Brutalist Architecture
Brutalist architecture is a design style popularised in the mid-20th century. This architectural style was characterised by its use of raw and unfinished concrete surfaces, and its functionalist designs. It was developed after World War II, as there was a need for affordable and durable building materials. The term "brutalism" comes from the French word "brut," which means raw or rough, like the buildings are. This style was often used for public and institutional buildings such as universities, government buildings, and social housing projects. The aim of brutalist architecture was to create strong and long-lasting structures that had a monumental and utilitarian feel to them. Despite being controversial due to people's mixed opinions on how good they look, brutalist architecture has had a significant impact on the urban landscape of the 20th century.
Simon Phipps
Simon Phipps is a British photographer who gained recognition for his striking images of brutalist architecture. His work focuses on capturing the raw beauty of these concrete structures, often highlighting their geometric shapes, textures, and details. Phipps' photographs are characterised by their strong contrast and bold compositions, which evoke a sense of awe and admiration for these often-misunderstood buildings. His images have been featured in numerous publications and exhibitions, cementing his reputation as one of the leading photographers of brutalist architecture.
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My Response
In my response I went to two different areas in London where you can find brutalist architecture, these places were the National Theatre and the Whittington Estate. Both are staples in Brutalist architecture in London.
Final Edits
Jason M. Peterson
Jason M. Peterson is a Chicago-based photographer and creative director with 25 years of creative experience in television, print, interactive advertising and brand identity. He often works with celebrities for shoots and does this in his signature urban and moody black and white style. He takes pictures with a Leica SL for its astonishingly high definition.
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My Response
For this project I wanted to respond to Peterson's use of people and shadows as well as also implementing London architecture into the pictures I took. To do this I used people on the street to show bring through the solitude of the people Peterson photograph's. I made the pictures Black and White and brought up the contrast, exposure and lighting to get the look I desired.
The work I created is more subtle in comparison to Peterson's work, and the figures in my images are more peripheral to the picture whilst his are more central to it. Although focusing on the architecture in my work, the people are still integral.
I think my use of shadows echoes his work.
The work I created is more subtle in comparison to Peterson's work, and the figures in my images are more peripheral to the picture whilst his are more central to it. Although focusing on the architecture in my work, the people are still integral.
I think my use of shadows echoes his work.
Final Edits
Lee Friedlander
Lee Friedlander is an American-born photographer. Friedlander made almost two dimensional looking images of the city and mannequins in shop windows in 1948, using the reflection of buildings and whatever else is in the background to layer the image and get that flattened look.
We went out to try and make images similar to this 2d style in shop front windows. |
My Response
Final Edits
Thomas Danthony
Thomas Danthony is a French photographer who composes two-dimensional work by flattening his images and making solid blocks of colour within them, with little detail and more focus on overall general shape and outline of what is depicted in his work.
For his brutalist work, Danthony did this with 3 popular brutalist structures in London including the South Bank.
For his brutalist work, Danthony did this with 3 popular brutalist structures in London including the South Bank.
My Response
Thomas Kellner
Twisted Structure
David Copithorne
Copithorne is a Brazilian photographer, creates his work by using a mix of film, geometry and digital manipulation. He aims to take pictures that capture what is missed by the average eye. "My photography and cinematography are an expression of travel and free spirit."
My Response
Evaluation
Within this task I wanted to create a type of image that captures our everyday city in a new way. I went to Canary Wharf for these modern type of skyscrapers, and saw this bridge over the water and wanted to use the structure and colour of it to make a piece of work inspired by David Copithorne. After taking the image I used photoshop and made multiple circles via new layer over the image that got smaller the further you went into the circle, then used each step of this to create frames for a gif that shows each step of the image becoming further like an image from Copithorne. I think this work would be better if it had the vibrant, colour-gradient style filter over it.
Structure of the Body 1
Danny Quirk
Danny Quirk is an artist who does photorealistic watercolour paintings on skin, painting what cameras cannot capture. To achieve this he uses liquid latex, sharpies, and acrylic paint. He wants to bring medical textbooks to life.
