Photography RVJ: Practice in Action

Practice in Action

by Alice Hoyle 2014

A Reflective Visual Journal > Reflect on the journey you’re taking > A Diary of the duration of the journey (not retrospective)

Constructing the RVJ

Why? - To understand your own creative process - Tell people why you did something - Trial and Error - Everything has to be preconceived why do you want to photograph that?

- What equipment will you need/use?

People? Who do you need to contact?

Who are the audience?

Resesearch and Audience - Knowledge, understanding. Practicioner influence and inspiration (historic, contemporary?), subject matter topics, who is the work aimed at? Target Audience? > Learn from the past and move forwards.

Creative Thinking and Communication - Intellectual skills, exploration of ideas (mind maps) through research (connectivity), concept (what it is), rationale (why, its theoretical purpose), context (how and in which format it is finally used)

Technical Skills and Production - Practical skills, working methodology, study of your working methods. Discuss and explain all technical decisions (lighting, format, layout, logisics) contact sheets showing editorial decisions, quality control - All underpinned with rationale Collaborative and Enterprise - Transferable skills, reflect on the experience, what have you learned? Show all references, review all contacts, engagement with networking, opportunities for entrepreneurship, can the work be further developed/promoted?

Collaborative meeting notes • South Birmingham College - display in Fusion centre • Projected Images... on what> Look into projection exhibits? edit: very difficult find images/info on this • Art shop? Independant shop?

• Work separate from brief? One Image each?

• One themed image (large) plus smaller prints of our own, unrelated • 10th-20th March

Themes: • Street • Urban • Youth (perception of) • Story

Awareness: • Flyers? Vistaprint? Expensive...Home printing?

• Social Media • Word of mouth

Venues: - The old Joint Stock pub. Cant use gallery. Function Room? At a cost. May be too small - The studio Birmingham - different sized rooms may be quite expensive as is corporate - Old Print Works - far away from everyone, specific gallery for art, may cost money?

- New st Station, to many people, chaos, thieving? Permission?

Price? £125 £500 £25/hour Free?

Studio Venues

The Old Print Works

Hello, My fellow university students and I are looking for an exhibition space to show our work as part of a project we are currently undertaking.

Hi Alice, Thank you for your enquiry.

I have entered the dates 10th-20th March 2014, however we will just be needing a single evening. I have left the dates fairly open so that you could fit us in around any other events you may already have booked.

We do have availability within the dates you have requested, the best hire rate we could offer you for an evening would be £500inc vat.

The exhibition would be an evening affair and it would be an open event, where people can come and leave between certain hours as they please.

This would be for exclusive use of our atrium bar & roof garden area, we can offer a cash bar if required.

The layout of the room would just need to be tables around the edge of the room, no chairs, so that people can mill about as they please and also stand around chatting to each other about the work.

Kind Regards,

We are looking for a price for a large enough room for 11 of us to have a table with out work on and enough space for people to wander around. As students we don’t have an unlimited amount of money, and were also wondering if you do any type of student discount?

Thank you so much for your time and I hope to hear from you soon.

Kind Regards Alice Hoyle

Hi Alice The cost would be £25 per hour , I hope this gives you an indication

Hi Alice we have a wonderful space for hosting exhibitions. It would be good if you could Kind regards come and have a look in order that you can confirms its suitability Gurminder I work on Mon and Wed from 10.30-3pm, however my colleague can be available at other times My personal mob number is 07867541330 if you could like to discuss this further

Katie Thomas Events Development Manager

Kind regards Gurminder Sehint Operations and Development Manager Old Print Works 506 Moseley Road Birmingham B12 9AH

t:0121 634 2800 m:07860 777 145 f:0121 634 2888

Hi Gurminder, That sounds great, I’d love to come and have a look! My fellow students would like to know whether it would be possible to gain a rough idea at a price of the venue for an evening, as this is quite a significant factor that we shall need to consider when choosing the best venue.

Thank you so much for your time and help!

Kind Regards Alice

The Old Joint Stock Hello,

Hi Alice, Thank you for your email and for your interest in the OJS Gallery space.

Unfortunately we will have just installed our newest exhibition at the beginning of March, so we are unable to cater for you in our gallery space. However, if you had easels to mount the work on, we have a function room on the first floor suitable for an informal one night only exhibition.

If this is of interest, do let us know and I can put you in contact with our events co-ordinator who It will be a part of the current module that we are can advise on availability and cost. undertaking: Practice in Action, and we would only require the space as a ‘one night only’ exhi- Best, Bex Phillips bition. The idea we are looking at is more of an evening exhibition, for example 4pm onwards, if this would be possible.

Hello Bex, My fellow students and I (there are 11 of us in total), are looking for a venue for a Photography Exhibition we intend to hold around the 9th-22th March 2014, to showcase some of our work at Birmingham City University.

Would it also be possible to attain more information on the exhibition space? For example, photographs of the space, measurements for logistics, availability and perhaps any other information you might feel pertinent.

Thank you very much for your time!

Kind Regards, ​Alice Hoyle

Firstly, thank you for your quick response.

Not to worry. Do you know the size of the function room, or would it be better to come and view it? As I said, there will be quite a few of us and we were hoping to show around 5 photographs (1 large, 4 smaller) each, so perhaps tables around the edge of the room may be more appropriate if you think this would be possible? ​Do you know roughly how much the room would cost?

Thanks again for your time and help.

Kind Regards Alice Hoyle

Hi Alice, I’m not sure of the exact dimensions off the top of my head, usually we say it caters for 50-60 guests, I think it’s roughly 9m long x 7m wide.

You’re very welcome to come and view it, if you give the bar a call on 0121 200 1896, our events coordinator Jayne can advise on when it is free to come along and have a look.

The function room is £125 for up to 5 hours, so that would cover you for an evening.

Best wishes, Bex Hi Bex, Thank you so much for your time and help and for providing me with all of this information!

I’ll see what everyone else thinks and get back to you!

Kind Regards, Alice

The Soloman Cutler Venue I had a spur of the moment idea that we could hold the exhibition in the upstairs of the Soloman Cutler on Broad St after having recently been there to eat.

I planned to call the place myself, however Jess said that she would do it, and managed to get us the venue for free. We were also promised cheap drinks to help attract students.

The venue seemed the perfect place, central location, free and they would provide the drinks.

My Flyer Layout Designs

This was the first flyer that I designed, I wanted to work around a basic layout of partial circles in the top left and bottom right corners.

To contrast I then set the text in straight lines through the middle.

With this I kept adding and adding, I added the camera picture, then I added the text, logo, title, glow behind the text, image pattern in the background, becuse I kept feeling that there was something missing. The final result is very much overkill. It looks cheap and kinda tacky and not appealing, nor do I believe it is targeted at our audience.

Someone said it was a ‘bit gatecrasher’ which of course is not the image we want to be portraying!

This design is much better.

It is a lot cleaner and simpler and more linear. The eyes are drawn down the flyer.

We wanted to focus on the free entry element to draw in students who we feel are the target audience for our flyers. It isn’t necessaril appropriate for staff at university and other people like that (people at newspapers, other universities) so I believe we should not attach the flyer to the emails, but write a compelling email to make them want to come.

I wanted a black and white colour scheme for both, partially for practical reasons (I thought it would be cheaper to print black and white) but also because I feel it gives a slightly more classical look.

I made the lines of text varying shades of grey to add interest and make the text a lot easier to read. I also added soft glow to some elements I wished to draw attention to.

My Flyer Layout Designs

Though the idea is generally the same, there have been a lot of changes made to the original poster.

Something that was quite important was the image. The one I originally used was one found on Google. I had changed the image quite drastically and removed any identifying features, however a particularly sharp eye may still have noticed that it was similar to the original.

Adem then went and photographed some of his own cameras to place onto the flyer so that we would not be breaching copyright.

We also changed the order of the text so that the Photography Exhibition was at the top, as it is the most important piece of information.

We also removed the list of names, as we felt it was not necessary and it meant we could space out the other information, again to make it easier to read.

We also decided we could give our exhibition a name. We did this so that when people searched for the event on Facebook it would be much easier to find.

We wanted something simple but effective so decided to call it LOOK, inspired by the adverts that are currently around saying LOOK, you could show your advert here. It really captures the attention and it relates to photography in that the images you see are what the photographer LOOKed and saw.

We included both a facebook link address at the bottom and a QR code at the top so that people can scan the code and easily find the link to the Facebook event and find out more information.

1. Changed image to our own to avoid copyright breach 2. Reordered text to make a more coherent flow and to effectively arrange our priorities 3. Added glow to some text to help stand out 4. Removed names that weren’t necessary 5. Added performers names

1. Added the title of the exhibition 2. Made it overlay the cameras, you have to ‘look’ for the title 3. Added QR code (also later added facebook page link at bottom) so people can easily find the facebook page and more information

1. More streamlined look designed with a poster in mind 2. Plainer than flyers

1. As before but with some glowing to enhance certain text

Evidence of collaborative facebook group to keep everyone up to date with information regarding the exhibition

We also made an event page for the exhibition. Initially this was just so we could get an estimate as to how many family and friends were going to arrive, however, we decided that we would advertise the page on our flyers so that people could find our more information and who else was going on there quickly and easily, as so many people have Facebook.

Here are some photographs of my stand at the exhibition. I bought the easel to hold up a couple of my images and used menu holders to hold up a couple of the others. I stood up the portraits and still life as I felt the photography in these were better than the ones I laid flat.

I feel that most people were more interested in the images that were stood up than the more conceptual images that are laid down that I personally prefer.

I sold the 2 portraits (to the mothers of the people in the portraits) so I feel like the exhibition was a success. I would have really liked to have sold the more artistic photographs, but I suppose the target audience were not really correct for this sort of photography.

Basic Moving Image Camera Skills A Workshop by Matt Cusworth

Basic Moving Image Camera skills workshop

Panasonic P2 • • • • •

Fixed Lens P2 Card - 1 Minute = 1 GB: 32GB = 32 Minutes Used for documentaries Everything in the shot will be in focus Low Compression

Canon 5D MkII • Not video specific • Interchangable lenses • Rolling shutter (jelly appearance during movement) • Shoots onto compact flash card • 32GB = 1hr20min • High compression

Panasonic AF101 • Interchangable lenses • Records to SD Card • Compressed file but less so than Canon

Focus Basic Moving Image Key Principles

• MF = Manual Focus.

• Measure focus length from film plane (pin on camera or circle with line through it.)

• Means you don’t have to guess where the point of focus is, you can be accurate without having to struggle to find the perfect focus point.

• If you do choose to manually focus press User 1 button which will bring up a red border on the screen. You will notice a red light appearing as you change the focus. Make sure the eye has this red light to know that it is in focus.

All on these pages are in reference to Panasonic AF101.

Exposure

White Balance

• Exposure is the aperture. In filmmaking it is called the iris.

• To get the exposure just right, press button that says Zebra.

• Stop up or down so that the zebra stripes have gone.

