Nico Froehlich is a photographer who takes environmental portraits of random people from his local area (South London). He frames his images so the focus point (the people in the photo) are in the centre of the portrait. The background of his images gains importance because what Nico is trying to do is create a portrait of his local area with all of his images to give us an idea of what South London is like. Nico's portraits normally use natural lighting (e.g. from the sun) which can show the natural beauty of the area he is portraying. He also uses bright, vibrant and contrasting colours to grab our attention and also make us intrigued about what else the photo contains.
|
Tyler Mitchell aims to take photos showing black people at leisure, playing, relaxing and just being natural to contradict how the media portrays black people as being violent gang members, trouble makers, or criminals. He wants the normality of the lives of the people shown in these images to be existent in public places and the hierarchy within art and photography to be subverted to change how black people are portrayed in the media and to change the idea of the lack of representation and correct that imbalance.
|
This task required us to take at least 4 self portraits using different reflective materials. I found this task easy because reflective materials were quite easy to find around 1117 and 1118, and the dark room was a great place for using shadows effectively, it also provides a good colour scheme for the portrait. The only challenge was positioning myself so I could get as much of my body in the reflection as possible.
|
Man Ray was a visual artist who produced photograms, which he called a rayograph, a type of photograph that is created without the need of a camera or a lens, instead it uses light sensitive paper with objects on top of it, then it is exposed to light. The objects on the paper block the light, leaving a light spot underneath. I believe he uses his materials quite anonymously and makes them hard to identify, such as the stick like objects in the top middle image, the somewhat thin fabric like material in the bottom middle and the circular object with a hole in it in the top right image, but I also believe that he uses easily identifiable objects to create a more confusing and complex composition, such as the eggs in the top middle image, the revolver in the top left image and the springs in the top right, bottom left and bottom right images.
|
In this workshop with Sajan, who is working in the studio lighting industry, we learnt how to use lights to create shadows to convey emotion and how we can use gels to change the colour of the light to compliment the subject's skin and clothes and/or to create a gradient to highlight different features of the subject. We had learnt about some key terms such as the key light (the main light), the negative fill (a black material to stop light from being reflected onto the subject), the bounce (a white material to reflect light onto the subject), and the diffusion (a translucent cloth that makes light less harsh by one stop of light). The two types of light that we learnt about are the filament light, a big light that heats up quickly and has a soft box attached to it to confine the light which allows you to attach a layer of diffusion to it more easily, and the LED varsa, an easier to use light that doesn't heat up as quickly and allows you to clip gels to it with bulldog clips to change the colour of the light. Another thing we learnt was about the backdrop, a black backdrop doesn't reflect light so it allows you to have more control over the shadows, a white backdrop will reflect the light so the subject will have less shadows and will be more eye catching, and a green backdrop can be used for green screening to place more focus on the subject with a complimenting background.
|
In this task we were tasked to destroy some of the photographs on our website. In this part of the task I used photopea to edit four of my photos. In my opinion, the most successful image is the oil paint one. I believe this is the most successful because the oil paint creates the effect of the heat waves from the fire. If I had to change one of the images, it would be my fourth one, because the hexagonal mosaic effect convolutes the image and ruins it.
|
|
The next way we destroyed our images was with cyanotypes. I was not a big fan of this method and I would change a lot of things about this process if I do it again. The main thing that I would change would be the objects that I used, because the piece of string that I used barely changes the image. I would either swap the string for something like a pair of scissors or I would move the string to cover my body more.
|
Another way we destroyed our images was colour copying. I think that this process was the easiest to access and came out quite well. The only thing I would change is the positioning of the pieces of the photograph, since there are some empty spaces that fill the composition unnecessarily. The most successful thing about this image is the colour combination, the green contrasts with the red infant of it, while also keeping the green visible under the red.
|
The final way we destroyed our photographs was photograms. I am happy with the outcome of this as the objects that I chose to put on my photo fill the composition without overcrowding the image. If I had to change something about how I did this process, I would change the positioning of the objects so that my face is fully covered, not partially covered.
|
Lee Norman Friedlander is an American photographer who is most known for his monochromatic and asymmetrical photographs of the social landscape of America. Lee Friedlander was born Aberdeen, Washington (14th July 1934) and is still alive at age 88. Lee Friedlander's photographs were inspired by Walker Evans, Frank Evans, Robert Evans and Eugene Atget. His photographs include a unique usage of camera angles, framing and lighting. From 1953 to 1955, Lee Friedlander studied photography at the Art Center School, Los Angeles, before becoming a freelance photographer. His first exhibition was the same year that he started, at the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York.
|
My favourite image from Ziqianqian is the 4th photo because it hides her face in a different way in comparison to her other photos by colouring her entire silhouette black, while retaining the elements of a self portrait. It also implements the elements of still life without crowding the composition of the photo.
|
|
Today we were tasked to develop our work based on the last two weeks. I decided that I would use the mirrors and my knowledge of British Sign Language (BSL) to fingerspell the word "Photography" by signing each letter in each photo.
|
In this photo, Lee Friedlander has taken a portrait of an old man infant of a collection of art pieces. This portrait is monochromatic, similar to the rest of Lee's work. The camera is positioned at around eye level so the old man is in the centre of the frame. The lighting isn't very noticeable because the black and white colour scheme causes the shadows to blend in with the rest of the photo.
|