Final Project
Name of Artist: Berenice Abbott
Dates of Artist's Life: 1898-1991
Personal Background:
Berenice Abbott was born in Springfield, Ohio and she spent most of her early career studying sculpture. However, through working as Man Ray's assistant during her studies in New York, Paris, and Berlin, she was drawn into the world of photography. A while later, and she was be influenced by Eugene Atget, who she would collaborate with Julien Levy to collect many of his prints and negatives. Even later, she was also influenced greatly by the ever changing man-made landscapes of New York, before the Great Depression.
Style:
Abbott's work was all black and white sepia (no surprise considering the time frame). She had a habit of taking multiple photos from a birds eye or worms eye view, of course there were a few that were eye level. She mostly seemed to take either grand photos of the landscape, or even just building entrances and signs.
Philosophy:
Berenice typically would take photos in a documentary style, kind of like she was showing off the urban landscape in it's different qualities, from the grandest scenes to its simplest areas. It was like she was showing how much the landscape was different.
Influences: Abbott's style in photography has made me think a lot more about contrast, value, line, balance, and shape. I noticed that due to the nature of the time period, Abbott's camera had much higher contrast (and desaturation) which made each image's general shape and shadows stand out, so I tried it out when editing my photos. Along with the contrast, I had to pay more attention to value (as all of Abbott's photos lack color). That required me to think about trying to make a balance of light and dark colors in a way that wasn't overwhelming. And with the balancing of value, I needed a balance of shape and space, which required the past two topics discussed. I also needed to think a lot more about leading lines, using the streets and the buildings to lead the viewers eyes around the image in a calculated manner. Often times, Abbott uses worms-eye views to do this, often times using the height of buildings to lead the viewers eyes.
Dates of Artist's Life: 1898-1991
Personal Background:
Berenice Abbott was born in Springfield, Ohio and she spent most of her early career studying sculpture. However, through working as Man Ray's assistant during her studies in New York, Paris, and Berlin, she was drawn into the world of photography. A while later, and she was be influenced by Eugene Atget, who she would collaborate with Julien Levy to collect many of his prints and negatives. Even later, she was also influenced greatly by the ever changing man-made landscapes of New York, before the Great Depression.
Style:
Abbott's work was all black and white sepia (no surprise considering the time frame). She had a habit of taking multiple photos from a birds eye or worms eye view, of course there were a few that were eye level. She mostly seemed to take either grand photos of the landscape, or even just building entrances and signs.
Philosophy:
Berenice typically would take photos in a documentary style, kind of like she was showing off the urban landscape in it's different qualities, from the grandest scenes to its simplest areas. It was like she was showing how much the landscape was different.
Influences: Abbott's style in photography has made me think a lot more about contrast, value, line, balance, and shape. I noticed that due to the nature of the time period, Abbott's camera had much higher contrast (and desaturation) which made each image's general shape and shadows stand out, so I tried it out when editing my photos. Along with the contrast, I had to pay more attention to value (as all of Abbott's photos lack color). That required me to think about trying to make a balance of light and dark colors in a way that wasn't overwhelming. And with the balancing of value, I needed a balance of shape and space, which required the past two topics discussed. I also needed to think a lot more about leading lines, using the streets and the buildings to lead the viewers eyes around the image in a calculated manner. Often times, Abbott uses worms-eye views to do this, often times using the height of buildings to lead the viewers eyes.
Berenice Abbott's Photos
My Photos
Compare and Contrast: In hind sight, some of these photos share small similarities (only due to a restriction of space, it's hard to take photos downtown).
"The Alleyway" shares similarities to "Rector Street - Italian Festival" through it's use of leading lines. Both photos make use of the street below and the buildings above to lead the viewer's eye across the length of the photo. The major difference is the use of the streets though. Abbott chose to use a lot less street and a lot more building, whereas I didn't have the same luxury of New York's massive buildings. She also took the photo from a far less harsh angle compared to mine, as such she was able to include another building, and fill in a lot of white space. They do share similar value balance though, darker shades on the left and brighter tints near the center of the photo, followed by medium shades on the right.
