As a group, we experimented with different elements of Mary Ellen Bartley’s COVID-19 quarantine project – 7 Things Again and Again – and created our own compositions using different objects from the studio and our own personal objects.

We used props we found around the studio – microphones, drumsticks, scissors – and a few personal objects in different orders to experiment with shadow. While we were able to do this, Bartley’s work makes more use of natural light, so we also went to an area of the school where there was plenty of natural light to use.

Using a water bottle, a ruler, a roll of masking tape and a pair of scissors, we attempted to create some natural light compositions. We had hoped the water in the bottle would create more of a glint in the light than we had in the final product, but we still took a few images that were simple enough to use. Like Bartley’s work, we needed to try and have a simplistic background for our objects, so that the focal point would be on them as opposed to anything on the wall or floor.

After uploading, I started the editing process on Lightroom Classic, and gave each image a star rating and colour grade (red = unusable, yellow = could use, green = usable). Most of them ended up being yellows as I was unable to determine which ones would work well after enhancing them. My decision was to edit a few that I think could be turned into something better – such as image 24/25, as the exposure only seems to be the issue, although the natural light level is relatively low.

I edited six images – one of which was from the single object shoot – that I thought could turn out to be something decent, but as this project was rather simple, there wasn’t all that much to work with, and I could only really enhance the studio images and a few taken around the school. I marked them in blue to show they’d been edited, and exported them.

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These five photos were the best of the whole shoot, and looked even better after editing. I like the use of temperature within the images, and the effect of night/day the warmth creates – the colder images look more like they were taken in the early morning, whereas the warmer images look like they might have been taken at night/evening, mixed with the low light levels and heavily contrasted shadows.

I have created a virtual photo gallery using my favourite photos i have taken so far.

I used photoshop to place the images onto the original photo. I lined up the photos to the original photo frame, i then right clicked the image, pressed skew and moved the photo so it then fit the frame i used this process for each photo until the gallery was full.

I a lined the photo into the frame and then you make the photo the size you need to fit in the frame, if the frame is on a angle you need to use skew to create the illusion that the photo is on a angle.

I created my virtual gallery using a website called artsteps. Here are some images of it:

what is new objectivity ?

New Objectivity was a movement in German art that came out during the 1920s. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, who was the director of the Kunsthalle in Mannheim, who used it as the title of an art exhibition staged in 1925 to showcase artists who were working in a post-expressionist spirit. Although principally describing a tendency in German painting, the term took a life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it. Rather than some goal of philosophical objectivity, it was meant to imply a turn towards practical engagement with the world an all business attitude, understood by Germans as essentially American.

What is the importance of new objectivity ?

The New Objectivity movement in photography, emerging in the aftermath of World War I, holds significant importance for the impact on visual storytelling. Characterized by its unembellished style, it sought to portray the world with a heightened sense of realism, rejecting romanticism and subjective idealism prevalent in earlier photographic approaches. The importance of New Objectivity lies in its commitment to capturing the truth of the world without manipulation. Photographers under this movement sought to present an unvarnished view of society, often focusing on everyday subjects and emphasizing the details of the objective world. Furthermore, New Objectivity brought a sense of social responsibility to photography, using the medium to document the complexities of the human experience. By moving away from idealized portrayals, photographers sought to engage viewers in a more critical dialogue about the realities of their surroundings. This movement paved the way for a more authentic, documentary style of photography that continues to influence contemporary visual storytelling, emphasizing the power of unadorned narratives and the importance of an unfiltered depiction of the world.

This is my photoshoot of new objectivity

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Mary Ellen Bartley is a still life photographer, and is a great inspiration when it comes to deciding what objects to photograph and how to align them as the objects she choses always comliment eatchother and have similar tones. she choses objects that go very well together when it comes to shape and colour. she stick to being manimalistic chosing objects that are quite simple in design like books and containers and cups .

during lockdown in 2020 she gave herself a project to photoraph the same thing over and over again, she named this project 7 things again and again. she actplained in the vidio bellow this project in thurder detail.

from what I have learned from the video and her project is that with each day she desired to expand he creativity, using back lighting, montages and different forms of lighting whereas at the start she just stuck to capturing the objects in different positions. through this project not only she learned but also inspired people to think outside the box and that photographing still life doesn’t have to be boring. There are many opportunities to photograph objects creatively producing interesting and exiting photographs.