For my response to his work I will use photoshop to edit in skeleton and flesh body parts onto portraits. |
My Response
Structure of Nature
Myoung Ho Lee
My Response
Final Edits
Evaluation
Overall, within this project I think I created work that shows a closer view of nature than Ho Lee does, due to not being able to put giant sheets up around the woods, but this gives the photography a different feeling of a smaller subject.
I found it difficult to get purely white backgrounds with good lighting without shadows falling over them.
I found it difficult to get purely white backgrounds with good lighting without shadows falling over them.
Independent Development
Three Strands
William Eckersley
William Eckersley is a graduate from Westminster University, with his work seen in various exhibitions, magazines, websites and self-published books. In this project "Left London", he took photographs of abandoned buildings in his hometown, bringing light to an unseen part of the city life before these buildings were demolished and reworked, and he questions whether it is worth it do so.
My Response
For my response to Ekersley, I went to an abandoned building next to a train station where I could go inside and take pictures. However as it was completely dark inside, I needed to use long exposures which required me to come back with a tripod because my first set of images were blurred, which almost added a painting-like effect.
Final Edits
Evaluation
Within this task I went to an abandoned building with no information about what it was online, but it neighbours the East Finchley tube station, with a warehouse-like interior. My focus was to capture the dark interior with exposures of up to a minute to capture the detail inside without flash with some inclusion of the small natural light available.
My inspiration for this strand came from William Eckersley, and his project where he captures the abandoned houses left in his neighbourhood before they were demolished, making me want to take advantage of this location before it follows a similar fate.
To edit the images I took, I altered the lighting and contrast of the colours, brightening the location to look like it has more life and purpose than a dingy room.
As well as this, I cropped out the parts of the images that took focus away from the emptiness and peacefulness of the interior.
My inspiration for this strand came from William Eckersley, and his project where he captures the abandoned houses left in his neighbourhood before they were demolished, making me want to take advantage of this location before it follows a similar fate.
To edit the images I took, I altered the lighting and contrast of the colours, brightening the location to look like it has more life and purpose than a dingy room.
As well as this, I cropped out the parts of the images that took focus away from the emptiness and peacefulness of the interior.
Irving Penn
Irving Penn was one of the twentieth century's great photographers, an American photographer known for his fashion photography, portraits and still lifes, with his photography being featured in Vogue Magazine and working with clients like Issey Miyake.
In this project, Irving took used cigarette butts from the street and recycled them into a new form of art, giving rubbish a new life.
In this project, Irving took used cigarette butts from the street and recycled them into a new form of art, giving rubbish a new life.
My Response
For this strand, I picked up pieces of rubbish off the floor on the way to school to recycle them into having a new purpose.
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Final Edits
Evaluation
Overall, for this strand I think that I produced a good response to the work of Irving Penn, and did well in giving pieces of trash that have been littered a new purpose within my photography. I tried to mimic the composition of Penn, doing portrait photographs with the focus (the object) being centred. Once I found the objects to use I wanted to focus on texture, which can be seen in the foil and bubble wrap. In photoshop I adjusted the brightness and increased the contrast and saturation to emphasise the shadows and texture of the objects, like creases.
Bill Jacobson
Jacobson is an American photographer who is known for his out of focus photographs of both the figure and structure of the images. An inspiration for this is that "The blurred subjects underline the futility of capturing a true human likeness in both portraiture and memory."
My Response
Final Edits
Next Development
For my next development I am going to continue my strand on William Eckersley, and go forward with more pictures of abandoned buildings.
For this I will paste pictures from the building that I hadn't used, which focus more on specific details or objects on the walls of the building and use long exposure to capture the pictures whilst in the dark, this will show the difference between up-close and wide shot structure.
For the location of this, I will go back to the original building, but venture into new sections of the building like the upstairs and possibly basement.
