In this post I have done some further experimentation on ways to compare and merge the photographs that I have taken. The main idea behind this editing is to take away parts of a photograph layered on top of another photograph to reveal a photograph in the background – this will allow the differences and similarities between the faces of the two buildings to be shown clearly. The idea for introducing shapes into the photograph to show contrast came from John Baldessari’s work with brightly coloured dots in which he covered the face of his subjects with dots that contrasted with the background; I felt that the introduction of more shapes brought another element to the photograph. Below is my first example of experimentation with cutting shapes into a photograph then layering; I cut around a coin with a stanley knife to reveal the features of the photograph below and show to create abstract effects within the composition.
In the first set of edits below I have used both circles and oblongs to create a range of contrasts within the photograph. I believe that this method may appear too confusing and removes the aesthetically pleasing aspects from the photographs but it does show contrast between structures.
In the below set of edited photographs I have used photoshop to remove the windows from the photograph on the top layer and so opening up a viewing into the background layer. This method could be used well with a double exposure method potentially, as I have done with the photograph on the left. This method helps to show similarities as even though parts of the composition have been completely removed it does not look completely abnormal.
In the below left edit I had first cut out the shapes within the windows and felt that this did not create a strong enough composition so then I continued to alter the opacity of the photograph to create more of a double exposure effect in which you can see both photographs when you look at it in a different perspective. In the photograph on the right I have cropped out circles within the photograph similarly to my first experiment with cutting out shapes. I feel that the circles do not sit well against the blocky natural shapes of a building face and so creates an abstract but not an aesthetically pleasing compositon.
Étienne-Jules Marey, born 5 March 1830, in Beaune, was a French scientist, physiologist and chronophotographer. His work was significant in the development of cardiology, physical instrumentation, aviation, cinematography and the science of laboratory photography. He is widely considered to be a pioneer of photography and an influential pioneer of the history of cinema.
To study the flight of birds, he invented a camera in 1882 with magazine plates that recorded a series of photographs; the pictures could be combined to represent movements. In 1894 he adapted the motion-picture camera to the microscope. Marey’s chronophotographic gun was made in 1882, this instrument was capable of taking 12 consecutive frames a second, with all the frames recorded on the same picture. Using these pictures he studied horses, birds, dogs, sheep, donkeys, elephants, fish, microscopic creatures, molluscs, insects, reptiles, etc. Some call it Marey’s “animated zoo”. Marey also conducted the famous study about cats always landing on their feet. He conducted very similar studies with a chicken and a dog and found that they could do almost the same. Although Marey was a man of science, one cannot ignore his profound contribution to photography.
From my previous research and photo shoots I am leaning towards the focus of depiction of light and external factors that shape our environment. Essentially i will be focusing on elements of a photograph that people tend to not look at. Usually people will try and capture a certain object or subject as the main focal point of a photograph however I want to defy these conventions and look at the depiction of light, textures and other things that form and change our landscape. These initial ideas came from my artist reference on Hiroshi Sugimoto who photographs the ocean without a direct focus on the ocean itself but how the atmosphere shapes it. Leading on from this I looked into Monets Hay Stacks paintings which link to this idea of the environment being formed by external elements such as the light and atmosphere. He captures the changing light and how it colored his surroundings by painting a landscape at different times of the day.
Having explored the light i wanted to look into another factor that shapes the environment thus being tidal movement. I have researched one artist Micheal Martens who looks at how the tide forms the landscape at different times of the day. I have responded to this in one shoot however plan to look further into this in a scientific way, exploring how this occurs and why. As well as this i will also complete some more shoots simply exploring how the low tide vs high tide changes a familiar landscape into something quite different. Furthermore, as well as this scientific exploration I will also look into the spiritual culture as a whole and how this is demonstrated in photography. Through this i will look into Japanese culture and zen Buddhism inspired by the spirituality that is conveyed through Sugimoto.
My current ideas for an end product is a photo book and possible cinematic video that will be inspired by Koyaanisqatsi. Through the photo book there will be a sense of spirituality looking at the beauty within things that aren’t usually seen as beautiful. I will include aspects of the way in which the landscape is transformed by elements such as light and tidal movement. With intentions of creating a video, it would consist of cinematic sequences of the environment throughout a day to show how the landscape is transformed through a day and how light effects it. Also, there would be clear reference to the ocean since this plays a significant role in transforming the landscape from something familiar to a place vastly different.
