Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann:

The second photographer I have chosen to write about is Jerry Uelsmann. In this detailed log, I will be writing about who Jerry Uelsmann is, what it is about his photography that I like, why I have chosen him, how his work relates to any of the formal elements commonly used by photographers and what style of photography he uses to his advantage.

The first photograph taken by Jerry Uelsmann that I saw was one of his surreal pieces of work. It depicts a person's hands cupped together, holding what appears to be a puddle of water, with droplets falling into it. This photo cannot be captured under normal circumstances, so it is evident that some effects have been put on this photograph. I particularly like photos with effects more than ordinary photos, for photographs with effects can have a much larger variety of style available.

There are two formal elements that are evident within his style of photograph. The first one is reflection. The hands in the photo have been edited with a reflection, or mirroring effect. Reflection is simply the physical replication of something, so in terms of trying to get his part of his photograph to appear reflective, I think Jerry Uelsmann has done very well. Also, the use of water is clever, because water usually shows the reflection of something. However, the background of the image is not reflected in the same fashion, so maybe the idea of reflection was not entirely the intention for this photo for Uelsman.

The second formal element evident is tone. This is because we automatically assume that we'll see blue when we see a lake, or brown and green when we see trees, but Jerry Uelsmann has flipped our initial interpretation by changing the tone of the photo to black and white. I like this style of work because of it's uniqueness, and it is quite unlike any other photographer I have seen, or included in my research log.

He uses many of the formal elements in other pieces of his work, such as depth, in pictures such as this one:

Jerry Uelsmann has inspired me greatly in terms of looking at the many ways in which I can edit a photograph that I have captured. There are many photographs that I wouldn't have thought could look nice in a black and white style had I not already seen, through Jerry Uelsmann's work, how these sorts of styles could look nice. I really enjoy the editing part of photography as well, so Uelsmann's work has been interesting to analyse. One of my computer experiments is an example of work that is similar to the work of Jerry Uelsman. I like this photograph, for the top of the pole can be said to look similar to the moon.

To summarise, I like the oddness of the work that Jerry Uelsmann creates. Nothing is predictable because it come entirely from his mind, and has never been done before. This creativity along with the surreal side of his work both really work for me, therefore making him one of my favourite photographers that I have analysed so far.

Overall, I like the style of photography that Jerry Uelsmann captures/edits, and it is very much influential to me, because I enjoy editing photos, so I can now see how to do it in a manner that is considered artistic. Another example of a photograph I am partial towards is this one: