Walker Evans
Walker Evans was an American photographer who was best known for one of his portfolios ‘The Beauty of the Common House Tool’ where he photographed a variety of household objects using framing and lighting in order to create a visually appealing set of photos.
His work was consistent – each object being monochromatic, centred and taken from a birds eye view throughout the whole portfolio, accentuating the symmetry, or in some cases lack thereof, of each tool. In order to eliminate the objects’ shadows, he’d lift the object off the backdrop by using small balls of tape, helping the object stand out against the background despite the image being black and white.
Darren Harvey-Regan
Darren Harvey-Regan is a British photographer who was heavily inspired by Evans’ portfolio, so much so that he created montages of some of Evans’ work before sourcing similar tools and split/cut these photos in half in order to match similar looking images together, creating a new photo for his portfolio ‘Beauty of the Common House Tool, Rephrased‘.
For example:
A trowel and scissors have been combined together in order to create one final image
In Harvey-Regan’s work, it’s clear that he’s been inspired by Evans, making sure to take care with the lighting in order to eliminate the shadows whilst keeping he objects centred therefore emphasizing what each tool looks like. Unlike Evans, he chose to use a plain white background, most likely to make splicing the images together easier and make the final result more coherent.