Customer Reviews

Man Ray: Photography and Its Double

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I bought this book expecting an immense variety of photos true to Man Ray's hodgepodge style. What I got was a series of very nice photos that were not quite what I expected. The length of this volume belies it's lack of variation. Most of the book is female nudes, which are very well done, but if you are looking for a book which includes photos of Parisian street life in the 1920's or the campy world of drag queens and surrealists, this is not the book for you. There are some photos of dancers and the like but most of the photos are pretty straightforward nudes who are in arty positions that get dull after a while. This not the book for newcomers to Man Ray nor is it one for those who would like to see truly weird looking pictures. There are some really cool photos here, like Meret Oppenheim in the Erotique Voile series and the rayographs featured. But a substantial portion of the book is devoted to showing works in their original form and how they were cropped and tinkered with to produce final, polished images. This is neat for famous images such as Les Larmes (Tears), but otherwise can get boring. Overall, this is an excellent book for Man Ray experts as it does show many previously unreleased photos, but maybe not the right choice for the rest of us. I enjoyed it though, and I'm still glad I bought it.

The book was originally published to coincide with a major exhibition of Man Ray's photography at the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris in April through June 1998. It is composed of several essays about Man Ray and his work as well as a large selection of his best photographs. It very much resembles an exhaustive 260-page catalogue of the exhibit. Some of the essays are much better than others, but they do give some interesting insights into Man Ray and his methods of working.
I was surprised to learn about Ray's "modus operandi." In fact I was so surprised that I immediately ordered a copy of his autobiography "Self-Portrait" in order to read the photographer's own descriptions of his work and thinking. A self-taught photographer Man Ray didn't follow the common photographic practices of his era and in many ways that was his genius. Most of the photographs included in this book were contact prints that Man Ray made himself. He then used markers or folded the contact proof to show his printer where and how to crop the image. He seldom made his own final prints justifying that fact by saying he was too busy to do everything himself.
Some of the techniques he employed are explained as being necessary to make the grain of the final photographs show up and soften the image. Some of the final cropping of the pictures use only a small portion of the entire image. That's fine, but it makes the viewer wonder if the photographer only discovered the essence of the final image long after the picture was taken? Using only a tiny portion of the total photograph fits in fine with the over-all philosophy of Surrealism so the photographer may not have been telling "little white lies" like he sometimes did in order to keep his secrets. One advantage of seeing the total negative, along with the cropping instructions of so many of his works gives the viewer a good insight into the workings of a pioneer photographer's vision.
This book is excellent for a person who already knows something about photographic techniques and processes as well as Man Ray. There are others that would probably be more interesting for the reader and viewer unacquainted with Man Ray's work. Aperture's "Masters of Photography Series" includes "Man Ray" with an Essay by Jed Perl and is one such book. It provides a shorter, easier-to-read introduction to the work of Emmanuel Ranitzsky (Man Ray's birth name) and samples of a wider selection of his photographic work. He is sometimes called the "Father of Fetish Photography" for good reason. He is also a fascinating man, which doesn't come out in this book or the Aperture volume. A better biographical portrait of the man can be found in sections of "Lee Miller: A Life" by Carolyn Burke.

If you are a rooky in photography I would not recommend you this book. To start with, as soon as you open the book, you find yourself in the realm of photography idiosyncracies. If you are a photography sophomore, you have to visit wikipedia several times a page to consult notions. If you are stubborn, though, you might as well attempt your first conversation with Man Ray with another book which is less sophisticated, like "Man Ray Photographs".

If you are aware of Man Ray auteurism and cinema experience, then this book will prove a reliable and trusting partner to your soliloquy. There's an immense warehouse of fantastic black'n'white photographs made by the most original photographer of the 20th century.

Those who appreciate Lee Miller's gift as a model can enjoy the book as well. The latter features many pictures.

This book is an extroidinary collection of Man Ray's photographic work. His use of light, composition, and solarization is one of the best.This book allows the reader to understand Man Ray's direction and motivation.