Part 1 Beauty and the Sublime: Exercise 1.9: Visual Research and analysis - social contrasts

 Exercise 1.9: Visual Research and analysis - social contrasts

Part 1

Find photographs depicting at least 2 different social perspectives of the same place. In this case I've chosen to use time rather than location as the differentiator representing differences between the poorer and affluent time periods.

The Gloucester Docks main basin was opened in 1827 and was the terminus of the Sharpness canal. Cargoes brought up the Severn estuary and Severn river into Gloucester docks were then transferred to smaller craft and and further up the river Severn to the Midlands. Coal was also transferred from the Forest of Dean where I currently live to Gloucester docks and used by the Great Western Railway

In my early 20's i used to got to one of the warehouses, Alexander Warehouse which was used as large gym. Now these warehouses have been converted to flats, a new shopping centre opened close by and a large number of trendy bards and eating places have opened and the area has become a tourist attraction. The Alexander Warehouse still proudly displays its name

An example of the change to modern day can be seen in this image below:

The location is still accessed once a year by the Tall Ships and and its historic setting has been used for many period films. Block buster filming took place as recent as August 2014 for Johnny Depp's film "Through the looking glass". In the summer the docks is often full of expensive moored motor cruisers as tourists take in the sights and ambiance.

Part 2 

Find 2 photographs containing social contrasts within a single image.

Social standing has existed throughout history as has class systems within many nations. This image by an unknown photographer shows a clear social contrast within an urban landscape. Its interest how the poor boys are fascinated by the richer boys yet the richer boys simply ignore the poorer boys

Social contrasts are again between the poor and affluent and this time without people, from the buildings the contrast is clear of this location in Brazil:

I found a very interesting article that in modern times depicts the financial gap between poverty and wealth:

http://jaapgrolleman.com/financial-vandalism-human-measure-in-the-age-of-social-media/

The article is a good read and below I've reproduced a few information bytes that highlight how vast this social gap in wealth really is:

"Brands like Starbucks, Red Bull and Oreo have well beyond 35 million followers on Facebook each, a platform we tend to call social media. Each year, brands spend $450 billion on advertising, while Mark Woerde rightfully mentions that only $6 billion would bring malaria under control.

Cities built 40-story buildings whether their citizens like the view or not, and the world’s richest 85 people have more wealth than the poorest 3.5 billion."

Part 1 Beauty and the Sublime: Exercise 1.8: Zone System in Practise

Wikipedia quotes "The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development, formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_System

Adams  distinguished among three different exposure scales for the negative:

• The full range from black to white, represented by Zone 0 through Zone X.
• The dynamic range comprising Zone I through Zone IX, which Adams considered to represent the darkest and lightest “useful” negative densities.
• The textural range comprising Zone II through Zone VIII. This range of zones conveys a sense of texture and the recognition of substance.

The Zone Scale:

The Zone Scale and its Scene Relationship

Exposure Technique

A dark surface under a bright light can reflect the same amount of light as a light surface under dim light. The human eye would perceive the two as being very different but a light meter would measure only the amount of light reflected, and its recommended exposure would render either as Zone V. The Zone System provides a straightforward method for rendering these objects as the photographer desires. The key element in the scene is identified, and that element is placed on the desired zone; the other elements in the scene then fall where they may. With negative film, exposure often favours shadow detail; the procedure then is to

1. Visualise the darkest area of the subject in which detail is required, and place it on Zone III. The exposure for Zone III is important, because if the exposure is insufficient, the image may not have satisfactory shadow detail. If the shadow detail is not recorded at the time of exposure, nothing can be done to add it later.
2. Carefully meter the area visualised as Zone III and note the meter’s recommended exposure (the meter gives a Zone V exposure).
3. Adjust the recommended exposure so that the area is placed on Zone III rather than Zone V. To do this, use an exposure two stops less than the meter’s recommendation.

