Ansel Adams (1902-1984) was an American landscape photographer, most well-known for his widely influential photos of the Yosemite National Park. He created the Zone System, a photographic technique for determining exposure in black and white photos.
The zone system.
Adams was inspired by photographers who specialized in mostly expedition photography, for example Carleton Watkins, Timothy O’Sullivan, and Frank Jay Haynes, who worked with large bulky cameras and set off into the wilderness carrying their equipment on mules. Adams first visited Yosemite in 1916 and began taking photos there not long after.
His subject was the awe he felt in nature, the humbling exaltation he felt in the wilderness, whether manifest on a huge or tiny scale. In the early 1930s, other photographers and critics complained that the world was going to pieces while people like Adams and Edward Weston were photographing rocks. Adams responded in a letter to Weston that “Humanity needs the purely aesthetic just as much as it needs the purely material.”
IMAGE ANALYSIS
This is one of many photos taken by Adams at Yosemite National Park. This photo features the zone system, with 1 being the shadows reflected from the cliff and 8/9 being the moon which is one of many focal points in the photo. It features not only different shades but also different textures, with the rocky cliff face and the smooth effect the shadow has created. My favourite part of this photo is the moon in the background, as that is what immediately caught my attention even though it is arguably the smallest detail in the photo.
Adam’s role in photography has played a key part in influencing how photos are taken. The creation of the zone system helps distinguish different settings of exposure in black and white. Adam’s love of photography helped him create the image he wanted to see in his mind then recreated it in his photos, inspiring other landscape photographers to do the same.
MOODBOARD – I chose these photos for my moodboard because they all depict a different type of landscape and texture; the cracked effect of the waves in the second photo (Minor White) and the reflection of the bridge in the water in the first.
Landscape photography is a type of photography that captures the beauty of nature, bringing the viewers into the scenery, setting, and mood in these outdoor locations. Most landscape photos are taken in colour to capture features like the sky or colours of nature, but I have chosen to look at photographers who shoot in predominantly black and white – I prefer this because i feel like it captures more emotion.
Light is by far the most important element of a landscape photograph. A photograph of a stunning location taken in harsh mid-day light will fall flat. A photograph of a boring location taken at that perfect moment when the light is magical will turn into a unique and memorable photograph. Another important feature is composition – whilst taking the photo there are key things to think about such as texture, colours, shapes and frames.
IMAGE ANALYSIS
This photo was taken by Ansel Adams of a wind-damaged tree in the mountains. The dark branches and leaves of the three juxtaposes the light background of the sky, most likely taken on a sunny day. The tree casts a shadow on the floor again contrasting the bright background whilst the light from the sun illuminates the silhouette of the tree.
These two photos show the difference between a poor landscape photo and a better one. Depending on aesthetic the left photo could be considered good, but the blur and poor choice of lighting makes the focal point unclear. However, the photo on the right is clear and has two major focal points – the tree and the lighting in the background – the colour contrast between the tree and the sky plays a major part in making a good photo.
Juxtaposition refers to the side-by-side placement of two or more contrasting things. As with colour, shape, and cropping, juxtaposition can become a key component of photographic compositions, helping to tell a story and emphasize differences or similarities between objects or people.
EXAMPLES OF JUXTAPOSITION
Juxtaposition in street photography is hugely influenced by individuals emotions – some may volunteer to be photographed whilst some shots are candid. This photo shows two people, perhaps lovers, standing in front of a painting of two individuals kissing. The two in front are looking away from each other and away from the camera, this could symbolize conflict between the two. The woman is holding her arm as an act of defiance. The painting behind them juxtaposes the couples emotions.
MY PHOTOS
I edited these photos on Lightroom and Photoshop. For the first one i used the warp tool and motion blur to convey emotion, for the second one i increased the saturation and clarity to give the photo a soft blur and more vibrant background.
The juxtaposition between my photos is reliant on emotion. The first photo suggests a sadder more chaotic atmosphere, with the lack of eye contact due to the eyes blurred out to make it more mysterious. The black background makes the individual in the photo stand out more so she is the main focus. The second photo is the opposite – i am smiling in the photo to show a happier atmosphere, the brighter colours and light background furthermore suggest this.
Deadpan photography is considered a photo devoid of emotion. Forms of deadpan photography include passport photos – the subjects stand or sit, usually making eye contact with the camera. Rules of passport photography include no smiling, no hats, and a white background.
Examples of passport photography.
THOMAS RUFF
Thomas Ruff is a contemporary German photographer and prominent member of the Düsseldorf School. His work incorporates deadpan photography, both portraits and still life. Thomas Ruff got into capturing portrait photos in 1981. He mastered the required photography technique between 1981 and 1985. Along with portrait photography, Ruff was into large format printing, producing images in large seven feet (2,1 meter) by five feet (1,5 meter). This combination helped to introduce a unique feel to the pictures.
By 1987, Thomas Ruff was well settled as a portrait photographer and in high demand. This tempted him to try other photography styles and come up with innovative photos. To do that, Thomas Ruff experimented with composite faces in 1992, assisted by Minolta Montage Unit. Then Thomas Ruff started working on 8×10 colour portraits. He took these photos against coloured backdrops. Along with that, he went ahead to capture night images and buildings as well.
