Ansel Adams essay

Ansel Easton Adams, February 20th 1902 - April 22nd 1984. Ansel Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist who specialised in black and white photography, being best known for his landscape images of the 'American West'. In his 60 year career he has created some inspiring and influential images that have made an impact on a large number of people.

Ansel Adams has influenced me a lot as my talents in photography have grown, his work is so beautiful and i could look at his work all day. The use of black and white constantly creates an eere effect to his images but in a very atmospheric interesting way. The way he has used film creates a slight grainy effect to some of his images which works in partnership with the black and white to create a striking photograph. All of these landscape photos from the American West are taken on a large format camera therefor there suited to be very big bold photos, this is an effect i really love when an image is so strong!

This is one of my favourite images taken by Ansel Adams. I love the simplicity of the tree and rocks but put together creates a really beautiful image. The tree is where your eyes are immediatly drawn to but then you see the huge empty mass of space behind it, this really puts you in the image and makes you feel like your there stood taking the photo. It makes you want to stand on the rocks and see whats behind them! I also feel that the shadow of the tree on the rocks and ground creates a whole other image within this image. The black and white is quite light and not heavily contrasted which really makes the shadow stand out, this wouldnt of been as noticable if the brightness and contrast had been edited a lot.

As we all know Ansel Adams is known for his landscape photography, his work influenced me into wanting to take more images of landscapes and specialise in this more. His work shows how he has travelled around to get the best images he can from the best countries, cities, towns etc. His work reminds me slightly of documentary images as i can imagine them being on a t.v programme such as 'Planet Earth' showing the amazing places in the world that a lot of people probably wont get the opportunity to visit. Because he was an environmentalist it was inevitable that his work would be heavily focused on everything to do with the environment but he has captured unbelievable beautiful landscapes and scenes.

This image here for example is what i would count as a sight that not many people would get the opportunity to see. As he was stood there he so professionally captured the right moment when the waves came crashing over the rocks creating a foamy bath. The contrast of the white bubbles and waves against the dark black rocks works really well as it makes the bubbles stand out. The mist behind has been perfectly captured too, that is something that really makes this image what it is as thats the detailed effect waves make when they crash against something. Not something thats always seen! As i look at this photo i can feel the mist moisture on my face and i can hear the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks, this is something i feel is so important in an image as it makes you feel like your there. Its something i cant explain when i look at his images they just take my breath away, im so passionate about his work.

This is an image i have just come across and i thought it was fantastic! The turtle is happily swimming along and Ansel has managed to capture this just right with the arms both mirroring eachother as it effortlessly glides along. It's interesting to see a difference in his work, to see something slightly different to landscapes. Although he has still got a landscape effect in this image with the empty space of sea behind the turtle making the turtle really stand out especially the peircing black eyes. The eyes are the first thing your eyes are drawn too, it looks like he's swimming towards the camera to have a good look at what it is. 

Although Ansel Adams influences me a lot and i love to look at his work, i havent done that many landscape images myself. I have an open mind about what i photograph for each assignment and i havent specialised in anything yet. I have similarly used film and black and white like him and i have photographed nature in different shapes and forms. His work too me is more inspiring and such a beauty to look at, it makes me smile when im down as it makes me feel like im there in the photograph. This is the main reason why i find his work so amazing as i feel like im there when im looking at the photos, i can feel everything that i can see. Fantastic photographer!

write and fold over task

For this task we had to 'write and fold over' similar to the game consequences. There was 5 different things we had to answer to then create an image out of those words.


1. Write down the name of a colour - RED
2. Write down the name of an object - JELLY BABIES
3. Write down the name of a random word - CLOCK
4. Write down the line of your favourite lyrics - ''DONT WORRY ABOUT A THING BECAUSE EVERY LITTLE THING IS GONNA BE ALRIGHT''
5. Write down a number - 5

This is my final image that i created from all 5 of the 'write and fold over' questions. I tried to link in the words and images with eachother so the photo flowed and didnt look like i had just dumped a load of words and photos together. The name of a random word was clock, so i decided to make this the background of the image to layer everything else on top of. The name of an object was jelly babies and the number was 5, so for this i thought it would be a good idea to link the two together and have 5 jelly babies in the image. I just layerd them on top of the clock and played around with the capacity so you could still see the clock under the jelly babies. The line of my song was 'Dont worry about a thing, because every little thing is gonna be alright' and the colour was red so again i wanted to tie the two together and had the lyrics in the colour red. This was just a small task so im not too bothered about the fact i've used images off the internet as i had to do it in a rush and didnt have enough time to take my own photos anyway!

Snowflake task

We had to make snowflakes out of paper and photograph them in unusual places. We could make large snowflakes or small snowflakes! This task was set because Marie had done a project for herself where she had taken a photo a day with a different snowflake in a different unusual place. I found them quite hard to make as it was all fiddley cutting out small bits if paper to create the pretty snowflake shape. I went outside with Charl and we put our snowflakes in puddles and photographed them after we had taken our own photo, i stuck mine to the back of a students mo-ped. I then edited my photo in 'picnik' and added a few different filters to it to give it the old fashioned look, then i put it in a film strip style with the black strip across the top and bottom of the image. This was just a bit of experimentation as i didnt really know what to do with the photo after i had taken it.

