These Twisted Vintage Portraits Were Made Before Photoshop

Long before the selfie craze, Frédéric Fontenoy was photographing self-portraits that will make your skin crawl.

by Beckett Mufson

February 3, 2016, 3:50pm

Images courtesy the artist

Adobe Photoshop dropped in 1988, initiating the era of doubt and disbelief in photography. That same year, French artist Frédéric Fontenoy was capturing a set of images unbelievable in their own right, using a panoramic camera, ingenuity, and a willingness to run around the wilderness naked. Warped, twisted, yet clearly human characters dominate the series, entitled Metamorphose, framed by barren natural surroundings. Describing the shoot, Fontenoy tells The Creators Project, "Most of the photos are self-portraits. It was like dancing, two to three secondes in front of the camera, trying to create a 'pre-human form,' in landscape without any trace of humanity."

Fontenoy cites a macabre German sculptor and surrealist photographer from the 1930s, Hans Bellmer, as the main influence on his concept of 'pre-human form.' In turn, contemporary artists like Constant Dullart, Sam Cannon, and Lee Griggs continue both Bellmer and Fontenoy's line of visual inquiry—how much can we distort the human form while still considering it human?

Metamorphose was one of Fontenoy's first photographic experiments, but today he continues to make surreal photographs, both fine art and by commission. There's something primal and utterly curious about that early work that makes it worth considering in this age of effortless digital manipulation. Check out the series below.