# Surrealist photography

> Photographs that make the familiar strange: a big toe, a hand or an armadillo seen so close and lit so hard against black that it becomes a creature or a monument; bodies cut into fragments by the frame; faces and nudes doubled by superimposition or outlined by solarisation; funnels and tongs laid on paper as rayographs; mannequins and masks. Mostly black and white and often low-key, staged in the studio as much as found in the street, and published in surrealist magazines and books as images of dream, desire and chance.

- Period: 1924–1950
- Where it began: Paris, in André Breton's surrealist group after the first Manifesto of Surrealism
- Kind: Staged & conceptual
- Also called: Surrealism in photography, Photographie surréaliste
- Page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/surrealist-photography/

## How the look is made

- Go close enough that a familiar thing, a toe, a hand, an animal, loses its name and becomes a strange form.
- Cut the body into fragments with the frame; show the part instead of the whole figure.
- Light hard from one side or above against a black ground, so that forms float out of the dark.
- Work on the image itself: superimpose two exposures, solarise the print, paint on it, or lay objects directly on photographic paper.
- Stage or find the uncanny: mannequins, masks, doubled faces and objects out of place, never explained by their setting.

## How it is lit

- A single hard lamp from one side or above against a black ground, so the subject floats out of darkness.
- Studio light on a nude or face, later solarised so that its outline glows.
- A bare bulb over photographic paper for rayographs, with objects laid directly on it.

### The rendered set-up

A single hard lamp from the side, raking across the head so it floats out of black. Rendered in Blender Cycles on a synthetic clay figure or still life, with the lights exactly where the plan on the page puts them.

### A light plan from its choices (schematic)

- Key: a spot or bare head, from the camera’s left, at the side, high, hard.
- Black flag: a black card, about 60° to the camera’s right, soft.

## Camera settings

40–60 mm · f/8–f/32 · 1/5–5 s · ISO 10–50 (on 9x12), inferred. Inferred: glass-plate and sheet-film studio cameras (Man Ray's negatives run from 9 × 12 to about 16 × 21 cm) with normal or longer lenses, stopped down for close-ups under hot lamps, at fractions of a second to seconds; rayographs use no camera at all.

## Directing people

Adult models, often nude, turn their backs, lie with eyes closed as if asleep, or show a face in profile, blank and mask-like; the frame cuts them to a back, a torso, a neck or a hand; faces are doubled or masked, and masks and objects stand in for people.

## Styling

Spare and little styled: a bare adult body, a single object or an animal isolated against black; things out of place (masks, a funnel, tongs, glass tears, lace); now and then costume or shaved, painted or prosthetic make-up for staged self-portraits; street scenes taken as found.

## Before you shoot it

Hans Bellmer explicitly sexualised his doll as a young girl, and his post-war photographs show pubescent girls: never generate, restage or imitate the doll photographs or any child-like figure, doll or mannequin in sexual, nude or broken poses. Keep every nude or sensual image to clearly adult subjects who have consented, and remember that many surrealist pictures treat women's bodies as fragments and objects; credit and work with your models. Label generated images as AI-generated, never as vintage surrealist prints.

## Photographs

- Jacques-André Boiffard, Gros orteil, 1929. Centre Pompidou, Paris, gift of Mme Denise Boiffard, 1986 (AM 1985-123). © Mme Denise Boiffard. In copyright, linked: https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cGbEAkA
- Dora Maar, Portrait d'Ubu, 1936. Centre Pompidou, Paris, purchase 1998 (AM 1998-246). © Adagp, Paris. In copyright, linked: https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cgbG8k
- Man Ray, Champs délicieux, first rayograph, 1922. Centre Pompidou, Paris, purchase 1987 (AM 1987-905 (1)). © Man Ray Trust / Adagp, Paris. In copyright, linked: https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cazXLgd
- Maurice Tabard, Nu féminin et portrait de femme, 1929. Centre Pompidou, Paris, purchased with the support of Yves Rocher, 2011; formerly collection Christian Bouqueret (AM 2012-7721). © droits réservés. In copyright, linked: https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cj7z9ka

## Sources

- Surrealism, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism (surrealist photographers Dora Maar, Man Ray, Brassaï, Claude Cahun; La Révolution surréaliste and Bataille's Documents; influence in Japan through Kansuke Yamamoto and the Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde)
- Rayograph, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayograph (Man Ray's photograms named by Tzara; Champs délicieux published December 1922 with Tzara's introduction; Schad's earlier schadographs; Moholy-Nagy's photograms from 1922)
- Sabattier effect, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabattier_effect (partial image reversal; Man Ray perfected the technique, discovered in the darkroom because of Lee Miller)
- Jacques-André Boiffard, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques-Andr%C3%A9_Boiffard (1902–1961; Man Ray's assistant 1924–1929; photographs of Paris for Breton's Nadja; illustrations for Bataille's 'The Big Toe' in Documents, 1929)
- Dora Maar, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_Maar (1907–1997; photomontage and superimposition; Portrait of Ubu, 1936, shown at the Galerie Charles Ratton and the International Surrealist Exhibition in London, 1936)
- Maurice Tabard, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Tabard (1897–1984; a leading surrealist photographer through Man Ray; solarisation, superimposition and photomontage; shown at Film und Foto 1929)
- Hans Bellmer, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Bellmer (1902–1975; the 1933 doll explicitly sexualised as a young girl; Die Puppe, 1934, ten photographs; later photographs of pubescent girls)
- Claude Cahun, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Cahun (1894–1954; staged self-portraits; Aveux non avenus, 1930, with photomontages made with Marcel Moore; Exposition surréaliste d'objets, 1936)
- Nadja (novel), Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadja_(novel) (1928; illustrated with 44 photographs)
- Gros orteil, Centre Pompidou: https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cGbEAkA (Boiffard, 1929, printed 1982, AM 1985-123; museum keywords: Surréalisme, cadrage serré, corps)
- Raymond Radiguet, Man Ray, c. 1922, Centre Pompidou: https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/c67dLK (gelatin silver bromide negative on glass, 21.3 × 16.3 cm, AM 1995-281 (170))
- Composition avec ampoule, moulage en plâtre de la tête de Man Ray et photographie d'un buste, Man Ray, c. 1932, Centre Pompidou: https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/ressources/oeuvre/cLjkEz (gelatin silver bromide negative on glass, 12 × 9 cm, AM 1995-281 (495))
- Rayograph, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayograph (Man Ray's camera-less photograms, named by Tzara; Champs délicieux, 1922)

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