Essay:

Assignment/Essay:

Pictures from the Yosemite Collection by Ansel Adams.

Ansel Adams

Biography:

Photographer, conservationist; born in San Francisco. A commercial photographer for 30 years, he made visionary photos of western landscapes that were inspired by a boyhood trip to Yosemite. He won three Guggenheim grants to photograph the national parks (1944--58). Founding the f/64 group with Edward Weston in 1932, he developed zone exposure to get maximum tonal range from black-and-white film. He served on the Sierra Club Board . Dies in 1984 of a heart faliure.

Vernal Falls in the Yosemite Park/ by Ansel Adams.




I think Ansel Adams is a great photographer because in mi opinion he had the eye, the patience and the vision of turning something common into something spectacular and beautiful, without any extras.


In Greek Photography is translated as "Painting with light"  term he has mastered in a way almost non did before him .He also has  used the resources of his time and the black and white tecnique to a  higher level.
In his photography, we can observe very clear composition and careful exposition. Nothing disturbs the image, the emotion, be it calm, soothing peace or magnificent, somewhat dramatic moment, is always faithfully communicated. I really admire the light, the exposition, carefully thought through to deliver effectively the contrast between objects and to show the sharp deepness of the perspective. For some pictures, Adams waited for hours, others he claims to have spotted almost randomly.

*Laurells Falls by Ansel Adams.


As seen on our course he has  a very assertive way of taking nature, and landscape in an artistic way, but also he takes raw material, no changes made Nature in a very truthful way in an untouched and  virgin sense, and thats why i think he is a true photographer. Ansel Adams is a master of light.. His intention was “to present – through the medium of photography – intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to the spectators.” But there is no doubt that, as nature itself, his photography keeps stunning us. 

His photography has gained through time a huge number of followers and his technique and style is used and imitated by many i selected some pictures that have some of the effects that Ansel Adams achieved, some of this pictures are of great quality and i think represent very well what he used to do on his pictures. For example this two pictures are from an Homage to            Ancel Adams made by a photographer called Greg Matchick, a St. Louis based and resident artist at Gateway Gallery. 

above: Broken Fence
Below: White woods
Both pictures by Greg Matchnick.
































I also chose another examples witch are not destined to be taken after the Ansel adams style completly but that  have a very similar way of showing either a landscape or a close-up of a fragment of nature.

Wilkins Pond taken by a Flickr user called Patty Maxshaxlong

In this example i chose a color picture because even if Ansel Adams did take some pictures in colour most of his work was in black and white. But here is one example in colour of what a picture in Ansel Adams style would be in my opnion.

ansel-adams-jeffrey-pine-sentinel-dome in colour

The picture above was originally taken in black and white.






 In the next two picture you don't see the typical landscape but a close-up of two completely different things but the intention, the beauty of the contrast, the perfection of the textures mixed with light i think is in both achieved.

Dogwood Blossoms, from Portfolio Three: Yosemite Valley by Ansel Adams

Pear, Ansel Adams Style  Taken from a Flickr user called Patty Mazshaxlong









As a conclusion i believe that true Photographers and true Photography will remain even with time and even with technological advances, because the beauty of nature and the way people find a simple tree, or a simple landscape can be magnificent. Ansel Adams photography is now a staple of vision, of creating an endless perspective in the horizon line and in giving the proper framing, light, position and time to make bring nature to a persons eye in its true greatest form.

 

Art Photography vs. Photojournalism

Art and press photography are two very different aproches of getting an image taken thats why apart of being photos and trying to express a feeling or situation in a determined way for me it's hard to find any similarities.

Artistic photography has a huge variety of possibilities, it all depends on the intention of the image/ photographer, it can be shoot with props, determined light, colours, actors, filters etc. or it can also be taken in the most natural form without adding or taking anything, again its all about the intention.  

And this gives photographers a lot more freedom, to alter and modify almost anything so that a certain aspect, angle, intention is showed.

 In this examples by David Lachapelle, its obvious that the pictures have been modified, even specifically design and posed to create a determined message with and artistic degree.

Water wave in Japan "Manichi Shibun" Reuters.

Picture of Banana plantation submerged in water in Australia taken by Dave Hunt.

