As Though The Blue and The Sky Were One Thing
© William Eggleston, from the artist book Wedgewood Blue, 1979
While the history of color photography dates back to late nineteenth century with the first true color photograph being made with an additive process by the scientist James Clerk Maxwell in 1861 and subsequent technical developments such as color film between 1911 and 1914, it is only in the last forty years that color photography has come of gained importance as a medium of creative expression.
Why did such a long period of time go by from color photography’s inception to its wide-spread use of today? This is particularly interesting question when one considers that we exist in a world full of color and photography’s uncanny ability to seemingly capture what we really see.
The colors unique to color photography produced what once seemed insurmountable problems. Color film’s exaggeration of subject hue and the concurrent difficulty of formally organizing the visible world’s raucous color combinations gave the medium an aura of vulgarity.
Walker Evans deemed color a “vulgar” medium and stated that many “color photographers confuse color with noise” and that they “(blow) you down with screeching hues alone…a bebop of electric blues, furious reds and poison greens.”
- from The New Color Photography by Sally Eauclaire
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It never was a conscious thing. I had wanted to see a lot of things in color because the world is in color.
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Beginning in the 1970′s, there was a heightened level of critical discourse about color photography initially with the writings of John Szarkowski (Introduction to William Eggleston’s Guide, 1976), Max Koxloff (The Coming of Age of Color in Artforum, January 1975) followed by an extensive survey and critical analysis by Sally Eauclaire with The New Color Photography (1981) and American Independents (1989). Each, along with others, firmly established a critical discourse in which color photography’s intrinsic quality was due to the photographers’ thorough understanding and use of a full color spectrum and its endless possibilities of subtle gradation and transition.
Color photography was no longer discussed and considered as being “about color” – a critical catch phrase frequently used to justify many photographs in which concentrations of primary or secondary hues screech for attention. Rather, the new color photographers consider color’s role in a formal, descriptive and symbolic totality.
- from The New Color Photography by Sally Eauclaire
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After reading the critical discussion and analysis from The New American Luminism by Jonathan Green and the Introduction to William Eggleston’s Guide by John Szarkowski, consider the following and discuss as you embark on your own development and use of color as a medium of creative expression in your photographic practice.
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What do both authors have to say about the early uses of color and problems photographers experienced when using color as a form of creative expression?
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What do Green and Szarkowski suggest as critical considerations for how to think about photographing in color?
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Who is working in color photography (now or from the essays) and is a source of inspiration for you (include link)?
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Click on the PDF | link to download | view the essay:
Introduction to William Eggleston’s Guide (link) and William Eggleston’s Guide.pdf
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When Color is No Longer New
PHOT 265 – Color Photography II
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As students continuing to explore the use of color in your photography, the concept of color is no longer new. It may be helpful to read the above essays to as you further reflect on the continued role and function of color in your photographic practice. Consider and answer the following questions:
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Describe and discuss how color and the color of light functioned your previous color photographic explorations?
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Discuss what aspects of your previous color photographic experience was successfull as well as the problems you experienced? Based on this, how are you looking to proceed with your color photographic work over the course of this semester?
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In relation to your current interests, who is working in color photography and is a source of inspiration for you (include link)? Why are you drawn to their work?
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What do both authors have to say about the early uses of color and problems photographers experienced when using color as a form of creative expression?
Choosing a moment which you want to save. Deciding what to include in your photograph to make it mean something. Giving color a meaning. Finding a visual equilibrium in which things are seen as they are.
What do Green and Szarkowski suggest as critical considerations for how to think about photographing in color?
Every aspect of color counts, showing colors as they really are, taking light into account, using color to describe and not just for the sake of color. Finding the right moment to take the photograph.
Who is working in color photography (now or from the essays) and is a source of inspiration for you (include link)?
Jorge Alcaide: his photographs are nice to look at. He doesn’t look for beauty in the ugliness of the world. His photographs transmit positive feelings.
http://www.jorgealcaide.com/HTML/main_ENG2.html
What do both authors have to say about the early uses of color and problems photographers experienced when using color as a form of creative expression?
-Knowing what part of the content answers to life, and what answers to art.
-Photography as visual editing; you have to decide what, of all the things your eyes see, you will include within the frame of the picture, and picking the right place and choosing, from infinite moments, the right one.
-Finding “effective composition”… right relationship of shapes, visual stability.
