Albert Renger-Patzsch

Albert Renger-Patzsch was a German photographer associated with the new objectivity.

In its sharply focused and matter-of-fact style his work exemplifies the esthetic of The New Objectivity that flourished in the arts in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Renger-Patzsch believed that the value of photography was in its ability to reproduce the texture of reality, 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 endeavor to create, with the means peculiar to photography and without borrowing from art, photographs which will last because of their photographic qualities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Renger-Patzsch

The New Objectivity:

The New Objectivity (in German: Neue Sachlichkeit) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism.  These artists rejected the self-involvement and romantic longings of the expressionists, Weimar intellectuals in general made a call to arms for public collaboration, engagement, and rejection of romantic idealism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Objectivity

Contact Sheet:

This is my contact sheet with the few images I have selected to edit.

Green circle - An image I would like to further use.

Red cross - An image I would not like to use.

Red F - The image is out of focus.

Red shading - The part of the image I would like to crop out.

Yellow question mark: An image I am unsure whether to edit or not.

Here are my final images:

I used adobe lightroom for this image, I applied a black and white preset because Renger-Patzsch's work was mainly in black and white. I then hightened the clarity and lowered the exposure. I then played around with the shadows and highlights until the image looked aesthetically pleasing. I like the depth of field created because the image is focused on the knot in the centre, and particularly towards the right of the photo, the blurryness.

Once again I used adobe lightroom to manipulate this image. I applied a black and white preset, hightened the contrast, clarity and highights, while lowering the shadows. The image has a crisp look to it and there is no depth of field created. I also cropped the image to remove some of the unwanted wall so it focuses on the actual image.

In this photo I used adobe lightroom to edit this image. I liked the contrast of light in the photo, especially the light reflected on the left which juxtaposes the dark shadow of the wall. I applied a black and white preset, then lowered the exposure and shadows. However, then I hightened the clarity, highlights and contrast. I then slightly cropped the image.

My final image is of a hinge on a caravan door. I applied a black and white preset on adobe lightroom, then hightened the contrast, clarity and shadows. I then lowered the highlights and exposure. I also slightly cropped the image to create more focus on the actual door hinge than the door.

The aim of this photo shoot was to use manual focus to try and use the different levels of focal views. In a few of these the back of the photo is focused on more than the front, but in most of them it is the front that is more focused.

You will notice I have added a new key, with half yellow and half green. I have done this because I really like the photos, but as a final step I will edit them. Have shown this with the photo below.

After shortening my list of photos using my colour scheme, I picked my final one to edit. In the photo I have changed the background to black and white and using Photoshop I removed the top layer to bring out the colour underneath.

Because I did use an old metal railing the final product has only a minor and subtle change, but I feel that it changes the photo just enough, and it stands out from the background.

The first photo shows the original photo, it is not edited and focuses down the hole within the railing, blurring everything else out.

The next shows the edited and final version, as you can see it is very subtle but you a drawn to the bland and near invisible colours at the bottom center of the photo.

Albert Renger- Patzsch

Albert Renger- Patzsch was born in June 1897 and was a German photographer who was well known for being involved in the “Neue Sachlichkeit” moment also known as the new objectivity.   Albert started doing photography at the age of twelve and by the early 1920s he worked as a press photographer in Chicago. Albert was always very focused on photography which ended up him with him making his best known book ‘ The world is beautiful’. The book contains one hundred photos which are in natural forms which reveal beautiful patterns throughout each photograph. This book was so famous that it made Albert as one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century.

Albert also believed that the value of photography was in its ability to reproduce reality and to represent the spirit of the object.

All of Alberts pictures were taken of naturalistic objects which all were edited with a very dark black and white effect which added a lot of tone and texture to his pictures. He tended to take his pictures very up close to his focus and therefore did not contain much of the background which made him unique from other photographers in his time. Albert also liked to take pictures of plants and i noticed there was a clear repetition of plants in his work. However, he did also take pictures of everyday objects.

There were a number of similar photographers in Alberta time which made it quite competitive. These photographers being Karl Blossfeldt, Laszlo Moholy- Nagy, August Sander and Helmar Lerski.  The photographers didn’t have any public rivalry throughout their careers but it is suspected.

After Alberts career there were a number of photographers who ended up producing work which was very similar to Albert’s. Some of these photographers being Martin Parr, William Eggleston, Keld Helmer Petersen and Peter Fraser.

