Meeting Tom Pope

The first time we met Tom Pope was at the Jersey Societe, This is when he talked about  his work and his interests. His interests that he injects into his work is; Humor, chance, repetition ect… After talking about this he took us to an outdoor space where we completed three task.

The Orange Task

We were paired up and were told to get an orange. We had to throw these oranges to one another, whilst holding the camera in the other hand and capturing the orange in the air. The steps to setting up for this task, was firstly setting the camera to the appropriate parameters. We also turned the flash on. Secondly we placed the orange on the floor and focused our camera onto the orange- we did this so the orange would be in focus in the photograph. Then finally we rapped the strap of the camera around the opposite hand to our throwing hand. These are the photos I got from this activity.

 

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The Selfie Task

This task was also a pairs task and the aim of the game was to take picture of your partner but not let them take pictures of you. Here are my photographs from this task.

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Choreographing

The third task we were asked to complete was where we gathered into groups of fives, and each one of us write down an action of a piece of paper. For example a cartwheel. We all had to complete all of these actions whilst taking a photograph at the same time. Here are some of the photo’s from this shoot.

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I think that these three photoshoots were really helpful for me to have an insight into the type of photography we were needing to achieve on the St Malo trip. Even though the photographs were not of great quality, the purpose behind them shows the element of fun, and chance. I think that these shoots helped encourage my idea’s for the France trip, and helped make the France trip as successful as it was.

PLANNING FOR ST MALO

When planning for taking photographs in St Malo the images needed to be related to the idea of chance, challenge and change. 

Shoot 1: Take photographs or videos walking into a pond/fountain somewhere and video it and show peoples reactions

Shoot 2: Take photographs/video of someone being carried around St Malo 

Shoot 3: Get a video of everyone walking backwards and change it so that everyone is walking forwards and the people walking past are walking backwards

 

Cubism

1907 – 1916

Cubism was the new age and beginning of Modernism. It was a new regime and cycle of artists expressing themselves with new materials (photography in particular).  It surrounded the subject matter of contemporary life, that aside with not anything religious and historic. Traditional aspects and regimes have been tested and the normal perspectives where therefore abandoned.

Cubism holds many multiple viewpoints and is not based on naturalistic observation but on mental conception. It was then situated that there was a sort of freedom to manipulate a subject-matter to create new and variable compositions.   Elements in a picture would then be chosen and placed purely according to aesthetic consideration rather than being based in reality. This thought by the normality of society , it allowed people to suppress the norms and expectations through art and various multimedia.

Cubism relates to chance, challenge and change because it expresses the movement of people going beyond the public domain and expectations.

“Nature should be treated as cylinders, spheres and cones” – Paul Cezanne

Some of the more early works of Cubism.

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Paul Cezanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1902-06, oil on canvas
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Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907, oil on canvas

Cubism nowadays has been modernized by various technologies and techniques. With new and developed processes, Cubism has been turned into a more eye-catching and popular approach to everyday life.

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Elvis Presley
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Micheal Jackson

 

Some of the more modernized interpretations of cubism is example of Philippines-based designer  Dre Ilutsre. He is just one of the many artists that  has created a collection of pop-culture character illustrations in his own distinct style.

The eye-catching illustrations are cubism-inspired digital art where the characters are portrayed in an abstract form, made up by different shapes. Ilustre uses mostly red, blue and yellow in his works.

In his collection, famous figures such as pop-icons Michael Jackson, Bob Marley and martial artist Bruce Lee have been featured.

 

 

Generations of Family Photos

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My Great Uncles’ War photos

For this competition I decided to look through all of the old family photo albums. I managed to get some stuff from back when I was younger in the late 90s and early 2000s but that wasn’t really long ago so I decided to go further. In my search for a great old photo I came across some old medals and photos that came from my Great Uncle Archie who fought during World War II. This really interested me and I am so proud to have had someone who actually experienced the war. I also found a diary that his father kept during the First World War and after his son was born which was interesting to read. My Great Uncle also got medals for his efforts during the war which to me stand for courage and bravery. I wish that I could ask him questions about the war and what it was like but at least I have the photos, medals and diaries that were kept during such a dark time. This also gave me an idea for an experiment to do with photo montage as part of my performance photography coursework. For a lot of the photos I don’t know the exact dates but they were done during the War between 1939 onward.

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My Great Uncles’ War Medals
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Archie and his war friends

IMG_7167 My Great Uncle fought all over the world during the war effort and got medals for his contributions to the war. He got the Germany star, France Star, Africa Star, Italy Star, The Defense Medal, The 1939-1946 Star and another one but I can’t tell which medal it is. I think it is amazing how he went around the world to fight for the freedom of his country. He was born in Glasgow and so were his family. It was interesting to me as his father kept a log book of all of his children over the years.

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My Great Aunt Betty
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My Great Uncle and Aunt
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Archie’s War Service Book
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My Great Uncle Archie 1939
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My Great Uncle’s sister and her husband

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The number on the back of some of these photographs are the number of photos that they had taken, as each of them are random and aren’t dated.