During the 2019 pandemic of COVID-19, a lockdown was announced. Bartley is this time decided to give herself a photography challenge she was able to do at home. She picked 7 objects from around her house that seemed to have meaning during this pandemic, everyday in her tiny studio she created she would take a picture of the same objects but different ways.
Mary Ellen Bartley – 7 Things Again And Again
All of her images are clean and unique. The colour palette of the simple earth tones create a cleansed look and aesthetically pleasing to look at. Each image is interesting yet they all include the same objects.
Mary Ellen Bartley – 7 Things Again And Again
Personally this image I believe is one of her more creative ones. The use of the back natural lighting from her window to create shadows through the toilet paper to see the image, gives the image a unique style. Due to the soft lighting you are still able to see all the objects which still fits with her theme of the photoshoot.
I imported this image from my computer folder into photoshop to prepare to edit it, this image is selected as my background layer, which is locked which you can see by the little icon next to the layer..
OPEN IMAGE
I imported another image from the same shoot which is on a slight angle so I could overlay this over my image and create a superimposition image.
OPASTITY
Once I had overlaid the image over my background image I had decreased the opacity, the extent to which something blocks light, which created an illusion of the images one on top of the other.
QUICK SELECT
Staring a new edit with similar images from the same shoot, I started to select parts of images and overlaying them on top of the background image.
New Objectivity, was an artistic movement that arose in Germany during the Weimar Republic (1918-1934) which characterized German painting and architecture as well as producing exciting and innovative results in photography.
WHAT WAS NEW OBJECTIVITY CHALLENGING?
It was a style in Germany to challenge expressionism; expressionism is expressing the inner world of emotion rather than external reality. It was a response to the chaos of the First World War and a rejection of the culture leading up to it.
Albert Renger-Patzsch was a German photographer associated with the New Objectivity. His work exemplifies the esthetic of the New Objectivity that flourished in the arts in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Renger-Patzch also has a famous book called ‘The World Is Beautiful’
Karl Blossfeldt is best known for his precise photographs of plants; however, he began his career as a sculptor. Blossfeldt was never formally trained in photography, he made many of his photographs with a camera that he altered to photograph plant surfaces with unprecedented magnification.
Adiantum pedatum, 1898-1926
PHOTOSHOOT
Jewellery box
These are images of my Jewellery box filled with different types of bracelets, ear rings and rings. The photo is simple with minimal earthy colours, which give the image a clean look. I used flash lighting in the studio with a white backdrop.
Formalism describes the critical position that the most important aspect of a work of art is its form – the way it is made and its purely visual aspects, such as line, shape, repetition, rhythm, and balance.
FORMALISM IN PHOTOGRAPHY
Photographs are ideological constructs, a different way of saying that they don’t simply show us what is ‘factual’ or ‘real’. However, on the other hand and argument could be that photo literacy in part depends on an understanding of the formal or visual elements, some of which are acquired from the visual arts.
Superficially, it might suggest an ability to “read” a photograph, to analyse its form and meanings.Photo Literacy is therefore a specific type of understanding that combines visual, linguistic, emotional and physical acuity.
Walker Evans began to photograph in the late 1920s, creating snapshots during a European trip. When he retuned to New York in 1930, he published his first image. During the Great Depression he started to photograph for the Resettlement Administration.
Harvey-Regan first constructed a montage of Evans’s images to make new forms of photography. He began to cut up various objects and putting them back together in a different form.
Darren Harvey-Regan, Beauties of the Common Tool, Rephrased II, 2013 Fibre-based handprint, mounted, wooden frame with museum glass
ANALYSE DIFFERENT ARTIST PHOTOGRAPHY
WALKER EVANS
DARREN HARVEY-REAGAN
These are 2 different photography artist that have similar style in photography, however Darren Harvey-Reagan was inspired by Walker Evans’ work. Both images have a a basic layout of one simple object with a neutral background. The shape seems 2D however Evans slightly elevates his images to create a slight shadow. The photos are balance due to the objects being placed in the centre and the image having equal strong lighting. Harvey-Reagans work is slightly different and unique as he takes apart the objects photographing them differently or creating an un-usual object with the parts.
THERE ARE 2 TYPES OF STUDIO LIGHTING: CONTINUOUS AND FLASH LIGHTING.
CONTINUOUS LIGHTING
Continuous lighting is when you turn on a light in the studio and it stays on. Due to the high lighting it may cause shadows in your image. Usually on a camera you would use a slow shutter speed, a slower shutter speed (1sec) can sometimes mean you can make darker images more brighter. In the studio a tripod is used to stabilize the camera and to take the image in the same place, same height etc.
