BA Hons Photography (Contemporary Practice): American west research & related pics

Ansel Adams

I enjoyed researching the photographer Ansel Adams, as I found his work strikingly detailed. He was part of the f64 artistic movement, and images were based on technical and stylistic perfection. Any photos that were not perfectly focussed or perfectly printed were considered “impure”.

His images are mostly photographed of the American west, which are seen as “pictorial testimony…of inspiration and redemptive power.” Throughout his photography Adams has developed the zone system, he has learnt how to determine exposure and adjust contrast from his final prints.

His style is known as characterized, portraying extremely sharp focussed images, carefully framed and precisely exposed, emphasizing natural forms and found objects.

When skating in Oberstoarf I took some digital photos on my coolpix S220, and thought the photos resembled and compared well towards Ansel Adams work. I love how the resulting clarity an depth characterized the images.

Robert Adams is an American photographer who has focused on the changing landscape of the American West. His work first came to prominence in the mid-1970s through the book The New West (1974).

Concerned with human destruction of the landscape of the American West, Robert Adams has for many decades used his camera to mournfully document what he sees as the fallen state of a former Eden.

When presenting his project he said "The operating principle that seems to work best is to go to the landscape that frightens you the most and take pictures until you're not scared anymore.“

The Los Angeles basin, perhaps one of the most terrifying landscapes to anyone concerned about environmental degradation, was Adams's focus for several years in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In the piece titled “On Signal Hill”. The black and white photograph documents the evolving landscape of the American West and the impact of human destruction. The visual stability of the form creates a sense of tension exemplifying the documentation of human’s intervention and the uneasy coexistence with the landscape. The two forlorn, scraggly trees overlook a smog-choked landscape of urban sprawl. Perched on the hillside, the neglected trees are poignant reminders of what was once naturally beautiful but now is spoiled.

When competing in Brasov and Oberstoarf, I took some digital images that I thought resembled his style of work. I was intrigued and interested about this topic of human destruction, and wanted to explore further maybe using this theme as one of my assessment choices.

Carleton E. Watkins was a noted 19th century California photographer. Carleton Emmons Watkins was born in Oneonta, upstate New York. He went to Sa Francisco during the gold rush, arriving in 1851. His interest in photography started as an aide in a San Francisco portrait studio, and started taking photographs of his own in 1861.

The photographer became interested in landscape photography and soon began making photographs of California mining scenes and of Yosemite Valley. He experimented with several new photographic techniques, and eventually favoured his "Mammoth Camera," which used large glass plate negatives, and a stereographic camera.

His landscapes became a place where the viewer can find a symbolic state of mind connecting with the ideal presence of God. When viewing his work you notice he sed a lot of isolation, as this was used a lot when photographing nature. The term delivers inner light and a true insight.

Artists research –William Henry Jackson

William Henry Jackson was an American painter, publisher and photographer. Jackson headed west in the late 1860s and found his life's calling by documenting life on the frontier. Jackson was in a position to capture the first photographs of legendary landmarks of the West . He was known for involvement in government expeditions, and in 1871 was partly responsible for the United States Congress photographing the Yellowstone as the first National Park.

Throughout his images, Jackson presents the American west as untouched, nearly empty, massive and unregulated. I wanted to convey this message when photographing the grand canyon in Las Vegas. I enjoyed taking the digital images as I felt the photos portrayed a landscape not only dealing with astonishment, but also connoting pain and danger. Similar to Jackson's work

William Henry Jackson worked with 8x10" plate-size camera, and one even larger, as large as 18x22".