Historical Photographer - Eugene Atget.- FINAL IMAGE.

Atget

Eugene Atget noticed that there was a demand for pictures of the old Paris and he spent the early part of his photographic career building up a portfolio of work and clients in this field. His work included photographing old buildings, street vendors, architectural details and buildings that were about to be demolished.
Much of his work was aimed at artists and stage designers who would use his photographs as visual aids for their own work.
Atget used only an old wooden 18 x 24cm camera rather than anything modern at the time, as he said that they worked faster than he could think.
In 1920 he sold 2,500 negatives of his work to the Caisse National des Monuments Historiques for around 10,000 francs. This gave him the financial freedom to pursue a more personal preference in his work, which included domestic interiors of people of various social classes, neglected statues, portraits and close up work.

Many of Atget's clients were more interested in the detail of the picture rather than in any photographic art and this reflected in his work. Often his own shadow can be seen in his work.
The use of an old heavy camera and a wide-angle lens to capture more detail in his work often caused radical perspectives and vignetting in the upper corners.
He also liked to use long exposures and slow plate films which would cause halation and blurs from moving objects.
He would often work early in the morning to avoid people appearing in his work and in doing so some of his work appears very dreamlike and deserted.
These traits in his work although unimportant Atget himself is what many collectors have to come to love about his work.

Atget used a view camera with a bellows placed on a tripod, typical of the second half of the 19th century. He worked with 18 × 24 cm negative glass plates, oriented to obtain either a vertical or horizontal photograph. A tilt-shift technique was used to make perspective corrections. This resulted in vignetting (a circular shadow around the edges of the image), a phenomenon seen in a number of Atget’s photographs.
Atget always used gelatin-silver negative glass plates, 1.5mm thick. The plate was held in the camera in a wooden frame by clips that left characteristic marks on many of the prints. A long exposure time resulted in numerous blurs caused by the presence of moving people or objects. Atget developed the negatives himself and wrote the negative number directly onto the gelatin with a pointed stiletto.
Atget made all of his own photographic prints using a technique in which light-sensitive paper, in contact with the glass negative, was printed-out in natural light (never developed). The printing-out process proceeded until Atget determined that the image had the proper density. The photograph was then washed, gold toned, fixed and washed again. Atget’s prints are never black-and-white; their tone varies from deep sepia to violet-brown. Atget was capable of producing high-quality prints but there is great variation in these today depending on his printing and toning techniques and the way his photographs were preserved and exhibited. He never enlarged his photographs. 

Albumen
The light-sensitive emulsion was formed by silver chloride introduced into an albumen binder (beaten egg whites). The majority of Atget’s prints were on albumen paper. He turned to other processes after the First World War, when such paper could no longer be found on the market
Matt Albumen
After the war Atget used another kind of industrially produced printing-out paper with a Matt surface
Aristotype
Atget chose a commercially manufactured printing-out paper made with gelatin. Aesthetically similar to albumen prints, although thicker and with a glossier surface, the process was the same for toning and printing. Some of these prints have yellow stains from sulphuration due to poor processing of the image (such as the use of an exhausted fixing bath or insufficient washing).

Parks and Gardens. 

Atget made many of his most moving and meditative photographs in the last decade of his life at the parks and gardens in and around Paris. He had worked at most of them—Versailles, Saint-Cloud, and the Luxembourg Garden—since early in his career, but these late photographs have a qualitatively different sensibility: formally bold and synthetic, they are also atmospheric, mysterious, and resonant. Their significance for Atget is suggested by the separate sub series that he set up for each near the end of his life: "Versailles," "Saint-Cloud," "Sceaux," and "Parisian Parks."

Below: Atget Fountain. 
 
 The reason I want to recreate this photograph is because there is a park in Doncaster where I come from, that has a similar flower feature, like water fountain in Atget's image. It resembles a similar subject matter. Atget photographed this park early in the morning so before university I had a walk to the park. Atget did this because he preferred photographing when there is no one around, s I took a similar approach. 

