Case Study

Aaron Siskind was an American photographer born in New York City 1903. His ‘work focuses on the details of things, presented as flat surfaces’. He grew up on the lower east side of New York City with his Jewish, Russian Parents. Once he had graduated city college he became a grade school English teacher which would be his job for the next 25 years. He didn’t gain a real interest in photography until he was around 26 when he got married in 1929. One of his wedding gifts was a camera which he used on his honeymoon. From then on he became fascinated with photography and the way in which a camera perceives objects. In the 1930’s during Siskind’s early career, he was a member of the ‘New York Photo League’ where he produced numerous series of images, one of those series being the “Harlem Document”. This was a series documenting New York during the depression especially focusing on the area of Harlem. The project was ended by 1941 as America entered into WW2, Siskind had left the Photo League and began to explore ‘Abstraction’. His work was influenced by Abstract Expressionists and his images would often feature along side them. He would spend time framing and positioning his camera to achieve the perfect composition. He would peel paint to create sculptures and manipulate strands of seaweed into calligraphy.

Analysis

VISUAL: This composition was made by peeling the paint in what looks like a wall to create low-relief structure. You can see a lot of texture from the paint, the cracks and the background. The texture, shadows and peeled paint make the image more dramatic and old, it makes the viewer think that it is really old or has gone through something to make it look the way it is. I think natural lighting was used

TECHNICAL: This image is very hard to explain the settings on the camera because the image is very shallow meaning there is not much depth. This makes the image hard to tell what aperture was used because the is not enough depth to show a shallow depth of field. However, I think that this image would have been taken using an aperture ranging from f4 to f9. A low ISO was used because there is minimal grain and a fast shutter was used as everything is sharp. But again this is hard to judge as if a tripod was used then a long shutter may have been used.

CONCEPT/CONTEXT: Siskind liked to transform everyday objects or natural things and transform them into new structures. In this image he peeled the paint on what may be a door to look like it almost like the shape of a person.

Shoot Plan

WHAT: This shoot is about capturing and exploring different textures and surfaces. My plan is to walk around my house and where I live looking for different surfaces. Already, I plan to take pictures of cracked and peeling paint, wood knots, wood grain, and bricks. I am going to mainly shoot things straight on therefore not showing any depth but I may change the angle of the camera for some shots to show some depth and 3d look in the image.

WHERE: I have an old shed near my house that belongs to my family that is rotting and has a lot of peeling and cracked paint on it which I can photograph. I am also going to wander around my yard and the lanes near my house looking for different surfaces and textures, for example rotting wood, leechy walls, bricks, rusty metal and so on. There are also some wooden beams in my house that are full of cracks and wholes from wood worms.

WHEN: I will try and shoot everything at once and will do it on day when it is not too sunny. This will give me nice even lighting across the subjects rather than harsh shadows and high contrast.

HOW: I am going to use my canon 70d for all of these photos and not use my phone. I am doing this because I need to capture as much detail as possible if I need to crop in or adjust the framing. I am going to use a mixture of my 50mm 1.8 and the kit lens depending on how much light I can get. For example there will be no issues outside as there will be plenty of light.

Contact Sheet

This surfaces photoshoot was successful, I think I accurately captured some images that are similar to the style of Aaron Siskind. The I imported the images into Lightroom I filtered the good images by pressing ‘P’ on the keyboard to flag them. I edited them and then rated them with one or two stars depending on how good each edit was.

Edit Process

Edits

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Evaluation / Comparison

These are my favourite images because I think they look the more professional compared to some of the others that just look like anyone has taken a random picture of pain pealing. I also thing they resemble Aaron Siskind’s style well. Once I had edited them they look older and more like something he would take. Overall I am very happy with the way these images came out.

The top image looks a bit like a dear or some sort of animal, I didn’t realise this until later when I was editing it. The knot in the wood looks like and eye and there is a crack in thee wood on the bottom left that looks like a mouth. This links well to his photos as he often looks for patterns or shapes in his the picture he takes.

The second image I really like because I managed to get the perspective exactly right. By this I mean that I shot it square on to the surface so none of the lines are warped or bowing. I like the way the cracks and pealing paint are all over the image. I also like the contrast between the white paint and the dark shadows of the wood underneath, it brings a good balance to the image.

Overall I am very happy with the way these images came out.

• A SURFACE is ‘the outside part or uppermost layer of something’.

Texture and surfaces are the feel, the patterns and structure of the face of an object. Most objects all have different textures to them, some are a lot more intricate than others a and some are very plain.

Using cameras we are able to see the texture of a surface up close and in ways that we would be unable to with the human eye.