Mari Mahr
Mari Mahr is a Hungarian-British photographer, who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1941. She lived in Santiago, Chile where her Hungarian-Jewish parents had fled during World War 2, when Jews across Europe were being taken away to concentration camps during Hitler’s Nazi rule. She escaped Hungary as a Jew and was only able to return later in the 1960s. After her family moved back to Hungary, she studied journalism and went on to work as a photojournalist in the late 1960s. In 1972, she moved to London where she completed her studies at the polytechnic of Central London. Whilst in the city Mahr approached a different, new style of photography. She slowed down her work, exchanging the speed of photojournalism for the subtlety of photographic processes.
One of her more well-known photoshoots was her ’13 Clues to a Fictitious Crime’ created in 1983. In these specific photographs Mari Mahr aimed to construct memory be re-associating the objects from the compositions with places photographically. Her photographs contained cherished objects or items that she had inherited from her mother. The images feature recurring concepts or details such as stars and a specific photograph of her mother. These subjects are cropped or angled dramatically so that the audience never see the whole outline of an object. This is so her images hold a sense of anonymity, allowing her to keep private specific details of the composition. This may relate to the fact that she never knew her mother. This in turn makes the reader curious as to what the story was behind these images. Furthermore, she explores with scale and distortion. To capture this composition, Mahr uses a fast shutter speed. We can infer this as the image is in focus whereas if a low shutter speed was used the image would appear blurry. Using a high ISO would make the image grainy, something her images lack. Not only did she create her images with a low ISO, but also Mari Mahr’s pictures have a high contrast, which means deeper blacks and affects the overall quality of the images. Her images have a lack of colour and therefore with the black and white, the tonal contrast is dramatic. This is achieved through using high tones, which add contrast to the highlights of the image and low tones, which add contrast to the shadows of the images. Using high contrast tone means her photos have a full range of tones from black to white. The images have no saturation, and this makes the reader feel more interested in the images as the ambiguity of the images only increases through this.
What is particularly interesting is the repetition of the number 13. The number appears in the title, the composition as a lottery ticket and in the number of images selected in the final photos. The symbolism of ‘13’ is significant as it is known to be an unlucky number, in the West it suggests disorder and excess. Religiously this is seen through Judas, who was the thirteenth disciple and the one to betray Jesus. It is seen as one more than twelve, which itself is traditionally an orderly number in the ways it appears in our timeline. For example, there are twelve months in the year. Objects in the composition of the images included a pair of glasses, white gloves, clocks, and a handwritten letter. They may suggest that the people represented and connected to these images were relatively wealthy or cultured and they seem to be relatively domestic items implying the life of a family or an individual. The position of the objects and how much of them are exposed to the camera is also fascinating as this adds to the mystery. Many objects are never fully shown in the photos. The use of geometric shapes in the final photographs such as circles, the clock, and squares, the photographs and ticket, draw the reader’s attention and captivate them making these objects stand out in the composition. Not only this, but some images were retaken with other objects layering, giving a 3D effect to the pictures, and emphasising the 2D nature of the background image. Mari Mahr’s ‘13 Clues to a Fictitious Crime’ conjures a fragmented life story that the artist has pieced back together, for her memory.
These images inspire the audience to understand what happened in the photographs and the story being portrayed. Whilst for Mari Mahr it may simply be to recreate and revive her mother, many cannot but be intrigued by the title and specifically the word ‘Crime’. The photographs obviously show a detailed story behind a crime scene. According to Adam Hersey, Mari Mahr’s ’13 Clues to a Fictitious Crime’ narrates how a man plots to kill his lover, who he has been communicating with by dove. The gloves and masks may have been used to poison the fish and the clock capture the time that the crime was committed. For many, this seems like a likely possibility.
