Archive for September, 2014

Since we have done some outdoor photography, I figured this article might be useful for anyone looking to continue photography outdoors. The article makes some great suggestions on how to protect your camera in every kind of element, including rain, snow, or in extreme temperatures. One thing I didn’t know about was protecting your batteries in cold weather, because the cold will drain them of their energy. Good to know you can warm them back up and squeeze some more life out of them!

http://petapixel.com/2014/09/28/extreme-weather-camera-get-shot-protect-gear/#more-146616

Even though we have talked about Edward Muybridge  in class before, I stumbled across his work again and was reminded how interesting and groundbreaking his work is. He is most widely known for his stop-motion photography, especially of the running horse or the flying bird. He also photographed humans in motion. What I did not realize was that he was also the artist that photographed Yosemite Valley in black and white. Here are some examples of his work:

Fun fact about Edward Muybridge: According to Wikipedia, he shot and killed his wife’s lover but was acquitted on “justifiable homicide.” Who knew?

Working on the project we have due this week has made me have a great appreciation for the amount of detail and work that go in to the buildings and monuments around us each day.  I have been to Paris a few times and the city completely captivates me because of the incredible history and architecture the artists display through their work.  Looking at things in black and white gives me the opportunity to see things that I would not notice otherwise due to the distraction of color.  The above pictures are fascinating to look at and let your eyes go where they want to with the different lines and shapes.

Matt Hawthorne is the sports photographer I aspire to be. From bring in this class I have more of an eye for light exposure now since we are predominately  shooting in black and white. In order to make a black and white picture capture the eye in a world that we see in color, there are a lot of things aspects that are needed to be kept in mind when shooting. For what I am discovering personally, a strategic way in taking a captivating black and white picture is a smart use of negative space, and a good use of lighting along with a good use of shadows. Though there is a lot I still need to learn in the art of black and white photography, I pulled these two pictures from Matt Hawthorne’s website since I feel like each picture exemplifies the two aspects that make a good black and white picture. The first picture I pulled from his website I feel like is a great example of negative space of the volleyball player since your eye goes immediately towards her in a dramatic effect. The second picture I pulled from Matt Hawthorne’s website would be a great example of being smart with your light source and shadows. It creates interest to the picture, the figure of the piece follows the golden rule of photography beautifully, and the shadows bring a dynamic feel to the picture with them running diagonal alongside with the person.

As I have stated before, I still have a lot to learn before I ever hope to be on the same level as Matt Hawthorne, but breaking down to the basics of what creates an aesthetically pleasing picture without relying on colored images as a clutch. Being strategic about your light source, and deciding how you want your figure to be placed within the image will create an aesthetically pleasing image in black and white photography.

It took me awhile to find this guy but I saw him awhile back and was blown away by his portraits. He spent six years learning a cumbersome photographic process invented in the 1850s called Wet-Plate Collodion process that relies on metal plates to print photographs. Here is a link to what that is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collodion_process. The way he uses light and the way the image burns on the metal gives you something that digital photography can’t. He is writes this on his website  “these photographs are a commitment to time. Unlike any other portrait process, the ego and body seem to melt away, leaving an imprint of the soul in silver on the plate—eternal still silver.” I picked a few of my favorites to show you.

Charles C. Ebbets was an American photographer born in the early 20th century. Supposedly, his love of photography began at only the age of eight, when he purchased his first camera at a drugstore, charging it onto his mother’s account. One of his most famous photographs is “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” (pictured below), which has a few conspiracy theories surrounding it. For years, this image was shot by an “unknown” photographer, until 2003, when credit was given to Ebbets. However, there is still some debate on whether or not he took the picture. As well, some people claim that the shot was staged and the men were not actually eating lunch on the beam while working on the Rockefeller Center. Regardless of whether or not it was staged or who created it, it’s still a beautiful image and Ebbets remains an incredibly talented photographer.

Abilene’s Historical Monuments

Bernd & Hilla Becher

Bernd and Hilla Becher were a German photographer team and a married couple, best- known for their collection of industrial building images examining the similarities and differences in structure and appearance.

Bernd (1931 – 2007) and Hilla (b. 1934) Becher first met at the Düsseldorf Academy. Both were studying painting at the time and in 1961, the two were married. They first collaborated on photographing and documenting the disappearing German industrial architecture in 1959, and had their first Gallery exhibition in 1963 at the Galerie Ruth Nohl in Siegen. They were fascinated by the similar shapes in which certain buildings were designed. In addition, they were intrigued by the fact that so many of these industrial buildings seemed to have been built with a great deal of attention toward design. Together, the Bechers went out with a large format camera and photographed these buildings from a number of different angles, but always with a straightforward “objective” point of view. The images of structures with similar functions were then displayed side by side to invite viewers to compare their forms and designs. These structures included barns, water towers, storage silos, and warehouses.

The Bechers also photographed outside of Germany, including buildings from the United States and other areas of Europe. Bernd taught at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and influenced students that later made a name for themselves in the photography industry. Former students of Bernd’s included Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, and Candida Höfer.

Walker Evans

American born.

Although primarily a photographer of environments rather than people, Evans’ social concerns brought him face to face with the victims of the Depression. He tried to capture their stoicism in unflinchingly direct portraits. He believed with Baudelaire that the artist’s task was to face head-on the harshest realities and to report them to the larger world, as he said:

“The real thing that I am talking about has purity and a certain severity, rigor, or simplicity, directness, clarity, and it is without artistic pretension in a self-conscious sense of the world.”

From Shorpy website: one of the best places for archival photos. Great images and excellent sizes.

And eventually, from Photography Now: with its usual beautiful site/presentation. Make sure to browse his entire works displayed in this site. Walker Evans’s contributions to photographic documentation is spectacular!

Paul Strand

Versatile American photographer who helped establish photography as an art form. His works ranged from wide photographic genres such as street photography to portraiture. Paul Strand had a long and productive career with the camera. His pictorialist studies of the 1910s, followed by the coolly seductive machine photographs of the 1920s, like the contemporary work of Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped define the canon of early American modernism and set its premium on the elegant print.