Emphasizing elements such as line, colour, shape, texture, and other aspects rather than the subject matter, the work of the photographers Walker Evans and Darren Harvey-Regan are examples of formalism within photography.

Walker Evans

Walker Evans was an American photographer born 3rd November, 1903 and died 10th April, 1975. He was one of the leading photographers in in the history of American documentary photography. Evans had a great influence towards the evolution of ambitious photography during the second half of the 20th century. He began taking photographs in the late 1920s on a European trip, and published his first images in 1920 upon returning to New York.

The portfolio ‘Beauties of the Common Tool” by Walker Evans was published in 1955, where Evans appreciated the common tool and displayed them on their own. These photographs were taken of the common tools suspended behind a plain backgrounds. These photographs were taken in greyscale, eliminating the distractions that the colour on the tool may bring, and fully focusing on these objects for what they are.

Many photographs by Walker Evans were taken on a 8×10 inch view camera. The years 1935-36 were ones of highly productivity and accomplishment for Evans, as this is where he documented the effects of The Great Depression whilst working a a photojournalist, best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration. He has described his goal as a photographer was to make pictures that are “literate, authoritative, transcendent”.

---

Darren Harvey-Regan

Darren Harvey-Regan is a photographer born in 1974 in the United Kingdom. He is interested in the concept that photographs exist not only to show things, but also to become physical objects themselves. As shown in the photograph above, he cut matching ordinary tools in half and then joined these halves together, creating a unique and bizarre object.

Darren Harvey-Regan graduated from the Royal College of art. His work has been displayed internationally in exhibitions and publications, and also is part of the permanent photography collection at the V&A Museum in London. Through his photographs, he aims to work in the liminal space where flat representation ends, and three-dimensional object begins.

Walker Evans’ work hugely influenced Darren Harvey-Regan, and both artists had great attention to detail to their choosing of objects, composition, lighting and exposure values. However, despite the clear similarities between these two artists, there are a few differences also. For example, Walker Evans photographs common objects without altering their appearance, whilst Darren Harvey-Regan does.

---

Formalism photoshoot – contact sheets

Contact sheets with edits:

My photos before and after editing:

---

Final Images

I edited my photos in greyscale, with inspiration from Walker Evans and Darren Harvey-Regan. Whilst editing, I focused on the main elements of formalism and emphasized those aspects of the photographs.

Formalism in photography emphasizes elements such as line, colour, shape, texture, and other aspects rather than the subject matter.

The seven basic elements to photographic art and formalism are:

Line – A geometric element that is made up of a moving point which extends along the path of the point.

Lines can be curved, straight or a combination of the two. Lines can be vertical or horizontal or somewhere in between. They can also be solid, dashed, interrupted, implied or psychological.

Shape – The visible characteristics which makeup a particular spatial form.

Shapes are two-dimensional and can be measured by height and width. Shapes can be the outline of an either familiar or an unfamiliar object.

Form – The shape and structure of something as distinguished from its material.

Form can be geometric (regular) and organic. Form is three-dimensional and has an overall height, width and depth.

Texture – The visual or tactile surface characteristics and how something appears and looks.

Texture is able to be smooth or rough, but there are other commonly used descriptions also used such as; soft, slimy, wet, hard, shiny, bumpy, etc. These are often presented in two dimensions, like in photographs.

Colour – A phenomenon of light or a visual perception which allows us to view the appearance of objects and light sources and be able to differentiate otherwise identical objects.

The three properties of colour are hue (description of a colour, e.g. blue, red, etc.), value (brightness or darkness) and saturation (intensity/purity of a colour). Light itself has no perceived colour.

Size – The relative extent of something, the overall dimensions or magnitude of it.

In a photograph, size is relative and can be an illusion. When an unfamiliar object is in the scene, it could be difficult to get an understanding of its size, however, familiar objects in the scene help us determine the scale shown in the photograph.

Depth – The direct linear measurement from front to back.

Most images have a foreground, middle ground, and background. Even a casual photo has a sense of depth due to visual cues. A stronger sense of depth in an image is when the delineation between those “grounds” is stronger.

Photoshoot – Contact sheets

---

Edits

---

Final Images

Still life describes a photograph that shows inanimate objects from the natural or man-made world. 

