In 1963, Jewish photographer Arnold Newman was commissioned by Newsweek to take a portrait of Alfred Krupp, a convicted Nazi war criminal. At first, Newman refused, but eventually, he decided to take the assignment as a form of personal revenge. The resulting portrait became one of the most controversial and significant images of its time.

Alfred Krupp by Arnold Newman

Alfred Krupp was a German industrialist who ran the Krupp empire, a major arms manufacturer during World War II. Convicted as a war criminal for his company’s use of slave labour, he was later pardoned. Despite his pardon, Krupp remained a controversial figure, and his reputation as a ruthless businessman and war profiteer followed him.

To capture the image he envisioned, Newman had a platform erected, positioning Krupp against an industrial backdrop. He asked Krupp to lean forward slightly and clasp his fingers under his chin, creating an unsettling and sinister appearance. The portrait captured the essence of Krupp’s character, making him look like the embodiment of evil.

Newman wanted to take this photograph as a way or revenge for what Krupp had done in his past especially to Newman’s own race. Which Newman executed perfectly capturing his pure evil and upsetting Krupp.

Arnold Newman. Igor Stravinsky

This picture is dominated by a grand piano silhouetted against a white wall with the composer confined to the corner.

His black and white portrait of Igor Stravinsky seated at a grand piano became his signature image, even though it was rejected by the magazine that gave the assignment to Newman. Taken during a rehearsal in New York (December 1, 1946), the image juxtaposes Stravinsky with the piano, and together they form the shape of a musical note. 

The image is almost monotone, dominated by the stark geometric contrast between the white wall and the black piano. Newman deliberately used the open lid of the piano because he felt “It is like the shape of a musical flat symbol—strong, linear, and beautiful, just like Stravinsky’s work.”

His dramatic cropping of the composition was a key technique that Newman often utilised to make for more immediate impact. He would routinely experiment with aggressive crops of his original picture, intending to maximise the overall effect.

Emotional

The effect of this image makes me feel uncomforted because it is dark, looks cold, gloomy, rough, creates a male stereotype look and how the walls haven’t been cleaned shows unhygienic which also leads to uncomforting. He also has no emotion in his face which makes us feel like he is stopping us from entering.

Visual

Their is a dark, abandoned look to the photograph by having the bottom of the photo really dark an the overall photo dark with the man staring straight at the camera in the middle and the only light source being the sunlight through the windows above. Everything in the background looks old, industrial, rusty, stained or has graffiti on.

Technical

The two pillars and the perspective help create symmetry on the photo because it keeps the man in the middle with equal objects on each side. The light is used from different side angles, (left and right of his body), with one coming in from behind showing us that he is the main subject in the photograph.

Conceptual

The portrait captured the essence of Krupp’s character, making him look like the embodiment of evil. He took this photo because he was Jewish and Krupp was a convicted Nazi war criminal. But eventually after many refuses, Newman agreed as a form of personal revenge. It then later became one of the most controversial and significant images of it’s time.

Contextual

Newman was very popular for using his skillful techniques such as natural light. His work was influenced by the work of the Cubists, including Picasso, influenced the way he structures a photograph. He is mostly important for pioneering and popularizing the environmental portrait.

For this Photograph I used the brush on the background but slanted the camera to give it a 3D look and also added a light behind the object to create a glow and better effect.

For Single Life I really liked the look of a still object in Black and White because it gives it an old, antique look that almost shows what people used to use for tools in the past but in fact people still do everyday! 😊

I chose these three tools because I really like how they all are different with either different backgrounds or different angles. But also are very similar themed with very different meanings.

Here is a few of my single object photos. I used a light behind the tools for some of the photos because I really liked how the glow behind the object looks because it gives it a silhouette and also I can change the colour of the glow if I want a different effect/look.

Walker Evans

Walker Evans was an American photographer and photojournalist best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans’ work from the FSA period uses the large format, 8×10-inch view camera.

Evans’ most famous photo was a portrait of Allie May Burroughs- a farmer’s wife, and mother of four – whose unforgettable eyes seem to stare right through us – is one of the most firmly embedded images in American consciousness.

