The Oakland Museum of California has put together a digital archive of photographs captured by Dorothea Lange, showcasing some of the best works from the 20th-century documentary photographer and photojournalist.
The extensive archive is split into four categories: The Depression, World War II at Home, Post-War Projects and Early Work/Personal Work. Each of the categories provide a synopsis of Lange’s work during the specified timeframes and further divides her images into themed galleries, which show not only the images Lange captured, but also supplementary material, such as notes to Lange from the United States Department of Agriculture, contact sheets of Lange’s images, maps of her travel routes and more.
It’s a fascinating, insightful and sometimes heartbreaking journey through the life and work of one of the most iconic 20th century American photographers. The online exhibition is entirely free to view, so set aside a few hours and head on over to the Oakland Museum of California website.
The post Photographing a Still Life Series for Exhibition or a Portfolio appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.
If you’ve ever tried photographing still life images, you’ll know that making a single good picture is relatively easy, but shooting a still life series is much harder! Trying to make a set of images that feel like they belong together can be very challenging for many reasons.
If you’re shooting to create a portfolio, or perhaps even for an exhibition, you’ll want to create images that feel like they belong together. That way, the body of work will appear more thoughtful, and its message will be stronger.
But no matter how hard you try to make images look like they are a series, there often seems to be something that doesn’t look quite right. So how can you overcome these challenges and shoot a still life series that feels like the pictures are coherent?
What is coherency?
When it comes to these images there’s a number of ways that a still life series can look like they belong together. But it really starts at the beginning.
Shooting a series of images that aren’t connected thematically is possible, but you have to pay attention to the technical aspects of your shots for coherency.
The most useful thing that you can do is have a series in mind when you shoot your first image. Picking a theme that will weave through your images and tie them all together is probably the easiest way to get a coherent feel to your series of shots.
If you shoot images around a theme, then the theme should automatically help to make them feel like they’re all a part of the same project. Perhaps the easiest way to approach still life thematically is to try to tell a story through the images. When you try to include storytelling in a still life series, it should help the images feel like they belong together.
But sometimes it’s not all about the theme and the storytelling; sometimes, you want to pull images together visually. So here are some suggestions on how to go about doing just that.
Use the same viewpoint
When you’re planning out your still life series, experiment initially with a few different viewpoints. But consider sticking to one throughout the series. Swapping viewpoints between pictures can make the images feel like they’re not quite part of a coherent set.
Consider using a tripod in order to keep everything the same. It’ll make it easier to keep your framing consistent for each shot, as well as keeping your distance the same from the camera to the object. And don’t forget to think about your composition as you place objects into your frame.
Of course, it is possible to change the viewpoint and still keep the images looking like they are part of the same still life series, as the image above shows. You’ll just have to make sure that you keep some of the other variables about your shot the same. Perhaps make sure that your theme or story is stronger than you might otherwise have needed to make it.
Use the same focal length
Keeping the distance between the camera and object the same, and also the focal length of the lens, can be a really great trick to keep your images looking like part of a series. When we use different focal lengths or vary the distance from the object to the lens it can cause distortion. Distortion causes our brain to realise that something isn’t really quite right.
Left: Shot with 35mm lens (50mm equiv.) Centre: Shot with 18mm lens (28mm equiv.) with the subject in the same place Right: Shot with 18mm lens (28mm equiv.) with subject moved closer to camera
While on the surface, the left and right images above look similar, you can see on closer inspection that there is distortion. In the right-hand image above, that I shot with a wider focal length, you can see more of the top of the apple, less of the bottom. And the apple appears to be bulging out towards the camera.
Of course, there’s really no “correct” focal length to use when it comes to shooting still life images. You may want the distortion that a wider angle lens brings to the image. In a way, the wide-angle creates a strange look that could almost pay homage to the artist Paul Cézanne who painted both the side and top of objects in his still life – an “impossible” view.
And on the other hand, a 50mm equivalent focal length gives a much more “natural” view because it’s closer to how the human eye views objects.
The important thing if you choose to vary your focal length or distance from the camera to object is to keep enough other variables the same. That way, your images still look like they are part of the same series.
Post-process images in a similar way
If I was going to shoot a still life series on film, I’d definitely make sure I shoot the same film type for all of my images. That way, they’d all be similar in color, tone, and feel.
Digital is no different. Post-processing images to make them look as similar as possible in style and feel can make a huge difference when it comes to feeling like they’re part of a series.
