https://www.lensculture.com/articles/lee-friedlander-lee-friedlander-retrospective
Lee Friedlander is a well known American photographer who focuses on the visualisation of ‘the American social landscape’ and has been photographing the urban life around him since 1948. His images capture the normal chaos of life, including images of cars, streets, adverts, shop fronts and televisions but he adds a creative element by taking shots through shop windows or through car mirrors or having poles cut through his images. Using his fascination with transparency and reflection he has documented his life over the last 50 years, the places he has been and the emotions he felt. Friedlander’s success with using reflection and framing to focus the viewer’s attention and create interest has influenced and inspired me to also use this technique in my own images. By using frames I can focus the viewer attention on to the part of the image where I want it to be. I plan on using the view through spectacles in my project to illustrate the sensory experience of being long sighted and being short-sighted. It was seeing the power and effectiveness of Friedlander’s use of framing that inspired me to capture images in this way. This should draw the viewer’s eye towards what I want them to focus on in my images which are the differences between the quality of the vision inside and outside of the spectacles frame.
The low position of the sun in this image and the side lighting it creates has allowed Friedlander to capture the man’s shadow completely within the circular panel he is placing against the railings. In this way, the man's shadow is framed entirely within the circle and all attention is directly on him. The circle which may be the top of a table or something similar also brings a dominant and interesting shape into the centre of the shot. In the black and white image, which Friedlander always worked in, the fingers of the man’s left hand are pointing and touching the centre of the circle, so focusing further attention on the shape while his other hand supports it at the top. I like the way Friedlander has made use of framing within the shot to direct the viewer’s attention and this is something I will endeavour to do in my project work to focus attention to where I want it.
My intention is to use the technique of reflection and framing in at least one of my shoots, where I will be focusing on people whose vision is either short or long sighted. I feel this will be a particularly appropriate place to use this technique as the spectacles themselves will serve as the frame for the view. They will divide the view you can see through the glass from the rest of the scene and so focus attention on it and the differences between them. Similarly with the reading spectacles image the reflection of the text of a book viewed through the glass of the spectacles can be framed by the spectacles frame and so focus attention on the differences and visually emphasise the problem with the visual experience of the person, as well as demonstrate how this sensory experience can be restored by using spectacles.
Muhammad Roem
Muhammad Roem is an amateur Photographer who lives on an island near Singapore and has captured amazing macro photography images of the abundant insects, amphibians and reptiles there. He says this requires great patience and a high shutter count and the resulting images he takes reveal fascinating detail that cannot be seen with just our normal vision.
This is one of the many macro images Roem has taken. In it, he has captured a gecko as it rests on a log near a lake in its natural habitat. It is positioned close to and facing the camera so that the size of its head is large compared to the rest of its body. In fact, there is very little of its body visible only its front legs and feet and the end of its tail making the image appear strangely captivating. The gecko is in the process of cleaning its eye and as it does not have any closable eyelids the way it does this is by using its tongue and licking over its eyeball. Geckos have excellent eyesight which is important to them for hunting food as most geckos are nocturnal so need good night vision.
In the image, Roem has used the leading line of the branch to draw the viewer’s eye towards the Gecko which is positioned roughly in the centre of the frame. He has however used a narrow depth of field and focused it around the gecko so that the branch in the background is blurred and in this way, it does not distract too much attention from the subject. Though blurred it can, however, be seen that the location is a wooded area beside a lake. Roem only takes images of animals in the wild so this would be the gecko’s natural habitat, although it would be more normal to see them at night, this would make photographing them more difficult. The macro image he has taken is really detailed, it captures the tactile nature of the reptile’s soft skin and the tiny circular pattern on it, the long moist pink tongue that it not only uses to clean its eye but also tastes the air with to experience the environment. The tasting of the air is to check for the presence of prey, predators or potential mates. When I look at this image I see a relaxed lizard living in the wild and taking a moment to perform some personal grooming.
This image is relevant for my project in several ways firstly it uses techniques which I have planned to use including a narrow depth of field and leading lines which I will use to direct attention onto the part of the frame where I require it to be. Secondly, Roem has used macro photography to capture the detail of the gecko that would not be possible to see with the naked eye. I intend to also use macro photography to capture images of my pet gecko so it is reassuring to see such effective images being captured by others. This gives me confidence that I will be able to capture both the detail of the gecko's eye and the speed of its tongue lick in my images.
