Documenting the DSLR
The DSLR camera
DSLR stands for a digital single lens reflex camera. Digital cameras allow the photographer to see their subject in a viewfinder, and images are saved onto an SD card.
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The Exposure Triangle
The exposure triangle is a diagram documenting the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and ISO.
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Brutalism
Brutalist architecture is an architectural style which emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the bare building materials and structural elements over decorative design. The style commonly makes use of exposed, unpainted concrete or brick, angular geometric shapes and a predominantly monochrome colour palette; other materials, such as steel, timber, and glass, are also featured.
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Simon Phipps
Simon Phipps is a London based artist whose work focuses on Modernist and Brutalist architecture. Phipps is the photographer for "The Brutalist London Map" published by Blue Crow Media. His book "Brutal London" is a photographic survey of Brutalist architecture in inner citer London. The photographs of the structures he captures are full of harsh, straight lines and corners. Phipps' photos are in black and white which allows for the primary focus of the pictures to be on the shapes and lines, rather than colour.
My response
I went to the Barbican to take a series of photographs inpsired by Simon Phipps. I chose the Barbican as it is one of the most well known brutalist sites in London. It is a large space with lots of different, varied structures and an interesting history. When taking the pictures, I focused on three particular aspects to look out: line and perspective, negative space, and form and shape. To emulate Phipp's work, I edited the photos to black and white using photoshop and increased the contrast. Doing this helped to emphasise the details and form of the structures.
Line and perspective
I think my focus on line and perspective is clear in both photographs and I am happy with them both. I think my use of perspective and incorporation of the lines in the structures made for interesting and busy compositions.
Form and shape
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Negative space
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Thomas Danthony
Thomas Danthony's Brutalism project is a collaboration with Black Dragon press about Brutalism architecture in London. The project consists of three A2 poster, 5 colours screen print, edition of 100, numbered and signed. His photos consist of brutalist buildings which he has then simplified using photoshop, and made them black and white. The simplification of the images helps to draw the eyes focus to the structure of the buildings, rather than any background scenes. This is also helped by the lack of colour.
My response
Break the Structure- Thomas Kellner
"I think I am more of an artist than a photographer. There are definitions in art about ‘construction/ deconstruction’ or ‘collage/ decollage,’ but I don’t think any of it really fits what I am doing right now. Many have said it is ‘very German,’ and that might be closer."
Thomas Kellner is a German photographer known for photographing architectural buildings. He takes his photos on one roll of film, and then creates a contact sheet for the images. He cuts up the individual images and rearranges their order to create a deconstructed, distorted version of the full image of the building. |
Kellner's style reflects the wandering gaze of viewers eyes, .presenting us with parts of a broader whole that come together to form a singular image. As a result, his photographs don't deconstruct architecture; rather, they reimagine it. His art offers a unique perspective on well-known landmarks around the world posing concerns about how we interpret things visually and create a sense of place.
My response
I am somewhat pleased with the outcome of these edits, as I successfully carried out the task in the style of Kellner. However I struggled with carrying out the task as I found it very complicated, often getting muddled between layers and selecting the wrong ones when editing and cutting. I think for these photos to be better they would have more of a dynamic rather than abstract feel to them. I think because all the squares are pointing all in completely different ways, the structures feel more like they have just been broken apart rather than having that dynamic aspect to them.
To edit the images in the style of Kellner:
Step 5:
Deselect one layer and the background layer later.
Then on 'Layer Copy' press COMMAND T
Twist your background layer.
Deselect one layer and the background layer later.
Then on 'Layer Copy' press COMMAND T
Twist your background layer.
Step 6:
Step 7:
This will reveal other rotated layers below and create the Thomas Kellner effect
Bracketing task
Bracketing is a camera technique where you capture several different exposures of the same scene. In other words, you capture a standard image, a darker/underexposed version, and a brighter/overexposed version. This allows for the photographer to have a selection of images to choose from and be able for them to pick the photograph with just the right exposure. This is done by using the Exposure Compensation Button on the back of the camera.
We went to Muswell Hill Broadway and photographed the same scene, 7 times, using the bracketing technique. I kept my camera in the same position and after each shot, adjusted the exposure for the next. This provided me with a selection of 7 similar photos with a range of exposures, so I could choose which photo worked the best.
We went to Muswell Hill Broadway and photographed the same scene, 7 times, using the bracketing technique. I kept my camera in the same position and after each shot, adjusted the exposure for the next. This provided me with a selection of 7 similar photos with a range of exposures, so I could choose which photo worked the best.
