Composograph refers to a forerunner method of

photo manipulation Photograph manipulation involves the transformation or alteration of a photograph using various methods and techniques to achieve desired results. Some photograph manipulations are considered to be skillful artwork, while others are consider ...

and is a retouched photographic collage popularized by publisher and

physical culture Physical culture, also known as Body culture, is a health and strength training movement that originated during the 19th century in Germany, the UK and the US. Origins The physical culture movement in the United States during the 19th century ...

advocate

Bernarr Macfadden Bernarr Macfadden (born Bernard Adolphus McFadden, August 16, 1868 – October 12, 1955) was an American proponent of physical culture, a combination of bodybuilding with nutritional and health theories. He founded the long-running magazine pu ...

in his ''

New York Evening Graphic The ''New York Evening Graphic'' (not to be confused with the earlier '' Daily Graphic)'' was a tabloid newspaper published from 1924 to 1932 by Bernarr Macfadden. Exploitative and mendacious in its short life, the ''Graphic'' exemplified tablo ...

'' in 1924. The ''Graphic'' was dubbed "The ''Porno-Graphic''" by critics of the timeHunt, William R. ''Body Love: The Amazing Career of Bernarr Macfadden''. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1989: 135. and has been called "one of the low points in the history of American journalism".Yagoda, Ben. "The True Story of Bernarr Macfadden." ''American Heritage'' 33.1 (December 1981). Exploitative and mendacious, in its short life (it closed operations in 1932) the ''Graphic'' defined "

tabloid journalism Tabloid journalism is a popular style of largely sensationalist journalism (usually dramatized and sometimes unverifiable or even blatantly false), which takes its name from the tabloid newspaper format: a small-sized newspaper also known a ...

" and launched the careers of

Ed Sullivan Edward Vincent Sullivan (September 28, 1901 – October 13, 1974) was an American television personality, impresario, sports and entertainment reporter, and syndicated columnist for the ''New York Daily News'' and the Chicago Tribune New Yor ...

and

Walter Winchell Walter Winchell (April 7, 1897 – February 20, 1972) was a syndicated American newspaper gossip columnist and radio news commentator. Originally a vaudeville performer, Winchell began his newspaper career as a Broadway reporter, critic and co ...

, who developed the modern

gossip column A gossip columnist is someone who writes a gossip column in a newspaper or magazine, especially a gossip magazine. Gossip columns are material written in a light, informal style, which relates the gossip columnist's opinions about the personal li ...

there. Film director

Sam Fuller Samuel Michael Fuller (August 12, 1912 – October 30, 1997) was an American film director, screenwriter, novelist, journalist, and World War II veteran known for directing low-budget genre movies with controversial themes, often made ou ...

worked for the ''Evening Graphic'' as a crime reporter. "Composographic" images were literally cut and pasted together using images of the heads or faces of current celebrities, glued onto staged images created in Macfadden's in-house studio, often using newspaper staffers as

body double In filmmaking, a double is a person who substitutes FOR another actor such that the person's face is not shown. There are various terms associated with a double based on the specific body part or ability they serve as a double for, such as stunt ...

s. Composite photographs, or

photomontage Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so that the final image ...

s, had been used in the nineteenth century by such photographers as

William Notman William Notman (8 March 1826 – 25 November 1891) was a Scottish-Canadian photographer and businessman. The Notman House in Montreal was his home from 1876 until his death in 1891, and it has since been named after him. Biography Notman ...

to capture indoor scenes that would not have been otherwise possible before the flashbulb was developed. Macfadden used them to represent events that were inconvenient to photograph, particularly with the equipment of the day: private bedrooms and bathtubs, Rudolph Valentino's unsuccessful surgery, Valentino's funeral, and notably on March 17, 1927, a full-page image of Valentino meeting Enrico Caruso in heaven. One early faked photograph—that of Alice Jones Rhinelander baring her breast in court (part of the Kip Rhinelander divorce trial)—is said to have boosted the Graphic's circulation by 100,000 copies. Apart from their sensational subject matter, composographs have relevance as a historical reference point in the current debate over staged and doctored news photos. Some of the ''Graphic'' composographs have an unforgettable eerie visual impact. In a 1997 academic paper called "Staged, faked and mostly naked: Photographic innovations at the Evening Graphic, 1924–1932" and a shorter online essay, Radford University professor Bob Stepno points out that the ''Graphic'' was published before improvements in photojournalism technology and standards that made possible the photorealism of

Magnum Photos Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices in New York City, Paris, London and Tokyo. It was founded in 1947 in Paris by photographers Robert Capa, David "Chim" Seymour, Maria Eisn ...

, Black Star and others during World War II.

References

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External links

The Composograph of Alice Rhinelander
Photographic techniques