MY INSPIRATION:
This is a mood board of a set of minimalist images which i am including into my research to get me started with my homework task and give me inspiration for my photo shoot. I particularly enjoy this homework task as minimalism often involves a lot of color and simplicity of shapes and forms.
THE PROCESS:
This was my take on the method of double exposure, which creates a blurry, fuzzy, duplication of the original image. This was a fairly simple photograph to create, first starting by slightly editing the original images to saturate the colours as the image tends to be quite dull without it in the finishing stages. I also increased the contrast in the image as I found that in the final piece, the glass disappeared due to its transparent appearance. I chose 3 images with the same composition but with slightly different angles.
I layered the 3 images on top of each other and by using the opacity tool, I changed how each images opacity was. The higher the opacity the stronger the image appears. When creating these images it is essential that the opacity of each image is similar to the opacity of the other two in order to create the sort of motion blur affect seen below. To finish of, I flatttened the image to merge the 3 together.
THE PROCESS:
In order to create this final piece I followed the instructions provided to me in order to achieve this conceal/reveal image which is composed of a photo which has a panel layer added to it. Then using the brush tool, i was able to achieve varying sizes of revealing circles that show the original photo. The final outcome is very unique and brings up multiple questions for the viewer of the image.
ANALYSIS:
This is the final image which I produced from the conceal/reveal task. As the title suggests, much of the image is concealed with a black panel layer. It puts many ideas into the head of the viewer. What is hidden behind the black? Why did they choose to only show certain parts of the image? The revealed parts of the image all allude to different things. I chose to reveal the circular structure, central in the image because i felt that this would create a sense of pattern and unity within the image. It is the area of the image which draws the most attention. I kept the circles in a linear pattern as this creates flow and movement within the image. I did not want to decrease the opacity of the black panel as I wanted to retain that question in the viewers mind of, what is behind the concealed parts?
Coming through the glass is a very soft and diffused light which varies in intensity in different parts of the image, the bottom left hand corner being more strong and the top right more soft. The composition in this image is very simple and is purely made up of strong, symmetrical, repeating lines that come towards a singular point central in the image. There is a lot of geometrical patters that play together to create a very harmonious photo. The co lour range of this image is fairly simple, being mostly composed of soft grays, blacks and subtle blues. The photo has a warm hue to it as can be seen in the lighter areas of the image. The photo lacks any sort of foreground, mid ground or background therefore it is quite flat and 2D.
In order to take this image, I zoomed in, decreasing the field of view and increasing the focal length as it was quite far up and could not be seen clearly from a stationary position. I kept the ISO fairly low, at 400, as it was a bright day and i wanted to avoid overexposing the image. I used auto focus whilst taking this image as it is very flat and did not require much attention to get it in focus. I used a fairly low shutter speed due to the strong light coming through the glass, which prevented the image from becoming overexposed.
PROCESS/AIMS: For this photography skills photo shoot, we concentrated on capturing different photos relating to shutter speed, exposure and white balance. Trying out different setting, at different intensities (i.e 1/20, 1/8, 1/4 for shutter speed) in order to see what effect this will have on the final photos.
SHUTTER SPEED:
In order to capture the effects of decreasing the shutter speed, we had a person walk across a white backdrop. The motion blur seen by the subject shows us that a slow shutter speed has been used meaning that a crisp image was not take. It is also clear that the shutter speed was very slow due to the overexposed background, as more light is let in the longer the shutter is open. The effect is caused by the relative motion between the camera, and the objects and scene, motion blur may be avoided by panning the camera to track those moving objects.
WHITE BALANCE:
White balance is a setting on your camera which is used to control how colors are captured in different types of light. When you correctly set your white balance, you are taking into account the “color temperature” of the light in your scene. Color temperatures range from cool (blue tint) to warm (orange tint). In these next photos I experimented with changing the white balance of the images. I firstly set my camera to the daylight setting which in effect made the images slightly warmer in appearance. the white walls of the school clearly shows this when compared to the image below. I set my camera to the auto white balance setting which in turn made the white very neutral, not overly warm or cool toned.
