As a task in one of our lessons we had to go out, find a window with a good source of light and take pictures with the natural light.
Contact sheet:
Chosen images:
These pictures reflect the use of natural light perfectly I believe. It shows the subtle yet effective use of the natural outside light on the subject’s face, lighting up her features but not in a way which over does it and makes it become too dramatic.
Hannah Starkey is a contemporary British photographer who is best known for her images of women in staged settings. Starkey says that her own photographs are 'explorations of everyday experiences and observations of inner city life from a female perspective'. The women featured in them are either actresses or anonymous strangers who she asks to pose. Hannah Starkey's photographs reconstruct scenes from everyday life with the concentrated stylisation of film. Her images picture women engaged in regular routines such as loitering the streets, sitting in cafes or shopping. She captures in between moments of daily life with a sense of relational detachment. Starkey often uses composition to intensify this sense of personal and emotional disconnection, with arrangements of lone figures.
My Response To respond to Hannah Starkey's photography style, I decided to recreate some of her tableaux photographs. Before capturing an image, I would show the subject the photo I wanted to recreate so she could pose in a similar way. To replicate her style and create a sense of relational detachment through the image, I (as the photographer) captured the subject from a distance to create a disconnection.
Photo shoot #1
Photo Shoot #2
Photo Shoot #3
About Tom Hunter:
Tom Hunter (born 1965) is a London-based British artist working in photography and film. His photographs often reference and reimagine classical paintings. He studied at the London College of Printing, and was the first photographer to have a one-man show at the National Gallery, London.
Hunter has shown work internationally in exhibitions, his work is held in a number of public collections and he has had four books published. He has won various awards including an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society.
What does Tom Hunter focus on in his photography:
In his works he focuses on depicting local issues and sensationalist news headlines with compositions borrowed from the Old Masters, Also he focuses on the political problems that happen for example when he re imagined a photo of the image by painter Johannes Vermeer. This is the original image that he got his ideas:
This is Tom Hunters representation of image:
These two images have different meanings, the original photo is about this woman getting a telegraph from her husband who was in the war. However the re imagined photo is about This woman getting a letter of eviction from her house, even though these images are presented in the same way except one is done modernly. The meanings if not told could be interpreted in your way.
Why I picked Tom Hunter:
I chose Tom Hunter because I was interested in how he presented the different images and how he chooses to represent them in an very subtle choice. I like how he explores the different problems that occur in today’s society, like the image he is trying to tell people what is happening behind closed doors.
Images that I might do:
LIFE AND WORK:
Arnis Balčus (born 1978) is a Latvian photography and video artist. Born in Riga, Latvia, Balcus lived and worked in his home town before moving to London, United Kingdom, in 2004. He took an MA course on photography at University of Westminster from 2004 to 2005. He is exhibiting his work since 1994, but emerged internationally in 2003 with the photographic series Myself, Friends, Lovers and Others. Using snapshot aesthetic the series were showing the everyday life of contemporary Latvian youth. The series had numerous solo shows, for instance, at Giedre Bartelt gallery, Berlin, Overgaden, Copenhagen, Fotogalerie Wien, Vienna, State Museum of Art, Riga and Matthew Bown Gallery, London.
WORK FOCUS AND IDENTITY:
Since 2008 most of his photographic work has been related to Latvian identity, historical taboos and social-political agendas. In 2009 Arnis Balcus showed his series Amnesia at Riga Art Space. In the photographs he was staging various social rituals that have disappeared from the everyday life in Latvia due to political and economical changes in the past thirty years.The exhibition traveled to Ventspils, Latvia. In the series Latvian Notes he has been exploring the everyday life in Latvia. This research is focused on Latvian society through the perspective of collective rituals and public space. The series Victory Parkgrappled with questions on Otherness – and more specifically, in the context of Latvia’s complex relationship with Russia, and Russian culture.In 2014 the series were shown at Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow and Mūkusala Art Centre in Riga. The latest series Beyond The Blue River are related to the Zilupe region in Eastern Latvia, which on an everyday basis is characterized as economically unstable and politically disloyal to Latvia.
In his video works he addresses issues of identity and gender. His video Xionel features a confession by a beautiful Asian transsexual, while Balcus’ Latvia 1989-91 is a photo story created of artist’s family snapshots from the time Latvia regained its independence from USSR.
