Alys Tomlinson is a British photographer. She has published the books Following Broadway, Ex-Voto, Lost Summer and Gli Isolani. For Ex-Voto she won the Photographer of the Year award at the 2018 Sony World Photography Awards.
Alys grew up in Brighton and studied English Literature and Communications at the University of Leeds. After graduating, she moved to New York for a year and was given her first commission for Time Out, before returning to London to study photography at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. She recently completed a part-time MA in Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage (Distinction) at SOAS, University of London, which ties in with her long-term, personal project about pilgrimage.
Alys Tomlinson’s work is very minimalistic and vey detailed, the backgrounds are filled with details and different surroundings which makes the photo stand out a lot more, if I were to compare this artist to jimmy Nelson I would say that nelson made the models more detailed whether it was to do with their culture, they made the background quite plain and simple to add more contrast to the person however Tomlinson made sure to do the opposite of that, she made the model look more simple but added a detailed background whether the model was standing in front of trees, houses or fences. I really like what Tomlinson has done to the photo making it black and white which makes it more modern effect can also effect the mood of the photo some would say they look quite sad as most of them aren’t smiling and are looking the camera with natural look. Another thing that I quite like that Tomlinson has done is that in a few of her photos she has blurred the background so that the focus is on the model and the model only. However the ones where the background isn’t blurred still looks good although there is less in the background, which makes the model instantly pop out.
PHOTO ANALYSIS.
This photo looks very different to the artists other photographs since the model is standing quite far away from the camera. which helps us visualise her surroundings, but the model looks very unusual which draws attention to the viewers as to why she may be standing in the middle of the woods, it almost creates a background story to the photo as if the model was lost or maybe they were forced to stand there. The model creates a mysterious energy, as well as the photo being black and white, this makes the mood and tone so different almost as if there is something out in the woods that’s making a lot of noise, it doesn’t seem like a peaceful environment, possible water running or the trees swaying in the wind.
Jimmy Nelson is an acclaimed British photographer known for his striking portraits of indigenous people and documentation of vanishing cultures and traditions. His visually stunning images have captivated audiences worldwide, highlighting the beauty and diversity of cultures that are often overlooked or marginalized.
The Jimmy Nelson Foundation is a nonprofit organisation founded in 2016 to stimulate cultural expression by facilitating projects that promote the heritage of indigenous cultures.
Nelson says, “The foundation has evolved into teaching indigenous peoples’ pride. I’m creating many teams to go off around the world and do what I do. We’re gathering pictures, video and other information] and creating a digital fireplace, sort of like a library in the sky, of all this heritage for future generations.”
jimmy nelson seems to take photos of very cultural portraits, he shows that he has a true passion for him and the people around him, he is inspiring people to become who they deserve to be the most and who they desire the most. He is showing us what different religion’s or cultures look like by showing us his, his photographs look really old and ancient which could represent that his culture has been round for a very long time and he wants people to know what it was like back in the day. What I really like about his work is that he involves different aged people to help us understand the culture more, we can see that children are involved as well as older people.
“Together we can love, and when we love we thrive. They are our guides, custodians of ancient knowledge. They celebrate life, free in every waking moment. Within your true identity, your heart is open to others”- jimmy Nelson.
I can see that Nelson talks about love and loving together, its almost a safe space around him, he’s protecting and supporting people, its almost a way of saying that everyone is different but in their own unique way, and we are allowed to express ourselves differently. Each photo has different emotions which can change the photos mood completely. For example a sad expression could represent fear or ashamed that feeling different is a bad thing. However having a person look more relaxed shows that they feel safe and comfortable whether its in themselves to their surroundings. Nelson also refers to your heart being open to other which cold suggest that sometimes you need to let people in to have a special bond and connection with someone but also to help express yourself and heal your inner soul. He could also mean different things such as opening your heart is away of expressing who you are and don’t hide yourself from reality. I personally believe that he is trying to say that no matter what, you always have your heart open for people even if you don’t intend to, which can lead to heartbreaks or happiness.
