Overall  I think that both images are very similar in looks and skills. Both of these images where taken using the natural daylight of the sun and during golden hour,which has created an effect that has increased the overall saturation and vibrancy of the colours. The images both have a similar colour palette, blue being the main colour. The two images could be compared to what house and the way that people live like in the US compared to the Uk. Conceptually the Eggleston’s image could be used to represents the ideas that are the main images for Americans, as the TV antenna in the center of the frame, where as my image has a chimney in the center of the frame, which could signify that in the UK people care more about coming around a fire as a family more than watching the Tv where as in the us it could be the other way. The images are also very similar in relation of the colour palette of the images, My image has more earthly tones where as Eggleston’s has more white and brighter colours. But I think that it is quite evident to see the similarities between the pieces and that the techniques that where used by William Eggleston I have been able to transfer over to my work.

The first thing that I did when i began to edit my images was to increase the overall brightness, as i wanted the colour of the sky to stand out. I also then increased the levels of saturation to makes the colours in the images stand out more. A  in abstract images the colours are one of the main stand out features

I then selected the spot healing brush tool. as I wanted the remove the bushes at the bottom of the frame, by doing this the image the mage a overall minimalist look too it which is what I wanted to achieve.

Finally I copped the image as there was natural line that had been formed and by cropping the image, it made the overall look of the image more aesthetically pleasing which is what i have wanted to achieve, as when studying Grant Hamilton this was an aspect of his work that I wanted to incorporate into my work.

Experimentation

Image I am planning on replicating.

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My interpretations

Further Experimentation / Black and white

Creating an image in the style of Johnathan Ducruix

Original image

To begin with, I cropped the image as the chosen image had too much unnecessary background space.

Once cropped, I used the healing tool to remove the facial features.

Once I was happy with the image I then moved on to changing the brightness and contrast and then converting it into black and white for further experimentation.

Final image – Colour

Further Experimentation final image – Black and White

Photo shoot Plan

Genre / Artist – Surrealism

Concept – Capture images to reflect a sense of secrecy and display the environmental issues going on which people are unaware of, as well as using codes to portray this.

Location – Studio for portrait images and urban areas for the backdrops.

Shot type – Landscape and portraits with varied angle dependent on subject matter

Lighting – Natural Lighting for landscape shots and spot lights and reflectors for the studio portrait images.

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Edits (Before Lightroom)

Edits (After Lightroom)

Analysis

I believe these edits are strong in reflecting a sense of humanity’s destruction to the earth. I have used surrealism to emphasize the effects of global warming in which we inevitably are causing which contrasts with the political ideas from Donald Trump in which he believes climate change is not happening. These images therefore can be viewed as a response to Donald Trumps thoughts on climate change or simply a creative surrealist approach in raising awareness for humanities destruction on earth.

These image are split into 3 main sections, the top middle and bottom. The middle part is the main focus which contains the main subjects, thus being the person and the surface of the water. Where as the top and bottom contain some interesting textures and tones, this is not what stands out and catches the viewers eye immediately. There is a definite contrast within this image, with the black and whites exaggerated through the use of high clarity to create a more intense vibe. All the combined images have been taken using natural light which I believe helps to convey this idea that one day the world will look like this, and it will be ‘natural’.

These photos were taken in 2018, a time period at which global warming has been at its worst. Everyday more greenhouse gases are being let free into the air contributing to increasing temperatures and rising sea levels across earth. It is a known fact that sea levels are rising and it is as a result of humans. These images reflect this and bring awareness to these disasters through the use of exaggeration and surrealism that will get the viewers thinking about what life will be like if we continue to contribute to global warming in this way. It makes viewers consider social change in order to protect the environment. The images can also be viewed as a political response to Donald Trump saying that ‘climate change isn’t happening’.

In both images I have ensured to incorporate an emotional response to these environmental impacts that us humans have caused. Clearly in both images the persons face has been covered, in one she is hiding behind a mirror and in the other she has a bag over her head. This can connote that the person is ashamed that she has been part of the society that has contributed and lead to this disaster.

William Eggleston born 1939 is an American Photographer who is highly credited for the population of colour photography as a legitimate artistic medium to be displayed in art galleries
.From an early age, he was also drawn to visual media, and reportedly enjoyed buying postcards and cutting out pictures from magazines.ggleston’s early photographic efforts were inspired by the work of Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank, and by French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson’s book, The Decisive Moment. Eggleston later recalled that the book was “the first serious book I found, from many awful books…I didn’t understand it a bit, and then it sank in, and I realized, my God, this is a great one.”^[1] First photographing in black-and-white, Eggleston began experimenting with color in 1965 and 1966 after being introduced to the medium by William Christenberry. Color transparency film became his dominant medium in the later 1960s. Eggleston’s development as a photographer seems to have taken place in relative isolation from other artists.

Image Analysis

In this image Eggelstion has used the natural day light to highlight this image, could have been taken during the ;golden hour’ as the overall image was warm orange to which can normally only be found during these hours. The shadows that have been created due to the placement of the sun have help to create contrast within the image. A deep depth of field looks like it has been used as the whole of the image is in focus .A fast shutter speed would have been used so large amount of light wouldn’t be able to get into he camera and make the image too-overexposed. The colour palette is made up of bright and pastel colors such as pink,yellow,blue and grey theses colour created a bright and playful tone for the image. The image is entitled ‘Untilted’ from his project The Democratic Forest 1983

This final edit has been crafted through inspiration taken from all of the artists I have looked into. Most of all Thomas Barbey, who’s work is shown at the top. The main inspiration point i have taken from Barbey’s work is the conceptual ideas that he portrays through his cleverly manipulated photos. The generic ideas behind his photos are that humans are over ruling the world and recklessly destroying it with unnecessary man made features. He does this by exaggerating the effects we are having and combines two images to do so. In this case he has taken, what appears to be someones house corridor and put the golden gate bridge going through it. The cars on the road are clear indications of humans, and that it is us destroying earth. Similarly I have taken a very fantasy landscape image and merged train tracks into the scape to give a sense of destruction. Also I have added a pair of shoes into the photo to show the presence of humans.

