a picture, but nothing in art appears less spontaneously than that.

In my time, I’ve been accused of being afraid to go out into the world to take pictures, like a so-called ‘real’ photographer does, and I’ve been accused of making art with a capital A – as if that, too, was a crime.

Photography could emerge socially as art only at the moment when its aesthetic presuppositions seemed to be undergoing a withering radical critique, a critique apparently aimed at foreclosing any further aestheticization of “artification” of the medium. Photoconceptualism led the way toward the complete acceptance of photography as art – autonomous, bourgeois, collectible art – by virtue of insisting that this medium might be privileged to the negation of that whole idea.

What an artist could do with photography wasn’t bounded by the documentary impulse – but that other part was underdeveloped. Painting could be topographical realism or it could be angels – in the same medium. Why couldn’t photography do the same thing?

It is astonishing to remember that important art-photographs could be purchased for under $100 not only in 1950 but in 1960.

I’ve always felt that good art has to reflect somehow on its own process of coming to be.

What’s your Favorite Jeff Wall Quote?

Have a favorite Jeff Wall quote from the list? Let us know in the comment section below.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. If you’ve found the article helpful, then we would be grateful if you could share it with other photographers.

To see more of Jeff Wall’s photography, check out his image archive on the Gagosian website.

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Visit the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

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• Julia Margaret Cameron Quotes
• Gregory Crewdson Quotes
• Cindy Sherman Quotes
• The Best Art Quotes from Master Painters

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If you haven’t done so already, we recommend reading our Julia Margaret Cameron master profile article to learn more about her remarkable photography, glass-plate techniques, tableaus and much more.

Julia Margaret Cameron Quotes

My aspirations are to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and uses of High Art by combining the real and ideal and sacrificing nothing of the truth by all possible devotion to poetry and beauty.

The field in which photography has so great a power of expression that language can never approach it, is physiognomy.

If one believes as I do in the doctrine of compensation one soon accepts the evidence that God gives the material things of this world to some and the spiritual and intellectual riches to others and that the combination of gifts is very uncommon.

By sight and observation and thought, with the help of the camera, and the addition of the date of the year, we can hold fast the history of the world.

The camera has become to me, a living thing, with voice, memory and a creative vigour.

Beauty, you’re under arrest. I have a camera, and I’m not afraid to use it.

Cameron on Getting Started

Many and many a week in the year 1864, I worked fruitlessly, but not hopelessly… I began with no knowledge of the art. I did not know where to place my dark box, how to focus my sitter, and my first picture I effaced to my consternation by rubbing my hand over the filmy side of the glass.

From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour.

When we are angry or depressed in creativity, we have misplaced our power. We have allowed someone else to determine our worth, and we are then angry at being undervalued.

The need to be a great artist makes it hard to be a great artist. The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all.

Experimentation, Happy Accidents and Focus

What is focus and who has the right to say what focus is the legitimate focus?

Growth is a spiral process, doubling back on itself, reassessing and regrouping.

A photographer, like all artists, is at liberty to employ what means he thinks necessary to carry out his ideas. If a picture cannot be produced by one negative, let him have two or ten; but let it be clearly understood, that these are only means to an end, and that the picture when finished must stand or fall by the effects produced, and not by the means employed.

I believe that… my first successes in my out-of-focus pictures were a fluke. That is to say, that when focusing and coming to something which, to my eye, was very beautiful, I stopped there instead of screwing on the lens to the more definite focus which all other photographers insist upon.

Art is born. Its midwife is detail.

Cameron on Portrait Photography Quotes

When I have had such men before my camera my whole soul has endeavoured to do its duty towards them in recording faithfully the greatness of the inner as well as the features of the outer man. The photograph thus taken has been almost the embodiment of a prayer.

I counted four hundred and five hundred and got one good picture. Poor Wilfrid said it was torture to sit so long, that he was a martyr! I bid him be still and be thankful. I said, I am the martyr. Just try the taking instead of the sitting!

Mortification is basic to the act of photographing. The person is mobile, … then I freeze one moment in his movement, a mere five-hundredth of a second of that person’s life-time. That’s a very meager or small extract from a life.

The capacity for delight, is the gift of paying attention.

The history of the human face is a book we don’t tire of if we can get its grand truths learn them by heart.

I longed to arrest all beauty that came before me, and at length the longing has been satisfied. Its difficulty enhanced the value of the pursuit.

Storytelling and Historical Tableaus

People often believe the creative life is grounded in fantasy. The more difficult truth is that creativity is grounded in reality, in particular, the focused, the well observed or specifically imagined.

From days of old, and in all periods, we find documents and books with pictures illustrating them, but photography has presented us with new possibilities and new tasks. It can depict things in magnificent beauty, but also in terrible truth, and can also deceive enormously. We must be able to bear seeing the truth, but above all we should hand down the truth to our fellow human beings and to posterity, be it favorable to us or unfavorable.

What’s your Favorite Julia Margaret Cameron Quote?

Have a favorite Julia Margaret Cameron quote from the list? Let us know in the comment section below.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. Also, don’t forget to share it with others through the usual channels (social media, forums, websites, etc).

To learn more about Cameron’s photography, we recommend reading our Julia Margaret Cameron master profile article. To see more of her remarkable photography, check out the Cameron image archive at the Victoria and Albert Museum website.

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Visit the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

More Quote Articles:

• Cindy Sherman Quotes
• Gregory Crewdson Quotes
• Richard Avedon Quotes
• 150+ Portrait Photography Quotes

The post 25 Timeless Julia Margaret Cameron Quotes to Bookmark appeared first on Photogpedia.

If you would like to learn more about Crewdson’s staged photography and working methods, then check out our Gregory Crewdson master profile article.

Gregory Crewdson Quotes

Photography is a lonely endeavor, and I think all photographers are in one way or another drawn to the medium by kind of an alienated viewpoint.

I think that, in a sense, there’s something about photography in general that we could associate with memory, or the past, or childhood.

In this age of Instagram, and pictures on cell phones, and social media, it’s a real challenge to think of the photograph still meaning something important.

I do think that dread is about a certain kind of expectation. And the fact that a picture can never resolve itself the way a movie can – maybe that’s a specific kind of dread that becomes associated with a picture.

There isn’t a picture that was ever made that doesn’t speak about mortality in some way.

