Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Ralph Eugene Meatyard (1925–1972) lived in Lexington, Kentucky, where he made his living as an optician while creating a wide variety of photos. Meatyard’s creative circle included mystics and poets, such as Thomas Merton and Guy Davenport, as well as the photographers Cranston Ritchie and Van Deren Coke, who were mentors and fellow members of the Lexington Camera Club. 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.

Frederick Sommer

Frederick Sommer (September 7, 1905 – January 23, 1999), was an artist born in Angri (Italy) but raised in Brazil. He earned a Masters of Arts degree in Landscape Architecture (1927) from Cornell University where he met his future wife Frances Elizabeth Watson (September 20, 1904 – April 10, 1999). They got married in 1928 and they had no children. The Sommers moved to Tuscon Arizona in 1931 and then Prescott, Arizona in 1935. Sommer became a citizen of the United States on November 18, 1939. In the 1950’s, Sommer began to experiment with camera less negatives. He drew with soot, dirt and grease on pieces of glass. Below you can see two images of Sommer’s, one of a very deep and vast landscape of Arizona which includes rocks, hills, small and large shrubs and many cacti. The image is focuses close but gets less detail as it goes further back in the photo. The second image is that of his experiments in the early 1950’s with camera less negatives on a piece of glass. It includes a very random but human touch as the light comes through the drawing he made on the glass.

My Ideas

My Finalised Images

My Favorite

I like this image the most because the vibrant colours of the paperclips go well with the plain wood background. I also like how the image turned out after editing it on photoshop. I edited the brightness down and the contrast up to bring out the colours. I also adjusted the levels, curves and exposure to give a glow and contrast with the neon paperclips. I finally edited the vibrance so that the background had a richer and warmer tone.