Page 4 - Faking the original Spare

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

My interest in fake photography began in 1954. It was my last year in
school and it was decided I should work in the school darkroom. The

school used to develop and print photographs for the local council and

some neighboring schools.

Due to the workload I was excused most other lessons. I was given keys

and allowed to run free with total control of the darkroom. I absolutely

loved it and worked until 10 pm most nights experimenting with double
exposures to create fake photographs.

Fast forward to 22nd November 1963; President J. F. Kennedy was
assassinated and a photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald was released to the

world media. The photograph depicts Oswald holding a rifle and a

Marxist newspaper to give the impression he was a soviet agent. The
photograph was a darkroom fake; the rifle and the newspaper were added

from another negative resulting in Oswald’s upper body appearing to be

off kiter from his feet. I had been doing this type of photographic

manipulation since 1954.

1980 I began working with top fashion photographer Owen Scarbeina

who introduced me to the works of Bob Carlos-Clarke and Jean Paul
Gourde. Scarbeina explained to me how photographic print montage was

achieved with a scalpel, emery boards and spray mount adhesive. By the

same token how Jean Paul Gourde cut original transparencies; then held

the transperances together with sellotape. Once the transparency had been
printed, Gourde would fill in the gaps with his airbrush. With Scabeina’s

help I went on to perfect both these methods.

1996 I began to experiment with digital photography and editing in

Photoshop. It became clear immediately, by using layers it was

possible to replace multiple negatives in a photographic enlarger and
montaging photographic prints together to create Fake photographs.