 













 My Atget Images:
My first image, is more toned in sepia, more contrasty and has more shadows and highlights in it. In post production I have added a harsh sepia toning. For composition, I closely observed the edges of each image where everything ends or begins, the ground slightly in the foreground before the start of the fountain. The camera angle from the front, but down below more at eye level. Ive photographed in a morning with a digital camera. My ISO of 200, my aperture of 11, and shutter speed of 125.

FINAL - I think this is my final Atget image, its more softer in toning and I think it is more similar to Atget's image than the one I took before. Again, the composition I observed through Atgets image, making sure I get the framing and camera angle correct. Again, this was taken early in the morning with more, sun shining on the stone. My aperture was on 16, my shutter speed 125, and my ISO on 200. In post production, I added a sepia effect.

Weston FINAL IMAGE.

Edward Weston was renowned as one of the masters of 20th century photography. His legacy includes several thousand carefully composed, superbly printed photographs, which have influenced photographers around the world. Photographing natural landscapes and forms such as artichoke, shells, and rocks, using large-format cameras and available light. Weston's sensuously precise images rise to the level of poetry. The subtle use of tones and the sculptural formal design of his works have become the standards by which much later photographic practice has been judged. Ansel Adams has written: "Weston is, in the real sense, one of the few creative artists. He has recreated the matter-forms and forces of nature; he has made these forms eloquent of the fundamental unity of the world. His work illuminates man's inner journey toward perfection of the spirit." 

In 1923 Weston moved to Mexico City where he opened a photographic studio with his apprentice and lover Tina Modotti. Many important portraits and nudes were taken during his time in Mexico. It was also here that famous artists; Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, and Jose Orozco hailed Weston as the master of 20th century art.

After moving back to California in 1926, Weston began his work for which he is most deservedly famous: natural forms, close-ups, nudes, and landscapes.

Photography is a matter of eyes, intuition, and intellect. For eyes and intuition, no photographer was ever more richly endowed than Edward Weston.
Weston had been a skilful and successful photographer for more than a decade when in the early twenties his own unique vision began to reveal itself. By 1930, when he was forty-five, he had produced a body of work that would come to identify him as a major artist, a man whose work has changed our perception of what the world and life are like.
 It was as though the things of everyday experience had been transformed for Weston into organic sculptures, the forms of which were both the expression and the justification of the life within. The exhilarating visual power of Weston's work is the product of a deeper achievement: He had freed his eyes of conventional expectation, and had taught them to see the statement of intent that resides in natural form.

The nude torso of Weston's son Neil is not a simile but a statement of fact; the boy's flesh is not like alabaster or bronze or the cheek of a peach; his body is not formed like a stone column or a wineskin or a root vegetable. This startlingly beautiful photograph is the more surprising because it describes with precision what we might have thought we already knew.

Edward Weston Quote: The photograph isolates and perpetuates a moment of time: an important and revealing moment, or an unimportant and meaningless one, depending upon the photographer's understanding of his subject and mastery of his process.

Ive chosen to recreate some of Weston's nudes, 1 from 1927 + 1 from 1934. (Below)

The reason I want to re-create this image is because I love the soft greyscale tones on the skin of the legs. It is a light print, but very texturised like it is made of soft putty or pot, it appears to me more beautifully designed like a sculpture, rather than a photograph.I love how the light is bouncing of the back of the females legs creating a wonderful glow, also the lightly coloured background compliments her skin. The composition is interesting, focusing on the woman's lower body, the length and beauty of her legs, cutting off the ankles at the bottom of the image, and the hips at the top, it is purely focusing on the centre bottom half of the woman's body. Her legs look really long from the angle it has been photographed suggesting from down below, level to her ankles. Also, the camera angle is straight on, but the woman's body is slightly towards to the right, showing more of her left left and behind. The gap in her legs I will need to focus on, also where the light is hitting her body features. I think I will use natural light for this image, as it appears that way in Weston's photograph. I will be using digital, standard lens camera, in a  natural light, environment.

