About:

Cynthia Morris Sherman is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Cindy Sherman has probed the construction of identity, playing with the visual and cultural codes of art, celebrity, gender, and photography.

She is among the most significant artists of the Pictures Generation — a group that also includes Richard Prince, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, and Robert Longo — who came of age in the 1970s and responded to the mass media landscape surrounding them with both humor and criticism, appropriating images from advertising, film, television, and magazines for their art. At the end of the century, Sherman was the artist who most effectively utilised this source. Her pictures are composed of masks and anatomical models of the body, not unlike the bashed-up dolls by a surrealist pioneer such as Hans Bellmer (1902–1975).

Sherman grew up on Long Island, New York. In 1972 she enrolled at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo and majored in painting, later switching her major to photography. She graduated from SUNY in 1976 and in 1977 began work on Untitled Film Stills (1977–80), one of her best-known series.

Cindy Sherman’s work is characterized by her use of self-portraiture to create fictional characters and explore themes such as identity, representation, and the construction of femininity to portray the various roles and identities of herself and other modern women.

Her work is mostly consisting of photographic self-portraits. Started when she was only 23, these images rely on female characters (and caricatures) such as the jaded seductress, the unhappy housewife, the jilted lover, and the vulnerable naif. Sexual desire and domination, the fashioning of self-identity as mass deception, these are among the unsettling subjects lying behind Sherman’s extensive series of self-portraiture in various guises. Sherman’s work is central in the era of intense consumerism and image proliferation at the close of the 20th century. Sherman has always been adamant that her photos are not self-portraits.

The seminal series expanded the artistic potential of the photographic medium by using image-making to engage with dialogues of feminist and postmodern theories. In this pseudo-self portrait, Sherman assumes the persona of Claude Cahun, pioneer of self-portraiture and the French surrealist movement.

Image analysis

Visual:

In this image, Cindy Sherman is adopting the role of a housewife in a kitchen, as she is wearing an apron and has cooking supplies beside her it makes it easy to tell this. Sherman’s positioning in the photo makes it look like shes cramped in the frame and she’s looking over her shoulder which could mean that someone else is there or she’s deep in thought. She is holding her stomach and this could be either maternal or trying to protect herself. She looks extremely uncomfortable. Since the title is an ‘Untitled film still’ it suggests that Sherman is trying to show the typical female housewife stereotypes usually portrayed in movies.

Technical:

As the foreground objects are blurred it would suggest that the image was taken with a very large aperture. The subject in the photo is in focus so this could suggest that a fast shutter speed was used, with a balanced exposure. The angle this was taken at a slightly lower angle, this makes the viewer feel like they are amongst the setting and not outside of it. It is a half body shot so it would make it more intimate as the viewer is closer to the subject.

Contextual:

Gender roles are the roles that men and women are expected to occupy based on their sex. Traditionally, many western societies have believed that women are more nurturing than men. Therefore, the traditional view of the feminine gender role prescribes that women should behave in ways that are nurturing. Women were usually excluded and, when mentioned, were usually portrayed in sex stereotypical roles such as wives, mothers, daughters, and mistresses.

Sherman’s ‘Untitled Film Stills’ created a powerful reflection on identity representation and stereotypical femininity.

Conceptual:

Sherman is using selfies to deceive the audience.

Claude Cahun

About:

Claude Cahun was a French photographer and writer associated with the Surrealists. Her work was often in collaboration with her partner Marcel Moore, also an artist, and she is known mostly for her self-portraits which examine and challenge ideas of gender and identity.

Her work left a huge impression on photography and directly influenced contemporary photographers Cindy Sherman, Gillian Wearing, and Nan Goldin.

In early-20th-century France, when society generally considered women to be women and men to be men, Lucy Schwob decided she would rather be called Claude Cahun. It was her way of protesting gender and sexual norms.