-Using color with meaning (public and general or private and esoteric).
-“Seeing both the blue and the sky simultaneously.”
What do Green and Szarkowski suggest as critical considerations for how to think about photographing in color?
-“Form is the point of art”. Form and subject are defined at the same time. A photographer discovers his subject, unlike a painter who constructs his subject from what he already knows.
-Subject, situation, perspective, quality of light. Experience
-Take a posture.
-Use color with a meaning, where every tiniest bit of color is special, in a way that seen in monochrome, the photograph would lose its meaning.
-Describe life because life exists in light and color.
-Meticulous realism, atmospheric effects, precise rendering.
-Views of actual color and reality.
-Discover moments.
Who is working in color photography (now or from the essays) and is a source of inspiration for you (include link)?
-Eliot porter: nature, shapes, effects of light (shadows, reflections).
http://photography-now.net/eliot_porter/portfolio1.html
The early uses of color in photography were predominantly used simply to portray the color in “untransformed bits of reality(Green)”, not necessarily used to create art. Color was also used at first in advertising or fashion for the purpose of exaggeration to catch your eye. Many of the early color photographers used color as a form of decoration that was used for attention. “In their work color is seen as form not light, as a graphic not a photographic phenomenon”. Color photography consisted of extravagant and flashy compositions made solely with colorful objects or landscapes. John Szarkowski categorizes the failures of color photography into two problems, one is color being a failure of form- not paying attention to the role and form color contributes to the photo, but rather just allowing the color to be present for no apparent reason, and two using color to enhance the prettiness of the picture- not to contribute to the subject or meaning content of the photo. “Most color photography, in short, has been either formless or pretty”(Szarkowski). In most cases the entirety of the pictures were clearly presented on the surface, displaying the meaning right then and there solely through the physical aesthetic use of color and shapes, and therefore were not necessarily mentally engaging.
Therefore, when photographing in color Szarkowshi suggests to not comprise color photography as just pictures with color, but to equally focus on the color, shape, form, texture, object, symbols, events, and experiences in the photo.
I don’t know much about color photographers, so my only basis of inspiration are photographers that I have learned so far in our class. I enjoyed William Eggleston’s photos because he photographed the simplicity and pureness of the actual world, which heightened the veiwers perception of reality. “They seem concerned simply with describing life”(Szarkowski). And because his objective was not necessarily to show exaggerated or gaudy colorful objects, the viewer was given more of an oppurtunity to think into the picture, engaging more in their thoughts and emotions. John Meyerowitz is also inspiring. I enjoy Meyerowitz and Eggleston subtle and natural use of color. Their photographs deal with the natural light of reality. I prefer a photo taken through thoughtfulness of capturing an interesting photograph in its untouched natural setting, rather than a photo that has been manipulated “These photographs are reaching for special affects, but these are not the exaggerations of the manipulative photographer but the special affects of natural light” deep color space, elegant fields of light, color falling on and radiating off the natural and man-made”.
When artists began to explore color photography, many were clueless about the use of color. In his introduction to William Eggleston’s Guide, John Szarkowski speaks of the typical lack of enthusiasm and confidence in early color photography. Most people working in this new medium applied the ideals of black and white photography, which created pictures in which the colors were irrelevant and disconnected from the subjects that they represented. Furthermore, as Green notes in his essay on New American Luminism, the legitimacy of color photography was often questioned by critics because of the medium’s similarity to reality, and the images themselves were regarded merely as untransformed snapshots of the world around.
Green suggests that color photography lies at the intersection of realism and idealism, represented through color harmony and luminosity. He notes the importance of a contrived or uncontrived viewpoint to engage emotions, as well as the importance of light. He describes color photographers of using the special effects of that light in order to capture moments of luminosity in the real world. Most importantly, he describes color not as selective but as pervasive, as intrinsically existent in all aspects of our world. Szarkowski also points out the importance of frame and vision, saying that whatever a photographer’s intuitions or intentions, they must be cut or shaped to fit the medium of his art. He must choose one moment out of an infinite selection of predisposed images but he himself adds intelligence based on tradition and intuition.
I found William Eggleston’s photographs inspiring because I have never before seen and famous color photographs. Just as both authors mentioned, I used to feel as though color photography was not as well respected an art form. However, after spending some time looking at and reading about his art, I really respect what he has done in the medium. There is a quiet intensity in his photographs due to their careful composition and focus, as well as the use of more than one form of contrast in almost every picture. I also appreciate the fact that he photographed more private moments of his own life, as the intimate feeling comes across in the pictures.
