” Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.” – George Eastman
Creative Use of Light
I have chosen these quotes because they both mean something important and also correlate with each other. The quote by Eastman is important because he explains briefly the significance of light. He says how if you understand light and learn about it and love it you will know the key element to photography. And I think that's very true. If you appreciate light you will get good photographs in return. I have also chosen the quote by Rose because it's simple but has a lot of meaning. He's basically saying at the right circumstances light will make everything on earth look beautiful. Everything on this planet looks great at different times and at different parts of light but most importantly, everything looks extraordinary. Something may not look great in a certain type of light at a strange time, but it will look great at some point and that's all that matters.
I have chosen 'Creative Use Of Light' for my project. I have chosen this because light makes an image. Especially in photography, without light you wouldn't be able to capture the photo. There are also many forms of light, such as natural light, studio lights etc. Light can also make an image in the sense of light can change the way the focus of the picture looks. It can change the shape of focus of the image. It can also change the atmosphere of the image. Light impacts photo's drastically. And it also impacts our day to day life. Without light we wouldn't be able to do many things in life. We wouldn't even be able to see the world without light. Light is much more important than us humans think it is. We take it for granted. I'm interested by this choice because I can do many things with it. I could take photo's at any time of day, I could even take photo's of the same thing but just change the positioning of the source of light or what sort of light it is and it will make each photo look different despite the focus 'being the same'.
“In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.” – Aaron Rose
Ray K. Metzker
Ray K. Metzker quietly made extraordinary and influential photographs over the course of a five decade career. Today, he is recognised as one of the great masters of American photography. Metzker was born in 1931 in Milwaukee and attended the Institute of Design, Chicago from 1956 to 1959. Early in his career, his work was marked by unusual intensity. He was committed to discovering the potential of black and white photography during the shooting and the printing. Ray Metzker's unique and continually evolving mastery of light, shadow, and line transform the ordinary into a realm of pure visual delight. The Museum of Modern Art in New York gave him his first one-man show in 1967. In 2011, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City organised a major retrospective of Metzker's work. Ray Metzker died in October 2014 at 83
In the photograph I can see that the photographer has tried to highlight a certain part of it, to make it stand out to the viewer. This photo is very abstract. I can tell this because light doesn't naturally appear like that in person. It must've been photoshopped in a certain way for it to appear like this.
Assessment
In the photograph I can see that it is a picture of people at the front of the image. In the background I can see that the photo is taken in perhaps a city, as I can see high rise buildings. The picture also looks like it was taken during the evening as it appears to be quite dark out yet it’s not pitch black yet. It also looks like some of the people are holding sparklers of some sort. I believe that the picture may have been taken with a long exposure. This is because the picture is very blurry as if whoever was holding it didn’t have a very stable hand. I can see certain patterns in the picture. Due to it maybe being taken with a long exposure, I can see that the image has sort of lines going left to right making a pattern. Also this makes it seem like the texture of the photo is smooth, due to the lines it looks like someone has wiped across the photo smoothing it down. The atmosphere of the photo is a bit eerie, this may be because it was taken in the evening. The majority of the light in the photo is coming from the sparklers, giving the image a warm toned look.
You can tell this image is street photography because it appears to be taken in the middle of a city with people in the photograph. However it’s a bit strange because it seems like the people in the photograph sort of knew the photo was being taken. Whereas a lot of the time in street photography, the people don’t often know a photo is being taken. Also the viewer can’t clearly see what social interaction is happening due to the blurriness of the image.
I believe the main way Ming Smith created the image is by long exposure. This is because when you have a light source in an image and it is taken hand held, you can often tell because the light often looks like streaks of the photo is blurry because it wasn’t stabilised properly. In order to re create the image, I would. Go outside right after sunset so there’s still a bit of light in the sky and it’s not pitch black yet. I would use a long exposure time. And I would buy sparklers so the people I’m taking an image of can hold them. I wouldn’t buy a camera stand as I would need the blurry effect.
The image makes me feel strange. This is because I can’t clearly see who is in the photo and what exactly is happening in the photo. It has left me feeling a bit confused. I also feel a bit wary. This is because we don’t know why these people are in the street late in the evening.
One of the questions I would ask the photographer would be, ‘What interested you to take a photo of this group of people?’ Another question would be, ‘Why did you feel the need to take it using a long exposure time?’ And the last question would be, ‘Did you plan on taking the photograph or was it decided in the moment?’
The research told me that the creates a blur on her pictures on purpose. The blur highlights a sort of dynamic relationship between the subjects of choice. Also the people in the photograph is most probably black, as she likes to take pictures of black life. Even sometimes, she uses colourful strokes of paint over images to transform or heighten the emotional resonance of the image. I now understand that she makes the images blurry on purpose as it’s her theme. This image relates to the ‘Creative us of Light’ as she uses light to transform how the image looks and the blurriness of the image. Light truly creates her images. The research also told me that the picture was taken on the 4th of July. This probably means that the people in the street were celebrating the 4th of July as most Americans do. Normally they celebrate with a party and fireworks. And as we can see in the image, they are holding sparklers which you normally have if you are celebrating something.
What inspired me about the previous image is all of it to be honest. I know that the image isn't in black and white however I made mine in black and white because it gives each image a dark effect. Another thing that inspired me is that the picture is blurry. Because of this I decided to also make each photo blurry. And they all correlate with the image in some way. The one with drinks correlates with the image because the original image was taken as a celebration and you often have drinks at a celebration. The picture of the eye relates to it because there were people in the image so I wanted to include a person in one of the pictures. The picture with the cake also correlates with the celebration factor. And the image of the city in the far background correlates with the image because the image was taken in a city. WWW: I like how each image relates with each other yet also has it's differences. For example, the fact that they are all in black and white and are blurry. Yet are all taken of different things as well. I also like how each image is in black and white as the tones of the images look good in black and white, especially the eye, the shadows are very dark and and defined in contrast to the brighter areas of the image. Particularly the image of the EBI: I would've liked to have gotten a few images with each of the things in one. For example, taken a picture of people in the city in black and white with drinks or something more closely related. It would've linked the photo's I had taken more with the images of the artist.