I’m not that particularly talented in terms of making anything or – I’m not technically efficient. I certainly don’t know how to draw very well or paint, and I’m not good with computers. But I think the thing that I’m good at is willing something into life, no matter what. I do what it takes to get it done.

All pictures are autobiographical, yet they’re telling us everything and nothing about the photographer.

Originally, one of the reasons I was drawn to photography, as opposed to painting or sculpture or installation, is that of all the arts it is the most democratic, in so far as it’s instantly readable and accessible to our culture. Photography is how we move information back and forth.

If my pictures are about anything at all, I think it’s about trying to make a connection in the world. I see them as more optimistic in a certain way. Even though it’s very clear there’s a level of sadness and disconnection, I think that they’re really about trying to make a connection and almost the impossibility of doing so.

Nobody on this Earth is going to make these pictures aside from yourself. So if you don’t do it, no one else will.

Quotes on Story and Narrative

Every artist has a central story to tell, and the difficulty, the impossible task, is trying to present that story in pictures.

What the artist attempts to do is to try and tell a story. Attempting to give physical expression to a story that’s internal.

What I’m after, what I’ve always been after is a picture that tells a story. I see it all in my head beforehand, and I set out obsessively – maybe even narcissistically – to make it. Very little is improvised in the end, though I am open to serendipity in some details. In part I see what I am doing as exploring the American psyche through the American vernacular landscape, much as Hopper did.

I’m interested in the question of narrative, how photography is distinct from, but connected to, other narrative forms like writing and film. This idea of creating a moment that’s frozen and mute, that perhaps ultimately asks more questions than it answers, proposes an open-ended and ambiguous narrative that allows the viewer to, in a sense, complete it.

Since a photograph is frozen and mute, since there is no before and after, I don’t want there to be a conscious awareness of any kind of literal narrative. And that’s why I really try not to pump up motivation or plot or anything like that.

For all the talk of my pictures being narratives or that they’re about storytelling, there’s really very little actually happening in the pictures. One of the few things I always tell people in my pictures is that I want less – give me something less.

I never know what to call the subjects in my pictures because I’m uncomfortable with the word actor. I think maybe subjects might be more accurate – or maybe even more accurate is objects.

I have always been fascinated by the poetic condition of twilight. By its transformative quality. Its power of turning the ordinary into something magical and otherworldly. My wish is for the narrative in the pictures to work within that circumstance. It is that sense of in-between-ness that interests me.

As artists we walk around with a single story to tell, some kind of central narrative. And I think the struggle is to attempt to reinvent that story over and over again in different forms and to visualize that story through, in my case, photographs, and try to make it new each time.

The viewer is more likely to project their own narrative onto the picture.

Capturing the Moment

My pictures are moments after the moment between moments really, and I think twilight is a beautiful metaphor for that. In “Twilight,” the narratives are more literal, and the event is much more spectacular. The pictures in “Beneath the Roses” are much more psychological and grounded in reality.

The whole reason I make these pictures is for those moments of clarity. For that single moment, everything seems to make sense in my world. And I think we all look for that in our lives, because our lives are generally filled with chaos and confusion and disorder and complication.

I’m only concerned with that particular moment, the moment of the picture. I really don’t have any interest in what happens before, or what happens after. In a certain way, it’s a privilege that I don’t have to think about plot, or storyline, or character development, that I can just focus on that moment, and how to make that moment as beautiful and as mysterious as possible.

We print these images in large format at this size because it’s like… Well to me it’s like a picture window.

I want to privilege the moment.

You have this ambition to make something perfect, exactly right. Of course, necessarily, it fails in some way and you have to accept that for what it is, and then you’re on to the next thing.

What I am interested in is that moment of transcendence, where one is transported into another place, into a perfect, still world.

My pictures are about a search for a moment – a perfect moment. To me the most powerful moment in the whole process is when everything comes together and there is that perfect, beautiful, still moment. And for that instant, my life makes sense.

Ambiguity and Mystery

I’m interested in this ambiguous moment that draws the viewer in through photographic beauty, through repulsion, through some kind of tension.

I’m very moved by the fact that people are drawn into the pictures and that they do bring their own history and their own interpretation to the photograph. I think that’s why they work in a certain way.

My first impulse is to make the most beautiful picture I can. But then I’m always interested in this idea of a kind of undercurrent in the work… I’m very interested in the uncanny and a way to find something mysterious or terrible within everyday life.

My pictures must first be beautiful, but that beauty is not enough. I strive to convey an underlying edge of anxiety, of isolation, of fear.

I think all my pictures are psychologically rooted. There’s not much on the surface that is direct narration. Whatever story is being told should remain a mystery – a question mark even to myself. I’m more interested in telling the submerged narrative using light, colour, atmosphere and mood.

The photograph is still and frozen. From day one, I have been interested in taking that limitation and trying to find the strength in it – like a story that is forever frozen in between moments, before and after, and always left as a kind of unresolved question.

My father was a psycho-analyst and I think that fact was very influential on my development as an artist. Trying to search beneath the surface of things for an unexpected sense of mystery.

All my pictures are very voyeuristic, but ultimately I’m looking at what lurks in my own interior. I make photographs because I want to answer the question of what propels me to do the things that I do. But that always remains a mystery.

Design, Locations and Lighting

I was never conscious of filming except for when I was location scouting. In a way, that is the most important part of the entire process – and the most private. I’m so used to doing that alone. Unlike every other part, it’s just me, alone, on location. It’s very hard to describe what I’m looking for – something that feels both familiar and strange at the same time. It’s not enough for it just to be strange or mysterious, it also has to feel very ordinary, very familiar, and very nondescript.

Usually I’ll drive to certain locations over and over again, over a course of months really. And then it might just be I hit it at the right time, and the right light. And then I might go to that location over and over again, and then what happens in that lag time where – the image sort of locks in – all of a sudden I see it in my mind’s eye.

It’s very hard to describe what I’m looking for – something that feels both familiar and strange at the same time.

The suburban landscape is alien and strange and exotic. I photograph it out of longing and desire. My photographs are also about repression and internal angst.

If there’s one characteristic that separates my work from other artists, it is the light. And to me it’s the most important thing about the entire enterprise – the light. It’s how you tell the story in photography, through light.

It’s about finding meaning through light. I’m always interested in tensions. A primary one is the collision between the familiar and the strange.

