1. to twist awry or out of shape; make crooked or deformed.
2. to give a false, perverted, or disproportionate meaning to; misrepresent: to distort the facts.

Abstraction distortions    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

Berenice Abbott is best known for her photographs of New York but she was also interested in scientific photography and patented the 'Distortion Easel'^[1][2] that was a device for controlling angles and levels of distortion that could be used for photography. Her patent, filed in 1948, described the easel as follows:

The present invention is of particular application in the production of distorted photographic prints wherein an artistic result is specially had by the selective exaggeration and diminution of certain features of the subject. For example, the easel of the present invention may be conveniently employed to produce caricatured portraits, surrealist scenes, and other novel pictures the artistic merit of which resides in the essential unnaturalness of the reproduction of the subject.^[3]

 
André Kertész in 1933 produced a remarkable series of photographs called 'Distortions' (published in 1976^[4]) in which mirrors were used to distort nudes into bizarre abstractions.  
  
        
  

 
Weegee is remembered for his night shots of New York city crime scenes but he also shot distortions^[5] including a series in Paris with a twisted out of shape Eiffel Tower.  
  
   
  

Abstraction distortions    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

A Hungarian friend of mine introduced me to the editor of the magazine "Le Sourire," a very French sort of magazine–satiric, risqué. Many artists worked for this publication. They had never published photos before. The editor asked me to do something. I bought two distorting mirrors in the flea market–the kind of thing you find in amusement parks. With existing light and an old lens invented by Hugo Meyer, I achieved amusing impressions. Some images like sculptures, others grotesque and frightening. I took about 140 photographs in a month, working two or three times a week. “Le Sourire” published a couple of them, and we planned a book, but it had to wait forty years to be published–but that is another story.^[13]

There were three basic methods Weegee used to create these distortions. Weegee's first experiments were made by placing a textured or curved glass or other translucent material between the enlarger lends and the photographic paper. This effect would alter the image of the negative to varying degrees depending on the density pattern, or texture of the material he used. He also tried manipulating or mutilating copy negatives by placing them in boiling water, or melting them with an open flame. The third method he employed involved making multiple exposures from the same or various negatives. Given his darkroom talent, he sometimes combined these techniques. Weegee later added a system by which he would affix a kaleidoscope to the end of the camera lens, or use it to replace the camera lens, letting the refractive designs multiply what the camera would have recorded as a single image. From this period until his death, Weegee concentrated on what he alternately called his "distortions," "caricatures," "creative photography," or most often, his "art."^[17]

Geraint Cunnick: I gather that Perspective of Nudes received a mixed response at best when it was first published…
 
Francis Hodgson: Perspective of Nudes is very late compared to the images within it. You have to compare those pictures with Kertesz's distorted nudes and Lee Friedlander's nudes – Brandt is before either of them at doing it even though Perspective of Nudes is not published until the early 1960s, but many of the photographs date from the 1940s. Kertesz was doing it before, to be fair and with a very similar sensibility – the idea being that the female figure is something that everybody understands but the distortions by themselves lead to other kinds of beauty. I think Brandt was always considered the greatest photographer, the "granddaddy"; even though he lived through the period when photographers were not much respected.^[19]

1. Λ In 1947 Berenice Abbott opened her "House of Photography" which sold her inventions including the "Distortion Easel".
   www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/archivalcollections/pdf/abbottb.pdf 
     
   
2. Λ In the The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection (AC1992.197.114) at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) there is a 1937 self-portrait of Arthur Siegel taken with Berenice Abbott’s Distortion Easel. See - Robert Sobieszek and Deborah Irmas, 1994, the camera i: Photographic Self-Portraits from the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection, (Los Angeles: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers) 
     
   
3. Λ As Berenice Abbott claimed in her Patent Application (US2565446 A - Filed: 10 March 1948, Published: 21 August 1951) 
     
   
4. Λ André Kertész, 1976, Distortions, (Paris, Editions du Chêne) 
     
   
5. Λ Weegee, 1959, Weegee's Creative Camera, (Hanover House); Weegee, 1964, Weegee's Creative Photography, (Ward, Lock & Co.) 
     
   
6. Λ André Kertész, 1976, Distortions, (Paris, Editions du Chêne) 
     
   
7. Λ Weegee, 1959, Weegee's Creative Camera, (Hanover House); Weegee, 1964, Weegee's Creative Photography, (Ward, Lock & Co.) 
     
   
8. Λ Walter E. Woodbury, 1905, Photographic Amusements including a Description of a Number of Novel Effects Obtainable with the Camera, (New York: The Photographic Times Publishing Association) 
     
   
9. Λ Herbert G. Ponting, 1921, The Great White South, or, With Scott in the Antarctic being an account of experiences with Captain Scott's South Pole Expedition and of the nature life of the Antarctic, with an introduction by Lady Scott, (London: Duckworth) 
     
   
10. Λ André Kertész, 1976, Distortions, (Paris, Editions du Chêne) 
      
    
11. Λ Carlo Rim was a pseudonym of Jean Marius Richard. 
      
    
12. Λ Luna Park was an amusement park in Paris that operated from around 1907 until 1931. 
      
    
13. Λ André Kertész, 1985, Kertész on Kertész: A Self-Portrait, (Abbeville Press) 
      
    
14. Λ One series of twelve distortions by André Kertész was published in Le Sourire, 12 March 1933.
     
    In September 1933 André Kertész published five of his distortions with the headline “Kertész et son miroir” in Arts et Métiers Graphiques.
     
    The book published over forty years later was - André Kertész, 1976, Distortions, (Paris, Editions du Chêne) 
      
    
15. Λ Books by Weegee have gone through numerous reprints, editions and translations - Weegee, 1946, Naked City, (New York: Essential Books); Weegee, 1959, Weegee's Creative Camera, (Hanover House); Weegee, 1961, Weegee by Weegee, (New York: Ziff-Davis Pub. Co.) [First edition]; Weegee, 1964, Weegee's Creative Photography, (Ward, Lock & Co.) 
      
    
16. Λ Weegee, 1959, Weegee's Creative Camera, (Hanover House); Weegee, 1964, Weegee's Creative Photography, (London: Ward, Lock, and Co.) 
      
    
17. Λ Weegee's World: Distortions
    (Accessed: 5 June 2014)
    museum.icp.org/museum/collections/special/weegee/weegee18.html 
      
    
18. Λ Bill Brandt, 1961, Perspective of Nudes, (London: The Bodley Head) 
      
    
19. Λ Curator Francis Hodgson of the exhibition "Toppers and Cloth Caps: The Social Divide According to Bill Brandt", The Special Photographers Gallery, interviewed by photographer Geraint Cunnick, 23 October 2000.
    (Accessed: 5 December 2013)
    www.americansuburbx.com/2009/06/theory-toppers-and-cloth-caps-social.html 
      
    

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