Web Work #3: Spiritualism

This topic was very interesting reading about, plus I already knew a little about it already. Spiritualism photography is photos that appear to have ‘ghosts’ in them. This is interesting to me, because for the past 3 years I have been a ghost hunter. Though most of the early ‘Spirit Photography’ photos were faked by exposing two or more people, so a short amount of time, then exposing the rest of the photo with one person in it. This creates a faded image of a person in the background, mainly standing next to the subject. Though it was faked it did create a movement to capture ghosts on film. People still do this today, though the technology has improved (Digital) the concept is the same.

One theory on how we can capture ghosts on photo (present day) is that ghosts can only be seen on the inferred light spectrum.

Here is one example of early Spirit Photography

Now here is an image that I took on October 30, 2009 at the old West Hills Orphanage in Owatonna, MN. There was no one other than myself in the area.

Can you see it?

Web Work #2: Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre

After reading about Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre I found that he partnered with Joseph Niepce, which is credited for creating the first photograph, Daguerre and Niepce worked together to inprove Niepce’s photography process known as heliographs or sun prints.

After several years Daguerre worked on a process that would be more convenient and effective, he named this process after himself, Daguerreotype. Enough about history, lets look at some photos.

This is one of Daguerre’s most famous photos, taken in 1839, the photo shows what looks like empty city streets taken from an elevated position, perhaps in one of the top floors of his apartment. The street look empty because of the long expose time, but amazingly if you look towards the bottom left of the photo you can see a man standing on the corner. Its been suggested that this person was standing on the corner getting his shoes shined, one question I have is, “How long does it take to shine shoes in 1839? This photo was exposed for hours, must not have been good at his job.

The main thing that I love about this photo is the balance of shadows and highlights. Very good for one of the earlier photos.
~Friendly_Ghost

Web Work 7 - William Eggleston

I have an overwhelming sense that i need to write or share something containing a little humor. I am actually feeling quite cynical and irritated by the weather in MN right now( started this blog when is snowed), so to combat those feelings, i have chosen to write about a photographer whose pictures remind me of my youth. Okay... to be fair i wasn't actually alive when some of these pics were probably taken( late 1960's), but they evoke the same feeling and look that i now have a great appreciation for... ahhh, the 1970's - 1980's truly great years in fashion and hairstyling :)

William Eggleston - Born 1939 : Still alive and kicking at 72

Widely credited with increasing recognition for color photography into art galleries, when black and white photography was -- dare i say, considered better? ( check out the lady above - she looks extremely PO'D that he's taking her pic. Love it. - but really, the wall behind her...the colors are wonderful- the white of the curb, the contrast in colors really make for an interesting, eye pleasing picture) I think the picture of the building covered in posters is great, he just found something interesting, cluttered and took a pic. - I love it - I'm sure it's pretty cheap to advertise - and I'm thinking it would take quite awhile to read all those. The colors are great in this pic as well, I'd be a bit fearful of going into that establishment - the windows are completely covered in flyers, etc.

Raised in Tennessee, attended boarding school, was somewhat an introverted-type of kid, though he says he never felt like an outsider during school. Studied at Vanderbilt, Delta State and University of Mississippi, of the 6+ years he spent in college - none of them resulted in getting a degree, but during college is were he found his appreciation for photography - a friend gave him a Leica camera and he was exposed to abstract expressionism, luckily for us... another great photographer was born :)

Eggleston's early photographic efforts were inspired by the work of Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank, and by French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson's book, The Decisive Moment.
His work is really simple - almost mundane - he has a way of finding beauty in ordinary things - things that many of us would pass right by, this is what I most appreciate about his work. Everyday, Simple, Honest and Beautiful is how I would describe his photography.

A bit of neat info: He taught at Harvard (1973-74) and during those years he discovered dye-transfer printing.www.http://charlescramer.com/dyetransfer.html ( site has excellent descriptions of the process and step-by-step pictures)

Eggleston's work has been seen on Album covers - here a few examples below:

There is so many things this man has accomplished that there are quite honestly too many to post here - They begin in late 50's and continue through today, the most current I could find was the... Frist Center for Visual Arts in Nashville Exhibition of his work - Jan. 2011 open through May1st. So if you are down that way - swing in and see his work!

These two images are great - what amazing hair - one very "fixed and formal" and one very "free". I appreciate the simplicity of both of these pictures. I love the green color of the booth and the fact that they both have a smoke in their hands - funny and obviously her hair - amazing! The picture of the girl on the right reminds me of the Oasis in St. Charles,MN - They have a counter like that and back in the 80's I took swim lessons in St. Charles and we always trotted down to the Oasis for an ice cream. These pictures are really a great examples of simple things that are beautiful.

