Homage-Rodchenko

Alexander Rodchenko was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design. For me I really wanted to do a homage image of Rodchenko’s because I really love some of his work. He always uses a lot of symmetry and line in his work and often his images are taken from an unusual perspective.

Rodchenko

With its tall shapes and symmetry I really love this image. The use of lines really draws the eye up and through the image. In my homage I want to incorporate this drawing of the eye. 

My Homage Picture

Above is my homage image, I decided to unlike Rodchenko shoot in colour, I felt this added a more modern spin. I wanted to get the really symmetrical lines and the sense you are being drawn into the image and I feel I have achieved that. Overall I am happy with this image.

Homage-Gillian Wearing

Gillian Wearing (born 1963) is an English conceptual artist. The body of work of hers I have look at is called Signs that Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You to Say (1992-93), in which random members of public hold up messages written on sheets of A3 paper. The most famous image of the lot is a man in a suit and tie with “I’m desperate” written on his sheet.

Gillian Wearing-I'm Desperate

Although an interesting series in the sense you can delve into peoples personalities through what they have written on the paper, this series has no real photographic talent behind it, all the images are a mishmash of random scenes. So to pay homage to this image I decided to throw an ironic humorous spin on her images. 

My Homage Image

For my homage image I decided to be funny and take an image of a coconut monkey, I purposefully used a landscape format to take this image to show I am going against Wearing in a way, and breaking away from her norms. Perhaps this image is like my sign and is an insight into my mind just as the writing was for the people. In the end after showing people and seeing them laugh I decided to use this image and I am happy with it. 

Homage-Andreas Gursky

Andreas Gursky (born January 15, 1955) is a German photographer known for his large format architecture and landscape colour photographs, often employing a high point of view. His photos often are commenting on the unsettling nature of globalisation. The repetitive nature of his images is very apparent and for me I really wanted to try express this in my own way using Gursky’s symmetry and patterns. He often digitally manipulates his images to add extra details.

Andreas Gursky

This is a really strong powerful image by Gursky, Its use of scale and detail keeps the viewer constantly entertained. The picture shows the business of society depicting a railway station platforms. This image is digitally manipulated to be more symmetrical and most of the parts of this image have been stitched together and I feel this really works. 

My Homage Image

This is my homage image for Gursky, this image is taken in the Reichstag in Berlin, Germany. I feel this ties in with Gursky's work because of the use of lines and symmetry, I also digitally manipulated my image to have allot more people in it, because the original image had barely any in. I feel that adding people to make the image more busy was a good thing and tied in with some of Gursky's work. In the end I am happy with how this image turned out and although it is not a direct copy of Gursky's style it still pays homage to him.

Homage-Brassaï

In the early thirties Brassaï set about photographing Paris at night. Viewing Brassaï’s work you get a sense of darkness and loneliness. Saying this the way he uses soft light makes his images really beautiful, this gives his images a really contrasting feeling.

Brassaï - Paris By Night

This image of Paris at night is a really strong image. I really love the strong use of the formal elements in this piece with a lovely use of line that pulls the eye from left to right along the beam of light. This gives more depth to the picture. The lines created by the silhouettes add points of interest that also keep the viewer entertained. Taken in the dark using only street lighting gives the image a really nice mood and feel. Brassaï liked to use lamp posts as his source of light in a lot of his photos. Light bulbs give off an orange glow. This gives a very soft light when transformed to black and white. As homage I would really love to incorporate this softness of light and also try incorporate the loneliness in places that would normally be busy.

My Homage Image

Here is my homage image,I feel there are definite connotations to Brassaï. I shot this image at night with a high ISO, to match Brassaï's images I also incorporated the top right flare because I though it made the image more atmospheric this also adds emphasis to the shadows which helps to add interest to the photograph. In the end I was really happy at how my image turned out.

Surrealism - Man Ray - Le Violon d’Ingres 1924

Man Ray - Le Violon d’Ingres 1924

With strange juxtapositions and its softness this image by Man Ray is typically surrealist. The use of the female nude is also often strongly associated with surrealism. This is a technically great photo with a lot of thought put into composition and lighting.

