Before creating my final pieces with the photoshoots I have produced, I have experimented with different materials and methods to gain a sense of the best way I could rework both my archival and new photographs to produce new meaning, whether it is in photoshop or by hand.
Here I printed off some of the images I intend to include in my photobook and experimented with the medium of stitching. With this I used red thread, once again taking inspiration from Benitah’s work, to create both a running stitch and back stitch through my images. To develop my ideas, I looked at Benitah’s embroidery pieces, seeing how she had incorporated this element. Firstly, I tried tearing through and image and then stitching it back together, however if I were to do this again I would make the tear more obvious and messy to create a more dramatic outcome, as it is hard to see that the image has been torn in my replication. Next, I used a back stitch to outline a portrait of my grandparents, emphasising the message of togetherness and family. I believe I would like to incorporate this style into my photobook, although next time I would use this method on a black and white version of the image, to further separate the subjects from the background. Finally, I did attempt this again on a black and white image, but this time dissecting the photograph with the red thread, separating my grandparents within the portraits. Though this style did work well on the black and white image shown above, I don’t think I will use it to create and image that suggests ideas of emotional struggle, as I wish to instead promote ideas of familial bond and admiration.
In addition, I also experimented with Posca pens by drawing over the top of my images, using designs from Benitah’s work to do attempt this. Firstly, I started with a simple design by drawing a series of circles over a portrait of my grandad. I liked the appearance of this alteration, although I don’t believe it added that much conceptual meaning to my photograph. After this, I attempted using a gold Posca pen to cover some of the faces in an image of mine, replicating the circles of gold leaf seen in Benitah’s reworked archival pieces. I did like the appearance of this piece and would consider including this design in my photobook, however using a less saturated gold to do this. I also was able to create a piece that related to my narrative, using these pens. This was as I took inspiration from an image of Benitah’s which included embroidered bugs surrounding two girls in a photograph. With this I had the idea of drawing on the Manchester bee, as well as hexagons instead of small circles, as it has been the city’s emblem for many years and represents the hard work ethic of Mancunians. I chose to do this as this is where my family is from and reinforces my narrative.
Furthermore, I also tried using paint to replicate the ink and beading that Benitah sometimes uses over the top of her family photographs. In my first experimentation using paint, I mixed acrylic red paint with water to create droplets over the portrait of my grandparents that resembled beads as well as the lightness of ink. However, I don’t believe I will use this technique for my photobook at is doesn’t produce a new meaning to the photographs in the way I want it, due to it feeling more heavy and negative. In addition to this, I also attempted to conceal the faces in a family portrait with red paint.I did this by making purposefully rough and messy brushstrokes on the image and making the paint light enough so that the faces were still slightly visible.
For these experiments I used Benitah’s known colour palette of red and gold that is seen throughout her work and attempted some different styles of reworking. This included using oil pastels, tearing the images as well as using Posca pens again. In the last, image I used a red oil pastel to produce a simple design, outlining my grandma’s hand. I like the look of this method, as the oil pastel provides a strong and vibrant contrast, that cannot be replicated using the Posca pens for example. Although, by using the pens it allowed me to create a detailed pattern in the first image, which I thought resembled the mosaics that are often seen around Manchester. Furthermore, I believe the tearing of the images, revealing red strips running down the page looked good, but would be best be showcased as a standalone alteration without the clash of the gold.
By doing this it has allowed me to realise the hand-made methods I would like to incorporate in my photobook, and which uses of these mediums best communicate the message of my narrative. In addition, from this I am able to see which of these styles might look better if done in photoshop.
for my second and third shots, I took photos in a home environment, as I’ve already done my photos in the studio. I wanted to have a natural environment with daylight lighting and show mental health in a personal environment such as someone home and everyday living. I wanted to do this shoot as both of my photographers either take images outside or manipulate them or all at home.
for these images, I’m going to go through the same process as my first shoot. I imported all my images onto lightroom to help me edit them first and slightly touch them up before I manipulate them on photoshop, the first thing I began to do it is rate my images from 1-5 on stars. this really helped me pick the images I wanted to use for my final project and the ones I didn’t want to use at all.
I uploaded all my images began to rate them from 1-5. I rated the images I wanted to use as 3 stars, 2 stars as the ones I would look at again and gave 1 star to the images I didn’t want to include at all.
all my images were uploaded before I rated them
I then began to rate them
once I rated all my images from 1-3, this helped me get rid of images I didn’t want to work with and it narrowed it down to fewer images that I definitely wanted to use and edit, and then work on them in photoshop.
I selected the 3 stars icon and this showed me all the images I wanted to use for my project.
once I had the images I wanted to work with, I began to edit them individually on lightroom. I edited the hue and colour on all my images as well as cropping some and straightening them up, I did this to have the basic layer of editing done before I take them onto photoshop.
this is the editing process I went through with every image, once I was happy with each image I had a collection of all my photos ready and done to be taken to photoshop.
I now had all my images edited exactly how I wanted them to be. these are the images I used and downloaded to then use on photoshop and develop them by being inspired by my photographers and manipulating them to present my theme of mental health.
all my edited images
I edited most of my images quite dark to create a sad atmosphere and tension in order to present my topic, in order to present loneliness and a dark mood at home with mental illnesses.
editing my images on photoshop-
I exported all my edited images onto photoshop and this where I began to edit them properly, ready for my final outcome.
I would always start my editing process through using the Drag Selection Tool, this allowed me to selected specific sections of the image, in this case I would select the models face, I did this by dragging a box over her face and this tool would automatically select her face.
I would then go onto Filter, select the Blur option and then the Blur Lens option, this automatically blurred out her face and I adjusted it to how I wanted.
This section allowed my adjust the strength of the blur and how sharp I wanted it to be.
For my images that are all black shadows, I would select her whole figure in the same way but this time instead of blurring the selected area I clicked on Layer, then Fill New Layer and then Solid Colour
I would then Select the colour Grey and select Darken Colour to make the shadow all black
I carried on doing the same editing process for all my images by selecting the face each time and blurring it out.
I also experimented with the Liquify option where it allowed me to distort the face completely and make it look almost melted
This is what the editing process looked like when I selected the liquify option, I only selected the face so it only let me liquify the face instead of liquifying parts of the body as well where it would all blend together and not look right.
I also changed a few of my images into black and white so that it fits in with the mood of my topic and express the feelings of sadness and darkness.
This is how my edited images turned out;
Overall, I think I edited my images very well in order to make them fit in with my topic about mental health. I also took a lot of inspiration from my two chosen photographers and interpreted their editing and style of work into my project. I used a variety of different editing tools which really helped me to develop this project. I used blurring techniques, liquifying options , lots of layering, cutting and cropping, and shadow fills as well as quick selection tools. This helped me to present mental health in a visual way by editing all my images very specifically to fit the mood and atmosphere for each photo.
For my personal project, I wanted my first photoshoot to be taken in the studio, using bright lighting and a white backdrop. I used one of my friends as my model to achieve this. the first photoshoot was inspired by both my artists, as they use a lot of editing in their photography. I took some simple headshots and full-body portraits to have a big selection of photographs to edit and work with. the photographs I use, I will later use to edit through photoshop and cut out the models silhouette to create the same effect as Gabriel, to present mental health as two subconscious silhouettes standing next to each other which fits in with my topic of identity. one representing us as human and the other as the mind, ill achieve this through doing many different layers on photoshop and cutting and dropping different images over each other. I set up the studio with two big one-point lightings and a white backdrop as it would help me with editing. these images I first took are just to work with and being able to take several images will help me achieve to get 5-10 final images from my first shoot that are fully edited.
to help me start off with my editing process, I uploaded all my images from my first shoot onto Lightroom. this enabled me to view all my images on one software and I was then able to select the images I wanted to definitely work with, and get rid of the images that I thought weren’t as good as the others or I didn’t want to include in my editing process. for example if the model was moving or I didn’t position my camera correct I wouldn’t want to include these images.
i started with uploading everything into one file from my first shoot. this allowed me to get a quick preview and have all my images together.
this when allowed me to go through my images and rate them from 0-5 stars and pick and flag my favourite images using z on the keyboard. I rated the images I wanted to use as 3, 2 as the ones I wasn’t too sure about and 0 as the ones I definitely didn’t want to include.
