"Major American photographer of the early to mid-20th century, best known for his carefully composed, sharply focused images of natural forms, landscapes, and nudes. His work influenced a generation of American photographers." "Weston made a series of monumental close-ups of seashells, peppers, and halved cabbages, bringing out the rich textures of their sculpture-like forms. Weston became one of the founding members of Group f/64 in 1932 with Ansel Adams, Willard Van Dyke, Imogen Cunningham and Sonya Noskowiak. The group chose this optical term because they habitually set their lenses to that aperture to secure maximum image sharpness of both foreground and distance."
Edward Weston's response towards the surface of things focuses on natural objects such as shells, or food, he contrasts the surface by varying the light and darkness he portrays in the image to highlight key features. He takes images of the different patterns and lines that is all natural forms. Weston either takes close ups of objects such as onion to capture the surface, or he will use light to highlight the surface, for example the pepper and the shell. Also contrasting it with light and dark and making it black and white, makes the objects in the images more prominent and detailed.
Jaromir Funke
" Jaromír Funke (1896–1945) was a pioneer of modern photography. In 1922, he set out on the road to abstraction, ultimately developing a school of his own: “Photogenism.” He responded to the inspiration of Cubism and also made exemplary works in the styles of New Objectivity and Constructivism. Funke was the only important Czechoslovak photographer to grasp the international context of avant-garde photography, painting, and sculpture. "
Jaromir Funke's response towards the surface of things, tends to focus on man made objects, such as lines, buildings, springs, etc. He also captures shadows created from those objects. Whereas Edward Weston will use natural objects, he will find it in man made objects. He relies on natural light, rather than artificial light
My Response
For these images I thought I could of used a light over them to create more shadows, similar to Edward Weston's images, giving the objects more detail and depth. I would also like to use a micro-lens, which could zoom in and bring out the smaller details of the objects. I also chose to make my images black and white as it gave it more depth, and being black and white will give it more tone.
Eileen Quinlan
" She uses medium- and large-format cameras and studio strobes to shoot tabletop, house-of-cardlike worlds—angular constructions, staged for the camera’s lens, in which propped mirrors reflect intensely colored light, deep shadows, bits of fabric, reflective Mylar, wisps of smoke, photographs, and, especially, each other. The resulting images offer kaleidoscopic views into indefinite and often infinite spaces. "
She prefers to shoot on film and avoid photoshop, therefore there is no control with how her images will appear, only how seeing the way it happened and appears.
an experiment
For this task we were given A3 sheets of paper to create "windows" to place on surfaces, using scalpels, ruler, etc. I liked the shadows that the paper created on the different surfaces. Although, I could of improved these image by focusing on one window instead of the whole thing, and composing my images to give the image a main focal point. I liked the image of the brick wall and the opened hole " window" as it gave the image the idea of being opened up and revealing the surface underneath. I also could of focused on the direction of the light, my surfaces appeared dark as there was either too much or too little light. I would like to redo this task to improve it, as I thought it didn't quite understand the task enough and the subject to be able to know what I wanted to take images, as mine were quite busy and random, no subject, and improving on cropping my images to focus on one subject.
For this task, we were asked to experiment with different materials of acetate, I used substances such as coloured ink, salt, and glue. The surface of the acetate allowed the materials to form different shapes and forms as the acetate doesn't absorb materials such as paper. For the first square I used pink and blue ink, and salt. I wanted the salt to absorb the ink and create little colour crystals. I found that it worked quite well when it was projected onto the wall, as I could see all the detail and as I zoomed in closer, surfaces within the ink and created, and particles from the moisture taped in also came out really well. I liked the different areas that had its own details. For the second square I used materials such as purple, red, and yellow ink, I also used salt and glue. I zoomed in to take images of the different textures of the surfaces made by the ink and pressing two pieces of acetate together, which made the substances to move around.