mask, whether it has been manipulated during pro-
cessing or taken without excessive alteration, typi-
cally relates to a deeper meaning, to things that lie
physically and conceptually outside the frame.
Early in the twentieth century, European artists
appreciated African, Oceanic, and pre-Columbian
masks primarily because they were unusual, unfa-
miliar, and more ‘‘honest’’ in their proximity to
nature rather than civilization. The Expressionists,
Cubists, and Surrealists were inspired by artifacts
to explore approaches that were not limited by
intellectual or empirical thinking including exag-
geration, abstraction, and imagination. Similarly,
masking in photography allows an artist to expand
beyond documentation into the realm of creative
experimentation. Like the masking traditions rev-
ered by modernist artists, masking in photography
emphasizes the processes of making and interpret-
ing images while, at the same time, it calls attention
to and even questions the act of representation.
Walker Evans’s 1935 photographs of the Metro-
politan Museum of Art’s African art collection not
only depict masks but also illustrate one of the
most basic types of masking. Almost unnoticeably,
the edges around the backdrop of a work print
show the hardwood floor and white wall and reveal
the ‘‘real’’ environment for this image: the mu-
seum. While looking at this picture, it is easy to
focus on the central image of the mask and ignore
the margins. Having to deal with such distractions
is unusual because in studio photography, the per-
iphery has usually been eliminated by the photo-
grapher’s selective eye and the ability to crop with
the viewfinder or in the darkroom. The process of
elimination that has not yet taken place here is
typically concealed during the photographic pro-
cess and transformed into the final pristine image.
Technical masking encompasses more radical
alterations that intentionally create a very different
image from the one presented to the camera. For
example, mask cut-outs or masking tape is used to
cover areas that should not be exposed in combina-
tion printing and double exposure. Silver tape is
frequently used to mask extraneous borders from
35 mm slides, and filters are used during exposure
and development to enhance or downplay certain
colors or tones. Masks are often used to achieve
color correction for color separations and offset
lithography (See Jaffe et al., Color Separation
Photography 1965, pp. 75–99). Color correction
masks utilize the subtractive method of color pro-
duction based on the primary colors of light and
the four-color printing process. For example, a
blue-filter separation negative subtracts all the
blue light to print yellow, a green filter prints ma-
genta, a red filter prints cyan, and white light pro-
duces black. Digital imaging masks regulate
contrast, allow multiple images to be layered seam-
lessly, and sharpen blurred edges (London, et al.,
Photography (2002), pp. 240 and 243). Because
crucial details may be lost during digital recording,
Adobe Photoshop’s Unsharp Mask (USM), like its
film predecessor, combines two blurred versions of
an image to actually sharpen the image. The areas
of overlap in the blurred versions distinguish an
edge and allow contrast to be enhanced on either
side of the edge. The reversals and complementary
mixes so integral to film photography and four-
color printing are present but often less obvious
in the processing and refinement of digital images.
Virtually undetectable with digital technology,
technical masking can be traced to the experiments
of nineteenth-century photographers, including Gus-
tave Le Gray, Oscar Gustav Rejlander, and Henry
Peach Robinson. It is also found in the work of such
twentieth-century photographers as Anton Braga-
glia, Claude Cahun, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Han-
nah Ho ̈ch, Man Ray, and Wanda Wulz. Jerry
Uelsmann began using what would become a com-
mon method of building images in digital processes
before digital technology was available by combin-
ing separate black-and-white film negatives in which
the manipulation, though often discernable, is made
as seamless as possible. Uelsmann’sUntitled (Cloud
Room)(1975) creates a dreamlike image of a dining
room with a cloud-filled sky as the ceiling. Images
likeUntitled (Cloud Room)function most success-
fully when their manipulation is detectable in an
intriguing way so that the fictional and factual as-
pects truly enhance one another.
Metaphorical masking relates to the underlying
meaning in a photographic image: what is not read-
ily visible, such as an ambiguity in meaning or the
creation of a persona. This kind of complexity
occurs in all types of imagery, but the convergence
of objective facts and subjective interpretation is
unique in photography because these aspects neces-
sarily rely on one another for full impact.
Clarence John Laughlin uses a combination of
literal, technical, and metaphorical masking inThe
Masks Grow to Us(1947). A woman wearing a veil
over her head and a pearl necklace is shown with a
second face, perhaps a mask or mannequin whose
features closely resemble hers, superimposed on
top of the left side her face. The bottom of the
composition looks kaleidoscopic and the woman’s
face is slightly blurred. Laughlin’s caption reads:In our society, most of us wear protective masks (psy-
chological ones) of various kinds and for various rea-MASKING