• If there is noise in the image, i.e in the background this is because there is noise. To eliminate this, add light to the area.

• Noise occurs when there is not enough light for the camera to recognise any information. It will then try to in effect make it up and results in Noise in the image.

• Although there are software extensions that claim to eliminate noise, in reality they just blur the noisy area and thus can make the image look soft instead of well focused.

• White balance is the temperature of the overall image. It can be too red (too warm), too blue (too cold) or too-any other colour.

• To correct this, one needs to set the white balance accurately and can do this by filling the frame with something that is white and pressing the AWB, or Auto White Balance, button on the camera.

• White is built up of all of the colours except black, so once the white balance has been set, all of the other colours will be balanced and correct also.

• If one fills the frame with something that is not white, say a red material, and sets the white balance, the camera will compensate by adding blue tones to even out the red. When zoomed out, there is an overall blue cast and a cold feeling to the shot.

• Tungsten lighting is Red. • Daylight is Blue.

• Colour grading is very difficult and time consuming in post processing and so where possible should be done in camera.

Intro to Green Screen by Matt Cusworth

• Don’t create any special lighting effects on the green screen as they will just be deleted • Image85s light the green screen so that the colour is flat and even, which makes for easier removal • Keep the black curtain over unused green screen otherwise it will reflect onto your subject and so will be deleted.

• Keep the subject as far away from the backdrop as possible for the same reason.

• • • • •

• ALWAYS HAVE THE BACKGROUND YOU ARE GOING TO USE BEFORE YOU START • Match the lighting and camera Effect>Keying>Keylight 1.2 > Use pipette to select angle to the background you will green be using Create a white solid and put this underneath the video layer In left panel: View>Screen Mat Screen Mat > Clip black then Clip White so the colours are solid and no leftovers View > Final result

Compositing (Important!)

• • • • • • •

• Used to put someone somewhere else • Green doesn’t get rid of skin, clothes etc • It wil disappear and leave nothing

Delete solid Add Picture behind Make all layers 3D layers Custom view 1 Layer>New>Camera 50mm New light - point light New>Adjustment layer (applied to all layers. This makes everything blend together to make it look like the person was really there.

• Effect>colour correct>curves/brightness, whatever • Click stopwatches to animate

Introduction to Moving Image A Lecture by Matt Tromans

Introduction to Moving Image by Matt Tromans

Story

Narrative: Where do the images in our heads come from? What do they mean? Why are we attracted to them?

Characters, essence. Show.

Don’t tell. Don’t give the story away at the beginning. Tease the audience into wanting to watch until the end.

Planning

Cameras, crew, lighting

Design

Communicate this to people: mood, style, tone, aesthetic, editing, cutting down, costume, location, props, lighting, casting

People

Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Art Director, Costume Designer, Editor, Sound Recordist, Composer, Gaffer, Craft Service

Introduction to Moving Image by Matt Tromans

“Cinema is truth at 24 frames per second” - Jean Luc Goddard • Write a script • Breakdown • Shot list > wide, medium, close up, extreme close up etc...see far right.

• Storyboard • Scenes • Locations • Shots • Time • Special Effects • Complicated sequences • Accurate planning saves time, resources, money • Anticipate and solve problems before they occur • Communicate with others: actors, departments, investors, tutors etc.

• Camera clocking • Angles • Lighting • Actor blocking • Kurosawa • Onibaba • celtx.com • Robby Muller • Sven Nykvist • The New World - All Natural Light • Terrence Malik: Bad Lands, The Thin Red Line, The Tree of Life) • Aguirre, the Wrath of God • Psycho>Hitchcock>Saul Bass Storyboard

I definitely should have left myself more time to edit the video, as for some reason the quality is severely reduced in the final video.

After the project I will work into this more as I plan to use the video on the homepage of my website, and at the For my 30 second promo video, I decid- quality it is currently at, it would just ed to go with something very simple but look unprofessional. effective.

There was a really beautiful sunset a few http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snights ago and I decided to film it. The RNl4VTfELs entire video was about half an hour long and I wanted to speed this up to 30 seconds for my promo.

However, I forgot to turn autofocus off on the lens of the camera, so there is some very unsightly shakiness during the videom so I had to reshoot.

The following evening was no where near as nice, but I felt I had to work with what I had, as I had left the filiming until so late.

Before After

Introduction to Documentary Photography A Lecture by Timm Sonnenschein

Reportage

Introduction to Documentary by Timm Sonnenschein

The news as presented by reporters for newspapers, radio, tv.

The activity of, or style of, reporting events in newspapers or broadcasting them.

Documentary

1. Consisting of documents and other material providing a factual account 2. Using film, photographs and sound recordings of real events

Journalism

The profession of reporting or photographing or editing news stories for one of the media.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Here is an image from Cartier-Bresson’s ‘Decisive Moment’ series, a series of images where the camera captures that split second in time that could have easily been missed. The image is very formative, with the leading lines of the stairs directing the eyes toward the cyclist.

Introduction to Documentary by Timm Sonnenschein

Early Photographers and Magnum

Magnum is a prestigious photo-agency, specialising in documentary photographers and photography founded by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

It often involes people and social documentary, but not always. There can also be fine art documentary.

Dorothea Lange

This image, entitled Migrant Mother is a hugely famous documentary photograph, but one that Lange did not publish in her book, An American Exodus (1939) as she felt it too “emotive, that it would be seen as propagandist”2.

Despite this, it has been alleged that she removed a “detail of a thumb intruding on the foreground”, which she felt “spoilt the image”. Disdained, Roy Stryker described it as “tantamount to tampering with the truth” and the “erasure of the distracting detail confirms the extent to which this classic documentary photograph was very much composed and determined by the photographer.”

(Mark Durder)3

Introduction to Documentary by Timm Sonnenschein

Margaret Bourke-White

Here, Bourke-White is commenting on the contrast between the way America wanted to be perceived and the actuality of living in America. If you were a white person, then you probably would have experienced the highest standard of living, but people of colour were certainly not treated this way.

In the background, the white, middle class family are driving through the countryside: freedom, they have two children and a pet dog...they are living the dream. Below are the lower classes, mainly built up of people of colour, queuing just for food.

You would certainly not see the family in the ad in the queue!

Introduction to Documentary by Timm Sonnenschein

Warfare

Warfare is something that is very often documented, especially when it is represented in a brutal contrast to normal civilisation. It is always shocking to see images like these, to the right, a woman cowering away from the gunfire. The perspective of the image makes you really feel like you’re there, and so makes you consider what it would actually feel like if you were there.

The photographs all show the gunmen as cold and unfeeling, robotic...not human at all. What sort of human would put innocent people in that position.

In documentary photography, the photographer is never completely objective. Framing, perspective and composition have a surprisingly strong effect on the outcome of an image.

Don McCullin was a great war photographer because he managed to take photographs of war in a cvery critical and humane way. Today, it would perhaps not be possible to get such a perspective as it would likely be censored.

In all of the images with a gun bearer, the person who is being portrayed as innocent is on the right of the image. Is this a coincidence?

Introduction to Documentary by Timm Sonnenschein

Editing

The editing process is incredibly important in documentary photography.

As in Dorothea Lange’s case, the right image was glaringly obvious, everything about it just falls into place, the composition, lighting etc. When you compare it to the other, you can easily tell why that image is the famous one. The others kind of fall flat beside it.

When I saw the contact sheet of Rene Burri’s, I found it difficult to decide which image I would have chosen, had I had to edit them down. A lot of it depends on the message that you want to portray. I quite like the bottom left and the bottom right, but they both protray slightly different meanings. The left one is a more relaxed, casual portrait, whereas the right, as the others do, gives significance to the cigar that he is smoking.

Introduction to Documentary by Timm Sonnenschein

Longitudinal documentary study

‘Afghan Girl’ is perhaps one of the most famous portrait photographs ever taken. Steve McCurry was visiting a refugee camp in Pakistan. In the school tent, he noticed one particular young girl first. He “didn’t think the photograph of the girl would be different from anything else [he] shot that day”4.

17 years later, McCurry set out to find the girl again to find out not only if she was still alive, but how life was, if anything had changed. He found it had not. He had however found it surprising that despite the ‘knife-thin odds...she would be alive... she could be found...she could endure such loss.’4 In both, her eyes are ‘haunted and haunting’ 4, full of tragedy and anger through war. They draw you in and implore you to discover her story. Discover the hardship she has known and to put yourself in her shoes, just for a second.

Introduction to Documentary by Timm Sonnenschein

Documenting Death

Death has been relativley widely documented, more so in the past than at present.

In Victorian times, it was the norm to photograph the deceased, particularly children. With the mortality rate of children being quite high in those days, there are a large number of post mortem photographs of children.

Sometime, they used clamps and string to hold the children in place for the photographs, other times, like in this example to the left, the parent is photographed holding the child. These images are called ‘Memento Mori’ and served the purpose of keeping a memento of the child’s life.

This may seem odd to us today, as we probably take lots of snapshots of our children as they were young on camera phones, digital cameras etc. but it was unlikely for a parent to have a photograph of their child unless it had died.

Another form of death photography is Sally Mann’s comission to photograph bodies on a body farm, designed for the use of criminologists to examine bodies at periodic intervals after their death, so that they know how the corpses look and can state how long they have been dead.

Introduction to Documentary by Timm Sonnenschein

World Press Awards - Photojournalism

Gang Crime Victim, Lissette Lemus, 2009 This image is truly one off.

It wasn’t staged, and the photographer could hardly tell everyone in the photograph to go back and do it again if they didn’t get the shot. The photograph shows great skill; the photographer had to think fast but also they managed to get the image well framed too.

Iraq Soldier Coming Home, Todd Heisler 2007 This image is one that is very emotive. We can tell that it is a soldier coming home but not in a state that his family wish.

Also, I’m not sure how I feel about the people looking down. Their eyes are forced to be lowered by the coffin being below, but also the fact that they are all looking shows that the soldier has no privacy whatsoever, everyone wants to know what is going on.

Right: Woman mourns dead husband, Arko Datta, 2004 Another very emotive photo of a woman kneeling with her face to the earth crying at the loss of her husband. The outreached hands show the despair that she is feeling.

Below: Boat refugees arrive at the beach in Tenerife, Arturo Rodriguez, 2007 This image is one of holidaymakers in Tenerife helping the ‘half dead’ people who have just arrived via boat.

The image shows real life, human emotion. The help that they gave to these people even though they had just come on a relaxing holiday.

Introduction to Documentary - Longer Documentary studies

The Princess of Walsall by Kristin Lyssegen This photographer set out to document the life of a transvestite in the West Midlands.

She noticed Michelle because of her height, 6ft10, whilst out with gay friends in Hurst Street, Birmingham and immediately began chatting with her. Wanting to know more about this interesting woman, Lyssegen went on a 2 year long photo-documentary discovery, which she entitled ‘The Princess of Walsall’.

