Inspired by Hiroshi Sugimoto, the Bechers’ and typologies, for this shoot I plan to take simple seascapes, similar to Hiroshi Sugimoto and to incorporate the idea of typologies, I plan on taking the same/similar photographs of seascapes in multiply locations, also like the Bechers’, I will present my photographs clearly and in black and white, comparing and contrasting all the different locations when presenting the final images, presented like Bernd and Hiller Bechers’ photographs.
Bernd and Hiller Becher
Typology: A classification according to general type, especially in archaeology, psychology, or the social sciences. Study or analysis using a classification according to a general type.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
The Dusseldorf School of Photography refers to a group of photographers who studied at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf in the mid 1970’s under the influential photographers Bernd and Hiller Becher.
Arron Siskind was born December 4th, 1903, New York, dying in February 8th, 1992, Providence, Rhode Island. Siskind became an influential teacher, editor and photographer who is best known for his innovations in abstract photography. Starting 1932, as an English teacher in New York City he became a member of the Photo League, participating in projects designed to document neighbourhood life during the Great Depression. Siskind’s project Dead End: The Bowery and Harlem Document shows his concern for pure design rather than the subjects themselves. Because of this in the late 1930s he stopped photographing people and instead moved onto architectural photography, seen present in his book Old Houses of Bucks County, a book which looked at natural phenomena and still life.
Siskind soon specialised in abstract work which he became best known for, where he expresses his own state of mind instead of recording the subject matter as it is. In the late 1940s textures and patterns became the core focus for him, looking at regular objects such as rope, sand and seaweed. Siskind’s inspiration came from Group f.64 who photographed the subject up close much like his own style, this led him onto photographing two-dimensional surfaces such as pavements, billboards and walls, especially the ones which had been decayed and worn out by the weather. This turned into his main theme that allowed for him to take photos of the ruins of Arch of Constantine in 1967, a piece that was not originally accepted by other photographers. However many artists liked this and Siskind’s was hung up alongside abstract expressionist paintings.
Most of his inspiration comes from various activities as a founding member of the Society of Photographic Education and as a co-editor of Choice, a literary and photography magazine. Overall his greatest inspiration was as a professor of photography at the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, a post he held from 1951 to 1971. His final works consist of a 30 year anthology of his photographs, Bucks County, Photographs of Early Architecture and Places. Here are some examples of his work below:After looking over some examples of his work I decided that I would analyse one of his images, by doing this it would allow for a greater insight into how these photos are created and what makes them so effective. When looking over the photos it would give me the ability to incorporate the style into my own works, making them more effective as a result. The image I chose for this is called San Luis Potosi 16, a photo of a rotting billboard with deteriorating paper:
Visual:
Visually the image is of a billboard that had been left to rot, and as a result has become this abstract piece in itself which hides the initial meaning meant to be put across by it. This is accompanied by the fact that the paper has been repeatedly stacked upon different posters underneath, because of this the writing seems to jump around the image rather than stick in one place. When looking at it I found that the different sizes of fonts really attracted my attention due to it breaking up the piece from becoming too generic and repetitive, allowing for your eyes to travel across it with ease rather than become eye-sore from a lack of contrast. Composition wise the use of placing the biggest text in the centre of the photo really creates the whole image, as it becomes the focal point for your initial glance and the source of it’s overall aestheticism.
Technical:
When looking over the image there is a use of high contrast, this is done so that there is a clear definition between the lights and dark present inside the piece, emphasising and changing the final outcome as a result. The photo has been taken using monochrome, this like the contrast increases the difference between the lights and dark whilst also honing in on specific details that may of not been previously picked up upon when looking at it in colour. A relatively normal exposure and shutter speed have been used as there is no sign of blur or one of he shades overpowering the other, instead capturing the billboard as it was seen at the time.
Conceptual:
The image itself is part of a series consisting of various billboards in and around cities, capturing their deterioration in an aesthetic and unusual way. When looking over the photo it is clear to me that it was taken at the peak of Siskind’s exploration and experimentation regarding various takes on the environment which makes us the surrounding area, using it to reflect what can be seen and expected rather than take portraits instead. By using a monochrome filter it brings out the aestheticism of the image, making it entirely possible to interpret the image purely on an aesthetic level. The reason for Siskind’s attraction to abstract takes on cities come from experimentation between photographing an object in an unusual way or photographing the people found in that area, after much time he decided upon using abstraction to express his opinion regarding his viewpoint of the surround place, making the viewer interpret his meaning through only visual appearance alone.
