What is my message? – my message will be “colors are mere distractions, true beauty lies in darkness”, which means I will take dark mood photos. Because in my last two sets I realized that color is actually a major distraction in terms of if it resonates with other surrounding colors or not.
How will you show this message with your photography? – I will take photos not necessarily in black and white – though I might – but more importantly I will take photos in dark environments and lessen the exposure effect to the lowest point possible. I’ll also be sure to have light subjects in my photos so that it won’t be just a plain photo of the black color.
Think about what the audience should feel when they see your final presentation. – when they see it, they have to feel depressed or feel like they just watch the new batman or something, perhaps inspired to take some dark mood photos themselves when they have the chance.
What techniques, styles, subjects will you include? – I will the exposure effect to make the photo darker than it is. Ideally, the photos I want to take should be very shape-tone related, since all of the elaborate details and textures and repetitions will be camouflaged by the darkness or the shadows, I want to make a broad outlines and little to no detail. My photos will also be taken from a long distance, with the exception of taking a photo of a dark object with bright background.
O Winston Link’s 8 photos:
•Make a list of at least 5 characteristics (typical things) that define your chosen photographs
- All of the photos are taken at night and thus have the dark mood (tone)
- All photo includes either trains, cars and houses – reflect on artist’s personal interests
- They are all photos of landscapes, no close up photos. And usually they have layers of backgrounds.
- Very bright contrast – choice of color, because if their isn’t a contrast then the structure (shapes) wouldn’t show at all
- Very interesting placement and display of smoke/steam, very good addition to dark environment. Also the smoke is also a bit like a pattern/repetition of it’s own.
•Describe the work of the artist referencing these characteristics (you can add more if you wish)
The artist is a practitioner of night photography, and likes to take photos of the then-modern technologies. He likes to take photos from a far distance, or else the elements of the dark night will be left unnoticed. His works also have an abundance of converging lines shown as railroads. O Winston Link is not really an abstract photographer, but his style of dark mood and night photography is what caught my eye.
•Explain why you have chosen this photographer including how the photographer relates to your vision
I was struggling with what to choose for my third set, and since we had limited time I had to choose an easy theme. So I chose darkness as my theme, and out sought out artists that embrace darkness as their style, but only found one – O Winston Link. His photos though are not dark enough to be called abstract though.
•If you can – Find a quotation by your photographer and Explain why you chose the particular quotation and how it helps you understand the photographer’s work. – The locomotives are black. The coal is black. The tracks are black. The night is black. So what am I going to do with color?
It turns out the artist’s style is entirely based on his personal interests and biases. But the thing is, he’s right, and he basically just stated the exact same thing that I stated, which was: sometimes color is just a distraction. If you go to a supermarket, and observe your surroundings, you won’t find anything beautiful. That’s because it’s too colorful, and the colors don’t even match. But if you hold up your phone’s camera, and switch on the black and white effect, you’ll see patterns and beauty that are completely disguised by the ugly colors.
One Photo Analysis:
Why did you choose this image in particular?
I choose this image because this is the most dark mood photo there is, just from the overall “darkness”. I feel that this one has the least light sources in the photo. Also, this photo is also the only one that can even come close to being abstract.
•What do you find surprising or unusual about this photograph?
There’s nothing to be surprised about, but the unusual thing about this is that the camera placed within the train tracks while the train is moving, so that’s kind of weird and dangerous. Another thing is: the trains are close enough for us to see the machinery under it.
•Look carefully and choose ONE of the Formal Elements that you think is important in the photograph (E.g. Focus, Light, Line, Repetition, Shape, Texture, Value/Tone).
The most important element is shape
•Describe why you think it is important
In dark photos, the the details are less prominent than the overall structure and big shapes, sure if it was day then it would be texture or repetition, but it’s night and it’s dark. I’ll also make sure to make my photos focus on shapes as well.
•In what ways are your chosen artist’s photographs abstract?
It’s not very abstract, the only abstract thing is the smoke in the sky, and that is abstract because when the two separate streams of smoke came together, the direction and pattern of the smoke is very unpredictable. Adding the lighting to the smoke, it’s almost like clouds that have distinct and ethereal shapes.
•How will you adapt this style to your own photography? How does the image/artist inspire YOU?
I didn’t find this artist for motivation, I found him for the sake of finding him. I already have a very clear idea of what I need to do before I found this person. But, one thing that I thought was a great idea was to have very bright or very bright subject compared to very dark background, and also, his focus subject always seems to be trains, and in one of his photos, he included details of the mechanics under the train. So, I thought I could also take photos of great mechanical patterns and make that abstract somehow.