On the press photography pictures should not be altered because the main purpose is to show the truth. The exact moment of an event or action taken place. The job of the photographer is to capture moments, news in the right time, but also in this kind of pictures there is the intention possibility because a specific moment can be capture in many ways, for example in the  recent tragic events of Japan, you can see many angles of the destruction, for example a picture of a town completely destroyed, will show the material destruction for a news, but a girl siting and crying in desperation would also show that adding also a more emotional approach.

Photo editing:

Technology allows photography to reach a whole new dimension with the photo editing softwares such as photoshop, and by this i don't mean its better or worse, because it is another controversial thing in modern photography, because you can change the whole meaning, structure and message of a photography with the click of a button.

Nowadays almost all pictures in magazines, posters, advertisement and even family photos are modified with this kind of programs, small defects, colour, exposure, size, red eyes etc. are changed in order to "correct" a picture.
To me one of the biggest and easiest changes is to turn a colour picture into black and white, because you can give so much emotion, dramatism to a picture by making it black and white, but not only that, you can choose the colour dimension, from a sepia to more bluish black and white.

I took this picture in the Toronto Zoo. by AHM
For me the expression of the elephant is a lot more beautiful on black and white because  you can appreciate a sadness in the animals eyes without any other distraction, colour is also beautiful but to me there is nothing better than the classic black and white.

For the next set i took a picture of the Toronto Downtown Skyline taken from the Toronto Island, that by itself to me is nice, a regular picture.but with some effects like exploiting the grain, adding some different neutral colour and adjusting the levels of brightness and contrast, we can get some funky effects, and even a resemblance to a painting.

And for the last set of picture i chose my favourite frame, the closeup, of some leaves taken against the light i took this picture also in the Toronto Zoo, and i think that the original picture is nice because of the bright colours, the lines and the shades, and i decides to crop, and change completely the colour because in a way colour is the thing in many cases what we relate to thing, what makes the come to life,  also i added some text , in the first modification i wrote rosa? witch means pin, but also means rose. And that is a simple example of the big change that text, colour and picture can create.
For the last adaptation i cropped a very small part of the picture to capture basically only one leaf, and added also text of an imaginary concert.

I believe that the power of editing images is huge, because you can almost do anything, to this simple changes i used Picassa from Google, a very simple software, but with  a more complex software like photoshop u can change a persons look, figure so much  and in  such a way that you can easily trick the eye. But these is also something  that diminishes the value of a  photographer, because you don't need  the good eye or the precise moment to take that amazing picture.

The portrait

The portrait “ the closest photography”

Portraits have been present in the history of men since the prehistoric times, we have always tried to preserve the “image” of the people we love, and in many occasions our own.

Portraits started as paintings and sculptures, until photography came along in 1839, when middle class people who couldn’t afford being painted found a cheaper and new way to make a “portrait” the daguerreotype.

When the art of photography started to be popular, cameras and developing process were very slow, and taking an image could take minutes. Capturing a landscape was no big deal, but capturing a person was almost impossible.

Many times the photographer had to sit the client in a special chair and use artifacts to hold the head so it wouldn’t move, at the beginning of the human portraits people had their eyes closed and the photographer had to fix that by hand so that the person would look more natural.

When photography started gaining  popularity photographs tried to resemble the paintings, the poses, the backgrounds, the facial expressions were selected too look like  paintings, and since  photographs were black and white only, the photographer also had to add color or “ illuminate” the pictures so they would look more real.

By 1888 the American George Eastman founded Kodak, and revolutionized the world of photography by making photography for everyone by inventing the roll film. Causing that millions of people around the world could have their own pictures. By middle of the XX century having a portrait was something of the everyday life and millions of portraits remain for the posterity.

In the modern days “the portrait” is still the picture of someone’s face or several faces, but in essence it’s a complete new art, because has to gather several elements and create harmony between them. From the equipment that you use to the complexity of the model/subject its essential to be very careful with what we choose, because if there is an image that’s supposed to transmit a feeling, that is the portrait.

But also the portrait is now so popular and easy to make that anyone anywhere can do it.

Intro

Welcome to my blog!

My name is Andres Hoppe, im 26 years old I am from Mexico City and im a student in the Culinary Management Program at George Brown. 

I like music, photography, movies, food, dogs and cigarettes.