class for which students were to photograph door-
ways of ‘‘ominous portent.’’ Taking a cue from
White’s theory about the camera as a metamor-
phosing machine, Uelsmann began creating images
meant to be metaphors of expression. His first pub-
lished photographs appeared in the 1957 annual
edition ofPopular Photography. At the University
of Indiana in Bloomington, he received an MS in
Audio-Visual Communications in 1958 and then,
after studying with Henry Holmes Smith, an MFA
in photography in 1960. As Uelsmann’s mentor and
an advocate of the experimental potential of the
photographic process, Smith reinforced Uels-
mann’s understanding of the expressive qualities
of the medium rather than the technical aspects.
Later that same year, with the help of Van Deren
Coke, he became an instructor in the Department of
Art at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Uels-
mann was appointed Assistant Professor in 1964
and became Associate Professor in 1966. As an
artist/educator in the 1960s and 1970s, he was
among a select group who developed photographic
education within the college level curriculum. Con-
cerned with providing a support system for teachers
of photography, Uelsmann was also a founding
member of the Society for Photographic Education
in 1962 and later served on the Board of Directors.
Producing multiple imagery through combina-
tion printing since 1959, Uelsmann refined the pro-
cess by 1963, employing it as an integral element in
his art making, using as many as eight enlargers to
produce one combination print. Uelsmann’s use of
the combination printing method was derived from
the process once employed in the nineteenth cen-
tury by Oscar Gustav Rejlander and Henry Peach
Robinson. In homage to his predecessors is Uels-
mann’sSelf-Portrait as Robinson & Rejlander.His
early photographs, influenced by Surrealist art,
contained figures in illogical landscapes and set-
tings in images with suggestive titles. Symbolism
of the pictorial elements was further emphasized
by placement within the surreal photo-montaged
compositions. A common motif was the hand, sym-
bolizing creativity. Themes centered around the
forces of birth, rebirth, renewal, and self discovery.
As his working process developed, Uelsmann once
stated that the seeds of his images were within his
contact sheets, enabling him to free associate and
to see the possibilities between seemingly quite dif-
ferent images. His poetic allusions shared the same
inspired mindset of earlier Surrealists, most no-
tably painter Rene ́Magritte. The Guggenheim Fel-
lowship he received in 1967 enabled him to
continue his exploration of multiple printing tech-
niques and to further explore what he began to
refer to as post-visualizations. Psychological em-
phasis, blended with Uelsmann’s private visions,
enhanced the synthetic universes. One of his most
renowned images,Small Woods Where I Met My-
self, was made in 1967 employing positive/negative
combinations and signifying the psychic intersec-
tion of spirit and self. Ghostly figures move above,
below, and across the landscape of the mind as if in
a waking dream.
In 1969, Uelsmann was appointed a Professor of
Art and, in 1974, as the Graduate Research Pro-
fessor at the University of Florida-Gainesville. He
was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts
fellowship in 1972. The University of Florida
recognized his teaching abilities in 1975 by naming
him the Teacher Scholar of the Year. That same
year Uelsmann became a trustee for the Friends of
Photography in Carmel, California.
It was during the 1970s when his technique
expanded to include color processes. Imbued with
subtle colors, simple elements metamorphosed into
powerful, magical icons of intuition. Then, in the
late 1970s and early 1980s, the subject matter of his
work moved to include juxtapositions of nature to
geometrical and architectural elements. Recurring
elements were hands, eyes, the nude, rocks, mir-
rors, trees, and water, as seen in one of his best-
known images,Floating Tree, 1969, weaving into
the enigmatic, impossible spaces and places. Works
were finished as ‘‘untitled,’’ thereby reinforcing the
open-endedness of the mythical images. Disquiet-
ing ambivalence was sought. Amazement and reve-
lation were sought, redefining the possibilities of
the process to synthetically fuse reality and fantasy,
such as cracked, parched ground seen below sun
reflected waters. The familiar and unfamiliar
together became the uncanny. Each work was a
unique visual representation of inner dreams, even
with ‘‘reprints,’’ which were essentially original re-
creations and not copies.
As his photographic works and his teaching style
earned him the respect of his peers beyond the Uni-
ted States, Uelsmann became a Fellow of the Royal
Photographic Society of Great Britain in 1973.
Between 1975 and 2000, more than 10 books were
published of Uelsmann’s work. In 1997, Uelsmann
retired from his faculty position at The University of
Florida. With more time at his disposal and with the
encouragement of his wife, Maggie Taylor, who was
proficient in manipulating imagery digitally, Uels-
mann pursued his interest in learning the subtle
capabilities of the digital process.
Even so, Uelsmann found proficiency with digi-
tal tools also required an adeptness that precluded
technical overkill and yet permitted him to con-UELSMANN, JERRY