Aesthetic Approach

Susan Derges - Under the moon

At first glance the images from this series by Susan Derges look like quite simple photos, but under closer examination its noticeable that they are not. There appears to be a few possible processes used to get aesthetic seen in these images, photogram, camera-less image recording and collaging.

When looking closely at the images you can see water ripples and movement, suggesting the images taken are reflections on a pool or river looking up at the moon. The images could also be made using a camera-less method of laying light sensitive paper under some water and leaving it to expose, the branches and leaves would be silhouettes, just shadows of an over hanging branch. The ripples could be created by disturbing the water in some way, perhaps by dropping something in moving the container with the water it in, or by sending in vibrations.

I think this process makes the image more part of the landscape, the image becomes one with it, instead of having the camera recording an image from afar, it cuts out the middleman (the camera) and records whats there.

As the aesthetic is quite different to a 'usual' photograph, it makes the viewer stop and look at it, bringing questions as to how it was made, why it was made, it plays on the viewers curiosity and gets them intrigued. Recording the image in this way adds more elements to the image, it adds layers, making it more complex and more interesting, the texture from the ripples makes it more than just a photo.

Dan Mountford

Double exposure processes can be done either in camera, post-production in photoshop or in the darkroom. To do it in camera you simply expose the first frame then wind the film back and expose again on the same frame, ofcourse its more complex than it sounds to correctly expose so that the final image is well exposed. To do it in photoshop simply layer the images into the same document and set the layer blending options to get the aesthetic required. To get the effect in photoshop its much like the in camera method, but instead you expose one image from a negative on to some paper, then using the same paper and a different frame on the negative, you expose again to get the same effect.

The process of double exposure gives this abstract quality to the images achievable by no other means. It gives a dream-like quality to the images and the extra layers make them quite appealing and gets the viewer to stop and look at them to see both scenes within the image. The effect it can have ona portrait like this is one that shows several perspectives at once, one of the person in the image, and the other of the possible scene the person can see. Making it seem like the person is at this place in the image, when in actuality they could be very far away when the images were created and not related to the scene at all.