I then rated and selected all my images which really helped me narrow down my images, and I had a selection of my favourite images, knowing which ones I was going to work and edit with easily. this process helped me narrow down my images to 36 photos, once I clicked on the images I rated 3 stars.
I then began to edit my photos which I was now happy with through lightroom, just for the basic editing process. such as cropping my images and making sure I was happy with the size of them, straightening them up and any more alterations I needed to make before starting the big editing part on photoshop.
I began to edit all the images I selected and rated 3 stars. I adjusted the shadows, brightness, saturation, hue and colour levels- especially focusing on the white balance as I wanted that to be on a very high level in order to make the white backdrop appear as bright as possible to make it easier to work with on photoshop and make it focus just on the model, and the silhouettes when I complete my editing. this completely gets rid of the background and creates no distractions making it look like there’s nothing there. I also cropped certain images and straightened out the full-body portraits.
my final images edited;
once I was ready with my final selection of photographs and they were all fully edited I moved on to using photoshop, where I was going to turn these images into final photos with loads of layering and cutting out.
editing on photo-shop;
I selected one image by one and made sure to edit them perfectly , being inspired by my chosen photographers. I selected my first image and began to think about how I wanted to edit this image. I wanted to blur the models face out completely. I achieved this by exporting the images from Lightroom to Photoshop and I then selected my first image to do this. I used the ‘Object Selection Tool’ to help me achieve this effect. I used the mouse and made a box around the models face, this tool then allowed me to completely automatically select her facial structure. I then went to ‘Filter‘ , which I then clicked on ‘Blur Gallery’ and from that option I selected ‘Lens Blur’. This helped me to achieve my first image, with the models face being blurred.
I continued to use the same editing process for the rest of my images that I wanted to blur out.
For my second set of editing, I wanted to create a dark shadowed silhouette, I did this by selecting the ‘Object Selection Tool’ , which I dragged over the whole body, this then automatically cut out the shape of her silhouette. I then went onto ‘Layer’ and ‘New Fill Layer’ which allowed me to select ‘Solid Colour’ and I picked a black darkened colour to fill in her silhouette.
I then combined the two editing processes to come up with an image that included both
I continued to experiment with my images, and keep playing around with the order and cutting of them. I did this for about an hour just to create some basic ideas of what I want my final images to look like, I wanted to experiment different placings and order of the silhouettes as well as whether i wanted to use a shadow or blurred face.
these are the sort of images I would come up with to get some sort of ideas. The more I experimented with my images, the more confidence I felt with using the tools and made editing a lot more easier. All these filled in silhouettes are inspired by Gabriel Isaak.
I continued to edit my images with the ‘Object Selection Tool’, and filling in the shadow with a black solid colour as well as blurring out the individual face out in some images. Whenever I wanted to use one of more silhouettes or images in one, I would simply drag out the layer , use the ‘Object Selection Tool’ then use the ‘Move Tool’ and drag it into the image I wanted to build over , this way only the silhouette would cut over instead of the whole image which is all that I needed.
I experimented in a variety of different ways , moving the shadows around and seeing where I would like to have them positioned, I used the colour blue in one of my images to represent sadness to have a contrast between colours as it stands out.
I would open up a few images , in this case two, then create a new plain white file to have a white background. I would use the ‘Object Select Tool’ which would cut out the figure perfectly and then drag it onto the plain white document. I then select one of the figures again and fill it in with a solid colour shadow , all black to represent the mental state, behind the girl, show her inner state and thats not how it seems on the outside.
Overall, I think my editing process was very well achieved as I explored many different editing tools and used many editing processes. I selected either only the face or the whole silhouette for each photo, then I would either blur it all out or create a shadowed silhouette by dropping in a solid colour into the selected area. Whenever I had two silhouettes in one photo, I would simply drag out a photo , select the specific area and drag it over to my background image as an extra layer. I got a lot of inspiration from my artists too which helped me to achieve these final outcomes. All my images present mental health in a visual way and has a meaning behind each photo.
Week 15: 5 – 9 Jan 1. Literary Sources 2. Essay Question 3. Essay Plan
Research and identify 3-5 literary sources from a variety of media such as books, journal/magazines, internet, Youtube/video that relates to your personal study and artists references .
Begin to read essay, texts and interviews with your chosen artists as well as commentary from critics, historians and others.
It’s important that you show evidence of reading and draw upon different pints of view – not only your own.
Take notes when you’re reading…key words, concepts, passages
Write down page number, author, year, title, publisher, place of publication so you can list source in a bibliography
Essay question:
Opening quote
Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian. Link to powerpoints and resources above about art movements and isms.
Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
Bibliography: List all relevant sources used
Essay Draft
Intro: “When I got back to my classes early Monday, I tried to carry on as if my life had not just been altered forever.” (Michael Tullberg)
The area in which I am studying is the drum and base community. I will be diving deep into what happens within the subculture of the drum and base scene. For example, people enjoying the events due to it being an escape of reality, the atmosphere people are engulfed in, how intoxicated people can get within these events and how the DJ’s get involved with everyone at these events. The artists that I will be studying are Mike Brodie, Michael Tullberg and Adrian Fisk. I will be analysing specific work that these photographers have made based on subcultures, such as; Adrian Fisk’s (London Acid City), Michael Tullberg’s (Dance Floor Thunderstorm) and Mike Brodie’s (Riding the Rails).
Moreover, as an outsider to these subcultures looking in, it is appealing to me as I get to look into a whole different world in which people lived. Although I have been to drum and bass events, personally I would say as an individual I don’t have much experience in being an insider to this subculture as there are people who are involved immensely within the scene. For example, DJ’s, people working at the events, photographers, videographers and so on. However, as someone who attends these events my position between being an outsider and insider is blurred. The audience and crowd are paramount to the identity and existence of the drum and bass community.
I will be responding to this by explaining how it gives the opportunity for individuals who have no understanding of certain subcultures, to get an understanding on why people in these subcultures lived a certain way. Therefore, I believe these subcultures could even change people’s opinions on their lives, on how they decide to live their lives as they get so see other perspectives of how people live. This in turn, will provide new ideas or change perspectives of people who consider themselves outsiders. Another way in which I will be responding to their work is through photographs that I will generate based on the subculture of drum and bass. In order to make these pictures, I will have to consider the ethics of which pictures will be correct to produce, this is due to the fact that the drum and bass culture does have the side of substances being used in these events. Therefore, I will have to think of questions such as; When is it ok to take a photograph? How responsible is a photographer for the way a photograph is represented? Can Photographs hurt people? Should you always seek permission of your subjects before taking their photograph? These questions are up in the air for me as I am an outsider looking in. Meaning that people might not be comfortable with me taking pictures of them as I am not known as a photographer within the subculture.
