John Rankin Waddell aka Rankin is a British photographer, film director and publisher.
He began his career tapping into the 90's and 00's co-founding the magazine Dazed & Confused along side Jefferson Hack. He has over 42 books, along with AnOther Magazine, the bi-annual Hunger Magazine.
Rankin soon turned to directing moving image. He has created landmark editorial and advertising campaigns as both a photographer and director. Some of the brands and charities he made campaigns for included L'Oreal, Dove, Pantene, Women's Aid and Oxfam. As well as making music videos for artists' such as Miley Cyrus, Rita Ora and Kelis.
Rankin co-directed his debut feature film, The Lives of Saints, written by Toni Grisoni, in 2002. Rankin creates work for the worlds of advertising, fashion and music videos, under the banner of Rankin Film.
He has travelled the world with charities, making strong and powerful campaigns, as both a photographer and director. In 2015, he worked alongside Comic Relief, returning in 2017 to create t-shirts and merchandise for Red Nose Day. The campaign with Macmillan Cancer Support in 2017 went viral, encouraging people to Brave the Shave.
As Rankin first set on the road to be a professional photographer, his greatest inspiration was W Eugene Smith. He longed to be a documentary photographer after seeing one of Smith's shows at the Barbican. However, Rankin wasn't very good at doing that, instead he was better one-on-one taking portraits.
I love how creative and unique some of Rankin's work is. He creates pictures in a way I have never seen before and instead of taking normal portraits, he adds things to the person, such as body paint, giving it more of an effect and making it intriguing. His advertising campaigns and charity work is also something I enjoy looking at. I like the way he lays everything out on the page and the message is easily portrayed but in a creative way.
Ansel Adams, (1902-1984), is a photographer and environmentalist born in San Francisco, California.
Adams had an original ambition to become a concert pianist, however that changed after he went on a trip to Yosemite National Park when he took his first photographs.
He was a photo technician as a caretaker at a club before he went in to being a full-time photographer. his first two collections of landscapes were published in limited editions, Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras (1927) and Taos Pueblo (1930).
Ansel was greatly influenced by the work of Paul Strand. He became one of the founders of Group f/64 along with Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham. The group tended to use large camera and small apertures to capture a wider range of textures.
During his early career, Adams would combine commercial assignments and his own work. Adams published twenty-four photographic books on the National Parks of America. A critic once argued....
"Adams created a body of work which has come to exemplify not only the purist approach to the medium, but to many people the definitive pictorial statement on the American western landscape."
I personally find Ansel Adams work inspiring. I like the way he captures the landscapes and nature.
"You don't take a photograph, you make it."
- Ansel Adams
Techniques
High Key and Low Key photography create a specific mood using lighting and contrast.
High Key photography uses multiple powerful light sources which are positioned to eliminate hard shadows from the images. Using High Key photography gives the image a light and optimistic feeling.
Low Key photography, however, is when the lighting produces dark tones and shadows by reducing light. To achieve composition, usually only a single light source is used. Compared to High Key, Low Key have a dramatic and dark feel to them.
Both of the techniques are a good choice for colour and black & white images.
An example of the use of High Key and Low Key photography being used it with the famous photographer, Platon.
He mainly takes portraits of famous people on either black or white backgrounds, depending on the effect he is wanting to achieve.
"I'm a portrait photographer that's used to shooting celebrities, and I usually need time and all kinds of lights and a studio to set up my shots."
- Platon
Aperture is used to control the amount of light let through the lens. It also controls the amount of light within a composition which is sharp (in focus) referred to as 'depth of field'.
Small aperture (f22) - > large focal depth
Large aperture (f2.8) - > shallow focal depth
A large aperture is suitable for portraits and close up shots, where the subject is isolated from the background.
A small aperture is suitable for landscapes and keeping all aspects of the frame in focus.
Shutter speed allows the photographer to control the duration the shutter is open for, enabling them to create different effects within the photographs.
If the photographer wants to avoid motion blur, they will need to use a faster shutter speed, thus avoiding the moving object to appear blurred.
Having very short or very long speeds can give creative effects in the shots.
Long exposure is perfect for giving moving water a nice fog effect and capturing car light trails, this is due to the shutter being open for longer than usual.
However, using a fast shutter speed gives opportunities to capture "frozen in motion" images, like birds flying, splashing of paint or someone running.
ISO is a way to brighten or darken photos. If the ISO is increased, the image will become brighter.
Photographers would use ISO to capture images within dark environments or to become more flexible with aperture and shutter speeds.
If the ISO is raised to high, it will show a lot of grain, making the image unusable, unless that is an effect the photographer is going for.
A common set of ISO's within camera starts at ISO 100 (the lowest), ISO 200, ISO 400, ISO 800, ISO 1600, ISO 3200 and IS0 6400 (the highest).
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