Matthew Esaw
301026471
CMNS 325
Image Making Ecology Write Up
01 Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a famous painter-turn-photographer in the 1920s. Cartier-Bresson looked at the emerging photographic realism and was inspired to create something completely different with photography. Cartier-Bresson began experimenting with the boundaries of photography and added significantly to the emerging surrealist movement. Famous images such as Behind the Gare of St. Lazare depict Cartier-Bresson’s dedication to pushing the boundaries of photography in the mid to late 1920s and inspired many future photographers and surrealists to continue to experiment with film. Photoshop allows us to recreate similar images with ease. Instead of having perfect timing when taking a photograph we can create separate layers and add motion or change color, lighting or texture.
I attempted to recreate one of his famous photographs taken at the bottom of a spiral staircase.[1] In order to get the spiral perspective, I drew two lines with the brush tool and used the twirl and pinch distortions. I then separated the image into several layers and used the gradient tool to get the desired shadowing effect. I took various pictures of my baby brother and played with the exposure and black and white adjustments under the image tab. I used free transform to rotate and size the different faces of my brother and placed them accordingly along the spiral staircase. As a finishing touch I added a film grain filter to make the image look like an older photograph. This image took me the longest to recreate.
02 Sam Taylor-Wood
Sam Taylor-Wood is a modern day example of the future generation of surreal conceptual photographer. Just like Cartier-Bresson, Taylor-Wood pushes the boundaries of photography. Her surreal photography often depicts a model or in some cases even herself defying gravity. On top of cutting edge photography, Taylor-Wood also uses Photoshop to create her awe-inspiring images. She is often uses celling cables and uses Photoshop to erase the cables in the production process.
I attempted to recreate one of her photographs of her balancing on a chair while radiating a gorgeous shadow against a blank wall.[2] I took more than 20 pictures of my brother falling and more than 15 photos of a chair falling to get the right photographs for this project. Once I picked the photos I planned to use, I separated them from their original background and placed them on a separate background. I created shadows by duplicating the photos and I played with the exposure and opacity till I was happy with the result. I feathered a few of the edges, tinted the shadow a little orange, and added a perspective blur to make it look more like a shadow. The chair’s shadow was a little more tricky as it took me a while to find the “warp transform” button which allowed my to stretch the chair’s shadow against the ground.
03 Surrealism (Rene Magritte)
The Surrealist Movementappeared in the early 1920s and was very popular because it was different and bizarre. As mentioned before, surrealism was founded as a combatant to the emerging Realist movement in the early 1920s. Surrealism is meant to challenge viewers to think outside their perspective of reality. This open-mindedness sparks all sorts of original thought in the twentieth century. Photoshop helps us expand our creativity, and instead of spending hours behind a canvas, we can spend a few minutes on the computer to create an image of a train emerging out from a fireplace (Time Transfixed, 1938)
RenéMagritte was famous for the “Son of Man” (1964), and other surreal portraits. Looking at a lot of his artwork, I noticed that he was somewhat fascinated with apples, crescent moons, top hats and replacing images with pictures of clouds. One of my favorite pictures is one that I took of Aphrodite’s Rock while traveling through Cyprus. Feeling inspired by Magritte’s theme, I wanted to replace Aphrodite’s Rock with a skyline and clouds. The rock was so beautiful that I still wanted to show parts of its magnificence, so I very tirelessly went about using the lasso tool to separate the rock and it’s shadows. After I separated them and created different layers, I played with the opacity to make the clouds visible through Aphrodite’s rock. I then added texturizer filter to make it look like the image was painted on a canvas.
04 Pop Art (Andy Warhol)
Pop art emerged in the mid 1950s and depicted aspects of mass culture, consumerism and adverting. Artists such as Andy Warhol made this post-modern art genre popular amongst Great Britain and North America. This art form was provoked by the constant bombardment of advertisements in the 1950s. Most pop art mass produces the same image, which is very easy to do in Photoshop.
Andy Warhol created many portraits of iconic American symbols, one of which was Marilyn Diptych (1962).[3] I decided to use a picture of my uncle with gigantic 3D glasses. Being the closest stylistic movement to our generation, I thought it would be fitting to have obscenely big glasses to represent the next generation consumerism. I separated my uncle from the background and played with the exposure and other filters to get the desired “shadow-y” effect. I then separated individual layers for every feature of his face (his glasses, lips, shadow, hat and skin color, etc.) I then copied the layers nine times and placed them in different colored boxes and colored each feature of my uncle’s various faces a different color.
05 Still Life Photography
Still life photography entails the artist to makepicturesrather than simplytakethem. This genre is very demanding and at time frustrating. You have to be very open-minded about your surroundings and have a keen eye and attention to detail. Photoshop is a great tool for this type of photography because it can help correct various problems such as lighting and focus.
Lighting is always an issue when taking still life photos. After taking countless photos of different pieces of fruit I finally came up with a genius idea to take a picture of a lamp. Once I had the picture I played with the hue/saturation, brightness and contrast, the vibrancy, added more orange through the photo filter. I also sharpened the lamp and added a blur to the rest of the photo.
06 Documentary Photography
Documentary Photography is usually covered by photojournalists who gather media for significant or historical events. Documentary photographs often depict candid images of people. Photoshop can be used to assist, by making photos more vibrant and dramatic.
For my Documentary Photograph I used a very powerful photo taken of my friends in Afghanistan. While on a cordon in the outskirts of Kandahar city, two children,eager to speak with the friendly Canadians,were curious enough to approach a fellow soldier. This timeless photograph ironically displays signs of innocence and compassion within a devastated and war-torn country. Documentary photographs are used to tell a story, and this picture really is worth a thousand words. The photo was a little blurred, so I played with the sharpness as well as the exposure. I decided to remove color, add a tint and enhance the shadows, which I found added to the dramatic effect of the photograph.
Bibliography
Allmer, P. (2009). René Magritte: Beyond Painting. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Eodice, L. (2005, December). “Still Life Photography”. Shutterbug.net. Retrieved from:
Galassi, P. (2010). Henri Cartier-Bresson: the Modern Century. London: Themes & Hudson.
Hattenstone, S. (2009, November). "There’s something about Sam", The GuardianRetrieved from:
Indiana, G. (2010). Andy Warhol and the Can that Sold the World. New York: Basic Books.
Malo, A. “Documenary Art”. ZoneZero. Retrieved from:
The Telegraph, “Sam Taylor-Wood: the bigger picture” Retrieved from:
1
[1]You can find the images I used for inspiration in the “Misc_files” folder on the WebDAV.
[2]You can find the images I used for inspiration in the “Misc_files” folder on the WebDAV.
[3]You can find the images I used for inspiration in the “Misc_files” folder on the WebDAV.