Project Evaluation – Abstract Photography

In this project I have been able to explore into the concept of abstract photography. I have looked at a variety of artists, who use multiple editing and camera skills, allowing me to gain a greater depth into the theme of abstract photography. I have captured a range of subjects, from paper to twigs, allowing to experiment with the formal elements which play an active role in abstract photography. I have acquired many camera skills, from controlling the shutter speed, ISO, White Balance and Depth of Field. I feel that I have successfully demonstrated these skills through my photo shoots, which have been inspired by artists that I previously researched.

Here is a collection of all of the photographs I have captured and edited throughout this project. It shows the different camera skills I have obtained, editing skills and the overall theme of abstraction. These photographs I believe to be my top images as they are sharp, present formal elements clearly and again successfully show the theme of abstract photography. The images have been selected from every photo shoot I conducted which have been inspired by artists, which I researched.

Final Images – Abstract Photography

Mind Map:

 

Mood Board:

Franco Fontana:

Franco Fontana is an Italian photographer born in Modena, on December, 9th, 1933. Although he is best known for his abstract colour landscapes, he has also takenmultiple images of colourful buildings. He is known as the inventor of the photographic line referred to as concept of line. Fontana plays with the concept of reality and unreality. Fontana views that our built world is more than buildings, surfaces, objects and colors. Fontana engages with the symphony of relationships that is constantly being rewritten between the physical elements of the urban landscape. 

Fontana uses natural lighting such as daylight in his images, and uses the vast amount of colours and shadows to contast eachother. Fontana mainy uses a 35mm camera on location as he claimed that the world was his studio. In Fontana's landscape images he uses a high light sensitivity which creates a grainy image, however, in his urban landscape images of buildings he appears to use a lower light sensitivity because the images are a lot less grainy. Fontana plays with both warm and cool temperatures in his images, constantly creating a contrast. 

Colour and line are the main features of Fontana's work that makes it so striking and unique. The reoccuring theme of line runs through his work, creating unique and distorted impressions, creating the illusion that some of his images are photoshopped. The tone of his work varys, with both light and dark and light and shadows constantly featuring. There is usually some element of space in Fontanas images aswell, however he cleverly uses it as it is usually the sky, with the blue contrasting the colours of the image.

Action Plan:

1 x A3, 1 x A4, 1 x A5.
I was inspired by  Fontana's images of the urban landscape and also wanted to photograph images of colourful buildings. Location wise, I thought Gorey is the perfect location to shoot my photographs because along the pier there are many colourful buildings. I decided to use a 55-250mm lens to capture my images because I decided not to take close upimages, but images that are a bit further away, so therefore I thought that a 55-250mm lens would be more suitable. I also wanted to have atleast one of my images featuring the sky to create some negative space, however I would have to be careful and ensure I am not creating too much negative space. I also chose to shoot in the middle of the day so I wouldn't have to use artificial light.

The Photoshoot:

I did take images of the buildings at Gorey, however I was also interested in features such as the paint of the road, and the abstract shapes formed by palm trees. However, overall I prefer the images of the buildings. The I find the colours very striking and eyecatching.

Final Image Selection and Manipulation:

Out of all of the images I took, my favourites are of the buildings. Here are my three favourites:
A3:
For this image I used adobe lightroom to manipulate it. I increased the contrast, decreased the exposure, cropped the image and slightly increased the vibrancy of the image. This is my favourite image because I really like how detailed the pattern is of the buildings roof in the foreground, and the pale blue of the sky in the background. I also like the shaped introduced in this image, for instance the round curves created by the tiles, however the line introduced of the outline of the roof. I feel that the blue and green compliment eachother, and the natural daylight creates the shadow of the right side of the roof constasts the bright and vibrant colours of the left side of the roof. Line and pattern is a reoccuring theme of this image, which makes the image eyecatching and interesting.

A4: Once again I used adobe lightroom to manipulate my image. I increased the vibrance, contrast and slightly increased the clarity. I then decreased the exposure and hightlights. To take this image I used a fast shutter speed to ensure there was no shakiness. I also ensured that I used a low light intensity to make sure that the image won't be grainy. Colour is the main focus of this image, I especially like the magenta contrasting the green in this image. I also like the textural difference of the flowers to the smoothness of the building. There are also some elements of line in this image, seeming as the windows, borders and buildings feature line. 

A5: Adobe lightroom was used to manipulate this image. I decreased the exposure, increased the contract,decreased the shadows, increased the vibrancy and increased the highlights. I used the daylight as my natural lighting. I like the contrast between the dark olive green and the vibrant reds in this photograph. I also like how the busy and unique texture of the flowers contrast the smooth and regular texture of the house. the repetition of the three windows and three bushes of flowers add symmetry to the photograph, making it more aesthetically pleasing. The temperature of this photo is mainly warm because the red of both the roof and the flowers add a warm temperature and feel to the photograph. I used a fast shutter speed to make sure the image wasnt blurry or grainy.

Presentation of Final Images:

To present my images, I am going to place them onto foam board. My reasoning for this is because the foam board will give a slight 3D feel to the photos, and emphasis on the fact that the images are of buildings.

Final Images

These are the 4 final images which I have chosen to print out as my final images.

This will be my largest print out (sized at A3). I will seperate the print into the two images it consists of; then stick them onto one layer of white styrofoam board, then display them on a black A2 piece of card. This will make them literally pop out of the page more as they will be lifted approximately 1cm above the card. The whole display will also keep the black & white theme as the display elements are also black & white.This image will be printed out in A4 size. I will frame it in black A3 card to keep the dark theme of the photo. Howevr, I will bevel the edges around the photo so that the white underside of the card shows through, this will help distinguish the image from the frame without adding too much bright elements.

