![]() Indeed, by pairing two generations together like this, Collette’s images (there are more such inter-generational combinations) seem to suggest a pattern for the younger half to follow. ![]() Comparing father and son as in the following image:īoth reveals the unfortunate family trait of baldness while attempting to map the effects of age. Seem to be a most extraordinarily perfectly matched pair. Similarly explores the difference that lifestyle choices can create in a person (hair, make-up, and sun exposure as revealed by uneven freckles) and seems to undermine the fact that twins are perfectly identical, for this combination seems to display a person more unsymmetrical than some of the others. These two sisters combine to create a remarkably unified human being, their commingling serving to highlight lifestyle choices such as eyebrow plucking and hairstyling. Other images, in contrast, underscore a family resemblance that is almost uncanny in the sudden presentation of what looks to be an un-tampered, if slightly askew, whole person. This photograph of differences thus points to a scenario that might be more similar (what would she look like if her hair were not dyed and her eyebrows not plucked?) if the differentiating factor of gender might be removed. One might even like to read into the greater number of wrinkles on her side of the face, and say that despite the fact that they are the same age, her life and her particular attention to appearance (which is all we have to go on in this photograph out of context) tax her body to a greater extent than it does her male counterpart. The dark roots to her shock of white hair belie its artificiality–her roots even look to be the same shade as her cousin’s–and her carefully plucked tiny eyebrow in juxtaposition to the male side’s large and supposedly natural state displays an attention to appearance much more artificial than the man’s. The earring gives the sense of self-conscious adornment as does the slight eye make-up. The combination begs the comparison, and we might observe that while the man’s side looks rather natural in his raggedy scruff, the woman’s side is the quintessence of carefully pruned presentation. What I like most about this image is the potential to explore the different portrayals of gender as represented by these two individuals. This mash-up seems to emphasize difference more than similarity, but it also reveals a common lower face shape and a similar eye color. scruffy) clash to cobble together a very strange-looking entity. Their gender difference and starkly contrasting hairstyles (white vs. This is combination of two cousins of the same age, the male being the artist. Instead of overlaying images and letting common facial characteristics loom out while dissimilar ones fade into hazy incongruity, Collette matches two faces together in an effort to reveal common features between family members. ![]() Collette splices just two faces together belonging to the most intimately connected of human categories, the family. The result was a composite image, but of a different kind than Galton’s pictures with multiple facial sources, and of a more focused vision than Galton’s attempts to pictorially define race, criminality, infirmity, insanity, and nearly every other condition of mankind he decided he could categorize. #Galton composite photography seriesUlric Collette “accident” created what became a series of images when he was trying to teach himself photography and was trying to age his son in Photoshop. Galton sought to trace the hereditary links of certain groups of people, and both his objective and his composite images have been taken up by a contemporary photographer experimenting with Photoshop in Canada. ![]() Following Emily’s lead, I find that I too must return to the Sekula article after stumbling upon a project that irresistibly reminded me of Galton and his composite images. ![]()
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