Don McCullin

Don McCullin

In one of Don McCullins books, entitled open skies, his Images are described as being serious and shocking by the poet and essayist John Fowles. He stated in the book

“The first time when don showed me the photographs for the book, their seriousness came as something of a shock, not ;east because I had failed to take proper  account of a prior confession he had made. The many wars he had covered, I believe a dozen in twenty years, had , he said damaged his soul, and the scars of that battering were now emerging in these new lanscapes”.

Just by looking at his work you can see that his documentary war images have rubbed off on the rest of his other images like his portraits and landscapes as in his war images he captures the dark moods when people have just killed or are prepared to kill. Some other moods he shows in his images are when people are really run down and look really ruff.

With the dark mood of his war images he features the same mood in his landscapes as they are dark and techniquelly under exposed but for what he has seen these images fit the mood he has seen in the past.

Also According to Jon, Don has talked but it rarely of what he thinks his pictures mean, unlike many photographers these days who, not satisfied with simply printing their work. With Don not talking about his work it doesn’t surprise me as what he must have seen, when documenting the wars he was at, will have been torturing for him to see.

His still life images also have the same mood and effect when viewing them as they are dark and simple with basic lighting, some of his images have been captured using natural lighting but the way he has captured them is the part that makes the images look moody and dark.

For example the image of the flowers on a side table with some fruit and horse has a really dried out tone, an example of this would be the flowers dropping down to almost simples death. All his still life images and even his location images like the landscapes and war images are captured in monochrome as the, black and white makes an image more serious and moody.

Some of his work can be seen below

 

The image above is an a image that don captured of some still life objects. In the image its features some flowers that have the look as if they are dying, this mood on the flowers in my opinion relates to his time taking images of different wars, as the flowers relate to death and in some cases this is what don would have seen when he was taking images during the wars he attaended.

 

The image above is, in my opinion, is one of Don McCullins best images as it has create geometric shapes and has great textures for the background just like the backgrounds to all his Still Life. The image also features Great objects such as the fruit and the water cup. The image again has quite a dark appearance to it like the rest of his images.

The Final Image above is an image that has real meaning and has some great texture to it. The meaning for the image from my point of view would be the flowers are leant over to show how they are strong but are dying out, the flowers also lead into the horse at the corner of the table. The fruit in the image in my opinion is there to make the image look a little more homely. The table on which the objects are placed on makes the images texture as it gives great shadows and an understanding of where the light will have been when Don captured the image.

As a hole I find Don McCullins Images an enjoy to look at and view but also an massive inspiration to my own work, as upto now all my images have been well lite and have had quite a lot of light and high keyness to them, were as in these images they are quite dark and moody which in some cases makes the image stand out more and makes the image look more impressive.

 

Task 1 David Bailey

David Bailey was born on the 2nd January,1938 and is a celebrated and famous photographer.

Born in London, England, he taught himself photography, before serving with the Royal Air Force in Malaysia in 1957. In 1959 he became a photographic assistant at the John French studio before being contracted as a fashion photographer for Vogue magazine. He also did a large amount of freelance work.

Along with Terence Donovan, he captured, and in many ways helped create the Swinging London of the 1960s: a culture of high fashion and celebrity chic. Both photographers socialised with actors, musicians and royalty, and found themselves elevated to celebrity status. Together, they were the first real celebrity photographers.

The Swinging London scene was aptly reflected in his Box of Pin-Ups (1964): a box of poster-prints of 1960s celebrities and socialites including Terence Stamp, The Beatles, and notorious East End gangsters The Kray Twins. The box was an unusal and unique commercial release, and it reflected the changing status of the photographer that one could sell a collection of prints in this way. (The strong objection to the presence of the Krays on the part of Lord Snowdon was the major reason no American edition of the "Box" ever appeared, nor a British second edition issued.)

In 1966, the movie Blowup was made. The film concerned itself with the work (and sexual perks) of a London fashion photographer who was largely based on Bailey.

As well as fashion photography, Bailey has been responsible for record album sleeve art, for performers including The Rolling Stones and Marianne Faithfull. He has also directed several television commercials and documentaries.

Bailey has married four times: in 1960 to Rosemary Bramble, in 1967 to the actress Catherine Deneuve (divorced 1972), in 1975 to the model Marie Helvin and in 1986 to the actress Catherine Dyer to whom he is married as of 2004. He was awarded the CBE in 2001.

He is an inspiration to me as he has shot many products in Fashion and Portraiture. However he mainly shoots things that are around the genre of Fashion.

