What is Formalism?:

Formalism in photography is when the photographer becomes the visual designer. It tells us how important form is in photography and art as it only features visual aspects and less about narrative content. Formalism can be analysed and organised into nine categories.

The Nine Categories of Formalism:

Light: Light is wherever the photo is brightest. Whether it be the actual object or in the environment around it. When annotating Light you should decide whether it is natural or artificial. With Light you can even figure out the time of day the photo was shot.

Line: This is when you look for anything in the photo that create lines. It doesn’t matter if they are straight or curvy. You should analyse what kind of shape it creates or the angle/point of view the photo was taken from.

Repetition: Is when you look for any rhythm or pattern with the objects anywhere in the photo.

Shape: Quite self-explanatory, look for any shapes in the photograph and label them. Point out the names of them too if you can. An interesting thing to do is to point out if the edges seem natural (wavy) or geometric (straight).

Space: Look for any depth in the photo, is it deep? Is it shallow? Take Depth of Field into account by including the distance each object may have.

Texture: How much is seen in the photo? Is it crowded or is it empty? Make sure you compare the smoothness and/or grittiness of the image.

Value/tone: Look for any tones or colours in the photo and how many. How well do they contrast? What is the main tone of the photo? How does it make you feel?

Colour: How many colours are there? Make use of explaining the saturation, contrast, vibrancy etc. Also make sure you point out the main colour and the complimentary colours.

Composition: This is how the Photographer arranges the visual elements, it makes use of how we look at each item in the photo, for how long and in what order. For example, if you take a picture of something in the foreground and in the background, we are more likely to look at the foreground object first because it is closer and most likely clearer.

Exploring Formalism:

What is Still Life Photography?:

Still Life is the photography of an inanimate object whether it be natural or man-made. Like a can or a flower.

Here are some still life photos for example:

The term “Still Life” is also used in painting too:

History of Still Life Photography:

Still Life began to be a genre around the 17th Century. When many paintings were published. They usually contained things about death and religion.

Eventually when cameras were invented, the first photographer to take a still life photograph was a man named Baron Adolf de Meyer.

Resources suggest this was the alleged photo that was taken:

Since then, Still Life photography became a very popular genre among many photographers. And as technology improved and cameras could eventually take coloured pictures, Still Life photography became even better. With more vibrant and clearer pictures taking in the real world we live in.

This is Still Life photography now:

Vanitas:

Vanitas is actually a genre that is used mostly in Art and relates to what was stated earlier about “Death”.

Infact, it more captures the entirety of life. To show how painful and or how beautiful it is.

An example of a Vanitas painting:

Here you can see a flower, a skull and a sand timer.

The flower, symbolising beauty. Could be connected to the beginning of life. The skull, symbolising death and the timer which could be suggesting that your time is limited and eventually, you will run out.

As you can see in this picture, it contains elements relating to life and death.

Memento Mori:

The phrase “Memento Mori” comes from the Latin saying that means “Remember that you have to die”. “Memento Mori” clearly has connections to death too.

“Memento Mori” is also another genre in photography and art that obviously revolves around death. It acts as a message to remind people of the inevitability of death. While that may sound dark and scary, I believe it is trying to put death in a different light by making people accept their fates as it would be better to die brave than to die scared. I think it is trying to tell us that death is not something we should fear and run away from (or at least deaths from natural causes, maybe not from things like murder).

Here are some pictures that fit in to this genre:

Here is a tattoo that shares many similarities with the Vanitas one, such as the skull and sand timer. Both having connotations to death and time.

Here is a decorated skull, which is painting death as a more beautiful thing than a bad thing. I like both of these pictures as it uses art AND photography.

Metaphors and Symbols in Still Life photography:

We have already stated some metaphors and symbols relating to death already, so some other ones it can be linked to is Nature, which can be capturing plants and animal life:

Another one can be of a street in the middle of a city, the places we walk through everyday. Looking at photos of these kinds can remind us of how far our species has come to have this society we live in:

One more can be of the weather, showing us the beauty in our world. Whether it be raining or sunny there is always something to look at and admire.

In Greek terms, the word “Photography” means “Drawing with Light”.

Aside from that, “Photography” is the practice of when you take photographs using a Camera.

