3rd Independent Shoot

Independent Shoot 28/1/18 - Texture and Pattern


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2nd Independent Shoot

2nd Independent Shoot 27/11/17 - Texture and pattern

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1st Independent Shoot

Pattern: Pattern photography utilises elements that are repeated. The repetition of lines, shapes, tones or colour can create interesting images. There are photographers who use the pattern as the main subject of an image while others use it to enhance the overall composition and look of the photograph.

A photographer I have looked at is James Murray. "I live in London, England but love to go exploring in foreign climates. Coming from a design background I look at photography as an extension of this, recording the lifestyles and architecture that make up our world.

My passion for photography started when I first picked up a film camera way before the digital times we live in now. I transferred this passion into my studies mixing in all of my design influences to create my own style. Architecture and photography are the perfect blend each complementing the other.

I have worked as a photographer since 2010, taking photos of the environment that I lived in around London, selling images as artworks and to companies. In 2011 I worked for Disney on their cruise ships with the big mouse himself. On board I worked as a portrait and wedding photographer, learning new techniques and feeding my travel bug. Every photo is a memory; there is no better way to capture it than how you see it, not how the camera sees it."

In his shoots based in London he focuses on the buildings and architecture around him, considering details in pattern, texture and shape. He says that he pays attention to things like symmetry in structure as well. It looks like he edits his images a lot by increasing sharpness and using layers to improve clarity. A lot of his images have intensified colour comparing to their originals. I plan to not only use his shoots to guide my own but to edit my images similarly to James Murray's work.

Contact Sheet: (1st shoot)

Documentary

Definition: Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was born in 1908 in Chanteloup, France. Throughout his childhood, Cartier-Bresson was interested in the arts. He was influenced by his father, a respected and wealthy textile merchant and his uncle, an accomplished painter. As a young boy Cartier-Bresson read the literature of the day by authors such as Dostoyevsky, Rimbaud, Proust, and Joyce. In addition to literature, he intensely studied painting.In 1928 Cartier-Bresson attended Cambridge University, England, where he studied literature and painting. It was here that he was introduced to film and photography.

By 1929 he began to take photography seriously. In 1931, Cartier-Bresson discovered the hand-held Leica camera and was practically consumed by the new art form. He made the conscious decision to pursue photography as a career. I kept walking the streets, high-strung, and eager to snap scenes of convincing reality, but mainly I wanted to capture the quintessence of the phenomenon in a single image. Photographing, for me, is instant drawing, and the secret is to forget you are carrying a camera.Manufactured’ or staged photography does not concern me. And if I make a judgement it can only be on a psychological or sociological level. There are those who take photographs arranged beforehand and those who go out and discover the image and seize it. For me the camera is a sketchbook, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant, which in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. Thus evolved a theory, not entirely his, but definitely practiced by Cartier-Bresson and forever associated with his name, the decisive moment. The original phrase came from Cardinal de Retz who stated everything in the world has its decisive moment. Roaming the streets, Cartier-Bresson would photograph moments most eyes would surpass for everyday life, but to him these were the true moments of human existence.

The Decisive Moment: In 1952 Henri Cartier Bresson, a founder of modern photojournalism, proposed one of the most fascinating and highly debated concepts in the history of photography: “the decisive moment.” This moment occurs when the visual and psychological elements of people in a real life scene spontaneously and briefly come together in perfect resonance to express the essence of that situation. Some people believe that the unique purpose of photography, as compared to other visual arts, is to capture this fleeting, quintessential, and holistic instant in the flow of life. For this reason, many photographers often mention the decisive moment, or similar ideas about capturing the essence of a transitory moment, when they describe their work.

When Henri Cartier-Bresson would talk about “The Decisive Moment” he said sometimes it would be spontaneous but others times he had to be patient and wait for it. Regardless he was very methodological when he would go out and shoot, and would only keep his images if every element of his image (people, background, framing, and composition) were perfect. When you are out shooting and you see fascinating scenes, wait for the right person to walk by to complete your image. Although you don’t want to camp out for hours on end to wait for the right moment to occur, practice a bit of patience. You don’t always need to go out and hunt for photo-opportunities. Allow them to come to you.

If you look at the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, he applied geometry to his images poetically. If you look at the composition of his images he integrated vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines, curves, shadows, triangles, circles, and squares to his advantage. He also paid particular attention to frames as well. Don’t only see the world as it is, look for shapes and geometry that occur naturally as well. Open up your mind and break your environment into different formal elements. Look for lines that may lead to your subjects or squares that may frame your image. Become poetic with your images and integrate interesting actors and stages when you are out shooting. 

The dramatic focus of Gestapo Informer is the relationship between the three central people – the collaborator, and official, and a furious accuser. The official is dispassionate, the accused bows her head, and the accuser grimaces. This dynamic triangle of characters gives the image structure and focus. The background is formed of three more triangles, made up of faces from the crowd. Within this crowd of onlookers is a man wearing the striped uniform of a concentration camp prisoner. This figure draws viewers’ attention to the far left edge of the frame and provides contextual information. 

A photographer I would like to look at is Richard Billingham. Hw was born 25 September 1970 and is an English photographer and artist, film maker and art teacher. His work has mostly concerned his family, the place he grew up in the West Midlands, but also landscapes elsewhere. Billingham has published the monographs Ray's a Laugh (1996), Black Country (2003), Zoo (2007), and Landscapes, 2001-2003 (2008). He made the full-length video film Fishtank (1998) as well as various shorts, and wrote and directed Ray (2016), part 1 of a 3-part feature film. He is best known for Ray's A Laugh which documents the life of his alcoholic father Ray, and obese, heavily tattooed mother, Liz.

