Women - Annie Leibovitz and Susan Sontag

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (24 May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375500200
• ISBN-13: 978-0375500206

Part of the feedback I received from my tutor was to look at the work of Susan Sontag and explore the "Male/Female Gaze". During my research I came across this book. It consists of an essay on what it is to be female by Sontag and a collection of portraits by Leibovitz.

What immediately struck me was the sheer variety of the portraits. every page is different. Its like Leibovitz finds a way yo make an exceptional portrait and then vows never to repeat the process. The second thing that struck me was the tone of the photographs, even the photos that have an element of nudity do not objectify the women. The photos document the women. If the women are beautiful that fact is documented. If the women are accomplished, then that is also documented. in every photograph the femininity of the subject is apparent. In other words these portraits are not taken from the point of view of the male gaze and I don't think these photographs could have been taken by a man.

Sontag's essay is a thought provoking read on how the world treats women differently Sontag states

"No country gave women the right to vote before giving it to men. Nobody thought of men as the second sex" (Leibovitz and Sontag, 1999:22).

It is not a man hating diatribe but more of a commentary on how the world is for women, their relationship with their beauty (or lack thereof)  and how they are portrayed through the photographers lens.

"woman are judged by their appearance as man are not, and women are punished more than men by the changes brought about by aging. Ideals of appearance such as youthfulness and slimness are in large part now created  and enforced by photographic images." (Leibovitz and Sontag, 1999:23).

I am a huge fan of David Bailey, Rankin and Helmut Newton and my next statement refers to their fashion and nude photography of female models. Their work is in stark contrast to this book. They very much shoot in the male gaze and this is what attracts me to their images. Their photographs celebrate, glorify and emphasize the beauty and sexuality of their female models, Leibovitz does not. Some of the subjects do exude sexuality but that is not as a result of emphasis by the photographer in fact you get the impression that if you were to be in the presence of these women, you would sense the same level of power, accomplishment beauty, sexuality, comedy etc.

For me this book is great inspiration both to shoot better portraits but also to shoot women as I would shoot men, looking for qualities to make a good portrait rather than make a sexy shot.

Reflection

I am a bloke and therefore have "The Male Gaze" installed by default. I have never considered this to be a handicap in any real sense, in fact it has given me years of pleasure. My inner misogynist would be quite happy to make a living taking photos of naked women. Thankfully this is only a small portion of my artistic ambition and being aware if it will hopefully prevent me being limited by it.

Diagonal Lines

This exercise is similar in content to the previous horizontal and vertical lines exercise in that it required four photos but this time this time diagonal lines would feature. It would have been very easy to find some horizontal lines, turn the camera 30° and press the shutter button, and there you have diagonal lines. That would have made a very dull blog post and they wouldn’t have learned much along the way.

“Of all lines, diagonals introduce the most dynamism into a picture. They are highly active, with an even stronger expression of direction and speed than verticals. They bring life and activity precisely because they represent unresolved tension.”  (Freeman M, 2007: P76)

There is definitely a sense of movement and direction in this picture due to the diagonal lines we can see where the train is coming from and the direction it is heading in. If I had composed this photograph so that the train was coming directly at me head on the viewer would not have the same sense of motion.

The white picket fence also gives a very strong diagonal running through the photograph but if you look closely you will see that it also forms a zigzag pattern separating the people from the train.

In the previous exercise on horizontal and vertical lines we saw that horizontal lines could have the effect of flattening perspective into bands of texture or colour. In the photograph above we can see that the converging diagonal lines actually give depth and draw the viewer’s eye into the picture. This is the effect of perspective and also viewpoint. If the photo was taken directly in front of the steps they would be shown as horizontal lines with much less of a “depth effect”

in the photograph above the diagonal shadows emphasize a point in the center of the photograph but in this case it is not an effect of perspective but rather the intersection of the diagonals that draw the viewers eye.

This photo comprises some of the elements of the previous photos into one. the depth perspective is provided by the ground floor escalators and lead your eye to the center of the photo where it encounters the people on the escalator heading up. their movement in turn leads your eye  to the people heading down on the escalator. the converging and diverging diagonals give this photo a real energy.

Reflection

We often hear people talking about the language of photography. Stretching that analogy a little further I would suggest that these compositional exercises are teaching me the grammar of that language. When I become proficient in the proper use of that grammar I will be able to more effectively communicate in the language of photography.

Horizontal and Vertical Lines

For this exercise we were to find specific examples of vertical and horizontal lines and take photographs of them. I chose to look for lines in the city because architecture is primarily built up of  these lines. Both (Freeman M, 2007) and (Shore S, 2007) both point out the fact of viewpoint on the new relationships created between three-dimensional elements transposed onto a two-dimensional plane. This is illustrated in the two photographs below.

In this first photograph horizontal lines  are made up of several unconnected elements :-

• the bottom of the frams
• the grass
• the path
• the bench
• the railings
• then next patch of grass
• the trees and buildings
• the top for the frame

each of the elements are three dimentional shapes in "the real world" their own right but from this view point y form horizontal bands of texture stacked from bottom to top in a 2D plane.  Andreas Gursky is a master of this type of composition as can be seen in these examples of his work:-

• 'The Rhine II', Andreas Gursky | Tate
• 'Centre Georges Pompidou', Andreas Gursky | Tate
• '99 Cents', Andreas Gursky | art in asia

To further emphasise the importance of view point further look at the second photograph

here we see the same benches forming a vertical line thorough the middle of the photograph. there are an infinite number of camera angles and view points. were we position ourselves to take the photograph has a huge impact on the final image.

“In the field, outside the controlled confines of a studio, a photographer is confronted with a complex web of visual juxtapositions that realign themselves with each step the photographer takes. Take one step and something hidden comes into view; take another and an object in the front now presses against one in the distance. Take one step and the description of deep space is clarified; take another added is obscured.” (Shore S, 2007: P48).

Horizontal Lines

Vertical Lines

Reflection

I found the first part of this exercise (horizontal) to be much easier than the second part (vertical). Whether it was because I am more used to seeing horizontal lines or the fact that I had spent a couple of hours focused (excuse the pun) on horizontal lines, when it came time to shoot verticals I couldn’t see any. Eventually I was able to capture a few vertical lines in the wild.

Now when I look at other photographers work I see some of the compositional elements that we have covered in the previous exercises. I wonder are these deliberate conscious efforts or do these concepts become so ingrained through practice and experience that the photographer composes on auto pilot. I suspect it’s a combination of both.

Continually surprised by the complexity and challenge of these exercises which on initial examination seem simple and straightforward but in many cases require for an effort to produce any kind of interesting images.

Positioning a point

What is a point? Freeman M : 2007  informs us that a point is the most basic of the design elements in photography. he goes on to say the point must be a very small part of the total Image but will highlight its own significances by contrasting with its setting in some way for instance by its colour or tone. In the photograph below the bird is an example of a point

In a photograph with a single point the main compositional question is where  should that point be placed? ther are three possible placement zones and they are :-

• Dead centre - this is normally static and uninteresting and is the go-to composition for some picking up a camera for the first time
• Slightly off centre - in the photograph above the bird is slightly above the centre giving the photo a feel of lift and movement
• Close to the edge -  this is definitely the most eccentric of the three and would require some justification elsewhere in the photograph to bring balance to the shot

These three placements are illustrated in the photographs below.

The life belt is very clearly the single point in the photograph as it meets the required characteristics of size and contrast.  In the first photo the life is dead centre and because we have nice symmetry and rule of thirds going on it is not the most boring composition ever but by off setting from the centre as can be seen in the second shot we have added a little bit of tension and made the photo slightly more interesting. in the third image I have moved the life belt right to the edge of the frame and the photo no longer seems to make sense. there is no balance and the viewer is not receiving any communication as to what they should be looking at.

