Life Force magazine

The magazine of the photo-essay

March/April 2023 back issue

“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!” Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker

Eighth Day Wonder

by Jerry N Uelsmann

“Sometimes I feel that I am on the first page of a personal visual dictionary that I am slowly evolving in an effort to define my own existence.” Jerry Uelsmann, Random Thoughts on Photography,1962 American photographer Jerry N. Uelsmann (1934–2022) was a seminal figure in photo history. Uelsmann catalyzed the transfer from modernist to post-modern photography with his at the time controversial photo montages and double exposures. Decades before the birth of digital image editing programs like Photoshop, Uelsmann created photo montages by combining several negatives in the darkroom. He started to create his surreal, spiritual, and thought-provoking images in the late 1950s and continued to produce them, completely analog,throughout his life.

This first biography, written by Swedish photography historian Moa Petersén who was a close friend of Uelsmann’s, addresses his role as disruptor of the traditional straight photography paradigm and the historical context that shaped him. Several of the included images are published here for the first time

Confluence 2017 © Estate of Jerry N. Uelsmann

Untitled 1959 © Estate of Jerry N. Uelsmann

Enigmatic Figure ( 1959 ) © Estate of Jerry N. Uelsmann

Self-portrait as Robinson and Rejlander 1964, colored version. © Estate of Jerry N. Uelsmann