The reason why I have chosen the theme of dramatic images is because I feel that it will challenge and help develop my skills through different styles then I am used to.
Dramatic Images
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston was a 20th century American photographer. His been called ‘one of the most innovative and influential American photographer.’ And ‘one of the masters of 20th century photography.’ Over the course of his 40 years of photography. He usually photographed landscapes, still lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes and whimsical parodies. |
This is one of Edward Weston's work of dramatic light and nude photography. I think that this is a very interesting image as the shades have created a flowing feeling over the woman's body. The shadows make a sort of layer of clothing as it looks like the shadows are dressing her. What makes the image so dramatic is the really dark background which makes the body stand out more much more than chair in that the woman is laying on.
|
Tom Hunter
Tom hunter is a London based Artist. He main works in the photography and film field industry. His main work is mostly re-imaging classical paintings and recreating them through photography. He studied at The London college of printing and was the first photographer to have sole shoe at the National Gallery in London. He has many pieces of work shown around the world in exhibitions which have then been held in a number of public collections for the world to view. He has also have four books published. He has specialized his work around documenting life in the Hackney area (East London) He did this by depicting local issues of the area and news headlines with composition ideas he had borrows from the Old Masters that had influenced him. |
Eve of The Party
In this image Hunter has used natural and available light to create a dramatic image. He has found an abandoned warehouse with a broken roof that lets in only snippets of intense sunlight. He has placed his model in the direct line of this light to create a glow around the model as well as the strong shadow being casted of her on the floor. |
Highlights and shadows
In this continuous series of images I believe I have captured elements of Weston's work as well as Hunter's work by capturing highlights and shadows in abstract scenes/objects. However I feel that my glass highlight photos link more to Alexander Rodchenko's work as he photographed glasses in a similar way.
Alexander Rodchenko
Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design. Rodchenko was one of the most versatile constructivist and productivist artist to emerge after the Russian Revolution. Before turning to photomontage and photography he worked as a painter and graphic designer. His photography work engaged socially and innovated formally. He often shot subject/objects at odd angles eg. usually high above or down below, this was to shock the viewer and to postpone recognition. He wrote: "One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again." |
This is one of Rodchenko's photos that I took inspiration from this is because he has used a glass to create a shadow and a highlight at the same time similarly to what I have done with glasses. I think that this is an interesting image and somehow he has made a normal object look dramatic therefore I shall retake some glasses to get the same affect.
|
Casting shadows and highlights
This is a series of images that I have taken of bottles of water of all shapes and sizes to see what types of shadows they casted and also their highlights. This is the same for the shadows created on the chairs and the tables making a more dramatic scene with just the available light. I have also tried to recreate Rodchenko's work through my own style by using plastic bottles to create the highlights and shadows like the ones in his work.
Editing of Images
For these images I did not want to over edit as I feel that they only needed a slight change of the brightness and the contrast. I have also turned them black and white as I feel like this makes them look even more dramatic.
Blind Photos
In these images I have captured the natural sunlight hitting the blinds in my room.The way the blinds are hitting the blinds have giving them distinctive highlights and shadows.
Edits
In this edit of this image I have turned down the brightness ever so slightly. This is so that the highlights are pronounced more, I have also turned up the contrast to help with the highlights and shadows. I have then used the curve tool to again bring out the highlights and shadows more. By also turning the images black and white I feel that it has made them look more dramatic.
|
These are the best images from the previous series I have taken I that black and white editing has really worked to create and bring out the drama that the light has made. I feel that images are very interesting as the messy bed works well with the blind pattern being created by the intense sunlight.
Todd Hido
Todd Hido is an american contemporary artist and photographer. He is currently based in San Francisco. A lot of Hido's work involves photographs of suburban housing across America. He has produced a number of well received books and he has had his work exhibited widely, including various public and private collections. Hido says he is influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, Walker Evans, Edward Hopper, Stephen Shore, Nan Goldin, Robert Adams, Emmet Gowin, Larry Sultan, Alfred Stieglitz, Andreas Gursky and Rineke Dijkstra. |
After looking at some of Hido's work I found this to my favorite as it's beautifully lit, composed and shot. I love the sunset fell that image and how the light hits the woman's body and only highlights certain features. I feel like this photo was really thought out by the way the woman is laid out of the bed so that there is just enough empty space as well as the light hitting her perfectly.
