It makes a change posting about Zoltán Glass instead of his brother Stephen. He ran one of the biggest and busiest studios around, working with pretty much every ad agency in England. With his amazing facilities, he could be indulgent when it came to specially built indoor sets and oversized items. A simple ashtray might become a modernist monument, while a fountain pen could stretch to skyscraper heights.
The magic starts with carefully constructed props – many were hollow shells made of plywood, plaster, or foam, painted to mimic the real thing. But the real wizardry was in the lighting. Glass mastered what I like to call the “reverse dollhouse effect” — using multiple lights to make giant objects look as convincing as possible.
The modernist and surrealist movements collided beautifully in mid-century photography, and Glass was a master at this mash-up. Modernists loved their stark forms and crisp shadows; surrealists preferred to shake things up by playing with scale and context. These shots of the lilliputian Lucinda Bathurst having fun with an ashtray and cigarette is a case in point.
The post Size Matters: Zoltán Glass’s Giant Props appeared first on Pamela Green.