Below are some of John Baldessari’s photographs
I was inspired by John Baldessari to create conceptual art by playing. I experimented with playful objects with my peers.
Taking photos on a fast shutter speed (1/250-500) allowed me to take photographs of the ball coming down after being thrown in the air, without any blurs and maintaining it in focus. I then turned these quick snap into a GIF as an experimentation method.
Hiroshi Sugimoto born 23 February 1948) is a Japanese photographer and architect. He leads the Tokyo-based architectural firm New Material Research Laboratory.
Hiroshi Sugimoto was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. He reportedly took his earliest photographs in high school, photographing film footage of Audrey Hepburn as it played in a movie theater. In 1970, Sugimoto studied politics and sociology at Rikkyō University in Tokyo. In 1974, he retrained as an artist and received his BFA in Fine Arts at the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California. Afterwards, Sugimoto settled in New York City. He soon started working as a dealer of Japanese antiquities in Soho.
This photo has been taken using natural lighting while being carefully positioned in order so that the horizon in the middle of the photograph. This taken rule of thirds seems to have been considered in terms of the shading differences in the background and foreground. There is a large tonal range of grey, where there is a gradual shade change, from the darkest point along the bottom of the image and the lightest being at the top. There is a very short depth of field considering that the photo is mostly blurred from the fog. However the foreground of the image is the only part to be in focus and where textures can be seen from the small ripples in the sea, although it is very still. The dark, grey/blue tones bring a cold temperature to the photograph along with the low light sensitivity where we can just about see the horizon in the middle of the image. Although the image is blurred and obscure there are no rounded or curved shapes. Everything is very straight but there are no outlines.
Sugimoto’s image brings a sense of romanticism in their evocation of landscape, related to Ansel Adam’s approaches to photography. This image shows how he sees nature. Sugimoto has said: ‘When I look at nature I see the artificiality behind it. Even though the seascape is the least changed part of nature, population and the resulting pollution have made nature into something artificial’.
David Prentice was born in Solihull, England in 1936 and died 2014. Prentice lived and worked in Malvern, Worcestershire, married to the quilt artist, Dinah Prentice. He was an English artist and former art teacher. In 1964, he was one of the four founders of Birmingham Ikon Gallery. Prentice taught at the Faculty of Birmingham Polytechnic between 1971 and 1986, initially in charge the experimental workshop, and has been a visiting artist at Trent Polytechnic, the University of Nottingham, the Ruskin School and the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. Prentice held solo exhibitions at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artistsin 1961 and 1963, and in the same year as the second featured in the Four Letter Art exhibition organised by Trevor Denning. Prentice has since held over 40 solo exhibitions.
The image of David Prentice “Above Llanberis Lake” uses a variety of blue and green shades. His work shows strong tone to create the shape of the lake and the valley that surrounds the area, this is supported by his use of shadows and light in his work. His uses the valley to tunnel the viewer’s eye to the horizon of the painting, this is where the main change in colour (from green to the blue, foreground to background) and the change in lighting is the strongest and most noticeable. The viewer’s eye is most drawn towards where the light emerges from the clouds as this is the lightest area of the painting which is followed through the sun rays.
Repetition is the action of repeating something which has already been done or the recurrence of an action or event. In photography terms, repetition is closely linked with typologies. I was inspired by Bernd and Hilla Becher who looked at different but similar buildings in order to produce a repeated style of images and present them in the same way.
My inspiration for these photographs sprung when looking at Bernd and Hilla Bercher. My idea was to take photos of something simple and used on a daily basis that most people carry around. This experiment became more interesting than what I anticipated as I noticed that each key almost showed each owners personality.
I captured these simple images of keys on a white background of every student in my class to show the similarities (uniqueness) and variations of colours and styles.
After experimenting with different ways of presenting, I decided to produce a GIF of all the images to show the sequence of images and how similar each one is, however, different in terms of style and personality.
Below are the images that I used to construct a GIF. These images are laid out in a typology form as a response to the artist above.
I used Adobe Photoshop to convert these series of images into the GIF shown above. Below is a quick step to step tutorial on how I created this GIF.
My idea for this project sprung whilst analysing the exam spectrum. Variations and similarities is a very broad subject and can be explored in different ways. From this, I researched the deeper meanings behind these words and how they are used in order to get a deeper understanding.
Variations refers to a change or difference in conditions usually within certain limits. It is more simply: a different or distinct version of something. After a lot of research I discovered that there are different types of meanings for the word, variation. The biology term of variation refers to the occurrence of an organism in more than one distinct colour or form. This is called genetic variations and are the differences in DNA or genes between each individual being. I found this very interesting to explore as everybody is similar as we all have genes, are made up of the same organs and our own DNA but no individual has the same exact genes as we all vary from one another. Variations in terms of people, can be identified as the differences among the individual of the same species.
When researching similarities, I found that this word also used humans and biology as an example. It describes this word as being an aspect, trait or features that could meant the “the similarities between people of different nationalities”. Overall it simply means, the state or fact that makes things comparable.
I found it very interesting to see how both words separately can link to the same this, humans, and therefore I have decided to base this project on life while also using it to show that we are all similar no matter our religion, race, ethnicity, authority, etc.
Here is a mood board of what I plan to achieve in my portraits using studio lighting only.
