Can a photograph lie? A photograph can tell a 1000 words – but sometimes those words may be a misconception or they may be interpreted differently from on person to another – depending on your own general knowledge of current affairs etc. you may be less educated about a subject than someone else and therefore a lie may be different for each person.
Even something like the photograph above comparing a naturally coloured image to a manipulated black and white image can be classed as lie because it is not showing the image in its natural colour once converted to black and white and therefore because of this change in colour of highlights and shadows, the whole meaning and mood of the image is transformed – in the coloured image, the mood is much more cheerful due to the bright sky behind and the healthy and vibrant skin tones of the subject, however, once converted to black and white, the shadows become much darker and the highlights become much lighter – affecting the mood and ,making it more melancholy and serious and we immediately feel much more sad emptions when looking at the black and white alternative. This image is not telling the truth and it is a very simple example but something that it is evident as a lie in phtooagrohy everyday as on photo editing and sharing apps such as Instagram – editing an image is the norm and it is what is used to attract the attention of the viewer and improve the quality of an image by enhancing colours etc. but it is a lie!
A more serious example of this is in Dimitri Baltermats’ image of grieving family members seeing the deceased bodies of their loved ones after the Crimea War in 1942. Due to the inability and inaccessibility of digital cameras in these days, images were shot on negative and then developed in dark rooms with the use of chemicals etc. However, photographers till has the ability to choose to enhance or alter some of the colours in black and white images they were developing by changing the qualities of chemicals. This was the old way to manage the ‘levels’ we are now familiar with in photography when we are editing image on Photoshop and artist could change the shadows by lightening them or darkening them to change the mood – exactly what Baltermats did in his controversial image of the 1940’s (below).
As you can see, in the image, the sky looks quite dramatically dark and this is because of Baltermats efforts to alter the darkness of the shadows produced by the clouds in the sky. The original would have been much lighter but the artist chose to darken these colours in order to overall alter the mood and tone of the image. The image consist of families grieving and mourning over their loved ones lost in the war as they look lovingly yet full of grief and sadness over the dead bodes on the floor. The whole context and content is hard-hitting alone but the use of darkening the shadows in the sky has added to this but it is a way of lying in an image and it is the true representation of what was happening but it was used as a way to provoke sympathy from the audience.
There is no doubt, that generally in life, we all class a lie as something forbidden against and something it is classed as morally and ethically wrong due to its consequences that cone with it after a lie has been committed, if you like. We are taught not to lie as this is not right and may result in controversy and we always want to tell the truth but a lie can be used a s a manipulation tool to play with the minds of people, whether it be a little white lie or bigger – it has its often negative results and that’s why we intend to always speak truth – however, people can also lie through photography and imagery and cab be seen as less inflicting on society or people due to it being non-verbal – a pre-conception that it is a lie in itself because a lie in photography can be just as risky as that of information passed on by people. Therefore, the answer to whether a photograph can lie is ‘YES’, it can but the severity of the lie can depend on the hands the image may be in and how far of a lie it may be made into.
The image above (above) can even be called a lie inn photography. This is an image taken by famous celebrity and fashion portrait photographer, Rankin. The image is called ‘3 Lips’ and can be argued to be a lie and not true due the use of make-up and special effects to manipulate the physical look of the models face. Her face would originally be naturally free of make-up and instead is now caked in make-up and sequins to benefit the look of the image’s outcome – it is not a true representation of the subject as she is covered up by make-up and this is essentially a lie.
You can argue that a lie in photography is the use of Photoshop’s very handy and useful tools such as skin touch-ups and the ability to turn a slice of pizza into a ‘supermodel’ for magazine cover, and you can also argue that a lie in imagery is cropping part of an image of frame so that it is does not exist anymore, or a lie a may be manipulating an image manually, like in Jonny Briggs’ work where he uses other subjects such a chewing gum to cover the faces of two people in a portrait. However, a very iconic lie in photography is derived from the image of that of Robert Capa’s – the world-renowned war photographer whose image of a loyal soldier mid-fall from being shot by the opposing country as a result of appearing above the ditch on no man’s land (below).
The truth of the phot above was not revealed by Capa at the time it was taken and then published because he did not feel comfortable talking about it – which is understandable. In the image Capa captured above, it was amazing at the time and it has gone down in history as images that changed the notion of photography. The image shows a soldier being shot down and then falling on the ground as he releases the grip of is shot gun – and thi is what happened and what Capa captured so very conveniently ands at the perfect moment in time as he has just been impacted with the bullet and it is nit very pleasant ot see and we as the audience can feel a sense of anger towards the photographer who hasn’t done anything except see it as a perfect opportunity to take a photograph when someone is dying on a battlefield and although it is useful he documented this moment in time with his camera as it shows the camera as a tool which can act a witness for events like this, we have only recently learnt how the moment actually came about. Capa has recently spoken out about how the soldier got shot and he said that he asked the soldiers he was with for the last few days as he documented their life on the battlefields to get out of cover on this particular day and “act out war” and “play out” what war would look like and surprisingly, the soldiers did as he asked and as a result of this very light-hearted act of kindness and humour, one soldier received the inevitable punishment of putting himself out on No Man’s Land by getting shot by the opposition. So although the death of this soldier is real and true, the tragedy never has to happen and can be argued to be a lie. We struggle to see whether truth has been depicted.
