Man Ray and Rayography (photogram)

Since diving into the world of surrealism I have had a lot of names thrown at me who are relevant to the kind of photography I aim to produce. Man Ray is one of them, after reading up on him I can see why people thought that I'd be interested in his work. I found out the he was a significant contributor to the DaDa and Surrealist movement. One technique that id like to focus on is his work with Rayographs which actually inherited his name once he perfected the technique, originally referred to as Photograms. Other artists have used this method such as Robert Rauschenberg and Gyorgy Kepes which I didn't know about until I did research.

Rayography

I was told about this method after asking about Man Rays work in class. I was told about a few other artists who have tried this also but Man Rays images were the first ones that were shown to me. I have a desire to try this which is why I have purchased some light sensitive paper. Man Ray started out as a commercial photographer which held him back as he wanted to produce more creative work. He aspired to follow in the path of his early inspiration, Alfred Stieglitz until he felt the need to explore the more creative side of photography. Rayography doesn't actually require a camera which was the part that interested me the most. Man Ray would place everyday objects onto a sheet of photosensitive paper and exposed it to light. Which doesn't sound very exciting at first but once I saw the finished result I was amazed at the almost dreamlike images he created. Such simple objects created a fascinating and pleasing to the eye image. 

Ive noticed that he uses the slinky a lot in his photo prints which I really like. The delicate highlight of the coils is almost haunting in some ways like most of these images. I haven't tried this technique out yet but I am already making mental notes of the kind of objects that might result in effective imagery. Ive thought about using wide woven fabric as well as something transparent like glass or plastic, maybe even something as simple as a clear plastic bag could create interesting effects. This along with certain parts of my body like one of my hands or foot would be effective. This would also go long with a lot of my current photography which is looking at hands and other body parts.

I feel like this technique is going to expand my current understanding and knowledge of taking a photograph which I feel is quite limited just now to pointing and shooting with a digital camera. I plan on looking into earlier methods of capturing an image and seeing if its possible to try out these techniques myself. I realise that a lot of the earlier techniques usually have a long process usually including chemicals which aren't necessarily safe.  

Robert Rauchenberg Rayography

Roberts photos are very impressive mainly because of the scale of the pieces. He does these amazing full scale body images using a lamp to shine the light onto the model as they are positioned onto the paper. I would love to try something like this but the paper will be real expensive and I wouldn't know where to look. So I will do smaller scale images with the paper I have which is only A5. I dont have many ideas just yet about what to do with the scale I have but I plan on gather as many random things as I can and seeing what I can do with them.

 

I also have a solar can set up which is the same kind of technique to raygraphy. But the solar can technique is known as solargraphy. This technique also uses the sun but it tracks the trail of the sun as it moves across the sky. I didn't realise how many different ways their were to create a photographic image. These images are very abstract in nature as the images aren't very clear and focuses more on shapes and outlines

Sources 

https://www.theartstory.org/artist-ray-man.htm

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/46405