Artist: Duane Michals
Name: Empty New York
Date: 1964
Media: Vintage gelatin silver print
Size: 5 5/8 x 7 1/4 inches
Process Cityscape Photography is a genre of photography that focuses on capturing the urban environment, such as buildings, streets, and cities in general. Candid photography involves taking unscripted and spontaneous moments of any subject or scene.
Procedures Duane Michals uses the imaging process that is vintage gelatin silver print; the result from using this is a high-quality black and white photograph with rich tones and sharp details. Vintage gelatin silver print involves exposing a sheet of photographic paper coated with a gelatin emulsion to send light through a negative. This then creates an image in the paper that is coated with certain chemicals to make it permanent.
Method Duane Michals takes these photographs very early in the morning to show the empty streets of new york. This highlights the quiet moments in the city; in contrast to the hectic ambience usually present in New York, it gives you a sense of loneliness and isolation.
Technique This image is very high contrast; this makes the image have bright lights and extremely dark shadows. This creates a juxtaposition between certain portions of the photograph.
Subject Matter!
I am going to incorporate my second artist by emulating the feelings of isolation and loneliness Duane Michals has in his work. I will take photos of areas usually populated by people, but the absence of people in these locations helps give a sense of uneasiness and just a strange feeling in the gut.
Results of the Photoshoot
In this shoot I attempted to emulate Duan Michals, I did this by trying to capture the feelings of loneliness and isolation that are present within his series Empty New York, I attempted to emulate this feeling by taking photographs of areas that would usually be expected to have people present, but empty. Around the end of the photo shoot, I also got the idea of taking some photos of some abandoned / run-down areas, capturing the feeling of Duane Michals’s photos in the sense that someone used to be there, but now contains no sign of human life.
