Wednesday 10 September 2014

Wk 8: Final Image Analysys

Why this image? 
This images stands out from others taken over the past term. Shot on a drive between Auckland and Palmerston North while stopping for a bathroom break in Cambridge. After taking images all day with a focus on composition techniques rather than subject matter (which I have a tendency of doing) I saw this sign against the sunset. Maybe six images in total of the subject were taken and I felt the composition in this one worked best. It allows the viewer to see just enough of the roof line accented by the lit up food sign while still giving the sunset the fullest amount of possible real estate in the frame. Resulting in a feeling of nostalgia, isolation and warmth. 

The Compositional Elements include: 
Negative Space: Giving the sky the majority of real estate in the photo.
Diffused and Warm Light: With the sunset almost over and the sun having just disappeared below the horizon the diffused light in image allows the main subject of the food sign to glow without cancelling it out. The warm orange tones fade out to a violet night mirroring the darkness of the roof below.
Rule of Thirds: The food sign sits directly on an intersecting point in the image. Bringing the composition any lower would allow the light and architecture from the shop below to compete with the sign which I wanted to behave as the main subject. 
Triangle: Between the sign, tip of the ariel and chimney. This is subtle but the presence of this makes the image more interesting as it moves the eye around the silhouettes of all three. 
Shadow: With the primary source of light behind the subject the use of shadow in this image has created silhouettes of the building, chimney, ariel and tree. With the sign lit up we are broken out of the darkness. 
Vantage Point: Shot from a distance, zoomed in and on an upward angle. The distance makes it look as though it is at eye level but the angle of the sign is a giveaway. 

Wk 7: Artist Study // Andreas Gursky & Candida Höfer (Digital Technology)

Andreas Gursky
Trained by Bernd and Hilla Becher, Gursky holds the latest record for highest price paid at auction for a single photographic image. His print Rhein II sold for USD $4,338,500 at Christie's, New York on 8 November 2011. The contemporary landscape breaks the compositional rule of having the horizon line (Rule of Thirds) placed in either the top or bottom third and instead places it in the middle. This has also been photographed removing any additional details that didn't suit the final clean outcome apparently including dog walkers and an entire building. ~ also I'm not sure but the perspective in many of his images seem slightly off and manipulated in some way. Gursky is relatively open about his use of digital editing, different from many artists who like to keep it more of a secret.













Candida Höfer
Also trained by Bernd and Hilla Becher, Höfer's current approach is to photograph empty interior of public building using long exposures. Interested in the structural forms and space. There's repetition to her work in the similarity of spaces and elements included such as chairs and balconies. Her approach does seem to be heavily influenced the Becher's - photographing structures that may or may not stand the test of time due to their emptiness and lost community.



Wk 6: Artist Study // Charlie White & Jae Hoon Lee (Digital Technology)

Focus: Image Compositing 

Charlie White 
LA based photographer. White's work uses composited elements that are added into the image but start out as sculptures. These realistic but fantastical elements are very disturbing.  In fact it's hard to tell whether or not these elements were there all along or were actually added in using photoshop considering the hair on both images it looks like it was done perfectly if they weren't actually in the shoot.


































Jae Hoon Lee
Jae Hoon Lee is a NZ based digital artist. I couldn't find much about this artist in terms of write ups regarding his work but it is clear to see that he uses a variety of techniques using photoshop and scanning. The image below is a couple of scanned images of two of the artists friends which has then been merged together.



Tuesday 9 September 2014

Wk 5: Artist Study // Jeff Wall & Kelli Connell (Digital Technology)

Focus: Photo-merging

Jeff Wall 
The below image was made in a temporary studio with a make shift set, the small groups were shot individually and then merged together in photoshop.













Dead Troops Talk (A vision after an ambush of a Red Army patrol, near Moqor, Afghanistan, winter 1986) 1992
Transparency in lightbox 2290 x 4170 mm
Cinematographic photograph

Kelli Connell 
Kelli's practise involves self portraits (well sort of), she photographs herself and then scans the negatives into photoshop where she then merges the images together. She recreates moments that she has seen in person, experienced herself or watched on television.




5 AM, 2002

















Brickhaus Cafe, 2002

Wk 3: Artist Study // Loretta Lux & Pierre et Gilles (Digital Technology)

Focus: Photoshop Editing

Loretta Lux 
Lux's images of children start with taking a photograph that is then manipulated, background changed and details in the faces subtly worked with. It's hard to say what exactly has been edited but there is definitely something about the screwed with perspective, detailed foreground and the distance that doesn't quite make sense - making them dreamlike in quality. Some of her images take up to a year to complete. Starting out as a painter you can see her influence of classic composition (rule of thirds, fore/mid/background and defined subject matter.



Pierre et Gilles 
Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard, are French artists. They have been working together since the late 70s and have always worked with their photographs hand painting them after printing. In fact they seem to only work by hand at least that's the only information I could find... but the images look like they have been through photoshop even though they haven't. 







