Thursday 23 February 2017

Image Bank - Everyday Objects

Stephen Shore
This image by Stephen Shore is of a radio on somebodies desk. I like this image because of the colours photographed, the radio is a light pink colour which goes with the light green background really well, his shoots usually start with a landscape photograph, which he then zooms into to end up with a photograph of a individual object like the one above, the photograph contains very muted colours, however the newspapers are quite bright in contrast and make the photograph look a lot less staged, if the desk had been completely clear other than the radio, then it would've looked like the photographer placed it there on purpose, whereas with the newspapers there, it looks more realistic.


This image is of a table at a restaurant, it is quite messy and cluttered, this photograph looks a lot less staged than the previous photograph as it is very messy, there are a lot of objects at the top of the image like ash trays and glasses of water. I think that although there are a lot of objects, the cup of tea is probably the thing I notice most as it very dark, furthermore, it is more in frame than some of the other bits, the glass of water is partly cut out and some of the other things like the ash tray aren't very noticeable as they are quite a light colour.


Andre Kertesz
This image is of a fork, it is leaning against a bowl so that it is casting a shadow on the tabletop below, this works because there is no fuzziness, in some photographs the shadow is elongated because of the place of the light, however this is taken where the light is directly above the object in the photograph.
I really like the composition of this image, it was obviously well thought about because the photograph doesn't look too empty which is something it risks when it only has a few things in it, sometimes it can just look boring and empty, however because there is also a shadow as well as the object, it looks a little bit busier, furthermore, the shadow is contrasting against the surface beneath it as it the opposite colour.

This image is of some railings on a staircase, however because of the way the stairs are made and the angle the photographer is looking at the shadows make it look zigzaggy, I like this image because it has the contrasting patterns next to each other, the actual rails are very straight, although the way you look at it could make it completely different.

This image is of some eggs, a lot of people eat eggs every day so they are everyday objects for some, this image is good because of the lighting used, the eggs are very bright, although they aren't overexposed so they still have a little bit of a shadow on them which makes them look more 3D, the egg box also looks very detailed because of the lighting.

Cedric Delsaux
This image shows a pile of washing machines, washing machines are everyday objects, this photographs shows how we take objects like this for granted, we use a lot of items everyday, although we don't think about how quickly they die out and stop being useful.
There are a lot of photographs of everyday objects that show them in use, whereas these photographs are showing the objects after they've been used, where they aren't in a pristine state. It also shows how we use objects in our every day life.
I believe the two photographs below this also show this.




Peter Keetman
This image is by Peter Keetman and it is of some pipes, his photography uses a mono-tonal effect which sometimes makes it difficult to tell what the photo is. This image is of pipes, however the composition of this image means that it could be difficult to tell what it is. Some of the pipes have been positioned so they are sticking out more or less than others, this looks very weird in this image because the ends of the pipes are a bright white, which contrasts with the black in the pipes, the two colours are opposites. When you first look at this image you might not notice it is pipes straight away, it isn't a very obvious photograph like the picture of the fork by Andre Kertesz.

This photograph is also by Peter Keetman, it is of Volkswagen cars, there is a lot of repetitiveness in Keetman's photography, like the pipes in the first photo. This has repetitiveness because it has the same car over and over, although it is different from some of the other images as they tend to have less objects, so it focuses on one single thing rather than lots of objects that look similar, for example like Andre Kertesz's photo of the fork.

Brock Davis
This image is by Brock Davis, most of his photographs are of everyday objects doing things they wouldn't normally do, so in this photo, some pencils are acting as chopsticks, and the elastic bands are acting as noodles. I like this image because of the colours used, the colours look quite muted and against the white background, they seem even lighter. 

This photograph is of a pair of chopsticks, I like this image because he has used the chopsticks to create an image of something else, the photograph is very plain other than this, which shows the creativity that can come from something so simple like some chopsticks, you don't have to change the chopsticks to create a new image.
Without the drawing, the image would be quite boring as it would just be chopsticks, furthermore, the colours are too similar, it needs some darker colours otherwise its very boring to look at, it also wouldn't catch your eye without the darker colours. 

This image is of a watermelon, it was exhibited at Banksy's Dismaland, it is quite different from most of his other photographs, his images tend to be quite light and bright colours, however this image is very dark, when you first look at it, it just looks like a watermelon in darker lighting, although as you look at it properly and up close, the black pips are actually flies. Flies are associated with decay and death, as they tend to eat decaying things. 

This is an image of forks, there are quite a lot of forks in this image and some of them are quite out of focus, I think that this photo was taken with the macro lens on the camera it is very close up to the forks, it has a small depth of field which is why some of the forks are out of focus.

This is a series of photographs of coffee cup lids, they are from different places that you can get coffee or tea, the photographer probably wanted to look at the difference between different places lids. I really like the symmetry of these images as for every photograph, the lid is right in the centre, no matter what size the lid is. The photographer has also decided to make these photographs black and white so that the colour of the lid doesn't affect the photo, it is just the shape of the lid that we notice. Furthermore, they are also lit the same so we can see the image in great detail rather than with lots of shadows.

This is an image of lots of different locks and their keys. I really like this photograph because of the way it's laid out, everything is kept separate and nothing is touching. I also really like how a white background has been used, as most of the locks are quite dark so the white contrasts with the locks a lot. I like how the locks aren't in a certain order, they are quite messily laid out. The bigger locks aren't necessarily with each other, they are mixed in with the smaller locks.



This image is meant to represent an ice cream, I really like the background choice of colour, it is quite a pastely green colour which is also associated with ice cream. The cone looks like a real cone, however instead of ice cream in the cone, there is a wire that has been wrapped round in the sort of way that an ice cream might be, although the end of the wire is sticking out of the top of the ice cream which is the only bit that doesn't look very much like an ice cream, the metal part would've been very easy to hide so the photographer must've wanted the audience to be able to see that.