 I want to try also, the image to the right because the beauty of the woman's body, the curve in her back and the shadows and contrasts on her skin make a very striking image. Ive never looked at nudes before in a stylistic way, where the body is transformed into more of a beautiful sculpture focusing on the curves and textures on the body. This image reminds me of Weston's famous pepper image. The composition is interesting focusing on the length of the woman's back, also the light hitting her skin is also beautifully thought out, the natural light looks to be used again here. 

My Images:  

Left: I used myself as a model for this image. It was very difficult to sort the camera aperture, shutter speed + ISO out without being in front of the camera to start with, so I used a family member just to stand their while I set my camera up on the tripod and to get my composition and angles right. It was a lengthy process for both images but I think they worked out very well considering. I had my aperture at 5.6, my ISO on full setting, and my shutter speed on 125. I also opened my curtains to let in full natural daylight, this was to get the light grain Weston has in his images. Also, more light to make more of a soft, pasty texture on my skin, like Weston's image above. I tried to get the gap in between both legs correct, and my posture and position as close as possible.

Right: The right image was a very lengthly process trying to get composition and angle right. I nnoticed how the rear of the woman's body is towards the right edge of the image, and the arm and breast to the edge of the left, then photographing from down below to get the black shadow in also. I used a tripod and again, natural daylight, only this time I closed one curtain so it was more shadowy + contrasty. I still need to to make the tattoo on my right thigh disappear in post production before I print a Final Image. I had my aperture at 5.6. shutter speed at 125, and ISO in 1000. Overall, I am happy with both images, I have learnt a lot more about photographing nudes, like Weston, but I think my above image of the legs, will be my Final Weston Image.


WESTON FINAL: 

 

Contemporary Photographer - Martin Parr.

Martin Parr - "With photography, I like to create fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society's natural prejudice and giving this a twist. ”At first glance, his photographs seem exaggerated or even grotesque. The motifs he chooses are strange, the colours are garish and the perspectives are unusual. Parr's term for the overwhelming power of published images is "propaganda". He counters this propaganda with his own chosen weapons: criticism, seduction and humour. As a result, his photographs are original and entertaining, accessible and understandable. But at the same time they show us in a penetrating way that we live, how we present ourselves to others, and what we value. 

Leisure, consumption and communication are the concepts that this British photographer has been researching for several decades now on his worldwide travels. In the process, he examines national characteristics and international phenomena to find out how valid they are as symbols that will help future generations to understand our cultural peculiarities. Parr enables us to see things that have seemed familiar to us in a completely new way. In this way he creates his own image of society, which allows us to combine an analysis of the visible signs of globalisation with unusual visual experiences. In his photos, Parr juxtaposes specific images with universal ones without resolving the contradictions. Individual characteristics are accepted and eccentricities are treasured. 

The themes Parr selects and his inimitable treatment of them set him apart as a photographer whose work involves the creation of extensive series. Part of his unusual strategy is to present and publish the same photos in the context of art photography, in exhibitions and in art books, as well as in the related fields of advertising and journalism. In this way, he transcends the traditional separation of the different types of photography. Thanks to this integrative approach, as well as his style and his choice of themes, he has long served as a model for the younger generation of photographers. 

  


Parr explained the reasons for choosing to now work in colour negative and with the Plaubel 6x7 wide angle camera: "Colour was regarded as something for snapshot photography or the professional, not for the serious photographer in the UK. After William Eggleston's Guide, it had the official stamp of approval, and people like myself started to see this work where colour was such an integral part of the pictures. I use colour negative film because you can get the exposure wrong and still get a decent print, the prints are very attractive, and it's the best material. I find transparency [film] difficult to expose well, and too contrasty."