Reflection

This exercise seems quite simple on the face of it but in 6 years of taking photographs no-one has ever shared concept this with me. As I looked back through some of my old photos I was gratified to see that I had stepped away from "Central composition"  quite early but this was through instinct rather than instruction. with all of the compositional exercises I realise that I am being taught to look at the world differently, in two dimension's through a frame. Shore S, 2007 identifies flatness as one of the attributes that make up the depictive level of a photograph. he states that "When three dimensional space is projected monocularly on to a plain, relationships are created that did not exist before the picture was taken." (Shore S, 2007: P42). It is these relationships that photographers can see and use to compose stunning images. I am quite literally seeing the world in a different way to the point where I am sourcing a small camera to carry with me to enable me to exploit and develop this new way of seeing.

Multiple points

The aim of this exercise was to set up a still life by combining an unfussy background with 6 to 10 similar sized objects. A fixed camera on a tripod and shot down at the background. The idea was to control composition by arrangement and recording the still life as each element was added. You can see the results below

This was much harder than I had imagined. I had several false starts and I am not hugely satisfied with the end result. The main challenge was to arrange the still life in an interesting way without forming a regular pattern. I did enjoy setting up the shoot.  I made the decision to shoot tethered. This gave me the opportunity to view each frame before placing the next berry.

The second part of the exercise was to draw a sketch, indicating the ‘lines’ that relate the objects, and any basic shape or shapes that they form.

Reflection

I am somewhat perplexed as to the artistic merit of still life photography. When I encountered  Peter Fischli and Davit Weiss work “Quiet Afternoon” (Cotton, C 2004: P114) I was outraged. The question “how can fine art be precariously staking vegetables and then taking a photograph of it?” kept bouncing around in my head and enraging me. This made the exercise even more difficult for me because I really didn’t like the pictures I was producing. They reminded me of more of Fischli and Weiss’s work “The Sausage Photographs” (Tate.org.uk, 2006).  Perhaps this level of anger is generated by my logical brain trying to understand or make sense of this new language of art. Perhaps the more I learn about art and the art world, the less annoyed I will be at this type of picture.

What I can take from the exercise is not to concentrate on a single point to the exclusion of all others when composing a photograph. If multiple points are present in the composition they will exert forces on each other and may make the photograph feel awkward or unbalanced, or may draw attention away from the message you want to convey to the viewer. Conversely If you are aware of the multiple points in your composition you can use them to balance ( or add tension )  or emphasise certain areas of the photograph.

Reflection on Tutor Feedback on Assignment 1

Reflection

It was very encouraging to get positive feedback from the tutor on the assignment. I was a little concerned that by stepping away from the literal meanings of the words defining the contrasts I was moving away from what was required to successfully complete the assignment. Much to my relief, it turns out this was the right thing to do. The tutor did give me some areas to improve upon: –

1. Clean my sensor - something I have neglected to do for a few months and will probably leave the camera in to my local camera shop to sort that out.
2. Look at the male/female gaze - after receiving this bit of feedback I have done some initial reading. The Male Gaze refers to Laura Mulvey’ theory that audiences are placed into the viewpoint of a heterosexual male when watching most films. (Mulvey, 1999). I had not considered this concept before but in looking at the photographs for the contrast of hard and soft (black-and-white portrait of a man, collar portrait of a woman) these are obviously shot from a male heterosexual viewpoint. The tutor asked the question “why was the  male clothed and the female half naked?”, And the answer is I couldn’t persuade the female model to remove any more clothes. Although this is a somewhat facetious answer, the shot I had envisaged was an “implied nude” portrait thus adding a further level of vulnerability (and to my mind softness) to the photograph. This would definitely fall under the heading of “Male gaze”. I will definitely do more reading into the subject and explorer the themes if the opportunity presents itself in the upcoming assignments.
3. Include more blog posts on what inspires me – In response to this advice, part of me wants to say “it’s tough enough finding the time to write the blog posts on the exercises and assignments” but I see the value in being able to formally reflect upon the photographers, artists, music, articles  or events that influence my own photography.

As I have mentioned in one of my previous posts I have difficulty with the question “what is art?”. This is partially going to my upbringing were there wasn’t any great emphasis on art, and partially my environment i.e. working as an IT project manager for a large manufacturing corporation relies more on planning, logistics, analysis, problem-solving et cetera. So studying art really runs counter to anything I have done in the past and to have the tutor talk about my “artistic voice” sends the little computer guy inside my head into some sort of apoplectic fit but it is also very encouraging to think that maybe I do have a fledgling artist inside me also.

Tutors Comments

Overall Comments

Your technical approach is solid and you demonstrate a confidence when approaching the exercises. Continue to challenge yourself when it comes to doing the exercises and the assignment. Your analysis of your response and your reflections are a valid part of your learning journey.

Your standard of presentation is good and your organization and logical approach to the work helps me to follow your development. The supporting research into the history as well as the unpicking of the choices made in the technical approach is good practice.

This is a good first submission. Continue to work in this way.

Feedback on assignment

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

Exercise projects

You have recorded your explorations and have demonstrated some good practice in discussing your findings and outcomes.

Your technical approach is good and you have a discerning eye when approaching the composition and framing of your images. Exploring the frame ratios to support the concept is a really interesting way of working. You understand some of the technical responses of the exercise and take some time to consider how the message can be also changed. The discussion of ‘why’ the photograph was taken rather than just ‘how’ is relevant here. Look at bodies of work by other photographers who have used these techniques to further their message.

Contrasts

You embraced the theme of the exercise and have presented a variety of considered visual contrasts. You have spent some time unpicking the idea of the attributes and the contrast of the images and your reflective writing is good evidence of your exploration.

When looking for inspiration for your photographic response look at bodies of photographers work and see the way they chose to compose and frame their images. Question and discuss why some images have a visual strength and engagement with these approaches (why they work).

Broad/ narrow

A bright and cheerful image. You have made some considered decisions about the shape of the image here to further support the theme, this works well. I can see some dust specks in the sky so I would suggest you have your ccd sensor cleaned? It is a distraction in the clean areas of your images and you can delete them post production but it might save you much time to get the sensor cleaned.

The narrow image seems very claustrophobic with the leading lines and the more regular format, so really demonstrates a narrow environment well. Your connection of the links and the different atmospheres these have is interesting and helps to create a narrative.

Straight/ curved

The highway image is a solid interpretation of straight and the lines and shadows further support this. Interesting to see your shadow too! Reminds me of the work of Vivian Maier.

The curved image is an interesting view and the repeating curve created by the rectangular clay and glass bricks adds interest.

Sweet/ sour

Good to see you challenging the literal interpretation of the contrasts here and it looks fun. The communication and narrative created by the two images start a story and message. It is interesting to see the matching colours worn by the models and this also has a message. In the ‘sour’ image the lighting is a little extreme from the windows so could be difficult to print as there would be little information in the file. I like your quote and reference to Martin Parr during this investigation.

Diagonal/ rounded

A good interpretation of the writing of Shore (2007). The broken lines and composition here are interesting and challenging to the viewer. You have been very measured in your image capture here. I would also like you to consider the choice you made by turning this image to black and white, does it change the image message? The rounded image is less challenging visually but is pleasing with good light control.

Many/ few

The composition of this image is interesting with the added visual interest created by the reflections. I do find the block on the left is a little distracting as it is quite powerful and the interest is in the reflective elements in the rest of the image. Consider your compositional and cropping options.

This is a much more simple interpretation of the theme although you have made a window connection and considered historical changes it is not as strong as the other image.

