1. AS Photography Induction Project.
Beauty
Salgado Wolfgang Tilmans
Irving Penn
What makes an image beautiful?
Your task is to investigate this question and also to produce your own beautiful imagery.
The above photographs go some way to help explain this question. All are (subject to opinion)
beautiful but none are of essentially beautiful objects. It is easy to record a beautiful object such as a
flower or a pretty child and result in a beautiful photograph. This is because the object holds the
beauty not the image- it requires little skill on the photographers part to create something beautiful.
What makes the above images beautiful?
Salgado uses texture, bold contrast and light to create beautiful images of suffering and forced
migration. Here we see a starving refugee on a makeshift hospital bed- her suffering is evident in her
pose and gaunt facial expression. What Salgado has done is to use the available light and his
awareness of timing and composition to capture the beautiful forms of the woman and the textural
flow of her hands as they meet above her head. She is almost cradling herself the way a mother does
her new born child.
Irving Penn has collected discarded, unwanted and essentially un-beautiful objects and taken them
into a studio setting, arranging them and lighting them with the same importance he would a
portrait. In doing this we are able to examine the contours and textural shapes created by the torn
paper and shreds of tobacco. Penn’s use of artificial light creates differing areas of soft tone and
contrast that oppose our instant associations with the objects. Penn has also played around with
composition and scale to present the cigarettes in a way that forces us to examine their intricate
details.
Wolfgang Tilmans’ series of ink photographs show how beauty can be created through mystery and
mystique. The images prove that a photograph does not have to be of on ‘object’ to be both

2. AS Photography Induction Project.
interesting and beautiful. What makes these images beautiful is the interweaving forms, and how
they flow around and inside of each other. By cropping the frame so that just a small amount of the
ink is on show, Tilmans has abstracted our view of the scene so that what we are looking at shapes,
forms and tones, opposed to any particular object.
What you need to do-
Research.
Find a photograph by a recognised photographer that you find beautiful. What makes it beautiful?
How have the technical elements (composition, light, tone, contrast, colour, texture, shadow….) of
image making been used to make this photograph?
Print out this photograph and stick it in your journal along with a detailed analysis of the
photograph- use the ‘how to write about photographs’ sheet to help you with this.
Practical work.
Take a range of images (min 36) that explore the theme of beauty- remember you are creating an
image not recording objects. Think about how you can capture ‘beautiful’ forms, textures, shapes
etc.
Display your 3 best images printed large in your journal with a detailed analysis that includes an
explanation of why these images are beautiful.
Possible starting points:
Rubbish/ Mould/ Peeling Paint/ Water/ Burnt objects/smoke/ stains/ leaves/ branches/ bark/
brickwork/ fabric….
This project should be complete and in your journals by next week:
AS C, AS E- Tuesday
AS A- Wednesday