Greg White

As aforementioned, I wanted to go into greater detail about Greg White. I find him to be extremely influential and I never stop looking at his images and continuously being influenced. Although not a well known name, his advertising work is widely seen throughout magazines.

Below are some examples of his advertisements. I remember thinking these were great images the first time I saw them, with no idea who the work was by. His advertising work seems to centre around spot and cars. The companies range from Nike and Adidas and Audi to Lexus. Of course he does not limit himself to these areas.  He was also the photographer on the quite amazing and colourful Sony Bravia advert.

Sony

Lexus

This example for a Nissan advert is, in my opinion, an amazing example of photomanipulation.

I am quite fascinated by his series of 'Behind-the-Scenes' images. This again links into advertising as almost all of these images are from advert filming. I posted a number of these in a past evaluation so I wont go into great detail about them here. Below is a number of examples.

Although White is a fantastic advertiser and graphic designer, it's his architecture and factory work which really fascinates me. The factory photoshoots could be more 'behind-the-scenes' from advert shoots but I can't be sure on this. 

What I find amazing about his architecture work is the modern and very man-made feel to all the buildings he photographs. Lots of these images use clean whites and silvers and are very simplistic.

...and again, as posted before in my previous evaluation, this is by far my favourite image by any photographer I have come across and I find it simply fascinating in every meaning of the word. I could sit staring at this image for days, continuously finding new things.

Drum-roll please...

Malcolm Glover

Malcolm Glover is a great example of an artist working with Stitching joiners. Stitching is an amazing way to represent panoramic shots of an area.

His images are often packed with action, hinting that the image was not quick snapshots but a carefully planned series of images creating a scene full of life. All together the image took 6 hours to shoot.

This image above was shot by taking one frame every 45 minutes. From left to right the weather changes and the scene gradually gets darker. Unlike the above example in the swimming pool, this one is less action-pact and focuses more on colour. This image shows 'hidden life' within the street.

Malcolm Glover has recently exhibited at the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery and has made a series of work on Allotment Holders, which will shortly be published in book form and can be ordered from the gallery.

David Hockney

Our lesson about Joiners is the first time I have come across David Hockney's work but I find it very interesting. Hockney's experimentation with photocollage began in 1982. He has commonly been linked to Cubism due to his images having qualities that a single photograph cannot have, this links him to Picasso, who Hockney takes heavy influence from.

"Television is becoming a collage - there are so many channels that you move through them making a collage yourself. In that sense, everyone sees something a bit different. 

 - David Hockney

Unlike many examples of Joiners I find, this one is unique (although it has been done before) in the way each single image used is a traditional rectangle shape, many others use square polaroid images. I really love the way the bottom of the image is very jagged compared to the other edges. I personally thing the most interesting thing about this is the fact it almost looks like a sketch in places, especially the cars. As I mentioned in my example of a montage, the building edges do not line up and the image as a whole is very abstract.

Joiners

A joiner is a type of photomontage where a number of separate images are used to create one image. There are a few types such as montage and stitching. More comprehensive joiners can use 50 or maybe even more images to create a large the single joiner.

This is an example of how a series of photographs can be put together to create one montage. The image looks very out of line creating an abstract feel. I believe this type of joiner works very well with man-made objects and structures such as this example of the college building.

This is my example of stitching.  To make this I took a tripod into the college car park and took a series of images simply moving the tripod around slightly each time. I found this to be a big challenge but I am very pleased with the overall result. Stitching creates a much less abstract image than a montage, this is done by using tools such as the eraser on Photoshop to bled the images together.

Evaluation: Week TWO and THREE

These past two weeks have NOT gone well...A great example of the problems faced by a photographer...all in one go!

Week Two

I am very pleased with week two's photos. I went to work with Dad and took some images of his workshop, sticking to my obvious engineering obsession. I find factories and workshops to be very interesting. Both weeks two and three took a great deal of inspiration from an old favourite of mine, Greg White. Week two focused upon his factory-themed images in particular. I will go into more detail about Greg White in a later blog entry. 

The images below are a number of White's images that interested and influenced me this week;

...and last but not least, one of my VERY favourite images by any photographer:

What stands out about this image is the very minimal colour pallet. The whole image is black and white apart from two very vibrant reds on the foreground car's breaks and by the right-hand side computer. 

Week Three

Week three...not good! This week I had planned to go into the studio with Jade and Tash (links can be found with week two's images). My plan was to take behind-the-scenes photos from Jade's Monroe shoot using my Mini Diana. I took the film to be developed in great confidence but when I got the photos back they were awful! Below are Greg White's images I had planned to take influence from.

After seeing my terrible images I had to quickly take some replacements. Sticking with my Greg White theme, I had a go at some still life using my light box. I feel these came out well considering my lack of experience with light boxes and macro.

Week Three

Week three...not a good week. This week I had planned to take a roll of film on my Mini Diana. On Tuesday I went into the studio with Jade and Tash and took some Behind-the-Scenes photos. You can almost guess what happened, they came out awful...So on Saturday after I got the photos back I had to rush some last second images and turned to my macro light box. I'd never really had much experience with it but I am reasonably pleased with the results. 