"The idea of using flash combined with daylight was to create a surreal effect, using those very bright colours. It's amateur film I use, so it helps give it extra saturation. Then the camera is a wide angle so you're in very close. All those things contribute to the look and feel of the photograph. I can't remember who actually introduced me to the Plaubel 6x7 camera, but when I saw it I thought, "God, this is fantastic for a 6x7 and very good quality!".

Ive chosen to attempt to re-create the above image, or at least, practice a Martin Parr approach to Photography. His bright saturated colours are vibrant to the eyes, also, the flash is evident on the cakes giving a sheen glow accross the image. Parr photographs in a very British way, anything British subject or meaning appeals to him so this is something I shall think above. Parr photographs on colour film, although I will be practicing with colour digital.

My Images: 
My images, I photographed from an above composition but also some different camera angles. I used a flash inside my kitchen, quite dark light. I saturated the colours in post production. I used pink cakes similar to the ones in Parr's images. I also gathered up some fish + chips products like ketchup + vinegar because I know Parr photographs the seaside a lot, and the images represent that. I haven't chosen a final image yet because I want to experiment more with Parr's style + techniques.

 
 

Historical Photographer - Edward Weston.

Among the twentieth century’s most influential art photographers, Edward Weston (United States, 1886–1958) is widely respected for his many contributions to the field of photography. Along with Ansel Adams, Weston pioneered a modernist style characterized by the use of a large-format camera to create sharply focused and richly detailed black-and-white photographs.

The combination of Weston’s stark objectivity and his passionate love of nature and form gave his still lifes, portraits, landscapes, and nudes qualities that seemed particularly suited for expressing the new American lifestyle and aesthetic that emerged from California and the West between the two world wars. He spent the years 1923–1926 in Mexico City as a part of an international milieu of creative minds attracted by the post-revolutionary excitement of political activists and artists such as Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, Tina Modotti, and others. From the moment he returned to the United States, he began making work that would fundamentally change the direction of photography in this country.

In Weston's still lives, for instance, the tonal quality of his black-and-white prints imbue everyday objects, both natural and man-made, with a heightened presence that sometimes makes them seem almost unreal. In his journals, he wrote that his aim was to render "the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh".

When he turned his camera on a humble green pepper, he made it look like a modernist sculpture by Hans Arp. In his journal, he wrote, "It is classic, completely satisfying – a pepper – but more than a pepper: abstract, in that it is completely outside subject matter."  
The notion of a subject, even one belonging to the natural world like a pepper or a seashell, being "completely outside subject matter" is intriguing. Revealingly, Weston also wrote that something as ordinary and as extraordinary as a pepper "takes one beyond the world we know in the conscious mind". 

 Of his famous pepper, Weston wrote: “I must get this one today:  it is beginning to show the strain and tonight should grace a salad.  It has been suggested that I am a cannibal to eat my models after a masterpiece.  But I rather like the idea that they become a part of me, enrich my blood as well as my vision.”

Weston was given a Kodak box camera for his 16th birthday by his father. Within a year, he was photographing the parks in his native city on a 5in by 7in camera, and, aged 18, had the resulting work published in a photographic magazine. His only formal training was a short stint at the Illinois School of Photography. Initially, Weston had been a leading exponent of Pictorialism – a kind of arty, romanticized style of portraiture that took its cue from the Victorian painters like Whistler.

Weston began to turn his camera on the everyday things around him: household objects as well as the flora and fauna of the country's arid landscape. Weston became absorbed by the camera's ability to capture, in arresting close-up, the otherness of the country's plant and vegetable life as well as rock and cloud formations. An aesthetic was born.
On his return to California, he continued to use his camera as a means to express "the very substance and the quintessence of the thing itself", photographing in close-up what he saw around him: an egg-slicer, a toadstool, a cup, a gnarled tree. In 1930, his lover, Sonya Noskowiak, brought him some green peppers to photograph, the most famous of which, Pepper No. 30, he transformed into a sensual object with curves that echo both modernist sculpture and the human form. Here, ultra-realism shades into surrealism.

Image Recreation - Onion Halved. Photoshoot 1.

