RICHARD MAXTED

 

Richard Maxted is an advertisement photographer, working with still life. He mainly works within the studio using controlled studio lighting on his subjects.

 

This photographer started off with objects that he found, such as a can that he found in a car park.

“I’m not sure why it appealed to me or why I picked it up. Perhaps it was because Pepsi is such an iconic brand, known by everyone, and here it was, crushed, flattened and pretty much at the bottom of the pile.” ~ Richard Maxted.

One thing that I found fascinating about Richard Maxted’s work was the way he uses lighting to create the texture and the sharp water drops. His work is extremely contrasted, bringing out the colours and lines that could be on the subject he is working on. He works with a lot of different objects or subjects, such as can lids, cars, wrapping, brands etc. He has even worked on subjects like dead flies, which is interesting due to the amount of detail he has put into it.

 

When it came to looking into my own work, I wanted to work in controlled lighting, so I used my own lighting for these images (a torch) and worked with objects I found that is used everyday in the house, due to this being an “Everyday Geometry” project and the fact that this photographer simply uses everyday objects a lot of the time.

 

I used foil for the idea of the texture and lines being formed. I created the lines on the foil and found that this image was already very contrasted. I alerted the contrast a slight bit to experiment with what might happen and I was happy with the results, however, I don’t think that this works extremely well with the project, but I wanted to experiment~

For the train tickets, I believe that this worked better than the foil, the lines forming together and the vignette that was found within the corners which was created by the torch I was using as lighting. I added slight contrast to these images as well to experiment and I was happy with the result. I enjoy working with line and texture and I believe that this photographer is a very good influencer. ~

John Blakemore.

 

John Blakemore is a English photographer who has worked in documentary, still life, landscape, and hand made books. He was born July 15th in 1936.

 

He has been the holder of Arts Council awards, a British Council Travelling Exhibition and in 1992, he won the Fox Talbot Award for Photography.

 

John Blakemore began with an ambition to be a photojournalist in which, a trip to London resulted in a series of commissions for the “Black Star” agency.

He worked in a series of portrait and general studios from the late 1950s to 1970s all the while, his personal documentary practice continued alongside, resulting in three large exhibitions.

 

He began to teach for full-time, in 1970 is what marked the beginning of his landscape work, which established him as a “known” photographer.

“He is a master photographer and printer, and he has been practicing his art since 1956.”

 

 

 

John Blakemore is known for his detailed  landscapes and still-lifes.

 

“In late 1970, he began to explore the Peak District, looking for areas where he might continue his landscape work. The first site of interest that he found was a small stream, Linch Clough in North Derbyshire. It became the focus of his work and he photographed there from 1971 – 1976.”

 

He was also developing his “Wounds of trees” work.

 

Linch Clough became the source of his second sequence “Metamorphosis” and later “All Flows”

 

He found that working in nature, created a lot of new things to focus his photography on, such as, movement, constant change, variations in flow – turbulent after rain, slow in time of drought became things to consider.

One of his stratergies that he believed was a good place to start when he finally chooses an area to photograph,  was to sit with his eyes closed. And after he opened his eyes. He found that this both allowed him to “become attuned to the space and to “see” with greater intensity.”

Something that i find fascinating in John Blakemores work, is in fact the detail that the audience can see and I believe that this is helped with the black and white changes in the images, simply showing the strong light and shadow in the image. However, he doesnt always work in black and white, he sometimes provides colour which is  something rare to find in light and shadowed images.

 

He also works in nature, landscapes, which is what truly caught my eye as i find this very inspiring, simply looking at the space around us, moving from place to place and looking for the attention to detail, whether that is in leafs, trees, water etc. This is something I wanted to take away from his work, the idea that looking and realising is a great thing within photography.

These are my images rather inspired by John Blakemore, I wanted to show the colour and the black and whites as I experimented with both.

 

More of my photos:

Henri Cartier-Bresson was born in Chanteloup-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne in 1908 and died the year, 2004.

 

This artist developed a strong fascination with painting early on, and especially with Surrealism. 

 

In 1932, after spending a year in the Ivory Coast, he discovered the Leica, which happened to become his camera of choice.