Taken: 13th March, 2010

Edited: 14th Marth, 2010
Camera used : FinePix S5800

This first image was simply of a model plane of mine. I have always had an interest in planes and engineering in general (if you haven't guessed!) so I have a few things like this hanging around. I am particularly pleased with this one because of the shadows and depth of field. 

Taken: 13th March, 2010

Edited: 14th Marth, 2010
Camera used : FinePix S5800

The second from this weeks images. Sticking to my love of all things mechanical, the chrome finish, the wired and hinges really stand out for me. My favourite part of this image is the way the wires fade in and out of the shadow. I do find it irritating that there is a slight reflection in the headphones though.

Taken: 13th March, 2010

Edited: 14th Marth, 2010
Camera used : FinePix S5800

Another favourite from this photo shoot. This is a compass we use as decoration in our lounge. I like the depth of field in this image and the clarity of the numbers on the top.

Taken: 13th March, 2010

Edited: 14th Marth, 2010
Camera used : FinePix S5800

I'm not sure what these are called but I like them a lot. I really like the gloss effect on the head. My main issue with taking this photo was minimising glare which I managed to reduce apart from a bit on the shoulder.

Taken: 13th March, 2010

Edited: 14th Marth, 2010


After thinking about how we're told it's good to re-shoot images I went back to an old favourite photo of mine to see if my skill had improved. The sad truth is...this is worse than the original! I couldn't for the life of me get the glass to appear clear/white as it should be. The concept is to show the delicacy of the crystal against the harshness of the chillies. One improvement is the newer image has less noise. Below is the original image;





My main achievement with this series of photos is getting the background to appear a deep black shade. 

Week Two

Below is week two's set of images. Not long after making a joke in class about illness not effecting photography...oh how I should eat my words. I was ill all week but went out for a very successful photo shoot on the Sunday. I took influence from Greg White for these images. I will go into White's work more in a later post and during the evaluation.

Taken: 7th March, 2010

Edited: 7th March, 2010
Camera used : FinePix S5800

I love this first image. It somewhat relates back to some previous images from week one with the metal-sky combination. I took this while standing inside the scaffolding. It's a shame about some of the glare coming off the metal but it's nothing too major. I love these "abstract" images I take using odd metal structures.

Taken: 7th March, 2010

Edited: 7th March, 2010
Camera used : FinePix S5800

This is the widest image I took from the shoot. It shows a number of engines scattered around the room in all their wonderful glory. At first I wasn't sure how to take the image, whether or not I wanted it from a lower angle but I decided to take it this way because it displays more of the room. I had to crop out a bit from the top right-hand corner because of a huge amount of light coming in the door.

Taken: 7th March, 2010

Edited: 7th March, 2010
Camera used : FinePix S5800

I took a range of macro images during this shoot but this turned out to be my favourite. I've never done much macro photography, especially where engineering is involved but they came out very successful and I hope to do more soon.

Taken: 7th March, 2010

Edited: 7th March, 2010
Camera used : FinePix S5800

In the workshop were a number of booths where students could do work on a good old black board. There was lots of scary looking equipment which looked like something from Doctor Who but I was reassured that it was all safe to photograph without protective clothing. This image stands out from the other workshop images due to the green and yellow colours in it.

Taken: 7th March, 2010

Edited: 7th March, 2010
Camera used : FinePix S5800

This is probably my favourite from the shoot. I have always been interested with the look of 'lonely spaces' and I think this gives that impression. The space was in fact a cubby-hole in the wall of the workshop. The shadows are the best part in my opinion, it adds a great deal of mystery to the image. 

Below is another example of a 'lonely space' image I took during a studio shoot;

I feel this weeks images relate somewhat to the idea of a 'photo documentary' what we have been discussing in class. The way the images represent one space but ranging from a shot of the whole room to a close-up macro image.

Week 1 Evaluation

WEEK ONE EVALUATION

I am relitivly pleased with this weeks images. They were all taken in the half-term beforehand and this gave me more freedom as I was away during this time. The research I have done has helped and I have found some great photographers. The most exiting part of this project so far is seeing the rest of my classmates' work. This is the first project where we have had this much freedom and everyone is really expressing themselves.

I named this week's images "A Shift in Weather" because while I was away at half-term, the weather was rapidly changing and this is very obvious in the images. 

My favourite photograph from week 1 is the one of the lady with the umbrella. I love the mystery in the image.

Below is some other artists' work I found to be highly inspiring this week.

Alfred Stieglitz, 1926

Taken by an unknown photographers, all I know is their username on lomography.com is 'graefin'.

The text below is the information written next to the above image.

"The thunderstorm was right in front of my window. So, after a view minutes of watching the lightnings come down, I decided to open the window, take my Lubitel, a gorillapod and a cable release. I let the shutter open for a very long time until finally lightning struck! This was an experiment, so I was very happy that it turned out that good!"