Jerry Uelsmann

Kirk Ehlig
Shannon Duncan / Fundamentals of Photography

Jerry Uelsmann

The photographer that I attempted to emulate is Jerry Uelsmann. I was drawn to Uelsmann because of his great surrealistic eye for art. But what specifically drew me too Uelsmann was his ability to take seemingly normal photographs and turn them into one mind-bending surreal print. From what I read on a couple of different websites is that Uelsmann would use several different enlargers with different negatives in each. He would then go to each developer exposing his paper to with the next negative while burning and dodging when needed. Uelsmann is seen as an innovator in photography because he ventured away from the normal documentary style of photography and priniting to his more surreal style.
What I attempted to emulate from his style of printing is how he would use several different negatives. I was drawn more to his techniques than the conceptual ideas behind his prints themselves. Being a graphics major, learning how to do some of his techniques (i.e. dodging and burning to blend different negatives) has helped me gain a greater appreciation for what I can do somewhat easily in Photoshop and Illustrator.
Uelsmann must have spent hours or weeks per print when he first started his style of printing because I spent three to four hours per each print and went through probably 25 pieces of paper. When Ueslmann would use up to 12 enlargers so he could easily move from one enlarger to the next, I used one enlarger with two different negatives. Though it wasn’t quite the easiest thing to do it was manageable. Ultimately I would like to try to attempt to more prints like Uelsmann in the future.

The info I found on Uelsmann is from:
http://www.eyeconart.net/history/photography.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Uelsmann