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AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Component 2 ESA, Unit 2 Portrait

Henri Cartier-Bresson

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He was a French humanist photographer who worked within street photography and it well known for his ‘decisive moment’ technique.

 Decisive Moment-In 1952 Henri Cartier-Bresson, a founder of modern photojournalism, proposed one of the most fascinating and highly debated concepts in the history of photography: “the decisive moment.” This moment occurs when the visual and psychological elements of people in a real life scene spontaneously and briefly come together in perfect resonance to express the essence of that situation. Some people believe that the unique purpose of photography, as compared to other visual arts, is to capture this fleeting, quintessential, and holistic instant in the flow of life. For this reason, many photographers often mention the decisive moment, or similar ideas about capturing the essence of a transitory moment, when they describe their work.

Born in Chanteloup-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, Henri Cartier-Bresson developed a strong fascination with painting early on, and particularly with Surrealism. In 1932, after spending a year in the Ivory Coast, he discovered the Leica – his camera of choice after that moment – and began a life-long passion for photography. In 1933, he had his first exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. He later made films with Jean Renoir.
Taken prisoner of war in 1940, he escaped on his third attempt in 1943 and subsequently joined an underground organization to assist prisoners and escapees. In 1945, he photographed the liberation of Paris with a group of professional journalists and then filmed the documentary Le Retour (The Return).
In 1947, with Robert Capa, George Rodger, David ‘Chim’ Seymour and William Vandivert, he founded Magnum Photos. After three years he had spent travelling in the East, in 1952, he returned to Europe, where he published his first book, Images à la Sauvette (published in English as The Decisive Moment). He explained his approach to photography in these terms, ‘”For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.”
From 1968, he began to curtail his photographic activities, preferring to concentrate on drawing and painting. In 2003, with his wife and daughter, he created the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris for the preservation of his work. Cartier-Bresson received an extraordinary number of prizes, awards, and honorary doctorates. He died at his home in Provence on 3 August 2004, a few weeks short of his 96th birthday.

Behind the Gare St. Lazare 1932

Image result for Place de l'Europe Gare Saint Lazare (1932)

 Technical

This photo was purely natural lighting, no flash, it appears to me it was bright day due to the definite shadows. The contrast is prominent between the light and dark areas created by the black and white filter. Due to Henri’s use of the decisive moment approach he doesn’t appear to have huge amounts of control over the positioning of the the people in this shoot and what they are doing. On the other hand he could control the lens which was 35 mm, also he positioned himself in a way in which the mans reflection was captured. He had a relatively slow shutter speed as the man appears to be  slightly blurry as hes running, but at the same time it’s not too low as the ripples in the puddles are clear. The colour cast is dark, creating a cold tone to the photo. In some areas its slightly over exposed but the black and white makes its hardly noticeable. The focal point for me is the man running as Henri only took this photo at that decisive moment in which the man was running otherwise it would be bare. The blurriness of the mans silhouette works well in contrast with the sharp detailed surrounding.

Visual

The texture in this photo varies throughout, for instance the water ripples, the pile of rubble, the wall plastered in photos and the metal railing. Although there are many different textures in this one image they work well, there doesn’t appear to be any tensions between them, as well as the background and foreground there is harmony between them and they merge into one  another effectively. There is a clear black and white filter on this photo, as well as that there is a rule of thirds which creates an element of structure and timing to the photo. I wouldn’t say there is a leading eye but the first thing that attracts me to this image is the blurred mans so there is an area of interest in the photo.

Contextual

The Gare Saint-Lazare  (St Lazarus Station), officially Paris-Saint-Lazare, is one of the six large terminus railway stations of Paris. It is the second busiest station in Paris, after the Gare du Nord. It handles 275,000 passengers each day. The station was designed by architect Juste Lisch, and the maître de l’oeuvre (general contractor) was Eugene Flachat. 

AO2 Explore Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Introduction to Portraits in Photography:

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Portraits have been an important and popular form of art throughout history, and even before the invention of photography, sculpts and paintings of people were used to convey messages and meaning, and to make the artwork more relatable.

Ancient Egypt is an example of a well known era that made use of creating human portraits to express meaning ans stories through artwork.
Cave paintings depict portraits of human figures, showing that the fascination with creating portraits of humans has been an important part of human history.

Portrait photography began in the mid 1800’s, as the development of cameras meant that the necessary exposure time dropped from 15 minutes to 10 seconds, making it possible for a human subject to have their photograph taken. Portraits at the time were expensive, and so most portraits of the time depict more wealthy, upper class members of society.

The relatively long exposure time meant that the poses held by the subjects were often unimaginative, as anything else would be difficult to maintain for 10 seconds, and portraits typically involved the subject maintaining an expressionless face (holding a natural, steady smile for 10 seconds was difficult).