Here is a video I found for your enjoyment:)

W.W. 5 Hans Bellmer

Hans Bellmer was a German artist who strongly opposed the beliefs of the new German State and the Nazi party. This is turn caused him to create a project that would oppose the Fascist mindset of Germany.

He created the life-sized pubescent dolls, which was said to demean the Germans and their outlook on what the perfect body or human should look like. It is also said that Bellmer created this project because of his personal life. He was said to have met a number of beautiful teenage girls during his lifetime, including his cousin.

Bellmer actually constructed his own dolls and placed them in a meticulous way so people would get the idea behind them. Bellmer made a book The Doll (Die Puppe) in 1934 with 10 photos of dolls. He was never credited for the book because the Nazi's said his art/photography was declared degenerate.

No matter what the purpose was behind Bellmers' decision to put out this strange series I think it was very creative and meaningful to the right people. Bellmer wasn't a follower of the German movement under Hitler, so he decided to do something about it in a very artistic way causing some controversy. And i think Bellmer had a vision and carried it out even though he knew it would get rejected by his country. I think he knew someday it would be accepted somewhere and people would talk about the very strange collection and his obsession with nude female teenagers.

After WWII Bellmer quit the doll project but continued to do erotic sketches, sexually explicit photographs and so on. Even the this may seem awkward in many eyes the female body is a beautiful thing and shouldn't be seen as perverted. I don't like how Bellmer used teenagers because that just seems very disrespectful and wrong. So if he would've used women of age I think he would've been more accepted globally in the art community.

Bernice Abbott web work 6

One thing I noticed about Bernice Abbott is that she liked to take photos of architecture and urban designs in New York. Abbott's photography was very much a display of the rise in development in technology and society.

web work 5 Ansel Adams

I really enjoy Ansel Adams pictures. It seems that he likes to take landscape and outdoor pictures. If I was a photographer these are the kinds of pictures i would most enjoy taking.

Web Work 6

BILL BRANDT



Bill Brandt was born in Germany and grew up during World War I, soon after the war he was infected with tuberculosis and spent most of his time in Switzerland. When he was cured of Tuberculosis he moved to London and began being a photojournalist. He was a very influential British photographer known for his high contrast images of the British society and his distorted nude and landscapes. The work that Bill Brandt did was a kind of documentary that was uncommon during that time. He published a couple of books that showed his work these books were called, The English at Home and A Night in London. He also documented London’s underground bomb shelters. His subjects varied but he did very well in portraiture and landscape photographs. He is quite famous for using wide-angle lenses and distortion in a lot of his pictures. He is considered one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century. Bill Brandt’s photographs stuck out to me more than all the others because of his use of the distortion. This is something that probably took a lot of years and practice to get right. Another thing that captured my attention was his various nude shots. I like the way he photographs the naked women not as a sexual tool but an artistic view of the natural body. When you throw in the nude and the distortion it creates an even more expressionistic photo. I love the use of the wide angle lens it is very interesting.









Part B)








Not only do you get to see his pictures but you get to see the real Bill Brandt. Very interesting history.

web work 5

WYNN BULLOCK

When I saw Wynn Bullocks pictures I thought they were absolutely amazing. These very artistic photographs had deep connections with nature. During the early 60s he started turning to a different body of work that he called “color light abstractions”. In these photographs he explored the use of lights. He enjoyed his work and thought very highly of it but it proved to be ahead of his time in the resources to produce them and most people didn’t find out about them for about fifty years. Wynn frustrated by the limitations of color printing technology had to return back to black and white photography and instead focused on pictures that reflected his philosophical nature. He believed in finding the essence of images. Although this talented artist was limited by the inventions of his time he in my opinion did a wonderful job in creating pictures with meaning. Photographs of nature are my favorite ones to look at. The beauty of the natural world captured in a photograph is something thqat could keep my attention for many hours. Wynn Bullock had a very good eye for these pictures. I love the way he makes the pictures look both exotic and mysterious. I believe that he is an extremely talented photographer.
































PART B)

I think his attempt at making colored photography is admirable.Although these pictures are very unique I think that his use of black and white was much more interesting.

Web Work 4

THE PHOTO_SECESSION



Photo-Secession was a movement that promoted photography as a fine art especially pictorialism. Pictorialism was the idea that art photography needed to be better than the painting and etching of that time. They believed that just as a painting is distinctive because of how the artist would manipulate the tools they used, in the same way the photographer should be able to manipulate their photograph. The photo-secession movement was led by Alfred Stieglitz and F. Holland Day in the early 1900s they believed that it wasn’t what was in front of the camera that was art but was what the artist could do with the picture. They aimed to raise standards and the awareness of art photography. The reason Stieglitz formed the group is because he was asked to put together an exhibition of the best in contemporary American photography for the National Arts Club. While organizing the show he had a disagreement with some of the more conservative members of the club about which artists should be included in the show, so Stieglitz formed a group that was invitation only and he had called that group The Photo-Secession. He strongly believed that the pictoral photograph needed to be judged on its work separately without including the fact that it has been produced by a camera.