Although there has been the introduction of digital photography and the ease of capturing a second in time with a digital camera and then uploading it to a computer through the advancements of technology all within a couple seconds of each other, manipulation of the reality and actual truth of images in the 19th and 20th centuries was very common.
Concept Analysis
The image above is an image of Tom Pope’s from the series ‘The Escapades of The Higher Man’. Tom Pope is a young British photographer and has previously done a residency in Jersey fro Archisle like what Jonny Briggs and Tanja Deman have just completed over the last six months of this year.
‘Escapades of a Higher Man’ is a new body of images and is derived from Nietzsche’s idea of ‘Gods successor’ as being the higher man, an un-conformist, who lives by a new set of social values and interactions. This lifestyle has potential to veer between brilliance and madness, which makes it a wonderful creative space for art to occupy.
Pope’s work is influenced by the likes of Yves Kline and in particular his 1960 image of himself diving horizontally from a rooftop onto a French street. The image below is named ‘Leap Into The Void’. Most of Pope’s work is inspired by this artist and his use of a suit that he pictures himself margin in each image. The suit becomes an outward sign of conformity, but it is worn by the artist as a means of social camouflage and to show a juxtaposition of conforming to the need to appear sophisticated yet at the same time, have fun and feel a sense of freedom. In the image below and in the images Pope has previously created and exhibited widely, we can begin tot question the notion of truth because us as ethically correct audiences feel it very wrong that this subject has appeared to be falling out of a building window and onto a street without any protection below or without any safety equipment – we force ourselves to not accept the reality of what is actually happening within the frame because it seems wrong and socially unacceptable due to the absurdity.
An image by Yves Klien in 1960, ‘Leap Into The Void’An image by Tom Pope, ‘Little Solsbury Hill’ where he is pictured as well, in a suit jumping into mid-air at during this leap, he releases the shutter of the camera to capture the picture of him levitating above ground
A concept we have to address when looking at images like the above where there is a subject floating in mid-air within the frame of a photograph without nay explanation as to how they got there is how it is manageable and how he actually managed to capture this moment in time which seems very unrealistic because it goes against the knowledge that humans cannot fly – that we belong on the ground on our feet and not floating in the air.
Many conclusions can be drawn from what is shown above and the one that is most common as Pope told me after working with him at an old school during his residency on the island, is that people assumed he had photoshopped himself into the image of the vast fields he had pre-photographed. However, this is not the case and in fact Pope has psychically jumped into the air on the edge of this hill I assume to capture the background and whilst in mid air, the camera he has set up on his tripod is connected to a shutter release remote and Pope would have this in his hand and once in the air, he would press the button to release the shutter. Using a slow shutter release speed, he as manged to capture the blurred movement of himself coming up then down again and it creates a very futuristic yet confusing concept which is actually true and real.
Now I am making the transition from set assessments based around family and environment to my own personal study and investigation where I begin to take control of what I do, I saw it necessary to felt on the work I have produced so far during the second year. I have been very archive when participating in workshops and completing tasks relating to my own personal archive and have shown a keen interest when observing the history of Jersey through it sown public archive at the Societe Jersiaise and following on from these early stages, I have really enjoyed producing my own photoshoots which encapsulates the notion of documentary and tableaux and through these processes I have had the chance to look at several new artists which have heavily influenced my artistic mind to aid my success for the rest of the year.
I have used these last couple months as a process of learning of elimination essentially; I have thrown myself into all activities to allow myself to get a full understanding as well as letting myself experience the full effects of being very much committed to my work in order for myself to understand what I personally enjoy and what I am not too keen on. This has allowed me to reject certain topics/themes that I don’t feel I can strive in as much as others – which has therefore made my decision easier now I am deciding on the outlet I want to pursue for my own personal project which will conclude in a photobook.
Being able to work with professional and world-renowned photographers such as Jonny Briggs and Tanja Deman has really expanded my horizons and matured my artistic mind as well my eye for new perspectives when using a camera because the close relationship and intimate workshops carried out with the two have been a very useful experience. As well as this, out of school, I have been actively involved in what else they had to offer and have taken full advantage of their time on the island because it is not often that you have two willing professional photographers on your doorstep to aid your own passion for photography. Through attending workshops they have held in holidays and at weekends, I have been able to work very closely with both artists and the skills learned from this has essentially been transferred into my work at school where I saw myself experimenting with new techniques and the skills learned on the workshops have benefited my confidence to be different which will play a very huge part in my own personal work in the future. Through the workshops, I had the chance to meet other likeminded people of my age and the close proximity I have had with these people has made me appreciate the creativity on the island much more.
With he two photographers immersing themselves into two very different concepts of genres of photography, it has allowed me to see the direct contrasts of two styles of photography and allowed me to realise, in my work at school as well, the format for my personal study I want to pursue. I have always had an eager interests in photographing people since I started using photography as an outlet for being creative and this has followed me through my whole experience with photography at school, however had not had the confidence to use people as focal subjects of my work until recently. This concept will be the main focus point of my work this year and I look to interlink the ideas of documentary and very “raw life” images of the actuality of our lives themselves and the use of portraiture and people who are very present in my life currently.