I used photos from our headshots photoshoot to create a grid of deadpan photos using the passport layout inspired by Thomas Ruff’s work. I made sure all the photos included a clear background and eye contact.
The Diamond Cameo photograph was created around 1864. Four small oval portraits were placed on a carte de visite (a type of small photograph) in the shape of a diamond, each portrait being of the same person photographed in a different position. A special camera made by Dallmeyer was used in which the one glass negative was moved to a new position in the back of camera after each portrait had been taken, and when the paper print had been pasted on the card a special press was used to punch the four portraits up into a convex cameo shape.
An example of a diamond cameo in pop culture is the cover for the album Queen II by Queen. A side by side comparison to a regular diamond cameo photo shows the similarities.
CREATING A DIAMOND CAMEO
I created a diamond cameo on photoshop using the shape tool to cut out a circle. I pasted my photos from my headshots project underneath and used a clipping mask tool to combine the shape and photo so I just adjust it however I wanted.
Experimentation 1
I experimented with different colour palettes and backgrounds to create a diamond cameo – I used a black background on bright colours to create contrast and did the opposite with unedited photos to show simplicity and inspiration towards the standard 1800’s diamond cameos.
Portrait photography is a style of photography that portrays human subjects. Portrait photography has been around since Louis Daguerre invented the daguerreotype in 1839—the same year that Robert Cornelius aimed the camera at himself and took what is widely believed to be the first self portrait photograph ever, laying the groundwork for portrait photography to emerge as its own art form.
There are different types of portrait photography, for example the ones I have included above – headshots, passport photos, full or half body shots, etc. Although most portrait photos feature the subject making eye contact with the camera, others feature them looking away or even having their eyes closed.
Portraits and portraiture started out as paintings. Usually, these types of portraits were done to show power, status, and nobility and were typically reserved for the wealthy. However, once photography became popular in the late 1800s with the release of the very first Kodak cameras, portraiture became popular and was more available to the masses.
The daguerreotype was the first widely produced photograph, invented in France by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in 1839. It is an image on a polished silver plate—each one a unique positive image. Daguerreotypes were produced for only twenty years before the process was replaced, and their fragility and short historical time use make them a precious record.
. Many early self-portraits fall into two general categories. In the first type, which had a long tradition in painted portraits and self-portraits, the subject poses with a camera or a set of photographs, showing him as a professional of his trade. As portrait photographers competed for customers, these images demonstrated the photographer’s ability to capture a flattering likeness with his technical skill and his eye for setting and pose. The other type of self-portrait seems to have been the photographer’s attempt to situate photography as a fine art, a novel idea during the era of early photography.
Henry Mullins
Henry Mullins started working at 230 Regent Street in London in the 1840s and moved to Jersey in July 1848, setting up a studio known as the Royal Saloon, at 7 Royal Square. His speciality was cartes de visite and the photographic archive of La Société contains a massive collection of these. Their online archive contains 9600 images, but the majority of these are sets of up to 16 photographs taken at a single sitting. In those times even 10s 6d was a a lot to pay to have your’ photograph taken, and included among his subjects are many of the island’s affluent and influential people.
The invention of the Polaroid made portrait photography more widely available to the public as it was an instant camera, and was small and easy to use. Polaroid as an American company started in 1937 when it was founded by Edwin H. Land and George W. Wheelwright III. It reached its popularity peak in the 1970s when it controlled almost two-thirds of the instant camera market in the United States. The invention of the polaroid made taking self portraits easier and more accessible as you could take a photo any time thanks to its instant camera.
Portraiture has always gravitated towards individuals in the public eye – for example in recent history, most portrait photos feature celebrities on newspapers or magazine covers.
Portrait photography is common on social media for example Instagram – through the help of social media photography is accessible by everyone. Social media is, by definition, a quick and fairly passive tool to reach people, sometimes by the thousands or millions. That massive reach has, unsurprisingly, dramatically changed the typical means of delivering photography to the public and, with it, the revenue streams that photographers count on to make a living.
Instead of sharing their work in galleries or via print publications, photographers now rely largely on social media advertising and promotion, as well as influencers who use their vast bases of followers to direct attention to their chosen sites. It is at once highly capitalised and very freeing to the artists.
My project turned out to be successful – I communicated my idea well and had an original plan. My plan was centered around music and how it influences my identity. I used key pieces of music memorabillia I own in my photos e.g my record collection, to really get my idea across of the impact music has on people, especially myself. I related back to my artist references like Jim Goldberg and his collections and communicated his style through my work.
I sized my photos differently on a black background and placed them in different ways for each layout much like Jim Goldbergs work like Ruby Every Fall, but photographed myself and other models in ways like Bob Gruen did, and how his work explores each of his subjects individual identity.
If I could’ve improved on my work, I would’ve done more photoshoots in separate locations, and photographed more people than myself and Alex to take inspiration from how Jim Goldberg had multiple people in his collections. On the other hand, I feel I took a risk that was successful, as my final outcome was well representative of my identity and I presented it in an edgy and unique way I wouldn’t usually do. I experimented with my photos, using overlays and multiple exposure for most of them, and combined modern photography with older images, for example the photograph below on the right (of myself and my Grandad).