Photoshoot Plan:
This is my Mari Mahr photoshoot plan. It describes how I plan to shoot my compositions, inspired by Mari Mahr's '13 Clues to a Fictitious Crime'. I have created this plan in order to be able to recreate her images and convey a strong, clear storyline behind my images. The shoot will be completed in class and partially at home, for when I would like to retake images and shoot printed out photos with other objects on top. . This photoshoot plan will help me become aware of what techniques I am wanting to use when taking the pictures. Some of these include using a fast shutter speed and a range of natural and strong lighting. In my shoot, I am aiming to convey a story of a woman, who discovers her husband's infidelity through another woman's necklace. She becomes immediately enraged by this and destroys there belongings. My photoshoot will relate to Mari Mahr's a both will have parts of mystery in them, she achieved this by not photographing objects completely and cropping them out. Furthermore, my photos will also have recurring objects, such as the stars for Mahr and the beads of necklaces for me. I will also use similar camera techniques to take these photos such as using a range of angles, e.g. the Dutch angle and the wide angle. I have drawn two different drawings to show how I intend my composition to look like. One of the drawings is supposed to be a layered edit and the other is a drawing of my initial edits.
Contact Sheet:
Making and using a contact sheet is important because it allows photographers to identify the best images to then use them in further developments. In my first Mari Mahr inspired photoshoot I took 107 raw images, some with similar compositions and others with different angles. I also made sure to capture them using a Fast shutter speed as this made the images in focus. Next, I took all the pictures and placed them in a contact sheet. This allows me to highlight the ones I would like to use and edit and others, which I don't want to keep. I used crosses to illustrate all the images I didn't like and I circled the images that especially represented Mari Mahr's work and that I liked the most.
Editing Process:
In my shoot, I used a mixture of angles, such as wide angle, bird's eye and close-up. This image has been taken with a close up angle. To edit, I opened up photoshop and have begun by cropping the composition, so that it is slightly out of view or so that the composition is cut off. This is very similar to a lot of what Mari Mahr's photography shows.
Next, I made the image black and white by desaturating the image. Furthermore, I have also increased the exposure of the image by increasing the lightness of the image. A lot Of images in Mari Mahr's, '13 Clues To a Fictitious Crime' are over exposed and monochromatic, which is partly due to the fact that at the time cameras could not capture colour and did not have a good sensor to light. By editing this image in this way, my photos will better resemble her work.
By this point, I had completed the standard changes to each edit, however to advance my work, I have chosen to add a filter in order to make each photo look more antiquated. To do this I have inserted a texture layer.
After, I cropped the new layer holding ctrl and T to change the position as well, so that it covers all of the image below. Next, I rasterised the image and changed the dissolving option to lighten.
Finally, I lowered the layer opacity, so that it was around 70%. Lastly, I saved the image as a jpeg and uploaded it to my website.
Edited Images:
These are my final edited images of my Mari Mahr inspired photoshoot. I took these photographs after seeing Mari Mahr's '13 Clues to a Fictitious Crime' and I edited them in order for them to resemble her images. To begin with, I selected the images I wanted from my contact sheet to edit and using photoshop I altered specific aspects. Firstly, I decreased the saturation of the images because Mahr's images all lacked colour, which was mostly due to the time in which she photographed and that cameras were not receptive to colour. The images were now all monochrome, which meant I could then focus on changing the contrast. I increased the high tones, making the highlights more prominent, and the low tones, making the shadows more obvious. This also made the images more dramatic and in turn striking to the eye, something I was struck by when looking at Mahr's work. After this, I added grain to the images to make them appear less in focus. This is an aspect, which was necessary to change because the camera that she used to photograph with was not as high quality as they are now because things like aperture and picking up detail or shadows were not easily achieved.
In terms of aperture, these images were taken with an f-stop of 1.8, which helps to blur the background and allow the image to focus on specific parts of the photo rather than the whole composition. This is achieved through the wider lens which then can let more light in the lens and allow better focus. To heighten this affect I use an ISO of 32.
I wanted my photos to convey a sinister story of a woman, who finds out her husband cheated on her through seeing a photo in a news article of him with another lady. She finds out that her husband shares children with this mistress, much to the horror and disgust of her. After finding the other woman's necklace, she destroys it and the beads scatter all over their belongings, as if to show that she has plagued their marriage and what they shared. The first woman, the wife is shown through jewelry and through a sculpted figure with necklaces hanging of it. The second woman is seen in the picture, which is always slightly cropped and through the beads of the broken necklace. The picture reoccurs alongside the wife's belongings representing the threat she poses. The mysterious photograph also is seen with the husband's items, which include the gloves, clock and book. The plot ends in heart break for the wife as she watches and realises that it is to late to save their marriage and that the other woman has already defeated her.
The images I have created in many ways mirror Mari Mahr's work, through the storyline behind the pictures, in the features I changed during the editing process, and through the placing and ordering of the composition. '13 Clues to a Fictitious Crime' inspired me however, my photos still have aspects of originality.
