Arnold Newman environmental portraits

Newman went on to photograph Eleanor Roosevelt, Pablo Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright, Golda Meir, Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, Salvador Dalí, and the former president Bill Clinton: decidedly on his own terms. There would be no overstuffed costume fittings or stark studios. Mr. Newman’s portraits were defined by his sitter’s environments, which led him to be known as the “father of the environmental portrait.” which he hated being called.

Otto Frank, who was a businessman and the father of Anne Frank. in Amsterdam, 1960. Credit…Arnold Newman

Gwendolyn Knight, sculptor, and Jacob Lawrence, painter. New York, 1944.Credit…Arnold Newman

George Grosz, painter. Bay side, New York, 1942.Credit…Arnold Newman

What he said about his photos

in his photos he argued that he was not interested in the details of his subjects surroundings. but instead the symbol’s that he could create. furthermore A new book by Radius Books, “Arnold Newman: One Hundred,” published in conjunction with the Howard green burg gallery in honour of the centennial of his birth, shows the range of his symbolic approach.

Some plates in the book are solely of symbols — like a collage of a violin maker’s patterns in Philadelphia. One of his most famous, his mid-1940s portrait of Igor Stravinsky that was commissioned by Harper’s Bazaar, shows the composer at the corner of a large piano. This, Mr. Newman explained, was not about the piano, it was about the symbol the piano represents.

within this photo it shows how he crops to symbolise a music note when cropped and more so how it is in black and white, which also makes all of his photos seem like they are related in some way or another.

Others which show subjects placed within symbols. In his 1956 portrait, Mr. Newman posed the bald head of the painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet in front of a weathered wall that looked like a huge glob of chipped paint.

Image Analysis:

Emotional responce

this photo graph automatically gives an uncomfortable view because if the way he’s staring out at you with a villainous look to him.

Visual

in the photo there are really dark and gloomy colours such as green and brown. its dark toned with light throughout the middle top. the shape is symmetrical with leading lines. creates a sense of depth with the background in relatively deep focus, and the man is central with pillars either side of him. he is in the foreground. lights repetition leads the eye to the deep background.

technical

in this the lighting bright in the back ground however on him its very dark on his on the front of his face. The aperture is high. also the shutter speed looks over exposed on the lights and where the lights are shining on but where the lights don’t reach it seems like its slightly under exposed. from the high sensitivity in the ISO shows the its all its focus. throughout the photo there is a warm and cold feel about it expect from Krupp because he is the vocal point.

contextual

has a very historical view of after the second world war and Jewish concentration camps. which is very personal to Arnold Newman, who is a Jewish photography, who also originally didn’t want to take the photo. While Alfred Krupp, the subject, was a German Nazi war criminal. with the visual aspect the industrial backdrop, which serves as a reminder of the atrocities committed during WW2.

conceptual

shows that Krupp is seen as scheming and looks evil and cruel, also where he is positioned shows that he’s the owner of the train station where they would transport the Jews to concentration camps. showing this is that he looks bigger and better with him in the spot light. Arnold Newman shows his own poetic justice by making Krupp seen as evil as possible. showing this is the shadows that come down on his face, to create this Newman made Krupp lean forward to create this.

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.

which in these types of photos it can reveal lots of things or conceal thing to the naked eye, such as the top second one at the top, as it could reveal that its a child working and and doesn’t look happy doing what he is doing. however the 5th one on the second row only shows a part of the photo, so could mean that its been cropped which is being concealed and it doesn’t reveal much about him except that he looks happy.

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.

Arnold Newman

Arnold Abner Newman was an American photographer, noted for his environmental portraits of artists and politicians. 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. He also won the Lucie award in 2004.

Alfred Krupp

Alfred Krupp was a German steel manufacturer and inventor; the largest arms supplier of his era, which earned him the nickname “The Cannon King”. Krupp’s wartime employment of slave labour resulted in the “Krupp Trial” of 1947–1948, following which he served three years in prison.

Arnold Newman and Alfred Krupp photo Analysis

Alfred Krupp was a Nazi war criminal who was known for using slave labour in his factories, this can be seen in the background of this image if you look closely. Krupp contacted the famous photographer Newman for a portrait in 1963. After finding out that Newman was a Jew, Krupp refused to let him take the photograph.