Each zone has an difference of 1 exposure stop therefore Adams'z zone has a dynamic range of 11 zones therefore 11 stops

The Cambridge in Colour camera metering tutorial is very helpful and can be found here:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-metering.htm

A digital camera's metering system will try to determine a scene's average exposure calculation and expose for Zone V, or 18% grey as many may notice is the colour often inside a photography book (certainly it is for some of Freeman's) and also the colour for many lens cloths).

In my early days with a camera I wondered why I couldn't capture sunset seen by my eyes on my camera. Of course I know understand this to be the fact a camera's sensor is not as good as the human eye in terms of dynamic range. I suspect in the future this may change as technology increases. Creative options were to use spot metering and expose for the sun, and under expose any foreground, or expose for the foreground and over expose the sun. My experiences and HDR experimentation as part of my DPP course would now suggest another option is to take 3 images where:

i) expose for the scene average

iii) then expose for the sun

iii) then expose for the foreground

Taking these images with the camera on a tripod would allow me to combine all 3 images and create a HDR (high dynamic range) image. Adjust to exposure also would allow me to be creative and perhaps on purpose put for foreground into silhouette subject to my pre-visualisation of the image I wanted.

Adams' technique then is identify from a scene the darkest area from which detail / texture is required. Meter this element of the scene, in the digital world I can use the spot meter facility on my camera. This exposure reading would effectively allow me to determine this element of the scene as the middle grey, ZONE V.

The technique then of Adams is to reduce the exposure by 2 stops e.g. reduce shutter speed, decrease aperture size. This then places the "the darkest area from which detail / texture is required" onto Zone III

A reduction of 2 stops of light is to reduce the light hitting the sensor by one quarter (reduction of half the light is a reduction of 1 stop of light)

How to do this in practise

I think my general rule of thumb is:

Aperture

Each change in aperture represents a change in half a stop of light

Shutter Speed

Each change in shutter speed represents one third a stop of light

ISO

Each change in ISO represents a stop of light

So having metered the Zone III area of your scene using the spot meter of the camera which will give you an exposure reading of Zone V, to make the camera expose it as a Zone III reduce the metered reading by two stops of light by:

1. Increasing the aperture by 2 stops (apertures of the lines are likely 1/2 stop difference so that's 4 clicks to a smaller aperture / larger aperture number)

2. Increase the shutter speed by 2 stops (the camera shutter speeds are likely 1/3 stop difference so that's a shutter speed increase of 6 clicks)

3. Decrease ISO by 2 stops (that's 2 clicks of adjustment on ISO to a SMALLER number)

I personally think the easiest way to do this is if it gets confusing is:

a) take a spot metered reading of the Zone III area with camera ISO and its normal level

b) set your camera to manual, and set aperture and speed as metered

c) adjust the exposure option of the camera and reduce it by 2 stops

Of course using the histogram which will measure the darkest black as 0 and the brightest white as 255 will display a graph to show where the captured elements of light register on this scale and its fairly easy to tell where a scene has clipped highlights or low lights. Adjusting exposure to ensure no highlights are clipped is a simple way of capturing a scene and ensuring no elements are overexposed since these cannot not be recovered post processing, but underexposed details may be recovered.

The problem maybe with this approach of using the zone system is that you are at risk overexposure in some areas in the attempt to keep detail where you want it

Exercise

Produce 3 images taken in relatively high dynamic range conditions. Make sure the exposure choice renders as much detail as possible in the brightest and darkest areas of the the photograph

Image 1

This autumnal tree was an excellent example of a scene with a high dynamic range. DXO advise that in a landscape scenario the Nikon D700 has a dynamic range of 12.2 stops. In adjusting the exposure to ensure I maintain the detail of the tree trunk and branch filigree I have anchored the histogram at zero with no clipped lowlights. The dynamic range of this scene is to much for the camera sensor and I have clipped highlights of sky in between the leaves. This is shown on the histogram as well as Photoshop's highlight clipping display in the RAW previewer. As you can see in the scene the highlight clipping is minimal as a distraction and also shown on the histogram as having low amounts of the image capturing highlights. In this instance given the "limitations" of the camera having most of the the detail of the trunk captured is an acceptable price to pay for the small elements of highlights in the sky clipped but with minimal presence.


