This quiz will test your knowledge of the origin, history and technical aspects of photography. There are 19 questions with a multi choice of answers and an image which will also add context and help you answer the question correct. it is important that you look at the image before answering.

Link to Kahoot quiz:

Introduction to A-level Photography – Details – Kahoot!

TASK: Produce a blog post with the questions and your answers to the A-level Photography Quiz. Make sure you include images too for each question. Download document below and cun’t & paste into your own blog post.

Use this simplified list to check that you are on task. Every item on the list represents one piece of work = one blog post. It is your responsibility as an A-level student to make sure that you complete and publish appropriate blog posts each week.

Homework and due dates will be listed / issued as necessary…

STILL-LIFE

WEEK 1: 5 – 10 Sept
1. Quiz
2. Formalism: Image analysis
3. Summer Task

WEEK 2: 11 – 17 Sept
1. Still-life: history & theory
2. Still-life: introduction studio-lighting
3. Still-life: photoshoots own objects
4. Camera Skills (aperture, shutter speed, focus)

WEEK 3: 18 – 24 Sept
1. Still-life: photoshoots own objects
2. File Management
3: Adobe Lightroom
4: Still-life editing

WEEK 4: 25 Sept – 1 Oct
1. Formalism/ New Objectivity
2. Artist study: Walker Evans / Darren Regan-Harvey
3. Single Object photoshoot
4. Single Object editing

WEEK 5: 2 – 8 Oct
1. Final photo-shoots: still-life/ single objects
2. Editing: still-life / single objects

WEEK 6: 9 Oct – 15 Oct
1. Photo-montage: history & theory
2. Photo-montage: experimentation
3. Adobe Photoshop

Week 7: 16 Oct – 20 Oct
1. Final images: still Life / photomontage
2. File-handling
3. Review and refine blog posts
4. Virtual gallery and evaluation

Half Term

PORTRAITURE

Week 8: 30 Oct – 5 Nov
1. Environmental portraiture: mind-map > mood-board > definition
2. Artists references: Environmental portraiture
3. School-assignment: environmental portrait of a student
4. Homework assignment: plan and shoot 3 different environmental portraits: outdoor > indoor > 2 or more people
DEADLINE: Mon 6 Nov

Week 9: 6 – 12 Nov
1. Environmental portraiture: editing and experimenting
2. Environmental portraiture: final outcome and evaluation
3. Compare and contrast your best environmental portrait and its inspiration (artist reference)

Follow the 10 Step Process and create multiple blog posts for each unit to ensure you tackle all Assessment Objectives thoroughly :

1. Mood-board, definition and introduction (AO1)
2. Mind-map of ideas (AO1)
3. Artist References / Case Studies (must include image analysis) (AO1)
4. Photo-shoot Action Plan (AO3)
5. Multiple Photoshoots + contact sheets (AO3)
6. Image Selection, sub selection, review and refine ideas (AO2)
7. Image Editing/ manipulation / experimentation (AO2)
8. Presentation of final outcomes (AO4)
9. Compare and contrast your work to your artist reference(AO1)
10. Evaluation and Critique (AO1+AO4)

MY FAMILY: Explore your own private archives such as photo-albums, home movies, diaries, letters, birth-certificates, boxes, objects, mobile devices, online/ social media platforms and make a blog post with a selection of material that can be used for further development and experimentation using a variety of re-staging or montage techniques .

Archives can be a rich source for finding starting points on your creative journey. This will strengthen your research and lead towards discoveries about the past that will inform the way you interpret the present and anticipate the future. See more Public/ Private Archives

For example, you can focus on the life on one parent, grand-parent, family relative, or your own childhood and upbringing. Ask other family members (parents, grand-parents, aunties, uncles) if you can look through their photo-albums too etc.

TASKS STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE: 

1. Either scan or re-photograph archival material so that it is digitised and ready for use on the blog and further experimentation.
2. Plan at least one photo-shoot and make a set of images that respond to your archival research. This can be re-staging old photos or make a similar set of images, eg. portraits of family members and how they have changed over the years, or snapshots of social and family gatherings.
3. Choose one of your images which relates to the theme of family (e.g. archive, family album, or new image you have made) and destroy the same image in 5 different ways using both analogue and digital method techniques. Eg. Reprint old and new photos and combine using scissors/ tearing and glue/ tape. In Photoshop use a variety of creative tools to cut and paste fragments of images to create composites.
4. Produce appropriate blogposts with both family research, archival material and new photographic responses and experiments.

Extension: Choose a second image and destroy it in 5 new or other ways.

Jonny Briggs: In search of lost parts of my childhood I try to think outside the reality I was socialised into and create new ones with my parents and self. Through these I use photography to explore my relationship with deception, the constructed reality of the family, and question the boundaries between my parents and I, between child/adult, self/other, nature/culture, real/fake in attempt to revive my unconditioned self, beyond the family bubble. Although easily assumed to be photoshopped or faked, upon closer inspection the images are often realised to be more real than first expected. Involving staged installations, the cartoonesque and the performative, I look back to my younger self and attempt to re-capture childhood nature through my assuming adult eyes.

Thomas Sauvin and Kensuke Koike: ‘No More, No Less’
In 2015, French artist Thomas Sauvin acquired an album produced in the early 1980s by an unknown Shanghai University photography student. This volume was given a second life through the expert hands of Kensuke Koike, a Japanese artist based in Venice whose practice combines collage and found photography. The series, “No More, No Less”, born from the encounter between Koike and Sauvin, includes new silver prints made from the album’s original negatives. These prints were then submitted to Koike’s sharp imagination, who, with a simple blade and adhesive tape, deconstructs and reinvents the images. However, these purely manual interventions all respect one single formal rule: nothing is removed, nothing is added, “No More, No Less”. In such a context that blends freedom and constraint, Koike and Sauvin meticulously explore the possibilities of an image only made up of itself.

