original image
First I opened the image and made it black and white, pressed select all and copied the image, then I adjusted the canvas size. I then pasted the image and flipped it horizontally, then I flattened the image, selected all and copied the image, adjusted the canvas size again and copied and flipped it vertically.
Harry Callahan
Alfred Stieglitz
Callahan’s primary subjects were landscapes, city-scapes, and varied, unconventional portraits.
Stieglitz pointed his lens toward the clouds above Lake George, New York. He eventually made more than two hundred photographs in the series he initially called Songs of the Sky and later Equivalents.
While both photographs are in black and white, Callahan’s image has a harsh contrast between a bright white and a deep black, compared to Stieglitz’s photo, where there is a range of grey scale tones.
Stieglitz attempted to awaken in the viewer the emotional equivalent of his own state of mind at the time he took the picture and to show that the content of a photograph was different from its subject, similar to Callahan who once said “The difference between the casual impression and the intensified image is about as great as that separating the average business letter from a poem,” in 1964. “If you choose your subject selectively, intuitively, the camera can write poetry.” Both photographers are implying how you view the image, emotionally, is very different to the subject of the photograph.
Both images are of natural forms in natural day light, both have repetition of the same natural form, Callahan’s being trees and Stieglitz’s clouds.
In Callahan’s photograph, the lighting is the same all over the image, compared to the lighting in Stieglitz’s image, where the clouds naturally create a darker shadow, then they break, letting a burst of bright sunlight enter the captured photograph and reflect against the lens of the camera.
Uta Barth
Barth is a contemporary German-American photographer who’s work addresses themes such as perception, optical illusion and non-place, “inverting the notion of background and foreground”. Her work is as much about vision and perception as it is about the failure to see, the faith humans place in the mechanics of perception and the precarious nature of perceptual habits.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Meatyard is an American photographer known for his photographs in which family members and friends appear wearing grotesque masks. His photography reflected the connection between nature and humans. His Zen Twigs series, close-up detailed images of thin tree branches set against an out of focus background is the most obvious manifestation of his interest in Zen.
My photo shoot inspired by Meatyard
Final images
Certain images create a silhouette as the contrast between light and dark is so strong, what I like most about these photographs is the variety of black and white tones and the focus, high aperture is used to blur certain parts of the image to create a focus on the main part of the photo.
Saul Leiter’s photographs
My photos inspired by Leiter
Saul Leiter’s images can use vibrant and unique colours. The photographer uses a high aperture to blur certain parts of the image to create a focus on the main part of the photo. Abstract photography occurs when a photographer focuses in on a part of a scene, blurring out the background and focusing in on the colour, texture, shape, line, geometry, reflection or symmetry.
Leither captured contemplative moments in New York City in his warm and intimate photographs. He often shot in colour, a rarity for the era, often resembled abstract paintings, taken from unexpected angles and concerned primarily with the use of colour and geometric composition.
My photos inspired by Leiter
I like the vibrant, saturated colours in these photographs, the highlights and shadows contrast together creating depth, bringing out the brightness of the blue and pink tones.
These photographs were both taken by Albert Renger-Patzsch as part of his ‘The World is Beautiful’ collection.
The image on the left is of an industrial building and the photograph on the right is of a natural form. Both photos are in black and white with extensive contrast between the light and dark tones, the contrast emphasises a gradient from light to dark on parts of the metal.
The photo on the left is very geometric with the straight, hard, man-made metal, whereas the photo on the right is natural in its own way as the leaves have different patterns and details compared to another.
Both images use camera positioning, however the photo on the left is taken from below and has a lot of the object in the frame, whereas the one on the right is taken from a birds-eye view and has been cropped, it focuses on a small part of the object up close to admire minor details.
The photo on the left has sharp lines created by the building, these contrast with the background of the image, the sky, which is light toned and grey without any shadows. This photograph was taken in natural lighting as of the deep shadows on parts of the building such as the underneath.
Keld Helmer-Petersen is one of the most influential Danish photographers in the 20th Century, inspired by Albert Renger-Patzsch. He was an international pioneer in colour photography and was a central figure in not only Danish but also European modernist photography. He continuously experimented and challenged the many possibilities of the photographic image. In 1956 Helmer-Petersen established himself as a professional architecture photographer, he achieved fame for his colour photographs but he also published several books of black and white images that explore dramatic contrasts of tone. 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.
The threshold tool creates a silhouette and it flattens 3D objects and creates a strong, dramatic contrast between the black and white tones.