One of my aims for the year is to experiment and explore much more than what I have done thus far. I want to be much more contemporary in my work – evident from the work I have recently produced where I made a link between family members and their childhood memories trough objects they treasure. This contemporary approach was influenced by the likes of Alfonso Almendros and Rita Puig-Serra Costa. As opposed to last year and recent times where I have relied heavily on editing to manipulate an image heavily and produce very overpowering photo montages where the meaning and raw visual concept of the images is often ignored, this year I wish to be much more simplistic and delicate with my editing process where in portraits I will only look to enhance certain colours if needed or make a few touch ups etc.
Certain themes I enjoyed were mostly based around family and the idea of photographing the faces of the people around toy to tell a story – another idea I wish to experiment with in my work this year – to tell a visual story and this is vital in a photobook. I hope to use other various concepts such as dairy entries, notes and drawings etc. to insert into series of works to tell a narrative. As well, I hope to be much more elegant and thoughtful in the work I produce and one of my goals is to not rush things and make sure I am taking time with my processes in order to get the best outcome.
Personal Target: to be experimental and concise with my work - make sure I taking my time with my thought processes to benefit the outcome and to tell a narrative with my images - be different to what I done already.
Photojournalism is based on assumptions that the photograph represents a one-to-one correspondence with reality, which is nearly accurate and adequate, and that the photographic image is capable of conveying information objectively.Traditional documentary believes the viewer to be a receptive subject taking in the objective information of the world through the photograph.
Photographs can be interpreted differently to how the photographer planned for it to be perceived. This can change the meaning of the images or what the photo is perceived to be for example Rorschach Inkblot test shows how different people interpret images differently and how this means different things about the individual’s unconscious mind. When you look at an image you can ask yourself whether the image is a truthful image or fiction by asking yourself questions about the particular images. Doing research into the photo and the photographer who took the image can tell you a lot about the image itself and what the meaning behind the image might have been. The photographs can be staged, which means the photographer would have had actors act out a particular scene. The photographs could also be a snapshot of a scene happening in front of the photographs eyes, which they then document.
“I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.”
-James Nachtwey-
James Nachtwey, Rwanda - Survivor of Hutu death camp, 1994
Propaganda
Photographs can be used as a form of Propaganda.This is the belief that Photographs are used to raise awareness (good or bad) of particular issues and can be made to represent a particular point of view. This is often used in politics, voluntary organisations and charity to promote their organisation to request support from the public. In war, governments and the media use propaganda as a ‘weapon’ to encourage patriotism and promote national interests. These images can also however change the public’s attitude or opinion on specific events happening within the world.
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is concerned with what is a good work of art, principles of taste and traditional systems of what is deemed beautiful in art. Thus the aesthetics of photography have been concerned with formal matters such as composition, subject-matter, form, medium and style. It has also encompassed questions of technique.A photographer such as Sebastiao Salgado has been criticized for anesthetising the poor and deprived through his unique visual style, mastery of technical skill and highly detailed and artful prints which renders his subject matter almost too beautiful.
By Sebastiao Salgado
Huynh Cong (Nick Ut),Trangbang, Route 1, South Vietnam, 8 June 1972
This image was taken by Huynh Cong during the vietnam war. The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The divisive war, increasingly unpopular at home, ended with the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973 and the unification of Vietnam under Communist control two years later. More than 3 million people, including 58,000 Americans, were killed in the conflict.
This was a chilling photograph that came to symbolise the horrors of the Vietnam War and ultimately, helped to end it. This image was taken just before the photographer saved the life of Kim Phuc, who is the second child from the left and has no clothing on her skin. She was 9 years old at the time as she was attacked by south Vietnamese planes, who sent Napalm bombs down to kill civilians. This is a flammable liquid used in warfare. It is a mixture of a gelling agent and either gasoline (petrol) or a similar fuel. It was initially used as an incendiary device against buildings and later primarily as an anti-personnel weapon, as it sticks to skin and causes severe burns when on fire.
On the 40th anniversary of the iconic photograph, she invited all the people who helped her during this time to a dinner. These were doctors, nurses, who treated her injuries as well as the photographer Huynh Cong, who took the image and also other journalists.
The photographer took the photograph, then immediately after drove the badly burned child to a small hospital, where he was told she was too far gone to help. He flashed his American press badge, demanded that doctors treat the girl.
Mr. Ut said “I cried when I saw her running. If I didn’t help and she died I would have killed myself.”
“It changed the war. I met so many American Soldiers who said ‘Nicky because of your picture, i’ll get to go home early”
The photograph ‘Napalm Girl’ is a picture of young children running down a road in Vietnam on June 8th 1972. The children all have a look of sheer terror and fear on their faces, and it seems as though they are running away from something horrific. Behind the children there are some soldiers, who do not look phased by what is happening, and who aren’t helping the injured children in any way, but instead herding them down the street. There is a huge contrast between the two different subjects. The children are helpless and hopeless, screaming for aid. They look small and weak. The soldiers however are tall and powerful, with their guns and helmets. They are not injured and are not conveying any emotion. In the background, it is clear that there has been an explosion of some sort as there are clouds of smoke billowing from the ground, and the area looks destroyed and damaged. The main subject in the picture is a naked young girl, who looks like she is in extreme pain. This girl is Kim Phuc.
