Evaluation

Within this assignment I have produced images emulating the work of my chosen photographer, which was Rut Blees Luxemburg. To enable me to produce successful photographs emulating her work I first had to do a lot of research, my initial research consisted of finding out about Luxemburg, who she was and where she is from, how she captures her photographs, the techniques and equipment that she uses to take her photographs as well as what work she has had published in books, galleries and as album covers. The initial research enabled me to gain a better understanding of her work, however there was still a lot I could learn about Luxemburg, therefore I went on to do more research on her work by choosing one monograph and finding out what the meaning was behind the work – and the book itself. From doing all of this research I understood her work a lot more, realising there was specific reasoning behind all her photographs being taken during the night, isolating herself from the rest of the world and people. The research that I did helped me to think of the type of photographs that I could capture emulating Luxemburg’s work. I first chose to focus on photographing the ground and the reflection within puddles but the images weren’t successful and didn’t emulate her work well for numerous reasons one being there was no orange-golden tint within the images like with Rut Blees Luxemburg’s. I then decided to focus more on things that tend to go unnoticed within the city, looking more for areas that were lit better. Again the photographs weren’t very successful yet they were better than before and worked a little better in emulating the work of Rut Blees Luxemburg – I just had to make the photographs a little more my own and find areas that were better lit – providing the tint from the light. Knowing exactly what I needed to do to get successful images I went out a few different times to different areas and using long exposure times creating the orange-golden tint, I was able to capture images that emulated Luxemburg’s work, finding different compositions looking for things that go unnoticed.

I feel that I could improve on the photographs that I produced for this assignment by trying to use longer exposure times which could help me pick up more detail within the composition’s – as I was only able to use a maximum on 30 seconds. As well as maybe allowing myself to think more openly about the type of photographs that I could produce, giving myself a wider variety of areas to focus on as the thought I was having were very restricted to thinking about one certain thing – as I was trying to make my photographs very similar to hers which didn’t work very well, this made me think my photographs weren’t successful in emulating Luxemburg’s work.

I have enjoyed this assignment as I have learnt a lot about my photographer as well as other photographer. All of the research that I have done has helped me to understand more about how Luxemburg’s work is captures and about her. I enjoyed being able to emulate her work as I have liked her photographs for a while but never though to do anything like this. At the start my images weren’t very successful but from numerous outings and attempts I have produced lots of different images and I am pleased with my results. I feel that nearer to the end of the assignment my photographs became more successful and better at emulating her work. I am very satisfied with my final images and I think they work well, emulating the work of Rut Blees Luxemburg.

Final Images

The six images above are my final images for this assignment emulating Rut Blees Luxemburg's work. The reason that I have chosen these six images is because I feel the compositions work really well, as well as the fact that I have managed to get the orange-golden yellow tint to the photographs like the one Luxemburg has within her photos. I have tried to look for areas of the city that wouldn't get noticed very much during the day, but are well illuminated during the night due to the street lights, I think the lights make the images a little more effective as they appear like bursts of light, which is emphasised due to the long exposure time that I have used to capture the images. I feel that the development stages I have been through over the past few weeks has helped me to get to this point, enabling me to get six successful final images emulating the work of Rut Blees Luxemburg.

Improved images

Over the past few weeks I have been out numerous times to take photographs in which I am emulating Rut Blees Luxemburg's work. I have actually found it quite difficult to get successful images, Its hard to get interesting and unusual areas/compositions that have a lot of light within them, giving the image the same orange tint that Luxemburg's images. I also found it quite difficult to find interesting and unusual things that would tend to go unnoticed during the rush of everyday life, however I thought that by just wandering the streets of different areas within the city I would come across different things, below are the images that I have taken...

    

thoughts so far...

Having thought about all of the feedback that I have received at this point regarding my photographs emulating Rut Blees Luxemburg's work, I know that I need to make the photographs more of my own, giving them my own twist, yet still having them similar to Luxemburg's work at the same time. Because of this I have decided to change my approach to emulating her work a little bit, I am going to focus more on well built up areas that are heavily populated rather that what I was doing before which was looking for the quieter areas such as backstreets within the city. By changing my approach I hope to get better photographs with better compositions and colours - the orange tint from the light that I need within my photographs. I hope that I will be able to get some images that are more successful in emulating Luxemburg's work.

I also feel that initially I was looking very hard for things that would go unnoticed by people everyday, yet I wasn't actually finding anything very interesting which meant I wasn't getting very successful photographs. This is also part of the reason behind why I have decided to change my approach a little bit, I am going to look more for things that do get noticed yet they have become so known to people that they don't tend to pay that much attention nor do they notice them anymore. I feel this could allow me to get images that are more successful in emulating Rut Blees Luxemburg's work.

Fourth presentation...

For this presentation we had to produce another set of photographs emulation our photographers work, my photographer being Rut Blees Luxmeburg. So I went out around the streets of Manchester during the night, looking for unusual things that wouldn't necessarily be noticed during the mad rush of people within the city during the day, here are the photographs I took for this presentation;

Above are the five photographs I took for this presentation, I am happy with them and feel I have some good outcomes, however I feel there is still something missing within these photographs, I need to make them more of my owns yet still keeping them like an emulation of Luxemburg's work, this is what I am going to experiment with over the next few weeks by going out to numerous places and capturing different photographs only using the street lights to light up the scene.

presentation - Assignment 3

Today we had our third presentation, below is what we had to do..

• From your selected monograph please create a minimum of three images that emulate your photographer’s body of work in respect to their overall concept, rationale and remit.

• In order to do this successfully you should pay close attention to the following:

• What is the subject? Is it primarily people, objects or landscapes or a combination? What type of people are they - young, old, celebrities, everyday people? etc.)

• Consider the locations used by the photographer. Are the photographs set in an urban, rural or imagined landscape? Are they shot at a particular time of day or in a particular style? etc.)

• Analyse the technical choices made by your chosen photographer. Are the photographs colour, b&w or both? What format does the photographer use - Polaroid, 35mm, medium format, or large format? How is the subject lit - artificial studio lighting or natural light only? etc.

So i started to think of ways I could emulate Luxemburg's work, I thought about some of the things mentioned in the bullet points above. Her photographs are taken specifically at night and/or the early hours of the morning when there is no-one else out, therefore meaning that she is alone. Luxemburg's photographs are of isolated things, she sometimes photographs puddles on the ground, tower blocks with lights switched on inside, random crates situated in the middle of car parks and a lot of the time water is somewhere within her photos. She also uses only street lights to light the scenes within her photographs, her photographs have an orange tint to them because of the street lights.

Having thought about these things, I then went out and took some photographs, using the idea of focusing on puddles on the floor, like in the images below:

 
 Here are the photos that I took:

 

 

 I don't think that these photos are that good, the first few are a bit blurry instead of being sharp and definable, this is something I am going to work on. My favourite from these initial photos is the last image, I really like the compositions and the reflection witin the puddle in the foreground. I am going to go out a few times and find different locations, carrying on the theme of looking at the floor and using only the street lights to light the area's I am photographing.