Photograms

Lesson Objectives and Outcomes

By the end of the lesson...You will be able to produce a basic photogram

You will have developed your understanding of the way that light passes through objects.

ALL OF YOU will have carried out a photogram experiment

SOME OF YOU will have produced a successful photogram image.

What is a Photogram?

A shadow image

No film involved

Working directly with light and Photographic paper.

Why make a Photogram?

Really good introduction to the darkroom

Simple but effective

You can learn a lot about light; it's importance in Photography, the way it passes through

objects, the way it reacts with photographic paper.

History of Photograms...

Used a lot by Surrealist Photographers in the 1930s, for example...

Man Ray

Moholy Nagy

Photograms are still valid as an art form today, and used in Contemporary Art, for example..

Modern day

Walead Beshty

Taking a Contemporary approach to the Photogram technique, Contemporary Artist Walead Beshty creates these large scale

multicoloured Photograms, produced by folding the (colour sensitive) Photographic paper and then exposing it to light in overlapping layers...

Beshty; exhibition at the Hirshorn Gallery, Washington, 2009.

So....

Photograms; a serious Art Form in their own right.

Used by artists to explore shape, form, tone, representation, the relationship between 2 and

3 dimensions

However...

We are not going to be using them in this way today.

We are going to be using them in a more fun way to make our own...

Photogram Christmas Cards!

Here are some I made earlier...

Method in brief...Choose your objects

In the darkroom, arrange these objects on a piece of photographic paper

Expose this paper to light using the enlarger

Develop the paper in the photographic chemicals.

What am I looking for?

Technically, a successful photogram should have;

A range of tones in the image

Some clear blacks and some clear whites.

Remember...

The object will look different depending on whether it's opaque, transparent or semi-

transparent

The objects will come out WHITE, the space inbetween them will be BLACK.

Try to think about the PATTERNS the objects will produce and the space inbetween them.

Really brief Darkroom health and safety

Dont' get your hands, clothes etc in the chemicals!

Don't run or dance!

Always keep the photographic paper in the dark/ in the sealed pack unless you are ready to

expose it

Don't make a mess...

The end...Good luck!