WILLIAM EGGLESTON

Born on July 27, 1939, William Eggleston is one of the most influential photographers of the latter half of the 20th century. His portraits and landscapes of the American South reframed the history of the medium and its relationship to colour photography. “I had the attitude that I would work with this present-day material and do the best I could to describe it with photography,” Eggleston explained. “Not intending to make any particular comment about whether it was good or bad or whether I liked it or not. It was just there, and I was interested in it.”

 One critic called Eggleston “totally boring and perfectly banal.” He was, of course, completely correct, in a new topographics style Eggleston uses colour to present the ordinary and familiar- something I am interested in attempting to succeed in.

HENRY WESSEL JR

Snapshots capturing everyday life and subjects are a major form of vernacular photography, Henry Wessel Jr made “obdurately spare and often wry black-and-white pictures of vernacular scenes in the American West” Exploring the territory where nature and culture meet, Wessel’s deadpan pictures share the spontaneity and authenticity of snapshots, combining disarming frankness with irreverent humour. His low-key style matches the modest nature of his subject matter: he has found an inexhaustible richness in the aesthetics of the everyday, turning the least monumental of subjects into a kind of personal poetry.

Contrasting to Eggleston’s work which uses a large mix of colours, I also want to experiment with black and white images in the style of Wessel.

MY MOODBOARD

I would like my final outcomes to be in colour and monotone in the style of documentary photography.

New Topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz) whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape.

Parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses were all depicted with a beautiful stark austerity, almost in the way early photographers documented the natural landscape. An exhibition at the International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York featuring these photographers also revealed the growing unease about how the natural landscape was being eroded by industrial development. The show consisted of 168 rigorously formal, black-and-white prints of streets, warehouses, city centres, industrial sites and suburban houses. Taken collectively, they seemed to posit an aesthetic of the banal.

America experienced a robust growth till the early 1970s, with this, the historical background of urban America was founded, a full swing urban growth which coincided with the period of baby boom (1946-mid 60s). Seventy-six million children were born, creating an enormous demand for housing, meaning once natural landscapes were built upon, becoming heavily urbanised and industrialised. The word urban (derived from from Latin word “urbane”) relates to or constituting a city. It also means polished and smooth, obviously a stark contrast to the natural soft shapes of natural landscape which were being photographed in the subject of romanticism.

IMPORTANT URBAN LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHERS

JOEL STERNFELD

Joel Sternfeld is a seminal contemporary American artist known for his large-format colour photographs of American towns and cities. Influenced by the roadside photography of Walker Evans, Sternfeld’s projects document people and places with an exacting sense of colour that visually rhymes with the subject matter, as seen in his seminal series American Prospects (1987). “No individual photo explains anything. That’s what makes photography such a wonderful and problematic medium,” he reflected. “It is the photographer’s job to get this medium to say what you need it to say.” Born on June 30, 1944 in New York, NY, he received his BA in visual art from Dartmouth College in 1965.

Sternfeld’s projects have consistently explored the possibility of a collective American identity by documenting ordinary people and places throughout the country. Each project he embarks on is bound by a concept that imbues it with subtle irony, often through insightful visual juxtapositions or by pairing images with informational text. Another characteristic aspect of Sternfeld’s work is that colour is never arbitrary; it functions in highly sophisticated ways to connect elements and resonate emotion.

HENRY WESSEL JR

Originally from New Jersey, Henry Wessel, Jr. fell in love with the California light on a visit in 1970. Immediately afterwards, he moved to San Francisco, immersing himself in the sights and spaces of California. Wessel created his “House Pictures” series in Southern California from the armrest of his truck in the early 1990s.

The images appear as a survey of playfully candy-coloured bungalows that suggest a human presence only in details, such as a modest cooler left curb side or a garden hose coiled against the side of a house. Although different in colour, the structural similarities of the bungalows—as well as the similar compositions of the photographs themselves—imply both the futility of originality and the manufactured quality of the American dream of home ownership. Wessel continued this banal, casual aesthetic with all his images- capturing Californian suburbia life through material belongings.

ROBERT ADAMS

Robert Adams is an American photographer best known for his images of the American West. Offering solemn meditations on the landscapes of California, Colorado, and Oregon, Adams’s black-and-white photos document the changes wrought by humans upon nature. “By Interstate 70: a dog skeleton, a vacuum cleaner, TV dinners, a doll, a pie, rolls of carpet. Later, next to the South Platte River: algae, broken concrete, jet contrails, the smell of crude oil,” he wrote. “What I hope to document, though not at the expense of surface detail, is the form that underlies this apparent chaos.”

Born on May 8, 1937 in Orange, NJ, his family moved around the Midwest throughout his childhood, finally settling in Wheat Ridge, CO in 1952. Adams went on to study English at the University of Redlands and received his PhD in English from the University of Southern California in 1965. It wasn’t until the near completion of his dissertation for USC that Adams began to take photography seriously, learning techniques from professional photographer Myron Wood and reading Aperture magazine. In the 1970s, he was released the book The New West (1974), and a year later was included in the seminal exhibition “New Topographics”: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.

