Assignment 5

After consultation with my tutor we have agreed upon the scope of assignment Five.

The assignment will centre around the work of Karl Blossfeldt. I will write a short essay as a background to his life and work and that will be followed by a small body of work along similar lines to his. The final outcome will be to enter some of the work in suitable juried exhibitions and gain exposure of the medium of macro botanical work in the local Press.

I have been carrying out some exploratory work, especially the setting up of a macro studio and collecting specimens. Specimens are hard to come by outdoors at this time of year so I may have to postpone this a few weeks. In the meantime the essay research can take place. Little exists about Blossfeldt outside of his books and they are in short supply new. I have managed to acquire a good second hand copy of Karl Blossfeldt 1865-1932, Edited by Hans Christian Adam - Taschen 1999.
Internet searching reveals a number of sites with biographical and technical content, but on inspection it seems that the primary source is Wikipedia, with minor changes.

There is still indecision on the technique I should use to make the images. Blossfeldt made his own camera and lenses and at the turn of the last century this was a considerable achievement, especially as he was making images with X30 magnification on a glass negative about the same size as modern medium format film. It is written that (no photographs exist) the bellows extension was in the region of 1 metre. I will not be making a camera or lens, or acquiring any further equipment for the assignment.

My options are:

1. Use a FF DSLR with either a 60mm macro or 105mm macro lens. Both of these can have extension tubes 12mm, 20mm or 36mm attached singularly or in any combination.

2. Use a 6x6 SLR with 80mm standard lens and 21mm extension tube.

The specimens can be very small, sometimes 10mm in diameter and 30mm long. The digital route will give technically better results, especially when focus stacking is employed. The purpose (as I will detail later) of Blossfeldt's photographs was so that art students could see (by projecting onto a wall) small botanical specimens in a drawing class. If Blossfeldt were given another chance of that today I am convinced he would use whatever technical advancement was available. By way of contrast and aesthetic considerations I may shoot a roll of 6x6 as a comparison.

The studio is now complete. It comprises of a 800mm x 800mm x 800mm light tent, 2 Elichrom Dlite 2 flash heads and a number of reflectors, honeycomb grids, soft boxes etc. The light rig is suspended so that the lights are above the worktop, and removes the need for light stands in a confined space. Various coloured cards are available as gobos and reflectors. A copy stand is also available if I need to shoot vertically onto flower heads on a close card background or the light box.

 

Macro set up.

 

Work space.

 

An early test to set up the lighting. There is considerable time spent with trial and error to get it anywhere near correct. The surfaces are so small and the positioning of lights, reflectors and gobos has to be millimetre perfect. Blossfeldt used window light and exposure times of 10 minutes and that soft round light is difficult to achieve.

 

Background colour and texture is under review. Blossfeldt used a variety, generally to suit the specimen's tones and the distance between specimen and background has an effect on the lighting set up and any texture.

 

More work is being carried out on this.

 

 

 

Apple Bud. (Early test shot)

 

Focus Stacking - Test

I have the need to revise my macro techniques for a future project. I have a 60mm and a 105mm macro lens, together with 3 extension tubes. Even at F45 the depth of field is very narrow, especially when at minimum focusing distance. A view camera or maybe a short tele tilt and shift on the DSLR would improve this but the cost would outweigh the benefits. One other item (given to me by a good friend) is a focusing rail. It is a rack and pinion device that allows movement of the camera to change the focus rather than the normal lens focusing. A few years ago I tried focus stacking, a technique whereby you take a number of images, starting from the front of the subject to the back, each in focus. Software, using layers stacks these, applies masks and produces a composite image of all the in focus bits. The result is a photograph with a very wide depth of field. In the image below I used a single Bowens strobe so there are too many reflections, but that will be rectified as my light tent has now arrived and a diffused light is now available.
The image is from 12 frames. Each movement on the focusing rail no more than 2mm. The images are then processed in CS5 using photomerge and align. An i7 with 32gb, 36MP frames and the processing took no more than 45 seconds so I am happy to make further stacks of up to 20 layers.
While just testing I have reverted to .jpg files rather than raw to speed this up a bit. This work continues.