This photo will be printed out in A5 size. I will cut it into three elements (left, middle, right) to help show how the image consists of three clear parts. I will then layer them on different thicknesses of styrofoam board; left part will be 2 layers thick, middle right part will be 3 layers thick, and middle part will be 5 layers thick. These will then be stuck onto an A4 piece of black card with small gaps between each third of the photo.

This photo will also be printed at A5 size. For this photo I have decided to keep things simple by only sticking it onto one layer of styrofoam board.

Mirror Image / Kaleidoscope Techniques : Symmetry and Repetition

For this task I decided to try the kaleidoscope effect on Photoshop

This is how I did it in steps:

  1. Open a new image
  2. Open a new canvas, set the width and length to 8 (inches) and set the ppi to 300
  3. Press Ctrl R on your keyboard then take the ruler from the top and put it in the center
  4. Drag your image onto the new canvas and then size it till it fits on of the halves off your canvas
  5. Next, duplicate the layer, then drag it to the bottom half of the canvas
  6. Rotate the image 90 degrees
  7. Edit your photo to your liking
  8. Save as JPEG

I really like how this turned out and I would like to use this technique in upcoming projects.

 

 

Final Images For Abstract

These are my final three images that I have chosen for printing.

Close Up of a Rose

This is my A3 image- I picked this image as I liked the contrast between the different shapes and lines. I also like that the background is a light colour and the rose in the center is a dark blue.


Close up of a Plant

This is my A4 Image – I picked this image for the A4 as I thought it was a good example of an abstract photo due to the lines and different shapes formed in the image. Also because half the image is in focus whereas the other isn’t.


Eiffel Tower

This is my A5 image- I picked this image as I liked the contrast between the light colours of the Eiffel tower and the dark colours of the background.


 

Final Images

A3 image – I piked this image as my final images, as it is showing my Photoshop skills and also the contrasts between the light and dark colors along with the different shapes made by the clouds make it different and interesting to look at. By putting together two similar yet highly different images created an abstract image for me

A4 image – this image shows my camera skills in the sense of being able to use manual focus, to only focus on one small tiny part of the photo. Also I like the way this photo came out.

A5 image – again this images is showing my ability to focus on one primary subject in the photo. I like this photo because of the sharpness of the branch, and the highly blurred background created by using manual focus.

Uta Barth

Uta Barth is a contemporary photographer, who lived and worked in California. Her photographs weren’t about seeing  the sharpness and clear images within her photos. She made all the images and shapes within her photo merge together. As photography was mainly about pure visual and seeing what was in the photo, but Uta Barth changed this and her photographs were a sense of art and the viewers ultimately depend on the visual to understand the photo. Her work makes people view her art more than once to understand and appreciate the image.

At first glance this image seems to been taken in a bad way and very simple. But this image conspires with the human eye, to figure out what we are looking at. This photo was taken in a simplistic way, but almost amazes me that an image can look so interesting out of focus. The natural lighting in the images gives the walls a yellowy town to it, the colors in the images are very earth orientated, shades of browns and yellows. When looking at this image, it calls the attention of you to really figure out what the subject of this images would’ve been, its surrounding and the meaning of it. 

In all of Barth’s work there is little human interaction in them, this is because she says it removed the focus away from the entire photo, as people would play more attention to the clothes they are wearing and using people automatically gives them an identity due to the way they are looked and used in an image, which can overall change the whole subject of the image. The blur theory throughout her images it to make all the objects equal and universal, which meant viewers could pre-judge what they were seeing in front of them. Using a blur makes the viewer question what they are seeing. The story behind her images, it telling people that the world that surrounds us isn’t just a background and scenery, it is equal to us and is as important as us.

When planning for this shoot I had to take into consideration, lighting, camera settings, location and the concept and context of the photos I was going to take. I took into thought about showing the pureness of our surrounds, so I began to focus on focusing on natural shades and tones, such as white and green. The white would represent the pureness and righteous of the world and the green would show the nature of the world.  The two colors would work well together, as the white would make the green standout, as it would give a pop of color in the pictures.  Then also having my images out of focus it would merge together the two colors, making them equal to each other. These are a few photos I came out with from this shoot;

The difficulties I had in this shoot were trying to get the camera settings on the right format. I used a manual setting, with a wide lens, I has a low ISO of 100 or 200 and a slower shutter speed of 1/4 or 1/8, this is so I could let more light into the photo, which made the white become brighter in the images. I adjusted my lens to get the images to be out of focus so the color and shapes could merge together and become equal to each other, this is so that there wasn’t just one center subject of the photo, the whole photo was the main attraction as you had to figure out yourself the meaning, the point and what was actually in the photo.

The second part of my shoot, I focused on using the outside and natural light along side with the natural settings. For this part for the shoot I kept the same ISO but changed the shutter speed to 1/32, this is so you could see what was in photo more clearly, so you could get more of an outline, because if the shutter speed was too slow the photos would of come out white. I photographed the things closer to the camera in focus with the rest of the background and surroundings out of focus. This gave the photo a primary focus, but yet it was showing the shapes and colors of our surroundings. I decided to put in focus something simple, which people don’t see as equal to us. These are my photos from the second part of the shoot;

The struggles I had in this part was focusing on one main subject, and not getting everything in or out of focus. Also having to find a simple main subject for the images was a challenge, but looking at some of Barth’s worth gave me inspiration in what to use and focus on.

Overall, this shoot was a chance for me to learn about a new photographer but also learn different ways to photograph images and that all images don’t have to be in focus and that they can have any meaning you make them have.