Part 1:

My artists photographs are abstract because comparing from other photo, these photos have a complicated emotion in it.

I really like the style that how it have patterns in these photos, most of them look really neat when it have a specific pattern (repetition). For example, in 99 Cent II, there is a pattern of repetition in the snacks and other objects.

I will adapt this type of style of repetition in my photographies. This strengthens my photography skills and the visual effect of it. This image inspires me because of the repetition and the variety of color choices. It gives a deep impression from my first eye.

Part 2:

The reason that I choose this image in particular because this image is one of the most classic picture shot by Andrea Gursky, and it have a really good scale and angle for this picture. The scale of this picture depends how much of the content can be covered and the angle will effect the visual of this picture, the photographer uses a wide angle and a large scale, making most of the supermarket can be seen clearly. Besides the size of this picture covered, the color and the shapes have a specific patterns, these pattern and color can easily bring people’s attentions, including mine.

In this photo, what I find really surprised is about how much content it cover with one picture, this kind of style is unique and this kind of photo is unprecedented (kind of unusual). Another element that is quite unusual is how it can balance the overall focus of this photo, because this photo have a large range for the camera to focus.

In this picture, most of the elements in general are quite important, but the most important element in this picture is the shapes. Firstly, the packages of different product are the objects that mainly forms this picture, which is formed mostly by shapes. Second, if the shapes are not existed or prioritized, then the effect of the photo will be either really bad or this photo won’t even exist. Overall, this picture have especially rely on the shapes.

Citation

Life, Sound of. “Exploring Andreas Gursky’s Photographic Innovations | Sound of Life | Powered by KEF.” Sound of Life, https://www.soundoflife.com/blogs/design/andreas-gursky-photography-works. Accessed 18 Feb. 2025.

Andreas Gursky | The Rheine | On Landscape. https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2011/11/andreas-gursky-the-rheine/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2025.

Alleyne, Allyssia. “Andreas Gursky’s Monumental Vision of a Complex World.” CNN, 25 Jan. 2018, https://www.cnn.com/style/article/andreas-gursky-hayward-gallery-london/index.html.

zoekayser. “Andreas Gursky.” Abstract Photography Project, 27 Mar. 2014, https://abstractphotographyzoe.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/andreas-gursky/.

“Andreas Gursky (Repetition).” R.Springall’s Photography, http://rebeccaspringallphotography.weebly.com/andreas-gursky-repetition.html. Accessed 18 Feb. 2025.

Andreas Gursky from 1990 to Present – His Best Photos. https://publicdelivery.org/andreas-gursky-duesseldorf-museum-kunstpalast/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2025.

Frankel, Eddy. “Big Photos to Make You Feel Real Small.” Time Out London, 27 Apr. 2022, https://www.timeout.com/london/art/andreas-gursky-2.

“12 Andreas Gursky Ideas | Andreas Gursky, Andrea, Colorful Landscape.” Pinterest, https://gr.pinterest.com/emmaserg1/andreas-gursky/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2025.

Botezatu, Teodora. “Andreas Gursky.” Medium, 12 Nov. 2017, https://medium.com/@botezatuteodora/andreas-gursky-d30efd6ed88e.

The message of my triptych will be about the appreciation of nostalgia buildings. Old buildings are shown in an aesthetic way in nowadays. I want the audience to feel about the beauty and the craftmanship and appreciate about it. Feeling how the building is built and treated by craftsman. I will get inspiration and develop my ideas by looking for photographs that is related to abstract architecture and try to understand those photographs. So I can gain a further understanding for expressing ideas. This not only emphasize my understanding, supporting more for my skills in photography. In my perspective, nostalgia building (old architecture) could be understanded in an unique way, that can bring you to another different perspective.

blog pos

In my perspective, element 6, 8 and 12 are presented the best.

I personally think most of the picture had worked well, especially element 6, 8 and 12. Some other element like element 1, 2, 4, 9 had also worked okay (mediocre). It is mainly because these elements could be used, but not presented good comparing to element 6, 8 and 12.

In contrast, picture like element 10, 11, tend to not work that well. It is mainly because it is more difficult to achieve the similarity between the example and an actual photo. Which this is the main reason that cause pictures like element 10, 11 tend to be harder to take.

1. There is lots of commodities that is shown in the photo, which is probably taken in a place that is quite close to the roof of the building
2. In the front of the photo, there is a large 99 cents that is shown in the supermarket, which probably means every commodity in this photo is sold 99 cents or less.
3. Most of the commodities are either drinks or snacks, and most of them even though have different colors, but the overall look similar.

I personally think a name that I would give this photograph is “Bring this supermarket for less than 1 dollar” This name is since all commodities cost only 99 cents, which is less than 1 dollar.

In this picture, there is quite lots of pattern that is displayed in this photo, where commodities are presented in this picture are arranged in a pattern. It creates a rhythm of this picture; it would cause audience to have a deep impression of this photo because of repetition. Meanwhile the commodities have a specific pattern, but most of the commodities have a shape, which most of them have a shape of rectangle and squares.

The photo also uses a tone of dark for right side and a tone of light for left side (since this picture is split into two different pictures,) This causes a comparison between two photos, that effects the texture of this photo. One of them looked warmer while the other looked colder.

Lastly, the focus of the piece of photography, if the author is using a digital camera, it is probably taken by AF-A, it is because this photo is focused on some scene that is stationery.

Cited page

In general, formal elements mean the parts that makes a hard piece, which in photography, it means the elements that make the content of the photo, formal elements in photography include line, shape, repetition/pattern, texture, value/tone and focus.