|
The Unmade Bed
This is Imogen Cunningham's photo named 'The Unmade Bed' I felt that this image really linked to mine as she has taken it in a similar way to what I have done in my series of bed images. The similarities between our work is that we have the same style with the unmade bed textures that are being used. The linen on the bed makes a skin like texture which also gives the impression that the bed has been lived in. This is because the bed linen and the actual bed itself moves with your body making the impression of skin-like textures. I like how she has caught the highlights from the morning sun hitting the bed. I find it's quite symbolic to way the sun rises. Which is shown in the lighting in the image where all the highlights are in the left side of the photo and all the shadows are in the right side of the image. I like how she has caught the ripple affect of the bed sheets which looks like a movement of a body. I feel like this has really influenced my work around my bed photos. |
Night Life Street Photography
This is series of images I have created by using the available street lights. I feel that some have worked better than other to look dramatic but I feel by doing this shoot it has helped my explore a different element to dramatic lighting.
I felt that these three image showed drama the best from the whole series of image I also felt that I turned them black and white that they would make them even more dramatic. I have also made them more dramatic by darkening them as I thought that they would bring out the highlights of the images out more and therefore look more dramatic. I believe that this has worked well.
Philip-Lorca Dicorcia
Philip-Lorca diCorcia is an American photographer. He has a Masters in Fine Arts from Yale University and now works there as a lecturer. diCorica’s work is very unique as he alternates between informal photos and iconic staged compositions that have often theatrical. In his carefully planned staged photos he takes everyday occurrences beyond the realm of banality. He does this to try and inspire his picture views to raise an awareness of the psychology and emotion containing real life situations. People describe his work as documentary photography mixed with fictional work of cinema and adverting. This is what makes his work so powerful as his work is between reality, fantasy and desire. During the late 1970s he would travel around California taking photos of male prostitutes however he would pay them the same money that they would receive from a sexual act but he would just photograph them in a heroic pose. He would wait for the perfect lighting and place them were he would like them to stand. Using his staging methods. An example of his work is pictured below.
Philip-Lorca diCorcia is an American photographer. He has a Masters in Fine Arts from Yale University and now works there as a lecturer. diCorica’s work is very unique as he alternates between informal photos and iconic staged compositions that have often theatrical. In his carefully planned staged photos he takes everyday occurrences beyond the realm of banality. He does this to try and inspire his picture views to raise an awareness of the psychology and emotion containing real life situations. People describe his work as documentary photography mixed with fictional work of cinema and adverting. This is what makes his work so powerful as his work is between reality, fantasy and desire. During the late 1970s he would travel around California taking photos of male prostitutes however he would pay them the same money that they would receive from a sexual act but he would just photograph them in a heroic pose. He would wait for the perfect lighting and place them were he would like them to stand. Using his staging methods. An example of his work is pictured below.
Sunlight Images |
I find diCorcia's beautiful as you think that these are heroic people that he has meet on his travels. He has not discriminated against male prostitutes, he has instead photographed them in a heroic way which people do not see them as. I love the lighting he has wait for I think that the light really means get the meaning of the image across as well as it still being dramatic he has really thought of where the light will reflect on the car as well as the man. I like how he has shown the beauty in these people instead shaming them as many people do.
|
These are a set of images that I have captured when sunlight has created an unusual patterns on surfaces.
After looking at the images I thought that these two would make the most interesting images to edit. I have only used simple editing for these two images. What I have done is slight adjusted the brightness too darker and contrast slightly high this is so all highlights and shadows come up, I have also turned these images black and white to make them look more dramatic.
Natural Light
In this series I have caught a few different images of different ways sunlight has created a dramatic image. The first 6 have created a similar look to Edward Weston's work that I had annotated earlier in the unit. I feel like these are fairly interesting but I do feel that the sea and cloud photos are a bit more dramatic and unique. However I feel like all of these images have shown dramatic images in their own way.
Display Ideas
After looking back through my images I felt these three were my strongest images of the series and would show the theme of dramatic images the best.
This is the final display idea that I have chosen. This is because I feel that are smaller enough to be interesting looking but also big enough to able to see what are in each picture. I feel like the layout is really beautiful and helps highlight the beauty in the image. I will print this off on an A3 size paper and then frame it in a simple thin black frame.
|
This is another photo that I have decided to use in a final piece I have decided to blow this image up to a poster size (21''x16''). This is because I think that this will compliment the small prints as you would look at the framed smaller ones first and then look at the bigger one in much more detail after looking at the smaller ones.