List of members of the Photosecession found in camera work, no 3, july 1903

John G. Bullock - Philadelphia



William. B Dyer. - Chicago



Dallett Fuguet - New York

Gertrude Käsebier - New York




Joseph T. Keiley - New York

Robert S. Redfield - Philadelphia

Eva Watson-Schütze - Chicago

Eduard J. Steichen - New York


Alfred Stieglitz - New York.



Edmund Stirling - Philadelphia

John F. Strauss - New York

Clarence H. White - Newark, Ohio

part b)

Alfred Stieglitz - New York.




Gertrude Käsebier - New York

web work 3

Autochrome

part a)

Autochrome is an early color photography process. This process was created by the Lumiere brothers thus the process is called Autochrome Lumiere. It was first marketed in 1907 and was the principal color process before subtractive color film which was created in the mid-1930s. Autochrome is an additive color where tiny grains of potato starch are dyed various colors and thus act as color filters. The brothers sold autochrome glass plates in various sizes. This process created a colored transparency on the glass with vibrant colors. They were usually viewed by holding the slide up to the light or projecting the image. Since Autochrome plates needed much longer exposures than the black-and-white plates and films, Autochrome exposures needed either a tripod or other stand and was not a very effective way to film subjects that were moving. If it was made well and preserved well the color values can still be very good. Auto chromes were fairly difficult to manufacture and expensive but they were easy to use. They were very popular for photographers who weren’t professional and therefore not favorable among professionals. Although these pictures give us a taste of color, most of the autochrome pictures I have looked at seemed almost unreal and more like paintings. The colors present are not the colors you would normally see in pictures and the give the pictures almost an eerie look to them. With many different circles of color it’s not always the clearest picture. Although these pictures weren’t liked by professionals I feel that this process is very unique and inventive. I enjoyed learning about this process very much.

part b)

web work 4

Artificial lighting is every kind of light except the bright out door lighting. It can be either the camera flash, inside lamps or exspensive studio lamps.

When using the flash on the camera for color pictures it can cause red eye.

When using lamps or indoor lighting for color film it can also leave a yellowish tint to the pictures. Black and white photos you wont have much of this but it might be harder to achieve true white in the darkroom.

The good thing about artificial lighting is that the photographer can control where the light comes from, how it hits the objects, and how strong or faint the light should be. The photographer can also play around with the lighting and decide what he or she likes best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ6bSLqWKU4

Web work 3

Orthochromatic Film Is only sensitive to blue and red light. Making blue objects lighter and red objects darker.

"Orthochromatic films were first produced by Hermann Wilhelm Vogel in 1873 by adding small amounts of certain aniline based dyes to photographic emulsions which had hitherto been sensitive to blue light only, work that was extended by others including Josef Maria Eder, who introduced the use of the red dye erythrosine in 1884" (taken from Wikipedia)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaT3g20nXF8

Web work 2

Charles Marville was a photographer in many parts of the world. In 1862 he became the official photographer of Paris. He loved to photograph landscapes and architecture.

I like his photos of the architecture and how he makes the shapes meet and draw attention to certain parts of the photo.

Here is a good video about him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PUdhjH2VAI

Web Work 5- Imogen Cunningham

I like Imogen Cunningham's photographs, because they are simple and interesting. Some seem slightly abstract to me as well. She can can take some simple like a flower and make it look extra special. She also has some great photographs of women. They almost remind me of images you would seen in the fashion photography industry today.

Imogen was born in Portland, Oregon in 1883. She began her photography studies at the University of Washington and later became one of photography's early pioneers. She has accomplished having the longest photographic careers in the history. Her most acclaimed photographs are floral images. Aside from picture of flowers and some plants, she also photographed some of her friends and family in the nude. She opened a studio in Seattle and later was acclaimed for her pictorial and portraiture work. She eventually married, has three children and then moved to San Francisco. This is were she began refining her style, taking a greater interest in patterns and details. She became greatly interested in botanical photography, especially flowers. Later on she once again switch her interests to human form, particularly hands. This interest lead to her employment with Vanity Fair. She continued her work with Vanity Fair until it stopped publication in 1936. Continued to photograph until her death at the age of 93 in San Francisco California.