In taking the gender-neutral forename Claude and by shaving her head, as she did often in the late 1910s, Cahun actively and outwardly rejected social constructions of gender and sexual identity. Surrealism aims to revolutionise human experience. It balances a rational vision of life with one that asserts the power of the unconscious and dreams. The movement’s artists find magic and strange beauty in the unexpected and the uncanny, the disregarded and the unconventional.

Cahun’s connection with Jersey began early, with childhood holidays spent in Jersey and Brittany. They were born Lucy Schwob in Nantes, France to a wealthy Jewish family. But in their late teens and early twenties Cahun had been looking for a new, gender-neutral name for a while.

Image analysis

Visual:

In the image, it is a self-portrait of Claude Cahun. She is sat with her legs crossed and her gaze is staring directly at the camera. She is wearing black shorts, pale tights and top emblazoned ‘I am in training Don’t kiss me’, sitting with her right leg over her left, a heart on her thigh, spherical weights to right and left. On the weights, they have the names of comic heroes on it ‘Totor and Popol’.

Contextual:

Women were expected to roll up their sleeves and keep their homes and families running smoothly – and on a budget. Women without a family – either by choice or by circumstance – were often overlooked.There were more job opportunities for women in the 1920s and 1930s due to better education. Many women found work as clerks, teachers and nurses. The nature of industries changed and new types of work emerged. Many women found work in the new light industries e.g. making electrical goods. British society remained intensely gender and class ridden throughout the 1920s. Women had only slowly, and prosaically, gained political rights in the 1920s and secured little in the way of equality of opportunity in employment and education.

Conceptual:

Through an exploration of the multiplicities of gender, works such as the self-portrait from their series I am in Training Don’t Kiss Me (1927) declare that Cahun’s gender is both allowed to be on public display while simultaneously not to be objectified and exoticized by the male gaze. ‘I am in training, don’t kiss me’ refers to a provocative phrase that embodies the surrealist movement’s emphasis on challenging norms and expectations in society and art.

What is identity?

Identity is the set of qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, and/or expressions that characterize a person or a group. Identity emerges during childhood as children start to comprehend their self-concept, and it remains a consistent aspect throughout different stages of life.

What is femininity?

Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as socially constructed, and there is also some evidence that some behaviors considered feminine are influenced by both cultural factors and biological factors.

What is masculinity?

Masculinity involves displaying attitudes and behaviours that signify and validate maleness, and involves being recognised in particular ways by other men and women. Traits traditionally viewed as masculine in Western society include strength, courage, independence, leadership, and assertiveness.

How can Identity be affected?

Identity can be affected in lots of different ways, for example:

Gender Identity:

Gender identity is defined as a personal and internal sense of oneself as male, female, or other. Gender expression is defined as the way in which an individual publicly expresses their gender, for example, through aspects such as clothing, hair, makeup, and body language.

Cultural Identity:

Cultural identity refers to an individual’s sense of belonging and connection to a particular cultural group or community encompassing the shared values, traditions, customs, language, beliefs, and behavioral norms that define and distinguish a specific cultural or ethnic group.

Social Identity:

Social identity refers to people’s self-categorizations in relation to their group memberships (the “we”). These categorisations are often assigned to us or something we are born into.

Geographical Identity:

Geographical identity refers to an individual or group’s sense of attachment to the country, region, city, or village in which they live.

Political Identity:

Political identity is how a person or group of persons think of themselves in relation to the politics and government of a country. Everything that makes up our sense of self are components of our political identity. This includes our ethnicity, religion, gender, class, ideology, nationality and even our age and generation.

Lack of/ Loss of Identity:

Loss of identity may follow all sorts of change; changes in the workplace, loss of a job or profession, loss of a role that once defined us, as a child, as a parent, as a spouse, as an employee. This leaves a gap, an abyss, an empty space.

Stereotypes:

A stereotype is a fixed general image or set of characteristics that a lot of people believe represent a particular type of person or thing.

Prejudices:

Prejudices is a favoring or dislike of something without good reason, unfriendly feelings directed against an individual, a group, or a race. prejudice.

