Solarization

click photo to enlarge

Today's photograph is the result of my efforts to reduce the amount of junk we have. During my sifting of the useful, the not so useful and the downright useless that is stored in various rooms and locations around our house I came across an old computer motherboard. It is one that my youngest son had discarded during one of the upgrades that he performed on his machine in recent years. As anyone who has assembled their own computer will know, incremental improvements are possible, but every now and again - say after five years or so - a major upgrade involving the replacement of the motherboard, memory, graphics card and often the hard drive, is desirable, if not necessary. It was the innards that resulted from one such disembowelling that I came across during my tidying. As I held the motherboard up to examine its vintage the sunlight streaming in through the window caught it and, for a brief second, the circuit boards and components had a look of solarization about them.

Anyone with an interest in the history of art or photography in the twentieth century will have come across this photographic technique, usually in connection with the artist Man Ray (1890-1976). Solarization occurs when light and dark areas are partly reversed in tone. It was known during the time of Daguerre, but what Man Ray did was to deliberately use the effect that his assistant, Lee Miller, discovered (in fact re-discovered), when she accidentally exposed an already exposed film to light during developing.

I used software to achieve the effect on a photograph that I took of the motherboard - hence my use of "pseudo" in the title of the image. Digital imaging allows the effect to be applied to shots in black and white or colour: to the best of my knowledge Man Ray and the other photographers who used this effect only applied it to monochrome images. By making adjustments with my software's "sliders" I was able to turn the blues, browns and silver of the PCB and its components into something quite different, and in so doing change the emphasis of different parts of the photograph. I don't use too many "effects" in my photography, but this one suggested itself and it seems to me to suit the subject.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/6
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographic effects and silver birches

click photos to enlarge
There's a saying amongst some photographers that an effect applied after shooting won't make a bad photograph into a good one. It's a maxim born of seeing too many images where HDR, selective colouring, starbursts, graduated colours and the like, are added for just that reason. Some purists go further and see any effect as an unwelcome addition, regardless of the quality of the original. I think that the originally stated case is largely true, but as for the idea that effects have no place in photography, well, I disagree. The fact is there are too many good photographers who prove the contrary.

Bill Brandt, the British photographer, is probably best known for those images to which he applied the effect of very high contrast. The U.S.-born Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzsky 1890-1976) was so fascinated with photographic manipulation that a significant part of his ouvre uses his "rayograph" technique or solarization. Other examples of the use of effects can be found in the work of eminent photographers past and present.

So, why are effects not widely used? Well, it depends on what you're trying to achieve with your images. Brandt is also known for his "documentary" style photographs of the working class in England's northern cities. In those images he mainly used traditionally exposed black and white photography of "normal" dynamic range. But, he's also known for pictures that lean towards the artistic side of photography, and here is where he uses high contrast - almost pure black and pure white in some instances. Man Ray come from the tradition of Dada, and painted as well as taking photographs. Consequently his portraits of notable people tend to be recognisably "normal" photographs, whereas his artistic abstracts use more unusual effects. Both photographers used effects where it contributed to what they wanted to achieve.

There is clearly a place for effects, though I tend to agree that over-use soon becomes tiresome, and makes you wonder why photography is the chosen medium as opposed to painting. I don't use such effects too often, but sometimes a subject tips me in that direction, as did this grove of bone-like silver birches. I've applied two effects to copies of the shot I took. I can't decide whether I prefer the "halo" effect" in colour, or the high contrast black and white. Each adds something to the original image that I find attractive. How about you?

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On