"Building from the Bottom Up" shares the most similarities to "From Trinity Church Yard", despite being drastically different. They both omit the lower streets and use the higher portion of a building to create leading lines. The biggest difference being the statue acting as the church's focal point and the use of a lot more building, while mine is only the top half of a building with no object acting as the focal point.
"Newer Architecture" is most similar to "Fifth Avenue, Nos. 4, 6, 8", using a dynamic angle and more blacks with white highlighting to create interest. As usual, due to restrictions, I could only take a photograph of a small portion of the building, making it much smaller than "Fifth Avenue"'s scale. The juxtaposition of value and use of strong contrast bring these two photo's together though, using dark shades against whites to make bring the viewers attention to the major points in each photo.
"Parking Structure" and "Gunsmith and Police Department" share the use of signs for their focal points, a very low worms-eye view, and high value differences. The use of the signs gives the viewer a good idea of what they are looking at without a need to read the title, thus allowing the viewer to paint a picture of what may be inside, without having to go to the place in question. The worms-eye view allows the viewer to feel as if they are looking up at something, giving the viewer a much more interesting perspective than a dead on view.
"Old Architecture" and "Murray Hill Hotel, Spiral, 112 Park Avenue" both use slightly similar building types, a worms-eye view perspective. I found it difficult to emulate this aspect of Abbott's style since she managed to get a large portion of a very large building from an interesting angle while I could only get the top part from a dead on view. For the most part, the greatest similarities are in the buildings shape and general value ranges.
"The Alleyway" shares similarities to "Rector Street - Italian Festival" through it's use of leading lines. Both photos make use of the street below and the buildings above to lead the viewer's eye across the length of the photo. The major difference is the use of the streets though. Abbott chose to use a lot less street and a lot more building, whereas I didn't have the same luxury of New York's massive buildings. She also took the photo from a far less harsh angle compared to mine, as such she was able to include another building, and fill in a lot of white space. They do share similar value balance though, darker shades on the left and brighter tints near the center of the photo, followed by medium shades on the right.
"Building from the Bottom Up" shares the most similarities to "From Trinity Church Yard", despite being drastically different. They both omit the lower streets and use the higher portion of a building to create leading lines. The biggest difference being the statue acting as the church's focal point and the use of a lot more building, while mine is only the top half of a building with no object acting as the focal point.
"Newer Architecture" is most similar to "Fifth Avenue, Nos. 4, 6, 8", using a dynamic angle and more blacks with white highlighting to create interest. As usual, due to restrictions, I could only take a photograph of a small portion of the building, making it much smaller than "Fifth Avenue"'s scale. The juxtaposition of value and use of strong contrast bring these two photo's together though, using dark shades against whites to make bring the viewers attention to the major points in each photo.
"Parking Structure" and "Gunsmith and Police Department" share the use of signs for their focal points, a very low worms-eye view, and high value differences. The use of the signs gives the viewer a good idea of what they are looking at without a need to read the title, thus allowing the viewer to paint a picture of what may be inside, without having to go to the place in question. The worms-eye view allows the viewer to feel as if they are looking up at something, giving the viewer a much more interesting perspective than a dead on view.
"Old Architecture" and "Murray Hill Hotel, Spiral, 112 Park Avenue" both use slightly similar building types, a worms-eye view perspective. I found it difficult to emulate this aspect of Abbott's style since she managed to get a large portion of a very large building from an interesting angle while I could only get the top part from a dead on view. For the most part, the greatest similarities are in the buildings shape and general value ranges.
Artist Statement: When trying to create these photos, the major struggle was trying to find urban areas or urban style buildings where there were wide open spaces to take them without obstructing traffic (none of which I could actually find or reach in a reasonable time frame). So I did my best to capture at least a fraction of the building and emulate what I could.
Sources:
https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/berenice-abbott?all/all/all/all/0
http://iphf.org/inductees/berenice-abbott-2/
https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/berenice-abbott?all/all/all/all/0
http://iphf.org/inductees/berenice-abbott-2/