Newman didn’t give up he kept asking Krupp to have a look at his portfolio before making a final decision, after seeing Newman’s portfolio Krupp finally gave in and accepted. So on July 6, 1963, Newman and some others went into a derelict factory in Essen which belonged to Krupp, This was where the photo was taken. After Krupp’s history Newman decided to make him look as evil as possible under the eerie demonic lighting of the factory.

This portrait was taken using a wide angle lens, there is a bigger sense of perspective, the lighting is eerie and demonic with the green tint which makes the subject appear very sinister. Krupp is presented as smug and almost proud of his actions, this is seen through his positioning in the photo where his hands are being placed together, his smile is clearly shown. His position in the photo taking up the whole bottom half being above and in front of the factory also is trying to suggest that he is being smug or sly .

Artist reference 2

August Sander

August Sander was a German photographer whose work documented the society he lived in. He was one the most important portrait photographers of the early 20th century.

Bio

The son of a mining carpenter, Sander apprenticed as a miner in 1889. Acquiring his first camera in 1892, he took up photography as a hobby and, after military service, pursued it professionally, working in a series of photographic firms and studios in Germany.

By 1904 he had his own studio in Linz, and, after his army service in World War I, he settled permanently in Cologne, where in the 1920s his circle of friends included photographers and painters dedicated to what was called Neue Sachlichkeit, or New Objectivity.

About his photographs

After photographing local farmers near Cologne, Sander was inspired to produce a series of portraits of German people from all strata of society. He was committed to telling the truth. His portraits were usually stark, photographed straight on in natural light, with facts of the sitters’ class and profession alluded to through clothing, gesture, and backdrop. At the Cologne Art Society exhibition in 1927, Sander showed 60 photographs of “Man in the Twentieth Century,” and two years later he published Antlitz der Zeit which translates to Face of Our Time, the first of what was projected to be a series offering a sociological, pictorial survey of the class structure of Germany.

to capture texture in a photo you need various colours, shapes and depth of the objects surface

Werner Bischof

Werner Bischof’s photographs of post-World War II European and Asian cultures were integral to the development of photojournalism since 1945. Trained in graphic design and photography at the Zürich School of Arts and Crafts, Bischof adhered early to the style of New Objectivity, and an interest in avant-garde art and photography led him to move to Paris in 1939. The war began shortly after his arrival, and he returned to Switzerland, where he was conscripted. His experiences with refugees and his observation of the desperate conditions of war as a soldier at the Swiss border–as well as his later employment at the Zürich magazine Du, where he was encouraged toward photojournalism–resulted in a dramatic change in his photographic approach between 1942 and 1944. By 1945 he was producing the socially conscious photographs and essays for which he became best known, and had begun traveling extensively for life. Bischof specialised in photos of texture

this is one of werner bischofs texture photos and he likes to get photos of people with a texture around them

this is a photo that i took i went up to a stop sign and took a photo of it, the rust on the stop sign added texture to it, i took this photo in to light room and then edited it i changed the bottom white colour to a blue colour it made it stand out more and more vibrant, this makes the texture stand out more

I explored the theme of texture in this photo by taking a photo of a wall with shadows of the tree shining on it, it was with the use of natural lighting. The tree shadows highlights the detail of the wall. i used a medium Iso for this photo.

The main subject in this photo is the pink leaves i edited the photo to add more detail to the foreground, the background of this photo is the leaves on the floor that are bright orange this adds

The term “fixing the shadows” started as a way to describe the early stages of photography , referring to the fixer , a chemical combination used in the final steps of processing an image onto paper. However its also linked to the use of the camera obscura.

The term ” camera obscura ” was first used by the German astronomer Johnnas kepler in the early 17th century.

Originally the camera obscura was used to study eclipses with without the risk of damaging the eyes by looking directly into the sun

A camera obscura consists of a box, tent, or room with a small hole in one side or the top. Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside, where the scene is reproduced, inverted (upside-down) and reversed (left to right), but with color and perspective preserved.

The camera obscura was then later used by artists to trace outlines which led many to take an interest in looking for more permanent photographic images as the camera obscuras images were beautiful but fleeting. This included Nicephore niepce.

Nicephorus Niepce

Nicephorus Niepce was a French inventor and one of the earliest pioneers of photography. He developed heliography after being inspired by the camera obscura which translates to ” sun drawings ” , he used it to create the worlds first permanent photographic images.

