Wednesday 17 November 2010

Tutor led visit to “Another World” Surrealist exhibition at the Dean gallery.

I managed to get a place on an OCA Tutor led visit round the “Another World” exhibition at the Dean Gallery; this exhibition covers the rise of Dadism and Surrealism, not only in Art but as a complete movement. I learned of the rise of Dada as a style and movement at the start of the First World War; this rise was in reaction to the styles of government and society, the collective artists involved rejected the prevailing standards in art and through their “anti-art” stance they transformed ordinary objects juxtaposing their everyday use with the artist’s expression.
Both Dadaist and Surrealist art use symbolism, insect imagery, dream imagery, automatic writing, painting, drawing and photomontage. I was surprised to see that some artists used book illustrations from a previous age and used them as derivative art pieces to create new montages.

Some of the artists experimented with Automatic painting by placing objects over photosensitive paper and then placing them in the sun, as done by many very early photographers including “Robert Adamson” In a lot of these images, the extreme contrast between black and white made for stark images with intense shape definition. Other used Solarisation, the exposure of an image to sunlight during the developing process, to produce abstract images with less well defined shapes, whose edges draw the viewer’s eye in to the image in an attempt to construct the dark edges into everyday shapes.

I was surprised to see that one of the first exhibits we were led to was by Man Ray; up until that moment I was unaware of Man Rays work outside of the sphere of photography, we were shown “Man Ray 1914” the visual style of it reminded me of the use of light, shade and shape used by German Film directors and artists during “German Film expressionism”

As the tutor led us through these images, she mentioned Lee Miller who I had only heard of in passing at an exhibition on Vogue magazine photography and a single photograph by David E. Scherman of her sitting in Hitler’s bath in “The Great Life Photographers” I was very surprised to discover that not only was Miller a photographer herself, but of her involvement with a number of the artists in the surrealist movement not only on a professional level, but on a personal level. We were then given the opportunity for the group to split up and go off and examine, draw or study any of the pieces within the exhibition. I decided that I would like to wander around and see which of the exhibits drew my eye and made me think about them.

Among the works which were discussed I was attracted to a number of them on a personal level. I was drawn to “The Forest” by Max Ernst as it reminded me of slow shutter experimentation where the camera has been pointed at the lower trunks of some trees and then shutter has been fired and the camera moved up quickly before the shutter is closed, the same movement within the frame is caused by the lighter upward shooting lines from the dark bottom of the frame to the light top of the frame . It was not until I was looking at the painting for a few minutes that I spotted a green circle near the middle top of the frame which represents the sun.

In one room hang 10 pieces of art which are meant to be shown together, all these pieces by Man Ray simply use just primary, secondary colours along with black to form abstract layer shapes where two primary colours combined would produce a secondary colour. However where a secondary colour overlays a primary colour a different primary colour is produced e.g. orange overlay/interacts with red produced blue in one piece, this was not repeated in other pieces where the same interaction would produce a different primary colour or black. This interaction of colours is random and quite eye-catching. In some of the pieces there were wire frame shapes, some random, some organic and some geometric. This experimentation with wireframe geometric shapes also appears in the painting “aviary” where a geometric shape dominates the composition while not dominating the frame.

Alberto Giacometti - Head/Skull

I spent quite a long time studying the carving “Head/Skull” by Alberto Giacometti; by moving position around this sculpture I am presented with two interlocking fates. On one side a cubist face, the mouth open as if gasping for breath the eyes open staring forward into the middle distance. On the other side I am presented with a wide angular cheekbone of a skull, again the eye socket staring off into the middle distance, the angular jaw bone joining the mouth at the chin. On this side however I can see that the skull is locked inside the head and that one cannot exist without the other.

