From 1993, my first assignment for @gq Magazine was this photo-illustration for an article on gambling with shoulder surgery. A large part of editorial career was devoted to these small “evergreen”articles and the challenge was to make the rather benign subject matter visually compelling enough to cause the viewer to read on.
At this early stage in my career, the Dada art movement was a major influence on my photographs, especially since collage and assemblage were commonly used. You can see the connection when thumbing through the carousel.
For this photo, the process involved miniature set building, hand-colored photographic print collage and prop fabrication. A total of four elements, (the set, the question mark, the print cutout and the roulette wheel), were each under their own identical 4x5 camera. It enabled me to move the ground glass, and eventually the film holders, from one camera to the other. This was vital in order to bring all the elements together on a single sheet of film. To make sure the elements registered together in the composition, I drew each in an outline on the ground glass using a Sharpie. After passing the ground glass from one camera to the next, I ended up with a sketch of the entire arrangement. Next, the ground glass was mounted to the camera on the small set and a light was placed behind it, projecting the drawing onto the miniature set’s surfaces. I used an airbrush with black India ink to fill in the areas within the projected outlines. The black ink would act as a mask for the other elements to be superimposed into the photo clearly. The other elements were set against a black velvet backdrop which made compositing on one sheet of film possible. To help make the illusion a little more believable, each element had to be lit from the same direction and under the same quality of light to maintain consistency. Lastly, black tape was attached directly to the front of the lens on the camera in front of the cutout to mask out the head of the figure to make room for the question mark. #dadaart #shouldersurgery #collageassemblage #film #4x5film @_sidecarww_
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