Staged photography is a form of

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

where the photographer, like a

director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...

, stages everything in advance to have full control over how their idea is visualized. Although the staging of a photograph was already common in the early days of photography, it was not distinguished as a separate genre until the 1980s, when some photographers began to establish themselves as conceptual artists. In contrast to, for example, candid shots or

street photography Street photography is photography conducted for art or inquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within Public space, public places. It usually has the aim of capturing images at a decisive or poignant moment by caref ...

, in staged photography, little is left to chance. The photographer's role is also not that of an objective observer who documents what is happening around him. After all, according to this view, a photo is not a realistic representation of a fleeting moment, but a creation of the photographer's imagination; the photographer tries to create a new reality with his work. Post-processing also plays an important role in the creation of a conceptual photo. For example, elements of different images can be superimposed and next to each other. Practitioners of this genre often work in a studio, or seek out a special location to take their photos.

History

American critic A. D. Coleman proposed the term ''directorial mode'' attempting to define the emerging genre in his 1976 article for

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ × 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...

magazine. The term ''staged photography'' was introduced in 1987 in two publications: Andy Grundberg's and Kathleen McCarthy Gauss' ''Photography and Art. Interactions since 1946'' and Anne H. Hoy's ''Fabrications. Staged, Altered, and Appropriated Photographs''. Today the term is often used as a

hyperonym Hypernymy and hyponymy are the wikt:Wiktionary:Semantic relations, semantic relations between a generic term (''hypernym'') and a more specific term (''hyponym''). The hypernym is also called a ''supertype'', ''umbrella term'', or ''blanket term ...

for such picture-making (as opposed to picture-taking) concepts as ''fabricated'', ''manipulated'', ''creative'', ''constructed'', ''arranged'', ''directorial'', and ''tableau photography''. In the Netherlands, staged photography started in the 1980s with theatrical

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

s created in the studio. The exhibitions ''Staged Photo Events'' (1982) in the Lijnbaan Center in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

and ''Fotografia Buffa'' (1986) in the

Groninger Museum The Groninger Museum () is an art museum in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. The museum exhibits modern and contemporary art of local, national, and international artists. The museum opened in 1874. The current post-modernist building c ...

were influential. Well-known Dutch photographers who practice this genre are Rommert Boonstra, co-founder of the Rotterdam School, Teun Hocks, Pieter Laurens Mol, Paul de Nooijer and

Erwin Olaf Erwin Olaf Springveld (2 July 1959 – 20 September 2023), professionally known as Erwin Olaf, was a Dutch photographer from Hilversum. ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine described his work as straddling "the worlds of commercial, art and fashio ...

. Other representatives of staged photography are

Philip-Lorca diCorcia Philip-Lorca diCorcia (born 1953) is an American photographer, living in New York City. He teaches at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.Release: David Zwirner - Philip-Lorca diCorcia: ''Thousand'' (February 27 - March 28, 2009). Retrieved ...

Jeff Wall Jeffrey Wall, Order of Canada, OC, Royal Society of Canada, RSA (born September 29, 1946) is a Canadian photographer. He is artist best known for his large-scale back-lit Cibachrome photographs and art history writing. Early in his career, he h ...

, Bruce Charlesworth,

Tono Stano Tono Stano (born 24 March 1960) is a Slovakia-born art photographer living and working in Prague, Czech Republic. Life and work Stano was born in Zlaté Moravce, now Slovakia. He attended the secondary school of applied arts in Bratislava from 1 ...

Nanna Bisp Büchert Nanna may refer to: *Grandmother Mythology * Sin (mythology), god of the moon in Sumerian mythology, also called Nanna * Nanna (Norse deity), goddess associated with the god Baldr in Norse mythology People * Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir (born 1 ...

, Lis Steincke, and

Joel-Peter Witkin Joel-Peter Witkin (born September 13, 1939) is an American photographer who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work often deals with themes such as death, corpses (and sometimes dismembered portions thereof), often featuring ornately decorated ...

References

{{Authority control Photography by genre

History

See also

References