This image is relevant for my project in several ways firstly it uses techniques which I have planned to use including a narrow depth of field and leading lines which I will use to direct attention onto the part of the frame where I require it to be. Secondly, Roem has used macro photography to capture the detail of the gecko that would not be possible to see with the naked eye. I intend to also use macro photography to capture images of my pet gecko so it is reassuring to see such effective images being captured by others. This gives me confidence that I will be able to capture both the detail of the gecko's eye and the speed of its tongue lick in my images.
Piper MacKay
Piper MacKay is an African wildlife and cultural photographer who has split her time over the last 12 years between California US and Nairobi, Kenya. MacKay had a successful career as a designer then following a trip to Africa, she fell in love with the continent, its people and wildlife and decided to make a dramatic career change to fulfil a lifelong passion to work with nature and wildlife as a photographer. Her images have appeared in publications such as National Geographic, National Geographic Explorer, WWF calendars and Natures Best, and have been exhibited at many museums and galleries in the US including the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington DC. She also runs a photographic company and organizes and runs photographic tours in Africa. Through her work, she hopes to inspire others to ‘explore, respect and preserve the beauty of our fragile planet’.
This image of MacKay's was taken using a camera converted to using infrared light. After many years photographing African wildlife and tribes she is expanding her work to include more fine art style images and infrared is one way in which she is doing this. Infrared photography allows her to portray the world in a completely unfamiliar way, by capturing the subtleties of texture and colour of living things. When I look at her images I feel they have a mystical atmosphere that seems ageless and they capture dramatic details of both the animals and their environment.
This image was taken in Mara Game Reserve in Kenya in 2016. It is an infrared image of two adult African elephants and a young calf and in the distance possibly another elephant from their herd is present. The calf is in shadow partly hidden under the elephant on the right of the frame and there is also a bird present walking on the ground in front of this elephant. A cloud of dust is in the air over the head of the elephant on the left. This is probably dirt it has thrown over itself to provide protection from the sun by having a dust bath. The technique of a narrow depth of field has been used to focus attention onto the elephants in the foreground by blurring the background. The infrared light used to take the image has created an unusual and captivating composition. The savannah grassland is near white while the sky is dark and this dramatic contrast combined with the range of tones of the animals creates a captivating image.
Infrared photography captures striking and unique landscape scenes and this is why it is the classic subject for this technique. What I like about MacKay’s work is that she is one of the few wildlife/nature photographers who is using the technique to capture wildlife in this landscape too. She also does not then use the fake-colour effect in Photoshop to adapt the image to add extreme intense colours but rather leaves them monotone or with only a slight colour hue. This is the type of effect I have been looking for in my project to illustrate the visual experience that geckos have. In this way, she captures the landscape more as a gecko would experience it. Unlike most other animals where infrared light is not visible to them, gecko’s eyesight can see infrared light and they use it to hunt at night by the light reflected from the moon and stars. The stark contrast that infrared light makes between vegetation and other substances, as compared to visual light, gives the gecko a unique visual experience that enables it to see its hiding prey better.
Keiko Oikawa
Keiko Oikawa is a Japanese photographer/food stylist who works for advertising, editorial and design clients. Her images have been used in many books including Simply Nigella: Nigella Lawson, Mary Berry At Home: Mary Berry, and Sushi at Home: Yuki Gomi. She also has an extensive list of clients where she is involved in advertising; these include Harrods, The Detox Kitchen, Marks & Spencer and many others. She also does editorial work for clients such as The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Sainsbury Magazine, BBC Books, and Random House.
This is one of her images taken from her collection of food images which she displays on her website. It shows an apple and blackberry pie that has been partially cut into portions with a knife, a small pot of double cream, and a side plate with a slice of the pie which is in the process of being eaten using a fork which has been laid on the side plate. The food is situated on a white wooden table with part of a grey coloured napkin positioned at the side of the frame.
Oikawa has taken this image looking down onto the food and has styled it to look deliciously appealing. She has created the impression that the food is being eaten and enjoyed by others so that this enhances the anticipation of the viewer about the expectation of what the flavours and textures the food will be like. She has achieved this by having the pie cut into slices with one of the slices on a side plate with a blob of cream next to it. Also, one end of the slice of pie looks as though someone has been eating it with the fork laid next to it, as it has some of the pie on it. To enhance the appeal of the food she has used plain coloured backgrounds and surfaces to keep the viewers focus on the food. She has also enhanced the perception of texture by having crumbs from the pie scattered around the plate. The visual appeal of the food has been enhanced by using interesting shapes and colours, such as the circle of the plate and the pie, the triangular shape of the slices as well as the small knobbly balls of the blackberries. The fruit as well as adding interesting shapes also adds a contrast in colour compared with the light colour of the pie. This draws the viewer’s eye to the contrasting area on the surface of the pie. Finally, the fruit also adds the anticipation of a different flavour and texture, a squishier moist tangy feel that bursts in your mouth rather than the sweet crumbly texture of the pie and the soft light cream. Oikawa has also used soft natural lighting to make the food look natural and real by avoiding harsh shadows. This makes the viewer recall memories of how they think the food will taste and start to anticipate what its texture and flavour will feel like when they eat it. It is a fantastic image that looks natural and appealing and gets my mouth watering, I only wish I could actually taste the food rather than just anticipation it. I will use some of the methods Oikawa has used to make my own images of food look appealing and delicious to the viewers and so create the expectation of its textures and flavours when they anticipate the sensory experience of tasting it.