What do both authors have to say about the early uses of color and problems photographers experienced when using color as a form of creative expression?
Both authors mentioned that colour at the beginning was a way to show the pure reality to the people, it was a kind of plus that they added to the Black and White Pictures, that by the time they were very popular to show portraits and some landscapes, what colour photography really changed is the way that expression and perception about reality changed. This expression is really related with some problems and the definition of color that started later. The main use that “modern” photographers made with this was to show the quotidian life in all the aspects, with this they changed the perception of reality from a plain and simple design into a two dimension eye, it means that the pictures started to take more importance as a copy of the real life with much more movement and deep in itself; at the essays they talk at some moment of the difficulties that they experimented, and the most important for me, it’s maybe the one that I still usually have, and it is how to make a difference between a common colour photography and what Eggleston made as colour art photography, the hard way to distinguish between one and the other it is what made it difficult to catch the moments that are really special, or even more difficult the places that are not so quotidian but not so difficult to understand, so at the end, the effort to capture the moment and to make it special is the hardest difficult with colour because it show us all the detail around the context.
What do Green and Szarkowski suggest as critical considerations for how to think about photographing in color?
The main considerations that both authors mention are the mix of colour, how you include colours of all the different palettes to create contrast and harmony in a picture, and with this the sensations; in a second consideration, it mention the difficult as one, because you have to be able to choose the correct Light, focus and contrast to create this moment as unique; the third one is related with the principles of photography and it is mentioned in both essays, as the place itself, that is closely the thing itself that is considered an aesthetic consideration of all the photography now, but it was an innovation with the first colour photographers, because you have to choose a place to do the exposition, and as a most important this what to take inside it.
Who is working in color photography (now or from the essays) and is a source of inspiration for you (include link)?
In a personal way of thinking I just have to say that the most important color photographer is Segei Prokudin Gorski, the Russian photographer that was considered the Russian Empire photographer, because with his work he express even nowadays what this empire was, what people do, eat, dress and even think, it was the man who made photography an art of daily life, that show us some colors, even when we had cold colours around Russia he gave us in all the portraits and landscapes the warm of a social warm country. By other hand, as a theorist and master of the revolution of colour photography Im agree with the authors that Eggleston is the man that changed the course of what photography is nowadays what I also consider a pure art.
1.) Szarkowski talks about early color photography being rather childish for several reasons. He believed that many early photographers used color in a shapeless and extravagant manner. He also talks about how the meaning of color is often lost in color photography. Green talks about the fact that many early uses of color used it to portray reality in simple snapshots that were not actual pieces of art. Green also addresses the fact that color was originally used in photography as a form not light. This problem caused the photographers of that time period to use color in a synthetic and decorative manner.
2.) Szarkowski talks about many different considerations for thinking about photographing in color. He says that color should not be considered separate from its entities, for example he points out that the blue and the sky should be seen as one thing. He also talks about other things that should be considered such as taking pictures of experiences. This can also mean that photographers can take pictures that are symbolic or show some element of their private lives. A person’s interests should also be considered in color photography. One of the last considerations he addresses is the fact that photos should feel real and true, so that they are simply concerned with describing the life that surrounds us all.
Green says that in order to make good color photographs a person needs to make a commitment to “lucid description, to the full utilization of the medium, and to the beauty, grace, and elegance”. He seems to emphasize that people should focus on whatever they personally believe is beautiful and make photographs of that.
3.) One of the pictures that I really liked in the essays was the one of the porch by Joel Meyerowitz. I really liked how he had various types of lighting in the same photograph. He photographed a fairly simple ¨thing¨but he has four different types of light in the same picture. These four sources of lighting include a light inside the house, the natural light, the lightning, and the porch light. All of these types of lighting produce different colors in a color photograph and each shade brings a different element and feeling to the picture.
link~The New American Luminism.pdf
Szarkowski explains how old pictures were not natural, but merely conceits. The black-and white photographs were chosen only on the basis of looking good, many times without meaning. Problems with early photography were brought about by black-and -white photographs made with color film. Another problem compromises the beautiful colors in pleasing relationships; the unhappy fate to remind us of something similar but better. Green mentions the problems with early photography consisted of gaudy abstract compositions or overtly colorful objects. Issues rose with the materials Kodak introduced; they were unprecedented in terms of fidelity, range of color, and luminosity.