Jim Sanborn is an American photographer and artist born 1945 in Washington. In his photographic series ‘Topographic projections and implied geometries’ he explores archaeological, mathematical and scientific exploration through his photography. In his photography Sanborn tries to highlight mixing mathematics and physics such as looking at unseen aspects of existent concepts or objects such as the Coriolis effect, the earth’s magnetic field or cryptography. Sanborn produced his series ‘topographic projections and implied geometries’ in the late 1990’s. He created all of the images individually using a large format light projector to create the shapes and formations in his images with the projector being half a mile away to create the perfect scale of the projection. He used generators to power the projectors which he transported to the locations. Sanborn photographed the American South west as well as the coastline of Ireland.
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun, and the rotation of the Earth.
While tides are usually the largest source of short-term sea-level fluctuations, sea levels are also subject to forces such as wind and barometric pressure changes, resulting in strom surges, especially in shallow seas and near coasts. Tidal phenomena are not limited to the oceans, but can occur in other systems whenever a gravitational field that varies in time and space is present. For example, the shape of the solid part of the Earth is affected slightly by Earth tide, though this is not as easily seen as the water tidal movements. This links to the previous contextual studies I have engaged with and the fact of seeing past our reality at things that cannot be seen.
Tide changes proceed via the following stages:
Sea level rises over several hours, covering the inertidal zone; flood tide.
The water rises to its highest level, reaching high tide.
Sea level falls over several hours, revealing the intertidal zone; ebb tide.
The water stops falling, reaching low tide.
I decided to do this research as a result of Michael Marten sea change project as i wanted to gain a scientific understanding of the tidal movement. As well as this scientific approach I will look into the spiritual approach that this sea change could be viewed as and I will try to display these ideas in my work. Perhaps with a scientific approach it could be interesting to add text into the images that display the height of water, time of day and weather types too.
The 19th century was the golden age of landscape painting in Europe and America. Three aesthetic concepts established during the Romantic era divided the natural world into categories: the Pastoral, the Picturesque, and the Sublime. The first two represent Nature as a comforting source of physical and spiritual sustenance. The last, as articulated by Edmund Burke in his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), refers to the thrill and danger of confronting untamed Nature and its overwhelming forces . This Romantic conception of the sublime proved influential for several generations of artists. Burke associates qualities of “balance,” “smoothness,”and “color” with the beautiful, while he speaks of the sublime in terms such as “vastness” and “terror”.
Beauty/ Pastoral
Beauty is a widely employed term, referring typically to aesthetic experiences that are pleasing, while to some extent transcending preferences and needs that are specific to an individual. That is, the experience of something beautiful will please a subject for reasons that reach beyond the subjective inclinations of the subject and that can be experienced also by many other subjects. The scenes are peaceful, often depicting ripe harvests, lovely gardens, manicured lawns with broad vistas, and fattened livestock. Man has developed and tamed the landscape – it yields the necessities we need to live, as well as beauty and safety.
Picturesque
Picturesque arose as a mediator between opposed ideals of beauty and the sublime, showing the possibilities that existed in between these two rationally idealised states, seen as being artistic but containing elements of wildness or irregularity. Derived from the Italian pittoresco, “from a picture,” the term picturesque de nes an object or view worthy of being included in a picture. It is an aesthetic category developed in the eighteenth-century to describe, in the words of artist and author William Gilpin (1724 – 1804) in his 1768 art treatise Essay on Print, ‘that peculiar kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture’. It was associated with fashionable landscape gardening, however its cultural significance extended far beyond this.
A picturesque view contains a variety of elements, curious details, and interesting textures, conveyed in a palette of dark to light that brings these details to life. In later publications Gilpin developed the concept more fully. The picturesque may be thought of as halfway between the beautiful, with its emphasis on smoothness, regularity, and order; and the sublime, which is all about vastness, magnitude, and intimations of power; the picturesque must combine aspects of both of those. A picturesque landscape would have characteristics of roughness (which includes textured or variegated surfaces) — indeed, Gilpin wrote that “roughness forms the most essential point of difference between the beautiful and picturesque”
By the last third of the 18th century, Enlightenment and rationalist ideas about aesthetics were being challenged by looking at the experiences of beauty and sublimity as being non-rational. Aesthetic experience was not just a rational decision – one did not look at a pleasing curved form and decide it was beautiful; rather it came naturally as a matter of basic human instinct.
“Disputes about beauty might perhaps be involved in less confusion, if a distinction were established, which certainly exists, between such objects as are beautiful, and such as are picturesque—between those, which please the eye in their natural state; and those, which please from some quality, capable of being illustrated by painting.”
