In order to balance out the aesthetic of my photo montages, I believe that it would be a good idea for me to produce some images which focus on structure and form in a minimal manner. Producing minimal images with this simple focus will also give me a way of including conceptual and contextual elements to my work as I can photograph subjects which relate to trade and industries in Jersey which link us with the rest of the world. I feel like it would be appropriate for me to do some brief research on a couple of abstract photographers who’s photographs focus on form and structure as well as other elements, so here are two short pieces of research on two relevant photographers.
Based on this here is a simple plan for a photo shoot which I will do…
Brief: Produce photography which focus of structure and form in a minimal and abstract manner
Aesthetic comes under a branch of photography which examines the nature of art and our own personal experience with it. The term originally emerged during the 18th century in Europe, soon developing in England as philosophers grouped together images into fields of poetry, sculpture, music and dance. As a result of this they became all classified in art as one category which was called les beaux arts, or fine arts. From this philosophers have began to reason that no description could define or explain beauty. They argued that there were only some rational properties of it such as order, symmetry and proportion, however it is mainly regarded as an experience from an individuals perspective rather than a reason alone.
It is clear for us to say that through our understanding of intuition and experience with human feeling and emotion, aesthetic experience could include a mixture of feelings such as pleasure, rage, grief, suffering and joy. One particular philosopher named Immanuel Kant interpreted aesthetics as a field which gave priority to form over function, with him stating that beauty was independent of any particular figure which it was attached to. Today many historians and philosophers have argued that there is no such thing as aesthetics in art but rather there only being artists. Some of the earlier examples of aestheticism from different generations and cultures can be seen below:
The first use of the term aesthetics in something like its modern sense is commonly attributed to Alexander Baumgarten in 1735 with Francis Hutcheson marking the first systematic inquiries into aesthetics in the sense of them being a distinct branch of philosophy. Undoubtedly the 18th century saw the flourishing of inquiries into beauty, taste, the sublime, and genius, but few would be content to start a history of aesthetics in that century. For many centuries earlier, going back to ancient Greece, there had been philosophical reflection, even if only in a piecemeal fashion, on poetry, painting, music, and the beautiful, and these reflections had an enormous influence on later philosophizing. What is noticeable, though, is that prior to the 18th century it is not always clear where the boundary lies between aesthetics, as such, conceived as a distinctively philosophical inquiry into judgments of taste and the foundations of the arts and more general theorizing about art, including, for example, treatises on the arts often aimed at practitioners themselves.
Regarding a more modern approach to aesthetics it can still be seen as the basis for much of our societies development through our architecture to our art. Various examples can be seen below:
A classification according to general type, especially in archaeology, psychology, or the social sciences. (Oxford Dictionary)
Study or analysis using a classification according to a general type.(Oxford Dictionary)
Bernd and Hilla Becher
Bernd and Hilla Becher were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of industrial buildings and structures, often organised in grids. Also well known as the founders of what has come to be known as the ‘Becher school’ influencing generations of documentary photographers and artists. The Couple met as students at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1957 and first collaborated on photographing and documenting the disappearing German industrial architecture in 1959. Bernd Becher studied painting at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart from 1953 to 1956, then typography under Karl Rössing at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1959 to 1961. Hilla Becher also studied photography at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1958 to 1961 but prior to this she had completed an apprenticeship as a photographer where she lived in Potsdam. After their education they both began working as freelance photographers for the Troost Advertising Agency in Düsseldorf, concentrating on product photography.
This contact sheet of photographs by the Becher’s shows typology photographs which document the similarities between the different industrial structures. The photographs compare the similarities to the point where they almost appear as though they are almost photographing the same structure in each photo as each photo is taken exactly the same way with the same angle and distance. Also the time of day and weather must have been taken into account as the sky colour is the same in all of the photographs.
For my work on Consumerism this would be interesting as i could produce work in a typological format that would represent how all of the products are similar but also to highlight the details of the everyday items. Although this type of documentary photography is of the landscape i would want to produce it in a studio shot photoshoot which would become much more focused on the products themselves.
