Simplistic

^Giggling youngsters on the platform at an underground station

In this first post to peek into the great minds on B&W photography, we look at the ideas of Eugene Atget (1857-1927).

Eugene was a pioneer in the art of photography. For 30 years since the late 19 century, he had used a 18 x 24 cm format camera to record the vanishing Parisian history from the late 19 to early 20 centuries. His objects ranged from historical buildings, old streets, shop windows, signboards to gardens. What is special about his works is the lucid viewpoints.

^The flow of communters gushed out of the cars at the most bustling underground station, Mong Kok. The four Chinese characters on the exit sign reads, "To Concourse Direct". But the Chinese character for "concourse" is just a stroke short from the character "paradise". It has been read by the naughty minded as "To Paradise Only" -- shopping paradise maybe

The photographer's viewpoints in his images are plain. He expressed the beauty of his objects in an intrinsic, low-profile way, giving a quality of visual pureness to the images.

Eugene's huge fan, Ansel Adams, once commented that the charm afforded by Eugene's works was in neither his technical skills nor the intriguing clothing styles, buildings or humanity in the images. Ansel was more enticed by the fair and friendly viewpoints through which Eugene saw the world around him.

^The man nearest to the foreground is waiting for someone and the two question marks in the background seemingly suggest that he is wondering why his friends were late

Eugene's works, as Ansel put it, are the simplistic depictions of the reality by showing viewers the simplest appearance of his surroundings.

The simplistic but forceful, low-profile but detached protrayal of the objects in his works is the generic element in photography art. His influence has been far-reaching, especially seen in B&W works.

Next time when you do your photographs, you may bear his examples in mind, espeically when you do B&W works. We may not be a frequent B&W shooter. But it is easy to feel the purer visual quality through the LCD screen in black and white. The decoloured images are the better vessels to emulate Eugene's simplistic interpretation of the world.

^Commuting at a time of human swine flu outbreak

Tomorrow, we will continue this series with another photography master.