His photographs tend to have a dark background and the models are also wearing darker colours, there isn’t a bright colour is shown. This also changes the mood of the photographs and makes me feel more calm instead of happy and joyed.
Here is my photoshoot part of nostalgia, These photos represent what I wanted to be like when I grow up. When I was younger I’ve always wanted to be older and grow up quickly. These photos represent what I wanted to be when I was younger and what I have become now.
Some of my photos where a bit blurry and the camera didn’t really focus, net time I would like to take my time and really explore the photo and the way the objects are presented. I could also make the lighting different by adding a colder, more bold look. However I do really like how I’ve used a warm tone lighting as the objects really represent the vibe.
overall I think my photoshoot went really well and really helped me understand what nostalgia and still life is. I got a better understanding of each concept which allows me to expand my ideas and thoughts into a planned photoshoot. Throughout my photos I believe that my photos almost look like an advert or a presentation.
This is my best photo as it has reflections and different lighting, I really like how the colours blend together and they represent the fall season with all the darkish but warm tones.
Adding different filters to your photos can make a big difference as it can add contrast and different textures. There are effects that you can control like the sharpness of the photo and the texture. If you make the texture strong then you will get a photo that looks like it has a gradient effect or if you put it quite low then you can make your photo look like a painting.
here I made the texture of this photo quite low and made it almost look really smooth, the photos texture is very low and makes me feel very calm whereas if the texture was quite high I would feel more rough and weird. I feel that the original photo looks rather dull but fits the theme of still life more and its quite simple and not too complex. I really like how this has turned out but I do feel that this photo looks really dark and old fashioned.
photoshoots
during my photoshoot I went down to the studio and placed a few items down, I then proceeded to move them around to see what items fitted best. I believe that the lighting on the items do change a lot, for example when adding a warm colours to the photo it can show a precious moment, almost as if it was a memory however when using quite a bright and bold light that can make the photo look a lot more colder and more modern as more technology and lighting was involved.
Some of my photos:
If I were to recreate this I would have liked to take pictures of some of the tapes individually as sometimes putting too many items can complicate the the photo and the idea of still life. I like to keep my photos quite simple and not too abstract, What I really like about my photo’s is that you can see the reflection of the object, this means that the line of reflection is the perpendicular bisector between the preimage and the image.
The reason I chose to take pictures of tape is because they are really basic and simple, they don’t necessarily hold meaning but they are easy to work with. I managed to get tape in different sizes and colours which make the photo look minimalist.
Photo Analysis
overall I really like how this photo has turned out as its very original to me and the way I have positions the items. I really like how you can see the reflection of the objects as it adds a contrasting look and also makes the photo look more interesting.
Here I was inspired by Walker Evans, as he had taken pictures of tools and made the photos black and white.
Walker Evans was a renowned American photographer known for his black-and-white images documenting the impact of the Great Depression. As an artist, Evans disliked the formal photography like that of Alfred Stieglitz. Instead, he aimed to capture the quotidian beauty and diaristic events of daily life.
Walker Evans photos:
For my photoshoot I decided to use paint brushes as I found them in different colours and sizes. This therefore makes my photos unique and special to me. Most of the artists looked at use more common tools such as hammers and screwdrivers, so I wanted to use something unique and inadequate to really show that I am engaged in this work, and how I can make it more my photoshoot and not just copying.
My Photos:
I really like how this has turned out as there are shadows under my tools, this makes the photo look more realistic and adds a lift to the shape of the tool. This photoshoot was quite easy in the sense that I didn’t have to position the tools in a specific way since I wanted to make the shoot more personal and specific to me .I really like the background colour as it adds a warm tone. These warm colours evoke emotions ranging from feelings of warmth and comfort to feelings of anger and hostility. It makes me feel some sort of comfort and sense of relief while a cold bright tone could make me feel quite upset as they can also trigger feelings of sadness and indifference. Therefore, I really am pleased in the way my photos have turned out.