(Source comes from https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/a-photographers-elegy-to-the-evolution-of-drum-and-bass/)
PG1: Realism is a photographic and artistic movement that emerged in the world of photography in the 1910s. My research approach focuses on documentary photography, a form of live photography, classified as realism. Realism differs from figurativism in that it includes more animistic methods applied to purely documentary works. Photojournalism focuses on establishing photography as an art form rather than a documentary medium. He focused on breaking away from commercialism and turning photography into a full-fledged manual process with the desire to achieve an aesthetic that makes photographs look like works of art, such as paintings. and drawings using various ways to manipulate images from blurred lenses, scraping negatives. and use chemicals in adarkroom. Unlike pictograms, realism is concerned with creating images that resemble what the photographer sees through the camera’s viewfinder. Realism emphasizes geometric framing and emphasizes form and form with an almost abstract aesthetic, as noted by two of the early realist photographers, Alexander Rodchenko and Jaromir Funke. These two images provide insight into how realism is incorporated into photography overall.
“A photographer’s elegy to the evolution of Drum and Bass”. Eddie Otchere was a photographer who spent a good part of the 90’s capturing the evolution of the Drum and Bass scene. The genres developed from Jungle, which then advanced to the genres of garage and grime. There is a book titled “Who Say Reload” which offers a history of the movement’s mentioned earlier. A quote that Otchere states from the book is “I hope the book reminds people of how good it felt to dance as a group of people together,” and “All races dancing together… with no judgment, just good drugs.”. In the early 90’s the rave scenes were usually held up on random fields with loads of people turning up to them. However, the scene was on a major crackdown by the government, meaning that the government started having authorities turn up to these random raves, with attentions of arresting people and shutting it down. Although authorities would turn up, the people within these subcultures often indifferent in reaction to authorities turning up as there would be reports of police turning on sirens for people to disperse, but people would just start dancing to the sirens.
In the late 90s, the raves started to move from the fields into the cities. In the early 90s the Tory government started to collapse where “Everything in the country was broken, finished and done,” remembers Otchere “As young people, we just wanted to have a good time – and we built a culture with that.” Empty spaces in the city started to get flooded as young people would show up to them, bringing sound systems and lights to dance all night. This then evolved the rave scene from once being an underground scene, which further developed it to become more mainstream giving way to clubs.
Overall, from the pictures that where taken in the book “Who Say Reload”, the pictures seem to fall in the bracket of documentary, which ash its roots in realism. This comes across with most photography that is taken for rave scenes, or in the subculture of night clubbing (also apparent with the photographers mentioned earlier). The reasoning behind this, is because images taken within this subculture are captured in the moment, meaning that the images aren’t staged/ prepared for. This is arguably the greatest way to capture an image due to the rawness of the image as the photographer couldn’t replicate the photo. Meaning no editing or changes had to be made to the image making the image as authentic as possible. Furthermore, realism in photography gave birth to photojournalism/ documentary photography because they go hand in hand with each other. This come across with most photography in the subculture of nightclubbing. This is because photographers who get images of this subculture are documenting a subculture that people wouldn’t have experienced, heard of or even understand the subculture, hence why realistic images are captured in order for outsiders to get a “real” insight on what a subculture is all about giving them a further understanding visually and contextually in documentation.
Adrian Fisk London Acid City
PG2: Adrian Fisk’s images answers my question perfectly as he portrays the “counterculture” (which he describes his subculture that he took images of) through the use of realism. This is a great way of portraying subcultures in his documentation of the rave scene in in the late 90s because people who look at the images in the book get to see the rawness of the subculture as there was “no laws, no rules, no dress code, a limitless supply of drugs and a soundtrack of pulsating Acid Techno.” As you can see from the image presented, you can see it is a realistic image from the angle of which he has taken the image from, which appears to be from about his waist facing up to the people in the image. Moreover, no one in the image is posing to the camera and people who are closest to the image close their eyes as they are surprised from the flash on the camera, further proving that the image is realistic as it wasn’t planned. Furthermore, you can see from the image how everyone is dressed in their own sense in what they feel comfortable with and people of different races are all gathered up in one closed in area to have fun till they can’t anymore. This also answers my question as you can see what this subculture represents. Which to me appears to be anyone who is wanting to have fun, uniting together no matter what race, what fashion sense or even age. This shows off the beauty of this subculture as these people could organise a fun time whenever they would like in order to have an escape from the reality of the depressing world that everyone tries to ignore.
Image analysis:
As for these set of images, I believe they answer my question pretty well because in these images I have captured the raw emotions and reactions of the people. Furthermore, in the images you can see the people in the images aren’t looking into the lens expecting the picture to be taken, meaning that the images where taken randomly meaning I got to get authentic images of the people thriving in the drum and bass environment. In the first image, you can see a range of emotions in the crowd with the different facial expressions people have from happy, to sad, to straight faces and even people doing different things with hands in the air, holding their phones up or just being neutral. As for the second image, you can see once again that there is a mixed range of emotions again. However, in this image there is a red and yellow light which is directed to two people in the image, which in my opinion makes them the focal point of the image. Although if you where to look away from the focal point you can see other people in the background of the image who are also having a good time within the environment. For the final image, I like this one the most because in the image you can see I got a picture of the DJ minding his own business, trying his best to entertain the crowd he has in front of him. Moreover, in the image you can see that there is a plastic barrier in front of the DJ which got a reflection of the crowd that he has in front of him. This stood out to me as I captured two different photo angles in one which in my opinion is amazing as the image displays the audience and the DJ in one. This is key as the energy from the crowd in this subculture is highly dependent on the energy the DJ gives off to the crowd.
Michael Tullberg DanceFloor Thunderstorm
PG3: Michael Tullberg, also answers my essay question with his images however, he has a different approach compared to Adrian Fisk and here is why. As you can see from the images represented from Michael Tullberg, he has altered his images making them abstract. For example, you can see that in one of the images there appears to be 4 of the same DJ in one image. Therefore, this image responds accordingly to my essay question because Michael Tullberg is an insider to the subculture. This means that he has decided to edit the image in a way where visual euphoria is present due to the use of substances in this subculture, which enhances the experience of the rave scene. Moreover, this also shows outsiders what the subculture represents as they could gather that drugs are used in this subculture from the image as the image is abstract due to it looking distorted, like someone who would have taken substances in order to enhance their visual experience. Overall the image is effective as Michael Tullberg includes aspects of realism, he shows outsiders what people in this subculture are actually experiencing visually through substances, giving outsiders a more in depth/ realistic approach on what it is like to be a part of this subculture.
As for my images, they also correspond to my essay question as they are showing how the drum and bass subculture is being represented from an insider and outsider’s perspective. This is because as an insider to the subculture I know as an individual what happens within these events in terms of the crowd that turns up. Therefore, with the images it could represent the insiders as in them being able to see the image for what it is, all distorted due to the use of substances. Further meaning that the insiders to this subculture could almost embody the camera lens as they get a first-hand experience of these euphoric visuals. In terms of outsiders, the images show them what it is like to be submerged within the drum and bass scene. This is because from the images being abstract, outsiders looking at the images would gather the idea that these images are made due to substances being used which would enhance the visual experience of an individual in this subculture. Moreover, the images could give an understanding to the outsiders on what the atmosphere is like within the subculture. This is because from the distorted images, outsiders looking at these images could get the understanding that these events are vibrant, loud and energetic. In addition, outsiders could understand that this would mean that people within this subculture are all about having a good time. Meaning there is no discriminating or judgement at these events as everyone is there for the same purpose leading to a community of people being brought together.
