Research – Page 2 – Matthew Welsh Photography

March 7, 2016Matthew Welsh No Comments

Portraiture – Brief history

During the early part of the 1800’s, Jacques-Mande Daguerre developed the Daguerreotype. This relied on being put into a camera obscura and then developed in Mercury vapours on a metal plate, this process was only able to capture one image per plate and, this wasn’t very duplicatable which isn’t like today where an image can be duplicated many times over, and have copies everywhere.

The Daguerreotype was highly successful, not in Europe where it was developed, but in America in 1850’s New York. The most successful photographers had studios on the top floor of buildings, just off of Broadway (because of the amount of light that you are able to get, located at the top of buildings, and almost always on the north side because that is where you would get the most amount of natural light.).

This practice was the most common among early photographers and created a one off print which had to be kept under a bit of glass as the slightest knock could ruin the print and was really hard to repair and if it was repaired it had to be done by a professional, which I imagine would be quite expensive.

“The vast majority of American photographs made before the Civil War era are portraits.”(The Daguerreian Era and Early American Photography on Paper, 1839–1860 | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016)

The first photographic portrait of a human being was of Robert Cornelius in 1839. he inscribed it with “The first light Picture ever taken. 1839.”

February 26, 2016Matthew Welsh No Comments

Experimentation

The first item I found for this brief was a nice watch, now this was a little too formal for this brief and all I could think of was doing product photography. This was a little too boring and formal. I decided to scrap this idea and try something else that would be more interesting, so I am going to leave my experiments below. The images linked are sort of average. Shot under two studio lights and a fill flash unit on top of my camera. The studio lights emit a light of 5500k which is quite cold and are pretty bright in that sense, they gave some decent results.

I also had some old battered headphones lying around, so I thought they could work quite well and I also found a weird googly eyed pot with a lid that looks like a hat so I used them to see how they worked and to be honest. I hated the look they gave. They didn’t go together and they sort of clashed with one another. The materials that they’re made of clashed in a bad way, so this idea that I had totally gone out of the window and straight into the bin.

IMG_1073_e_2 — What I liked about this image, was the way in which the depth of field played a part in capturing you. it is basic product photography which isn’t a bad thing, just that the image is very plain. I originally took this image as a landscape image but soon realised it made more sense that it was portrait, even if the image looks like it is floating.

IMG_1057_e — I really liked this shot of the watch, the monochrome pallet of the shirt and backdrop really draw your attention to the watch face which has gold tones to it. The backdrop was originally blue but I felt that with some editing I could make the piece more cohesive.

February 14, 2016Matthew Welsh No Comments

Scanning

I recently obtained a scanner and decided to try scanning everything I could find within my room, including myself, this created some really interesting portraits as I wanted to experiment with different shapes and forms. This might not be part of the ‘found’ brief but, it is something that I thought I should document as it is something I have experimented with.

The depth of field you can achieve using a scanner is quite phenomenal as demonstrated through some of these images. I personally like this sort of look and feel, but taking one image using this technique is pretty time consuming. To get an image that has a better PPI (pixels per inch), the scan needs to be slower and this creates distortions if photographing a live subject.

February 11, 2016Matthew Welsh No Comments

Triptychs – Found

Triptychs are a fantastic way of presenting work, this takes the viewer on a journey with you the photographer. It can tell a story, or it can just be three images that have relation to one another. A definition I found on The National Gallery website defines a triptych as: “A triptych is a painting made up of three sections. Such constructions are usually made of two ‘wings’ or ‘shutters’ attached to either side of a central panel.

Sometimes the panels are hinged so that the wings can be closed to protect the major image painted in the middle.” (Nationalgallery.org.uk, 2016)

Triptychs were originally used for religious paintings or important paintings. The ‘wings’ on either side were meant to protect the middle painting and be decorative on each side so even when closed to still looked aesthetically pleasing.

In most houses today, you will see a triptych but not in the form of hinged paintings, you’ll see it as mirrors or photography. The latter being one image split into three sections and spread across a wall.

In my personal work outside of University I have experimented with this form before, I have done it with an image of my niece on her birthday with much success, the image was of my niece eating her birthday cake, I feel that this image helps to capture emotion and the feeling of a birthday when the child is young.

Sources:

Nationalgallery.org.uk, (2016). Triptych | Glossary | The National Gallery, London. [online] Available at: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/glossary/triptych [Accessed 11 Feb. 2016].

found
faʊnd/
adjective
adjective: found
1.
having been discovered by chance or unexpectedly.
(of an object or sound) collected in its natural state and presented in a new context as part of a work of art or piece of music.
“collages of found photos”
(of art) comprising or making use of found objects.

I really don’t know where to start with this brief, it seems to normal to just take pictures of rubbish found on the street, so a quick google search always helps me visualise what I could possibly do for this brief, I came across an article on The Guardian website (http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/camera-club-blog/2012/mar/02/photography)

This article reflects on images sent in by the public on a certain brief for the month, this was really interesting as it showcases really interesting concepts and really sparked my creative flow.

I found this image particularly interesting as it was taken with a blackberry phone, which points out that you don’t need a crazy good camera system to take decent images, just an eye for photography. the image of the chair on the beach this reminded me of an image I shot last April back home for a college brief.

This image I took back home has the sofa cushion in the corner which is bad for the river and wildlife, I instantly made the connection between this image and the one above. Also thinking of the brief.

“I am always looking for interesting objects in odd places, I suppose it comes from being a photographer cooped-up in an office five days a week!” ( http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/camera-club-blog/2012/mar/02/photography )

I feel the start if this quote really reflects what this brief is really about, finding something interesting in the ordinary and taking the context. ∞