Who is he?

William Klein was an American-born French photographer and filmmaker noted for his ironic approach to both media and his extensive use of unusual photographic techniques in the context of photojournalism and fashion photography. He was born in New York (1926-2022). He studied sociology at City College of New York, but dropped out a year before graduation and joined the postwar Army.

He joined the US army during the second world war and was stationed in Germany and then France, where he permanently relocated after his service. By 1948, Klein was studying painting under Fernand Léger at the Sorbonne in Paris, but turned to photography after winning his first camera in a poker game. William Klein’s celebrated career encompasses street photography, fashion photography, abstract photography, filmmaking, and painting.

Often using telephoto shots, Klein’s social documentary photography spans across the streets of New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Moscow, and Rome. He often used wide-angle lenses, capturing vast scenes and producing distorted, dynamic compositions. His images are filled with bold contrasts, grain, and blur, embracing what was considered technical ‘flaws’ to create highly expressive images.

Image Analysis

In the foreground, there is a young girl with another man who is cut out of the image which symbolises that it is busy in the area and crowded, and another man walking next to her. the main focus is the man in the background as he is more in focus and he is making direct eye contact. It gives a sense that the photographer is in the scene and part of the commotion. the sense that people are walking in different directions adds to the chaotic nature.

This photo seems to have a slow shutter speed to capture a motion blur and seems to create a sense of movement in the image. It is in black and white which emphasises the drama and the details in the image. It increases the brightness, contrast and the texture.

Moves and Pepsi, Harlem, New York, 1955. William Klein’s unconventional approach to photography helped expand the aesthetic boundaries of the medium and paved the way for street photography. Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City, was a lively and vibrant place in the 1950s. During this time, it was known as the center of African American culture. The streets were filled with music, art, and a strong sense of community.

The image captures the everyday street life showing people interacting in an urban setting. The presence of ‘pepsi’ in the title makes you look closer at the bottles in hand, adding a layer of commercial and cultural context, highlighting consumer i n the post-war America.

True to Klein’s style, the photo likely features raw, candid moments with dynamic composition, reflecting the energy and complexity of city life.

The photo is a part of Klein’s exploration of social realities in their city, portraying harlem not just as a backdrop but as a living, breathing environment full of movement and human stories.

What did Henri Cartier-Bresson mean by the decisive moment?

He was one of the first true street photographers and artfully captured everyday life through the lens. But he also coined a term: The “Decisive Moment”. With it he described the exact instance when a unique event is captured by the photographer, when something that may never happen again is frozen in the frame.

Image Analysis

This image is in black and white but is quite a light tone, this makes it easier to see finer details within the image. The texture of the image looks quite smooth and shiny overall, with a rough texture on the stairs. The tone of the image makes it easier to see every bird as clearly as possible.

Cartier bresson has managed to capture all the birds mostly in focus, suggesting that he had used a relatively fast shutter speed, aside from a couple wings that are blurry, capturing movement. The lighting looks to be as if it was captured during the daytime, whereas it could also be the lights in the area brightening up the image.

Cartier-Bresson saw cameras as an extension of the eye and he also came up with the idea of a ‘decisive moment’. I think this links to the decisive moment as he has captured all the birds in flight but also capturing the woman walking up the stairs who is framed by all the birds.

Image Analysis 2

In this image, the rule of thirds applies and the subject is in the middle right third. It perfectly divides the background, main ground and foreground which makes it more compositionally appealing to the eye.

The fence in the background acts as leading lines, the horizontal lines of the railings frame the leap and the main subject.

Making the image black and white, it strips any colour which helps emphasise the detail and gives the photo more depth. There is a strong tonal range, which means there are really strong highlights and shadows which draws you in. The black and white add nostalgia to the image which links to memories.

Cartier Bresson used a leica rangefinder, he used a 50mm lens because it allows him to capture images from afar and up close and in the moment. This allowed him to be a really effective street photographer and allowed him to use a more quick and obtrusive shooting style to be more discrete. He was a photographer inspired by instinct.

He had clarity and sharp focus, which added more depth to the photo, which suggests a smaller aperture. There was a quicker shutter speed as there was no motion blur.

