Julian SchulzeJulian Schulze is a abstract and minimalistic architectural photographer.
He is from Germany and is known for his finding of colourful buildings, and the minimalistic style in which he shoots them. He believes that there are no rules to photography and how to take an image ; "I want to advocate to follow gut feelings more often, to try out different things without considering the rules" When deciding on my project topic, Schulze's photos were a large part of my inspiration to do minimalism. His images showed me how, even the simplest of photos can be powerful and charismatic. I am going to use him as one of my main photographer inspirations, and will do a shoot inspired by him. Now all I need to do is find some colourful buildings to shoot with! |
John BathoJohn Batho is a french photographer who creates photos with a great sense of minimalism. He is also known for his bold use of bright colours within his work.
I love his style because, although the images are simple, they are effective because of the vibrant colours and the movement/life conveyed in his photographs. I discovered Batho's photography from a book I have; 'Photographers A-Z' which is essentially a photographer dictionary. I was looking for photographers who shoot from interesting perspectives, and as soon as I came across Batho's work I was inspired to take photos in a similar style as his images are so vibrant and full of life. His style is unique in the sense that he uses primary colours (and green) in his images. This makes all his photos work cohesively as a collection and this is what I want to create within my own project. I want to do a shoot inspired by Batho and possibly do editing similar to his, as his images all have increased saturation, but also still look quite natural, just more vibrant. |
Stephen ShoreStephen Shore is a famous American photographer known for his images of ordinary scenes and objects in the United States, and for his pioneering use of color in art photography.
Stephen Shore's work has been widely published and exhibited for the past forty-five years. He was the first living photographer to have a one-man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since Alfred Stieglitz, forty years earlier. In 2017, the Museum of Modern Art opened a major retrospective spanning Stephen Shore's entire career. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His series of exhibitions at Light Gallery in New York in the early 1970s sparked new interest in color photography and in the use of the view camera for documentary work. So although Shore isn't exclusively a minimalist photographer, a lot of his photos are simple and contain key shapes like a classic minimalist photographer. Also, even his 'busier' photos have an simplistic appearance as I feel each photo has a key focus that our eyes are drawn to, disregarding the rest of the image. |
Uta BarthUta Barth is a photographer I have been inspired by in the past for other photography projects I've done previously.
Barth is a contemporary photographer who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. She has been taking photos for 14 years in her house, she says that she doesn't need to travel to find things to take pictures of when there is beauty all around her. I find this inspiring because it shows how its not necessary to travel and spend lots of money in order to be a successful photographer who creates amazing images. Unlike a lot of minimalist photographers, Uta Barth's images don't have harsh shapes and tones, as a lot of her photos are taken in soft focus, creating a 'Bokeh' effect. The tones in her images are also very soft and this creates a calm overall appearance, which is interesting to look at as our minds are always looking for complexities in simpler things, meaning that her images are engaging and interesting. I feel that Barth's photos tell a story and I want to create this sense of storytelling within my project. |
Bill BrandtBill Brandt was a famous photographer, known for his strong tonal and textural images.
His images are arguably sensory, as he often take close-range images of skin that show the texture and depth of skin. He was seen as one of the more abtract photographers from his time as he experimented with taking photos from unuusal angles that created a new perspective, an interesting composition that created bold images. All of his images are in black and white, although colour photography was used from 1861, 100 years before his time, colour photos were still very expensive so he could have possibly not had access to them, I can find any information specifically mentioning why he chose to shoot only in black and white. In 1945 Brandt bought a special Kodak camera in a second-hand camera shop in Covent Garden, London. The camera had been designed to enable untrained police staff to photograph crime scenes. It had a very wide-angle lens. Compared to the standard lens of the Rolleiflex camera Brandt had used for his documentary photographs, the Kodak allowed him, he wrote, to 'see like a mouse, a fish or a fly'. |
Robert HäusserRobert Häusser was a German photographer. Häusser's career as a photographer began in post-war Germany during his time working on a farm. Consequentially many of his first studies included farm landscapes and workers.
He has exhibited at more than 50 one-man-shows in museums and art galleries in Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Russia, Slovenia and the USA. He received the Hasselblad Award in 1995. Similarly to Bill Brandt, Häusser didn't use colour photography as they were both photographers in the same time period, suggesting that most of the photographers of the 50s/60s didn't use colour photography due to its rarity and expense. However, I think Häusser's photographs work best in black in white anyway, as it brings the focus fully to the perspective, shapes and tones in the images, which from my research so far of minimalist photography, are the key features as they are what creates the sole appearance of the photos. |
Cole SprouseCole Spouse, I know! Photographer isn't exactly the first thing that springs to mind.
But when deciding my topic for this project, I came across his photography and I love it; it perfectly combines my theme of minimalism with my passion for portraiture and fashion style photography. So although Cole Sprouse is not primarily famous for his photography, he is up and coming within the photography community; he has shot for several high status magazines/brands such as Vogue, Teen Vogue, The Sunday Times Style, W Magazine, Candy Magazine and Adidas. I am using him as one of my key photographer inspirations because I think his photos are thoroughly creative and perfectly reflect unexpected perspectives within portraiture. I also want to recreate some of his photos as I love the original ideas he has and think they are very forward thinking and futuristic, which is an interesting concept that I would like the explore in this project. |
Karl Hugo SchmölzSchmölz was another architectural photographer of the 50s.