Liquid/ solid

The two images do work well together and filling the frame with the textures is a different angle of view from your other work. This is well seen although I would like to understand why you have a vertical and horizontal image, do they further support the theme using a different energy?

Moving/ still

An interesting exploration here, looks like a scary place for the passenger! I like the play on considering the idea of you or the view moving. The composition of this image with the bands of colour work well. The still image is most ominous. Look at the work by Gregory Crewdson to see the tension in this stillness and space and lighting. Sketching out your intent here and using words to visually demonstrate the balance is an interesting way to develop your thoughts.

Hard/ soft

As you have moved through the contrasts you have become more exploratory and experimental with the emotional elements of the themes. This is a great way to work.

The division of the images into gender based descriptions is interesting and hopeful! The use of a weapon to indicate hard masculinity is a challenging approach. Think also about your converting this to black and white, what is the additional message here? The feminine image is a balance of soft colours and the pose is very coy/ vulnerable/ sexy a real mixture of messages. The hard man fully clothed and the soft woman half clothed?

Dark/ light

A considered interpretation of dark/ light, the compositions are confident and this is an image that challenges the ideas. The change in the object ratio in this image is also an important element; reflect on this.

Contrast light and dark in one image

Your contrast image is successful and has an interesting visual tone. In some ways it is much more simple than some of the other images you have presented. The black and white delivery of this image should also be considered. In this type of image it is interesting to explore the weight of the image, the composition and ratio of how much space or weight the image is given can really change the impact. For instance the light area being only a small part of the whole can look diminished or a torch in the darkness whereas the light area over powering the darkness is a different idea.

Within your self-assessment you recognize your areas of strength and also areas to develop. To develop your creative voice and gain an understanding of the messages within visual work, continue to engage in a variety of critical reading as you have done.

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Context

Your Blog demonstrates your enthusiasm in the topic and you appear to be using it to potential. It is clean and clear and easy to navigate.

Breaking down the exercises is good practice but I would like to see you further exploring other artists and how they have used techniques in their narratives. You can also include sketches and other visual inspiration (look at the suggested reading below), contact/ proof sheets/ work that inspires you etc.

Suggested reading/viewing

Context

For an inspirational log book (remember this is only one approach, you need to experiment with what feels comfortable to you)

http://www.daneldon.org

Candida Hofer – interior architecture

Michael Collins- documentary architecture

Susan Sontag- critical theory, look at the male/ female gaze

Prakel, D (2007) Basics Photography: composition. Laussane: AVA Publishing.

Prakel, D (2009) Basics Photography: exposure. Laussane: AVA Publishing.

Pointers for the next assignment

It is excellent to see you looking into creating work with a message. This is a real step forward into making your photography develop and matter. Keep working in this way and also continue to reflect on other artists approaches within your reflection. This is really good practice.

Please send a sample of prints for your next assignment submission then we can explore how that can be refined and developed.

Assignment 1 - Contrasts

This is my submission for the first assignment for The Art of Photography module. The assignment was to take a minimum of eight pairs of contrasting photographs and one photograph showing, in a single image, a contrast explored in one of the previous pairings. This exercise is very similar to one set by Johannes Itten as part of the “Preliminary Course” taken by students in Bauhaus design school in the early 1920s (Freeman, 2011).

In some of the photographs below the subject matter is a literal representation of the word describing the element of the contrast. For instance to illustrate the contrast between broad and narrow, I shot something that was broad and something that was narrow. In some of the other pairings, for example sweet & sour, I tried to step away from the most obvious meaning of the words but still demonstrate contrast.

In creating these images I have attempted to use many of the elements of composition learned on the first part of the course (e.g. filling the frame, perspective, balance: positioning the horizon, et cetera).

Broad – Narrow

Broad

This is the Belfast Lough or at least the area of the Belfast Lough that enters Belfast. When Belfast was a thriving port this was the route for goods into the city. The Titanic travelled this stretch of water on its way to Liverpool to pick up its first passengers. When I started thinking about the word broad, this stretch of water immediately came to mind, because I have to drive over it every day going to work and therefore I know how “broad” it really is.

I played about with the position of the horizon in a standard 4:3 frame, but wasn’t getting a satisfactory result because there was nothing much of interest in the sky or the water in the foreground. I decided to crop the photograph time and this also had the effect of enhancing the wideness (broadness) of the image. I shot a wide-angle 13mm, which although it has the effect of squeezing more into the photograph and actually narrowing the view, the viewer has a sense of a large expanse of water because there is so much of the riverbank included in the scene.

Narrow

This is Joys entry. The entries are the oldest existing parts of Belfast. They were entranceways to tenement housing similar to Edinburgh’s famous closes. When I was a kid I lived in East Belfast, in Victorian housing that had been built for the shipyard workers. Every day on my way to school I passed several entries (narrow passageways between the backs of rows of tenement houses). This got me thinking about effective contrast. In my opinion for these contrasts to work not only do the photographs need to complement each other but they also have to have links. In this case (broad/narrow) the links are access into Belfast and the fact that I would encounter both of these areas on a daily basis at some point in my life.

This photograph was also shot at 13 mm, which has the effect of enhancing the perspective and making the alleyway seen even narrower.

Straight – curved

 Straight

The first image that sprang to mind when I was considering how I was going to shoot “straight” was that of a desert highway similar to this image by Ansel Adams

The strong sunlight meant that not only did I get this straight lines of the motorway and the bridge but also some very straight elongated shadows.

Curved

I struggled a lot to communicate the idea of something curved. “Straight” in two dimensions is quite easy thanks to perspective. But as I started photographing curved buildings, curved roads, curved furniture et cetera the photographs just weren’t curved enough, they were flat. Then I find myself in a spiral staircase in a car park in Chichester. I immediately realised my mistake. I was trying to photograph curved from the outside whereas it’s much easier to represent from the inside as you can see from the photograph above.

I am a little disappointed that there is no link between the subjects of these photographs to enhance the contrast but there is still a definite contrast between the two.

Sweet and sour

Sweet

For this contrast I moved away from the literal or more common meanings of the words and started thinking about representing other meanings. So for example instead of going straight to someone sucking on a lemon to represent sour, I want to show something sweet turning sour. Instead of the photograph being of something, the photograph is communicating something. My one concern is that without attaching the word sweet to the photograph above does it communicate sweet on its own?

“Mary Price argued that the meaning of the photographic image is primarily determined through associated verbal description and the context in which the photograph is used .” Price M. (1994) The Photograph: S Strange, Confined Space. Cited in Wells, L. 2009 (p29). Photography. London: Routledge

 Sour

This photograph was taken in the seaside town of Southsea, so it seemed to push the colour saturation a little bit to give it a little more “Martin Parr” feel.

Diagonal- Rounded

Diagonal

Shore (2007) argues that the photograph exists on three levels, the physical level, the depictive level, and the mental level. He states that at the depictive level the photographer starts with the messiness of the world and imposes order. “he or she imposes this order by choosing a vantage point, choosing a frame, choosing a moment of exposure, and by selecting a plane of focus” Shore (2007:37). This is very true for this photograph.

Vantage point- I could have shot this escalator from the top, bottom, or at an angle that showed the whole escalator in context to its surroundings. Instead I chose to shoot from a platform roughly halfway up.

The frame – in the bottom left-hand corner of the photograph you can see the guardrail on the platform. I could have chosen to frame the photograph in such a way as to not include this. To the far left of the people on the escalator is a huge photograph of Michael Caine taken by David Bailey, I chose to exclude this from the frame.