He then soon began a life-long passion for photography and in 1933, he had his first exhibition at the “Julien Levy Gallery” in New York. He later made films with Jean Renoir.
“To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It’s a way of life” ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Throughout the 20th century, Henri Cartier-Bresson has photographed Africa in the 1920’s, crossed the tragic fortunes of Spanish republicans, accompanied the liberation of Paris, caught Gandhi just hours before his assassination, and the victory of the communists in China.

 

“While other photographers work around shadows, Cartier-Bresson uses them as little jokes, surrealist tools, and moveable backdrops to transform ordinary street scenes into photographs that make us wonder “How come I did not see that?””

 

Instead of not, he uses shadows and light to his advantage, using them as defining elements visually, concluding the power of lighting subjects well. He found surrealism by using the shadows he finds as his subject as opposed to an “object”.

He finds a way of using subjects, getting them to stand near the shadows, creating an interesting effect, making the viewer believe that the subject had created the shadow and then wonder “how” it was done.

He uses black and white photography to his advantage as it shows the strong shadows consuming the image around the whites, in contrast, causing the viewer to see the relationship simply between light and dark.

He travelled a lot, which is the reason for his many different scenaries, telling stories in each image and one thing that he was renowned for was his work on what he calls “the decisive moment” which is when the person behind the camera decides to act, decides to take the photograph.

 

“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.” – Bresson

 

“I believe that, for reactive living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us, which can mold us, but which can also be affected by us. A balance must be established between these two worlds: the one inside us, and the one outside us. As the result of a constant reciprocal process, both these worlds come to form a single one. And it is this world that we must communicate.”

 

I personally find “the decisive moment” extremely interesting, just like I did before, showing the events unfolding in front of our eyes, going out and taking photographs in the moment as opposed to them being planned, creating different subject matters in light and shadow, creating stories with the camera, which is exactly something I wanted to look at, going out and taking photographs. My photographs here are inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson, despite them not having a human in them, i liked the way that this photographer used buildings and scenery in their advantages, showing the difference in light and darkness, with slight hints in the images and the way the composition is placed, to give it more meaning to the audience. The decisive moment of the way light hits these places

 

 

 

I also took more images with the idea of the decisive moment and I am very happy with how my photographs turned out.

TRENT PARKE.

“Photography is a discovery of life which makes you look at things you’ve never looked at before. It’s about discovering yourself and your place in the world.” ~ Trent Parke.

 

 

Trent Parke was born in 1971. He was raised in Newcastle, New South Wales.

He began experimenting with his mothers Pentax Spotmatic, with using the family laundry room as his darkroom.

He began taking photographs when he was 12 years old and today he is the only Australian photographer to be represented by Magnum.

He works, primarily, as a street photographer.

 

Trent Parke works in context, perspective and timing. Due to him working as a street photographer, he catches small moments, the timing of the decisive moment.

Throughout many of his images, it is clear to see that he has planned the right time of day due to the sun flares and the shadows being so strong, in contrast to the whites of the concrete/sky. Some of his images are somewhat surreal as it makes the viewers wonder what the shadows are caused by, or what they are like.

 

Throughout his images in light and shadow that I have been looking at, named “Dream/Life”, he captures the beautiful city of Sydney, and brings out quite a dark and mysterious undertone, grabbing the attention through his black and white images.

Something that I wanted to take away from Trent Parke’s work was the way that he uses and captures light. The light is what makes his images come together.

“Parke is able to masterfully play with light to craft his images to look like his signature monochrome images: deep contrast and brilliant light.”

 

Shooting in both rain and sun, he creates long and sharp shadows, creating surreal images with using a flash.

Something that this photographer always does is take pictures, he believes that going out and shooting a lot will bring good images.

 

 

“I went each evening, for about 15 minutes, when the light came in between two buildings. It happens only at a certain time of the year: you’ve just got that little window of opportunity. I was relying so much on chance” “I stood there probably three or four times a week for about a month. I used an old Nikon press camera that you could pull the top off and look straight down into, because I was shooting from a tiny tripod that was only about 8cm high”

 

 

“I am forever chasing light. Light turns the ordinary into the magical” ~ Trent Parke.

 

 

“I’m always trying to channel those personal emotions into my work. That is very different from a lot of documentary photographers who want to depict the city more objectively. For me it is very personal – it’s about what is inside me. I don’t think about what other people will make of it. I shoot for myself.”