WHY I AM INTERESTED IN HIS WORK:
Since moving to Jersey I have had a real identity crisis when it comes to my roots. From one point I have become more English, fully adopting the language, culture and practices of Jersey yet i truly value the home country from where I come which is Latvia. It has suffered a lot of political and economical blows since its liberation in the early 1990s from the USSR, forcing families like my own to move away. I am keen to reminisce on the traditions which I once was so closely linked to, doing this through tableaux vivant and staged reality. A lot of the subjects which Balčuks focuses on are very personal to myself and something which I feel I will be able to recreate well.
From an artistic standpoint, his work has a lot of subtle yet powerful imagery and symbolism. Creating very powerful imagery in the eyes of not only native Latvians but also people from all around the world. The topics which he tackles are relevant and hold a lot of deep meaning.
WORK STRATEGY/PLAN FOR PHOTO-SHOOT:
WHO – for this photo shoot I will be selecting two images from Arnis Balčus’ work in order to recreate for my staged reality photo-shoot.
WHAT – the main objective of this photo shoot is to recreate and understand how Balčus creates his work and the symbolism which he chooses to include.
WHEN – the images will be taken in specific environments according to the images i am recreating.
WHERE -the photos will be take in Latvia in order to have authentic images which are as close as possible to the original.
WHY – to understand the most suitable ways in which to photograph people, organize photo-shoots and comprehend the symbolism which has been used by the original artist
HOW – I used my regular DSLR camera for this photo shoot, using a combination of artificial and natural lighting.
In order to understand Tableaux Vivian into further detail, i am going to recreate a movie scene. I have decided to take a clip from the mode ‘ The Addams family’ of a character called Wednesday Addams and i plan to recreate the chosen image.
For my attempt at tableaux vivant photography, i decided to recreate a scene from the film ” The Addams family”. The film follows a Gothic family whos long lost brother comes home from being missing and the family is thrilled. However, the mother begins to suspect the man is a fraud and get’s help from a lawyer who manages to get the Addams clan evicted from their home. Gomez realizes the two men are conspiring to swindle the Addams fortune and that he must challenge Fester. This film was released in 1991 in America. I chose to recreate a scene from this film as there are many interesting concepts in the film which really intrigue me.
Each main character in the movie has their own personalities, however apart from there differences there are also similarities between the family. Below is a mind map to show their personalities,
This mood board of screenshots from the movie symbolizes the type of family they are, what they wear and how they act. The family seems to be together a lot, like they are very close. They all tend to wear dark colors, dark makeup and all look peculiar looking. In my photoshoot i will ensure to take this all into consideration and will have my model wearing dark clothing and in a dark location.
Technical aspect analysis
When looking at this image, i can clearly see that there has been a narrow depth of field used which has made the main focus be on Wednesday. There has also been a natural lighting used due to the outdoor area the image has been taken in. The lighting also shows us that the shutter speed of this image must of been quite quick due to there being a good amount of light in the image. I also think that the ISO has been set to around 800 due to the image being shown as being quite grainy. Due to being outside the White Balance of the image is most likely to have been set on daylight mode.
Visual aspect analysis
When looking at the image i can see that Wednesday in directly in the middle of the image, the color of the image is quite dark which shows that there is no tone in the image due to there being no contrast in light and dark. Due to this image being taken with a narrow depth of field, the image looks 3D. I can also see there are background people in the distance, all of which we can’t clearly see due to the blurring.
Context aspect analysis
This was a screenshot from a part in the movie where the character Wednesday is at a summer camp.
Concept aspect analysis
I chose to recreate this image as it has a lot of underlying concepts. We can firstly tell that the character has an attitude to her due to her facial expressions. The reason her facial expression is like this is due to the situation she is in, she is disgusted with all the other girls fro being so girly. Secondly, it is clear that she is wearing her typically dark colors and has her well known plaits in her hair. This is due to her wanting to stay close to her family after they’ve sent her to summer camp because of the situation going on at home, however in this situation the dark colors and the prop she has are suggesting that she is in a dark place, maybe in her mind.
It is very important to capture the characters personality in the image. Wednesday is stood with a suttle disgusted expressed face which is showing us that she doesn’t fit it with the other girls because of her looks and interests.
