WHAT IS FORMALISM?

Formalism is when “The Design, Composition and Lighting are dominant over Subject Matter.”

When exploring a picture in a formalist way, you would analyse the style and form of this image by examining the choice and use of lens (and the depth of field), the type of camera used, the cropping, framing, composition, tone, light, the arrangement and contrast or juxtaposition of elements within the frame, and the object/person chosen. The use of shapes, lines, repetition, texture, and colour can also play a big role in reading into the photographs. These are known as the ‘formal’ elements of the image.

ANAYSIS

How to analysis:

• colour – darks, lights, primary, secondary, opposites
• shapes – squares, circles, rectangles, triangles
• lines – long, short, loads, a few
• tone – light and dark
• texture – hard, soft, smooth, rough
• dimension – 3D, 2D
• pattern – repetition
• Composition – angle, staged, natural

In this picture, the first things that stands out is the colour combinations along with the choice of angle. The yellows and greens work very well together while still bringing a sense of depth and dimension. It’s from a birds eye view and the strong structure is not centred in the middle, making the photography feel slightly off. There is a lot of repetition and pattern with the building and cars making it seem more organised. However, this is juxtaposed by the cars on the ground, the uneven floor and odd placement of cars makes the image look messy and thrown together. The only light source is the artificial light in the top left corner and towards the floor, this allows the darker areas to hold a lot of power as they add the shape needed while still creating a strong comparison.

WHAT IS NEW OBJECTIVITY?

New objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) was an art movement that originated in Germany during the 1920s against the expressionism movement. It tries to focus more on the objective world than the abstract and idealistic world the expressionists created. The photographs usually contained objects or plants in a plain and simple way, removing any conceptual ideas.

EXAMPLES

Albert Renger-Patzsch

Karl Blossfeldt

Walker Evans

RESPONSE

Photoshoot one:

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Photoshoot two:

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“Photographers have to impose order, bring structure to what they photograph. It is inevitable. A photograph without structure is like a sentence without grammar—it is incomprehensible, even inconceivable. “
– Stephen Shore

Photographs are composed of two main elements; visual and formal. There is something within an image that can be used to convey and enhance meaning, often to do with beauty, photography isn’t unique in most of its formal and visual elements, it strays from other art forms through elements of framing, time, focus, and flatness, something that cannot be achieved through methods such as painting.

The formal and visual elements include:

Light: Which direction is the light coming from? How strong is the light/How thick are the shadows? Is the lighting natural/from studio lights?

Lines: Are any structures creating outlines/lines in the image? Are the lines straight/curved/thick/thin? Are they parallel/perpendicular? Do they create a shape

Repetition: Are there any patterns in the image? Are they created by lines or shapes within the photo? Are there any reflections?

Texture: What kind of surface does it look like the subjects within the photograph have? Rough/smooth? How much depth is there in the composition/shapes?

Shape: What kind of shapes are present in the photo? What are they composed of? Do they create repetition within the image?

Tone: What mood do the colours within the image create? Are there darker/lighter tones dominating the image? Which areas are the brightest and darkest? Is there an equal level of light and dark?

Composition: How is the photograph staged? Is it organised? Does the order/angle create any shapes? Is the rule of thirds present?

Colour: What colours are present throughout the composition? Is the image monochrome or in colour? Do the colours suggest mood/danger/nature/love, etc.? Are they heavily saturated or muted?

Within our pair, we picked out lots of things we noticed in the image with the grid further up this post. We noticed things like there being a lot of square or rectangular shapes or the different tones and shadowing throughout the image. The image is quite a ‘busy’ image as we have mentioned on our analysis sheet and again even though there are lots of different shapes throughout the entire image there seems to be a bit of a pattern with squares or rectangles.

Photography is the art of taking and processing images. The actual word “photography” means ‘drawing with light’. The definition shows how creative photography actually is, it also means that you can manipulate the image to make it look better.

The main elements of photography are shutter speed, ISO and aperture. Shutter speed determines whether or not a moving image is in focus, which also determines the quality of the image. ISO is the camera’s sensitivity to light, the lower the ISO, the less sensitive the film is to light.

David Campany talks about how impactful photography is on people. It allows people to look at fixed appearances and interpret them how they want. Special moments can be captured or just simply a moment in time that you would like the remember, which can help us notice things we maybe never have noticed before. It is simple to share the images with people around the world as photography is such a mobile thing. Even if a photographer takes a photo with a certain meaning, it can lose that meaning or perhaps other people can have their own meanings of it. 

“Photographs confuse as much as fascinate, conceal as much as reveal, distract as much as compel. They are unpredictable communicators.”

I agree with this statement as everyone interprets images differently and can be completely limitless. An image can affect people in different ways. ‘Distract as much as compel’ says that people can be draw to an image for different reasons to other.