Landscape Portrait Photographer Research+Plan- Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen Mark was an American based photographer who was best known for focusing on capturing portraiture photos, working in photojournalism and advertising photography. She captured people doing their own thing in an environment that suited them; she described it as capturing people who were “away from mainstream society” by doing this she was able to take a more interesting photo.

All together, mark had 18 photograph collections whilst being able to exhibit her work at galleries and museums worldwide. As well as this, in the past she had published her work in magazines and newspapers such as Life, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, New York Times and Vanity Fair.

Mary received various different awards whilst being a member of Magnum Photos between 1977 to 1981 such as three Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards, three fellowships from the National Endowment for the arts, the Lifetime achievement in photography award from the George Eastman House in 2014 and the outstanding contribution photography award from the photography organisation.

From the early age on nine, Mary used to take photographs with a Box Brownie camera. She enjoyed painting and drawing whilst being at Cheltenham High School. In 1962 she got a BFA degree in painting and art history from the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating she worked in the Philadelphia city planning department before returning back for a master’s degree in photojournalism at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania she received this in 1964.

The next year, Mary got a Fulbright Scholarship which allowed her to take photographs in Turkey for one year. Following from her trip in turkey, she was able to publish her own book using her Turkey photos called “Passport” in 1974. As well as capturing Turkey, she also took photos of England, Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain.

The 18 different photograph collections had different aims in order to capture the perfect themed photo. One of her projects called “Ward 81” was well known for capturing the strong relationships within the photos. Her shoots have had an outcome of many great things, for example her project called “Street of the Lost” was used to inspire the writing of a book called “Streetwise” which was published in 1988. This book was then developing into a film called “Streetwise”, also added by a soundtrack.

Mary was a photographer on set of various movies such as Arthur Penn’s Alice’s Restaurant, Mike Nichols’ Catch-22, Carnal Knowledge and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.

To take her photos, Mary used a wide range of camera is many different formats such as 35 mm, 120/220, 4×5-inch view camera, and a 20×24 Polaroid Land Camera, primarily in black and white using Kodak Tri-X film.

Mary’s photos capture the emotion and feelings the subject felt whilst being shot in black and white. The black and white makes you aware of what era the photos were set in. Maybe if she had access to colour, she would use bold colours to empathise more emotion. Each photograph is either a close up of the face or a half body shot of the subject doing an activity based on their surroundings.

In order to recreate Mary’s photos but in my perspective I will need models to be my subject, for this I have chosen my 10 year old cousins as Mary uses children a lot in her photos. I’ll tell them to act natural as if I’m not there whilst I take photographs of them talking and having a laugh. This way I can capture their natural facial expressions so the image focuses on their emotion as well as what they’re doing.

Eric Staller Photographer Research and Photo Shoot Plan

Eric Staller was born on the 14^th of September 1947 and was an American based photographer who liked to focus on capturing photos that involved light.

He did a bachelor degree in architecture at the University of Michigan as architecture was something else he was also very interested in. He used architecture and light to create his pieces to photograph. He likes to create sculptures who people from the university praised ever so much. This is how he first started out as a true artist. He then continued his career in New York and lived there till 1991 however moved out and lived in Amsterdam with his wife and son so that he was surrounded by places that inspired him to carry on with his work.

After years of Staller shoing his ability to work with light he was called “The Light Master” in the late 1970s. He got this name by using Sparklers and other light sources to create and capture his work n the streets of New York. To create his photos he shot at night and used long shutter speeds exposing his photos to show more light.

Staller has written an autobiographic illustrated novel called “Out of my Mind”, this included more than 150 coloured photos of his work.

Staller takes a lot of his photos within the streets of New York City, capturing lights darting around the buildings capturing the fast moving objects. I’d like to capture similar pictures of cars creating light in the night sky zooming past on the roads and motorways. He also creates lighted objects by drawing them in mid air, I want to practice this also by testing the shutter speed and exposure. To achieve this practice light paintings test I will use glow lights and draw pictures/words.

