Walker Evans influenced Darren Harvey-Regan heavily, and both artists paid careful attention to choice of objects, composition, lighting and exposure values.

Their choice of objects were ‘beauties of the common tool’, meaning objects such a wrenches, hammers and other similar things.

WHO IS WALKER EVANS?

“Among low-priced, factory-produced goos, none is so appealing to the senses as the ordinary hand tool. Hence, a hardware store is a kind of offbeat museum show for the man who responds to good, clear ‘undesigned’ forms.”

Walker Evans was an American photographer and photojournalist. He began to photograph in the late 1920s, making snapshots during a European trip. He is very well known for his work for the FSA, documenting the effects of the Great Depression.

His portfolio ‘Beauties of the Common Tool’ was published originally in 1955.

Although the objects alone would seem to be lifeless and plain, Evans played with the angles of the lighting and exposure ton give a different perspective on each tool. He played with the positioning of shadow too, making the images more interesting.

Each tool tells a story about life during the Great Depression and how they played important roles for people struggling to make a livelihood.

WHO IS DARREN HARVEY-REGAN?

“It’s a means of transposing material into other material, adding new meaning or thoughts in the process. I think photographing materials is a way to consider the means of creating meaning, and it’s a tactile process with which I feel involved. Touching and moving and making are my engagement with the world and my art”.

Darren Harvey-Regan was a photographer interested in the idea that photographs do not exist just to show things, but are physical things that become objects themselves.

He was heavily inspired by Walker Evans. When Evans portfolio was published by Fortune magazine in 1955, Harvey-Regan constructed a montage of Walker Evans’ portfolio to create new forms.

He then sourced matching tools, cut them in half and re-joined several halves together, with the resulting physical objects being photographed to create his work.

The montaged tools became both beautiful and bizarre objects, in which a ratchet wrench is combined with a pair of pliers and a Mason’s trowel joined with a pair of scissors. This made it stand out from the rest as the strangeness made it more eye-catching.

He named his work ‘Beauties of the Common Tool, Rephrased II, 2013’.

He took the story that Walker Evans represented and rearranged it, modernising it.

There are seven basic elements to photographic art known as:

• Line
• Shape
• Form
• Texture
• Colour
• Size
• Depth

LINE:

Definition:  A straight or curved geometric element that is generated by a moving point and that has extension only along the path of the point

Lines can be straight, curved or a combination of both. They can go in any direction such as vertical or horizontal and can become solid, dashed or implied.

Vertical or horizontal lines can convey/suggest a sense of stability or a static feel in a photograph.

Horizontal lines can indicate distance (e.g. a horizon line) whilst vertical lines can indicate height, balance or strength.

Diagonal lines create a more dynamic and dramatic image.

SHAPE:

Definitions:

Sometimes a familiar shape can transform into an unfamiliar or unrecognizable shape based on the viewpoint of the photographer. For example, a lightbulb can have an image taken of it from the top, and appear to be a circle.

The two main types of shapes in an image are:

• Geometric: simple and can be labelled (for example, circles squares or triangles)

• Organic: shapes that can’t be permanently defined. these can be created by fluids for example. This makes the image more complex.

FORM:

Definition: the shape and structure of something as distinguished from its material

Form is three-dimensional. Form has overall height, width, and depth.

Form can be geometric or organic, just like shape.

Form creates positive and negative space. Positive is the space that is occupied by forms, but negative space is the empty part that remains.

It captures tonality changes and cast shadows of an object, the direction and intensity of the light relative to that object can change how we perceive the depth of the object in a photograph.

TEXTURE:

Definition: the visual or tactile surface characteristics and appearance of something

Texture in an image is shown through tone variations. this shows us whether the object would feel smooth, rough, bumpy, shiny, slimy, etc.

• Smooth objects might have reflections or specular highlights.
• Rough objects might have aggressive areas of light and shadow without reflections.

Patterns also indicate texture, and we imply the texture and associate it with the familiar. Depending on the angle of the lighting, the appearance of texture can change.

COLOUR:

Definitions:

•  a phenomenon of light (such as red, brown, pink, or gray) or visual perception that enables one to differentiate otherwise identical objects
•  the aspect of the appearance of objects and light sources that may be described in terms of hue, lightness, and saturation for objects and hue, brightness, and saturation for light.
• a specific combination of hue, saturation, and lightness or brightness
•  a color other than and as contrasted with black, white, or gray

Colour has three properties: hue, value, and saturation.

• Hue is simply the description of the color (e.g., blue, red, yellow, etc.).
• Value is the relative brightness or darkness of a color.
• Saturation is the intensity or purity of a color. The purest color is a hue with no white, black, or gray added to it.

Colours in an image can be bold and bright which are eye-catching and stand out more.

However, muted colours that are dulled down can also make a powerful image because it makes the image seem more sentimental.

Harmonic colours (colours which complement each other) can create distinct feelings that the photographer wants to express.

We live in a world of colour. The light from the sun, and from artificial sources, is absorbed and reflected by different objects, and it is this reflected light that we see as colour.

SIZE:

Definition: physical magnitude, extent, or bulk : relative or proportionate dimensions

Size in a photograph is relative and can be an illusion.

When a familiar object appears in the frame of a photograph (car, basketball, streetlamp, etc.) we immediately get a feel for the scope of the entire scene. Without a familiar object in the image, we struggle to determine the scale shown in the photograph.

The camera, lens, and print can render large objects small, or small objects large. Even objects familiar to our eyes that are usually small can be rendered in a photograph to become huge and show more detail that we don’t usually see, while things we know to be enormous are rendered small.

 With a casual snapshot, size might not be something one even considers in the composition. Paying attention to size can create unique images.

This emphasizes the object in the image.

My image^

DEPTH:

Definition: the direct linear measurement from front to back

Depth is one of the most compelling elements in a photograph.

Unless you are photographing perpendicular to a blank and smooth wall, your image will have depth. Depth is provided by our visual cues.

Leading lines create a linear perspective. this means when lines lead away from the camera, they converge at the end to create depth. An example of this is taking an image of train tracks.

Texture gradient shows depth. For example, if you took an image of a brick road. The closer the bricks are, the more details they will have whereas the ones with less details will give us the sense that they are further away.

Also size diminution. This means the smaller an object is in a photograph, the more distant it appears, assuming the viewer is familiar with the size of the object in question.