The objects in this picture are simple when it comes to their shape, because the objects aren’t rigid or have much detail to them, what can be seen is a lot of straight parallel or horizontal lines correlating to each other as well as opposing. There are no rough edges or cracks making the photograph appear calm, smooth and unlayered. This is because the are not many layers when it comes to a photograph. There is a plain colour for a background which its colours corelate to the objects, making them not stand out as much as if a more vibrant or even black background was used they would. There are many greys and whites however what stands out the most is a soft yellow container which is the only object of the most different colour. What is interesting in this photograph is how given the fact that the objects are simple and so is the background and colours of them, the light plays an important part in the photograph . Using a book she blocked the light source and placed objects inside the shadows of the book as well as the toilet paper on the outside. By doing this she created an image which is exiting and interesting to look at as she found a balance between whites and blacks and used light to her advantage. What she also put in the final image is a little square of the same or similar object on top of the white toilet paper which is hardly noticeable but is an additional element of the image. With this photograph she showed even what can be said by most, ordinary objects and plain , unexciting colours can produce an interesting image depending how creatively the picture is taken, she shown her creativity when blocking the light by the book and on top of that when she included a tiny square. What I’ve gathered from this is the photographers input and the way the picture is taken make an image interesting especially if their creativity is shown, not what is being photographed, although this also has a big part.

Using photoshop I was able to create a virtual gallery which showed how my own final images would of looked like in a gallery. To make this I have selected an image from Google and after saving it I’ve opened it in photoshop. then I have opened all the other images that I was planning to layer on top of the other existing ones. Once I have copied and pasted it on top of the background image , using Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste.

I have Used Ctrl+T to transform the image and I was able to use a mix of scale, perspective and skew to layer my image to the same like on the photo of the gallery. first I moved the perspective in the way so it would be fitting of the angle. This means when i saw the picture was taken in a way where one side of the hanged picture is bigger then the other , I made sure mine was the same, the nearer the image was to me then that side will be bigger then the other.

After using perspective I have bought the corners in so that they would be in the right place using skew, that allowed to drag each individual corners to the frame.

I have repeated the process for all my images where some perspectives were different to others, like the middle image was the opposite perspective then all the others. I had to also ensure to leave the shadow that was created in the original photograph of the gallery so that my images appear more real and not photoshoped.

The way I decided to display my final images is based on what is being photographed, so with the still life photoshoot of the beach objects I have put them together and my home items together so that they can be displayed together and are not over the place mixing with each other, as if I did that the colours and tones are different to each other and would make less sense if each wall had images that are not similar or matching each other. Because of my layout the photographs also compliment each other when grouped, they have similar qualities.

Mary Ellen Bartley is an American photographer who is famous for the unique way she captures ordinary, everyday objects in her photographs. One of her most well-known projects, ‘7 Things Again And Again’, is a perfect example of this. The project consisted of her photographing 7 objects in different arrangements and using different methods everyday to create an interesting set of photos. The link below is a video talking about the project in depth:

https://www.maryellenbartley.com/7-things-again-and-again/2020/6/3/2020/6/3/shdqgpvjrr8jpdsay0hlqdakhh35aw

Results from the project

My Response

New objectivity emerged as a style in Germany 1920, and was a challenge to the concept of Expressionism. It was a technique which was aimed to focus of the visual world around us, rather than meaningful images, with a genre behind it. This type of imagery was mainly aimed towards the looks within the image, like colour, texture, lines, shades and more.

Albert Renger-Patzsch

This was a photographer, who’s ideas where closely related to the idea of new objectivity. He was known for being a freelance photographer producing documentary and press photographs.

One of his most famous photographs taken in Paris for example, uses a lot of visual elements, like the shapes of the buildings tress, black and white (without choice), curves, and even lighting.

Karl Blossfeldt

Karl Blossfeldt uses new objectivity more accurately the most, with his simple yet very detailed and eye catching images he represents more lively objects, showing the beauty within the world we perceive.

He uses this plant, not background, no colour, just the visual elements that anyone would see, but he signalised it showing the smaller elements within the plant, like the small hairs that grow on the plant, interesting shape of the flower, and calm lighting.

new objectivity aims to focus on the lively things around us, weather that be an object, plant, human, anything, rather than a deeper meaning towards images. Today it is even used in architecture, like building apartments or houses. New objectivity is seen as a challenge and had inspired many artists to produce simple and creative pictures.

Tools I used to cut out and layer my images: