I think these photographs portray me as a photographer well because of the warm tone and the quietness of the photos. Something else I like about images is not having people's faces in because sometimes it makes the images seem too busy as there's too much to focus on. I like having a clear subject matter of the photos because it gives my images more meaning and makes them seem more like me.
They were my landscape by Phoebe Kiely
This photography book focuses on taking pictures of everyday things but the images are taken in an intriguing way. The framing of the picture as well as the black and white, makes the picture look as though the subject is the only thing in the image that exists. They're very calm pictures; the composition of the photographs looks effortless, it's like the subject in the image was in the perfect position at the perfect moment. The black and white complements the tone of the book which is relaxed and candid, the images are not overthought, they just exist.
The title of the book is quite hard to read because in certain lighting, you can't really see it as it blends into the front cover. I feel like this was intentional because it contributes to the atmosphere that the book creates. You can still see the title but it is hidden and thats the same with the subjects in the images. You know that they are there but you have to pay close attention to them because you can't see all the details of the images until you concentrate on it properly. My images are the same, every time that you look at them, there are tiny details that you notice that you didn't really see before.
Her work feels sophisticated because she has good use of tone in her images and she also uses good angles in her images The composition of her images work well in the photographs and they look aesthetically pleasing Even though the images are monotone, there is a nice variation of light and dark in the images Her images mainly consist of natural lighting which I think adds a level of extra authenticity
There isn't any text on the images which leaves their meaning open to interpretation which makes the book more interesting to look at The title is a little bit difficult to read because of it being a similar colour to front cover, this could have been intentional. By making the title hard to read, it could be an insight into how the photographs meanings are hide to decipher
The images in the book made an impact because they are similar to images I have taken myself so I took a while to look through the images so I could see how I could improve my images.
Photoshoot Inspired by They Were My Landscape
I like the range of light and dark in her images so I tried to convey the same thing in my images. It makes the picture more interesting to look at. Sometimes black and white photos can seem boring in comparison to colour images because there is more to focus on. However when there is a tone range in the photographs, it makes them just as intriguing to look at as colour photos.
shoot 2
I moved away from black and white images because I think that the tones in this image suited my aim well. Even though a black and white hue is used when attempting to make 'quiet photos', I think that the setting and the subject matter plays a big part in the outcome of the photographs well. The area where I live is usually very busy so capturing it in a photograph when its calm is a rarity. The field is usually filled with people and there are cars coming up and down the roads all day so when I was out for a walk, I decided to take advantage of the fact that everywhere was very serene.
Coming out of my comfort zone wasn't the case when I was taking these photographs, it was more that I had to consider how I could keep my theme of the photographs being calm and not overpowering. I experimented with the composition and the focus of the pictures. I felt that it was easy to get across the idea that I wanted because when I went out for a walk, I was really the only person that was out and cars only came on the roads about twice. I wanted to take pictures that were closer up to the subject because then there is less to focus on in the picture because the subject matter is the same.
I like how the images juxtaposes the chaotic nature of the field and the roads to how they normally are during the day. If I was to do something like this again, I would go to an area that I don't know very well because it would be interesting to capture an environment that I'm not used to photographing in comparison to an area that I am familiar photographing.
shoot 3
This photoshoot correlates to the personal pronoun 'my' in the title. I wanted to capture things that I see everyday that I consider to be my landscapes. As a photographer, you are given power the minute you pick up the camera, the reason that I didn't choose to photograph people for this photoshoot is because taking pictures of people on the street that I will never see again are not something I consider to be my landscape. My landscapes are things I am familiar with and see everyday..
Marco Brambilla - Heaven's Gate
" A lavish, satirical and vertigo-inducing take on the silver screen spectacle of Hollywood dreams and excesses, Heaven's gate both celebrates collective storytelling consciousness and satirises its saturated glamour" "This kaleidoscopic delirium is again organised rigorously, recounting the history of the world in seven distinct chapters"
This is one of the best video/photographic exhibition that I have been to, I was in awe of the amount of time that the artist would have dedicated to making this. It was the most interesting thing to look at, each time you watch it there was something else you didn't notice watching it the time before. Before reading what the exhibition was about, I wasn't sure however after reading the description, it gave so many of the images and people in the instillation a completely different one.