—William Gilpin, ree Essays on Picturesque Beauty, 1794
Sublime
According to Burke, the Beautiful is that which is well-formed and aesthetically pleasing, whereas the Sublime is that which has the power to compel and destroy us. The preference for the Sublime over the Beautiful was to mark the transition from the Neoclassical to the Romantic era. Burke connected the sublime with experiences of awe, terror and danger. Burke saw nature as the most sublime object, capable of generating the strongest sensations in its beholders. This Romantic conception of the sublime proved influential for several generations of artists.
Causation can be divided into formal, material, efficient and final causes. The formal cause of beauty is the passion of love; the material cause concerns aspects of certain objects such as smallness, smoothness, delicacy, etc.; the efficient cause is the calming of our nerves.
“What is most peculiar and original to Burke’s view of beauty is that it cannot be understood by the traditional bases of beauty: proportion, fitness, or perfection. The sublime also has a causal structure that is unlike that of beauty. Its formal cause is thus the passion of fear. He believed that “terror is in all cases… the ruling principle of the sublime.”
In landscape the sublime is exemplified by J.M.W Turner’s sea storms and mountain scenes and in history painting by the violent dramas of Henry Fuseli. The notion that a legitimate function of art can be to produce upsetting or disturbing effects was an important element in Romantic art and remains fundamental to art today. Painters like Turner and Constable wanted to express the sublime in visual art. They were landscape painters and, although in different ways, they emphasized the strength of natural elements and studied the effects of different weather conditiond on the landscape. In 1814 the English landscape painter John Constable put this in his own words when he said the beauty of nature generates a train of associations that leads “to the contemplation of higher, spiritual values”(Anne Lyles, Sublime Nature: John Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral from theMeadows, Tate) and his idea is illustrated in Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows 1831. Constable’s dark, passionate clouds, are in contrast to the sunlight of the foreground, where you see the church scene as gothic, and negative. These aspects of the painting widens towards sublimity: God, nature and man. Burke favoured this aesthetic idea over Beauty because, he said, ‘astonishment, obscurity and vastness cause a more powerful physical reaction in us than Beauty’s orderly calm’
Because the sublime is emotional, it is traditionally considered something one must experience alone. It’s no coincidence that Rousseau’s last work was titled Reveries of a Solitary Walker. Traditional Romantics associate the sublime directly with nature, and the artist, poet or simply the Romantic experiences the sublime directly witnessing the beauty of nature. But it’s important not to confuse or reduce the sublime with simple beauty, rather, Romantics are interested in natural experiences that utterly consume us, perhaps moving us to tears, and giving us a humbling sense of the wonder and majesty of the natural world.
For my presentation I have come up with three ideas per board, the ideas sometimes play off of the opposite boards.
The 1st board has 1 A3, 1 A4 and 2 A5’s.
Board 1.1
Board 1.2
Board 1.3
The second board has 1 A3, 2 A4’s and 1 A5.
Board 2.1
Board 2.2
Board 2.3
I have decided to use the ideas for Board 1.2 and 2.2 as I feel these will give me the most space and will show off the images the most, as the larger images won’t get in the way of the smaller ones.
For this shoot i wanted to create a series of images inspired by Maten’s sea change project. I will looks at the moving tide in Jersey which would be significant since we have the 3rd quickest moving tide in the world. To start with I researched the tide times and located a week where it best suited my needs. I needed the high and low water to be within a time in the day where there was light. Thus ensuring that there is a consistent theme so the contrast between the low water and high water images look the best.
With this information I just needed to figure out certain locations to shoot at, obviously the initial ideas being on the coast where the sea is. I pin pointed a variety where the change in sea height is easily distinguished by rock formations ect. I came up with the locations, St ouens bay at L’roco tower, corbiere lighthouse, St Aubins bay, Beauport beach, Portlet beach and Plemont bay. For this shoot i decided to go with Plemont bay . I will first shoot the locations at low tide and mark the exact spots in which i took the photo’s using colored tape. I will also write down the particular settings and focal lengths used. This will mean that when i go back at high tide i can get the exact same shot just with a change in water height.
So far in my project based around ‘Variance and Analyis’ I have explored artists including Lewis Bush, John Coplans, Tim Booth, Huang Qingjun, Michael Wolf, the Bechers and John Baldessari. I have drawn inspiration from these photographers in exploring people’s personal belongings, the details of people’s hands and the faces of buildings within Jersey. After experimenting with different approaches to ‘Variance and Similarity’ I have decided that the route I want to take draws inspiration from Michael Wolf and Lewis Bush by exploring the features of buildings and the patterns within them that cause variance and similarity within them.