Image 2

This image has a wide dynamic range (DR) but appears smaller than image 1, the key contrast between the white buildings and the green trees. Had the DR exceeded my camera's range then I would have need to ensure no highlights were clipped in the buildings which are the focus of the image. In this instance decreasing the shutter speed to 1/640 keeping the aperture at f/8 (which I believe to by the lens sweet spot and ideal for a landscape image with back to front focus) the DR of the image has been kept within the 0-255 range of the camera's sensor. This day was overcast hence the smaller DR of what would have exceeded the camera's range with the contrast between the white buildings had they been lit brighter by a stronger sun.

Image 3

In this image I've used the river in mid foreground using the spot metering and then under exposed two stops y=using the exposure controls. However the resulting image of the scene looks poor but I wonder if this put the river into Zone 3

Using Silver Efex Pro and using the Loupe and selecting Zone 3 it has highlighted the river (red/orange) and elements of the trees top left.

This proves Zone system process but the resulting image exposure is poor. I expect that this is because the dynamic range of the scene is much greater than 10 stops.

I the Adams Zone system is a good way to ensure the detail of what you need exposed at Zone 3 with sufficient detail but this may need to be combined with either:

a) images created using the histogram
b) images created using combined exposures

Of course each scene and dynamic range will be different and the intended result related to the photographer's vision, however having multiple options, especially for landscape where the photographer has the time, in the digital world taking many images is not going to be a problem and gives the photographer greater options and opportunities to produce the image how he wishes.

Digital post processing allows greater opportunity of exposure adjustment with such ease. I wonder how Adams images and workflow may have changed in the digital photography worl we are in today

Part 1 Beauty and the Sublime: Exercise 1.7: Assignment 1 Preparation

 Exercise 1.7: Assignment 1 Preparation 

This details my email to my tutor about my ideas to my approach to Assignment 1 and his reply below

Email to tutor

Hi tutor,

Thanks very much for the Landscape Welcome email and for the very
helpful information.

Looking ahead to Assignment 1 in advance of completing the earlier
exercises and performing any reserach I was considering a sublime
submission with a set of images of electricity pylons and telegraph
poles and their connecting wires.

I live in a rural area and many views are impacted by the presence
pylyons and poles. This may be a topical item given that it was just
announced that 4 specific locations have recently been selected as
places for energy companies to invest in England to reduce their
presence and impact to what has been determined areas of natural
beauty by planning to remove the visible signs by burying the cables.

My theme to be developed would be to communicate how they have
impacted the area around where I live yet how nature and human life
has adapted and attempted to overcome their presence.

One definition of sublime is "of great excellence or beauty"  and
another is "(of a person's attitude or behaviour) extreme or
unparalleled". This may allow me to stretch  Freud's interpretation of
sublime to the uncanny seeing something alien yet familiar which is
how I think modern man see's pylons etc in the prescence of rural
beauty. I'd like to attempt to examine with images how man's need in
recent times to progress has resulted in a visiblly damaged
countryside as a result, yet how local people and nature have
attempted, either successfully or unsuccessfully to overcome the
presence of poles and pylons.

My reasearch will need to look at other photographers who may have
presented a theme along these lines, how the public may have
interpreted these images, perhaps look at photographers who may have
recorded their installation.

Is this an approach do you think I can develop which both meets but
also moves further/deeper than assignment brief? I expect my approach
will vary as I move through the Part 1 exercises and I perform
research but this is my starting place which I think I'd like to
develop from. The challenge of course will be how to image this in a
way that fits my vision.

Regards,

Warren

Email reply from tutor

Hi Warren

That sounds an excellent idea; just the sort of extension to the brief we're looking for.

This fits the idea of 'voice' in the sense that developing a voice is like being a writer developing their identity as an author. For example Dickens wrote fiction but one of his underlying themes was social inequality in Victorian England.

With your suggested theme for this assignment you're 'writing' about an idea rather than simply saying 'look at this it's pretty and now look at this, this is pretty too'.

