Following on from my previous post on Alexander Rodchenko, I thought I’d put one of his many interesting quotes alongside one of his equally interesting photos. The great part is that as well as photography, these words can be applied to all areas of life. Enjoy and feel free to share.

“In order to educate man to a new longing, everyday familiar objects must be shown to him with totally unexpected perspectives and in unexpected situations. New objects should be depicted from different sides in order to provide a complete impression of the object.”

~ Alexander Rodchenko

It’s often hard to express why we like a certain visual style, but in my case, with Rochenko, it would have to be the combination of pleasing compositions, together with unusual perspectives and interesting shadows.

Living in 1920s revolutionary Russia, Rodchenko had started out as a painter, and only turned to photography, as well as design and illustration in the early part of that decade. No doubt his background as a painter helped him with his photographic composition and understanding of lighting too.

While his early work reflects an artist still trying to find his way around a new medium, it’s clear that he soon finds his own distinct style, often using unusual perspectives, tilted angles and shadows to create seemingly simple, yet dramatic high contrast images. Many of these shots with dark and long shadows have a film-noir like feel to them.

Inspired by other abstract artists, while being part of the avant-garde Constructivist movement himself, Rodchenko was setting out to make rather than take pictures. Composition was of utmost importance to him and it’s obvious that he put a great deal of thought, time and care in creating most of his photos.

Rodchenko so passionately believed in photography as a form of art, that he described the ability of photographic compositions loaded with forms and intricate patterns, as surpassing the imagination of painters. In fact, he believed that photography could transform the world and mankind, which is evident from his ‘new’ way of looking at the world.

Sadly, Rodchenko’s style would soon be frowned upon, as by the 1930s, Stalin’s cultural revolution had led to an emphasis on realism, with avant-garde artists being labelled bourgeois and distorters of the Soviet ideal. From then on, Rodhchenko would turn to reportage and experimentation with photomontages.

Alexander Rodcehnko’s work as an active photographer from 1924 to 1954 leaves us with a captivating body of images that lives on as a testament to the brilliant artist that lay behind the camera and his role in helping to cement photography’s place in the art world.

For further reading, see Aleksandr Rodchenko: Art in Photography by Nare Aleksanyan.

So as with the notorious stock photos of women laughing alone with salad, I present to you this fine collection of goofy businessmen trying to shake your hand. At least they managed to fit in a few lefties and ethnic minorities, but older businessmen seem to be under-represented here. I wonder if that has anything to do with projecting a young, dynamic go-getter image.

I also usually wonder about how the photographer handles these kinds of shoots too: “Uh yeah, just stick your hand out there sir and give me a big smile. No, not like that…you look like a robot…try to bend your elbow…okay, good. Flat boring high key lighting…check…my work here is done. Now to cash in on Getty Images and see my work appear on generic corporate websites.”

My favourite here has to be the guy with the purple shirt, straight hand and jutting chest…all signs of a man about to make an honest deal.

Fortunately, the sky on the day was quite nice too. I always look to find ways of including interesting cloud formations in some of my photos. Even on their own, clouds can make interesting and dramatic photo subjects, but coupled with other features, they can really help to enhance and distinguish an image. After all, if you live somewhere cloudy, it’s going to be incredibly rare to find the exact same cloud formation in a single place at different moments in time.

Cloudy skies aside, I’m not sure if it’s the influence of pre-colour era photographers or not, but black and white photography is increasingly growing on me. There’s something about bringing out the true essence of an image once you remove the distraction of colour. It’s also a good way to avoid some of the more nauseating over-saturation of colours that we see so often nowadays in a lot of photos (landscape photos being the worst offenders!).

I don’t expect an exact reflection of reality in a photo, in fact, I encourage photographers to leave their own imprint on a photo, but simply taking a sunrise or sunset photo and then pushing saturation and/or vibrance sliders all the way up, isn’t all that imaginative. It seems to be quite popular from all the images that I see being shared around social networks though, so what do I know? Even I admit to having been a victim of the saturation bug too, having had to go back on more than a few occasions to make colours a little less eye-searing! At least that’s one less thing to worry about with black and white.

To think that black and white photography is less complex though, would be incredibly misleading. It’s all too easy to ruin a photo unless you begin by envisioning the final result. The great thing about digital though is that we have the freedom to experiment to our heart’s content, without worrying about permanently ruining an image. Whether this encourages us to be lazy and do away with vision, I’m not quite sure, but it’s something that every photographer needs to think about at some point.

Whether this is just a result of being busy with other things or not is hard to tell, but there’s no doubt that creative inspiration needs to find you working. At these points, there are moments when, inexplicably, everything around you feels boring and dull, including your own past work, and that’s pretty much how I’ve felt over the past few months. When you lose that connection and sense of fascination with the surrounding environment, it’s hard to find the motivation to go out and capture any part of it.

Many photographers argue in favour of travelling, forcing yourself to try out a new technique or just shooting anything, but that’s not how some of us work. I would argue that sometimes it’s better to stop, take a step back, reflect on what really drives your passion and use that as a stepping stone for refining your own personal style.

I find that immersing yourself in the works and lives of the great photographers and other artists, from both past and present, can also be a source of inspiration. In particular, what I’ve discovered is that many of the artists whose works I admire, had deeper reasons for creating their works, that went beyond the mere aesthetic. These were expressions borne out of the influence of others, their environment, moment in history and their own unique thoughts. It’s that passion with a strong personal meaning that we must all discover in order to find satisfaction and realise our creative potential.

Rather than simply posting and talking about my latest photos here, I’ll be spending some time looking at the works of some of history’s notable photographers. After that, hopefully I can cover some more contemporary professional and amateur photographers whose works I admire. Interspersed between these, I hope there’ll also be some of my personal work. In the meantime, have fun shooting and finding your own path to creative self-actualisation.

Few things in nature surpass the majesty of mountains.