edward weston - mushroom (p)

Edward Weston

• born in  Illinois in 1886
• got his first camera when he was sixteen of his father
• first images were of his aunt farm and the parks near by
• 1906 got a job as a itinerant photographer
• began formal training in photography after realising the importance this would have on his work
• had interest and ability to use lighting and poses to bring out the best in a subject
• the term pictorialism was a style of fine art photography Weston is termed with
• Between 1927 and 1930, Weston made a series of monumental close-ups of seashells, peppers, and halved cabbages, mushrooms.

It is this series I'm interesting in.

• became on of the founding member of the Group f/64 in 1932 with Ansel Adams, Willard Van Dyke, Imogen Cunningham and Sonya Noskowiak.
• Weston became the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship for experimental work in 1936.
• Weston began experiencing symptoms of Parkinson’s disease in 1946 and in 1948 shot his last photograph of Point Lobos.
• died in 1958 at his home and his ashes were were scattered into the Pacific Ocean at Pebbly Beach at Point Lobos.

 I think was a nice touch considering his last photograph was of Point Lobos after getting his illness.

While Edward Weston has a catalogue of images all worthy to be highlighted or looked at, his black and white still lifes are the ones I'm looking into this time around. Firstly the images of the mushrooms, are the ones I find of interest, because I myself find I'm captivated with this subject matter also. 

The up close and in depth images I feel are giving a real basic look are what for many is a uninteresting subject but also gives a true aesthetic beauty. These images highlight the texture, form and shape by using lighting, composition and background. 

Looking at the above image, I like how the gills have real detail. They look like their almost dancing.  The shadows and highlights and cropping help to create that of an interesting image.

Here are some of the photos I've changed to black and white.. while some work really well I feel that the filter from colour does take away a lot of the beauty I'd seen in the image on site.. 

zoomed in from the image below. so soft and beautiful. 

had the background been all black I think the mushroom would of been highlighted better. I find the scales on the top get lost a little in this image.

I feelif I had set out to take photographs in black and white in the first place, the images could have worked out a lot better and stronger. I didnt think about compostion, light or texture etc. I just took a snap at a subject matter I found of interest. something to consider!

My colour copies 

Sources

 http://edward-weston.com/edward-weston/
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/photography/pictorialism.htm

Steve McCurry (P)

Just having a quick look at his website gives me the wow factor. The colour, energy and variety of his work is unrivaled. For me the work gives a human element and a sense of time and space. The portraits are so clear and the people in them stir your interest. Silent imagery yet alive as he brings different cultures together with the one thing we all have in common. Us -life-Human.

The below images fall into the eyes category as well as portrait

Theme - giving the subject a theme is something I've found works really well. It was while doing photography named Abandoned that I first came to realise this. My friends and family also felt happy to point out viewpoints and ideas of the things they seen as abandoned.

Here were some of them we took

Below McCurry titled some of his images from his travels as Sleep. They show different cultures and places and yet bring together the one subject that links them altogether. The images are beautiful, clear and silent. 

In real life McCurry wasn't afraid of conflicts, trauma and hardship 

when bigger image it really hits you on a different level.

I just love the nature of this work and the travelling he's done. A life lived. 

Sources

https://stevemccurry.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Girl

www.googlesearch/images/stevemccurryicons

olive edis

Olive Edis

I started off looking into War Photographers and came across the name of Olive Edis. Researching more I learned that she was more than just a War Photographer who in 1918, was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to photograph a women’s war role/work in Europe. (manly France and Belgium 1918)
This made her the first British woman to be commissioned as an official war artist, and only the 5th official photographer to visit Europe to cover WW1.

Many of these photographs, would have been taken using a large glass-plate camera. These camera's would have been heavy to transport and the negatives delicate.

