Romanticism is an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 1700s and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual’s expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules.
https://www.nephotographyguild.com/2018/01/romanticism-landscape-photographer/
Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement which took place in Europe between the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. It was a break from the guiding principles of the ‘Enlightenment’ (which established reason as the foundation of all knowledge) the Romantic Movement emphasised the importance of emotional sensitivity and individual subjectivity. For the Romantics, imagination, rather than reason, was the most important creative faculty.
below are some examples of the first paintings in the theme of ‘romanticism’ which set the basis for modern-day romanticism.
Who was Fay Godwin?
Fay Godwin was renowned for her black and white landscape photographs of the British countryside and coast. She also produced a series of portraits of literary figures, with many of them being collaborated in her 1979 book ‘Remains of Elmet’.
Fay Godwin had no training when it came to photography, but rather became interested in it from photographs of her families snaps. From there she went on to produced portraits of well-known writers, photographing nearly every significant literacy figure in the 1970s and 1980s within England.
Later in the years her love of walking led to the inspiration to pursue landscape photography. She often photographed isolated, remote areas of the British landscape and producing many pastoral scenes as well as contrasting urban landscapes. Godwin became president of the Ramblers Association from 1987 to 1990, where she became well-known for her work as an environmentalist.
In 1987 Godwin was awarded a major Arts Council Bursary to enable her to continue her landscape work in distant parts of Scotland. Her work soon started to appear in many public and private collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, The British Council, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and many more. Originally her work began a world tour by the British Council, but later became a Fellow of the National Museum of Photography and in 1990 received an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society.
Some of her work can be seen below:
As seen above Godwin focuses on very much of what is normal in the landscape, however she tends to use the weather to create more dramatic images to what would usually be seen, such as the clouds to create contrast on the land.
Contact Sheet
Best Images from the shoot
Ansel Adams (1902 – 1984) was an American photographer and environmentalist. His photos of the American West are often seen on calendars, photos and books. Adams founded the photography group ‘Group f/64’. He was part of the romanticism movement and produced lots of striking landscape photographs in black and white, often involving a pathway of some sort and interesting weather.
This photograph was taken using natural daylight with the clouds blocking the harsh sun from the camera, resulting in dramatic contrast between the mountains and the river being brought into the photograph. It appears that a wide angle lens was used to take this photograph as this is what was typically used by the romantics to capture landscape photographs. It looks like a deep depth of field was used as the whole of the photograph is sharp and in focus. A shutter speed of 1/60 – 1/150 was possibly used for this photograph due to no motion blurs being in the photograph. A low/medium ISO appears to have been used as the photograph is not grainy and is quite dark, which will have been intended. There is lots of texture in the photograph, from the grassy bank to the flowing river. It seems to be quite a cold and isolated photograph as there are no signs of civilization around.
There is no colour in this photograph, which allows the viewer to focus on the range of tones, textures and shapes in the photograph rather than the colour. There is a wide tonal range in the photograph ranging from the dark silhouettes of the mountains to the white reflection of the river. It is quite a 3D photograph due to the trees in the foreground and the river running throughout the photograph, leading the viewers eyes from the trees in the foreground all the way to the mountains in the background. There is no rule of thirds used in this photograph, to me this is because Adams is trying to show that it is natural and nothing is set up.
Adams was a big part of the romantic movement in the late 1700’s, typically the romantics would photograph striking black and white landscapes with the idea that there is a deeper meaning than what appears behind everything. Romanticism was a rejection of the Enlightenment movement which took emotion out of writing and art, Romanticism wanted to challenge this by depicting emotions such as horror and untamed nature.
I think that in this photograph, Adams was trying to emphasise the natural beauty of the environment and to show that no editing was needed on the image, it is as it appears. He is trying to challenge the Enlightenment movement by doing this.
Romanticism - was an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. In photography, a romantic landscape's purpose is to evoke strong feelings of mainly aw and rapture. The aim is capturing an image that celebrates nature and or shows strong feelings and emotions through weather and landscape that convey exaggerated beauty and power. https://www.artlimited.net/image/en/635966Photoshoot - my response to Romanticism didn't go to plan. I tried to take sea landscapes with a slow shutter speed without a tripod which led to my images to be shaky and blurry combined with the natural light getting darker and darker which also led to my photos being under or over exposed. Personally I don't like the aesthetic of Romanticism which didn't help for me to be inspired by any particular artist or photograph.
However, with the blurred images I had, I managed to create a response to the photographer Idris Khan who layers on photographs to get the desired effect of an out of focus image that almost looks like a pencil sketch.
Idris Khan With the few pictures I managed to salvage a fairly okay image in response to Idris Khan of the oil tower. I used Photoshop to layer on the different photographs and reduce the opacity so each image was visible in one photograph. I then edited it to black and white like Khan's work.
The word urban refers to a city or a town. When we combine them, urban landscape refers to images that capture scenes within a city or town that can be vast. For example; a cityscape or shot of the city from above the city.