I am always conscious of the relationship between the figure and the space – that, to me, is key: how does the figure exist in the larger setting, whether it be an interior or a landscape? For instance, within an interior, there is also a relationship between the figure, the interior space and the exterior space, which all become part of a visual equation. Trying to find a perfect balance between all three is a great challenge in my practice.

I’m interested in using the iconography of nature and the American landscape as surrogates or metaphors for psychological anxiety, fear or desire.

Gregory Crewdson Quotes on Ideas and Influences

It is really important to have an obsessive need to construct something, to understand something from your own experience.

I don’t deliberately look for something dark or bleak or disconnected, in fact that’s not something I’m even conscious of in the work as I’m making it. I’m always trying to create beauty, reveal hope, show the sense of longing that exists in isolation and loneliness, and capture the search for something greater inside all of my subjects.

[On David Lynch’s Blue Velvet] That film was a life-changer for me. I was already making pictures of small towns, but to see his vision of normalcy and the darkest elements of things was very powerful. I came out of that movie a different person.

I think my pictures are really about a kind of tension between my need to make a perfect picture and the impossibility of doing so. Something always fails, there’s always a problem, and photography fails in a certain sense… This is what drives you to the next picture.

I’ve always been interested in the commonplace, in finding a sense of beauty and mystery in everyday life. I’ve always been interested in the psychological nature of picture, in trying to explain my own fear and anxiety and desire in photographs. The pictures are my means of trying to find meaning in the world.

I always loved movies and the look of movies. I’m also a huge student of movies – but could never make one. Working in a linear fashion is foreign to me. I was always interested in using aspects of film production towards a single image – the relationship between movie making and still photography – and blurring the lines between the two. I’m fascinated with telling a story in a single image rather than through time.

Photography is not at all about an exact representation of the truth, but is rather a dramatization of something which ought to have remained hidden.

My pictures are about everyday life combined with theatrical effect. I want them to feel outside of time, to take something routine and make it irrational. I’m always looking for a small moment that is a revelation.

I really love that dynamic between beauty and sadness… there’s always these moments of quiet alienation, the sense of disconnect, but also, these moments of possibility.

I like to mix the ordinary with the fantastical. That makes the tension higher between fiction and reality.

What’s your Favorite Gregory Crewdson Quote?

Have a favorite Gregory Crewdson quote from the list? Let us know in the comment section below.

To learn more about Crewdson’s photography, check out our Gregory Crewdson master profile article. To learn about his process, watch his brilliant documentary Brief Encounters.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. Also, don’t forget to share it with others through the usual channels (social media, forums, websites, etc).

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Visit the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

More Quote Articles:

• Cindy Sherman Quotes
• Julia Margaret Cameron Quotes
• William Eggleston Quotes
• What Makes a Good Photograph Quotes

The post 57 Gregory Crewdson Quotes on Staged Photography and Storytelling appeared first on Photogpedia.

If you haven’t done so already, we recommend reading our Cindy Sherman master profile article to learn more about her career, photography, techniques, and much more.

Cindy Sherman Quotes

The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told.

I like making images that from a distance seem kind of seductive, colorful, luscious and engaging, and then you realize what you’re looking at is something totally opposite. It seems boring to me to pursue the typical idea of beauty, because that is the easiest and the most obvious way to see the world. It’s more challenging to look at the other side.

Nowadays, with digital printing, it’s so easy to make everything perfect, which is not always a good idea. Sometimes the mistakes are really what make a piece.

We’re all products of what we want to project to the world. Even people who don’t spend any time, or think they don’t, on preparing themselves for the world out there – I think that ultimately they have for their whole lives groomed themselves to be a certain way, to present a face to the world.

People are always trying to find the next groovy thing, and it hasn’t gone back to painting… I’d like it to go back to painting. I’m sick of all this photography and video. There’s so much of it, it’s almost annoying.

The models have always been the least interesting thing about fashion.

Being able to make a living doing something one truly loves to do – is my definition of success.

Photography and Art

I didn’t want to make what looked like art in terms of painting; I wanted to make something that looks mass-produced and I didn’t want it to have anything to do with art theory. I wanted it to look like anybody would understand it because it’s from a movie and maybe I saw that movie.

One reason I was interested in photography was to get away from the preciousness of the art object.

I didn’t have any interest in traditional art.

I was meticulously copying other art and then I realized I could just use a camera and put my time into an idea instead.

I think people are more apt to believe photographs, especially if it’s something fantastic. They’re willing to be more gullible. Sometimes they want fantasy. Even if they know it’s fake they can believe anything. People are accustomed to being told what to believe in.

I didn’t really have ideas of what I wanted to do with painting. That was when I thought, “Why am I wasting my time elaborately copying things when I could use a camera?

I like the idea that people who don’t know anything about art can look at [my art] and appreciate it without having to know the history of photography and painting.

Painting was still the big thing, but I was less and less interested in it even though I started out in that department; I was into conceptual, minimal, performance, body art, film – alternatives.

I didn’t set out to establish an alternative. No one really did – expectations were a lot lower than you see with people coming out of art schools today. I did want to do something different; I was bored by what was going on in art and particularly in painting, but I didn’t think I was actually going to make a difference. We all would have been happy just to have a show somewhere.

I got nervous when my work was starting to become popular, so I started making things that would challenge someone to hang it over their sofa.

I didn’t want to make “high” art, I had no interest in using paint, I wanted to find something that anyone could relate to without knowing about contemporary art. I wasn’t thinking in terms of precious prints or archival quality; I didn’t want the work to seem like a commodity.

Sherman on Interpretation and Meaning

I am always surprised at all the things people read into my photos, but it also amuses me. That may be because I have nothing specific in mind when I’m working.

My intentions are neither feminist nor political. I try to put double or multiple meanings into my photos, which might give rise to a greater variety of interpretations…

The work is what it is and hopefully, it’s seen as feminist work, or feminist advised work, but I’m bot going to go around espousing theoretical bullshit about feminist stuff.

I would read theoretical stuff about my work and think, “What? Where did they get that?” The work was so intuitive for me, I didn’t know where it was coming from. So I thought I had better not say anything or I’d blow it.

I don’t analyze what I’m doing. I’ve read convincing interpretations of my work, and sometimes I’ve noticed something that I wasn’t aware of, but I think, at this point, people read into my work out of habit. Or I’m just very, very smart.

The reason I wasn’t titling them besides the fact that I never felt very much like a wordsmith is… I didn’t want people to have a preconceived notion of what they’re supposed to imagine this character to be.

