Contact sheet
Here are some pictures of the contact sheet of my first photoshoot I have done. My first photoshoot is of Le Hocq and around that area. This shows the process of me selecting and discarding images and rating them on a scale of green being some of my best images, and red being some of the more poor images that maybe aren’t as good.
Final images
These are my outcomes from my first romanticism photoshoot. Some also have quite urban aspects.
Mood-board
A mood-board is an arrangement or collage of images, materials, pieces of text, etc. It is a way of expressing ideas in a visual way. They allow you to combine your ideas, thoughts, information into one visual piece. In photography, the mood-boards are just a collection of images (collage).
Here is a mood-board I have created as inspiration and a sort of plan for my photoshoot:
Photoshoot Action Plan
What
Where
When
Why
Romanticism
The age of romanticism was around 1800-1900 ish. Romanticism is attitudes, ideals, and feelings which are romantic rather than realistic. It was an 19th century artistic movement which evolved in Europe in response to the industrial revolution and the disillusionment of the Enlightenment values of reason. The Romantic movement was heavily influences by revolutionary events; French and American revolutions.
‘To be romantic is to have sympathy for madness’
The artists in the romanticism era appreciated and accentuated nature’s beauty. Nature was viewed as a pure and spiritual source of renewal.
Romanticism is associated with the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution was the transition of producing goods by hand into using machines. It is basically just the invention of machines to do the work of hand tools. Romanticism is associated with the industrial revolution as romantic artists thought that the industrial world was cruel and was deadening to the senses and spirit. Therefore causing the period of the emphasis of the glory and beauty of nature. Romantics viewed nature as a pure and spiritual source of renewal. This makes sense due to the creation of the industrial revolution. When the industrial revolution began, the people must’ve noticed the pollution the machines produced. It would damage the environment, thus harming their beloved nature. This would cause the romantics to have a spike in interest and concern for nature as the introduction of machines has caused this harm.
The sublime
The sublime is the quality of greatness. It emerged at first in connection with nature and the arts. The theory of sublime in an art aspect was developed by an artist named Edmund Burke in the mid-18th century. According to https://www.tate.org.uk/ Burke defined the sublime as an artistic effect productive of the strongest emotion the mind is capable of feeling.
‘whatever is in any sort terrible or is conversant about terrible objects or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime’.
Edmund Burke
Burke said that the sublime sounds usually involve these elements:
The Sublime in Romanticism is a combination of the subjective and the objective.
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke was an Irish-British philosopher who created the idea of The Sublime. He wrote a book called ‘A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful’ which defines The Sublime ‘an artistic effect productive of the strongest emotion the mind is capable of feeling’.
The modern definition of The Sublime is something that is very very nice. Burke said that a sublime experience is one that is very nice but nice for a specific reason, it makes us feel insignificant.
He argued that it is the most powerful aesthetic experience.
Edmund Burke liked fast and momentous stories, like paradise lost. Paradise lost is a poem by John Milton written in the 17th century about the biblical tale of the Fall of Mankind.
Edmund Burke believes that the sublime restores our perspective and that is why we like it.
Examples
Photomontage techniques
An analogue photomontage is one that is produced by hand. This may involve cutting up or tearing images, and using them to produce something new and different. Here are some of mine:
A digital photomontage is one that is produced perhaps on a computer. You can use photoshop for example, in order to edit your images. Here are some of mine:
Formalism focusses on the way art is made and the way it looks. Opposed to thinking about the context or meaning behind the photo. Whereas visual language refers to communication using visual elements.
Formalism is linked to compositional elements. i.e. layout, arrangement, organisation, etc. They are what we see. These are the visual elements that make up a photograph:
In class, we were given a photo and told to annotate it based on its visual elements that I have bullet pointed above. The photo above is the one my partner and I were given. The photo below is of our visual element annotations.
The Lightroom Classic software allows you to import your images and then select and filter them to narrow down your selection.
You can create a selection of photos that you know you like instead of a bunch of random photos, this will save time.
After importing my images, I learned how to flag them. This is a quick way of choosing photos that you’d like to keep or to reject the photos that you know you won’t want. To pick the flag you click on the photo, and then press the ‘p’ key. A white flag symbol will appear in the top left corner. To reject the photo you click on the photo, and then press the ‘x’ key. A black flag symbol will appear in the top left corner and the photo will dull.
I then learned how to rate and colour label the photos. You can rate them/5 and the colour labels can be chosen from a range of different colours. However I went with green, yellow, and red like traffic lights. Here is what the colours correspond to:
These selection methods allow me to rank my images and this way I can easily see which ones to use.
You can use the filter to hide your rejected photos and focus on the flagged photos that you like. By narrowing down the amount of photos you have, it is easier and quicker to edit less photos.
Here are some results from the photo-games we did in class:
Photography is the art of taking and processing photographs. The word photography literally means ‘drawing with light’ which I think is quite poetic and portrays the creativity of photography and how you can manipulate factors to make your photographs look even better.
There are 3 main elements of photography; aperture, shutter, and ISO. The aperture is what controls the amount of light being allowed into the camera. The shutter is the device that which the lens aperture is opened admit light, which exposes the film. The ISO is the camera’s sensitivity to light. The lower the ISO, the less sensitive the film/sensor is to light.
David Campany talks about how much of an impact photography has. They allow people to look at fixed appearances. Photographs can capture special moments people want to keep forever, or they could simply be to document something. Photography allows us to see things we may have never noticed otherwise. There are no limits to photography. As photographs are highly mobile, it’s easy to share art with other people who may even be across the world. This means more people can appreciate the art being created and interpret its meanings. Even if a photographer takes a photo trying to express a certain meaning, it can lose that meaning or perhaps other people can interpret their own meanings from it. Everyone has different perspectives.
“photographs confuse as much as fascinate, conceal as much as reveal, distract as much as compel. They are unpredictable communicators.”
David Campany
I agree with this statement as it expresses how photography is limitless and is open for interpretation. It tells how photography can affect people in many different ways and how photographs can serve different purposes. ‘distract as much as compel’ this shows that people can be drawn to photographs for different reasons and have different to reactions to them.
What is still life?
Still life is derived from the Dutch word ‘stilleven’. Originating in the 17th century during the popularity for paintings of objects throughout Europe. The term ‘still life’ defines art that shows inanimate objects from the natural or man-made world. e.g. fruits, flowers, baskets, bowls, etc. There are probably about 4 main categories of still life; flowers, banquet or breakfast, animals, symbolic. Symbolic still life refers to art that shows an ordinary object which will portray a deeper meaning.
Vanitas
A vanitas is a symbolic work of art showing the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, often contrasting symbols of wealth and symbols of ephemerality and death.
Memento mori
Vanitas are closely related to memento mori still lifes which are pieces of art that portray the shortness and fragility of life. Memento mori is a Latin phrase which translates ‘remember you must die’. They include symbolic objects like skulls and extinguished candles. Other examples of symbols include; musical instruments, wine and books to represent the explicitly of vanity.
The 10 most common symbols in Still life are:
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. This results in a brighter photo. With a smaller aperture, less light will pass through the lens. Therefore the photo will be darker.
In simpler words, the aperture basically controls the brightness of a photograph. It is written as an f-number, these are called f-stops. The ‘f’ in f-stop stands for the focal length of the lens.
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.