Lyssegen found through this project that the transvestites she met were both funny and intelligence, probably from the personal experiences that they have had to go through. There isn’t enough education on the subject and so people perceive them as different, and so act in a hostile way. They see it as unnatural, and are sometimes scared because transvestites are considered different and they cover this up with aggression...even if one’s transvestitism in no way impinges on anothers life, they still make it their job to make a person feel bad.

I really like the ‘snapshot’ type appearance of the series because it does help to show people that it is not wrong and transvestitism is normal and harmless and people are just having fun and living their lives to the fullest.

Introduction to Documentary - Longer Documentary studies

Nick Waplington - Living Room

For this series, Waplington stayed with a family in Nottingham. He took lots of photographs of two familes over a period of several years.

The photographs are very intimate and this is achieved with his closeness to the families. The people in the photographs aren’t posing for the photos, they are just partaking in everyday life, whilst these everyday activities were imortalised by the camera.

We are positioned in the room, but we stand unnoticed. It is voyeristic, yet we see no problem with this, as it is played out like a soap opera; people live their lives in front of us and we watch them instead of living our own.

“The neutrality of Waplington’s stance means this is a series without dramatic highlights but it’s this matter-of-factness that is the strength of the work. Waplington is showing us lives we may not otherwise encounter – few of us, after all, ever really see the daily lives of those outside our own families and social circles – without comment.”5

My Documentary: Research and Images

Initial Ideas Research

Through research I conducted, looking through feminist websites, pages, blogs etc I was alerted to a feminist march that is to happen on International Women’s Day, on the 8th March in London. This will be a great opportunity to take some documentary style shots, and it will fit in with the general theme of feminism I am going for.

It will be inm London so will take some planning, but I think it would be a great experience to go to something like this, as it is something I have never done before.

I shall look at some documentary style shots that have already been taken to get inspiration.

Hers is more effective as she did not use flash so that light is not harsh and somewhat cheapened. The colours are warm and are more natural looking.

The main person is also encircled by the press and people around him much better in the image by Hurd than he is in the other images.

Research Related to the Topic

Research Related to the Topic

Jess Hurd is a documentary/press photographer. In the example I have provided to the right, you can see her image (the large one at the top) compared to images taken of the same event by other people.

I had intended to borrow this lens a week before the march, however it was completely book out. Luckily, it wasn’t booked over the weekend of the march, when I wanted it so I managed to use it for the march. I would have had to find another alternative if it had been booked out.

Preparation for the March

It was a huge lens, one that was bigger than I had ever used so it was quite difficult having to get used to using the lens on the day of the march. If I had been better prepared and borrow it a couple of weeks before the march I could have become acustomed to the lens and may have been slightly more comforable with the lens. Regardless of this however, I think that I got some decent pictures and am very glad that I did borrow the lens as I managed to get some very close of pictures of the speakers and performers at the rally.

As one of the streets we marched down was quite narrow, it was difficult to squeeze everything into the image and this resulted in a lot of cut off images. I should have taken with me 2 cameras with a smaller lens i.e 18-55mm on one and the 70-200mm on the other. Then I could have got both types of images. I was a bit worried about this as I had not used the 70-200mm lens before so I decided not to take 2 cameras. I think I will take 2 in the future.

I really enjoyed photographing the march, and I’m glad I did it, as was considering not doing so. It was so much fun taking some pictures, then walking along with the marchers then taking pictures of the people walking. The organisers has requested that all women wore red in solidarity and said that generally it was a woman only event. Despite this, there were men photographing the event (barely any in the actual march), which personally I was not bothered about but I thought that some of the women might have felt that it wasn’t their place to do so, they were just taking photographs for their own gain, but were not fighting for the cause that was being protested.

Personally, I wore red clothing and tried to integrate myself in the crowd to show solidarity with the women. I was also stood right at the front of the crowd for all of the speeches and performances despite the fact that my feet were aching from walking and my arms/wrists from holding up the huge lens!

If I could go back and do it again, I would start right at the beginning of the march. Not having done one before I thought it would be a good idea to wait half way down Oxford Street and wait for them there, but by that point there were people stood infront of the initial banner. From looking through others’ photograph I saw that before the march there were people posing with the banner and perhaps there would have been a good photo opportunity there.

On a few occasions, it was quite difficult with the 70-200mm lens to get the entirety of certain banners plus enough of the context into the one image. I’m not too upset about this as I did get a lot of other images that I do really like.

In the future, I will take 2 cameras with different lenses on, so I will be able to capture everything.

Another benefit of having 2 cameras is that I would have more memory than with just one without having to swap memory cards.

On this occasion I shot in RAW which allowed me just over 1000 images, which turned out to be more than enough as I had about 300 images remaining once I had finished.

For this image, I wanted to see what it would look like in black and white, and quite liked it, though I probably will not use this as a final image. The reasoning for this is that the march very much focused itself around the colour red and I feel like black and white images detract from this, which is something I do not particularly want to do.

I realy like this image as your eyes are drawn to the one girl in the middle. Everone else in the picture is looking away and this automatically draws your attention to the girl. The setup reminds me a little of the image I looked at by Jess Hurd.

I really like the colours in this image, everything about it is red, which is one of the main themes of the event.

I also like how it shows that there are different faces to feminism. This women is a little older than the new feminists of today, she alse looks of a higher class than a lot of the other woman and I just think it shows the variety of support that there is out there for women struggling or suffering in an abusive relationship or has sufferent abuse at the hands of a man.

Million Women Rise Rally

The first performers re musicians so I wanted to get a few photographs of them during their performance.

The microphone was infront of the performers a lot of the time so I didn’t feel that I would use any of these in a final image.

I then began photographing the speakers and wrote down their names as I did so, so that I would be able to write their names in the caption.

Although I was listening to the speakers and performers, I also tried to keep my eyes on what was happening around me. In the contact sheet here, you can see a couple of signs and a bra on a stick (which was difficult to photograph as people kept getting in the way of it!)

After Rally14_30 I started to add perspective to the images by getting the backs of people heads in. I feel like the images are too busy like this and so began to isolate the speakers. I felt like they were the centre of attention and should be portrayed as such in the images.

I started to photograph the speakers in landscape to mix things up a little and in fact really liked the effect. I didn’t like that all of the speakers were holding sheets of paper with notes on, and the landscape format helped to cut out the paper for some of the photographs.

Million Women Rise Rally

When I was photographing I was trying to capture the speaking looking upwards and out into the crowd to look strong and empowered as they very well should be on a day where women were coming together in solidarity.

I also tried to get some photographs where the microphone wasn’t over the face.

I went with Rally14_76 as Karen Ingala Smith, the speaker was looking out as I wanted and also her mouth was in a speaking but not strange position as it is in 75 and 80.

I feel that 82 could have been a successful picture if I had taken the photograph so she was slightly higher up in the frame.

I really like the image 89. It appears to be a mother and daughter in a loving embrace. The woman looks like she is kindly talking to her daughter, perhaps encouraging her to be a strong and independant woman like the speakers and performers. I really like this ideology and will probably use it as a final image.

Often, using Bridg, I will delete a lot of the original photographs if I deem them to be bad. Uusally this can include out of focus, over exposed, badly composed or just a generally bad picture.

However, for this shoot I didn’t want to be too hasty and delete them all. I have not photographed a march or rally before, and I didn’t want to delete a photograph that I later came to wish I hadn’t being a little unsure, I would rather a surplus of images to choose from than delete images I at one moment think are bad, then later want to use.

Million Women Rise Rally

I think there are lots of photographs on this contact sheet that I probably wont be using. There were a lot of instances where the microphone was in the image where I thought it would be much better if it were not in the image, but of course there was nothing I could do to changed this other than paintstakingly editing it out, which I didn’t honestly want to do, as documentary pictures like these are more about the truth.

Zina Abdullatif Deniz is very photogenic, with very piercing eyes I wanted to draw attention to how beautiful they were, so i sharpened her eyes slightly.

I took this image during the speech by Zina Abdullatif Deniz. The story she was telling of the plight of Lena Jarboni was very upsetting. I wanted to capture the emotion that was felt by the crowd.

It was a split second moment, as the woman in the blue coat wiped tears from her eyes and I felt like I captured it well, if I do say so myself.

On the day, the sunw as shining very brightly and directly and you can see this at the top of their hair. I did try to use Camera Raw to reduct the highlights and feel that an ok job has been done.

I wouldn’t say it was perfect, but overall I am very happy with the image, in fact I would say it was one of my favourites of the day due to the emotion that has been captured.

I chose this photograph out of the many that I took of OneNess Sankara as I felt she looked very beautiful and calm in the photograph. The sun falls across her face in a very flattering way and she looks relaxed and just floating away with the music that she is performing - clearly passionate about the subject.

I did notice that as she was singing it was more difficult to get a shot where she looked typically more beautiful and perhaps it is shallow of me to want to chose an image that was. Regardless of this however, I do feel this image represents the type of music she was singing - acoustic with a relaxed atmosphere. If I had chosen an image where she looked more passionate, perhaps angrier or deeper into the music then it wouldn’t represent the atmosphere that was present during the performance.

In this sheet, there are quitw a few images there are over exposed.

It was a very sunny day, but the performers and speakers were more in the shadow casted by Nelson’s column than people in the crowd. Because of this, when I turned to take a photograph of people in the crow the images were very overexposed. With the naked eye, I didn’t really notice that there was this amount of difference in the lighting and so didn’t change the camera settings. I wasn’t checking every photograph as I took them as I wanted to make sure I got plenty of shots - I could check them later.

Also, as I shot in RAW, I knew there would still be some information there and would just need to get some of it back later during processing, if indeed I were to choose one of the images that were over exposed (which in these cases I did not).

Again, as a musician, I wanted to portray Faye Patton in a way that showed that she was as passionate about her music as she clearly was.

Perhaps this is a generic singer singing pose for a photograph but I think she makes itunique with er style and you can’t help but notice her passion for her singing, which of course is the point.

This image was initially a landscape image. but I cropped it to make it more of a portrait image as there were some distracting details in the background and I wanted to make sure all of the attention was on the singer.

This was one of the last photographs I took of the day and I love how you can tell that the sun is setting by the lighting on the sign and I feel it rounds up the day perfectly, in a kind of ‘take home message’ way.

Introduction to Fashion/Portrait Photography A Lecture by Rob Gibb

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

Personality

A portrait should attempt to reflect the personality of the subject. Albert Watson is a famous portrait photographer who is particularly talented at representing the personality and character of the subject through a single, still image, like this one of Alfred Hitchcock. He’s holding a dead goose because of the link with the film Psycho and birds.

Colour film was in use at this point but the black and white design further ties it in with the film.

Design

The design of the image could be anything from physical props and lighting to post processing of the image. This image of Naomi Campbell has been carefully constructed to highlight her features through silhouette - her long, elegant neck, shaven head and the general grace with which she holds herself. The colour of her skin is also highlighted and portrayed in such lighting that makes her skin look beautifully rich and soft.