What is it?

Creative photography contains an extra element (or elements) that are intentionally used to improve the photo from its original state.

Double/ Multi-Exposure

Double exposure photography is a technique that layers two different exposures on a single image, combining two photographs into one. Double exposure creates a surreal feeling for your photos and the two photographs can work together to convey deep meaning or symbolism.

Multiple exposures are photographs in which two or more images are superimposed in a single frame, and they’re super easy to create using your analogue camera.

These can both be achieved in photoshop by creating layers and then using blending options and opacity control, but also by erasing through parts of layers to reveal parts of other images, or by using the camera settings.

This is one of my edits that I made with two pictures of chanell. I did it so that it would look like her real emotions were coming out from the emotion that she displays on a daily basis.

Man Ray

Man Ray was best known for his pioneering photography, and was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. He is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called “rayographs” in reference to himself. The influential and prolific American photographer and painter adopted the pseudonym Man Ray around 1909.

Man Ray’s exploration of multiple exposures allowed him to create images that were layered with meaning and symbolism. By superimposing multiple images onto a single frame, he constructed visual narratives that transcended the confines of linear storytelling.

The composition features a woman’s face partially obscured by the superimposition of several hands positioned in an almost ghostly manner. The interplay of light and shadow, alongside the ethereal double exposure technique, adds a hauntingly beautiful quality to the work. The melancholic expression of the face combined with the overlapping imagery creates a visual representation that evokes both mystery and introspection, inviting viewers to interpret the underlying emotions and narrative.

Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition photography involves combining two or more elements in the same picture, highlighting the interesting contrast between them, to create an eye-catching and thought-provoking image. Juxtaposition provides depth and interest in a photograph, and may also convey a message from the photographer.

Becque á Barbe: Face to Face – Martin Toft

Martin Toft is an artist and educator who has exhibited and published widely internationally. He was born in Aarhus, Denmark (1970). Self-taught in photography he completed his MA (by Project) in Fine Art at the University of Portsmouth in 2000. He moved to Jersey, Channel Islands in 2004 to take up his current post of Teacher of Photography (part-time) at Hautlieu school. He works on commissions and long-term independent and collaborative projects and his practice combines documentary and fine art approach to explore social, anthropological and cultural themes, often immersing himself in communities for long periods of time. His work is underpinned by archival research using lens-based media across photography, video, sound and text.

The Becque à Barbe project depicts human faces that are juxtaposed with “portraits” of rock faces. Martin Toft has taken images of rocks that appear similar to the native speakers due to their posture, facial features and overall silhouette. I believe that the concept of juxtaposing a portrait of a native speaker with an image of a rock face is to look at how Jérriais is used, not only to describe characteristics of people but also how it is embedded in Jersey’s native tongue in describing a landscape. Some portraits are darker than others in tone which could reflect how the language was hidden when English became the formal speech in Jersey and Jèrriais was suppressed publicly and prohibited to be spoken in schools.

Montage

Montage work includes various types of image editing in which multiple photographs are cut up and combined to form one new image.

Aleksander Rodchenko / Russian Constructivism

Rodchenko was one of the most versatile constructivist and productivist artists to emerge after the Russian Revolution. He worked as a painter and graphic designer before turning to photomontage and photography. His photography was socially engaged, formally innovative, and opposed to a painterly aesthetic.

From 1918 to 1922 Rodchenko increasingly worked in the Constructivist style: a completely abstract, highly geometric style that he painted by using a ruler and compass. In 1918 Rodchenko presented a solo show in Moscow. That year he also painted a series of black-on-black geometric paintings in response to the famous White on White painting of his rival, Kazimir Malevich. That spirit of rivalry with the older generation of avant-garde painters proved an important creative stimulus for Rodchenko. As head of the group of young Constructivists, he engaged in a heated battle for “industrial art” over easel painting. The battle was won by the “industrial artists,” in the field of theory (Rodchenko replaced Wassily Kandinsky as the director of the Institute of Artistic Culture) as well as in the teaching and practice of art. In 1919 Rodchenko began to make three-dimensional constructions out of wood, metal, and other materials, again by using geometric shapes in dynamic compositions; some of those hanging sculptures were, in effect, mobiles.