This is a great time to think about introducing something unique to your post-processing rather than just going for a totally natural look. It could be a slight split-toning in Lightroom with colors in the shadows, or a particular black and white recipe.
The key is to create a distinctive look and then apply it to all images, applying minor adjustments to each one to make them look coherent. Then your images, even if they are of quite different subjects, will be pulled together with a common look and feel.
Keeping your studio setup and lighting the same can really help when it comes to post-processing to make your shots look similar. Starting from the same “canvas” will mean that you don’t need to be a total post-processing wizard. Instead, small adjustments will pack a real punch when it comes to coherency.
Keep experimenting
When you’re planning your series, make sure that you keep experimenting. Try all kinds of different technical approaches to start with and narrow it down to the ones that suit the theme (and your style) the best. And then, once you have your images, experiment with the post-processing before saving your recipe as a preset so that you can use it to help you create a coherent look amongst all your images.
Remember that simply experimenting by changing your background can affect the whole feel of your shot! I shot these images were in the same lighting as the “light” images in this article and with similar settings. Both: ISO400, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f4, 1/240th sec
Don’t forget that you can apply these ideas to other kinds of photography too.
For instance, when creating a series of portraits, you might want to think about using a single focal length, aperture, and a post-processing recipe. It will help all your shots feel similar. These ideas about shooting a still life series can be applied to more than just inanimate objects!
The post Photographing a Still Life Series for Exhibition or a Portfolio appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.
Fears around the global spread of the Coronavirus have led organizers of the world’s largest smartphone exhibition to pull the plug on the show just days before it was due to open. The Mobile World Congress was due to run from the 24th -27th February in Barcelona, Spain, but after a number of exhibitors pulled out of the show a statement was released to say that going ahead with the event was ‘impossible.’
With a large part of the smartphone industry based in the Far East close to where the virus was first detected and where the most infections have been reported, fears had grown in the industry that the coming together of so many people could become a health hazard. Only a few days ago the GSMA, the owners of the show, issued a statement that said MWC would be going ahead and listed all the precautions organizers would be taking to minimize risk to exhibitors and visitors alike. Precautions included a ban on people from the Chinese Hubei province and anyone having visited China in the previous two weeks. In the end though, the risks were seen as too great to those attending and to the population of Barcelona itself.
A truncated section of the full statement currently visible on the MWC homepage.
The show had expected to attract more than 109,000 visitors for its 2400 exhibitors, including businesses, the public and international press. The next GSMA Mobile World Congress is due to be held at the end of June in Shanghai, with a further show in Los Angeles in October. Whether these events go ahead remains to be seen, but there must be a great deal of doubt over the Shanghai exhibition as it is only four months away and movement within China is extremely restricted at the moment.
Doubt must also be cast over the CP+ photography equipment exhibition that is due to be held in Yokohama, Japan, from the 27th February. This is also now an international show that attracts exhibitors from all nations that manufacturer camera equipment. According to the CP+ website, last year’s show brought in exhibitors from 120 countries and almost 70,000 visitors. Currently, the exhibition’s website has no obvious mention of the coronavirus and doesn’t list precautions organizers will be taking to secure the health of those attending. The Diamond Princess cruiseship, quarantined with 3600 passengers and crew still aboard after the infection spread to 175 people, is docked in Yokohama harbour close by.
To find out more about the Barcelona World Mobile Conference and the 2021 exhibition see the GSMA MWC website.
Press release:
GSMA Statement on MWC Barcelona 2020 from John Hoffman, CEO GSMA Limited
12 February 2020, Barcelona: Since the first edition of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2006, the GSMA has convened the industry, governments, ministers, policymakers, operators and industry leaders across the broader ecosystem.
With due regard to the safe and healthy environment in Barcelona and the host country today, the GSMA has cancelled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern and other circumstances, make it impossible for the GSMA to hold the event.
The Host City Parties respect and understand this decision.
The GSMA and the Host City Parties will continue to be working in unison and supporting each other for MWC Barcelona 2021 and future editions.
Our sympathies at this time are with those affected in China, and all around the world.
Further updates from the GSMA, are on our website and can be found on www.mwcbarcelona.com.
A Reflex-Nikkor 1000mm f/11 prototype is mounted on the Nikon Z 7 via the Mount Adapter FTZ
Nikon Museum is showcasing prototype interchangeable lenses from the 1950s to the 1980s in a special exhibition called “Prototype Lenses — Fascinating Images Captured by the Nikon Z 7 Mirrorless Camera.” The exhibition opened on October 2 and includes around 60 prototype lenses created for SLR cameras, as well as images captured with 10 of the lenses and the Nikon Z7 camera.
