New objectivity is a German style of photography that started in the 1920s to challenge and go against expressionism. New objectivity often focused on the objective world rather than the more romanised and abstract ideas of expressionism. This can be seen through photographs such as Albert Renger-Patzsch and Karl Blossfeldt.
Albert Renger-Patzsch
Albert Renger-Patzsch was a German photographer who is one of new objectivities well know photographers. In his books he focuses on new objectivity showing ‘the secret of a good photograph.
Examples of his work:
Albert Renger-Patzsch
Karl Blossfeldt
Karl Blossfeldt
I have done a photoshoot taking photos in the style of Albert Renger-Patzsvh’s work.
Albert Renger-Patzsch contact sheet and Mary Ellen Bartley:
New objectivity is an artistic movement which arose in Weimar Germany, which focused largely on unsentimental reality and the objective world, as a reaction against the more abstract, romantic, or idealistic tendencies of Expressionism.
The photographic areas of this movement take the form of many artists, beginning with Albert Renger-Patzschand his book The World is Beautiful, published in 1928. His work placed a focus on the ordinary beauty of the world and its everyday sights.
‘Die Welt ist Schön’ – the untranslated German title.
The compositions include imagery from both man-made and naturally occurring sources.
Man-made structure.
The underside of a mushroom – a naturally occurring structure.
These images challenged traditional styles as they documented the rapid industrialisation in Europe and America and, following the First World War’s chaos, the artists of the time found that a rejection of the emotional and spiritual concerns of Expressionism and an interest in the rational and political was what they needed at this time. His work is a widely known staple of the movement, and its fame and nuance inspired other artists to begin to take more objective and sober images.
In framing the items in this way, Evans redefines them as something beautiful and intricate – as opposed to their menial and soulless function and form. They are presented as central upon a plain white background to ensure all attention is focused on the shape and detail of each tool. This fits into the style of New Objectivity because of its rawness, honesty and ability to reassign meaning to everyday objects.
Another relevant artist is Darren Harvey-Regan, who’s work is far more recent than those previously discussed.
Darren Harvey-Regan – Beauties of the Common Tool, Rephrased I – 2013
Harvey-Regan heavily draws inspiration from the aforementioned Walker Evans in his series ‘Beauties of the Common Tool, Rephrased‘ from 2013, wherein he ‘sourced matching tools, cut them in half and re-joined various halves together, with the resulting physical objects being photographed to create his final work. The montaged tools become both beautiful and bizarre objects, in which a ratchet wrench is combined with a pair of pliers and a Mason’s trowel joined with a pair of scissors.’
My response to New Objectivity
Here are some images I took in my home that illustrate the interesting perspective that the movement indicates – that everything is beautiful and worthy of being photographed.
Here are some edits from Lightroom, where I increased clarity, grain and texture and I added a b&w filter to some.
Overall, I don’t think these responded entirely correctly to what I was trying to achieve – so I may wish to reattempt a shoot soon. However, some do really have the aspect of formalism and order I was aiming for.
What is new objectivity: it was a movement in German art that began in the 1920s to oppose expressionism. Its rejects self-involvement and romantic idealism. This is shown through modern photographers such as Karl Blossfeldt and Albert Renger-Patzsch. Their photography simply photographs objects or plants without any context or interesting backgrounds added. This removes the idealised aspect from their work, like they did with new objectivity back in the 1920s.
These are some examples of their work:
Karl Blossfeldt
Albert Renger-Patzsch
I did my own shoots at home that follow the aesthetics of New Objectivity, and have the same feeling and editing style and karl and Albert’s work.
Mary Ellen Bartley is known for her photographs exploring the tactile and formal qualities of the printed book, and its potential for abstraction. Bartley’s work concerns itself with geometry and pure form; painterly in style, her photos also invite curiosity about the layered histories of the books themselves. Her photos are alive with questions – about what we do and don’t see and the stories we tell. Yet the spirit of her work provides a reflective response, a respite, from a noisy and chaotic world.
Examples of her work:
‘7 things again and again’
Bartley chose a set of seven common household items, and committed to photographing them each day for the thirty days of April. Her seven elements remained recognizable but were detached from their everyday function, serving instead as an exploration of form and process. Experimenting with exposure, depth of focus and subtle variations in light and shadow, Bartley transformed the quotidian objects into moments of stilled time
This is my favourite image from her ‘7 things again and again’ as she has been creative with the objects and not just placed them in a different way, but manipulated the book and used a page from it to create a shadow of the object behind it.
