Formalism is the basic structure made up of 7 basic elements:

Line

A line through an image which creates a path from one specific point. Lines can be straight, curved, solid, implied or even psychological. Implied lines can be seen in the horizon line and psychological could be the point of a finger. These lines can also hold meaning i.e. Vertical – stability/static, Horizontal – distance, Diagonal – dynamics and Curved – fluidity. This is especially true with the horizon line which creates a sense of calm.

Shape

A shape is a universally recognised formation of lines and space. These can be an outline of an object or a gap in a surface. Shapes can overlap to create new ones or change in angle and appear completely different. A silhouette contrasts with its backgrounds and contains no textures – this is the most visually obvious use of shape in photography and is clearly 2D.

Form

Shape and structure distinguished from its material. It is 3D with height, width and depth. Shadow creates depth that would otherwise be missing in a photograph. Highlights, midtones and shadows capture the spectrum of tone.

Texture

Characteristics and appearance of something. Texture can be described as: soft, shiny, wet, bumpy etc. These can effect factors like light, reflections, shadows. Similar to form this is shown with shadow.

Colour

Colour is the aspect of appearance of an objects that differentiates between objects with hue, lightness and saturation. Colour has 3 properties: hue (description of colour), value (relative brightness or darkness of a colour) and saturation (intensity of a colour). Colour can draw different emotional responses for example: red – danger, blue – calm and purple – wealth. Bold and bright colours are good for catching attention however take away from the subject which is where black and white shines.

Size

Size is the physical size or bulk of an object seen in its proportions and dimensions. Size is often manipulated in photographs to create illusions. Using familiar objects is useful to create proportion in the eye of the viewer (a basketball for example). Without a recognisable object it can be difficult to understand the scale.

Depth

Depth is the direct linear measurement from front to back. Depth is broken down into 3 parts: Foreground, middle ground and background. The clearer it is between, the stronger the sense of depth. It is provided by visual cues: further away objects will have less clarity.

Image Analysis

We broke down these photographs into four sections whcih allows for great detail analysis of images:

• Techincal (i.e lighting and ISO),
• Visual (colour and pattern),
• Contextual (significance and inspiration) and
• Conceptual (meaning and ideas).

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

These sheets are my first attempt at using analysis techniques to look at a photo and in depth elements of the photo. Each different colour of writing looks at a different elements of photo analysis. The green looks at visual elements, and the blue looks at technical elements. Then looking more at concepts and contexts in blue and black pen. The photo itself appears quite basic however looking at the context to the photo, a photographer comparing old and his photos, looking at how land changes. Then using the different elements to look at the smaller details of the photo helps me explore different ideas and start to develop my thinking when it comes to technicalities of photos, for example how they were taken and what settings were used.

There are seven basic elements of photographic art: line, shape, form, texture, colour, size, and depth.

Formalism

describes the position that is the most important aspect of a work of art in its natural form, the way it is made and its purely visual aspects rather than its narrative content or its relationship to the visible world and what we can see. For example, formalists within mathematics claim that mathematics is no more than the symbols written down by the mathematician on a piece of paper, which is based on logic and a few elementary rules alone.

Photographers have to impose order, bring structure to what they photograph. A photograph without structure is useless.

  Formal and visual elements (such as line, shape, repetition, rhythm, balance etc.) are shared with other works of art. But photographs also have a specific grammar , such as flatness, frame, time, focus etc.

There are seven basic elements to photographic art that we must explore over the coming weeks:

1. Line
2. Shape
3. Form
4. Texture
5. Color
6. Size
7. Depth

Darren Harvey-Regan, Walker Evans –

Beauties of the common tool – 1955 photographs. This shows the softness and rough shapes to this photo. The tool seems to be quiet big because of the position and angel the camera was placed and how the photo was taken. The tone of this picture is quiet dark and there is a lot of back round space. The photo is in focus and has a cool temperature to it. This photograph could have a deeper meaning such as loneliness or fear as its quiet a dull photograph with a broken tool which could symbolise pain too.,  both artists paid careful attention to choice of objects, composition, lighting and exposure values.

Line in photography is the use of lines to create visual interest and convey a message in an image. Lines can be used to direct the viewer’s attention, create a sense of depth and can even be used to create a sense of movement.

Shape photography is the two-dimensional appearance of objects as your camera captures them. For instance, if you look at an image of a ball, you’ll find its shape as a circle. Likewise, if you look at a picture of a cube-shaped suitcase, you’ll find its shape like a square.

Form refers to when shape takes on three dimensions. Form is created by shadows and highlights on an object in the photograph. You can see in these two photos how shape becomes form when light hits the subject.

