Artist Research Week 3: Framing and Composition,Manual Mode

Week 3 Framing and Composition Artist Research

Artist 1

Edward Weston

Edward Weston, 'Johnny' 1944

Edward Weston, Pennsylvania Dutch Barn, 1941

(Book Research From - Classic Essay on Photography, Edited by Alan Trachtenberg)

Edward Weston was born in 1886. Weston started his career as a Photo-Secessionist, making softly focused images with simple geometric forms and patterns of light. In the 1920's be began to alter his photographic style. In 1924 while photographing in Mexico he decided that the true nature of photography rests in clearly detailed, realistic depiction of the physical world. In 1932 several photographers influenced by Weston's style joined him and formed a group called 'Group f.64' This group included Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards, Sonia Noskowiak, Henry Swift, and Willard Van Dyke. Their name was created representing the small apertures in which they set their lenses. Excluded from Museums and Galleries, they held their own exhibitions. In 1937, Weston became the first photographer to receive a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. At the end of the 1940's Weston contracted Parkinson's Disease and could no longer photograph. His last images were taken in 1948, near his home in Carmel.  

The Top Image (1944), I thought this image was a really good Space of Frame Image, with there being a lot of space around the cat. I really love all the patterning he has in this image from the wall, to the cat and the patterning on the cat, to the log, It all matches each other which I think looks really good. This image was taken with a Wide Depth of field seen with the sharp walls behind and the whole image being in focus.  

The Bottom Image (1941), When I saw this image I thought it worked really well for Rule of thirds Intersections. Especially on the top right with the wheel being set on the Top Right Rule of Thirds Intersection. 

Artist 2

Bernd and Hilla Becher

Bernd and Hilla Becher, Koper Tower, Mine Hannover, Bochum, Germany, 1937

Bernd and Hilla Becher, Trier-Ehrang, 1982

(Book Research Information From - The Dusseldore School of Photography by Stefan Gronert)

Bernd and Hilla were born in 1934 and 1931. The Becher's Work was shot in black and white and depicted industrial buildings and machines, water, cooling and winding towers, gasometers, blast furnaces, lime kilns, grain elevators and factories to name but a few of their more common subjects. Their photos are shot against pale grey sky, in a carefully balanced light which avoids strong shadows and shot with their subjects generally positioned exactly in the center of the picture. Bernd and Hilla took images as a way of preserving what had been. During the first three decades of their work, the Becher's themselves regarded their photographs as documents for the preservation of a disappearing age in buildings. 

The First Image (1937), When I looked at it, I know it's not a landscape image BUT the top of the image to me seems like it goes alone the rule of thirds line not all the way across but still seems like it does to me. I was debating if these were close crop of space of frame images BUT I decided they were Space of Frame due to the fact they have surroundings around them.