Alfred Stieglitz – patterns in the sky

He was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was known for the New York art galleries that he ran in the early part of the 20th century, where he introduced avant-garde to many European artists to the U.S.

Harry Callahan – natural forms

Callahan left almost no written records—no diaries, letters, scrapbooks or teaching notes. His technical photographic method was to go out almost every morning, walk through the city he lived in and take numerous pictures. He then spent almost every afternoon making proof prints of that day’s best negatives. Yet, for all his photographic activity, Callahan, at his own estimation, produced no more than half a dozen final images a year. He worked with multiple exposures-double and triple exposure, blurs, large and small format film.

Compare and contrast-

Technical– The lighting in both photos have light and dark tones and different sections of the photo are in contrast with each other. In Alfred’s photo the clouds are very dark and grey as they are surrounding the small spot of sunlight that’s trying to shine through. The photo looks like it was taken in natural light as it’s of the sky which is a natural environment. Whereas the Harry’s photo contains extremely sharp contrasts between the black and white. The trees are completely black and the background surrounding them is white which makes the shape of the trees very visible. Both photos look like they’d be taken on a high shutter speed as no movement would be in the photos and neither photos look blurry. Harry’s photo is taken with a wide lens whereas Alfred’s photo is quite zoomed in to capture the sun peaking through. Both photos probably had to be on quite a high IOS level in order to capture the sunlight coming through the clouds(in Alfred’s photo) and the white background behind the trees(in Harry’s photo).

VISUAL- Both photos are of the natural environment but in a different form. Alfred’s photo is of the sky which both dark and light tones without any particular shape as it’s photographing the clouds and sun. The only repetition there is the clouds whereas in Harry’s photo repetition is clearly shown through the trees. In Alfred’s photo the shape of the trees are very defined because of the background being white which creates a very sharp contrast.

CONTEXTUAL- There isn’t much historical context behind both photos and not a personal meaning either. I think that both photos where just taken in order to show the different ways an abstract photo may be presented , as they chose to do that through nature.

CONCEPTUAL- I think that neither photographs have a meaning as it isn’t a photo that’s trying to get a message across to viewers as both of the photographs aren’t powerful enough. I think that both artists wanted to photograph the idea of ‘abstract’ in their own way.

MY RESPONSE- contact sheets;

Plan- I went out during the day when the sky wasn’t all blue and clear but neither when it was so cloudy you couldn’t see the sun. I wanted to capture the sun peaking and shining through the clouds. I then went out closer to the beach because that’s where the sky is the most open without any tall buildings surrounding it and I photographed the trees near it. I took photos of them because I knew when I edit them on Photoshop they would turn out similar to Harry’s style and they were very symmetrical due to the way I photographed them.

Evaluation

I took photos of the sky during the day time as Alfred’s photos are taken in the daylight and not at night. If I was to take the photos at night you wouldn’t be able to see the clouds. I waited till the sky was filled with dull clouds and photographed them from a low angle to create the perspective of looking up. I waited till the sun came out too in order to capture it peaking and shining through the clouds in the way that Alfred does. I also took photos of the nature when I found repetitive sections of it, such as trees being behind each other in a repetitive order.

My favourite images in black and white and cropped–

Overall I like how my photos turned out because I captured the sun coming through the clouds which creates a similar effect to Alfred and I think my photos turned out in a style similar to his. I also like how the second group of photos I took of the nature turned out because by turning them black and white , the background goes much lighter than the trees as they get completely darker and the shape of them becomes much more defined. The trees also turned out quite symmetrical and repetitive which makes it even more similar to Harry’s work.

Exploring with ISO settings-

I photographed the woods in different IOS settings. As you can see the lower the IOS setting was , for example in the first photo it was 400, the less light got in and it was very dark and almost all black. I then photographed it each time I increased the IOS setting and as you can see the photo got much more lighter and the last photo turned out almost white.

SURFACES-

Ernst Haas- Ernst Haas was an Austrian-American photojournalist and color photographer. During his 40-year career, Haas bridged the gap between photojournalism and the use of photography as a medium for expression and creativity.

He focuses on a variety of surfaces such as roads, reflections in mirrored buildings or even water. My process for this photo shoot will be to take photos of different parts of a road such focus on the surface of the pavement and even certain areas like a zebra crossing. I will also photograph reflections in puddles or windows and if it rains then keep the background out of focus and make the raindrops the main focus.

