For years, and more recently with Vogue magazine, there has been considerable controversy about high fashion magazines and their need to “perfect” the models who appear within the magazines and especially on their covers. This desire for perfection in photography is certainly not new to fashion or photography, but the fashion industry goes to extremes in changing body styles to what they think we want to see.
With that in mind, this week I have selected 26 photographic images with either deliberate or accidental flaws. Marks, scratches, poor processing, decay, age deterioration, repairs, cracks, tears, rips, and more. Here's to the beauty of imperfect images, and to the beauty to be found in imperfection.
Click on any image to find the source.
Total eclipse of moon on cracked glass plate
Photo by Miroslav Tichý
Mirror-reversed daguerreotype of the moon, attributed to John W. Draper, believed to have been taken March 26, 1840 from his rooftop observatory at New York University.
Torn and Marked Photograph of Hands
Pieced together photograph of young man
Repaired photograph
Retouched press photo
Badly deteriorated photo of 19th century gentleman
Artist unknown, possibly intentional manipulation of old photograph
Marked on photograph
Natural deterioration of photograph
Glass plate photograph of painting in extreme decay
Collection of John Foster
Nicely torn image of woman
Decayed or damaged negative from The Turconi Collection
Decayed or damaged negative from The Turconi Collection
Collection of John Foster
Haphazardly cut photo for publication
Effect of the heat!
Deteriorated photograph
Oddly deteriorated emulsion
Deteriorated glass plate of Missouri bridge
Collection of John Foster
Deteriorated glass plate of Missouri riverboat
Collection of John Foster
Intentionally damaged photo, collection of © Nick Osborne, The Boat Lullabies
Intentionally damaged photo, collection of © Nick Osborne, The Boat Lullabies
Deteriorated photo, collection of © Nick Osborne, The Boat Lullabies
Extremely damaged photo, collection of © Nick Osborne, The Boat Lullabies
Comments [2]
A visual feast, thanks!
01.27.14
02:29
In the work shown here I don't see the glass plate work of Sally Mann or the many photographers using lowfi cameras such as the original Diana 151 camera and the Holga - as well as mention of the revival of processes such as ambrotype, tin type, pinhole, direct positive and wet plate collodion.
One such photographer of note, Mark Silk, moved from shooting with a Diana in the 70s and 80s to wet plate in the 2000s. Social media sites such as Flickr will show an abundance of trained and untrained photographers shooting specifically for the distressed look as depicted in the images in this article.
Of course the concept of imperfect beauty is derivative of the Japanese wabi-sabi aesthetic.
01.30.14
08:54