Leonora Carrington - Head

I was surprised to find that this painting by Leonora Carrington simply called “Head”
was not listed in the catalogue, this staring nightmarish face leers out of a haze of gray mist and swirls. Only the nose, the lower eye lids and the upper lip are defined. The eyes, irises white with small dark pupils stare out of the frame locking the gaze of the viewer, filled with anger and hate, the rest of the face and head dissipate starting with the cheekbones into the gray colourless mist. The imagery of the face leaning out of the mist was very attention-grabbing, it reminded me of a description of “DR Hyde” and even now the eyes from the image are stuck in my visual memory.

Salvador Dali - Exploding Raphaelesque Head

Dali’s Exploding Raphaelesque Head demonstrates Dali’s angst at the unleashing of the atomic age with the destruction of Hiroshima; The swirling disintegration and atomisation of the Raphaelesque head shows the artists fear that all creation, civilisation and art would be destroyed in an instant due to the immense power of the atomic bomb. I believe that I can see the formation of a mushroom cloud taking shape through the open cupola of the Pantheon; the force of the atomic disintegration ripping apart civilisation and art. The image can also be seen as a demonstration of Dali’s interest in the discovery of the atom and the scientific discovery that all things, pain, canvas and complete image are just vibrations of atomic particles. He plays with the idea that the image is flying apart as everything is basically made up of vibrating dots and wide spaces between the atoms.

Max Ernst - Sea & Sun

This painting split into two sections, one calm blue and white and the other reds, oranges and black mixed together with a black circle offset to one side. Could the lower portion of this painting be a sunspot on the surface of the sun? By 1925 when this painting was completed sunspots had been discovered and observed. The painting has a texture, within the frame caused by the movement of a comb over the surface of the painting; this comb has gathered some of the red and black paint from this lower portion and it has been transferred to the upper portion of the painting bringing a random chaotic rent to the calm surface. This rent also uncovers the red from a over painted section where a red diamond with a black dot peeks out from the reflected surface like a submerged object suddenly rising to the surface of a calm pond breaking the mirror like reflection.

Rene Magritte – Black Flag

In this image of dark blues, greys and blacks, nightmarish planes fly through the dark sky in a random chaotic formation. As soon as I viewed this image I was caught by the tension that these nightmarish creations should not be able to fly and that their rush to be airborne they are about to crash into each other, the implied movement in the image is that they are about to come together in front of the viewer. This I feel helps to create a sense of panic within the image, which is what the artist was trying to create as he was emotionally distressed by the night time bombing of a Spanish village by the German Air force in 1937.

At the point of time of painting the term black flag had already become a term of anarchy, as it represented a state of no country or no government a feeling that the Dadaist and the Surrealists would have supported as part of their own manifesto.

I enjoyed this Tutor led tour as it helped me to understand a lot more about the methods, principles and philosophies of the Dadaists and the Surrealists. I now understand better what they were trying to achieve when they created their works of art and I have found several pieces of art that I have a deeper understanding of.

Wednesday 10 November 2010

Exercise 25

What: There is no real brief for this exercise as I decided to emulate the examples in the exercise on Hue and shoot a location but vary the white balance within the camera
Where: Gifford Church on the main corner of the village of Gifford, East Lothian
When: Between 11:00 and 11:30 on a bright, but cold winters morning.
How: First of all I had find a good position that I could set up on and where the light was not too bright on the outer wall of the church. The wall is south facing and the sun is low on the horizon.

I was expecting to see that the actual hue of the whole image would be affected by the white balance of the camera.
I decided that I would go beyond just the first couple of white balance settings and I went right through the full set available on the camera. When I returned home I uploaded the images from the camera and did a straight conversion of the RAW image into a JPEG without changing any of the settings from the camera.

AWB - Auto White Balance

I expected this shot to come out with a white balance which was well balanced. I expected to see white whites and blue blues.

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.

Gifford Church AWB

The Auto White Balance of the can have a mild affect on the image as the white was slightly golden with the low yellow sunlight. However the camera worked out the correct hue to apply to the image to stop it being too red or too blue.

Tungsten White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Tungsten White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.

From the notes I was expecting a very blue tinted image, and in this image the hue has been affected by the white balance setting.

