The avant-garde are people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics.The avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm. This relates to the unit that we are studying, trying to creat videos or pictures that push boundaires. The avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from post modernism.  This type of photography is what I am really interested as it focuses on manipulating a model by physically making them look unsatisfactory for society, and I love to be creative. These images have really inspired me to try and make someone look different so that I would get public reaction from walking down the high street.

Tom Pope was talking to us about the idea of surrealism in photography which basically means that when he takes a photograph the picture has a much deeper meaning than possibly portrayed which is hard to show through one photograph. Photoshop allows you to manipulate photographs to make the image more surreal and force the meaning to come through. Ultimately, photographers aren’t just taking a picture because it looks nice, mainly they are produced to show some sort of deep meaning that needs to be addressed. The questions you need to ask yourself when looking at pictures is why was it taken? What is the contextual reasoning behind this?