Research

Photography Research

Michael Kenna

Michael Kenna is well known across the globe for his minimalist landscape photographs. The photographer only works with two colours, black and white, which help give a dramatic feel and aesthetic for the photographs. Kenna prefers to use a darker weather aesthetic as inspiration for his pieces as he finds sunny day don’t suit his style of photography. This particular photograph uses leading lines to attract the viewers eyes, which then lead to a misty horizon with a vague outline of a mysterious island.

 

Mark Meyer

Mark Meyer originally came from Alaska and likes to use his past as an inspiration for his photography. The photograph that I have chosen to use is from a series of photographs that are all taken from the same window in his bedroom. He was inspired by this aesthetic because even though he woke up in the same place, the day he was going to experience was always going to be different. The two contrasting blue waves of frost blend together extraordinary well and expertly give us an idea of what it would be to wake up in a beautifully freezing climate.

 

Conclusion

Throughout the process of examining work of other photographers, I have learnt that everybody has their own particular style of capturing a moment. Whether it be a photograph of an animal taking a selfie, a horizon landscape, or a frozen window, there are hundreds of ways to grab somebody’s attention as long as you follow some of the principle rules of photography. But most importantly, the best lesson this process has taught me is that the best photographs have a story to them. It doesn’t matter if the story is as short as a couple of words, or the size of a novel, as long as it gets someone’s imagination going, that’s how you know your photograph has worked.

 

FINAL EVALUATION – Michael Kenna

This photograph was taken and produced by Michael Kenna. The landscape image shows themes of nature and can give viewers a feeling of intense mystery. There are two subjects in this photograph, in the foreground stand posts which lead the viewers eyes to the horizon which contains a vague outline of on island in the background. I would consider this image semi abstract as it contains some sort of subtle meaning that takes a bit of thinking to discover. This image has been digitally printed by photographer Michael Kenna and contains little, to no manipulation. A photo of this standard is likely to have been taken on a Digital SLR to have this amount of focus. The focal point of the image are the posts in the foreground due to their darker colours which contrast well against their lighter background. Michael Kenna works exclusively in monochrome images which explains his choice of colour in the image above. I believe that the lack of colours help the audience focus on what is important in the image and also helps their imagination to fill in the blanks in the image. The posts in the image uses lines to their advantage, this is because they lead the viewers eyes up to the horizon where lies a vague outline of an island. The tone of the image is of a high contrast which gives the viewer the feeling that there might be a dark and hidden meaning to the photograph. The photograph is well balanced because even though some negative space is used, it feels like the subjects of the image are well positioned which also helps give the image some decent composition. I believe David Slater’s intention for this image was to express emotion in the viewers mind. He wants to give people a sense of mystery of what has happened in the image and he wants viewers to ask themselves “where am I?”. He has given the viewer just enough to grab their attention, but it also leaves room for people to come up with their own story. Overall, I really like the sense of mystery behind this photograph. It has a great sense of composition and I enjoy the subtlety of the message.

FINAL EVALUATION – Mark Meyer

This photo was taken and produced by Mark Meyer. The still life image shows themes that is meant to create a sense of intrigue in the mind of the viewer and helps them to reflect on past memories of winter days. The foreground of the image shows the window of Mark Meyer’s bedroom during winter and is trying to show the naturalistic pattern weather can leave. A photo of this quality was most likely taken on a Digital SLR camera and digitally printed due to the clarity of the image. As far as I can tell, this photograph contains little, to no manipulation. The image is clear and sharp, which makes the image more attractive to the viewer as they can see every frozen droplet of water. A wavy line is shown going across the middle of the photograph, this helps show the contrast between the different shades of blue in the image creating a more interesting aesthetic for the viewer. Obviously, cool colours are used in this photograph as it is supposed to help viewers reflect on their own past memories of playing outside on a col winters day. The image has a limited tone in terms of colours due to there only being two similar shades of pale blue. This works to its advantage however in terms of the theme. Overall, the composition of this photograph is well laid out creating a balanced image. The intentions of Mark Meyer in this photograph is to remind people about the beauty of winter weather. Although it is often taken for granted, the cold weather also brings us beautiful patterns such as this.