When talking about photography texture refers to the visual quality of the surface of an object, revealed through variances in shape, tone and color depth. Texture brings life and vibrance to images that would otherwise appear flat and uninspiring.

Red can mean danger, blue symbolizes calm, yellow is happy, black is mournful, white is innocent, and purple can symbolize wealth. Here, we will briefly discuss types of color in photographs. If you want to dive deeper into color theory, please enjoy Cory Rice’s fantastic article here.

The Basics:

Image Size is the term given to describe the height and width of an image in pixels. Maximum Image Size is determined by the megapixels of a given camera – for example, a 10-megapixel camera will give a maximum image size of 2592 by 3872 pixels.

In simplest terms, depth of field is how much of your image is in focus. In more technical terms, depth of field is the distance in an image where objects appear “acceptably in focus” or have a level of “acceptable sharpness

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.”

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.

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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.

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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.  

Camera settings ​
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For the first image I made the aperture quite low and then changed the exposure to a lot lower so it wouldn’t make the image too exposed like it is here where I had the exposure a lot higher again.

For this image I changed the shutter speed which effects how blurry the image is basically so the propeller on the plane when the shutter speed is really high so 1/4000 of a second means it’s not blurry at all but if it was 1 second you wouldn’t really even be able to see it because of how blurry it would be. ​

The main idea that you want is for the exposure meter to be around the middle on the 0 because that checks that your image won’t be too under or over exposed 

A-level photography quiz

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

Writing with light

2. What year was the first photograph made in camera made?

1826 (Joseph Nicéphore Niépce)

3. When did the first photograph of a human apear?

1838

4. who made the first selfie?

Robert cornelious (1839)

5.  When did the first colour photo appear

1861

6. what do we mean by the word genre?

A style or catogorey of art

7. What do we mean by the genre of still-life?

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

8. What was the main purpose of the Pictorialist movement?

To affirm photography as an art form

9. How do we describe the term documentary photography?

Capture images that truthfully portray people, places and events. Staging images for maximum effect. Provide in-depth information about a subject over a long period time. An interpretation of reality as witnessed by the photographer

10. What is exposure in photography?

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

11. What controls exposure on your camera?

Aperture, shutter speed, ISO.

12. What control on our camera records moving objects?

Shutter

13. How do we explain depth of field?

How much of your image is in focus.

14. What factors affect Depth of Field?

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

15. What is composition in photography?

The arrangement of visual elements within the frame.

16. What is your understanding of aesthetics in art?

Concerned with the nature of beauty and taste. It is subjective and in the eye of the beholder. Aesthetic qualities refer to the way and artwork looks and feels. Making a critical judgement based on observation and understanding.

17. What are contextual studies in photography?

To provide historial, cultural and theoterical understanding of images.

18. How many images are captured on average every day worldwide?

4.7 billion

19. Which portrait is the most reproduced in the world?

The Queen (Elizabeth II)

A-level photography quiz

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

Writing with light

2. What year was the first photograph made in camera?

1826 (Joseph Nicéphore Niépce)

3. When did the first photograph of a human apear?

1838

4. who made the first selfie?

Robert cornelious (1839)

5.  When did the first colour photo appear

1861

6. what do we mean by the word genre?

A style or catogorey of art

7. What do we mean by the genre of still-life?

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

8. What was the main purpose of the Pictorialist movement?

To affirm photography as an art form

9. How do we describe the term documentary photography?

Capture images that truthfully portray people, places and events. Staging images for maximum effect. Provide in-depth information about a subject over a long period time. An interpretation of reality as witnessed by the photographer

10. What is exposure in photography?

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

11. What controls exposure on your camera?

Aperture, shutter speed, ISO.

12. What control on our camera records moving objects?

Shutter

13. How do we explain depth of field?

How much of your image is in focus.

14. What factors affect Depth of Field?

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

15. What is composition in photography?

The arrangement of visual elements within the frame.

16. What is your understanding of aesthetics in art?

Concerned with the nature of beauty and taste. It is subjective and in the eye of the beholder. Aesthetic qualities refer to the way and artwork looks and feels. Making a critical judgement based on observation and understanding.

17. What are contextual studies in photography?

To provide historial, cultural and theoterical understanding of images.

18. How many images are captured on average every day worldwide?

4.7 billion

19. Which portrait is the most reproduced in the world?

The Queen (Elizabeth II)

Still Life

A work of art that shows inanimate objects from the natural or human-caused world, typically fruit, flowers and objects that contrasts with texture, like as bowls and glassware 
Still life has origins in Ancient Greco-Roman art and the Middle Ages. Still life painting appeared as a distinct genre in Western painting in the late 16th century and has remained significant since then.  