If I were to do this photoshoot again I would have liked to move the brushes around to try and experiment what they could look like in different positions. This would open up my imagination and help me create a better understanding of why these tools are so eye catching and inspiring. I feel like some of my photos look blurry almost vivid which completely ruins the theme I was going for. Personally my favourite photo would be the middle on as it has a better angle then the rest and really defines the shape and colour of the paint brush.
here I went to the studio and too some photos inspired by walker Evans, I have already taken some similar photoshoots that involved more items, and different objects however I made this photoshoot more personally aimed towards still life photography and Walker Evans. I really like hoe some of my photos turned out however most of them had become very blurry and vivid, making it hard to work with and edit them, while others looked not centred enough or had a piece of the background in the photo. This made it difficult to chose a photo to edit. However I found a few and made sure that they were cropped to the right size.
Here I played around with the settings to try and see what looked best, I felt that my photos looked better with a warmer tone then a cold tone as the tools themselves were quite cold they wouldn’t have blended in well together. I made sure that the highlights were quite low as there were already shadows involved in the photo, therefore the tool already has a darkened background adding a white tone to it would make it look unrealistic and fake. I also added the blacks to over 50% because as the background was added to a warm tone, it helped me visualise and focus on the object more.
Photo Analysis:
Overall I am really happy with how this photo has turned out as the photo looks really clear. However the artist I was inspired by, Walker Evans, his photos were quite coldly toned and didn’t show much warmth, so I personally believed that the warmer tone made my photos look more advanced and original to me, although I was trying to copy walkers Evans work I did want to interpret my own ideas into the photo to make it more original to me. If I were to redo this photoshoot I would have liked to try and make them cold toned to see what difference it would have added. Or I would have liked to have used more tools maybe a knife and fork or even a spoon to mix it up a little bit as I had only used 2 different tools it didn’t help me explore and advance my ideas.
Walker Evans began to photograph in the late 1920s, making snapshots during a European trip. Upon his return to New York, he published his first images in 1930. During the Great Depression, Evans began to photograph for the Resettlement Administration, later known as the Farm Security Administration (FSA), documenting workers and architecture in the South-eastern states. In 1936 he travelled with the writer James Agee to illustrate an article on tenant farm families for Fortune magazine; the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men came out of this collaboration.
walker Evans was a known photographer for taking pictures of tools and self portraits, his photographs were all black and white, reasoning for this is because Walker said “colour tends to corrupt photography and absolute colour corrupts it absolutely.”, I personally believe that the black and while effect makes the photo look more old old fashioned and more realistic almost as if the photograph is ancient.
Darren Harvey-Regan
Darren Harvey-Regan is a graduate of the Royal College of Art. His work has appeared in exhibitions and publications internationally and is part of the permanent photography collection at the V & A Museum, London.
Melding photograph and sculpture, Darren Harvey-Regan (b.1974, England) works in the liminal space where flat representation ends, and three-dimensional object begins. And with the photographic medium straddling object and representation simultaneously, such a place seems an astute location for Harvey-Regan to examine where the two meet. Perplexing, and at times humorous, his photographs act as the subject of his scrutiny but importantly also as the tool that he uses to carry out his procedure, constantly attempting to free himself from the constraints of photographic representation.
Harvey’s work is very similar to Evans work but Harvey’s has more colour and more life to the photo which makes the photograph stand out so much more. His work doesn’t look identical to Evans ad the warm shades of the background, Harvey also uses very different and strange shaped tools which changes the photos whole point of view.
Renger-Patzsch was born in Würzburg and began making photographs by age twelve.[1] After military service in the Fist World warhe studied chemistry at the Königlich-Sächsisches Polytechnikum in Dresden. In the early 1920s he worked as a press photographer for the Chicago Tribune before becoming a freelancer and, in 1925, publishing a book, Das Chorgestühl von Kappenberg (The Choir Stalls of Cappenberg). He had his first museum exhibition in Lübeck in 1927.