I didn’t think of what I was doing as political. To me, it was a way to make the best out of what I liked to do privately, which was to dress up.

Early in my career, a critic said that I needed to “explain” the irony in my work, suggesting that I needed to add text next to the images to help people understand what I was trying to say.

At first I was dismayed that I wasn’t making work with a clear enough message. That’s when I realized that that was the exact opposite of what I wanted to do – that I wasn’t responsible for a misinterpretation of my work, that there should be some ambiguity to it. They either got it, or they didn’t.

It’s amusing how far someone can stretch my intentions and make a concept that fits their theories.

The Queen of the Self-Portrait

Everyone thinks [that my photographs] are self-portraits, but they are not meant to be. If I photograph myself it’s because I can push my own limits to the extreme. I can make from each shot a work as heavy, as clumsy or as stupid as I want.

I feel I’m anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself: they aren’t self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear.

People assume that a self-portrait is narcissistic and you’re trying to reveal something about yourself: fantasies or autobiographical information. In fact, none of my work is about me or my private life.

The role-playing was intended to make people become aware of how stupid roles are, a lot of roles, but it’s not all that serious, perhaps that’s more the moral of it, not to take anything too seriously.

When I was in school I was getting disgusted with the attitude of art being so religious or sacred, so I wanted to make something which people could relate to without having read a book about it first. So that anybody off the street could appreciate it, even if they couldn’t fully understand it, they could still get something out of it. That’s the reason I wanted to imitate something out of the culture, and also make fun of the culture as I was doing it.

It has nothing to do with me. I work with myself, that’s my material somehow, but the finished photograph has more to offer than reflections of my “personality”.

My photographs are certainly not self-portraits or representations of myself, though unfortunately people always keep saying they are.

I have this enormous fear of being misinterpreted, of people thinking that the photographs are about me, that I’m really vain and narcissistic. Then sometimes I wonder how it is I’m fooling so many people. I’m doing one of the most stupid things in the world which I can’t even explain, dressing up like a child and posing in front of a camera trying to make beautiful pictures. And people seem to fall for it.

Untitled Film Stills

I don’t think of it as real photography because I don’t think people who like real photography think of it that way. People who are real photo fans like the early film stills, the black and whites that seem like real vintage photography, or there are people who complain about how big they are, like, “Who does she think she is?” It’s just the medium I chose to work with.

I didn’t want to make what looked like art. Film has always kind of been more influential to me than the art world.

To pick a character like that was about my own ambivalence about sexuality – growing up with the women role models that I had, and a lot of them in films, that were like that character, and yet you were supposed to be a good girl.

Some people have told me they remember the film that one of my images is derived from, but in fact I had no film in mind at all.

I didn’t care much about the print quality. The photographs were supposed to look like they cost fifty cents.

Truthfully, I’m a little sick of these pictures [the Untitled Film Stills] – it’s hard for me to get excited about them anymore. It’s funny to see some of them now.

Throughout my life, I’ve tried to keep looking different, so my hair has been all different colors, all lengths and styles. As a result, a lot of these characters look like me in the periods of my life since I shot the Film Stills… Occasionally I’ve felt that as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to look more like some of them. It’s kind of scary – I was always trying to look like older women.

Cindy Sherman Quotes on Ideas

If I knew what the picture was going to be like, I wouldn’t make it. It was almost like it was made already… the challenge is more about trying to make what you can’t think of.

In horror stories or in fairy tales, the fascination with the morbid is also, at least for me, a way to prepare for the unthinkable… That’s why it’s very important for me to show the artificiality of it all, because the real horrors of the world are unmatchable, and they’re too profound.

When I prepare each character I have to consider what I’m working against; that people are going to look under the make-up and wigs for that common denominator, the recognizable. I’m trying to make people recognize something of themselves rather than me.

Believing in one’s own art becomes harder and harder when the public response grows fonder.

I just got those at the Paris flea market, and I don’t know what I’m going to use them for, but it seemed like they had the potential for something. I love weird stuff; a good, weird flea market anywhere is really my favorite place to be.

I’ll see a photograph of a character and try to copy them on to my face. I think I’m really observant, and thinking how a person is put together, seeing them on the street, and noticing subtle things about them that make them who they are.

My ideas are not developed before I actually do the pieces.

I see humor in almost everything, in even the grotesque things, because I don’t want people to believe in them as if they were documentary that really does show true horror. I want them to be artificial, so you can laugh or giggle at them, as I do when I watch horror movies.

Every time you have to come up with a new body of work for a new show, you’re aware that people are just ready to rip you apart, they’re just waiting for you to fall or make the slightest trip up.

[My work is] maybe about me, maybe not wanting to be me and wanting to be all these other characters. Or at least try them on.

Cindy Sherman’s Working Process

I’m good at using my face as a canvas… I’ll see a photograph of a character and try to copy them on to my face. I think I’m really observant, and thinking how a person is put together, seeing them on the street and noticing subtle things about them that make them who they are.

I can’t work without it [music]. And it has to be the right kind, because if it’s not then I get into a bad mood. I work with a remote so that I can change CDs instantly if I need to.

It’s just me, and a mirror and a camera and a backdrop, and that’s about it. I’ve always felt that I’m able to be a little more experimental because no one is around if it doesn’t go well.

Once I set up, the camera starts clicking, then I just start to move and watch how I move in the mirror. It’s not like I’m method acting or anything. I don’t feel that I am that person. I may be thinking about a certain story or situation, but I don’t become her. There’s this distance. The image in the mirror becomes her – the image the camera gets on the film. And the one thing I’ve always known is that the camera lies.

When I’m cooking, I’m just following a recipe – I’m being told what to do. When I’m working on my photographs I have to make up my own sort of rules. Sometimes I have a vision of what I want but mostly I’m guided by what I don’t want.

I think of becoming a different person. I look into a mirror next to the camera… it’s trancelike. By staring into it I try to become that character through the lens… When I see what I want, my intuition takes over.

When I do work, I get so much done in such a concentrated time that once I’m through a series, I’m so drained I don’t want to get near the camera.

The way I see it, as soon as I make a piece I’ve lost control of it.

I’d never even thought about compromise when I worked in my studio. The major distinction is in the priority of who I ultimately wanted to please: myself or the audience.

While I’m working I might feel as tormented as the person I’m portraying.