Clay Bolt
Clay Bolt is a Natural History and Conservation Photographer based in Montana in the US, whose work focuses on macro and close up images of insects, amphibians and reptiles. He regularly works with the National Geographic Society and the National Wildlife Federation to develop images to support the conservation of habitats and biodiversity such as for the North American bees and the Panamanian rainforest. He is also a co-founder (2009) of the international nature and biodiversity photography project, ‘Meet Your Neighbours’ and president-elect of the North American Nature Photography Association.
This is a close up wide angle shot (possibly taken with a Sigma 15mm F2.8 EX DG Diagonal Fisheye lens) which Bolt has taken of an Ensatina salamander at Muir Woods in San Francisco, California which was photographed for National Geographic. It captures a lengthwise side view of the salamander standing on a large moss covered rock looking out over its natural forest habitat. In the background, many tall trees can be seen and closer to the camera large ferns and other shrubs and bushes can also visible. The way the image has been taken allows small subjects to be photographed in detail close up but also includes sufficient background to be captured so that the animal is visually connected to the habitat in which it lives in and emphasizes the requirement of this environment for its survival. By taking the image wide angle and close up this can create an extreme rendition of perspective due to the camera being very close to the subject. It allows you to see a wider view as the foreground gets bigger and the background gets smaller and this extends the depth of field giving the landscape an unusual perspective. It can make the image look distorted but it is very dramatic. The extreme perspective can be seen in the way the trees bend towards the middle of the frame. I really like the technique of wide angle close up and intend to use it in my project. I feel that it allows the viewer to place the animal in its environment, to get a more personal understanding of what it sees and feels and the relationship of its size in its environment. It is also a technique that creates captivating dramatic images which will grab viewer’s attention. I intend to capture images of the natural environment animals live in and so see daily and then show how this sensory experience may be different than what we see. This could be due to the positioning of their eyes or seeing in infrared or with thermal 'vision'. I, therefore, take inspiration from Roem's captivating image of the forest scene using wide angle close up to capture both the animal and its habitat in the same shot. Allowing us to connect the two.
Robert Adams
Robert Adams was born in 1937 in New, USA, and initially studied English Literature at university, achieving a PhD in the subject. However, his love of the landscape and nature and capturing its inherent beauty through photography eventually prompted him to give up a teaching career to pursue this full time. Other photographers who have influenced his work include Carleton Watkins, William Henry Jackson and Timothy O'Sullivan, as well as those inspiring him to voice social concerns such as Lewis Hine and Ansel Adams.
Robert Adams had a love of nature and his work focused on capturing landscape images however he was concerned with the changes he was seeing in it and the destruction of areas where he had played as a child. He then began documenting the landscape as he saw it, capturing images with the urbanization and man-made creations in them such as the power lines, highways and gas stations. He captured more honest images than the photographers who just capture the snowy peak of mountains, and ignored the highway running alongside it. Adams black and white images capture how the beauty of the landscape is still there yet it has been forever changed by the actions of man. His images send a message to look at what we are doing as we are slowly destroying our landscape and must change our ways.
This image is from Adams ‘Summer Nights Walking’ series of images it is taken in Longmont Colorado in 1981. The image was taken at night and shows an amusement park with a large brightly lit up Ferris wheel positioned in the foreground. In the background, a mountain range can be seen but it is partly obscured by the dark clouds that are settling over the scene. The image captures memories of the fun and excitement of going to an amusement park and particularly of the thrill of going on rides such as the tilting Ferris wheel. By taking the image in black and white the distraction of colour and small details are lost so allowing the viewer to focus on the carnival experience itself rather than visual details. This enhances the perception of memories of the sounds and smells of the experience, such as the noise of young girls shrieking with excitement, and people laughing and talking, and the smell of hot dogs and popcorn. Also by incorporating the perception of movement in this image Adams is helping to convey the expected noise that would accompany this at a fairground as well as increase the perception of the excitement of the ride. The location of the fairground alongside the countryside and mountains enhances the contrast in the expectation of the sounds of the two locations. This highlights that the peaceful tranquillity of the natural mountainous location is being ruined by the noisy carnival. The dark clouds over the carnival could reflect this warning of the consequences of destroying the beauty of the landscape in this way.