EXPOSURE:
ISO in Digital Photography. In Digital Photography ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor. The same principles apply as in film photography – the lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain. In these next couple of images, the changing of ISO can clearly be seen. It was an extremely bright and sunny day therefore I knew that turning up the ISO to a higher setting (such as 800 or 1600) would result in very over exposed images with little potential. Setting the camera down to ISO 200 resulted in a more manageable image that is well exposed.
RALPH MEATYARD’S WORK AND LIFE:
Ralph Eugene Meatyard (1925–1972) lived in Lexington, Kentucky, where he made his living as an optician while creating an impressive and enigmatic body of photographs. Meatyard’s creative circle included mystics and poets, such as Thomas Merton and Guy Davenport, as well as the photographers Cranston Ritchie and Van Deren Coke, who were mentors and fellow members of the Lexington Camera Club. Meatyard’s work spanned many genres and experimented with new means of expression, from dreamlike portraits—often set in abandoned places—to multiple exposures, motion-blur, and other methods of photographic abstraction. He also collaborated with his friend Wendell Berry on the 1971 book The Unforeseen Wilderness, for which Meatyard contributed photographs of Kentucky’s Red River Gorge. Meatyard’s final series, The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater, are cryptic double portraits of friends and family members wearing masks and enacting symbolic dramas.
WORK ANALYSIS:
Meatyard stated in a lecture to the Louisville Photographic Society, he was involved in working on no fewer than 12 “methods, series, subjects.” Among them were what he called “photographs made under the influence of Zen,” shown here with the title “Zen Twigs.” While the images are very minimalist, they deal with growth and decay, is impressive, they are familiar enough to be looked over lightly. A particularly beautiful one (untitled, like much of Meatyard’s work) shows a young trunk sprouting — or seeming to sprout — a branch that curls around it in a wiry loop, the whole almost a visual haiku. The simplistic tonal range of the image is effective in portraying the theme of deterioration and degeneration. Meatyard has clearly used a very narrow field o view, with a singular branch being in focus and the rest of the backdrop is extremely blurry. The images are in a mid-range of exposure, not too overexposed or underexposed. The light grey tones from the backdrop of the photo, highlight they unsophisticated, dead branch. The upwards growth of the branches, have strong and dark lines which cut through the sea of blurriness. The image also contains various shades of white, black, and grey, all working together to create a harmonious image. The contrast between the blurry backdrop and the foreground give the image a real sense of depth and space.
MY OWN WORK:
During this photo shoot, I focused mostly of the formal elements which i had to include but also capturing the Gothic nature of Meatyard’s work: dark, still, and simplistic. A dark evening, used in conjunction with editing resulted in a grey dark grey tonal range of the images.
MY WORK ANALYSIS:
For this photo shoot I attempted as much as possible to recreate Meatyard’s “zen sticks” series. I particularly focused on exposure settings, focus control, and depth of field. The photograph below was taken of a dead tree, of the branches facing upwards towards the sky. Meatyard’s images are all very dark and dramatic therefore I chose to do my photo shoot during the evening, on a stormy, grey day. I increased the exposure to 800 in order to capture the branches in a dark setting yet still have some highlights and shadows. The dark night, and mid-range ISO setting meant that the image contracted a lot of motion blur, the effect which i was aiming to get. It resembles the work of Meatyard in many ways. The dark evening also meant that the resolution of the images decreased and became more grainy. The branches of the tree were also quite far up meaning i had to decrease the depth of field and zoom in, again compromising the quality of the image. The grainy texture of the image I feel adds to the overall aesthetic of Meatyard’s work: old and worn. The differences in motion blur also create a focal point in the image, with the central branch being less blurred than the outermost parts of the image. The image is also quite underexposed which further adds to the dramatic and intense tone, giving it almost a Gothic aura. There is a very apparent sense of space in the photo as the lack of branches in the top left hand corner of the image freeing up space. There is also a lack of light in this image due to both the time of day the image was taken and the lack of exposure adjustments made on the image during editing as i wanted to retain the dark theme.
