Analysis of Photographers Man Ray and Nagy's Photograms

Analysis of Man Ray and Lazslo Moholy Nagy's Photograms

Nagy





Man Ray




Although obviously both photograms, both photographers have taken a different approach to this camera-less art of photograms, as we can see from Man Ray's work on the left and Moholy Nagy's work on the right.

The aesthetics of each photograph from each artist are similar yet different. It's evident that both pictures were made using photographic paper and placing objects on top of the paper, then subjecting it to light. However even though the same technique was used, both photos are extremely different.

On the left (Man Ray's Rayogram) there's a bunch of jumbled letters possibly placed without any second thoughts, a cocked gun that seems to be missing a trigger and a barrel, and three other identifiable objects. There is shadowing between the lettering and the gun which could possibly indicate a few things: The objects on the photographic paper were moved throughout the whole process,The distance and aperture settings on the developer were changed throughout the process, diffusion of light or possibly two light sources instead of one, which created the shadowing effect. Although depending on the audience and how the individual interprets the photographers work, Man Ray's work was deliberately ambiguous and very random, having very little or no meaning to his photograms. Simply capturing a moment. 

Lazslo Moholy Nagy's work, on the other hand, had more meaning to it. Whereas Man Ray's work like the one above contained a high level of spontaneity, Nagy's work seemed more planned out which in turn created more depth and texture with the overlaying of the hand and paintbrush, the distance between the objects and brush in his photograms. In the photogram above he used a paint brush, a hand and what appears to be a grill top or a drying rack. Nagy created his work as a play on "art/ photography" making the theme of this work in particular about creativity. This made his work a bit more restricted as there was a set theme. There wasn't as much freedom in his work compared to Man Ray's rayogram. However Nagy's work is more abstract and childlike.

My Contact and Test Sheets

From making my test sheet I made the assumption that 2.5 seconds was the right timing for all of my negatives. However when producing my contact sheet and , later on, my photos I realised that this wasn't the case. Whereas on some of my photos on the contact sheet 2.5 seconds was the right exposure time, other photos required a lot more time on a  higher aperture setting, and others required a lot less time on a lower aperture setting. For example, One of my photos required 2.5 seconds with an F8 aperture, (no filter), whereas another photo from my negatives required F11 at 4.0 seconds.
Because of this I needed to make test strips of each individual photo I was going to use. I made sure that I documented which photos needed what time by using 1.0 second intervals to determine what images needed what settings. 

I believe that the reason each photo needed different setting was because, on each photo to create a different effect the shutter speed was changed, because of this each photo was exposed to a different amount of light, thats why the aperture had to change.