Moment of exposure – an escalator is a relatively slow-moving machine so by choosing shutter speed of a 60^th of a second I have frozen the movement of the people on the escalator but that is selecting the length of the exposure. As a photographer I get to choose the moment of exposure i.e. which 60^th of a second I am going to capture. In other words I waited for the escalator to carry the subjects to the position where I want them in my photograph. This was the moment I want to capture.

Rounded

For this assignment I wanted to produce photographs which were interesting. As I started looking for subjects to shoot which were rounded it became quite a challenge to make a photograph which was not incredibly dull. So when I walked into Chichester Cathedral and saw the arched ceilings I was incredibly relieved to have something interesting to portray in this category and also something that linked back to the “diagonal” photograph (i.e. both building internals/architectural).

Many- Few

Many

One photographer who is synonymous with the word many is Andreas Gursky. He has photographed a wide range of subjects including concert crowds, the stock exchange floors, supermarket shelves, F1 pits, and windows. It was one of these photographs of windows Paris, Montparnasse  (Sothebys.com, 2014) that inspired me to choose windows for this contrast. You will see in some of the supporting images at the end of this assignment that I had tried to copy Gursky’s style (i.e. straight on, very flat, documentary) but obviously I don’t have his skill and therefore achieved quite mediocre results. Instead I decided to keep windows for my subject matter and try to create my own interesting images.

Few

This contrast works at the level of quantity. In the first photograph there are a huge number of windows and in the second there are four, but the contrast also illustrates the difference in time when the buildings were erected. These days glass is a relatively cheap material, we see buildings with entirely glass walls or huge single panes of glass used in modern architecture. But when this Cathedral was built glass would have been an incredibly expensive and rare material and also incredibly difficult to produce in this size of windows that we have in our homes today.

Liquid – Solid

 Liquid

I mentioned earlier that one of the photographs needed a word associated with it to provide the meaning, whereas this shot does not. Anyone who looks at this knows it water. Nothing quite makes these patterns like liquid rippling. I have chosen to fill the frame in both photographs rather than to allow surrounding elements to give context so this rippling water could be anywhere.

 Solid

The subject of this photograph is a solid wall with a single window. It is part of the Titanic visitor centre in Belfast and is designed to replicate the ripples of water and also look like shards of ice. In my opinion the contrast is quite effective because the viewer would be quite happy to dip their hand into the photo of the water but would be under no illusion that their hand would go through the wall.

Moving-Still

Moving

In the earlier part of the module a lot of the exercises involved shutter speed and movement however in these exercises, either the camera was still and the subject was moving, or the camera was panning with the moving subject. I wanted to keep the camera steady but still show movement. The best way to do this was to mount the camera on a moving platform i.e. my car. As a car driver your focus is mostly on what is in front of you so the sensation of speed isn’t as great as it is for someone in the passenger seat looking sideways out of the window and that’s what I want to capture.  The flat 2dimentional effect of the horizontal lines running through the photograph is reminiscent of Gurskys “The Rhine II 1999" (Gurskey, 1999)

Still

I wanted to carry on the theme of “The Car” into my photograph representing still. Mostly the car exists in two states, moving or still so the obvious subject would be a parked car, but how to embody stillness.

I tried to combine elements of stillness:-

• Deserted carpark
• Empty car
• Night
• The quiet after a rain shower
• No people in the Photograph

Hard – Soft

Hard

In exploring this contrast I again wanted to move away from the literal or more common definition of the words. It occurred to me that the words we associate with hard are mostly masculine and the words associated with soft are feminine. In fact to call a man soft can be considered derogatory.

From this point it seemed obvious to contrast a hard masculine portrait with a soft feminine portrait. The styles of posing also exacerbated the contrast. This is a studio portrait using “hard light” to bring out the detail and texture of the subject and give a hard edge to the photograph. Although the man in this photo is not directly threating the viewer there is still the uneasiness the situation could escalate due to the weapon being drawn.

Soft

This portrait is shot in natural light and F2 .8 giving the foreground a gentle blur. The light is much softer and less direct thus giving fewer but fuzzier shadows. The pose of the subject is much less confrontational than the “hard man”. There is a sense of vulnerability in contrast to the projection of menace in the previous picture.

Light - Dark

Light

For this contrast I wanted to play around with the same subject matter but in darkness and in daylight. In its purest form this contrast could have been represented by a totally overexposed photograph (pure white) and a totally underexposed photograph (pure black). In fact every photograph is a product of light and dark (the absence of light) hitting a sensor or film. This got me thinking about negatives and could I take a pair of photos where on image was a negative of the other and for that I needed something that was brightly lit at night but that I could also shoot in silhouette to give the effect of a negative image.

Dark

Ansel Adams is often quoted as saying “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” (Adams, n.d.) and for this photo of the oilrig I must have taken around one hundred images before I found the right place to stand. There is a huge difference in the quality of the photographs in this spot compared to those taken for instance 20ft to the left.

Light and dark in one image

It could be argued that all of the previous photographs (in fact any photograph) is a combination of light and dark in one image. So to have the contrast in one image the light and dark had to be elements of the photograph. The elements of light come from the very well lit souvenir shop, the light reflected off the pavement and the people walking into the photograph from the left, and of course the lights from the buildings and the boat in the background. This single strong source of light just above the shop is swallowed up eventually by the dark. The elements of the dark are the silhouettes and shadows created from the strong light source, the night sky, the ceiling created by the bridge under which the shop is situated and the fact that the light can only extend a finite distance before it is surrounded and swallowed up by the darkness.

Reflection/learning

I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment. It was a great learning experience in applying the knowledge of composition I have gained so far on the course. I also learned that photography is not just pointing and clicking. Having a theme or a message to convey will yield better results than just wondering about hoping to stumble upon the photo of a lifetime. Photography is not just a way of getting images of things or places it can be a way of communicating with a language of its own.

I believe I have managed to avoid dull boring images shot only to closely illustrate a word and have been able to produce some photographs which can stand alone outside the requirements of this assessment. I have noticed a marked improvement in the composition of my images since starting the course.

References

Adams, A. n.d. Ansel Adams Quotes at BrainyQuote.com. [online] Available at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/anseladams141237.html [Accessed: 2 Mar 2014].

Christies.com. 2014. ANSEL ADAMS (1902-1984)   | Coastal Road, c. 1953   | Photographs Auction | 1950s, Photographs | Christie's. [online] Available at: http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/photographs/ansel-adams-coastal-road-c-1953-5420881-details.aspx [Accessed: 2 Mar 2014].

Freeman, M. 2011. Composition, Contrast and the Bauhaus. [online] Available at: http://thefreemanview.com/observations/composition-contrast-and-the-bauhaus/ [Accessed: 2 Mar 2014].

Gurskey, A. 2014. The Rhine II 1999). [online] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/P/P78/P78372_10.jpg [Accessed: 2 Mar 2014].

Price, M. 1994. The photograph--a strange confined space. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

Shore, S. 2013. The nature of photographs. London: Phaidon.

Sothebys.com. 2014. Rear Window: Gursky in Paris on Sotheby's Blog. [online] Available at: http://www.sothebys.com/en/news-video/blogs/all-blogs/contemporary/2013/10/rear-window-gursky-.html [Accessed: 2 Mar 2014].

Wells, L. 2009. Photography. London [u.a.]: Routledge.

Supporting Images

Below are Images which did not make it into the final pairs for contrast but I hope will give you an idea of some of the work I was doing to get to the main images

Vertical and horizontal frames

The aim of this exercise was to, in a fairly compact location, take 20 photographs in portrait format. Then another 20 shots, by shooting a horizontal version of every vertical composition. You can see the results below.

 

This was definitely a subject best shot vertically. One a came to shoot it horizontally I was torn between this eccentric composition or filling the frame with the pattern of the fossils. On hindsight I should probably have went with filling the frame.

