My Nostalgia Photos Art Gallery

Artsteps

Photoshop

My Single Object Photos Art Gallery

Artsteps

Contact Sheet/Image Selection

For these images, I took them over a large, white piece of card whilst my Dad held up the torch. I set my camera settings to a fast shutter speed and auto ISO. The images which have been coloured green are the ones that I am going to be editing as they as the most clear and detailed.

Edits

To edit each of these photos, I cropped and rotated them and made them B&W, whilst also sometimes making adjustments to things such as exposure, texture and clarity, etc.

These are my final results:

Experimentation

I decided to try and imitate Darren Harvey-Regan’s work using my own photos, rather than Walker Evans’.

I did this by opening the images in Adobe Photoshop and using the Object Selection Tool to select the tools and remove them from their background.

I then cropped half of the tool and resized them so that they fit together.

These are my results:

Walker Evans

Walker Evans was a Photographer and Journalist who was best known for his work documenting the Great Depression. He was born in 1903 and unfortunately passed in 1975. His photographs generally captured the everyday struggles and lives of people which has made a lasting impact to documentary photography. Walker Evan’s work is recognised to this day for its cultural and historical significance and influences many other photographers, such as Diane Arbus. Walker Evans also produced a series of photographs named ‘Beauties of the Common Tool’. This is a series of still life photos featuring tools in black and white.

Beauties of the Common Tool

This series was posted in Fortune Magazine in 1955, spread across 5 pages. It captures a variety of tools, shot from above with the same lighting that appears to give them depth and emphasise their small details. These images could be an example of typologies as they clearly have the use of the same lighting, angles and they have the same purpose, which is to highlight the elegance of the tools. Additionally, Walker Evans intentionally made these images boring and not interesting so that the viewers will focus on the tools.

Darren Harvey-Regan

Darren Harvey Regan is an English Photographer, born in 1974, who’s work is highly inspired by literature and the forming of words to convey ideas. He personally believes that most of his work is a sculptural in the process and photographic in the end result. In 2010, he graduated the Royal College of Art and since has had many exhibitions and features in Museums, such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Some of Darren Harvey-Regan’s Work

Darren Harvey-Regan typically makes sculptures out of plaster and photographs them, however, he also produced a series of photographs in which he digitally montaged Walker Evans’ photographs by snipping and rejoining them to make them into something more enticing and unique. These photographs were printed out 87 x 69cm and are rephrased versions of Evans’ work.

Darren Harvey-Regan Interpretations of Walker Evans’ work

Work Comparison

Technically, both pieces of work are originally by Walker Evans, however, Darren Harvey-Regan used Evans’ photos to make them into something more. Regan’s montages appear much more interesting and, by first glance, may be quite confusing to some viewers as they no longer appear as ‘common’ tools. The contrast between the tools and background in both artworks draw your focus towards the tools and in Darren Harvey-Regan’s montages the tools appear to have been made darker with a lighter background. This makes the images appear more clear and pristine.

Formalism is a type of photography in which attention and accuracy is put into the composition, detail, lighting and camera settings, etc. over the main subject. The photographer often aims to draw your eyes to the formal elements of the photo. These elements include light, lines and shapes, patterns, colours, texture, value/tone, space and composition.

There are 7 different aspects of Formalism:

Line

Lines come in all different forms and types. For example, they can either be straight, curved or a combination of the two. They can also be:

• Solid – Most commonly found in the physical world
• Dashed – Easy to draw but not as prevalent in the physical world
• Implied –
• Psychological – Imaginary, created by, for example, the gaze of a subject

Furthermore, they can also be vertical, horizontal or diagonal.

Shape

When a line, or multiple lines, connect or close, a shape is formed. Shapes can be the outline of an object, familiar or unfamiliar. When a shape is unfamiliar or unrecognisable, it is often when an object is viewed from a different perspective.

Different shapes can combine to create a new shape by intersecting or overlapping. The area containing a shape is often referred to as positive space and the outside area is called negative space, however, negative space creates its own shape.

There are two basic types of shapes in photography:

• Geometric – standard shapes such as circles, squares, triangles, etc. Often man-made.
• Organic – the outline of an animal or plant, etc. The shape of a cloud or rain puddle could also be defined as an organic shape. These shapes are often natural and not man-made.

Shapes are everywhere in photography and the world around us.

Form

Form is 3 Dimensional and has overall height, width and depth. Alike shapes, there are two different types of form, geometric (normal) and organic. Examples of geometric forms are: sphere, cube, cone and cylinder. Organic forms are the objects which surround us in the world. When a photo is taken of forms, they become 2 Dimensional as the image does not have depth, however forms can be perceived by shadows.

