Ralph Eugene Meatyard was an american Photographer and optician. He bought a camera in 1950 after the birth of his first child and 4 years later, he had joined the Lexington camera club where photographer Van Deren Coke encouraged him to explore abstract elements of photography. Many of Meatyard’s early photographs focused on his family wearing masks, but personally I find his abstract work more appealing. Many of these pictures involved using a very shallow focus, to the extent where some of the people he photographed were so distorted that they no longer looked human. The Picture Below is From his exhibition called ‘No-Focus’.
He also photographed nature with a shallow focus, with some pictures showing the detail on twig branches, while others contain blurred images of sunlight piercing through tree leaves, creating several circles of light. even though both of these images contain similar content in terms of subject matter, the outcome is very different. The images Below are from another of Meatyard’s exhibitions called ‘Zen Twigs’.
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Final Images
A lot of my images were especially inspired by Meatyard’s No-Focus. I wanted to create the same distorted images of people that Meatyard explored, and I achieved this with varying degrees of success. I also wanted to put an emphasis on the person in the shot, so for the most part, i have only chosen to have one subject in the center of the photograph. This helps achieve a symmetrical style to the photo, drawing the viewers eye to the center. This is especially true in the final image I have chosen below.
I also wanted to focus on Meatyard’s Outdoor images of nature. I wanted to emphasize the circles of light that Meatyard shows in his picture. As well as leaves and sunlight, i also wanted to make sure i could encapsulate Meatyard’s pictures of ‘Zen Twigs’ By using a shallow focus to blur the background behind the images. The images I have chosen below, represent these two different styles.
