Jerry Was a Master of the Dark Ages. Now He’s Gone.
Jerry Uelsmann was inspirational.
Before there was Photoshop, or even computers, there was Jerry Uelsmann. He combined images from multiple negatives into surreal landscapes or incongruent assemblages which he flawlessly printed in his darkroom. He pioneered the concept of composite photography.
Sadly, Jerry passed away in Florida on April 4th. He was 87.
Jerry was my greatest photographic influence. He had a solo exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in 1967, which launched his photography career. I was introduced to photography just a year later.
In order to understand the magnitude of his skill and vision, we have to rewind our lives to the analog days of photography.
Analog Photography
Analogue photographers recorded their images on film; which is basically a piece of plastic — coated with a light-sensitive emulsion. Exposing the film to light through the camera lens creates a latent image that is subsequently made visible by the developing process.
The film is immersed into a developer bath that converts the latent image into microscopic particles of metallic silver. The stop bath halts the action of the developer, then the fixer bath makes the image permanent and…
