Walden pond and other places
Photo Emulation: Alvin Langdon Coburn
My photographer was American photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn. Born on June 11th 1886 in Boston MA, Coburn started photographing at a young age with his family camera and soon his talent and love for photography blossomed and he soon became an apprentice under his cousin and his photography soon blossomed from there often experimenting with viewpoints and distortion to create abstractions of the real world. In fact he was one of the first to create an entirely abstract photograph, by using a system of mirrors in the shape of a triangle over the lens to capture the real world as well as the reflections of the mirrors. his main subjects within this realm of fine arts photography was geometric shapes that captured light such as diamonds or other crystalline structures, he also delved into the distortion of the human form with portraiture. I chose this artist because our paths sort of crossed along my artistic journey. as this year was starting I began to experiment with my camera a lot more and distortions through view points and depth of field and then one day while i was in savers i found a kaleidoscope and became enamored with the idea of capturing the beauty of it through the lens of a camera and so i bought two kaleidoscopes but found they were too small for the camera lens and so i decided to make a bigger one that would better fit the camera. After experimenting with it for about a month I had to do an artist hero post for my AP class and while looking through one of my teachers many photography books I stumbled upon Coburn and his beautiful photography and found that he did almost exactly what I did. I found this quite eerie as we are both from the same area, both started photography around the same age and we created the same experimental photography and struggled with it similarly while I was completely unaware he even existed. many of his photographs are still lifes with high levels of contrast in order to create starker and crisper lines so the distorted image wouldn't become muddled in its own abstraction. because of the use of mirrors there are parts of the image in focus while its reflection usually isn't. This creates a really cool fade between the real world and image and the mirror world that is created, this makes a clear focal point within the image although it can become faded and blend into the rest of the image. I recreated his style by also using a kaleidoscope over the lens although I didn't focus on still life and portraiture but instead took cityscape photos with it.
- Point of view
- colors
- shallow depth of field
- low contrast
- highkey
- calmness and beauty
- Color contrast
- use of filters
- Triangles
- Surprising composition
- Composition
- leading lines
- Color contrast
- Use of filter
- Repetition
- Use of analogous color
- figure and ground
- distortion of size
- sense of mystery
- rule of thirds
- Colors
- rule of thirds
- shallow depth of field
- line and shape
- Point of view
- Unique composition
- use of fugue and ground
- shallow depth of field
- unique perspective and use of environment
- Cheery
- Line and shape
- use of triangles
- positive and negative space
- interesting composition
- feeling of mystery
- Shallow depth of field
- color scheme
- movement
- shutter speed
- symmetry
- Contrast
- composition
- Shutter speed
- technique
- rule of thirds
- Shallow depth of field
- figure ground
- color
- rule of thirds
- perspective
- sense of adventure