Throughout these images, the relationship between his mother and father is constantly documented. It seems there is often tension between the two, perhaps because of his fathers drinking problem. It is clear who the leader in the relationship is. Richard Billingham captures an imperfect and unprivileged lifestyle, revealing some of his family's biggest secrets. I'd like to use this approach within my own work focusing on relationships within my own family.

The ides of "The decisive moment" is shown well in this image. I also plan to use this technique for my documentary project to capture my subjects in the rawest form possible, with out any set up.

"The pictures shown here are of my father Raymond (born 1931): my mother Elisabeth (born 1950) and my brother Jason (born 1977). Ray is a chronic alcoholic and has drunk for as long as I can remember. He has not worked since he was mode redundant from his job as a machinist around 1980. Liz very rarely drinks but she does smoke a lot of cigarettes. My younger brother still does not seem to know what he wants: he gets a job for or week or two and then leaves it. I think he is very lazy." Ray stopped in his room almost constantly drinking and sleeping. If he went outside he become ill. He drank to get to sleep. He had a friend from a neighbouring towerblock -himself an alcoholic -  who came around to make strong home-brew for him. This was much cheaper than 'buying' alcohol and meant that Ray didn't have to venture outside to the off-licence. He kept the home-brew bucket by the side of his bed for convenience and drank from a plastic jug that he would dip into the brew. It tasted as bad as it looked but it must hove nourished him somehow because he otherwise never ate. Liz wasn't living with us then: she had left due to Roy's incessant drinking and moaning. She seldom visited."

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

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Documentary Project

Composite Image Making

Ways in which conventional photographic techniques are used to manipulate images:

• Blending images together
• Airbrushing - Spot healing tool
• Patch Tool - Changes texture 
• Colour contrast  
• Burn and dodge tool

Research

Hannah Höch was not only a rare female practicing prominently in the arts in the early part of the twentieth century - near unique as a female active in the Dada movement that coalesced in her time - she also consciously promoted the idea of women working creatively more generally in society. She explicitly addressed in her pioneering artwork in the form of photomontage the issue of gender and the figure of woman in modern society. Her transformation of the visual elements of others by integrating them into her own larger creative projects evidenced a well-developed early example of "appropriation" as an artistic technique.

Höch was a key progenitor of the self-conscious practice of collaging diverse photographic elements from different sources to make art. This strategy of combining formerly unrelated images to make sometimes startling, sometimes insightful connections was one that came to be adopted by many Dada and Surrealist artists of her era, and also by later generations of "post-modern" conceptual artists in other media, including sculptural installations, mixed media and moving images, as well as in still photography.

Höch also helped expand the notion of what could be considered art by incorporating found elements of popular culture into "higher" art. She was one of many Dadaists to take advantage of such means, but she was both among the first, and one of the most self-consciously explicit in describing the goals and effects of doing so.

A political iconoclast, she actively critiqued prevailing society in her work, and, implicitly, through many of her life choices. Her active interest in challenging the status of women in the social world of her times motivated a long series of works that promoted the idea of the "New Woman" in the era.

Dada was an art movement formed during the First World War in Zurich in negative reaction to the horrors and folly of the war. The art, poetry and performance produced by dada artists is often satirical and nonsensical in nature. Dada artists felt the war called into question every aspect of a society capable of starting and then prolonging it – including its art. Their aim was to destroy traditional values in art and to create a new art to replace the old. Dada was not so much a style of art like Cubism or Fauvism; it was more a protest movement with an anti-establishment manifesto.

Hannah Hoch, 1992

This image is a self portrait. She is seen to be holding scissors because she is a collage artist, but her face is not in proportion and her body is much smaller than her head. This is linked with  how women are objectified and constantly expected to act and look a certain way, usually never feeling enough to meet society's expectations. This could suggest that the scissors have a deeper meaning, referring to how she has cut her face apart and altered it in order to create the art, the same way that women often wear make up or get surgery to change their facial features and fit societies standards of beauty. She has also included an envelope behind her head with a postage stamp which seems to have no straight forward meaning but is up for interpretation by the viewer. She often used this strategy of combining formerly unrelated images to make sometimes startling, sometimes insightful connections.

1. I used the quick selection took to select the outside of the duck
2. Then I selected the invert selection to cut out the background
3. I clicked 'cmd' and 'c' to copy the duck 
4. Once on the image of the river Thames I clicked 'cmd' and 'v' to paste the duck into this image
5. Then I select 'cmd' and 'T' and the shift key so that I am able to resize the duck
6. Then I select the 'mask' option to rub out the bottom of the duck so it appears to be floating in the water

Form

Definition

•Form is a three dimensional shape, such as a cube, sphere or cone.

•Sculpture and 3D design are about creating forms.

•In 2D artworks, tone and perspective can be used to create an illusion of form.

An Example by Edward Weston

This black and white pepper nicely represents 3D photography. 

It looks similar to two naked bodies with it's muscular and sculptural form.

An Example by Jonathan Knowles

Jonathan has taken a different approach to shooting form within photography with his brighter image including analogues colours, with a background reflecting the subject. He has used flowers to create pyramid shape nicely representing 3 dimensional photography.

Jonathan Knowles is the photographer I have chosen to inspire my own work. Specialising in drinks, liquids and still life, Jonathan’s unique photographic style has earned him award-winning advertising commissions worldwide. However I am looking at his simpler images where he explores form in a calmer way. 

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

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Best Images:

I feel like my first image captured form really well as I used a three dimensional glass ball as my subject. I used clear and  bright lighting for images as inspired by my research. I also avoided using a lot of shadow for the same reason. I feel like this gives the image a clearer and sharper image to illustrate form the best way possible. Additionally, I like the reflection from the window on to the ball

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I like my second image as it has lots of parts to it