As these windows run vertically I assumed that they would be ideal for a vertical shot , but as you can see the horizontal shot is a much more satisfying image. The sloppy composition of the vertical shot probably has an impact on this also.

The big skull is much better vertically because the photograph has symmetrical balance whereas the horizontal framing is unbalanced with a display case on the right adding an unpleasant tension to a photograph. As with so many of these vertically composed photographs, when I returned to shoot the horizontal composition it was difficult to find a satisfying composition.

With the stag’s head, the vertical composition creates an interesting photograph which is not instantly recognisable as a stag and in fact seems almost insectlike. When I returned to compose horizontally I was able to include much more of the antlers giving the viewer understanding of what they are looking at. This is one of the powers of photographs were I have trouble deciding which is the better composition. I like the unsettling effect of the vertical photograph, but I also like the cemetery afforded by the extended antlers in the horizontal photograph.

In this pair of photographs the subject (my son Jacob) is undeniably vertical so you would expect the vertical composition and vertical frame to be the better picture. In fact the opposite is the case. With a horizontal composition here we have a stronger leading wine on the right-hand side bring in the viewer’s eye to the subject and the framing of the subject by the room in the background of the photograph is more symmetrical and gives a much better balance to the horizontal image.

In this photograph of the museum walkway I prefer the vertical composition. Although there is more of interest in the horizontal photograph (i.e. the human subject and the William Scott sign) the vertical image has more pronounced lines and shapes making it a stronger and bolder photograph, and the exclusion of any people makes the viewer struggle a little bit for context in the picture.

The pair photographs above were taken from a vantage point roughly 20 m above the subjects and this has the effect of day leading the difference between vertical and horizontal. The photographs look like different crops of the same shot.

Here again we have two views of the museum walkway. The vertical image is the stronger of the two. Vertical asymmetry and use of negative space at the top of the photograph make it more pleasing than the wide angle horizontal image and in this case the addition of people adds some much needed context to the photograph in fact without the people there would be no sense of scale and we would simply be looking at a name and some horizontal lines. One thing that lets the photograph time is the true composition (i.e. the placing of the subjects within the frame is not truly symmetrical). This was annoying me so much that I had to crop the image to improve the symmetry as can be seen below.

In the four photographs of the sculptures above I applied the same composition for both of the horizontal photographs but positioned the triangular sculpture in the bottom of the frame for the vertical image. This composition doesn’t really work for the green sculpture because it is not a long and all subject whereas the purple sculpture and its plinth make a cute vertical subject and it is a much more comfortable photograph to look at

At this point in the exercise I was becoming a little tired and I was losing focus. this is evident in the photos of the gallery above. I was trying to shoot a vertical Image splitting the gallery vertically but it didn't quite come off.  In the horizontal composition the boards lead the viewers eye to the people viewing the art. and the large boards balance the smaller people on the right of the image.

I started to focus on vertical composition again and out of the six images above, the vertical compositions are much stronger than their horizontal counterparts.

 

The vertical elevator photograph photo is a nice arrangement of four rectangles. This arrangement is lost in the chaos of the wider angle horizontal image.

   

In the last three sets of images the there is no clear winner between the vertical or horizontal images in my opinion.

Reflection

I thoroughly enjoyed this exercise. I was surprised how challenging it was to compose the horizontal Images having firstly chosen subjects which lend themselves to vertical composition.

The exercise got me thinking not only about the orientation of the frame, but also the frame itself.

The frame allows the photographer to decide what the viewer can see in the photograph.  "a photograph has edges, the world does not, the edges separate what is in the picture from what is not"  Shore (2007 : 54). This may seem like a very obvious statement but if we consider that in the two different orientations of framing in some of the photographs above, inclusion of additional content made the photos feel different even though they may have been taken in exactly the same spot.

For example the shot of the large skull in vertical format is without context, and because it doesn't include any superfluous detail and the viewer can concentrate solely on the subject. This was my intention on creating this image. When I was forced to compose in landscape orientation I chose to widen out the photograph to still include the full skull, but in doing this much more detail of the skull's surroundings make their way into the photograph. This serves to lessen the impact of the skull on the viewer and gives context to it as an exhibit in a museum setting.

For me this shows that there are an infinite number of photographs available to the photographer in any setting and framing is a major part of creating the best possible image.

Shore (2007:56) suggests that it is the fine framing decisions made by the photographer which resonate off the objects, people and events unfolding in front of them to create both visual and contextual relationships within the photograph.

Cropping

Cropping is cutting away, or removing, unwanted outer parts of an image. The process can be used to improve the composition of an image, remove distracting elements, change aspect ratio, et cetera. The aim of the exercise was to select and print three images, then crop them using editing software and print the images again. Then show the crops with a brief note describing why we chose this crop.

Please note that in the images below, the first image will be the original, and any subsequent images will be crops

In the original image below the portrait composition was completely wrong for the image. The motion of the strong man in is horizontal from right to left and I have no idea why I captured the image this way.

In the crop below we get more of this sense of the event as the action is in line with the landscape composition of the picture. The competitors efforts to pull the truck seem to have more of a sense of motion when cropped in this fashion.

In this image there is too much empty space above the model’s head, and at the bottom of the photograph the sweatshirt is baggy and quite unsightly.

In the crop the aspect ratio has been changed fron 8x12 to 8x10, and in doing so it has given the picture slightly more balance whilst eradicating the bottom half of the problem sweatshirt. The model takes up more of the image giving her more presence.

In the original image below I this was too far away from the chimp in the middle of the photograph to compose exactly how I wanted to. I therefore shot at the maximum zoom available to me and decided to crop the image in post processing. As it turns out I was glad I had the wider image to play around with the crop

This first crop is how I would have composed the full rule if I would have been able to zoom tightly enough. I do believe that this crop is definitely better th this an the original image but the balance of the photograph is in quite right. The larger chimp to the right-hand side’s throws the photograph somewhat offkilter.

I decided to play a little more with the cropping tool in lightroom and came up with the composition below. The chimp is now clearly the subject of the photograph and has more impact as a solitary form being frame by his enclosure. Although he is off centre he is nicely balanced by the buyers of the enclosure to the left-hand side. This is a much more pleasing crop (and image) than the first two pictures. The point to take away from this example is that it is worth playing around with different crops of an image to get the best result possible.

The image below is a bit of a disaster. It is badly composed with a tilting horizon and a very boring foreground.

With the editing software available today not only can we crop parts of the image away, but we can also adjust the alignment of the photo to straighten out sliding horizon’s as can be seen in the crop below. Although it is still not a brilliant image, there is much less tension in viewing the photograph and by removing the bottom half of the image we have given it a panoramic feel.

In the next photograph I was lying on the ground waiting for the cyclist to go by and pop a wheelie. This was all happening relatively quickly, so it is hardly surprising that the composition was a little off.

By cropping the photograph to fill the frame with the cyclist the photograph achieves more of a sense of movement and dynamism. The cyclist is almost on top of the viewer giving a more immersive quality to the shot.

Anyone who has tried the photograph dogs knows that the vast majority of them do not like to set up a photograph taken especially when they are young pups like the dog on the left. This was another example of quickly trying to get the shot and deciding to tidy up the composition in post processing.

In the crop below we have centred the dogs in the image and cut away a little bit more of the outer image to lie the subjects to take up frame.

Cropping doesn’t always have to be rectangular or even regular in form. For example the artist Robert Heinecken used crops of pictures to produce puzzle images or colleges in his work.

