Dan Boulton - Photographer Case Study 4

Dan Boulton - Photographer Case Study 4 

Dan Boulton was born in 1973 in Enfield, North London. His work, which crosses the lines between documentary, street photography and fine art has been featured in Document Skateboard and Plus1 magazines and the book “Emulsion Stew”. A collection of his work is soon to be published as a limited edition book by Chicago-based Parking Block Publishing.  

"I’m from the UK and was born in Enfield which is in North London. I first started skating at the age of seven in 1980. A junk shop near my house had a left over plastic banana board for sale and I saved my pocket money for about three months to get it. I snapped it within a couple of weeks and my Dad shaped me a wooden deck for it. There had been this weird yellow fiberglass skatepark near where my Dad worked as a mechanic and I think that’s where I first saw anyone skate. At that time skating in the UK had died out and it was becoming all about BMX. I was already pretty tall and kept hitting my knees on the Bars of BMX’s so I stuck with skating. A few years later the wider boards arrived from the States and skateboarding had another boom time in the UK and so thankfully there were more people to skate with." 

Dan Boulton uses a standard Leica M6 with a 50mm lens. His photography is based on the skateboarding culture. 

A large portion of his photos are black and white to give them that old documentary vintage feeling which he himself is inspired by. 

On this photograph the statues head and the black and white colour palette has a very vintage like feeling , also at first glance it does look like a human head looking out which is good because it means that his photography can make an inanimate object like a statue seem human or give it life in the set up its been photographed in eg: the urban environment with the man made graffiti and urban set up give it life and personality.

This photo has a very in-motion like feeling to it because of the heavy portion of blur in the photo which makes it seem like it has been taken at a party of sorts. 

The heavy number of people in the photo grabs the viewers attention because in most photos there is something in the background and foreground to grab attention in this photo all of the attention is directed at the foreground which helps the photo stand out. 

This photo represents the skateboard culture perfectly , everything is captured and framed to go in the centre which does not go with the rule of 3rds but other than the skaters there is so much more in the background the is not pointed towards the centre like the urban setting (walls etc) and the graffiti that it does not matter. 






Question : Would you ever want to go around the world in the future and explore and capture other diverse cultures?


http://blog.leica-camera.com/photographers/interviews/dan-boulton-southbank/

http://findrangers.com/danboulton

Photography Case Study 3 - Student Choice - Ansel Adams

Photography Case Study 3 - Student Choice - Ansel Adams  



Ansel Adams born February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984 an American photographer and environmentalist. His black-and-white landscape photographs of the American West, especially Yosemite National Park, have been widely reproduced on calendars, posters, and in books.

With Fred Archer, Adams developed the Zone System as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. The resulting clarity and depth characterized his

 photographs. Adams primarily used large-format cameras because their high resolution helped ensure sharpness in his images.

Adams founded the Group f/64 along with fellow photographers Willard Van Dyke and Edward Weston.

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Ansel Adam's style was very influential. He was one of the first photographers to start to photograph nature and landscapes all over the world with black and white portable cameras.  

This photo was taken in a underwater cave in New Mexico and was one of the earliest photos by Ansel. 

The photo is presented at a medium distance to try and fit as much of the content and landscape into the frame as possible to try and immerse the viewer. 

This photo is one of the best examples. 

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This picture was one of the first famous pictures in his era. 

An erupting glacier at Yellowstone National Park , Wyoming USA.  

Ansel always wanted to get distance and tried as much as possible to catch nature at its work and using the grid rule of 3rds he happened to capture an eruption of a glazier.

The photo is perfectly framed and moved to the left to see the glaciers explosion and the effects it had on its surroundings, the distance it was taken at frames all of the explosion to give a vertical show of how massive and brutal the explosion was.

This photo is one of Ansel's first narrative photography pieces. 

The shot is framed so the tree to the left takes the attention of the palette and extend to cover the rock and shield it from the sun. 

The Photo was taken at a Wyoming National Park , USA.  

Even though no color is present the image still has its effect on the viewer by using the rule of 3rds and the way its framed to tell a story happening in nature. 







http://www.archives.gov/research/ansel-adams/ 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansel_Adams