Hugh Holland

Hugh Holland artist research-



Hugh Holland is an influential skate photographer who captured the unique style of Californian skaters in the 70's. Starting skate photography in 1975 he captured the famous z-boys which was just the beginning of skateboarding as a sport. Hugh used canon film cameras and 35mm film to capture the grainy, retro look in a soft quality. He captures skaters carving drainage ditches and empty pools, his favourite subject is the figure- you can see how he focuses on the skaters body shape as the momentum and speed moves them. The beauty and grace of skating is shown throughout his images, most prominent in his black and white stills.

In these images the pictorial space is shallow as the figure is close and the main focus with mostly pain background, there isn't any layering of the foreground or overlapping of objects. The use of shadow anchors the figure and adds contrast to the image. There is no sense of scale in these images as the figure is positioned against a plain background. These photographs have been taken on black and white 35mm film which has created a grainy image with soft tones. This film has made the images not very contrasted even though they have sharp shadows and would of been taken on a sunny day. He used film as these images were taken in the 70's so they didn't have the option of digital photography. The dominant visual focus is the figure, Hugh focuses on capturing the unique shapes of the skater. There is a limited tonal range in these images as there isn't a broad variety of darks and light areas. The images are pale and faint and have most mid-tone values this means the main subject almost blends into the background and doesn't stand out as much as it could. The colour scheme is monochromatic, the lighter tones of white/ grey dominate the images. Hugh Holland's work falls within skate culture as he was one of the first photographers to capture the skate lifestyle in 1970's. From the figures in the images you can tell these were taken in the 70's because of the clothing style and haircuts. My emotional response to these images is it makes me feel calm, he has captured the energetic, fast movement in a very subtle, calm way. The composition, lighting and subtle colour scheme communicates this. The theme of his photographs connects with my theme which is exploring surf and skate culture. These landscape images all have follow a similar composition where the main subject is very central in the thirds of the image. I have chosen Hugh Holland's work because his images capture skating in a different atmosphere of calmness swell as exploring the shape of the human figure, this is something I would like to experiment in the personal investigation. 


https://www.pellicolamag.com/blog/hugh-holland-z-boys-skateboarding/

https://www.mbphoto.com/artists/16-hugh-holland/biography/

https://skateboarding.transworld.net/photos/silver-skate-70s-an-interview-with-photographer-hugh-holland/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Final product

Image
Magazine- Evaluation- The starting points of this project was to experiment with creating a magazine in inspiration from some of my favourite mags. I wanted to explore a range of styles and layouts so I looked a multiple magazines each with a different style such as: CarveMag, Wavelength and Foam Symmetry Mag. It was really inspiring to look deeper into these magazines, looking into their unique layouts and why they have placed images and words where they have. This helped me understand layouts better and how to create an effective page spread- which images will go together, which colour and type font and the use of complementary colour. Carvemag inspired me because of the ability to layout a page with photos which compliment the article and fit into together. They also manage to fit in large bodies of writing into of photos depending on the composition of the image itself. Wavelength Magazine inspired me because of the use of graphic design/ poster type pages which explore colour and ...
Read more

Foam Symmetry magazine response

Image
 My response to Foam Symmetry magazine- The starting points of this project was to look at multiple magazines and create responses to them adapting to each Individual style. For this section I decided to look at Foam Symmetry Magazine based in Newquay is a magazine I have always got copies of and love reading because of their minimalistic style which really inspires me. After looking closely into what makes their style so unique I took a few of there pages I felt most inspired by and created this response.   A main style that reoccurs in foam symmetry is layering- of images and text. This is something I wanted to explore in my own work so I created layout that incorporated this. From this experiment I learned that pairing contrasting images works really well to create a layout. For the first page I layered a colourful, less defined image (due to speed blur) with black and w...
Read more

Foam symmetry magazine

Image
 Foam symmetry-  1.  2.  3.  Foam symmetry is a surf magazine which explore surf craft, travel and immersive stories. I have complied some of my favourite pages from their magazine (issue 20) which inspire me. The main reason I chose to explore this magazine is because of their creative layouts and beautiful images. Page1, I chose this page because I felt very inspired by their use of handwriting overlapped on pictures, I think this creates a really effective and unique outcome. The layering of images with contrasting colour schemes (black and white and bright colour ) looks really effective and id something I would like to try in my own layouts. They also use contrasting fonts on this page- large handwritten, flows writing next to neat small type font. I find the overall layout of this page very inspiring and is something I would like to explore. Page 2- This page incorporates a composition I haven't seen before so I feel its very unique and inspired me. Here t...
Read more