After looking back through some previously shot frames, looking for any subconscious themes or features that I may have been capturing or emphasising in my work, that may become part of my series of images relating to Liminality, Bleakness and the selective focus that society has in regard to its infrastructure. Those that seemed to be present in many of my photographs include
· Higher Contrast
· Strong, Heavy Skies
· Themes of longing and bleak melancholia
· Infrastructure
This led me to the works of Italian photographer Francesco Nonino and his book Atmospheres (2005). Shots were taken throughout both Italy, France and other locations around southern Europe in the ’80s through to the turn of the century. He creates stunning scenes of large expansive bodies of clouds and sky, with a varying amount of land based horizon inhabiting the lower 3rd of the frame. Looking at his work from a technical and more analytical mindset, with how I have been working on my own prints and what I choose to emphasis in them. Being instantly drawn to the immense visual weight of his frames, something I try to capture in many of my own.
Upon research into some of Nonino’s influences, and by extension my own, I began to look into the ideas surrounding the work of Alfred Stieglitz, namely his reasoning behind the works found in his ‘Equivalents’, multiple series of photographs taken of the sky, and are considered to be amongst the first truly abstract photographic works of art. The works were a response to a short-sighted critic describing Stieglitz’s photos having their draw and power in the people in which he shot, completely ignoring the other practices Stieglitz had including early street photography, landscape and architectural work and worse still insinuating the role of the photographer is to simply record what they see before them, having no creative merit or input in their craft. This drove him to start taking pictures of the sky and only the sky, by removing any concrete figures or forms, the viewer is forced to think past what their eyes are seeing and apply critical thought, creating meaning and a dialogue beyond the physicality of the prints.
Elements I have discerned from Nonino’s work that I have found present in my own work, either as a direct influence or as a commonality between our practices, Include the framing of the images, including at least some ground based/landscape elements as to not lean too far to the realms of absurdism and abstraction, this would be more akin to the works of Stieglitz, where he intentionally removed any trace of grounding from his images. This separation from worldly constructs presents his skyscapes as very abstract, ethereal forms devoid of any solid connection to any time or place.
Nonino’s images on the other hand deliberately present a small sliver of land and life in the bottom third of the frame. This grounds the shots and in return, the viewer. Partially losing some of the escapism and transcendent qualities found in Stieglitz’s renditions. The nuances of how much land to include and to omit are what makes this tactic so effective. Too much land and that will become the visual focus, not enough and the image will return to being an abstraction, overshadowing other themes. Attempting to dissect what constitutes this nuance, I’ve reached the following conclusions.
I. A strong, level horizon
II. Minimising depth of field to increase the visual weight of the sky and clouds without diluting the foreground elements.
III. A strong understanding of visual weighting and balancing to maintain a perspective
IV. Using iconographical signifiers that create a dialogue, theme or tone in the images.
i. Religious Icons/architecture(s)
ii. Infrastructure
iii. People (never the full focus, i.e. not identifiable individuals, not portraiture)
Other important tools and techniques employed here are higher levels of contrast, most likely attained through a combination of exposure and post split-grading during the printing stage. I’d thought perhaps some slight infrared sensitivity may be present owing to the very dark to black portions of the sky, something that would usually be fairly bright. I think perhaps also that slower shutter speeds, or at least matching the shutter speed to a point where anything in the shot moving faster than the clouds drift, become blurred and thus removing some of their visual weight, maintaining balance.
A couple of key elements I’ve included into my own practice being
Increasing Contrast with split grading.
To maximise the blacks in my images especially in areas where more lighter tones may distract from the dominant visuals of the image.
In my images of James Street’s Corner, the strength of the colours/tones were more important on the corner building than preserving finer, lighter details in the parked cars in the background. Another example being in (untitled, telegraph pole) where having the misted shadows of both the dark sky and the mountains in the background were more valued to the scene than the finer details of the grassy area in the very foreground.
Using Perspective.
Utilising the pseudo-three-dimensional effect that converging lines or elements in a scene can create to enhance themes or feelings surrounding liminality and yearning or an elusion to something greater (neo-Organicism). Perhaps even as a statement on industrialisation, humanistic expansionism or as an exercise in abstracting usually subliminal mundane constructs into the conscious eye/mind.
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