"Faking It" A photography show at the Met

The other day I saw a very interesting show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art www.metmuseum.org entitled "Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop."

"The urge to modify camera images is as old as photography itself—only the methods have changed. Nearly every type of manipulation we now associate with digital photography was also part of the medium's pre-digital repertoire: smoothing away wrinkles, slimming waistlines, adding people to a scene (or removing them)—even fabricating events that never took place."

Before I visited this exhibit I had copied some old black and white photos of old-time movie stars in different settings.  I then photographed myself, cut and pasted my head onto the body of some of the actresses and then copied them on my printer.  Thus I had manipulated the photos and below are some of the results:

Shades of Gray (not the book)

    The last class I had before the super storm Sandy reeked havoc on the area had as a theme "interiors using shades of gray."   One of the artists whose interiors I have always loved is Matisse.  His use of color and pattern was a hallmark of his work.  Using his imagery I made a black and white copy of one of his very colorful paintings, mounted it on black board, added collage, removed some areas with a straight edge blade, and using pen and ink filled in some areas as well.  Without bright colors, his painting takes on a very different feel.