These prototype lenses were created to test and verify new lens designs, according to Nikon, and many were destroyed once testing was completed. For that reason, “there have been few opportunities to exhibit them to the general public,” Nikon explains on its website, calling this a “very rare exhibition.”
According to Japanese website DC Watch, showcased lenses include the unreleased Nikkor-Q Auto 5cm F2.5, 1967 Fisheye-Nikkor Auto 6.3mm F2.8, 1961 Nikkor-S Auto 5cm F1.4 and 1958 Auto Nikkor Telephoto Zoom 85-250mm F4 lenses, among others. Some featured prototype lenses never entered mass production.
The exhibition will run through December 27th, 2018 at the Nikon Museum in Shinagawa, Tokyo. The Nikon Museum is also able to be toured via Google Street View, but this particular image is not the one shown in the particular image set Google uses.
The view from Eagle Rock – a digital pinhole image by Ryland West, showing the view from one of Keat’s camera sites
A series of pinhole cameras have been positioned around Lake Tahoe to record in a single exposure the effects of climate change over the course of the next 1000 years. Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has booked space at the nearby Sierra Nevada College to hold an exhibition of the results in the year 3018.
The idea of the project is to show the long-term effects of climate change on the environment, by recording how the scenes the four cameras are pointed at alter over the course of a 1000-year exposure. Though technical details are scant regarding the size of the aperture, the basic premise of the cameras is a pinhole construction with a rose-colored pigment to record the image. The pinholes have been made in 24-karat gold sheets (though the reason isn’t clear why gold was used) and the pigment records the image by fading in areas where it is exposed to most light. As it is the areas that are exposed to light that fade the final image will be positive.
According to an interview on the Vice’s Motherboard website Keats has ‘borrowed a technique from Renaissance painters who worked with copper. This involved rubbing the copper with pumice stone, then rubbing it with garlic and finally applying a layer of pigment. After studying different pigments, Keats chose rose madder, a red pigment that is derived from the root of a madder plant.’
The tiny cameras have a copper body and measure 2.75in long by 2.25in in diameter, and have been placed in strategic positions to monitor the condition of the lake and its shoreline. Whether the cameras can remain still for 1000 years, and whether the exposure will be right in 3018, remains to be seen – but not by any of us. Keats himself says in the Motherboard interview “The [environmental] changes that happen may wipe out the camera or wipe out the institution that’s in charge of it. I just signed a contract with Sierra Nevada College that is for an exhibition of these four photographs in the year 3018. We’re certainly taking chances with this, but that’s also part of the picture in a way.” I’ll wait closer; to the time before buying a ticket for the opening night.
Press release
TAHOE TIMESCAPE VISUALIZE LAKE TAHOE IN 3018
Experimental Philosopher Jonathon Keats Explores 1,000 Years of Environmental Change in the Lake Tahoe Basin
TAHOE PUBLIC ART INSTALLATION | 2018 – 3018 ART EXHIBITION | OCT 18 – NOV 16, 2018 TAHOE GALLERY, SNC, Incline Village, NV
Tahoe Timescape is a public art project conceptualized by experimental philosopher and artist Jonathon Keats that photographically documents the next thousand years of environmental change in the Lake Tahoe Basin. The project enlists a new approach to photography based on the traditional pinhole camera. Pierced through a plate of 24-karat gold, a minuscule pinhole focuses light onto a rose colored pigment, such that the color fades most where the light is brightest, very slowly imprinting a unique positive image. The Millennium Camera’s thousand-year-long photographic exposure, taken between 2018 – 3018, not only shows the view in front of the camera, but also records how it develops over time, revealing dynamics ranging from urban development to climate change.
Digital Pinhole Photograph from Eagle Rock | Site Photography by Ryland West While one goal of Tahoe Timescape is to provide documentation of human and environmental dynamics for study by future generations, the Millennium Camera, custom made from copper for durability, is equally intended as a mechanism for people today to envision their long-term impact on the environment – and potentially to change the picture by altering their behavior.