KELD HELMER-PETERSEN:
The pioneer of Danish Modernist photography, Keld Helmer-Petersen (1920-2013), is internationally acclaimed for his images of structures, patterns and details found in industrial areas, cityscapes and nature. He started photographing in the late 1930s and first made his name with 122 Colour Photographs in 1948. This book is especially well known due to its innovative use of colour in thoroughly composed photographs of patterns in landscapes and buildings. During the 1950s and 1960s he established himself as a photographer of architecture and design. Simultaneously, his artistic work shifted towards the more abstract, as he found inspiration in German and American photography as well as international abstract art.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
The contrast in this image is very high creating a very dramatic and overexposed photo. It is composed of geometric shapes and lines which crisscross each other in regular, sometimes patterned shapes and forms. It is very difficult to create this type of photo purely through camera work therefore I believe that Petersen used heavy editing in his photography in order to create this highly overexposed image whilst in the dark room. It is hard to distinguish between the foreground and the background in this photo as the lack of tonal range merges them together. As the only colours in this image are black and white, they flow and create the appearance of one large structure.
PROCESS:
This is the most successful set of images based of the work of Keld Helmer-Petersen who focuses on over exposure of images creating simplistic line work in his work. I applied this same technique to my work through the use o threshold on Photoshop, as the example shows down below. By decreasing the threshold, the image becomes more exposed and white, by increasing the threshold, the image becomes less exposed and black. I tried to keep all my images to the middle of the scale which prevented them from becoming too overly over exposed or underexposed. The images which I chose to include in this work were ones which contained a lot of strong, geometric, line work. I found that the more busy, and packed a photograph is, the more messy the threshold filter looks on it, therefore i chose to stick with fairly simple photographs.
This is the before and after the threshold has been applied to the image, clearly showing the extreme contrast it has between the different geometric shapes in the picture.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
In terms of the technical aspects of this image, the light is coming in from the top left hand corner of the image, creating a lot of exposure making it more white whereas the right bottom corner of the photo has less light hitting it, creating more shadows. In this photo I used a fairly long lense as the subject the image was high up and could not be phothraphed without the aid of zoom, giving a fairly small field of view. In the original photo, the ISO was set to 600 as it was a bright room and I felt that in order to combat the possible overexposure I should decrease the ISO. The grain on the original photo is quite fine therefore the image is detailed and sharp.
After applying the threshold filter, the image has been totally flattened out due to the lack of tonal range, only being composed of black and white. It is difficult to distinguish between the background and the foreground in this image. The photograph is mostly composed of very strong and bold line work. There is also a sense of pattern in this image due to the repeating lines and triangles. There is no real sense of space in this image as the abundance of line work fills every part of the photo.
I created these images with the intent of capturing as many geaometric shapes as I can because I knew that this would work best when applying the threshold filter. More organic shapes tend to look too busy and messy in a sense as they have too many tonal ranges and shadows.
ORIGINAL IMAGES:
ANALYSIS AND APPROACH:
These four photos were the ones which i felt were the most successful out of the Photo shoot I personally did. I really focused on the formal elements which I had to cover such as exposure, shutter speed and focal length. In the first and fourth photo I mainly focused on exploring exposure, changing the ISO speed to 200, resulting in a very dramatic and dark photo. I captured these photos with the aid of a tripod as I found that lowering the ISO speed resulted in shaky photos that distracted away from the main formal elements which I attempted to capture. In the fourth photo, the glass bottles were in a very dimly lit room therefore i changed the ISO setting all the way to 16000, which allowed the colors to pop and stand out.
In the second photo, I experimented with changing the focal length. I zoomed into the piece of broken glass and used manual focus in order to focus on it, this resulted in a very blurry backdrop which was the main aim of this shoot. I had the same approach with the fourth photo, the radio post was quite far away from me which forced me to zoom in. The backdrop is not as blurry as compared to the first photo as I used the infinity focus setting on my camera to see the type of effect it would have on the focus.
I will be using this mood board in order to inspire and give me ideas for the upcoming homework, responding to Ralph Meatyard’s work. His work, is highly dramatic and produces only black and white imagery. It is simplistic and often up to the audiences interpretation, therefore when I do my own photo shoot, i will be focusing on capturing very minimalist photos that also show drama and mystery.
MACRO/CLOSE UP:
In this image I experimented with using the macro setting on my camera in order to capture the great deal of detail within the hands. Whilst on this setting, I continued to use auto focus as it allowed me to take many photos at once without the hassle of adjusting the focus every time the hands moved or shifted in position.
DEPTH OF FIELD:
In this photo I experimented with depth of field by using manual focus on my camera. Instead of focusing on the leafs closest to the camera, it is focused on a different part of the photo. I found that this technique allowed me to create images that were quite different and unique.
