Shape

Definitions:

SHAPE 

•A shape is an area enclosed by a line. It could be just an outline or it could be shaded in.

•Shapes can be either geometric, like a circle, square or triangle, or irregular.

NEGATIVE SPACE

•When drawing shapes, you must consider the size and position as well as the shape of the area around it. The shapes created in the spaces between shapes are referred to as negative space. (2nd image)

Interpretation:

At first glance this image may seem like it has a sexual connotation. Some may even argue that this is even an example of sexual objectification. However, if we look in detail at this image, it reveals much more. The facial expression on this girl illustrates her pain. This girl looks alone and vulnerable. She is naked and completely stripped down, this image actually represents a vulnerable and insecure young woman, with nothing left to protect her. 

Research: A photographer I have looked at is Irving Penn, an American photographer known for his fashion photography, portraits, and still lifes. Penn's career included work at Vogue magazine, and independent advertising work for clients including Issey Miyake and Clinique. He spent most of his time as a photographer in New York although he was born in New Jersey to a Russian Jewish family in 1917. 

Penn attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts) from 1934 to 1938, where he studied drawing, painting, graphics, and industrial arts under Alexey Brodovitch. While still a student, Penn worked under Brodovitch at Harper's Bazaar which published several of Penn's drawings.

Penn worked for two years as a freelance designer and making his first amateur photographs before taking Brodovitch's position as the art director at Saks Fifth Avenue in 1940. Penn remained at Saks Fifth Avenue for a year before leaving to spend a year painting and taking photographs in Mexico and across the US. When Penn returned to New York, Alexander Liberman offered him a position as an associate in the Vogue magazine Art Department. Penn worked on layout for the magazine before Liberman asked him to try photography.

Penn's first photographic cover for Vogue magazine appeared in October 1943. The art department of the Office of War Information in London offered him a job as an "artist-photographer" but he volunteered with the American Field Service instead. After arriving in Naples with a boatload of American troops in November 1944. Penn drove an ambulance in support of the British Eighth Army as it alternately waited out weather and slogged its way north through a miserable winter in the Italian Apennines. In July of 1945, he was transferred from Italy to India. He photographed the soldiers, medical operations, and camp life for the AFS, and various subjects while bivouacked in India. He sailed back to New York in November 1945.

Penn continued to work at Vogue throughout his career, photographing covers, portraits, still lifes, fashion, and photographic essays. In the 1950s, Penn founded his own studio in New York and began making advertising photographs. Over the years, Penn's list of clients grew to include General Foods, De Beers, Issey Miyake, and Clinique.

Penn met Swedish fashion model Lisa Fonssagrives at a photo shoot in 1947. In 1950, the two married at Chelsea Register Office, and two years later Lisa gave birth to their son, Tom Penn, who would go on to become a metal designer. Lisa Fonssagrives died in 1992. Penn died aged 92 on October 7, 2009 at his home in Manhattan.

The following images are the works of Irving Penn that use and play with the idea of shape. I will use these to inspire and influence my own shoots in regards to subjects, lay out and positioning of objects, lighting and a plain background.

Underpinning all of Penn's work as a photographer is his special talent in the still life genre, to which he applied his signature resolve to prune away anything that did not contribute to the picture. From his earliest work at Vogue through to his latest series of personal work, this resulted in powerful images that invite contemplation with their acute awareness of objects and their placement. Penn frequently included elements of memento mori and selected subject matter that could, at first glance, seem unworthy of close examination, which give his images a "bite" that lingers.

Irving Penn has a talent of making his images look simple even though they were thought about and planned out. He has paid a lot of attention to the positioning of each object in this image, for example he has placed the coco cola bottle in the centre of the background as if it is the main focus with extra accessories on the side. The difference in shape and height of each item creates a nice dynamic with a slim, tall item at the back, a thicker, long hot dog lying beside it on the right and a round baseball on its left. There is also a forth item lying in between all of the others but because it is so small and plain it is barely noticeable but still seems to create some space between all of the other objects. The fact that coco cola stopped using glass bottles suggest that this image was taken around the 1930's to the 1950's in New York

Frozen Foods With String Beans, New York, 1977

This image looks a lot more 'posed' and planned out than the first image. The vegetables have been frozen together into perfect little rectangles and all neatly balanced on to each other which almost create one big rectangle despite the partial negative space in the top left. The white glossy table creates a coloured shadow of the frozen vegetables and creates the illusion that there is more than there really is.

Italian Still Life (B), New York, 1981

Irving Penn has again clearly paid attention to detail in this image and thought a lot about the placement of his subjects. The objects are almost in size order, each food item is a similar round shape but differ in size and colour. Penn has used this to his advantage in the image by placing the largest and plainest subject at the bottom to rest the smaller, coloured subjects on top. The use of colour and shape are mixed together in this image, ranging from a saturated and intense red to a bleaker green to a pure white, similar to how the objects are ordered in size.

Broken Egg, New York, 1959

Not only is this image carefully constructed but it takes no time to realise how much effort Irving Penn must have put into this image for a final result that he was happy with. The egg shell is split almost exactly in half and neatly sits on each side behind the yolk. It almost resembles a bug with big wings like a bee for example. Irving Penn has taken an everyday object and changed it's original shape of an oval to create three circular shapes as a little group. 