Line: Straight objects/subject from a picture, it could be in any shape as long as it is a straight line.

Shape: any objects/subject in a picture (basically everything in a picture except for most background pictures belongs to a shape)

Repetition/pattern: Usually when there is more than one similar/same object, then a pattern shape will be formed, the main purpose for this is to create rhythm in a photo.

Texture: It is usually used to describe how the photo feel by touching it physically. Which the word texture is mainly used to describe the feeling of a physical photo. It could also used to describe a picture just taken by a machine, and people are able to feel this visually.

Value/Tone: It is usually how dark or how light a picture is, which is adjusted by ISO and shutter speed mainly.

Focus: It is mainly the quality of the photo, it can be adjusted in two different forms, af (auto focus) and mf (non-auto focus that rely on how familiar you are with the camera.)

1. Give an example that emphasizes each element (you can use your own image or an image from somebody else – but it must be cited!)

An image that includes the element, focus.

An image that includes the element, value/tone.

An image that includes the element, shape.

An image that includes the element, line.

An image that includes the element, repetition/pattern.

An image that includes the element, texture.

An image can show multiple elements at once, which means if the picture get shapes and lines in the photo, it still can get good texture. Emphasizing about the statement that an image can occur more than 1 element at the same time.

https://www.turton.uk.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/Intro-to-Drawing-Formal-Elements-Yr7.pdf (error occur during mla)

All pictures are taken by myself

Pictorialism movement in photography is a movement that is mostly active during 1885-1915. When proponents used a range of darkroom techniques to take photos that allow them to include their own creativity in it.

Straight photography is a type of photography skill that emphasizes the camera’s own technical capability to produce images that contain plenty details.  The main difference shown in two type of photography is the time difference, besides time difference, the purpose and the style is quite different. While Pictorialisms mainly focus on the photographer’s creativity. Straight photography instead focus on the quality and the focus more for the photos. It is popular mainly because of the inspiration of this kind of style, letting photographer’s to record their daily life, which is completely new during that time and also differented from other type of art.

Edward Weston’s photo

Aaron Sisikind’s photo

Straight photography had mainly affected Edward Weston by his kind of style he use. He take high resolution and realistic images of organic shapes, which it belongs to a part of straight photography. Comparing with Edward Weston, Aaron Sisikind is quite affected in a different way, which Aaron Sisikind’s photo were mainly focused on abstract, by adding elements from straight photography, the overall level had highly increased.

Andreas Gursky’s Photo

Uta Barth’s photo

Another two artists, Andreas Gursky and Uta Barth, two of the abstract photographers. In their photos, both of them have concentrated more on the background content, which makes the subject no longer interesting. Even though both photographer has similar style, but the two of them were quite different in terms of pictorialism or straight photographer. Andreas Gursky is more a straight photographer, due to the focus, lighting and other elements more represent straight photography. Instead, Uta Barth is a pictorialism photographer, which focus more on creativity instead of the “elements.

Reference:

“Straight Photography Movement Overview.” The Art Story, https://www.theartstory.org/movement/straight-photography/. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.

“Pictorialism Movement Overview.” The Art Story, https://www.theartstory.org/movement/pictorialism/. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.

“Aaron Siskind Photography, Bio, Ideas.” The Art Story, https://www.theartstory.org/artist/siskind-aaron/. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.

Anthony, Jordan. “Edward Weston – Explore the Edward Weston Photography Style.” Art in Context, 10 Jan. 2023, https://artincontext.org/edward-weston/.

https://www.moma.org/artists/7827 (contains error for mla)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/arts/andreas-gursky-is-taking-photos-of-things-that-do-not-exist.html (contains error for mla)

write your own definition of abstract photography add to your blog: Abstract photography (抽象摄像) is a type of photography style, that can be a normal photo. However, usually the most interesting part of abstract photos is usually not the subject, instead, the most interesting part is one of the object or background. This infers that abstract photos are usually hard to analyze.

Summary: Abstract photography is a type of photography style that doesn’t focus on the subject, instead, it mainly focused on other objects or background as it’s most interesting part, and this type of feeling are usually hard to understand unless the picture’s actual “subject” can be recognized and understand.

Abstract photography can be defined as capturing images in which the subject isn’t the most interesting element. Albert Renger-Patzsch and Aaron Siskind photographed the ordinary to reveal their beauty. Uta Barth reversed the typical use of the camera, shooting out of focus and Andreas Gursky photographs the repetition of elements. During this unit, you will investigate appropriate examples of abstract photography and respond in your own way.

describe your Initial thoughts about the unit.

What do you think is meant by “Abstract photography can be defined as capturing images in which the subject isn’t the most interesting element”?

It is meant by abstract photos, is a type of style that is different from regular style. According to this definition, abstract photography had made other elements becoming the most interested element instead of making the subject the most interesting one. It is meant by not only the subject can be the most attractive/interesting part of the photo. But also other content from the photo can be the interested part of the photo. For example, the photo above this text is an example of abstract art, the picture seems like it doesn’t have a subject to look on, but this picture is way different by comparing pictures, while this picture have make the background for their subject instead of choosing a subject to focus on. Overall, abstract photography is a style that doesn’t use a subject to attract audience, instead, it might use elements like background or other objects to make it interesting. So, this shows that abstract photos are hard to analyze because the subject is hard to define.

Fussell, Matt. Understanding Abstract Art. 5 Aug. 2013, https://thevirtualinstructor.com/blog/understanding-abstract-art.

https://dx.isb.cn/dash/#/classroom/648613/sections/lesson/344121/page/344123. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.

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