Bailey also took shots for the famous fashion magazine Vogue. When he set up and even took an image for the front cover of the magazine he had a particular style in which he took the shot as the final images for the cover were always of the model and close up not showing the hole body. They would show anything above the hip to the top of the head. An example of which can be seen below 

Bailey has also had many books published with his work in displaying his passion for photography. When creating these books he worked all over the world with different Photographers. The most well known person who he has worked with is Rankin the famous fashion photographer. When Bailey and Rankin worked together they created a book, this was around 8 years ago in 2003 when the book was created, entitled Bailey/Rankin Down Under. A list of his books that he has had published are below 

Box of Pin-Ups, 1964


Goodbye Baby & Amen, 1969


Warhol, 1974


Beady Minces, 1974


Papua New Guinea, 1975


Mixed Moments, 1976


Trouble and Strife, 1980


Bailey NW1, 1982


Black & White Memories, 1983


Nudes 1981-1984,


Imagine, 1985


If We Shadows, 2001


The Lady is a Tramp, 1995


Rock & Roll Heroes, 1997


Archive One, 1999 (also titled The Birth of the Cool for USA)


Chasing Rainbows, 2001


Art of Violence, Kate Kray & David Bailey, 2003 (also titled as Diamond Geezers)


Bailey/Rankin Down Under, 2003


Archive Two: Locations, 2003


Bailey's Democracy, 2005)


Havana, 2006
NY JS DB 62, 2007


Pictures That Mark Can Do, 2007


Is That So Kid, 2008


David Bailey: 8 Minutes: Hirst & Bailey, 2009 With Damien Hirst

EYE, 2009


Flowers, Skulls, Contacts, 2010


British Heroes in Afghanistan, 2010

Task 1 Imogen Cunningham

Imogen Cunningham

Cunningham, first name Imogen was born in 1883 and past away on 1976, and was an American photographer and artist
From bold, evocative nudes to starkly beautiful still lifes, Imogen Cunningham's impressive body of work has garnered her worldwide acclaim. One of the first women to make her living as a photographer, Cunningham consistently experimented with a wide range of techniques during her amazing career, which spanned seven full decades.
She set trends decades ahead of others; Cunningham was pointing her lens at pregnant nudes eons before Annie Liebovitz focused in on Demi Moore for the cover of Vanity Fair. An idol of photography students and a paragon of her professional colleagues, Cunningham amassed portfolios that virtually encompassed the exploits of photography in the twentieth century.
One of ten children born in Portland, Oregon, Cunningham was a chemistry major whose first job was in the studio of Edward Curtis. After eight years there, she went to Germany on a scholarship, returning to Seattle in 1910 and establishing her own studio. She had her first solo show in Brooklyn, New York, in 1912.
Starting in the 1920s, she began making sharply focused, close up studies of plant life and unconventional views of industrial structures and modern architecture. Concerned with light, form, and abstract pattern, these photographs established her as one of the pioneers of modernist photography on the West Coast. In the 1930s, she joined the legendary San Francisco collective f/64 with Ansel Adams and others.
Some of her best known portraits were a 1931 series of the dancer Martha Graham for Vanity Fair and others of the actors Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant. She was prominently featured in the landmark 1937 Museum of Modern Art show "Photography 1839-1937." She continued to work voraciously as she raised three sons and maintained friendships with such contemporaries as Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Minor White, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and others. She shot on the street and in the studio. In the 1950s she photographed the Beats and in the '60s the Flower Power generation and Haight Ashbury scene.
At age 87, she received a Guggenheim fellowship to print many of her old negatives. At the same time, she was taking a public stand against the war in Vietnam. At age 92, she started her last major project, a book of images of people over 90; it was published posthumously.
She will go down in the annals of the medium as one who brought wit, originality, and freshness to photography decade after decade after decade. She was a true American original. 

 

The image above was captured by Cunningham and has some real inspiration for my own idea’s in my specialism. The element in the image is a flower’s pettle captured close up. The image has harsh lines and shadows suggesting the lighting he used to capture the image was harsh.

All the information I have used for this task has come from the masters of photography website under the subheading of articles.

Task 1 Irving Penn

Irving Penn

“Irving Penn was the last exponent of the aristocratic concept of fashion photography. He was sent to Paris by Vogue in 1950 to photograph the latest collection. The images seemed simple enough, but the representation of fashion was subordinate to the expression of the photographer's personal viewpoint. Irving Penn, like Richard Avedon, operated simultaneously in another branch of commercial photography - advertising - and in his published albums he mixed commissioned images with others produced as part of more personal projects. The result was that his approach to fashion photography was shot through by that ambiguity which turns a commercial snapshot into a creative moment.
The apparent simplicity of Irving Penn's compositions conceals a formal complexity. It is the result of the particular elegance of the model's outline, of the abstract interplay of lines and shapes, of empty and filled space. Irving Penn's deliberate aim was to reinstate fashion photography into the history of painting. "It has been helpful, in orientation," he wrote, "to think of myself, a contemporary fashion photographer, as stemming directly from painters of fashion back through the centuries." If Irving Penn's idea of the existence of a pictorial category involving "fashion painters" was somewhat inexact, it did at least allow him to treat his own commercial activity with the free and disinterested attitude of the painter.
This evolution of fashion photography into a means of artistic self expression would become particularly obvious in the 1970s. Greatly assisted by the unusual physique of his favorite model (Lisa Fonssagrives, who was also his wife), Irving Penn seemed to consider each photograph to be like a portrait which interpreted freely the conventions of pictorial photography - to such an extent that he made little distinction between work in the studio and the more experimental craft of darkroom and printing techniques. Stage props are usually absent from his photographs.
They are posed against a plain paper backdrop and translate his perception of a unique moment. In his work, a simple photograph constitutes a personal vision, in which the outline, the gradation of tones, and contrasts, become the trademark of a way of looking which gives form to the world.”