Texture

Texture can be defined as ‘the visual or tactile surface characteristics and appearance of something’. Textures in “real life” can be smooth or rough. Other ways of describing texture could be slimy, bumpy, shiny, soft, slippery, etc. Texture is similar to form in the way that it can be revealed by variations in tonality. Texture cannot be physically felt through a photograph but it can mentally. For example, if someone looks at a photo of a fluffy blanket, they could imagine what it would feel like if it’s a familiar feeling to them.

Colour

Colour can be described as ‘a specific combination of hue, saturation and brightness’ or ‘visual perception that enables one to differentiate otherwise identical objects’. Colour has 3 properties:

• Hue – the description of the colour (e.g. blue, red, yellow, etc.)
• Value – the relative brightness or darkness of a colour
• Saturation – the intensity or purity of a colour

Colours can be perceived as meaning various things such as: red means danger, yellow is happy and blue is sad. Bold and bright colours are known for grabbing our eye. Having a bold and bright subject in a photo can be good but if the subject was muted and dull but there’s bright colours elsewhere it could detract your eye from the subject.

Harmonic colours are colours that compliment each other. These colours in a photograph can create a powerful image, this is the same with muted tones. The reflected light we see as colour is light from the sun or artificial sources that is absorbed and reflected by different objects.

Size

Size can be defined as ‘a physical magnitude’ or ‘relative or proportionate dimensions’. Size in a photograph is relative and can be an illusion. When a familiar object appears within a photo, we can determine the scale by looking at it. Optical illusions can make it difficult to determine the size of an object within a photograph. Things that are unfamiliar to a person in a photograph would make it almost impossible for them to determine its size. This is called size constancy, which does not exist to a child as everything is new to them. The size of a common object in the photography gives the scene a sense of scale. To emphasize the size of an object in the photograph, you could brig the lens closer to it. Overlapping objects also gives hints to size as when one object is close in front of another and is smaller than the object behind it, we generally know the relative sizes of the two objects.

Depth

Depth can be defined as ‘the direct linear measurement from front to back’. How well the depth is shown in a photograph depends on the objects in the frame, choice of composition and your perspective in relation to the objects in the frame. Depth is provided by visual cues. Depth can be show by a road narrowing as it gets further from the camera. This is called linear perspective as the road doesn’t actually narrow, it just looks like it does. Aerial perspective, also known as atmospheric perspective refers to how the distant objects in a photograph have less clarity, indicating depth. Texture gradient shows depth in a photograph, as we,, as size diminution (when an object is smaller, it appears more distant). Finally, upward dislocation shows depth.

I have taken photos for Still Life under the theme of Nostalgia. To do this, I collected some old objects from when I was younger and arranged them in multiple ways.

Lightroom

This is my Adobe Lightroom Classic setup, I uploaded my photos and made a folder for them then arranged them by colour coding them. Green being good, yellow alright and red bad.

This is the folder I created showing my best Still Life Photos before editing:

Camera Settings

When taking the photos I made sure that the image had a good exposure by lowering the ISO and increasing the shutter speed when taking photos in a bright environment. I also made sure that the image was focussed, switching between both manual and auto focus. I took the photos with a low aperture as only a low depth of field was needed due to the objects being close to the lense.

Editing process

Edit 1

To edit this photo, firstly, I cropped it then decreased the exposure, contrast and whites. This made the image less vibrant, therefore I increased the saturation because, to me, nostalgia is colourful and not dull, therefore I want my image to reflect that.

My intention for this image was to show the early events of my life as the baby journal is a record of my first experiences, such as my first step or my first smile, the pig is from the first time I ever went pottery painting and the ticket is from the first show I ever went to. I could improve this photo by making the background more white as, due to the decrease in exposure, it has become greyish blue.

Edit 2

To edit this photo, I began my cropping it then using the adjustment brush tool to balance out the background by changing the exposure in different areas. I then decreased the overall exposure and used the adjustment brush over the dress to increase the exposure and saturation. I also decreased the contrast .

This is a photo of my first ever dress. I had no intention for this photograph, I just thought I would be effective. I think this image links to nostalgia as the subject of the photograph is an outfit which holds many memories from when I was a baby.

Edit 3

To edit this photo, I started off by cropping it then I increased the texture and made slight adjustments to the whites and vibrancy. I decided to leave the exposure as it was as I believe that the photograph already has good exposure.