Tahoe Timescape features four Millennium Cameras that will be deployed around all four shores of Lake Tahoe, with fixed vantage points positioned to provide an expansive view of the Lake Tahoe Basin, presenting multiple opportunities for the public to engage in deep-time thinking as they explore the region. The copper brackets that secure each camera in their location, as well as informative plaques mounted next to the cameras, are fabricated locally by Mountain Forge. The four locations, pinpointed on a topographic map and identified by geographic coordinates, are as follows:
South Shore: Heavenly Mountain Resort, South Lake Tahoe, NV / CA
West Shore: Eagle Rock, Homewood, CA
North Shore: Lake Tahoe Dam, Tahoe City, CA
East Shore: Sand Harbor, NV
Jonathon Keats and Tahoe Public Art’s Executive Director, Mia Hanak, conducted site surveys to identify the vantage points and Millennium Camera locations. Local landscape photographer Ryland West explored each site to shoot a set of landscape photographs paired with digital pinhole photographs focused on the actual vantage point from the Millennium Cameras to help us imagine the photographic composition that will be recorded by each between now and 3018.
“Tahoe Public Art is truly excited to be presenting the conceptual art of Jonathon Keats to the Lake Tahoe Basin. With the ongoing stewardship of Sierra Nevada College, we hope this encourages tourists and residents alike to contemplate the future of the basin and how they can become active in its preservation.” – Steve Miller, Chairman, Tahoe Public Art.
Further outreach will be facilitated by an exhibition about deep time photography at Sierra Nevada College’s Tahoe Gallery. Opening on October 18th and running through November 16 in 2018, the exhibition will feature four sets of landscape photographs, digital medium format pinhole photographs, and photo documentation of the cameras secured at each location. Samplings of pinhole cameras, and a topographic map showing the camera sites and geographic coordinates will also be showcased. On September 5th, Keats led a pinhole camera workshop for SNC students. The exhibition will also showcase original artwork by SNC students — including 2-D, 3-D, digital arts, and interdisciplinary art — encapsulating how they envision Lake Tahoe in one thousand years.
Visions of fictional cities – whether optimistic, realistic, fantastical or dystopian – tend to take on a haze of mystery and grandiosity in Japanese anime, as epitomized in ‘Ghost in the Shell.’ Dark jumbles of nearly-identical skyscrapers lurk over the protagonists in futuristic metropolises, often emphasizing feelings of desolation, industrialization and technology run amok. If you’ve ever sighed over a particularly incredible work of fictional architecture, you might be interested in an exhibition currently on display at London’s House of Illustration.
‘Anime Architecture: Backgrounds of Japan’ is the first UK exhibition of architectural illustrations for classic anime films, featuring over 100 technical drawings and watercolor illustrations. Most of these works come from series that debuted or were most popular during the anime heyday of the 1990s, including Hiromasa Ogura’s paintings for ‘Ghost in the Shell’, Takashi Watanebe’s pencil drawings from Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence and work from the films ‘Patlabor: The Movie’ (1989) and ‘Metropolis’ (2001) by Mamoru Oshii and Atsushi Takeuchi.
Sure, there are great anime works that came after these with fictional architecture that’s just as beautiful, but these days, artists use computer animation instead of hand-painting the backgrounds. In an interview with It’s Nice That, curator Stefan Riekeles explains that it took quite a bit of nudging and late-night meetings at bars to convince the artists that people would want to see these works outside the context of the films, and that they’d translate well to gallery walls.
“[Ghost in the Shell], released 1995, was the continuation of [director Mamoru Oshii’s] reflection of the Asian mega-city, which he started with Patlabor in 1989 and continued after Ghost in the Shell: Innocence in 2004. Patlabor is set in a realistic urban depiction of Tokyo. Innocence is located in a purely fictional Asian world. The world of Ghost in the Shell is a hybrid of these poles.”
“The idea was to evoke a feeling of submerging into the deep levels of the city, where a flood of information overflows the human senses and a lot of noise surrounds the people. The artists were looking for an expression of a crowded space. They found a blueprint for such a place in Hong Kong, which is exotic enough for a Japanese audience to evoke a feeling of alienation and strangeness but familiar enough to relate their daily life to.”
Anime Architecture: Backgrounds of Japan will be open through September 10th, 2017 at the House of Illustration in King’s Cross.
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Duggal Visual Solutions has teamed with its client, Dubai-based photographer Dr. Hersh Chadha, to create what they say is the first-ever permanent photography exhibition in space.
The exhibition consists of five photographs of flowers that Dr. Chadha donated to three astronauts aboard the International Space Station, where the photos are currently zooming around the Earth at 4.76 miles per second.
You can see two of them below:
Col. Valery Korzun of Star City, Moscow made the arrangements to have Dr. Chadha’s photographs on-board the ISS Expedition 49-50, which took place last year. In addition to donating these photos, Dr. Chadha donated a hard drive containing 500 of his photos, as well as his ‘Visions of Nature’ book, to the Yuri A. Gagarin State Scientific Research-and-Testing Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City.