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The two images of Ansel Adams’ above have similar characteristics of my image below. There are a wide variety of tonal values in all images, my image perhaps has less greys and only a sharp contrast between almost pure white and pure black. My image has less definition/ is not in as sharp as a focus, this could be changed by changing the aperture setting, which secures greater depth of field (i.e. Ansel Adams often shot in an aperture setting of f64). My image is also really intriguing to me as the perception of the image presents itself as an optical illusion, with some questioning over what the image actually is, whether it be a close up photo of roots or trees from afar, Adams’ image of roots gives this same effect where the tangled roots look almost scalic and alive rather than just being roots.

I took around 150-200 photos trying to get a good diverse mix of different rural landscapes.

After completing my photoshoots I uploaded my images to Adobe Lightroom Classic and created a category system where I chose my favourite images from each different type of terrain so I could have a variety of images.

Then I edited the images, choosing between resizing them to concentrate on a main part of the landscape or whether they should be black and white or coloured.

For example, on the image above I changed it to black and white then cropped out an area which was highly overexposed as I wanted to concentrate on the shadows the trees were creating.

As I wanted to concentrate on the shadows I turned up shadows in Lightroom and made the image have more of a contrast between the trees and the sky in the background, I thought this really added more dimension to the image as concentrating on the shadows (which are slanted) versus the trees added an almost optical illusion aspect to the image.

The editing itself made the image look quite grainy but I really like this look as it incorporates different textures into the image i.e. the pure white blankness of the sky then the diverse tonal contrasts between the greys of the grass.

I did similar editing for my black and white images, making sure to highlight large tonal contrasts in the images as Ansel Adams did, as well as create a very visible textural contrast on images.

The majority of my favourite edited images are black and white.

After editing my images I then narrowed down my selection to my best images, seen below

PLAN

For my rural photography I want to incorporate different perspectives which exaggerate shadows, textures and the sizes of natural features of a landscape- a main idea I have is capturing cloudscapes. I plan to do multiple photoshoots across the island in different terrains (i.e. beaches, fields, woods etc). The week within I am doing these photoshoots has very calm weather with either cloudy days (possibly very flat lighting) and bright and sunny days (large contrasts between shadows). There will be one day that is predicted to be foggy, I hope to go to beach and try get some quite ominous images.

Ansel Easton Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West.

He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating “pure” photography which favoured sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph. Adams was an advocate of environmental protection, national parks and creating an enduring legacy of responses to the power of nature and sublime condition.

He created a Zonal System to ensure that all tonal values created by highlights, low-lights and mid-tones are represented in the images.

The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development. It provides photographers with a systematic method of precisely defining the relationship between the way they visualize the photographic subject and the final results. Although it originated with black-and-white sheet film, the Zone System is also applicable to roll film, both black-and-white and colour, negative and reversal and to digital photography.

Ansel Adams was also very concerned with the tonal range of an image, the 11 zones in Ansel Adams’ system were defined to represent the gradation of all the different tonal values you would see in a black and white print, with zone 5 being middle grey, zone 0 being pure black (with no detail), and zone 10 being pure white (with no detail).

ANALYSIS OF ANSEL ADAMS’ WORK

Moon and Half Dome by Ansel Adams is a prime example of his work, the heavy contrast between tonal values (ranging from the pure white of the snow and moon to the pitch black of the shadows on the mountain). The texture of the mountain is very visible, adding more depth to the images, strong shadows which are in the foreground frame the centrepiece of the moon and cliff- leading to a very atmospheric, dramatic image which successfully exudes strong emotions (linking to romanticism) and a steady, clear aesthetic.

As said in my Romanticism blog post, landscape photography is the art of capturing pictures of nature and the outdoors in a way that brings your viewer into the scene. From grand landscapes to intimate details, the best photos demonstrate the photographer’s own connection to nature and capture the essence of the world around them.

Major landscape photographers include Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Fay Godwin and Don McCullin.

Landscape photography is the technique of capturing images of nature to bring your viewer into the scene. Through landscape photography, the photographers demonstrate their connection to nature and capture the essence of the environment around them. Landscape photography is greatly influenced by Romanticism and the rejection of The age of Enlightenment.

ROMANTICISM AND THE SUBLIME

Romanticism (1770-1850) was a rejection of the Age of Enlightenment (1685-1715) where science and rationality was prised over emotion and aesthetic. By contrast, the Romantics rejected the whole idea of reason and science. They felt that a scientific worldview was cold and sterile so as a reaction the Romantics generated paintings which were rich in emotions such as trepidation, horror, and wild untamed nature.

Romanticism was rejected or ignored by most of the major artists later seen as associated with it, but it nevertheless identified several key tendencies of the period.