There were a few issues associated with this image, one reason he claimed the photo had been fixed was that he thought the journalists and photographers were trying to make the war look more horrific and dramatic than it actually was. The photo had not been fixed in the slightest. This was very much evident when interviews were had with the Kim herself and stories told about her.
Another issue that was raised about the photo was the fact that there was a naked young girl in it. The photo was taken in the 70s and there had not been images of naked children released before this. However, you can argue that the image was too important to be hidden from the world. It showed the victims of war, a war that had not before been thought seriously about by anyone else around the world except the victims of it. So even though the sight of the naked young girl could have been an issue, it was overlooked, as the story behind the picture itself was far more important.
The image is a snapshot, showing what the photographer had seen in this particular moment. The theme of the photograph is war brings pain to the innocent, which is an extremely powerful message.
“Based on your chosen themes, FAMILY or ENVIRONMENT make two images, one that you consider truthful and one that is not.”
This image has been manipulated using photoshop, the original photograph is of the upper arm, cutting off at the elbow, I decided to insert a hand just after the elbow, which was included in a different photograph. This is an example of manipulating the truth in an image, to make it untrue. This was inspired by Asger Carlsen as he uses different parts of the individuals body to create an image. I them experimented with photographs I had taken myself and used varies parts of the same body to form an image. This is taking the truth and making it untrue by adapting it. This is something that is seen as abnormal to this generation, however in the 60’s this was common as the government had persuades pregnant woman to take a pill to help the babies growth. This lead to babies in that generation to be born with shortened limbs as a result of this drug thalidomide, it was told it would help the woman with their morning sickness. The drug impacted the fetus, leading to thousands of woman blaming themselves for their “thalidomide babies.” This image I have created therefore is partly true and partly untrue, which shows how hard it is to claim a photograph to be true. This image represents something that was true, the “thalidomide babies.” However the image itself is not true as it has been manipulated to look this way.
Examples of Asger Carlsen’s work:
Drowned Syrian boy
A paramilitary police officer carries the lifeless body of Alan Kurdi off the coast of Bodrum, Turkey, where he was found. Photographer: Nilufer Demir from Turkey’s Dogan News Agency
Can change the world or change people’s perception?
In the summer of 2015, this three-year-old Syrian boy of Kurdish origins and his family fled the war engulfing their country, hoping to join relatives in the safety of Canada. They were part of a historic flow of refugees from the Middle East to Europe this year, and they followed the dangerous route taken by so many others. The family crowded onto a small inflatable boat on the beach of Bodrum, Turkey. A few minutes into the journey to Greece, the dinghy capsized. Alan, his older brother Ghalib and his mother Rihanna all drowned, joining the more than 3,600 other refugees who died in the eastern Mediterranean this year. This is where Alan’s story would have ended, were it not for the work of a photographer.
This photograph shocked the population and changed their opinion on war and the killings of thousands of civilians. This provoked the debate of whether an image could potentially change the world or change people’s perception. ” Great achievements have been piled around the totem of photography.” This can result in “environmental awareness” and “conclusions of armed conflicts.” However, a photograph itself “bits of paper” can’t change the world but photographs can change people’s perception and their views and opinions can change the world. When seeing an image, a viewer can not possibly claim that seeing this photograph of a drowned child is the same as experiencing the situation with your own eyes, but knowing that their is a drowned child, who has died as a consequence of situations which might be more “within our power to change,” This means that by the public voicing their concerns, changes will have to take place as the activities will be frowned upon socially, which would decrease the amount of countries participating in war. The photographs “present the idea that things are happening, or exist, or are possible.” This brings the worlds problems to the public eye, photographs have the power to “change the ways we see and understand the world and want to act in it.” However, some images are capable of influencing for the worse, of reinforcing negative attitudes and unrealistic expectations about the world, which makes the influence on the public a negative thing as some images may lie or deceive the public by editing the image to make it look different to how it was seen through the eyes of the photographer, leading the public to believe the photograph is real. I personally, do not feel this is the case for the Syrian boy as I do not feel this is a staged image. However, the image could have been cropped or focused on that particular part, we as viewers do not see the full scene making it difficult for us to judge what is really happening at the scene. The beach could have been filled with washed up bodies, it may not have just been him but we do not get to see this, we are only shown what the photographer wants us to see. This makes it hard for the public to really know if an image is a truthful images or a staged image.
A photograph cannot change the world we live in by bringing it them to light, however “the real impetus is on us to respond to the things we feel when we view certain photographs and to decide to make things change.” This is what makes photographs so powerful. It’s not what the photograph consists of but it’s how it makes people feel and how it makes people want to react and change. The story got published in varies newspapers, a sand sculpture had been made on the beach in his memory and a cartoon characters were made all in his memory as it hit the hearts of many people. In conclusion, images themselves cannot change the world and things going on in it, however it can make people feel something resulting in them making a change to the way they live, changing the world they live in.
