What is my message? – My message will be, “and if you observe very hard, the beauty will come to you at last” (Led Zeppelin reference)

How will you show this message with your photography? – I will shift my lense or move my body to take a photo very up-close, and perhaps reveal some pattern or beauty that way. But this time, I won’t just wait for the inspiration to come to me, I will create some inspiration myself, by setting up object in a certain way that will look symmetrical or pleasing. For example, I could cut open an apple and take close-up photos of the texture inside.

Think about what the audience should feel when they see your final presentation. – The audience should first feel confused about what the photo is actually representing. But after that, they should start to get what’s inside the photo and start to appreciate the beauty within. Although I wanted for the viewers to first feel confused, I want their first impression to be a good one, I want them to think “I don’t really know what this is, but damn is this frickin cool!”

What techniques, styles, subjects will you include? – first, my subject will be ordinary objects either taken close-up and untouched, or organize it in a certain way. Ideally, I would like to have some repetition or texture in my objects as well. My style will be very focused, and the sense of space should feel tight, the backgrounds must also be vague, as i’m trying to only let the viewers focus on the object. My vision is actually pretty hard after careful consideration, so I might stray from Patzsch’s artworks.

Albert Renger-Patzsch’s 8 photos

•Make a list of at least 5 characteristics (typical things) that define your chosen photographs (Tip: think about the Formal Elements. Also, what do you see that’s similar in three or more of these pictures?)

1. Three of the photos are spectacular but patterned infrastructures, and they show many geometric shapes and repetitions within the walls.
2. Many of the photos are zoomed-in photos with flowers or plants, these usually show pattern/repetition and focus.
3. All of these photos are thing that you can encounter in ordinary life, and Albert Renger-Patzsch captures it beautifully.
4. All of the photos are black and white, and that lets us focus on the details instead of random colors.
5. All of the photos have a subject of focus, and I think that’s the point of Albert Renger-Patzsch’s photos, to let us only be captivated by the subjects.

•Describe the work of the artist referencing these characteristics (you can add more if you wish) – The style of Albert Renger-Patzsch is either close photos or patterned structural photos, and the color is always black and white, his work always has bland backgrounds, and many of them have repetition.

•Explain why you have chosen this photographer including how the photographer relates to your vision – this artist’s work fits well with my vision, especially with the last photo, I would not have noticed the any flower’s inner detail if not for the focus. The reason I chose this artist is because it’s very inspiring and cool, although it might be hard to get 20 locations.

•If you can – Find a quotation “let us leave art to the artists, and let us try to use the medium of photography to create photographs that can endure because of their photographic qualities”, I think by this, it means that photography shouldn’t be created as art, and the photos should only capture things that photographic and not randomly artistic. I strongly agree with this statement, as I intend to make my photos very photographic and I probably won’t tamper with the photo afterwards to make it look more abstract.

One Photo Analysis:

Why did you choose this image in particular? – I chose this photo because it is the most achievable, not because it’s the most beautiful or more special. This photo was achieved using ordinary item and lighting, this type of art style is easily found in the walls of ISB and my dwellings. The other photos are beautiful and very abstract, but it is hard to set them up or find them, till now I only have one idea of what to do.

What do you find surprising or unusual about this photograph? – It’s not as if this photo doesn’t have any good things about them, the repetition of the shadows are very abstract and pretty, combined with the shapes of the shadows, especially the crown shaped shadow on the top left.

Look carefully and choose ONE of the Formal Elements that you think is important in the photograph – repetition

Describe why you think it is important – I think it’s important because without it, the photo be as dull as any photo. When the repetition element is taken out of the photo, I can assure that the photo won’t be recognizable. Also, the focus of the photo isn’t the glasses, but the shadows, and the predominant feature in the shadows is the element of repetition.

In what ways are your chosen artist’s photographs abstract? – the abstract aspects and abstract-formal elements of the photos are more important than the glass. The elements – repetition, tone, and shape – are more important than the shape of the glass itself, because it represents the essence of this photo better than if the photo was just glass.

What do you like about the style? – I like three things about this photo’s style, the first one is the ordinariness of the photo, which I talked about previously. But the second thing I like is the color, which is black and white, because sometimes too much color and distract people. The third thing is the fact that the background basically has nothing in it, and that allows you to focus on the main subject best.

How will you adapt this style to your own photography? – I will adapt all of the style to my photos, I will turn my settings to black and white, I will find ordinary objects to take photos of, but most importantly, I will place the object at place that doesn’t have distracting background. – This photo inspired me to incorporate shadows to my photos, and maybe even have the shadows as my main subject for some photos.

