Philippe Halsman said in an interview once that he believed that people revealed their true selves when jumping. He took a series of people jumping in front of white backgrounds in black and white. He used a fast shutter speed to capture people in movement. I attempted to recreate it, I used a fast shutter speed of 1/500. I decide to use colour and unfortunately was not able to use a studio as the only studio I had access to would not be large enough, nor safe enough, for people to jump in.
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Robert Longo takes photos with models. Using a variety of techniques, the artist singles out the model in movement and darkens them. He then places them over a white background. The high contrast of the model and the lack of details in the background means that the views eyes can only be focused on the model. This then means that the movements of the model are far more important.
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Francesca Woodman uses slow shutter speeds to take long exposure shots of models moving. This creates a blurring effect as the movements of the model are stable just long enough for the film in the camera to capture it before they move. For my response, I used a slow shutter speed and a tripod. I would then ask my models to do certain actions that would create blur. I also acted as my own model for some of the shots, using a timer so that I could position myself before the shot. I did this because Francesca Woodman was also know to do this.
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Willi Dorner's project centres around the models getting into tight alcoves and locations while crumpling their bodies to fit into them. The models also wear vibrant coloured clothes to contrast them with the bland background and buildings that they will be in the shot with. Obviously I do not have the same level of resources as Dorner, so I had to make do with what I had. I also found that taking shots inside would be very dark, so I would have to up the ISO which resulted in lots of grain in the final photo.
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Irving Penn was a 1950's photographer who focused around using models and working with space. This shot that I will be using as an example makes use of the techniques that Penn used. The inclining walls draw the eye to the model, who sitting the corner, crumpling his body to fit. The aspect of the model's obviously uncomfortable position emphasises the pressure that the walls have on him. The lack of colour also helps to emphasis the model, as without colour, the focus is even more so on him. For my own response, I used the schools studio and attempted to recreate his style.
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Keld Helmer Peterson's blacklight series is a collection of surrealist images. He takes shot of object or structures and reduces them to their silhouettes before placing them over a white background. The high contrast means that the subtle shapes of the silhouettes are more prominent. The usage of negative space with the white background also emphasises the shape of the object or building that Peterson is working with. For my own attempt, I looked at objects in my school and took photos of them. I then used photoshop to up the contrast and turn the image black and white. To finish I used the paint tool to remove any spots or imperfections.
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I visited the "Another kind of Life" exhibitions at the Barbican. This exhibition showed pictures of those who lived outside of normal society and their lives. Some of the photographers would arguably subscribe to a form of proto-gonzo journalism, Gonzo journalism is when the journalist becomes so ingrained in the subject that they even effect it to a certain degree. It was a term coined by Hunter S Thompson who had a variety of dangerous and interesting experiences as a result of his involvement. Although many of these shot were taken before Thompson's creation of gonzo, it would be false to call these works gonzo journalism.
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Some of the photos that I saw while here were brutal, showing the usage of drugs and guns, but I felt that this gallery truelly matched to the theme. The men, women and children that I saw were living as free lives as possible, however they were also trapped in their lives. Enjoying the freedom of the road but facing the limitations of their addictions.
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Thomas Kellner's work could be considered somewhat abstract, it shows photos of builds that have been deformed and changed to create new images. His work has been images of the Eiffel tower and many other famous land marks. However I chose to use brutalism images as my breaking the structure response.I chose to do this because brutalism is a very structured form of architecture and thus breaking it would be more interest visually. I took the photos I used at the Barbican in London and used photoshop for my editing.
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1) Load the image into photoshop.
2) Select and area at the top of the image. 3) cut and paste the image at the bottom of the image and move the remaining area to fill the cut space. 4)repeat this for the bottom of the original image. 5)flip the sections alternatingly on the image. 6) repeat this for the other orientation. |
Edward Horsford's water balloon is a series of high speed photos of bursting water balloons. Due to the nature of water, it retails its shape for a very short period of time, with a fast enough camera this shape can be caught. Horsford's shots use black backgrounds and likely flash to cause the water to stand out prominently against the black background, making the shape look more clear. It is noticeable that the hand of the model is in the shot, I personally do not like this and for my own response I tired my best to avoid having the hand of the person who popped the balloon of the shot.
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For this series, I used a high shutter speed of 1/1600 and the multi-shot function on my camera, which allowed me to take photos as the balloon exploded. The main issues that I encountered was the light not being bright enough, due to the nature of the multi-shot function, the flash would not be able to keep up with the shot being taken, so I had to use a flood light to light the balloon bright enough for the camera. I asked my dad to pop the balloon with a needle, and we experimented with hitting it for alternate angles, from behind seemed to be the most successful.
