Minimalism is a style employed by many 20th Century artists, using a minimum amount of components such as colour, shape, line and texture. Within the art world it is considered an extremely subjective concept, leaving interpretation and meaning up to the viewers perception of the work.
'A classification according to general type.' A typology consists of a collection of a single type or class of photographs, with the collection itself being more important than the individual components.
Karl Blossfeldt was a German photographer who was born in 1865, he is best known for his close-up photographs of plants and living things which he used home-made cameras to take that could sometimes magnify a subject to thirty times its size which allowed him to capture optimum detail of plants and living things.
Brenda and Hilla Becher were a married couple who worked as German conceptual artists and photographers as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of industrial buildings and structures
The focal length of your lens essentially determines how zoomed in your photos are, the higher the number, the more zoomed your lens will be and the lower the number the less zoomed tour lens will be.
The rule of thirds is a technique that can be used in your photography to improve the composition of your photos. Using the rule of thirds means that the subject isn't centered in the image, it also means that the main focus points of the image meet up along the lines, for example in the image below the horizon approximately meets the top line of the grid and the island in the distance meets up with the cross of the lines in the corner and the boat meets up with the grid on either end of the boat, this use of the rule of thirds create an interesting composition in the photo.
Google definition of depth of field - 'The distance between the nearest and the furthest objects giving a focused image.' The smaller the area of focus is the shallower the depth of field and the bigger the area of focus is the deeper the depth of field, these factors are controlled by the aperture of the camera, a large aperture creates a shallow depth of field meaning that fewer things are in focus, and a small aperture creates a deep depth of field meaning more things are in focus.
Below are some of my experiments using aperture to create different depths of field.
Keld Helmer-Petersen was a Danish photographer, born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1920, he achieved his international breakthrough in 1948 when he published 122 Farvefotografier/122 Colour Photographs, a collection of experiments with shapes inspired by Albert Renger-Patzsch. Below are some examples of his work.
Below are some experiments that I did with my work inspired by Keld Helmer Petersen, to achieve this style of photo i used Photoshop, I began by firstly cropping the images to get rid of any negative space and improve the composition of my photos, i then used the threshold tool to make the images only two tones of white and black.
This image is taken from Robert Frank's book 'The Americans' which focuses on post war American photography and society at that time. This image named, 'Trolly' which was taken in New Orleans, 1955 focuses on the citizens of New Orleans. The subject of the photo, the people, is made clear from the composition and framing in the photo, Frank's has made a deliberate choice to crop out any other surrounding objects that may distract from the subject, another factor is the way that the windows frame each of the intended subjects which makes them more focused, the use of the rule of thirds also creates an interesting composition. At a first glance the photo seems as if it is just showing people going about their every day lives, but there is much more of an intention than that, during the 1950's there was a clear racial segregation between white and black, this is shown through the seating on the trolly, with the white people at the front and the black people at the back and I think that it was Frank's intention to show this. Frank's has used a fast shutter speed to capture all of the detail and to create a clear image of the people and trolly, the image is also has a high contrast and deep depth of field both of which add to the atmosphere of the photo.
The zone system was a technique that was created by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer in the 1930's, the technique can be help determine the correct exposure for any lighting conditions that you may encounter when taking photographs. The zone system consists of 11 different zones ranging from 0, pure white tones, to 10, pure black tone.
Original image
Edits using zone system
On Wednesday the 19th of September we visited the CCA gallery in St Helier to see some work by photographers Tanja Deman and Jonny Briggs.
http://www.jonnybriggs.com/ "In search of lost parts of my childhood I try to think outside the reality I was socialised into and create new ones with my parents and self." Jonny talked us through each of his pieces, the impression that his work gives is that he is trying to question what we actually know and is trying to question perception often politically/war related. Here are a few examples of his work.
http://www.tanja-deman.com Tanja Deman's art is inspired by her interest in the perception of space and her relationship to nature. Here are a few examples of her work.