The earliest example of still life is in the beginning of the 1600s and later influenced by ‘tulip-mania’, were the popular floral paintings; these were followed by flowers with fruit, then the humble ‘breakfast pieces 
17th Century Still Life peaked by the 1670s and seemed to stagnate thereafter, maybe because of the deaths in the 1680s and 1690s. What survived was the two aspects fixed in the Dutch psyche: decorative hunting still lives and the flower paintings. 

Mood board

One artist that is highly focused in still life is a talented man called Mat Collishaw. Mat Collishaw, born in 1966, received his BFA from Goldsmith College, London, in 1989 and began his career exhibiting the acclaimed work Bullet Hole alongside his Goldsmiths contemporaries at the legendary show Freeze in 1988, and at Modern Medicine in 1990.

The beauty of Collishaw’s work is compelling, seductive, captivating, hypnotic yet repelling as we realise the darker fantasies within. His work is quite dark because he states that “I am fuelled by things in my past which were suppressed or held at a distance, which have generated some form of hunger to make my work.”

This is quite concerning as his work explores things like Pornography, the crucifixion, gleaming fairies, syphilitic child prostitutes, bestiality, bondage, addiction, religion, exaltation and despair, even the final hours of a death-row inmate but Mat has no dark corner he is unwilling to explore which is fascinating.

These pictures are from his project called ‘last meal on death rows’ taken in 2011. The pictures show the bizarreness of death rowers last meals and how different their priorities are within meals. Some meals are massive yet some meals are little to nothing. I think that it shows how unique and different death row meals can be.

Mat Collishaw project that was an innovative body of work was to show a different perspective of criminals last meals. He somehow brought ‘light’ yet darkness to their last meals. Some images are quite simple yet some show chaos.

One of the pictures that I am going to analyse is the picture below that was in the project ‘last meal on death rows’

Technical: The lighting in this photo isn’t natural. its quite dark and has no source of bright lights.
Visual: There is shrimps, what looks like some type of sandwich and sometime of beverage.
Contextual: This photo is a photo representing a prisoners death row meal.
Conceptual: It shows the how criminals in death row prioritised in food. it shows how different their food choices can be. I also think that the food choice is quite bizarre.

History of still life painting.

Ancient Egypt: The earliest known still-life artwork was produced in ancient Egypt. The paintings were produced in temples as offerings for the gods. Realism was not important.
Ancient Greece and Rome: these were more realistic than the Egyptians efforts. Still-life appears in mosaics on the floors and paintings, especially at Pompell colours and shading re more realistic.
Northern European renaissance:
After the fall of Rome, interest in still-life disappeared until the 1500s in Northern Europe. While Italian renaissance had renewed interest in ancient Greece and Rome. the north developed oil paint, which allowed for greater detail in paintings. objects began to take on symbolism, as well as depicting wealth and showing the artists skill. realism was essential to these artists.
Northern European renaissance:
in addition to being an art form of its own still-life objects were included in other types of paintings. the items chosen were meant to be symbols about the subjects of the paintings.
Northern European Renaissance:
a very specific type of still life is the vanitas painting. the idea was that people love the pleasures of life, the things that make them feel important or wealthy. and yet it all means nothing because time soon passes and we die. Artist used symbols to show this, like skulls, burnt candles, and witting flowers.
Impressionism:
after the renaissance ended. impressionist and post-impressionist artists in the 1800s continued to paint still lives instead of realism. they experiences with colour , shapes, and the wet paint was applied to the canvas to create beautiful; works. symbolism becomes less important.
Cubism:
Pablo Picasso and Georges barques invented cubism as a way of showing several sides of an objects at once. they felt it was better representation of an object because you could see more to it.
Modern still life painting:
modern painting is more of a reflection of an artists style. so paintings during the 20th century have developed into more abstract and unrealistic images. some artists use collage, paint, or photography to create modern-art still lives.

Vanitas: A still life painting of a 17th-century Dutch genre containing symbols of death or change as a reminder of their inevitability.

Memento Mori: Memento mori is a Latin phrase meaning ‘remember you must die’. A basic memento mori painting would be a portrait with a skull but other symbols commonly found are hour glasses or clocks, extinguished or guttering candles, fruit, and flowers.

Types of metaphors in still life and why?

These are my Edits from my still life photoshoot.

Camera settings –

Before and after –

Edits –

I feel like these images look good however the first 1 looks to highly saturated compared to the second one because of the the shadows merging with the light better.

I like how these came out as I think the use of greyscale helps bring out the details of the image.

These photos were edited well in my opinion, by using a brown background I converted the lighting to be warmer.

These are my best edits, and believe they best reflect the theme of Nostalgia.