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.