Conclusion: In conclusion, it is transparent that Michael Tullberg alters his images in making them somewhat abstract as a method of giving outsiders an understanding of what the rave subculture is about as a community. There is an air of spontaneity within the work, it is direct and lively…just like the music. This is shown throughout many of the images he has produced, using editing as an enhancement to the images, to get across that this subculture has a heavy influence with substances being used, which is where he most likely gets his inspiration for editing his images. Here, Michael has been able to show what type of world the “rave” subculture is living due to the edits demonstrating that of a visual experience no other could even imagine. In addition, outsiders gain the understanding of this community being strongly united due to people loving the experiences they have for these events. Meaning that the community is very strong, having the people within this subculture do anything to keep it together, this has been shown with history of rave subcultures always making their way to keep the “rave” alive. My work that I will produce for my personal study will resemble most of the elements demonstrated in Michael’s work. One of which will be the way I approach my edits for my images in terms of making the look distorted or acid like. The aim in developing these images will be to highlight what the experience is like through the perspective of someone who is delved deep into this subculture of substances, visuals and everyone enjoying their life in that moment no matter what. However, I will incorporate the skills of Adrian Fisk by having some images of realism. The reasoning behind this is so that outsiders can get an authentic touch to the subculture of the drum and bass community. Moreover, outsiders will get to see genuine emotions from these images, giving them a feel on what the atmosphere is like in this community.
Bibliography: (Source comes from https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/a-photographers-elegy-to-the-evolution-of-drum-and-bass/)( https://dancefloorthunderstorm.com/) https://www.adrianfisk.com/london-acid-city
How does Marchand and Meffre explore how wealth and power create divides within communities?
Essay Question:
Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
My area of study is going to be base around the power wealth and cultures in which the different communities in the world are surrounded by. I analysed Nick Hannes work as I felt that his work highly inspired my second photoshoot.
Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography, visual and popular culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian.
Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
How does Jono Rotman and Danny Alexander use portraiture to represent different identities?
“The feeling communicated by this body of work is that its subjects are hanging onto their identities by a fragile thread” (Roswell Angier in Train Your Gaze, 2007)
I wish to explore the intimacy that portraiture allows the viewer to have with the subject model in the photograph, with particular focus on body adornments such as tattooing. I chose this topic as I have recently been exposed to some discrimination and negative feedback over having four tattoos myself at a young age. I wish to challenge these views and demonstrate the meaning and importance of tattoos as art and show why someone would choose to mark themselves with their memories.I will be analysing specific images by Jono Rotman and Danny Alexander. I chose these artists as their work is just as different as they are similar; both artists have their subject models in a neutral setting to emphasise the focus of the tattoos. For example, in Rotman’s work, clothing is used within the photograph, which makes the body art less subjective, allowing viewers to connect the images of the member with all the factors and aspects within the photograph. However, Danny Alexander uses softer, more direct lighting to Rotman, with plain, black clothing, this effect opens the meaning of the art up and almost leaves it to the viewer to piece the clues together and create what identity they think the model portray. Considering the topic in which I have decided to dive in to, I will be looking deeper into how these aspects of portraiture represents one’s identity, including the accuracy and inaccuracy of meaning. Within this project, I will be exploring the photographic gaze of my models, experimenting with different expressions, poses, settings, styling (clothing and make-up), angles and lighting techniques. I intend to photograph in the style of Alexander, to bring a more plain, monotone atmosphere of portraiture, with a mixture of wide and short frame photos, to focus in on individual pieces, pairing them with an image of handwritten note (by the model in the photo) of what they mean to them or to why they got it. Identity is the way we perceive and express ourselves. People’s experiences throughout their lives can alter and change their identities. Their identities also influence the decisions they make: Individuals choose their friends, adopt certain fashions, and align themselves with political beliefs based on their identities. Many artists use their work to express, explore, and question ideas about identity. Portraiture is the best technique to capture the essence of one’s identity due to the uses of lighting, backdrops, instructing the model and all round, gives both the photographer and model to have control of how little or how much insight is given into one’s identity. Portraiture is an old art form going back at least to ancient Egypt, where it flourished from about 5,000 years ago. Before the invention of photography, a painted, sculpted, or drawn portrait was the only way to record the appearance of someone. But portraits have always been more than just a record. They have been used to show the power, importance, virtue, beauty, wealth, taste, learning or other qualities of the sitter. However, there are those that have different views on art. Some Christians misinterpret passages from the bible, for example in Leviticus 19:28 “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves.” (James 2016) As to the bible demonstrating the sin against many forms including tattooing, but the truth of this verse is to example the sin of ancient practises of witchcraft. The form of portraiture that I am focusing on relates the most to the realism movement which rejects imaginative idealization in favour of a close observation of outward appearances, therefore based more directly on what someone looks like without artifice. This relates to my subject matter as the artists I have chosen to study traditionally follow, perhaps unintentionally, realism in portraiture, rarely steering off into other movements. Unlike pictorialism which was the movement of art that was the construction of an alternative reality, realism focuses in on what is there in front of the lens.
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Jono Rotman uses portraiture to explore different identities in his book Mongrelism. Throughout his photos, he photographs mob members in natural lighting within their own environments and within their own clothing, with some photos highlighting jackets, helmets, and their own children. This allows the members to feel more comfortable as the Mongrel Mob has a stringent code against outsiders, having the photoshoots in their territory prevents stripping the mob of their power and therefore identity, making the final book more powerful and intriguing. Rotman also included the members in the editing process and how the work would be used. In relation to my subject matter, Rotman focuses on their tattoos. To the Mongrel Mob, tattoos signify stories of their cultural past. One tattoo seen frequently across members is of the mob ‘patch,’ this is the infamous British bulldog wearing a helmet, tended to be presented to those considered loyal and trustworthy enough to be in the gang. This loaded iconography emblazoned across their faces reflects both an aggressive response to their feeling of long-standing mistreatment and the gang’s commitment to offending mainstream society. The fact that this project has a documentary approach adds to the ideas of the project being an extension to their personalities, showing a fair and balanced view to their lives due to Rotman going forward onto this with no judgement, only investigating a certain lifestyle. Rotman himself, has said that, ‘he felt the weight of precedence of photography depicting people seen as other” and Mongrelism works to address photography’s historical sense of entitlement.’ (Rotman). What Rotman is alluding to here, is the fact that photography, and in particularly documentary photography has from its outset always tended to turn the lens on groups of society which are marginalised. In other words subjects are photographed to represent a stereotype, which Rotman himself is very aware of in his work.
Shano Rouge, Jono Rotman
This photograph of Shano Rouge from chapter MMX. The member is sat hunched over with his hood up, this shows the power and intimidation this person holds over the photographer, however, due to the camera angle, the photographer and member are at the same level, this can resemble the bond and trust that Rotman formed with the mob during the project. The photo is taken on a wider frame to his other pieces to collect all factors of the member in one photo, these being the jacket covered in the mob patch, the old black hoodie and leather trousers, also suggesting his role of the mob of being a biker. Focusing in on his face, it is clear of his loyalty to the mongrel mob. Over his face, you can see the words dog, mobster, and rouge, which we know is either his last name or position/ title from the caption on his page. The way that the member stares directly down the camera lens demonstrates that the member has a connection to the camera as well as the photographer, potentially projecting the bond formed with the model and photographer and shifting it to the model and viewer, showing a sense of vulnerability and reminding the viewer that the mob members are still people with emotions and their own identity, not one that is assumed by society due to stereotypes. “While some of the photos do contain the feeling of menace and bravado expected from one of New Zealand’s most notorious gangs there are also signs of sadness and despair, especially from some of the older members.” (Black, 2019). I feel as if this statement relates to quite a few members, including the one photographed above, I see this statement in the way in which the member is almost hiding in the shadows of his hood, still fearing the disgrace and judgement that could be projected onto him; the fact that this is an older member showing these behaviours is more powerful as it demonstrates that he may have been experiencing this fear throughout his career in the Mob and has never fully accepted other people’s views of them. After reading this comment, it is more apparent looking back over the project that it is more of a common theme then we thought. Justifying this is the last part of the book; The barks as Rotman has labelled them as . Throughout, Rotman has censored parts of the conversation with a red block. Perhaps because the content is too explicit, or too gory, or in fact done for the Mongrel Mobs safety those who disapprove of their ways, or perhaps the colour red is symbolic of their gang colour red that symbolise, a blood bond between members and gang affiliates similar to meaning of ‘blood’ between members of the same family.