Balance

What is Balance? Freeman (2007 : 40) states “At the heart of composition lies the concept of balance. Balance is the resolution of tension, opposing forces that are matched to provide equilibrium and a sense of harmony. It is a fundamental principle of visual perception that the eye seeks to balance one force with another.” This exercise in the balance of photographs is where I have struggled most on the course so far. Things like exposure, camera controls, shutter speeds, et cetera have rules which can be learned and applied. As can some of the simple composition concepts such as filling the frame or rule of thirds. I have found that this concept of balance is almost ethereal in nature, but this may be because I am very inexperienced in assessing the balance of the photograph.

The aim of this exercise is to choose six of my own photographs and decide how the balance works in each one.

The photograph below I consider to be balanced

We can see below that the photo is roughly symmetrical along the centre line and the two men balance each other out being at either end of the bench. This is an example of symmetrical balance.

The next photograph could not be considered balanced. The figure on the right is not balanced by by anything on the left-hand side of the photograph and this adds an element of tension (incidentally this was the effect I was wanting to produce in the photograph it is exacerbated by my uncomfortable or unnatural way of sitting on the bench)

Below is another example of a symmetrically balanced image. It could be argued in fact that this image has bilateral symmetry as the lying the bottom of the Windows bisects the photograph is horizontally whilst the centre of the of the door bisects the photograph vertically.

Now we move to the subject of dynamic balance. To explain dynamic balance we again turn to Freeman (2007 : 40) who explains “The second kind of visual balance opposes weights and forces that are unequal, and in doing so enlivens the image. On the weighing scale, a large object can be balanced by a small one, as long as the latter is placed far enough away from the fulcrum. Similarly, a small graphic element can successfully oppose a dominant one, as long as it is placed toward the edge of the frame. Mutual opposition is the mechanism by which most balance is achieved.”

This is illustrated in the next image, the couple on the right-hand side of the image balanced out by the bird which, although it is not the same size as the couple on the grass it is further away from the fulcrum and this has a tendency to balance the photograph.

We can test this theory by using photo shop to remove the bird (see below) the photograph appears less harmonious as there is nothing of interest in the left-hand side to balance the couple on the right

the next photograph is another example where the large edifice of the University building is balanced by placing a small graduate beside it.

Whereas in the example of the jail wall below there is nothing on the right-hand side of the photograph to balance its monumental we at and it feels as if the wall is about to come crashing down onto the right-hand side of the photograph.

In our next example of dynamic balance the graduate on the right-hand side is balanced out by the darker heavier column at the left edge of the photograph

It is worth noting that balance isn’t always desired and the tension created by breaking the equilibrium of the photograph can accentuate the impact of the subject of the photograph. An example of this can be seen in the image below were the young lady seems to stand out more against a black background because of the eccentric composition.

In the image of the two girls below, because the second girl is in shadow she is not as graphically important as the girl on the right and this creates an imbalance

by removing her from the photograph the viewers eye is no longer in conflict trying to pick out more detail and although the photograph is still not balanced the level of visual tension is greatly reduced.

Placing your subjects in relation to each other and to the frame of the photograph is not the only way to achieve balance. Balance can be achieved between areas of different tone, collar or texture in a photograph or even between the subject and the background.

Reflection

As I tackle the compositional exercises of the course I’m really starting to learn new skills and concepts that I feel will improve my photography. All of the photographs above were taken without any conscious effort being given to balance, so if any of these shots are balanced it is purely accidental (or due to an unconscious understanding of harmony within the frame when taking the photograph). I am looking forward to shooting with my new found (if somewhat raw) understanding of balance.

References

Freeman, M 2007, The Photographer's Eye, Lewes: ILEX

Positioning the horizon.

  The aim of this exercise was to find a viewpoint that had a reasonably interesting landscape in which there was an unbroken and clear horizon (this is a difficult thing to do in Belfast.). I figured my best option was heading down to the docks and using the dark as an artificial horizon.

I took two sequences of photographs placing the horizon at different positions within the photograph. The first sequence is shown below.

Photograph one – this is my preferred image of the three I like the tones in the water in the foreground. This large area of water gives a feeling of distance to the horizon.

Photograph two – here the horizon bisects the photograph centrally but doesn’t have the drama of the water in the foreground, drawing the eye up to the horizon. Also there is the difficulty of the  very bland blue sky in the top third of the photograph.

Photograph three – this is the weakest image in the sequence we know have over half a photograph taken up by a sky full of nothing. Anything of interest is crammed into the bottom third making for a crowded and unbalanced image.

I decided to try a different cityscape to see if the results would be the same. That sequence of photographs can be seen below

Photograph four – in this photograph the foreground water doesn’t seem to be drawing us into the detail of the cityscape in the same way it did in photograph one. The buildings and Clyde seem one-stop the top of the photograph and the dark side showing in the bottom left-hand corner is unpleasant distraction to the rest of the photograph.

Photograph five – back to central composition with the horizon bisecting the image. It’s a pretty dull photograph of some water, some clouds and some buildings. There seems to be too much water it and therefore doesn’t feel balanced

photograph six – although it is by no means perfect this is the best of the three images. It seems more natural to the eye than photographs four and five on the curb Clyde line makes it a little bit more interesting. The occurrence of the small wispy cloud in the otherwise empty sky makes this composition work were image three did not.

Reflection

I have been taking photographs since I was a kid and it would never have occurred to me to place the horizon anywhere other than in the middle of the photograph, yet in the two sequences above that type of central composition didn’t work. It is really surprised me that something that simple can affect the look of a photograph that drastically.

This exercise has shown me that there is no set recipe for a photograph, what works in one situation may be dreadful in another, and composition is not a set of rules to be followed but a learned understanding of how to create photographs to either please or challenge the viewer.

A few years ago, in a bid to teach myself composition, I bought “The Photographers Eye” by Michael Freeman. I had a brief flick through the book and give the idea up as a bad job. I am now discovering that using Michael Freeman's book as a text to accompany the exercises on the course is teaching me the elements of designing photograph and also teaching me how to see in a different way.

Focal Lengths and different view points

The aim of this exercise was to take two photographs using a wide-angle and a telephoto lens. The photographs would be of the same subject with the same composition (i.e. filling the frame) taken at different focal lengths. To do this we were to take the first photograph with a telephoto lens, then fit the wide angle lens and move forward until the subject filled the frame once again, and take the second shot.

Photograph one was shot with a telephoto lens on a crop sensor camera at a focal length of 60 mm which roughly correlates to a full frame sensor at 120 mm. The second photograph was taken with a full frame camera at 24 mm focal length so essentially 100 mm difference in focal length.

The subject of the photograph is the Titanic visitor centre in Belfast and I chose this building because it has a little bit of depth which is more prominent in the first picture as we can see the walls protruding out from the central core of the building. As I moved forward to fill the frame using the wide angle lens perspective adjusts and we can no longer see the second part jutting out behind the building at the right.

So, how do the two photographs varying character. In the second photograph the building seems larger (it seems to loom over the viewer) and the corners extend out towards the edges of the frame more prominently than in the first photograph. In the first photograph the building seems smaller, squatter, and further away. This effect is known as perspective distortion. Another indicator of this perspective distortion is the lamppost and traffic lights in the second photograph being much larger and prominent than in the first photograph even though the building is virtually the same size in both shots.

This distortion would have become much more prominent if I had been equipped with a wider angle lens and moved even closer to the building. This further distortion at wider angle is illustrated in the photo below which we shot using a 14 mm wide angle lens on a full frame camera. The model seems to elongate into the centre of the photograph and her leg appears to be stretching and enlarging towards the corner of the image.

Probably the most well-known example of this effect is the dolly zoom (sometimes known as the Hitchcock zoom) and was used to great effect in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie vertigo and also the very famous scene in Jaws were Roy Schneider realises there’s a shark swimming with the tourists on the very crowded beach. The dolly shot is achieved by moving the camera towards the subject whilst zooming out. We perceive the subject to be moving closer to us (in the case of the Jaws movie Roy Schneider) whilst background seems to move further away.

