1. Christopher Martin
(Contemporary)
Christopher Martin is a landscape and nature photographer based in Alberta, Canada. Martin especially focuses on the
effects of motion blur, wide angles and long exposures to create his images. Based on his heavily art influenced
background it aloud him to take what he had learnt through paint and sketch to modern, contemporary photography.
His worked has been used specifically in magazines and can be licensed for printed and online publications e.g District
News and Photolife Magazine.
Motion blur is used to provide a visitation of speed and movement, this effect can be easily created by using a slow
shutter speed and balancing the camera on a sturdy surface to avoid camera shake or noise. This method works
especially well with the effect of lights and quick movement, for example in this image the lights on the cars has
created a beam following the direction in which the object travels – due to the lens taking in the sense of light a
movement whilst the shutter remains open.
For this image in particular it appears to keep the image of
the cars movement so still and precise that the camera will
have followed their movement whilst been kept on a precise
balance, perhaps using a moveable tripod. The shutter
speed for this will have only been around, I estimate – 5
seconds to create the long beams. The give intensity to the
lights a high aperture will have been selected to avoid over
brightening the image and giving the dimension of intense
colour.
I selected this image out of his portfolio as I thought it was a
perfect visual reference of speed and the illusion of how fast
the cars are travelling. This would maybe be used in racing or
car based magazines as a form of advertising, as the image
captures the eye with the bright colours and strobe effect
lighting.
2. David Emmite
(Contemporary/Non-Traditional)
David Emmite was born in Texas and from an early age was fascinated by layering and overlapping a mixture of
materials and objects to form artistic motifs. Later on in his life he went on to train at the Portfolio Centre in Atlanta
with previous work in Portland and New York, eventually leading to the opening of his own studio in 1996. His work
has been featured in several advertising campaigns both online and print including Nike, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines,
Sony Records and Doc Marten Shoes.
The series of photographs following the example below were part of a collection called “Field Guide”. His main focus
here was woodland animals in an artificial setting by the inclusion of modern day aspects. It was humorous approach
to experimental photography and was inspired by the Victorian Era taxidermy dioramas, his visual was a mixture of
science and art. To create these images real taxidermies were used as the main subject followed by a series of artificial
and preserved landscape elements, he also experimented with several backdrops and printed paper to create the
background.
All the images were created within the camera using conventional
film and a series of printing methods to give the artificial effect to
the gleam of the paper, as if it was a painting. This works
especially well with bringing out the realistic elements of the
image as if it was completely natural despite the inclusion of
modern technology.
Often a lot of the images look like they have been taken in
individual layers and manually created, it was this that made
Emmite’s work so popular and interesting within the media and
sparked his fame. The props were purchased online from eBay
and he shot the series in his studio in Portland.
3. Thomas Kellner
(Traditional)
Thomas Kellner was born in Germany in 1966. As a young
adult his main focus was his study of art at the University of
Siegen. Since 1997, Kellner worked as a visual artist and
received a membership at the German Association for
Photography. From 2005, he was then invited to series of
festivals and photographic events based in Houston, Beijing
and Brasilia.
In the early stages Kellner had always being interested in
experimental photography and the concept of illusion. He
experimented with several photographic techniques
including pinhole, cyanotype and saltpaper. Kellner’s most
famous work featured his aspect of layering imagery to
create art, especially with historical landmarks and
architecture. It was then that his most popular series of
photographs were created in 1997, by separating a full
image via taking several close-up images of a landmark.
His work has been used in solo exhibitions across the globe
including Chicago, Hamburg, London and Siegen.
4. Kellner photography depicts a strong inspiration from
David Hockney’s work on montages and create a collage
based on one image. Kellner’s photographs are created
via taking several close-up Polaroid's of sections of the
build and then manually placing them together like a
puzzle to create the finished piece. Some sections of the
photograph have being taken on a slight angle or in a
different composition to add illusion to the final piece,
yet still leaving the building recognizable.
This type of traditional method can be automatically
copied using modern day software such as Photoshop.
The process includes find an object and taking several
images from one angle that can be pieced together later,
very similar to how Kellner and Hockney work. But they
saving the images to a single folder and using the
“Photomerge” tool. This allows the software to work out
what the overall image is a piece it all together in
sections similar to Kellner’s work, this can then be
dragged and warped to give different effects in a quicker
method compared to traditional film printing.
