ALONE...

My take on Beate Gutschow.

When looking at these photographs the thing that stands out for me - is the vast space with no people. The images represent being alone. I love the framing of the first image and the whole placement. The lack of colour represents a coldness to me that you wouldn't get if it was colour. The rubbish represents a decaying world. In the second photograph i like the high contrast in what appears to be a very cosmopolitan area - and yet there is no people. Both shots are almost postbellum.

After looking through her work a came across some other pictures that gave me the same feeling. The emotional feelings are the same, however i dont know who the photographer is.



I want to create the same feelings in my photographs. I want to create a series of  B&W photographs in a modern environment. With no people in the image. It has to be a enviroment that would normally have a trace of human life within it. I also want the image to be in my home town.

Two of my images

The main factor was finding a floor of a car park during the day (why the day? I wanted some strong daylight to give contrast to the image). I didn't want to  have any people, cars or trace of people in the image. However i wanted it to be relevant to people that looked at my image, i wanted the viewer to be emotionally unsuprised at the image, and yet feel a emptiness towards it. The reason i chose a car park (and the first and second floor) was that during the day car parks are normally congested by cars. The feeling that the car park had been abandoned. I Shot the photographs in manual and had a few challenges with the light. It was a very bright day and the car park was very dark. However the end result is what i was after.

love - infected love

Man Ray...

Fine Art Photography.

For my fine Art photography I wanted to do a photograph that had a message. For this project i wanted to do something around Women (and men), are more than just pieces of meat.  

First of all I searched the internet for a theme and came across this. I needed the image to be shocking enough to make you look twice, The image didn't need to be tasteful  beautiful or  pleasant on the eye. In fact, I was looking for just the opposite. In order to get this message across, I wanted to show women as meat, to get the viewer to come to this opinion themselves.

In the photograph i cut a hole in the base of the chicken. I then put the Barbie doll inside ensuring that the arms were inside the chicken. I then unbound the chicken and positioned the arms so they were in the right position,

The object was taken on a white table cloth on F4 at an ISO 160. I then blew the background out in CS5 trying to maintain the shadow to give depth to the image. I changed the colour balance slightly and altered the selective colour to make a little more red.

Berenice Abbott

Berenice Abbott..


Berenice Abbott originally Bernice Abbott. Was Born in Ohio in 1898. She was Heavily influenced By Man Ray in her portraiture and Eugene Atget in her architecture.


Her photography is clear, honest,objective and realistic.


Abbott went to Europe in 1921 where she studied sculpture in Paris and Berlin. In 1923 She was hired by Man Ray as his dark room assistant at his portrait studio in Montparnasse. Man Ray was impressed with her dark room skills and allowed her to use his dark room for her own work. Abbott had her first solo exhibition in 1926.


In 1929 Abbott returned to New York where she immediately saw the cities photographic potential. Four years earlier she had been introduced to Eugene Atget and became a great admirer, i think it shows in her work. Using a Large Format Camera Abbott began to photograph New York. Her New York work has provided a historical chronicle of many destroyed buildings around Manhattan.


Photos by Eugene atget...









Photos by Berenice Abbott with Similar perspectives.

Abbott was part of the straight photography Movement. She didn't like the work of pictorialists.  Pictorialism started to die out after the first world war.

Some of my wedding photography...

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iconic photography

A take on the  'Here's Johnny' picture from the shining...

I 

I have used the poster from the shining to recreate the iconic poster. Not that i think i can ever reproduce Jack Nicholson's madness from the movie. The main thing for me was the composition. The head had to be peeping through the door. The person had to look as mad as possible (or look as mad as any sane person could look, for someone who doesnt have the skills of acting) The eyes had to be looking sidewards, as though looking at someone. The mouth had to be open to give the impression of angry speech. The cropping of the photograph is essential. It has to be about the expression and the intent. I wasnt about to start hacking down my doors in my house so i improvised using a door in a slightly open position.

The lighting was also important. I needed the outside to be light yet the background through the door to be dark. I chose to take this photograph on apertur priority, ISO 400 as i didnt want to much grain so i could crop as needed on an F4 to keep as light as possible. It was taken on a canon 5D mark2 and the focal lenght was 105mm. I need to point out that this photo was taken in moderate to dark light with no flash so i needed as much light as possible.

Once the image was taken i satuated the males face, made the eyes a touch more bloodshot, and painted the doorframe giving a rougher effect to the framing. I then lightened the foreground and darkened the background before sharpening and cropping. All done in CS5.

THE ORIGONAL PHOTOGRAPH

ABSTRACT - things are not always what they appear....