If you can realise what you've set out to do then you'll have made a strong start and set a benchmark to progress from. I look forward to seeing the results.

regards

Tutor

Next Steps
Currently I am looking at potential locations and visualising the images I'd like to attempt to create

Part 1 Beauty and the Sublime: Exercise 1.6: The contemporary abyss

Exercise 1.6: The contemporary abyss

Simon Morely's essay "Staring into the Contemporary Abyss" published on the Tate Website can be found here:

http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/staring-contemporary-abyss

The initial sentence from this is very interesting:

"In the early eighteenth century Joseph Addison described the notion of the sublime as something that ‘fills the mind with an agreeable kind of horror’."

The process of film making is an art and an industry but how often is the art director called an artist

Longinus affirmed that "sublimity" might be found in any or every literary work perhaps this can be interpreted as that sublimity might be found in every photographic image which afterall its what a film is, a series of photographic frames.

At its basic level photography will have a level of the sublime based on Longunus' words.  I think this is true since even the simplest non complex holiday snap will invoke a memory and with it an emotion to the participants in the holiday snap or the person taking it, or perhaps just the image of a scene or location. If I think about this then the logic is sound because its the very reason why we take them.

Look in any family home and you will find a photograph of one or more persons, the image historic and it will invoke an emotion in the home's owner and perhaps even visitors to the home, perhaps it is a young child, a teenager, a couple, a wedding etc

So how true then perhaps are the words quoted by Morely of Joseph Addison who described the notion of the sublime as something that ‘fills the mind with an agreeable kind of horror’. Its interesting how the horror and terrible can be described as the same yet appears as something completely opposite.

I recall as a child or teenager remembering the text or quote referring to Helen of Troy. Homer's classic Iliad she is is seen as having an affliction when her appearance is described as "Helen's terrible beauty".  I remember at the time wondering how beauty could be terrible. Reading further now I discover that Aphrodite suggested that Helen's character had a menacing aspect, her "terrible beauty" and irresistibility.

Of course beauty has always been in the eye of the beholder. I read in the course notes Jesse Alexander makes reference to a few films. I've always been a fan of the Alien films. Has Joseph Addison's words been well portrayed in this series

Aliens
Ripley: It's very pretty Bishop but what are we looking for? 
Bishop: [Pointing at some gas coming from the reactor] That's it. Emergency venting. 
Hudson: Wow, that's beautiful. That... that just beats it all. 

Aliens 3
Bishop "Its a magnificent specimen" talking of the Alien creature inside Ripley

Aliens 4
Gediman witnesses the birth of the new Alien in the spaceship Auriga and says:
"you're a beautiful butterfly" just before it kills him

Whilst the alien may not be described as being as beautiful as Helen of Troy, in the eye of the beholder beauty can take many forms, a female's appearance described as having a terrible beauty, an dangerous Alien being described as being beautiful, perhaps due its efficiency in causing death. Of course Helen's terrible beauty ultimately caused much death also. In this instance we have beauty and extreme ends of the scale yet brought together by their being both beautiful and sublime. Yet in the case of Aliens, an unfavourable situation is also described as being beautiful, in sarcasm, and brings yet another facet to this subject.

Morely says "At the sublime’s core are experiences of self-transcendence that take us away from the forms of understanding provided by a secular, scientific and rationalist world view. Thus, discussions of the sublime in contemporary art can sometimes be covert or camouflaged devices for talking about the kinds of things that were once addressed by religious discourses and nevertheless seem to remain pertinent within an otherwise religiously sceptical and secularised world."

The film 2012 is based around the predictions of the Mayan calendar foretelling of cataclysmic events to occur in the year 2012. Are the predictions wrong or is our interpretation of the calendar wrong. The story I feel is sublime in its creation of fear and almost an end of the world scenario.

Interestingly history is full of predictions of the end of the World, see the following link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events

The Danny Boyle film Sunshine details a scenario of Earth in a solar winter  and man's attempt to reignite the sun by using an enormous nuclear bomb.