Szarkowski writes, “the goal is not to makes something factually impeccable, but seamlessly persuasive.” Green mentions what Eggleston is attempting the construction of an expressionism out of the most realistic, vernacular idiom. However, for the new photographers, expressionism has transformed for the discovery of charged moments of luminescence in the real world.
Eggleston, mentioned in both essays, has transformed color photography. Szarkowski describes Eggleson’s photographs as “real photographs, bits lifted from the visceral world with such tact and cunning that they seem true, seen in color from corner to corner.” I personally like the photograph of the lady sitting on the outdoor couch. With all the different colors, they seem to all come together. Her aging body and weak legs parallel with the old fence behind her and the worn couch.
1. Green says color early color photography was used to combine aspects of small camera street photography, snapshot photography, mid nineteenth century landscape painting and twentieth century color field painting and to combine aspects of realism, color harmony idealism and luminosity. It was used also to place color over a once black and white world, making photos easilly recognized as art. Edwin Land used color to put the art in taking of the photographs, not the making of the photographs. Marie Cosinda used color to create a lush and nostalgic world. Eggleston used color to romantasize the world, looking at is real subjects as they exist in the world but also the emotions they express. Stephen Shore used photography to display America as it was presented through landcape painters, Weston, Adams and Luminist. A problem Green sites in color photography is that of legitimization. Photography was not often thought of as art as it was seen primarily as snap shots since there were not yet any aesthetic guidelines to use to judge it. A problem in early color photography as cited by Eggleston is the increased control created an intimidation that lead to formless or pretty pictures where color lost its meaning.Early color photographs were used to display the same messages as black and white photos but using color film. More recently it has been used to display public, social and philosophical issues.
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2. Green suggests considering the issue fo flatness, color relationship, rendition and scale when thinking about photographing in color. The primary considerations he talks about however are light and color. Szarkowski suggests some criticla considerations for thinking about photography in color are form and relationships. He suggests finding the subject as it exists as opposed to creating the subject like painters.
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3. Jen Shell is working in color photography now and is a source of inspiration for me.
http://www.cookjenshel.com/
1, The New American Luminism explains how the 70’s brought together luminism, idealism, color harmony and luminosity, into what is known as Color Photography. It started with street photographers who stopped seeing color as lighting and a phenomenon, but rather as a graphic form to call attention in those special details that make a photograph come to life. The introduction to William Engleston’s guide stands that he came up with sort of a photographic revoolution, due to the fact that he went against what was usually photographed. In fact it seemed as though he was capturing his life in snapshots, but that somehow are interesting fue to color because if in black-and-white, they wouldn’t probably be as interesting as they are.
2, Green stands that color photograph should work with color and reality’s perception, so that the viewer is able to put emotion into it, by being always both legitimate and expressive. This way the art of making a snapshot, can be used as a pathway to merge life and color. Szarkowsky on the other hand, beleives that photography is a system of visual editing. He defines it as capturing within a frame a small portion of the sorrounding, basically by being able to identify the right place at the right moment, what part of the world to freeze.
3. Joel Meyerowitz http://www.joelmeyerowitz.com/ I really like his photographs, because he bring a snapshot into life just using color. In other words, I think he takes really good pictures, but with color they just look professional.
What do both authors have to say about the early uses of color and problems photographers experienced when using color as a form of creative expression?
Egglestons discusses how color only helped the photos look more natural, “I had wanted to see a lot of things in color because the world is in color.” Black-and-white meant something as pictures, it was less complicated, color was only used in professional means and was not quite understood. Working in color made it hard to use enthusiasm and confidence. Categories of failure included making black-and-white photographs made with color film and photographs of beautiful colors in pleasing realtionships. The meanings of color have been ignored and considered at the expense o allusive meanings. Successes are found in the ability to control material photographed and designed to suit the preferences of the camera. Outside the studio it is hard to control therefore photos are timid and either formless or pretty. But, in the past decade photograpers have begun to work more confidently and natural in color. No longer are photos just of color but now of the shapes, textures, objects, symbols, or events in the experience.
