sons. Very often the end result is that the masks grow to
us, displacing our original characters with ourassumed
characters. This process is indicated in visual, and sym-
bolic, terms here by several exposures on one nega-
tive—the disturbing factor being that the mask is like
the girlherself, grown harder, and more superficial.
(Laughlin 1973, 120)
The Masks Grow To Usincludes literal masking in
the depiction of a mask, technical masking by using
multiple exposures, and metaphorical masking
through the reference to the assumptions of psycho-
logical masks, which are virtually unrepresentable.
In the second half of the twentieth century, such
photographers as Diane Arbus, Ralph Eugene
Meatyard, Yasumasa Morimura, Cindy Sherman,
Lorna Simpson, and Joel-Peter Witkin use masks
or costumes to signal a self-conscious representation
of the struggle between meaning and surface appear-
ance. Masking encompasses and embraces opposi-
tions consistently encountered in the photographic
process. The tension between black and white, nega-
tive and positive, tangible and elusive, reality and
creativity are consistently negotiated in such a way
that they compliment and inform one another.
M. KathrynShieldsSeealso:Bragaglia, Anton Giulo; Cahun, Claude;
Darkroom; Dye Transfer; Evans, Walker; Laughlin,
Clarence John; Manipulation; Multiple Exposures
and Printing; Print Processes; Uelsmann, JerryFurther Reading
Andrews, Phillip. ‘‘Unsharp Mask Unmasked’’Montage
Magazine 2000; http://www.photocollege.co.uk/mont
age/mtrap/Unsmask.htm (accessed May 17, 2005).
Cotton, Dale and Brian D. Buck. ‘‘Understanding the Digi-
tal Unsharp Mask.’’The Video Journal/The Luminous
Landscape. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutor-
ials/understanding-series/understanding-usm(accessed
May 17, 2005).
Jaffe, Erwin, Edward Brody, Frank Preucil, and Jack W.
White.Color Separation Photography for Offset Litho-
graphy with an Introduction to Masking. Pittsburgh: Gra-
phic Arts Technical Foundation, Inc., 1965, 1959.
Laughlin, Clarence John.Clarence John Laughlin: The Per-
sonal Eye. Introduction by Jonathan Williams, stories by
Lafcadio Hearn, captions by the photographer. New
York: Aperture, Inc., 1973.
London, Barbara, John Upton, Ken Kobre ́, and Betsy Brill.
Photography. 7th Ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice
Hall, 2002.
Savedoff, Barbara.Transforming Images: How Photography
Complicates the Picture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 2000.
Webb, Virginia-Lee.Perfect Documents: Walker Evans and
African Art, 1935. New York: Metropolitan Museum of
Art, distributed by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2000.ANGUS McBEAN
Welsh
Angus McBean, a noted theatrical and portrait
photographer, was a master of stagecraft who
developed a sharply focused style employing dra-
matic lighting with lustrous highlights and deep
shadows. His portraits of theatrical celebrities and
other notables, glamorous and often in extreme
close-up, seemed revolutionary in their time. A sub-
set of his style, with which he is most often identi-
fied, was heavily influenced by Surrealism and its
now familiar vocabulary of devices and cliche ́s;
these pictures achieved bizarre effects through ela-
borately constructed sets, photomontage, multiple
exposure, the use of scissors, and other photo-
graphic ‘‘trickery’’ and manipulation.
McBean always seemed to be indulging a child-
ish quest for fun, and he wrote that he had ‘‘used
the new romantic idea merely for its fun value—
merely as a relaxation from a busy life of portrai-
ture and stage photography—and have produced
many amusing and some good compositions.’’ He
was dedicated to the production of illusions, for
which the theater is an obvious metaphor, and he
sought to produce more or less convincing illusions
through photographic means.
As a teenager, he bought a 2½3½-inch Auto-
graphic Kodak camera and photographed WelshMASKING