The most political decision you make is where you direct people’s eyes.
(Wim Wenders (1997) quoted in Bromberg & Chanarin, 2008)
The use of Depth of Field is crucial when composing an image because it helps you convey to the viewer what you are trying to achieve. Shallow depth of field allows you to draw the viewers attention immediately whereas a deep depth of field while draws the viewer let the viewers eyes to explore the image on a voyage of discovery.
The post is to show the research into the photographer mention in the section of the OCA text.
Ansel Adams (1902 – 84)
Adams most famous for his Black & White images of National Parks in California e.g. Yosemite N.P. and as a photographer I first became aware of him when I start to take my photography a little more seriously taking a C&G course on Black & White darkroom techniques in the mid-1990’s.
He was motivated the documenting and later preserving the wild open spaces in his native California and USA as a whole.
I lot can be learned about the man from these old documentaries available on youtube:
Ansel Adams BBC Master Photographers (1983)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdCq-1MJmHw (accessed 6th August 2015)
Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film 2002
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvt1ImIKi0U
(accessed 6th August 2015)
He had meticulous attention to detail often spending a day on one print to achieve a print with incredible tone complexity; however, his techniques when composing the pictures were as much to do with the final images.
He used large format cameras, with a small aperture and a relatively long lens. Many of is use a wide angle lens, but Adams used a medium telephoto lens to compress the perspective a little thus making the backgrounds deeper.
He was a master of control in his photography this was mainly the reason he worked primarily in Black & White – as felt he has much less on control with a colour negative. One this that Adams believed was that one of the most important things when taking a photograph was the brain 12 inches behind the camera.
While he images are ubiquitous now available the world over in souvenir shops or poster shops – we should never forget his impact on the world of photography.
Fay Godwin (1931-2005)
Fay Godwin was a British landscape photographer often compared to Ansel Adams; however, Godwin passion within landscape was more than just the landscape itself, but more man or societies effects on it.
She uses deep depth of field to draw the viewer into the image to explore the picture like Adams her images are pin sharp from to back of the picture; however, Godwin tended to feature man-made object in here images dry stone wall for example.
Godwin was passion about the public right to access the British countryside and was president of the Ramblers Association and as in mention in the OCA text, used her book Our Forbidden Land(1990) to highlight the restriction placed on the public’s access.
Reference http://www.djclark.com/godwin/index.htm (accessed 6th August 2015)
Shallow depth of field in landscape photography is a much less tradition method stepping away from the art of Adams & Godwin. Italian photographer Gianluca Cosci uses shallow depth of field to great effect in his series Panem et Circenses, combining it with a low point of view to isolate details in the Urban Landscape. His style can also be found in the early work of Kim Kirkpatrick focus on small detail within a landscape and through the background into bokeh (http://www.kimkirkpatrick.com/GalleryMain.asp?GalleryID=97165&AKey=FGWAF5R9 accessed 6th October)
A more tradition use of shallow depth of field is shown in Brazilian photographer Mona Kuhn series evidence (https://thephotobook.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/mona-kuhn-evidence/ accessed 6th August 2015) the blurring caused by the shallow depth of field gives the images an intimate feel and less voyeuristic as can be felt by nudes in sharper focus.
Below is a shot I took on my recent trip, the light was behind me giving a long shadow of me, is used it as a form of selfie to record I was there ( I hate being in pictures myself especially selfie’s). I have used F10 on a crop sensor to give front to back sharpness.