An important thing to do, and something which all professionals will do is design exactly what the design is going to look like before they go into the studio: lighting, props, backdrop etc will all have been pre planned and pre prepared to make the photographic experience as smooth and comfortable as possible for all involved.

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

Audience

Photographs, epecially portraits often have a defined audience. A magazine front cover shot will be aimed at the magazines target audience and should thus reflect and represent this audience (or the audiences desries), in order that the audience will see some of themselves in the magazine and thus conclude that such magazine is the one for them.

Huge magazine companies like Conde Nast have Media Kits, usually designed for potential advertisers, to show exactly who their audience is based on audience research detailing demographics and psychographics of their audience. If the target audience of the product to be advertised is in alignment with the magazines target audience, then the company of the product is likely to have a high number of sales from this advertisement.

For example, if an advert in Vogue was selling anti-wrinkle cream the target audience of both product and magazine align: the T.A of the cream being aging women, 35+ and average age of Vogue readers is 37.8 (attained from 2014 Media Pack) so the people who read Vogue will be likely interested in the cream. Advertising the cream in a childrens magazine would be unsuccessful as children will not be the slightest bit interested in the cream and the parents are not likely to read the magazine, though they might see an advert on a children’s tv program, as this is slightly different.

As you can see in the front cover of Vogue to the right, the model on the front cover is the image that the target audience desires to be like. Despite the unrealistic goal, the goal is portrayed at attainable to women: if you have these clothes, if you wear this makeup, if you use this product, if you do this, if you do that, then your life will be as brilliant at our covergirl, yet there are always new clothes, new products so women get caught in a never ending cycle of trying to achieve this ‘reality’ which does not exist.

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

“Once I feel myself observed by the lens, everything changes. I constitute myself, in the process of ‘posing’.”

- Roland Barthes

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

History

A great photographer will be up to speed on hir art history and be constantly referencing and deriving influence from the greats that came beforehand.

As is know, the painting came long before the photograph and they are excellent examples of design.

One particular piece, The Arnolfini Wedding by Jan Van Eyck utilises design in portraying the couple as wealthy, by something that seems quite simple, a trio of oranges, which in the 15th Century were the perfect symbol of weath as they were rare and expensive; more expensive than even gold.

History also tells us that the clothing that the subject is wearing in a photograph or painting is ver important. In the two images to the top left, the clothing not only dictates the positon of the person, but in this instance also gives us an idea of who they are.

A great artist who references all manner of subject matter is Cindy Sherman. Here I have included an art reference of hers that she has done for the sake of blending with the theme of these pages, but so much of her work is referencing, often very directly, the roles of women in art and media.

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

Evidence

Photography, portraiture in particular, can often be considered evidence. Mug shots are one example, but there are a number of others: catching people out, i.e. during an affair, crime scene photographs, evidence of abuse in Abu Ghraib and, more recently, dead bodies that show “direct evidence of systematic torture and killing”1 in Syria.

Perhaps the most famous mugshot sare those of Hugh Grant, a famous actor and Divine Brown, a prostiture, after they were caught in Grants car during a quick trick due to the police seeing that the car had a flashing brake light...which was found to have been from him pressing the brake pad on and off during the session. Apparantly this cost Grant much humiliation but boosted Brown into stardom.

To the left is an image which is considered one of the first ‘mug shots’, one of Lewis Payne, one of the 4 people hanged in connection with the Lincoln assassination, 3 months before his death (1865).

Also to the left is considered one of the first ‘police photographs’ of Katerina Josephine Wachter (1852).

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

A Natural Portrait

One of the most important quests of a portrait photographer is to capture one that looks natural and unposed. There have been several photographers that have used different techniques to try and achieve this.

Jane Bown, a photographer of the stars, sits down with her subjects for a cup of tea and a chat and makes them feel as comfortable as possible before asking them if she can take their photograph.

Phillip Lorca diCorcia used a somewhat more invasive technique in his series Heads, where he set up a flash light quite a distance away from himself and used a zoom lens and photographed people when they weren’t expecting it in the street. The results are portraits that look like they are done in the studio with their blacked out background but are considered much more natural as the subjects were not expecting to be photographed.

German artist, Bettina von Zwehl got people to wear completely white clothing on a white background. She got them to fall asleep, then abruptly awoke them and photographed this transitional period between semi- and full consciousness.

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

“I instantaneously make another body for myself. I tranform myself in advance into an image.�

- Susan Sontag

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

The Photographers View

The image to the left on Winston Churchill, by Yousuf Karsh, is the representation of Churchill that we associate most with him: an angry. bulldog face. However, the image is completely manipulated by the photographer, and perhaps not manipulated by the sitter as is with most portraits.

Karsh took a series of photographs on this day, but this is the most prolific - throughout the shoot, Karsh had asked Churchill not to smoke his cigar, which Churchill refused to comply with. Seconds before this image, Karsh removed the cigar from the mouth of Churchill and resulted in this image; which is exactly what Karsh wants to portray.

Another example of this is the image to the left top by Perdo Meyer. The seated Lady intended this image to be a wonderful portrait of her and her obedience servants, however, the photographer has framed the photograph such that she is not the main attraction per se, the servants are, in particular their chagrined faces at having to pose and work for this woman.

A truly brilliant example of the Photographers View is Andres Serrano’s Klansman Imperial Wizard III. For the series, he called the KKK group and asked if he could do some portraits of them in costume, to which they obliged, not knowing he was a man of colour. Still, they posed for him showing off their costumes proudly. However, the resulting images, thanks to the lighting show just how abysmal the costumes are: creased, badly stitched... The images were a message from Serrano: You think this is on your terms? No. It is on my terms.

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

The Name of the Game

Giving a name to a photograph or piece can give it grounding, meaning and thus understanding. To the right, is Melon Hostage by James Riegel and image which provides a commentary on breast cancer. It reflects the inner feelings of the sitter and the title of the image eradicated the potential gimmick of the image, the ‘oh shes holding a melon which represents a breast ha ha’ and firmly hammers in the serious message that the image contains. It is perhaps the connotations that we hold with the word ‘hostage’: trapped against our will, suffocated, can’t escape etc.

The image to the left could just be perceived as an artistic yet slightly strange looking portrait, one which may or may not be passed off quickly, but the title brings together the image: Narcissus by Ivan and Pinkava. The title gives us an understanding to the image, which makes us linger upon the image and consider it.

Cindy Sherman, had the opposite effect. She often left the title as Untitled, to leave the message open for interpretation, to let the image speak for itself and for ones imagination to run wild with possibilites.

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

A Document of the Self

Death seems so final to many of us, we can’t help but try to immortalise ourselves, our stuggles and feelings through photography, to help us know that we haven’t completely gone forever; that a piece of us still remains.

Jo Spence and John Coplans are two artists who have documented themselves through photography.

Jo Spence documented her struggle through breast cancer and eventually death in her brutally honest photographs of her stages through her illness.

Her photographs show a strength and defiance but I also feel there is an undercurrent of worry for the future.

John Coplans documented the decay of his elderly body, focusing on the wrinkles and areas that look more aged than others, in beautifully detailed black and white images.

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

More on Self Documentary Right: Nan One Month After Being Battered The title explains a lot. Nan took this self-portrait as a reminder of what had happened at the end of a ‘stormy relationship with Brian [Burchill]’, as a reminder to herself not to go there again. “She has always seen it as a kind of warning against falling into the same trap again or against colouring memories with nostalgia” as we humans are wont to do. “It marks the end of a beautiful dream and the beginning of a period of complete transformation”.6 Robert Mapplethorpe also documented hiself. He took a photograph of himself months before his death, which is a very poignant description of how he was feeling. This quote from the Tate website I feel does the photograph justice: “It was taken a few months before he died from an AIDS-related illness in 1989. In it he faces straight ahead, as if he were looking death in the face. The skull-headed cane that he holds in his right hand reinforces this reading. Mapplethorpe is wearing black, so that his head floats free, disembodied, as if he were already half-way to death.

Mapplethorpe even photographs his head very slightly out of focus (compared with his hand) to suggest his gradual fading away.”

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

Storytelling

Jeffrey A Wolin searched for people who had survive the holocaust. He took portait photographs of them, printed them and asked them to write their story directly onto the print, producing beautiful one off prints, rich with meaning and dramatic, sombre and thought provoking. The images are very personal and portray the brutal reality of what it was like to be alive during that time.

Patrick Tosani chose to tell a story through photography to a more unsual audience, blind people.

The beauty of these images are that they are completely and soley for blind people. In the gallery where these would have been displayed, the blind people would have the ability to ‘read’ the images in a way which is impossible for seeing people.

They would understand the meaning of the image, they could laugh, cry, smile whereas sighted people cannot. Personally, I think it is wonderful, blind people get to appreciate this art and have a secret, whereas it is usually the sighted people who will give someone a glance or a gesture in the presence of a blind person that they wont see or understand.

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

Typologies

Typologies are studies of the same or similar object usually in a series. The most famous typologies are Bernd and Hilla Becher’s grids of water towers, gas tanks, winding towers, cooling towers and other subject matter. Their advice was “Find a subject and pursue it obsessively for your whole career.”2 And no one follow this better than they did themselves.

Other Artists such as Jason Savalon and Idris Khan have taken inspiration from the pair but layered them rather than layed them out in grids. The image to the right is all of the Playboy Centrefolds from certain decades, 60s, 70s, 80s etc by Jason Savalon. The layered result built up of hundreds of images, looks like a kind of expressionistic nude painting.

Related to this, though not a typology, is the work of Richard Prince. The image to the left, (Cowboy) is using the artwork of another kind of as his own work. What he does is photograph adverts and such and explode them to huge, painting-like images. Here he used the Marlboro Cowboy which is symbolic of the American Dream, freedom and success This image caused outrage as it was sold for $1,248,000 at an auction in November 2005. It was so outrageous, as it people considered him to have taken someone elses work and made a huge amount of money from it.

Introduction to Fashion/Poratirue by Rob Gibb

Constructed Methodology

Jemima Stehli took a series of semi-constructed images. She set up a backdrop and chair and asked a man to sit in the chair. She then stood in front of him. Everything aforementioned was in the shot.

She gave the man a remote trigger for the camera and told the man to press the shutter when he was happy with her state of undress.

The pose of the male in this picture speaks volumes! His legs apart, ‘come hither’, suggestive pose says everything I image Stehli wanted!

The male is holding the shutter release, so it appears he is in charge, when in fact she is very much in charge of the situation.

Very few actually let her get completely naked, but this particular person did.

Martin Parr also did a series of self portraits titled ‘Autoportrait’. He takes photographs of himself in photobooths, where the booths edit ones face onto something. He drew a link between photography, collecting and tourism. He questions why people buy this sort of paraphernalia whilst on holiday but generally, people wouldn’t dream of it at home and in their normal lives.

My Portraiture: Research and Images

I wanted to explore the evidence idea from the pants shoot further, having been an avid fan of CSI a couple of years ago, I felt it was something that I was quite interested in - the crime scene shots, the weapon of destruction...the murder weapon.