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I found this task particularly useful as I often struggle with getting the right exposure. A picture will appear fine as I am taking it, but once uploaded way too dark or light. Using the bracketing method helps me avoid this problem by allowing me to have a selection of the same (or extremely similar) photos, just with different amounts of exposure so I will not be stuck if the picture is not how I wanted it to be. It provides me with back ups and gives me a selection to choose the best from, to ensure the work I put forward is my best work. I feel much more confident using a camera after this task.
Twisted structure
Nicholas Kennedy Sitton
“These photos are a result of how intriguing the concept of distortion translates to architecture. It creates a sense of falling into itself, like capturing a moment of demolition. I can destroy titanous steel structures with the click of a mouse and create new twisted versions of reality. I was also inspired by San Francisco. I had just moved here and being a new city was disorienting and exciting and I wanted to capture how my whole world had changed.”
Nicholas Sitton is a surrealist photographer based in San Fransisco. He takes photos of urban structures then edits them by cutting and rotating the image segments slightly. His choice of architectural landscapes as subject matter gives an added dimension to these hypnotic photographic artworks.
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My response
After doing this task once I was able to do it, however after a second time I struggled as my layers would not move.
Structure In Nature
Lee Myoung-ho
Myoung Ho Lee was a photographer from South Korea. He started in 2004 and became famous for his environment work. He brought many people with cranes and more to hold up a white background behind a tree and hide behind it to make the tree stand out as he felt we don't notice unique beauty in the natural world. Essentially, his work is bringing the studio outside.
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My response
We went to Coldfall Woods to respond to Myoung-ho's work. Taking sheets of white paper, a partner held up a sheet behind a plant and then we photographed it, framing the image so you could only see the white background instead of being able to see the woods surrounding it.
I am happy with how I lay the pictures out, setting up the plants on the white sheet of paper, and think I successfully achieved in some shots the studio look that is present in Myoung-ho's work. However this is not present in all the pictures, where the shadows are too prominent and colours are less bright. This would be improved by changing the exposure, increasing it so the images would be brighter.
Sanna Kannisto- Field Works
Sanna Kannisto is a Finnish photographer whose work is a both aesthetically pleasing and clever combination of science and art. The images below are taken from her project Field Works that she created whilst in Costa Rica in the rainforest. This box/set up features a bright white background, which she has said refers to 'scientific documentation', and allows the viewer to see the details and myriad of colours in her images. Kannisto's work features both still life photography and staged photographic styles, also linking to themes in artistic history.
My response
Best edits
I feel the same way about these set of photos as the Myoung-ho response. I did bracket the pictures to some extent, however going back I would have taken more photos of varying exposure so I could get a brighter and more crisp image.
Independent development
Strand 1: Colour simplification
For my first strand of independent development, I wanted to experiment with colour simplification inspired by the works of Johnny Kerr and Matthieu Vernot. Both of their work focuses on architecture and geometric abstraction. They have a strong use of colours against a contrasting backgrounds, and focus on geometric shapes found in buildings. I went to Central London to photograph the skyscrapers there. I chose this location because of the sharp and interesting shapes of these buildings. I used the blue sky as a background, same as the artists I was inspired by.
Johnny Kerr
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Matthieu Vernot
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Johnny Kerr is an American photographer known mostly for his abstract and minimalist photography. Some of his inspirations include Picasso the filmmaker Wes Anderson. His project Ambiguity consisted of a selection of buildings in Arizona, all with straight sharp lines and lots of corners. The colours are simple, contrasting, and pastel.
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Vernot is a French photographer born in 1979. His photographical work stems from his strong desire to re discover his home town Brest in Brittany. His work, similar to Johnny Kerr's features lots of strong lines and edges of buildings with block colour. He only photographs when the weather is good, as to have a stark blue background provided by the sky.
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My response
After taking my photos, I simplified the images on photoshop to create areas of block colour. I felt this really help to emphasise the geometric shapes of the buildings, allowing the viewer to focus entirely on the structure of the architecture rather than smaller details or on colours or reflections. I carried out the colour simplification by using the polygonal lasso tool to select the areas and then fill them with a certain colour. It was hard to find a balance of simplifying the image enough, but also not too much as to lose all definition of the photograph.
Best edits
I was pleased with the outcome of the images, however I didn't want to waste the contrast between intricate detail and plain background of the original photos so looked into another artist, Michael Shainblum, whose work I could respond to without having to simplify my pictures.