After-Dinner Games, New York, 1947

This is one of Irving Penns more cluttered images. Although it has clearly been shot in a studio Irving Penn is still able to give it the feel of the after dinner event it is meant to be presenting. At first glance it looks like clutter with all the different shapes and sizes of the objects however if you take a closer look you can see that he has taken time to carefully position each object with the playing cards balancing on the cup and saucer. Again he has experimented with different levels in his image with some smaller objects lying on the white surface but not failing to stand out because of their primary colours. And larger items like the coffee in the middle serving as the main focal point of the image.

Two Liqueurs, New York, 1951

This image contains a lot of negative space as Irving Penn has used space in between the images in this shot with the glasses a small distance between the ash tray and cigarettes. He has also used smaller objects in this shot and only used to levels in regards to height of his subjects. Therefore there is a lot of negative space above the glasses and to each side of the subjects. This image is a lot quieter than some of the others and doesn't have any clutter. 

Rose 'Blue Moon', London, 1970

This is the only image I have looked at which was shot in London rather than New York. Penn shot this during his works with Vogue and had a lot of time to focus on the things that truly interested him the most. Again this has clearly been shot in the studio with the clear white background. The flower itself is crisp and very detailed. It is a light pink Rose that appears to be dying but the petals still appear silky. He has shot the subject quite close up leaving little room for negative space. The Rose is the one complete focus of the image and there is no noise or distractions in the image.

The following image is shot by Fleur Alston and influenced by Irving Penns work.

Fleur Alston - After Irving Penn - McDonalds

This image was awarded third in the Digital Camera Photocrowd contest for Food and Drink

This flash-lit meal gives the viewer a slightly un-glamorous yet intriguing insight into the world of fast food. The crude finish has the feel of a Martin Parr or William Eggleston shot. The arrangement of the items, including the opened salt and pepper cases on the bare table, all add to the final result. The bold block colours in the image work well, and the simple shapes of the burger and other items teamed together are highlighted from the top-down view.

Penn's repertoire also includes portraits of creative greats. Ethnographic photographs from around the world; Modernist still life's of food, bones, bottles, metal, and found objects; and photographic travel essays.

Penn was among the first photographers to pose subjects against a simple grey or white backdrop and he effectively used this simplicity. Expanding his austere studio surroundings, Penn constructed a set of upright angled backdrops, to form a stark, acute corner. Subjects photographed with this technique included Martha Graham, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, W. H. Auden, and Igor Stravinsky.

Penn's still life compositions are sparse and highly organised, assemblages of food or objects that articulate the abstract interplay of line and volume. Penn's photographs are composed with a great attention to detail, which continues into his craft of developing and making prints of his photographs.Penn experimented with many printing techniques, including prints made on aluminium sheets coated with a platinum emulsion rendering the image with a warmth that untoned silver prints lacked. His black and white prints are notable for their deep contrast, giving them a clean, crisp look.

AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.

Contact sheet:

I selected the following as my best images:

Images that require improvement: 

I selected the first image for the obvious mistake of over exposure. I used an aperture that was too high and it makes the picture look bright and low quality. Also the camera was not positioned correctly, so if this image was not over exposed I would still need to crop it anyway.

Although I like the second image it does need improving. The lighting was not positioned correctly and therefore created a lot of shadow giving my image a moodier tone which was not what I wanted. Despite this I like the position of the camera and placement of the subjects.

My original idea for this final idea was to have smoked cigarettes lined up with a plain white background. I also wanted the cigarettes to have lipstick marks on inspired by Irving Penns work. So if I were to reshoot this image I would change a few things. 

AO3: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.

My idea for recording shape was to photograph foods and smaller objects including small plants and cigarettes. This included exploring different shapes and sizes present. I was inspired from my research of Irving Penns close up images with regards to the composition and subjects within his images. His use of plain backgrounds and simple results inspired my own work to remain simple and not too noisy with lots going on.

      Only a couple of my images came out the way i'd hoped for them to. During this shoot I struggled quite a lot with controlling the lighting. Quite a few of my images had a lot of shadow, which worked for some. But ruined others. I would like to re shoot shape with some different subjects with a stronger knowledge of controlling my lighting to get the result I would like. Because of my issues with the lighting I was also adjusting settings on my camera, changing the iso and aperture so that the images were not over exposed. 

      Referencing to my best images: 

The reason I like my first image is because I managed to get the result I wanted regarding lighting, This image was not too bright nor too dark. Despite the darker area in the background on the left, I knew that I could edit this on photoshop and still achieve a good final result. I also quite liked the natural shadow that the subject created itself.

I didn't like my second image as much as the first but I thought it was good considering my struggle with the lighting. I also liked the camera position so that by subject was central. Although I didn't like the darker areas around the edge.

AO2: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.

I used a Canon EOS 350d for all shots taken. I used a shutter speed of 1/125 and an aperture of f11. When I took the images I adjusted the ISO from 100-400 depending on how the images were coming out. I also slightly adjusted the aperture from f11 to around f4.

To improve my images I imported some of them onto photoshop to enhance the colours and create a darker background which created more contrast:

AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.

The artist research that I did was very helpful as it strengthened my understanding of shape photography and the elements a photographer looks for when taking photos. Looking at his images inspired me to search for small and interesting subjects and take my photos at a high standard. it inspired my simpler theme and the idea that less is more. Additionally, looking at his work encouraged me to pay close attention to detail in my subjects and images. Researching context such as where Irving Penn is from and his career history strengthen my understand of his progress in photography. This also inspired an American twist to my work.

AO4: Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements. 

I believe that I have produced a nice series of images inspired by my research of shape and Irving Penns images. The final images produced were refined by developing the background. Similar to Irving Penns images have photographed food and cigarettes trying to place all of my objects in the right place for the image.