In order to experiment with moving image, a concept I would like to use during my Variation and Similarity project, I have experimented making a gif. A gif is: “a lossless format for image files that supports both animated and static images“. I have taken 5 photos of bottles, as a category of typology. Typologies, which I will furthermore research as a form of ‘similarity’ is the study of types, and a photographic typology is a suite of images or related forms, shot in a consistent, repetitive manner. Using Photoshop, I combined my images together into a timeframe motion, giving the photos movement. I used bottles as a basic experimentation though I will not be focusing on this item throughout my project. Gifs are a unique way of photo presentation, enabling photographs to come to life and show a sense of movement and variety.
Open Adobe Photoshop, go to File> Scripts> Load files into stack
Select images for the gif.
Select Timeline under the Window tab.
Select Create Frame Animation from the drop down in the timeline.
Go to the menu button on the timeline and select Make Frames From Layers.
Before going ahead with a shoot and artist reference I decided that I would explore a fine artist that I could link into my future work. I would be looking at their composition and portrayal of certain everyday objects, whilst also looking at how their portray their vision of the landscape in new and creative ways. One particular artist that I found to be inspiring was the fine artist Jason De Graaf, someone who focused on reflections and objects that reflected as a means of enhancing the colour and vibrancy of the subject photographed. For me this was a unique way of seeing the subject photographed as he sets about using natural reflections such as splashes and sunlight to add contrast to otherwise boring everyday items such as fruit. Some examples of his work can be seen below:
I really liked his use of tinfoil to create abstract landscapes in a sort of surreal and conceptual way with no actual editing done. For me this gave rise to the idea of used a kaleidoscope when photographing my intended areas, further abstracting the subjects from their natural environment and instead producing it to the viewers as something up to interpretation regarding what it could be. When thinking about the use of textures and patterns and creating surreal landscapes with it I stumbled across the photographer Seydou Keita, a photographer who captured African culture through the subjects clothes and patterns present in their everyday lives.
Seydou Keita was a self-taught photographer who in 1948 opened a studio in portraiture gaining a reputation for his skill throughout West Africa. Most of his photos and style are influenced by a great sense of aesthetics, dressing man young men European style clothing with customers bringing in items of clothing they wanted to be photographed in. Keita provided his own clothing and accessories such as watches, pens, radios, scooters, etc. which he often left inside his studio. Originally it was mainly women who came with their traditional robes that covered their legs and throats, only later shifting towards wearing Western outfits in the late 60s. Once again some examples of his work can be seen below:
For future shoots I may consider taking objects out of my home into the natural landscape I have chosen and portray it in an abstract way which reflects a part of me rather than just the landscape itself. An alternative method which I could use would be to photograph the landscape on a more personal level, getting closer the to the subjects and capturing them in a more abstract way through up-close photography and their isolation from their surrounding environment. Some examples of this could consist of fences, horses, gardens and trees, all of these subjects play a part for something in society, whether it be work or just for relaxation, and so by portraying them in an unusual way which captures them in a light not previous used would as a result give viewers a new perspective. One of the image I found to be particularly effective for me is a piece by Seydou Kaita called Untitled [Seated Woman with Chevron Print Dress]:
Visual:
Visually the piece uses traditional African textiles and dresses as the main method of presenting aestheticism towards the viewer. What Keita does here is use two contrasting textiles which class in pattern not colour, as a result of this the opposing texture defines the women opposed to her blending into the backdrop. By leaving a section of the floor in it increases the effectiveness of the textures due to how it stops the entire image from becoming too eye-sore whilst also adding contrast between the predominantly white textiles, once again helping to define the figure of the women from the backdrop. Composition wise the women is centered in the middle of the photo, by doing this for me it immediately draws my eye to the subject as the contrasting clothing she’s wearing draws your eyes to the face in particular which is presented as a breaking point between subject and texture.
Technical:
When looking at the photograph you can see how the image was taken mid-movement, this is because of how the top right of the textile backdrop is motion blurred, this adds a sense of depth within the piece as it defines the women more due to her being photographed more crisply. An average exposure and shutter speed seems to have been used due to shades all being relatively normal without exaggeration, whilst the blurred areas provide me with evidence that the shutter speed is normal and has been unedited or untouched. The piece seems to use natural lighting as the light appears from all sides of the subject, not emphasizing or reducing the effect of the shadows, meaning that the image must have been taken outside of his studio.
Conceptual:
In the twentieth century, photography became a medium of expression that African artists began to draw upon to reflect on the world around them. One of the exceptional talents to emerge in this area has been the Malian photographer Seydou Keita (ca. 1921–2001), whose work has been admired on an international scale. Keita’s oeuvre consists of portraits that chronicle Malian life during the mid-twentieth century. His portraits are renowned for not only their masterful formal composition, but also their ability to capture the nuances of this important transitional period in Malian history.
