Tag Archives: Contrast

Independent, Reading, Task

ANsel Adams Comparison

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  • Anecdotes - The Ansel Adams Gallery
    Ansell Adams
  • Michael Kenealy

Above are two rural landscape images. The image on the left was shot by American photographer Ansell Adams and the right by myself.

Both images feature a low key, greyscale profile. The use of an ND filter and specific film allowed Adams to create an image with dominant dark tones whilst still allowing for the counteractive sharp highlights to come through in the image. I recreated this by shooting with a large aperture to include as much data in the image as possible and then altering the saturation and temperature of the image in post production. These methods allow for both images to feature a highly romanticized landscape. For example the dramatic moon in the center of a dark, almost fully black sky tucked behind a whisping blanket of clouds which are being pierced by a gathering of sharp snowy mountains is a typical depiction of an exaggerated, sublime landscape.

Both images feature a large tonal range from the dark sky’s and foliage to the white mountains and sand dunes.

Both images have similar form with the empty sky taking up two thirds of the image with the bottom of the image being filled.

They both contain a strong leading line horizontally through the image

Conceptually, both these images represent the idea of death and moving on. The images both feature dark, mournful tones. Adams image features a graveyard symbolizing death and my image contains a sublime landscape which was once flourishing but is now more baron symbolizing life and death. The images both feature bold horizons which alludes to the idea of “new horizons” and moving on from death.

Independent, Reading, Task

REPETITION, PATTERN, RHYTHM REFLECTION AND SYMMETRY -Alfred Stieglitz – patterns in the sky

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Mood Board and Introduction

For this project I explored Alfred Stieglitz’s work on patterns in the sky.

Patterns in the sky Mood Board

Mind-map of ideas

Alfred Stieglitz

Alfred was an American Photographer born in 1864. He was an integral part in an acceptance of photography as an art form. He created a portfolio of pieces which focused on the pattern of things. His favorite way to capture this was by looking up and shooting patterns in the sky.

His images possessed flat, faded, contrast with bright, harsh highlights. They are also populated with pattern with little negative space.

In this image Alfred captures an astral, melancholic but also euphoric, free emotion with this image. It seems as if an artist has painted on these clouds. The flat contrast and sandpaper clouds give this image a faded, rough texture.

He has used natural light streaming in from the corners of the image to give it an astral glow. He has still managed to, even though there seems to be harsh daylight, combat this by slightly under exposing the image by deepening the blacks of the sky by using the cameras film. he has used a small aperture to gain detail in the distant cloud formations and give the image depth. Alfred might have used a slightly longer exposure to drag the clouds across the composition. He has also used a higher ISO to add a fine grain to the image.

The image also contains a pattern of the repeating clouds sweeping upwards. There is also a significant depth in tone created by the blackened sky contrasting with the white clouds. The image is also populated with little negative space.

Photo Shoot Action Plan

Who: There will be no subject in this project.

What: Cloud patterns.

Where: I will be shooting near my house and close to the coast as there tends to be more interesting cloud formations there.

When: On an overcast day

How: DSLR 50mm – 80mm lens with small aperture capability, lense hood to prevent glare and a ND filter to grab blacker skies. Walk down to coast and around my neighborhood looking up and following cloud patterns

Why: To experiment and learn more about photographing pattern.

Contact Sheets

Final Compositions

My above compositions portray the experimentation of pattern. They use deep tonal range with deep depth of field. My compositions featured similar elements to Alfreds work.

  • My image
  • Alfred’s image

Both pieces include soft sweeping pattern work. They both use de saturated deep black negative spaces with the cotton clouds contrasting in the foreground. They both Make use of natural lighting adding accents to the patterns from a certain direction. They both use a small aperture to gain detail and depth in the clouds. They both consider a longer exposure time to drag the clouds out more. Both images hold a gloomy astral emotion. Finally, one difference is Alfred uses a flat contrast and my image contains a deeper contrast.

Reading, Resource, Task

REPETITION, PATTERN, RHYTHM REFLECTION AND SYMMETRY

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  • Alfred Stieglitz
  • Harry Callahan

I decided in picking these two photographers to contrast and compare their work pieces as both photographers use textures, repetition and patterns in an enchanting way. 