This is a photo taken from Goldberg’s collection Raised By Wolves, a series of images of teenagers on the streets of California. He documented their emotions and battle with taboo subjects such as addiction or abuse – the series focused particularly on two young runaways, Tweeky Dave and Echo, who met each other and were interviewed by Goldberg on multiple occasions. I took inspiration from Goldberg from the bold way he presented identity and showed the reality of what life is like through the eyes of people – particuarly youths dealing with trauma.
The image is taken in black and white, with a stark black square around the subjects arm, highlighting what seems to be a bruise or scar. It immediately directs the viewers eye to the injury without noticing anything else. The models emotion seems to be that of discomfort judging by the look on her face as she is not making eye contact and instead staring off into the distance. The photo appears to be taken in natural lighting, perhaps outside in the middle of the day. The holes and dents in the walls gives a wider idea of the setting and the meaning behind the image.
JIM GOLDBERG IMAGE ANALYSIS #2
These photos are from the collection Ruby Every Fall – this series captures growing up through the eyes of parents and the individuals identity through the years. What caught my eye about this series was the different layouts – some big some small some with multiple photos.
This group of photos presents identity through different aspects – the drawing of the girl highlights childhood emotion through the distressed look on her face versus the photo of her walking to school looking happy shows contrast between the photo and how they are laid out.
BOB GRUEN IMAGE ANALYSIS
As mentioned in previous posts, Gruen is famous for photographing multiple celebrities, predominantly throughout the 70’s and 80’s e.g Led Zeppelin and John Lennon. The reason I was drawn to his work was mostly for his photos of musicians from the rock scene as my whole theme is centered around music, but also the way he takes the photos, like the one above.
The image above is of Tina Turner, taken at a concert in 1970. Although this is one image, it was taken with a slow shutter speed throughout one second, so Gruen managed to capture Turner moving in a way that when an image is taken, it presents as a multiple exposure. The photo itself is in black and white, illuminated by the stage lights in the back.
I began by editing my photo on Lightroom – for this I brightened the photo and lowered the saturation so that the yellow tones of the photo wouldn’t be so bright – I did this so that my photo had the same colour palette as the newspaper clippings I used to create the multiple exposure with.
My three photos used to create the multiple exposure.
This is the final outcome of my first photo – I used the text to contrast with the photo, taking inspiration from Jim Goldberg’s use of combining text with images. The way this photo turned out makes it look vintage which I really like.
I had to choose one of the two photos of me jumping so i decided on this one – I brightened the image in attempt to make it look more like an action shot of 90s photography. The end result on Lightroom makes everything the photo look more defined.
I used another newspaper clipping from my scrapbook as the overlay – I chose this photo because of the bold headline ‘ALL STAR CONCERT’ and the featured artists including The Who which gave a further meaning to my theme of my attempt to recreate Pete Townshend’s jump. It relates back to my artist research on Bob Gruen – most of his work on celebrities features action shots e.g the photo of The Clash in the moving vehicle I used in a previous post.
I was originally going to keep the orange colours in this photo but decided to tone them down in order for them to fit with my other pictures. I lowered the saturation and vibrance slightly but still kept it as unedited as I could to try and narrate the theme of a candid stage photo – much like Bob Gruen’s photos of musicians performing.
I added the photograph of my record collection on top to convey my identity as these are my personal belongings and have sentimental value to me, as some are originals and were given to me by my parents. The two photos go very well together as they both fit the theme – one being representative of different music styles and what I listen to, and the other being the aspect of performance.
I changed more to the original image on photoshop than I did on Lightroom, but for this photo I again brightened the image and changed the hue to match the colours of my second image below of Queen.
This is the outcome of the last photo after I edited it on photoshop. I began by lowering the saturation then putting the photo over her eyes – then I added the newspaper horizontally over the top and lowered the opacity so it had a faded look to it. My favourite part of this photo is the contrast between the photo of Alex and the one of Queen – the dark colours of the older photo combined with flash photography shows how music has aged but still has a legacy.
I started off with an idea to focus my project around my family, friends and my heritage. I took some photos to experiment but realized I wanted to go a different direction to what I had intentionally planned. Instead my plan will be to focus the project more on myself and the music I listen to because I feel like what style of music you listen to can influence you as a person.
The photoshoots I take will be loosely based off different genres/subgenres of music and how I view them – for example when I think of a style like blues or folk music I picture a scenic photoshoot of a landscape or something peaceful like the sea or night sky however with rock/punk rock or metal I think of a busy photo with lots of things that catch your eye instead of just one main focus.
For my first step I looked at some iconic photos of musicians, particularly in the rock or grunge scene from the past few decades, then picked some that really stood out to me:
I planned to give my photos the same atmosphere as these – some chaotic with a lot of things going on whilst some with one main focus like a few of these above. My original plan was to create a photomontage much like David Hockney or Christian Marclay’s work, but once I began my editing I realized I wanted to use a grid format instead. I then made a mindmap of where I could go and how I could take my photos.
