Author: devonmbarthold

The photographer that I took inspiration from is Andrew Zuckerman. I took interest in his macro photography images of flowers that are against a simple white background. I love the look of the bright and dramatically colored flowers against a stark white background. The contrast really makes the flowers feel like they are almost popping off of the page. I love all the little details that you can see in the flowers. For my images I took the idea of bright colored flowers against simple white backgrounds. I tried to focus in on flowers that I found either in my grandmothers greenhouse or flowers that grow on my parents property to have a personal connection with the subject. I chose flowers that I could connect with because I grew up helping my grandmother water the flowers in her greenhouse and a lot of the flowers on my parents property were planted by me! I also wanted to link the assignment to what we are going through now! I thought that the best way to accomplish what I wanted was to photograph my surroundings and so I gathered as many flowers as I could find in my general area. A lot of Andrew’s photographs are side views of the flowers and I went with more of a frontal view so that you could see the details of the flowers head on, that is just a personal preference and I wanted to put my own spin on the photographs.

Here are the images that I created:

For my images I really tried to create images that went well together! I used different lightening techniques to try to create the most contrast possible between the colorful flowers and the white background. I struggled a bit to keep the background strictly white, but I do like how all of my images turned out. I learned some better ways to take the photographs and I think I got stronger images in the end than the images I started out taking! I really tried to focus in on the textures of each flower and I believe that comes through when you look at the images.

During my thought process for this assignment I decided I wanted to show how my family was affected by the virus. My family did not really want me photographing their faces so I decided to focus in on their hands. I chose to show their hands because I felt that was a way to show a big impact on my family but also keep their wish of me not photographing their faces. Originally I wanted to focus in on the impact of their hands at home, but instead I decided to show the impact of their hands at work. My family owns a business called American Ribbon, it is technically closed currently but we are doing curbside pickup and online orders. To fulfill these orders my family is going in throughout the week to cut and prepare the necessary items for making masks. Masks are very important right now and that is why I chose to focus in on our hands preparing these items.

Here are some extra images:

I chose to take inspiration from the photographer David Hockney. I did my own spin on his images to create photographs that relate to my life and things around my home that have meaning to me. The images I took inspiration from are:

The artist I chose to imitate was Ida Kar, a female photographer in London after 1945. She took many portraits of writers and artists. I found that she photographs portraits in a similar way that I do. Some of her portraits are very different than that of the ones we see nowadays and I found that extremely interesting. I liked how the subject looked comfortable in his stance, but at the same time seemed serious. I also liked how he was not looking at the camera but still seemed to be focused in on something important. Makes you wonder what he was staring at.

For this assignment I tried to capture a similar stance but have my subject in clothes that are somewhat popular today and is something he found comfortable. I went away from a super dark background because I wanted more depth in my photographs. For each image I tried different locations, location of my camera to my subject, and different lighting. I found that I preferred outdoor lighting and the camera being level with the subject. I also found that I preferred more of a blurry background and the subject farther away from anything that was in the background. I struggled to get the same kinds of grays in my photographs, but overall I am pleased with how they turned out.

The photographer I chose for this assignment was Berenice Abbott. I specially looked at her work documentation work of New York in 1935. The image I chose was Daily News Building, November 21, 1935.

My photo imitation:

While creating this image I tried to follow the subject matter that Berenice photographed. She photographed what changed in New York City and I saw this building as something that was just under construction last semester. I know much did not change, but I see this building as one of the main buildings here on campus. I chose Berenice because I typically go after people who take portraits and I wanted to try my hand at photographing architecture, when I saw her image I was immediately drawn to it. Old main immediately popped into my head because I walked past it everyday last semester and I always wondered exactly what was going on up there. I tried photographing some other buildings that have changed over the years, but this one felt the strongest to me and I felt like it had the strongest connection to Berenice’s work.