The types of subjects he preferred to photograph:
The types of subjects he preferred to photograph. The ways in which he explored the formal elements in his work e.g. form, light, rhythm, line, texture, repetition etc. Renger-Patzsch work is very abstract and mainly focused on similar patterns being repeated.
Neue Sachlichkeit:The New Objectivity was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism.
The ways in which he explored the formal elements in his work e.g. form, light, rhythm, line, texture, repetition etc.
How does Renger-Patzsch’s work fit with the concerns of artists associated with this movement? The types of subjects he preferred to photograph. The ways in which he explored the formal elements in his work e.g. form, light, rhythm, line, texture, repetition etc. His famous book ‘The World is Beautful’
Historical context
There are numerous reasons why some photographers in the 1920s (along with other artists) began to represent the world with “objective, sober eyes”:
a response to the chaos of the First World War and a rejection of the culture leading up to it
a rejection of the emotional and spiritual concerns of Expressionism and an interest in the rational and political
a response to rapid industrialisation in Europe and America
a response to the particular qualities of the camera and a move away from painterly effects like soft focus
Photo Analysis:
Overall I really like this photo as it has a contrasting background and helps the main objects to standout, there are shadows under the object which makes the objects pop out, this is really effective and helps me understand how the artist has looked at the texture, light, lines and patterns of each object, I feel as though the artist has made the photo look quite plain but minimalistic , they could have made the background colourful or even the objects colourful to add different emotions to the photo. This photo makes me feel quite relaxed in the way that I don’t feel rushed or pressured to do anything, almost as though everything round me is still, however the lines in the shadows could also resemble a slight shake in the glass almost a panicked emotion showing and spreading through. I really like how his photo has turned out and would want to try and recrate it one day.
Formalist Photography is based on The Design, Composition and Lighting that is dominant over Subject Matters. The photographer becomes a visual designer whenever a frame is captured. In camera cropping concentrates on the desired subject while eliminating everything else.
Photo Literacy?
What is photo literacy?
Photo literacy is the language of photographic images. Photographs communicate their meanings in particular ways. Such as a photograph with little children could represent nostalgia and the memories of the past while a photo of a field full of flowers could represent some sort of comfort and reassurance, its a passion you may have for nature, people tend to admire different things and therefore nature either could be admiring or dull.
to my understanding photo literacy is photographs of the past with different meanings, its proof of everything we are taught. It helps people understand what is going on in the world and evidence is shown through the photographs although we don’t exactly know the situation of each photo we have a slight idea of the concept, through facial emotions, expressions.
PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGE ANALYSIS
Analysing an artistic photograph will consist of studying the various elements which compose it to detect the emotional sense, the message transmitted or to identify aesthetic qualities. Photo analysis (or photo analysis) refers to the study of pictures to compile various types of data, for example, to measure the size distribution of virtually anything that can be captured by photo.
There are seven basic elements to photographic art that we must explore over the coming weeks:
Lines in photography are an immensely powerful element. Proper arrangement of lines, guides the eye around the image, often placing emphasis on the subject matter or conveying a sense of movement. Improper arrangement can draw the eye out of the photo or take away from the strength of the subject matter.
shape
Most photographers recognize the four basic shapes: circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles. Each of these shapes can be used to create a variety of different effects in your photographs. Circles are often used to create a feeling of harmony and balance, while triangles can add a sense of movement and drama.
Shape in photography is exactly what it sounds like: The two-dimensional appearance of objects as they’re captured by your camera. For instance, if you look at a photo of a ball, you’ll see its shape: a circle. If you look at a photo of a cube-shaped suitcase, you’ll see its shape: a square.
