Landscape: Activity 3

Compare and contrast a landscape photograph with a landscape painting. Discuss the expressive possibilities of each medium using your examples to illustrate your argument. Choose your examples carefully as representative of the medium.

There are only so many perspectives a photographer can take a picture from, its hard to get a shot from different angles. A painter has endless perspectives and can honestly imagine and create a painting from whichever angle they want to. You can literally add anything you want to, something a photographer can't do. Although, the pictures of nature or landscape are beautiful considering thats what was already naturally there. And to be giving a form of art with your own style yet not much creativity, is still amazing. There isn't too much you can get creative with. 

Landscape: Activity 2

Find two landscape photographs that question social values or act as a metaphor for personal issues that the photographer is trying to express. Discuss whether the communication is clear or ambiguous and how this communication is conveyed.

The first picture shows a very natural and green area filled with trees and grass. And as you move outward and away from the center of this photo, buildings start to appear and fewer green is there. Then the buildings look almost like they are multiplying and increasing, where there are no more visible trees the farther from the center you go. When I saw this , I interpreted not just one meaning, but two. The first to come to mind was that although we have progressed over time and had advanced in many ways, such as technology, nature and earthy things are, and always will be, the center of life. The second meaning I interpreted from this photograph was that maybe the photographer was capturing how little we care about our environment, how technology and buildings are engulfing our earth, this has become acceptable to leave behind and its becoming a bigger problem while we advance farther and farther in technology. So I was thinking that maybe this was some kind of reality check, or a cry for help to save our planet.

The second picture shows a single tree surrounded by an abundance of water and some trees and mountains far in the background. I'm not sure if the photographer took this picture for just the pure beauty and rarity of this landscape or if there was some sort of meaning the photographer came up with while taking it. I usually can look at any picture and relate it to myself or to humans and society in general. What I see in this photograph is loneliness, and although the tree is abandoned and bare, away from anything like itself, it is rare and there is some sort of beauty and uniqueness. And what we see, especially in this society and generation, more and more teens are "feeling alone", for whatever reason, this feeling of unimportance exists, is spreading like a virus and is affecting teens around the world. And while they feel unimportant, dull, ugly, stupid, and a countless amount of other negative and untrue words, they fail to see the beauty of being separate and unique and their own person. No one seems to understand that being unusually rare and separate is what is truly fascinating.

 

Landscape: Activity 1

Bethlehem, Graveyard and Steel Mill - Walker Evans 1935 © Walker Evans Archive, 1994,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

View the image by Walker Evans on this page and describe what you can actually see (objective analysis) and what you think the image is about (subjective analysis).

Discuss how effective Walker Evans has been in using a landscape image to communicate a point of view. Can this photograph be considered as Art? Give two reasons to support your answer.

So what you actually can see is some buildings in the background, they look like some type of factories. and then close-up is a graveyard/cemetery. I'm not really sure what the pictures meaning is or what the photographer was trying to represent in the photo but maybe its very literal and there are a lot of deaths or were a lot of deaths caused by these factories. Or maybe it is saying that if you are living you are working in these man made factories that have taken over most of what was left of nature, and when you're dead you can rest in what is actually left of nature in the grass or weeds. I say yes, this is definitely considered art, its very dreary and beautiful at the same time. I feel like almost anything can be considered art, if someone can be influenced or inspired or in awe and find their own meaning for it than I feel like it is art.

Light: Activity 2

• Find an example of a photograph where the subject has been lit by a single light source and an example where more than one light has been used. 
• Describe in each the quality and position of the brightest or main light and the effect this has on the subject. In the second example describe the quality and effect the additional light has.



The single light photograph always give off a more dramatic

feel than a photograph with multiple light photograph.

The angle of the flower and the light matters as well,

I like how the flower is facing the light, your subject

or whatever the main focus go the picture is should be

lit up by the most light. It would just look strange if you

had the light facing the other side of the sunflower.

This is the example of the multiple lighting photograph.

This photo looks like it has natural lighting or just a really great light

source and the white background helps because light is bouncing off of it and onto

the back go the baby. You can tell there is multiple lights because there isn't

any major shadowing, most parts of this baby are pretty lit up, yet the greatest light is

still on the main subject of the picture, which is the

baby's face. You can also see that this picture isn't as dramatic as the first

but it obviously gives you some other feeling , which is based on the subject and

not really on the lighting like the first. A smiling, excited baby gives off a

happy or joyful feeling to the viewer.

