Photography report

A new photographer has been producing a large amount of interesting work using a
distinctive and unique visual style.
We can see in this image that the photographer is using
a contrast between light and extreme dark, the
intention behind this was to produce an abstract image
in a natural setting, all of the images taken by the
photographer were taken in the same central radius
surrounding a train station, but yet every picture in
this collection looks like it could have been taken
anywhere, there is a feeling abandonment and in some
of his other images a sense that ghosts should be
moving throughout the buildings as opposed the normal
busy commuters.
Some of his images also have a sense of texture like
the picture on the left a photograph of a building site
in the rain using a bright flash, wide aperture and fast
shutter speed, the wide aperture and fast shutter
speed created the ghostly silhouette of the scaffolding
in the background whereas the flash shone through the
heavy rain to give them their odd burnt texture.
Another area of this image that is interesting is how
the grid pattern of the scaffolding is overlapped with
the circular drop of rain.
This photographer takes strong influences from the
work of rut blees Luxemburg who takes similar images
of cities, a difference between the two however would
be the lack of colours in this work particularly.
Some of this work has a spontaneous and emotive
quality to it, like the blurry image of a van racing
towards a red light, this picture according to him was
taken at 2:45 am which seems to add to the oddly
frantic nature of the image.
Ruairidh Johnston likes to take a normal angle or level
and then change it bit for example in the rainy
building the angle is up and slightly of centre, this
gives the image a spontaneous feel, like the
photographer saw the the moment was right and
captured it, it seems that across this whole body of
work the photographer took the camera out and
captured random moments which all stylistically
interlink to create similar effects.
Ruairidh Johnston produces images that can easily be
stitched together in an installation as for the most part the subject is central to the image
with the borders often pitch black. he created this effect by using a fast shutter speed and
wider aperture. the bright light that enters the camera contrasts heavily against the non
lit area.
we can see the similarities between Johnstons work and that of Luxemburgs by comparing
them side by side.

on the right hand side we can see an image made by

Luxembourg and below it an image produced by Johnston.
he has mentioned Luxembourg as a main inspiration for his
work due to their fascination with the night and
photographing the city in a truly interesting way. however
it seems that Johnston has taken his exploration of the
darkness to a whole new area, his work is almost like an
inverted Luxembourg picture, where Luxembourg makes
light the main focus and darkness as more of highlighting
tool, Johnston makes blackness the most prominent feature
and light the highlight tool. Both these artists like to take
their subject out of context by using different angles, for
example in the comparison picture we can see Luxemburg
has photographed the puddle with the reflection of the sign
to create an interesting effect, Ruairidh has photographed
the side of a train station and turned the contrast up and the
brightness down to create the eerie green effect and has
taken the photo slightly off angle to throw the audience and
make the wonder what they are actually looking at.
Ruairidh Johnston may still be in his early days as an
emerging artist, but time will tell wether he will continue with this theme or perhaps
plunge even deeper into the darkness.