Gifford Church Tungsten White Balance

I was surprised to see how the hue of the grass was affected and how the blue made the colour darker and slightly more saturated. I can see from the white of the church how far the hue has been affected and how the blue of the door appears to be more saturated.


Fluorescent White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Fluorescent White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.

Gifford Church Cool White Fluorescent white balance

I was expecting from this shot an image which had a red hue to it. I was surprised to see that this white balance did not make the final image redder. I was expecting the white to be affected in the same way as the Tungsten White Balance and it to have a deeper red hue to the image. On deeper inspection I would see a red tingle to the white of the church.

Flicking between these first three images I was very surprised to see;
that the AWB had a slightly green hue to it
that the Tungsten White Balance had a blue hue to it and
that the Fluorescent White Balance had a red hue to it.

This is effect was the camera using one of the three primary planes of colour within the sensor (RBG) when influencing the image from the point of the selected white balance.

Fine Weather White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Fine White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.

Gifford Church Fine Weather White Balance

This white balance is almost the same hue and affect in white balance as the Auto White Balance.

Flash White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.

Gifford Church Flash White Balance

As the flash did not fire this white balance is purely based on the sunlight coming into the lens. Again this has a slight red hue to it, but not as much as the Fluorescent White Balance.


Cloudy Weather White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Cloudy White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.

Gifford Church Cloudy Weather White Balance

I found it had to see a difference in hue to the Flash White Balance, if anything the hue was slightly red.

Shade White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Shade White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.

Gifford Church Shade White Balance

This white balance is affected by a slightly yellow hue to the image; this is caused by the Shade White Balance. I can clearly see in the branches of the trees that there is a yellow/red hue to the final image.


5000k White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, 5000k White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.


Gifford Church 5000K White Balance

I was surprised to see that this White Balance had a slight blue hue to it. Having never used this White Balance setting before I was unsure what the final effect would be. The final image is again similar to the Auto White Balance

PRE (set) White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, PRE White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.

Gifford Church PRE White Balance

Having used a bridge camera before and used the PRE setting for white balance I knew that this would have little effect on the final image. It is mainly used in conjunction with a white or grey card to set the White Balance which is out with the preset White Balance available. It is used instead of the Auto White Balance to better control the colours and hues for the final images.

Looking at the thumbnails of the images after uploading them, I could see subtle differences in the hues between some of the White Balance Settings. Some were easier to spot while others were quite subtle.

All in all I was surprised to how far the hue of an image could be pushed by the settings on the camera, again this has shown that the colours can be controlled through and by the camera.

Wednesday 3 November 2010

Exercise 24

What: The brief of this exercise was to examine the how I could control the strength of a colour
Where: Various Locations
When: On afternoon in dull overcast weather, the light was very grey and sullen.
How: First of all I had to read the text a couple of times to fully understand the that I had to use the camera to take a “normal average” exposure and then take 2 photographs where the subject was underexposed and two photographs where the subject was overexposed. Each under and over exposure had to be done by a half of one stop and then one full stop. I first of all made sure that my camera was in aperture exposure so at the start of the exercise I could double check the aperture and speed settings before moving the camera into manual mode. I then took the shot and then changed the aperture setting on the camera up and down to get the under and over exposure settings.

I had a good think about the brief of this exercise as I have been reading Johan Wolfgang von Goethe – The Theory of Colours and Johannes Ittens – The elements of Colour as I had wanted to refresh myself on colour theory, something which I have not really approached since my school days in Art class.

I was expecting to see that the brightness of the colours in the images varied with the exposure setting but not the saturation.

I also decided that I would go beyond just photographing a single image with differing aperture settings that the exercise specified as I wanted to see if different colours behaved differently, so I chose four different subjects to see if I could easily spot the differences at processing and writing up time. From reading the above books I knew that depending on the background of the image that the colour would vary.


I decided to first of all shoot a primary colour and see what happened.

Red Jersey

One stop underexposed.