Yet if Newton and current science is correct, the world will end when our sun becomes a red dwarf and engulfs the planet earth as the sun's size increases. This is perhaps almost aluded to in Olafur Eliasson's The Weather Project and maybe gives an insight into this. The experience would likely be described as being sublime. The photograph taken and used in Morely's web publication with little imagination could be seen as the imagined start of the sun's destruction of earth.
http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/staring-contemporary-abyss

It appears that one of the popular means of entertainment today is film; it, continues to takes the view of beautiful and sublime to further heights, perhaps as a result of modern special effects or even as our understanding of the known increases, as does our fear and drive to discover the unknown. 

Ridley Scott's film The Martian is at the boundary of man's current technology as the consideration to put man on Mars seems more achievable. The beauty of discovery and of seeing the planet with our own eyes comes with danger and this is described within the content of the film's story

Modern technology, the ability of man's mind to dream and create, and skilled artists allow the beauty and sublime to be demonstrated well in the arts of photography and film. As man's knowledge and technology increase, so does the concept and the meaning of the sublime and how beauty is seen in different and new things today, compared to yesterday and this partly why today's films differ so much from those made in the past. 

Longinus, Burke and the Sublime

Longinus, Burke and the Sublime

Firstly for anyone else and a reminder to me the BBC Melvyn Bragg sublime pod cast can be found here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y23j

and the Longinus wikipedia can be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longinus_(literature)

Wikipedia confirms the following quote by Brody, Jules (1958). Boileau and Longinus. E. Droz: 

"The effects of the Sublime are: loss of rationality, an alienation leading to identification with the creative process of the artist and a deep emotion mixed in pleasure and exaltation. An example of sublime (which the author quotes in the work) is a poem by Sappho, the so-called Ode to Jealousy, defined as a "Sublime ode". A writer's goal is not so much to express empty feelings, but to arouse emotion in his audience."

Whilst Longinus speaks about literary work we can expand this to cover all artistic work, including photography.

So perhaps this is where the photographer as an artists moves away from creating images that are pretty, captures of what is in front of the camera with no or little feeling to creating an emotional response to the viewer of the photograph, or image.

The BBC podcast was very interesting in how it describes sublime are an aesthetic attached to describe types of landscape like picturesque. However it wasn't restricted to Landscapes and this was a very small part of the discussion. 

The majority appeared to focus around space, specifically Newton and his understanding of gravity and the measurable immeasurableness of the universe. Some key aspects I have recorded here in my blog were quotes from Edmund Burke who inquired into the efficient cause of sublimity and beauty. 

Edmund is quoted here with the following that can be found at this website:
http://www.bartleby.com/24/2/401.html


"When I say I intend to inquire into the efficient cause of Sublimity and Beauty, I would not be understood to say, that I can come to the ultimate cause. I do not pretend that I shall ever be able to explain, why certain affections of the body produce such a distinct emotion of mind, and no other; or why the body is at all affected by the mind, or the mind by the body. A little thought will show this to be impossible. But I conceive, if we can discover what affections of the mind produce certain emotions of the body, and what distinct feelings and qualities of body shall produce certain determinate passions in the mind, and no others, I fancy a great deal will be done; something not unuseful towards a distinct knowledge of our passions, so far at least as we have them at present under our consideration. This is all, I believe, we can do"

So whilst Longinus feels unable to determine the ultimate cause for the body to produce emotions of the mind one can interpolate from literary to photography art, from Brody's quote, a loss of logic in the mind of the artist that can create the effects of the sublime

Part 1 Beauty and the Sublime: Exercise 1.5 Visualising Assignment 6 Transitions

Exercise 1.5 Visualising Assignment 6 Transitions 

The exercise suggest we prepare for Assignment 6 and suggests the idea of returning to one location or to a particular view to document how it or a small part of it undergoes change.

My initial thoughts, especially given that was to image the Wye Valley as it undergoes change throughout the seasons of a year. Frank Newbould's work features in the course notes and in particular some of his work for the Great Western Railway where he produced a series of transport travel posters. In particular the course notes demonstrates one of his posters taken of the The Wye Valley.

