I love layers.   

           I love dressing in layers. 

          If you find my in the middle of July, I’ll still have at least two shirts on. In December, it’s more like three or four.  

           I love eating in layers. 

          Watch me eat pizza – I never eat it all together.  First I eat the toppings, then I eat the cheese, then I eat the sauce, then I eat the crust.  I’ve never eaten an entire slice of pizza without dissecting it. 

           I love working in layers. 

          It doesn’t matter if its pastels or paint, I love building layers to achieve the effect I’m looking for.  

          This adoration of layers and the layering process also exhibits itself in my preferences for other artists. It should come as no surprise to those of you who know photography that my favorite photographer is Jerry Uelsmann. Uelsmann is the master of composite photography. 

Here is one of my favorite Uelsmann photographs:

Jerry Uelsmann - Contrary to Reason 2006
Jerry Uelsmann – Contrary to Reason 2006

          I bet the first thing that popped into your head had to do with digital manipulation and Photoshop.  If this is the case – you’re dead wrong.  Uelsmann’s popularity began to rise in the late 1960’s – way before Photoshop and digital photography made their way into the art world.  Uelsmann’s process, similar to my own, was tied to the darkroom.  There he layered negatives and used upwards of 12 enlargers at a time to achieve the special effects displayed in his surrealist images. Though I enjoy all of Uelsmann’s work, here are a couple of my other favorites: 

Jerry Uelsmann - Untitled 1987

Jerry Uelsmann - Untitled 2008

          I latched onto Uelsmann in my first photo class during my freshman year of college.  Being a proponent of using analogue photography over digital photography for artist endeavors, Uelsmann’s process provided me the perfect solution.  I started sandwiching negatives and blocking off parts of the paper while printing so I could print another image in that area.  

          When I got to my second photo class – I experienced the faux pas I discussed in my “My Favorite Mistake” entry.  Because of my experiences in the ortho litho darkroom and my fascination with Uelsmann – I started experimenting with layering images after they were printed.  One prints ortho litho images on “film” so in a sense I was still layering images on film – just at the end of the printing process instead of the beginning.  

          I always use a B & W fiber based print as my base and layer litho prints on top of them.   Again, one of the images I including in “My favorite Mistake” illustrates this.  The bottom layer is a B & W print of a cross made out of sticks laying in the snow on the bank of a stream.  The top layer is a solarized Litho print from a studio shot I took of my husband when we first started dating.   Here are a couple of other images I created using the same process: 

Untitled 2003

                I enjoy layering different images, as well as copies of the same image.  The image above is a stained glass window in a park in Kingston NY overtop of an image of two children playing in the park. The image below is cliche – but I had loads of fun with the series.  It was taking in a cemetary in Oneonta NY.

Amanda Resting - 2003

           Using copies of the same images creates a dream like effect, and my dreams are my main source of inspiration for both my art and my writing. There are two images below that demonstrate this.  They were both part of my senior project in college, which consisted of nine images – eight of which were created using this layering process.  The image on the top is of a memorial in Auschwitz. The same image is used three times – one FB print and two litho prints – to create this image. The image on the bottom shows a bridge at Lake Minnewaska in NY.  In this photo I used the same image of the bridge twice, but offset them slightly to create the hazy effect.

Auschwitz Memorial - 2005

Bridge at Minnewaska - 2005

            I may not have taken as much time to create these images as Uelsmann took to create his – but I can tell you they took some time.  What I find sad is that fact that these images would have taken me about five minutes using Photoshop.  This raises the question, at least in my mind, of is it the finished image or the process that places value on the work.  If I were I to sell my art work – something that took me as long as these compound prints did would cost far more than something that took five minutes on a computer.  Does the process alone raise the artistic value?  Does it make it a “better” photograph? 

            I honestly do not know. 

            There is one thing I can say about the difference between analogue and digital photography.  Anything that can be done digitally can be done using analogue techniques – it just takes a little more time and a little more skill.    

            So is the time and effort worth it? Should I save myself hours of time and just switch to digital? Maybe I should – but I doubt that will ever happen. 

            Jerry Uelsmann has been quoted as saying: “I am sympathetic to the current digital revolution and excited by the visual options created by the computer. However, I feel my creative process remains intrinsically linked to the alchemy of the darkroom.” 

            Mr. Uelsmann – I totally agree.

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