For my recreation of the image, i will take the images in a local park where there will be a natural light source. I will use my one main model and then also have a few people in the background image. With the help of my model, i will choose the appropriate clothing which resembles Wednesday’s character the best. For the photo shoot plan, i plan to use only natural light for the image as the original image was taken outside. I will use a daylight/ cloudy white balance in order to ensure the photo is very similar and i will find which ISO and shutter speed to use when im in the conditions. To make the image identical, i will also made a prop from a vodka bottle to act as the poison bottle that Wednesday is holding in the original image.
Aspects to include
Technical
When taking this image it was very dark outside and i therefore had to take the image on portrait mode using flash. My shutter speed was set to 1/200 and my ISO was on 800. I wanted Wednesday to be the subject of the image and i therefore used an F stop of 6 so that the model in the background was blurred out of the image.
Visual
Visually, i made sure my model was in the center of the camera lense as so was the original Wednesday in the image. I also made sure we had the correct props, colored nails, hair style, coloring of the skin and correct outfit. Due to Wednesday having red nails, i instructed my model to paint hers red before attending the shoot and I made the poison bottle prop. I also used one model in the background to represent the cheerful environment Wednesday was in when the original shoot was done. I had my background model be cheerful by smiling and then also clapping to copy the original image.
Concept
When doing this shoot, i wanted the model to show Wednesday’s personality and she therefore made a disgusted look and was looking the same direction as Wednesday was in the original picture. This facial expression was the correct as it helped to tell a story.
THE RAFT OF MEDUSA:
WORK STRATEGY:
WHO – for this photo shoot, there were multiple models in order to recreate the raft of medusa.
WHAT – the main objective of this photo shoot was to try and stage the raft of medusa, adopting similar mannerisms as the people depicted in the painting.
WHEN – the images were taken during school time, indoors where artificial lighting as used ti light the room.
WHERE -the images were captured inside a classroom.
WHY – to understand the ways in which to direct people and think about aspects such as mannerisms, lighting, facial expressions and positioning.
HOW – I used my regular DSLR camera for this photo shoot, using the artificial lighting provided.
IMAGE ANALYSIS:
VISUAL:
The recreation of our image includes a lot of similar aspects as the original, trying to recreate similar facial expressions and positions as the subjects in the painting. Central in the image is main subject, holding up and waving a cloth to try and get attention, it is the first thing that the eye is drawn to due to the height at which the subject is at, towering above almost everyone else in the image. There is a sort of power play going on in the image, with two of the subjects being above everyone. This positioning is trying to convey the different states of the people on the raft, some healthier than others, whilst some are on the brink of death. We used a few extra props and stood on the table to symbolize the raft, and used a coat to symbolize the sail.
TECHNICAL:
The classroom environment we were in made it difficult to capture a similar lighting as in the image. There were direct lights which were pointing from up above, to try and correct this and create chiaroscuro lighting, we only kept one light in the room on .In order to have a very crisp and sharp image, a tripod was used to stabilize the camera whilst the image was being taken. The limited lighting in the room meant that the ISO had to be fairly high, being set to 6400 to avoid being under exposed, furthermore the f/stop used for this shoot was also quite large at f/3.4.
CONCEPTUAL: The Raft of the Medusa (French: Le Radeau de la Méduse) is an oil painting of 1818–19 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791–1824). Completed when the artist was 27, the work has become an icon of French Romanticism. At 491 cm × 716 cm it is an over-life-size painting that depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Méduse, which ran aground off the coast of today’s Mauritania on 2 July 1816. On 5 July 1816, at least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly constructed raft; all but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation and dehydration and practised cannibalism. The event became an international scandal, in part because its cause was widely attributed to the incompetence of the French captain.
CONTEXTUAL:
Géricault chose to depict this event in order to launch his career with a large-scale uncommissioned work on a subject that had already generated great public interest. The event fascinated him, and before he began work on the final painting, he undertook extensive research and produced many preparatory sketches. He interviewed two of the survivors and constructed a detailed scale model of the raft. He visited hospitals and morgues where he could view, first-hand, the colour and texture of the flesh of the dying and dead. As he had anticipated, the painting proved highly controversial at its first appearance in the 1819 Paris Salon, attracting passionate praise and condemnation in equal measure. However, it established his international reputation, and today is widely seen as seminal in the early history of the Romantic movement in French painting.
