Eugene Atget Batch 1

In the third part of the research project, we have finally gotten to follow the recipe we have created from our artist's style. My artist, Eugene Atget, photographed black and white, off-centered, and nostalgic images. He also created depth in many of his photos through leading lines and repetition, with darker areas leading into brighter areas. I photographed different antiquated subjects in San Francisco and hoped to capture the traces of humanity without necessarily photographing people. Showing nostalgia and dreaminess in my images was quite difficult because of the high-tech cameras we have today that capture great detail and produce graininess as opposed to fuzziness or smoothness.

Portraits

After watching the documentary on Richard Avedon, we tried our hands at shooting the same style of portraits he invented. Each portrait needed to have a white background, black and white filter, and a square frame. My partner and I photographed each other with different expressions and conveyed messages through our eyes. In the beginning, shooting was difficult because we had trouble letting down our defenses and showing our natural expressions, but as we continued on, we felt more comfortable to show our vulnerability.

 

Narrative Images 2

In our second attempt to create microworld stories, we tried to overcome the obstacles we encountered in shooting our first batch and craft different kinds of stories. I had trouble eliminating the glare while shooting my first batch, and this batch, I tried harder in shielding my setup from unnecessary light. However, this time around, I found it easier to shoot without showing the seam of the book and giving the figures a believable ground and background.

Narrative Images

In this assignment, we tried to create stories in the micro world by shooting figurines and dolls with backgrounds from books or computer images. We needed to use our problem-solving skills to figure out how to avoid shooting the seam of the book, remove the glare from the images, create depth, and make the micro worlds as realistic as possible. The position of the figurines also made a large difference in the depth and credibility of the images.

Rule of Thirds

We utilized the Rule of Thirds to create a balance between the subject and the background  or whatever less eye-catching object. To maintain the balance for the viewers' eyes, we kept the subject restricted in only one-third of the frame, and allowed the background or object to take up the rest of the space. In this way, we have the subject that viewers notice first upon perceiving but the background or secondary object does not remain completely neglected because it takes up two-thirds of the frame.

Depth Staging

We utilized depth staging to create more depth in our pictures. Mainly, we shot an object closeup and the background would become slightly blurry, producing depth from the object to the background. The opposite of the object becoming blurry and the background being in focus also yielded depth. Finally, we took the pictures in black and white to depict the depth more clearly.

Repetition

Besides leading lines, repetition can also create depth in our pictures. The repeating objects or patterns bring the viewers into the picture to the subject the objects lead to. Similar to the leading lines assignment, we took the pictures in black and white to emphasize the depth created and to not distract the viewers with too many colors.