In the New American Luminism, light and color are the primary visual characheterics of their imagery. In the beginning of color photography, the author writes of the combination of calssic view, small-camera street photgraphy, snapshot photgraphy, mid-ninettenth century landscape painting and twentieth-century color-field paintings. An expression of realism, idealism, color harmony, and luminosity are combined. Problems exist in legitimization that surrounded the color photgraphy of the seventies. Photos in this time included those of sunsets, oceans, rainbows, autumn and exotic people and places. The use of color is arbitrary, imposed overlay on an esssentially graphic, black-and-white world. Photographers use color in synthetic, decorative manner. Color allows photographs instantly recognizable as art. Color is seen as a form not light, as a graphic not phenomenon.
What do Green and Szarkowski suggest as critical considerations for how to think about photographing in color?
Szarkowski states pictures reproduced are about the photographer’s home, about his place, and maybe his identity. The photograph is photography it is his intuitions or intention that must be cut and shaped to fit the possiblities of his art. If the pictures are clear, you can see and sense sometihing more private and anarchic in the meaning.Photographs are and experience. Photograph romanticism to mean the adoption and adaptation of large public issues, social or phiosophical for private artistic ends. Green includes the fidelity, range of control and luminosity of photographying in color. Issues of flatness, color relationship, rendition, and scale that have occupied the color-field are important for color photos. The challenge is with color is deep spance and realistic attribution, with at the same time usingg two-dimentional texture, form, and field.
Who is working in color photography (now or from the essays) and is a source of inspiration for you (include link)?
http://www.luhringaugustine.com/artists/william-daniels/
I choose Wiiam Daniels because I found his work to be so unique and his use of color is like art.
Some photographers experienced problems in early years because of the way they tried to use color in their photos, they didn’t have any idea how to use it because they were accostumed to the black and white photography.
In the intent of making color photography important, many photographers took pictures with too much light and color to try to make an interesting picture but that only turned into a bad idea. The exaggeration of the color and light damaged the picture.
With the help of William Eggleston and other photographers, color photography turned into a new different thing, the way Eggleston used natural light and color and contrasts gave the picture a real and natural feeling, the way he used these and other aspects gave real meaning to color photography.
Green and Szarkowski suggested that color photography had to be made naturally using contrast and mixture of different lights that created natural colors, which would give the picture an even more real sense.
I don’t know many photographers but I particularly like the work of Steve McCurry, he takes portraits as well as landscapes and other types of pictures, he has photographed many places and cultures he has also taken pictures for National Geographic, and I like his work because I think some of his pictures have great inspiration.
http://www.stevemccurry.com/main.php
What do both authors have to say about the early uses of color and problems photographers experienced when using color as a form of creative expression?
- What does that color mean? It doesn’t have a clear meaning.
- Do I have to frame this?, to give a meaning of the feeling
- What to consider? To make a contrast, a nice view, not too much color or not enough color
- finding the perfect moment in complement with the light
What do Green and Szarkowski suggest as critical considerations for how to think about photographing in color?
- Feel the colors
- Trying to find a real meaning of the photo considering type of color, type of light.
Who is working in color photography (now or from the essays) and is a source of inspiration for you (include link)?
- My source of inspiration is an australian photographer originally from Belarus, Mitchell Kanashkevich, he is a travel photographer whose main passion is the “ethno-photography”, a type that captures images of different people and aspects of their lifestyle in order to document their culture, his portraits are terrifically warm and colorful… he was born in 1981 so he is young, he is my inspiration because his photography gives you the chance to get envolved with, sharing a culture! Means a lot to me! What I really like about him is that he is so young, giving us an example to follow… He does not use an insanely expensive camera… and he does what I really love and wish… travel around the world with a camera.
Site: http://www.mitchellkphotos.com
I found the reading very interesting and helpful to understand what color photography is and how it has changed through the year, because the technological advances and the photographers needs or demands.
I see light as a complement of color and vice versa, how light gives different tones and transforms color is very interesting, how the same place can look so different depending on the natural light, while reading and looking at the pictures I was wondering, how the pictures would look from a different angle and with a different light?
Some problems the authors mention are: How it wasn´t easy to stick on the color. Also the lack of fidelity, range of control and luminosity until the seventies when the Kodak color material were introduced, the difficulty to get exact angle to get was also a problem and the use of exact colors.
