Art Term

Solarisation

Technique that involves exposing a partially developed photograph to light, before continuing processing, creating halo-like effects

Catherine Yass
Corridors (1994)
Tate

The technique was discovered accidentally by Man Ray and Lee Miller and quickly adopted by Man Ray as a means to ‘escape from banality’. He often applied the technique to photographs of female nudes, using the halo-like outlines around forms and areas of partially reversed tonality to emphasise the contours of the body.

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