Category Archives: Unit 1 Abstract

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Clare Rae X Claude Cahun

Both these images caught my eye when at the exhibition but both for different reasons. Clare’s work all had her in it as the focal point but the positions she took up didn’t overpower the photos they blended in with the surrounding well and even though some of the positions looked uncomfortable they created a delicate feel to the photo, like in the one below. Her clothes also add to this they where clearly thought out, in the photo above she wears a mid-length skirt which adds to the modesty of the photo and how she doesn’t want to be spotted she wants to blend in with her surrounding  and not stand out. Whereas I feel the opposite with some of Claude’s work, as she dresses up very boldly to make a statement, but in the photo below I felt differently because her naked body seemed to fit perfectly with the surroundings. The low position meant she could become closer to her surroundings creating a more natural pose. The seaweed wrapped around her is a subtle but genius addition to the photo, it’s as if the water is trying to grab onto her and bring her closer. Even though being naked isn’t subtle, to me it feels delicate and it’s our natural state, so it matches the natural state of the rocks and the sand. Cahun is well known for exploring the world of gender within her work, I feel that Rae has also emphasized that in her work. The two photos above both exhibit a great deal of gender confusion as the people in the photos could be either male or female. Both positions show a lack of control over themselves and how they can’t move a certain way, they are who they are, and they can’t do anything about it, they are stuck that way. Also, the fact that neither of their faces are showing expresses how you can’t define gender by a certain look, facial features don’t have anything to do with your gender, you make your gender, your looks don’t define you. 

Clare Rae
Claude Cahun

Paper Photography

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

Photo 4

This is my favorite image from the shoot with the paper.

Technical:

Lighting – The photo was taken with flash the try and highlight the contrast between the white paper and black card.

Aperture – The aperture was F3 so a medium amount of light was being let into the camera.

Shutter Speed – Was around 1/15 of a second which gave the top photo in particular a slight blur. An improvement would be to maybe use a faster speed of 1/250 or use manual focus.

ISO – The ISO was around 800.

White Balance – The temperature and warmth was turned up when editing to give the paper a worn effect as if it had been left for some time and been used. The white balance was also turned up to help the paper stand out.

Visual: 

The texture of this image has been greatly heightened to over exaggerate the crumples in the paper. I used the warmth tool to increase the worn look on the paper to make it look like it had been used or is old.

Conceptual:

The idea behind this work and image was to capture a raw and simplistic picture that can still be powerful and emphasize how such common items such as a crumpled piece of paper can be captured in unique and diverse ways, showing how photography can create a virtual presence of something so plain.

 

Experimenting with Paper

Martin Creed

Martin Creed

Martin Creed (born 1968) is a British artist and musician.  He won the Turner Prize in 2001 for exhibitions during the preceding year, with the jury praising his audacity for exhibiting a single installation, Work No. 227: The lights going on and off, in the Turner Prize show.  Creed lives and works in London. 

For this experimentation with Paper I focused on the artist Martin Creed.  Creed is looking at a sense of possibility.  He is experimenting with the shape of the ball and also into the creases that can be made onto the paper as shadows and lines.

My aim was to use Martin Creed as inspiration to produce my own set of photographs from and experimental photoshoot.  This included experimenting with the different positions of the paper and where in frame it sat but also what effects I could create with the creases in the paper and also different paper textures such as plain white paper and also tracing paper.

 

Contact Sheet of Own Experimenting

I have done experiments with the angles I have taken of the paper and how I have positioned the different sheets to form one image to create different compositions.  I have tried to experiment with the different traps of light between the creases of the paper to create different tones in the final photographs.

I often used the flash when creating my photographs, I did this to experiment with the amount of light I could hold and experiment with to see different outcomes of tone and exposure as I photographed the paper.

Final Chosen Photograph

Unedited
Final Edited

Contact Sheet- Paper

Contact sheets consists of many thumbnail photos which are printed on a single sheet of paper. They were regularly used in the days of film but their use went away when digital photography began. They can be used to review images so you can decide which ones you will delete, use and edit. I think that using contact sheets is an extremely intelligent way to start the editing process.

What each symbol means

Green circle: My favourite images 

Green square: I will use this image

Red X: I do not want this image/section

Orange ?: I am not sure if I should use this image 

F: This image is out of focus

L: The lighting is bad

Contact Sheet

The meaning of each colour is:

Red:  Indicates a photo or area I dislike. I would either discard the photo or crop the red areas to enhance the focal points of each frame.

Green:  Indicates a composition that I am pleased with and would go on to edit to further improve the image.

Blue:  Shows an area where there is an area of overexposure in the frame.

Pink:  Shows an area that is out of focus where this was not my aim.

Experiment – Paper Task

Paper Task – Photoshoot 1:

For this photoshoot i folded a single sheet of white paper to create areas of light and shade. I then enhanced the contrast slightly to increase the difference between the light and dark tones in the image without taking away from the natural feel. I found that this was a good example of subtle tone changes and showed texture with the dips and ridges of the paper being accentuated.


Paper Task – Photoshoot 2:

For this photoshoot I placed several pieces of flat or crumples paper onto a black backdrop to create a high contrast. I enhanced several setting during the editing process of these frames and found that this resulted in the dark parts of the image became highly textured and resulted in a sort of metallic or space-like finish to the images, while the white part of the images remained mostly unchanged.

Week 3 | Generating Ideas | Camera Skills | Using Photoshop

Click this PDF link for a range of resources and that we will be exploring to help you generate new and different ideas whilst learning what ABSTRACT PHOTOGRAPHY can be and how to use your camera and adapt your photographs…

AS Photography UNIT 1 resources

Camera Skills

You must experiment with ease of these skill areas and produce a blog post on each that includes evidence of your experiments and successes…

The images should be of an abstract nature, and show an appreciation of abstract qualities such as line, shape, colour, form, texture, pattern, repetition, symmetry

  1. Using Auto-Focus
  2. Using Manual Focus
  3. White Balance
  4. ISO
  5. Aperture
  6. Focal Length
  7. Depth of Field
  8. Show Shutter Speed

Photoshop Skills

  1. Cropping
  2. Selections
  3. Adjustments and corrections
  4. Transforming an image
  5. Layer control
  6. Image size / canvas size
  7. Double exposures

 

Working towards a vision…

canon

 

Image result for canon camera control dial

Use this method to analyse key images

Rule of Thirds