Reflection

I couldn’t know what to expect from the final images for starting this exercise. If I had understood perspective distortion prior to taking shots I would have approached the building from a different angle to better illustrate the effect.

On a positive note I am starting to get to grips with the self learning nature of the course. Using this exercise an example I have gone from knowing nothing about perspective distortion to being able to review my images understand how I would go about increasing the effect of the distortion.

What is Art?

I’m currently reading “the photograph as contemporary art” by Charlotte Cotton. It’s one of the required reading books to the course and it has been a struggle. The reason it has been a struggle is because I don’t understand art. I am hoping by the end of this Bachelor of Arts degree that I may understand art little bit more. I come from east Belfast working-class roots, and as such my initial reaction when being presented with modern or contemporary art would be “how can that be art it’s just a pile of bricks” or “how can that be art, it’s just an unmade bed ” or “how can that be art, it’s just half a cow in formaldehyde”, et cetera. This book is starting to bring me round to believing the value of contemporary art, as it began to explain some of the meaning behind the photographers’ work and then I came across the work of Peter Fischli and David Weiss Quiet afternoon (Cotton 2001, P 114) (the image can also be seen here). Which prompted the response “how can this be art, it’s just a courgette balanced on a carrot balanced on a cheese grater”. The image actually made me feel angry and had me wondering who is in charge of quality control in the art world. Coincidentally Grayson Perry is the lecturer for this year’s reflectors Reeth lecturers. His first lecture was dedicated to this subject and can be found here and is well worth a listen. What I’ve gleaned from this is, art is decided by dealers, curators, collectors, gallery owners, experts, committees and the people who award the Turner prize or the Venice Biennale (the art Olympics). The Turner prize exhibition was in Northern Ireland this year so I was able to go and see it. Some of the nominees work was quite accessible but I found Laure Prouvost’s installation completely bewildering. Again my reaction is “How can this be art” and I rage against the answer, it’s art because people who know more about art than I do say its art. Part of this is about change. I am frightened that if I start to understand the work of Prouvoust or Emmin or Hurst or Fisschli and Wiess then I will have changed into some kind of artsy fartsy elitist who can’t actually see that the Emperor is completely naked, when in fact I was previously the little boy who would have spotted it straight away.

Reference List

Cotton, C 2004, the photograph as contemporary art, London: Thames and Hudson Freeman, M 2007, The Photographer's Eye, Lewes: ILEX

Shore, S 2007, The Nature of Photographs: a Primer, 2nd ed. London: Phaidon

Mulvey, L. 1999. Visual pleasure and narrative cinema.

Tate.org.uk. 2006. Fischli & Weiss: exhibition room guide, room 3 | Tate. [online] Available at: Http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/fischli-weiss/fischli-weiss-room-guide-room-1/fischli-weiss [Accessed: 16 Mar 2014].

Gursky, A. n.d. 99 Cents. [online] Available at: http://www.artinasia.com/img/event/20326-21af0deebafbb66d8da33a498f100361.jpg [Accessed: 22 Mar 2014].

Tate.org.uk. 1999. 'The Rhine II', Andreas Gursky | Tate. [online] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gursky-the-rhine-ii-p78372 [Accessed: 22 Mar 2014].

Tate.org.uk. 1995. 'Centre Georges Pompidou', Andreas Gursky | Tate. [online] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gursky-centre-georges-pompidou-p11675 [Accessed: 22 Mar 2014].

Leibovitz, A. and Sontag, S. 1999. Women. New York: Random House.

Cartier Bresson, H., 2014. Magnum Photos. [online] Magnumphotos.com. Available at: <http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2K1HZOQXFIV50I&SMLS=1&RW=1920&RH=955> [Accessed 21 Apr. 2014].

Freeman, M. (1990). Film. London: Collins.

Freeman, M. (2013). The colour photography field guide. 1st ed. Lewes, U.K.: Ilex.

Freeman, M. (2014). Capturing light: The heart of photography. 1st ed. Lewes, U.K.: Ilex.

Hunter, F., Fuqua, P. and Biver, S. (2011). Light-- science and magic. Waltham, MA: Focal Press.

Präkel, D. (2007). Lighting. Lusanne [u.a.]: AVA Book.

Frank, R. and Kerouac, J. (2008). The Americans. Gottingen: Steidl.

Sontag, S. (1979). On photography. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Gutherie, W. (1945). This land is your land. [record].

A sequence of composition (attempt 1)

I have labelled this blog post exercise attempt 1 because having re-read the exercise brief I don’t think I have been particularly successful in creating a sequence of composition. The idea was to record the way I approached and shot a subject from the moment when I caught sight of a possible photograph to the final best photograph make of it. I had arranged with Merville ju-jitsu club to allow me to shoot one of their training sessions. I figured this would be a excellent opportunity to shoot sequence photographs with different compositions. I soon came to realise that the action of jujitsu training was far too fast to capture the type of sequence necessary for the exercise. Although I could shoot a sequence of events of a throw or sparring bout, it happened so quickly that I could not very the composition.

I decided to use the time to work on different compositions during the class. The results of this can be seen below

If I was going to pick 4 images out of this that stand out as having any interesting composition at all I would chose the following:-

This exercise was harder than I first anticipated. I will revisit this exercise. My strategy will be to take a walk through Belfast and stumble upon some action to photograph a sequence of compositions.

Fitting the Frame to the Subject

I received some advice from my tutor suggesting that I should be more creative in my approach to the technical exercises. So with that in mind I headed into Belfast to find a more interesting subject for this exercise. I settled on the “Belfast big fish” as it met the requirements of the exercise (i.e. something clear in appearance and compact in shape and also accessible from close to and from a distance) whilst being aesthetically pleasing.

The first photograph below is unsurprisingly a shot of the fish, but with very little attention paid to composition or were the subject should be in the frame, essentially it’s a snapshot.

In the third photograph I have moved very close to the subject so that none of the edges are showing this has the effect, in this case, of masking the fact that the subject is a fish but shows the detail of the ceramic pieces that make up the scales of the fish.

In the second photograph I have filled the frame with the fish. I have tilted the camera to get as much of the fish in the frame as possible.

In the third photograph I have moved very close to the subject so that none of the edges are showing this has the effect, in this case, of masking the fact that the subject is a fish but shows the detail of the ceramic pieces that make up the scales of the fish.

The fourth photograph shows the fish in relation to its surroundings. We can see that the fish is on a plan situated near the River Lagan beside the Lagan look out and overshadowed by all large brand-new commercial building.

The final part of the exercise was to digitally crop the fourth image to produce new images of varying composition based on what the subject was in the frame, you can see the results below.

Reflection

What have I learned from this exercise? The most obvious thing is that composition matters. If we look at the first image although it is sharp, probably exposed, and shows the subject, it is not a good photograph. In these days of “scatter-gun digital photography” we take 1000 photographs to hopefully (and in many cases accidentally) get a good photograph and so a lot of people pay is little attention to composing the image beforehand.

Secondly I have learned that depending on the composition there are many many different photographs of any given subject. I recently attended a gallery showing the work of the Northern Irish painter William Scott. Scott’s choice of subject for his still life paintings were very limited but he managed through composition and other techniques to produce very varied work.

I have learned that context can affect a photograph. Images two and three give no real clue to were the photograph was taken and in the case of photograph three doesn’t even point to the fact that the photograph is of the large ceramic fish. My favourite photograph is the fourth image which shows the fish in context of its surroundings close to 3 Belfast landmarks.