Michael Shainblum
Michael Shainblum project 'Mirror City', created in 2014, is a timelapse video of five major American cities: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Fransisco, San Diego and Chicago. The videos were taken first in original form, then duplicated and flipped horizontally and vertically to create kaleidoscope visuals. In his own words, "I wanted to put man-made geometric shapes, mixed with elements of colour and movement to create less of a structured video, and more of a plethora of visual stimulation."
Best edits
Strand 2: Constructing a Narrative
Constructing a narrative in photography is related to the idea of context. No matter how complete or comprehensive a narrative appears it will always be the product of including some elements and excluding others. Inclusion/exclusion is part of what construction is all about, but knowing what is best included or excluded requires an understanding of context. Photographs to fit this theme often feel like a carefully structured snapshot of a moment. There is more to the story than just the picture. It is a capture of a moment, leaving the viewer with unanswered with questions.
Gregory Crewsden
Gregory Crewdson is an American photographer best known for staging cinematic scenes of suburbia to dramatic effect. His surreal images are often melancholic, offering ambiguous narrative suggestions and blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality. Working with large production teams to scout and shoot his images, his photographs have become increasingly complex as if it were for a motion picture production, including its painstaking preparation of elaborate sets, lighting, and cast, as seen in his seminal series Beneath the Roses (2003–2008) and Twilight (1998–2001).
My response
Best edits
I did two photoshoots, one with my sister and one with my grandma. In both shoots I tried emulating the eerie and slightly unsettling feel of Gregory Crewsden's work. I wanted to create an air of suspicion in the photographs. I want the viewer to feel like the photos are just a snapshot of a story. What happened before the image was captured? What happened after? I chose intimate settings (a bedroom and then a bathroom) for the shoots, as I felt like this would allow the viewer to engage closer with the subject, so the photos . I enhanced the blues of the photos using photoshop and decreased the saturation. I also made the images darker and decreased the contrast. This gave a cold tone to the photos which I felt as if reflected a similar strange and uncanny ambience to Crewsden's. However, the images are lacking in interesting composition and in 'mis-en-scene' which if I payed more attention to would have elevated the cinematic feel of the photos. I also think the photos are lacking in the 'strange.' Crewsden's photographs often conjure up many questions, so I think going forward if I am to develop this further I should add more dramatic elements to the composition.
Strand 3: Framing and Composition
Framing in photography refers to the technique of drawing focus to the subject in the photo by blocking other parts of the image with something in the scene. Frames can be located in the centre of the picture or alongside its edges. Composition refers to the way elements of a scene are arranged in a camera frame. Shot composition refers to the arrangement of visual elements to convey an intended message. This strand allows me to play around with frames within a frame
Saul Leiter
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Saul Leiter was an American artist turned photographer who was born in Pittsburgh in 1923. Leiter’s interest in painting began in his late teens, however his interest turned to photography after he met the Abstract Expressionist painter Richard Pousette-Dart, who was experimenting with photography. Leiter most commonly would capture his photographs using Kodachrome 35 mm film past its use-by date. His main subjects were street scenes and his small circle of friends. His works would often, as shown above, have complex and busy compositions, with often multiple frames within a frame and consist of deep, contrasting colours.
My response
Best edits
I think I responded accurately to the work of Leiter, incorporating a bold colour scheme in my photographs and also the element of frames within frames. I think this was particularly successful in the bus stop image, as the barrier of the bus stop makes it appear like the image is two separate ones.
Strand 4: Reflections
For my third strand, I decided to do reflections of structures. Reflection as a concept appealed to me due to the many different ways I could experiment with it and the different outcomes that would be produced by photographing different kinds of reflections, e.g in windows, puddles, mirrors etc.
Lee Friedlander
Friedlander is an American photographer who's black and white works capture the American landscape in the 1960s and 70s, using a Leica 35-mm camera. He evolved into one of the best social "landscapes" photographers of the time. Friedlander was a part of a generation of street photographers, using a “snapshot aesthetic” to capture contemporary urban life great realism. From the start, he used reflections in storefront windows, plate-glass doors, and side-view mirrors to complicate the viewing experience. He also incorporated street signs, doors, and windows as framing devices. One of his best-known photographs, New York City (1963; sometimes called Revolving Door), shows a man and a woman walking toward one another through two different revolving doors. Friedlander photographed them from outside a glass door, introducing yet another reflective surface and set of frames. The deliberate fragmentation and ambiguity of his compositions became Friedlander’s trademark. I looked at his work which included reflections, and liked the distortion of tall architectural structures in the range of reflective materials
My response
Best edits
Overall I am happy with how the pictures turned out. I like and dislike how the dimensions look like they have been flattened. I did this by lowering the contrast, and I feel as if this creates a nice effect with dimensions distorted of the landscape and structures and also making the perspective confusing as the clouds and the buildings all seem to be level.