However, Danny Alexander takes his portraits in a studio setting, with a black back drop, artificial lighting, and clothing requirements. This allows for the only focus in the frame to be the persons tattoo, reducing how much of their identity seen and subjectively presenting their body art. Alexander tends to use flash lighting in his photos, with the exception of a strip light for an aligned spine tattoo. Flash lighting is beneficial for this form of topic matter as it limits the cause of any shadows being cast on the tattoos. Alexander has also said himself that the Skin as Canvas project is to “highlight the dualistic nature of body art; on one hand body art can be and often is self-expressive but much like any art can be interrupted differently by each viewer.” (Alexander 2015) Showing his intentions of the subjectivity of this project.
This photo by Alexander demonstrates model with an align spine tattoo as the focus. The light source is positioned in a way to extenuate the tattoo and draw the viewers’ attention to the focus. The little soft lighting seen gives an unusual innocence that is not usually associated with tattoos, challenging the negative viewpoints, and allowing the subjectivity of body art. The studio lighting causes a contrast as it allows the photographer to move and angle the light however, he wants, it also allows the models silhouette and surroundings to be seen, this may be done as a reminder to the viewer of the person, showing that the tattoo is a part of someone’s identity. Lighting only the tattoo represents the darkness of space around the solar system and how broad it can be and how small we are to our surroundings beyond earth. This could possibly reflect how we see others around us and how we do not know the depth of all the identities around us. As the model is wearing all black clothing, it leaves viewers focusing on the tattoo. This also means that the neutral clothes give no insight to the viewer seeing their personalities or styles, leaving tattoo meaning up for interpretation by the viewer. This gives the opportunity for them to connect to the model based on the own interpretation and therefore viewing it more personally.
Overall, I believe that Jono Rotman and Danny Alexander successfully use portraiture to represent different identities to a certain extent. Personally, I feel that Alexander could have explored his idea more in detail, expanding on his use of other camera skills, like angles, abstract views and lighting techniques. But with his idea of the project being an open interpretation contradicts those negatives, allowing everything to be seen and exposed to the viewer and leaving the thoughts in their own hands, giving a hazy and unsure identity. However, Rotman uses his techniques to instead leave the emotions of the model open for interpretation instead of their identity, presenting a clear projected, external identity, meaning that he is showing the viewer exactly who they are and what they do, but less of an internal identity within themselves. I will be using a mixture of aspects from both photographers depending on what is necessary, moving forward with Alexanders statement of body art being subjective to the viewer. However, to follow up on contextual issues regarding tattoos, most of all the images I make will be found next to either a photo of a person, object, or hand written note. Showing the memories these pieces have and their importance to their person.
The photobook that I have decided to research is ‘William Eggleston’s Guide’. In 1976, William Eggleston’sGuide was the first one-man show of colour photographs ever presented at The Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum’s first publication of colour photography. The reception was divided and passionate. The book and show unabashedly forced the art world to deal with colour photography, a medium scarcely taken seriously at the time, and with the vernacular content of a body of photographs that could have been but definitely weren’t some average American’s Instamatic pictures from the family album. These photographs heralded a new mastery of the use of colour as an integral element of photographic composition.
Bound in a leather textured cover inset with a photograph of a tricycle and stamped with yearbook-style gold lettering, the Guide contains 48 images edited down from 375 shot between 1969 and 1971 and displayed a deceptively casual, actually super-refined look at the surrounding world. There are images of people, landscapes and odd little moments in and around Eggleston’s hometown of Memphis-when first opening the book the pages are a light green shade, they have a normal paper feel compared to the rest of the book which has the images printed onto photopaper. The light green pages of the book are filled with writing from William Eggleston starting from before he visited Memphis to take his images and is discussing what he wants to photograph on his trip, he also starts discussing photography in detail. He also mentions and praises photographers such as, Robert Adams, Alfred Stieglitz and Eugene Atget. He also goes on to discuss colour photography and called the creator of it a ‘technical genius’. One the 17th page of the book the first image you see when flicking through the pages of the book is of a light faded grey door, slightly to the right of the image, it has a gold door knocker on the centre of the door with a basket full of blue flowers hanging off it. I think this is a good image to start with as it sets the tone for the rest of the book.
William Eggleston’s Opening Image
In the 1970’s, William Eggleston made a photograph in Memphis Tennessee containing the small details of a home’s front door and a basketful of posies. Dappled light flitters across the surface revealing textures of paint and rust. In Eggleston’s image, there’s a scalloped shadow at the top, an embellished mailbox, layers of paint, colour patterns and accent trim.
Design Layout
This book is laid out so that the text comes first to give an idea of what the book is focused on and then shows the images. The images in the book on every other page with the left page of the book white and one image to each right page, most images are small and taken horizontally. On most pages the images are focused on the middle of the page, however some are placed on the top half of the page and others on the bottom. I think this is a good layout as it breaks up the images more than if they were all in the same place on every page.
Editing and Sequencing
All of William Eggleston’s images are taken in colour, and edited the same way. They all have an old fashioned look to them and the colours look more rich than they do bright. The images used in this book were 48 of 375 shots taken that had been specifically picked out and edited. All of the images have a familiar homely feel which can be felt when looking at them. All of the images are taken on a trip back to Eggleston’s hometown of Memphis. The way he has captured the images has a familiarity of photographing your own hometown and you can feel the connection Eggleston has through his images.
Essay question: In what way have Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak represented mental health through photography?
Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”(Honaker 2015:2).
My study explores and raises the issues of different mental health issues within teenagers and intends to show how it can make you feel if you deal with anxiety or depression from a young age and the effects it has on your everyday life and how it may affect your future and relationship with others around you. This area interests me as so many people around you to tend to be suffering from these issues and it’s so important to realise how many people may be dealing with personal problems and how it both effects them individually and also people near them, such as family and friends. Through photography you see how these mental issues are real and in some cases very serious and the effect it has on teenagers. In my study I’m analysing the work of Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak as they both raise awareness of mental health issues in different ways and how our mind is detached from our real body, as it’s not there with you 100% and not functioning properly, as well as you feeling depersonalised from yourself. Edward Honaker presents his mental state by taking simple full body portraits of himself around his house and includes many self-portraits to tell his story, he must do this by using a tripod and then later edit all his images by blurring his face and masking his identity that represents his mental state and that’s how he shows this topic through his work, almost making him look disconnected from his mind and body. On the other hand Gabriel Isaak interprets and presents mental health in a more digital way and uses far more editing to show mental health. Most of his images are taken in extremely open spaces (mostly with an all white or blue background) this creates a sense of loneliness and sadness. He then uses silhouette figures in his images to present the mental state , usually its either two people or a group. Most of the time he uses all black silhouettes or sometimes white too with hoods on, this clearly represents people and their present or conscious state as two different figures, one being your body and the other the state of your mind and the feeling of emptiness that’s presented by the open space.