Photography has very deep roots in our history, thanks to photography we can capture a significant thing that had happened in that moment. And it can be used to remember that specific moment, whether it be of a family holiday or a conflicting moment that shocked you and many others.

David Campany:

David Campany was a writer who published a book called “On Photographs” in 2020. It talks a lot about the messages photos hold and how we decipher them. In the book he asks: What shapes our response to photography?, Where does the meaning we ascribe to it come from? And how important to our reading of it are the photographer’s intention?

The Day Nobody Died:

“The Day Nobody Died” was a photograph that was made in Afghanistan in 2008 by Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin. During this time, a war in Afghanistan was happening.

This photo, rather interestingly. Was created on a day when no deaths were reported, meaning no one had died, which is where it gets it’s name from.

Broomberg and Chanarin made this by leaving six metres of photographic paper in the sun for twenty seconds. Being taken in a warzone, this image is said to capture the themes of war, like conflict and suffering. While as no deaths may have happened that day, the fear and the destruction remained.

I believe this fits very well with what Campany said when he asked “What shapes our response with photography?” and even his third question, “How important to our reading of it are the photographer’s intention?” can fit in too.

In general our response to photography is a combination of your own upbringing, culture background and life experiences

Use in response to question about the photographers question

A person who may be viewing this for the first time may think this picture looks very cool and pretty. But when you dig deeper into the origin of this photo you begin to realize that its actually about the very scary and horrifying themes of war. It may change the way you see the photo after.

The second question, “Where does our meaning we ascribe to it come from?” also applies here.

This quote put simply is talking about how photography creates emotions for us. For example, when you know about the picture’s origin you begin to understand that this art piece symbolizes the fighting and destruction of war. You may feel a variety of emotions, an obvious one would be sadness as this photo was taken where people have died, and if you think about it you realize that people had to die for this photo to be taken. Another feeling some people may have could be relief. As this photo was taken when the war was at rest as no one had died during that slight period.

Leap into the Void:

“Leap into the void” is a photograph taken in 1960 by Yves Klein, Harry Shunk and János Kender. It shows a man falling off a ledge and is captured mid fall.

The meaning behind this photo is a “demonstration of freedom and constraint” which is why the man is seen jumping off the ledge, he is almost forgetting the rules of reality and is trying to bend them. There is also a contrast seen here which makes the photo more interesting, with the person seen on the street riding the bike, that person is very different to the leaping man because the person can be viewed in this context as not free and instead obeying reality.

In conclusion, Photography from my point of view, Is a passion you can really invest yourself into. With Photography you can create anything you want, from showing the way you see reality to creating an abstract picture to deceive and confuse people from the real meaning it may hold.

This is Adobe Lightroom, the tool I will be using for most of the time.

These are the pictures I took in the studio.

I filtered out my rejects to show only the ones I flagged.

This is the compare view, it helps determine which image is better if you want to keep one and discard the other. You can even zoom in to see every detail.

You can rate each post with stars too.

This is me editing each picture I took by changing the lighting and colours to make the pictures better. I’m also saving my pictures in different subfolders.

These are the final products, I think they look very good:

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What is Aperture?

Aperture is the thing in the camera lens that you can shrink and enlarge to control the Depth of Field. The bigger the aperture opening, the less depth of field. The smaller the aperture opening, the more depth of field.

The Aperture is controlled by using the dial on the top of the camera when in Aperture Mode (Av)

What is Depth of Field?

Depth of Field, put simply, is the range of the camera. It determines how clear or blurry the background or an object further away is.

The less depth of field, the blurrier the background. The more depth of field, the clearer the background.

Low depth of field: High depth of field:

As you may have noticed by now, the unit to measure Depth of Field is f/number. The higher the number, the smaller the Aperture gap, the higher the Depth of Field.

With this knowledge, you can take advantage of the Depth of Field to make different kinds of shots.

A few examples are:

We went outside to box the camera and throw balls up in the sky while adjusting the shutter speed.

Throwing:

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Boxing:

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What is Shutter Speed?

Shutter Speed controls how fast the shutter closes which determines the amount of light the camera takes in. So the faster the shutter, the clearer the picture.

Slow Shutter Speed:

It closes for longer and then opens, which will include more light, therefore it will take in the streams from car lights.

