Artist challenge --Alvin Langdon Coburn

[kali]

Spanner @spanner won the last artist challenge, but he is rather busy at the moment so he has asked me to run this challenge on his behalf. He has chosen photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn 1882-1966

Coburn studied first with his distant cousin, the eccentric photographer F. Holland Day, and later with Edward Steichen as well as the painter Arthur Wesley Dow. Elected a member of Alfred Stieglitz's Photo-Secession, he quickly achieved renown for his cityscapes of New York, London, and Venice and his portraits of such distinguished figures as George Bernard Shaw, Henry James, and William Butler Yeats. He was an early adopter of autochrome, and was influenced by Oriental art.

Like many photographers associated with Stieglitz, Coburn by 1910 sought to shed the romanticism of the pictorial movement and bring photography more in step with abstract painting and sculpture. He made photographs looking down from the tops of tall buildings to explore the use of flattened perspective and geometric patterning. During World War I he became involved with the Vorticists, a group of British artists, including Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound, who sought to construct a dynamic visual language as abstract as music.

After experimenting with multiple exposures, Coburn in 1916 invented a kaleidoscope-like instrument with three mirrors clamped together, which when fitted over the lens of a camera would reflect and fracture the image. Pound dubbed the device a "Vortescope" and the resulting photographs "Vortographs."

There is a comprehensive overview about him on youtube here

there are a few pages of his photographs to get you started available here

and
here

and of course there is a whole lot more information if you google him, let us know if you find a good resource below.


The challenge is to take a look at his work and try to either copy an image as closely as you can, use all your creative powers to emulate his style, or take something of his subject matter and run with it.

Entries should be taken between now and 17th July (nz time )

tag for this challenge is ac-coburn

[kali]

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[kali]

if anyone else wants tagging for future artist challenges let me know and I will add you to the list

[kali]

@isaactrippet you may be interested in his multiples and Vortographs :)

[Annie D]

@kali66 I like the word vortographs
will check him out forthwith - hope that means now soon as I can ASAP lol

[kali]

if you are a film enthusiast you may wish to read this link http://notesonphotographs.org/index.php?title=Alvin_Langdon_Coburn/Technique

[Lynda]

Please add me to the list. Thank you.

[kali]

@lynbonn done, have fun

[Luka]

can you take me off the list?

[kali]

@luka365 oh sure Luka

[Annie D]

@kali66 I fixed me a vortescope ha ha don't know that I use it properly

[kali]

@annied just roll with it and see what you come up with , thats what I do

[Annie D]

@kali66 well I am about to upload scary hahahahaha

[Lynda]

I tried this out. Will give it another go. My husband suggested I try this http://www.amazon.com/Fit-System-CP100-Replacement-Glass/dp/B000E4COLA
Found it at an auto supply store. Much easier to cut and transport than conventional mirrors.