This is some examples of Walker Evans’ work, where he takes simple flat photographs of different tools and then makes them black and white and maybe even give them a reflection or shadow to create dark, old, almost scary feel to the photographs. Also, they all don’t use any colour only shadow colours like grey, black and white and some pictures he gave an almost floating effect by using no shadow by using extra lights which also helps capture all the details on each tool.

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.
Darren is an accomplished Leader with a focus on designing culture, strategic thinking, change management, operational design, HR and project leadership.

Darren Harvey-Regan’s photos are very bold and powerful and this picture in particular has a very strong contrast between the block and the shadow. This makes the object used stand out and look more powerful. The use of shape and line in this image makes the object appear more interesting to look at and gives the object a different composition.

These photos are actually montages of Walker Evans’ work when many people think it is Darren Harvey-Regan’s work.

My Top 3 edited Still-Life images.

First Photo Editing Process

For my photograph, I first made the background purple whilst making the shadows darker and the highlights brighter so above the sunglasses is a lighter purple which also helps the reflection on the sunglasses because they had lighter parts on too! Also, used the vignette to create a shadow around the whole photo making it seem darker and surrounded.

Second Photo Editing Process

Third Photo Editing Process

These are some of my photos I have taken, a lot of the photos I used a 3D further away look, but for a lot of the other ones I also used the 2D over-head look with capturing all the tools, books and other objects.

Strongest photos:

For these photographs, what I did was use the infinity curve for the objects to go on. I placed the different objects in the centre apart from the shoes which I put the middle of them in the centre. Then turned all the main lights off, but kept a still standing light on with the cool side of it on. Faced it towards my objects and then took the picture.

But for the camera what I did was put the aperture around f/16 which is kind of high because I don’t need to blur the background as it is plain and dark already. A low shutter speed because the object is still, it doesn’t need a high shutter speed. Finally, a high ISO because I wanted it to be fairly dark and that is what gives the gloomy/dark feel especially for the tower.

In this photo this is old objects but gives the viewer a lightened feel with the background having a pinkish tint, and with the texture being very smooth it gives a friendly/young feel.

Photographs consist of formal and visual elements and have their own ‘grammar’. Examples of visual and formal elements consist such as line, shape, repetition, rhythm, balance and many more. Steiglitz and Strand, “often 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.”

Light– e.g. where’s the brightest areas, any shadows, can you tell the time of day through the picture, natural light or artificial, harsh or soft and directed or reflected light.

You can see in this photo that the whole photo is dark but their is a light that shines straight across the objects to show, that’s the importance and main focus in the photo.

Line– Any objects in the picture that acts like lines. Straight or curvy, thin or thick.

There are multiple lines in this picture, all different sizes. But the thin lines are used to just outline shapes whilst the thick lines are used to stand out.

Repetition/Shape– Any objects, shapes, lines or other subjects that repeat and create a rhythm or pattern. Echoes, reflections that also are in photos.

The repetition of all of the pegs are used to create structure to the photo without layering it and piling the picture too much.

Space– Any geometric (straight edged) or organic, (curvy) shapes? What shapes are they and how they relate to each other.

Texture/Value/Tone– Are there important negative (empty) spaces in addition to positive (solid) space. Ground or background, if you could touch the surface of the photograph how would it feel? How do the objects in the picture look like they would feel, is there a range of tones from dark to light. Where is the darkest part of the image, where is the lightest.

Colour– Where is the darkest part of the image? Where is the lightest? Are the tones in the photograph balanced or does the image tend towards darkness or lightness overall. How does this affect the mood or atmosphere?
What kind of colours can you see e.g. saturated, muted, complementary, primary? Is there a dominant colour? How would this image be different if it was in black and white?

Composition– Does the use of colour help us understand the subject or does it work independently?
How have the various elements in the picture been arranged? Does the image seem balanced or unbalanced? Is it possible to superimpose geometrical shapes on the image to better understand the composition e.g. a pyramid? Has the photographer used the Rule of Thirds?