This image has very curved lines that flow through the image. As Mary Warner Marien says, ‘photography could be the visual equivalent of free association’. Basically meaning that surrealists such as Man Ray use photography to show an unconscious flow of ideas (Marien, 2010, 253). This image side steps the normal perception of reality and favours a reality that is of the unconscious, thus ultimately showing the desires Man Ray has of the female form. For surrealists photography and the use of the camera could help this side stepping process because there was always an element of chance to what they did and they felt they could capture the chaos around them. The deliberate flowing nature of the images lines strongly put these ideas forward. Ideas generally flow, wave like, and this image visualises this thought process. The lighting also connotes these ideas through the lighting, there is a definite deliberate light and dark side on the background. This shows people all have contrasting thoughts, sometimes very dark sometimes light. On one level you can take this image as a funny image comparing the female form to a violin. Whereas on a darker level it shows the photographers deep sexual desires, putting forward the idea the female is an object to be used just like an instrument.

This is indeed a thought provoking image, a strong provoking image at that.

Steerage

Alfred Stieglitz - The Steerage

This image by Alfred Stieglitz is a straight photo, showing Stieglitz’s ideas of what photography should be. Clearly a photography, rather than the pictorial like images of prior, Stieglitz has created an image that is more about the formal elements. He is trying to move away from pictorialism because pictorialism is trying to be stylistic, he wants his photography to be its own entity and have its own style. This break from pictorialism at the time would have been a breath of fresh air and also a big leap forward in ideas of what a photograph should be and this adds a real exciting element to this image.

Stieglitz is a formalist so he often uses shapes in his images.  Graham Clarke, in his book The Photograph, has wrote about how much of a contrast Stieglitz is from photographer Lewis Hine. Hine’s images are often comments on society and his imagery often has underlying points within it. In stark contrast Stieglitz cared more about form than that of the social aspects in his imagery (Clarke, 1997, 169).

Although not meant to be, this image really does show an insight to the culture at the time. You can tell by the clothes people are wearing in the image, hats on the top deck and shawls on the bottom, that there is an obvious divide between the two classes in this image.  The way Stieglitz has managed to capture this image while only thinking of form is very intriguing to say it shows such diversity. A great image indeed.

Image Makers Image Takers

Image Makers Image Takers is a fantastic book for any budding photographer, systematically looking at what moves and motivates photographers, the book gives personal accounts from many photographers. The broad range of photographers featured in the book helps give me the reader an insight into all types of photography. This broad range has really given me a good look into all forms of photography and shown me a few good ideas along the way. The latter part of the book gives interviews with people in jobs that surround photography such as editors, curators and publishers. This section helps to show other jobs in photography and it, for me, is really interesting to get these points of view.

I really love the introduction of the book, it starts off with a quote from Ansel Adams, “You don’t take a photograph, you make it”. This quote really sums up the book and photography for me, photography is an art and involves a really creative mind. Behind every great photo is a great story and you often have to create this story. This is one of the main themes of the book, the thoughts behind the images. Through reading this book I have learned the importance of thinking my images through before taking them. This can be planning a photo shoot or just lining up the picture correctly using the formal elements. In the end this can be the difference between a good and a great image.

One of my favourite interviews is with Jehad Nga a photojournalist who has travelled to many conflicted countries. I really love some of his work, and how it really captures the essence of the people in it. There is a controlled element of danger in his work, he goes to great lengths to capture his images and the dangers he faces while doing so are quite apparent. For me this is quite an inspirational thing to do as he risks his life for his photography. At one point in the interview after being asked if a photographic schooling is important he says, “The most important thing to develop is the relationship between you and your eye”. By ‘the relationship between you and your eye’ he means that you need to be able to visualize a good shot rather than just point and click, it takes more than just camera skills to take great photos.

This book has inspired more than taught me technically. I have found it really interesting and I feel that my knowledge of what it takes to become a photographer has improved. It’s fantastic to read personal interviews with some of my favourite photographers and this has left me with the desire to get out there and take some great images. Photography is more than just pressing a button; it’s about bringing together formal elements and storytelling using the expression of art and design. Having a good eye can help too. This book really has motivated me to get out there and take some photos.