The image above is an image that has been captured by Penn and shows a type or sort of theme that I am going to shoot for my specialism of Product but in particular Food Photography. In the same year that this image was captured Penn was capturing these images but along with portrait images of Fashion people such as George Nathan were the models. The Food images at the time were also breaking the boundary for Penn as they where captured in color. In my opinion with him capturing Portraits and food at the same time the question has to be asked was the food photography images practice attempts for his feature portrait pictures.

All information on Irving Penn has come from The masters of Photography Website in particular
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/P/penn/penn_articles2.html

Task 3 Historical and Contempary Food Photographers continued

James Callaghan is a photographer who specialises in product and automotive image making. All his work is fasinating to look at, as the images he takes are unusual to look at espicially when it comes to what he places in the images to make the interesting. For example the image of the car that he has done for the Car company Bently contains many different cameras at different positions. The idea in my opinion is to show how famous the car can become.

The images main genre is product but Callaghan has another type within the image he has captured, which is Press photography. You can see this from the way the camera’s surround the car, almost if it was to suggest that the camera’s were held by paparazzi and the car is so famous that everyone needs shot of it just like when celebrated are around and about in the world.

The main viewpoint of which the image has been captured is about a 45 degree angle. With the image been captured in this position it has allowed Callaghan to capture the image with all the camera’s in the scene. The other view point for the image is from each LCD screen on the back of the camera, with this in mind it helps your eye’s vocal point to move around the image as you are look at the camera you don’t loose the thought of the main subject which is the car which is on the back of the camera on the LCD screen.

The colours for the image are simple but effective to look at as the image features a white car with black camera’s. The only real colour that can bee found in the image is the light from the camera’s in the image or from the pictures on the back of the camera’s in the image. The only colour that I find is a little distracting in the image is the green light on the back of the flash gun on the camera to the right of the image. Most of this images also contain the same colour style even in his portraits. One of his portrait images can be seen below.

When you study the image and look into the view on connotation you first have to ask why has James Callghan taken the image with camera’s in and why has he created the image with 2 genres. The first genre which is the main one is product, as the car is meant to be the main element of the image. The second genre is press. This genre is created by the way the camera’s surround the image.

Task 2 Historical and Contempary Food Photographers

The image above is an image captured by the Famous Historical Photographer Irving Penn. The image is named Salad Ingredients and was captured in New York in 1947.

In the image you can see food, in particular things that would make a salad like the lettuce and the lemon juice. There are also herbs and spices in the image, which have been placed around the spoons. There is also a texture in the image, which sits underneath all of the food. You can see this particular in the right of the image. 

The main viewpoint of which the image has been captured is directly above. With the image been captured like this it has been made easier to see the face that is being created in the image. If the image was captured from a 45-degree angle or just generally lower down you would not be able to pick the face out of the image as easy.

The colours for the image are unusual in this series he created as they are all in full colour and not in black and white. Penn, before colour came along and in some cases when it was on the go, still took images in black and white as he preferred it as it showed a greater understanding to an image in that form.

When you study the image and look into the view on connotation you first have to ask why has Irving Penn taken the salad apart to create the final and image, and why didn’t he leave the salad as one piece for the final image.

When you take a step back from the image it slightly shows a face being created with in it, as the lemon in the center of the image acts as the nose, the sources on the spoons act as eyes and the lettuce in the top part of the image acts as the hairstyle.

The image is also similar to one of the photographs that he captured in the same year, which contained food. The image Still life with Watermelon has the same over all effect when you take a step back and look at it as it contains a face again, as the watermelon acts as the smile on a face and the bowl of fruit acts as the over all style of a face with grapes places onto of the bowl to act as hair. This image can be seen below

In the same year Penn was capturing these images he was also capturing portrait images of Fashion people such as George Nathan. The Food images at the time were also breaking the boundary for Penn as they where captured in color. In my opinion with him capturing Portraits and food at the same time the question has to be asked was the food photography images practice attempts for his feature portrait pictures.

 

Still Life Presentation