What’s your Favorite Cindy Sherman Quote?

Have a favorite Cindy Sherman quote from the list? Let us know in the comment section below.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. Also, don’t forget to share it with others through the usual channels (social media, forums, websites, etc).

To learn more about Cindy Sherman’s photography, we recommend reading our Cindy Sherman master profile article. To see more of her remarkable photography, check out the Cindy Sherman image archive on the MoMA website.

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Check out the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

More Quote Articles:

• Gregory Crewdson Quotes
• Man Ray Quotes
• Julia Margaret Cameron Quotes
• What Makes a Good Photograph Quotes

The post 56 Cindy Sherman Quotes to Inspire the Creative Photographer in You appeared first on Photogpedia.

If you haven’t done so already, we recommend reading our Hiroshi Sugimoto master profile article to learn more about his unique conceptual photography, working methods, cameras and much more.

Hiroshi Sugimoto Quotes

Photography is like a found object. A photographer never makes an actual subject; they just steal the image from the world… Photography is a system of saving memories. It’s a time machine, in a way, to preserve the memory, to preserve time.

When people call me a photographer, I always feel like something of a charlatan – at least in Japanese. The word Shashin, for photograph, combines the characters sha, meaning to reflect or copy, and shin, meaning truth, hence the photographer seems to entertain grand delusions of portraying truth.

People have been reading photography as a true document, at the same time they are now getting suspicious. I am basically an honest person, so I let the camera capture whatever it captures whether you believe it or not is up to you; it’s not my responsibility, blame my camera, not me.

Photography is making a copy of reality, but when it is photographed twice it goes back to the reality again. That is my theory.

Hiroshi Sugimoto Quotes

Sugimoto Quotes on Art, Creativity and Ideas

I try to never be satisfied; this way I will always be challenging my spirit.

Art resides even in things with no artistic intentions.

When I wake up I just make it happen. My dreams come true- that is the artistic practice.

Art is technique: a means by which to materialize the invisible realm of the mind.

I didn’t want to be criticized for taking low-quality photographs, so I tried to reach the best, highest quality of photography, and then to combine this with a conceptual art practice. But thinking back, that was the wrong decision [laughs]. Developing a low-quality aesthetic is a sign of serious fine art – I still see this.

It was my goal to visualize the ancient layer of human memory with means of photography.

I imagine my vision then try to make it happen, just like painting, (…). The reality is there, but how to make it like my reality.

Black and White Photography Quotes

I live in the shadow… I like shadows, that’s why I became a black and white photographer.

Credibility is better in black and white than in color.

Quotes on Projects

If I already have a vision, my work is almost done. The rest is a technical problem.

My method is different from the one most photographers use. I do not go around and shoot. I usually have a specific vision, just by myself.

One night I thought of taking a photographic exposure of a film at a movie theater while the film was being projected. I imagined how it could be possible to shoot an entire movie with my camera. Then I had a clear vision that the movie screen would show up on the picture as a white rectangle. I thought it could look like a very brilliant white rectangle coming out from the screen, shining throughout the whole theater. It might seem very interesting and mysterious, even in some way religious.

Before the invention of movies was the invention of photography. To make a movie, you have to sew single-shot photographic images together to make it look like a movie. It is all an illusion to the human eye.

The stuffed animals positioned before painted backdrops looked utterly fake. Yet by taking a quick peek with one eye closed, all perspective vanished, and suddenly they looked very real. I’d found a way to see the world as a camera does. However fake the subject, once photographed, it’s as good as real.

Quotes on Seascapes

The sea reminds me that within my blood remains traces of human evolution over hundreds of thousands of years.

Whenever I stand on a cliff looking at the sea, I envision an infinite beyond. The horizon lies within bounds and the imagination stretches to infinity.

Humans have changed the landscape so much, but images of the sea could be shared with primordial people. I just project my imagination on to the viewer, even the first human being. I think first and then imagine some scenes. Then I go out and look for them. Or I re-create these images with my camera. I love photography because photography is the most believable medium. Painting can lie, but photography never lies: that is what people used to believe.

The Seascapes are before human beings and after human beings. The Seascapes were there before our presence, and when our civilization is over, seascapes will still exist. Our presence is temporary. Civilization is only 5,000 to 6,000 years. The history of ours, the material history of consciousness, is rather short.

Mystery of mysteries, water and air are right there before us in the sea. Every time I view the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home; I embark on a voyage of seeing.

Sugimoto on Capturing Time

To me photography functions as a fossilization of time.

Fossils work almost the same way as photography… as a record of history. The accumulation of time and history becomes a negative of the image. And this negative comes off, and the fossil is the positive side. This is the same as the action of photography.

A sense of time is a very important factor in early human consciousness. I’m going backward; people are going forwards. The gap between me and the world is getting bigger and bigger. But I don’t care. I just do what I want to do.

The Empire State Building on Manhattan island – it probably won’t survive for more than 200 or 300 years. The age expectation of concrete is probably 100, 200 years old. It will deteriorate. Through my collection, I get a sense of time, the passage of time, the history, the meaning of history. I just want to feel it through the object.

We need to have nature back in our atmosphere. There might be a turning point of going backward – within a few thousand years we are going back to the Stone Age! There are many scenarios [with] the robot technologies: Humans no longer need to walk; machines can produce products and food and everything. You might not be able to recognize what’s false and what is real.

I’m inviting the spirits into my photography. It’s an act of God.

Hiroshi Sugimoto Quotes

What’s your Favorite Hiroshi Sugimoto Quote?

Have a favorite Hiroshi Sugimoto quote from the list? Let us know in the comment section below.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. Also, don’t forget to share it with others through the usual channels (social media, forums, websites, etc).

If you would like to learn more about Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photography, we recommend reading our Hiroshi Sugimoto master profile article. To see more Sugimoto’s work, check out the image archive on his official website.

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Check out the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

More Quote Articles:

• Cindy Sherman Quotes
• Gregory Crewdson Quotes
• Man Ray Quotes
• What Makes a Good Photograph Quotes

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If you haven’t done so already, we recommend reading our Man Ray master profile article to learn more about his innovative photography, rayograph technique, cameras and much more.

Man Ray Quotes

Everything is related to photography, because it all has to be photographed in the end.

I have finally freed myself from the sticky medium of paint, and am working directly with light itself.

It was my goal to visualize the ancient layer of human memory with means of photography.

