GCSE Photography Sketchbook 1 of 2

GCSE Photography











Explore the local architecture A21 motorway
which runs over Haysden.



LUCIEN HERVE

Lucien Herve was born on the 7th August 1910 in
Hungary. He was well known as one of the best
photographers in the twentieth century. At the age of
19, he moved to France and by 1937 (age 27) he had
earned the French Citizenship. Herve’s artwork are
all black and white. He uses shadow in his art. Some
are darker than others, some are brighter than
others. Lucien uses a lot of tone in his photos. The
tone shows the details on the buildings, it points out
the main features. All of his artwork is quite blocky,
geometric and abstract. Just over a decade ago,
Herve died on the 26th June 2007 (age 96).

HERVE AND CORBUSIER

Le Corbusier is a Swiss and French architect. Corbusier is most famous for designing
buildings. His architecture included steel and reinforced concrete. His buildings are
quite different. They are quite unique in a way and each one has a different appearance.
Corbusier said that ‘…He had been looking for 40 years for the right photographer.’
Herve originally travelled Marseille to visit one of Corbusier’s most famous pieces of
architect, Unite dehabitation, and when he got there he took around 650 pictures. Herve
then sent Corbusier the photos via e-mail and that is when Corbusier realised he had
finally found the right person to be his personal photographer
When Corbusier asked Herve to be his photographer, he agreed. They were working for
around 40 years until Le Corbusier died on the 27th August 1965 (age 77).
Herve’s style is suited to Corbusier’s building because they are both focused on form.
The buildings are very curvy and abstracted.

Similarities between other artists

Herve’s artwork is similar to Laszlo Maholy-Nagy in a way.
Laszlo Maholy-Nagy’s work is very geometric and contrasted. Maholy-Nagy has a
used a range of bold colours in his artwork and a multiple of different shapes. Its quite
abstract and unique as well. Some of them have a totally opposite appearance and
some look quite similar.
Herve’s work is also quite geometric, angular and focused on particular formal
elements such as line, tone and form.

School Contact
Sheet

To get these images, I explored the school and
took photos of all the interesting aspects of the
school’s architecture.

I made these images by opening Photoshop and adjusting the contrast, brightness and black and white levels in camera raw filter to whatever fit the best.







Abstracting with
close cropping.

For these few images, I have cropped them and turned them into
Grayscale, flattened it and then opened Camera Raw Filter to make
the image look more darker in some places.

Contextual Investigations:

Mark Fairhurst’s series ‘Deception’ is all about his way of playing and evoking Mark Fairhurst
with images that show the architectural details on buildings. He aims for his
images to ‘both dazzle and bemuse’.

I think Mark Fairhurst’s images are created through the source of Photoshop. I think
that he has duplicated and then flipped the image multiple times to show all the
architectural details shown on the buildings.

Contextual Investigations:

Mark Fairhurst

In Mark Fairhurst’s series ‘Deception’, he has described the images as
‘‘ infinite ripples caused by dropping a pebble into a pool of
architectural details.“ I think he means that all the architectural details
look like wavy lines, they’re not all straight and they’re not all wavy.
They all have a different design and texture.

I made this mirrored image in
Photoshop. I did it by clicking file
up the top of the screen and press
new. Once it has loaded, select A4.
Go onto file for a second time and
click open. That should then come
up with your ‘File Explorer’. Open
the image you want and it should
load as another tab. Select the
whole image (CTRL + A) then copy
and paste it on to the original plain
piece of A4 paper.
(To copy, use the keys CTRL + C
and to paste use the keys CTRL +
V)
Minimise it to the size needed by
holding keys CTRL + T. Once
you’ve done that hold keys CTRL +
J to duplicate the layers. Using the
arrow keys, move the image to
where you want it to be. Using the
arrows will make it more precise.
Duplicate the layer again but this
time you will need to click edit
along the top and select transform.
It will come up with flip horizontal,
press that and it will flip the photo
upside down which is what you
want to be able to make the image
reflect. When you are done and
happy with your work you need to
flatten the image by selecting the
layer button up the top, scroll down
to the bottom and there will be a
key which says flatten image. Once
you have pressed flatten image, you
wont be able to move the images
anymore. Once you have finished
save your work but make sure you
save it as a JPEG.