Still Life / Portraiture Crossover Ideas

To relate this to a general theme of feminism, I wanted to portray beauty products as the evidence of the crime. To further show their meaning, take photographs of the injury and place them side by side.

Id say the main inpiratiom for this is crime scene photographs and so before I go into the studio to take these photographs I should look at evidence photographs from crimes (and perhaps watch episodes of CSI back to back...)

Still Life / Portraiture Crossover Ideas

Still Life / Portraiture Crossover Ideas

Numbers on yellow cards tell SOCOs how many pieces of evidence have been collected Rulers next to evidence. Rulers give perspective inside the image, they tell you how big or small something is, so that you can compare it scientifically to other things.

Ruler next to evidence

In typical beauty shots, a light will be placed under the chin of the model, usually with a softbox to give a softer effect.

I will be doing this shoot at home and will only have the use of 2 lights. To get this extra lighting, I will use a mirror under my chin, to reflect light back up onto my face and to eliminate shadows on my neck.

I also want to use 2 umbrella lights as they provide a softer lighting than direct light and i will use 2 of them to give an all over even light, very limited shadows.

If I were to do this in the studio, I would use softboxes rather than umbrellas as the lighting is evern more soft and attractive on the skin, but I want to do this shoot at home as I was a little embarrassed at the thought of doing a self photoshoot in the studio.

This idea is a commentary on beauty products and the fact that they have been known to injure women yet a lot of us still use them regardless. There is the phrase ‘you have to suffer to be beautiful’ that a lot of women use an excuse to cause pain to themselves to make themselves appear to be more attractive.

improve my photography.

If I were to continue this project int he future I could make it relate to self harm, how women harm themselves with beauty products that are sold to us by the media as ‘necessary’ tools and that if you want to be attractive and beautiful and thus ‘bag a man’ then you need to use these products.

For these photographs, I used a beauty dish specifically because the name related to the idea of being ‘beautiful’.

I only used the one light and at first didn’t like the shadows that were created, so used a silver reflector to reduce these. After quickly reviewing the images I decided that actually, I did like the shadows as they looked more like they were taken by a crime photographer.

Out of all, I think the curlers and razor ideas are better than the tweezers which I think is currently a little weak, but I could further the project to make it about high heels, which are notoriously pain inducing, waxing, wearing tight clothing etc.

I do recall reading an article some time ago about very skinny jeans that cut into your hips cutting of the circulation to your legs and feet and this is something that I would consider exploring photographically.

I think the idea that these photographs are based on is one that has elements of being good, but will definitely be worked upon and refined to become something that is worthwhile.

In it’s present state, I do feel the images are perhaps a little gimmicky and if I strengthen my ideas and concepts behind the photography then I can

In terms of the still life element, I do really like the idea of the ‘evidence’ I liked using the ruler and the number card as they do in crime scene photography and am in fact quite happy with the outcome.

I decided to try some self portraiture for this side of this idea. I had asked someone if the would have liked to but they were a little nervous about doing so. I didn’t want to pressure them, so I thought that I should do it myself. I also wanted to play around with close ups and shots a little further away - I wasn’t 100% sure what type of shot would work best for what I wanted - as Cindy Sherman said, “I also realised that I myself don’t know exactly what I want from a picture, so it’s hard to articulate that to somebody else” 8.

I tried to look quite serious, as I wanted to treat the photographs like they were taken of crime victims and so wouldnt be smiling.

I wanted the images to be very ‘beauty-ish’ so wore lots of makeup including lipstick and eyeliner and also held a mirror under my chin to reflect the light back towards my face making the light on my face and neck even all over.

The shots I had in mind were the eye shot (for the eyelash curler) the mouth shot (for the tweezer) and the armpit shot (for the razor).

The tweezer shot perhaps was not that strong. I initially thought that I should focus on the eyebrow as that is the most tweezed area, but didn’t want to focus too much on the eye area and make the images all look very similar, I wanted some variety, so I chose the mouth area as some women, though I imagine not many, pluck their moustache. I think more women bleach or wax it which makes the idea less strong.

The armpit images were also very difficult to do on myself and I think this would have been easier to do on a model. I don’t like any of the armpit photographs so won’t be using them. If I continue this idea, I will get a model to pose for this image, as I can direct them and have more freedom over the camera angles. In all of these the camera angles are the same as the camera was on a tripod.

I was a little worried about appearing vain taking all of these photographs of myself, but I again thought back to Cindy Sherman who only ever photographs herself and is famous for it, yet no one really thinks of her as vain. Perhaps they did when she started out but now she is considered a great and very creative photographer.

It wasn’t until it came to placing the images side by side that i realised I had taken the still life in portrait and the portraits in landscapes. I considered cropping them somehow but decided against it as, when I place them side by side I decided I quite liked the differing layouts. The landscape portrait meant that there was space to write some information beneath the image and that the attention was drawn to it as much at the photographs. If both images were portrait and the writing was right at the bottom it may have been difficult to notice.

For the portrait photograp, I did quite a lot of retouching as, as I mentioned earlier, I wanted the image to be very beautified.

I did very much like the overall image, but I personally felt that the blood was not real looking enough.

I couldnt help but notice every time I looked at the photograph how fake the blood looked and as I am unhappy with it I have decided not to use it as a final image this time.

Before any processing

Eyes and skin edited, makeup enhanced, eyelashes added

Skin contoured and blood added

These images were taken at a workshop on camera settings, aperture, shutter speed and ISO. We learnt about stops and that one stop on the aperture is eqivalent to one stop on the shutter speed and ISO and vice versa.

This means that after you have the setting correct as told by a light meter, you have a lot of freedom.

For example, if the light meter told you to use F16, S/S 125 and ISO 800, but you wanted a small depth of field, you could reduct the aperture to lets say F5.6 (a difference on 3 stops) but you would need to counteract this additon of light (through a larger aperture) with less light somwhere else.

You could speed up the shutter speed lets say to S/S 250 (1 stop, 2 stops difference remaining) and then stop down the ISO by 2 stops, from ISO800 to ISO200.

I purchased Cyclops, the book by Albert Watson and was amazed by all of the photographs in the book and the exquisite detail, sharpness, focus and beauty in all of the images was profound.

I’ve never been that much of a lover of portraiture but the book really spoke to me in a very emotinal way.

This is the image that I was inspired to recreate. I just love the lighting and how every single pore and hair is in focus.

I have no doubt Watson used large format, but I wanted to recreate the effect with my standard digital camera, if it were possible. Watson himself said “it’s not about the equipment, it’s about the images”.

I find this image truly beautiful and amazing, the skin tone is luxurious and pin sharp in detail. Not soft focus like many of the portaits of women today.

I really love how Watson has captured the model, bathing in the light, comfortable in her skin.

For this shoot, I was inspired by Albert Watson’s portraiture and so wanted to create a lighting effect similar to his, with direct lighting on the face and lighting in the background to enhance the backdrop.

These are shots in the studio experimenting with light. To begin with, I wanted to create an image in the style of Albert Watson, a very sharp, small aperture portrait.

I also wanted to use a very direct light on the face so used a honeycomb over a direct light. I also wanted to light up the background, as often in Watson’s images the background is very white.

This didn’t turn out as well as I thought as the white backdrop reflected the light and it shone directly onto the face of Daren.

I think to remedy this I should have move the model as far away from the backdrop as I could have to reduce the reflection.

In addition, the backdrop wasn’t as white as I may have liked. I think this was because the flash on the light wasn’t set to flash, so it is just the modelling bulb shining on the background, giving a warm cast to the background. In the future, I will set this light to flash, but perhaps on a low setting so it is not ‘too’ white.

After achieving shot I wanted, I then began to play around with the lighting. I turned off the backdrop light and sat the model close to the backdrop with the small, direct light (still with the honeycomb attached) pointing at him. I thought the circle of light along with the strange honeycomb effect would look very interesting, but in fact I don’t really like it at all. I played around with a couple of images but did not achieve what I wanted. I enjoyed experimenting but will probably not use this specific technique in the future.

For this shoot, I want shadows on one side of the face to achieve the relaxd look.

Still with Watson’s portraiture in mind, but wanting to make it a little more modern with colour, I want to use a direct light on the one side of the face. I want all of the details on the face to be sharp and in focus, but I don’t want the image to be too much of a beauty shot, so will use a less bright light on the opposite side - a light with an umbrella.

The light is dimmer from here as it reflected, but it is just enough to open up the shadows a little.

For this shoot, I took out a lighting kit from the store to experiment at home. I wanted a portrait that was quite neutral and pared back. I really liked how the skintone and the backdrop were quite similar in colour and I wanted a relaxed pose and expression to suit the neutral palette.

I chose an image where the model, Ben, had a slight smile but was also “smising� (smiling with his eyes). I really like the final image; I personally feel he looks great in the photograph and it is very flattering, pared back and natural in contrast to his usual look which is often more dressed up.

Some of the early photographs I caught him laughing, but it was in such a way that though natural, it was over the top and too much for the relaxed idea I was trying to achieve.

It wasn’t long before Ben became bored of me photographing him and he started pulling silly face and generally being silly. I changed the lighting so that they were facing upwards so give him a more sinister look caused by harsh shadows.

Introduction to Still Life Photography A Lecture by Paul Lander

Introduction to Still Life by Paul Lander - Composition

James Day

Eddie O’Brian Baron A de Mayer

After this photograph was taken in 1907, people realised that photography didn’t have to centralise object to make them ‘correct’. This classic image shows a flower that is composed at the very top of the image. This was done intentionally to show the glass and reflection/shadow in as much light at the flower. All the parts are part of the composition and though the flower is of high importance in the image, it is not the sole focus. The eye is lead around the image and can’t help but notice the shadow/reflection.

This photogrpah is very elegantly composed. The form of the flower leads your eye around to the centre. The lighting also helps out with the leading of the eye which I shall discuss later. The more I look at this image, the more I notice how soft and beautiful it is, the grace of the curves of the petals, the fluidity of the lines. It is an image that one could gaze at for a long time, just letting the eyes be lead around the photograph.

Edward Weston The form and composition of this pepper is one that exudes a sensuality. It is composed such that it appears as two bodies entwined in a steamy. lovers embrace, helped along by the glistening skin of the pepper. This is perhaps one of the most famous still lifes in existence, but this was not the first and only pepper Weston photographed. This Particular one was the 30th, so he knew exactly what he was doing and the result was not achieved by chance at all.

This meaning of this image of a pigs head is revealed by a simple detail in the composition. The small pool of blood under the head of the pig shows that the photograph is to signify the slaughter for the greed of humans. This is not just a pigs head. It is one that has been savagely beheaded to satisfy the hunger of humans who already have everything.

Introduction to Still Life by Paul Lander - Backgrounds

Craig Cutler

Bob Carlos Clark Here, the background isn’t just a background, it is part of the image. It helps to create the atmosphere of the image as a whole. The rough, grainy texture provides a great contrast to the smooth and perhaps sensual nature of the subject matter, the entwined forks.