Named after the Japanese word for “blur” or “haze”, bokeh is an optical phenomenon that stamps the character of the lens on each photo in the way that bright out-of-focus elements are rendered. When out of focus, bright pinpoints become attractive, ghostly circles of light. Or at least they are circles with the right lens.Out-of-focus elements can be just as important to finishing the composition and can dramatically change the viewer’s perception of the piece. The key to using bokeh in a shot is to use a wide aperture on a close focused subject so that elements in front and behind the point of focus blur readily. If the lens has curved aperture blades, these will be reflected in the shape of the bokeh.
By tradition, bokeh hunters prize these circular shapes more. But straight aperture blades can create different shapes, such as hexagons if the lens has six blades and is used at a larger f-stop, such as f/8. These can be just as effective creatively. A more obvious way in which lens construction has influenced photographic trends comes with the zoom lens. The zoom-burst effect provides a way to guide the eye to the centre of the shot by turning the surrounding field into a blur of movement. The effect is easy to create although mastery takes a little longer.
The key is to focus on the centre of the image and during the shot quickly turn the zoom ring. It helps to have the camera on a tripod as this will minimise shake during the relatively long exposures needed to give you enough time to turn the zoom ring. Similar to creative use of bokeh, zoom bursts often work best with bright, colourful elements in the out-of-focus area. Although it needs a steady hand to pull off well, you can bring swirls into zoom-burst shots by holding the zoom ring and turning the camera instead. Here are some examples:
To ensure a clear image in the centre, photographers often combine the zoom burst with flash, using slow sync flash to fire extra light at the beginning or end of the exposure to freeze the subject. This can work extremely well in night-time city shots when you have streetlights to help emphasise the zoom effect. At the other end of the scale, zooming can be used to create extreme focus effects, particularly for macro shots. Even at high f-stops, it is difficult to capture a depth of field of more than a few centimetres of in close-up images. Here I wanted to explore a few ways in which I could experiment with the way I could take future shoots and so found walking around town at night was one of the best ways to do so. These were my outcomes:
Once I’d experimented a little with the technique I decided to have a go at photographing the lights in tunnels and on car as they seemed to produce the best outcomes regarding variety of composition and brightness. When taking the images I really enjoyed taking into consideration a new style of composition not previously used where block lights could be overlapped or on their own. Here are three of my favourite outcomes from the experimental shoot:
What I liked about this image was the use of the mainly blue lighting fading out as it progressed through the photo. For me this effect created a great sense of aestheticism as it highlighted the dirt of the window it was taken from, this for me added extra texture to the image whilst also making use of the negative space so that it would not be predominantly black and leave the product as a bit of an eye sore. The shades of blue present within I found to cast an ambient light throughout, with the primary light source becoming the main focal point for viewers due to the sequence of other lights deriving from it.
Here I particularly liked the variety of different colours present which make use of the black backdrop which separates each light so that they become a sort of structured shape. Looking at the blues, whites and greys they all compliment each other so that they do not become overpowering, with the occasional different colour such as red or orange breaking up the pattern and adding more depth to the overall outcome. For me the blackness of the top right corner brings together the whole image due to how it adds a space and stops the continuous lights from overpowering the entire piece.
Finally what drew me to this image was the appearance of murky greens, reds and yellows which add a sense of eeriness to the photograph. These darker colours are complimented by the surrounding black which envelops each light merging them into the next whilst the sequence snakes off image. I particularly found the implementation of the reds and oranges to be of great effect due to how the prevent the mainly greens and yellows from taking over and making the image overall quite dull.
Overall for me this experimentation was useful as it broadened my stance regarding photography and the styles and techniques that could be used to take new and original perspectives of my surrounding environment. For a future reference I could combine certain bokeh images together to form a more abstract result combining patterns from both so that they merge and create something almost alien like.
