DOCUMENTARY Assignment : Task 3 : Recreating a photographer's work : Zed Nelson

These images were taken in the style of Zed Nelson. His set of images 'Gun Nation' inspired me to take some photographs on the theme of one subject/object. Instead of guns, I chose to photograph around the theme of handbags. Although Nelson's 'Gun Nation' is a black and white set of images I have chosen to keep mine in colour. I like the richness of the images and diversity of colours in different handbags. For some of the images in this set I have applied effects in photoshop to make sure the audience's focus is on the handbags. For some I added a gaussian blur to the image and used the eraser tool over the handbag to make it in focus and the rest of the image slightly blurry. For others I selected the handbag in the image and increased the saturation to make the handbag stand out more. I really like the idea of photographing a theme of something and have that theme running through a whole set of images.

Here are the images that I was trying to recreate taken by Zed Nelson:

DOCUMENTARY Assignment : Task 3 : Recreating a photographer's work : Richard Drew

These are the images I have taken in response to Richard Drew's photographs of 9/11. All of Drew's images from 9/11 have a really cool colour palette due to all of the ash and debris created by the attack on the World Trade Center. His images also often have very wide angles where people appear quite small. To create these images I went into York on a very grey day to capture the cool tones within his images. I then went up onto the York Walls to have a good view and take pictures with a wide angle and make people appear smaller as I was taking them from a height. My images could never be a true recreation of Drew's images because I could never revisit the event of 9/11. I shot these on a grey day trying to recreate the grey and cool tones in his images. It was difficult to get the exact colours because the grey tones in Drew's images were created by ash, smoke and debris, yet the sky was very blue and the sun was shining to create contrast. In my images the sky was very grey and the sun wasn't out. To make my images look more like the ones Drew took on 9/11 I used photoshop to change the colours slightly. I altered the saturation to make them even more grey, then selected the sky and grassy areas using the magic wand tool and increased the saturation to make them look more like the greens and blues in Drew's images.

Here are the images taken by Richard Drew that I was trying to recreate:

LO-FI ZINE Assignment : Task 2 : Research : Allison V. Smith

The above 4 images are from Smith's set 'School'. I love how the images are so simplistic yet they work really well together. Individually the photographs may be quite boring and out of context but together the set is lovely. All of the images seem to have the same colour schemes which works really well. 

Allison V. Smith likes photographing dogs and the images are beautiful. These images have inspired me to take some photographs of my dog, also in the square format. Taking photographs of my dog represents the theme of home because my house doesn't feel like a home without him in it. He is always with me when I am at home, wherever I am.. he is. I would like to create a set of test images in my house or outside of it and always involve him somehow. I think I will shoot the images digitally. 

This image looks good because the road disappearing into the distance draws your eye further into the photograph. 

DISCLAIMER: All of these images were taken by Allison V. Smith.

None of the above images are my own.

I really like Allison V. Smith's style of photography and I could see myself recreating something similar for my own Zine on the theme of home. I really like the way she mainly works in squares which isn't the normal rectangular style of photograph. I think that the fact she works in squares makes the images more artistic and more like pieces of art instead of just photographs. I really love how simplistic her images are - yet the audience can tell that she has carefully planned out the composition which makes them so successful and aesthetically pleasing.

LO-FI ZINE Assignment : Task 2 : Research : Kaugummi Books

Here are a few examples of a zine created by Benedikt Rugar.

Here are some examples of a zine created by Jimi Franklin. I like how the images in his zine stretch over two pages. 

These are a few examples from a zine created by Martina Maffini. I love this zine and the different colour tones in the black and white images. These images were shot using film and I think they somehow look more raw and aesthetically pleasing than digital ones even though they may not look as seamless and professional. I would love to shoot my images for my zine using a film camera but it is very time consuming getting them developed and scanning them into the computer. 

These images are examples of a zine created by Will Adler. These images are interesting because they are quite abstract and eccentric. Because the images are quite strange, they draw the audience into the zine and make them wonder what the narrative is behind the images. 

DOCUMENTARY Assignment : Task 3 : Recreating a photographer's work : Richard Avedon

Samantha Temoszczuk, 16 Year Old, Bradford, West Yorkshire, 15 November 2011

Ceri Judd, 18 Year Old, Leeds, West Yorkshire, 15 November 2011

Natalie Towler, 16 Years Old, Bramley, West Yorkshire, 15 November 2011

These images are based on Richard Avedon's 'In The American West'. I have imitated his images by asking my models to have quite blank expressions and adding captions with their names and where they live. I think that Avedon shot his images on a film camera, I didn't have one so I used a digital camera and used photoshop to recreate the colour and tone in his images. I shot my photographs in colour then used photoshop to make them black and white. After I made them black and white I applied a brown tint to make them look more like Avedon's work. I then noticed that the background was looking quite yellow toned and Avedon's were very bleached out. To alter this I used the magic wand tool to select the background only and not my model, then altered the levels to make my background a bright white. I then selected the inverse to select my model and made them a bit darker to create a contrast between them and the background.
I am really pleased with my images and think they do a good job of imitating Avedon's work. I really like this style and the sepia tones.



These are the images I was trying to recreate - Taken by Richard Avedon in his set 'In The American West'