I live reasonably close to Symonds Yat Rock and would like to image image the Wye Valley as taken by Frank Newbould to suggest how little the landscape has changed since 1946 where he created his poster image to 2015/16 some 70 years later where I believe the landscape has change little but demonstrating its seasonal change I could demonstrate that it changes more in a single year than it has across 70 years.

An exchange of emails with my tutor suggests I may not be pushing the boundaries sufficiently here e.g. meeting the assignment or developing the assignment. One of the comments my tutor made:

"What's going to make your work stand out is if you can take a brief that can be answered to a minimum in very conventional way and make it into something that's about the idea of transition which transcends the expected."

This certainly provides a big challenge but in the same way sets the tone for how I should approach my assignments, and perhaps work in my practise as a whole.

So, my back-up plan to assignment 6 will be my original approach as detailed above as I do want to learn how to develop myself, think more conceptually and excel in my response to the assignment.

I still need more thoughts for my Plan A :D

Part 1 Beauty and the Sublime: Exercise 1.4: What is a Photographer

Exercise 1.4: What is a Photographer

In this exercise I am asked to read Marius De Zayas' (1880- 1961) essay "Photography and Photography and Artistic Photography" and to:

• summarise his key points
• note my response to his points of view
• consider if his points are still relevant today

The article can be found here:
http://www.camramirez.com/pdf/DI_Week6_PhotoAndArt.pdf


I'll list the key points I feel De Zayas makes and my response to each one.

• De Zayas suggests photography is split between i) the observational and ii) the desire to create an emotional response. I would agree with both but I feel both can can blur to varying degrees. Reportage photography can cover both to varying degree e.g. images of crisis, Don McCullin specialised in war photography and the "under side" of society, wedding photographers such as Jason Groupp.

• De Zayas claims photography is not art because art is the expression of a concept, an idea and photography is simply the capture of fact. I think both are true and both are not true. Is it a still life or portrait captured painting or drawing simply a capture of how the artist sees and draws as interpreted by the painter drawer. A photograph can be the same yet life and its surroundings are not static through the eyes of humans.or any life form with the ability to see. Memories can be captured and invoke an emotional response, static subjects can be presented to create an emotion, motion can be captured or implied in a photograph

• De Zayas  appears to say that art and its expression of form aligns to periods of time when the method for expressing for form was current for a particular time period. When inspiration is lacking looking back at art genres can be inspiring. Whilst the history of art is important to understand its beginnings, its evolutions and its challenges photography can expressed to match art evolution but I think even now its evolving and faces valid challenges e.g. photoshopped images, images captured and used to create art like drawings, colours etc even now is much debated. I met a photographer artist, now the course text suggests it may not be good to align to this, who made a living from this practice and was selling images and having exhibitions of this style of art. Photo grunge is also a fairly new style getting mixed responses but is pushing both the boundary of art, it is also the expression of a concept. Sebastian Michaels is an active practitioner in this field

• De Zayas discusses exposure or non-exposure to art can influence the artist. I feel there is a level of contradiction as his statement about one group of people being less influenced have more freedom to express and are not trapped by convention or style. Yet in current times there are even more facilities allowing artists to take inspiration from the past, there is also a much greater freedom of independence, self expression and social media outlets to express it. Anyone looking at the photograph section of Deviant Art will not fail to be inspired by the varieties of expression and individually developed concepts, perhaps created in oblivion to the history of art and photography

• I read with interest De Zayas comments about the true photographer being someone who can possess a clear view of things to be able to understand and feel the beauty of the reality of form. Yet I think are the pre-requisites to be a "true" photographer simply are something created by in an attempt to distinguish, to create an elitism. Did not the works of many artists revered today be ignored when originally produced

• Photography is not art but it can be made to be art claims De Zayas. He also seems obsessed that art is all about form yet I would challenge him to say that Form is just one aspect of art. the photograph like paintings and drawings are productions in 2 dimensions and different to say sculpture or any creations in 3 dimensions yet 2d creations have been regarded as art going back to 2D images created by our ancestors in caveman times. He feels photography it a capture of the truth and not the imagination yet, for his time period regards Stieglitz as an experimentalist which surely requires some stretch and capture of imagination?