Heaven's Gate is the perfect example about how photography can have hidden meanings even when they aren't explicitly clear
The instillation covers the themes of: religion, industrialization, purity, innocence, ascension, fall, communism, the American dream
The piece is a critique on the way our society runs today both through the choices we make about politics and our environment
Andrew Phelps - Higley
taken in a small pioneer town in the west
the photos were taken in the town that Andrew lived in
the hue on the photos makes them seem like old photos from an archived family album ( even though there are no people in these images, there could have been a time when there were but aren't now)
shows that places can have just as a special meaning as people
Andrew found Higley very boring when he was young because there was nothing to do so he was very eager to leave and start a new life somewhere else, his sister told him that she was moving back and after finding out that the town was being turned from a boring quiet western town to a "brightly lit circulatory system of new life", he felt compelled to go back and document the changes
this book is part 1 of three
Photographers can easily resonate with a man like Andrew Phelps because a large part of photography is documentation, whether you are taking photos for yourself or because you plan on sharing them, each photograph is a documentation of a moment in time that will never be the same again.
the photos look simple but the meaning behind them makes them more complex
the use of lighting in the pictures makes them really beautiful to look at
the composition of the images and the framing seems effortless
the idea that you can be connected to a photograph because the place in the picture is somewhere that has a special meaning is something I want to convey in my photos
Dérive inspired by "The Democratic Forest"
It was his most hated exhibition
He photographs liminal spaces of living
His photos have a warm feeling that make you feel like you have been to one of the places in Memphis, Mississippi or Kentucky even if you've never been to those states
The lighting and composition of the images highlight how a dérive is supposed to be an aimless walk with very little planning because those times can be those when you produce the most successful photographs
After staring at his photos for a while, they begin to evoke the feeling of a lychian daydream maybe because of the content or the chromaticism
'palatable exploration of his terrain'
'exploration' - He didn't know and couldn't plan what he was going to see on his walk or what he was going to take pictures of
the photographs explain that photography is limitless and the options of things you have to take photographs of have no constraints
the documentation of our everyday lives is expected but the product and subject of the photograph is unexpected
my response
When taking these images I tried to include bold colours and shadows because when some of your sense don't work properly, you're other ones are hightened meaning that with the use of only one eye, the sight in it would have become much stronger. The bold colours and shadows are something that you would be drawn to but the specific details of the image like the way the light reflects onto a building or how the photo has so many different components to it may be something that you don't usually spend time thinking about properly. considering Teju's message of paying close attention to your surroundings because they could change so unexpectedly you start to pay closer attention to the images because the next time you take a photo of that one place something in it may not be the same as the first time
If I was to do this again, I would want my photos to have a more coherent theme because they are quite varied and may not fit together in the way a set of photographs should. I like that they all have something in the picture that I was trying to achieve like the bold colours, harsher lighting and shadows but I don't think that the photos fit together that well.
lightroom preset
When taking photos, I usually edit them with a specific preset I have found that works on my images unless I want to make the photo black and white or I like the tones of the raw photograph
Lightroom has presets that help to change the mood of the photo and the way that you view it
opens a new way to edit pictures
Using the light-room presets also helps me to achieve getting my pictures to have a more coherent theme
Teju Cole - Blind Spot
Despite the experience being mostly negative, his became a much more developed photographer after having to adjust to a new way of seeing the world
He believes that photos can have a completely different meaning to people depending on the perspective they are looking at the photograph from
He wanted to try and move away from the usual kinds of pictures that he took
He says that 'This book is about the limitations of vision, When we're looking at the world there is so much that we are missing
feels that we need to pay more attention to the world around us because something unexpected could change about it that means you see it differently
expresses that photography has to be about adaptability, instead of not taking pictures out of frustration about not being able to see properly, he used it to his advantage to make a book that a wider audience could relate to if they have suffered with the same condition
photos can have a different meaning depending on how you're looking at them, whether you're looking at them yourselves or having something about the photograph explained
Bertrand Cavalier - Concrete Doesn't Burn'
The photos are taken in rural areas
His photos represent the struggles of anxiety and war
Even if the damage isn't overtly obvious, because it has been covered by something like grass or mud, there are people who know that it is there and seeing that is a constant reminder of the terrible things that happened there before
Even though we try to cover up the trauma of horrific historical events, once you begin paying attention to them, the small reminders that those things happened and those places existed begin to bombard you and become impossible to ignore
Almost arguing that society has failed to cover up these aspects of our community and country we live in to try and make it better but we have failed
The scratches on the sides of buildings or indentations created by bombs are like scars on society to remind them that just because the awful historic events we have experienced haven't happened again for years, it doesn't mean the possibility of them happening again is completely impossible
We can't eradicate history no matter how hard we try
The photos being in black and white compliments the mundane mood of them and the deeper meaning that they have
The use of shadows in the photos could be trying to represent how the historical events like WW1 and WW2 are still lingering in our society and proving that they aren't things that can be ignore and reminding us that they could happen again
The composition of the photographs creates an uncomfortable mood because knowing that these images have such horrific political meanings to them, it makes you think about what kind of thing happened there years ago that you were oblivious to but now want to find out
Makes you reflect on what has happened to your country and the things that people have had to experience
My response
In response to Bertrand Cavalier, I went to the Jewish Museum because it has over 30,000 works of art, ceremonial objects and artifacts that document Jewish experiences over 4,000 years.
