Artist Research Week 2 - Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams was born on February 20, 1902, in San Francisco, California. Adams rose to prominence as a photographer of the American West, particularly Yosemite National Park, using his work to promote conservation of wilderness areas. His iconic black-and-white images helped to establish photography among the fine arts.Adams’ professional breakthrough followed the publication of his first portfolio,Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras, which included his famous image “Monolith, the Face of Half Dome.” The portfolio was a success, leading to a number of commercial assignments.

Adams taught himself the piano, which would become his early passion. In 1916, following a trip to Yosemite National Park, he also began experimenting with photography. He learned darkroom techniques and read photography magazines, attended camera club meetings, and went to photography and art exhibits. He developed and sold his early photographs at Best’s Studio in Yosemite Valley.

Between 1929 and 1942, Adams’ work and reputation developed. Adams expanded his repertoire, focusing on detailed close-ups as well as large forms, from mountains to factories. He spent time in New Mexico with artists including Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe and Paul Strand. He began to publish essays and instructional books on photography. During this period, Adams joined photographers Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans in their commitment to affecting social and political change through art. Adams’ first cause was the protection of wilderness areas, including Yosemite. After the internment of Japanese people during World War II, Adams photographed life in the camps for a photo essay on wartime injustice.

Weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Adams shot a scene of the moon rising above a village. Adams re-interpreted the image—titled “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico”—over nearly four decades, making over a thousand unique prints that helped him to achieve financial stability. Ansel adams was influenced by Pual Strand, one of the first 'straight photographers'. 

First, his photos are generally very sharp, with a huge depth of field. In fact, he belonged to a group called "f/64"  with the specific goal of ensuring everything in the photos was in sharp focus due to the small apertures they used.

Other than being inspired an having large or medium format camera's what did he do?
Adams liked to control the depth of field, by adjusting the film plane and the lens, with the relationships of objects in the frame, with tilt and rise and fall movements.  Doing these things, he was able to alter the perspective to what he desired, controlling rise movements or increasing depth of field by making the lens standard tilt down.

Artist Research week 1 - Richard Avedon

 

American photographer Richard Avedon (born May 15th 1923 in New York)  was best known for his work in the fashion world and for his minimalist portraits. He worked first as a photographer for the Merchant Marines, taking identification photos. He then moved to fashion, shooting for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, demanding that his models convey emotion and movement, a departure from the norm of motionless fashion photography. As a boy Avedon took a great interest in fashion, especially enjoying photographing the clothes in his father's store. At the age of 12, he joined the YMHA (Young Men's Hebrew Association) Camera Club.

Avedon later described one childhood moment in particular as helping to kindle his interest in fashion photography: “One evening my father and I were walking down Fifth Avenue looking at the store windows,” he remembered. “In front of the Plaza Hotel, I saw a bald man with a camera posing a very beautiful woman against a tree. He lifted his head, adjusted her dress a little bit and took some photographs. Later, I saw the picture in Harper's Bazaar. I didn't understand why he'd taken her against that tree until I got to Paris a few years later: the tree in front of the Plaza had that same peeling bark you see all over the Champs-Elysees.” His black-and-white portraits were remarkable for capturing the essential humanity and vulnerability lurking in such larger-than-life figures as President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan and The Beatles. During the 1960s, Avedon also expanded into more explicitly political photography. He did portraits of civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Julian Bond, as well as segregationists such as Alabama Governor George Wallace, and ordinary people involved in demonstrations. In 1969, he shot a series of Vietnam War portraits that included the Chicago Seven, American soldiers and Vietnamese napalm victims.

Avedon left Harper's Bazaar in 1965, and from 1966 to 1990 he worked as a photographer for Vogue, its chief rival among American fashion magazines. He continued to push the boundaries of fashion photography with surreal, provocative and often controversial pictures in which nudity, violence and death featured prominently. Richard Avedon, one of the best 20th century photographers expanded the genre of photography with his surreal and provocative fashion photography as well as portraits that bared the souls of some of the most important and opaque figures in the world. Avedon was such a predominant cultural force that he inspired the classic 1957 film Funny Face, in which Fred Astaire's character is based on Avedon's life. While much has been and continues to be written about Avedon, he always believed that the story of his life was best told through his photographs. Avedon said, “Sometimes I think all my pictures are just pictures of me. My concern is… the human predicament; only what I consider the human predicament may simply be my own.”

I chose Richard Avedon because the majority of his work are portraits of people, both ordinary and 
famous. I really like his work cause cause he captures different emotions and his close-up photos have amazing detail. His work also has shown people the surrealism of how the world can be. 