Photographs can lie by being manipulated, in order to change or influence our opinion of something. This therefore poses the question of reliability. Some cases I would argue that these photographs trying to manipulate our opinion are reliable because they want to show us the truth which changes our opinion. However more often than not, photo manipulation often exaggerates, slants the truth in favor of the message the photographer is trying to convey. This can be potentially harmful as it leads to the population to take the photographer’s opinion of a certain event as truthful, even if it is shot in the style of documentary photography. Photographers could argue that they are simply taking what they see through documenting the world. However the photographer is documenting the world in a way in which he perceives it, leaving out certain elements that contradict the documenting of his view on the world. Therefore we have to consider before acting on a certain photograph of how useful an image is in helping us find out about something rather than treat it as factual trust. This is because the photographer may for example being trying to express his political beliefs in the photograph which we have to acknowledge before we treat it as accurate.
Essentially the date of the photograph is very important in the sense that as humans from different generations look at a specific photograph, the morals of each generation change as time goes on and so the opinions towards the message the photographer is conveying changes. For example in the photograph below, at the time in 1945 and in America it would of been seen as a patriotic shot celebrating the death of fascism in Europe. However in more modern days, facts have come to light over the years of what the US army and her allies did when invading Nazi occupied Europe and so the photograph leaves out the context in what the US soldiers did in order so that one day, they could raise their flag that is portrayed as so patriotic.
Furthermore in respect of this last point, it is important to note what the photograph is showing, and how much, whether it be a lot or a little which ultimately helps affect our reliability rating towards a picture. In considering the provenance, it helps the viewer determine not just for example the photographer’s motives, but the wider context in how the photographer’s motives fit into the opinions of society, which helps us to understand whether much of society agreed with the photographer or not. Therefore the location of where the photograph was taken is important but also where the photograph was published. The location of the photograph which was taken in Japan, from a Japanese man’s perspective would view the photograph as these imperialists invading their country. Where it was published, in America, the general view of society would be one which is proud and honored that shows the US major role in the world.
This allows us to get onto the topic of propaganda which was particularly important in warfare in the early to mid – twentieth century which could be an example of this photograph, whereas in nowadays we see the levels of blunt propaganda as more unacceptable because propaganda in our generation is much more subtle.
Now I wanted to have a go at taking some photographs which may not tell the entirety of the truth in terms of their content. I chose to shoot some relatives walking with a slow shutter speed, adding a blurred effect that would later mean the viewer would question who the identity’s of these people are. By altering the photograph in a way so that the presence of these people is mysterious, the truth is tilted in the sense we don’t know the identity, the purpose, the reason as to whay they are there and what they are doing.
Here are examples of excellent Personal Studies from last couple of years from students very personal and mature subjects.
Jasmin Ross: Handle With Care
I have made a book which is called Handle With Care, it is about the history of St Saviours hospital from when it first opened in 1869 to when it closed. The layout of the book starts from the outside, goes inside then, then you meet 3 patients, it stays inside then it goes outside again to finish the book. My book is 108 pages and it has a combination of text, double page spreads and single image pages. My book is split into two parts of Archival material which was the basis of my work which i went a collected and photographed then next part is of my own images which i made of the outside of the abandoned building.
Rosanna Armstrong: His Master’s Voice
Overall I have found my personal study project very interesting. Assisting with the wider project in collaboration with the Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive and National Trust has meant that I have been involved with research and discoveries as well as having access to exciting photographic opportunities. I was originally introduced to the collection of Francis Foot’s photographs in October last year while interring at the SJ Photographic Archive and since then have been involved in a lot of work developing a project around it in connection to the building restorations. I started by researching the family and history of the buildings and familiarising myself with the collection by updating the database. One of the most interesting areas of my project was actually visiting the buildings while they were in the process of being restored. This allowed me to connect the knowledge of the past to the present and explore the idea of preserving built heritage in connection to the historical photographic aspect. This relates to my interest in local history and the development of photography as an art form. Having knowledge of the past inhabitants reflects the human side of buildings and memories and traces associated with them. Some of the small details such as the image found behind the mirror and writing on the walls were particularly striking examples of this. It has also been interesting to explore family portraiture throughout time and conduct various shoots with my own family including one specifically connected to the Foot Shops.
Nina Powell:Jersey Folklore Beliefs and superstitions revolving around mythical characters in Jersey, Channel Island are common. The ancient lanes overhung with vegetation look almost like dark tunnels leading into the unknown. Unexplained ruins dotted around the coast add to the air of mystery and Island people with a long and proud history have many stories to tell which have been passed down from generation to generation. In this photo book I have explored three of Jerseys most famous and well-known legends, portraying each one with a series of environmental portraits, studio shots and landscape photographs. The first legend tells the story of the poor Bride of Waterworks Valley, the second shows the demonic presence down at Devil’s Hole and the third looks into the many tales of Witchcraft in Jersey. This project is my response to the provided themes of ‘truth, fantasy and fiction’, as well as the beautiful depictions of myths created by other photographers. My aim for this photo book was to recreate some of our islands most interesting history using beautiful and insightful visuals. By doing this I hope to bring these legends back to life in this colourful yet ominous series.
