Deadpan aesthetic
DEADPAN PHOTOGRAPHY On first glance –there is sense of emotional detachment and command from the photographer.
Thomas Ruff German photographer In 1981, he began a series of colour portraits of his friends and students at the Dßsseldorf Academy. Ruff’s sitters chose from a range of plain-coloured backdrops in which they would be photographed. Sitters asked to remain expressionless and look straight into the camera
Thomas Ruff
Portrait 1986 (Stoya) 1986
Thomas Ruff Portrait, 2001 '... Like passport photos... young people with dead eyes and empty faces.'
The closely framed photographs offer fine detail in the faces – pores in skin. Blank expressions and lack of visual triggers , i.e. Gesture confuse the viewer and challenge the assumption that you can discover something about a person’s character solely through their appearance. Ruff is convinced that a photograph is only able to express the superficial - literally showing us the surface of its subject (and in itself the photograph is nothing more than a surface).
When looking closely at these photographs what do you notice?
Ruff has replaced the natural eye colour of his sitters with the same set of blue irises. This succeeds in undermining the photographs’ truthfulness as a record.
“Photography has been used for all kinds of interests for the past 150 years. Most of the photos we come across today aren't really authentic anymore--they have the authenticity of a manipulated and prearranged reality. You have to know the conditions of a particular photograph in order to understand it properly because the camera just copies what is in front of it�.