life after lockdown
Category Archives: Resource
Filters
the world is beautiful
Task Practical / photoshoot-homework
Respond to Albert Renger-Patzsch 1897-1966
We will aim to expand our approach to photographing things around us…whilst responding to influential approaches in the development of modern photography.
By responding to Albert Renger-Patszch and The New Objectivity you will be able to classify a greater range of your images whilst learning more about the Formal Elements and Adobe Photoshop techniques including :
- Cropping
- Image Adjustments
Remember to : Describe, explain and evaluate your process carefully.
Homework Due Date = Wednesday 23 September
Life after lock-down
Image analysis and interpretation
Substance:
- This photograph was taken by Arnold Newman in 1963. Arnold Newman’s family was Jewish
- The image is a portrait of a businessman as seen by the uniform and position of the hands, interlinking together supporting his head. This could suggest that he’s supporting this business or that he is the boss. This man is the business owner of Krupp industries.
- Krupp industries was a major weaponry supplier to the Nazis during World War II.
- Arnold Newman took this portrait for a sort of revenge as he was Jewish and Krupp industries supplied machinery and weaponry to basically kill thousands and thousands of Jews (Arnold Newman’s ancestors).
- In an interview, Arnold states that when someone suggested that he should do a portrait of Alfred Krupp he immediately said no, when asked: “Why not?” Arnold immediately replied with “I think he was the devil.”
- In this same interview, he says, “I wanted to use one of the rare times, I wanted to put a knife in his back.” In a way, Arnold succeeded in this as a few years after this photograph was taken, Krupp got imprisoned.
Composition:
- The main focal point / where the viewer’s eyes draw to first is the man in the mid-centre of the image.
- The rule of thirds has successfully been used. This is evident as the man would be between the 2 bottom points if the image was on a 3 X 3 grid.
- The man is the main subject in this image as he is lowered centred in the photograph. The heavy machinery and materials are also subjects as they aren’t blurred out so the photographer clearly made the sharp and clear so the viewer has an idea of what the place was.
- The photographer has purposely used the lighting technique to show the model’s face crystal clear with a sense of intimidation and fear as portrayed by the harsh shadows around his face and photograph in general. In addition, the photographer used the lighting technique to light well the background so other subjects like the trains being built are visible.
- The main colours used in this photograph are mostly harsh shadows and the vibrant orange train.
Lighting:
- The light is coming from the windowed rooftop.
- It consists mostly of natural lighting with harsh shadows surrounding the subject and the surrounding around him.
- The image is slightly under-exposed giving the impression of power, obscure and intimidation.
- As the natural light seem quite bright, it may be assumed that this photograph was taken during midday hours.
Techniques the photographer used:
- The photographer has used a quick shutter speed as movement and detail has been recorded to a crisp sharp focus.
- It has a large depth of field as the majority of the image is in focus.
- The author has purposely underexposed the are around the subject to create a sense of obscurity. On the other hand, the author underexposed the background in order to have the objects in focus and well lit.
- The camera in this picture is shown to be stationary as it isn’t a moving image.
Editing:
- The image is in digital format and could have been edited to adjust the light to make it more natural so it isn’t too bright but not too dark.
Atmosphere:
- This photograph makes me feel lowered and intimidated by this businessman as his facial expression and the way he seems to be in control of the factory makes me (the viewer) feel relegated to him in a certain way.
- The photograph appears to be showing a message of how the Krupp industries were evil in a certain way. I think this because the model has an evil grin on his face and taking into consideration the historical side of Krupp industries people may argue that they enabled/gave what the Nazis needed to kill thousands of people.
Response:
- I like Arnold’s work as it has a significant meaning behind it and it’s quite personal to Newman having to photograph someone who to a certain extent took part in the killing of many Jews when Arnold himself is a Jew.
- The image is successful to an extent as Arnold did indeed get revenge as Krupp went to prison after this picture and the meaning behind it were revealed.
contact sheetS
Task
Create and publish a contact sheet (evidence of a photo-shoot)
Contact sheets were an incredibly important tool and an inevitable part of the photographic process until digital photography rendered them obsolete. As Lubben notes, they constitute “a record of one’s shooting, a tool for editing, and an index to an archive of negatives.” Indeed, she continues, the contact sheet “embodies much of the appeal of photography itself: the sense of time unfolding, a durable trace of movement through space, an apparent authentication of photography’s claim to transparent representation of reality.”
Contact sheets also represent the economy of the roll of 36 frames, as opposed to the limitless numbers of shots that digital photography affords today. As such, they provide the physical marker of an era when each frame had a value, and was therefore more precious.
Then develop and publish a blog post that tackles the following…
- Describe and explain what a CONTACT SHEET is…include examples like the ones provided below
- Then Create a gallery / grid of images from a recent photo-shoot and upload as a contact sheet to a blog post
- Answer : Why are contact sheets useful / essential ?
- Try annotating / colour coding / cropping / arranging your contact sheet to show the start of a selection process
- Look at the examples below which include work by William Klein and. This key photographer was known to include contact sheets as part of his final images as well as experiments.
- Remember…you can Add your images to a Powerpoint, then convert to a JPEG and upload to the blog using JPEG File Interchange Format or try creating them as screen shots.