Artist Research week 1   - Duane Michals 


A Young Girls Dream - 1969 

Dr. Heisenberg's Magic Mirror of Uncertainty - 1998

I really like Duane Michals work because its really creepy and mysterious, and i love how most of his photos are in black in  white which give his work a deep feeling of emotion and dreams. Born February 18, 1932, Duane Michals is an American photographer, Michals's work makes innovative use of photo-sequences; often incorporating text to show emotion and philosophy.  Michals's interest in art began at age 14 while attending watercolour university classes at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. In 1953 he received a B.A. from the University of Denver. After two years in the Army, in 1956 he went on to study at the Parsons School of Design with a plan to become a graphic designer; however, he did not complete his studies. He describes his photographic skills as completely self-taught. Though he has not been involved in gay civil rights, his photography has addressed gay themes. In discussing his notion of the artist's relationship to politics and power however, Michals feels that aspirations are useless:

"I feel the political aspirations are impotent. They can never be seen. If they are, it will only be by a limited audience. If one is to act politically, one simply puts down the camera and goes out and does something. I think of someone like Hartfeld who ridiculed the Nazis. Who very creatively took great stands. He could have been killed at any moment, he was Jewish, and my God what the guy did. It was extraordinary. You don’t see that now" - Duane Michals. 

 Michals influences were Balthus, William Blake, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Eakins, René Magritte, and Walt Whitman. In turn, he has influenced photographers such as David Levinthal and Francesca Woodman. In the 1960s, Duane Michals worked as a freelance fashion photographer and portraitist, while his artistic work began to address literary and philosophical ideas about death, gender and sexuality.

I think Duanes work is really amazing, his works are like a documentary and are really powerful. 

Shutter Exercise - Week 1

F/ : 25.0  Shutter: 0.5 ISO: 100

For this still shot i used a shutter speed of 0.5. I could of improved this photo by moving the subject out of the sunlight and into somewhere shadier as the photo is overexposed, but because it was a set task i had no control over which shutter speed to use but if this were real then i would of increased the shutter speed so there would be less light and would of moved out of the sunlight.

F/: 9.0  Shutter: 1/60 ISO: 100

For this photo of a moving subject, i used a shutter speed of 1/60, The subject was spinning quite slowly which meant that a 1/60th of a second was a fast enough shutter speed to freeze this movement. i needed to use a tripod for this because the shutter was under 1/60th . a fault though is the road cone in the background, it kinda takes your eye away from the subject. This cold easily be fixed by either removing it from the frame or zooming up to the subject cutting out the car as well. You can see some motion blur in the movement of her hand.

F/: 22.0  Shutter: 1.3 ISO:100

For this photo of a moving subject, i used a shutter speed of 1.3. This photo is supposed to be an abstract photo, or motion blur. i love this photo cause the subject almost gets lost in the surroundings and the only real pop of colour is the subjects purple jacket which draws the eye.

F/: 25.0  Shutter: 2.0 ISO:100

For this other moving subject shot i uses a shutter speed of 2.0. my subject spun around on the spot and it turned out like this. I really like this photo cause its an effect that i really like, it makes the subject look ghostly and transparent.  theres also some symmetry, the subject is centred between the 2 tables which almost frames the subject.

F/: 5.6  Shutter: 1/40 ISO100.     


Self Directed time: Light Drawing

 ^  F/3.5  Shutter: 1/4  ISO: 100

For this self directed shot i used a shutter speed of 1/4. i made my room dark
and bunched up my fairy lights then moved my camera randomly. 1/4 is a fast
shutter speed so the lines from the lights are quiet short.

^ F/4.0  Shutter: 1.0  ISO: 100

For this shot i used a shutter of 1.0.  i made my room dark

and bunched up my fairy lights then moved my camera randomly.

I put a large mirror facing the lights to almost double the light so
the picture looked more fuller. 1.0

is a slow shutter speed so the lights look longer and you can capture 

more detail.

^ F/4.0  Shutter: 1/5  ISO:100

For this shot i used a shutter speed of 1/5. This shot is one of my favorites
cause you can see some light in the top left-hand corner and the lights turned
blue, which kinda looks like a galaxy. This was still a slower shutter speed
so the camera was able to capture the lines made.

^ F/4.5  Shutter: 1/5  ISO: 100

Foe this shot i used a shutter speed of 1/5,  i made my room dark

and bunched up my fairy lights then moved my camera in a straight line.

i like this photo cause the lights had a purple hint to them, this was because

i had a little light from the hallway shining in.   This was still a slower shutter speed

so the camera was able to capture the lines made.

< For this panning shot i used a shutter of 1/40. I got the subject to walk fast and i followed her with the camera, taking multipule photos as she walked; this technique focused the subject and blurred out the back ground, like a motion blur. once again the road cone was in the shot which draws attention away from the subject. 

Photography.

Aimee.

What motivated you to take up photography?

•  When i was about 10 my grandma gave me my first camera and from then on i knew it was something that i loved. What motivated me to take up Photography was the idea of capturing moments in time that wouldn't usually happen everyday, and to snap amazing shots for people to enjoy like a landscape from a far away country or a family event like weddings etc.

What do you want to get out of this course? 

•  I hope to gain more knowledge about photography so that i can use it in the future and to improve my own photography.

What is photography & what does it mean to you?

• Photography is about capturing moments in time, wether its personal or for work use, Photography to me means everything and its a undying passion. i love being behind the camera and almost looking into a whole new perspective of the world and i love the idea of being able to get lost behind the lens. (cheesy i know :) )