Fast Shutter Speed:

It closes faster and then opens, which will take in less light, so it will take exactly that frame right there.

Simply think of it as how clear the photo will be, and that the faster the shutter the clearer and the slower the more blurry.

Put it simply:

How it works?

Inside the camera is the shutter, it’s what closes when you press the button to take a photo and your camera window goes black for a moment.

They look like this:

When is closes, and if you set the shutter speed to slow, it will stay closed for a little longer than normal, that is the lens capturing all the light and will keep capturing the light until it opens again.

The resulting picture, if you took a picture of something moving, will cause a stream of movements the object made during that time and will be all put into one picture.

Q1: What is the etymology (origin & history) of the word photography?

A. Writing with light.
B. Capturing light.
C. Painting with light.
D. Filming light.

Q2: What year was the first photograph made in camera?

A. 1739 (Joseph Wright)
B. 1839 (Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre)
C. 1826 (Joseph Nicéphore Niépce)
D. 1904 (Salvadore Dali)

Q3: When did the first photograph of a human appear?

A. 1874 (Julia Margeret Cameron)
B. 1838 (Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre)
C. 1856 (Henry Mullins)
D. 1939 (Ropert Capa)

Q4: Who made the first ‘selfie’

A. Kim Kardashian (2015)
B. Robert Cornelius (1839)
C. Cindy Sherman (1980)
D. Claude Cahun (1927)

Q5: When did the first colour photograph appear?

A. 1907 (Lumière brothers)
B. 1961 (Andy Warhol)
C. 1935 (Kodachrome)
D. 1861 (James Clerk Maxwell)

Q6: What do we mean by the word genre?

A. A study of an artwork
B. A depiction in art
C. A style or category of art
D. A creative process in art

Q7: What do we mean by the genre of still-life?

A. In image where a person is sitting still and not moving.
B. An arrangement of flowers.
C. A picture of food.
D. An image that shows inanimate objects from the natural or man-made world.

Q8: What was the main purpose of the Pictorialist movement?

A. To capture moving objects
B. To record reality
C. To affirm photography as an art form
D. To be scientific

Q9: How do we describe the term documentary photography?

A. Capture images that truthfully portray people, places and events.
B. Staging images for maximum effect.
C. Provide in-depth information about a subject over a long period time.
D. An interpretation of reality as witnessed by the photographer.

Q10: What is exposure in photography?

A. To expose hidden elements in our society.
B. To record fast moving objects.
C. To capture bright light.
D. The amount of light that reaches your camera’s sensor.

Q11: What controls exposure on your camera?

A. Depth of field, composition, distance to subject.
B. Aperture, focal length, ISO.
C. Aperture, shutter speed, ISO.
D. Shutter speed, distance to subject, depth of field.

Q12: What control on our camera records moving objects?

A. Aperture
B. White balance
C. Shutter
D. ISO

Q13: How do we explain depth of field?

A. How much of your image is in focus.
B. To photograph from a high vantage point.
C. A view across a field.
D. A deadpan approach to image making

Q14: What factors affect Depth of Field?

A. Shutter speed, distance from camera to subject, and sensitivity to light.
B. Lens aperture, distance from camera to subject, and lens focal length.
C. Lens focal length shutter speed and lens aperture.
D. Sensitivity to light, shutter speed and lens focal length.

Q15: What is composition in photography?

A. Capturing the quality of light.
B. A piece of music with different instruments.
C. Staging a portrait with props.
D. The arrangement of visual elements within the frame.

Q16: What is your understanding of aesthetics in art?

A. Concerned with the nature of beauty and taste.
B. It is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
C. Aesthetic qualities refer to the way and artwork looks and feels.
D. Making a critical judgement based on observation and understanding.

Q17: What are contextual studies in photography?

A. To provide historial, cultural and theoterical understanding of images.
B. Consider factors outside of the image, as well as inside the frame.
C. To give an opinion without any research.
D. To seek a definite answer.

Q18: How many images are captured on average every day worldwide?

A. 1.5 billion
B. 4.7 billion
C. 800 million
D. 6.9 billion

Q19: Which portrait is the most reproduced in the world?

A. Mona Lisa
B. Lady Gaga
C. Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara
D. The Queen (Elizabeth II)