Gustave Le Gray – He was the central figure in French photography of the 1850’s. He was admired for his use of paper photography, which he first experimented in 1848. An experimenter and technical innovator, he evolved the use of the paper negative in France and developed a waxed-paper negative with the ability to produce sharper-focus prints. He became one of the first five photographers, along with Édouard-Denis Baldus and Hippolyte Bayard, to work for the missions héliographiques and is credited with teaching photography in the 1850s to many important French photographers.

“It is my deepest wish that photography, instead of falling within the domain of industry, of commerce, will be included among the arts. That is its sole, true place, and it is in that direction that I shall always endeavor to guide it.”

Dafna Talmor – She is an artist and lecturer based in London whose practice encompasses photography, spatial interventions, curation and collaborations. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Deutsche Bank, Hiscox collections and private collections internationally, and in many publications.

Taken with no original plan or idea to what they would be used for she would take images and the negatives accumulated for years in boxes, without any use or artistic function. Eventually, she realised that by merging images of different places of personal meaning she was able to create idealised and utopian landscapes therefore giving a function to these seemingly useless negatives.

This allowed her to transform photographs initially taken without an intended purpose through of slicing and splicing. The resulting photographs are a conflation, ‘real’ yet virtual and imaginary. Her aim was to transform a specific place, loaded with personal meaning and memories for her into a space that has been emptied of subjectivity and becomes universal.

“I am interested in creating a space that defies specificity, refers to the transient, and metaphorically blurs space, memory and time.”

Both could be described as landscape pictures. What kinds of landscapes do they describe?

They both describe a seascape however they are displayed and formatted in very different ways. Gustave’s image depicts a rougher more dramatic environment and Dafna’s is an abstract approach to a seascape image.

What similarities do you notice about these two pictures?

they are both seascapes, both daytime images

What differences do you notice?

The one on the right is a collage of images showing describing the seascape in an abstract format whereas the image on the left is not a collage and is presented in black and white with the yellow tones presenting the image as older or vintage. The image on the left shows a rougher sea whereas on the right the sea looks a lot more still, portraying different feelings to the viewer as Gustave’s image is more gloomy and has an essence of drama whereas Dafna’s image shows a calm sea however creates interest with the construction of her image.

What words/phrases best describe each of these landscapes?

image 1 – Rough, old, choppy

image 2 – still, collage, abstract

In which of these landscapes would you prefer to live? 

I would prefer to live in the abstract landscape as the image portrays a calmer more tranquil setting and the presentation of the other image is more of a dark and dramatic scene.

Here are some additional photographs I took whilst walking along the beach:

This is some of the unedited outcomes of my sublime inspired photoshoot:

I picked my most successful outcomes and divided the from the other images by x and p flagging and then filtering them out:

Using lightroom, I then began the process of editing my images:

Here are some of the edited outcomes:

Using Lightroom I changed the colouring of the images to black and white and then altered the tones and elements such as the contrast until I was happy with the outcomes.

These are some of my unedited landscape images:

On a few of these images my exposure was set too high however during the editing process I changes in Lightroom.

These are the images after being edited:

Using Lightroom and photoshop, I altered the colouring by changing some of them into black and white, adjusting the shadows and brightness, changing the exposure, contrast and vibrancy until I reached the desired effect.

Exposure bracketing is where, instead of taking a single photo, you take three or more pictures that are all exposed slightly differently. Usually one is the correct exposure, one slightly underexposed, and one slightly overexposed etc.

Exposure bracketing is a technique for making sure that you get a good exposure while you’re in a location rather than a studio. Landscape photographers sometimes refer to bracketed shots as “safety shots” due to this. Anytime you feel the scene is challenging (too many highlights or shadows) is when exposure bracketing should be used, for example, sunset images are usually better when slightly under-exposed.

To manually take bracketed exposures, set up your camera for a shot as normal. The best results occur if you’re using a tripod. As soon as you take your first shot, adjust the exposure compensation, shutter speed or ISO by one stop and take a second shot. Adjust the shutter speed or ISO two stops in the other direction and take a third. Now you should have three identical photos that are one stop underexposed, correctly exposed, and one stop overexposed.

Practising exposure bracketing

Ansel Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Groups, such as f/64, of photographers that advocated “pure” photography which favoured sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph and using his work to promote conservation of wilderness areas.