Szarkowski suggests to find the boundaries like it happened with one of the pictures that is shown, the city and the country, civilization and wilderness, community and freedom, the frontier of restrained protest or cautious adventure, the boundary between what is new and what is old, etcetera.
A touch of romanticism or idealism could be helpful to make good pictures, to consider the color relationship, rendition and scales; Eggleston suggests using color as a realistic attribute letting the texture and form work together.
The color photography opened a new vision with a degree of romance and emotionalism.
Joel Meyerowitz would be a source of inspiration for me because I found his pictures really beautiful and truly full of creativity.
The effects of light in his work, the natural color and tones of light and each thing itself look very attractive and interesting to me.
. http://www.joelmeyerowitz.com/
Since black and white photography had ruled during more than a century, most photographers were already used to think in black and white while they were composing some photographs. Lack of enthusiasm was also a problem for most of the photographers that started experimenting with color. The photographers just felt like they didn’t need to photograph in color because the “big” photographers of all times did their work in black and white so they should do the same. This reason also contributes to the lack confidence while managing color film. Another problem that some photographers had was that they didn’t know how to express what they capture in color the way they already did in black and white. Color photography was the closest expression to reality that they had at the time. When I talk about reality is to express what the human eye can see the way it sees it.
Also what I’ve learned so far during the course is that to make a color photograph you need to know about the art of color itself, what the colors express alone or what they express together or combined with others. It it not only about framing the picture, measuring the light, set the camera to the correct speed but to know what are you going to transmit to others when you use certain colors and the way you use them. When thinking about the composition of a picture it is very important to know what you want to say when using color. First you need to know what colors express or mean and then you can use them to compose a photo.
I actually didn’t know most of the photographers we’ve seen during the course but I can say that I’m fascinated with most of them. For example, a photographer I already knew was Gregory Crewdson. I really like not only his pictures but the production that he makes to take just one picture, it is massive and amazing what it is behind the final work that we can see at a museum. Other photographer that I really like is Jan Saudek. The way he uses color in his photographs is just astonishing. I think of some of his photographs as dreams in the way that color is managed. I had once the oportunity to visit a gallery full of his work in Prague and I think that since that day I’ve been impacted by color photography. William Eggleston is another photographer which is really great at managing color in his photographs, they are just beautiful and so meaningful. Joel Meyerowitz and Tetsugo Hyakutake are also two photographers that I really like a lot.
http://www.tetsugohyakutake.com/index_fleisher.html
http://www.saudek.com/en/jan/uvod.html
Describe and discuss how color and the color of light functioned your previous color photographic explorations?
. Light always plays a defying role in photography. I really never consider it as part of the picture so much until I started taking the course. I used to photograph light or make light a part of my pictures only when it was really present (e.g. a sunset). But now I have realized that we can use light and colours in order to express feelings. I will start making it a part of my pictures.
Discuss what aspects of your previous color photographic experience was successfull as well as the problems you experienced? Based on this, how are you looking to proceed with your color photographic work over the course of this semester?
. The most clear example of light and colour in my pictures are a set of 20-something pictures I took of the London Eye (the world’s largest ferris wheel) in London. The people who light it up tend to use very different colours depending on the season of the year. The picture I worked on last week is probably one of the ones I like the most, the colours reflected by the London Eye are very cool and contrast to the darkness of the sky at night.
In relation to your current interests, who is working in color photography and is a source of inspiration for you (include link)? Why are you drawn to their work?
A don’t really know many photographers. I am really into abstract or just very simple kind of photography. If you know of someone like that please let me know and I would, most definitely, check his work.
Essay Corrected
I found the reading very interesting and helpful to understand what color photography is and how it has changed through the year, because the technological advances and the photographers needs or demands.
I see light as a complement of color and vice versa, how light gives different tones and transforms color is very interesting, how the same place can look so different depending on the natural light, while reading and looking at the pictures I was wondering, how the pictures would look from a different angle and with a different light?
Some problems the authors mention are:
1-Color for Color Saks which is important to avoid
2-Attention to formal qualities
Some problems about photography materials: it´s that wasn´t easy to stick the images on the color. Also the lack of fidelity, range of control and luminosity until the seventies when the Kodak color material were introduced, the difficulty to get exact angle to get was also a problem and the use of exact colors.
Szarkowski suggests to find the boundaries like it happened with one of the pictures that is shown, the city and the country, civilization and wilderness, community and freedom, the frontier of restrained protest or cautious adventure, the boundary between what is new and what is old, etcetera.