Final photos

Moodboard

What is studio lighting?

Studio lighting in photography happens when a photographer uses an artificial light source to either add to the light that’s already there, or to completely light their photograph. Setups can range from using a single flash that you mount onto your camera, to multiple off-camera lights.

Why do we use studio lighting?

Shooting with the appropriate LED studio lights allows you to capture images and colours the way they look in real life, removing the need to process photos after the shoot. Most LED lights are adjustable and can be dimmed or brightened depending on what you need. Studio lights are essential tools for photographers to illuminate their images and videos. Lighting is a very important tool when it comes to controlling the image and using studio lights in an effective way is an art in itself.

What is the difference between 1-2-3 point lighting and what does each technique provide / solve?

One point lighting would involve just one light and this would be illustrated as the key light.

Two point lighting is when the light sources point directly towards each other and the subject is placed between the two.

Three point lighting is a traditional method for illuminating a subject in a scene with light sources from three distinct positions. The three types of lights are key light, fill light, and backlight.

Key Light

What it provides: Usually the key light is the main source of light and it is placed at an angle to the subject to create texture, depth, and contrast. It highlights the form and dimension of on-screen subjects and allow cinematographers to control the atmosphere of a scene.

Positioning: The key light is normally placed at a 45 degree angle to the person, it has to be only slightly above eye level and to one side.

Effect: Using a soft key light creates more diffused shadows, conveying a gentle, flattering, and natural feel. On the other hand, a hard key light generates sharp, well-defined shadows, which can be used to create a more dramatic or stylized portrait.

Fill Light

What it provides: The purpose of a fill light is to illuminate the parts of the subject that the main light cannot reach.

Positioning: If your main light source is behind your subject, then place the fill light in front of your subject. If your main light source is to the side of your subject, then place your fill light to the side of your subject also.

Effect: Balancing the overall illumination of a scene, especially in areas with shadows or low light contrast. Its main function is to soften shadows and lessen the hardness of the key light. This results in a more appealing and balanced visual.

Back Light

What it provides: Backlight is light that hits an actor or subject from behind, typically higher than the subject it is exposing. Backlighting an object or actor from the background creates more depth and shape to a subject.

Positioning: Place the camera in the direction of the subject and position your subject in a way so that the backlight is directly behind the subject.

Effect: This will help create a light spill effect, where the light seems to spill from behind the outline of your subject.

Rembrandt Lighting

Rembrandt lighting is characterized by an illuminated triangle (also called “Rembrandt patch”) under the eye of the subject on the less illuminated side of the face. It is named for the Dutch painter Rembrandt, who occasionally used this type of lighting.

This is a photo that I took of Alef, before and after editing, using the Rembrandt lighting. I asked him to sit facing directly towards the camera and I just positioned the light to be diagonal from him but still facing his side. I used the spot healing brush tool to smoothen his face a bit and I increased the vibrancy and the contrast and I decreased the brightness and saturation.

Butterfly Lighting

Butterfly lighting is a portrait lighting pattern where the key light is placed above and directly centred with a subject’s face. This creates a shadow under the nose that resembles a butterfly. It’s also known as ‘Paramount lighting,’ named for classic Hollywood glamour photography. Butterfly lighting is a popular setup because it has the effect of slimming the face due to shadows that are created on both sides of the face. This provides a flattering look that emphasizes a subject’s facial features, highlighting the eyebrows, cheekbones, and nose in a photogenic way.

Butterfly lighting often conveys a sense of classic beauty and timeless elegance. The soft, even illumination can evoke feelings of warmth and serenity in viewers.