Though hard to define precisely, it essentially involves: 1) placing emotion and intuition before (or at least on an equal footing with) reason; 2) a belief that there are crucial areas of experience neglected by the rational mind; and 3) a belief in the general importance of the individual, the personal and the subjective- every painting told a story.

Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry (1757) connected the sublime with experiences of awe, terror and danger. Burke saw nature as the most sublime object, capable of generating the strongest sensations in its beholders. This Romantic conception of the sublime proved influential for several generations of artists.

PAINTINGS TO PHOTOGRAPHY

The talents of Romanticism in paintings were transferred to photography where photographers such as Ansel Adams became  known for his black-and-white images of the American West (as seen below).

These two images, although created over 100 years apart share striking similarities in terms of evoking emotion and technical skill, such as a a large array of tonal values.

Landscape photography is the art of capturing pictures of nature and the outdoors in a way that brings your viewer into the scene. From grand landscapes to intimate details, the best photos demonstrate the photographer’s own connection to nature and capture the essence of the world around them.

DIAMOND CAMEOS

A diamond cameo contains a portrait displayed (commonly 4 times) in circular shapes arranged in a diamond shape. Typically, the main subject would change their composure (i.e look to the left) for each picture, it then would be arranged in such a way where each separate picture is looking the opposite way. They were common in the late 19th century and were often commissioned by wealthy, upper class people or figures of monarchy/authority. They are often very informal compared to the existing portraiture of the time, which was often very serious and formal.

HENRY MULLINS

Headshots by Mullins of both Jersey men and women were produced as vignette portraits -which was a common technique used in mid to late 19th century- they were then arranged into diamond cameos.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND HENRY MULLINS

STUDIO

In the studio we did a small shoot of passport-type images, I used these images for my diamond cameo.

First I edited the images in Lightroom- turning them to black and white and resizing them- then I exported them to Adobe Photoshop.

Using the cut out tool I cut out my main subject in a circular shape then placed and arranged them on a black background.

This is my final image, I believe it lives up to the classic definition of a diamond cameo however I decided to overlay some of the portraits to create a textured, more layered effect. I changed the images to black and white to incorporate the traditional photography of the time, where images were black and white.

Overall I like the outcome of my diamond cameo experimentation, I really like the way the subject is looking in different directions, with only one image where they are not looking at the camera. I find this composition really interesting.

DEADPAN/PASSPORT/TYPOLOGIES

A photographic typology is a single photograph or more commonly a body of photographic work, that shares a high level of consistency. This consistency is usually found within the subjects, environment, photographic process, and presentation or direction of the subject. An example of this is passport photos which all follow certain rules which enable every picture to be consistent (seen below)

FACE:

eyes must be open and clearly visible, with no flash reflections and no ‘red eye’

facial expression must be neutral (neither frowning nor smiling), with the mouth closed

photos must show both edges of the face clearly

photos must show a full front view of face and shoulders, squared to the camera 

the face and shoulder image must be centred in the photo; the subject must not be looking over one shoulder (portrait style), or tilting their head to one side or backwards or forwards

there must be no hair across the eyes

hats or head coverings are not permitted except when worn for religious reasons and only if the full facial features are clearly visible

photos with shadows on the face are unacceptable

photos must reflect/represent natural skin tone

BACKGROUND:

Photos must have a background which:

has no shadows

has uniform lighting, with no shadows or flash reflection on the face and head

shows a plain, uniform, light grey or cream background (5% to 10% grey is recommended)

THOMAS RUFF

Thomas Ruff followed these rules for his “Portrait” collection, in his studio between 1981 and 1985, Ruff photographed 60 half-length portraits in the same manner: Passport-like images, with the upper edge of the photographs situated just above the hair, even lighting, the subject between 25 and 35 years old, taken with a 9 × 12 cm negative and, because of the use of a flash, without any motion blur.

The early portraits were black-and-white and small, but Ruff soon switched to colour, using solid backgrounds in different colours; from a stack of coloured card stock the sitter could choose one colour, which then served as the background. The resulting Portraits depict the individual persons – often Ruff’s fellow students – framed as in a passport photo, typically shown with emotionless expressions, sometimes face-on, sometimes in profile, and in front of a plain background.

STUDIO

In the studio we did a small shoot of passport-type images

This is my most successful image from the shoot as it complies with the standards for passport photos the best.

I resized the image so it would seem more fitting for a portrait- with less negative space.

This is my final image, I believe it looks very similar to Thomas Ruff’s work however photos with the deadpan aesthetic often look very similar- especially passport photos as the entire point is to get a clear portrait formally showing someone’s facial features.

Overall these images look very similar to Thomas Ruff’s portraits photos with the deadpan aesthetic, however I do not have the variation of portraits of different people in a collection. My images are also not edited minus the resizing, this is reinforce the rules of passport photos, where there cannot be any editing however this displays an inconsistent display of portraits where they look slightly different.