Ralph was a photographer that pursued photography primarily as a passion as oppose to a source of income. He experimented with a variety of abstract techniques within his photography. One of his more notable photo-shoots ‘zen twigs’ had a strong focus on experimenting with focusing on branches and twigs with a very large aperture leaving all background subjects as simply a blur. His photo-shoot ‘no focus’ is a very expressive shoot with a lot of ambiguity as to what the subjects of the photos are. Most of his work has a very strong contrast as with the lack of focus I believe it is important to focus on tonal work.
In this example, Ralph used a large aperture leaving all subjects in the image entirely out of focus, creating a sense of ambiguity about the image. The image is rather formless with no distinct subject. It is difficult to discuss the technical aspects of the image however due to the large aperture required for such a photo, it is safe to assume that the shutter speed used would have to be rather high.
Response:
I took more inspiration from his work with the ‘Zen Twigs’ project as opposed to the ‘No Focus’ project. While I experimented with focus to a degree, I didn’t find much success with the no focus experimentation.
Ralph Meatyard was an american photographer from Illinois. Meat yard worked as an optician who also practised photography. One project of Meatyard’s work is looking at photographs out of focus, and spent months just looking through an out of focus camera to learn how to ‘see no focus’. Meat yard began the project because of his initial attraction to the out-of-focus backgrounds in some of his images. Meatyard eliminated the “thing” and looked only for the background, which he would then throw out of focus. Eventually, feeling that the background was still too recognizable, he stopped this practice and began to see his surroundings through an unfocused lens.
A lot of Ralph Meatyard’s work is seen in a black and white tone so for my photographs I decided to also experiment with them in black and white as something different to add on to just experimenting with the camera itself with the focus and shutter speeds.
EditingEditing
While experimenting with the black and white I also adjusted and experimented with the exposure and contrasts of the photographs as to add more tone and different highlights and darks into the photograph.
Editing
For one of my photographs I also experimented with cropping to get rid of unwanted dark space and the side of the photograph to just leave the objects shapes against the light.
Chosen Four: Experimented
Final Four
Final Chosen Photograph
I have chosen this as my most successful photograph as I feel it shows the most connections to Ralph Meatyard’s own work, which was where my inspiration was coming from. I have chosen my edited version as my favourite as I feel it works the best and has the best contrast as the photograph unedited is as well very dark and doesn’t show much colour so to put it in black and white eventuates this and I feel works next to Meatyard’s work best.
Shutter Speed: the shutter speed changes the way movement appears in photographs. Very short shutter speeds can be used to freeze fast-moving subjects, for example at sporting events. Very long shutter speeds are used to intentionally blur a moving subject for effect.
ISO:
ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor. The lower the number the less sensitive the camera is to light and the finer the grain. Higher numbers mean the sensor becomes more sensitive to light which allows you to use your camera in darker situations. The cost of doing so is more grain/noise within the final outcome.
Depth of Field: The distance between the nearest and the furthest objects giving a focused image. A narrow depth of field means that its main focus point will be the only thing in focus, leaving everything else in a blur. Where as a Large depth of field means that most things in the frame will be in focus.Aperture: ‘The opening in the lens.’ When we hit the shutter release button of the camera a hole opens up that allows your cameras image sensor to catch a glimpse of the scene you’re wanting to capture. The aperture that you set impacts the size of that hole. The larger the hole the more light that gets in – the smaller the hole the less light.
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.
Focus Control– Focus is the one area that lenses out perform the human eye. Lenses come in a wide variety of focal lengths, allowing them to “see” objects that are very large and very far away, like galaxies and stars, or objects that are very small and very nearby, like bacteria and DNA.
Depth of Field- the distance between the nearest and the furthest objects giving a focused image.
Focal length– the distance between the centre of a lens or curved mirror and its focus.
White Balance– the colour balance of the image
ISO– measures the sensitivity of the image sensor
Aperture– a space through which light passes in an optical or photographic instrument, especially the variable opening by which light enters a camera.
My initial image.CroppingDeceasing brightness and increasing contrast.Changing the color balance to blue.Black and white, increasing input.New layer and duplication with Ctrl J.
“Entre Nous brings together the photographic works of Claude Cahun (1894-1954) and Clare Rae, presenting a conversation between two performative practices some 70 years apart.” – Entre Nous: Claude Cahun and Clare Rae Exhibition booklet.
The “Entre Nous” exhibition, presented by Clare Rae, featured two photographers and their similar works. Claude Cahun was a surrealist photographer who was based in Paris, France and moved to Jersey during the 1920’s and 40’s. She often depicted identity, challenged stereotypical gender roles, and featured mythology and legends in her works.
Clare Rae is a photographer and former “artist in residence” in Jersey who is from Australia. She is very well-known in her home country, however, with this exhibition, she has started to become internationally well-known. Clare Rae’s series of work which has been presented exclusively for this exhibition has been heavily influenced and inspired by Claude Cahun’s work.
Claude Cahun “Je tends les bras” & “I am in training don’t kiss me”, respectively.
Clare Rae “Bunker near Petit Plemont”
Clare Rae “Le Pinacle”
Clare Rae’s work features many of the same themes which Cahun covers. However, the most obvious theme is the ”Myths & Legends” where rocks would be portrayed as having human body parts. Other obvious similarities include both sets of images being in black and white as well. However, although both in black and white, Rae’s images are sharper and more detailed, this is due to the majority of Cahun’s images being taken in the 1920’s and 30’s, where cameras weren’t as developed.
My favourite image from Rae’s set of images is “Le Pinacle” due to the image being focused on Rae, as shown by her being centred in the image, although most of her body is being obstructed by the rock which is jutting out.
My favourite image from Cahun’s set of images is the image in which she is in her garden. What I like about this image is the splicing of the two images where Cahun is standing, and where she is sitting.
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.
Aperture: ‘The opening in the lens.’ When we hit the shutter release button of the camera a hole opens up that allows your cameras image sensor to catch a glimpse of the scene you’re wanting to capture. The aperture that you set impacts the size of that hole. The larger the hole the more light that gets in – the smaller the hole the less light.