Highlighting Success:
Using a second gallery I decided to highlight my most successful edits and the ones I liked the most. I chose these four due to the fact that they best represented what I was aiming to achieve and looked most similar to Mari Mahr's work. Some aspects, which were different on these edits compared to others, include the balance of clarity and grain. Some other edits are either too grainy or too in focus. I achieved this by adding noise on some and other wise adding texture. I also preferred how the composition in these images were not entirely visible keeping a sense of ambiguity.
Double Exposure:
Editing Process:
For these set of edits, I have used the images I edited for my first developments. I started by duplicating the background layer using the ctrl J option.
Next, I have rasterised the layer before then using ctrl T to rotate it so that the second layer was turned 180 degrees and was upside down.
Finally, in the layers option I changed the format from normal to darker colour, so that the background layer was visible beneath. If the objects within the composition is dark, use the darker colour option whereas when the image has a dark background then it may be more fitting to use a lighter colour blending option.
Edits:
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
These are my double exposure final images. I created this effect through layering images and increasing the contrast. Firstly, I used an image I had edited before to then be able to use during this editing process. Aspects that were altered during the initial editing process include, decreasing the saturation, increasing the contrast and adding grain to the images. All of why and how I did this is shown in the analysis above, by my initial edits. Moving on to making double exposed images, I took the edited pictures and duplicated the layer (image), materialising it so I could then layer them over each other. After finalising the placement of the arrangement, I dissolved the layered image, manipulating the opacity and how obvious the second layer was. Another thing I took into consideration, was how many of these particular edits I should upload and present. I saw it fitting that since Mari Mahr's '13 Clues to a Fictitious Crime' featured 13 images exactly, so should my double exposed edits. Double exposure is often used in photography to convey a deep meaning or symbolism. They also add a sense of surrealism to the images. For me, I was inspired by how Mahr's images conveyed a credible story and so I decided to take this to another level by approaching this idea of background story and meaning through a different angle. Double exposure allowed me to create a mysterious atmosphere and show a level of ambiguity, which Mahr's images had.
Highlighting Success:
These images were specifically chosen as my most successful double exposure edits. The reason for this is because the placement of the layering is best and therefore in turn convey the plot of the story the best. The double exposure helps to illustrate to the reader how the emotions the wife is feeling after finding out that her husband is an adulterer are so overwhelming they create a blurry film over reality. Her anger distorts her vision and this leads her to ruin their belongings. The double exposure represent how the wife is viewing the objects and how the mistress to the husband has plagued and haunted everything. The third double exposure edit is ominous due to the faded second layer, showing the woman's picture. This shows how the wife cannot escape her wrath and her own fate.
Layered Edits:
Contact Sheet:
For this shoot, I photographed different types of edits. I decided to create layered edits by printing of one of some of my already edited images, from my original photoshoot, and then layered other objects on top. I shot some of these at school and some of them at home. To display the photos I took, I created another contact sheet and circled the images I was going to edit and crossed out the ones I want to delete.
Layered Edits:
To edit these specific images, I repeated similar editing process. The most important part of the editing process was to make the images monochromatic by subtracting the saturation. I also felt it necessary especially for my reshoot to make the images more dramatic than my original edits because this was always very apparent in Mari Mahr's '13 Clues to a Fictitious Crime'. For the layered edits, I also decided to print my final outcome for Mari Mahr and layer that as this was something I saw Mari Mahr use. Overall, I feel as though as a whole these edits are more successful than the images from my original shoot for multiple reasons such as the quality, which I changed by using a professional camera rather than my iPhone, and because of this it was important for me to do a reshoot. In terms of aperture, these images were taken with an f-stop of 1.8, which helps to blur the background and allow the image to focus on specific parts of the photo rather than the whole composition. This is achieved through the wider lens which then can let more light in the lens and allow better focus. To heighten this affect I use an ISO of 32.
Highlighting Success:
Creating a gallery to showcase a highlighting success section was also necessary as it best shows my progress and understanding of this artist. Something that I liked in particular about these images was that in the first two, you can still see the composition of the printed image below. The bottom left edit in this section is double exposure, which I thought to make because it was a process that I did for my original shoot. This also further builds on Mari Mahr's editing technique. In the future, I would do another photoshoot distorting the images by printing them in and photographing them underwater or under bubbles.