Examples of still life paintings/photos:

• The top image, by Abraham van Beyeren, includes objects and foods which symbolise wealth and luxury. This photo appears to be created longer ago than the photo by Laura Letinsky, yet still including similar objects, such as fruit which is seen as ‘exotic’, which symbolises wealth.
• The image on the bottom, by Laura Letinsky, includes fruits and vegetables and presents plates of leftover food. The source of light seems to be natural and the image follows the rule of thirds. This photo appears to be more modern than the image created by Abraham van Beyeren.

Still life derives from the Dutch word ‘stilleven’, from the 17th century. This is when paintings of objects became widely popular throughout Europe. This term was used more often as artists created more complex pieces, communicating a wider variety of objects and allegorical meanings.

---

Chronological timeline of still life photography:

The earliest known still life artwork originates from Ancient Egypt. These paintings were made in temples as offerings to the gods and did not apply to realism.

Still life in Ancient Greece and Rome appeared in mosaics on the floors and paintings. Colours and shading became realistic, unlike the Egyptians’ still-life artworks.

Interest in still life dissipated after the fall of Rome until the 1500s in Northern Europe, where they developed oil paint, allowing for a much greater detail in paintings. The Northern European Renaissance is when people began to take on symbolism and depicting wealth in still life artworks. A specific type of still life is the vanitas painting, where artists used skulls, flowers, candles, etc. to symbolise the inevitability of death.

After the renaissance ended, impressionist and post-impressionist artists in the 1800s continued to paint still life, This became impressionism, where these artists experimented with colour and shapes and symbolism became less important.

Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque invented Cubism in the early 1900s as a way of showing several sides of an object at once, as they felt it was a better representation of objects because more of it was in view.

Modern still life painting is more so a reflection of an artists personal style, so 20th century paintings do not tend to be realistic and are instead more abstract.

---

Vanitas – Vanitas is a 17^th-century Dutch genre of still-life photography which symbolises the transience of life and serves as a reminder for the inevitability of death. 

Memento Mori – Memento Mori is an artistic and symbolic trope which serves as a reminder of the inevitability of death. This concept roots from philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity. Furthermore, the concept has also appeared in funerary artwork and architecture beginning from the Medieval period and onwards. 

Symbolism/Metaphors in Still Life photography – Some common symbols and metaphors used in still-life photography and paintings are fruit (wealth- exotic fruits), candles (the passing of time), skulls (the inevitability of death), flowers (life and growth), seashells (purity, birth and fertility), etc.  

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? 

Capture images that truthfully portray people, places and events. 

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) 

William Eggleston

William Eggleston is an American photographer born on the 27th July, 1939. He is widely credited for giving recognition to colour photography as a legitimate art medium. Eggleston was drawn to visual media from a young age, and he began his work during the 1940s and 1950s, where he lived in South America. Fascinated by the cultural shift happening around him, he began photographing these changes.

The image on the right clearly follows the rule of thirds and has natural lighting. This photo has a narrow depth of field, the aperture appears to be F/4 as the background is blurred, the shutter speed seems to be 1/1000 because the image is sharp, and ISO 100.

I have chosen to look at William Eggleston’s work for ‘Nostalgia’ because his photos have a vintage feel. I admire his skilful attention to detail in his photographs, and how every composition is different to another, including landscapes, portraits of people and animals, and more. Something I found remarkably intriguing in Eggleston’s work was how his photos tell a story. For example, in his portraits of people, the viewer is given insight to the variety of personalities he captures with his camera, which especially shines through in the photos which feel natural, and some even candid.

This aspect of his work inspired me for my photoshoots, which for the first photoshoot I took photos of my brother. I wanted these photos to have the same natural feeling as Eggleston’s work does, so I photographed my brother doing a hobby of his, which is fishing, and I also took some closer portraits of him. For the second photoshoot, I wanted to explore the theme of nostalgia further and took photos inside of my Grandma’s house, as it is nostalgic to me.

---

Contact Sheets

Edits (1st Photoshoot)

---

Edits (2nd Photoshoot)

When taking and editing these photos, I was inspired William Eggleston, and the vintage style of his photographs.

Final Images