Analysis of Image influenced by Jonny Briggs

 For this edit, I extracted just the eyes from the original image. I wanted to show my understanding of Jonny’s work and attempt to replicate in my own way but following similar styles to what he does. Jonny makes a habit out of using and focusing on the eyes of some his images frequently and he often takes out just the eyes and makes this feature of the subject within the image the focal point which I love because it is so small and can be so easily ignored yet the eyes can hold so much narrative in themselves because emotions are told through your eyes an the way you look at something. However, what Jonny does not do is make an image or a montage out of just the eyes of people. This is what I have done and attempted to make it personal. I taken the eyes of myself in a picture and the eyes of my dad from an image and merged them into one edit. I wanted to create the idea that my dad’s constant gaze down on me from when I was a baby up until I was a young child, to when I became teenager and still now has been a significant part of my upbringing and is for moist children if you have a dominant male figure in your upbringing. His effort to look out for me non-stop is a huge influence for how I have grown up and what I have become and I wanted to show this in my edit yet a gaze can sometimes become very confused and hazed and I wanted to play a trick on the mind – by pixelating the cut-out eyes, the viewers own look becomes confused. I wanted to show that my dad’s gaze has progressively and gradually morphed into mine and as I become older, I begin to look at things the way my dad does. Especially now with a younger sister, my own look has matured as I have to monitor, as a guardian essentially, someone who is so young and innocent, as I used to be.

Whose Archive Is It Anyway?

How do archives function? 

Archives function through a collection of historical content, whether they are presented in tangible or intangible galleries, those of which do not have a physical presence are more common only in today’s memorabilia, a function that has strengthened the interpretation of archives due to the immense impact of technology. Archives can be approached with significance or just general well-being, depending on the historical impact of the image. Some archives can be selected and kept within high authority and expense, taking the role of extreme value if they represents historical events to the public domain. Going back to the tangible and intangible functions of archival photography, living in the new and advanced time period of today, we are able to capture the intangible functions a lot more frequently and effectively. Nowadays there aren’t many families that prioritize the belonging of dusty boxes filled with photographs and memorable objects to the family archive, although this function to family archive does definitely still exist – we prefer to access the ability of the internet nowadays. However strong this new and advanced way of archiving photographs may be, the greatest and most valuable archives that belong to society are kept tangible in the highest of museums and exhibitions all over the world.

What are their purpose?

These museums and exhibitions are set up in order to appreciate the archive many values, including religion, culture, and national treasure. Arranged in order, museums allow us to educated ourselves and others based on the ancestors that formed the present.

Not only can archival photography be used for this reason, they can also be used in modern context, giving support to the media, advertisement, news, documentary, fine art, identity and anthropology. Archives have a purpose of supporting these factors as they provide a sense of knowledge, visual history and most importantly, prove for those who reap a greater understanding of the subject.

How do archives act as repositories of cultural memories of the past?

In reference to the formality of archives and how well-respected they are presented within the many museums around the world, we can identify a role of repositories within archives as they support cultural memories of the past through displaying artifacts and materials which effortlessly create different impressions and inventories for the viewers along the way. Allowing the next generation to witness these sighting can allow past cultures to form a certain significance of the present and foreseeable future for the viewers. Over recent years, we can take the information given from David Bates text of Archives, Networks and Narratives and identify that artists have become increasingly more conscious of archival storage, some taking the next step and making the focus of their work entirely based on repositories of cultural value. US artist and photography Louise Lawler focused her work entirely on the responsibility of repositories, her work involves photographs that are featured in private homes, public museums and auction houses that function for the sheer taste and satisfaction of cultural remembrance in order for spectators to evaluate art.

In what way does photography perform a double role within archives?

Photography can perform a double role within archives as they can represent both a meaningful background for the artefacts of the museums and also a collection of archives that can present a sense of independence within itself, letting people appreciate the work for general interest they they may find aesthetically pleasing.

Jonny Briggs and his visit

On the 4th of July, Jonny came into Hautlieu School in order to promote his personally studies and also his obscure and radical thoughts of family and environment within photography. Based on Jonny’s work, we engaged a workshop that allowed us to explore the theme failure and how it co-insides with creativity.

Jonny first asked; is fear a bad thing, or can something good come from it? This spiraled my thoughts into thinking of my personal achievements and how they all blossomed through fear. Having my personally experiences to direct my answer, I responded to Jonny and disagreed with the idea of fear being a bad thing, I believe that all good things can come from fear, although fear may be perceived as something we all must avoid, beneath its hardship we can all gain a valuable experience from it. It allows us to challenge the skills we already have, but it can also spark abilities that we never knew we had, and traits that could develop a better self. However, fear also has the concept of weakening our intentions and also our work, depending whether the subject you’re working on is limited and will not allow that creative aspect to occur.

The workshop consisted of two activities; to draw an imaginary individual with our eyes closed and then to draw someone in the same room as us with our eyes closed.

This task promoted the idea of not knowing, or having control over our ideas since we could not observe and develop an efficient response to our thoughts. In relation to Jonny’s question, this task engaged the idea of fearing our results, which later resulted in something creative.