My intention for this photo was to arrange my nostalgic objects in a way similar to Still Life Paintings, where artists gathered various objects, often fruit and arranged them to paint. This image links to nostalgia because it includes many objects from when I was a baby which all have significant meaning to me.

Edit 4

To edit this photo, I rotated in to make the newspaper straighter then increased shadows, whites and texture. Once completed, I cropped the edges of the image as I wasn’t satisfied.

My intention for this photo was to make the bottom of the hat lead your eye towards the small image on the newspaper, which was a photo of me as a baby wearing the same hat.

Edit 5

For this edit, firstly, I cropped the top of the photograph as you could see the edge of the table. Next, I used the brush adjustment tool to increase the exposure at top of the image because I believe it was too dark. Finally, I finished off by increasing the texture and clarity of the entire photo.

My intention for this image was to represent my first Christmas. I did this by gathering objects such as the dress I wore later on that day, my 1st Christmas hat and a photo of me on that day.

Edit 6

For this edit, firstly, I rotated and cropped the photograph. Then, I decreased the contrast because I think that it was a bit too dark. Lastly, I increased highlights, texture and clarity to make the ballet shoes a lighter colour. This makes the photo more nostalgic rather than sombre.

Both this image and the one below had no intention, however I think that they relate to nostalgia as they are my first ever ballet shoes and I used to love ballet. I personally think that these are effective images as these shoes hold many memories to me. For example, when we would do little shows in our classes for our parents and when I used to dance around the house wearing them.

Edit 7

I edited this photo by, firstly, cropping it. Then, I used the brush tool to balance out the exposure of the bottom of the image. After that, I slightly adjusted the overall clarity and, lastly, used the brush tool to increase the exposure of the background.

Final Images

Image diagnosis of my own image

This is my personal favourite of my images. This image looks to be in focus, possibly indicating that it was taken with a normal depth of field as the objects aren’t very far from the camera lense and all of them are in focus, as well as the background. This photo was taken using a softbox that’s triggered by the push of the shutter button on the camera. You can tell by the shadows that the softbox was to the left of the objects. Perhaps, the lighting would have been more effective if it were straight on to the objects so that there would be no shadows. I would say that this image has an unbalanced exposure due to the shadows and how the image looks darker from left to right. I used a low ISO for this photo and high shutter speed to make the image clear and not too over-exposured. The image has a slight tint off yellow, giving off the effect that it was taken within tungsten lighting. In conclusion, this photo could be improved by positioning the softbox straight on to the objects.

Still life is a work of art depicting of inanimate/non-living factors.

It originated in Ancient Egypt then resurfaced and became more popular in the classical period, during the 1700s. Although this is when it became more popular, there is evidence that Jacopo de’Barbari, an Italian Painter, painted a still life piece in 1504.

Still Life Timeline

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nstl/hd_nstl.htm

In class, we worked as a team to analyse a photo and this was our final outcome:

Q1: What is the etymology (origin & history) of the word photography?

Writing with light.

Q2: What year was the first photograph made in camera?

1826 (Joseph Nicéphore Niépce)

Q3: When did the first photograph of a human appear?

1838 (Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre)

Q4: Who made the first ‘selfie’

Robert Cornelius (1839)

Q5: When did the first colour photograph appear?

1861 (James Clerk Maxwell)

Q6: What do we mean by the word genre?

A style or category of art

Q7: What do we mean by the genre of still-life?

An image that shows inanimate objects from the natural or man-made world.

Q8: What was the main purpose of the Pictorialist movement?

To affirm photography as an art form

Q9: How do we describe the term documentary photography?

An interpretation of reality as witnessed by the photographer.

Q10: What is exposure in photography?

The amount of light that reaches your camera’s sensor.

Q11: What controls exposure on your camera?

Aperture, shutter speed, ISO.

Q12: What control on our camera records moving objects?

Shutter

Q13: How do we explain depth of field?

How much of your image is in focus.

Q14: What factors affect Depth of Field?

Lens aperture, distance from camera to subject, and lens focal length.

Q15: What is composition in photography?

The arrangement of visual elements within the frame.

Q16: What is your understanding of aesthetics in art?

Aesthetic qualities refer to the way and artwork looks and feels.

Q17: What are contextual studies in photography?

To provide historial, cultural and theoterical understanding of images.

Q18: How many images are captured on average every day worldwide?

4.7 billion

Q19: Which portrait is the most reproduced in the world?

The Queen (Elizabeth II)