 

Trent Parke’s work is very different and interesting in depth and it was rather striking for me. I truly think the idea of the decisive moment is very interesting, going out, just like this photographer does on the street, and creates something by using light and shadow is very creative and so I wanted to do this, I wanted to create images in the moment, with light and shadow. I decided to go around the streets of Chester and around my hometown to see what I could find, as it is all about timing and the moment. I found some interesting reflections and shadows from buildings and people and I am happy with my results.

 

Uta Barth was born the month of January, in the year 1958.

She was born in Germany, Berlin and works as a contemporary photographer, and furthermore, she currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/uta-barth-2678

I am very interested in the minimlism that is created throughout Uta Barth’s work, I find it quite compelling and visually pleasing, yet intreguied with the meaning.

This photographer is extremely interested in translations of “photographic perception to human perception” while often choosing to take photographs of “ethereal subject matters” (curtains submersed with light) – “Which, no matter the fidelity to the real world, becomes abstracted or distorted when seen as a photograph”

In previous work Barth directs the viewers awareness to the subconscious engagement the viewer has with “the act of looking”.

Throughout many interviews that Uta Barth has taken part in, she explains that she tries to find ways to shift the audience’s attention from the object, and more to the perceptual process.

“How can I make you aware of your own activity of looking, instead of losing your attention to thoughts about what it is that you are looking at?

http://www.artnet.com/artists/uta-barth/

 

 

 

Throughout many of the photographs that I have looked into created by Uta Barth, I have been extremely interested in the way that she works, looking much more into the meaning and perception of the way an image is seen by the audience as opposed to the specifics of an object. Her work is about observation that is overlooked.

 

She “paints with light” in her home, using the surrounding area as simple as her home, the walls, the curtains etc.

“That remind us not only of both the infinite and finite capacities of an eye’s perception, but of one’s bodily relationship with the background as well”

 

Another thing that is extremely unique to this photographers work is the way it is so clear how somebody can/could interrupt or create a composition of space.

 

When she began studying as an undergraduate, she was taking painting class, “I wanted to render certain spatial configurations and to study the light of these imagined scenes” and so it is clear that Uta Barth’s has been interested in the art of light and how it is perceived for a lot of her career.

 

“I did not have the skill to paint the images directly, so I started to make photographs to work from. But repeatedly, I found the photographs that I thought to be the disposable source materials much more interesting and more engaging than the paintings and drawings I made from them”

In this very interview, she also tells the audience how the process of making photographs forced her to learn how to truly see the light, how to work on composition to make the most mundane subject matter into a compelling image, showing that as she has worked as a creative person who is extremely interested into the actual idea of light, photography has helped her create her ideal.

Since a young age she has used her camera to capture the information that surrounds humans every single day, which can be seen as rather “odd” or “boring” but throughout her work, she truly shows the way something perceived as simple can be full of details and can make quite beautiful outcomes.

This photographer works well to create minimalistic images.

 

This was the start of her work and she soon began looking into sculpture, work, film and installation, however, she still continued to work with a camera.

 

“I wanted to make work about looking, about visual perception as content in and of itself. As the camera lens functions much like the human eye, photography seemed the most appropriate medium for those interests.  I think my very early work was much about that. I wanted to rethink what we take for granted in an image, to examine how images make meaning and how to break out of the traditional way of making a photograph. I wanted to challenge that by removing the central subject and to look at and think about the background, which ascribes meaning to the subject in an almost subliminal way.” in which, I believe the majority of her images emulate this well.

 

Some of her images are perceived as “out of focus” and despite the traditional way of taking photographs, Uta Barth’s has stated that she does this on purpose,

“So I am photographing the volume of a room instead of its walls, the atmosphere of a rainstorm instead of the landscape the rain falls on.”

 

“This lack of focus happens in the human eye much the way it does for the camera, but our eyes are always darting about and constructing a seamless scene. If you try hard to hold the focus on one point and pay attention to the background of that, you will see it falls out of focus, just like my images do.”

 

She participates in her images, just as the light on the curtains do, she stops being a viewer, she arranges her curtains, by drawing them, creating texture throughout her images.

“I am moving the curtain to change the formation of a line of light that starts out being razor-thin and over the hours grows into a thick band of light. In the second series, I arrange the blinds to make Mondrian-like geometric abstractions out of light. This project can only be photographed for a few days each year, days in which the projecting sunlight is perfectly perpendicular to the geometry of lines of my closet doors. So I am literally drawing with light.”

