Jerry Uelsmann

For the past four decades Jerry Uelsmann, a pioneer of photo manipulation in the darkroom, has been ultra-successful in creating a never-ending array of surreal photographic montages by hand. Critics have often likened these composites to "dreams that slip past our perceptual defenses, triggering a response but never quite revealing their meaning." In the interview that follows, PDN talks with
Uelsmann about his life, his love for photography and how he creates his mystical, magical art. In this age of ever-advancing computer technology, Uelsmann is more than content to remain cloistered in his darkroom—cup of coffee by his side, music blaring—with as many as five or six enlargers at his command to create, distort and expand on his vision. "My whole career has been built on—and continues to thrive on—the silver print," says Uelsmann. "That is where all of my energies go."
PDN: Was there one defining moment in your life where you said, "I know that photography is what I want to do forever?" JERRY UELSMANN: My first involvement in photography occurred when I was in high school, when I essentially thought I wanted to become a commercial photographer. I enrolled in the Rochester Institute of Technology and as fate would have it, they had just begun a four-year program and had hired Minor White and Ralph Hattersley, people who soon introduced me to the notion that photography could be used as self-expression, which greatly appealed to me. After RIT, I went on to Indiana University and initially began a program called audio-visual education, because I thought I had to make a living somehow. But there was a man there, Henry Holmes Smith, in the art department, who virtually changed my life. He pushed me out into the deep water. He was a very profound and challenging professor who constantly questioned me about what I was doing. Because of him, I switched over into the fine-art program and that opened up the possibilities for me.
PDN: So you would