Andreas Feininger Here Feininger has photographed sea shells to look like they are truly on a beach. However, he has just used a creative backgound the the rocks in the foreground to make it look like this. These images were really taken in the studio.

Here the backdrop has helped to reinforce the overall meaning of this image. The backdrop is cheaply thrown over a piece of wire representing the way that the precious fur is treated: cheaply. It is taken from the animal and make into clothing etc for people to wear for a single season, whilst it’s in fashion and then to discard of. The artist is telling people to treat the animals with the respect they deserve and to stop stealing their fur.

Introduction to Still Life by Paul Lander - Lighting

Nick Jell

The lighting in this image is what makes it successful. To achieve the correct lighting on the small, detailed stitching it is necessary to use strong side lighting to create shadows which illuminate the stitching. Lighting also helps to illuminate the ball itself and separate it from the backdrop.

Andres Kertesz Melancholic flower is exactly what it says and this is achieved vastly through the use of lighting. The strong side lighting creates harsh, deep shadows reinforcing the melancholy.

Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe

Mapplethorpe lit this flower from above. It creates a spotlight effect and makes the elegant flower look like a dancer on stage.

Again the lighting of the flowers in this image make the image what it is. It makes it stand out from all of the other still life flower images that are in existance. The flower heads themselves have been lit, but also there is light in the background.

This really helps to give the flowers a place, they belong here... it’s not just a photograph of some drooping flowers in a studio. It gives the image depth and balance and environment within which to live, a reality.

Introduction to Still Life by Paul Lander - Lighting

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

The lighting in this image, and thus the shadows make the image. The glassware is perhaps not the main attraction in this photograph, but the interesting shadows that have been created by it.

Andres Kertesz The fork is an image that again plays on light, shadows, form etc. There is again a sense of place, provided by the thin black line at the top of the image, which is to show the edge of te table. The is not just some for on some dish, the thin lines gives the image purpose, meaning, depth, balance and environment.

Laura Letinsky

Joel Peter Witkin

This artist photographs tables once people have left them, in the state that they were left. Her photographs “simultaneously contemplate the still life as representing the nature of human relationships through the vestiges of domestic life�, refrencing dutch still life from the 17th Century.7

Le Basier 1982 Halves of a human head.

Just wants to shock you.

Introduction to Still Life by Paul Lander - Lighting

Juan Sanchez Cotan 1602

Henri Fantin-Latour

Harold Eugene Edgerton High speed, scientific photography. Freezes time at a split second. Expensive, controlled.

Olivier Richon 1990

Ori Gerscht

Ori Gerscht

Introduction to Still Life by Paul Lander - Fine Art

Chema Madoz Madoz’s fine art photographs are very witty and lighthearted, using double meanings to create odd, out of place photographs that are actually very clever.

Introduction to Still Life by Paul Lander - Fine Art

Rob Vanderplank

This artist is in a similar vein to the high speed photographers I looked at previously where something that would normally be fast moving is frozen in time.

Carl Warner Makes landscapes out of unsual objects, such as food and bodies. These would not count as ‘landscapes’ in the usual sense but both would certainly be under still life. I really like these images, particularly the ‘nudescape’.

Ikea Cookbook These images are from the Ikea cookbook. Instead of providing images of the final dish, Ikea took a difference stance and photographed the exact amount that go into the recipes and photographed them in very organised, neat compositions. I very much like the organisational factor of these.

Thomas Demand Demand creates scenes completely out of paper and card, including the top image of the Parisian tunnels in which Princess Diana were killed. He is not primarily a photographer, but photographs his creations as a permanent record of them.

My Still Life: Research and Images

Still Life Initial Ideas - Am I normal? Teen questions self

I am a huge fan of Georgia Grace Gibson’s artwork and I wanted to create a piece in a sort of response to her work. For me however, I wanted to try the complete antithesis and make pants look stained, horrible and disgusting but I want to do this to show people that it’s normal to have stained pants that you wear when you’re on your period or just any time you want to be comfortable.

Contact Sheet #1 The first 8 images were playing around with close up angles of the pants. I had borrowed a 90mm Macro Lens and wanted to play around with it a little. I felt it was not suitable for the ‘evidential’ images I wanted to take as described in my drawing.

Still Life Shoot #1

After this I used my 18-55mm Lens to take some images from further away. Initially I thought I would be able to use an A4 piece of paper as the background but it was too small. I tried A3 but was still not happy, so put a few sheets together with intentions of removing the seams in post production.

I wanted to use a ring flash as I stated in the drawing but apparently the store roon didn’t stock them, so I tried to make do with a regular flash gun but it was creating a vignette at the bottom of the image which I did not like at all.

Despite the different angles, I just wasn’t happy with how the images were turning out.

I do quite like the images where the pants are on my desk among my other things. I think this helps to create the ‘normalcy’ image I want to portray but I knew I could put this further and result in an image I was truly proud of.

Note to self: When creating contact sheets in the future, set them out in landscape as they will fit on the page better.

From Evidence Pants 23-30 I added a blue backdrop to add interest to the image. I chose the colour blue as it contrasts with the colour red which is kind of the colour of the stain.

Still Life Shoot #1

To get the pants into the shape I wanted I realised I could tape them down and manipulate them. In all of ‘The Fence’ images I used tape to make various pieces of underwear sit straight. I then got in very close with the 90mm lens. Looking at the first images (on the blue backdrop) I realised the pants looked a little like barbed wire and realised the connotations this could hold.

Barbed wire>chastity belts>no entry>relating back to my inital drawing - ‘you wanna get in my pants?’>protecting what is inside etc etc.

I then played around with another pair of pants, this time very pink and girly but not really barbed wire like. I still however wanted to make it look a little like a fence and I feel the green backdrop makes it look ‘garden-like’ again with connotations of gardens>lady gardens>fences as protection etc.

Lastly, I photographed a bra of mine, wanting to mix things up a little. I chose this one as close up it looks like an expensive, ornate. wrought iron fence, with connotations of class and expense. I chose a red background as it is considered quite a racy colour and because of the links with womanhood (see the initial idea drawing pages).

For this final image, I played around with the colours a little, making the reds redder and the blues bluer.

Still Life Shoot #1

Overall I do like this image both conceptually and technically. I do however think it can be improved technically, as often I do.

I think if I did this in the studio I would have more control over the lighting so could perhaps make it look more like it was outside. I also think if I did this in the studio, I would be able to move the background further away than the pants so it is more out of focus and sky-like.

I used a tripod for all of these images, so that if I needed to slow down the shutter speed (as I did, to about 1/6th of a second) I would have the freedom to do so.

Still Life Shoot #1

I am quite happy with this image. I could do it again in the studio, but I don’t see much point as the background is nicely out of focus, the foreground is pin sharp where I want it to be and the image is evenly lit.

I considered straightening out the photograph in post processing to make the line straighter, but I actually like the slight slant as I feel it makes it more realistic and less rigidly formal.

Still Life Shoot #1

Visually, I’d say this is the strongest image of the three that I have so far done. I think the red and black are very striking colours and though I’d say the concept wasn’t quite as strong as in the first image, it is certainly stronger than in the previous image (pink/ green pants).

Again, I don’t feel that shooting this image in the studio would reap many benefits as the background it out of focus. I could perhaps play witht he lighting a little more if I did do it in the studio, but honestly, I am quite happy with this image.

I decided to reshoot the pants still life shoot so that I could build up the series. I tried to make sure that all the factors were the same, however with having used natural lighting it was difficult.

I think it is because of this that the images that I have taken are not to the standard of the previous shoot.

I think with natural lighting it is more difficult to replicate results. I did want to use natural lightingWW

Still Life Shoot #2

I was very pleased with all of the before images. After I had taken them, I went on a mission hunting for patterns as can be seen in this contact sheet.

Firstly, I photographed a jumper of mine that is a of a colour considered to be very ‘girly’. I always feel extremely ‘girly’ when wearing it, which is not my usual style per se.

Still Life Shoot #1

I took a couple of boring shots a first, but noticed that the colour, when I used the flash gun, was a very different shade of pink to the true colour of the jumper.

I found this interesting and so persevered with the jumper. I folder it over itself to make it more interesting. I looked closely at the image and immediately though, oh that looks a little like a vagina (a freudian slip I’m sure) and so I folded the jumper and clipped it with black paper clips to hold everything in place.

At first, I tried hard to frame the vagina so the clips were out of shot, but for the last shot, you can just see them. I think this adds to the concept of the image.

Because the vagina is completely hairless and perfect looking, the clipped part fits in well with the ideology. Labiaplasty is on the increase with women feeling selfconscious about their vaginas and so having surgery to correct them, so I feel like the clips give meaning to the overall image and so will use this as the final image.

I also took some images of patterns in water and a water bottle as well as colour. A couple of these I genuinely do like but there isn’t really a concept to them, they are just pretty pictures so I will likely not use these as final images, but they are nice to look at. Aces parum

When I first shared this images online I got such a positive response from it. Initially this response made me very proud of the photograph and the concept.

Still Life Shoot #1

I do however think the concept is stronger than the photograph. I am definitely going to reshoot this image. Next time I will get the entire vagina and perhaps the clips in focus too. The more I look at the photograph the more I am unhappy with the focusing. I used a tripod to take the image, so there is no reason why I shouldn’t have turned up the aperture and slowed down the shutter speed.

When I do this again, I will probably go into the studio as this is required for this topic. I will however, perhaps use the same technique as I did here with the flashgun, as I believe it was this that made the jumper this shade of pink. I will howver, try other lighting techniques so that I can see whethere there is any room for improvement.

In continuation of this idea, I could use other jumpers and clothing to try a similar thing. I’m not sure if this will detract from the concept and so I will need to speak to a lecturer about this.

Still Life Shoot #1

I decided to reshoot the jumper in the studio as I would have the ability to manipulate the lighting.

First of all I just photographed the shape of the vagina as it was, however it was suggested to me that I make legs around the vagina to make it look more realistic and less out of place.

It was quite difficult to mold the jumper to the sort of leg shape I wanted and as you can see in the later images, it looks flat and dull.

I think the earlier images look more fleshy and perhaps, though this doesnt look like reality, it alludes to a more naturalistic, soft skin.

Initally, I thought it would be better to use one of the images where there was an idea of legs. I wasnt happy with how it was and tried to add shadows and darkening round the edges and lighter areas to the middle to help give dimension but I feel it, again is overkill and just doesn’t look good or right.

Still Life Shoot #1

I went back to the non-leg images as you can see on the far right and I kinda don’t want to edit it too much, I want it to look natural. The far picture is also better composed.

I think I will use this as a final image. I am pretty happy with it.

It is better than the original because everything is in focus, as I wanted. the clips are just as important in the image as the actual vagina.