For his first experiments , Nicéphore Niépce positioned at the back of a camera obscura sheets of silver salts coated paper, known to blacken with daylight . In may 1816 he produced the first image of nature : a view from a window . It was a negative and the image vanished because in broad daylight the coated paper becomes completely black . He calls these images “retinas”.

Louis Daguerre

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was a French artist and photographer, recognized for his invention of the eponymous daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photography much like Nicephore.

the eponymous daguerreotype is characterized by its mirrored surface and the image’s high level of detail. First introduced in 1839 in France, the process quickly spread throughout Europe and to the United States where it was popular through the 1860s.

Having effectively retired, Daguerre returned to his first passion and spent the last decade of his life painting diorama-like tableaus for local churches in and around the Paris suburb of Bry-sur-Marne. He died there of a heart attack on July 10, 1851, aged 63.

The daguerreotype process made it possible to capture the image seen inside a camera obscura and preserve it as an object. It was the first practical photographic process and ushered in a new age of pictorial possibility.

Daguerreotype

The daguerreotype is a direct-positive process, creating a highly detailed image on a sheet of copper plated with a thin coat of silver without the use of a negative. The process required great care. The silver-plated copper plate had first to be cleaned and polished until the surface looked like a mirror.

Daguerreotypes can be identified by a silver mirror finish where the image can be seen or not seen depending on reflection. These date from 1839 -1860s. Ambrotypes are a positive on glass with black background added in order to contrast and see the image dating from the 1850s -1860s

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.

Henry Fox Talbot

William Henry Fox Talbot was an English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later 19th and 20th centuries. 

William Henry Fox Talbot was credited as the British inventor of photography. In 1834 he discovered how to make and fix images through the action of light and chemistry on paper. These ‘negatives’ could be used to make multiple prints and this process revolutionised image making.

Within 18 months of his initial experiments, he had grasped how to make these drawings permanent and, more importantly, developed the negative/positive process. Talbot’s calotype became the foundation for modern photographic practices. Talbot’s name appears alongside Louis Daguerre as a pioneering inventor.

Richard Leach Maddox

Richard Leach Maddox was an English photographer and physician who invented lightweight gelatin negative dry plates for photography in 1871.

Long before his discovery of the dry gelatin photographic emulsion, Maddox was prominent in what was called photomicrography – photographing minute organisms under the microscope. The eminent photomicrographer of the day, Lionel S. Beale, included as a frontispiece images made by Maddox in his manual ‘How to work with the Microscope’ – wikipedia

Lines

Lines are common in photographs. They are all around us, and every photo has lines. These lines often connect different points within the image. Sometimes, lines come into the photo from outside the frame or lead out of it. The type and direction of lines in your image can convey meaning. Vertical and horizontal lines suggest stability or a still feel. Horizontal lines can show distance, while vertical lines can represent height, balance, and strength. Diagonal lines create a more active scene.

Shape

In a photograph, a silhouette represents the simplest form of a shape, lacking any details like texture or color. Because it stands out sharply against its background, a silhouette is very noticeable. Shapes are typically defined by lines that either intersect or enclose them. They can also be identified by their brightness or darkness compared to their surroundings. Differences in color, texture, and pattern around a shape can help distinguish it further. Additionally, shapes can be defined by other shapes around them, like the arrow in a well-known shipping company’s logo. The area that contains a shape is known as positive space, while the area outside it is called negative space sometimes, the negative space can create its own shape.

Space

Adding space in your photos helps create a sense of scale and depth. It gives your main subject some breathing room, letting viewers focus on the key elements of the scene. This is especially helpful in outdoor photography, where you might want to highlight the size of features like mountains or lakes. However, you can use space effectively with almost any type of photography.

Repetition

Repetition in photography is the technique of using similar elements, patterns, or themes in a composition to create a sense of rhythm and balance. This can include repeatedly using lines, shapes, colors, textures, or other visual elements to achieve consistency. Examples of repetition in photography could be a row of trees, a series of arches, a field of sunflowers, or a group of people dressed alike. By repeating these elements, the photographer helps guide the viewer’s eye across the image, establishing a visual rhythm.

Texture

Adding texture to your composition can enhance your image and connect the viewer to it, especially in macro photography. You can find textures in various surfaces and environments. To highlight these textures, try different lighting setups and depth of field options. For instance, use flat light and position the camera directly in front of a weathered wall to emphasize its surface. But also, backlighting can reveal details in sand dunes, a shallow depth of field can showcase intricate materials, and a long exposure can create a smooth effect on flowing water.