For this I will paste pictures from the building that I hadn't used, which focus more on specific details or objects on the walls of the building and use long exposure to capture the pictures whilst in the dark, this will show the difference between up-close and wide shot structure.
For the location of this, I will go back to the original building, but venture into new sections of the building like the upstairs and possibly basement.
My Response
Although my original plan was just to put up the pictures on walls of the building, once I realized there was old furniture in the building I wanted to make the pictures more naturally integrated into the images by placing them in unexpected areas in the images.
Final Edits
Evaluation
In this development from my original task, I wanted to shift the focus from wide-shots of rooms in abandoned buildings to the closer details which might be ignored in a dilapidated area like that, whilst placing these images in other rooms of the same building I had explored before, because the upstairs of the building was a whole new section.
I believe my spontaneous decision to stick up the previous images onto the furniture in the new environment made the images more natural, and somewhat subtle, as if I continued with the same project I started with but these images just creeped into frame, purposely choosing make the composition of the images focus on the rooms as a whole with the pasted image within that, still capturing the viewer's eye without it being in the centre of the image, and also experimented with black and white prints and colour-focused prints, but I think I prefer the coloured images as they can stand out from the environment more but also match the graffiti left on the walls.
I think the images would be better if I used glue to paste them into the environment and stop the creasing in the prints, making them look less like they were put there purposefully. I would prefer this more natural placement of the prints to look like photographer JR's work, as it feels as if it is meant to be there.
I believe my spontaneous decision to stick up the previous images onto the furniture in the new environment made the images more natural, and somewhat subtle, as if I continued with the same project I started with but these images just creeped into frame, purposely choosing make the composition of the images focus on the rooms as a whole with the pasted image within that, still capturing the viewer's eye without it being in the centre of the image, and also experimented with black and white prints and colour-focused prints, but I think I prefer the coloured images as they can stand out from the environment more but also match the graffiti left on the walls.
I think the images would be better if I used glue to paste them into the environment and stop the creasing in the prints, making them look less like they were put there purposefully. I would prefer this more natural placement of the prints to look like photographer JR's work, as it feels as if it is meant to be there.
Next Development
For my next development in this project, I am going to go back to the building and find objects left in there to spray paint them into solid colours. I want to make these objects stand out completely from the drab, dirty environment by making them bright colours.
From this my next set of images will have more of a focus on shape as well as colour like before.
From this my next set of images will have more of a focus on shape as well as colour like before.
My Response
Final Edits
Evaluation
For this development within my project, I expanded on the idea of more intricate details. However for this I used the objects left in the building and looked into the shape of them by making them solid colours that look too clean and fresh to be in the environment they have been in for years. I went back to the location I did the previous development in because I remembered it for having strange objects like tens of fuses, cans, paint bottles and a dvd.
I spray painted these objects solid colours which I think I did well as they stand out from their environment and look out of place solely because of their colour.
In my composition I wanted to include the dirt, grime and other dilapidated objects in the room. So I took shots looking down from angles to include the floor and things like the chair and barrel.
During the editing of these pictures on photoshop, I turned the brightness, contrast, saturation and vibrancy up to brighten the colours and make them stand out even more from the environment.
During this part of the project, I was reminded of the work of Enrico Becker, who paints fruits and vegetables different colours.
I spray painted these objects solid colours which I think I did well as they stand out from their environment and look out of place solely because of their colour.
In my composition I wanted to include the dirt, grime and other dilapidated objects in the room. So I took shots looking down from angles to include the floor and things like the chair and barrel.
During the editing of these pictures on photoshop, I turned the brightness, contrast, saturation and vibrancy up to brighten the colours and make them stand out even more from the environment.
During this part of the project, I was reminded of the work of Enrico Becker, who paints fruits and vegetables different colours.
Next Development
For my final development, I am going to take images of other objects I took with me from the abandoned building and outside on the pavement, then I am going to take pictures of these objects against white backgrounds after I transfer images from the building onto them using image transferring.