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Independent, Reading, Task

Looking and Seeing

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Focus and aperture mood board

For this project I explored the different ways in which aperture and focus can be experimented to create unconventional and abstract images.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Ralph was an American Photographer born in 1925 whose work was focused on disassociating with mainstream photography by creating unconventional abstract images. The projects in Ralph’s portfolio I will look at are ones where he experiments with focus and depth of field in order to broaden expressionism in photography.

In this photograph Ralph has tampered with the focus. He has made the image out of focus to create abstract silhouettes. He has also created a large tonal range by shooting the subjects in black and white. The subjects also bulge from the negative background as the composure consists of simplistic white background with repeating simplistic positive figures in the foreground.

In this image Ralph experiments with aperture. He focuses on the centre of the twig making the immediate foreground and the background out of focus. He does this by using a wide aperture. The angle at which he has framed the twig has created the out of focus foreground to lead the eye down the twig into the point that is in focus which gives the image a lot of depth and creates a satisfying abstract composition.

Saul Leiter

An American pioneer in photography in the early 50s. He specialised in experimenting with compositions to do with street photography. I will look at his work where he explores focus and depth of field

In this image Saul dabbles with both the focus and the aperture in this image. The out of focus exposure gives this image an energy and insinuates movement in the composition. The Large aperture has placed focus on the centre subject of what saul was trying the capture and leads the eye straight to it. This also makes the subjects look as if they are frozen in time as everyone around them is in chaotic movement.

Ossi Saarinen

Another Photographer that has experimented with depth of Field is Ossi Saarinen. In this composition he frames the fox by using a large aperture and focusing on the fox in the background and using the leaves in the foreground as a kind of vignetting. This gives the image a great depth of field and accentuates the subject.

Contact Sheets

Experimental Aperture Compositions

When composing these images I used a large aperture of f/1.4. I took inspiration from Meatyard and shot up close to some twigs and adjusted focus to accentuate different parts of the twig. I shot at an angle that would create a simplistic negative white background to contrast the twigs in the foreground. I also shot these images with a low ISO to create a gloomy feel. I then experimented with having my subject stand in various positions so I could create a great depth of field by using a large aperture.

Experimental Focus Compositions

When composing these images I took inspiration from Meatyard by intentionally shooting my images out of focus. This creates a promiscuous abstract feel. I edited the photos with a lot of contrast to help distinguish the blurry silhouettes from the background. In some of the images my intention was to make the subject somewhat noticeable however, in others I was aiming for an extremely abstruse composition where the subject is barely recognizable.

Independent, Reading, Task

The World is Beautiful

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Albert Renger-Patzsch was a German Photographer born in who specialised in black and white landscapes capturing the beauty of the natural world and also its man made elements specifically industrial architecture. He often shot in harsh lighting which gave his images long shadows and a large tonal range. He liked to shoot ordinary scenes from a unique angle. A lot of his pieces also had rhythmic features as he shot a lot of repeating items. He was also associated with New Objectivity Movement.

Albert arrived to photography when a new generation of photographers were moving away from pictorialism. His work reacted to expressionism, a way to face a reality and to have a figurative approach about photography.

Albert Renger-Patzsch started his work in nature, He drew the eye close to natural elements of the word around us. As he moved on, he began to focus more on modernity and drew our eye to more dynamic angles of our world, his favourite way to do this is by shooting industrialism and in addition to this he focused on how humans have changed the landscape around them.

In his book “The World is Beautiful” he creates a metaphysical description of the world in 1928. There is a thematic progression in the book; it starts with nature and then animals, then landscapes and the world constructed by man and he finishes it with an ambiguous image of a persons hands instigating they are preying or begging. He was aware of a transformative perception that was taking place in the 20s

The new objectivity movement was, simply put a style of photography that emerged out of Germany in the 1920s reacted to expressionism in a way that focused on the objective world. Some of the other artists involved in the era were August Sander and Karl Blossfeldt.