His images were often monochrome highlighting the beauty in the formations of the landscapes rather than just focusing on the colours present, it adds a dramatic and powerful tone to the images potentially portraying the power of mother nature and the sublime drawing attention to the beauty of the environment around us.

He came up with a technique he referred to as the zone system, the 11 zones were defined to represent the gradation of all the different tones you can see in a black and white, with zone 5 being in the middle as grey, zone 0 being pure black, and zone 10 being pure white.

Group f/64

Formed in 1932 group f/64 constituted a revolt against Pictorialism. The group is named after the smallest setting of a large-format camera diaphragm aperture that gives a nice resolution and depth of field.

Many photo historians view the group as an organized faction consisting of the first seven photographers, and view the other four photographers as associated with the group by virtue of their visual aesthetics. However, in an interview in 1997, Dody Weston Thompson said that she was invited to join. She stated that Brett Weston also considered himself a member suggesting that knowing all the members is difficult to determine due to the informality of the group’s shifting social composition during the 1930s and 1940s.

Women of the group

While not all official members of Group f/64, the female photographers showed their work in the first exhibit, each displaying their own style, journey, and place in the history of photography. 

The women of the group include:

-Imogen Cunningham

-Sonya Noskowiak 

-Alma Lavenson 

-Consuelo Kanaga 

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moody and black-and-white landscapes:

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coloured landscapes:

Here are some physical mood boards I made:

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I made these mood boards by printing off landscape images and cutting them up and gluing them all together in different compositions to show the images I am inspired by.

This is a mind map to show all the possible landscapes and locations I can photograph:

Constable is famous for his landscapes, which are mostly of the Suffolk countryside, where he was born and lived. Constable’s most famous paintings include Wivenhoe Park (1816), Dedham Vale (1821) and The Hay Wain (1821). His paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art however, he was never financially successful.

His work transformed the landscape painting genre and shaped the enduring popular image of the English countryside. 

This painting depicts a farm scene on the River Stour between the English counties of Suffolk and Essex.

land ownership – from the image we can see a man working the land however, I believe he is not the land owner he is instead the labourer working for the owner.

land use – The area of land that we can see appears to be used for farming or some form of agriculture. The pond serves as a cooling system for the horses as this picture is set in the summer where temperatures would’ve been high and to enable the horse to work in this heat they walk him through the cool water.

Class – The man in the picture is working class as we believe he’s the labourer for the owner of the land. The land owner however, would most likely be upper class as they could afford a large area of land and to employ workers.

Changing times – The picture, painted in 1821, depicts a time before the industrial revolution. This is a time the romanticists wanted to cherish and protect from the damage that factories and machinery would do to the natural landscape.

Industrial revolution – The picture was painted pre-industrial revolution which is why they’re using a horse and cart to transport things and just using the old fashioned techniques and technologies rather than machinery.

Definition – a movement in the arts and literature, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual.

Romanticism begun in 18th century western Europe and in most areas was at its peak from 1800 to 1850. It was used as a form of expression against the industrial revolution as romanticism emphasized nature over industry.

Artists such as Henry Fuseli and Caspar David Friedrich were part of the revolt against the age of enlightenment because it valued new technology and machinery over nature ands the natural world.

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THE SUBLIME

The idea of the sublime is central to a Romantic’s perception of, and heightened awareness in, the world. The theory of sublime art was put forward by Edmund Burke in 1757 in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful which provided the English Romantic movement with a systematic analysis of what constitutes the sublime, and the possessed qualities. This gave the English Romantics a legitimacy and a strong theoretical foundation to their expressions. He defined the sublime as ‘an artistic effect productive of the strongest emotion the mind is capable of feeling’

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Edmund Burke

Burke was born in Dublin and educated there at Trinity College. He is best known for his political achievements and being the founder of modern conservatism of the Reflections on the Revolution in France, as he expressed his mistrust in the rationalism of the French Revolutionaries.

When 28 years old Burke wrote his Enquiry, Consistent with the dominant philosophical way of thinking in Britain during his life, Burke was an empiricist (the idea that all learning comes from only experience and observations). He believed that the our ideas, and what we know about the natural world, is aquired from our sensory experiences. For Burke, it is the passions which decide how and what we see, hear and feel.
Burke also sought to apply a scientific method to his chosen subject-matter, so in the Enquiry he does a scientific investigation into our various passions, and uses the evidence to explain the nature and power of the sublime.