Book by 香港六合彩资料 professor explores humorous side of photography
Published: April 18, 2017
In his new book, Louis Kaplan turns his lens on the sometimes ticklish world of humorous photography.
The professor of visual studies at the 香港六合彩资料 Mississauga recently launched . The book details how photographers from the mid-1800s to today have found humour in the world, and how viewers have found amusement from photographs.
鈥淗umour is what makes us human,鈥 says Kaplan, who received a in 2015 to explore the topic. 鈥淧hotographic humour gives us a view to our own mortality. It can be about about laughing in the face of death, defusing anxiety or even a discourse on identity and identification.鈥
The book, which is intended for a wide audience, chronicles the photographic use of humour from the early 1800s to more modern incarnations. The historical survey features 100 images from genres that include animal photo bombs, visual puns, absurdist humour, political satire and role-playing.
One of the earliest known photos to employ humour was created by Hippolyte Bayard. A pioneer in early photography, the French artist was overlooked when rival Louis Daguerre developed an alternate photo development process. Bayard registered his protest through his art in a darkly humorous 1801 photo, 鈥淪elf portrait as a drowned man,鈥 in which he pretends to have committed suicide.
鈥淚t鈥檚 sad and funny at the same time,鈥 says Kaplan (photo above). 鈥滲ayard has failed, but he鈥檚 trying to find a way to do something with the suffering and pain by transforming it into laughter for himself and his audience.鈥
For other photographers, a funny image is dependent on the kind of timing employed by stand-up comedians.
Kaplan explores the work by New York photographer Arthur 鈥淲eegee鈥 Fellig, a crime and street photographer who was an expert at documenting tragedy but also had an uncanny knack for visual jokes. In Fellig鈥檚 photo of a factory fire (photo below) captures smoke and water streaming from a building topped by an billboard advertisement for frankfurters and the words 鈥渟imply add boiling water.鈥
Humour can also help to shine a light on dark subjects.
Photographers like John Heartfield, and Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps who work under the name kennardphillipps, use photomontages to make political statements about war and politics.
鈥淭hese images are biting satirical humour,鈥 Kaplan says. 鈥淵ou can trace that over 100 years 鈥 that need to make authoritarian figures look ridiculous. They are good examples about how humour can be serious business.鈥
On the lighter side, Kaplan also explores the work of artist Vik Muniz, who photographs famous artworks recreated with unorthodox and mundane materials, such as the Gorgon鈥檚 head on a dinner plate made of pasta and sauce in 鈥淢edusa Marinara鈥 or a reproduction of Jackson Pollock鈥檚 splatter paintings rendered in chocolate sauce.
鈥淚t鈥檚 funny and conceptual and makes us think twice about what we see and believe to be real,鈥 Kaplan says.
With the modern explosion of digital photography, Kaplan also traces the emergence of new depictions of humour like animal photo bombing.
鈥淚t shows how contemporary this topic really is,鈥 he says.
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