Staged
Rather than capturing the moment, artists make specific choices when staging their images.
Staged photography concerns the photographic image that has been arranged or set-up. Artists have long utilized the medium of photography to created a contrived environment, scene or vignette to communicate something other than the decisive moment typical of the opportunist snap or documentary image traditionally associated with the medium. Staging gives the artist the opportunity to make very specific and careful choices, in order to control every element and even sometimes to give the appearance of spontaneity. Staged photography can range from fantastical scenes impossible to contemplate in reality, to trompe l’oeil exercises in technical virtuosity often set up in a studio.