Veronica Gesicka Traces presents a selection of photomontages created by Weronika Gęsicka on the basis of American stock photographs from the 1950s and 1960s. Family scenes, holiday memories, everyday life – all of that suspended somewhere between truth and fiction. The images, modified by Gęsicka in various ways, are wrapped in a new context: our memories of the people and situations are transformed and blur gradually. Humorous as they may seem, Gęsicka’s works are a comment on such fundamental matters as identity, self-consciousness, relationships, imperfection.

John Stezaker: Is a British artist who is fascinated by the lure of images. Taking classic movie stills, vintage postcards and book illustrations, Stezaker makes collages to give old images a new meaning. By adjusting, inverting and slicing separate pictures together to create unique new works of art, Stezaker explores the subversive force of found images. Stezaker’s famous Mask series fuses the profiles of glamorous sitters with caves, hamlets, or waterfalls, making for images of eerie beauty.

His ‘Dark Star’ series turns publicity portraits into cut-out silhouettes, creating an ambiguous presence in the place of the absent celebrity. Stezaker’s way of giving old images a new context reaches its height in the found images of his Third Person Archive: the artist has removed delicate, haunting figures from the margins of obsolete travel illustrations. Presented as images on their own, they now take the centre stage of our attention

There are different ways artists and photographers have explored their own, or other families in their work as visual storytellers. Some explore family using a documentary approach to storytelling, others construct or stage images that may reflect on their childhood, memories, or significant events drawing inspiration from family archives/ photo albums and often incorporating vernacular images into the narrative and presenting the work as a photobook.

Rita Puig-Serra Costa (Where Mimosa Bloom)  vs Laia Abril (The Epilogue)> artists exploring personal issues > vernacular vs archival > inside vs outside

Carole Benitah (Photo Souvenirs) vs Diane Markosian (Inventing My Father) > family > identity > memory > absence > trauma

Ugne Henriko (Mother and Daughter) vs Irina Werning or Chino Otsuka > re-staging images > re-enacting memories

Read article in The Guardian

Homework Task: Develop and write an introductory blog post on the origins of photography. Use the information below to help you create the content for your blog post.
DEADLINE: Mon 23 Sept

Watch the documentary on ‘Fixing the Shadows’ from BBC Genius of Photography, Episode 1.

To embed your understanding of the origins of photography and its beginnings you’ll need to produce a blog post which outlines the major developments and practices. Some will have been covered in the documentary above but you also need to research and discover further information.

Your blog post must contain information about the following and keep it in its chronological order:

• Camera Obscura & Pinhole photography
• Nicephore Niepce & Heliography
• Louis Daguerre & Daguerreotype
• Henry Fox Talbot & Calotype
• Robert Cornelius & self-portraiture
• Julia Margeret Cameron & Pictorialism
• Henry Mullins & Carte-de-Visit

Each must contain dates, text and images relevant to each bullet point above. In total aim for about 1,000-2000 words.

Try and reference some of the sources that you have used either by incorporating direct quotes, paraphrasing or summarising of an idea, theory or concept, or historical fact.

Use Harvard System of Referencing…see Powerpoint: harvard system of referencing for further details on how to use it.

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In addition, research at least one photographer from the list below in the Societe Jersiaise Photographic-Archive and choose one image that references some of the early photographic processes, such as daguerreotype, calotype, salt paper prints, wet plate collodion, albumen prints, autochrome and colour transparencies as part of the origins and evolution of photography and include it in your essay.

Henry Mullins
William Collie
Ernest Baudoux
Clarence P Ouless
Francis Foot
Charles Hugo
Edwin Dale

Photographic-Processes

Camera Obscura

Origins of Photography: Study this Threshold concept 2: Photography is the capturing of light; ​a camera is optional developed by PhotoPedagogy which includes a number of good examples of early photographic experiments and the camera obscura which preceded photography. It also touches on photography’s relationship with light and reality and delve into photographic theories, such as index and trace as a way of interpreting the meaning of photographs.

Photography did not spring forth from nowhere: in the expanding capitalist culture of the late 18th and 19th centuries, some people were on the look-out for cheap mechanical means for producing images […] photography emerged experimentally from the conjuncture of three factors: i) concerns with amateur drawing and/or techniques for reproducing printed matter, ii) light-sensitive materials; iii) the use of the camera obscura
— Steve Edwards, Photography – A Very Short Introduction

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, French (1765 – 1833)

Debates about the origins of photography have raged since the first half of the nineteenth century. The image above left is partly the reason. View from the Window at Le Gras is a heliographic image and arguably the oldest surviving photograph made with a camera. It was created by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 or 1827 at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France. The picture on the right is an enhanced version of the original which shows a view across some rooftops. It is difficult to tell the time of day, the weather or the season. This is because the exposure time for the photograph was over eight hours.

Louis Daguerre, French (1787 – 1851)

What is a daguerreotype?

The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process (1839-1860) in the history of photography. Named after the inventor, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, each daguerreotype is a unique image on a silvered copper plate.