I think another photographer that has been influenced by the new objectivity movement is Henry Wessel. Henry shoots ordinary scenes and withdraws the beauty from them.

My Favorite photos from Albert Renger Patzsch

Image Analysis

The similarities in this image include:

  • They are both industrial settings which are man made.
  • They both have leading lines which make your eye travel down the length of the image.
  • They are both shot with a lot of light and therefore possess a large tonal range
  • Both images have a repeating rhythm, the image on the left has repeating geometric window frames and the image on the right has repeating factory chimneys.

The differences in this image include:

  • With the image on the right albert has framed the industrial factory between the two street side buildings, whereas when he took the image on the left he did not frame the building.
  • The image on the right has a greater depth of field
  • The image on the left is more geometric, this is created by the perfectly rectangular and uniform windows and the sharp corners everywhere.

My reaction to Alberts photography:

I exercised shooting interesting angles, macro framing and objectivity in our man made and natural world. I focused on finding leading lines that draw the eye to centre of the image. I also shot with a small aperture to create a great depth of field and to create more contrast in the image and accentuate the black and white film photography look that Albert used to shoot in.

Contact sheets

Independent, Reading, Task

Image Analysis – Alfred Krupp

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The man in this photograph is Alfred Krupp. Alfred was as an ammunition and steel manufacturer who supplied products to the German Nazis during the war and was later sentenced to prison for war crimes. The Photographer, Arnold Newman, was a Jewish American who traveled to Germany as he felt he needed to know more about the horrific oppression of Jewish people. The dramatic irony behind this photo is that a Jewish Photographer got a Nazi sympathizer to pose for this iconic image.

In this Image, slightly below the centre of the shot, is a medium shot of a Caucasian man who looks to be in his late sixties. He has a balding head with slight tufts of grey hair sprouting near the back of his scalp. He has fairly dark coloured skin littered with wrinkles. He has bushy brown eyebrows, a long pointed nose and large, deep, brown eyes. He is gazing straight at the lens and has a serious and sinister expression on his face. He is dressed in a dark grey blazer with a white shirt bearing silver cuff links underneath. He is aslo wearing an expensive looking metal watch tucked underneath his blazer. In the background there is two large concrete pillars eaither side of the man. There is a blue train to the left of the man and a rust coloured one to the right. There are two rows of metal beams above the trains running paralell to eachother leading to a set of windows positioned directly above the mans head. There are also multiple columns of ceiling windows running along the roof of the builing. Also in this buidling are a series of moving metal machines/parts.

The lighting in this image is a combination of natural and fabricated light, the natural light is coming from above and behind the subject. The natural light coming from the windows give the subject a glow above his head almost like a halo. The fluorescent light is coming from behind the camera. This light brightens the outside of the subject but creates deep shadows in the centre of the subjects face and body which make him look mischievous. The image has quite a narrow portrait crop on it. Arnold used quite a high aperture as both the foreground and background are very clear. The image is slightly underexposed and has been given a vignette around the edges to create a mysterious feel. The image has a warm tone and a dark tone. the texture of the image is quite rough which is not created by grain but is rather associated with the old mysterious man and his surroundings. There a large depth of field aided by the metal beams running longitudinally down the factory roof in this image. The photographer has also framed the subject between the two pillars.

Independent, Reading, Task

Paper Paper Paper

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In this image I shot pieces of folded, crumpled and ripped paper.

I shot this image using harsh, unnatural, flash lighting. The light is positioned closely above and to the right of the paper which creates extreme shadows and opposing bright white elements in the composition. This gives the image a lot of contrast and tonal range. I also de-saturated the image to accentuate the negative background and the highlights.

I used a large aperture to make the paper stand out from the background. I used a low ISO to prevent grain and to prevent my image from being blown out sue to the unnatural light. The image has a satisfying repetition of horizontal lines created by the way I folded the paper. I also used pieces of ripped and crumpled paper to frame my image. This framing also gives the image some nice depth of field as it adds layering to the composition. The ripped and crumpled paper used to frame my image has also given the image a horizontal line of symmetry.