“Liz Siegel at the Art Institute of Chicago wrote a text for my exhibition there in which she points out that the translation, the literal meaning of the word photographyis: “to write or draw with light.” these images are photographs in the most literal way.”

https://bombmagazine.org/articles/light-looking-uta-barth/

 

 

And so, when looking into this creative persons work, I truly became inspired with the minimalism and the meanings throughout. I find it extremely interesting that this photographer challenges the “typical photography ways” such as taking photographs of a specific object or in focus, by doing the opposite.

I decided to take images that relate to this. I took an array of images relating to the idea of looking into backgrounds as opposed to a subject and images that arent “in focus”

I also used everyday objects to “literally paint with light” (and shadows). There is a typical question of mystery throughout her images also, such as., what is through the curtains, what are the actual shadows, and i believe that i looked into this as well, especially through my curtain images. She works with both warm and cold tones, this is due to the different times of the day she shoots and the types of colours within the photographs, capturing the duality that light can give off that people simply pass by, which is another thing that i tried to emulate, working this way also shows how light can be seen different depending what it is coming from (such as, the colours found on a curtain)

Furthermore, her images arent complicating. She uses minimlism to her advantage, with some negative space being created. I tried to not over-complicate my images, experimenting with composition, light and the actual space to do this.

However, I also looked into my own way of working and looked into how light can also effect simple objects, which is something else that is rather interesting, looking into books and pillows. Moreover, some of my photographs are a lot darker than this photographers pieces of work and that was purely for experimentation with my Light and Shadow subject, looking into how light and shadow can be manipulated in the dark as well as in the light.

Typically, I took photographs of things that can be perceived as backgrounds, shedding literal light on the idea that backgrounds are just as interesting, minimalistically.

I personally like the way my images have turned out, showing detail and texture through light and shadow and it is defintley something that I would like to take further, if not by just working with compositions and how space is created to tell meaning.

 

 

 

Initial Thoughts and Impressions.

 

Throughout this past month, I have had many ideas and thoughts racing through my head on what I should do for my three projects on Visual Communication.

For my Light and Shadow brief..

I enjoy the idea of using landscapes, and the way this is shaped and visually seen and created through light and shadow, just like how John Blakemore uses black and white photography with his landscapes.

I liked how this worked due to the fact that you are unable to see any people in the initial images. “His landscape photography was always about ideas, rather than just the place itself. He wanted to capture a sense of the forces that shape the landscape at large”, which I believe would be an intriguing idea for Light and Shadow, using the actual Light that comes into the images, shaping the shadows that can be found, with the effect of using Black and White on them. However, when looking into John Blakemore’s work, it has a lot of greys and whites, depending on the images and the series, which really forms the lines and contrasts within the landscapes, which is something that I would like to experiment. I furthermore like his idea on capturing more than the simple landscape, as he tries to capture the “elemental forces” such as wind, water, change etc.

 

 

 

Another idea I believe that I would like to experiment with, and maybe use as a final product in my images, is the idea of simplicity in light and shadow.

A photographer who uses this well is Uta Barthes. Her interesting work on her series “and of time” and “Compositions of Light on White”

She has stated “in each project, I stop being just the observer of light as it spills into the house and moves through it in the course of the day. Here I have become a participant in creating these images of light by drawing the curtain or drawing the shades in a different room.”

I personally believe that these images are extremely clever, despite the simplicity of these images; it makes the observer truly think. Furthermore, the colour tones in these images work very well, such as this image, with the orange tones, matching the couches extremely well.

 

 

 

I furthermore enjoy the work of Trent Parke, with his surrealism in the shadows and the silhouettes.

 

 

 

Moreover, I have thoroughly enjoyed the work of Henri Cartier Bresson, taking great inspiration in their work.

 

 

 

For my Who’s who brief…

I have also had many thoughts here, for instance, the project calls for the idea of the photographer taking photographs of people who are strangers, with the idea of using an individual quality.

I personally liked the idea of using an object, such as, a hat or a scarf and seeing how they might use them on themselves.

I have looked into many different photographers for this second brief, such as Bruce Davidson (and his work on “Girl with Kitten”) which is something that we looked into in university and the idea that the kitten the girl is holding could be a metaphor for the girl, who looks extremely young and vulnerable in the big city in the background, which is something that I find extremely inspiring, looking into the meaning as opposed to only the image.