Onion Halved - 1930.

I have taken a series of images  based on Weston's Still Life image of an onion. It is my first Photoshoot and I just wanted to give it a try, ready for a final image. Weston uses a Kodak box camera, but I have used digital, purely because its just a test shoot, and technically I just wanted to practice.

Below: My Onion Images.

I changed composition and camera angles for this shoot. I dried out the onion so the creases between each segment allowed me to achieve the harsh shadows in the curves, as Weston has. In post production, I converted my images to black and white and added some adjustments to the levels. I used a digital camera, standard lens, but also a macro lens. I had my shutter speed at 125, my ISO at 200, but changed to 400 just to add abit more light, and my aperture around 8. My series of images, have shown me a lot now what I need to improve on in terms of bringing out more details and textures of the onion, focusing more on light and where the light is bouncing off the subject and the technical aspects + visual approach to my subjects.

 Although, I have chose to recreate a photograph from Weston's still life era of his career, I would also like to try and recreate 1 or 2 of his series of nudes, something which I am going to try out before the hand in, to see which image will be my final image, and from which style of Weston's images I have decided on.

Rinko Kawauchi - Contemporary Photographer.

Rinko Kawauchi's photographs are set apart by their remarkable consistency. Nuanced but never repetitive, each 6×6 frame seems to capture the same frail, effervescent color palette, each, in her typical manner, flooded with light. It’s her attitude toward the photograph and the subject, however, not necessarily the technique that stays the same.

The Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi (1972) entered the photography scene in 2001 simultaneously publishing three photography albums – Utatane (Catnap), Hanabi (Fireworks) and Hanako – and causing a sensation in Japan overnight. Kawauchi is a perfect example how actions speak louder than words. The photographer grasps the world, the everyday moment with a poetic lightness, with the eyes of a child and a simple sincerity. So different in genre, her pastel photographs thrill with their genuineness and turn these moments into one inspirational world. Recently she has been nominated for the prestigious Deutsche photography prize for her book Illuminence. Source: http://fkmagazine.lv/2011/12/09/10-minutes-with-rinko-kawauchi/. Rinko Kawauchi shot her series Illuminence with a 6x6 rolliflex camera but soon switched to the digital medium. She has mentioned that she would like to use amd mix up the two mediums in the future.

 Interview With Rinko:

How would you describe your photography?
I don’t know how to talk and describe very well, that’s why I’ve become a photographer, I guess. I want to show my photography without explanations.

How did you choose this medium?
It is in a way a proof of my life. Sometimes I forget what I was doing and photography reminds me of that.
You also write poetry – haiku. Do they form a dialogue? How are they similar for you?
One haiku is like a one picture. I don’t describe my images, I say it within haiku. At the same time, my images are poetic.

 Do you have any rituals for work? Do you always carry your camera with you?
 I used to bring my camera with me all the time because I was looking for something. I wasn’t so sure of myself, I was looking to establish my style. Now, I don’t bring it with me anymore because I have a different space around me, I am satisfied. If I want to do something new and different, I take my camera with me again.
 
Your photography is truly inspirational. What is your inspiration?
I get the inspiration, for example, while taking a nap, it is a form of meditation.

Do people have a common sense of beauty? What is yours?
It is a big, nice question. It is hard to define what is beautiful and it depends on people but I still think we share the same things. 

Japanese and European cultures seem to be quite different. Is your work received similarly at home and in Europe?
 I don’t think so, we see it in a common way.
 
What qualities should a photographer possess?
A photographer should have his own character, his voice.

A photographer told me that a book is the most intimate step in her photography process. How is it for you?
Yes, a photography book for me is more important than a photo installation. I can say I share the same opinion.

