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Daniel Mordzinski

“With my first photograph a story of love towards photography and literature was born, I don’t know if these portraits have more of photography or literature, but I’d say it has a lot of both and I like to believe that this love story was born as a way of narrating, telling, proposing, suggesting and invite to read too”

Mordzinski is a photographer with a very specific niche in black and white portrait photography of latin American authors.

Each photo is very individual and impactful in his portal of the authors, because he is so consistent in his style and niche he is extremely specialised and talented in this style of photography, he always manages to produce an image that invokes emotion and create a sense of personal undertanding towards the author he is potraying.

Although more renowned photographers such as Arnold Newman and woody Allen are extremely talented and in the world of portrait photography considered the best in the game, with some very thought provoking and emotion enduring work i personally find Mordinzski’s work and commitment to his very specialised area more impressive in many capacities, not only is his ability to stick to such a specific personal style a clear representation of his love and personal devotion to his project the ‘Human Atlas’ that love and devotion always shows through his work.

All of his photographs have a depth of personal character and emotion that is very hard to capture without a long personal history with the model this is inspiring to me for many reasons not only is he extremely talented and consistently produces high quality photography but he also evokes deep thought and consideration in his audience.

For the route i want to take in my experiments with environmental portraits photography i believe he is the best photographer for me to draw inspiration from.

The Human Atlas

Known as “the writers’ photographer,” Daniel Mordzinski has been working on his ambitious “human atlas” of Iber-american literature for 38 years.  The Argentine photographer, who lives between Paris and Madrid, has created portraits of the most important figures in Latin-American literature.  The author of numerous books, Mordzinski’s works are continuously exhibited in Latin America’s most important museums and are included in the best collections of contemporary photography.  He is an important literary festivals photographer.

tools photoshoot

the set up i used for this individual project, over head lighting using a ladder to get proper Birdseye view photos.

the photos above i attempted to take in the style of walker Evans

above i used the photos i took in the style of walker evens and used photoshop too edit them inspired by darren Harvey

WALKER EVANS AND DARREN HARVEY-REGAN

“The Beauty of the Common Tool”

Darren Harvey Regan was greatly influenced by walker Evans, they both took great care in there photos light levels, exposure , composition and what they photograph.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-1515-1024x635.png
Aside from their function- each of these tools lures the eye to follow its curves and angles and invites the hand to test its balance”

walker Evans believes these tools evoke emotion and create sentiment for the normalcy of everyday tools in himself and others.

walker created set of photos with at minimum 22 separate photos

Walker Evans was an American photographer and photojournalist known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression.

Born:  November 3, 1903,

Died: April 10, 1975,

FORMALISM

Definition: The Design, Composition and Lighting are dominant over Subject MatterThe photographer becomes a visual designer whenever a frame is captured.

The main components of formalism are:

Line: lines shown in photos, the directions/angels they go and how that effects the photograph

this imagine by Philipp Klinger is a great example of how intentional lines can effect the atmosphere of an image and demonstrates when lines are the leading formal element if an image.

Shape: acknowledging shape in an image is acknowledging and analysing the at first obvious features of an image.

this image by CRISTIANOGERARDI shows how shape can be used in creative ways to make an image more impactful and interesting.

Form:Form refers to when shape takes on three dimensions. Form is created by shadows and highlights on an object in the photograph.

this image by Juergen Roth shows how good understanding of how to capture lights and darks in a photograph will effect your ability to compose a convincing and interesting photograph.

Texture :the visual quality of the surface of an object, revealed through variances in shape, tone and colour depth.

Texture brings am image to life and add vibrancy to an image

Colour : is a very important aspect of an image in all cases but when it is the main focal point of an image it creates a very interesting a recognisable effect

as demonstrated in tis image by  Sarah Polger

Depth 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.”2

symmetry when two halves of an image hold the same weight and give a perfect balance between two sides of your photograph.

Lightroom

my first experiment with editing photos and adobe Lightroom.

here i have experimented with a few different types of effects on still life’s i took earlier in the week if i need to achieve similar effects in the future i will refer to this post.

above I attempted to use adobe Lightroom too create a soft grey scale image, I believe I achieved this effect well considering its a first attempt utilising the recourses shown above.

due to the nature of the objects in this photo i wanted to create a vintage effect in the images above and bellow.

in the image above i went for a grey scale effect and although i managed to create an image with depth it didn’t provide the “coming off the page” effect i wanted to achieve with this vintage style of edition so bellow i experimented with still giving the perception of a grey scale photo but attempted to bring forward some duller colours to bring to image into more of an interesting colour rage to perceive and think about.

here i worked to create a blurry an almost out of focus effect with Lightroom in order to make the war related items seem far off and hazy to represent the death throughout war and bring forward a “heaven” like effect.

above is a still life with war related items,

i wanted to create a dulled image as if yellowed with time and experience, i also brought forward the sharpness if the image to give almost a “grainy” effect as if taken with a poor quality camera .

above i began experimenting with creating more abstract edits with my images, i really enjoy the style of this image and think i will begin to incorporate it in more of my word if appropriate, i enjoy the alien effect of the image.

above i continued experimenting with tints to create an abstract effect although i find this image interesting it is too flat to the screen.

Still life’s

The term “still life” describes a work of art that shows inanimate objects from the natural or man-made world, such as fruit, flowers, dead game, and/or vessels like baskets or bowls. Looked at another way: still life’s depict things that are “still” and don’t move.

The earliest known still life paintings were created by the Egyptians in the 15th century. Funerary paintings of food, including crops, fish, and meat, have been discovered in burial sites.

“Still-Life Found in the Tomb of Menna” (Photo: The Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

During the Middle Ages, artists changed the still life for religious purposes. In addition to incorporating symbolic arrangements ( a Lilly for purity and innocence) , they also used them to decorate manuscripts. Objects like coins, seashells, and fruit can be found in the borders of these book.

Hours of Catherine of Cleves,” 1440

Northern Renaissance artists popularized still life iconography with their flower paintings. These pieces typically showcase colourful flowers “from different countries and different continents in one vase an blooming at the same time” and often do not feature other subject matter. These paintings rose to prominence in the early 17th century, when artists grew increasingly interested in creating realistic studies of everyday items.

Jan Brueghel the Elder, “Flowers in a Wooden Vessel,” 1606 – 1607 (Photo: Google Art Project via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

Dutch Golden Age artists took this fascination in detailed floral art a step further with their vanitas paintings. Vanitas paintings are inspired by memento mori, a genre of painting thats Latin name translates to “remember that you have to die.” These pieces often pair cut flowers with objects like human skulls, candles, and overturned hourglasses to comment on ‘the fleeting nature of life.’

Pieter Claesz, “Vanitas – Still Life,” 1625 (Photo: Memory of the Netherlands via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

As still life’s continued in popularity throughout the ages modern day photographers began to experiment at first because of the nature of the photos being ‘still’ and easier to capture with less advanced cameras but quickly became a popular classical style of photography.