• De Zayas finishes by looking to determine which of the following is more important in Photography....the fusion of ideas with natural form, or the way in which the photography matches natural form with expression of his mind

In reflection I think De Zayas questions what creativity and expression of concept is available to the photographer and I suspect that any method of expression of concept would face the same challenges. I wonder if there is an element of misunderstanding of how photography can used to create an emotion. This is probably also due to a misunderstanding of photography at the time or writing the essay, circa 1913

In fairness Photography does not have the history that say drawing does. Elements of it are through technology but all art uses it, a camera is simply just a tool of the artist.

So back to the original question "What is a photographer".  We hear term that Dr's have a practice, yet that could be quite alarming if you are a patient but the reality is perhaps quite close to the truth, after all are skills not developed if they are not practiced.

This is probably why photographers also have a practice and this by design is how any artists develops since the vast majority are not born with the skills they have at their peak. So for me the definition of a photographer is a practitioner, someone who practices their photography with the aim of improving, the aim of creating, the desire for self expression through the medium of photography. 

To be regarded as an artist is perhaps when one has practiced sufficiently to be able to express oneself and so as photography practitioners we continue to practice until sufficiently skilled to be recognised as an artist.

Part 1 Beauty and the Sublime: Exercise 1.3: Establishing conventions

Exercise 1.3: Establishing Conventions

We are asked to use internet search engines, and any other resources, to find at least 12 examples of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century landscape paintings.

This identified, then:

• List all of the commonalities

• Consider the same sorts of things as you did for the sketching exercise 1.1

• Where possible, try to find out why the examples you found were painted (e.g. public or private commission)

Part A - 18th Century Landscape Paintings

Image 1

Not too much known about this painting other than its a "classical landscape with Mountains by Wilson. A oil painting on canvas deemed 18th century. Interesting as this is similar to my pencil drawing with a person in foreground, a building in mid ground, and mountains in the background

Image 2

Mid 18th Century painting of a scene near Arundel by George Smith. I note like the painting above it has a half a tree on left side edge and also a mid scene building and clouds in background

Image 3

Mid 18th Century Russian landscape by Semyon Schedrin. However details about this painting suggest an intention to copy the style of Western paintings of this time. It has foreground interest with the animals mid range water with background mountains and clouds in the sky. Half tree on the right

Image 4

George Innes, American painter produced this 18th century painting. This also follows the pattern half a tree on one edge, foreground person or animals, mountains or hills in background with clouds in the sky

Image 5

Johan Georg von Dillis, an 18th century painter in this image follows the same theme; people  or animals in the foreground, half a tree on edge of painting, mid ground building, background hills with cloudy skies

Image 6

This an 18th century painting by a Dutch painter, the painting called "Castle on the River". I've included this example simply as its different to the previous 5 but does still contain that faded cloudy sky

Part A Summary

Interestingly all the first 5 images replicate a very similar style, noticeable similarities are:

• Tree or half tree on one edge
• Foreground interest of normally people or animals
• Mid ground interest normally a building
• Background interest of normally hills or mountains
• Washed out sky with clouds

I've selected paintings from painters of various countries of American, English, Russian and Dutch and at least 5 of the images, partly all 6 also hare the similarity of my pencil drawing.

I've not studied 18th century landscape painters so it must be a common theme to the method of recording landscapes today.