This is my other final outcome for this unit. I feel that this has been a successful outcome as the why I have laid out the images and how I have framed them has made it possible to highlight the photos beauty. I also feel that this final piece has shown the exam theme well through this final outcome.
Evaulation
For this exam unit I started off by looking at all the themes that I could base my work around. After going over all of the themes and having conversations with my teachers, I thought that the best possible theme for me to choose was dramatic images although I did feel that the theme was dull and uninteresting and slightly limited. This was because I felt that this was a broad theme that had the most room for ideas. However, I also thought that it would be a good theme to challenge my skills as the exam brief required me to only use available light. My first impression of the theme was that is was dull and not very interesting or inventive. However, my feelings changed once I started to really explore the artists related to the theme.
The artists I researched during this unit ranged from Edward Weston to Philip-Lorca diCorcia. What I have learnt from the artists throughout this was being able to see the artist styles through my own. The ways I have shown their styles through my work is by using natural light to recreate Weston's style of highlighting an object with natural light and also by creating street photos by using diCorcia's style of staging images but by also using available light on the streets. The main artist I felt that really influenced me was Todd Hido, as I took a lot inspiration from his photograph that I have annotated on my website. I feel like I have taken his style of photography and recreated it in my own way; using the pillows and bed linen as my model in focusing on how the light highlights and shadows certain parts rather than using the models like he has. Hido is known for taking dramatic house photos from the outside with getting the light from both the sun and inside the house just right. I feel like from the use of smoke in most of his photos that it creates a very cinematic feel to them. However I felt like the nude images that he took inside the house to be more organic and original in a way. In his work I loved the amount of drama was in such a simple photo. This is why I took influence from both Hido’s work as well as Cunningham’s work.
Throughout this unit I have experimented with different scenes that could be dramatic as well as different ways of creating dramatic images through the use of photoshop. My first experiment was using natural sunlight that hit certain points in my room. This is where I discovered the effect that was made when sunlight hit a glass and created a mix of a shadow and highlights. This was the first process that I worked through, using different colours, sizes and shapes of glasses that would make different shadows and highlights in their odd patterns. I felt that this series of images did not need any editing in photoshop as it would take away from the quality of the images. After this I continued with the dramatic scenes. I found that a platform at a train station at 11pm created a dramatic effect because of the floodlights on the platform and tracks. Shortly after taking both of these series of images I came across the Russian artist Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko, who created similar, but more dramatic and moody images to my glass photos using film cameras. This was when I started to recreate the highlights and shadows of the glasses. then edit them this time to create the same dramatic and moody feel to them that Rodchenko had achieved in his work. I created this style by darkening the photo and increasing the contrast of the image, before turning it black and white and then using the curve tool to touch up the lighting again. At this point I found the way that I wanted to go about this theme and unit. I would continue with the black and white theme throughout this unit as I felt that it showed off the images in my shoots in a more dramatic light.
This is how my final outcome came about, after looking at more artists such as Imogen Cunningham and taking more series images ranging from street and nightlife photography to natural sunlight and landscape. I felt that the images I had taken earlier in the unit had shown my work and understanding of the theme the best. I came back to these images as my final piece because it was hard to attempt to recreate that certain light so that it made shadows in the most perfect way. Throughout the development of deciding how to display my final piece, I went through various ideas at the start. I first thought about displaying all 10 edited photos from the bed images, but after reviewing them after several different printing ideas I decided to narrow down the selection to three. This was because I felt that were the most meaningful images that also showed the dramatic image theme in the best light. The meaning behind the image is open to interpretation as the bed within the image could have many different meanings and stories behind it, such as whose it is, who sleeps there, and what has happened to or in the bed. This is why I think my work links to Imogen Cunningham’s work as her photo of the unmade bed asks similar questions. I feel that the way I have decided to frame and present these images in a row all the same size frame helps bring out the beauty in the image and helps the viewer see the drama within the photos. I have also had another photo from the series printed large to create a complementary partner to the other smaller photos. I feel that I have explored the theme successfully as I have looked at many different ways of using available light to make images in my own way and style while still being able to answer to theme question. I feel that the reason my final outcomes are personal is that the bed in the photographs belongs to me and appears in the way I had left it that day - meaning the way that the sheets moved were to fit and morf to my body. This is why I think it so personal, as it is a part of my everyday life. After looking back over my work, my final outcome was a lot more successful that I had expected. This is because at the start of this unit and theme I did not have much hope for it, as I felt that it would be a very dull theme to do. However I think that my work has been very successful and I have surprised myself with how well my final outcome has come out.