We all went outside to take photos in which we threw balls up in the air and tried to take pictures of them. The other sets of photos we took we were trying to avoid the camera and “punch” it.
One ball was in focus, unlike the other two, possibly because it was moving slower than the other 2 balls or possibly because it was closer to the camera.
We hadn’t zoomed in on the sky enough so Robyn was in frame. The camera was also really aimed directly at the sky so there is a shine on the image.
These two images are the only ones that in some way worked, all the other images of the throwing part did not work, the balls had already gone out of frame or the shutter speed was not up high enough so they were blurry.
Here are some images in which one of us would try and avoid the camera and the other one would take the photo, using an increased shutter speed to make sure the images aren’t blurry.
Most of these have no blur so the shutter speed is at the correct number.
What is shutter speed?
The faster the shutter the better quality the image is as shutter speed controls how fast the shutter closes which determines how much light goes into the camera.
This image shows what an image looks like with a lower shutter speed. It closes for more time and then opens up, which will add more light, so it will take in the streams from all the lights around.
Here is an example of a fast shutter speed would look like in an image. It closes faster and then opens, which will take in less light, so it will take exactly that frame in that image.
What were the goals of New Objectivity in photography?The New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) emerged as a style in Germany in the 1920s as a challenge to Expressionism. As its name suggests, it offered a return to unsentimental reality and a focus on the objective world, as opposed to the more abstract, romantic, or idealistic tendencies of Expressionism.
The new objectivity is a very minimalistic choice of photography which includes a lot of lines and repetition of shapes. It is mainly in black an white which adds depth.
The term still life comes from the Dutch word stilleven
Coined in the 17th century when paintings of objects enjoyed immense popularity throughout Europe. The stimulus for this term came as artists created compositions of greater complexity, bringing together a wider variety of objects to communicate allegorical meanings.
Still life featured mainly in the experiments of photography inventors Jacques-Louis-Mandé Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot, as far back as the 1830s. They did this in part, for practical reasons: the exceptionally long exposure times of their processes precluded the use of living models.
Pieter Claesz, Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill, 1628. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Paulette Tavormina
A vanitas is a symbolic work of art showing the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, often contrasting symbols of wealth and symbols of ephemerality and death.
‘Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’
This is where the term vanitas comes from, the opening lines of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.
History of still life photography
In the 17th century, still life became a genre in art, most of these paintings were about religion or death.
When cameras were invented, a photographer called Adolf de Meyer, used the genre of still life for his first ever photo.
Alleged first still life photo taken by Adolf de Meyer.
Over the years, as colour photographs emerged, photographers starting using still life more and more. As it became a more popular genre, the still life images taken got even better than they were before.
Some examples of still life photography now.
Vanitas
As stated earlier, the word vanitas comes from the opening lines of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.
Vanitas relates to what was mentioned earlier, death and is mainly used in art, it shows how painful or beautiful life is, in its entirety.
A vanitas image:
Here you can see a skull, which is in the centre of the image, showing that it could be a key part of the image and lots of other objects like a crown and a sceptre which can symbolise the power of death however the flowers in the back could symbolise the beauty of life and the beginning of life. This image, and other vanitas images, contains both elements of life and death and can be interpreted in many different ways.
In our studio, we currently have two systems. The Continuous Lighting system and the Flash Lighting system.
Continuous Lighting:
The Continuous Lighting system is the system with the always-on lights. Also paired with the curved platform to prevent reflections.
It is a perfect system to use for when you want to take basic photos. You can even place films over the light to change the colour.
Flash Lighting:
The flash lighting system works slightly differently, the lights are programmed to flash just as you take a picture. And the photo will come out like as if you took it in normal lighting. You have a fainter light on the side to see what you’re doing when in the dark and to move things to as you see fit.
We went into the studio to take photos of a musket ball, a gunpowder horn, a photo book and tap shoes. These weren’t my objects so unfortunately I cannot input a description of why they mean so much to me.
But I can describe what they mean to Nic Rolland, the owner of these items. He likes to have these as they describe his way of life in stage performing, including tap dancing. He is interested in history involving war. So he can connect with the gunpowder horn and the musket bullet. His grandfather was in the Royal Navy and the book contains photos of him during his service.
![RENGER-PATZSCH, Albert. Die Welt ist Schön. [The World is Beautiful.] Munich: Kurt Wolff, 1928. 4° (287 x 213 mm). 100 black and white photographs. (Light spotting on the last plate.) Original blue](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2011/CSK/2011_CSK_03013_0426_000(renger-patzsch_albert_die_welt_ist_schon_the_world_is_beautiful_munich024522).jpg?mode=max)