TOM HUNTER:
IMAGE ANALYSIS:
VISUAL:
The image below holds a lot of emotional attachment. The baby on the bottom left corner is only noticed after really looking at the image for an extended period of time as the mother is the focal point of the image. The eye is first drawn to her rather than the surroundings. The color in this image is also very bright and saturated. The overall feeling of the image is bright and colorful with the light coming in from the window and the bright lemon colored wall in the background of the image. There is a lot of natural light hitting the front of the model’s face, giving the image a very natural and organic look, as if somebody was simply documenting the woman’s day. The baby in the bottom left corner of the image adds a lot of emotion, yet at the same time blends in with the environment, almost as if it has been forgotten. The subject in the image is not making eye contact with the camera and does not have any clear facial expression suggesting that possibly a sense of shock has hit her, and she is frozen in time. The image almost feels like an invasion of privacy from the angle from which it is taken and the lack of contact made with the camera.
TECHNICAL:
The exposure of this image is very balanced, with the highlights and shadows working together to create a very harmonious image. The way in which the natural lighting hits the subject from the left hand side of the image suggests that no additional lighting equipment has been used in this photo shoot. Again making this type of photography seem more documentary style. The colors in this image are also well balanced, possibly being more on the over saturated side as the orange clothing on the baby is very visible and bright. There is a clear foreground, mid-ground and background, with the baby being in the foreground, the woman reading the letter in the mid-ground and the shelf and wall in the background.
CONCEPTUAL:
Filipa had just had her first baby. We spent the whole day trying things out: we had a bowl of fruit, then we tried some curtains, then incorporated the baby. The light was perfect, a late winter sun coming through the window, really low, like the northern European light.
I used a large-format camera, which really captures that light. And I used the Supachrome process to print it – old-fashioned even then. The exposure was about a second, so it was like sitting for a painting: she had to stand still. I was waiting for the light to pour into the lens, rather than snapping at something.
I phoned her up last week and she’s still happy with the picture. It’s a record of her, her child and her home at the time. The great thing is, the picture got a dialogue going with the council – and we managed to save the houses.
CONTEXTUAL:
I was living in Hackney in London, in a whole street of squats, having spent two years travelling around Europe in a doubledecker bus. Everyone got a letter addressed to “persons unknown”. The council wanted to knock down the street and build warehouses. The Tories had brought in the Criminal Justice Act, which was designed to stop parties. Every time you saw a picture of a squatter or a traveler, it was to go with a story about how antisocial they were. I just wanted to take a picture showing the dignity of squatter life – a piece of propaganda to save my neighborhood.
I took this in 1997, for my master’s degree show at the Royal College of Art. The 17th-century golden age of Dutch painting had had a massive impact on me: the way they dealt with ordinary people, not kings, queens and generals. I thought if I could borrow their style for squatters and travellers, it would elevate their status. In this shot, inspired by Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, my next-door neighbour is reading the possession order.
RULE OF 3RD’S:
This image follows the rule of 3rd s, as can be seen when we divide the image into blocks. The woman is sectioned mostly in the last third of the image, yet the letter she is holding positions itself in the very center of the image, becoming a very clear focal point of the image.
Snow White is a 19th century German fairy tale which is today known widely across the Western world. My photography class decided to recreate a scene from this fairy tale to create a tableaux image. The apple in Snow White that represents poison is also a religious symbol. It represents a comparable story to that of Adam and Eve, where Eve is tempted by the forbidden fruit and is corrupted by her acceptance of the fruit. Jut like the Bible, Snow White is tempted by the poison apple and ultimately suffers for it. Just as Eve was warned against accepting the fruit, Snow White knows that she should not be talking to and accepting gifts from strangers. Her weakness for the apple results in a sleeping death, whereas for Eve, her acceptance of the fruit results in spiritual death. Instead of the apple, we decided to swap the fruit with an apple iphone. Phones can also represent temptation since our current society is constable on them.
The Italian Term Chiaroscuro, meaning light and dark, is used throughout renaissance paintings and and continues in modern photography today. One of the most notable artists to come out of the renaissance was Giorgione, an Italian painter, who focused on using Chiaroscuro and Rembrandt lighting, inspired the likes of Jusepe de Ribera, who used more contrasting colours and kept more of their subject’s face covered in shadow.
The use of this technique is still being replicated today, with Photographers such as Ralph Gibson using a very high contrast between the subject and their shadows. Gibson uses lighting and shadows to create create an artificial atmosphere in which the photograph has much more depth.