- You can make a contact sheet by using the Snipping Tool (Shift + Windows+ S) and copying a gallery of images from an image folder
- Or create a Contact Sheet in Adobe Photoshop
Life after lockdown
Final images
life after lock down
paper paper paper
These simple tasks are designed to encourage you to take control of an abstract experiment whilst employing your understanding of light, tone, shadow, proportion…
- Take an A4 piece of plain white paper
- Scrunch the paper into a ball, or make a paper plane, a set of folds or creases
- Using your iphone / camera photograph the ball
- Think carefully and creatively about how you can transform the shape further…
- Try to show various approaches to composition and framing, exposure, lighting, movement, focus, shadow-making
- Take as many different, interesting, quirky, sequential, right, wrong and intelligent photographs of the paper shape.
ARTIST REFERENCES…
Edgar Martins
Brendan Austin creates imaginary landscapes out of crumpled pieces of paper. He calls them ‘Paper Mountains‘. Austin examines what we mean by nature and the way humans have impacted upon it. “The isolated desert city running on oil generators, the mars like landscapes of a volcanic environment and the mountains made from paper all attempt to start a conversation concerning the loss of meaning and reality.” The resulting images appear both recognisable as landscapes but also suggest a sense of artifice. Humble materials are made to carry an important message.
- Create a visual blog post that relays your experiments and outcomes clearly
- Include references to any artists / ideas that have influenced your outcomes
- Evaluate your process and present a final image / set of final images…
week 2-3
- intro to blog use
- uploading images
- the formal elements
- paper experiments
- focus
- tone
- connect to recycling / eco etc
- contact sheets
By now you should have a student login, which gives you access to The Hautlieu Creative Blog too.
TASK 1 : UPLOAD YOUR SUMMER TASK TO THE BLOG
You will be shown how to navigate the blog and of course design and publish your own blog posts. Remember…your blog posts are the equivalent of submitted work that is ready for assessment and feedback by your teacher(s).
Each blog post should be considered, critical, creative and carefully constructed. Normally, you will be expected to complete blog posts that reflect your knowledge and understanding of the topics / skills that have been covered day by day / week by week.
Convert a Powerpoint to JPEG File Interchange Format (and then upload as an image(s) to a blog post via the MEDIA LIBRARY
You will need to COPY and PASTE WORD DOCUMENTS into the blog posts…
It is YOUR responsibility to keep up with the workload, and pace your productivity in step with what is being taught each step of the way. You will receive feedback either directly in response to the blog posts you publish, or as a response to a set of tasks in the form of a TRACKING SHEET.
The TRACKING SHEET will include a list of tasks / skills / blog posts that you must produce…as well as deadlines, extension tasks and the marking criteria.
BY THE END OF WEEK 2 (FRIDAY 11TH SEPTEMBER) YOU SHOULD HAVE…Your Induction Task- “Life after lockdown…”
BLOG POST 1 = “Life after Lockdown…”
BLOG POST 2 = image analysis and interpretation / include photo vocab help sheet and image of Alfred Krupp (always include image caption to credit the photographer)
BLOG POST 3 = The Formal Elements (research and apply klnowledge and understanding to images of paper shapes)
BLOG POST 4 = Contact Sheets
Life After lockdown
Robert Frank
•Robert Frank was one of the most influential photographers in the 20th century. Robert Frank use to be a successful fashion photographer, until he felt like he wanted to explore photography more in depth as fashion photography was very limited for him as a photographer. After being a fashion photographer, Robert Frank decided to become a more creative photographer taking pictures of places he went and what he saw, with photography style described as a “mature style” which was characterised by“bold composition and ironic, sometimes bitter, social commentary”.
•Robert Franks pictures are all in black and white with a lot of personality in the pictures as they come across to be taken in the moment, meaning that the pictures weren’t a planned shot. From some of the pictures, visually you can see that the people in the photographs where moving as he took the pictures also, there is natural lighting in all of his pictures which can be seen from the scenery the pictures are taken and the shadows in the pictures stand out as well. Moreover, his pictures are in black and white which goes to show the era in which he took his pictures in also, from the facial expressions on the pictures he has taken you can see that some of the people in the photos have some emotion attached to them being upset, frustrated and feeling casual from the lives they have to put up with.
My Pictures
Edited Pictures
•The overall evaluation from my work is that in my opinion I think I have gotten some of my images to lok like Robert Frank’s, I know this because my iages are In black and white having some contrast being recognisied in the pictures from the bright colours in the pictures to the shades of black in the pictures. Moreover, in my pictures I have got a lot of shadowing that is quite apparent, standing out in the pictures due to using Robert Frank’s technique of black and white photography. The shadowing in the pictures is key as it goes to how where the source of light is coming from in an image also, showing how harsh or soft the lighting is within the environment. Another reason as to why I thought the technique of Robert Frank’s black and white photography does justice within this theme for the photo shot is because lockdown was a very inytense time for everyone mentally and physically, the emotion that most people probably came across was lonellyness and his technique worked with this as black and white pictures are very hollow which can show lonellyness, especially in my pictures in which their arent people around.
Favourite Edited Picture
•My favourite picture that I thought was best In terms of having a similar style to Robert Frank was this one. This is beause it was a picture taking in the moment with peiple minding their own business either socialising in small groups or wokring. Moreover, this picture links with the theme as there are glass pains in betwenn tables showing people cant be to close and there are empty tables acroos the restaurant with people sitting on them, in order for people to be socially distanced because of the virus