In this photo I used butterfly lighting to make the shadow under his nose. I positioned him facing towards the camera with a light right above him. I cropped the image so that it is a square and i smoothed out his skin , increased brightness and contrast and the saturation and vibrancy.

Chiaroscuro Lighting

In photography, chiaroscuro lighting refers to the intentional employment of highlights and shadows to draw attention to the shape of the subject.

To achieve this type of lighting, establish a single, powerful light source first in order to create a chiaroscuro impression. This might be daylight coming in via a window, or it could be a studio light. To get the ideal shadow effects, position the light at an angle relative to your subject. chiaroscuro lighting is employed to heighten tension and create terrifying visuals.

This is a photo that I took of Chanell with chiaroscuro lighting. I positioned the light to be on one side of her facing her so that there is only light on one side of her face. I cropped the image so that she is centred and I turned down the brightness and the vibrancy. I increased the contrast, gamma correction and the saturation. This gave the image a more intense look.

Contact Sheet

Final Images

Who was he?

August Sander was a German portrait and documentary photographer. His first book Face of our Time was published in 1929. Sander has been described as “the most important German portrait photographer of the early twentieth century”.

People of the Twentieth Century

He began his decades-long project People of the Twentieth Century. Though Sander never completed this exceptionally ambitious project, it includes over 600 photographs divided into seven volumes and nearly 50 portfolios. The seven volumes Sander used as his organizing principles were The Farmer, The Skilled Tradesman, The Woman, Classes and Professions, The Artists, The City, and The Last People.

The photographs from this project are mostly black-and-white portraits of Germans from various social and economic backgrounds: aristocrats and gypsies, farmers and architects, bohemians and nuns. The portraits often include familiar signifiers (a farmer with his scythe, a pastry cook in a bakery with a large mixing bowl, a painter with his brushes and canvas, musicians with their instruments, and even a “showman” with his accordion and performing bear), but sometimes the visual clues to a subject’s “type” are not so obvious, leaving the title of the work and its placement in one of Sander’s categories to illuminate the subject’s role. The titles Sander assigned to his photographs do not reveal names, and capture one of the project’s many contradictions: Each photograph is a portrait of an individual, and at the same time an image of a type. Several subjects even reappear in different roles, which reveals an inherent flexibility that persists throughout the project.

Typologies

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 and visually explores a theme or subject to draw out similarities and differences for examination.

Typology is a type of photograph which had its ultimate roots in August Sander’s series of portraits in 1929, titled “Face Of Our Time”. The term ‘Typology’ was first used to describe a style of photography when Bernd and Hilla Becher began documenting old and broken down German industrial architecture in 1959.

August Sander’s typologies

Bernhard and Hilla Becher’s typologies

The artists’ most immediately recognizable work, the typologies group several photographs of a single category of industrial structure, such as cooling towers or blast furnaces. Presented together in a grid, subtle variations emerge among these homogeneous structures.

Arnold Newman was one of the most accomplished portrait photographers of the twentieth century known for his environmental portraits of artists and celebrities such as Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, and Marilyn Monroe.

He was also known for his carefully composed abstract still life images. In 2006, he was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum.

Image Analysis

Visual:

In the image the sitter is the main focal point and he is very central. He’s framed by concrete pillars, giving off a cold, industrial sense, he is also leaning into the photo with clasped hands and strong eye contact to give him a sinister and confident look.

The background looks very industrial and it looks as though the sitter is in ownership or in charge of the environment. The lights on the ceiling are leading lines from the top of the image to the sitter’s portrait. The light on the top of the photo contrasts the dark lighting on the bottom which creates balance. The image has a very strong contrast which exaggerates the sinister atmosphere. The sitter appears elevated above the background which further enhances the ownership.