In contrast to photographic paper, a daguerreotype is not flexible and is rather heavy. The daguerreotype is accurate, detailed and sharp. It has a mirror-like surface and is very fragile. Since the metal plate is extremely vulnerable, most daguerreotypes are presented in a special housing. Different types of housings existed: an open model, a folding case, jewelry…presented in a wooden ornate box dressed in red velvet. LD a theatre set designer

The invention of photography, however, is not synonymous with the invention of the camera. Cameraless images were also an important part of the story. William Henry Fox Talbot patented his Photogenic Drawing process in the same year that Louis Daguerre announced the invention of his own photographic method which he named after himself. Anna Atkins‘ British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions of 1843 is the first use of photographic images to illustrate a book. This method of tracing the shapes of objects with light on photosensitive surfaces has, from the very early days, been part of the repertoire of the photographer.

Henry William Fox-Talbot, British (1800 – 1877)

Fox Talbot was an English member of parliament, scientist, inventor and a pioneer of photography.

Fox Talbot went on to develop the three primary elements of photography: developing, fixing, and printing. Although simply exposing photographic paper to the light produced an image, it required extremely long exposure times. By accident, he discovered that there was an image after a very short exposure. Although he could not see it, he found he could chemically develop it into a useful negative. The image on this negative was then fixed with a chemical solution. This removed the light-sensitive silver and enabled the picture to be viewed in bright light. With the negative image, Fox Talbot realised he could repeat the process of printing from the negative. Consequently, his process could make any number of positive prints, unlike the Daguerreotypes. He called this the ‘calotype’ and patented the process in 1841.

In the month of August 1835, William Henry Fox Talbot produced the first photographic negative to have survived to this day. The subject is a window. Despite the clear connection, it is an entirely different image compared to those of his colleagues Niépce and Daguerre. Those are photographs taken from a window, while this is the photograph of a window. From the issue of realism, we shift here into an extremely modern outlook which today would be likened to conceptual and metalinguistic discourse. While the window constitutes the most immediate metaphor to refer to photography, Talbot doesnʼt use it but more simply he photographs it. He thus takes a photograph of photography. The first to comment on this was the author himself, writing a brief note (probably added when it was displayed in 1839) on the card upon which it is mounted. The complete text reads:

Latticed Window (with the Camera Obscura)
August 1835 When first made, the squares of glass, about 200 in number could be counted, with help of a lens⁶

Robert Cornelius, American (1809-1893)

Julia Margaret Cameron, British (1815 – 1879)

She is known for her soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian men and for illustrative images depicting characters from mythology, Christianity, and literature.

Much of her work has connections to pictorialism and even movements such as The Pre-Rapahelites, and often had a dream-like, constructed quality to the images.

Henry Mullins, British (1818-1880) Lived and worked in Jersey 1848-73

Between 1850-73 Henry Mullins made over 9000 carte de visite portraits of Jersey’s ruling elite and wealthy upper classes. The collection that exists of his work comes through his studio albums, in which he placed his clients in an ordered grid with reference to mid-nineteenth century social hierarchies.

In 2013 Michelle Sank spent 6 months in Jersey as the inaugural Archisle International Photographer-in-Residence. She took inspiration from Henry Mullins collection of images and produced a new set of portraits that reflects upon a culturally diverse and more inclusive demographic of islanders as Jersey. In the photo-zine ED.EM.03 – on the social matrix Mullins 19th century portraits are paired with Sank’s images from 2013. Viewed together they represent 165 years of the practice of photographic portraiture in Jersey. During that period the island has undergo major social and economic changes. Through these photographers’ works, we examine those changes and the power structures that remain in place within this insular society. 

 ENVIRONMENTAL PORTRAITS usually depict people in their…

• working environments
• environments that they are associated with…

“An environmental portrait is a portrait executed in the subject’s usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject’s life and surroundings. The term is most frequently used of a genre of photography”

TASK 1 Introduce and define Environmental Portraits

1. Choose a range of portraits to develop a grid of images (minimum of 9) to show your understanding of what an environmental portrait can be…
2. You must include a range of approaches to the portraits in your mood-board…

We will be studying the history, theory and concept of environmental portraits…their purpose and role in our day to day lives too.

1. Design a mind-map / mood-board / spider-gram / flowchart of environmental portrait ideas
2. Think about the ways in which we use these portraits, and what they can say about us / reveal / conceal
3. define what an environmental portrait actually is
4. Add your mind-map to your blog post
5. Choose a photographer from the list below to research and write about…include specific examples of their work and show that you can analyse and interpret their image(s).

>>You can find resources here<<

M:DepartmentsPhotographyStudentsResourcesPortraitureTO DO

and here : M:DepartmentsPhotographyStudentsPlanners Y12 JACUnit 2 Portrait Photography

August Sander – The Face of Our Time

One of the first photographic typological studies was by the German photographer August Sander, whose epic project ‘People of the 20th Century‘ (40,000 negatives were destroyed during WWII and in a fire) produced volume of portraits entitled ‘The Face of Our Time’ in 1929. Sander categorised his portraits according to their profession and social class.  Sander’s methodical, disciplined approach to photographing the world has had an enormous influence on later photographers, notably Bernd and Hilla Becher. This approach can also be seen in the work of their students Thomas Struth and Thomas Ruff. Other photographers who have explored this idea include Stephen Shore, Gillian Wearing, Nicholas Nixon, Martina Mullaney and Ari Versluis.Read this article about by Hans-Michael Koetzle about Sander’s epic project.

The art of Photographic Typologies has its roots in August Sander’s 1929 series of portraits entitled ‘Face of Our Time’, a collection of works documenting German society between the two World Wars. Sander sought to create a record of social types, classes and the relationships between them, and recognised that the display of his portraits as a collection revealed so much more than the individual images would alone. So powerful was this record, the photographic plates were destroyed and the book was banned soon after the Nazis came into power four years later.