FLASH LIGHTING
Flash lighting is when you fire the shutter, the flash fires, and quickly lights up the subject and then turning itself off. Flash lighting causes less shadows due to the high speed of the flash, usually you would use a fast shutter speed (1/120sec) so less light is entered. Using the camera with flashing lighting you can either use a tripod or hold it yourself, it depends on the kind of picture you are taking and whatever is easier for the photographer.
BEST STUDIO STILL LIFE IMAGES
These are my best images from my photoshoot in the studio. I selected these as my best images because they have the best lighting and are the most in focused. In Lightroom classic I will try to enhance the contrast on the coloured images to create a more vivid picture. These images show the different lightings shown, the colourful images used continuous lighting and the basic ones were taken by flash lighting.
Still life photography is everything that is an inanimate object in front of a camera. Still life derives from the Dutch word stilleven, coined in the 17th century when paintings of objects enjoyed immense popularity throughout Europe. The first still photograph was taken around 1830
Pieter Claesz, Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill, 1628. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A vanitas is a symbolic work of art that shows the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, it is often contrasting symbols of wealth, symbols of ephemerality and death. The term originally comes from the opening lines of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible: ‘Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
Memento Mori
Memento Mori translates to “remember you must die” which implies they are objects which reminders us of the inevitability of death, such as a skull.
Paulette Tavormina, Vanitas VI, Reliquary, After D.B., 2015
Tavormina a New York photographer takes pictures of still life inspired by the seventeenth century. She uses nostalgic and ancient items against the young flowers to show that everything ages, this can also be reinforced by the candle that is burned out and the hourglass slowly ending.
Parker is a self taught photographer that experiments with the different possible lighting that can be used. Parker started off as a painter, however soon turned to photography and quickly mastered the way to incorporate extensive knowledge of art history and literature and reference the conflicts and celebrations of contemporary life in her work.
TIMELINE OF PHOTOGRAPHY
METAPHORS AND SYMBOLS IN STILL LIFE
FRUIT – Like human life, fruit is perishable and ephemeral, therefore when a fruit appears to be fresh and ripe, this acts as a symbol of abundance, bounty, fertility, youth and vitality.
SKULLS – When skulls appear in photos the often have a moral purpose. Skulls symbolize mortality and ephemerality. They are a reminder of the fleeting pleasures of life.
CANDLES – Candles represent the inevitability of the passing of time, the longer they burn, the smaller they get until there is nothing left. A lit candle symbolizes light, truth, and knowledge. An extinguished candle symbolizes loss and death.
FLOWERS – Flowers can symbolize innocence as well as impermanence. Furthermore flowers can be a reminder of the shortness of our existence and the fleeting nature of life’s earthly pleasures.
SEASHELLS – Seashells symbolize birth, purity and fertility.
Using Lightroom Classic, I have learnt the features included in the program. I have learnt how to import images from the computer media files into Lightroom classic. Furthermore I have learnt how to rate, flag, star my images, picking the best images from the photoshoot.
Due to absence these are not my images however it has taught me how to use Lightroom Classic, using the flag feature.
FLAG COLOUR REPRESENTATION
GREEN = Good images that I plan on using
AMBER = Good images perhaps used in the future.
RED = Good images but not necessary used
CREATING COLLECTIONS
Here I have created a new collection to separate my best images from the whole photoshoot, to avoid scrolling through hundreds of images. I used the “create new collection” option. This means it is easier to sort and select my objects for editing them in the future.
Now there are two separate folders one of which is filled with all my images from the photoshoot (122 images) whereas the other folder ‘FACE2’ has only 5 of my best images that I can selected easier for when I decide I need to edit them.
Aperture refers to the opening of a lens’s diaphragm through which light passes. The larger the f/ number is the less amount of light the camera is letting in, meaning you are able to focus more things in the image.
APERTURE CHART
WHAT IS DEPTH OF FIELD?
Depth of field (D.O.F) is the distance between the nearest and furthest elements in a scene that appear to be sharp in an image. A deep DOF means all or most of your photo will be in focus, including the foreground, subject and background.
Shutter speed is the length of time that the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light when taking a photograph. A fast shutter speed will reduces the amount of light meaning the image will be sharper and it won’t be as over exposed. If the shutter speed is slow it will allow a greater amount of light in to the camera making the image blurred and under focused and therefore making the image over exposed.
JOHN BALDESSARI
John Anthony Baldessari was an American artist known for his pioneering use of appropriated imagery. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California.
PHOTO GAMES
When taking the photos of the dodge balls we used a fast shutter speed, which therefore created a sharper and defined image. Whereas when taking the pictures of the boxing punches we used a slower shutter speed which therefore creates a more blurred and unclear image.