For my images i wanted to use a similar style of photography as this picture from Gibson’s ‘Infanta’ series. I wanted to create a clear line between light and dark in the photo, and try to recreate the dramatic feeling given off by the lighting used in this image.
As you can see from my contact sheet below, I also wanted to play around with lighting the subjects with fill lights as well as front facing flash and light bouncing. While this technique worked to some extent, i feel as though my lower key photographs looked much nicer and more professional.
Contact Sheet:
Final Images/Edits:
Fill Lighting:
Edited in: Lightroom
Chiaroscuro Lighting:
Edited in: Lightroom
About Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was born on the 22nd August 1908 in Chanteloup-en-Brie, France. Henri was the oldest of five children, his father being a wealthy manufacturer, while his mothers family were cotton merchants and landowners from Normandy. Henri began his creativeness by beginning to sketch from a young age which soon led to his love of photography. However Cartier’s father assumed that he would continue on the family business but Henri was fairly set on becoming a photographer and was not keen on his fathers idea for his future. Henri tried many forms of art and began to paint after he stopped learning music.
Cartier first began painter when his uncle Louis introduced him to oil painting. to after this introduction Carriers uncle died in World Was l. In 1927 Cartier began at the private art school and Lhotel Academy. After an eventful period at the Academy Cartier-Bresson looked else where for inspiration and do find himself. That’s when he came across The Surrealist movement, founded i 1924, which was a key component to Cartier-Bresson’s photography. He would begin to meet and socialize with Surrealistic at the Cafe Cyrano, in the Place Blanche. this is where Henri began to adapt to their techniques of photography, leading to him maturing as an overall photographer.
In 1931 Cartier became extremely inspired by Hungarian photojournalist Martin Munkacsi showing three naked young African boys, caught in near-silhouette, running into the surf of Lake Tanganyika. He finally found his way and pioneered the genre of street photography and began to view photography as capturing a ‘decisive moment’. In 1952 Cartier-Bresson publish The Decisive Moment the title of The English edition of Cartier-Bresson’s photo book originally called Images a la Sauvette loosely translated as ”image on the run”, which included a portfolio of 126 photos from the West and East. Cartier-Bresson’s photography took him to many places, including China, Mexico, Canada, the United States, India, Japan, and the Soviet Union. In 1962 Cartier-Bresson was asked on behalf of Vouge to go to Sardinia where he visited an array of areas and photographed extraordinary things.
One of his famous pieces:
Emotional response:
When first looking at this image I was initially drawn to the centre of the piece where the man in the dark coat was positioned, as well as this the black and white shades were a dramatic factor to consider as I believed them to be extremely defined in the image. Due to the this drastic vibe and the specific lighting being produced the tone of this particular image to me became much darker and some what unsettling. as the dark tones seeping in through the tree almost represents the idea of being stuck and trying to escape. The man in middle to me has a dark feeling. with is long what over sized drench coat matched nicely with his top hat. He looks a fair age with his well groomed facial hair and what looks like a cigar resting in his mouth. This image to me clearly comes across as 3D with the slowly decreasing size of trees running symmetrically and respectively down each side of the photo, leading to a high aesthetic value.
Technical Response:
This image is based in a park so has streams of natural light, however not necessarily clear sky, due to the shadows the weather in the photographer looks misty and cold. Due to the specific lighting the image of the man looks some what manipulated in to the photograph and is what looks like a ‘card board cut out’ this is thanks to the daytime light shining in through behind the man whom is which strongly contrasting with the bright light due to being dressed in complete black. The image is taken as a portrait image with what i believe to be a purposeful about of over exposure, which is well balanced with the man dressed in black and the dark trees. The image has a slightly grainy texture to it telling us the light sensitiveness of the image is reasonably high.
Contextual Response:
Henri Cartier-Bresson took this image when he was part of the Magnum Photos cooperative. Working along side Robert Capa, George Rodger and David Seymour. Henri Cartier-Bresson said ”i was walking behind this man when all of a sudden he turned around” Marseille, France, 1932.
Conceptual Response:
The concept of this piece was simply Henri Cartier-Bresson going out taking photographs for Magnum’s cooperative. He clearly was focusing on street photography and managed to turn it more in to a portrait when the man in the photograph turned around and looked directly in to the camera, proving that some of the best photographs happen by accident.