The term ‘Typology’ was first used to describe a style of photography when Bernd and Hilla Becher began documenting dilapidated German industrial architecture in 1959. The couple described their subjects as ‘buildings where anonymity is accepted to be the style’. Stoic and detached, each photograph was taken from the same angle, at approximately the same distance from the buildings. Their aim was to capture a record of a landscape they saw changing and disappearing before their eyes so once again, Typologies not only recorded a moment in time, they prompted the viewer to consider the subject’s place in the world.

The Becher’s influence as lecturers at the Dusseldorf School of Photography passed Typologies onto the next generation of photographers. Key photographic typologists such as Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Demand and Gillian Wearing lead to a resurgence of these documentary-style reflections on a variety of subject matter from Ruff’s giant ‘passport’ photos to Demand’s desolate, empty cities.

Typologies has enjoyed renewed interest in recent years, thanks partly to recognition from galleries including the Tate Modern who hosted a Typologies retrospective in London in 2011. With it’s emphasis on comparison, analysis and introspection, the movement has come to be recognised as arguably one of the most important social contributions of the 20th century.

Karen Knorr produced a series of portraits, Belgravia and Gentlement of the wealthy upper classes in London

Listen to Alec Soth talk about the story behind the portrait of Charles.

Vanessa Winship is a British photographer who works on long term projects of portrait, landscape, reportage and documentary photography. These personal projects have predominantly been in Eastern Europe but also the USA.

Read an article here where she discusses her best portrait below. Look up her own influences: David Goldblatt, Stephen Shore, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Alec Soth, Fellini (filmmaker).

Read about Siân Davey on the ways psychotherapy has informed her photography here

Laura Pannack is a British social documentary and portrait photographer, based in London. Pannack’s work is often of children and teenagers. Explore more of her work here

Read Laura Pannack’s best photograph: four teenagers on a Black Country wasteland here

Alys Tomlinson is an editorial and fine art documentary photographer based in London. See more of her work here

Lost Summer: These images were taken between June and August 2020. With school proms cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I photographed local teenagers dressed in outfits they would have worn to prom. Instead of being in the usual settings of school halls or hotel function rooms, I captured them in their gardens, backyards and local parks.

Look at these influential photographers for more ideas and information…

• August Sander (1876 – 1964)
• Paul Strand (1890 – 1976)
• Arnold Newman (1918 – 2006)
• Daniel Mordzinski (1960 – )
• Annie Leibovitz (1949 – )
• Mary Ellen Mark (1940 – 2015)
• Jimmy Nelson (1967 – )
• Sara Facio (1932 – )
• Alec Soth
• Vanessa Winship
• Karen Knorr (Gentlemen, Belgravia)
• Rob Hornstra
• Michelle Sank
• David Goldblatt
• Sian Davey
• Laura Pannack
• Alys Tomlinson
• Deanne Lawson
• Thilde Jensen
• Jon Tonk
• Bert Teunissen

Key features to consider with formal / environmental portraits…

• formal (posed)
• head-shot / half body / three quarter length / full length body shot
• high angle / low angle / canted angle
• colour or black and white
• high key (light and airy) vs low key (high contrast / chiarascuro)

Technical > Composition / exposure / lens / light

Visual > eye contact / engagement with the camera / neutral pose and facial expression / angle / viewpoint

Conceptual > what are you intending to present? eg :  social documentary / class / authority / gender role / lifestyle

Contextual >add info and detail regarding the back ground / story / detail / information about the character(s) / connection to the photographer eg family / insider / outsider

Classroom activity: Environmental portrait of a student

Photo-Shoot 1 – homework – due date = Mon 6th November

• Take 100-200 photographs showing your understanding of ENVIRONMENTAL PORTRAITS
• Remember…your subject (person) must be engaging with the camera!…you must communicate with them clearly and direct the kind of image that you want to produce!!!

1. Outdoor environment
2. Indoor environment
3. two or more people

Then select your best 5-10 images and create a blog post that clearly shows your process of taking and making your final outcomes

Remember not to over -edit your images. Adjust the cropping, exposure, contrast etc…nothing more!

Remember to show your Photo-Shoot Planning and clearly explain :

• who you are photographing
• what you are photographing
• when you are conducting the shoot
• where you are working/ location
• why you are designing the shoot in this way
• how you are going to produce the images (lighting / equipment etc)

More Examples

Environmental portraits mean portraits of people taken in a situation that they live in, work in, rest in or play in. Environmental portraits give you context to the subject you are photographing. They give you an insight into the personality and lifestyle of your subject.

Portrait 1: This particular image was photographed by Jane Bown of Quentin Crisp at home in Chelsea in 1978. Quentin Crisp was an English writer, famous for supernatural fiction and was a gay icon in the 1970s. This image was taken in his “filthy” flat as Bown describes. In the back ground we can see piles of books on top of the fireplace shelf which represents his career as a writer and a journalist. It looks as though he is boiling water on the stove which looks out of place because the room looks as if it is in the living room. As you would not normally place a stove in your lounge. He was living as a “Bed-Sitter” which means he had inadequate of storage space, this explains why his belongings were cramped in one room.

Portrait 2: This image was captured by Arnold Newman. He is also known for his “environmental portraiture” of artists and politicians, capturing the essence of his subjects by showing them in their natural surroundings. Here is a portrait of Igor Stravinsky who was a Russian pianist, composer and musician. In this photograph, the piano outweighs the subject which is him and depicts the fact that music was a massive part of him and his life. His body language looks as if he is imitating the way the piano lid is being held up, he is using his hand as a head rest. Another element in the photograph, is that the shape of the piano looks like a musical note which again symbolises his love of music.