One of the satisfactions of a genius is his will-power and obstinacy.

Reality is fabricated out of desire.

Man Ray Quotes on the Work

My works were designed to amuse, annoy, bewilder, mystify and inspire reflection.

Were it not for the fact that photography permits me to seize and to possess the human body and face in more than a temporary manner, I should quickly have tired of this medium.

I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive.

I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence.

There is no progress in art, any more than there is progress in making love.

Don’t put my name on it. These are simply documents I make.

A book was once published of twenty photographs by twenty photographers, of the same model. They were as different as twenty paintings of the same model. Which was proof, once and for all, of the flexibility of the camera and its validity as an instrument of expression. There are many paintings and buildings that are not works of art. It is the man behind whatever instrument who determines the work of art.

Photography Process and Techniques

A camera alone does not make a picture. To make a picture you need a camera, a photographer and above all a subject. It is the subject that determines the interest of the photograph.

I worked fast. As soon as they walked in the door the camera would start clicking. No one knew how I did it. When they asked me I gave them wrong information.

An effort impelled by desire must also have an automatic or subconscious energy to aid its realization.

I was a great retoucher. A retoucher is an esthetic surgeon.

Just as I work with paints, brushes, and canvas, I work with the light, pieces of glass and chemistry.

Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’, while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.

Quotes on Creativity, Inspiration and Ideas

It has never been my object to record my dreams, just the determination to realize them.

I never knew what I was doing until I was done.

A certain amount of contempt for the material employed to express an idea is indespensable to the purist realization of the idea.

I would photograph an idea rather than an object, a dream rather than an idea.

The streets are full of admirable craftsmen, but so few practical dreamers.

I do not photograph nature. I photograph my fantasy.

Some of the most complete and satisfying works of art have been produced when their authors had no idea of creating a work of art, but were concerned with the expression of an idea.

Nature does not create works of art. It is we, and the faculty of interpretation peculiar to the human mind, that see art.

I believe in the relation between photography and music; And thats my inspiration.

I have been accused of being a joker. But the most successful art to me involves humor.

An original is a creation motivated by desire. Any reproduction of an originals motivated be necessity. It is marvellous that we are the only species that creates gratuitous forms. To create is divine, to reproduce is human.

Man Ray on Camera Equipment

I am not going to be dictated to by the size of the camera. I use everything from an 8 x 10 to a 35-mm. But I don’t use these modern cameras which break down all the time.

[What type of camera he prefers to work with] None! I have to modify them all. My cameras are all of my own design. I take lenses apart and put them together again and put them on cameras that were not meant for them.

You don’t ask a writer what typewriter he uses.

Painting vs Photography

There are purists in all forms of expression. There are photographers who maintain that their medium has no relation to painting. There are painters who despise photography, although many in the last century have been inspired by it and used it. There are architects who refuse to hang a painting in their buildings maintaining that their own work is a complete expression.

[Do you prefer the brush over the lens for certain tasks? Or vice versa?] I am an economic person; I judge the amount of work involved with the amount of worth attained.

A photograph is to a painting what an automobile is to a horse. A rider on his horse is a beautiful thing, but I prefer a man in an airplane.

However rapidly I could paint, it was still drudgery after the instantaneous act of photography.

l paint what cannot be photographed, and l photograph what l do not wish to paint. lf it is a portrait that interests me, a face, or a nude, I will use my camera. It is quicker than making a drawing or a painting. But if it is something I cannot photograph, like a dream or a subconscious impulse I have to resort to drawing or painting.

To express what I feel I use the medium best suited to express that idea, which is also always the most economical one. l am not at all interested in being consistent as a painter, and object-maker or a photographer. I can use several different techniques, like the old masters who were engineers, musicians and poets at the same time.

I have never shared the contempt shown by painters for photography: there is no competition involved, painting and photography are two media engaged in different paths. There is no conflict between the two.

Is photography an art? There is no point in trying to find out if it is an art. Art is old-fashioned. We need something else.

I was very fortunate in starting my career as a painter. When first confronted with a camera, I was very much intimidated. So I decided to investigate. But I maintained the approach of a painter to such a degree that I have been accused of trying to make a photograph look like a painting. I did not have to try, it just turned out that way because of my background and my training.

Many years ago I had conceived the idea of making a painting look like a photograph! There was a valid reason for this. I wished to distract the attention from any manual dexterity, so that the basic idea stood out.

To me, a painter, if not the most useful, is the least harmful member of our society.

Critics, Experimentation and the Future

When I saw I was under attack from all sides, I knew I was on the right track.

All critics should be assassinated.

In the same spirit, when the automobile arrived, there were those that declared the horse to be the most perfect form of locomotion.

I like contradictions. We have never attained the infinite variety and contradictions that exist in nature. Tomorrow I shall contradict myself. That is the one way I have of asserting my liberty, the real liberty one does not find as a member of society.

A creator needs only one enthusiast to justify him.

The tricks of today are the truths of tomorrow!

What’s your Favorite Man Ray Quote?

Have a favorite Man Ray quote from the list? Let us know in the comment section below.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. Also, don’t forget to share it with others through the usual channels (social media, forums, websites, etc).

If you would like to view more Man Ray photos, then check out his profile at MoMA or visit the Man Ray Trust 

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Check out the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

More Quote Articles:

• Cindy Sherman Quotes
• Gregory Crewdson Quotes
• Bill Brandt Quotes
• The Best Art Quotes From Master Painters

The post 46 Classic Man Ray Quotes on Photography and Art appeared first on Photogpedia.

Cameron’s work was controversial in her own time. Criticized for her so-called bad technique, she ignored convention and experimented with composition and focus. 

Cameron is credited with creating the first photographic close-up portraits and influencing the use of diffused focus.

Her photographs of famous Victorians have been described as some of the finest portraits of the nineteenth century in any medium.

She was also one of the first photographers to produce staged photographs, posing her sitters – friends, family and house servants – as characters from literary, mythology, religion and history.

Cameron had a short but prolific career as a photographer. She took up the camera at age forty-eight and made over 1200 photographs over fourteen years.

She was one of the first photographers to realize how human emotion could be further emphasized through lighting effects, selective focus and framing. 

Largely self-taught, she made photographs that were intended to transcend appearance and speak directly to the human spirit. Today she is celebrated as one of the pioneering portrait photographers.

In this article, we will aim to provide an introduction to Cameron’s work, with particular emphasis on her photography style and innovative working methods. 

Related: 25 Timeless Julia Margaret Cameron Quotes to Bookmark

Editor note: If you enjoy our Julia Margaret Cameron profile, then we would be grateful if you could share it with others through your blog, website, forums or social media.

About Julia Margaret Cameron

Name: Julia Margaret Cameron (born Pattle)
Nationality: British
Genre: Portrait, Conceptual, Fine Art
Born: 11 June 1815 – Calcutta, India
Died: 26 January 1879 (63 years) – Kalutara, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka)

Julia Margaret Cameron Biography 

Julia Margaret Pattle was born in Calcutta, India, to James Pattle, an Englishman and his French wife, Thérèse l’Etang. At a young age, Julia and her six sisters were sent to Europe, spending most of their childhood with their grandmother in Paris and Versailles. 

In 1936, while recovering from illness in South Africa, Julia Margaret met Charles Hay Cameron, an important figure in the British administration of India, and a man twenty years her senior. The couple married two years later in Calcutta.

During the same stay, she met the astronomer and scientist Sir John Herschel. He was probably the first person to introduce Cameron to photographic processes and is the subject of some of her best portraits. Herschel would become a life-long friend, mentor and supporter of her work. 

Editor note: Sir John Herschel was the inventor of the cyanotype print and is credited as being the first person to use the word photography in 1839.

For the next ten years, the Cameron’s lived in India and were highly respected and active in colonial politics and society. Julia was kept busy running the home, looking after the children, and hosting social gatherings.

Moving to England

In 1848, Charles retired, and the Cameron’s moved to London. Several of the Pattle sisters had married and settled in London and the Camerons’ two eldest children, were sent to England to be educated. 

Julia’s sister, Sarah Prinsep, had a house in Kensington and was visited regularly by some of the most important literary and artistic figures.

In 1860, the Cameron family purchased two cottages in Freshwater, a village on the Isle of Wight, located on the south coast of England, close to the estate of Alfred Lord Tennyson. 

The Cameron’s named their new home Dimbola Lodge and it was here where Cameron began her photography journey.

During this period, Freshwater became something of a focal point for artists, writers, and intellectuals, who gathered at the Tennyson and the Cameron residencies. 

Dimbola was ideally located ten minutes up from Freshwater Bay and half a mile from Farringford, the home of the Tennyson family.

Freshwater in the 1860s and 1870s was unique, for not only was it an enchanting place in itself with high downs, glorious views of the English Channel and air “worth sixpence a pint” as Tennyson wrote to a friend, but a delightful company of people had come to live there to be near their friend Tennyson.  

Anne Thackery

This area on the west side of the Island, known for its celebrity circle, has since been named, “The Tennyson Mile.”

Photography Journey

In December 1863, when Charles was away in Ceylon, visiting the family’s coffee plantations, Cameron, who by now was forty-eight, was given a camera by her eldest daughter Julia, “It may amuse you, Mother, to try to photograph during your solitude at Freshwater.” 

There is evidence that Cameron had taken a few photographs before this or at least experimented with printing negatives. She wrote to Herschel and said that the painter David Wilkie Wynfield, who took a series of photos of his fellow painters in fancy dress in the early 1860s, had given her a lesson.

It also seems likely that her daughter wouldn’t have given her a cumbersome 11″×9″ camera, with accompanying chemicals and accessories, unless she had shown some interest in the subject.

Cameron herself dated the start of her photography work from the acquisition of the camera.

Early Experiments

Setting up a darkroom in the coal store and converting an old glass-enclosed chicken house to a studio, Julia set about experimenting with the medium. She described her first days working in photography as a process of trial and error: 

Many and many a week in the year 1864, I worked fruitlessly, but not hopelessly… I began with no knowledge of the art. I did not know where to place my dark box, how to focus my sitter, and my first picture I effaced to my consternation by rubbing my hand over the filmy side of the glass.

Julia Margaret Cameron – Annals of My Glass House

Cameron worked tirelessly to understand and master the steps needed to produce negatives with wet collodion on glass plates. In a letter to Sir John Herschel in 1864, she described her initial struggle: 

At the beginning of this year, I took up photography, and set to work alone and unassisted. I felt my way literally in the dark through endless failures, and last came endless successes!

Her first success came in 1864, with a portrait of Annie Philpot, the daughter of her neighbor. 

During this time, she was supported by her long-suffering family, which she writes about in her book: 

Personal sympathy has helped me on very much. My husband from first to last has watched every picture with delight, and it is my daily habit to run to him with every glass upon which a fresh glory is newly stamped, and to listen to his enthusiastic applause. This habit of running into the dining-room with my wet pictures has stained such an immense quantity of table linen with nitrate of silver, indelible stains, that I should have been banished from any less indulgent household…

Photography Career

Cameron may have begun as an amateur, with no interest in earning money from her new hobby, but that soon changed and she quickly adopted a professional approach to her work by copyrighting, exhibiting, and selling prints. 

Within 18 months she had sold photographs to the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), set up a second studio inside the family home, and arranged for a London based firm to publish and sell her prints.

That being said, Cameron had no interest in pursuing a career as a commercial portrait photographer. She was more interested in experimentation and photography as art. Cameron practiced photography on her own terms. 

With the help of friends, family members, and her household staff, Cameron used photography as a means of illustrating a mixture of historical, artistic and literary themes. 

For one of her tableau’s, a housemaid might be transformed into a Madonna, or her husband with his bushy grey beard into Merlin, or her neighbor’s young child into an angel.

The two main sources of her work were the allegorical teachings from the bible and early renaissance art.  

Cameron also took portrait photographs of Victorian celebrities, many of whom were close family friends, including Charles Darwin, Alfred Tennyson, and John Herschel.

Critics and Awards

Like many people ahead of their time, Cameron had her fair share of critics. The photographic establishment found fault with her supposedly poor technique: leaving smudges, printing from cracked negatives and her “out of focus” effects. 

Yet, she received several awards from overseas, including a gold medal at Berlin in 1866, as well as honorable mentions at international exhibitions. Her photography was also greatly admired by artists – a view which is shared by art critics today, who praise her for putting beauty before technical perfection. 

In October 1875, at the height of her fame, Julia Margaret and her husband left Freshwater and moved to their plantations in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). 

