ALBERT RENGER- PATZCH WAS A GERMAN PHOTOGRAPHER OFTEN ASSOCIATED WITH THE TOPIC OF ABSTRACT PHOTOGRAPHY. HE WAS BORN ON JUNE 22ND 1897 IN WURZBURG. ALBERT BEGAN PHOTOGRAPHING BY THE AGE OF TWELVE. THE ERA HIS PHOTOS WAS BASED AROUND WAS WORLD WAR ONE TO WHICH HE SERVED IN THE MILITARY FOR THEN WENT ON TO STUDYING CHEMISTRY AT DRESDEN TECHNICAL COLLAGE.
Alberts interest in photography led him to creating his best well known book called ‘The world is beautiful’
Albert does not stick to one area of photography. His work consists of elements of wildlife,images of traditional craftsman,landscapes and architecture.
All of his work really captures his love for nature and how he sees the world as a beautiful place, Albert uses photography to show to the public his love for the camera.
In 1928 his book ‘the world is beautiful’ he collected over 100 images with patterns of beauty and order but he does this by photographing through nature but only man- made patterns. Meaning that he did not alter anything to form something that was not there before.
Renger-Patzsch work interested me because of the level of detail that he had included. Another reason i like his work is how lined up everything is. I can tell that Renger patzsch takes time to reflect on the setting before trying to capture the moment.
Choose from a range of camera skills that you have learned in Week 3 and 4 to complete a new photo-shoot…
We want to see that you can explore and extend your handling of
exposure settings
focus control
depth of field
INSPIRATION >>> choose from the following to inspire your ideas.Look carefully at the examples and aim to produce similar images that work well as a group…together.
1. Ralph Eugene Meatyard:
‘No Focus’
Meatyard made his living as an optician. He was a member of the Lexington Camera Club and pursued his passion for photography outside the mainstream. He experimented with various strategies including multiple exposures, motion blur, and other methods of photographic abstraction. Two of his series are particularly concerned with focus and depth of field, both stretching the expressive potential of photography, film and cameras when looking within the ordinary world.
‘Zen Twigs’
2. Saul Leiter
Leiter was foremost a painter who discovered the possibilities of colour photography. He created an extraordinary body of work, beginning in the 1940s. His images explore colour harmonies and often exploit unusual framing devices – shop signs, umbrellas, curtains, car doors, windows dripping with condensation – to create abstracted compositions of everyday street life in the city. Leiter was fond of using long lenses, partly so that he could remain unobserved, but also so that he could compress space, juxtaposing objects and people in unusual ways. Many of his images use negative space, with large out of focus areas, drawing our eye to a particular detail or splash of colour.
“When we do not know why the photographer has taken a picture and when we do not know why we are looking at it, all of a sudden we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion.”
— Saul Leiter
3. Uta Barth
Uta Barth describes herself as an artist who works primarily with photographs. She is interested in drawing attention to the viewer’s perception and separating the image from the thing depicted. Her images can appear quite abstract, partly through the use of deliberately blurred information. In this film she describes her interest in “light, perception and this visual acuity to the mundane, fleeting, ephemeral, everyday kind of information.”
Throughout the past two decades, Uta Barth has made visual perception the subject of her work. Regarded for her “empty” images that border on painterly abstraction, the artist carefully renders blurred backgrounds, cropped frames and the natural qualities of light to capture incidental and fleeting moments, those which exist almost exclusively within our periphery. With a deliberate disregard for both the conventional photographic subject and point-and-shoot role of the camera, Barth’s work delicately deconstructs conventions of visual representation by calling our attention to the limits of the human eye.
— Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
You must:
Research the work of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Saul Leiter and Uta Barth. How have they experimented with focus and depth of field in their work? Choose specific images to comment on in detail. You could also find other photographers who are interested in experimenting with focus effects.
Explore the effects of changing the aperture settings on your camera to alter depth of field. You could illustrate this with a series of photos of the same subject shot with different aperture settings.
Create a series of deliberately out of focus images. Consider the degree of abstraction in the final image. How out of focus are the subjects and are they still recognisable? Experiment with colour and black and white. REMEMBER TO USE MANUAL FOCUS AND THE INFINITY SETTING (MAKING THE IMAGE OUT OF FOCUS)
Create a series of images which explore dramatic depth of field (selective focus). Experiment with switching between foreground, middle ground and background focus. Remember, you will need to use a wide aperture (small number e.g. f2.8) and/or a longer lens for this. Remember to share all of the images you make (including those that you deem failures) in a gallery/contact sheet.