Despite Bertrand's work being in black and white, I wanted to keep my photos in colour because blue, red, gold, silver and white are symbolic colours in the Jewish faith so it gives the photographs more meaning. I also differentiated my response from Bertrand's by changing the aim of my photos, his work aimed to make people remember that there are awful parts of history that we can't forget because those things could happen again however the aim of mine is to highlight the positive connotations that religious history has and that it is important to not be oblivious to key events like WW1 and WW2 so that we don't repeat those terrible parts but there are commendatory things that happened that we can't forget too.
Film photography workshop
To experiment with the different types of cameras we use to take pictures, we did a photography workshop where we used 2 1/4 film. I got to adjust the focus on the camera to make sure that the subject was in focus so that we didn't waste any of the pictures on the film role. I really enjoyed working with film because its a type of photography that doesn't allow much alteration to the final product which is something I have always valued about taking photographs. Changing an image so much so that it is unrecognisable from its original format takes away some of the value of the photograph. A picture captures a moment in time and it may have been accidental or on purpose so when that moment in time is changed the meaning of the photograph completely changes and it isnt always a good thing.
negatives before editingnegatives after editing
Wolfgang Tillman Concorde Grid
Photographed Concorde planes from different perspectives over a long period of time to get different results of the same thing
my response
Gallery Visit
- Alice Neel considered herself as a 'collector of souls' - She worked in New York during a time when painting was deeply unfashionable - Her work celebrates people who were too often marginalised in New York, her paintings were of: labour leaders, Black and Puerto Rican children, pregnant women, Greenwich village eccentrics, civil rights activists and queer performers
- her work captures the rawness of emotion and when looking at the paintings the expression on the people is mesmerizing - the detail in her work is amazing - the poses in her paintings like natural and the subjects don't look uncomfortable - when doing my next project I want to replicate her use of emotion through the subjects facial expressions
Lewis Bush - Depravity's Rainbow
'Wernhern von Braun was a man with star dust in his eyes, and blood on his hands'
- Depravity's Rainbow is a photography book that expresses Lewis' frustration that a man who wore an SS uniform and was responsible for bombing cities and killing thousands of people was chosen to work with NASA to build rockets to help men land on the moon. His past as a nazi was completely ignored and he was welcomed into being part of modern scientific programmes despite his detrimental role in the history that is now taught in schools
' These pieces are printed as cyanotypes, the earliest form of photography and originally intended for astronomical photography ,the cyanotype process was used in the 20th century to produce blueprints. Latent within the cyanotype's chemistry are also the components of hydrogen cyanide, the gas used in the systematic extermination of at least one million people during the holocaust'
Being Jewish
The next project I am going to do is about Anti- Semitism and my experience with it. The plan for the project is to ask people to write down their definition of what they think it means and to then take a portrait photograph of them which will be then put into black and white. I'm going to take 8 portraits to represent the 8 nights of Hannukkah
Lighting Project
Paul Rousteau - Seascapes
Evaluation:
- I'm pleased with how these photos turned out, when taking them I carefully considered composition and making sure that they all had shadows or reflections . I wanted to rely souly on natural lighting rather than creating the desired lighting I wanted myself because it takes the authenticity away from the photos. I tried to take most of them outside because that is where I found that the shadows created by the sun were stronger which is what I wanted in the photos, however the ones taken inside are a nice contrast to the ones that I took outside. I also aimed to take the photos with lighter backgrounds (white or grey) so that the shadows would be more obvious and therefore the subject of the photo.
Outcome 1
I decided to create a triptych mimicking a photography exhibition, I chose the more darker toned images to be the first and last because the contrast the middle photo really well. The two photos on the side have another similarity which is that they start lighter at the top of the photo and then gradually get darker which creates good tone variation, the photo in the middle has darker parts in however the lightness of the chair and shadows is the main focus of it. The last two photos also blend together in a sense because they have similar colour schemes so if they were paired together with the middle photo last I felt like it would have been drowned out making the composition of the photos look wrong.
Outcome 2
I wanted to see how one of the photos would work by themselves, the meaning and presentation of a photo is drastically changed depending on wether its shown by itself or with others. I prefer this to the photo above because the frame contrasts nicely to the photo and it also allows you to appreciate it more and pay attention to smaller details because there aren't as many photos and details to look at