I also renamed the image. After discovering that a certain celebrity had had labiaplasty recently, I decided to do more research and in this research I saw the phrase ‘designer vagina’ thrown around in relation to the labiaplasty surgery, and after consideration thought it would be a perfect name for this little project.

The vagina is made out of a jumper that could be designer label (theres nothing that tells us whether it is or isnt) and of course it is of a vagina. I think it is more conceptual than just ‘Vagina Jumper’ and provokes though more than a plain title.

Still Life Shoot #1 This article is on Page 76 of March 2014 Cosmopolitan and after reading it I couldn’t help but feel like my work was cheap. I think the articles were more regarding photographing/making moulds of your actual, own vagina, but the article made me feel a little like the photograph i took of the Vagina Jumper was a ‘cheap thrill’ photograph, just there to shock people and it’s not really that good.

I don’t know. I do like the image (or at least I will with some improvement), but I’m not sure whether it would be so well received in feminist circles as it has been amongst my friends and family.

Still Life Shoot #1

Having said that, an artist who I am very inspired by has used vaginas in her work a number of times and I do not feel that her work is cheapened in the slightest by the article, so perhaps I am being quite critical of myself.

I have noticed that for this shoot and the previous one, that I feel completely okay taking such images, but when it comes to processing them, I also think, well people are going to see these images and that makes me cringe a lot. I am embarrassed. These are private things and I am sharing them with everyone. I’m quite a shy person so I want to keep hold of these to myself not share them and save myself the potential shame but instead I have decided to utilise these feelings and push myself out of my comfort zone.

There are some of these images that I do quite like and I don’t want them to be unnoticed because I am too self conscious about what people may think about them to share them.

Still Life Shoot #2

I think if anyone should be self conscious, it should be my model here, Ben, but he was completely unfazed by the experience and was unbothered when I joking said I was going to exhibit them in A1 size and show his mother. His self worth is something that I aspire to and perhaps throughout exploring the theme of embarrassment/shame I shall achieve.

The concept behind these images was one that I discovered by change. I was thinking about the objectification/representation of women and searched ‘female art nudes’.

I then searched ‘male art nudes’ and the difference was profound...to me at least. A significant majority of the female nude were head or faceless. A very small minority of the made nudes were. Is this a form of dehumanisation? I can’t say for sure, but I wanted to flip this and objectify a man. Ben said, ‘what if I don’t want to be objectified’ to which I replied, I am sure that none of the female that are objectified want to be portrayed as such, and so he agreed to pose for me.

I wanted to pose him in stereotypical female nude positions as seen in BenNude 4-5 and 12-19. He wanted some inspiration so we looked in Man Ray and Edward Weston books and we found poses we thought would work. (having said this I don’t think either artist ignores the face of the woman that often, but it was just for inspiration.

Conceptually this is not a strong image.

It is, quite literally, a copy of Man Rays photograph, but a lazy one at that.

Still Life Shoot #2

I do feel a bit cheap having taken this image digitally and also solarised it digitally. Man Rays photographs were film and also solarised physically, and having done this in the last module I know just how difficult and time consuming this can be. It was even more risky for Man Ray, as he solarised his film rather than his prints so if he over-did it then the entire roll would be ruined.

However, I have decided to include it as actually, I find it very visually appealing.

The shades of grey in the shadows of the body, I find actually very beautiful.

Still Life Shoot #2

Another image I don’t think conceptually is that strong but I do, for some reason, really like the angles of the body and how the shadows fall across it; the muscles, the curves, the shadows... everything just fits into place somehow. I can’t really explain why I like it...I just do...

This image, unlike some of the images I did take, is not a direct copy of any artist’s work. It is more of a piece that was influences by artists: Man Ray’s nudes and how he often incorporated angular shapes with the limbs, Bill Brandt’s Shadow and Light and Edward Weston’s 1927 nudes.

Still Life Shoot #2

I also wanted to play on the idea of masulinity and femininity. This nude has been objectified, it has no head or any particularly identifyable features. It is often women in art, I have found, that are objectified, but the hairiness of the body challeneges this. It suggests masculinity, but with the increasing female body love and a rejection of wanting to shave religiously like society tells women they have to it could easily be female.

I asked the model to tense the bicep to represent strength, and if the viewer perceives this body to be female then the muscle signifies the growing strength of women; of feminist movements and of women striving to achieve equality, of becoming more independant of men and becoming their own woman and not the property of another.

Introduction to Contemporary Landscape Photography A Lecture by Paul Lander

Introduction to Contemporary Landscape by Paul Lander

What is Landscape Photography?

• A study of a view of the outside world: the planet we live on • What do we look at? Everything. Not just greenery and mountains • First ever photographs taken are landscapes: Niepce View of the Window at Gras, Daguerre Boulevard du Temple • Can be buildings in the city • Most of the British countryside is man made or influenced.

• Sandwell Valley, West Bromwich was industrial, but when idustry died, people made it into a landscape. River has also been redirected • Why? Things are always chaning, we are documenting how things are at a certain time.

• How can we put our own feelings onto a landscape?

• Add objects or people • Focus on spaces • Take a position i.e. how an is chaning nature, memory, places where incidents have happened, firsts (kiss, fight, loss)>Narrative

Introduction to Contemporary Landscape by Paul Lander

Hisotrical

Ansel Adams is one of the greatest landscape photographers of all time. When he began photographing Yosemite, the pictures were so startling and wonderful, people realised what a beautiful place it was and made it the first American National Park meaning that it was protected from any destruction. He shot on huge 10x8 negatives which made for super detailed, hyper-realistic images of the beautiful scenery.

Introduction to Contemporary Landscape by Paul Lander

Faye Godwin took very British, tongue in cheek images of the British countryside. The cricket image below is something that perhaps would not appear in other countries: the ball has obviosuly gone into the stream and a number of men have gathered around to retrieve it. Also the image to the right, a hunting image, which is usually portrayed as violent is here portrayed as light hearted and fun.

Introduction to Contemporary Landscape by Paul Lander

John Davies photographs the contrast between nature and idustry in a way that shows the industry taking over. He has managed to photograph things that cease to exist or are becoming fewer in their numbers. In the photograph to the right, that area doesn’t exist in that state any more. It has all been relandscaped to make it more attractive, perhaps because this picture was taken.

Introduction to Contemporary Landscape by Paul Lander

These images by Paul Kozal hold no deep meaning, but they are very focused on form, shape, and angle. The study of the trees are inviting but lonely. They represent a place you would want to go on your own, a dreamlike fantasy place where you could go to be alone with your thoughts and the nature.

Today, where not many trees have grown naturally, having been planted intentionally by humans, it is quite calming viewing the natural form of the trees.

Introduction to Contemporary Landscape by Paul Lander

Chris Fokos

This photographer does a lot of long exposure photographs of fog and water. The long exposure means that the water looks perfectly still and glasslike, because the camera has recorded the movement in one frame to make it seamlessly smooth. A similar effect to when people do long exposure photos of waterfalls and they look ultra soft, smooth and almost fluffy.

Introduction to Contemporary Landscape by Paul Lander

Leisure

Massimo Vitali This image he took shows a beautiful bright blue beach. Holidaymakers crowd the beach, relaxing in the sun. You might think that this would be a desirable place to holiday. However, Vitali also included into the image the powerstation in the background, so close to the sea, most probably pumping chemicals into it where people are playing and splashing in the water.

John Kippin took an image: Surveillance finishing, where a Grandmother and her Grandchildren are having a relaxing afternoon fishing in a river. The innocence of the image is stripped away by the surveillance camera watching them in the background. Immediately, we feel that even in a natural scape, we aren’t unwatched, we are spied upon doing everything. However, there is reason for the cameras being there, to stop people poisoning the water. Still, the camera does make the quaint image look sinister.

Introduction to Contemporary Landscape by Paul Lander

Urban

Andreas Gursky sold the most expensive photograph to date of an urban skyline. His nature is to heavily process the photograph and this is exactly what he did with the image he sold for $4.1m.

Timm Sonnenschein went back and photographed the same place but did not process it and it looks very different.

Thomas Struth took photogaphs of urban lanscapes but managed to capture them with no people in the frame. The resulting images look they were taken after an apocalypse.

Michael Wesley took pinhole photographs over long periods (usually a few years) of industry being built. His photographs are strange to look at but are very interesting. They document the change over time in a single photograph.

Introduction to Contemporary Landscape by Paul Lander

Constructed

Robert Smithson placed mirrors in natural lanscapes which reflect the greenery and foliage beautifully and create a dreamlike fantasy world.

He has cleverly managed not to get himself in any of the mirrors.

Horst Wacherbarth travelled around the world with a bright red sofa in tow. When he arrived at his intendted destination he asked someone who was already in the physical scene to sit on the sofa and be photographed. They are funny, lighthearted images. They also make you wonder how he managed to get a sofa around the world!

Introduction to Contemporary Landscape by Paul Lander

Surreal Landscape

William Lesch photographed the American desert but painted it in using painting with light methods. The images glorify the desert and make it look like the neon lights of the city, like Vegas and other big American cities.

Some of the images have the appearance of the foliage and toys etc that one would put at the bottom of a fish tank. Very brightly coloured and attractive so that the fish have something nice to look at.

Introduction to Contemporary Landscape by Paul Lander

Memory

The image to the right by Joel Sternfeld, at first seems to have no meaning. Just a bus stop outside a building. What really happened was that a mother of 3 had asked to be rehomed as their current home was damp, falling down and kept being broken into. They refused to help and the woman was ejected by security. She said she would protest by sleeping in the bus shelter across the road until someone helped her. That night was the coldest night for many years and so she died in her sleep, trying to get a better home and life for her

children.

A couple of other artists I would like to mention but don’t have the images of are Perry Adams and Joe Duggan. Adams photographed a line of apples because of a story he remembered when he was younger of taking apples for his teacher and lunch and dropping the apples on the way to school out his broken bag and not having any apples for anyone.

Duggan photographed himself in places he often visited when he was younger, with a girlfriend. We don’t question this initially, he looks like he is truly with a girlfriend. However, you soon find out that he does not have a girlfriend and in these places, he has posed with a mannequin. The images are very poignant and emotional, having to portray his girlfriend as a mannequin. I very much liked the series of images we were shown. He then went on to do the same with a child mannequin as his son.

My Landscape: Research and Images

This is the contact sheet from a shoot I did in London. I put the contact sheet under landscape as it is a landscape that I decided to use as a final image, although not all of the images were landscapes.

I didn’t necessarily set out with anything particular in mind, just really to see what came to me and ended up with a really nice shot of a woman in front of St Pauls Cathedral.

The shot fits in with the feminist theme I have tried to weave throughout my ject, as during the Million Women March, women were encouraged to wear

that proRise red:

“For MWR it symbolizes the colour of Woman and her blood, the blood of our sisters who have been murdered and raped , our blood which contains life, courage, respect, dignity and protection.”

The woman in the photograph was wearing all red and is completely alone in the photograph.