This portrait of an unidentified woman displays the signature pictorial style that made Keita the premier Malian photographer of his generation. Employing different backdrops and successfully combining pattern on pattern, the woman’s skirt is dynamically juxtaposed with the regularity of the floral motif on the backdrop behind her. Keita positioned the woman so the arrow design of her dress directs the viewer to her bodice, where light vertical elements of her blouse lead toward her smiling, confident face. The overall pattern on the backdrop holds the viewer’s attention while it gently repeats itself and simultaneously guides our eyes back down to her skirt.
Tyhe Reading is a professional photographer and graphic designer located in Melbourne, Victoria. With a focus on sustainability, Tyhe captures his subjects in a way that is truly representative of the experience. He first started taking images at aged 14 but really found his passion for the subject and deiced to peruse it as a full-time career when he was 17. His photography works stems from his childhood of growing up on the Coast, admiring the natural environment in ways that had to be captured with a camera. This crosses over into his design work as he tries to incorporate his love for the natural environment and geometric structures into his designs.
This image was taken during golden hour using natural lighting to capture the image. You can tell this because the light that is being reflected of the sea and the mist in the background of the image had a golden tint to it which would only happen during golden hour which is either sunset or sunrise. The shutter speed would have been around 1/40 1/100 to make sure that the waves are in focus and sharp. The main focus of the image is the triangle in the center which has then been cut up using different parts of the image to create a geometric effect. There isn’t much texture in this image as the waves in the foreground are very smooth and sleek, however a bit of texture can bee seen in the background of the image with the rocks but mainly only the silhouette can be seen. Overall the image is very light the only dark tones in the the high raise of the wave and the outline of the rocks in the background
Video art is an art form that relies on using visual technology as a way of creating a visual and/or audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. Video art can take many forms: recordings that are broadcast; installations viewed in galleries or museums; works streamed online, distributed as video tapes, or DVDs.
Nam June Paik, a Korean-American artist who studied in Germany, is widely regarded as a pioneer in video art. Video art is often said to have begun when Paik used his new Sony Portapak to shoot footage of Pope Paul VI’s procession through New York City in the autumn of 1965 Later that same day, across town in a Greenwhich Village cafe, Paik played the tapes and video art was born.
Andy Warhol worked across a wide range of media—painting, photography, drawing, and sculpture. In addition, he was a highly prolific filmmaker. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than 650 films. His style of films included hundreds of silent Screen Tests, or portrait films, and dozens of full-length movies, in styles ranging from minimalist avant-garde to commercial “sexploitation.” The films Warhol made in the are among the most significant works in the career of this prolific and mercurial American artist. Warhol’s films have been highly regarded for their radical explorations beyond the frontiers of conventional cinema. In the early 1970s, most of the films directed by Warhol were pulled out of circulation by Warhol and the people around him who ran his business. After Warhol’s death, the films were slowly restored by the Whitney Museum and are occasionally projected at museums and film festivals. Few of the Warhol-directed films are available on video or DVD.
Task – Record an activity or routine that you do/ repeat on a daily basis, e.g. brushing teeth, putting on clothes, applying make-up, comb your hair, eating, feeding your dog, walk to school/work, sleeping, scree time on social media, talking, selfies
My plan – Using a Go-Pro I will capture myself getting toast for breakfast; the process of walking up to the toaster, getting the toast out, cooking it, buttering it and then eating it. A simple task which i do everyday and usually don’t think twice about.
Eadweard Muybridge, (April 9, 1830 – May 8, 1904) was an English photographer important for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion and in motion-picture projection. Muybridge’s photography of moving animals captured movement in a way that had never been done before. His work was used by both scientists and artists. He immigrated to the United States as a young man but remained obscure until 1868, when his large photographs of Yosemite Valley, California, made him world famous. Muybridge’s experiments in photographing motion began in 1872, when former California Governor Leland Stanford contacted him to help settle a bet. Speculation had raged for years over whether all four hooves of a running horse left the ground at the same time. Stanford believed they did, but the motion was too fast for the human eye to detect. In 1872, Muybridge began photographing a galloping horse in a sequence of shots. In 1877, he returned to California and resumed his experiments in motion photography, using a battery of from 12 to 24 cameras and a special shutter he developed that gave an exposure of 2/1000 of a second. This arrangement gave satisfactory results and proved Stanford’s contention.
