it was a movement in German art that began in the 1920s to oppose expressionism. Its rejects self-involvement and romantic idealism. This is shown through modern photographers such as Karl Blossfeldt and Albert Renger-Patzsch. Their photography simply photographs objects or plants without any context or interesting backgrounds added. This removes the idealized aspect from their work, like they did with new objectivity back in the 1920s.
Karl Blossfeldt- flowers and plants
Albert Renger- Patzsch- flowers glasses and plants
New Objectivity At Home Photoshoots
The exposure and texture on these two images has been turned down to make it appear cloudy and not as saturated
The exposure and saturation is turned up on this image so it looks rich
I decided to turn down the tone on this image to create a green/ yellow, dark aura
This image is very tonal, not a lot of colour to it
The highlights and saturation is increased in this image which creates the pink shadow
The simplest way to describe formalism in photography would be that: The Design, Composition and Lighting are dominant over Subject Matter. The photographer becomes a visual designer whenever a frame is captured. In camera, cropping concentrates on the desired subject while eliminating everything else.
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
Examples of formal and visual elements are: line, shape, repetition, rhythm, balance. To capture a ‘perfect, beautiful’ photograph usually consists of (for example) making sure the camera is in focus and that the lighting and frame is ‘just right’. However, a vast variety of photographers think that sometimes not trying to think too hard about how you are photographing something and making ‘mistakes/breaking the rules’ creates a beautiful perfect photo too.
The Visual Elements
COLOUR- what colours can you see? monotone, bright, muted. Are there colours there are more popular then others? is the focal point obvious due to colour?
TONE- Tone refers to the levels of brightness in the photograph, from solid black to pure white. Shadows are dark tones; highlights are bright tones.
TEXTURE- is it smooth or ridged? The visual depiction of variations in the colour, shape, and depth of an object’s surface.
SHAPE- what shapes can you see? big areas small areas? The two-dimensional appearance of objects as your camera captures them.
for example, this photo has a repetition of circles in it.
FORM- when shape takes on three dimensions. Form is created by shadows and highlights on an object in the photograph.
PATTERN- is there any repetition? The same objects or shapes in the image. A regularity within a scene.
LINE- A line refers to anything that stretches between two points in your photo. So a line can be a fallen tree, a moving river, or even a slew of rocks leading off into the distance.
We annotated Peter Fraser’s, contemporary still life photography…
…To do this we used a table to pick out visual and formal elements:
Continuous lighting is the opposite of flash – the lights are constantly lit instead of only when the shutter is pressed.
This photo was taken with the key light on the right of the image, no background lighting.
A Key light is the primary source of light in your images. The colour, strength and shape of your key light will affect the entire composition.
is an example of when we used a colour sheet over the lights to create a more colourful image
this is an example of a high concentration of backlighting
Backlighting involves having the main light source for a photograph behind the primary subject – this can create some interesting shadows and also eliminate ambiguity if the photographer wishes to.
A reflector is a tool that helps a photographer manipulate the light by providing another surface for the light to bounce off of. We have used reflectors in the studio however I don’t have a photo of it.
In photography terms, reflected light is light that reflects off the subject. This is most often what the camera records to make a photograph. Regardless of the light source, light is altered by whatever it reflects off. Rays of light reflect, or bounce off, objects just like a ball bounces on the ground. This reflection of light is what enables us to see everything around us.
Flash lighting
Flash lighting involves the use of a bulb that flashes when the shutter is pressed. This creates a high key light source and eliminates shadows. It is also mostly paired with a fairly high shutter speed.
The key light on both of these images is on the Right hand side, however I’ve edited the image on the right and turned down the exposure to create a stronger shadow.
This image is was taken with a fast shutter speed therefore is high quality but isn’t my strongest image as the still life on the left is cut out.
This image and the image above both have a bright Key light, creating a lighter image.
I like this image as it is close up, yet high quality as i took it by zooming in.
I like this image as there is a clear focal point and the level of control is high; the image is very central. This image was taken using a blue gel sheet covering the key light.
The lighting in this image is fluorescent causing a darker, over saturated image.
Still life photography encompasses everything that is an inanimate object in front of a camera.Still life is a unique genre of photography. One thing that makes it so special is that often the subjects aren’t very interesting. They’re just ordinary objects that you normally wouldn’t pay much attention to.
Here are three example of still life photography. As you can see in all three images there are basic items (in these particularly food) they are infront of plain backgrounds. Most still life images have a narrow depth of field, only focusing on the objects in the image.
modernist still life
The most significant sub genre of photography that conveys inanimate subject matter—typically everyday things, whether created by nature or by man—lively and profoundly is still-life photography.
These are examples of modernist still life
contemporary still life
Contemporary still life art is defined by the representation of objects with a double characteristic. They are inanimate and they make part of daily life. Many artists seize and push this to its paroxysm, even to the point of bias.
These are examples of contemporary still life
what is Vanitas?
a still-life painting of a 17th-century Dutch genre containing symbols of death or change as a reminder of their inevitability.
what is Memento Mori?
an object kept as a reminder of the inevitability of death, such as a skull.
WHAT KIND OF METAPHORS AND SYMBOLS ARE USED IN STILL LIFE AND WHY?
some common objects used in still life that symbolize something:
Fruit/fruit bowls- symbolize variety of religious and mythical symbols.
The word Photography literally means ‘drawing with light’, which derives from the Greek photo, meaning light and graph, meaning to draw.
