studio photography - Ashraf Ali

For my exam I am trying to capture emotion in portraits here are a few of my first pictures i have taken. 

Robert Maschke

Robert Maschke, a German photographer was born in 1979 in Vienna, Maschke worked at various jobs in the media business, but soon felt his true passion and calling as a photographer. He is widely regarded for his expressiveness in artistic people photography. His compositions not only spotlight the magic formula of human emotion, but deepen the distinctive melody of individuality as a very strong core force.

 Robert Maschke – Close

 

The picture close by Robert Maschke shows a black and white portrait picture of an old man. The man takes up 60 percent of the picture with the rest of the picture being background. This picture was taken inside a studio with a man aged around 50-75 years old.  The light source in the picture goes from right to left hitting the man’s check and right eye. The man is looking to the left of the picture with his eyes looking down. This gives me the impression of weakness and failure. The way his eyes are half shut adds to the impression of weakness. The man’s skin shows the visual element of texture, it appears rough and gritty. The overall emotion I get from the man is sadness. The man in the picture isn’t smiling and his overall body language and facial language makes you think that he’s sad and depressed. This is backed up with the dark colours in the picture. Overall I really like this picture. I feel that the man in the picture shows the emotion of sadness well but if I was taking this picture I would position the man to the right of the picture so that there is some space on the left hand side for him to look into.

Lewis W.Hines - The Empire State Building

 

The book The Empire State buildings by Lewis W.Hines show a collections of black and white images of the Empire State building. Lewis W. Hine documented the progress of the empire state buildings between 1930-1931. During this period Hines took more than 1000 images of the construction of the building. Hines produced a number of shots from portraits of the workers to landscape shots of the building.

 

The book shows some of Lewis W.hines best pictures of the Empier State bilding. The book shows 64 images of the building being created. pages 7-23 explains how Hines took some of the pictures in the book and explains his insperations for the project.

 

 

 

One of the first pictures in the book shows a landscape image of the Empire State building after it was competed. The Empire State building towers over the rest of the buildings in the picture and is clearly the largest building in the sky line.

Overall this book is an excilent example of documentery photography. Lewis W.Hines managed to get s ranges of shots. I also like the way he focused on the workers more then the building its self.

 

 

 

The Welsh National Mining Mermorial

The Welsh National Mining Memorial in Senghenydd was created to mark the 100th anniversary of Britain’s largest mining disaster at the universal colliery in Senghenydd, where 440 men and boys lost their lives in a devastating explosion. The garden offers a place to honour those who have lost their lives in mining disasters throughout wales. The memorial garden is positioned on part of the former Universal colliery site. On the 14th of October 1913, an explosion tore through the universal colliery, shaking the village as underground coalfaces collapsed and mine shafts turned into roaring furnaces. Fire fighters and rescue men worked day and night, but bravery and determination were not enough. Although 18 men were rescued, death finally prevailed, taking 440 men and boys. An earlier mining disaster at the colliery had already claimed the lives of 81 miners. The youngest of the boys who died was 14. The subsequent inquiry of the 1913 disaster revealed that the mine management had failed to comply with the regulations. They were found guilty and fined one shilling and a penny farthing, an equivalent £24 with £10 costs.

 The statue was designed by Les Johnson, this bronze statue depicts a rescue worker coming to the aid of a survivor after a mining disaster. Dedicated to all those who lost their lives to coal. The memorial has a wall of remembrance dedicated to the victims of the two Universal disasters of 1901 and 1912. Individual tiles are dedicated to each person killed. Local volunteers and school children helped ceramicist Ned Heywood make the tiles, using hand-fired clay. The memorial garden was designed by Stephanie Wilkins, the garden uses materials and methods utilised in the surrounding community’s e.g. sandstone, lime and coal mortar and reflect the landscape of wales. Giant oats represent the horses that suffered too, and the ‘pinhead planting’ represents the bodies found.

 

This picture above gives a good representation of patteren, the tiles are in two rows and repeats it self over and over agin.

 

 

The last image can be photoshopped and turened into a silhouette showing shape

Welsh Coal Mining Memorials Project

I have been asked to do a mini personal project, my chosen topic for my project is welsh coal mining memorials. I chose this topic as I find history of wales and the valleys intresting. Before I took picture of mining memorials I thought I'd get an idea of what the miners whent through every day, so I went down to big pit in blinavon. Big pit is an operational mine and is one of only a few mines left in wales. They do a number of tours everyday where you can go underground and experience what it was like for the miners. Unfortunatley I wasn't allowed to take my camera underground as it is still an operational mine, but I still managed to get a few good shots.

 

 

 

The first few picture I took were of the lift shaft witch took you underground. This was a tall metal structure that was the key point of the mine.



The Red Zone



The image above was one of my favourite picture I took during that day. we just come out from the mine and walked past this. The red buckets and the red painted wood cort my eye.

Aperture Magazine Anthology Book Review

Aperture Magazine Anthology - The Minor White Years 1952-1976, Petter. C. Bunnell, 2012

The book Aperture Magazine Anthology shows a selection of contributions from the first twenty-five years of the magazines life under the editorship of the magazine cofounder Minor White. the book tries to answer the most fundamental questions about the medium for example "how does one read a photography" and "what is the relationship between text and the image" ect. 

The book starts of with a editors preface from Petter. C. Bunnell. An editors preface is an introduction to a book or other literal work written by the works author. Petter. C. Bunnell used the preface to explain the life and work of Minor White and Explained a little of the magazines history.

The book is split up into the different issues of the magazine starting of with issue one. The book contains a range of work from Minor Whites own picture to pictures to work by Imogen Cunningham and Ansel Adams. Petter. C. Bunnell took sections and pictures from each issue and explained them in depth.

My Second Outdoor Photography Session

For my second outing, I tried to experement a little bit. I took a range of close up's and some long distants shots to see what they would look like.