Technical:

The lighting could be artificial which creates a strong contrast on the sitter’s face making him look more sinister and darkening his gaze. The photography probably used a medium aperture as the image has a sharp foreground and a slightly softer background but we are still able to identify some of the environmental details. The shutter speed could be quite fast as the subject is in focus, with a balanced exposure, the angle of the image is also in eye level with the subject which makes us feel like we are sitting opposite from him which makes us feel more intimidated and it seems more confrontational.

Contextual:

In 1963, Jewish photographer Arnold Newman was commissioned by Newsweek to take a portrait of Alfred Krupp, a convicted Nazi war criminal.

Alfred Krupp was a German industrialist who ran the Krupp empire, a major arms manufacturer during World War II. Convicted as a war criminal for his company’s use of slave labour, the majority of the men and boys who perished were Jewish and Krupp holds a particular place of hatred amongst its people, he was later pardoned. Despite his pardon, Krupp remained a controversial figure, and his reputation as a ruthless businessman and war profiteer followed him.

At first, Newman refused, but eventually, he decided to take the assignment as a form of personal revenge. The resulting portrait became one of the most controversial and significant images of its time.

When preparing to take the photo, Newman asking Krupp to lean forward slightly, when Krupp did this he also clasped his hands together under his chin. When he moved, the light hit his face perfectly and when Newman saw this he stated that ‘he felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck’.

Concept:

The portrait captured the essence of Krupp’s character, making him look like the embodiment of evil. Upon seeing the portrait, Krupp was furious. Nevertheless, the image was published and became one of Newman’s most famous works. The portrait served as a powerful reminder of the atrocities committed during World War II and the individuals who were responsible for them. The circulation of the photo brought Krupp out from the shadows and allowed Newman to share his hatred for his man with the world.

Mood board

What is environmental portraiture?

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.

Great portraits of this sort will capture people’s interaction with their natural surroundings to tell strong stories that generate an emotion in the viewer, giving insight into where these people are, what they do and who they are.

Arnold Newman is often credited with being the photographer who articulated and who consistently employed the genre of environmental portraiture, in which the photographer uses a carefully framed and lit setting, and its contents, to symbolize the individual’s life and work; a well-known example being his portrait of Igor Stravinsky in which the lid of his grand piano forms a gargantuan musical note representative of the melodic structure of the composer’s work. Newman normally captured his subjects in their most familiar surroundings with representative visual elements showing their professions and personalities. A musician for instance might be photographed in their recording studio or on stage, a Senator or other politician in their office or a representative building. Using a large-format camera and tripod, he worked to record every detail of a scene.

Contact Sheet

This is my contact sheet for all of the photos I have taken for this environmental portraiture project. I have chosen the school as the main environment and found different people throughout the school in their separate spaces.

Final photos before and after editing

I chose this photo as one of my final photos because I think it really captures the canteen lady in her natural environment in which she spends most of her time in. The fact that she is laughing also gives off the sense that she is happy in this environment.

I decided to lower the brightness and higher the contrast as there was too much light and I want people to focus more on the subject of the image. I also cropped the image to get rid of any negative space or extra people in the background. I turned up the vibrancy of the image to make it really stand out.

This photo of Mr. Price shows him in his natural environment which is his own office.

All I did to this photo was bring the brightness up a little bit and bring down the contrast to make the subject stand out. I also cropped the image down to get rid of negative space and I centred his face so that it is in the top middle of the photo.

In this image I brought up the saturation and brought down the brightness. This really brought out his features and the background

I decided to crop this image to get rid of the negative space and make sure that his head in completely centred in the middle of the image.

This image of Ava captures her doing her favourite hobby. I brought the brightness and contrast down. I increased the vibrancy and only slightly lowered the exposure and gamma correction. In the background I blurred some of the things that could distract the viewers from the main aspects of the image.

To crop this image I used the rule of thirds and placed the 3rd line on her eye.

Evaluation

In my opinion, I think I captured these people’s environments pretty well, although I could’ve used some variation of environments as I did mostly just use the school environment. I could learn how to do more advanced editing to my images to make them really stand out.