Colour

One of the most essential formal elements in visual imagery is undoubtedly colour. The use of colour, whether it appears as a solid block or as a harmonious grouping of similar shades, has the potential to create a particularly strong and memorable impact on the viewer. Different colours are not just aesthetically pleasing, they also hold significant power in terms of expression, allowing them to resonate with those who view with the image.

Value/Tone

Tone of your image is also very important in terms of formal elements, in which focusing on using contrast and the balance of light and dark areas. Tone is especially important in black and white photography, as it helps direct the viewer’s attention in the absence of color.

Francis Bruguière

Bruguiere had a pretty impressive career, shooting for famous magazines like Vogue and Vanity Fair. He got into photographic abstraction and even made some cool cut paper designs, which really leveled up his art. In 1928, he showed his work at the der Strum gallery in Berlin and got a lot of praise. That same year, he moved to London, where he started playing around with light, which became a big part of his style. In 1930, he teamed up with Oswell Blakeston to create Light Rhythms, England’s first abstract film, inspired by his light experiments. Later on, he wanted a more laid-back lifestyle, so he moved to Northamptonshire and kept creating art until he passed away.

My response to Francis Bruguière:

These are all the photographs I’ve taken that focus on paper photography and my interpretation of Francis Bruguiere’s work. To organize these images, I created a color-coding system. Green indicates photos that meet a pretty good standard, meaning they are clear and well lit, which enhances their quality. Yellow signifies images that aren’t quite as good but still have editing potential. These yellow-coded photos may have issues like being slightly out of focus or poorly lit. I believe both the green and yellow photos are still useful and can be improved through editing to highlight their best features.

Paper editing:

For editing, I used the develop tab to explore the black and white presets. There were many options, and I chose a sepia filter for some images. I also adjusted the exposure to create a darker look in certain photos, making the shadows more noticeable. I made slight changes to the contrast as well to emphasize the dark areas and enhance the shadows. These adjustments improved the visual impact of each photo and contributed to the mood I wanted to achieve.

Add evidence / screenshots of the following:

These are my photos that I think were good enough to be flagged. After they were flagged, I rated them on scale from 1-5. This allowed me to assess the quality of of the pictures and help understand what differentiates and bad photo from a good one. These are a frame of reference to contacts sheets and how they are used by photographer to pick the best and most relevant work to their ideas

Edited Image:

To edit this image, I changed it to black and white and messed around with this setting that changed the grain, this made the photo and the subjects in the photo seems like they have more detail as the stand out more. I also changed the contrast and brightness to make the blacks and whites stand more out.

Comparing Images:

This is a comparison of the edited photo and the original, this gives a clear view of how the photo changed and how I could of done this. You then are able to analyse all the differences in each photo like for example you can tell that the image of the left seems more sharp and precise as a result of the edit techniques I used.

This is a contact sheet on some of the photos I did, this shows a clear example of the photo shoots I did for shutter speed and for apperture.

Jaroslav Roster

Jaroslav Rossler was a notable Czech photographer who played a significant role in the modernist movement in Czechoslovakia. He was born in 1902 and gained fame for his creative blending of artistic expression with avant-garde photography techniques. Rossler was a key member of the influential art collective Devetsil, aiming to incorporate a range of artistic fields. His art frequently delved into abstract and geometric themes, challenging the limits of traditional photography. Rossler’s influence in the field has endured, and his photos are admired for their distinctive viewpoint and skillful craftsmanship. He died in 1990, leaving a valuable legacy in the field of visual arts. 

My Paper Photoshoot:

Best Image Selection:

Editing:

I used photoshop and changed the images into black and white to emphasise the shadows and then contrast and sharpness to define the futures within the photo which made the dark parts have more depth and the lighter bits brighter. In the end I cropped the image to make the subject of the photo more prominent.

This composition of photos work well together because they have all been edited in similar ways. The tonal value of the photos has been increased due to the changing of contrast and sharpness creating darker shadows and brighter highlights. It is clear in all photos the papers have asymmetrical lines which incorporates formal elements generating a visual appeal and guides the viewers focus throughout the presentation of the images.

In this composition of photos I scrunched up pieces of paper and laid them out and took close up photos of the creases within the paper. When editing all the photos I used Lightroom with the pre made settings , B&W punch, which emphasises the textures, showcasing the forms and shades.