Portrait 3: This photograph was also taken by Arnold Newman of John F. Kennedy, an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States of America. This pictures was taken on a balcony at the White house. Mr. Kennedy isn’t directly looking into the camera, he is looking at the view outside which suggests his role as a president because at the time he was one of the most powerful man in the world. He is looking at the scenery, people and his surroundings. The image was taken at a low angle to depict the huge building and the horizontal lines symbolise power, dynamism and control.

Ideas for your environmental photo shoot

Who

• Barber/Hairdresser
• Dentist/Doctor
• Postman
• Market trader
• Florist
• Tattooist
• Musician
• Barista
• Fishmonger
• Butcher
• Baker
• Farmer
• Cleaner
• Chef/Cook
• Stonemason
• Blacksmith
• Fisherman
• Builder/Carpenter
• Sportsman/Coach
• Taxi driver

Where

• Central Market
• Fish Market
• St Helier Shops
• Hair salons/barbers
• Coffee shop
• Farms
• Building Sites
• Harbour
• Sport centres/fields
• Taxi Ranks
• Offices

WHEN

You will have to think ahead and use your photo shoot plan.
You may have to contact people in advance, by phone, or arrange a convenient time. (Ask if you can return later in the day).

Remember to be polite and explain what your are doing and why!

It may surprise you that most people will be proud of what they do as it is their passion and profession and will be happy to show it off!

Don’t be scared. Be brave. Be bold. Be ambitious!!!

Essential Blog Posts

1. Mood-board, definition and introduction (AO1)
2. Mind-map of ideas (AO1)
3. Artist References / Case Study (must include image analysis) (AO1)
4. Photo-shoot Action Plan (AO3)
5. Multiple Photoshoots + contact sheets (AO3)
6. Image Selection, sub selection (AO2)
7. Image Editing/ manipulation / experimentation (AO2)
8. Presentation of final outcomes (AO4)
9. Compare and contrast your work to your artist reference(AO1)
10. Evaluation and Critique (AO1+AO4)

Your next project will be largely based on Landscapes. We will study…

So, to kickstart the project you have a new Photo-Assignment…

Areas to visit and document…

M:DepartmentsPhotographyStudentsPlanners Y12 JACUnit 3 Sept-Dec Landscape

We will be looking at Romanticism and The Sublime as a starting point and if you click here you will have a better understanding of some of the roots of landscape as a genre in contemporary photography….

The focus of your study and research is natural landscapes and the impact of ROMANTICISM and The Sublime in Landscape painting and then later, photography.

Watch this film about the history and influence of Romanticism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q08c76z1Zc

Watch this film about Edmund Burke and the Sublime

https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-21-spring-2011/romanticism-gets-real

TIME PERIOD AND CONTEXT

The Age of The Enlightenment (1700-1800ish)

VS

The Age of Romanticism (1800-1900ish)

“Writers and artists rejected the notion of the Enlightenment, which had sucked emotion from writing, politics, art, etc. and focused too much on science, logic and reason. Writers and artists in the Romantic period favored depicting emotions such as trepidation, horror, and wild untamed nature.”

“The ideals of these two intellectual movements were very different from one another. The Enlightenment thinkers believed very strongly in rationality and science. … By contrast, the Romantics rejected the whole idea of reason and science. They felt that a scientific worldview was cold and sterile.”

The Industrial Revolution 1760-1840 was based upon the efficient exploitation of nature’s raw materials and labour as new scientific theories developed by the Enlightenment thinkers were quickly transformed into practical, money-making applications.

Romanticism in the Visual Arts

Both the English poet and artist William Blake and the Spanish painter Francisco Goya have been dubbed “fathers” of Romanticism by various scholars for their works’ emphasis on subjective vision, the power of the imagination, and an often darkly critical political awareness.

Social Commentary

The Romanticist often had “something to say” with their art…with plenty of discussion points, observations and interpretations.

Use the prompts below to show your understanding of John Constable’s vision of a changing countryside in early 19th England.

The video below looks closely at the Hay Wain. It includes everything you need to analyse this artwork.

PAINTING VS PHOTOGRAPHY – pictorialism

Roger Fenton, inspired by nature and romanticism revisited a spot in Wales where previously the painter Samuel Palmer had been inspired by the natural beauty of this river valley.

Aspects of pictorialism are evident here too…an approach to photography that emphasizes beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality.

Valley of the Shadow of Death is also a photograph by Roger Fenton, taken on April 23, 1855, during the Crimean War. It is one of the most well-known images of war…most likely staged too and is in stark contrast to the example above. Exaggerating and exploiting the surroundings are a key part of creating dramatic imagery and opens up the question of truth in photography

Carelton E. Watkins (1829–1916)

“…it is hard to consider the birth of the environmental movement without mentioning Watkins and the rippling, far-reaching influence of his 1861 images of Yosemite. All that came after – Lincoln’s signing of the Yosemite grant, Muir’s nature writing, the founding of conservation groups such as the Sierra Club – can be traced back to the intake of breath when his images were seen for the first time.”

Fernando Maselli

Drawing inspiration from Edmund Burke’s romantic conception of the sublime and its connection to nature, Madrid-based photographer Fernando Maselli creates photomontages of infinite mountain ranges that speak of the emotions elicited by nature and their connection to creation and reality.

Read more here and here

20th Century 1900 —

Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating “pure” photography which favored sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph…even creating a Zonal System to ensure that all tonal values are represented in the images. Ansel Adams was an advocate of environmental protection, national parks and creating an enduring legacy of responses to the power of nature and sublime conditions…Other members in Group f/64 included Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham among other female photographers who has been overlooked in the history or photography.