Abstract image.

I began My abstract image by researching images on line. I then began to get a preference for images of normal subjects, but taken in a different way. I wanted to create something within our every day life, only it would have to be a bit more obscure.

Once I had decided on my subject matter I then needed to set the scene. I used a two lighting system. One light either side of the object. I then Turned off the house lights and tested my camera settings. I decided to shoot  in aperture priority and let my camera choose the shutter speed. I adjusted my aperture to F4 and ISO 320. Although it was dark i still had my studio lights on the subjects, This shot is taken on 1/40th second.

I put a slated back dining chair in front of one of the lights to create shadows. I placed the mushrooms in a tray in a random fashion. My original picture above was supposed to look like mushrooms in a sunny woodland. I took many shots moving the light and chair to get different effects. Eventually I decided to use part of the image and not the whole thing.  I then used the diffused glow in photo shop to soften the image and adjusted the saturation.
I am happy with the final image and intend to do more images in this style.

The differences between abstract and representational art.

The Difference between abstract and representational art/photography.

Representational art is a piece of art that is very similar to the real subject itself. Representational art/photography is something that represents the original image. For instance, a  portrait of a man on a canvas -  This is  representational art because its easy to recognise what the subject is. It is also normally very easy to see what the image represents (details such as the period it was created are normally very clear).

Some pictures fit into both categories. It's a matter of personal perception. What some people see as a representational image, some would argue that the picture is in fact abstract. In the following picture the subject is clear, it is clear to see what the subject matter is. However, because of the artistic placement and the colours used -  it gives the element of being abstract. The three colours are so vibrant in this photograph that if this were a painting I would almost certainly say it was abstract.

 

Abstract art uses concepts to reflect / create images and emotions. For instance the following image represents oranges and cream. There is an element of oranges due to the shapes, colour and texture. However, there is no definite orange in the painting. Abstract art seems to be less obvious, and there for the  viewer does not feel natural to it immediately. Its very much about an emotional feeling, through your own emotional inner state. Where as representational art it obvious and natural to the viewer. The viewer assesses the image on its visual accuracy as well as the emotions it gives them.

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Gizmo My Mums Dog....

Babycakes - My Black Mini Schnauzer. She looks so cute, but shes a little devil. Lol

Inspired photography - Raising the flag

This is a brief study of Raising the flag by Joe Rosenthal.
Joe Rosenthal was a Reporter /  photographer for most of his life. He was rejected by the U.S army because of his poor eyesight. He became a inspirational war photographer. This picture became one of the best-known photographs of the war.

My first impression of this picture is of victory, hope but also struggle and determination. You can almost feel the determination of the men raising the flag. I think this piece is very inspirational.

To develop my understanding further i done a little research into this picture. As i studied the photograph a little further my respect for the soldiers and indeed Joe Rosenthal grew. The first thing that shocked me was that only three of the six men survived. Three of the men died within weeks of this photo being taken.Their names were Strank, Block and Sousley. The second suprise was the age of the soldiers. The eldest was Strank at 24 and was called the 'old man' by the other soldiers. The others were all teenagers aged from 17 to 19. They were just boys not men.

   Michael Strank

The photograph itself is is powerful due to the composition. Firstly there is a very definite incline from the back soldier to the front man. If you look a the flag and the movement at the top of the flag this incline is exactly the same. The flag pole has a incline in the same direction if a little more extreme. And yet the rubble smothered ground is against them with the incline going in the apposite direction. For me this is what gives the element of struggle and determination. The background is out of focus so all visuals point towards the subject. A iconic photograph..

by where i live...

a self portrait inspired by Ben Heine...

Kandinsky's 'My dining room'

Kandinsky’s  ‘My Dining Room’

Just my opinion.......

This painting i feel represents the time it was painted, The colours are extremely bright but to me represent a bright country garden. I like the old bottle green on the Victorian radiator and around the door frames . The shading in the connecting rooms and the ceiling give good perspective.

The lines give the painting great perspective too, and the break in the colours around the the door frame give a greater understanding of a different space.

The paintings has different textures, The main dining room is quite bold and blotchy  -  the room  going off to the left is very soft as though being lit by a soft evening sun – the room at the far back has very angular shapes but textures are much flatter.

Your eye is drawn to the left of the painting. Most of the lines of the painting are drawn towards the far room at the left – Your eye wanders along the lines of the table in front of the sideboard.

I would think this work was early 1900s as Kandinsky becomes more abstract as time went on.

I really like this painting it reminds me of Lachapelle’s dolls house portraiture ( i think it’s the bright colours)