Alfred Stieglitz creates patterns and repetition when in the talking of his photos as the clouds create weird patterns and some of the patterns are repeated in the sky creating an abstract look to the clouds.

Whereas, Harry Callahan similarly experiments with these patterns and repetition in his pictures with the abstract pictures he takes of grass and repetition in the photos he has taking of trees being lined up next to each other.

Alfred’s picture on the left contains natural lighting which gives different shades into the patterns of the clouds in the sky making some of the clouds darker and lighter than other sin different regions. Visually, Alfred’s picture is appeared to seem very 2D (flat) as their isn’t much highlight’s of light in the clouds in order for them to appear to be 3D or even clouds moreover, their is a lot of patterns in this picture visually as you can see similar cloud shapes as it appears to be one big cloud with light trying to brake through different segments of the cloud. His purpose and meaning of taking these type of pictures of clouds was that it became an art form for him to take this pictures of the sky and photography quite quickly became an obsession for Alfred as he enjoyed his art form of taking pictures.

Harrys picture on the right was taken from the source of natural light with what appears to be a wide angle aperture being used in taking this picture, this enhances the shadowing and contrast in this image from light to dark tones demonstrating the differences from what appears to be wheat and grass in the picture. Visually the image is contrasted to be 3D as you due to the shadowing giving life to the surface in the picture also, their is repetition in this as you can see their is grass scattered about in the picture giving it a very earthly/ naturalistic appeal to the picture. The context of how Harry would go about in taking his pictures, was that he would just get out of bed and take numerous pictures of things that he thought interested him, this comes across in his picture in my opinion as the picture doesn’t seem to be panned but more of a ‘in the moment’ taken picture.

Independent, Reading, Task

REPETITION, PATTERN, RHYTHM REFLECTION AND SYMMETRY – Image Comparison

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Paul Strand Vs Jaromir Funke

  • Paul Strand
  • Jaromir Funke

I chose to compare and and contrast these two artists against each other as they both use light and shadowing techniques in very provocative ways.

Paul strand creates black and white images with exaggerated deep contrast by shooting sharp leading lines possessed by certain architecture in harsh light which creates long eloping shadows to form giving his images this contrast and tonal range.

Jaromir Funke similarly experiments with this harsh light and shadow forming technique to form these abstract black and white pieces.

The main differences between their pieces is that Jaromir creates more abstract unconventional compositions solely sue to the fact he intentionally creates his sets of random interesting objects that will clash well with light and form shadows while Paul shoots typical, mundane architecture but in a creative fashion to form his contrasting images.

Pauls image on the left contains harsh natural light to create the intense shadows bordering each of the subjects. He used a narrow aperture to create a deep depth which is supported by the leading lines running parallel through the image. His image has been infused with sharp highlights and deep blacks to accentuate the shadows and the images tonal range. His image also includes repetition, this is seen through all the duplicating steps. This image also has a sinister essence with the baby’s face emerged in a shadow it almost juxtaposes that an innocent being could be portrayed as having an evil soul

Jaromir Funke’s image contains abstract light experimentation that plays tricks on the mind. He uses a harsh fluorescent looking light to draw out shadows and create the images contrasting tones. The image contains a lot of sharp geometrical features which frame certain streams of light and let through others. His image is l=slightly under exposed to add depth to the shadows. A high ISO has been used to add sensitivity to the film which has created a slight grain and given the image texture. The space in the image is quite populated with little negative space. He has also shot the shapes at an angle instead of straight on which gives a unique perspective to how the shadows elope and given the image more depth.

Independent, Reading, Task

Black Light

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Keld Helmer Peterson

A Danish photographer who was considered a pioneer in abstract photography in the 40s and 50s.

Keld experimented with the contrast in graphic black and white expression.

He was influenced greatly by constructivist artists and industrial machines/architecture.

Below we can see some of his compositions from his “Black Light” album where he experimented with extreme contrast to create abstract black on white compositions.

Process:

I chose 4 images that I thought would create a graphical black on white composition when edited. I opted for interesting industrial and man made elements with simplistic backgrounds.

I then added greater contrast to the image. Following this I used the threshold tool in photoshop to exaggerate the tonal range and create an abstract composition.

My Images