Friday Photo Facts

The very first photo manipulation...EVER!

'Cloudy Sky, Mediterranean Sea', Gustave Le Gray 1857

After the first successful photographs hit the scene in the 1820s, there was great controversy surrounding its viability as a serious art form.  Gustave Le Gray was a French painter-turned-photographer and a very skilled darkroom technician who believed that photography absolutely possessed the power to interpret our natural surroundings and express artistic impressions.  

Le Gray set out to create a series of seascapes in order to prove his ideas, but quickly faced a technical challenge.  Photographic materials were not yet advanced enough to capture the ominous skies and clouds while properly exposing the subtle ripples and texture in the water surface below.  In other words, when the water was properly exposed, the sky would render completely white or 'washed out'.  When the sky was properly exposed, the water would be completely black with no detail whatsoever.  Le Gray's solution?  He created two separate glass negatives, each accurately exposing one element and then later seamed them together at the horizon line to create one image.  Seems kind of obvious now, but this was the first time in history this had ever been accomplished and turned many heads in the art community at the time.  One noteworthy French art critic described this series of photo manipulations 'the event of the year'.  The technique was quickly adopted by the photography community and labeled 'combination printing.'

These days, we commonly say, "Eh, just Photoshop it."  Next time you say that, think of our dear Monsieur Le Gray slaving away in his Parisian darkroom in the 1850s and think about how far we've come.  

Have you ever seamed two photos together to create one?  What techniques did you use?