The framing, composition and editing style was inspired mostly from Tommy Ingberg. Keeping a great deal of depth within the image, just like Tommy Ingbergs, allows for a sense of secrecy of what lies at the end of the tracks. It also helps to guide the viewer down the picture and be taken on the journey that would be taken by the people who made the tracks and obviously the train that drives down them. It also helps to direct the viewer up into the horizon and then the fantasised sky. The blown out horizon was influenced by Tommy Ingberg however the sky as a whole contrasts with what Ingeberg usually would do. Ingbergs photos usually have a rather aggressive sky with high contrast and menacing clouds, however I have gone for a more tranquil vibe to enhance the beauty of our earth and give this fantasy feeling, along with the enlarged moon. Furthermore, Tommy inberg also has this use of leading lines, consistently through his work as well as positioning his main subject in the middle of his frame, just like i have also done.

The sky, and colouring of this picture in general, was inspired by my first photographer i looked at which is Micheal Steric. There are direct links between the colouring/lighting in his images and my edit. He usually goes for saturated, vibrant feels to enhance the beauty of our world and give a positive view on earth. I believe this is the exact effect that the lighting and colour scheme have in my work and as a whole allow the consumer to be positively influenced that earth is a beautiful place. I have furthered my inspiration from Micheal steric and edited my image to become more fantasised by adding in a large moon and creating interesting reflections from it.

Grant Hamiltion

http://sxseventy.com/sxseventy/Home.html

Grant Hamilton  shoots in a way that almost  focuses on color, and he only shoots Polaroid film .Before he bought his first Polaroid camera in 2006 he has been shooting abstract, geometric and minimalist photos with a digital camera. He has a keen eye for hidden color, shape, and form in everyday life, and this itself is the subject he chooses to photograph most often. Because of the way in which he shoots, there is no room for error. There are no negatives, no memory cards, and no post-processing. Each image is exactly as he saw it in real life, and there’s a sense of honesty and beauty to that. Since there are only ten images in each film pack, he has to examine each subject with meticulous detail before taking the shot. More time is taken to consider shape, form, light, color, and subject. His photographs range from the corner of a motel sign to balloons on a ceiling to the words on a neon sign , no subject is left untouched.

“Although I felt like I was onto something, those images seemed sterile and lacked soul. I was introduced to Polaroid images through the internet and thought that the imperfections and characteristic colors perfectly suited the types of subjects I was interested in.Through my photos, I strive to find beauty in the mundane. It is hard to describe to passers-by why, exactly, I am photographing the side of a bus or standing on a ladder on the side of a road, trying to reach a sign. Most of the time, however, people will see the beauty that I am seeing and will smile. Often they will remark that they never noticed that before.”

This image is called Rugby and way taken in Denver in 2008. The image was taken on a SX-70 film Polaroid film. I was inspired by this image, as Grant would go out into everyday environments and find places where colour could be taken out of content and presented in a way that is unique and different this image.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

https://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/

Hiroshi Sugimoto was born in 1948 in Tokyo. He took his earliest photographs in high school, photographing film footage of Audrey Hepburn as it played in a movie theater. After receiving a BA from Saint Paul’s University in Tokyo in 1970, he traveled west, first encountering communist countries such as the Soviet Union and Poland, and later Western Europe.Through different bodies of work he has shown many different interests, including minimalistic dioramas, wax portraits and photographing early photographic negatives. His photography tends to blur the lines between painting, illustration, photography, and architecture. From seascapes to natural history dioramas, there’s something about Sugimoto’s photographs that resonates with viewers. Like Kenna, Sugimoto only photographs in black and white. He prints all of his images himself with a great understanding of silver print, creating images with unbelievably beautiful tones of black, white and gray.

I have decided to refine down on my ideas for the overall course of my ideas for this project, I have been inspired by the work of minimalist photographers, such as Micheal Kenna. When looking back at the image that I had taken for the codes photo-shoot, i felt overall more satisfied when looking at them and that I could take that idea further on and develop it greater that what i could  do with the other ideas i have had previously. So to carry on this project i have decided to look at minimalism and abstract photography and have that as the basis of my project and eventually final ideas.

Minimalism Photography

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. Minimalism emerged in the late 50′s when artists such as Frank Stella, whose Black Paintings were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1959, began to turn away from the gestural art of the previous generation

Abstract Photography

Abstract photography, also known as non-objective, experimental, conceptual or concrete photography, is a means of depicting a visual image that does not have an immediate association with the object world and that has been created through the use of photographic equipment, processes or materials. An abstract photograph may isolate a fragment of a natural scene in order to remove its inherent context from the viewer, it may be purposely staged to create a seemingly unreal appearance from real objects, or it may involve the use of color, light, shadow, texture, shape and/or form to convey a feeling, sensation or impression. The image may be produced using traditional photographic equipment like a camera, darkroom or computer, or it may be created without using a camera by directly manipulating film, paper or other photographic media, including digital presentations

To experiment with the different way secrets can be interpreted, I plan to explore the different reflections that can be made and the contrasting images can be made from this.

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Best Images from the shoot