Daily Archives: September 27, 2020

Filters

Author:
Category:
Task

Contact Sheets

Leave a comment

Contact sheets are a tool used by photographers, most of the time with film photography, that allow them to view each image they have taken. These consist of photographs from one photo shoot, which display the same object or idea. However, as technology has advanced contact sheets have slowly become more and more unnecessary, due to the digital age.

Contact Sheets are useful as they allow you to see each photo from your photo shoot and sort through them, deciding which one is your best.

Some examples of contact sheets can be seen below.

William Klein

Albert Renger-Patzsch Contact Sheets

These are the contact sheets from my photo shoot in the style of Albert Renger-Patzsch, in which I took photos of the area around the harbour and the recycling center. In this process I also looked for any patterns or repetition I could record. I chose this area as I believe it links to Patzsch’s work, in which he displayed industrial settings including boats, and large framework structures.

Favourite Edited Images

For my favourite images from the Patzsch style photoshoot, I used photoshop to adjust the contrast, exposure, shadows, highlights, texture, and clarity. Therefore allowing for them to look more similar to Patzsch’s work.

Final Image

I believe that this edit is my best image from this photoshoot, as I think it best portrays the style of post expressionism and is similar to Patzsch’s work in the New Objectivity movement. This is as the image showcases an everyday industrial structure with bold leading lines, creating a geometric image. In addition, I think that the framing of this image works the best as it leaves little empty space.

Task

Black Light

Leave a comment

Task 1

Exploring high contrast images with Keld Helmer-Petersen

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.

  • Choose 4 x images of your own to work with
  • Edit the images using the THRESHOLD ADJUSTMENT in Adobe Photoshop
  • Choose how far you “push” the image
  • Option : Add a “stroke” to the final image
  • Present your final images in a grid of 4 x square / rectangle format
  • Remember to Flatten Image and check file size
  • Blog files should be reduced to 1000 pixels on the long edge
Original Image
Threshold Adjustment in Photoshop
Adjusting the threshold level slider
Cropping the image
Rotate the image if necessary
Finished image
  • Create a blog post that includes your experiments, including original images, edits and final outcomes
  • Include key information about Keld Helmer-Petersen
  • Add annotations to describe and explain your process
  • Critically evaluate your outcomes
  • Print your final design A4 to Photography Printer

Task 2 (extension)

  • this task is designed to encourage you to explore Adobe Photoshop further and select areas of an image to reveal / conceal
  • You will begin to use LAYERS and LAYER MASKS
  • You will also use the 2 x OPACITY sliders
Original
Adapted image

METHOD

  1. Open an image in Adobe Photoshop
  2. Add a new layer from the LAYER PANEL > SOLID COLOUR
  3. Reduce the opacity in the LAYER PANEL to reveal your image
  4. Click on the LAYER MASK (white box) in your LAYER PANEL
  5. Choose the brush tool from the TOOLBOX
  6. Adjust the size of the brush using the {} keys
  7. Check / adjust  the opacity level of your brush (top bar)
  8. Click on various areas of the image to create circular “holes”
  9. Using the opacity slider in the LAYER PANEL, bring the level up to 100%
  10. You have a completed image. Flatten the layers, save and upload.
  • Explore ways you can extend this basic idea
  • Create a blog post entitled “Conceal / Reveal”
  • Describe and explain your process and include visual evidence
  • Critically evaluate your process

Remember to use the model :

TECHNICAL -VISUAL-CONCEPTUAL-CONTEXTUAL

here are some helpful examples for you to work from…

Picture

Follow the 10 Step Process for each unit to ensure you tackle all Assessment Objectives thoroughly :

  1. Moodboard (AO1)
  2. Mindmap of ideas (AO1)
  3. Artist Reference / Case Study (AO1)
  4. Action Plan (AO3)
  5. Photoshoots + contact sheets (AO3)
  6. Image Selection (AO2)
  7. Image Editing/ manipulation (AO2)
  8. Presentation of final outcomes (AO4)
  9. Compare and contrast (AO1)
  10. Evaluate and Critique (AO1+AO4)
Independent, Resource, Task

contact sheets

1 Comment

Contact sheets display a series of thumbnails from a photoshoot, these were mainly used when film photography was more popular. they are an easy way to visualise all photos at once and allows you to select your more interesting photos simply.

Thomas Lang:

“Gesalt” – Thomas Lang (2018)

Thomas Lang is a portrait photographer who was born in Paris, France. His set of photographs from his series “Gesalt” was produced in 2018 as a form of displaying his portrait photography in an abstract form. He fractures the face of his model into a mosaic-like puzzle. Here, he uses contact sheets as a way of displaying a whole photograph in sections.

My example of a contact sheet:

This is an example of a contact sheet from my project of creating a response to “The Formal Elements”. Here I have used the shape tool in photoshop to highlight my most successful and least successful images from the photoshoot.

This way of using contact sheets easily allows me to view a multitude of photos at once and pick out the photos that instantly grab my attention over others. I can them highlight them for future reference to show why I liked them, and why I thought they were more successful.