With the development of technology during the 20th century, the way that portraits were taken also developed. Cameras became more widespread, and portraits became increasingly popular and more widely available. Exposure time yet again decreased, opening u the opportunity for subjects to try out more interesting poses, smile, and therefore create more natural, engaging photographs. Photography could now be used for things such as advertisements, and people grew more aware of portraits.

Modern portrait photography is no longer limited by things such as a long exposure time, black and white film or bulky cameras. The development of editing and special effects has allowed for portraits to become more experimental, and where they once portrayed a subject how they really were, they can now be used to convey messages and meaning.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Environmental portrait — Shoot Plan

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For my photo shoot I plan on going into the market in town as there are many vendors who have big displays and who show their products and things. Something that will make my images different, as others will likely have a similar approach, I will be using a 35mm film camera and the roll of film that I will be using has been expired for about 15 years, this means that there will likely be imperfections in the images like black spots and the grain will be much more apparent. I plan to go to places like butchers, florists and green grocers as they will likely have the most aesthetic displays.

AO2 Explore Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Environmental Portrait — Artist study

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Anthony Kurtz

One hour into his first Psychology class at the University of Geneva, Anthony walked out of Science to pursue a career in the Arts in San Francisco. Born in California, raised in Switzerland, Anthony discovered his love for photography while working on his bachelor of fine arts at the Academy of Art University. This marked the beginning of his photographic journey. Anthony specialises in environmental portraiture and creates timeless photographs of people and the spaces they occupy. His cinematic and painterly style seamlessly transitions between documentary and conceptual, capturing the world as it presents itself as well as creating new worlds entirely.

The part of Anthony’s work that I will be focusing on is his environmental portraits, the reason I have chosen his work is because I like the style and composition of his shots. He has the subject in a position and style that they are in day to day, when they are working or going about their business in the environment that they do it in.

I like the style  because it is set up to seem like the subjects are unaware of the photographer.  Image result for anthony kurtz environmental photographyImage result for anthony kurtz environmental photographyImage result for anthony kurtz blacksmith photo

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Street Photography

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What is Street Photography?

Street Photography is a sub genre of photo-journalism focusing on portraits taken in an urban environment, mainly telling the story of the subjects. The photos are of a candid nature, meaning the subject is unprepared for the photo,and in some cases, unknowing, meaning they are pictured in their everyday form and arent influenced by the camera being pointed at them.

Mood Board

Shooting

For my shoot, I took to the local town and set about capturing various people in every day situations. I thought about potentially telling their story through a photo, as well as any context based upon the surroundings and the subjects apperaance. Here is a contact  sheet of my selected images.,

Final Images

Here are my final images chosen from the whole shoot

Head and shoulders of a labourer with the background desaturated and the only colour being his HI-Viz

Same subject and technique as before, but holding a cone A different worker with lowered exposure and same method as first two

Two politicians or office workers

Coffee Break

 Market places + faces

Cowboy hat in the rain

Dylan, taken with flash when greeting me

 

My Favourite Image

Here is my favourite image from the whole shoot. It is of a worker in his HI-Viz jacket and I decided to completely satire his surroundings apart from his jacket due to the luminous nature of it and the contrast when compared to black and white. I took the photo as the day I chose to carry the shoot out on was quite a dark and muggy day, so his Hi-Viz really stood out in the dismal surroundings.

Uncategorized

What Is Street Photography ?

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Street Photography (also referred to as Candid photography) is photography conducted for art or inquiry that features unmediated chance and random encounters.  Street photography does not necessitate the presence of a street or even the urban environment. Though people usually feature directly, street photography might be absent of people and can be of an object or environment where the image projects a decidedly human character in facsimile or aesthetic.

Many famous street photographers include:

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) He was a french photographer who mainly focused on using street photography on capturing a decisive moment using a 35mm film.

Helen Levitt (1913-2009) she was an American photographer who was particularly noted on using Street photography round New York, and was called  “The most celebrated and least known photographer of her time” 

Vivian Maier ((1926-2009) She was again an American photographer who worked for about 40 years as a nanny who pursued doing photography within her spare time, eventually become a well known street photographer.

 

How to undertake street photography.

In order to successfully complete a street photography photo shoot, you will need to sit in a busy area but where you can still have a clear view on some people to photograph. It is better to have no relationship with the people that you are photographing so you can get their natural emotions as they would act without the use of a camera to capture the moment. You can either walk around and take photos or find a place to sit down and take photos from the same position.

Personally I would recommend sitting down and taking photos in an area with quite a few people that circulate around the area. This is because you can have time to set up the camera and focus on the model you are photographing, whereas if you are walking around it is hard to focus on a person/people and you may not have the perfect aperture or ISO set on the camera, as I found out during this shoot. I also realised that if you aren’t positioned in an area, and are walking around then people may realise that you’re taking a photo of them, therefore act differently to fit into the social desirability bias.