London contact sheets









London Basic Edits













I made this mirrored image in Photoshop. I did it by clicking file up
the top of the screen and press new. Once it has loaded, select A4.
Go onto file for a second time and click open. That should then
come up with your ‘File Explorer’. Open the image you want and it
should load as another tab. Select the whole image (CTRL + A)
then copy and paste it on to the original plain piece of A4 paper.
(To copy, use the keys CTRL + C and to paste use the keys CTRL +
V)
Minimise it to the size needed by holding keys CTRL + T. Once
you’ve done that hold keys CTRL + J to duplicate the layers. Using
the arrow keys, move the image to where you want it to be. Using
the arrows will make it more precise.
Duplicate the layer again but this time you will need to click edit
along the top and select transform. It will come up with flip
horizontal, press that and it will flip the photo upside down which
is what you want to be able to make the image reflect. When you
are done and happy with your work you need to flatten the image
by selecting the layer button up the top, scroll down to the bottom
and there will be a key which says flatten image. Once you have
pressed flatten image, you wont be able to move the images
anymore. Once you have finished save your work but make sure
you save it as a JPEG.





This is my favourite Mark Fairhurst mirror image edit because I like the reflection of St Paul’s Cathedral. The image also
has a lot of detail and a wide variety of colours. I like how it is very aligned along the middle of the image.

Horst Hamann

Horst Hamann was born in Mannheim, Germany on
the 27th April 1958. He is a very well known German
photographer. In 1979 ,after he finished high school,
he took a tour to 40 states all over the United States.
Ten years later Hamann moved to New York
permanently to start his twenty year study of
Manhattan and its impressive views.

Hamann’s best known city for photographing in New
York’s Manhattan. This is where he spent most of his time
during the early experiences he had during his
photography experience

HORST HAMANN

‘‘ The pictures are beautifully controlled…’’

Hamann is a contemporary German photographer who is best known for his
photographs of New York City.

In Hamann’s photographs he uses a panoramic camera, Linhof Technorama. He
tilts it 90 degrees to make the image vertical, however theses types of cameras are
supposed to be used for a long landscape image not portrait. He lines up the images
with great accuracy giving the image a very unique appearance.

All of Hamann’s images are in black and white due to the fact that he uses a
panoramic camera. The black and white effect gives the image a very retro/old –
fashioned look. The fact that his images are portrait and not landscape also gives the
image a very distinctive image.

In real life, Hamann’s images are 2 metres tall. The way his images are designed,
they give the effect that you are in London standing right in front of the building.
This could make it realistic and make people want to look up at the building as if it
was right there in front of them.

Once we have gone to London, took our photos and brought them back to the school,
I am going to make my images look like Hamann’s. In London, I will take images
building up a building, copy them into Photoshop and make it look as though it is one
image that has been separated into multiple sections (eg: 3/4 sections)

These are more examples of
Horst Hamann’s work

Making a
Hamann style
vertical image











Cat Poljski

Contemporary Australian Printmaker.

Cat Poljski’s work is very geometric and exaggerated. She uses a variety of colours
that contrast each other, for example, black and white. Her artwork is also quite
linear, all the architecture and the designs are lines; mainly they are straight. Cat
Poljski describes her work as her ‘… exploring the world in an attempt to move
between the real and the imagined.’

Poljski has used a variety of techniques in her work. One of the many techniques is
etching. Etching is what gives the images their fine linear line work. Another
technique is stencil. Stencil is where there are sections in the images of bold flat
colours, this tends to be what gives the image its contrast in colours.

One of Poljski’s influences for her artwork is Sol LeWitt. Sol LeWitt is a famous
American artist for his wall drawings and ‘‘structures’’, this is the term he used for
sculptures.
In her artist statement, Poljksi mentioned that her work place is like Sol LeWitt
structures. Poljski said her central station is ‘‘pure white and built of strong
horizontals and verticals’’. Both Cat Poljski’s work and Sol LeWitt’s work are both
quite geometric and have used a variety of bright and neutral colours which
contrast each other.

This is an example
of Sol LeWitt’s
work.
This is one of his
famous pieces of
wall drawings
which is held in the
Paula Cooper
Gallery.

Cat Poljski

In my personal opinion, I really like Cat Poljski’s work.
I like how she contrasts the colours and makes her images
really geometric. She also uses a layering technique in a
majority if not all of her photos to make it look like there
are more than one building that has been included in the
images. Poljski layers her images very uniquely, she
purposely depicts cities that have a lot going on.