Talking about his donation, Dr. Chadha explained, “Photography is a great medium of expression, and my purpose of doing this was to let the human beings who live on the Space Station for so many months still be connected to Mother Earth.”
You can hear more from Dr. Chadha and watch the photographs’ journey into space in the video below:
An exhibition of portraits that chart the last seven decades of celebrity photography will mark the 70th birthday of British photo agency Camera Press. Emma Blau, granddaughter of founder Tom Blau, has searched the 12 million images of the agency’s archive to find the photographs that demonstrate how portrait photography has changed since the agency started in 1947. The first photographer to join the business was Yousuf Karsh and the first event covered was the wedding of the Queen of England by society photographer Baron.
The exhibition ‘Camera Press at 70 – a lifetime in pictures’ will feature archival work by Karsh, Cecil Beaton, Baron and Jane Bowen, as well as by more recent photographers such as John Swannell, Clive Arrowsmith, Jason Bell and Chris Floyd.
Celebrities caught by the lenses of the exhibited photographers will include Kate Bush, The Queen, the Gallagher brothers from Oasis, Amy Winehouse, Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill and JFK.
The free exhibition will be held the Olympus-sponsored Art Bermondsey Project Space in London from 17th May to 10th June 2017. For more information see the Camera Press website, and for more of the images see the Daily Mail website.
Information from Camera Press
Founded in 1947, Camera Press celebrates its Platinum anniversary this year with Camera Press at 70 – a lifetime in pictures. Drawing on an unparalleled collection of images, and featuring work by some of the most iconic names in the industry this exhibition offers a fascinating insight into photography from the 1940s to the present day.
On display will be the work of photographic legends such as Yousuf Karsh, Cecil Beaton and Jane Bown through to contemporary names that include Andy Gotts, John Swannell, Jason Bell, Jillian Edelstein, Chris Floyd and Laura Pannack.
The exhibition will feature two further 70th anniversaries: 1947 was the year the young Princess Elizabeth wed Prince Philip and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) was founded. The first photographs distributed by Camera Press were of the wedding of the future Queen, and this famous image by Baron will sit alongside more recent unique portraits of Princess Diana, The Queen’s Jubilee and the christening of Prince George. The exclusive BAFTA portrait collection will shine a light on many of our best loved actors from the worlds of TV and film.
Also included in the show are photographs by three generations of the Blau family: founder Tom Blau, his son Jon and granddaughter Emma.
The Nikon Museum has launched its second 100th Anniversary Special Exhibition called ‘Prototype Cameras — Developers’ Memories.’ This exhibit, which will be running from April 4th through July 1st, showcases about 40 of the maker’s prototype cameras spanning dates from the 1940s through the 1980s, including its notable Nikon Model I Prototype 1 unit.
This exhibition includes rare prototypes of cameras that never entered mass production, says Nikon, giving the general public a chance to check out cameras otherwise sealed away from public view. The museum is also offering special commentaries for the Nikon F3 prototype and the Nikon F prototype from 1975 and 1957, respectively. Those commentaries are by Nikon’s Imaging Product R&D Laboratory lab manager Tetsuro Goto.
The Nikon Museum is located in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Those unable to make the trip in person can check out photos of the museum and the prototype exhibition here.
British inventor, artist and satirist Dominic Wilcox is at it again, this time with a contemporary art exhibition aimed at canine attendees with a range of interactive installations purpose-built for pups.
Play More in London has an array of dog-oriented artworks set low on the gallery walls as well as other more directly experiential displays.
Cruising Canines, for instance, includes a cardboard car with cut-out windows and a fan to simulate a brisk drive through the English countryside.
Dinnertime Dream consists of a giant dog bowl that serves as a ball pit, the balls looking like extra-large pieces of dried dog food.
A series of normal-sized doggy bowls operate as fountains, shooting water between them that can be used for bathing or drinking by so-inclined canines.
“Contemporary art has long been an important source of inspiration and fascination for humans,” says Wilcox, “but never before has it been created with a view to drawing the same kind of emotions out of animals instead.”
Complimenting the interactive elements are a series of original paintings and multimedia displays by artists Nick White, Clare Mallison, Joanne Hummel-Newell, Robert Nicol and Michelle Thompson. While amusing for human companions as well, these works were tailored to be visible to dogs in terms of their colors and shades. The exhibition and its contents were all crafted in consultation with dog experts and veterinarians. It really is, as they say, for the dogs.
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