This photo highlights how a visual image can have strongly associated sounds and smells with it that can engage viewer’s memories of the physical aspects of the experience. Also by the juxtaposition of two divergent experiences, the peacefulness of nature versus the noise of a carnival, he emphasises the differences in the anticipated sounds. I will take inspiration from this image about how to choose scenes that have a strong connection with sound so that viewers can more readily associate memories of sounds with the visual experience. I will, therefore, try to choose situations/props that will connect with many people in general so that they will be more likely to have memories of the associated sounds with it and can use their imagination to fill in the missing sensory information. I also take inspiration from Adams use of incorporating the perception of motion from the Ferris wheel as this adds to the effectiveness of conveying the sensory experience. I will also endeavour to incorporate the perception of motion to add to the association with sound in my images, I may do this using an animated Gif.
Fan Ho
http://fanhophotography.com/index.html
Fan Ho was born in 1937 in Shanghai, China. He developed his style of street photography in a classical traditional European way influenced by photographers like Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson. However, though his compositional techniques may be influenced by Western work his images are culturally very different, having a very Eastern outlook depicting day to day life on the streets of Hong Kong. Throughout his career, he produced an extensive body of photographic work and won hundreds of awards and was considered to be one of the most influential photographers in Asia. His images are perfectly composed using different techniques to capture and draw the viewer’s attention to where he wants it. These included using a narrow depth of field to blur parts of the frame, leading lines, sub-framing using various geometric shapes and using perspective and scale. He was also particularly skilful in making use of light and shadow to create dramatic images.
Fan Ho was born in 1937 in Shanghai, China. He developed his style of street photography in a classical traditional European way influenced by photographers like Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson. However, though his compositional techniques may be influenced by Western work his images are culturally very different, having a very Eastern outlook depicting day to day life on the streets of Hong Kong. Throughout his career, he produced an extensive body of photographic work and won hundreds of awards and was considered to be one of the most influential photographers in Asia. His images are perfectly composed using different techniques to capture and draw the viewer’s attention to where he wants it. These included using a narrow depth of field to blur parts of the frame, leading lines, sub-framing using various geometric shapes and using perspective and scale. He was also particularly skilful in making use of light and shadow to create dramatic images.
This image shows a staircase in Hong Kong with a woman holding the hand of a child walking up the stairs on the left of the frame and a man on his way down the right-hand side of the stairs and he is also holding his child’s hand. They are both positioned on either side of a bannister at the top of the stairs. At the top of the frame, there is a rectangularly shaped gap in the roof through which light is shining through onto the subjects causing them to cast shadows down the stairs. Also in the distance, a person can be seen in silhouette standing in the middle of this gap, but only their head and torso are visible.
In this image, Ho uses the bannister of the stairs as a leading line to draw the viewer’s attention to the top of the stairs where a mother is taking her child out for the day and on travelling the opposite way a father is taking his child out too. The viewers attention is directed towards these people by the leading line of the stair's bannister which the viewer’s eye follows to the top of the stairs where the subjects are positioned. The parents are both holding the child by their right hand and also holding an object in their left hand, the children appear to be similar ages as judged by their comparable heights. The symmetry of these two groups travelling in opposite directions creates an unusual image and makes you curious about where they are going and if they regularly pass each other in this way without even being aware of the symmetry they are creating. The person in the high-lit roof window appears to be looking down at them and further directing the viewers to really look at the subjects.
The techniques used by Ho are very useful for me to study to get inspiration for my project as he is a master of compositions and leading the viewer around his images. The highlighted straight bannister of the stairs captures the viewer’s attention and directs it up the stairs to the subjects and the unusual symmetry they create. Ho also uses interesting geometric shapes created by shadows and light in his composition, such as the window in the roof which creates a high contrast area between the light and the shadow adding drama to the image and drawing the viewer’s attention to the way the person is framed there. You also wonder why they are looking down at the two groups and this adds intrigue to the image. The perspective Ho has taken this image from also adds interest to the image. It is taken from low down looking up at the subjects and their long shadows are cast back down the stairs at a diagonal angle so directing the viewer’s back down the stairs and adding the perception of motion to the image. I really love the way Ho creates his compositions using perspective and leading lines in his images drawing the viewer’s eye around the image and adding the perception of motion and drama to them. I will take inspiration from the techniques he has used in this image to lead my viewers around my images using perspective and leading lines.
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