Emily Blincoe
This photograph is of food and focusing on the colour of the food. I like how this works as it would work well in black and white because although the colour is what we are focused on, the shape of the food is also interesting, especially the less smooth food. It might be interesting to see the gradient in black and white.

This photograph is of some matches that have been lit. The first one is of a match that hasn't been lit at all, it looks like the process of a match being burnt, however it is obviously just lots of separate matches that have been burnt for different amounts of time. I like this type of photograph because it shows how age changes objects, we can tell that the longer you burn something for, the more burnt it will be.

This image uses colour again like the food photographs that Blincoe did. For this photo, the colours are arranged out in lines. Although in the bowl in the centre they are still all jumbled up. I think that this looks really good because we are able to see how all the colours look mixed up together.

Edward Weston
This image is of a cabbage leaf, however to me it looks like a dress on first sight, the leaf's texture looks very soft like silk. Especially at the top of the photo. This photo was taken using macro photography, I like how this looks because it has been composed in a way that makes it much less obvious what it is at first, you have to properly look at it to know what it is.

This photograph is of a pepper and it is by Edward Weston, due to the way it has been lit, it looks quite muscly with a masculine connotation. He has used low key lighting in this photograph so that the image has a lot more shadows on it. 

This image is of an iron, I like this image because it is very simple, the colours in the photo are very muted and soft, rather than being bright. We tend to use these objects almost daily, to iron our clothes before we wear them so they aren't creased. 
I dislike the vignette used in this image because it is very harsh and rather than making the image darker and more confined, it just looks tacky. This is because it is a very harsh vignette.

This photograph is of a door handle, it is very old and rusty, I like how it contrasts against the white of the door. It looks very old and worn down whilst the door looks quite new, even though it might be old. I like how it is composed as well as the handle is on the right side of the image, rather than being in the centre of the photograph. as it looks a bit less symmetric, which can look quite bad at times, especially in a photo like this where it is plain.

This image is of some balloons that are blown up to look like grapes, I really like the idea behind this because it is a very interesting image, all of the grapes are individual balloons that have been composed into an arrangement similar to how grapes are arranged on a grape vine. This photograph works well as it is something that hasn't really been done before. The image below also shows this as the balloon is shaped like an aubergine with the aubergine stem on the top. The colours are quite accurate, although obviously lighter as they are see-through.

Thursday 9 February 2017

Discussion of Exam Paper

Everyday Objects: They are objects that we use every day like household items, for example, cutlery, or furniture. 
I would like to look into how people interact with everyday objects as well as them on their own, so for example, how people sit in a chair, as well as the chair itself, looking at how people sit at home on their own furniture, as opposed to when they're at somebody else's house.

A photographer that I have looked at is Andre Kertesz, he takes photographs of everyday objects like cutlery, and furniture.  I like his photographs because they are quite simple, although the composition has been thought about in detail. He is a Hungarian photographer and when he moved to France in the 1920's, he focused more on everyday objects like the fork. When he lived in Hungary he usually took photographs of people that lived in his area. 
He relates to the everyday objects topic because he takes photographs of very simple objects.


In this the lighting has obviously been thought about because the shadows are directly under the actual object which shows us that the lighting is coming from straight above, it isn't at an angle, this works well because it has a lot of contrast, it looks very sharp. The light is also reflecting off of the fork which makes it look very bright and gives the fork a 3D shape.

This image is of two pairs of glasses and a smoking pipe, the composition of this image is interesting because one pair of the glasses are sitting with the arms in the air, whilst the other ones are laying on the table flat. This is interesting because it's very simplistic, however it makes you wonder why someone put their glasses down like that, as it could ruin the lens of the glasses. It could show that one of the people care about their possessions more than the other, the pair that have their arms in the air look newer than the others as they are more bent and they are a darker colour, this could be showing how some richer people show less care for their objects as they didn't have to invest in them as much as a poorer person would.

Peter Keetman:

This is a very interesting photograph of some metal poles, the way Keetman has photographed this makes it look like bubbles in a way, they are all different sizes as he has brought some further towards him and some further away from him so that the sizes are very different. In addition, the light is reflecting off of the end of the pole which made it quite white, this heavily contrasts with the black hole in the centre of the pole. 

This image is of Volkswagen cars, they are all the same car although they are different colours. I like this contrast because it makes the photograph quite interesting to look at.






Tuesday 7 February 2017

Mind map - Connected Images

This mind map is exploring the idea of connected images, which is similar to documentary images, however it can also be seen as a technique like joiners. I would like to explore these techniques as I have only looked at them briefly before. I like the idea of layered landscapes, although I think it would be difficult as it wouldn't work on the blog very well, it works more in real life.

I like this style which is the joiner technique because it shows a landscape as it changes, it isn't just one location at one time, it is over a period of time so it shows how the landscape changes which is an interesting way to take photographs.

Mind map - Everyday Objects

I wanted to look at everyday objects for one of my ideas because I like the idea of focusing on one particular object rather than it just being in the background where nobody really notices it, I think it would be interesting to look at the more boring bits of photography. I like the idea of being able to make a great photograph out of a chair or some cutlery like Andre Kertesz.
This is an image by Andre Kertesz and I really like it because of the use of shadows in it, the light is reflecting off of some parts of the fork and it is also causing a shadow, which shows us that the light is shining down from the top. which means that the shadow is the exact same shape as the fork, rather than being spread out. I think this works very well because it is so clean cut, it doesn't look fuzzy in parts where the shadow is elongated.