Comparison of Poltis and David Wilson

Both of these people are modern day, black and white photographers. Wilson looks at landscapes, rust, emotion of space in mainly Wales or Britain etc where as Poltis looks at architecture, abandoned places, graffiti in America, England etc.

Both of these artists could link as Wilson looks at loneliness and abandoned things in a different context where you have to think about it and the hidden message such as rust, decay where as Poltis is more obvious such as houses, locations.

Both of their styles believe in strong compositions, I think Poltis more than Wilson as he looks at close ups and the documentation of life as he has interests in so many themes where as Wilsons photos look at the emotion of space with landscapes and little composition. This makes the photo look more lonely, deserted etc. Even though Wilsons images are black and white, exposure is really important to him as in black and white cloudy/stormy weather can look really dynamic and harsh. The weather is also like pathetic fallacy, the weather can make the mood of a picture and what it is trying to portray/give out to the audience.

Poltis focusses on many things with the world, he considers weather when appropriate but mainly focuses on the composition and depth of field in a image. The structure of his photos are really important to him too as they can give a unique impression and be eye catching as their different. Depending if it's a close up or mid close up his angles and structure of a photo are thought about to create a filled up composition.

I think with Poltis, he could improve on his techniques with the weather, sometimes it's appropriate for a certain image but a lot of the landscape images have plain white weather whereas Wilson always thinks about the weather. Wilson could improve his images by thinking of angles as some of his images are taken at a normal eye view but a photo of he has taken is of a group of birds flying away but I think if it was taken maybe at a low angle it would make the photo even more thrilling and energetic. Unless the photo is meant to give off a relaxed feel showing the independant of birds and how the world is at their feet. But because of the weather behind it and the vignette style, to me it comes across not that way.

Paul Poltis shoot

For my final piece Poltis was a artist I found who I was inspired by as he looks at emotion of space, black and white etc. This shoot was perfect as I took it during the bad weather to give a sad, lonely atmosphere to the image. I used levels on Photoshop to portray this as I could really darken certain parts of the photo and also lighten parts of the photo instead of using the contrast button.

To capture these images I had to look at aperture and shutter as when my setting was to under exposed or over exposed I couldn't capture the movement of the water and the image was either too bright or too dark (shown in sketch book). I was quite lucky that the raindrops were quite consistence but I had to look at my shutter and use a fast shutter 1/30th of a second as rain is quick.

 

 

 

Another experimentation to my final piece

As I did a shoot beforehand using the gorgeous sunset with the vibrant and deep colours I finally found a day where the sky was bleak, cold yet still quite powerful. Here are some of the images -

Again, a lot of these images were experimenting with different exposures for different settings to get the right amount of contrast with the sky. I never have looked at sky as a important factor but now focussing on it I have realised how cruical it is as it literally does create the whole effect/mood of a image. It adds to the story of what you are trying to get across to the audience.

By this I mean with a sunset like my last shoot/exerpimentation a sunset has connotations of love, summer, happy, joyful, romantic, holidays, relaxation etc which would be great if you were advertising for a romantic holiday or a type of fashion clothing/brand. But these images are more suttle and have connotations of loss, maybe depression, loneliness, fear, maybe a light at the end of the tunnel.