My first attempt of the task:
I am not sure what I think of this because of the photo and the fact that the bunker in the foreground is too big to put in one circle.
Then I developed my ideas and made these:
The above slide shows me using the content aware fill to remove some of the larger imperfections.
i chose this photo because the main subjects (the ends of the piers) are small enough to fit in a circle and i can get the sun and the reflection in it to.
After experimenting with just using a solid black layer and the circles I will continue to experiment using different coloured layers, different circle arrangements, different opacity of the layers and using previously edited photographs for different effects.
Solid Colour
Solid Colour and New Arrangement
Solid Colour and New Arrangement
Above are all my final outcomes for the experiments I have produced. I feel they have worked well and I have been able to find different ways to arrange my circle holes and also the effects of using different colours as the solid colour.
Using a Different Opacity
Using a Previously Edited Image, Different Opacity
These are more of my final outcomes for other experiments that I produced, I feel these I my most successful as I think they show a range of experiments by using my previously edited photographs and also the different opacity of the solid layers.
For this experiment I will be exploring using layers as layer masks to reveal and conceal areas of my photographs and exploring different ways to do this.
Helmer-Petersen was a Danish photographer who was inspired by Albert Renger-Patzsch, the experiments at The Bauhaus in Germany and by Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Art Institute of Chicago. He achieved fame for his colour photographs but he also published several books of black and white images that explore dramatic contrasts of tone. In some, we are only presented with images that are black and white. All mid tones have been removed. He created and found these images, using both cameras and flat bed scanners to achieve the effects he was looking for. These books are beautifully designed and encourage us to consider the space around the image and the accompanying text as integral to the meaning of the work.
https://tallisalevelphoto.weebly.com/black-light.html
These are my experimented ideas, I have chosen to use different pictures and seeing the result of the threshold adjustment.
Here i have chosen my favorite 4 photos out of my edited photos using threshold. I have chosen the photos as they still contain a lot of detail which is what I wanted especially the close up of the plant, this is my favorite image out of my for images as it has more character than the others. the second best image is the one of the close up of the Eiffel tower as threshold effect has made the solid lines more solid and the image I found is the most abstract out of this project as there is only focusing on the detail of the lines it also looks better in black and white instead of using colour.
This picture below is of a close up of the plant I like this picture as in black and white there seems to be more detail within the image which is presented. I used the threshold adjustment which made it go into black and white and it adds more detail and a sense of it coming out of the page. I have included the original photo before I started editing the photo so I can compare the differences of before and after. In my opinion I prefer the edited version as it makes me feel that the picture is actually coming out of the page which is different to the other picture. In the second edited photo I used the edited photo but afterwards I changed the contrast and brightness so that it was darker. I have included it but i didn’t like it but included it as a comparison.
For this photo I decided to again use the threshold adjustment, but I didn’t like this outcome due to the fact the detail within the photo was taken this was because it wasn’t very abstract and the lines were very close together so the shadows collided making it darker.
For this photo I used the threshold adjustment making it into black and white. I like it as the detail within the picture is still present however I don’t think it would be classed as abstract as there is a definite lines and it isn’t close up. I also after using the threshold adjustment i decided to add a and invert which converted the picture into white and then the lines were black I found this very basic and I didn’t like it however i decided to include it as a comparison between the original and both of the edited photos. On the threshold edited photo I included a Stroke to identify my favorite out the of the edited photos.
I decided to use this photo below to see what happened when I choose the very basic picture and used the threshold adjustment to convert into black and white however I found that the edited consisted of little detail and I preferred the original photo as it contains more things to focus which maybe not abstract however the edited would be classed as abstract.
I chose this picture as it was very simple and I thought about the idea What would it look like if i used the threshold tool. I thought that it was a good outcome as all the shadows reflect the tree. Comparing it to the original photo I prefer the edited photo as you can see the shadows more clearly than the original.
This picture is of a bicycle wheel I chose to edit it as i found that it was abstract as it only focused on the wheel and its shadow, I thought that if I edited it with the threshold adjustment that it would bring out the detail and it would make the lines bold. For comparing I Prefer the edited version of the photo as it is more unique to the original which I think is very dull and has no personality.
I think for this photo it would be classed as abstract as it only focuses on a little section unlike the other photos. I used the threshold adjustments which converted the photo into black and white and the lines are solid and bold which is what Keld Helmer-Peterson. I included the original so I can compare how different the adjustment did to the photo. Personally I prefer the edited photo as it seems so much more alive and it brings out the uniqueness of the photo.
