shoot 6

shoot 5

Writing and Portraiture - Nancy Hellebrand and Kelly Maker

Hellebrand's Work:

                           

When creating her work, Nancy Hellebrand works with physical paper and scans in her work to create her images. She focuses on the curvature of the ink and contrasts the white and black in the photo. I am inspired by Nancy Hellebrand's work and I am going to combine portraiture with writing photography to further my exploration. 

Maker's Work:

Kelly Maker has used book pages as the background for her portraits. Having the writing in the background is not something that I have yet explored however it is a unique way of incorporating writing with other photography styles such as portraiture. The writing in the book looks quite old, giving this series a vintage feel. 

These photographs are very abstract, not only because of the writing but also because of the cut outs of the models in the images. This could simply be a creative addition, or it could have a deeper meaning perhaps related to labels and the feminism movement.

In these images, I think that Maker has scanned in the book pages and then digitally edited on photoshop the images of the models. I would take a different approach to this, by printing out and physically editing the images. This way, they feel more personal. The writing behind which is from a book, I would also exchange for handwritten notes by the models themselves, so that the final edits have very personal tones and represent each individual.

This image is different to the rest as there is no writing and it's in black and white. When creating my images, I will edit the model photos to be black and white as I feel that black and white photos are more personal and touching, which is a theme I am trying to achieve. The lack of writing in this image is not something I will reflect in my work, as I am using inspiration from Nancy Hellebrand as well as Kelly Maker.

Image Bank: 

                    

                                  

These images are similar to the work I intend to create. Most of the pictures are in black and white, which is something I will recreate. I want my photographs to have very personal tones, and sometimes bold colours can over power that. The rips in the images will be done physically and not on Photoshop, as this gives the picture a more raw look. I will blank out my models faces and use that space to place the handwritten notes after they have been edited and printed. I intend to leave some negative space around my model as some pictures above demonstrate, as it draws the eye to the structure of the writing when there are less distractions in the image.

Contact Sheet:

Photos I Will Use:

Photos I Wont Use:

Edit Progression:

Final Images:







Final Analysis:

shoot 4

Writing and Landscapes - Nancy Hellebrand and Charlie Waite

Hellebrand's Work:

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Nancy Hellebrand's work focuses on the details and curvature of writing. The contrast between the black ink and white paper leaves a lot of negative space. As I have studied Hellebrand's exploration into handwritten writing I wanted to develop the idea. Because of this, I intend to create images featuring digital writing to explore further writing photography. 

Waite's Work:

As previously studied, Charlie Waite explored landscapes, specifically naturalistic landscapes. I was inspired by his images and wanted to combine them with writing photography. After looking into combining naturalistic landscapes with handwriting I decided to take a digital approach. The business of his works allows the simplicity of the writing to blend in with the landscape, creating an interesting frame. 

Image Bank: Ideas

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I intend to create images that reflect the above style, with writing being combined with a naturalistic landscape. This idea inspires me as it is not a common theme in photography, so there is an element of originality. As I have previously explored this theme, I will try using digital text and black and white photos, giving a slightly more moody feel to the final image. I will use a cursive type of text as it reflects the same feel as trees/leaves/plants more than a block text would.

Contact Sheet:

Best Images:

Whilst this picture as a whole is not aesthetically pleasing, I intend to crop my images into the exact frame desired. I want to do this as in my previous investigation I used relatively zoomed out images, and so I want to experiment with some variation. The leaves in the back of this image hold a lot of detail and will be useful for cropping and editing.

This image is too far away in its current state, however once it has been cropped it holds great potential to show the different textures on the trees, as well as the depth of green shades which will look rich when converted to black and white.

This photo is much closer than the others and so will not need much cropping. The detail in the leaves will be more defined once the picture is edited and I think that once the writing is layered on top the picture will be interesting.

Images that didn't turn out well: 

This picture doesn't have a specific point that would be good to zoom in to in order to get detail. The colours in this picture also wouldn't be defined once turned into black and white. This image isn't relevant to Charlie Waite's style and wouldn't fit the theme of my edits.

This photo is not naturalistic enough. The features of streets, lights and people take away the natural elements. As well as this, the lighting on the trees is way too harsh and makes this image impossible to use. The lack of colour variation would make this photo non-dimentional once editied into black and white.

This photo is too dark to be edited. The exposure on my camera was not correct for this shot. As well as this, the photo is out of focus, making it hard to pinpoint a specific place to crop. The lack of colour variation makes this picture too moody to progress.

Edit Progression:

To begin, I cropped my chosen image to where I thought had the most detail and would work best with layered writing. In this case, the detail of the base of the left tree had to be in the frame, as well as a good amount of the detailed leaves behind. 

Once I had my cropped image, I converted it into black and white. I did this to experiment, as in my last shoot I left my pictures in colour. Changing the picture to black and white captured a lot of depth in the photo and made the writing that was layered on top less readable, making the image more interesting.