Bresson takes advantage of the natural light and he uses the pure authenticity of the moment. while bright light is usually a nemesis to photographers, it allows for more dramatic lighting and frames the shadows. The light in the sky reflects perfectly onto the puddle on the ground. since there is a puddle in the foreground, it allows for equal light in the background and the foreground and makes the centre more in detail.

The Gare Saint-Lazare became one of Henri Cartier Bresson’s most renowned and popular photos, revolutionising street photography and the idea of the candid photo, signifying the beauty is something so ordinary and showing that everyday lives can be beautiful too. It perfectly captured the moment, having to wait for the optimal time and freezing that split second in time.

Who is he?

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French artist and humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment. Cartier-Bresson was one of the founding members of Magnum Photos in 1947.

Born in 1908 in a village outside Paris, the young Cartier-Bresson was meant to inherit the family textile business — but the budding artist had other ideas. After failing his baccalaureate exams three times, his parents finally allowed their 17-year-old son to study twice a week with French painters Jean Cottenet and Jacques-Émile Blanche.  

After studying at Magdalene College in Cambridge from 1928 to 1929, Cartier-Bresson took up with the Paris art crowd. He regularly attended the wild parties thrown by Harry Crosby (nephew of J.P. Morgan), where he socialised with Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst, met Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, and was introduced to New York gallerist Julien Levy. Levy would later give Cartier-Bresson his first commercial break, staging an exhibition of his work in 1933. 

Cartier-Bresson once said of his work, ‘To me, a photograph is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organisation of forms which give that event its proper expression.’ This idea gave birth to the concept of the ‘decisive moment’, which remains synonymous with Cartier-Bresson. 

Why is a camera the extension of the eye?

A camera is considered an extension of the eye because it replicates and enhances the eye’s ability to capture and interpret visual information. Just as the eye uses a lens to focus light onto the retina, a camera uses a lens to project light onto a sensor or film, creating an image. However, unlike the human eye, the camera can preserve moments in time, zoom in on distant subjects, see in different light spectrums, and slow down or freeze motion, functions that extend our natural vision. It also becomes a tool of creative expression, allowing photographers to frame and interpret the world in unique ways. By broadening what and how we see, the camera not only mirrors the eye’s function but also expands our visual perception and memory, making it a true technological extension of human sight.

What is the physical pleasure in making photographs?

The physical pleasure in making photographs often comes from a combination of sensory engagement, bodily movement, and the tactile satisfaction of interacting with a camera. Holding the camera, adjusting the lens, hearing the shutter click, and feeling the moment of capture can create a sense of control and presence. There’s also pleasure in the rhythm of moving through a space, noticing light, textures, and compositions, using the body and eye together in a kind of active seeing. For many, it’s a meditative or even thrilling experience: the anticipation of capturing a perfect moment, the subtle joy of focusing and framing, and the instant feedback of seeing the result. Altogether, photography activates both mind and body in a rewarding, almost instinctive way.

How can photography be likened to hunting?

Photography can be likened to hunting in the way it involves patience, focus, and the pursuit of a fleeting target. Like a hunter tracks prey, a photographer seeks out moments of light, expression, movement, or emotion, waiting for the perfect time to “capture” them. The camera becomes the tool, much like a weapon in hunting, and the act of pressing the shutter is the decisive moment, freezing the subject in time. Both require a keen eye, quick reflexes, and a deep awareness of the environment. However, unlike hunting, photography is non-lethal, it preserves rather than destroys, making it a symbolic or aesthetic kind of hunt where the prize is not possession but memory and meaning.

Street photography is a genre of photography that records everyday life in public places. It is photography conducted for art or inquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places. It usually has the aim of capturing images at a decisive or poignant moment by careful framing and timing. Being set in public places allows the photographer to take candid photos of strangers following their everyday life without their knowledge. Stand out street photographs often offer a unique perspective or point of view that grabs the viewer’s attention. This could involve experimenting with angles, framing, or capturing unexpected moments. Street photography is a fascinating and dynamic genre that involves capturing the spontaneous and candid moments of daily life. Unlike other types of photography that often rely on staged or planned shots, street photography thrives on the unpredictability of the world around us. The unpredictability of public spaces, lighting, crowdedness, ethics, and technical skill all play a role in making it challenging to capture the perfect shot. However, with practice and perseverance, photographers can overcome these challenges and capture stunning and memorable street photographs. Street photographers do not necessarily have a social purpose in mind, but they prefer to isolate and capture moments which might otherwise go unnoticed.

