Focus on Focus – Mini Hand Shoot 2

Here is another example of one of the hands that I photographed. I used a portrait lens and because I haven't used a portrait lens before I have just had to experiment with it. The autofocus was a bit strange on this camera so I had to shift between auto and manual focus throughout this shoot. I really liked the focused photos in this photo and like the depth given by the unfocused background.

This is my contact sheet with the few images I have selected to edit.

Green circle - An image I would like to further use.

Red cross - An image I would not like to use.

Red F - The image is out of focus.

Red shading - The part of the image I would like to crop out.

Yellow question mark: An image I am unsure whether to edit or not.

Here are my final images:

I manipulated these images using adobe lightroom. For the first image, I applied a black and white preset, reduced the exposure and highlights. I then slightly increased the clarity and shadows of the image.

For the second image, I slightly increased the clarity and shadows of the image, then I lowered the exposure and highlights until I thought that the image was aesthetically pleasing I think the reduction in background highlights brought more attention to the focused hands.

Focus on Focus Mini Hand Shoot 1

Here is one example of one of the hands that I photographed. I used a portrait lens and because I haven't used a portrait lens before I have just had to experiment with it. The autofocus was a bit strange on this camera so I had to shift between auto and manual focus throughout this shoot. I really liked the focused photos in this photo and like the depth given by the unfocused background.

This is my contact sheet with the few images I have selected to edit.

Green circle - An image I would like to further use.

Red cross - An image I would not like to use.

Red F - The image is out of focus.

Red shading - The part of the image I would like to crop out.

Here is my final edited image:

I used adobe lightroom to manipulate this image. I heightened the contrast and clarity of this photo, slightly reduced the exposure and applied a black and white preset. I chose to apply a black and white preset because I believe it draws more attention to the hands' characteristics like the wrinkles and nails.

 

Photoshop Task

The first photo was taken with a very low aperture and so that only the closest point of the paper was in focus and I used a large piece of back paper to make it look like there is no background and it is infinite.

Then I have made the picture black and white and cropped it slightly.

Then I highlighted the ball with the marquee tool then with ctrl-j I duplicated the layer and then using ctrl-t I transformed the layer and then dragged the second layer down so tat it looks like a reflection.

Photoshop experiments

This is the original photo which I took a few weeks ago in Germany. The photo consists of blurred rain drops on the car window in the foreground, and trees in the background which are in-focus.
I edited the light levels, slightly increased the contrast, and applied a blue colour filter to the photo. This helps bring out the detail in the trees, as well as making the clouds in the background visible due to more contrast.
This is the first final image. I have kept it looking as natural as possible to keep the cool tone of the photo.
This is an alternative version of the photo, I have applied a black & white filter, and increased the brightness and contrast slightly as applying the filter made the photo dark and hard to see.
To get the final photo I have further increased the brightness and exposure, this helps make all the details in the photo visible, as well as making the rain drops in the foreground less prominent, which makes the angled rain in the middle-ground visible and diverts attention to the pine trees.
This is a variation of the black & white edit of the same pine tree photo. Here I have lowered the offset which makes the photo really dark and creates the effect of the photo being taken at night. I have also increased the exposure slightly and raised the gamma correction.
This is my favourite edit of the lot that I have done of this photo. The clouds in the background are really clear and only the outline of the trees is visible. The rest of the trees being solid black makes the whole photo stand out more as there are less distractions around the edges. The rain drops still being visible and bright help give the photo depth as the light brings contrast to the mostly dark photo.

New Objectivity – Research and moodboard

The new objectivity was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920’s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was invented by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the Kunsthalle in Mannheim, who used it as the title of an art exhibition staged in 1925 to showcase artists who were working in a post-expressionist spirit. These artists included; Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad and Jeanne Mammen.

Although principally describing a tendency in German painting, the term took a life of its own and came to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar, Germany as well as the art, literature, music and architecture created to adapt to it.