A touch of romanticism or idealism could be helpful to make good pictures, to consider the color relationship, rendition and scales; Eggleston suggests using color as a realistic attribute letting the texture and form work together.
The color photography opened a new vision with a degree of romance and emotionalism.
It´s important to mention the Possibilities to consider with color photography as: Color of light, Color to describe and Color contrast
Joel Meyerowitz would be a source of inspiration for me because I found his pictures really nice and truly full of creativity.
The effect of light in his work, the naturals color and tones of light and each thing itself look very attractive and interesting to me.
. http://www.joelmeyerowitz.com/
What do both authors have to say about the early uses of color and problems photographers experienced when using color as a form of creative expression?
. They did not know how to work with light properly, so, instead of making good pictures including light, they took pictures of light which was a horrible idea according to the authors. People making pictures at the beginning, thought it will be just like taking black and white prints.
What do Green and Szarkowski suggest as critical considerations for how to think about photographing in color?
. They talk about the aspects of colour, Every single colour should be taken as a thing. Szarkowski points out that the blue of the sky should be taken as a whole thing. Both authors consider light as an important part in colour photography. I think they say this because light will bring out the colour and give it personality to the things they are attached to.
Who is working in color photography (now or from the essays) and is a source of inspiration for you (include link)?
Maurizio Cattelan, all though he is more of a sculpture designer his designs are wonderful and having a chance to photograph them is brilliant. Jonathan Knowles makes some sweet pictures of everyday stuff. He tends to play with light. Check him out.
http://www.jknowles.co.uk/
What do both authors have to say about the early uses of color and problems photographers experienced when using color as a form of creative expression?
Egglestons discuss the importance of color. Photography must have color, because a World in gray is not the World we living at. He also mentioned: “Color photography combines aspects of classic view photography, street photography, snapshot photography, mid-nineteen-century landscape painting, and twentieth-century color-field painting. It is a visual expression of various permutations of realism, idealism, color harmony, and luminosity combined”.
Working in color is more complex, because people can’t control the photography material and to satisfy the preferences of your camera. Photographers also use to feel intimidated outdoors when it comes to color. But now these days, they are starting to get more confident, and what’s knowing what is important about aspect of photography: it doesn’t involve only the color factor, but know you have to be able to understand and put in harmony aspects like shapes, textures, objects, symbols, and the truly meaning of the experience.
What do Green and Szarkowski suggest as critical considerations for how to think about photographing in color?
You have to take a lot of considerations when you’re about to make a photo. The authors discuss about how you need to understand the autonomy and the special characteristics between color and object. The authors also mention the importance of personal experience when taking a photograph. the mood of the photographer, feelings, and emotions private, often are included in the way of seeing the stage to take the picture, capture color, and context of the image. What I’ve learned of both authors is that color photography highlights the art and architecture of life itself and shows the beauty of nature in its purest form.
Who is working in color photography (now or from the essays) and is a source of inspiration for you (include link)?
zeny cieslikowski – colorphotographs.com
Christopher Burkett http://www.anseladams.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=191
Color photography was mainly used for advertising not with any art porpoise, color became to be used as a form of calling people´s attention, where light is a very important thing.
Some of the problems the authors mentions are The Color for color saks and attention to formal qualities where we have to include: The thing itself, details, frame vantage point, focus, light, color and time.
Szarkowski remarks the problem about missing the importance of color in a pictures how it can change the shape and the idea that one wants to reflect. He suggests considering the texture, the shapes, symbols and effects inside the pictures and in what you try to frame.
Eggleston shows out realistic things in his pictures, his pictures seem to be not manipulated and that reflect a more natural an simple idea in each of his shots.
These two photographers show an special attraction to open places and natural lighting, Szarkowski talk about the enthusiasm they had about early color photography, also how black and white pictures were consider so different of what they are now, Green speaks about objects full of color and also the problems they had with the Kodak materials and the supplies. The mix of realism and idealism, color harmony and luminosity have been an important thing to discuss mainly because the idea to catch and reflect what can be call art or beauty in a picture.
It is nice how they describe Eggleston using colors to reflect romanticism trying to make simple objects look different and attractive,
I understood how difficult was to describe color photography as art it was judge as a thing out of place sort of. The relationship between color and light are very important to keep in mind while making photos.