Cerian Mason:Untitled
I produce a large amount of documentary style images revolving around the more shadowed teenage social life. This involves being in a lot of places we shouldn’t be, drinking too much and probably a little more nudity that this blog is ready for. Below is a selection of my project work over the last few weeks presenting a range of locations – from abandoned hotels to out of hours nightclubs – featuring my friends being strange and causing trouble. There are some clear trends in the image I create such as the selective palettes and tight range of colours and the positioning of characters – these images were not directed at all though the figures were of course aware I was photographing them. This photobook was made using bookwright software and will be printed as a portrait A4 project. Many of the design ideas for this projects are inspired from artists and graphic designers I have studied over the last two years such as Lotta Nieminen. Studying the graphic designer’s personal projects. I took particular notice of the image layouts and use of overlapping text. There is a carefully controlled colour palette and minimalistic design which aids the presentation of images in such a publication. Benjamin Koh’s project work again has a strong graphic theme which uses a muted colour palette to emphasize the continued sense of photographic narrative. His pages tend to be uncluttered and minimal which draws attention to the graphic images in each of the carefully constructed double-page spreads. These elements were crucial to my own work, ensuring that images would be easily visible and clearly presented.
Max Hillman: The Getaway
There is a consistency of monochrome tones and grainy, heavy contrasted images. Throughout my project I have looked at documentary photographers such as Larry Clark and Jacob Sobol, and upon reviewing their work i have grown a love for their styles. The layout and the order of the images is important as the book needs to flow, almost the same way a story does. I need to find similar groups of images and order them carefully one by one so the book feels as if it has a narrative. I started with a small, shadow filled image of my face as the book is about my teenage life with friends. I followed this by a double sided silhouette of a friend in the school car park leaning up against a car. I wanted to start the book of with images based around friends and our utilisation of cars. These next pages were organised to follow the theme around cars, starting with another image of friends in the school car park between lessons, leading to images in cars at night time.
Gio Rios: Home Sweet Home?
In terms of my title, I called my book ‘home sweet home?’. This is of course a common household saying, that I have added a question mark to. Due to the fact that my home life is fairly broken and has been on and off my entire life, which makes it far from ‘sweet’. On the first page within my book I write the quote ‘family means no one gets left behind or forgotten’. This is controversial from the start, as my farther had done exactly this from my birth, which is ultimately what stems my thoughts and feelings towards a lot of my family life and the reasons for the decisions made within this book.
Here I feature a stand alone image of an ultrasound of me. This is used to imply that I am the center of this book and that this is my own representation. The inclusion of juxtaposing images, put alongside one another, help to emphasise my emotions towards certain characters within my book.
My granddad is someone who has consistently been in and out of my life, throughout my upbringing. Therefore I feature him alongside a set of spiraling stairs to imply that he has spiraled out of my life.
Rochelle Merhet: Ryan
The first step I took to my project inspired by the work of the artists I have studied and discussed was look at my own archived family photographs. I have a huge selection taken by my parents featuring me and my brother, many appeared very informal depicting me and my brother playing and laughing at each other, which gave the ability to see the relationship between me and my brother and how it has developed. Much like any family album, these photographs share a very personal importance to me. I wanted to use photographs that depicted who I was as well as my brother in my book as a way of a candid reflection of what my childhood was like and how I felt about it. Similar to the work of Carolle Benitah I wanted to make physical alterations to the photographs to further explore the notion of nostalgia, memories and the relationships between family members, in particular between me and my brother. I wanted use their project as a way to further understand myself through the use of memories and photographs to build and develop and understanding of who me and my brother are today and in particular our differences which are created from the notion of ‘nature and nurture’.
Matthew Knapman: Is that My Blue Butterfly?
The research of both these artists informed and influenced my personal project, which focused on the life of my mother who is currently diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. She was originally diagnosed with breast cancer in Easter 2014, but when the cancer has spread to other parts of the body, it is called metastatic cancer. The liver, lungs, lymph nodes, and bones are common areas of spread of metastasis. Using art and physical materials, I wanted to draw into and edit the photographs I take in order to illustrate my emotions and what my mother is going through. The physical art would be a visual guide to the audience, telling a story regarding the illness. This is something that I was excited to do, given my passion and abilities in art and design. I can draw, scratch or edit the photograph using chemicals and other kinds of destructive methods. This can demonstrate some kind of investigation into the relationship between traditional art and Photography as mediums. This is something that I touched upon for my AS project.
Christianna Knight: Women of Yesterday
During my personal study I enjoyed having freedom to explore my own ideas and take inspiration from artists and photographers that I am interested in. I was very inspired by Cindy Sherman’s work, I wanted to explore themes such as masquerade, costumes and stereotypes which are very present in Sherman’s studio portraits. When first collecting ideas as to what I should base my project on I decided I wanted to explore female stereotypes through costume and studio portraits. However, with so many stereotypes existing within my gender I decided to create a series of portraits depicting stereotypes from each decade of the 20th Century. As I was born in 1998, I was looking at these stereotypes with a retrospective. I also kept feminist theory in mind, relating my stereotypes to important movements in feminist history including the three main waves as well as smaller social victories for women. I felt that this project was very successful and that each decade was well planned and executed and that the nine image work well as a series.