In 1883, Muybridge was invited to continue his research at the University of Pennsylvania and for the next few years produced thousands of photographs of humans and animals in motion. Near the end of his life, he published several books featuring his motion photographs and toured Europe and North America, presenting his photographic methods using a projection device he’d developed called the Zoopraxiscope. Muybridge’s innovative camera techniques enabled people to see things otherwise too fast to comprehend, and his sequence images continue to inspire artists from other disciplines to this day. His work links to the idea of variation and similarity as he is capturing the slight, varying motions and movements of the one subject. His photographs explore similarity as despite the slight differences of motion within his images, the individual photographs are interchangeable. His work is extremely interesting and innovative and I will respond to it with my own photo shoot based around motion.
Similarity– The state or fact of being similar/ A similar feature or aspect.
Variation– A change or slight difference in condition, amount, or level, typically within certain limits/ A different or distinct form or version of something.
Before commencing with various shoots and photographic inspirations I decided that I would be suitable to research various ideas that I could use as my theme for the topics of variation and similarity. Here I will be exploring five different stances I can taken regarding the given subject, and how I could go about taking images of the intended areas and their uses, these are my choices:
Empty Spaces/Full Spaces:
Here I could photograph empty/full car parks, using the lighting present there to create aesthetic and contrasted results. This can be done to more effect in enclosed parking areas such as the ones present in town, where a more cramped and urban feel is created. I could also make use of the empty car parks at night in the open, using the odd lamppost’s lighting as a means of casting an eerie feeling upon the surrounding area. A photographer who I could explore this with is Denis Felix, someone who explore the abandoned landscapes of areas in homes and buildings. Also done by photographer Johnny Joo, he capture the areas of society that have moved on, leaving natural to reclaim the land previously used. I could use monochrome photography for this as it could allow for a more unnatural feel to come across when viewing the photos.
Textures/Patterns:
For this idea I could explore the variation of patterns and textures within a variety of different objects present in different landscapes. By presenting everything as more abstract and aesthetic it could not just visually please the viewer but also provide an insight into the hidden world that can be portrayed by these surfaces, where you perspective can be warped depending on how you see the object. Photographers that I could use for this idea are Paul Sanders, someone who looks at the structure of objects and photographs them in an aesthetic and original way, and Edward Weston, a photographer who uses macro photography to capture textures and patterns of architectural and natural subjects, in both the environmental and man-made world.
Animals:
Regarding the idea of animals I thought the variation of species would be a great topic due to Jersey having one of the worlds most famous endangered species zoos in the world, Durrell. By photographing a large variety of different species side by side it would provide a huge insight into how evolution has occurred and the different features and characteristics of each one. Some photographers that I could study for inspiration for this idea are the photographers Martin Bailey and Tim Flach. What I liked was their style of separating the subject from the backdrop using Photoshop or a black cover which really brings out the aspects of the animal they intend to capture.
Natural Formation Of Objects:
Here I wanted to explore how the formation of natural objects found in our everyday environment. By using macro photography it could highlight the hidden patterns in things that we view all the time, by photographing a variety of different plants etc like a topography it would give symmetry and aestheticism to the viewer who could see each image in a larger picture when compared to the other images taken the same way. The photographer Karl Blosfeldt I felt was a particular inspiration for me as he used topographics to capture the tips of plants using macro photography, which he would then display side by side so that they increased the overall interpretation of how the style of photography is viewed.
Abstract Landscapes:
Finally for this topic I wanted to look at how the various landscapes in Jersey could be viewed using abstract and unique perspectives regarding the formation of the area. Here I would have to look at the vivid colours and contrast them against more stark and ugly aspects of the area like concrete and walls, using telephone boxes, lines and brightly painted areas to do so. Some photographers that I would like to study for this are Sigfried Hansen and Ricardo Cases, who both use vivid colours to portray the landscape in a vibrant and interesting way that draws the viewer in through aestheticism and symmetry.
Overall when looking over the chosen ideas I found that the abstract stance of separating the subject from its environment really appealed to me the most as it presented me with alternative methods of showing my work, leaving the viewer to purely focus on that one subject. These are most evident in the topics of animals, natural formations and texture/pattern, giving me the opportunity to explore this style the most.
After looking over some examples of his work I decided that I would analyse one of his images, by doing this it would allow for a greater insight into how these photos are created and what makes them so effective. When looking over the photos it would give me the ability to incorporate the style into my own works, making them more effective as a result. The image I chose for this is called San Luis Potosi 16, a photo of a rotting billboard with deteriorating paper:
Tyhe captures his subjects in a way that is truly representative of the experience. He first started taking images at aged 14 but really found his passion for the subject and deiced to peruse it as a full-time career when he was 17. His photography works stems from his childhood of growing up on the Coast, admiring the natural environment in ways that had to be captured with a camera. This crosses over into his design work as he tries to incorporate his love for the natural environment and geometric structures into his designs.