I find these images beautiful in the sense of the detail and light. I like the fact that a moment in time is captured and how we can learn different things about the images. The clothes and fashion the technology or lack of. The hospital beds being so close together and the conditions the soldiers or wounded had to endure etc. I wonder how long it took Edis to decide the correct composition to get the best outcome. How well did she get to know the people in the images and if they were happy enough to be photographed?  

I believe she also kept a diary or her travels. While detailing accounts of the journey and the effect of war she recorded the beginnings of the post-war reconstruction. As well as the help being given to the large numbers of desperate, displaced people.

At this time being a female photographer would have been rare, not to mention one travelling around Europe detailing the account of war.

 This trip clearly illustrates the changes in the role of women in British society that occurred as a result of the war. 

If however, you look at another man photographer who worked in the same time frame, you'll find a different picture of war altogether

Ernest Brooks,  (Lieutenant)

First Offical Officer and probably the best known. Brooks was known to sometimes set up scenes of the men in action, but also took images during the action. Many of his images did have to be censored.  Quote "His work was noted as being characterised by a "conscious seeking after a publishable photograph",

 A man on the front line and one with nerve nevertheless. His work of the silhouette scene became famous. The scenes that show soldiers walking along a ridge against the light were used to highlight the unknown individual soldiers of the war. I feel this works to illustrate the anonymous heroes of the war. Appropriate really looking back for a historical point of  view.

From these two artist's alone you can see the different conditions the male and female photographers lived. The woman I feel was more protected and safe zoned. 

The Daily Mirror paper, did try to set up a newspaper months before this war.  The paper was to be images for women by women. A radical and costly gamble that then left the paper in financial losses. 

Do you think the editor thought that women being home carers or illiterate needed a paper that gave a basic understanding of the world, from a womens point of view? Or did/would it just fill it with the selling items of the day for the home.

 Propaganda images also maybe, to help shout the cause on every level. Men, women and children and get support from backgrounds of everyone's level.. either way a change in women's role and priority thinking.

After the fall in sales the papers editor Alfred Harmsworth did realise the importance and popularity of the pictorial journal - and so this became the first photographic daily paper. The kind of paper were used to reading today .

More facts about Olive Edis from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Edis

•  took up photography in 1900, after being given her first camera in 1900 by her cousin Caroline 

•      successful business woman who, throughout her career, owned several studios in London and East Anglia

• one of the first women to adopt the autochrome process professionally

• was commissioned to create advertising photographs for the Canadian Pacific Railway and her autochromes of this trip to Canada are believed to be some of the earliest colour photographs of that country.

• if she felt one side of the photograph was too dark she would paint the negative with pigment to make it lighter

• Edis photographed many influential figures of early 20th century society

• first women to be accepted as a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205194690
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/photographys-era-of-glass-plate-negatives/
https://oliveedisproject.wordpress.com/about-olive-edis/
http://ww1photos.mirror.co.uk/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Brooks_(photographer)
ernest brooks war photographer- google images

betty woodman pottery and thoughts

Beginning her career in the 1950's Woodman is known as a production potter. Her work is best known for it vibrant colour palette and painterly style. 

Below her pillow pitcher's are a great source of inspiration to me. The shape and handles more so than the colours used. After trying out clay for the first time I really relate to the cylinder form being pushed together. With the spouts and handles added also. My own work I think has a similar feel. For me the body and the bringing together parts to form another body or a piece is something that feels natural to me. Like the cells and nature of life itself. 

I read the inspirational work of Oribe pottery (style of Japanese pottery that first appeared in the sixteenth century), Tang Dynasty Pottery were a source of inspiration to Woodman.The painter and artist's like Matisse, Picasso and Bonnard too.. I get a sense of real play and love of the medium from her work. Her work really does bring out a painterly form and I like how expressive it is. The lines and glazes seem to bring alive the pieces.

Other works

My works so far.... 

 I was trying to understand how the clay worked and felt rather than a finished design...

Sources of info :

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oribe_ware

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jan/17/betty-woodman-obituary