What:

The road on the way to St Catharine’s breakwater, e.g. Archirondel, Mike’s slip, Anne Port.

When:

Low tide, lots of wind, as little rain as possible. (Have to check forecast and tide times)

How:

Stand at the end of the breakwater, make sure everything is in frame and focus.

Romanticism

Romanticism is attitudes, ideals, and feelings which are romantic rather than realistic, it is also putting nature over any other ideals that a person might have. It is a mindset that many people have. Romanticism aims at being the last hope for anti-conventionalism, individuality, or even immaturity.

The age of romanticism began in the late 18th century, around the industrial age. It was a reaction to the modern world from artists and poets (and now photographers). It was based around the innocence and immaturity of children and how natural everything is for children.

The sublime

The sublime has been connected with awe, terror and danger. Edmund Burke (Philosophical Enquiry, 1757) saw nature as the most sublime object, capable of generating the strongest sensations in its beholders. The Romantic conception of the sublime proved influential for several generations of artists.

The sublime has long been understood to mean a quality of greatness or grandeur that inspires awe and wonder. From the seventeenth century onwards the concept and the emotions it inspires have been a source of inspiration for artists and writers, particularly in relation to the natural landscape.

Artists that used Romanticism

J.M.W Turner – Known in his time as William Turner. He was a romantic English painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for the bright colours in his work and often violent marine images.

Fay Godwin – Known for her black and white images of landscapes. She often collaborated closely with writers to produce in depth surveys of particular rural regions or topics.

New objectivity, which is a translation of the phrase “Neue Sachlichkeit,” is a photography movement that began during the 1920s, bearing an attitude that focused more on the raw reality of everyday objects mixed with the formal elements of photography, while rejecting sentimentalism and idealism.

Albert Renger-Patzsch, a photographer that used new objectivity a lot, published a book, a novel concentrated particularly on specific subjects, such as wildlife, traditional craftsmen, mechanical equipment, landscapes, and architectural studies, displaying 100 of his photos based on his ideas of the New Objectivity, stating,

“There must be an increase in the joy one takes in an object, and the photographer should be fully conscious of the splendid fidelity of reproduction made possible by this technique”

Other photographers with similar interests in photography, particularly Objectivity photographers, such as Karl Blossfeldt. Their work shows similar qualities with Albert Renger-Patzsch’s, such as the raw focus on the object and high detail.

Closer toward the modern day, Patzsch has now influenced many photographers, such as Martin Parr. All of their works tending to focus more on the reality of their subjects as opposed to something idealistic, but still managing to find the beauty in something totally ordinary.

The aperture controls the amount of light coming through the lens. It expands or shrinks in order to allow more or less light through the camera sensor.

The larger the aperture, the more light that will pass through, resulting in a brighter photo. With a smaller aperture, less light will pass through the lens, the photo will be darker because of this.

In simpler words, the aperture basically controls the brightness of a photograph. It is written as an f-number.

Larger apertures correspond with smaller f-numbers. E.g. f/4

Smaller apertures correspond with larger f-numbers. E.g. f/16 or f/22

Larger f-stops create a narrow opening to let the light through. The camera needs to make up for the lack of light through this narrow opening by slowing the shutter to result in a well-exposed photograph.

Depth of field, also referred to as DOF, is the distance between the nearest and furthest parts of the photo that are in sharp focus.

A shallow depth of field means that only part of the image is in focus. Therefore, the background or foreground may be blurry. Shallow depth of field may be good for when capturing portraits, nature, or travel photography.

A deep depth of field means that a larger area of the photo is in focus so that more of the photo is sharp and clear. Deep depth of field may be good for when capturing landscapes.

The aperture can affect depth of field. A wider aperture means you will capture less depth of field (shallow depth of field). Which means only the foreground will be sharp and clear. A smaller aperture will capture a deeper depth of field. Which means everything in the photo will be sharp.

The photoshoot

Editing the images

Final images

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

The photoshoot

Editing the images

Final images

Who is she?

Mary Ellen-Bartley is a photographer who mainly focuses on taking photos of books. They’re always displayed in a simple way and a lot of people say that her work celebrates books.

These are some of my favourite images by her:

In 2020, Covid-19 hit she was in Italy and quickly flew back home. While she was isolating she decided to use 7 objects from in her home and take pictures of them for 30 days, changing the position each day.

Here are some examples of the images that she took

In this image she uses her roll of paper and backlighting to make a silhouette of the 6 other objects that she used.

In this image she uses the book to make a shadow affect, covering most of her objects from the light. These images are really good examples of how she changed things every day.

This is an image of one of Mary Ellen Bartley’s exhibitions, ‘Installations’. It very much keeps to the theme of using books in her images and all the colours are quite vibrant, another common thing in her work. I really like how she has presented her work at this exhibition as there isn’t too much going on.

“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.