The area I chose to explore in my personal study has the closest link to is surrealism. The history of mental health in photography was perfectly presented back in the mid 1980s which was developed by Jo Spence and her work on photo-therapy. This shows that mental health has always had an important role in peoples lives as well as in photography. Jo Spence believed that “depression or anger is often so well contained, that eventually many of us become silenced or ill”. (Martin and Spence 2003: pg 24) She wanted individuals to connect with their own intimacies and struggles which is what made her begin start taking photographs. She developed photo-therapy when she got diagnosed with breast cancer and wanted to used photography as a medium to work on psychological health. Her work was well known as it showed the” importance of representing the ill body, one that is affected by the invisible and the hidden”. (Dennett 2009: 7) In photo-therapy, self -portraits are a very powerful tool to express emotions. This is because we start a dialogue between our thinking mind and our ‘gut’ to draw from an inexhaustible source of meanings, which must be expressed. The self-portrait can be incredibly empowering. It forces us into the now, and helps us perceive and express our essential humanity in a photograph. Jo spence used three early methods ‘therapeutic staging’, ‘mirror therapy’, and ‘Scripting’. Phototherapy is very strong way an individual can express their mental health or any other issues they’re dealing with and share it with anyone who might be going through. This made me interested in this topic as I think its important to raise awareness to all these different types of issues. Surrealism was closely involved with contemporary developments in psychology and psychoanalysis. Freud’s work had a huge impact on psychoanalysis as he researched dreams and dream analysis to understand the cause of many mental illnesses such as depression or phobias, doing this by accessing the unconscious and figuring out what different objects or symbols in dreams represent in real life. Freud’s conception of the unconscious as a site of primal violence and conflict repressed from consciousness played a role in the work of many surrealist artists. Max Ernst and André Masson, in particular, frequently employed images of violence, his theories had a huge impact on photographers work.
examples of Andre Masson’s and Max Ernst surrealism artwork-
Ibdes in Aragon 1935 Andr? Masson 1896-1987 Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1946 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N05646
andre masson- entremondes
Max ernst- 1891-1976 – tate
The first photographer I chose to study is Edward Honaker. He focuses on photographing mental health in a very personal way as he from the age of 19 was diagnosed with a mood disorder. This disorder is characterized by a persistent feeling of sadness, one which acts as an overwhelming obstacle during an individual’s day-to-day life. In other words – just two years ago – Honaker was diagnosed with depression. He focuses on blurring out his face in his images or tries to mask his identity away, this creates a concept of not knowing where his mind is really at or he doesn’t even know who he is anymore. You can see that all his images are in black white which creates a sad mood as there’s no colour this clearly interprets his own feelings and he does this by taking self-portraits. His own life from a very young age influenced his life which is why he takes his own images and the whole story behind his photography is about his own experience and his own mental health which makes his images so much more powerful when you know the photographer behind the work is dealing with the problems he’s photographing. To convey his inner thoughts and feelings, Honaker turned to his camera and creativity. What results is a surreal series of self-portraits – which are filled with powerful symbolism. Each black-and-white image is as artistic as it is revealing. If you’ve coped with depression or are currently coping with depression, Honaker’s work can act as a beacon of empathy. When he spoke about his experience he said “All I knew is that I became bad at the things I used to be good at, and I didn’t know why,”(Honaker 2015:1). This inspired me for the first shoot, which consisted of plain headshots which I then edited out to create a sense of depersonalization and losing yourself/personality due to mental health. Honaker’s work links it with history of mental health and surrealism art movement; it involves dreamscapes, symbolism and the unconscious mind; surrealism art changed modernism by encouraging artists to delve into their imaginations. Surrealism was steeped in the psychoanalytic works of Sigmund Freud and centred on understanding the unconscious. This can explain certain disorders such as depression which is sometimes caused due to childhood events that remain in the unconscious and the disorder is resolved when brought back into the conscious as an adult which links into Edward’s experience as he had to deal with depression from a young age, and if it wasn’t for the surrealism art movement, photographers wouldn’t be expressing their emotional states. His work significantly links in with surrealism as the ability to evoke dream-like scenarios in photography became central to surrealism. Photo effects such as double exposure, blurring and distortion helped create images that were evocative, hallucinatory, and sometimes upsetting. The purpose of these effects was to create an image alienated from reality as if it was a window into another dimension. Edward uses many of those editing processes such as blurring for most of his images.
Edward Honaker’s work
The second photographer I chose to study and become inspired by is Gabriel Isaak. The objective of Gabriel Isaak’s art is to shine a light on the experiences of being and the states of mind those brings along. His subjects are anonymous with the slightest glimmerings of consciousness, imprisoned in monochromatic settings, so the viewer can envision oneself as the subject, reflecting back on one’s own experiences and journey in life. He focuses on themes inspired by human psychology, dreams and romanticism, as well as his own experiences, especially the years he went through depression. What I find interesting about his work is the way he edits his images which makes them almost look like a dream and something that isn’t real which creates a unique idea of his mental state, like it’s all a dream. His photographs have a big emotional impact as it creates this sense of loneliness and being alone somewhere in a dream with your mind. The photographer intended to create a new vision of mental health and romanticise it instead of making it look like a scary thing to be afraid of. Both of my photographers link perfectly with each other as both of them have dealt with their own issues with depression and decided to photograph their experience in two completely different unique ways. Both of them create an idea in the audience’s mind of what it’s like to deal with these issues or if someone from the audience is already dealing with the same problems it can create a sense of feeling safe and comfort knowing there are others that feel the same and their choosing to photograph their feelings in a unique way. The photographer Gabriel Isaak inspired me for my photoshoots at home and in a very open natural environment to create an illusion of a dream as well as use more advanced photoshop skills to achieve this idea. Surrealism would have had a huge impact on Isaak’s work as surrealism derived significant inspiration from psychoanalysis, developed by Sigmund Freud to treat mental disorders. “The set of theories and techniques were established to delve into the unconscious mind It aimed to illuminate the causes of abnormal and unhealthy mental habits.” (Davis 2020:1) According to psychoanalysis, the mind is separated into the conscious and unconscious. Psychoanalytic treatment aimed to bring the repressed desires and fears of the unconscious mind to the surface. This can be seen in his photos because as mentioned before the silhouettes he uses represent the conscious mind and how it can feel detached from you body. One of the founding fathers of surrealism Andre Breton cited psychoanalysis as a gateway to restoring one’s artistic identity, liberated from conformity and social normality. (Davis 2020:1) He asserted that the application of psychoanalytic thought and automatism in art would make someone a true surrealist artist. For example Rene Magritte’s work , a famous surrealist artist in 1927, shows how mental health was presented back in the early days. This art shows most of the woman’s face cut out and dragged away from her body , unmasking what’s underneath it which looks like a solid, dark wooden texture of nothing with small pins it, implying there’s a hard material underneath her face that acts as a ‘mask’ and the texture underneath it is the woman’s mental health which is quite hidden and acting as a secret to help hide her real identity. This is really similar in how Gabriel Isaak presents mental health in his images, through using open spaces , like Magritte’s image that has an ocean, and using plain silhouettes or shadows of people to present their conscious and mental state- creating a feeling of loneliness and emptiness as your mind travels away from your body due to having a disorder.
The two artists I have studied in this project both clearly focus on presenting mental health through photography. Both of them taking aspects of surrealism into the work is seen as the conscious and unconscious mind is presented. They both show their feelings and emotions through taking images, and how they feel inside as we know their background with mental illness. They both mask their identity in some sort of way and either by blurring the faces out or just completely using silhouettes which doesn’t show a face , this creates a feeling of identity loss as a mental illness can affect your personality a lot and who you think you are. The difference between their work is that Isaak uses much more dream-like effects making them images almost look unreal because of how empty the background is , however Honaker uses his own self-portraits for his images and edited them by blurring his facial features out in different ways and in different environments. The main common theme from both of their work is sadness, as the small notes of blue shades and silhouettes indicate loneliness and sadness. Honaker only photographs himself which show him being alone dealing with his issues with no one around him, as he said , “Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”(Honaker 2015:2).