 

 

Another photographer I have looked at is Kalpesh Lathigra, who uses the environment around the person in his advantage to tell a story, who also works with the personality of the person, making it quite personal.

 

 

 

Richard Avedon is another interesting image maker due to the negative space in his images, only purely showing the person, who is staring at the camera, which brings a raw quality to the photograph.

 

 

 

However, another idea I had during this project, was the idea of “Surrealism” (which is defined as “a style of art and literature developed principally in the 20th century, stressing the subconscious or nonrational significance of imagery arrived at by automatism or the exploitation of chance effects, unexpected juxtapositions, etc.” )

This, I believe, would work extremely well in this project due to the sense of mystery created with the “stranger in the image” alone.

Two photographers I have looked into especially, who create these type of images is both Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Brooke Shaden and Gregory Crewdson.

 

 

Ralph Eugene Meatyard has quite a dark outlook on his images, with children and adults both wearing masks alike, hiding their identity in quite desolate places, showing he not only thinks about the model and their position, but also the position of the surrounding area. The images are also extremely dark, not only in the true “meanings” but also the actual images, the shadows.

 

 

Gregory Crewdson creates images, but stories within the images, that he leaves clearly to the imagination of the viewer, leaving it up to them to come to the conclusion on what happened in these images. He uses lights very well and quite in depth set-ups.

 

 

 

Furthmore, another person that has inspired me throughout this brief is Brooke Shaden, who works well with surrealism. She specifically looks into the idea of the environment and the colour around the model protraying the story specifically well. Her images can be extremely mysterious, usually covering the models face, with ghostly effects.

 

 

 

For my Everyday Geometry brief…

 

And lastly, but not least, my ideas for this brief has been explored thoroughly also, through photographers such as Carl Kleiner, Ralph Steiner, Michael Bodiam, Ruth Bernhard and Richard Maxted.

I enjoy the somewhat surreal effects that Ruth Bernhard creates in her geometry, alongside the black and white effects.

 

 

 

 

Michael Bodiam and Ralph Steiner has a very symmetrical view on geometry, which I think works very well, creating a rather pleasing outcome.

~ Michael Bodiam

~ Ralph Steiner

 

 

 

Two photographers that I especially appreciate in this third brief is Richard Maxted and Carl Kleiner, for two specifically different reasons.

 

 

I like the textured images that Richard Maxted creates, with contrasting, harsh lines to define the effect it has made to the objects he uses.

 

 

 

For Carl Kleiner, I especially appreciate the symmetrical pastel effect, creating a lot of negative space with food, which is pleasing to the eye. He works very well with not only the objects, but he thinks about the background, what they are placed on, which creates a good image.

 

 

All in all, I would like to work on specific ideas for these images, ranging from using colour and black and white, experimenting to see what works well in my photography.

 

My name is Jorja Jones; I have begun my journey as a photography student at Staffordshire University and this is the start to my creative journey.

This is my blog to portray the work I will be creating myself, alongside the research I will be looking into, to develop my ideas and to learn more into the history of photography and what other photographers have done that I find inspiring. I will be showing here how these potential photographers have influenced my own work in the process.

Currently, I have been given the module title for the first semester, titled “Visual Communication”.

Visual Communication is the way a photograph can be perceived in messages and feelings and due to this, I have been very intrigued on where this title would lead my work as a photographer.

 

The first brief is titled “Light and Shadow”, in which, this first task flared my creative eye in many ways as there are so many directions this title could take me.

The second brief is titled “Everyday Geometry”, this is a project to show in a creative way that geometry can be found wherever your life may lead you, even in places such as when you are going shopping, going for a walk, spending time at home etc. When looking into this second brief, I believe it could work well alongside composition especially, due to how the geometric shapes are placed in order to create a somewhat surreal effect with everyday objects.

Last but not least, the third brief is titled “Who’s who?” and this entails the idea of taking photographs of people the photographer doesn’t know personally, which is an interesting way of building my confidence throughout the project. This can be an extremely creative project, such as, throughout the images it could show the individuality of each person being photographed through their form, their outfit or even an object that they are holding.

In each of the three briefs, it is required to take four final images to match the title and the description, to be submitted December 10^th, 2018, and thus, this begins the start of my journey at university.