Duane Michaels

Duane Michaels

Duane Michals
Duane Michals was born in America in 1932. He is a self taught photographer, and a recognised pioneer of the surrealist and abstract photography styles.
Michals achieved a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Denver in 1956, and went on to study at the Parsons School of Design, but did not finish his studies for becoming a graphic designer. 1958 was a turning point in Duane’s life when, on a trip to the USSR, his passion for photography was ignited.
Duane’s photos are multidimensional emotional photos, with his most common medium being black and white film, he commonly uses a high contrast and long exposures, with shutter speed manipulation, to attain his signature effect in his images.
In post processes he does several things, famously, after developing, he will write personal messages on the photos by hand using ink. This gives the viewer an in depth view into what he wanted to achieve with the image and what emotional state he was in. His stories had personal back ground to him, often being direct interpretations of his thoughts and emotions, as photography was his personal medium.
He often dealt with nudity and used lighting and shadow to create surrealist images. He used multiple exposures and sandwiched negatives to give certain effects, but a prominent technique of his was longer than usual exposures and strange shutter speeds, giving motion blurs and intense lighting to his photos.
The hand written text made the viewers experience with the photo very personal, with is images often delving into a classic surrealist dreamscape, alienating the subject from normal perception and creating a new perspective.
The invention of special portraiture lenses, that allowed multiple photos to be shot on one roll of film, allows Duane to do his special multiple shot works. These were a series of photos that told a story through 6 or so frames, moving a progression. For example there is a piece of his that progresses from an object to a...