Alma Haser Photographer

I was reading the L E N S C R A T C H blog this week and came across an interesting artist, Alma Haser. She was highlighted on the blog for winning a prize called 'Cosmic Surgery'. I am not personally interested in editing photos in this manner (not yet anyway), but I am fascinated by what some artists do with their images. I understand that these are photos of friends, which are them printed, cut up and folded into Origami, and then placed back on the image and re-photographed. This method seems complicated and time-consuming, but the results are quite interesting. They are both three-dimensional and two, flat and raised at the same time. The faces of the subjects are mostly or partly obscured by the folded print, and as a result eyes, noses and lips are repeated in strange orientations over the face. It is obviously still a face with character, but we would probably not recognise the person on the street. Is it a portrait therefore?

I have grabbed two images from the blog to display below for my own reference. They are slightly washed out and pale, and have a slightly old-worldly look - perhaps this is a result of the paper they are printed on, perhaps it is not photographic paper that she then cuts out and folds? Otherwise the portraits are lovely, but are definitely given an unusual feeling by the process of cut and fold and place.

I have heard of other photographers re-photographing their images afterwards - I wonder how they feel when they are doing this - is it an alternative form of post-processing? Perhaps using bright flash to obscure faces that shouldn't' be seen (I saw this in the BJP), and also sometimes photographers photograph their computer screens, to capture something there in a different way. All interesting modern techniques. The folding and montaging is all old technique though, being around in the dada and surrealist photography periods. Perhaps everything old is new again :)

taken from http://www.lenscratch.com/2013/05/alma-haser-magenta-foundation-bright.html for personal study purposes

taken from http://www.lenscratch.com/2013/05/alma-haser-magenta-foundation-bright.html for personal study purposes

References:

Smithson, A Lenscratch. Online, available at: http://www.lenscratch.com/2013/05/alma-haser-magenta-foundation-bright.html [accessed 22/05/13]