Curate your images into different groupings (see below). Experiment with editing the images in each set differently. Give each set a title and write a short evaluation explaining your editorial decisions.
For these edits I wanted to play on the distorted and dark realism effect that Patzsch used for ‘The World is Beautiful’ series. (New Objectivity). Due to the fact I was following this idea, I did not want to do any extreme edits as I believe it would portray realism in the way Patzsch did. The edits I produced where of the top photographs from the photo shoot which I conducted based on the research made about Patzsch. For most of them I adjusted the levels and curves and lowered the saturation enough for it to be deemed black and white but still show a hint of colour. For some other edits I decided to adjust the hue in order for more colours to stand out, based on the colours within the photograph, on the images I decided to leave in colour.
I believe that my final outcomes of this research successful, as I have managed to ensure my editing matched the new objectivity idea, but still ensured that the photograph looks good. I managed to edit the photographs to allow their formal elements stand out more, making them more obvious to viewers. Moreover, I ensured the focal points of the images stood out clearly.
For my first edit I decided to adjust the levels and curves making the photograph darker than usual. I then lowered the saturation of the photograph, which has allowed different tonal regions to stand out. It has also allowed us to see where the natural source of lighting is coming from, which helps direct the viewers eyes around the frame of the photograph. This image also clearly represents the formal element of repetition and shape through the windows that are raised. Moreover, I used the technique leading lines to help guide the viewers eyes around the frame of the photograph. I really like how this edit has turned out as it matches the criteria of new objectivity.
This next edit I decided to level the photograph, allowing the sharpness be clear which has allowed the detail of the subject to be visible. I then lowered the saturation but still allowed a hint of colour to seek through, making it more stimulating for viewers to look at. This image was taken at a worms eye view which allows us to see the formal elements of shape and line which is presented through the lions.
My next edit I decided to keep simple, which has allowed the simplistic overall effect to be created. I decided to level the image to allow it to seem darker than usual which has allowed the black shadows to really stand out, as well as the colours of the shadows which are casted on the wall. The formal element of line and repetition is clearly presented in the photograph, through the rectangular shadows on the wall.
For this edit I decided to keep it simple like the previous one. I levelled the photograph to make it lighter than usual, which has allowed the cables through the tunnel to be visible. It has also added noise and vibrance to the photograph which has allowed a sense of texture to be presented as well. The cables are used to direct the viewers eyes around the frame of the photograph, leading lines, and created mystery as we wonder what is on the other side of the tunnel.
In this edit I started by adjusting the levels and the curves which has allowed the texture of inside the toaster to be presented. It has also helped to showcase the different tonal areas, making it more interesting for viewers to look at. I then turned down the saturation, but ensured the rusted metal rectangles where still in colour. Doing this has helped the context of the image to be presented, allowing viewers to have more of an understanding of where this image was taken. The formal element of line, shape and texture has been presented allowing this image to match the formal elements Patzsch’s work showed.
In my penultimat edit I decided to level the image, to make the foreground completely black only allowing the background to be visible. I attempted to use the technique of framing, which has allowed the subject of the image to be captured. I kept the image in colour as I felt it allowed the background to really stand out compared to the black frame work. The formal element of shape is presented through the frame which is capturing the semi-focused background.
In my final edit I wanted to showcase this empty area, with a simplistic edit to add to the empty effect. For this I adjusted the levels and curves allowing the photograph to be naturally darker, which has allowed the light to stand out. I then adjusted the hue to allow the yellow to stand out more. Moreover, I adjusted the vibrance to create a bit of noise within the photograph but not enough to change the effect of the image. The formal elements of space and shape are clearly presented in the image.
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.
RIGHT IMAGELEFT IMAGE
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.
White balance is a setting on the camera that interprets the colour in the scene. There are different options when using white balance which include, auto, tungsten, fluorescent, daylight, cloudy and flash. They all produce different colour in the same photo.
Here in these photo gallery I have photographed the same scene but in different white balance settings. I photographed the same object inside and outside, this enabled me to change the settings on the camera to get the right aperture so the photo wasn’t too bright or dark.
Here in these 2 photo gallery’s I have photographed my object inside and outside, but changing the white balance settings too see how it affected the photo. I can see that certain settings bring out more colour than other, for example some of the photos are more orange than other and some are more blue.
Inside Photos
Outside photos
Inside Photos
Outside Photos
When photographing outside I had to change the shutter speed, so the photo would let less light into it, otherwise the photo would be too bright. Increasing the shutter speed results in the photo letting less light into the photo, the shutter speed is normally increased when outside because of the sun light and different tones around you.
