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
Untitled ( 1963 )
© Estate of Jerry N. Uelsmann
Untitled ( 1962 )
© Estate of Jerry N. Uelsmann
Untitled ( 1967 )
© Estate of Jerry N. Uelsmann
Untitled ( 1968 )
© Estate of Jerry N. Uelsmann
Small Woods Where I met Myself ( 1967 )
© Estate of Jerry N. Uelsmann
Untitled ( 1973 )
© Estate of Jerry N. Uelsmann
Untitled ( 1969 )
© Estate of Jerry N. Uelsmann