The one major takeaway from this exercise is that it is well worth spending time planning the composition of the photograph and using the viewfinder frame to properly compose the image rather than run around taking 1000 shots and hoping that one of them will be a well composed photograph.

The final thing I learned is tourists don’t care if you’re taking photographs for your degree

Reflection on introduction

This is an entirely new way to study for me. I have been used to brick and mortar educational establishments, and scheduled classes. I am finding it hard to ignore the distractions and settle down to studying in the evenings.

It took me a little while to get started the introductory phase of the course. There was reticence to do these exercises because having completed the GCSE and A-level in photography it felt like repetition. But I was glad that I took the time to do it, because it forced me to re-familiarise myself with concepts such as f-stop, depth of field, motion blur, aperture, ISO etc that I take for granted when using the camera.

if I was to assess my own progress so far I would say technically competent but not artistic. I am looking forward to part 1 on composition and hope to provide more aesthetically pleasing pictures while meeting the course requirements. I find this critical self-appraisal and reflection very difficult but I understand the necessity of not only doing, but reflecting upon what has been done, and learning from it.

I have started the blog which I am really enjoying. I like the structured approach to documenting my progress through the course work and I look forward to posting about the books I am reading for the course as well as other points of research, stuff about photographer, and events I will attend. I can really see high people become addicted to blogging. I am also keeping a log book were I can jot down my thoughts on notes on the exercises and assignments, but I’m not sure I would want anyone to see it.

I feel pleased that I have come through the introduction and actually have some coherent work to show for it. But there is still a nagging doubt that I’m going about things the wrong way, or I could be doing things better. I guess this is in part down to a lack of feedback but also my lack of experience in this model of education. In my previous experiences of education the lecturer or tutor is a constant presence and feedback is timely and sometimes presented whether you want it or not. In this type of self-study I haven’t yet become comfortable with the level of contact that is acceptable to have with the tutor.

What improvements am I going to make moving forward?

• I am going to include a paragraph asking “what could I have done better?” In each exercise
• I am going to have a little bit more contact with the tutor (this is really rather pleasant)
• I am this is going to throw in some supplemental blogs i.e. book reviews, et cetera
• increased velocity on the course work

Panning with different shutter speeds

The aim of this exercise was to use a panning technique whilst reducing the shutter speed for each incremental photograph and thus showing the effect of motion blur on the background. I remember trying this when I got my first digital SLR, and being extremely disappointed with the results. Coincidentally I was using exactly the same subject for that first attempt as I used for this exercise. As with the previous exercise or movement I took around 15 photographs but I will only use four to illustrate the point.

I found the tripod method very difficult as the legs of the tripod were starting to collapse so I removed the camera and carried out the exercise handheld. As you can see from the photograph above the spokes are frozen, the cyclist is frozen, and there is no motion blur in the background. There is some level of blur in the background but this is due to the depth of field rather than the motion of the camera as it follows the cyclist. For this to be motion blur we would expect to see a streaked appearance as you will see in the later photographs. Motion is frozen due to very high shutter speed 1/2000 of a second.

It isn't until we get down to a shutter speed of 1/100 sec that we start to notice motion blur and the background, it is also interesting to note that at this speed we are also getting motion blur in the subject similar to the previous exercise (this can be seen on the spokes of the wheels).

In the third photograph another element of blur is added, that of “camera shake”. This is evident due to the fact that although the cyclist’s head isn’t moving with any great speed and should be captured as sharp due as a pan, it is clearly out of focus because hand movement becomes a factor at shutter speeds of less than 1/60 of a second.

In this fourth photograph we can clearly see a very pronounced effect of motion blur on the background. You will also note that the photograph is overexposed and this is because the camera has adjusted the f-stop to the f/22 but because the shutter speed is so low more light is heading the sensor and overexposing the image. We can also see the blurring of the spokes and the reflectors attached to the spokes and the winds themselves but there are is no streaking or deformation to the shape of the wheel because the camera is panning with the subject.

So which of the photos in the series that I prefer. The answer is they are all dreadful. As I was chimping at the back of the camera I realised they were all awful and decided that I wanted something better to finish this blog post on. So we moved closer to the buildings I asked the subject to increase his speed. The result is the photograph below which is probably exposed. The subject’s head is relatively sharp because the panning is reasonably accurate. The subject's legs and wheels are blurred due to the fast motion. The leather is tie on the hat flowing out behind the subject also adds to the sensation of speed in the photograph.

Shutter speeds.

The idea of this exercise was to demonstrate how motion blurs through the use of a fixed camera, moving subject, and ever increasing shutter speeds. The subject I decided to use was my son on his BMX bicycle. This was one way of getting him out from in front of his Xbox as well as helping me complete some of the syllabus. I set the camera to shutter priority to ensure a fairly consistent exposure through the series of photographs below. Although I took a series of 15 exposures I am only including 4 images on the blog to show the effect of increasing the shutter speed.

In the photograph above the subject is in effect frozen in time, there are no discernible indications of movement. This is due to the very high shutter speed. The shutter mechanism, in this case, only lets light hit the sensor for 1/3200 of a sec (0.0003125 seconds). To facilitate enough light hitting the sensor to make a well exposed photograph, the camera has adjusted the aperture to f2.8 (i.e. wide open for the lens I was using). It was by setting up several cameras in a row with a fast shutter speed that Eadweard Muybridge was able to prove for the first time that all four horse’s feet come off the ground when it gallops

In the second image, the subject again appears to be frozen, but if you look at the spokes of the wheel (you may need to click on the photograph above and view the full-size image) you will see the spokes are starting to blur towards the outer edge of the wheel. This is starting to give the fact of movement but because the spokes are the only thing fast enough to be blurred at this point the effect is minimal.

In the third photograph the cyclist is starting to blur. In my opinion the effect is quite unpleasant and discordant with the rest of the photograph. In many cases for the most part as photographers we are striving for that pin sharp image so when we come across something like this it tends to be discarded.

It is not always the case that this level of blurring is unpleasant to examples of this being used to great effect are two iconic photographs by Henri Cartier Bresson. They are the man jumping across the puddle and the bicycle shot from the staircase. I think that in both of these photographs there is enough sharp interesting detail to show that the blur is intentionally there to emphasise the movement of the jumper and the cyclist, whereas in my photograph the only thing of interest is the cyclist so the blur is somewhat jarring to look at.

It is also worth noting here that the camera has reduced the aperture to an f-stop of F10 to counteract the effect of the slower shutter speed on the exposure.

In the fourth and final image, the subject is not only blurred but also distorted we can see the wheels are no longer circular, and the cyclist is almost smearing his way from right to left across the photograph.

In the fourth and final image, the subject is not only blurred but also distorted we can see the wheels are no longer circular, and the cyclist is almost smearing his way from right to left across the photograph, similar to the photograph of a racing car by Jacques Henri Lartigue. This is my favourite photograph of the sequence because although the subject is not in focus it is clear to the viewer that it is a picture of a cyclist moving quickly from right to left.

So what could have done better? As any estate agent will tell you “location location location” perhaps by giving the photograph a better background than an commercial car park it may have been a more interesting final product but the sequence of photographs meets the brief of the exercise.

Focus at different apertures

This exercise builds on the depth of field exploration I carried out in the previous exercise. The process was very similar except instead of having a fixed aperture and changing focal point, I shot three images with a fixed focal point and varied the aperture for each shot. The result can be seen below.

In the first photograph all of the bench is in focus due to the large depth of field achieved at f/22. In the second photograph we can see the ends of the bench start to blur both in the foreground and the background. In the last photograph, shot wide open at f/2 .8, we can see increased blurring in the foreground and background and the building at the back of the photograph is almost unrecognisable.