D80,Aperture f/10, Shutter Speed 1/400 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual Mode, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

red-f10

Half a Stop Underexposed

D80,Aperture f/9, Shutter Speed 1/400 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

red-f9

Average Exposure

D80,Aperture f/8, Shutter Speed 1/400 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

red-f8

Half a Stop Overexposed

D80,Aperture f/7.1, Shutter Speed 1/400 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

red-7point1

One Stop Overexposed

D80,Aperture f/6.3, Shutter Speed 1/400 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

red-f6point3

I then decided to shoot another primary colour which had a different hue and saturation level to it as I wanted to see if primary colours behaved in the same way when over and under exposed. I decided on the yellow grit bin as it was one of the brightest things in the surroundings

Yellow Grit Bin

One stop underexposed.

D80,Aperture f/10, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 140mm (35mm equivalent 210mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual Mode, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

yellow-f10

Half a Stop Underexposed

D80,Aperture f/9, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 140mm (35mm equivalent 210mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.


yellow-f9

Average Exposure

D80,Aperture f/8, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 140mm (35mm equivalent 210mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

yellow-f8

Half a Stop Overexposed

D80,Aperture f/7.1, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 140mm (35mm equivalent 210mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

yellow-f7point1

One Stop Overexposed

D80,Aperture f/6.3, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 140mm (35mm equivalent 210mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

yelllow-f6point3

I could see from the thumbnails of the images that the red example was slightly better defined in the range of colour due to the exposures, I could see that the colour became brighter but lost none of its saturation. The yellow example was a little harder to spot the differences.

I then decided to photograph an orange Physalis as I wanted to see what secondary colours would do under the same conditions. I was drawn to the Physalis as I knew that light penetrated the subject and it thought it may differ in brightness and saturation due to it being almost back light. I expected that the light coming through the subject due to its transparency would destroy most of the detail of the subject when overexposed.

Orange Physalis
One stop underexposed.

D80, Aperture f/18, Shutter, Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual Mode, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

orange-f18

Half a Stop Underexposed

D80, Aperture f/16, Shutter, Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

orange-f16


Average Exposure

D80, Aperture f/14, Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

orange-f14

Half a Stop Overexposed

D80, Aperture f/13, Speed 1/60 sec , ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

orange-f13

One Stop Overexposed

D80, Aperture f/11, Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.


orange-f11

I was surprised to see that the back lighting of the subject did not make it become too washed out and loose all its detail when overexposed. I thought that it may have become lost in a bloom of orange white and I was very suprised to see that it retained details as well as some of its colour

Finally I wanted to see what would happen to white when under and over exposed, I wanted to see if the white would become grey when under exposed and when overexposed the subject would quickly lose all detail within one stop and become very bright and blown out.


One stop underexposed.

D80, Aperture f/29, Shutter, Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 220mm (35mm equivalent 330mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual Mode, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

white-f29

Half a Stop Underexposed

D80, Aperture f/25, Shutter, Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 220mm (35mm equivalent 330mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

white-f25

Average Exposure

D80, Aperture f/22, Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 220mm (35mm equivalent 330mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

white-f22

Half a Stop Overexposed

D80, Aperture f/18, Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 220mm (35mm equivalent 330mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

white-f18

One Stop Overexposed

D80, Aperture f/16, Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 220mm (35mm equivalent 330mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.

white-f16

Again just looking across the thumbnails of the images I could quickly how much of a difference it made in the appearance of the colour just by choosing an exposure. I was suprised to see how much of a difference in the colour of a white door could be made to differ just through exposure.

As I was writing up this exercise I referred back to the notes paying attention to the examples for saturation and brightness as I did not want to confuse the two concepts as I had already made that mistake when I first looked at the range of colour from each selection of images that I had taken.

This was quite an interesting exercise; as it verified some of the points in the books I am reading, it also showed that the colour of a subject could be varied and influenced by under or overexposing the image. This means that the colour of a subject can be controlled to a certain extent by the camera and the photographer.