Revising my Vision:

It turns out that my original statement was kind of contradictory to my later evaluations. So, I hereby declare that I will change my vision. I am particularly inspired by Albert Renger-Patzsch, and will try to take pictures that are ordinary but beautiful. And my vision statement will be: “no need to observe very hard, the beauty won’t come to you. But you can create beauty physically to make up for your lack of imagination, although it is best if you observe it first”.

All Photos (69):

Blue Photos (24):

George Blue Photos Contact Sheet 2

Here’s my selection process: first, I scratch off any photos that doesn’t fit my vision. By this I mean photos that are unclear, and photos that I don’t recognize the subject of. Second, I look at color, even in black and white there is color involved, usually I pick photos that has a high one-part focus. (those with high contrast between light and dark) Then I look at the background of the photos, I mention in my “developing my vision” that I will take photos with plain or unfocused backgrounds, and some photos I didn’t, so I eliminated them as well. I also picked a lot of flower photos, because their texture is great overall and they fit my vision perfectly. If you can see any photos that doesn’t fit my criteria, it’s just because that photo is special somehow, or I felt like keeping it.

Green Photos (11):

The reason they fit my vision better than the others is because: 1. they are all high-resolution – more so than the others – and they all have amazing-detailed delicacies. 2. They are usually the small things in life that people don’t notice. Like the urinal for example, who would have thought that if it’s put in a certain lighting, that it would look so shiny and fascinating. The muffins too, who would have thought that a consumable would have so much detail when observed close-up. And 3, for all of these images, I didn’t do so much fancy edits like I did with my first set – which is my artist’s ideal for photography – but still kept lots of elements of abstraction so I didn’t miss the purpose of the unit.

Red Photos:

Urinal Stand: this photo was taken and chosen because this was a great example of being able to find beauty anywhere, this photo was an accident where I went to the bathroom to try to take photos of water-pattern related things, and when that didn’t work, I just randomly pointed my camera at any certain object, when I found the urinal. What I like about this photo is that it’s shapes very proportionate, and the reflections of the lights are almost patterned. I only noticed after, but the urinal has a strong connection to Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain sculpture, Duchamp’s work is a very controversial art that was rejected by several professionals who deemed it inappropriate. My photo will definitely incur curiosity as well, but when the male student takes a release next time, they would think of my photo and think to themselves, how did I not see this earlier? Clearly, all

Flower: the flower photo is a given, I had to include a flower photo because it’s the best type of “Albert Renger-Patzsch” photo there is, in my opinion, Albert Renger-Patzsch’s best photo is the one with the close up flower core. He literally gave me free ideas to work of on, and flower are the best candidate for his kind of photo because it’s innards are so patterned and symmetrical. But the reason I chose this over the others is because the others is the others have over-focused backgrounds, and overall does not look as embellished as this. When a normal person look at this photo, they would think, “oh it’s just a flower”. But that’s only because a human has seen much of the flower in their entire life. The thing is, flowers are designed to attract attention by looks and smell – in order to propagate – and I would think twice before I shrug it off as “just a flower”, because flowers never gets old, and although it’s a common subject, it’s still a delicacy that always can catch the eye of passerbies.

Camera: this photo was the product of pure, lengthly thinking, I busted my brain think about what to take, and this was the result. Although this photo has elements from my first set – and this photo would have been my favorite had it been in the first set. But, this photos isn’t made by fantastical edits and effects, all I did was point my camera, at a camera, and take the photo. And it turned out very well, I believe this counts in my current set because a normal pedestrian wouldn’t think of looking inside a camera and finding out about this. It also kind of fits the requirement for my vision, since the intended focus is the details within the camera, so think of the reflections as a background if you’d like. When a person looks into this photo, they wouldn’t know that it’s a camera, and that’s exactly the effect I want this to have on others. Also, this photo was the most abstract photo of them all. In this set, I almost strayed from the topic of abstract, so this photo is me back on tract.

Identify areas for improvement for your next shoot and give a rough overview of what you intend to do for the next shoot – (see next slide): next time, I will change it up a lot, with both of my sets, I kind of focused and empathized on the contrast between light and dark, in many of my photos there are clear usage of tone. But with the next set I will focus entirely and ONLY on darkness, I will search the darkest places in Yosemite and ISB and I will take photos of them, with an occasional hint of light. (Dark mood photo is what their called btw)