Another experiment with the light tent and acrylic sheet lit from above and below. The paper weight is from assignment 2. Being glass it is difficult to not get reflections but here I think I have a reasonable effort.

Assignment 4 Tutor Feedback

The tutor report was accompanied by an annotated copy of the essay. The overall comments were good with some comments that require my attention before assessment (which will be in November).
The main concern was the title. As can be seen from previous postings, this was also a concern for myself. I knew what I wanted to say, but as with a lot of images, a title is not the easiest part to make.
I now see, with the help of the comments how I can change this and the new title will probably be: "How does Postmodernism impact photographic theory and practice ?" A simpler and far less cryptic version than previous. Much of the content will remain the same however. I had shown examples of Modernism and Postmodernism through the work of three photographers. This needs to be expanded upon and I will include something on The New Topographics and Mirrors and Windows: two major exhibitions of the 1970s. There was the inevitable problem of using "sweeping statements" without backing them up with sources and the praise you get for citing your own opinion. There is a fine line between the two. Upon reflection however I can see the error of my ways. Making a statement such as "It was a stark difference to the deprivation of the previous century" when describing changes from the eighteenth to nineteenth century does need to be backed up with some examples. Another example is when I have said " Artists said ..... etc" need to cite somebody as an example. The tutor suggestions on what should / could be included will have to be edited and a corresponding number of words removed from other parts of the essay. I had gone over with the word count but I am never sure if the end notes are counted or not. Also the bibliography will be included in the count but is not a part of the essay as such.

On a general note my tutor is pleased that I am visiting exhibitions and reflecting on my work. There is room for improvement in reading. This is always true but my lack of writing about what I read is at the nub of this. For this essay I guess I have read 3 books but only a handful of words get cited in the end product. With something as notoriously complex as Postmodernism there has to be background reading (that never gets cited) just so that a general level of understanding is gained, especially with a subject that is being learnt almost from scratch.

What the process has done, is given me an appetite for more, especially towards Post structuralism and a deeper understanding (maybe too ambitious) of how I am working in my practice and how concepts are formed and cemented. I was talking to a fine arts graduate a few weeks ago about her sculpture/installation work in an exhibition. We talked about postmodernism for a while and critical theory studies and I was interested in her comments that without that level of understanding she could not make any of her work. That was her base from where the work started, comments that I found very interesting and inspirational.

Critical Review - Reflections

So, the critical review essay is complete and set to my tutor for feedback. On reflection I am wondering why I chose to deal with issues around Postmodernism as it has not been an easy subject. Its not that I am looking for easy in an academic sense (I like to be stretched) but any other subject may have not had so many layers, so much uncertainty when researched. There are many sources, some I consider primary such as Lyotard and his seminal work The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge 1979 and the writing of Baudrillard, Derrida and Foucault. Other books and websites are secondary providing opinion and vary considerably, even to the extent that there is disagreement on what the word means and whether it has ever occurred. My question was Is Postmodernism a Theory, Practice or Ideology?. Research threw up the disharmony so the title was set to be able to show this and it is no surprise that there is no objective answer. Prior to the research and the essay writing I had only touched upon it in small doses and was not aware of how the subject produces so much passion in those who profess to knowing the subject. If we go along with the mainstream opinion we are coming to the end of this "ism". Some say it never happened and some say it will continue, but I wonder what it means to me as a photographer. All I know (I have to be careful in saying what I know, "I think therefore I am", the worry of the simulacrum etc.) is that being contemporary with the postmodern period has me defined as a postmodernist by default. A lot of my work however does try to be "Real" in the style of Weston, Strand etc. so is "modernist" and I am not adverse to the "pictorialists" who pre-dated it. Current practice of the overtly postmodern is of little practical interest to me. I am interested in looking at it, reading it and trying to analyse what the author is telling me. On the other hand my practice is not likely to go down that route for some while.  