Form
Form refers to when shape takes on three dimensions. Form is created by shadows and highlights on an object in the photograph. You can see in these two photos how shape becomes form when light hits the subject.
Without the 3D effect, photos look flat and dull. This might work for some photography genres or styles. It’s usually not desirable. A form photographer’s aim is to make their photos look like they’re as real as the actual objects they’re photographing.
Texture
When talking about photography texture refers to the visual quality of the surface of an object, revealed through variances in shape, tone and colour depth. Texture brings life and vibrance to images that would otherwise appear flat and uninspiring.
colour
Colour in photography composition is one of the main tools a photographer can use to create mood in their images. How you combine various colors or exclude them from your photographs influences how people might feel when they look at them. This is why understanding color in photography is so important.
size
The Basics: Image Size is the term given to describe the height and width of an image in pixels. Maximum Image Size is determined by the megapixels of a given camera – for example, a 10-megapixel camera will give a maximum image size of 2592 by 3872 pixels.
Compositionally, the biggest effect of a big print is to reveal details. These details can include textures, small subjects, and – of course – flaws that would not be visible at smaller sizes. All of this can impact the balance of a photo, leaning it more in one direction or another as the viewer’s attention shifts.
Depth
What Is Depth of Field in Photography? In simplest terms, depth of field is how much of your image is in focus. In more technical terms, depth of field is the distance in an image where objects appear “acceptably in focus” or have a level of “acceptable sharpness.”
formalism is often portrayed as abstracted reality by eliminating social or spatial context; by using viewpoints that flattened pictorial space, acknowledging the flatness of the picture plane; and by emphasising shape and tonal rendition in highlights and shadows as much as in the actual subject matter.”
formalism is also always seems as back and white which can cause a confusion to why. Black and white photography can evoke a mood – from nostalgia to sadness to yearning, black and white pictures somehow convey emotion in a way that colour images simply can’t. Not everything is Black & White but sometimes it can be just what is needed. This makes formalism make a lot more sense to me and to why most of the pictures are needed in black and white, I personally feel that when you see an imagine in colour you feel happiness depending on the tones and shades. However when I see and grey/ black and white photo I feel some sort of sadness and empathy for others it does make me feel some sort of happiness as I think back about my childhood.
Stephen Shore
He concentrated on photographing landscape, streets and buildings. From 1977 to 1982 Shore was commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, to photograph Monet’s gardens at Giverny, France. American photographer. Landscape and Photography, he has recognizable style which is often touted as one of the most important things for an artist to develop, but Shore has never abided by that idea. Shore switches between antilog and digital, black-and-white and colour, photographic and production techniques, and film formats.
. John Szarkowski.
The book explores all the traditional approaches to composition and design, but crucially, it also addresses the new digital technique of shooting in the knowledge that a picture will later be edited, manipulated, or montaged to result in a final image that may be very different from the one seen in the viewfinder.
In photography Formalism was advocated by John Szarkowski (Curator of Photography at Museum on Modern Art, New York) who is his book; The Photographer’s Eye (1966) identified five elements involved in the formalist approach to the analysis of photography, they are: the thing itself, the detail, the frame, time and the vantage point.
Photo analysis
overall, through this photo I really like how is is put in black and white which makes the photo look really modern, however it does also make me feel as though this photo was taken a long time ago. I know that this photo wasn’t taken purposely as the people in the streets aren’t posing and aren’t necessarily intended to be in it. The weather also doesn’t look the best as I can see any sunlight and mostly see clouds and a foggy exterior.
The way the photo is set out does almost look staged because of the cars, however the cars are in opposite of illusory motion in this photo which creates that still life effect although there are living humans beings involved with moving cars.
To make this photo look even better i believe that the shop should have some lights involved or even just some street lights as the photo looks quite dull and plain, even if there is a lot of things happening my eyes would directly be drawn to the lights near the shops or street, this would make feel more focused on one area of the photo instead of the whole thing.