Despite taking her cameras with her, she rarely practiced photography due to the shortage of materials and the lack of suitable subjects. In 1879, Cameron died in Ceylon after a brief illness at the age of 63.

Legacy

In 1868, the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) provided Cameron with the use of two rooms to exhibit her photographs, effectively making her the museum’s first artist in residence.

In a career that lasted just over 11 years, Julia Margaret Cameron made just over 1200 photographs. The Royal Photographic Society owns around 800 of these, along with a hand-written manuscript of Cameron’s unfinished autobiography, Annals of my Glasshouse. 

Cameron’s photographs are held in collections of some of the best art museums in America and Europe. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York exhibited her work in 2013.

Her great-niece, the famous writer Virginia Woolf (her mother was Julia Jackson, the subject of some of Cameron’s most arresting portraits) wrote a play about her, titled Freshwater.

To preserve Cameron’s legacy, the Julia Margaret Cameron trust was set up, along with a museum at Dimbola Lodge on the Isle of Wight. The museum provides historical information on her life and works. If you’re ever on the Isle of Wight, then I recommend visiting. 

Julia Margaret Cameron’s Style

• Soft-focus, dreamy
• Close-up, posed
• Experimental, embraced imperfections
• Staged, theatrical
• Narrative, allegorical
• Spiritual, contemplative
• Mysterious, ambiguous

Julia Margaret Cameron’s Working Methods

Because photography as a practice was still in its infancy, Cameron wasn’t bound by convention and was free to make her own rules. The type of images being made by other photographers at the time didn’t interest Cameron.

My first successes in my out-of-focus pictures were a fluke. That is to say, that when focussing and coming to something which, to my eye, was very beautiful, I stopped there instead of screwing on the lens to the more definite focus which all other photographers insist upon.

Julia Margaret Cameron

Cameron was interested in capturing another kind of photographic truth. Not one dependent on the accuracy of sharp detail, but one that conveyed the spirit and emotional state of her sitter. 

Cameron’s exposures were long (often around 5 minutes). Unlike other photographers, she didn’t use any clamps or props, which meant that her sitters had to sit still for a long time. As this was difficult to do, her images sometimes came out soft and out of focus. 

I counted four hundred and five hundred and got one good picture. Poor Wilfrid said it was torture to sit so long, that he was a martyr! I bid him be still and be thankful. I said, I am the martyr. Just try the taking instead of the sitting!

Julia Margaret Cameron

Portraits 

Looking at Cameron’s portraits of men, two things about them are apparent. First, the majority show only the subject’s head and shoulders, with the torso often draped in dark cloth. This makes these photos potentially the first “close-ups” in photographic history. Secondly, she would often light just one side of the face, making the close-up effect even more dramatic and revealing.

When I have had such men before my camera my whole soul has endeavoured to do its duty towards them in recording faithfully the greatness of the inner as well as the features of the outer man. The photograph thus taken has been almost the embodiment of a prayer.

Julia Margaret Cameron

Cameron took a different approach when photographing women. She framed her subjects at a more traditional distance and threw light onto her sitter from every possible angle, giving her images a softer and more flattering effect. 

She was interested in conveying their natural beauty and often asked female sitters to let down their hair, so she could photograph them as they were and not how they had been accustomed to presenting themselves.

Fancy Subjects for Pictorial Effect

In addition to making portraits both of male and female subjects, Cameron was also one of the first photographers to create narrative-driven photographs or as she liked to call them “fancy subjects for pictorial effect.” 

My aspirations are to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and uses of High Art by combining the real and ideal and sacrificing nothing of the truth by all possible devotion to poetry and beauty.

Ahead of the time again. Cameron’s pictures, in which her sitters posed as figures from history and literature were taken over a century before the likes of Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall and Gregory Crewdson began staging photos.

Cameron looked to painting and sculpture as inspiration for her allegorical and narrative subjects. She was also interested in religion, literature and poetry and produced photographic illustrations for Tennyson’s Idylls of the King at his request.

Cameron was not obsessed with conveying narrative fact, or realistic illustrations of religious subjects, but rather wanted to suggest themes that would could be left open to interpretation. Her tableaus have a sense of mystery about them and force the viewer to complete the picture. To me, this is what makes her work so timeless.

A photographer, like all artists, is at liberty to employ what means he thinks necessary to carry out his ideas. If a picture cannot be produced by one negative, let him have two or ten; but let it be clearly understood, that these are only means to an end, and that the picture when finished must stand or fall by the effects produced, and not by the means employed.

Julia Margaret Cameron

The Technical Side

Cameron was not the best of technicians. She often included imperfections in her prints – swirls, streaks and even fingerprints – that many photographers would have rejected as technical flaws. Although she was criticized in his life, these imperfections are now praised for being ahead of their time.

When Cameron took up photography, it involved hard physical work and the use of potentially hazardous chemicals. The wooden camera she used, which sat on a tripod, was extremely large and cumbersome. To make her photos, she used the most common practice at the time, which was albumen prints from wet collodion glass plate negatives.

Here’s a brilliant video from the Victoria and Albert museum which explains the wet collodion process in more detail. After finishing this article, we recommend visiting the V&A website as they have a section dedicated to the work of Julia Margaret Cameron.

Other Julia Margaret Cameron Resources

Recommended Julia Margaret Cameron Books

Disclaimer: Photogpedia is an Amazon Associate and earns from qualifying purchases.

• A Critical Biography
• In Focus: Julia Margaret Cameron
• Julia Margaret Cameron by Marta Weiss

Julia Margaret Cameron Videos

Meet the Photographer (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Julia Margaret Cameron’s Working Methods

Julia Margaret Cameron Photos

View more Julia Margaret Cameron Photos at the Victoria and Albert Museum website.

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Sources

Museum of Modern Art, Julia Margaret Cameron Biography
Victoria and Albert Museum, Julia Margaret Cameron Collection

Julia Margaret Cameron: A Critical Biography, Colin Ford, 2003
In Focus: Julia Margaret Cameron: Photographs from the Getty Museum, 1996
Julia Margaret Cameron by Marta Weiss, 2015
Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, 2008 
Julia Margaret Cameron The Complete Photographs by Julian Cox 

The Art Story, Julia Margaret Cameron Profile
Dimbola Lodge, Julia Margaret Cameron Biography

The post Julia Margaret Cameron: The Pioneering Victorian Photographer appeared first on Photogpedia.