Wk 7: Artist Study // Yuki Onodera & Bill Henson

Focus: Chiaroscuro, Rembrandt & Loop

Yuki Onodera / Chiaroscuro
Born in Tokyo Onodera is now based in France. She makes large works that are often printed 2 metres high in the darkroom, she then manipulates these photographs painting on them and using other original methods.




















Both these images show her use of Chiaroscuro as she almost completely silhouettes the subjects and then adds detail to the subject (most likely after the photograph has been taken). The floor is highly reflective and the subjects seem to almost be floating in space. It's hard to guess how the mottled background lighting may be created - perhaps from the other side of a dense diffuser or with low light and gobos.

Bill Henson / Rembrandt 
Controversial Australian Photographer has spent most of career shooting pubescent teens often nude in dark settings - although he has also photographed many other subjects... these dark images with the subjects just peaking out from within it look like old paintings in the way that they are composted.






















Lighting: Subtle Rembrandt - the triangle on the left cheek is soft but present, as is the catch light in her eye.





















Lighting: I'm not 100% sure if the above image counts as a rembrandt or a loop as it looks like the opposite of a rembrandt with a shadow where the triangle would be. I'm thinking the key light is to the far right of the subject and another fill light is high to left and on a high angle above her head.

Wk 7: Artist Study // Ryan McGinley & Gregory Crewdson

Focus: Gels, Colour Temperature and Filters 

Ryan McGinley / Gels
McGinley is a fine art photographer also working in short film. He is a very popular New York based artist and seems to capture a feeling of youth in much of his work.




















Lighting: Two gels seem to be used with this image. The red pointed at the background and green on the subject and front rock - although there does look like there is some red/orange round the side of the foreground of the image.




















Lighting: The green lamp in this image is pointed at the subject and the rock ceiling while the background - the trip with this image would be lighting up the foreground while keeping the background red without spill.

Here are some amazing videos that Ryan has made:
https://vimeo.com/63738344
https://vimeo.com/21513974

Gregory Crewdson / Cinematic Lighting
Crewdson works in a photo narrative style using cinema level lighting with sometimes up to 60 people and 100 lights helping to create a new work. He works with a Director of Photography and all of his pieces are put together in a montage fashion to create the final image. The light sometimes comes from directions bringing light onto his subject and their environment - giving the feeling of an artificial and beautiful scene. The content of work has an emptiness and darkness, or as he refers to it - 'my own psychological universe'.














Lighting: In this image it seems to be from the left side of the image, the car lamps and outside. There is a warmness to the key light on the subject and coolness to to the ones outside (some of which may have a blue filter.
















Lighting: Similar to the image above - the outside light seems to have blue gels, the light on the subject slightly warm and light in the bathroom peaking out from behind the door cool.  

Here's a pretty cool half hour doco made on the artist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7CvoTtus34

Wk 6: Artist Study // Annie Leibovitz & Catherine Opie

Focus: Studio Three Point Lighting 

Annie Leibovitz
Leibovitz is probably the reason I first become interested in Photography after  reading her book Women compiled with her partner Susan Sontag in high school. The book opened up a world of imagery that I don't think I'd really been exposed to before. The books mix of Richard Avedon inspired portraits and Vanity Fair images of women making a statement in their chosen field of work.  Her incredibly varied body of work from starting with Rolling Stone magazine exploring the crazy world of Rock n Roll to carefully orchestrated Vanity Fair celebrity filed pull out spreads is incredibly inspiring. I guess one way of discribing her work would be to say that it is rich. Her practice involves photographing everything all the time. Always with a camera on hand. Giving her the ability to create work that seems easy and yet is classically composed, well lit and uses color expertly. She knows where to place a subject in the frame, often slightly to the side drawing the eye around the image and into the eyes of the subject.

Theses images show her simpler studio work using Three Point Lighting (I think!?)













































Light: From what I can tell these images are created using 3 point lighting although it's hard to see the hair catch-light in these images. The first image may actually only have two lights in play, with the key light on her right side and a low key light or reflector on her left. The fill light on the right hand side of the second image is low but present. giving detail to the subjects face and hand plus a small catch light on her hair.

More constructed and elaborate images from Leibowitz: 

















John Keatley Image of Annie Leibovitz



 

 
This image of Annie is spot on Three Point Lighting.

Over on Guess The Lighting they think so too. They have even gone so far as to make maps/drawings of what they think the lighting set up was:








Pretty Handy! With this shot they reckon that there is two lamps pointed at the subject and one on the background. 

Catherine Opie / Three Point Lighting 
Opie's practise involves photographing community (in one way or another). Her studio portraiture style is pretty classical as the images below show, allowing her to focus on working with her subject to get the right emotional connection behind the eyes. Her body of work jumps from photographing the LGBT community she is familiar with to high school football to stark ice houses and freeways with little or no humans in shot. She works with a mixed of older processes of film and also with digital which I'm sure come in handy as she is the leading Professor of the photography school at UCLA.















































Lighting: In both these images you can clearly see the 3 point set up. With the third light being pointed at the background to create the halo around the head of the subject, while the key and fill light are working together to create soft shadows on the subjects.