Luminous Element | Directly toward source As the sun shines Contre-jour |
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fter studying photography for forty years, it is good to come across a new term or concept. So when a comment on one of my images posted to “altphotos.com” mentioned contre-jour, I was intrigued. It turns out that contre-jour is a French expression that means 'against the light' and refers to image captures made when the camera is pointing towards (or roughly towards) the main light source. An alternative common word for this photographic technique is backlighting, but contre-jour is more exotic.
This reminds me of the time back in the mid 1980's when I was employed by Scitex. The company had developed a relationship with Iris Graphics, who was manufacturing a drum-based continuous inkjet printer for digital graphic arts proofing. Proofs are prints made to simulate production processes which are used to correct errors, evaluate color, and get client approvals before committing a job to a press run. By the close of the 1980's, Scitex had purchased Iris Graphics and Iris printers were installed worldwide, producing full-color proofs in commercial printing plants and pre-press shops. These inkjet prints were definitely not originally meant as art objects of desire. But in an effort to expand sales for the device, it was decided that the fine art market could be a potential customer base. This new client niche probably would not consider an inkjet proofer a worthy device, so the need for a new name was recognized as a way to rebadge the product generated off the machine to appeal to artistic sensibilities. Thus the Giclée print was born based on the French verb meaning "to squirt, spurt, or spray."
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