IMAGE ANALYSIS: For your analysis of Adams’ work and practice, try and find the story behind the image – as an example, see Monolith, the face of Half Dome, 1927

EXTENSION > COMPARE & CONTRAST: Compare and contrast the work of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston using Photo Literacy Matrix. Find 3 quotes that you can use in your analysis, that either supports/ disapprove your own view. Make sure that you comment on the quote used.

For example, you can use quotes:
1. a quote from Adams’ on Weston’s influence
2. a quote from Adams’ on his own practice, eg. technique, pre-visualisation (zone system), subject (nature), inspiration etc.
3. a quote from Weston on Adams’ images.
4. a quote from someone else, for example a critic, historian that comments either on Adams’ or Weston’s work.

I can’t tell you how swell it was to return to the freshness, the simplicity and natural strength of your photography … I am convinced that the only real security lies with a certain communion with the things of the natural world

— A letter from Edward to Ansel in 1936

Starting points…

Who – were they ?

What – did they do ?

When – was this taking place and what else was happening at the time

Where – was this happen

How – did all of this become synthesised ?

Why – what was driving these changes / developments

RURAL LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHERS

Wynn Bullock

Fay Godwin

Edward Weston

Minor White

Don McCullin

Jem Southam

BLOG POSTS to complete…

1. An introduction to rural landscape photography, including a definition and mood-board of influential images
2. Create an in-depth case study that analyses and interprets the work of a key landscape photographer…EG: Ansel Adams or Edward Weston or Fay Godwin or Don McCullin (or similar)
3. Create a blog post that defines and explains what Romanticism is in Landscape Photography…include examples and make reference to Romanticism in other art-forms eg painting. Discuss the notion of the sublime and the picturesque.

4. Create a mind-map / mood-board of potential locations around Jersey that you could record and create romanticized landscape photographs of….look for extremes (either calm or wild, derelict, desolate, abandoned or stormy, battered and at the mercy of nature)

AIM to photograph the coastline, the sea, the fields, the valleys, the woods, the sand dunes etc.
USE the wild and dynamic weather and elements to help create a sense of atmosphere, and evoke an emotional response within your photo assignment.
PHOTOGRAPH before dark, at sunset or during sunrise…and include rain, fog, mist, ice, wind etc in your work
LOOK for LEADING LINES such as pathways, roads etc to help dissect your images and provide a sense of journey / discovery to them.

5. Take 150-200 photos of romanticised rural landscapes. . Add your edited selective contact sheets / select your best 6-10 images / include edits and screen shots to show this process. Ensure you include both monochrome and colour examples and show experimentation of producing HDR images from your bracketed shots using techniques both in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Photo-assignment

Monday 26th Feb – Monday 4th March due date

6. Produce comparative analysis between one of your images and a landscape photographer you have looked at for inspiration, such as Ansel Adams – discuss similarities and differences and comment on aesthetic connections with Romanticism and The Sublime.

REMEMBER you MUST use PHOTO-LITERACY (TECHNICAL / VISUAL / CONTEXTUAL / CONCEPTUAL) to analyse effectively.

Ensure that you include the following key terms in your blog posts…

EXPOSURE BRACKETING

Exposure bracketing means that you take two more pictures: one slightly under-exposed (usually by dialing in a negative exposure compensation, say -1/3EV), and the second one slightly over-exposed (usually by dialing in a positive exposure compensation, say +1/3EV), again according to your camera’s light meter.

TASK : try a few variation of exposure bracketing to create the exposures that you want…you may already have pre-sets on your phone or camera to help you do this, but experimenting manually will help your understanding!

Many digital cameras include an Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) option. When AEB is selected, the camera automatically takes three or more shots, each at a different exposure. Auto Exposure Bracketing is very useful for capturing high contrast scenes for HDR like this…

…by taking the same photograph with a range of different exposure settings

You can use Exposure Compensation to quickly adjust how light or how dark your exposure will be using these controls…

Or set the amount of “bracketing” like this…

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HDR photography is a technique where multiple bracketed images are blended together to create a single beautifully exposed photograph with a full dynamic range of tones from the very dark to the very brightest.

Your camera can only capture a limited range of lights and darks (i.e., it has a limited dynamic range). If you point your camera at a dark mountain in front of a bright sunset, no matter how much you tweak the image exposure, your camera will generally fail to capture detail in the mountain and the sky; you’ll either capture an image with a beautiful sky but a dark, less detailed mountain, or you’ll capture an image with a detailed mountain but a bright, blown-out sky. High dynamic range photography (HDR) aims to address this issue. Instead of relying on the camera’s limited dynamic range capabilities, you take multiple photos that cover the entire tonal range of the scene.

Ansel Adams zone system was in essence a pre-cursor of HDR with the outcome of producing an image with a full range of tones showing details in both the bright areas and dark shadows.

Panoramic Landscapes

David Hockney Joiner Photo-collage

https://youtu.be/F3q59aeDYqc

Always follow the 10 Step Process and create multiple blog posts for each unit to ensure you tackle all Assessment Objectives thoroughly :

1. Mood-board, definition and introduction (AO1)
2. Mind-map of ideas (AO1)
3. Artist References / Case Studies (must include image analysis) (AO1)
4. Photo-shoot Action Plan (AO3)
5. Multiple Photoshoots + contact sheets (AO3)
6. Image Selection, sub selection, review and refine ideas (AO2)
7. Image Editing/ manipulation / experimentation (AO2)
8. Presentation of final outcomes (AO4)
9. Compare and contrast your work to your artist reference(AO1)
10. Evaluation and Critique (AO1+AO4)

URBAN AND INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPES

Over the next two weeks you will be looking at producing blog posts and responding photographically to:

• New Topographics
• Urban Landscapes
• Industrial Landscapes
• Camera Skills – vantage points/ Typologies (dead-pan aesthetic)

The New Topographics

You will be learning about photographing man-altered landscapes and The New Topographics and will be shown inspiration, influences, background and theory…and will be taken on at least 1 x guided photo-walk.

New Topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz) whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape…

The beginning of the death of “The American Dream”

Many of the photographers associated with The New Topographics including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon and Bernd and Hiller Becher, were inspired by the man-made…selecting subject matter that was matter-of-fact.

New Topographics was inspired by the likes of Albert Renger Patszch and the notion of The New Objectivity

Parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses were all depicted with a beautiful stark austerity, almost in the way early photographers documented the natural landscape. An exhibition at the International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York featuring these photographers also revealed the growing unease about how the natural landscape was being eroded by industrial development.

What was the New Topographics a reaction to?

The stark, beautifully printed images of the mundane but oddly fascinating topography was both a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around them, and a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental…

Post-war America struggled with

Links to help with researching of Topographic Photographers:

• A Study of Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz 

You could also look at these photographers who has been influenced by New Topographics…see below for images/ examples under RESOURCES…

Remember to use this

Follow this 10 Step Process and create multiple blog posts for each unit to ensure you tackle all Assessment Objectives thoroughly :

1. Mood-board, definition and introduction (AO1)
2. Mind-map of ideas (AO1)
3. Artist References / Case Studies (must include image analysis) (AO1)
4. Photo-shoot Action Plan (AO3)
5. Multiple Photoshoots + contact sheets (AO3)
6. Image Selection, sub selection (AO2)
7. Image Editing/ manipulation / experimentation (AO2)
8. Presentation of final outcomes (AO4)
9. Compare and contrast your work to your artist reference(AO1)
10. Evaluation and Critique (AO1+AO4)

1. Research and explore The New Topographics and how photographers have responded to man’s impact on the land, and how they found a sense of beauty in the banal ugliness of functional land use… 
2. Create a blog post that defines and explains The New Topographics and the key features and artists of the movement.
3. ANSWER : What was the new topographics a reaction to?

1. A case study on your chosen NEW TOPOGRAPHIC landscape photographer. Choose from…ROBERT ADAMS, STEPHEN SHORE, JOE DEAL, FRANK GOLKHE, NICHOLAS NIXON, LEWIS BALTZ, THE BECHERS, HENRY WESSEL JR, JOHN SCHOTT ETC to write up a case study that will inspire your own photography.
2. Analyse one image of this photographers work. Use the vocabulary support sheet to help. https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo22al/2020/08/20/photo-vocab-support/

Photo Walk – urban

Once you have completed your photo walk from Havre Des Pas to La Collette you should aim to make comparisons with photographers and their work…as well as the notion of psychogeography to help understand your surroundings

Your image selection and editing may be guided by this work…and you must show that you can make creative connections.

For Example Albert Renger Patszch and The New Objectivity

https://www.atlasofplaces.com/photography/new-objectivity/

or Keld Helmer Petersen

https://www.keldhelmerpetersen.com/1950-1959

1. Produce a list of places in Jersey you could go and shoot urban landscapes. Create a blog post of a visual mood board and photo shoot plan.
   
   Scrapyards, building sites, cranes, restoration yards, derelict ruins, car parks, underpass, harbours and dockyards, industrial centres, retail park, stadiums, floodlight arenas, staircases, road systems, circuit boards, pipework, telephone poles, towers, pylons, shop displays, escalators, bars, libraries, theatres and cinemas, gardens, parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, etc.
   
2. Possible titles to inspire you and choose from… Dereliction / Isolation / Lonely Places / Open Spaces / Close ups / Freedom / Juxtaposition / Old and new / Erosion / Altered Landscapes / Utopia / Dystopia / Wastelands / Barren / Skyscapes / Urban Decay / Former Glories / Habitats / Social Hierarchies / Entrances and Exits / Storage / Car Parks / Looking out and Looking in / Territory / Domain / Concealed and Revealed

Explore these options…

1. First photoshoot inspired and influenced by New Topographics. (+100 photographs). Remember to include examples of work by photographers associated with that exhibition/ movement that have influenced your work.
2. Select, consider and decide on best images (show contact sheets)
3. Develop ideas through digital manipulation (ie: cropping, contrast, colour balance etc.)
4. Realise a final outcome.

1. Second photoshoot inspired and influenced by your case study of your chosen urban landscape photographer. see list below URBAN PHOTOGRAPHERS (+100 photographs). Can be any urban landscape photographer, but remember to include a brief case study and examples of their work that have influenced your work.
   
   You could experiment with different vantage points eg: worms eye view, or birds eye view OR create a study on TYPOLOGY.
   
   
2. Select, consider and decide on best images (show contact sheets)
3. Develop ideas through digital manipulation (ie: cropping, contrast, colour balance etc.)
4. Realise a final outcome.

Technical: Shoot using different vantage points.

Why Is Vantage Point Important?

Your vantage point affects the angles, composition, and narrative of a photograph. It is an integral part of the decision-making process when taking a photograph.

We often spend more time considering camera settings and lighting, than exploring viewpoints. A picture taken from a unique vantage point makes us think about the subject in a different way. Perspectives from high or low angles add emotion to the photograph.

Eye-level vantage points provide a feeling of directness and honesty. Changing your vantage point can include or exclude part of the photo’s story.