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Brandon Hilder uses what seems to be combination of photoshop and real world techniques to create interesting and varied paint photos. He blacks out the backgrounds around the paint to make the paint more prominent and to remove any mess. He uses a great variety of different colours and probably different mixes of paint to add to the vibrant nature of his work, with different colours rising to different levels and frozen in their mixing process. The goal of my response was to take a series in a style similar to his.
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I used my Fugi camera. The settings I used were, F5.0. 1/500 shutter speed and 600 ISO. The issues that I found were linked to the light. Due to the nature of spitting paint, I did not want to risk my lens being damaged by the paint, so I had to keep a distance and zoom, which meant that I needed a much brighter room. I also needed to use a high shutter speed to catch the paint moving so I spent most of my time battling the light and the grain from the ISO. Initially, I attempted to use my flash on my camera directly, but found this was too harsh of a light and resulted in the paint reflecting and not showing the paint aspect that I wanted it too. I then moved on to attempting to use a flash disperser, which resulted in the images being too dark. So I moved on to using a large light, which when pointed directly resulted in too many reflections in the paint. Finally I placed a white card and shined the light on that to angle the light into the paint, which worked.
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After this, I used a track that I knew well enough that I could predict when the paint would bounce and spew in the way that I wanted.
This was the track that I used for the paint. I chose it or it variable sounds and frequencies, specifically the chorus. The chorus use deep frequencies and causes the speaker to vibrate intensely. |
Andrew Turtsevych is a Ukrainian photographer. This piece, called "Paperclip on water," shows perhaps unsurprisingly a paperclip floating on water. The warping surface tension produces a syrup like effect. The shot was taken at a low angle and with the correct lighting, which makes the image look almost 3D in aspect. It's colour scheme is mono-chrome, which causes the bright paperclip to prominently stand out with strong contrast against the dark water. I attempted to recreate this style for my own photographic series.
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To best show surface tension was difficult, by having high ISO there was a lot of grain but by turning on the light it created reflections, to get around this The best technique that I could find was to lower the angle of the camera and to move the light so that the reflections were not directly into the lens. I used a bowl and a paperclip originally but added in a sheet of gridded metal as I thought that the warping effect that was created by the surface tension made the images far more aesthetically appealing. For these shots I set the Iso to Var100-6400, the f stop to f16 and the shutter to 0.4. For the first shot, the angle was too high so I had to lower the angle to show the surface tension. I then changed the angle to approx 45 degrees and increased the f stop to f32 to increase the depth of field so that the surface tension was more pronounced.
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The purpose of this series was to capture water on surface. The surface tension will cause the droplets to retain their shape when on certain surfaces. I used a construction light to light the water but ended up changing the angle so that the light didn't reflect off the water into the camera too harshly. I also discovered while working with the construction light that if it is too close to wood it cause the wood to burn and nearly catch on fire, fortunately when this happened is was working with water and was able to put it out. I used a low aperture to make the depth of field more prominent in the final image so that the shapes would be more clear. I also experimented with taking photos of the water on my windows.
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For this series, I used a clear glass kettle, a wireless flash and a Pentax KP. The first technical issue that I was faced with was locating the focus in the kettle, to do this I used a ladle which I put into the kettle in the approx middle of the water, I then used manual focus to focus on the ladle. I then, using trial and error worked out where the surface of the water would be during its boiling stage and took focus there. The settings I used were ISO 200, F32, and 1/1600 shutter speed.
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Harold Edgerton was a 20th century scientist who dabbled in photography. Due to his knowledge of science, he was able to accomplish shots that would be very difficult for anyone else for many years. This piece, called "Milk Drop Coronet" is an example of this. Taken in 1935, the shot was taken using a very high speed camera and is off a droplet bouncing back from hitting a bowl of milk. It is a strange image, as the splash looks like the shape of a crown. Its colours, mixing reds with whites creates a unique style. The viewers eye is naturally drawn to the crown due to the high contrast that it has with its background, while the droplet that hangs in the air looks completely detached from the main focus of the image, it reminds the viewer that they are not looking at a crown but actually splashing milk, emphasising the impressiveness of the image.
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for this series, I once again used the Pentax KP and the external flash. I knew that light was going to be an issue as I could not increase the ISO to any point that would show some grain, because it would be very obvious in the image. Using a pipet and a hole in my draining board, I was able to make sure that the milk droplets would always land in a standardised place, which meant that I could position the centre of the bowl around this place. I then repeated the focus finding method that I used in the boiling water series of by placing a knife in the location that the drop would fall and used manual focus to focus on it. I used a high shutter speed of 1/1600, I wanted a wide depth of field so I used F32.
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