Albert Renger-Patzsch was a German photographer associated with the New Objectivity. Renger-Patzsch was born in Würzburg, Germany and began making photographs by the age of 12.                        In it’s sharply focused an matter of fact style of his work exemplifies the aesthetic of the New Objectivity movement that flourished in the arts of Germany.

In this topic of New objectivity I started focussing on Albert Renger-Patzsch, this is because of his take on New objectivity. He mainly takes photos of inanimate objects such as; Plants, Buildings, roads and glasses, but has also taken photos of snakes. He then uses the expulsion of colour from his work to give the atmosphere an eerie and spooky feeling, this creates a dramatic feeling within the person looking at the photo.

I also like his work as it rejects the sentimentality and idealism of a previous generation emerged as a tendency in German art. Renger-Patzsch’s work demonstrates a his sustained interest in the camera’s relationship to the beauty and complexity of the modern world.

Here are some of my favourite photos of examples of New Objectivity.

New Objectivity – Research

The new objectivity was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920’s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was invented by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the Kunsthalle in Mannheim, who used it as the title of an art exhibition staged in 1925 to showcase artists who were working in a post-expressionist spirit. These artists included; Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad and Jeanne Mammen.

Although prinicpally describing a tendency in German painting, the term took a life of its own and came to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar, Germany as well as the art, literature, music and architecture created to adapt to it.

Albert Renger-Patzsch was a German photographer associated with the New Objectivity. Renger-Patzsch was born in Würzburg, Germany and began making photographs by the age of 12.                        In it’s sharply focused an matter of fact style of his work exemplifies the aesthetic of the New Objectivity movement that flourished in the arts of Germany.

I like this work of Albert Renger-Patzsch as it creates a feeling of loneliness or spookiness with the use of Black and White. I really like the building photo as it is a modern architectural structure but the black and white makes it seem a lot older, this is the amazing thing with photography.

I also like his work as it rejects the sentimentality and idealism of a previous generation emerged as a tendency in German art. Renger-Patzsch’s work demonstrates a his sustained interest in the camera’s relationship to the beauty and complexity of the modern world.

Using Photoshop to edit photos

For my first edited photo on Photoshop, I carefully selected an image which I took as part of my abstract photography piece,  in this instance it was a thin pipe on a gravel like textured cycle track.

Then I made the background into Black and white, which didn’t , make too much of a difference as the colours weren’t extravagant in the first place, but I did this in order to bring out the colour in the center pipe.

Then using a mask layer I then coloured inside the tube being very careful not to bring out colours from the background. I personally find this went well for my first attempt as the black and white, compared to the subtle and gentle colours contrasts really well.

And that is my final product !

Go see !!! Exhibition : Lewis Bush “Trading Zones” !!!

Lewis Bush (Archisle Artist in Residence 2018) is now exhibiting his recent work in response to Jersey’s financial past, present and future…

Please make the effort to go and visit a unique and well-researched show by a young, up and coming photographer and photo-book maker…

LINK TO LEWIS BUSH WEBSITE

MORE HERE

Photoshop Experimentation

EXPERIMENTING

This lesson I experimented with using Photoshop and a variety of different tools which altered the already abstract images to make them even more abstract. In each image I played around with changing the color balance and changing the hues of photos. I also explored using the magnetic lasso tool and what its capabilities it has in Photoshop. I used the crop tool in order to give interesting perspectives and cropping away unnecessary parts that did not add to the photo or disturbed it.

The end result of experimenting with Photoshop was a variety of very abstract and interesting photos which have become more unique and distinctive. They took the photos from being average to something that is more worth while looking at.

my first experimental photo, i only played around with the concept of changing the color hue and saturation, highlights and shadows, and exposure.
in this photo i changed the hue of the photo to a very warm pink and I also shifted the color balance to magenta.
This was my final photo I edited and changed. Here i experimented more with layers and adding extra abstract features to the photo.
Stage 1, cropping and adjusting tilt
Stage 2, shifting the color balance to pink on the photo and also increasing the exposure in order to brighten the colors.
Stage 3, using the magnetic lasso tool in order to trace around the painting and move it upwards. I added a bright orange into the backdrop which appears as I selected and moved the painting layer.