Rut Blees Luxemburg Shoot+Contact Sheets

Evaluation

I don’t feel as if I was able to capture I good amount of photos where the orange tint of the street lights had a big effect on the photo. If I was to re-do this shoot, I would need to play around with the camera settings even more than I did before in order to get the exposure right, allowing as much orange light into the photo as possible instead of it being too dark and dull. I think at one point my shutter speed was on for too long and you could see the movement of the lights in the pictures. I really like the effect of this in the photo as you could see the movement, however Rut Blees Luxemburg didn’t incorporate this in her photos. Although in some pictures I had taken the ‘movement’ effect made the photos look blurry; maybe if I used a tri-pod to keep the camera still this would have worked better.

Rut Blees Luxemburg Research

Rut Blees Luxemburg is a German photographer who was born in 1967. She has become a tutor at the Royal College of Art which is a public research university in London She likes to capture landscapes, particularly photos that are taken at night. She has a love for night-time landscapes of the city, especially when being able to capture the movement of the bright lights. When shooting, she likes to play around with the shutter speed, preferably using a long shutter speed to capture the light from surrounding buildings or streetlights.  Some of Luxemburg’s work was used for various occasions such as the London Underground in 2007 and Bloc Party’s Album ‘A Weekend in the City’ cover in 2007.

When studying Luxemburg’s photos, I find that when taken at night they always have an orange or yellow tint, this is due to the streetlights or surrounding lights coming from the buildings. As well as capturing the landscape, within that she manages to capture shadows because of the lights and larg e objects in front of them. Some of the photos are wet from where it had been raining throughout the day; this also allows the light from the streetlights to reflect from them, another reason to acknowledge the fact she is using artificial lighting, not natural lighting. By taking the photos at night it gives it a negative effect however because of the lights used it gives it quite a positive effect. The atmosphere the photos give is quite eerie due to harsh lighting, sharp buildings and roads.

I am going to do a Rut Blees Luxemburg inspired shoot, in order to do this I need to wait until it is dark outside and the street lights come on. I want to capture the orange tinge in the photos and have the picture focus on an object just like Luxemburg’s focuses on a buildings, shadows or roads etc. The objects need to be sharp so that the orange tinting of the street lights softens the picture up. I need to incorporate line into my work, therefore I am going to take photos by a road, this will give sharp lines giving an in depth perspective as well as the surrounding street lights giving a soft effect.

Still Life Photo shoot Contact Sheets

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I was inspired by Laura Letinsky’s shoot she did called “I Did Not Remember I had Forgotten” this includes photos of finished foods and drinks in bowls and cups on the table.

Summer Project – 7 Formal Elements

I have produced a set of 7 photographs featuring the formal elements listed. The photograph I captured for colour stood out to me the most and thought was most successful, I have explained why below.

Colour

The photo I have taken to capture Colour was from a Janoskians concert I went to on 6^th September. I feel this photo is most successful as the different coloured lights capture your attention because of the contrast of bright colours against the dark black background. I think the different colours of lights help also as the glare makes the colour expand in the photo.

The lights are radiant which creates a spot light for the performers which also puts the focus on them. The photo was to describe something about my life or interests and I feel this describes it well because I attend a lot of concerts and the janoskians is where my main focus lies. If I was given the opportunity to improve this photo, I would have taken it from my DSLR camera for better quality instead of my phone.

Tone

Texture

Shape

Line

Form

Depth

Photographer Profile

When I take photographs I focus my interests on nature but in the form of landscapes.

As a person I am looking forward to pursuing my career in photography by travelling around the world and taking pictures.

I enjoy travelling and being stuck on transport for ages being able to look out of the window and admire the view. I love taking photos whilst travelling hence my passion for landscape photography because when I capture the photo it will describe me and that day, giving it a memory. However, when working with nature landscape photos I don’t like to edit them fully as I don’t feel it captures the scenery properly and all it has to give, i.e. colour and depth.

There is this one particular photographer that I admire and that is Adam Burton. He travels the world capturing landscape photos on the go. In his gallery online, he has separate folders to show the different photos he had taken from different places. When pursuing my career in photography I would like to follow his steps. I really enjoy looking at his photos and seeing the beauty of all these places. (Adam Burton’s Website)

Other than being interested in photography, I’m also interested in make-up, fashion and social media.