Once the base image was fully edited, I typed out some song lyrics and poems on Photoshop and changed them into a cursive font to fit the naturalistic theme. I simply layered them and adjusted the size before choosing the "Darken" effect.

Final Edits: 

Final Analysis:

In conclusion, these images turned out to be successful edits which relate to the theme of writing whilst showing inspiration from both Charlie Waite and Nancy Hellebrand. In comparison to the previous shoot, I prefer the first edits with the coloured background images and the handwritten writing, as it has a more uplifting mood than the moody feeling these images radiate. The detail in these images however is better than in the colour ones as the contrast is higher. If I were to revisit this shoot and take more pictures, I would take an approach of taking closer up images rather than cropping more zoomed out images. To continue my exploration of writing photography, I could experiment with portraiture combined with writing styles.

shoot 3

Landscapes and Writing - Charlie Waite and Nancy Hellebrand

Waite's work:

Charlie Waite's work features natural elements such as trees, mountains and the sky. His works are usually quite vibrant in colour but the colours are more soft than harsh, this could be due to the natural light he uses in his works. The nature theme could be linked with empowerment, beauty or growth.

In his photographs, there is a common theme of having a colour gradient. This refers to the different colours that join one another in a photograph. For example, this picture shows a colour gradient of yellow, orange, green and pink. 

This photo seems as if it represents growth. The size scale represented by the trees could refer to life, growth and change. This would be relevant as everything in nature grows, and his main theme is naturalistic elements.

I have been inspired by Charlie Waite's work as I think that naturalistic photos such as his images would tie smoothly with writing photography styles such as Nancy Hellebrand's. They both have themes of life and development, and there are many creative ways to combine the two photography styles. As some of Waite's images are difficult to capture, such as mountains, I will focus mostly on trees or plants for my images.

Image Bank:

I intend to create photos that will be similar to this, featuring inspiration from Charlie Waite and Nancy Hellebrand. The naturalistic elements of Waite's work combines with the personal tones writing of Hellebrand's photos will create a detailed image of layered photographs. I also intend to explore a different writing style such as using digitally printed words or stamped words.

Contact Sheet:

Photos to use:

These pictures of the writing I created will work best for these edits as they are very clear. The flash used enabled this writing to be more defined against the paper, therefore making it easier to edit the pictures to then layer and finally adjust. These shots are framed the best for me to progress to crop, as they are taken at the straightest angle.

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These images of trees are the ones I will use for my final edits as they are the most in focus and well framed photos. Whilst Waite's images are more zoomed out than mine, I wanted mine to be slightly further in to match with the close up writing. The lighting in these images is soft and shaded, similar to Waite's images. To edit these pictures I will slightly brighten them and increase the contrast, but ultimately keep the softness of the colours.

Photos that didn't turn out well:

             

I won't use these photos in my final edits. The main reason that these photos are not successful is due to them being too close up. Close up images doesn't represent Waite's style, and it would clash with the writing due to the lack of negative space. As well as this, there are unwanted features in the frames, such as a person and a wall. Lastly, the photos are not fully in focus, and therefore the final edits would be slightly blurry.

Editing Process:

I firstly edited the photos of the trees. This was relatively simple, starting with increasing the brightness and contrast slightly whilst still keeping the colours soft. I then slightly increased the vibrance and saturation to define the photo. Next, I very slightly increased the lightness of the photo as it was still slightly dull and moody. Lastly, I just corrected the exposure by putting it up slightly. This created a soft effect to the image and making it ready for further layering.

 

  

Once the first picture is edited, I then move on to editing the writing image. This is started by cropping the image down to the desired frame where only the writing you want on the final image is left. Next, if the ink is not black then the picture should be converted into black and white. Once the image is in black and white I edit the brightness and contrast by putting them all the way up. This creates clear definition between the white paper and the black ink. After this, I change the exposure to define the ink shapes. To finish the edit I will slightly adjust the vibrance to check there are no other colours in the image. Once they are edited I dragged and layered the two edits. I selected to "Multiply" and "Divide" my layers to get the writing in black and in white. 

  

  

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Final Images:

Final Analysis:

I think that this shoot was very successful. The final edits show different creativities and skills as well as heavily reflecting the themes of Hellebrand and Waite. The soft colours contrasted with heavy ink create an interesting photograph and makes the personal tones from the handwriting stand out rather than being lost by bold colours and harsh lighting. I believe that these pictures reflect the research carried out prior to my shoots. If I were to re-attempt this shoot, I would try taking my pictures from further away as Charlie Waite does. I would also explore even more writing styles. In this shoot I used writing with pens and with ink and stamps. In the future i could write digitally or use paint. To develop the idea of combining writing photography with other photography styles, I could explore portraiture.