However, photography essentially is the process of recording an image – a photograph – on light sensitive film or, in the case of digital photography, via a digital electronic or magnetic memory.
where, when and how did it all start?
Photography, as we know it today, began in the late 1830s in France. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce used a portable camera obscura to expose a pewter plate coated with bitumen to light. This is the first recorded image that did not fade quickly.
The photo is seen to capture the view outside of Joseph’s window.captured here is the first ever coloured photograph
The Tartan Ribbon
The tartan ribbon, the world’s first color photo was produced in 1861 by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell. The image was created by photographing the tartan ribbon three times through red, blue, and yellow filters, then recombining the images into one color composite.
The first photographic technologies were produced during the 1830s and 40s. The invention of photography would revolutionize culture and communication in the West forever. For the first time, images of ‘real’ life could be captured for posterity and sent around the world, this was the original purpose of photography.
Louis Daguerre
French painter and physicist who invented the first practical process of photography, known as the daguerreotype.
Henry Fox Talbot
He is best known for his development of the calotype, an early photographic process that was an improvement over the daguerreotype of the French inventor Louis Daguerre.
Richard Maddox
Dry plate, also known as gelatin process, is an improved type of photographic plate. It was invented by Dr. Richard L. Maddox in 1871, and had become so widely adopted by 1879 that the first dry plate factory had been established.
what is the purpose of photography?
Essentially, the purpose of photography is to communicate and document moments in time, you are able to capture still life and hold that image with yourself. Photography is so beneficial to us as we can use it in so many different ways.
why is photography important today?
Photography has the power to inspire many people. An inspiration that could lead to a change for the better. It’s also a visual learning tool that helps non-verbal people communicate. Photography is important because it opens a view into a person’s mind and allows them to convey messages.
Photography is important because we can document something and have it forever. Photography lets us see something we may never have noticed otherwise. Photography is history and allows us to learn and visualize what life was like in the past, or even show ideas of what life will be like in the future.
Photography is used everywhere, on the news, on TV, on social media, newspapers, books, magazines, the internet and so on. It is also looked at in a scientific way; this is because scientists would have no idea what things such as cells look like if it weren’t for photography, they wouldn’t be able t prove or show anything.
DAVID CAMPANY
Considering his assertion that: ‘photographs confuse as much as fascinate, conceal as much as reveal, distract as much as compel. They are unpredictable communicators.’
I believe that David Campany examines the seemingly ordinary act of looking at a photograph. Unpredictable and inscrutable, images, he argues, are anything but mundane. In this quote he is basically proposing that there is a deeper meaning behind just a photograph.
Leap into the void
Leap into the void is an example of where photography can be interpreted in many different ways. Viewers may feel fear but be intrigued to keep reading into the image and the story behind it. Some may believe this is a live image of what happened, but instead is a set up staged picture. Two images were taken one with men ready to catch him in tar-pooling and then he was cut out and put into empty image creating a documentary photography. It was in this mass-produced form that the artist’s seminal gesture was communicated to the public and also notably to the Vienna Activists. The photograph may have some representation of the world at the time in the 1960s.
whilst using Lightroom, I have learnt how to import my images to allow me to edit them, as much as photoshop is convenient, Lightroom allows you to do a range of different things to your images; including things that photoshop can do.
I have filtered out the rejects and chosen the photos I want to keep.
These are the photos I decided to keep, as they are the most interesting.
we compared two images using compare view. it allows you to zoom in and out using the magnifying glass to see if your image is focused or blurry. Helping to choose the better image.
I filtered down my images again by rating them with stars out of 5, this helps to choose which is the strongest image.
I experimented with my images by editing them using the editing tools on the right hand side. Tools such as: exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows texture and clarity ect.
This shows me exporting my chosen edited image into a file and editing the image size.
Aperture is the adjustable lens opening that controls the amount of light allowed into the camera. Learning to properly adjust these three settings based on your location and subject is essential for capturing good exposures.
large aperture= shallow depth of field
small aperture= great depth of field
In this photoshoot I experimented with aperture, with some images resulting in being darker then others. In some of these images I used coloured gel sheets to create a colour filter over the images, holding the sheets over the lights.
what is depth of field?
As a result, depth of field (DoF) is the distance between the nearest and furthest elements in a scene that appear to be “acceptably sharp” in an image. The distance between the camera and the first element that is considered to be acceptably sharp is called DoF near limit.
In the image, if a lot of the image is being focused on, this is called large depth of field. In the image, if a small amount of the image is being focused on, this is called narrow depth of field.
This visually demonstrates depth of field.The image on the left has a narrow depth of field as only the flower at the front is focused on whereas, the image on the right has a large depth of field as the whole image is focused on.
Shutter speed is exactly what it sounds like: It’s the speed at which the shutter of the camera closes. A fast shutter speed creates a shorter exposure — the amount of light the camera takes in — and a slow shutter speed gives the photographer a longer exposure.
This is an example of a fan shown in slow to fast shutter speed.
In this photoshoot, we explored the shutter speed by playing a boxing game. Capturing fast moving boxing actions, trying to dodge the camera creating some blurrier pictures then others; this is due to the use of shutter speed, how much light is being let into the camera.
In this photoshoot, we also explored shutter speed by attempting to throw three balls in a straight line, using shutter speed to determine how blurry or clear the photos will turn out.
John Baldessari
John Anthony Baldessari was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California. Initially a painter, Baldessari began to incorporate texts and photography into his canvases in the mid-1960s.