Albert tended to take a lot of nature pictures, this image being one of them. This photograph is aimed specifically towards the flower which shows nature because of the flower included, however the black background does not as it makes the image seem artificial. The image has been taken from very close up which allows the audience to be able to see every detail of the image ie. the small black dots on the flower which are pollen, as well as the vertical lines on the flower.

This picture taken by Albert in his late career is a very detailed and textural photograph. I think that the organic photo has a lot of tone to it due to the lighting with the black and white edit. The snakes pattern skin is very pleasing to the eye as there is a lot of depth in the middle of the snakes scales which adds a lot of detail.  

I think that the fact the photograph has been cropped or framed to just include the snakes head and part of the tail is a very good idea as it is very intriguing to look at and makes the picture unique.

Albert Renger- Patzsch Gallery pictures

Evaluating his work

After evaluating Alberts work i have a clear idea of his thoughts and have used this images to take inspiration when taking my own photos. I have noticed all Alberts pictures are very neat and aren’t over complicated, he tends to focus on one object in the picture. I also noticed his work contains a lot of reflections from glass which i think is very clever and is something i would like to try when taking my photographs.

Planning my shoot

In order  for my images are successful,  I am going to make my images very neat, and show lots of reflections in each image which has been inspired by Albert. Most my images will be taken with the depth of field on the subject of the image ( main focus).

Contact sheets 

Editing my best images 

The image was taken in Manual focus with no flash, this being because i wanted the reflection on the spoon to be viable. The image was also taken very zoomed in and the subject of the picture is in the Rule of Thirds. The image is slightly under exposed due to the fast shutter speed and the location which i took this picture having artificial lighting. There is also a depth of field in this image which we can tell from the blurred background and the spoon being fully focused.

I really like this final image as i think the lighting of the image is very complimentary due to it enhancing the reflections and the lighter points in the image. The black and white effect also adds tone and texture to the picture, as well as the image being taken in 3D. There was no cropping of this picture as i quite liked the fact that you could see a small part of a humans thumb as it is quite unique and realistic.

This image was taken in an artificial lighting area and with a manual focus setting, no flash. I took this image zoomed in as i wanted the water droplets on the knifes to be the focus of the image, however this wasn’t as successful as i had hoped. I like how i have edited this image as i found that the overall image appears to look like it has a lot more depth which helps to add tone and texture to the photograph. I also really like the arrangement of the knifes as they are all facing the same direction but are still appear to look very complicated.

This manual focus image was taken with no flash and under artificial lighting . This image is fully in focus in order to capture the whole display ( no depth of field). This image has come out slighting under exposed due to the artificial light it was taken under, as well as the shutter speed being very quick.

I really like the editing of this image as there is a lot of different tone in the image due to the lighting. I think this also adds depth to the image and make sit a lot more interesting to look at.

Standard lens – Contact Sheet

Standard Lens –  Favourite Outcomes

Telephoto Lens – Contact Sheet

Telephoto Lens – Favourite Outcomes

Portrait Lens – Contact Sheet

Portrait Lens – Favourite Outcomes

I really enjoyed using the standard lens as it was easy to focus however I believe the Telephoto lens ended up getting the best photographs.

Depth of field is the distance about the plane of focus, where objects appear acceptably sharp in an image. Although an optical imaging system can precisely focus on only one plane at a time, the decrease in sharpness is gradual on each side on the plane of focus, so that within the depth of focus the unsharpness is imperceptible under normal viewing conditions.Many photographers have used Depth of field to create a certain type of mood or effect for the photo that they are taking.

Many of these photographers include:

Ralph Eugene Meatyard-                                                                              Meatyard mainly experimented with various strategies including multiple exposures, motion blur and other methods of photographic abstraction. Two of Meatyards series were mainly focused on Depth of field, with both stretching the expressive potential of photography and film when looking within the ordinary world.

Here is some of his work, named ‘Zen Twigs’ I really like these 2 photos as the dramatic use of the black and white gives the photo a spooky and eerie tone and effect, but also due to the leafless branches and the way that they stand out and creep out of the frame makes it seem alive-like. The use of the black and white effect makes the photograph have a colder atmosphere making it seem like the photo was taken in the middle of winter, giving it a cold and shivery feeling.

This is my second time using a contact sheet to create ideas for final photographs. I have used the same colours as I did last time to show my final choices and my thought process.

I was very unhappy with the turnout of this photoshoot, as when I had a closer look there are loads of problems which I don’t like. As you will see from this there are loads of red crosses due to the unhappiness of my photography.