Final Outcome Inspired by Mari Mahr:
These are my final edits and the finished product. This photoshoot was inspired by Mari Mahr's '13 Clues to a Fictitious Crime'. I incorporated similar techniques as her whilst photographing my different compositions. My final edits shown here include a range of images, some including grain and texture, others including double exposure, and others having layering. The layered images were achieved through printing out one of the initial edits and reshooting them with new objects on top. I edited them in a similar way that I edited my initial edits. Furthermore, there are 13 images in my final edits, which reflects Mahr's layout. The composition portrays a story of a wife, slowly becoming aware of her husband's infidelity and then destroying their belongings, once it occurs to her that their marriage is beyond redemption. In terms of aperture, these images were taken with an f-stop of 1.8, which helps to blur the background and allow the image to focus on specific parts of the photo rather than the whole composition. This is achieved through the wider lens which then can let more light in the lens and allow better focus. To heighten this affect I use an ISO of 32.
Reshoot:
Creative Process:
For this reshoot, I have used edits from my first, second and third developments. I chose five images and used a Microsoft word page to arrange them so that the spacing between each image was uneven and the images were of different size. Next, I opened photoshop and completed the same steps used in my double exposure edits to make these images multiple exposure.
Edits:
These six edits, show how I have sued multiple exposure to enhance the mystery behind Mari Mahr's work. Furthermore, I have further developed my study on this artist's work, by using uneven spacing and disproportionate sized images. In her '13 Clues to A fictitious Crime' her images are presented in a regular grid with thirteen images within. to change this, I altered the spacing and number of images to make these edits more exciting and captivating.
Highlighting Success:
In this highlighting success, I chose two images in particular these two because of the way they successfully challenge Mahr's use of borders and regular spacing. This was an idea I felt keen to experiment with, so by using multiple exposure and changing the sizing of each duplicated layer I was able to make it seem as though these images may be 'wrong' or confusing, something that was a key theme in Mahr's work.
Creative Process:
To extend my work, I have printed off a few of the developments from the gallery above. Next, I have used a lighter to burn the edges and make the images have a charred border. This enhances the implications of arson or sinister doings featured throughout my work. After that, I layered objects such as a gold necklace and silver bangles onto alongside the matches to imply that a woman is attached to the crime.
Contact Sheet:
This contact sheet shows the photos taken in my photoshoot. I have used crosses to show which images I will not edit, this could be because there are shadows within the image, or that part of the composition is cropped out of shot. On the other hand, my successful images have been circled. This are the images that I will open and edit with photoshop. When taking these images I have used a variety of angles, some having been bird's eye or wide angles, whereas others are close up or in portrait mode rather than landscape.
Editing Process:
Using photoshop, I have cropped out parts of the background, so that only a white border remains around the image. This was something that my feedback fro this project instructed me to change.
next, to make the image monochromaticI have changed the saturation in adjustments to 0. Also, I raised the exposure of the image, by increasing the lightness. This was because at the time of taking these images Mari Mahr's camera was not as well able to control how much light entered the lens, so some images would be underexposed, whereas other images would be overexposed.
Next, i duplicated the background layer an transformed the image so that it was rasterised. After this, I made the image double exposure, through rotating the added layer 180 degrees.
Finally, I changed the blending option of the top layer to hard light. This made the two compositions blend, whilst enhancing the overly exposed effect.
On some images, I used the difference option, which inverted the colours and made the white background dark and the darker compositions lighter. This was how i implemented my own changes to the images and made my work more unique.
Final Outcome:
This are the edits, that I have created, each one cultivates the storyline behind my work and also adds depth through distortion and constant reprinting and layering. Below, I have made an edit, which has not been desaturated. I chose to do this because I wanted to experiment with how colour could alter the image and perhaps brighten each image. Mahr's work is solely black and white, something which I have also firmly stuck to, so by leaving saturation within the image, it makes this edit stand out and seem particularly bold.
Highlighting Success:
This highlighting success, shows my best images from this reshoot. i chose images, which I believe show the most development, from my first developments, all the way up until these last photos. I was keen on the angle at which these had been photographed and the way that multiple exposure caused certain objects to stand out against the composition. To extend this work, I could print images onto other materials to explore more textiles.