The artists I researched during this unit ranged from Edward Weston to Philip-Lorca diCorcia. What I have learnt from the artists throughout this was being able to see the artist styles through my own. The ways I have shown their styles through my work is by using natural light to recreate Weston's style of highlighting an object with natural light and also by creating street photos by using diCorcia's style of staging images but by also using available light on the streets. The main artist I felt that really influenced me was Todd Hido, as I took a lot inspiration from his photograph that I have annotated on my website. I feel like I have taken his style of photography and recreated it in my own way; using the pillows and bed linen as my model in focusing on how the light highlights and shadows certain parts rather than using the models like he has. Hido is known for taking dramatic house photos from the outside with getting the light from both the sun and inside the house just right. I feel like from the use of smoke in most of his photos that it creates a very cinematic feel to them. However I felt like the nude images that he took inside the house to be more organic and original in a way. In his work I loved the amount of drama was in such a simple photo. This is why I took influence from both Hido’s work as well as Cunningham’s work.
Throughout this unit I have experimented with different scenes that could be dramatic as well as different ways of creating dramatic images through the use of photoshop. My first experiment was using natural sunlight that hit certain points in my room. This is where I discovered the effect that was made when sunlight hit a glass and created a mix of a shadow and highlights. This was the first process that I worked through, using different colours, sizes and shapes of glasses that would make different shadows and highlights in their odd patterns. I felt that this series of images did not need any editing in photoshop as it would take away from the quality of the images. After this I continued with the dramatic scenes. I found that a platform at a train station at 11pm created a dramatic effect because of the floodlights on the platform and tracks. Shortly after taking both of these series of images I came across the Russian artist Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko, who created similar, but more dramatic and moody images to my glass photos using film cameras. This was when I started to recreate the highlights and shadows of the glasses. then edit them this time to create the same dramatic and moody feel to them that Rodchenko had achieved in his work. I created this style by darkening the photo and increasing the contrast of the image, before turning it black and white and then using the curve tool to touch up the lighting again. At this point I found the way that I wanted to go about this theme and unit. I would continue with the black and white theme throughout this unit as I felt that it showed off the images in my shoots in a more dramatic light.
This is how my final outcome came about, after looking at more artists such as Imogen Cunningham and taking more series images ranging from street and nightlife photography to natural sunlight and landscape. I felt that the images I had taken earlier in the unit had shown my work and understanding of the theme the best. I came back to these images as my final piece because it was hard to attempt to recreate that certain light so that it made shadows in the most perfect way. Throughout the development of deciding how to display my final piece, I went through various ideas at the start. I first thought about displaying all 10 edited photos from the bed images, but after reviewing them after several different printing ideas I decided to narrow down the selection to three. This was because I felt that were the most meaningful images that also showed the dramatic image theme in the best light. The meaning behind the image is open to interpretation as the bed within the image could have many different meanings and stories behind it, such as whose it is, who sleeps there, and what has happened to or in the bed. This is why I think my work links to Imogen Cunningham’s work as her photo of the unmade bed asks similar questions. I feel that the way I have decided to frame and present these images in a row all the same size frame helps bring out the beauty in the image and helps the viewer see the drama within the photos. I have also had another photo from the series printed large to create a complementary partner to the other smaller photos. I feel that I have explored the theme successfully as I have looked at many different ways of using available light to make images in my own way and style while still being able to answer to theme question. I feel that the reason my final outcomes are personal is that the bed in the photographs belongs to me and appears in the way I had left it that day - meaning the way that the sheets moved were to fit and morf to my body. This is why I think it so personal, as it is a part of my everyday life. After looking back over my work, my final outcome was a lot more successful that I had expected. This is because at the start of this unit and theme I did not have much hope for it, as I felt that it would be a very dull theme to do. However I think that my work has been very successful and I have surprised myself with how well my final outcome has come out.