Overall I think I’ve presented my ideas and the concept of mental health very well through taking several different shoots that were inspired by my two chosen photographers. I explored how it might feel to deal with a mental illness and not really knowing how to deal with it or loosing your personality , though a simple shoot consisting of editing and blurring certain features to show uncertainty in how an individual may feel and bringing attention to the mind, as well as at home shoots to show what everyday life may be like and in big open spaces to create a sense of loneliness. I photographed an individual in a way that shows her feelings and her mental state through a series of portraits exploring her body language. I experiment with different editing techniques such as blurring out the model’s face in order to show you don’t feel like yourself when your mind isn’t working properly. A previous study I have done in my A-level photography work that links in with my personal study is the loss of identity which is when you’re not too sure what you’re doing or what you want to do when you grow up, which I achieved through edited portraits. My work will develop through editing all my images using a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop and turning them from simple headshots and full body shots into a way of presenting mental health in the style of Gabriel Isaak by selecting the model’s silhouette and filling it in with a black shadow separating one figure from her body showing the state of her mind. The digital processes I like to work with are the quick selection tool, lasso tool, and the object selection tool as well as the blurring brush to achieve the final images I want. My two photographers helped me create this vision as I could see and learnt about how mental health can be presented through a visual concept and photography as its a very difficult topic to express through photos as everyone’s experience and mind is different , they made me understand how certain editing and specific environments can help in achieving spreading the message I want.
Looking at the world in colour: a study of the work by William Eggleston and Saul Leiter
Essay Plan
Essay Question: Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography, visual and popular culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian.
Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
With my essay I want to discuss things like the origins of colour photography, famous colour photographers and the meaning behind colour photography- how it evokes certain feelings through the use of specific colours.
Looking at the world in colour: a study of the work by William Eggleston and Saul Leiter
I have chosen to study these two artists as I believe they both focus on colour in their work as well as incorporating community. With Saul Leiter’s work he tends to bring colour into his work by photographing people who are holding something colourful, such as an umbrella or standing near something colourful, however the people in his images are usually faceless individuals dressed in dark clothing. William Eggleston takes a different approach at colour photography by capturing still images of places, rather than people. Many of Eggleston’s images were taken in his hometown of Memphis. A distinctive difference between these two photographers is that while they both capture images that show colour and community, they both do it in vastly different ways. Eggleston, unlike Leiter, does not take images that feature people, he instead chooses to photograph images of things such as cafes and diners, where communities may congregate, he also takes images of things that are just colourful, however, though his work does not feature people like Saul Leiter’s does, both photographers work is about people, whether it is capturing images of people or taking images where people may have connections to. For my practical study I am going to photograph images that have been inspired by both artists. I am going to take pictures of people within the community, like Saul Leiter does, as well as capturing images that focus on just colour like Eggleston does in his work. Leiter (left) Eggleston (right).
Two other photographers that I believe I can take some inspiration from for this project are Martin Parr and Fred Herzog. In 1982 Parr and his wife moved to Wallasey, England, and he switched permanently to colour photography, inspired by the work of US colour photographers, mostly Joel Meyerowitz, but also William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, and also the British Peter Fraser and Peter Mitchell. Parr has written that “I had also encountered the post cards of John Hinde when I worked at Butlin’s in the early 70s and the bright saturated colour of these had a big impact on me.” During the summers of 1983, 1984 and 1985 he photographed working-class people at the seaside in nearby New Brighton. Although John Bulmer had pioneered colour documentary photography of Britain, from 1965, Gerry Badger has said of The Last Resort: It is difficult from a perspective of almost a quarter of a century to underestimate the significance of The Last Resort, either in British photography or Martin Parr’s career. For both, it represented a seismic change in the basic mode of photographic expression, from monochrome to colour, a fundamental technical change that heralded the development of a new tone in documentary photography. (John Hinde postcard below), (John bulmer image below) (Martin Parr images below of children eating icecream in Brighton).
Fred Herzog devoted his artistic life to walking the streets of Vancouver as well as almost 40 countries with his Leica camera, photographing – mostly with colour slide film – his observations of the street life with all its complexities. Herzog ultimately became celebrated internationally for his pioneering street photography, his understanding of the medium combined with, as he put it, “how you see and how you think” created the right moment to take a picture. The Vancouver photographs of Fred Herzog are awash with vibrant color. They are complex, mysterious, and full of life, much like the city he photographed. Focusing his camera on storefronts, neon signs, billboards, cafes and crowds of people, he eloquently depicts the architecture of the street as a framework for human interaction. I think that Fred Herzog is a good photographer to take inspiration from as his images are taken in a similar style as how I want to capture images, I want to take images of coloured architecture in a similar way that herzog has. (images taken by Fred Herzog below).
When colour is discussed in photography, it has become common to read that William Eggleston was the first person to use colour as an artistic choice and showed his coloured images at a museum in 1976. However, Alfred Stieglitz had created colour images using the autochrome process and exhibited them as early as 1909. The autochrome process was an early colour photography process patented in 1903 by the Lumiere brothers in France and was first marketed in 1907. Autochrome was an additive colour, ‘mosaic screen plate’ process, and was the principal colour photography process for over 20 years. The medium consists of a glass plate coated on one side with a random mosaic of microscopic grains of potato starch dyed red-orange, green, and blue-violet (an unusual but functional variant of the standard red, green, and blue additive colours), the grains of starch act as colour filters. Unlike ordinary black-and-white plates, the Autochrome was loaded into the camera with the bare glass side facing the lens so that the light passed through the mosaic filter layer before reaching the emulsion. The use of an additional special orange-yellow filter in the camera was required to block ultraviolet light and restrain the effects of violet and blue light, parts of the spectrum to which the emulsion was overly sensitive. Below is a series of images of the autochrome process, starting with an image of the Lumiere brothers, a box of autochrome plates, the autochrome logo, and the coloured starch grains on an autochrome plate that has been enlarged.
Another thing that I want to explore and learn more about is how to evoke a feeling through the colours that are featured in an image. Different colours have different ways of influencing us, some colours make us feel calm, some evoke feelings of fear and tension and others make us feel happy. For example, yellow- it’s the color of sunshine, warmth, and beauty. Different hues of yellow bring different impacts. Darker shades might enrich an atmosphere even with some dramatic effect while the lighter tones make things merry and happy. So, the colors are powerful tools for creating an emotional structure of photographs. In Saul Leiter, William Eggleston and Fred Herzogs image the colours that occur the most are shades of yellow orange and red. Orange is a prominent colour against other lighter tones and has characteristics of both yellow and red, orange is said to make you feel passion, love and warmth, which makes it clear why it’s a reoccurring colour in William Eggleston’s work as he’s photographing his hometown, where he grew up which could bring back feelings of love and warmth. As well as the colours in Eggleston’s work evoking feeling they can also reveal the time period the image was taken, in his images the colours are more rich and complex than if they were taken on an iPhone camera today. In Eggleston’s work pictured below the colours on the buildings are a deep orange, where as if the same image was taken on an iPhone they would come out more blinding and bright.