Light: Activity 1

Look through assorted photographic websites and find some examples of subjects lit by hard light and examples of subjects lit by soft light. Describe the effect the light has on the subject’ texture, form and detail, and the overall mood of the picture.

Hard Light Photography

This picture is an example of hard light photography and you can tell
because of how you see the lighting effecting the shadowing on the
subject of the photo. The harsh and dark shadowing in the picture
give this picture a dramatic feel and effect on the viewer. Hard light also
brings out a lot of detail in the texture of the mans face and fingers.

Soft Light Photography

This picture is a good example of soft light photography.
The baby's face is lit up with light in a different way than
the first, making the picture a little more approachable
and is less harsh on the skin texture. The skin looks soft
and flawless and the shadows aren't as defined and dark.  

Frame & Composition: Activity 3 Blog

Find two examples of Photographs that follow the Rule of Thirds and two examples that do not. Comment briefly on why and how you think the composition works.

Sean Nel

http://loganu3acameraclub.blogspot.com

The first and second photo are examples of Rule of Thirds because if you put imaginary lines on both of the photos, making it into a 3x3 grid, both subjects are lined up along the lines. This makes the photographs more interesting when you have them at a different angle and different position of the photo.

These Photos are not good examples of rule of thirds because the subject is placed in the middle of the photo. This makes the picture less interesting and sort of boring. Personally, putting the subject in the middle of the picture is dull and plain and can't hold my interest for long, but when the subject is placed on one of the imaginary lines for rule of thirds, it is intriguing and it looks better from an angle.

http://www.coalesceideas.com

Frame & Composition: Activity 2 Blog

Read the following passage taken from the book The Photographer’s Eye by John Szarkowski and answer the questions below.



‘To quote out of context is the essence of the photographer’s craft. His central problem is a simple one: what shall he include, what shall he reject? The line of decision between in and out is the picture’s edge. While the draughtsman starts with the middle of the sheet, the photographer starts with the frame. The photograph’s edge defines content. It isolates unexpected juxtapositions. By surrounding two facts, it creates a relationship. The edge of the photograph dissects familiar forms, and shows their unfamiliar fragment. It creates the shapes that surround objects. The photographer edits the meanings and the patterns of the world through an imaginary frame. This frame is the beginning of his picture’s geometry. It is to the photograph as the cushion is to the billiard table.’

Q. What does John Szarkowski mean when he says that photographers are quoting ‘out of context’ when they make photographic pictures?
Q. The frame often ‘dissects familiar forms’. At the end of the last century photography was having a major impact on Art. Impressionist artists such as Degas were influenced by what they saw. Look at these examples of Degas work, which clearly shows the influence of Photography, and explain why the public might have been shocked to see such paintings.

A. John  Szarkowski means that  photographers have to focus on the frame of the photograph , trying to decide what angle to take a picture what to include, and what not to include.  And that photos don't have to be of something that knows its going to be taken a picture of, but a moment in time, a random moment that a photograph makes still.

A. With photography becoming a major impact in art, I think that painters suddenly noticed the beauty of photographs and how they take a random moment in time and make it art, they sort of copied this technique and for that century it must have been a little different to see paintings of random scenes. That there isn't a main focus really in this painting, just a random moment in time.

Frame & Composition: Activity 1 Blog

Look through assorted photographic websites and observe how many photographers have moved in very close to their subjects. By employing this technique the photographer is said to ‘fill the frame’ and make their photographs more dramatic. Find two examples of how photographers seek simple backgrounds to remove unwanted detail and to help keep the emphasis or ‘focal point’ on the subject. Attach two images you find to your reply to this discussion.

https://photographyveronika.wordpress.com

http://cesardphoto.com

In the first photograph, it is clear that the photographer has made the dance the focal point by blurring everything else in the picture besides the fence. Nothing else is important or should be recognized in this photo. In the second photograph, the photographer obviously made the flower the main focus or focal point. Again, everything in the background is blurred and is unimportant, the photographer wants only the flower to be noticed by the viewer.