I revisited London a few weeks later and upon visiting the London Eye, saw that one of the carriages were red. I thought it would perfectly match the image of the woman, the lone area of red in an otherwise quite dull image.

File Processing and Print Workshops by Various Tutors

Digital Printing and Resizing by Tony Davis

Step 1: Above - Create new A3 sized document at 300-600dpi.

Step 2: Crop Image using crop tool. Set dimensions to A3 size 297x420 Step 3: Paste image onto blank A3 document. Save as PSD or TIFF Step 4: Make sure quality is greater than 50MB. Step 5: Check image quality at 100% and 200% This is a bas quality scanned image rather than a direct digital photograph so the dust etc on the image is very visible. With a digital photograph out of camera, the image would be a lot better.

Image is 100MB.

Print Prices Matte Glossy A4 £1 £1.50 A3 £2 £3 A2 £4 £6 A1 £8 £12

File Processing and Handling by Timm Sonnenschein

Give all images you want to delete 1 star by pressing ctrl+1. On the left, click ratings>1 star and delete these images. Make sure you only select images that you truly do not want.

Select all images in one group. E.g feminist march then Feminist Rally etc....

Right click>batch rename Create a contact sheet: Tools>Photoshp>Contact sheet 200res, turn for better fit, 5 quality Make sure image is flattened Change File Info

File Processing and Handling by Timm Sonnenschein

File Processing and Handling by Timm Sonnenschein

1: open action window 2: create new action (above) 3: name new action (above right) 4: click file>file info (right) 5: edit info (opposite top) 6. press stop button. (opposite bottom) For other action repreat all steps but change steps 4 & 5 accordingly. Whatever you do in Photoshop whilst the button is recording is recorded.

Can use this to create save and close action.

Evaluation

What you have created/ achieved?

Overall, I am happy with the body of work I have produced for this project. In intended for there to be a general feminist strand running throughout the project which is a theme I am going to explore further and in much more depth in future projects. I want to explore the ideas behind feminism as a word, the connotations behind it and whether in fact one shouldn’t be a feminist. Rather, there should be a new word…one that encompasses the strive for equality rather than domination of one sex of the other.

I moulded into a vagina. I found there were mixed reactions from this. Some people felt quite uncomfortable when watching me work in the studio with the vagina jumper, some people felt uncertain at first but after an explanation felt for comfortable around my work, whereas others were very supportive of my work.

I noticed when we held the exhibition that the picture seemed to grab people’s attention, though I felt a little like some were too shy perhaps or embarrassed to want to talk about the ideas behind the piece. People wanted to talk about my portraits which, I think people find less awkward to look at perhaps.

I think the biggest problem for me is my moving image. It is something I haven’t so far enjoyed and continually leave it until the last minute and end up with something I am not proud of. I think if there is a moving image element next time I should push myself harder to plan and organise my moving image better. If I get the moving image aspect done and out of the way first, I can always go back and edit it throughout the project to make it of the standard of the rest of my work.

The contacts you made During this project I made contacts with a couple of people who own venue spaces. For example, those at the Old Print Works have left the offer open for me to use the exhibition space in the future, an offer I really hope to take up as it looks like such a beautiful place to hold an exhibition.

Your experiences in doing so, how did it all go?

I have had a lot of fun throughout the project. I visited London, took pictures of my pants and a jumper which

Working as a group I, personally have enjoyed working as a group. I really enjoyed the challenge of organising an exhibition including finding a venue and designing flyers and am thrilled with the outcome. I have a wonderful evening and I am sure the entire group enjoyed themselves and showing off and discussing their work – I feel like the hard work that was put in paid off.

I do feel that in our group, as I image would happen in any group, there were a distinct number of people that contributed very little to the putting together of the exhibition and that only a few people were left to pull all of the strings, however, I really have no complaints about this. Having done a fair amount of the organising myself, I am much happier doing something myself to the standard that I want, than leaving it to chance with someone else.

This did happen once during the planning stages, we asked one of the members who wasn’t doing quite so much to email the Deans and high-up member of staff as we felt like we should give other people a chance and it was left very late, a couple of days before the event and so none of them were able to turn up.

Despite this, I have no regrets about any aspect of the exhibition planning stages. Maybe some things could have been done differently, however the evening was wonderful and I very much enjoyed myself. I, and a number of other people also sold prints which was very pleasing and really, what the exhibition was about – getting our names out there and selling our work.

Networking with the outside world All of the people I spoke with when setting up the exhibition were really lovely, friendly and helpful.

I did not come across anyone who was rude or did not want us to have our exhibition with them. I

thought maybe there would be some prejudices held against us, being students, but people were most welcoming.

I’d say this was particularly evident with the venue that we ended up with, as they gave us the venue for free because we were students, cheap drinks and pretty much let us have free rein of the exhibition space.

Your exhibitions I sold £28 worth of work on the exhibition evening so I felt like it went very well. Initially, I was a little envious that some of the people who made very little effort towards the exhibition by reaping the benefits and making a fair amount of money from their prints however, I will not dwell on these feelings at all because I knew what I was putting myself in for, and shouldn’t feel bad because people aren’t interested in pictures of jumpers shaped like vaginas or nude pictures of my boyfriend! (I mean, it is to be expected at this point) Your final thoughts/conclusions.

One of my main problems is time management and this is something I will work on during the next project.

I think I will also try to refine my ideas on feminism and what it means to be a feminist and whether this is an ideal that suits my beliefs. I think there is a proliferation of the radical feminist throughout blogging websites and though some things I agree with, I sincerely disagree with the hatred of men and feel that this solves nothing, an idea I hope to explore in future projects.

Genius of Photography Part 1 1. What is Photography’s tru genius?

“It has delighted us, served us, moved us, outraged us, disappointed us, but mainly intrigued us by showing the secret, strangeness that lies beneath the world of appearances.

2. Name a Proto-Photographer Henry Fox Talbot

3. What term was associated with the Daguerrotype?

“A mirror with a memory”.

4. What is the Vernacular?

“Journalistic, touristic, scientific, forensic, insurance records, court documents, passport photographs, postcards, boxing match records - all photography intended for any use except art”

6. Who was Nadar and why was he so successful?

“Nadar mastered the difficult art of getting a natural expression from the sitter in a photograph. He was heralded the Andy Warhol of Bohemian Paris - his style rewrote the rules of portrait photography.”

“There was nothing to indicate profession in his portraits except personality.”

5. What is a carte-de-visite?

“As you stood for your portrait, you were photographed 8 times in rapid sequence by a camera with 8 lenses, producing small cards that could be send through the post and swapped with family and friends”

7. What is pictorialism?

Pictorialism was a movement of art photographers who approached photography with an emphasis on beauty, tonality and composition. They were certainly not snapshooters, nor did they make any attempt to specifically document reality.

Genius of Photography Part 2 2. What magazine did Rodchenko design?

USSR in construction - showcase of political propaganda glorifying achievements of the soviet system

1. What are typologies? “Systematic and accurate records of places, people and things.

3. What is photomontage?

A graphic technique that derived from cinema montage. It showed photographs for what they really are, in that they are perfectly fluid in their meaning.

4. Why did Eugene Atget use albumen prints in the 1920s?

He said he didn’t know how to use the modern techniques.

5. What is solarisation and how was it discovered?

Man Ray’s assistant, Lee Miller, discovered the technique quite by accident. She claimed to have switched on the light during development, briefly and in surprise, as she felt a mouse run over her foot. Man Ray then began using the technique to make his images stand out, and different to anyone elses.

“It makes the subject look sleek and metallic, like aluminium, like a fast car, superhuman and robotic.”

6. What was the relationship between Eugene Atget and Berenice Abbott?

Berenice photographed Atget and later, after his death, took his photographs over to America where they were a huge hit. It was these images that influences Walker Evans.

7. Why was Walker Evans fired from the FSA? Evand readily moulded reality to fit his personal vision. However, he couldn’t make that vision conform to the propaganda requirements of the FSA.

Genius of Photography Part 3

2. Should you trust a photograph?

Not always, but then you shouldn’t always automatically distrust an image because your instincts tell you to.

Common sense and one’s knowledge of photography is to be used.

“You might believe it because of the name on the back of the print, if you 1. What is described as one of the most know theyre about capturing reality”. familiar concepts in photography?

The decisive moment

3. What was revolutionary about the Leica in 1925?

Compact, quiet, the latest lens technology = instant photography. Cartier-Bresson owned one of the first.

4. What did George Bernard Shaw say about the painting of Christ?

He said he would exchange every painting of Christ for one snapshot.

6. Who was Henryk Ross and what was his job?

An official photographer who kept a record of what went on at a Nazi Ghetto where he was incarcerated.

5. Why were Tony Vaccaro’s negatives destroyed by army censors?

They contained images of dead GIs - decisive moments the world wasn’t yet ready to see.

7. Which show was a sticking plaster for the wounds of war, how many people saw it and what cliche did it end on?

The Family of man, which has over 9,000,000 visitors by 1964. It ended on W. Eugene Smiths optimistically cliched photograph of his children walking out into the light, the beginning of their sentimental journey through life

8. Why did Joel Meyerowitz photograph Ground Zero in colour? “To photograph it in black and white would be to keep it as a tragedy, because there is a tragic element to photographing the collapse and destruction.

The Genius of Moving Image Pt 1 1 What is the role of the cinematographer in film making?

The Cinematographer takes care of the visual aspects of a film, mise en scene, camera movements shots etc. They will tell people where to look 2 Why did director Roman Polanski insist on using hand held camera in the film Chinatown?

He used it because of the intimacy and spontaneity that is created and the “intense voyeurism” which the audience feels because of it.

3 Name two films which use colour in a very symbolic way, and describe what they suggest.

4 In the film Raging Bull why was the fight scene filmed at different speeds?

To show the contrast between the physical and emotional impact that the scene has on the audience. The slower frame rate, 24fps reveals the emotionality, whereas the faster frame rate at 48fps shows the physicality 5 Who is the cinematographer for the film Apocalypse Now, and what is his philosophy?

Vittorio Storaro’s philosophy was one based on the effects which colours have on our perception

The Genius of Moving Image Pt 2 1. How did Bjork and Chris collaborate on the All is full of love video?

Bjork is a singer and wanted a music video for her song All is full of Love and found Chris Cunningham to be the right kinda guy for the job

2. What techniques were used on the portishead video to create the unusual slow motion effects.? Research this.

3. What other music video directors have gone on to direct feature films? Name two and the feature films they h a v e made.

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http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/20/world/syria-torture-photos-amanpour/ Badger, G The Genius of Photography, 2007, Quadrille 3 Durden, M Dorothea Lange 2011, Phaidon 4 http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2002/04/afghan-girl/index-text#close-modal 5 http://imageobjecttext.com/2013/04/14/living/#more-3645 6 Costa, G Nan Goldin 2013, Phaidon 7 Cotton, C The Photograph as Contemporary Art, 2009, Thames and Hudson 8 Bright, S Art Photography Now, 2011, Thames and Hudson 1 2

Bibliography