Max Le Feuvre: Untitled My photo-book is based around my Grandfather. He died 30 years ago and so I never got the chance to meet him. I wanted therefore to find out more about him and develop an understanding of what he may have been like if I had got to know him. This project was therefore very much about exploring and investigating the theme of absence, a story based around someone who is no directly part of it. I photographed off and on for 9 months to create this project, re-tracing my Grandfather’s steps and using photography to express my findings. Archival resources in particular have played a huge part in my project, especially through the access I have had from the Société Jersiaise Photographic Archives, and the resources I have found play as much a part in this story as does my own responses. I wanted to make my images and narrative feel as simplistic and personal as possible and so I constructed my photo-book by hand, I style I believe gives my work a quirky, old-fashioned feel.
Shannon O’Donnell: Shrinking Violet
Shrinking Violet stemmed from a short film that I created as part of my project of my mother. I made a film based around an interview that I did with my mum and made it up of archival images as well as documenting her everyday life. Part of the interview sparked my interest when she said ‘I’m not one of those shrinking violets in the work place’. This caught my attention as I see her role as simply doing what is expected of her, something that I want to challenge through my photographic work. This brought on the idea for creating a parody shoot where I dress as a persona, similar to my mum, and pose around the house mimicking the role I see my mum portray. I wanted this photo book to embody the traditional role of women our society perceives and for spectators to view the images I have created to recognise themselves, their mothers, their sisters and their wives. Gender defines everyone and, at times, can be limiting. It makes us feel that we need to belong and conform to the expectations placed on us at birth solely on whether we were born male or female.
Watch her film below about feminism, her mother and her role in the family. This film was the starting point for her photographs above by re-staging herself as a domisticated female
“Good friends make you face the truth about yourself and you do the same for them, as painful, or as pleasurable, as the truth may be.” – Corinne Day
An autobiography is an account of the life of a person written by that person. In other words, it is the story that a person wrote about themselves. My inspiration for this study came from memories that are forgotten, and the ‘things’ that re-jog our brains to remember them. These could be objects from a childhood collection box or a set of images from a blurry holiday. For this piece of work I attempted to join two ways of memory revival into a book as well as a layout presenting some of my final images.
Hayli Ducker: My Bones Hurt
I took huge inspiration from photographers such as Thilde Jensen, Jo Spence and Francesca Woodman, these three photographers all explored their illnesses through photography which I thought would help me come to accept my diagnosis. As Jo Spence explained, photography can be used as therapy, “literally using photography to heal ourselves.” Through taking these photographs to document my illness like a diary I came to terms with it and learnt to adapt and slowly started to be able to have a normal life again just at a slower pace than before. For me this was a difficult subject matter to explore as I try and keep it rather private, friends know about it but I try to keep it private from classmates and the general public. I don’t want people to look at me differently and I found I felt rather vulnerable exposing the one thing I do my best to hide.
Jessica Freire: Domestic
My personal study is about my mother who immigrated to Jersey in 1987, from a disadvantaged background in the hopes of having a better life. My mother is the eldest child of six, who grow up in a village called Machico on the south east side of the Island of Madeira. After leaving school at the age of 9 to work on the land to provide for her family, she developed a hard working discipline. Currently, she is the breadwinner within my family working in five different jobs all within the domestic area. In my personal study I am exploring how my mum’s role as a breadwinner abdicates from her culture and stereotypical role within a household.
Sian Cumming: The Butler As a photographer, it is important for me to express details about my life to almost create a biography through photographs. I chose to use my dad for my project as his job has impacted my life since day 1. My dad is the Butler for the Lieutenant Governor of Jersey and has enabled me to have an insight into the life of royalty. My dad’s responsibilities are; ensuring the house events run smoothly, he also manages the house staff and liaises with his Excellency and Lady Mc Cole for all their requirements. I have lived in the grounds of Government House all my life and have truly honoured living here. Our tight community has really impacted my life and the way I am, as I also work as a waitress for Government House functions, I have been taught the type of service required for the Governor and his guests by my Dad himself. It was an honour to follow the footsteps of my dad and what he does at work and for the Governor to allow me take photographs of him off duty was a privilege in itself. To me, family is the most important aspect in life, it’s the root to our personality. Family is the single most important influence in a child’s life. From your first moments of life, you depend on parents and family to protect and provide for your needs. They form your first relationships with other people and are your role models throughout life. Researching into the way different photographs express the notion of home was truly inspiring and made me want to produce something that shows how my life has been
Link to her blog https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo16a2/author/scumming05/ Viviana Maia: Destruction is Creation
I created this photographic book called “Creation Is Destruction” as an outlet to show how not everything we see is the truth. As part of our exam project, I decided to focus on the theme of truth to be able to have a chance of telling my own version of events that have occurred throughout my life. The main theme of my photo book is the sense that when you destroy something, you forget that you are always creating something new. I used that notion to therefore allow myself to create a whole new truth about who I am, where I came from and what it all means to me. I decided to use archival images from when I was a child as well as images taken from family photo albums which I then digitalised and this is when I began my destruction process. I ripped up, stitched together, erased people and added people to my photographs to create a new truth and a new sense of reality that, at that time I still had no idea what it was going to be until I left everything I grew up with behind and started a whole new life in a completely different place.
