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by Editor Peter Davidson
Published by Yvette Depaepe, the 20st of September 2023
Well, most people need them today. But, back when computers were house sized, you needed a very large desk and a great deal of money to own one. Even if you could own one, which you couldn't. So when it came to photographic special effects, necessity was, as usual, the mother of invention. Enter a weed loving young American original hippy who arrived in the middle of swinging sixties London by the name of Jay Myrdal.
Jay created images that astounded. Indeed, that still astound. These ones. Before photoshop. I remember seeing his images in magazine and billboards and wondering wtf years before wtf ever became wtf. The man is a legend of the advertising world. Back then, I studied his image of a lawnmower with tiny workmen building the thing and scratching my head. Damn!
Even today, some of the effects he produced would be difficult to reproduce via computers. But he did it all 'in-camera'. Using masks, models and sorcery of various kinds. This took more than skill, it took painstaking attention to detail, time and most of all, patience. If something didn't work out just right, you started again from scratch. Maddening, infuriating and astonishing. Yet the results were equal to the effort. He later moved on to the early digital age using the Dicomed Imaginater program, which was well before photoshop.
Jay is now retired but still enjoys regaling and amazing audiences with his adventures in photography. Look him up on-line, and be astounded.
Computers? Bah, who needs them...
 | Write |
 | Miro Susta CREW Very interesting article, wonderful photos. It took me back to the days of analog photography when I experimented with altering photos using special tools (mostly stencils) and double exposure tricks (a time consuming and mostly frustrating activity). Many thanks Peter for bringing this topic here. |
 | Colin Dixon CREW Fabulous article these people were the real creatives. |
 | Wanghan Li PRO Wow! Eye-opening for me! Thanks a lot! |
 | Giuseppe Satriani PRO Hi Peter!
very special article!
Jay Myrdal is a real creative person in the most pure meaning of this word. He needed to translate visually his visions and for that he used all the internal and external "tools" that he had at his disposal and using his immagination.
In my opinion, we should never ask the question that you plant in the title.
Anyone should be free to use the tools at your disposal to give salience to your artistic ideas, without anyone granting themselves the authorship of saying what is good and what is not.
On the other side I find very right for someone to delimit a specific "territory" to preserve a specific way to make art.
In this regard, I would like to open a window of hope for those who use AI as one of the tools to materialize their artistic visions
Take a look at: https://concursoiagrafia.com/ |
 | Oddfeel PRO Wow…that is something love it! |
 | Peter Hammer PRO Mind blowing images!~
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 | Filiberto Galli PRO OmG, this is amazing! Especially the fact that he did it all <in-camera>. A real genius, I am sure. Thank you for reporting this |