What is a zine?

A tool that photographers can use to tell a visual story, to inform an audience about a specific topic or issue, to showcase and advertise a new idea or simply create a preview of an ongoing project. Zines were originally called fanzines, alluding to the fans who made them.

Inspiration

Format, size and orientation

It will be A5 and portrait orientation.

Narrative / visual concept

My zine is about all the landscapes and man-altered landscapes and how nothing is permanent.

Images and text

All images of natural landscapes and man-altered landscapes. Text about the making of the images ands the editing. Also add in a biography.

Title and captions

Title = Overlooked

No captions.

My final zine

I decided on all these images because i feel they all work well together as they are all basically edited the same way and all represent the same thing.

What is a typology in photography?

A photographic typology is a single photograph or more commonly a body of photographic work, that shares a high level of consistency. This consistency is usually found within the subjects, environment, photographic process, and presentation or direction of the subject.

What is the method or approach by photographers who use typology?

Through the methodical photography and presentation of a specific subject or theme, a typological photographer makes a space that invites a viewer to simultaneously identify both consistencies and distinctions in a series, building up a more nuanced whole. The typology is a genre built on differences and correlations.

The Bechers

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’.

How did Hilla and Bernd Becher become a duo?

They began collaborating together in 1959 after meeting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1957. Bernd originally studied painting and then typography, whereas Hilla had trained as a commercial photographer. After two years collaborating together, they married.

What camera did Bernd and Hilla Becher use?

Together, the Bechers first photographed with a 6x9cm camera and then (after 1961) mostly with a large format Plaubel Peco 13×18-centimeter (5×7-inch) monorail camera. They photographed these buildings from a number of different angles, but always with a straightforward “objective” point of view.

What inspired them to begin to record images of Germany’s industrial landscape?

They were fascinated by the similar shapes in which certain buildings were designed. After collating thousands of pictures of individual structures, they noticed that the various edifices – of cooling towers, gas tanks and coal bunkers, for instance – shared many distinctive formal qualities.

My images

I decided to use the idea of car wheels for my typologies. I went around and took multiple photos of random wheels that i found. I then put them all into black and white and cropped them all to a square.

I also decided to try and set them out in different, more creative ways.

What are New Topographics?

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.

“New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” was a ground-breaking exhibition of contemporary landscape photography held at the George Eastman House’s International Museum of Photography from October 1975 to February 1976.

What was the New Topographics a reaction to?

Their stark, beautifully printed images of this 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.

Artist Reference – Stephen Shore

• Foreground vs background | Dominant features
• Composition | low horizon line | Square format
• Perspective and detail / cluttering
• Wide depth of field | Large Format Camera
• Colour | impact and relevance
• Nationalism vs mobility vs isolation
• Social commentary | The American Dream ?
• An appreciation of the formal elements : line, shape, form, texture, pattern, tone etc

Technical

The image was taken in natural daylight, and the lighting almost looks cold. The sun being o the left side of the image, gives off some distinct, hard-edged shadows. A slow shutter speed has been used as the cars on the left are slightly blurred while everything still is completely in focus. It was taken using a large format camera and it has a wide depth of field.

Visual

In the image, there are a lot of vertical and horizontal lines which contribute to the rule of thirds.

Conceptual

The image looks as if it is leading the viewer to the mountains, indicating to get out of the busy area.

My Images

These are some of the photos I took on the walk we did around La Collette. For these images, I turned the contrast up and lowered the exposure, while increasing the clarity to make sure I still got a detailed sky in the background.

On this walk, we went around Havre Des Pas beach to take some landscapes.

Contact sheet

These are all the photos I took at the beach and I have flagged all of the images that I like and plan on editing.

before and after editing

These before and after images, shows what they looked like before and after i edited them, I decided to make them look a bit darker and gloomy to give more effect and details to the images.

Definition

Panoramic photography is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with horizontally elongated fields of view. It is sometimes known as wide format photography. An image showing a field of view approximating, or greater than, that of the human eye – about 160° by 75°. This generally means it has an aspect ratio of 2:1 or larger, the image being at least twice as wide as it is high.