Revised vision: When I looked at O Link Winston’s photos, I found out how hard it is to take dark photos abstract. So, in order for my photos to be abstract, I have to make them so dark, that it’s almost just unrecognizable. To achieve that, I can use affinity photos to edit my un-abstract works on top of the exposure effects that I added. The only problem is that it won’t look as good as if it wasn’t abstract. So, I have concluded that I will take photos of large, clearly defined structures at night when I could.
Second Revision: I didn’t have the chance to take photos of large structures, and I found out that I couldn’t get a nice image that way, but, I have and is going to take a lot of photos outside, I found that it’s easy to find inspiration outside, and easier to make quality progress. So, I will abandon my idea of taking photos of large, clearly defined structures at night, and instead change to taking dark photos of streets and nature.
Photo Categorization:
All photos (80):
Blue Photos (20):
The reasoning for my selection: first, I made sure to eliminate all of the photos that I took when I was low on inspiration, those photos were all terrible because their colors are all dull, and their lines are unpleasant. Second, I got rid of almost all photos that had color, there was one colored photo that I kept but that’s it. (because in that photo the colors don’t mess each other up) Third, I picked a lot of photos that were partly dark and partly white, for photos that were all dark, I found that they were not as good as I imagined them to be, I envisioned them to be gloomy and cool, but instead they were bland and completely unrecognizable to the point where some of them are just completely black. So in the end, the photos that remained were the photos that I took outside ISB or outdoors in ISB, where I had some focused areas.
Green Photos (8):
Set 3 Green photos Contact Sheet
My message, which is “colors are mere distractions, true beauty lies in darkness”, is represented very well with my eight green photos. First of all my vision is very broad, and it’s very easy to be able to satiate the demands of the message. The hard part is how to match the vision whilst being abstract at the same time. I tried to make the photos dark enough to be abstract, but getting such a photo is not an easy task. I took many photos that I think meets both requirements, some photos did better than others. And the green photos that I picked were more or less the best of those photos. You might have noticed that in all of these photos there is a lot of contrast, and that might mean that the best way of showing my vision lies with contrast.
Red Photos:
1: This photo is of Christmas lights hanging from a small tree, taken from a very close distance and deliberate angle. Why did I choose this? Well, it’s my favorite photo taken close range. Because the lights themselves don’t radiate anything, but they stick out like a sore thumb on the tree. Which means people can almost just ignore the tree and only focus on the lights. Also, if you look more closely, the pattern of the lights took the shape of the human face. The sides were intentional as well, I didn’t want to have an entire photo of just lights and darkness, so I added some diversity to make it look more appealing. My camera settings were the usual low exposure, black and white setting. I think this photo is a very good example of both fitting my vision, and being abstract. Therefore, this photo deserves to be a red photo. As for what I want other people to think, I think this should tell people to try some dark mood photo themselves sometime, because it really is more easy to take than normal photos.
2: The second photo is of a pond near the entrance to Yosemite C, taken from an average distance and a sideview angle. I chose this because this was the photo that didn’t need any strong contrast to convey it’s message. I have already established that contrast is the best and easiest way to take a good dark mood photo, but this photo is the one photo that broke common sense. If it didn’t need contrast, then that means one thing: it’s the best message conveyer for my vision. Without contrast, it’s completely dark, (not the background lights) if something can be completely dark and still rock, then they tell people that you don’t need light for a photo to be good. Also, being completely dark means that the photo is very abstract, adding to the fact that my shadow and the image in the water is very misleading, leaving people confused and focused.
3: The third photo is of a children’s playground, taken from a long distance. I chose this photo because compared to the other photos, this was the most abstract and had the most contrast. I especially liked the three light bulbs shining at three different locations, that’s pretty cool. There’s a lot of lines, shapes, and patterns in the photo, which I liked. But in exchange, this photo became less abstract, I only chose this photo because it was the most abstract photo, which meant a lot of my photos were only half abstract. That’s not to say this photo is bad at conveying messages though, I had people telling me that this photo was the best out of the three. And the reason for that is that they recognized the shapes of the common playground, and the playground was not supposed to be dark and appalling, whilst the other photos, they didn’t even recognize what it is.
I though I should take another photo to make up for the mistake that “3” made, in this photo, I will make it abstract, and at the same time learn from the mistakes of “3” to combine it into a better photo:
4: The fourth photo is of a park, taken from a long distance. This photo not only has contrast and abstractness, but it also has leading lines, shapes, textures, and repetitions. This is truly the pinnacle of my works, if there’s a picture to sum up my experience of this unit, it’s this one. It did make up for 3’s lack of abstraction and for 2’s lack of contrast. When people see this, they probably won’t feel anything at first. But I hope, from the bottom of my heart that, when they look longer, they’ll realize.