The Birds

The recent snow has meant a daily top up of the feeding station for the garden birds. We dont get anything exotic but have a good number of Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Blue Tit, Cole Tit and Robins. Apart from the ornithological need to keep the numbers up the feeding station is set up to give me picture making opportunities without too much effort. Birds that use feeders seldom fly straight in and land onto the feeder. They prefer to land on something close by (about a metre away), sit, have a look around (there are Sparrowhawks in the area and will take any of these for a meal of their own), wait their turn if its busy and then eat. By placing suitable perches close to the feeders, it is at these you get the photographs. Photographing a bird on the feeder is a waste of time as they have little use, commercially or ornithologically. The perch (only use one) is a branch found locally and screwed to a post. I have changed it from time to time but for now it is set at an angle of about 30 degrees to produce a bit more shape to the composition. The feeding station is set about 7.5m from the door to my office and editing room. 7.5m is not a random distance, it is just outside the minimum focusing distance of my 500mm lens, therefore filling as much of the frame as I can. Shooting this close does have a draw back, the 500mm at f4 has a very shallow depth of field and even a small bird is too wide to fit in the focus area. This has to be overcome by going to f8, which together with the need for a shutter speed of at least 1/250 sec (small birds move very quickly) means shooting in good light at a low ISO, upping the ISO or adding some artificial light. Before looking at lighting and ISO etc there is still the issue of getting a frame filling image. I have a 1.4x and 1.7x teleconverter, both of which bring me closer but the loss of either 1 or 2 stops of light has its disadvantages. The problem was solved by moving to a 36MP camera. The Nikon D800 allows me to shoot at full frame and there is plenty of pixels for a closer crop. A 1.5x crop still leaving me with 24MP. In addition being able to see more than you will use allows me to see outside the frame and move the lens to aim and compose, similar to using a range finder. Daylight fill in flash is not possible with a normal studio flash, well any that need you to use a normal flash sync speed (1/125 sec) as this is too slow. Useing the Nikon SB800 flash is one solution. It can be set up away from the camera and fired remotely and performs at much higher sync speeds. It needs to be used with a diffuser and on manual and around 1/16 power to fill in the shadows and make a highlight in the eyes. This works up to a point. The flash going off does seem to spook them, so it isnt used anymore. The current set up is continuous light. It is a 150w Halfords garage/workshop floodlight mounted on a standard studio light stand (little bit of engineering needed) and fitted with barn doors. The barn doors dont really mask any light as they would normally, but it conceals the light source and doesnt put off the birds from coming close. It is all black and is positioned about 2.5m from the perch, at camera height and just to the right of the subject. It is obviously not daylight balanced but that doesnt concern me. On the image below with the snow I did have to whiten it in Selective Colour Adjustment but that is all part of the post process anyway. The doorway into the office is covered with camouflage netting, a hole cut into it for the lens to protrude through, the camera and lens are on a tripod with a gimbal. I sit on a comfy office chair and wait. After working on the set up outside it will take about 20 - 30 mins for the birds to return as they are very suspicious of change. Camera settings are set to M, shutter speed 1/250 sec, aperture f8 and auto ISO. The speed and DOF far more important than ISO. Clearly the lower the ISO the better but up to 1000 ISO is perfectly OK. The metering is set to centre weighted and the auto focus is set to 5 point continuous. I prefer to use the electronic cable release rather than the button release, preferring not to have to hold the camera all the time ready for a frame. OK, I know none of this is conceptual art photography and in the time it has taken to set all this up I could have made fifty street images and talked about Robert Frank, but none the less it is image making and it is therefore worthwhile. 

Use of additional perch. The ubiquitous garden tool handle which works well but really needs snow for the perfect Christmas card image.

The normal perch, made to recreate a natural setting look. The light from the RHS producing just enough fill. On the web the background is a bit too dark.

Emergence – King’s Lynn Arts Centre 10-17 January 2015

This exhibition highlights the talent of young artists working locally as well as in the rest of the UK. A few of the artists have recently graduated with BAs or MAs in Visual Arts.

The twelve artists provided twenty pieces ranging from photography to contemporary installations using steel and wood.

