Contents
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Introduction
331.01 Experimental and manipulated photography > Distortions: Defined
   
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
distort
–verb (used with object)
- to twist awry or out of shape; make crooked or deformed.
- to give a false, perverted, or disproportionate meaning to; misrepresent: to distort the facts.
331.02 Experimental and manipulated photography > Louis Ducos du Hauron: Transformiste
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
 
Louis Ducos du Hauron (1837-1920) known for his development of early colour process also expermented with a device for elongating and shortening the sitter creating effects similar to a fairground mirror. He named the device the "Transformiste" and it was illustrated in Walter E. Woodbury's"> book Photographic Amusements including a Description of a Number of Novel Effects Obtainable with the Camera (1905).[1]
331.03 Experimental and manipulated photography > Introduction to distortions
The use of distorting mirrors and lenses creates elongated, squashed, stretched and crushed forms and this characterisic of fairground mirrors has been used by photographers to create unwordly forms and it is particularly suited to the taking of nudes.
Berenice Abbott is best known for her photographs of New York but she was also interested in scientific photography and patented the 'Distortion Easel'[2] that was a device for controlling angles and levels of distortion that could be used for photography.
André Kertész in 1933 produced a remarkable series of photographs called 'Distortions' (published in 1976[3]) 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[4] including a series in Paris with a twisted out of shape Eiffel Tower.
 
331.04 Experimental and manipulated photography > Examples of distortions
   
At various times photographers have experimented with placing some form of distorting device between the camera lens and the subject of the photograph. André Kertész[5] using a distorting mirror of the type found in a fairground whilst Weegee[6] used a plastic lens.
Photographers
331.05 Experimental and manipulated photography > André Kertész: Distortions
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
  
André Kertész (1894-1985) was a master of light who experimented with Modernist approaches to photography including using diverse viewpoints, reflections, close-ups and abstraction of scale and distortions.[7]
In around 1928-1930 Kertész made a number of distorted portraits of caricaturist Carlo Rim (1905-1989)[8] in the funfair mirrors at Luna Park.[9] The French magazine Le Sourire gave Kertész an assignment to take distortions and he bought two distorting mirrors and had them placed in his studio.
Kertész wrote:
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.[10]
The possibilities for experimentation with the distortions and he made a series of around 200 nude distortions using the models Najinskaya Verackhatz and Nadia Kasine which remain imaginative and witty.[11]
331.06 Experimental and manipulated photography > Weegee: Distortions
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
      
331.07 Experimental and manipulated photography > Bill Brandt: Distortions
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
       
In an interview in October 2000 curator Francis Hodgson of the exhibition "Toppers and Cloth Caps: The Social Divide According to Bill Brandt", The Special Photographers Gallery, was interviewed by photographer Geraint Cunnick. He described the context for Bill Brandt's the distortions in Perspective of Nudes (1961).[12]
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 may 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.[13]
Footnotes
- 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)
- 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
- Λ André Kertész, 1976, Distortions, (Paris, Editions du Chęne)
- Λ Weegee, 1959, Weegee's Creative Camera, (Hanover House); Weegee, 1964, Weegee's Creative Photography, (Ward, Lock & Co.)
- Λ André Kertész, 1976, Distortions, (Paris, Editions du Chęne)
- Λ Weegee, 1959, Weegee's Creative Camera, (Hanover House); Weegee, 1964, Weegee's Creative Photography, (Ward, Lock & Co.)
- Λ André Kertész, 1976, Distortions, (Paris, Editions du Chęne)
- Λ Carlo Rim was a pseudonym of Jean Marius Richard.
- Λ Luna Park was an amusement park in Paris that operated from around 1907 until 1931.
- Λ André Kertész, 1985, Kertész on Kertész: A Self-Portrait, (Abbeville Press)
- 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 Chęne)
- Λ Bill Brandt, 1961, Perspective of Nudes, (London: The Bodley Head)
- 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
alan@luminous-lint.com |
  
General reading
Fineman, Mia, 2012, Faking it: Manipulated photography before Photoshop, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art) isbn-10: 0300185014 isbn-13: 978-0300185010 [Distributed by Yale University Press] [Δ]
Woodbury, Walter E., 1905, Photographic Amusements including a Description of a Number of Novel Effects Obtainable with the Camera, (New York: The Photographic Times Publishing Association) [Δ]
Readings on, or by, individual photographers
Bill Brandt
Brandt, Bill, 1961, Perspective of Nudes, (London: The Bodley Head) [Δ]
André Kertész
Kertész, André, 1976, Distortions, (Paris, Editions du Chęne) [Δ]
Weegee
Weegee, 1959, Weegee's Creative Camera, (Hanover House) [Δ]
Weegee, 1964, Weegee's Creative Photography, (Ward, Lock & Co.) [Δ]
If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com
Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) • Bill Brandt (1904-1983) • Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) • Louis Ducos du Hauron (1837-1920) • André Kertész (1894-1985) • Man Ray (1890-1976) • Weegee (1899-1968) • Edward Weston (1886-1958) | Home > Themes > Experimental and manipulated photography > Distortions
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