High art and the Pre-Raphaelites
While scientific experimentation drove much of photography's early history, other practitioners sought to marry its techniques to artistic interpretation and tradition. Julia Margaret Cameron aimed to "ennoble" photography, while Henry Peach Robinson wrote of "elevating the unpicturesque," and his writings gave the Pictorialists their name. Photographs often alluded to classical themes, while some of Robinson's most famous "combination prints" used multiple negatives to construct scenes that echoed the Pre-Raphaelite style and referred to contemporary poetry.
One element that becomes apparent upon examination of these High Art or Pre-Raphaelite photographs is the proliferation of circles and roundedged rectangles in their composition. Pay attention also to the tone-it is mainly a purple or red-brown that is characteristic of the late 19th-century albumen print. This name comes from the egg white used to bond the photographic emulsion to the paper.
A quality typical of this paper type is its glazed finishso make sure you print on glossy paper.
My "combination print" included a fruit bowl and two statues, and a scanned sheet of art paper.
Open the image which will serve as the background for your compositionin this case, the fruit bowl. Then open the other images and remove them from their backgrounds. For this statue, choose Filter > Extract and use the Edge Highlighter tool to draw along the statue's edge, so the highlight covers both the subject and the background. Once the edges are selected, select the Fill tool and click inside the highlighted area to indicate that you wish to keep the statue. Click OK, review the accuracy of the extraction, and drag the image layer into the main background image. Repeat this for the other objects. Position the various components using Edit > Free Transform. This enables you to move items and resize them. Hold down the Shift key to maintain the proportions of the object. Double-click inside the Transform box when you want to apply the changes. Reposition the Eros statue behind the fruit bowl. Click the "Add layer mask" icon in the Layers palette and use a soft brush to carefully paint black onto the mask, hiding the base of the statue. Before finalizing the combination of images, decide what shape you want your picture to be. Circles and arch shapes were favorites among the Pre-Raphaelites. In order to create an arch shape, select the Rounded Rectangle tool (usually hidden behind the Rectangle tool). In the Rounded Rectangle's Tool Options bar, make sure Shape layers are active; set a high radius to produce very rounded corners. Be sure that the foreground color is set to white, then click and drag from the top corner of the image to the bottom corner, continuing below the imagethe bottom corners of the rectangle will be outside the image area. In the Layers palette, move the Shapes layer to the bottom of the layer stack. Holding down the Alt/Opt key, click the line in the Layers palette between the Shape layer and the next layer up, and repeat the process for each layer. The images now appear to be inside the arched shape, which serves as a clipping mask. To make the image elements black and white, activate the top layer, then hold down the Alt/Opt key and click the Layers palette's "Create new fill or adjustment layer" icon. Select Channel Mixer. Notice that "Use Previous layer to create Clipping Mask" is checked. In the Channel Mixer dialog box, check Monochrome and adjust the channel sliders. To add a realistic selenium tone, add another adjustment layer, selecting Curves. Choose the Red channel, click a point near the curve's bottom left and drag it upward, then drag two more points so that the remainder of the curve is a relatively straight line as it moves through the midtones and highlights. Then choose the Blue channel, and drag its curve slightly upwardthe tone can be anything from purple to red-brown. The final step is to add the scanned paper texture. Open the texture scan and drag it onto the main image. Move the Paper layer to the base of the layer stack. Notice how its color shows against the toned monochrome of the rest of the image. Finally, if you want the paper to show through the image, just change the Shape layer's blending mode to Multiply and lower its opacity.
"Music is the fruit of love." The High Art and Pre-Raphaelite photographers drew inspiration from their artistic heritage. |
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