A Photographer that I am going to explore is Saul Leiter, an American photographer and painter, who was an early pioneer of colour photography, and whose early work in the 1940s and 1950s was an important contribution to what came to be recognized as the New York school of photography. With distinctive imagery suffused with painterly qualities, he is often grouped with other photographers of the New York School such as Richard Avedon, Weegee, and Diane Arbus. His work, however, departs dramatically with that group regarding his subject matter—an oblique mélange of New York’s streets, architecture, and inhabitants. “A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person,” the artist said. (Images by Dianne Arbus, Richard Avedon and Weegee- left to right).
While Saul Leiter’s Street photography bares resemblance to the style of these photographs, the main difference is that his images are in colour. By the 1950s, he began to work in colour, compiling an extensive and significant body of work during the medium’s infancy. His distinctively subdued colour often has a painterly quality that stood out among the work of his contemporaries. Leiter’s first exhibition of colour photography was held in the 1950s at the Artist’s Club, a meeting place for many of the Abstract Expressionist painters of that time. Edward Steichen included twenty-three of Leiter’s black and white photographs in the seminal 1953 exhibition “Always the Young Stranger” at the Museum of Modern Art; he also included twenty of Leiter’s colour images in the 1957 MoMA conference “Experimental Photography in Colour.” I particularly like the image pictured below (left) as it embodies early street photography, whilst also incorporating colour into it, this is what I want to do with my project, and I feel that Saul Leiter’s images are good to take inspiration from. In this image, your eyes are first drawn to the patch of yellow on the truck that stands out, because of it being highly saturated, while the rest of the image drops into relatively duller colours. Like a lot of Saul Leiter’s images, this image has strong elements of abstraction, where he focuses on shapes rather than details. The yellow area in this image plays the critical role of separating the man’s head from the background, so that the contours would be visible. As a result, the viewer can then see that he is wearing a hat and looking downwards. Saul tactfully used colour as building blocks in his images. I want to try and do this in my images by taking street photography at night or on a darker day whilst there is colour in the background, ultimately creating a silhouette of the person in the image.
William Eggleston’s work (1970’s) successfully captures the world in colour with his images while also incorporating a sense of community within his work. By photographing places where community can be felt as people congregate and interact with others in these places, I think that he is the best artist for me to look at and take inspiration from for the practical side of this project. A curator at Tate art museum, Simon Baker, said, “William Eggleston never takes multiple shots of the same image just the right picture at just the right moment..” Though his images record a particular place at a certain point in time, Eggleston is not interested in their documentary qualities. Instead, when asked what he is photographing, Eggleston simply answers ‘life today.’ However, with my images I want them to have a slight documentary quality to them as I have also taken pictures featuring people, which when people look at them, I want them to have a story behind them even if it is open to interpretation of what is happening in that specific image. Whilst taking some inspiration from William Eggleston I am also putting my own twist on looking at the world in colour, by focusing on still images, like Eggleston, however, not solely focusing on buildings.
I like this particular image by William Eggleston (featured above), sometimes referred to as, ‘The red ceiling‘ as it shows colour well. At the top of the image, slightly off centre is a light fixture with a bare bulb and three white cables stapled to the ceiling leading out across the glossy ceiling like arteries towards the crimson walls. It is taken from an angle that suggests he may have stood on a chair, or simply held the camera above his head. In its apparent casualness, it is emblematic of Eggleston’s art, being both ordinary and loaded with meaning, utterly simple and yet endlessly complex. The abstract “fly’s eye view” of the room evokes how Eggleston’s compositions often appear both formal and deceptively simple. Eggleston is known for capturing sometimes garish, but always stunning colour combinations in his pictures. A mundane image, maybe, yet one that carries within it some indefinable sense of menace. His eye for colour, enhanced by his dye-transfer process, ultimately enabled colour photography to become a legitimate art form. Of this picture he once said, the deep red colour was “so powerful, I’ve never seen it reproduced on the page to my satisfaction. When you look at a dye-transfer print it’s like it’s red blood that is wet on the wall.”. At the time this photo was shown, most photographs were still black and white, so the vibrant red pigment was shockingly new and experimental. Other images by William Eggleston (pictured below).
There are many similarities between the two photographer’s work, the obvious being that they both shot their images in colour. However, as well as that they both captured images in places that they had connections too- William Eggleston shot in his birthplace, Memphis, and Saul Leiter took images in his hometown of New York. Both photographers also shoot images that either include people in, creating a sense of community or places that communities may gather. Whilst both photographers, have many similarities they also have a lot of differences, William Eggleston says that he just captures ‘life today’ and that the images have no documentative qualities or stories behind them. However, Unlike the bright, poppy 1970s colour work of William Eggleston, who is generally regarded as polychromatic photography’s pioneers, Leiter’s images possess an impressionistic quality, in keeping with his contemporaries. He says about his images, “I like it when one is not certain what one sees,” he once said. “When we do not know why the photographer has taken a picture and when we do not know why we are looking at it, suddenly we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion.” Capturing his images this way leaves them up to interpretation. (Eggleston-right) (Leiter-left).
Photography has a unique relationship to chance. Anyone who has used a camera has taken a picture that has been ruined by an ill-timed blink or enhanced by an unexpected gesture or expression. … On the other hand, it has given photography an extraordinary capacity to represent the unpredictableness of modern life. The notion of chance in photography is a vital part of the practice. To an extent all photographers have taken their famous images at the result of chance process, however as well as chance; photographers such as Saul Leiter have also put themselves into an environment that will present opportunities to capture a successful image. Leiter done this by knowing what type of images he wanted to capture and went out into the centre of New York to look for opportunities to capture images.
In my own practical work, I have taken images In Jersey, Brighton, and London, I have focused on street photography, as well as the graffiti community, and taken images that focus solely on colour, such as colourful objects from a close distance. I think my images are more comparable to Saul Leiter’s work as I tried to take images with his style of photography slightly using people as a silhouette to break up the colours that are present in the background of his images. In a lot of my street photography images I took a lot of images that focused on the sky as the main colour element in the background by capturing images that have sunsets in the background, two examples of this are shown below.
I like these images as they incorporate both street photography and colour in a natural way, in the image on the left I like how the purple hues in the sky are seen through the square windows; I also like how the windows are separated as it creates a nice break of colour throughout the image. In the image on the right, I like how the people in the carriage in front can be seen on the left-hand side of the image and how they are just unaware of the photograph being taken as it feels more natural. I also like the way you can see the sky through the carriage windows as well as the carriage the image was taken from. Another thing I like about this image is the lights in the ceiling of the carriage as it has just enough light to make the people visible but not enough light to take away from the sky in the background of the image.
Another image I like is this one as I feel like the silhouette of the woman in front of the billboard gives off a Saul Leiter feel. I like the placement of the woman in this image as it breaks up the background colour and makes the hat the woman is wearing more visible just like Saul Leiter does in his images. The placement of the woman makes the contours in the image more visible, and the billboard creates colour blocks in the image much like Saul Leiter’s work.
Two other images that I like are from a photoshoot inspired by the photobook ‘William Eggleston’s Guide’, the first image in the photobook depicts a light faded grey door, slightly to the right of the image, it has a gold door knocker on the centre of the door with a basket full of blue flowers hanging off it. After seeing that image I decided to take similar photographs and frame them similarly. I took the images so that the window and the door were to the right of the image much like Eggleston’s image. I like the blue shades in both of these images and like the way the darker blue shade stands out against the white wall and the way the yellow flowers at the bottom of the image frame the door way. In the image on the right I like the way the light blue shade of the window and the wall at the bottom look with the cream shade of the wall, compared to how it would look if the wall was painted a bright white colour. The light shade of the blue creates a calm, relaxed feel, combining that with the cream wall evokes a feel of femininity within the image.