The process to create my final image was relatively simple to complete and is now something I can use more often in my work. I reduced the opacity in a way which the ‘concealed’ area of the photo became visible, but ensuring the ‘revealed’ was more prominent and vibrant to extenuate the colour of the pipes. If I was to do this exercise again I would have used a photo with more colour in order to create more contrast between the dark ‘concealed’ areas and the bright ‘revealed’ areas. I ‘revealed’ the area with the sharpest focus and most depth, for instance the bottom left hand corner had detailed rusting and was displayed well in the natural lighting. The texture of the picture varied between rust and cooper residue, which adds a sense disorganization which fits well with my ‘revealed’ circles because they displayed the areas where most is going on, not the tidier areas of negative space in the background. The pipes are all in 3D form, this adds more depth to the photo with shadowing as displayed in the bottom ‘revealed’ circles.
Tonality: Colour
A curve, in image editing, is a remapping of image tonality, as a way to emphasise colours or tone in an picture. Changing the black point, grey point or white point of an image can dramatically affect the colours shown in an image. Below I have included some examples of where I have changed these points in different areas of the image to create different colour schemes in each image. I used an image of fire as it had many tones running through it that I thought may give good results.
As shown in these images, changing the black point, grey point or white point of an image can massively change the appearance of an image. The original colours of the fire (white, yellow and orange) were changed as I changed the tone points of each image.
I was less subtle with the editing process of these images, resulting in them looking highly unrealistic and obviously manipulated, however in doing so I produced some dramatic very images.
About Ralph Eugene Meatyard:
Ralph Eugene Meatyard lived in Lexington, Kentucky, where he made his living as an optician while creating an impressive and enigmatic body of photographs. 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 book The Unforeseen Wilderness , for which Meatyard contributed photographs of Kentucky’s Red River Gorge.
My photos :
My edited work:
I took some of the photos which I thought could be used in inspiration of Eugene, and put a black and white filter on them. I then used the blur option until I got my desired look.
| Ralph Eugene Meatyard was a qualified optician, the company he worked for sold photography equipment. For his son’s birthday he bought him a camera, which sparked his career into photography. He later became a member of the Lexington Camera Club where he pursued his passion for photography outside the main stream, he experimented with multiple exposures, motion blur and depth of field to create non focal pictures. |
This photo by Meatyard is from his ‘no focus’ collection in which he has many photos with a blur effect, creating an all round negative space. From my interpretations this photo is of busy people walking, its good that I don’t know what the photo is of as this is what Meatyard wanted us to feel, a sense of the unknown. In order for this blur affect to be achieved the aperture must be wide (smallest f-value) so that the blurred area is harsher. A long focal length and a reasonably far distance from the subject would have also been techniques that Meatyard would have used. In all this photos of this particular collection he used a colour balance of black and white, which creates cold tone. The black and white goes well with the motion blur as it creates a mirroring effect for instance the people are walking, everything is fast pace and blurry, you can see no expression from anyone, this is similar to how there is no colour expressing the atmosphere, everything is gloomy and dull. As well as that there appears to be a pattern within this photo, the people are evenly spread apart, there is a clear rule of thirds. This also creates a sense of repetition and how everyday is the same nothing changes, there is nothing new to look forward to, everything is black and white.
In response to Meatyard’s work I experimented with focal length, depth of field and aperture. I took most of my inspiration from his ‘zen twigs’ collection, focusing in on plants and branches and blurring out the background to create large negative space. In order to achieve this set my camera to a large aperture and I had a shallow depth of field. Overall I am pleased with my final images, I decreased the brightness of all images and made them black and white, to resemble the work of Meatyard. I have tried to mirror his work as my photos are either completely blurred or there is one focal point and the rest is out of focus negative space.
Tonality: Contrast
A curve, in image editing, is a remapping of image tonality, as a way to emphasise colours or tone in a picture.
Applying a curve to all channels of an image typically change the brightness. Light parts of an image can become lighter while dark parts of an image become darker, increasing the contrast in a composition.
Below I have shown examples of images in their original form as well as with two examples of the same image with different levels of contrast.
As displayed in these images, the higher the contrast the more dramatic the image. I took these frames of light reflecting on water at night to create natural contrast before the editing process to show how slight changes to the tonality of an image can drastically change how an image appears.
I could have further increased the curve of these images or perhaps even decreased it to give the images less contrast, however I felt it was most effective for these specific images to increase the curve sensibly to create realistic images rather than obviously edited ones.