He was also a German photographer, like Robert Hussar and a more recent photographer Julian Schulz, who is one of my key photographer inspirations for this project. The prominence of German photographers, and photographers from the 50s/60s was not intentional and I only discovered this pattern when researching and writing up on each photographer. This prominence could be due to the trends of 50/60s photography and possibly a cultural trend among German photographers. However I think that all the photographers are different and have their own style of photography, despite the running theme of minimalistic architectural photographs. Schmölz focuses of leading lines within his photography, I want to try and take some photos in this style as I feel that creating shapes and lines to follow within an image is a really effective way to create interesting images and pushes the boundaries of perspectives within photography, which is essentially what my project is about; uses non-conventional perspectives to change the audience perspective . |
When planning this shoot I didn't have a set concept in mind, I just knew that I wanted to shoot outside, preferably on a day of clear blue skies. I had one specific photograph of his that I wanted to test out ideas from; a photograph he had taken of sam smith through a cutout sheet of plastic. I loved his different this idea was to anything I'd ever seen in photography before. I like how it plays well into the concept on unexpected perspectives and in the photograph we are only shown a fraction of landscape while the rest is covered by a sheet of plastic. By using something so dull and manmade, it emphasises the beauty of the nature behind it which is what I interpret Sprouse was aiming to achieve with this image.
I wanted to do something similar to this but use a sheet of something with more texture, I decided to use bubble wrap as this adds a richer and more interesting texture to the photo. As for the rest of the shoot I just asked my model to wear anything she wanted, what she wears daily, no special styling as this is not what Sprouse believes in. I also toyed with the idea of creating a sort of storyline through my photos and thats where the idea of the red toy gun came in. I was thinking what sort of prop I could use that wouldn't seem totally unnatural with the models casual dress and decided on the gun. Coincidently, the cream puffa jacket my model chose to wear went quite nicely with the gun and with the mix of her clothing and the nature scene in the background I feel that the shoot took on a story of a cowgirl. I was happy with how naturally this story came into play and seemed to fit well with Sprouse's photography as I feel that some of his photos are almost cinematic and my photos started to attach to this theme also. |
As you can see on the right I also made a few subtle adjusts to the photo in order to enhance it. As you can see below the original photo was more dull and overcast so I increased the brightness and exposure along with the saturation in order to enhance the sky. I also increased the blue tone levels in the photo as I wanted to enhance the already blue shade of the sky. I also added a warmer tone to the photo as I feel that the original is a little too cool toned. |
Original |
Edited |
I conducted this shoot in a similar way to fashion portraiture shoots I've done in the past; I chose a location and styled my models hair, makeup and clothing.
I chose to dress my models in contrasting colours as you can see below - I dressed my first model in orange as I wanted to have a shade that would compliment the greens of the nature around. I chose a vintage 80s style disco dress as I thought it was something fun and different and features interesting shapes as well as an asymmetrical hem in order to successfully create an interesting visual effect. I dressed my second model in a black playsuit with off the shoulder shaping as I feel that this shape is very complimentary in photographs and works well with the photographs I took of this particular model. I also used additional props throughout the shoot such as blue sunglasses for my second model and a blue linen scarf for my first model - used for creating shapes and contrast with the orange colour of the dress.
I think these contrasting looks work well together as the light and dark tones compliment one another and both bring a different element to the background of nature. The orange works as a stand out, collaborative colour with the green and brown earthy tones while the black acts as a stark contrast which brings more attention to shape. Although these looks are both different, I think they both work for the individual models and have a flare of femininity that gives a new lease of life to the photos and aids the visual impact. |
For the makeup I did the same design on each model but used different colours.
As you can see from these photos above, for my first model I did a pink themed look using highlighter and eyeshadow with a darker eyeliner shade stripe down the centre of the lip. I did this same design on my second model but used blue as the focus colour and a darker blue liner on the lips. The makeup is clearer in the first photograph although the second model did have the same makeup just in blue. I came up with this look by thinking about colour and unusual places to put it - hence the reason the pink and blue colours on the models are placed in an unusual place for this type of makeup. I also wanted to have a linear effect within my work as it's been a running theme through my project - hence the stripes down the bottom lip of each model. I feel that these makeup looks add a more edgy and alternative feel to the shoot and bring in the youthful fun spirit that I always try to create in my work. |
When editing this shoot I initially used the software 'Photoscape X' but after looking over my photos again I was unhappy with the editing; It seems too bright and over saturated for these photos - I want to create a more muted and shadowed type of appearance.
I have included this initial editing process anyway as I think it is important to show the development of ideas building up to the final result. |
Shoot 1 |
Shoot 2 |
Shoot 4 |
Shoot 5 |
Shoot 6 |
Shoot 7 |
Shoot 8 |
Shoot 9 |