Transcript Slide 1

What can you see?
Clue: what is the photographer trying to communicate?
TURNING THE ORDINARY INTO EXTRAORDINARY
Activity:
Documenting THE CHANGING/ALTERING LANDSCAPE’- reinvent, reinterpret,
re-define using a camera as a tool
Aim:
1. To build an understanding of point of view and to encourage you
to look at a familiar setting in new ways—with the eyes of artists
and photographers
2. To introduce unit 2 of the AS in Digital and Lens based media
Our universal, traditional, conditioned understanding of the landscape. Everything on a
horizontal plane. Captured at eye-level in a panoramic (or ‘landscape’ aspect ratio)
These examples are idyllic, utopian but do they show the realities of the landscape
around us? Or depict the artists limitations?
Painting c.1928 by George H. Downing
SPROWSTON MILL
Try not to let traditional understanding dictate. How does the context and setting tell a story?
Artists experiment with juxtaposition of Urban and natural / logical and unexpected
Can you document YOUR experience of the environment. HOW do you experience it?
HOW can you capture this? How could you frame things in an innovative way?
Hockney's creation of the "joiners" occurred accidentally – Take risks!
the the way human vision works is amazing: we join Fractured, fragmented, patchwork,
composite image together with the power of our memories and our mind – we can
recreate this using layers on Photoshop..
He captured huge expanses with overlapped images. You could contrast this and try
looking at the ‘whole’ and breaking it down into tiny macro details – how little can you
capture before recognition is lost?
The vortograph (also the vorticism movement),
invented in the early 1900s by Alvin Coburn, was
an early form of abstract (or “non-objective”)
photography. Traditionally it uses Rotating layers,
mirror imaging, symmetry/asymmetry, pattern, lines,
geometries to depict industry and manufactured
These contemporary shots adopt similar techniques
but devekop the style still
further http://dornob.com/kaleidoscopic-cities-10vortograph-inspired-urban-images/#ixzz2VoiJ2FtC
Our relationship with Technology and the landscape.... Modern
artists often experiment in combining both this can result in
images that have a child like curiosity and play
Honkey Kong (Donkey Kong) by Christian Åslund
Christian Åslund found a wonderful way to still be playing in the
streets. Or on it really. In his series Honkey Kong he transformed the
streets of Hong Kong into a two-dimensional platform. In this amazing
series he pays tribute to classic 2D platform games. The series is part of
an advertising campaign for the shoe brand Jim Rickey.
Pinhole Photography
by Scott Speck
There is a pin hole function in your
school cameras
“The unique characteristic of a pinhole camera is
its ability to image with an effectively infinite
depth of field. Everything from a fraction of an
inch from the camera, all the way to infinity,
appears at the same level of focus in the image.
This means that one can record intimate textural
detail across all distance scales, enabling one to
explore near to far perspectives, in which nearby
objects appear much larger (but in focus) relative
to more distant objects (also in focus). ”
TREASURE HUNT!
Explore all viewpoints and senses, Experiment and Take Risks! Try different Points of View:
A bird’s-eye viewpoint / worm’s-eye viewpoint / canted angle / point of view shot / extreme
close up / macro / panoramic / rule of thirds / symmetry / asymmetry / natural or unnatural
framing…. Are there other points of view that you can use?
You may need to use imagination and a smart phone to research some terms
In Pairs: You have 20 minutes to find images then 10 minutes to upload, edit and save the
best ones to the file – prizes for the best work
CHALLENGE: try to FIND:
Impress us
Hidden words and letters / naturally
occurring typography: signs, road markings
A Reflection within or through a transparent or
translucent material
Geometric shapes: A Circle, Triangle,
Square or Rectangle
A Tree Branch filling the frame
Natural and constructed combined
together
An environment/landscape that includes your name
or identity
Evidence of Decay
chiroscuro
Converging perspectives
A display of colour and contrast
A confusing macro image of something
familiar
people and buildings combined in an unusual way
A french cafe
Movement and change
A photo within a landscape
Summer light
Observe like you never did before
Walk down the street, stop randomly
and look around. Pick an object, study it
from different perspectives and then
shoot.
Anja Bührer
Think about :
Contrast texture and surfaces- reflections
Orientation, pattern, repetition,
lines/diagonals, balance.
Ellie Vanhoutte :
adding that extra dimension to a
sometimes-mundane urban
utilitarian landscape
http://maxdart.net/en/
Go back to the basics line, shape, form, texture,
pattern, and colour.
Experiment with Contrasting colours and geometries
Cropping and framing a subject: what’s inside and
outside the frame?
Shoot details to create interest
Capture Light trails (adjust shutter speed),
colour, depth of field
Texture, focal point/rule of thirds and the
golden section.
Worms eye view of trees
Think about:
The space subjects do and don't ocupy.
Positive space: Silhouette of the branches
leaves trunks.
Negative space: the shapes of the sky
The negative space can form interesting
patterns
Angela Jewell of Gordon, Berwickshire,
Keep it simple
Sometimes it's all about isolating an object
that you would not normally pay attention to.
Another fine monochrome by Giovanni Orlando of a very basic, everyday kind of subject,
yet the photograph is beautifully presented with a superb choice of depth-of-field,
admirable simplicity, great tones and wood texture, and to top it all up a great black and
white conversion which emphasizes and magnifies every little detail.
Look for contrast: light v dark, rough v smooth, circle v square
LIGHT AND SHADOW: creating ABSTRACT patterns and forms
[Stairs, Railing, Shadows and Four Men]
André Kertész (American (born Hungary), Budapest 1894–
1985 New York)
Date: 1951
Tips for turning the ordinary into extraordinary
Observe like you never did before
Go back to the basics:
line, shape, form, texture, pattern,
and color.
Shoot details to create interest
Look for contrast
Keep it simple
Photo by Giovanni Orlando
Summary:
By challenging and using traditional codes and
conventions to do with landscape, you have:
•gathered and documented experience
• presented and arranged images in alternative ways
this encourages you and your audience to reflect
and connect with your work.
We all struggle for inspiration and creativity, and we – as
human beings – tend to take so many things around us for
granted. We might see, but not observe. We might
glimpse, but not appreciate. And we go on and on trying
to find some source of inspiration for ideas to make some
new pictures, when the truth of the matter is it’s all
around us. The sky is the limit!!!!
Pinhole Photography by Scott Speck
No more than an old filthy toilet seat
could from inside look like an
abandoned building. The light,
perspective, and black and white
treatment really do wonders to this
plain old view that many might not
even think to photograph, let alone
treat specially and bring out all these
fine details and stunning effects to light
with a very thoughtful and beautiful
end result.
SUbjECT
What are you trying to say about the subject in this photograph?
TECHNIqUE
What techniques can you use to direct attention to the subject?
How do you want to compose the photograph?
Lighting: What direction is the light coming from?
Point of view: Where can you position yourself when taking the photograph?
Framing: How can you hold the camera? (Vertical, horizontal, parallel to horizon, or
tilted?)
Timing: When should you take the photograph?
Motion: Should anything be moving in the photograph? Should it look blurry or frozen
in space?
Focus: What should be seen clearly in the photograph?
Materials: What camera, film, and equipment do you need for this photograph?
Tips: Create more than one photograph. Approach the subject from different points
of view and vary how you hold the camera and frame photographs. Capture different
moments in time, especially when photographing people or motion.
Special, unique, personal and purposeful relationship with your landscape.
South Lincolnshire Fens.
“English Landscape Symetries”
“I was born in the Lincolnshire fens
and have a special relationship with
this landscape.”
“...based upon fractured images of
fenland landscapes and Derbyshire
treescapes, [these photos] are
meditations upon scientific
observations of reiterating patterns in
nature which often manifest forms of
symmetry of form out of what at first
sight appears as complete chaos”
David Lewis-Baker Influenced by Hockney
Taken on: March 6, 2009 one of a series