What are visual elements?

A visual element is any characteristic that we can see, including line, shape, repetition, space, texture, colour, and value/ tone. The design principles for using these elements include balance, gradation, repetition, contrast, harmony, dominance, and unity.

Line

An element of art defined by a point moving in space. Line
may be two-or three-dimensional, descriptive, implied, or
abstract. Lines are useful for dividing space and drawing the eye to a specific location. Line can be used to suggest shape, pattern, form, structure, growth, depth, distance, rhythm, movement and a range of emotions.

Shape

Shape is a primary characteristic of visual elements, alongside size, colour, texture, and position in the frame. Regular shapes stand out and capture the viewer’s attention, especially if they have hard edges and well-defined corners. Among the four types of shapes, they are the most eye-catching.

Form

Where light and shape collide to create images with depth and what I like to think of as touch ability. Form makes an image lifelike, so the photo stands out, because the viewer feels that they can reach in and touch the person or object. To create depth in a photo, you need form.

Repetition

Repetition in photography refers to the technique of integrating recurring elements, patterns, or themes in a composition to produce a sense of rhythm and balance in an image.

Space

The rule of space in photography is simply the act of adding visual space in front of the direction that an object is moving, looking or pointing to imply motion and direction and to lead the eye of the viewer. Positive space is the actual subject while negative space (also called white space) is the area surrounding the subject. The latter acts as breathing room for your eyes. Too little negative space results in cluttered and busy photographs with every element in the photo screaming for the viewer’s attention.

Texture

Texture refers to the visual quality of the surface of an object, revealed through variances in shape, tone and colour depth. Texture brings life and vibrancy to images that would otherwise appear flat and uninspiring. Texture in an image can be regarded as any visual pattern, either repeating or non-repeating.

Value/ Tone

Tone is simply the lightness or darkness of an object. Sometimes referred to as value, tone is one of the most powerful design elements. ​ In any painting, photograph or design, the area of highest contrast between light and dark will always demand maximum attention. Value in photography represents how dark or light color and its hue can be. Values are comprehended with a visual like a gradient or scale. When your photograph has a lot of tonal variants, you will end up with low contrast.

Colour

We use colour in photography to create visual contrast, direct attention, evoke mood, and more. Of all the Elements of photography, colour is perhaps the most complex, but also, often has the most immediate impact. Colour can impact our viewers’ emotional response to an image.

Aperture

The aperture is the opening in the lens that allows light to enter the camera and onto the sensor or film. The size of this opening can be adjusted by changing the aperture settings. Take a look at the picture of a lens aperture above. Notice the adjustable blades that can move to adjust the size of the opening.

Focusing on a camera

Manual focus (MF) is the function to let the photographer adjust the focus manually instead of the camera. Although autofocus (AF) shooting is more typical in digital cameras, MF is effective when focusing is difficult with autofocus, such as in macro shooting.

Focal length

Focal length is the distance (measured in millimetres) between the point of convergence of your lens and the sensor or film recording the image. The focal length of your film or digital camera lens dictates how much of the scene your camera will be able to capture.

Depth Of Field

Depth of Field refers to the distance between the closest and farthest objects that appears acceptably sharp in a photograph. In other words, it’s the area in front of and behind the subject that appears in focus. It helps distinguish the foreground from the background to create a focal point that draws the eye and tells it where to look.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Ralph Eugene Meatyard was a visionary photographer known for his dreamlike black & white photographs of family members in masks, elegant portraits of bohemian friends and radical experiments in abstraction. Meatyard liked to experiment with ‘No focus photos’ which are blurry photos.

These would mean that he had probably used manual focus on his camera to capture these blurry photos. He also took quite a few photos of ‘Zen Twigs’. With his study of “Zen Twigs” Meatyard examined the mysterious forms of tree branches photographed close-up with a low depth of field. The camera’s focus on the twig detail contrasts with the obscured shapes of the background.