Final Development
Chosen strand:
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Constructing a Narrative |
Out of the three strands, I decided to develop 'Constructing a Narrative' further. I felt this theme gave me the most creative license and I really enjoyed exploring the boundaries of this idea. I liked the story-narrative aspect of it, and the consideration of props and composition and action to create dynamic, snapshot like set of photographs.
I decided I wanted to take a more film like approach with my next set of photos, as although the ones before did have elements of a narrative, I wanted to create a series of photographs which appeared like film stills to construe a much more dramatic and narrative piece. I put more thought into the setting up of my scene, thinking about props, location and costume. Alao instead of stand alone images, I wanted to create a storyboard of photographs, following through with the narrative and telling a story.
I used a dream I had for the inspiration and narrative of this piece. The dream was about a strange man following me home after a day out with a friend. The man had an unrecognisable face, like he had a mask on. He came to my house to attack me but I called my friend before he entered and we fought him, eventually killing and eating him. I decided to use a dream as a baseline for the 'story board' for my photos as it allowed me to stick to a clear narrative throughout, while also the strange nature of dreams (particularly this one!) letting me add a surreal, confusing element to the nature of the photographs. Particularly as the works of Gregory Crewsden that I looked at in my initial exploration of the strand 'Constructing a Narrative' all had an eery element to them, often with something confusing in the photograph which would lead the viewer to ask many questions. The element of the surreal and the ambiguous was important to me.
Gregory Crewsden
As stated previously, I took inspiration from Crewsden's cinematic shots, that look like stills from a film. He achieves this through his positioning of his subjects, whose poses makes it look like they were just snapped overtly at an intimate, passing moment, despite actually being extremely carefully crafted shots. The position of the subjects make the photographs dynamic, bringing them to life. I wanted to emulate this feel in my series of photographs and tell a story through them.
My response
I took a series of dynamic photos so I could accurately capture the filmic movement and feel to my shots. Before capturing them, I drew out a brief storyboard so I could plan and know what each shot would consist of and so my narrative would be chronological to tell a story.
Storyboard
Stills
I was happy with how my photo series turned out, as I think I managed to create and convey a narrative throughout my photographs, while still paying attention to framing and composition and photographic techniques to have a carefully crafted series of images. I incorporated many skills and elements I practiced throughout the course, such as: rule of thirds, the use of reflections and how they distort an image and depth of field.
However, I wanted to add more to my photos and edit some further in photoshop. I wanted them to be more surreal to reflect the dream scenario. I was inspired by the works of Pipilotti Rist.
Pipilotti Rist
Pipilotti Rist is a contemporary video artist from Switzerland. Her work is often characterised by its surreality and strange feel, often involving intimate scenery and feminine subjects. Born in 1962, Rist grew up to study illustration, commercial art and photography at the University of Applied Arts Vienna from the age of 20, then continued to study in Switzerland. The colours she uses in her work are intense and saturated, and she often overlays various imagery which prevent her films from seeming like real life and create a hazy effect. In order for my photos to obtain the same dream like feel, I emulated her use of overlaying using Photoshop and an app CuteCut to create the slight sense of confusion and distortion. I also tried to mimic her colour scheme, highly saturating my pictures and playing with the hues.
-The two apps I used were CuteCut and Photoshop. I did the majority of my editing on photoshop, always starting the editing process on there first. I increased the vibrance, saturation and contrast of the images and changed each pictures hue slightly.
-To overlay two images on top of each other, I added new layers.
-To get more complex merging of layers, I would then use CuteCut as this app has a feature called 'overlay' where it distorts and more accurately and smoothly allows you to merge images.
-To overlay two images on top of each other, I added new layers.
-To get more complex merging of layers, I would then use CuteCut as this app has a feature called 'overlay' where it distorts and more accurately and smoothly allows you to merge images.
Edited stills
Overall I am really content with my final piece. I really enjoyed creating a narrative through a series of photographs and depicting a story through use of mis-en-scene and composition. The editing process was quite frustrating and difficult at times, particularly when trying to smoothly overlap and merge two or more images together. However after practice it got easier and I like the way the finished photographs look.