Sam Cornwell - photographer

Sam Cornwell is a photographer who recently has moved from America to Hawick in Scotland. He specialises in wet plate printing, disposables, non-lens based film, astrophotography and abstract video pieces. He doesn't use photoshop and doesn't put filters onto his photos. He prefers to use the photos as he took them in their original form. He also studied the history of chemical based capture of light and likes to think about the story of the picture and how it can be expressed.

He has used disposable cameras for a year so that he could get back to the traditional rules of photography and back to the basics and not have all of the new technological advancements that are in cameras today. Although he does keep up with the new technological advancements in digital cameras.

Some of my favourites of his photos are the ones he took of the sky, like his condensed landscape triptych, transit of Venus and solar eclipse photo sets. My favourite are his condensed landscape triptych photos. These photos took him 3 years to produce as he took a picture of the same sunset in 3 different places.
The first of this photo set shows a completely black canyon with the moon showing in the corner. I like it as it shows the lightness in the sky and moon compared to the blackness of the canyon.

 

 

The second of the photo set is my favourite, as it shows an orange sky and the city of Chicago. It makes the city seem as if it is almost floating in the sky and the dark blue on the ground contrasts well with the sky. It is my favourite as it makes the landscape and city look amazing and the contrast makes this more effective.

The third photo of the set is of the cloudy sky and shows the sky go from orangey pink to grey with the sun a pink colour. It shows the sun setting into a grey haze in the sky. I like this picture as it makes the sky look foggy and misty and hazed over, also because of the colours the sky and sun make and how they mix together well.

These photos were taken using extreme telephoto lenses which is an unconventional use for these types of photos due to the way the lenses condense colours before the processing takes place. This means that the 'photographer pop' is not required. I, however, like the way these lenses have been used to create the pictues of the sky. I think the unconventional way that Sam Cornwell has used to take the photos has been successful and has created very good photos.

Another of my favourites of his photos is from his pictorial set. It is the picture of the dog. I like it as the dog is the centre of focus and the rest of the picture is out of focus. It effectively shows the depth of field in the photograph. I also like it because the dog looks so quizzical and confused as to why he is being photographed. Sam Cornwell, however, makes it clear that this is not in fact the story of this photo. He states that the story is that this dog is scared and shivering from its fear. he states that the dog is holding coins for its owner. The photograph was taken on a Canon EOS 40D which is a type of digital SLR camera. This effectively shows how cameras people regularly use that aren't that fancy can take good photographs that show the depth of field and a different viewpoint of a photo.

 

 

 

 Source: samcornwell.photography