Jerry Reed

Jerry Reed is an English photographer who claims his objective is to sustain the interest of the viewer through his photographs. He focuses heavily on a contrast in the shadows from the light on the paper, giving a very two-toned effect.

The series is based on paper sculptures meticulously crafted by Reed, explorations in architectural forms and spatial relationships. Reed makes his photos black and white to remove the distraction of colour and to help the viewer focus on other aspects of the photo, such as the subject, the textures, shapes and patterns, and the composition.

In his series, “Paper Work”, Jerry Reed’s B&W photographs of close-up paper arrangements become abstract designs through careful directional lighting.  His constructions are sensually textured, elegant studies of form and tonality.

Paper experiment photoshoot

This is my contact sheet for all of my paper experiment photos. I tried to use different shapes and sizes of scrunched up paper to create different textures. I used the studio to take these pictures using the ring lights at different angles. The only thing I kind of struggled with taking these photos is the aperture and what ISO to use for my photos. These photos are just scrunched up pieces of paper, or cut up paper shaped into different forms to create dimension and let the light go in in different areas of the paper.

Edited (before and after)

For this photo I turned it black and white to get rid of distractions of colours to get the viewer to focus on the texture of the dried up leaves and the form of it.

This is a before and after of a texture photo I took. I decided to enhance the colour to really bring out the texture in it. It isn’t easy to see here but I also cropped the photo so it was a square so that it could be more focused on one area of the photo only. I turned the brightness and contrast up to make it more clear.

In these photos that I took of some fake flowers and leaves, I decided to make the photo black and white as I thought there was too much going on which all the colour and now the viewer can just be focused on the main aspects of the image. I made the hue and saturation higher. I also cropped my image so that it didn’t have as much negative space and the viewers would be able to focus on only the main aspect of the image.

This photo that I took represents many of the formal elements, for example:

Line: This is included to divide the space and suggest patter, form, depth, distance and rhythm.

Shape: This makes the photo stand out as it captures the viewers attention as it has sharp edges and well-defined corners.

Repetition: The same shape is used repeatedly which creates a sense of rhythm and balance in the image.

Texture: The texture on the film around the shapes brings life and vibrancy to the image so it doesn’t appear flat and uninspiring.

In these 3 photos, I had edited the first one in 3 different ways. The first photo I increased the saturation, vibrancy and the hue to make the colours really stand out more. In the second one, I added a gradient map over the top of it and used a mixture of blue and a pale pink to show the contrast between the colours and shadows. These colours also bring out more texture than you could see in the original photo. In the last photo, I decided to make it black and white to remove the distraction of colour so that the viewer could focus on the other aspects of the photo, like the texture and the shapes.

My Final Photos

These are my favourite final photos. I think they create a good variation of the formal elements. The texture in all of them creates a sense of dimension in the photos and the ones in black and white make sure that the viewer isn’t distracted by the bright colours and takes more time to notice the little features of the photos to get it more in depth. In the photos which are not black and white, I decided to enhance the colour as it makes the texture of them come out even more. The photo in the top right and the photo of the trees have a lot of shape which stands out and captures the viewer’s attention, along with repetition to produce a sense of rhythm and balance.

ArtSteps Gallery

I decided to put these photos together as they kind of give off the same concept and are both in black white so the viewer is not distracted by the colour of the photo. both these photos are based off of nature which makes them look good together. The two photos together really compliment each other and all the dark lines makes the images stand out to the viewers. I decided to get three different types of leaves to really show the difference between them but how well they work together. The dark tones bring out the texture in each photo and can really grab the viewers eye.

I believe that these three photos work really well with each other as they are all in colour and they all give off the same vibe. All have a lot of repetition within them which creates a sense of balance and rhythm. I think the colour in each of them enhances the amount of texture in each photo which can really grab the viewers eye and make them more intrigued in the photo. The green and blue tones in all photos give off a sense of calmness and relaxation which is another reason why I think these photos work really well with each other.