My response-

AARON SISKIND– Aaron Siskind was an American photographer whose work focuses on the details of things, presented as flat surfaces to create a new image independent of the original subject. I was inspired by the photographs he took of the roads and all the different broken textures. I’m going to take own photos in the style of Aaron Siskind as his work fits perfectly into the theme of texture.

Here’s some of my favourite photographs he’s took-

RESPONSE- CONTACT SHEETS

My main focus during this photoshoot was to take photos and capture different textures I could spot in the woods. For example, I took photos of various parts of broken woods and trees, the reflection in the small stream and several branches. I took photos of extremely tall trees from a much lower angle in order to create the illusion of the tree looking right over the person looking at my photograph, this also makes the tree seem much bigger than it actually is. While I was doing that I was using different IOS settings, as you can see in my contact sheets I had to take the same photo a couple of times to get the perfect lighting with the IOS setting. The darker the setting was the more details you could see on the tree barks and cores as the colour was much sharper and you could see the patterns on them a lot more clearer. I also took photos of corners of roads as I wanted to take photos in the style of Aaron.

My favourite photos

EVALUATION-

I really like how my photo shoot in the woods turned out because I wanted to focus on the different textures and reflections in the stream as well as exploring the different IOS settings. I was inspired by Aaron because he captures texture in a different way such as paint or wood peeling off different walls which is why I wanted to photograph the broken tree barks and photograph them up close. By changing the IOS settings it made a big difference in how much detail you could see in each photo and how much light was getting let in.

Keld Helmer Petersen– introduction

Keld Helmer-Petersen is one of the most influential Danish photographers in the 20th Century. He was an international pioneer in colour photography and was a central figure in not only Danish but also European modernist photography. His career spanned 70 years and he had strong interest in modern architecture, industrial areas and structures. He was very prolific and continuously experimented and challenged the many possibilities of the photographic image.

He experimented intensely with various photographic techniques, such as camera-less images or photograms which were created in the darkroom. He created pure abstract image creations ongoingly from 1949, but especially in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Process– I chose four of my images that I liked the most and edited them on Photoshop in the same style as him. I went onto Image> Adjustments>Threshold. I then adjusted the threshold as to how I wanted it. I wanted the a mix of completely dark tones and white tones without any mid tones to get the same contrast as Keld gets in his images.

Evaluation- personally I like how how the top two images turned out because by turning the photo completely black and white you can see all the small details on the trees and branches that you couldn’t in colour and it really defines the shape of the trees as it contrasts from the white .

I like how the bottom two turned out but not as much as the first because there’s still some uneven mid tones around the photos and it doesn’t create that sharp effect of black and white next to each other.

Many of the most famous and influential photographers are successful because they instinctively use these formal elements to create the best photograph they can whilst in front of the camera. This can be because the compose image with precision or that they recognize the perfect moment to press the shutter.

During one lesson, we took photos of paper in different lighting to show how the tone changes drastically and the darker tones become much more sharp. The photos were then uploaded on Photoshop and edited.

Analysing the elements for all my photos;

Line/ shape- because the photos are of paper there isn’t a lot of straight lines. Most are jagged and very unnatural. The shape of all the paper is very unsymmetrical and there’s not really a shape that can be seen in any photos apart from the one that’s a paper ball.

Light- there are some light parts and some very dark parts of the paper. This is due to the light being off which made the sharp sections very dark and there were shadows created. By editing the photographs further it made the edges more harsh.

Repetition– there’s not a lot of repeated lines or shapes as all the lines are very different and the creases are all over the paper.

Space- I photographed the paper quite close to make sure all the creases are visible but I took one where you could see the whole paper ball because I wanted the shadow to be shown underneath it. By taking the photos up close the viewer is getting to see all the details.

Texture– when the lights were turned off and I edited the photos further you could really see the texture of the creases better as the texture became more sharp and it looks more harsh when its darker in contrast to when it’s light as it looks more soft.

Value/ tone– The photos contain a mixture of all different tones. Some areas of the paper are mid-tones but there’s a lot of dark tones surrounding the edges as well as a lot of soft tones.

Composition- The images look unbalanced as there’s a lot of different lines and creases all over the place. The elements have been arranged it a random order as the creases were not planned.