My 1st Photoshoot for Rinko - Image 1.
I chose to emanate this image purely because I am a huge nature lover, and grow my own flowers + plants at home, so I decided to personalize by using an image she took of a flower. Also, the idea of how Rinko will often inhibit the feeling or emotion of 'life + death' in her images, also inspired me to try this image. This image looks to be taken outside, in a summer environment where the bursts of sunlight are feathering onto the soft pink leaves, becoming illuminant, almost white. Pastel pinks are toning out the image while a centre, macro composition has taken shape. 

 My image is of an Orchid, pink flower. I have focused on the centre detail of the flower, as Rinko has. And I have placed it in natural light so the sunlight is visible in the background and along the tops of the leaves. I chose an orchid flower because the texture and thinness of the petals are similar to flower Rinko has used. They can be quite see-through when they are in the sunlight. The petals are abit harsher in terms of the pink, but I have placed then in the light so the pink dissolves slightly into the background. You can see the light from behind and the natural environment along the bottom, which is similar to that of Rinko's. I used a Digital Camera, macro lens. Aperture of 5.6, shutter speed of 125 + ISO on a high 800, in order to create the soft pastel look, also the harsh light coming from behind. In post production I have cropped the image into a square as Rinko's images are, I have added a small hint of brightness.

Image 2.
 
I chose to use this image, as I was immediately attracted to the vibrant green that takes up the centre image. It has a soft depth of field at the front of the image, a perfect focus in the centre near the water droplet, and more depth at the back. Also, its another nature photograph I can use my plants at home for. Stylistically, her framing is interesting, also the depth of field is well thought out. This image has very soft edgings, like a soft focus, but a prominent, strong centre focus. The raindrop is bright and the light bouncing off of it is eye-catching. The detail of the stems and veins in the leaf is quite soft, blending into the green, as the leaf photographed has quite a thick texture.

I found this image really difficult to recreate. The leaf I used was only small in my hands as it is a young seedling growing from my house. It is the only plant I have that has a similar shape to that of the leaf used above. The texture and detail on my leaf is also more prominent in terms of the texture of my leaf being quite thin, so the light is bringing the details out more. The background is similar to the above image, and the green is just as prominent, I held the plant in my hand so the water droplet did not move. The water droplet in my image is similar to the one above also, and the light bouncing off off of it similar.

I used a  Digital Camera Macro lens, an ISO of 1000 (as the leaf was just appearing too contrasty), my shutter speed at 125, and my aperture at 5.6 to allow as much light in as possible. In post production, I brought the contrast down slightly, also lightened the saturation so the green wasn't too strong.  I dont think this image is too bad in terms of a first attempt, but also, I dont think I shall be using it as my final image.

 

Image 3.

I have chose this image because I love the soft glow on the curtains, also they look so free, like the wind is blowing them through a soft breeze. It gives me the feeling of tranquility and peacefulness. There is quite a lot of dark in this image, the shadow quite harsh, framing the sides of the image. This may be quite hard to recreate. Their appears to be a hint of blue in the image, almost like a soft filter, blending into the background so you can see the trees and sunlight from behind. I love Rinko's visual quality in terms of taking ordinary objects or scenes and having the ability to make them become an interesting + compelling photograph.

 

My image doesn't quite follow Rinko's colour and deep shadow approach, but it does emit some of her soft, pinky pastel images. It has a tint of blue, but is dominated by pink more than white, this is because the only see through curtains I have are pink, also the colour of the bedroom is pink so it added a filter onto the image. Although it doesn't fit this image to a 'recreation' level I do think is is similar to Rinko's style.It is soft, sunlight is apparent through the back of the image,a nd the subject matter is evident. I have enjoyed experimenting composition wise and trying out a few of Rinko's images to see which ones work + I can recreate, and which ones dont.

Overall, for a first attempt, I am becoming to fully understand Rinko's approach to her subjects. Her poetic style is soft, beautiful and evokes emotion and feeling. Her stylistic approach of using daylight, natural sources + subjects is compelling, creating a series of visual genius + pastel mixed beauty. I have learnt many things technically and visually whilst shooting in this way, but I think I need to shoot more images, before I pick a Final Image for my hand in.