Image stitching

Image stitching or photo stitching is the process of combining multiple photographic images with overlapping fields of view to produce a segmented panorama or high-resolution image.

Image stitching algorithms create the high resolution photo-mosaics used to produce today’s digital maps and satellite photos. They also come bundled with most digital cameras currently being sold, and can be used to create beautiful ultra wide-angle panoramas.

Other major issues to deal with are the presence of parallax, lens distortion, scene motion, and exposure differences. In a non-ideal real-life case, the intensity varies across the whole scene, and so does the contrast and intensity across frames.

Joiner photos

Joiner photography is a photographic technique wherein multiple pictures are assembled into one. There are two types of joiner photography, photographic collages and Polaroid collages.

You stand in one place and take photos all around you. With a ‘panorama’ you simply swivel and take from left to right or vice versa. To record a greater field of vision you work both up and down and across.

David Hockney

David Hockney, a seminal figure in the Pop Art movement, revolutionised visual art with his inventive technique of creating joiners. This method, which involves piecing together a mosaic of photographs to form a cohesive image, challenges and transcends traditional perspectives in both photography and painting.

By fragmenting and then reassembling the visual field, Hockney’s joiners disrupt conventional viewpoints, inviting a deeper exploration into the intricacies of perception and representation. This introduction sets the stage to dive into the impact of Hockney’s joiners, underscoring their significance in reshaping contemporary art and photography, and illuminating their influence on artists and photographers alike.

Image analysis

David Hockney’s ‘Pearblossom Highway, 11-18th April 1986, #2’ is a photographic collage that chronicles his road trip on a California highway, CA 138. The artwork is composed of 750 color photographs, offering both the driver’s and passenger’s perspective of their journey.

The image reveals a seemingly mundane scene of a highway with desert vegetation but in Hockney’s interpretation becomes an exciting and vibrant artistic creation. His decision to use hundreds of photos offers the viewer multiple viewpoints by disrupting traditional camera angles; this creates an unusual experience for viewers accustomed to seeing only one fixed angle.

David Hockney described the circumstances leading to the creation of this photo collage of the scenic Pearblossom Highway north of Los Angeles. His detailed collage reveals the more mundane observations of a road trip. The littered cans and bottles and the meandering line where the pavement ends and the sand begins point to the interruption of the desert landscape by the roads cutting through it and the imprint of careless travelers.

“Pearblossom Highway shows a crossroads in a very wide open space, which you only get a sense of in the western United States. . . . [The] picture was not just about a crossroads, but about us driving around. I’d had three days of driving and being the passenger. The driver and the passenger see the road in different ways. When you drive you read all the road signs, but when you’re the passenger, you don’t, you can decide to look where you want. And the picture dealt with that: on the right-hand side of the road it’s as if you’re the driver, reading traffic signs to tell you what to do and so on, and on the left-hand side it’s as if you’re a passenger going along the road more slowly, looking all around. So the picture is about driving without the car being in it.”

My photo

With this image, I took multiple photos, overlapping each other of Havre Des Pas and then joined them together in lightroom.

What is it?

Exposure bracketing allows you to take 3 images at 3 different exposures which gives you the security of knowing that one of them will have captured the light in the best possible way.

It allows you to capture every detail in a scene. It helps you avoid overexposing or underexposing your photos. It gives you more options to choose from when you’re editing.

AEB

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

AEB is like having an automatic version of exposure compensation that gives you a number of variations to choose from.

What is exposure compensation?

Exposure compensation basically helps you override automatic exposure adjustments your camera makes in situations with uneven light distribution, filters, non-standard processing, or under exposure or overexposure. It lets you take control of your image’s brightness by manually increasing or decreasing exposure.

The formula is as follows: exposure time in fractions of a second >=(equals) shutter angle in degrees / (over) 360 degrees x (times, as in >multiply by) the frame rate.

What are HDR photos?

HDR describes a type of photo that captures a dynamic range that can’t be achieved in a single photograph.

HDR (high dynamic range) helps you get great shots in high-contrast situations. The iPhone camera takes several photos in rapid succession at different exposures and blends them together to bring more highlight and shadow detail to your photos.