Staged Photography
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Staged photography is a form of
photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...
where the photographer, like a
director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''Di ...
, stages everything in advance to have full control over how his or her idea is visualized. Although the staging of a photograph was already common in the early days of photography, it was not distinguished as a separate genre until the 1980s, when some photographers began to establish themselves as
conceptual artist Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called instal ...
s. In contrast to, for example, candid shots or
street photography Street photography (also sometimes called candid photography) is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places. Although there is a difference between street and ca ...
, in staged photography, little is left to chance. The photographer's role is also not that of an objective observer who documents what is happening around him. After all, according to this view, a photo is not a realistic representation of a fleeting moment, but a creation of the photographer's imagination; the photographer tries to create a new reality with his work. Post-processing also plays an important role in the creation of a conceptual photo. For example, elements of different images can be superimposed and next to each other. Practitioners of this genre often work in a studio, or seek out a special location to take their photos.


History

American critic
A. D. Coleman Allan Douglass Coleman (born 1943) is an independent American critic, historian, educator, and curator of photography and photo-based art, and a widely published commentator on new digital technologies. He has published 8 books and more than 2000 ...
proposed the term ''directorial mode'' attempting to define the emerging genre in his 1976 article for
Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...
magazine. The term ''staged photography'' was introduced in 1987 in two publications: Andy Grundberg's and Kathleen McCarthy Gauss' ''Photography and Art. Interactions since 1946'' and Anne H. Hoy's ''Fabrications. Staged, Altered, and Appropriated Photographs''. Today the term is often used as a
hyperonym In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In other wor ...
for such picture-making (as opposed to picture-taking) concepts as ''fabricated'', ''manipulated'', ''creative'', ''constructed'', ''arranged'', ''directorial'', and ''tableau photography''. In the Netherlands, staged photography started in the 1980s with theatrical
still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...
s created in the studio. The exhibitions ''Staged Photo Events'' (1982) in the Lijnbaan Center in
Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
and ''Fotografia Buffa'' (1986) in the
Groninger Museum The Groninger Museum () is an art museum in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. The museum exhibits modern and contemporary art of local, national, and international artists. The museum opened in 1874. The current post-modernist building co ...
were influential. Well-known Dutch photographers who practice this genre are Rommert Boonstra, co-founder of the Rotterdam School, Teun Hocks,
Pieter Laurens Mol Pieter Laurens Mol is a Dutch contemporary artist who combines photography, film, painting, drawing, sculpture and installation in his works. He was born in Breda, Netherlands in 1946, and studied photography at St. Joost Art Academy. He has been ...
,
Paul de Nooijer Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...
and
Erwin Olaf Erwin Olaf Springveld (born 2 July 1959), professionally known as Erwin Olaf, is a Dutch photographer from Hilversum. Time magazine described his work as straddling "the worlds of commercial, art and fashion photography at once." Biography ...
. Other representatives of staged photography are
Philip-Lorca diCorcia Philip-Lorca diCorcia (born 1951) is an American photographer, living in New York City. He teaches at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.Release: David Zwirner - Philip-Lorca diCorcia: ''Thousand'' (February 27 - March 28, 2009). Retrieved ...
,
Jeff Wall Jeffrey Wall, Order of Canada, OC, Royal Society of Canada, RSA (born September 29, 1946) is a Canadian artist best known for his large-scale back-lit Cibachrome photographs and art history writing. Early in his career, he helped define the Van ...
,
Bruce Charlesworth Bruce Charlesworth (born 1950) is an American artist, known primarily for his photographic, video and multimedia works. Early life and education Charlesworth was born in 1950 in Davenport, Iowa. He received his BA degree in Art from the Universi ...
,
Tono Stano Tono Stano (born 24 March 1960) is a Slovakia-born art photographer living and working in Prague, Czech Republic. Life and work Stano was born in Zlaté Moravce, now Slovakia. He attended the secondary school of applied arts in Bratislava from 1 ...
,
Nanna Bisp Büchert Nanna may refer to: *Grandmother Mythology * Sin (mythology), god of the moon in Sumerian mythology, also called Suen * Nanna (Norse deity), goddess associated with the god Baldr in Norse mythology * Nana Buluku, Fon/Dahomey androgynous deity cre ...
, Lis Steincke, and
Joel-Peter Witkin Joel-Peter Witkin (born September 13, 1939) is an American photographer who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work often deals with themes such as death, corpses (and sometimes dismembered portions thereof), often featuring ornately decorated ...
.


See also

*
Conceptual photography Conceptual photography is a type of photography that illustrates an idea. There have been illustrative photographs made since the medium's invention, for example in the earliest staged photographs, such as Hippolyte Bayard's ''Self Portrait as ...
* Theatre photography


References

{{Reflist Photography by genre