In the two photographs below, we see a contrast between two major, very different branches of the art of photography. On the left is an example of "straight photography", which means finding things in the world and photographing them without setting them up ahead of time. The Cindy Sherman photograph on the right is staged photography: something has been elaborately set up in order to be photographed.
"The Two Ways of Life was one of the most ambitious and controversial photographs of the nineteenth century. The picture is an elaborate allegory of the choice between vice and virtue, represented by a bearded sage leading two young men from the countryside onto the stage of life. The rebellious youth at left rushes eagerly toward the dissolute pleasures of lust, gambling, and idleness; his wiser counterpart chooses the righteous path of religion, marriage, and good works. Because it would have been impossible to capture a scene of such extravagant complexity in a single exposure, Rejlander photographed each model and background section separately, yielding more than thirty negatives, which he meticulously combined into a single large print." Copied from Metropolitan Museum of Art website
Loretta Lux, The Waiting Girl, 2006
The artist has used digital imaging techniques to adjust scale, proportion, value and other elements, creating a subtle feeling of "unreality".