FOCAL LENGTH:
In this image, I tried to play around with the focal point and what effects I can achieve with this. The flower, as seen in the photo, was quite far away from me and the camera. I zoomed in and used the macro setting in order to capture the delicate details of the flower and the plant. It was quite difficult to capture this photo as zooming in meant having a very steady hand and using auto focus that the macro setting provided for me.
MF/AF FOCUS:
In this photo I used a conjunction of manual focus and the macro setting on my camera. It was very difficult to get the correct focus on my camera whilst using the macro setting with auto focus therefore i switched over to manual focus to help me correct this issue.
CONTACT SHEETS:
In this photo shoot, I focused a lot on plants and flowers in order to experiment with different settings such as macro and AF and MF focus, resulting in very vibrant, and colourful contact sheets.
Albert Renger-Patzsch
Albert Renger-Patzsch, born on June 22, 1897 was a German photographer who was heavily associated with the New Objectivity. Renger-Patzsch was born in Würzburg, Germany, and began taking photographs by the age of twelve. After military service in the First World War he studied chemistry at Dresden Technical College. In the early 1920s he worked as a press photographer for the Chicago Tribune before becoming a freelancer. In 1925, publishing a book, the choir stalls of Cappenberg. He had his first museum exhibition in 1927.
A second book followed in 1928, Die Welt ist schön (The World is Beautiful). This, his best-known book, is a collection of one hundred of his photographs in which natural forms, industrial subjects and mass-produced objects are presented with the clarity of scientific illustrations, the intent being to create beautiful photographs out of everyday items. The book’s title was chosen by his publisher; Renger-Patzsch’s preferred title for the collection was Die Dinge.
In its sharply focused on the newly emerging style of the time, The New Objectivity that flourished in the arts in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Like Edward Weston in the United States, Renger-Patzsch believed that the value of photography was in being able to capture the world in a way which displays all the textures and feelings that come along with it, and to represent the essence of an object. He wrote: “The secret of a good photograph—which, like a work of art, can have aesthetic qualities—is its realism … Let us therefore leave art to artists and endeavour to create, with the means peculiar to photography and without borrowing from art, photographs which will last because of their photographic qualities.”
Patzsch preferred to photograph items over people, focusing mainly on very ordinary everyday items but captured in a way which makes them extraordinary. A lot of his work also focuses on pattern and rhythm. The plants he photographs are often geometric and contain a lot regular pattern.
Among his works of the 1920s are Echeoeria (1922) and Viper’s Head. During the 1930s Renger-Patzsch made photographs for industry and advertising. His archives were destroyed during the Second World War. In 1944 he moved to Wamel, Möhnesee, where he lived the rest of his life.
ANALYSIS OF HIS WORK:
I have chosen and compare and analyse these two photos from Albert Renger-Patzsch’s work. Both of these photos include the presence of organic items, plants in this instance. Both have very clear and geometric shapes, with repeating patterns of forms. The focal point of the dandelion flower is the round and even tip of the stem, from which a repeating pattern of seeds come from. On the other hand, the image on the right lacks any noticeable focal point. Both images are very dramatic in nature, with deep and dark shadows being cast from the shapes of the two plants. The image on the right is very exposed, and the highlights are very strong, whereas the image on the left has more subtle highlights having an overall dark tone all-round. The image on the left has a deeper field of view through the use of the dark backdrop, whereas the image of the right lacks this as the light and over exposed backdrop shirks the depth of view. The overall undertone of the image on the left is warm and yellow, and the image on the right is a lot cooler with blue based undertones. Both images have been captured in portrait, unusual yet different and effective for this type of imagery.
MY FAVORITE IMAGES:
This is a collection of my favorite Albert RengerPatzsch work.
RESPONSE AND CONTACT SHEETS OF MY OWN WORK:
This is my response of Patzsch’s work in the form of contact sheets. like Patzsch, I focused on capturing very simple, everyday objects in a way that is beautiful and impressive. I experimented with light, changing the ISO settings on my camera and shutter speed, in order to capture images that are interesting and detailed. I found myself to often be using the macro setting on my camera when capturing up close photographs of plants, this allowed me to have clear and crisp photos that illustrated the detailed line work in the plants.