Martin Parr research - Common Sense

I actually don't really like Martin Parr's work but he is an extremely famous photographer who works within a very wide spread style of photography. This series is called Common Sense which is one of the best series of work i think he has done, it shows normal every day things happening and he has photographed them exactly how they are. We are being asked to research a different photographer each week and take photos in the same style as his work. These images all have quite an old fashioned vintage look to them and they don't look like they've been edited that much. His work is fairly simple and is taken in quite a documented style, showing everyday things. For example on the bottom image of the smile you can see lipstick smudges on her teeth, this is exactly how the photo was taken and for this series it's clear he did'nt want to edit out small things such as this. It shows very realisticly how he see's things and how photos are taken but can be edited so much changing the image into something completely different. The image of the pigeons to me is quite boring, theres nothing special or exciting going on other than pigeons eating seeds off the floor but by Parr putting this image within this series it somehow creates something more interesting as it's showing something normal happening and exactly how he is seeing it. 

These are some photos i took trying to capture images in the same style as Martin Parr. I find them quite boring as he doesn't edit his photos very much so i did the same thing with mine. I just took photos of things that weren't that interesting, every day things that were out and about on my journey. I found this quite difficult because i was constantly tempted to re-create photos Parr had done not realising i was doing this. He likes to document things going on around him, people watching aswell seems to be something he works with a lot. Theres a whole series of images called 'Benidorm' where he's just photographed all sorts of things relating to Benidorm, the food, people, sun, beach etc.
Martin Parr isnt someone who i would choose to look at for inspiration unless we were asked to re-create something similar to his work. Not to say i find his work rubbish i just dont find his style my favourite, i feel it's quite bland and i like a bit more excitement in my work.

John Myers talk

We had a talk by John Myers who is now an ex photographer. He went to Newcastle University and used to shoot with a 4x5 wooden brass Gandolfi film camera. In the lecture he talked alot about other photographers that influenced him to create his work in the 1970's. He explained how these photographers made him see portrait images like they were 'in a box'. The subject was in the middle of the space making it the main part of the image. August Sander, Diane Arbus and Lewis Hine are 3 photographers that influenced him for some of his images. He was explaing how he took hundreds of photos before he was happy with any of them! All of his work is highly influenced by other photographers, he likes to create work of the similar style but not the same. He also said that he never uses flash when he takes images, he likes natural light or the simple lights around the subjects. He showed us a series of portraits, t.v shots and 'boring' landscape images.
Landcape photographer influences: T.H O'Sullivan, C.E Watkins.

These are a few examples of John's work from each series of images: Portraiture, T.v , landscape. My favourite images out of these are the portrait ones as they are more interesting and have a lot more going on in the photo. The one that draws my attention to it most is with the little boy sat on the bed, as it's taken in his bedroom is gives us a feel of his personality as it's in his space. To be honest i dont know whether its a boy or a girl? I also like the other portrait because the girl is being hidden quite a lot by her coat, the only thing you can see properly is her face and legs. To me this shows the girl is quite shy and must of felt a bit nervous having her photo taken as she is also stood quite awkwardly. The top image and bottom image arent really that interesting too me, i dont really get the point of why he has taken them. It definitely gives them more of an effect in black and white as it makes them slightly more interesting as they seem older. 

Fuji film developed ideas!

Developed idea

My idea has changed for this fuji film brief as i was really struggling to get hold of models that would let me tip a bucket of water over their head! I had a big bag full of polastyreine balls so i thought i would fill up as many glasses and clear containers that i could and place them in different places around the house: stairs, cupboards, table. This was to show an extreme amount of polastyreine! I then wanted to try something different and decided to photograph the memorial graves in Burton to show extreme courage and passion to of given up their lives for their country/meaningful people being remembered.  

I have finished my film and now i'm just waiting to get it developed and see what the final outcome is. I have unfortunatley missed the deadline to send off my images to fuji film but atleast i have some to show.

Jade Birchnall talk

http://jadebirchnallphotography.tumblr.com/#about


We had a talk by Jade Birchnall who used to study photography at Burton College and is now studying photography at Manchester Met university. She prefers to use medium format film cameras so the majority of her work is taken on film. She said she 'found herself' whilst being at uni, her favourite camera, style of photography etc. She is in her last year and is getting prepared for her final show presenting all of her work. 

She is currently doing a series of portrait images of nuns and is attending their nunnery a few times a week to get to know the ladies better and gain a comfortable relationship with them. These are two images i have managed to get off her tumblr website of the series. 

Sister Catherine 

Sister Catherine used to be an professional speed skater! 

• She has also done a series about her Grandmother who is sadly suffering with dementia. She showed us a short video that she had put together with some of the images of her grandmother,brother and things relating to dementia. She went to do a photo shoot of her grandma and secretly recorded the conversation (telling her grandma it was a light reader)and she had selected parts of this playing in the background of the video. 

This is one image from the series showing some notes of what her grandma did in the day so she can be reminded of her week. As Jade was talking about her work it was nice to hear her laughing and having a bit of a joke about how her grandma forgets everything, she knows it's a series condition but there's nothing that can be done about it therefor it was great to see her coping with it in the best way she could. 

• Another set of work that Jade is working on is of elderly people in an old peoples home. She has had many visits to the old peoples home allowing herself and the residents to get comfortable with each other to make the photo shoots a lot easier and relaxed. She was explaining to us how a lot of the residents have dementia like her grandma so they may forget who she is when they first meet her again. She did a set of portraits of a selected few old ladies and gentlemen in a chair in the corner of a room as she was advised to select and area to do the photos so it wouldn't disturb, get in the way or confuse the residents. She realised after these photos were taken all of them looked very unhappy, bored and sad. So she went round again 'capturing the moment' of happy smiling faces so they could put the photos up in the home as a gift from her to say thank you. 

 

Lucia- a brief paragraph about how Jade describes the visit.  

Jade described uni as a great place to be to broaden your experiences, experimenting with different cameras, materials, techniques and finding a style that suits you. She was saying how she is now finding a place to do the end of year final show and it's entirely up to them where this is shown. This is something i'm really looking forward to doing and i can't wait to experiment with different cameras and types of photography.