From the handout it isn’t possible to determine which artists have a BA or MA and perhaps that doesn’t matter but my reaction to the exhibition as a whole was the range of talent from average to extraordinary and I was curious if the MA graduates were those (in my perception) who had made the better work.

As we are well aware the onus in a fine art exhibition (or any fine art work) is on the viewer to read the work and find our own narrative or gain some insight into the work from our perspective, the author having long gone.

The works that caught my eye during a short visit are mentioned below.

The first work by Jake Francis consisted of three items. A chair with a head on it (titled Stoopid #2), a painting (titled Artist)and a table with a plate, food and cutlery (titled Gloop). The content of each piece is bizarre and set out to be controversial. The picture is of an artist palette, but no paint, instead 3 lumps of animal (could be human) excrement. The head was from some fruit and the food on the plate looks like a dolls dress with a a brown fluid oozing from inside it, resembling an afterbirth with clothes on.

Jamie Kilcoin had produced 5 landscape photographs, mostly taken around the North Norfolk coast I would guess as I recognised some of the locations. Well produced work with lovely image quality and presentation. As a group they have a connection in genre but for me three in colour and two monochrome upset the rhythm of reading them as a set.

An interesting diptych from Ivan Chambers of a female in black leather bikini. In one she is in a church, in the other outside a Soho type theater. Various labels attached beneath the two images. All I get here is irony and a Charlie Hebdo type of cartoon effect. The message is not easy to read but has something to do with the fortune of sins. Not easy but well delivered.

Jasmine Ferrari produced an installation piece titled Madonna. Made from small section (25x25) softwood the piece is a masterful example of woodworking. It is intricate and has a balanced feeling with flat panels pained in colour. I know little about this type of work, my only thought being if it was designed for a particular site then here it maybe isn’t the right place.

The next item is also an installation. Five (maybe six) pieces of plywood laminated with glass suspended from part of the gallery structure gives us a love floating piece hanging in mid air. A light airy feel, again a work that is maybe designed for a specific location and would benefit from being against a wall of darker colour.

James Linder provided the second helping of photography by the presence of a lovely DeVere 10x8 camera as a floor installation. A gorgeous thing in its own right I assume it was the camera used to make the large portrait associated with it. Also present was a 5x4 wet plate collodion negative of the same image. There was no explanation but I assume a 5x4 back was used and what we have therefore is the narrative of the image from camera to print. The monochrome print is of a portrait of a man, front on and closely cropped and framed. Very Bailey was the first impression although the treatment of the image was high contrast with large black areas and that’s not quite Bailey. A combination piece of work that I came back to a number of times.

The next installation piece is by Amber Lawrence. Amber is the Visual Arts & Education Intern at the arts centre and I have met her a few times as she was the point of contact for last years Eastern Open. Ambers piece is constructed using square hollow section mild steel. She has made four frames, some 1500mm high that form a space for smaller white pieces of stonework. The frames act as support to hang the stone pieces and it is if the steelwork is sometimes the artwork and sometimes the support for the white pieces to be the artwork. Once again the work is being seen perhaps out of context and I was bothered by the tiled floor making another set of shapes that competed with the frames.

At the far end of the Red Barn there are 6 TV Monitors showing a continuous loop of a video work titled DRONE. Drone it would seem is a game with a voice telling us about the various levels of play. The pictures however show real life footage from aircraft on bombing raids on building in the Middle East. The combination of voice, music, graphics and footage was excellent and kept me engaged. The use of six screens gave one the feeling of being in a TV control room or the control room of the people engaged in the fighting. Well produced piece of video and installation by Henry Driver.

An experience looking at unfamiliar art and thinking about the "thinking" that the students had gone through to get the work completed and on display. It is difficult to say how any piece is likely to influence my own practice but it is good to see work at the level I aspire to.

The Arts Centre Website is here.

Probing some new Ideas.

The three images below are the start of a new idea using shallow depth of field to connote the short sightedness of society, especially in the rural environment and economy. It is difficult to know where this is likely to end, it may have ended already.

The remains of a hedge.

National speed limit - really !.

Once a forest.