As you look through your viewfinder, ask yourself some questions:

• How could I add interest to the subject?
• How can I show the viewer a new perspective on this subject?
• Do I always stand in this position when taking photos?
• What else can I include in the frame to tell the story? How can I make this happen?

TRY LOOKING UP, LOOKING DOWN, AT AN ANGLE, FROM A DISTANCE, A WORMS EYE VIEW and BIRDS EYE VIEW ETC.

WORMS EYE VIEW

1. Select one of your photographs to compare and contrast against one photograph of your chosen photographer.
2. Create a venn diagram to illustrate the similarities and differences between the images.
3. Using this information and prompts from the Photo Vocab Sheet write an in depth and thorough analysis. https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo22al/2020/08/20/photo-vocab-support/
   

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Always ensure you have enough evidence of…

1. moodboards (use influential images)
2. mindmap of ideas and links
3. case studies (artist references-show your knowledge and understanding)
4. photo-shoot action plans / specifications (what, why, how, who, when , where)
5. photo-shoots + contact sheets (annotated)
6. appropriate image selection and editing techniques
7. presentation of final ideas and personal responses
8. analysis and evaluation of process
9. compare and contrast to a key photographer
10. critique / review / reflection of your outcomes

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MORE RESOURCES / IDEAS / INSPIRATIONS

TYPOLOGIES and the landscape

Bernd and Hilla Becher – Typologies of industrial architecture

Read this useful introduction to the Becher’s work from American Photo magazine which describes their interest in the ‘Grid’ and their influence on future generations of photographers, members of the Düsseldorf School.

The term ‘Typology’ was first used to describe a style of photography when Bernd and Hilla Becher began documenting dilapidated German industrial architecture in 1959. The couple described their subjects as ‘buildings where anonymity is accepted to be the style’.

Partly inspired by the likes of Karl Blossfeldt, August Sander and The New Objectivity (that we looked at in the previous project)

Stoic and detached, each photograph was taken from the same angle, at approximately the same distance from the buildings. Their aim was to capture a record of a landscape they saw changing and disappearing before their eyes so once again, Typologies not only recorded a moment in time, they prompted the viewer to consider the subject’s place in the world.

The Bercher’s influence as lecturers at the The Dusseldorf School of Photography passed Typologies onto the next generation of photographers. Key photographic typologists such as Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Demand and Gillian Wearing lead to a resurgence of these documentary-style reflections on a variety of subject matter from Ruff’s giant ‘passport’ photos to Demand’s desolate, empty cities.

You could:

Create your own typological series documenting repeated forms within your surroundings.  For example, you might like to choose one of the following subjects:

KEVIN BAUMAN

_{Images from 100 Abandoned Houses – A record of abandonment in Detroit in the mid 90’s by Kevin Bauman}

Ed Ruscha, “Every Building On The Sunset Strip” 

The artist Ed Ruscha is famous for his paintings and prints but is also known for his series of photographic books based on typologies, among them Every Building on the Sunset Strip, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Some Los Angeles Apartments, and Thirtyfour Parking Lots. Ruscha employs the deadpan style found in many photographic topologies. The book shown above is a 24 foot long accordion fold booklet that documents 1 1/2 miles of the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. 

Here’s another topology for you to look at by Ólafur Elíasson  : 

Thom and Beth Atkinson “Missing Buildings”2016 
https://www.thomatkinson.com/missing-buildings

The structures in the Bechers’ original photographs are almost identical, though in Khan’s hands the images’ contrast and opacity is adjusted to ensure each layer can be seen and has presence. Though Khan works in mechanised media and his images are of industrial subjects, their effect is of a soft ethereal energy. They exude a transfixing spiritual quality in their densely compacted details and ghostly outlines. …Prison Type Gasholders conveys a sense of time depicted in motion, as if transporting the old building, in its obsolete black and white format, into the extreme future.

Creative Outcomes Can include : grids, animations, GIFs, Timelapse etc

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• Eugene Agtet
• Ed Ruscha
• Thomas Struth
• Gabrielle Basilico
• Gerry Johansson
• W. Eugine Smith
• Rut Blees Luxemburg
• Panos Kokkinios
• Naoya Hatakeyama

Eugene Agtet

Ed Ruscha

Thomas Struth

Gabrielle Basilico

Gerry Johansson

W. Eugene Smith

Rut Blees Luxemburg

Panos Kokkinios

Naoya Hatakeyama

• Alexander Apostol
• Bernd & Hilla Becher
• Donovan Wylie
• Edward Burntsky
• Frank Breuer
• Gerry Johansson
• Joel Sternfeld
• Josef Schultz
• Lewis Baltz
• Charles Sheeler

Alexander Apostol

Bernd & Hilla Becher

Donovan Wylie

Edward Burntsky

Frank Breuer

Gerry Johansson

Joel Sternfeld

Josef Schultz

Lewis Baltz

Charles Sheeler

Surface and Texture

Aaron Siskind

NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Many urbanised areas are great to photograph at night or in low light conditions…

Follow this 10 Step Process and create multiple blog posts for each unit to ensure you tackle all Assessment Objectives thoroughly :

1. Mood-board, definition and introduction (AO1)
2. Mind-map of ideas (AO1)
3. Artist References / Case Studies (must include image analysis) (AO1)
4. Photo-shoot Action Plan (AO3)
5. Multiple Photoshoots + contact sheets (AO3)
6. Image Selection, sub selection (AO2)
7. Image Editing/ manipulation / experimentation (AO2)
8. Presentation of final outcomes (AO4)
9. Compare and contrast your work to your artist reference(AO1)
10. Evaluation and Critique (AO1+AO4)