David Bailey Analysis

David Bailey.

David Bailey, born 2nd January 1938, a contemporary british fashion photographer, who worked with such magazines as British Vogue in 1960, and even helping to create the 'swinging london' in the 1960's is considered to be one of the greatest british photographers. 

From the two photos above we can detain that there are a lot of black and white contrasting tones, with little or no use of digital retouching or digital animation, and although without the presence of props, his work is very theatrical and could be considered as symbolic. With the use of lighting and emotions he is able to evoke different emotions from the viewers which makes his work very eye-catching.

Using the two pictures above as an example I believe that the emotions being portrayed above are completely controlled and are trying to send out a message, using front lighting to his advantage. For example, In the Jack Nichlson photo I believe he deliberately requested that he shouted and screamed in the picture, this, to symbolise the type of hell raising, troublesome characters that Jack Nichlson usually plays. However I also believe he deliberately placed the light to the side of his face (front lighting) to symbolise that this is only one side of Jack Nichlson, the characters he's usually asked to play. The light represents that this is only a part of who he is and not an overall summary. 

I think he also used this method for the Will Smith photo above, a person who i personally remember playing a goofy character in a programme 'the fresh prince of bel air' back in the 90's. Bailey also used this to his advantage to show that this once goofy character, as we can see from the pose that has been chosen, is only a part of who he is and not an overall summary, juxtaposing his work.

I feel as if the photographs that Bailey takes are filled with such emotion, as though he puts a piece of himself in every photo, in every frame. Considering the fact that everything about these photos are under his control, from the brightness of the light, positioning of the light, facial expressions, body language, so on and so forth and the way he manipulates certain aspects make his work memorable and very recognisable. 

Andre Kertesz

Andre Kertesz

Andre Kertesz ( born 2nd July 1894 and died 1985) a hungarian photographer who's work, although extremely underrated in the early years of work, after a strong 70 years of photojournalism, he is now considered as one of the seminal figures of photojournalism for the interesting and creative work he has produced.

Its very apparent that in Andre Kertesz work, the range in tonal value is wide, contrasting from jet blacks  from the lightest shades of greys and white. He takes the un-ordinary of everyday life and manipulates it to his advantage, creating eye-catching photography.

His photos are very simplistic and although having stopped his work years before he died, his photos are classified to be quite modern and/or even contemporary.
Andre's work has a very serene feel to them, the simplistic theme he has applied to all his photos add to this theme. None of his photos seem to have any hint of drama or theatrics, I don't think he used any digital animation or enhancement either, just the use of a filter in the developing machine.

It's clear he thought about the composition of each piece, where the objects would be placed, the shadows that would be casted,where and how dark each shadow would be, so there is a low level of spontaneity in his work, so his work has a high level of control and thought.

In all Andre has managed to create very interesting photographs through his use of control and creativity. His use of tones in his captivating pieces add to the piece, I feel that his work wouldn't have the same impact if he had chosen to use colour in his composition.I personally;like his work overall,the simplistic and surreal feel to his work enticing.

Final Outcome evaluation

Evaluation on final outcome

Everyday life. The theme that was given to us to exploit and manipulate in anyway possible to make it as personal as we chose. In my case I decided to make is as natural as possible. Nothing staged, not digital enhancing or use of lighting. I decided to manipulate the lighting and everything that is naturally around me in everyday life effectively. My initial idea was to capture as much emotion as possible from the people that are usually around me and record each photo as if they were to be put into a diary for safe keeping. The reason I chose to represent my photos like this was not only because it was personal to me, and that I prefer to capture each moment as they come, but I felt that this would represent "everyday life" to the fullest.

However, to get to the final outcome was a struggle, I had produced two undeveloped negatives that couldn't be used, and even then the third set of negatives had been exposed to light slightly, causing lines over some of the pictures. This meant that I could only select certain photos to use out of all the others I selected, which stunted the effectiveness of my original intention.

With using all the techniques i've learnt over the past month or so made my work really stand out and made the photo take a shine on its own. I used each technique I learnt to relate to each picture, fro example I used inez and vinoodh's method to make an oystercard for the picture with the bus stop. I also manipulated the chemicals themselves to develop the picture. 

Additionally in order to make this a success I need to research other photographers to influence me. I already had an idea of what I wanted to achieve from this outcome, I knew that I was inspired by both emotion and landscape, so the photographers I looked at included the inspiring work of  Jason Lee, who's work although digitally enhanced was all about fun and the emotion of his daughters and the emotion he also captures in the wedding pictures he takes. I also had a look at the landscape photographer Ansel adams, who's photos of landscaping were breathtaking. Looking at these two photographers inspired me to take my ideas further.

In the end I believe that my final outcome was a success, although experiencing several hiccups I believe in the end I was able to achieve what was asked of me in the best way I could, if i was change anything out my final outcome I would have like to have used more photos that included more emotion.