Vivien Maier
Vivien's photographs are mostly street photographs of people or herself as well as this there are several photographs where she relied on reflections to capture the world around her and others around her. One key thing about her photographs is how she frames her photographs, She always has her target in the centre of the photograph with bold lines surrounding them, from the sides of buildings to the top of a bus seat, this quality of photographs requires you to to be quick but steady to make sure everything is in frame, straight and clear without alerting the subject of the photograph or having them move out of shot.
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In this Photo Vivien has positioned herself and the camera in front of a circular mirror in what looks like some sort of study with the same circular mirror on the wall behind her. The photo has been reflected in the two mirrors multiple times meaning it created a loop which goes on all the way down the middle of the photo. I like this due to it being clever and interesting to see the pattern of the light contrast of the two walls being transferred in a never-ending spiral. Also the fact that you can clearly see what is in the room and the lines in the objects adds a nice contrast to the circular mirror in the shot.
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Formal elements photographs
I took these photos in response to Vivien's images, I noticed that most of her photographs were reflections of herself and any objects in front of her with the background scenery which would be behind her added in so I tried doing the same but with a few differences such as using my phone as a mirror keeping colour in my images and not including myself in the photos.
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I was inspired by Vivien when taking this photo because I wanted to take a photo in front of me and behind me at the same time but unlike Vivien's pictures I did not want to get myself in the photo so instead I used my phone as a portable mirror and placed it to one side of the camera facing behind me so one half of the camera would take a normal photo of what I was looking at and the phone would reflect the area behind me creating the photo I wanted. The photo to the left is the photo that came out the best since it has a grassy looking area on one side and a completely different urban area behind me.
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Francesca Woodman
Francesca Woodman's photographs usually contained very distinct lines as well as being similar to a self portrait since she usually appeared in the photograph in some form. what I find interesting is how she usually uses her body to link with the lines already inside the image as well as despite each photograph being like a self portrait she tends to distort or hide her face in most of the photographs, this shows she spent a lot of time planning out each photograph as well as trying to have each one in it's own unique style.
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Francesca's photo has many Formal and visual elements but the one's that stand out the most for me is the use of contrast with the extremely dark ceiling to the blindingly bright window, as well as the lines around the room such as the window and the beams on the ceiling. The light on the floor is defused from each of the (What I can guess) 3 windows which are behind her, due to the windows spreading light in all directions the room appears darker at the top making it hard to see the ceiling and the metal rods holding up the sheets behind her. surprisingly the light is refracted around the room but upwards which makes me think this is a room in a tall building somewhere, also the light being defused in the floor allows slight glints to be picked up these are smaller objects that are showing up due to the light defusing where it is, otherwise it would not show up since the room would be to dark so it interests me to find out what time of day this photograph was taken in.
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Photos in response to Francesca Woodman.
This photo is my favourite out of my responses since it mirrors Francesca's photo so much such as the light being blurred due to it being directly focused at the camera as well as the ceiling and the staircase being much darker than the rest of the photo. What is odd about this is the light from the sun should light up everything else in the photo yet there is still a huge contrast between objects, I would understand this if it was behind the object and being covered by a shadow but this was in the middle of the day as well as being directly in the sun's rays which makes it seem rather odd.
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Second set of photographs.
These photos I took while trying not to get any one or thing in the photo by mistake, I did this by waiting for people to move or trying to aline every thing into the photo this worked out perfectly apart from not doing 8 images but only 6. The hardest part of doing this is trying to get everything you don't want out of the picture and things you do want in the picture this takes a lot of effort and can put you off taking pictures in this way. The photo which I believe came out the best was the reflection in the door because I managed to get the school and the walkways in without anyone on them and the bricks behind the door in the same photo this means there is more lines and colour in the photograph than there would originally of been if I took the photo like I usually do.
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A photograph without a camera
Photo without an camera task: The idea of the task was to describe an image in great detail without taking any photographs of the image we were describing this helps is describe things in greater detail and be able to frame images better. In the picture there are many circular lines around the speaker with a large circle in the middle, each line brings you further away from the middle until the final line which is a lot wider with 8 screws holding it in place then there is a a grey rectangle with another 4 screws holding the speaker together. The light from the window causes a shadow to be within the main speaker which creates a odd contrast within the centre of the speaker. On the top of the speaker there is a rectangular power button within another rectangle which is silver on the light grey background which causes it to stand out. To each side there are black rectangles which suit the light grey front and top of the speaker this makes the speaker have a modern look. To each side of the speaker is the white wall with the black power cords laying on the dark grey floor. The camera angle of the image is towards the left of the speaker from a mid distance so it keeps most of the primary detail in the image while cutting out everything of no importance. The shadow of the speaker is going to the opposite direction to the camera angle. The texture of the speaker is a smooth looking plastic with a rough looking floor made from a plastic like material.
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The photo above is the image that my partner took of my camera less photograph, he has taken it nearly spot on apart from it was a larger angle to show more of the right side of the speaker, he has managed to get the background perfect and the light in exactly the same place. The shadows of the photo are different since it was slightly earlier than when I took my photo but it is nearly identical.
50 images
For these 53 images I made sure to capture at least one formal element in every photogram 15 of these 53 photographs are documented on my other site, I used them because I believe they are photos which I most notably used a formal element as the primary subject of the photograph as well as this I also used photographs I took at covent garden, on the London cable cars coming back from the eXcel centre and photos on Eltham high street during heavy fog conditions.
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Developing photos from film.
We took multiple photos based on formal elements to do with my and my partner's photos without a camera work although this proved difficult since our styles were very different such as he had a image made up of lines in a disordered pattern while I had a curved circular object in an very ordered environment this meant our photos would be complete opposites to each other furthermore we had to use parts of our body in the photo like Francesca Woodman's work this ended up meaning we would need to work together and try to incorporate both of our styles at the same time. Plus we were using a film camera meaning we could not repeat photos to many times and perfect them, this made us very carful with taking the photo and making sure everything was where it needed to be but this made taking the photos take a long time although we only had to do one retake. These are the photos developed for me at a shop so i would have perfect versions to compare and contrast with the ones I would then develop myself.
The photo on the right of the page is my attempt at developing a photo from my film this is one of my many attempts of developing one of my photos, the reason this is the only photo here is that the others were ether really underdeveloped or overdeveloped this meant they would not show up to well even if I did upload them, this one however did show up relatively well although it is blurry, out of focus and a little underdeveloped but I hope to carry on experimenting so I can get the photo perfectly developed and in focus.
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After developing the image above I then decided to try again but this time drastically shortening the exposure time so I changed the exposure from 11 to 8 and changed the time from 10 seconds to 3.5 seconds although the pictures aren't perfect they are a lot better than my first attempt at developing the images and I managed to get most of the detail out of each film negative I am very happy with this result since I have improved developing these film negatives so I should be able to improve even more eventually.
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