I have explored this area so far by first photographing blocks of flats and offices and then further developed this by photographing other styles of accommodations, including hotels. I have experimented on ways of presenting these photographs by using GIF’s, typology grids, double exposures and by using photograph to remove parts of a photograph to reveal another photograph. These techniques of presentation all intend to allow the viewer to view the photographs side by side and to compare them.
From here on out I intend to expand on my project so far by photographing more houses within specific areas of Jersey as you will find that housing in different parishes will have different structural styles and fashions, as well as some being more modern. This links to vernacular architecture as these structures are unique to the location. I also plan to expand on the shoot by looking into geology – the study of rocks. I think that it is necessary to do this because I have been looking at man made structures in Jersey, which are often made from granite. Granite is a natural resource that is abundant in Jersey so in contrast with looking at the faces of man made structures, I believe it would be interesting to explore the faces of natural structures such as cliff faces. I could then experiment with these photographs and contrasting them with the photographs of houses by using some of the presentation techniques that I have experimented with so far.
Imogen Cunningham was an American photographer known for her botanical photography, nudes, and industrial landscapes. Cunningham was a member of the California-based Group f/64, known for its dedication to the sharp-focus rendition of simple subjects. Members of Group f/64 thought that “photography, as an art-form, must develop along lines defined by the actualities and limitations of the photographic medium, and must always remain independent of ideological conventions of art and aesthetics that are reminiscent of a period and culture antedating the growth of the medium itself”. Dismissing Pictorialism, f/64 proposed that the appearance of the photograph was more important than the subject matter. Cunningham found influence in the groups’ philosophic interest in natural forms but sought her own style. Whilst many other members of the group were mainly concerned with form, Cunningham focused on texture and light. She published an article called Photography as a Profession for Women in which she encouraged women to develop their own style in photography.
With the help of her chemistry professor, Dr. Horace Byers, she began to study the chemistry behind photography; she subsidized her tuition by photographing plants for the botany department. After graduating in 1907 she went to work with Edward S. Curtis in his Seattle studio. This gave Cunningham the valuable opportunity to learn about the portrait business and the practical side of photography. In San Francisco, 1920, Cunningham refined her style, taking a greater interest in pattern and detail as seen in her works of bark textures, trees, and zebras. As the mother of three young children, she was mainly confined to photographing her children and the plants in her garden and sought to expose the visually profound in the mundane. She became particularly interested in photographing flowers and abstracting the shapes of the petals and leaves. Cunningham undertook an in-depth study of the magnolia flower between 1923 and 1925. The importance of natural form in Cunningham’s abstract images has led to them being compared to the undulating forms in Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings. Although the two artists worked at the same time, Cunningham claimed she was not aware of O’Keeffe’s work until years later.
“ANYBODY IS INFLUENCED BY WHERE AND HOW THEY LIVE.”
Georgia O’ Keeffe
Georgia Totto O’Keeffe was an American artist. She was best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O’Keeffe has been recognized as the “Mother of American modernism”. In 1905, O’Keeffe began her serious formal art training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but she felt constrained by her lessons that focused on recreating or copying what was in nature. During the summers between 1912 and 1914, she studied the principles and philosophies of Arthur Wesley Dow, who created works of art based upon personal style, design, and interpretation of subjects, rather than trying to copy or represent them. This caused a major change in the way she felt about and approached art.
Analysis:
O’Keeffe’s dramatic use of colour palette, line and composition presents flowers in an alternative way. Her works range from abstract responses of nature, zoomed-in and almost unrecognizable, to detailed, life-like responses that emphasize the beauty of floral subjects as they come. From the curves of flower petals to the rich tones and shadows within the composition, O’Keefe looks at flowers very similar to which Cunningham photographs, furthermore responding in artistic medium. Her vibrant works with colors that glow with energy and vitality, explore the amazing and intense colours that the environment has provided in natural forms. O’Keeffe often pushes the boundaries of the art world, in some cases quite literally with lines and forms racing off the edge of the canvas, yet somehow she always manages to maintain a sense of stability and produce works that are visually engaging. Her use of a variety of media—pastel, charcoal, watercolor, and oil—combined with her sense for line, color, and composition produce deceptively simple works. Her confidence with using these elements makes her style of painting look effortless.
“I FOUND I COULD SAY THINGS WITH COLOR AND SHAPES THAT I COULDN’T SAY ANY OTHER WAY – THINGS I HAD NO WORDS FOR.”