Part B - 19th Century Landscape Paintings

Image 7

This an interesting image from Harvey Joiner  and many of his images have a sole subject of trees but the lighting he creates gives an ethereal like almost with hints of danger using some great shades of green in this and other images. Joiner was born and active in Kentucky, Indiana USA. These landscape images with trees I find very fascinating and elements are less obvious and need to be found, even just the contrast changes. This is a different style to the traditional paintings of landscape artists I've looked at for this exercise. Myself living in the Forest of Dean can at times see the effect light at different times of the day and year creating a different effect and mode. I think this should be something I explore in terms of Joiner's work and as a potential set within my own practice

Image 8

Charles Sheeler was an American painter and commercial photographer and possibly for this exercise is borderline 19th century though that was the one he was born in. Quite apt though for this exercise as he is recognised as one of the founders of American modernism and this is different from the pictoriaiist conventions of painters born a few years earlier

Again I think the normal rules of the majority of images I've looked at above are broken but still this image contains the foreground mod ground and background elements. Though it cant be if painted based on an American scene it almost looks like a volcano exploding spewing out ash being carried by the wind left to right. It almost likes like an artist's impression of another world.

Image 9

Doing some research I discover that Aron of Kangeq (1822-1869) is considered to be the father of Greenlandic pictorial art, though could this image be described as modernist. at least very simplistic.  Interesting effects used here, a vignette of sorts? Interesting white circle  reflection that is created in the painting.  Aron is internationally famous for the watercolour paintings and woodcuts illustrating the Greenlandic narrative tradition,


Image 10

This images is called Flatboat Men (1865) by Robert Scott Duncanson a black painter and this is of a civil war scene which must have meant it was very difficult for him to get any accreditation for his work. This complies with normal pictorial style with foreground rock on left, mid ground flatboat men and hills and clouds in the background.

Image 11

An unknown artist who has produced an oil painting of what is guessed to be the mountains from Austria or Germany.

Image 12

An unknown artist and this painting has been in an exhibition at the Geelong Gallery which featured paintings of the wilderness in the 19th Century. Investigations identifies that many painters accompanied expeditions into the Australian wilderness. This painting also represents the aspects traditionally associated with landscape pictorial images but I found this interesting as the sky is completely framed by rock, the artist perhaps sited within a large cave.

20th Century Landscape Paintings confirming to Pictorialism

Victor Clyde Forsythe's painting "As the desert awakes". The Sierra Nevada mountains lit by the light and painted from somewhere in the Mojave desert. The unique light from this part of California meant many artists including this within their paintings. The image is plit into thirds of desert, mountains and sky and the light quality I assume means that the distance was perfectly lit an in focus for the painter. I do not the format size of the image more square than those in the 2 earlier centuries

British artist Paul Nash has a distinctive style / approach in his paintings. The image almost split into thirds, the hedge in the foreground helping to give achieve this. Research shows this to be Wittenham Clumps, chalk hills, which feature in many of his paintings and have this same style of painting. This is an interesting quote of his:

 “Ever since I remember them the Clumps had meant something to me. I felt their importance long before I knew their history...."

21st Century Landscape Paintings confirming to Pictorialism

Called Batik Art, this image by Sergey Davydov and is silk painting in the tradition of batik art and "reflects the recent trends of silk painting development in the world – from photorealism, two-layer and return batik created in most difficult painting techniques with special tools, to abstract compositions made with stamps, rollers and melted waxing".

Called "Sunset Snow" by jac whom I've not been able to find anything about the artist but I've selected the image as its still faithful in part to pictorialism but with a much more current feel.

I've documented my views of the individual paintings and am astounded by the beauty and attention to detail in them all. I've tried to mix up the selection with some borderline pictorialistic images to give some breadth to the selection. The style of pictorialism has perhaps gone out of fashion. Looking at the wiki page for pictorials I find a great quote from Alfred Stieglitz which gives meaning to this style of landscape painting when interpreted into photography:

 "Atmosphere is the medium through which we see all things. In order, therefore, to see them in their true value on a photograph, as we do in Nature, atmosphere must be there. Atmosphere softens all lines; it graduates the transition from light to shade; it is essential to the reproduction of the sense of distance. That dimness of outline which is characteristic for distant objects is due to atmosphere. Now, what atmosphere is to Nature, tone is to a picture."

A very interesting quote and tip in why atmosphere of the scene should be captured in the photographic image