Holly Benning: Three Chapters I have explored how the invisible can be captured and portrayed through the medium of photography. And why memories hold such a powerful influence over our past, present and future. I have looked at what makes a photograph meaningful, what gives a photograph reality and how through photography the memory of a person can live on. My project focused on exploring the invisible through three female generation’s memories; this included my grandmother, my mother and myself. These distinctive viewpoints enabled my project to become more personal and really seek the depths of my grandfather’s life. I think memory is more than simply remembering a once present thought, but it is about connecting with the past in order for it to live on. We are made up of fragmented memories and forgotten dreams. Our entirety rests in the fate of old letters, burnt photographs and meaningless possessions. We never question the invisible, it is as though we are on a relentless pursuit to try and capture what we cannot see. We abide by the rules and limitations that are enforced by the concept of death. But what happens to those who become untouchable, those who are no longer part of the flux. Their existence becomes empty and lost; they are no longer perceptible to the eye. We yearn to cherish the ‘good’ memories and except the restrictions we are faced with, regarding mortality. In doing so, the feeling of life is created; the tangibility of pleasure and pain enters our worlds and consumes us. But, photographs hold heritage and meaning, they have a depth of knowledge and feeling to them.
Bryony Sanderson: Gie us a wee word wi’ yer Mum:
The title of this work is phrase I would hear both my Scottish Grandparents say almost every time I answered the phone. During this project, I focused on my Scottish Heritage and the difficultly living in Jersey has bought to our relationship with my Grandparents.
Bryony’s exam project:Artificial
Being surrounded and fascinated in the prosthetic world through my parents’ occupation, I felt that this to be an appropriate area to explore under the theme flaws and imperfections. From the moment the idea sprung to mind, I knew this was going to be a challenge, being well aware it would push my abilities as an amateur photographer. However, I was firm in my decision to pursue this, making it my goal to depict the power, strength and determination of amputees, and how in-fact, their ‘imperfection’ or ‘flaw’ as some would call it, is certainly not a flaw at all. Stuart Penn, the focus of my photographs, was such a pleasure to work and a huge inspiration, giving us the powerful message that anything really is possible. I feel honoured to have had the opportunity of taking his photographs and gaining insight into his incredible lifestyle.
Eve Ozouf A Lekker Christmas For this project I captured the highlights of my family holiday to Durban, South Africa for Christmas 2014. The images were captured in a documentary style, which is my preferred approach as I enjoy capturing family life as well as landscapes where human activity has occurred. The word ‘Lekker’ which I used to describe my Christmas means ‘good’ in the native language of Afrikaans. My photographs show a variety of environments that South Africa has to offer with its vast land including urban built up areas to the deserted African plains. Some images show the ‘Durbanite’ way of life, including where my 14-year-old cousin demonstrates how to use my grandfather’s rifle to shoot the annoyingly noisy ‘Hadeda’ birds. South Africa is full of vibrant colours and textures which I particularly focused on when producing this body of work as a photograph isn’t just about how it looks, it’s how you imagine it feeling. A lot of experimentation was used to bring out different styles of photography including slow shutter speeds to dramatise events such as the bonfire sprites floating towards the sky. For me, these images capture the quality of life South Africa has to offer and should make the viewers want to visit this beautiful country for themselves.
Oliver Sharman You’s Company, Me’s a Crowd is a photo book in an autobiographical form, whereby I am re-enacting events that occurred in my recent life, venturing from visiting my brother at university and the hungover pain this brough, to partying and hanging out with friends in all manner of ways and the aftermath of this. So, here is an insight into me, often eventful life of a teen in the island of Jersey.
Matt Palmer: I Need A Shovel is the story of my Granddad, the house he has lived in since the 1960s and the clearing out of the house as it is now need to be sold. The name of this project came from my Dad. Him and a couple of others when ahead to my Granddad’s house whilst I went with my Aunt to pick my Granddad up. My Dad had the job of removing the upstairs toilet, which, when it stopped working, my Granddad kept on using it until it overflowed. When my Aunt and I arrived the first thing my Dad said to his sister was ‘I Need A Shovel.’ We all found that line funny when we heard it and then that line just stuck with me.
Lots of people can see little bits of themselves when they see my granddad’s hoarding, be it from collecting newspapers, or postcards, or whatever they’ve collected, it can all be related to what my Granddad has done over the past 50 years.
It is a growing problem. The family need to sell the house as the people next door want to buy the house, however, my Granddad doesn’t want anything to go or be moved. I feel that this could be happening to lots of people across not just the UK but the world. This project will speak to lots of families who are facing the same problem.
Matt Palmer: A Little Bit Longer: Not all disabilities are visible. You could know some your whole life and never know that they have a severe, life-long condition. On Tuesday 14th July 2009, I was diagnosed with an invisible illness; Diabetes Mellitus Type 1, a condition when the pancreas in the body loses the ability to produce insulin independently. Day to day, my life hasn’t changed; however, I have to inject myself four times a day, and manually balance my sugar levels for the rest of my life.
As diabetes is something you cannot see, it was very hard to photograph it. I took inspiration from Elinor Carucci, an Israeli-American photographer who photographed herself with her children from when she was pregnant, through the birth to her children growing up. Her work involves very revealing, close-up self-portraits to capture her emotions. I found this style to be inspiring in capturing one’s self, and adopted this style into my own.
This is the first time I have ever turned the camera on myself. You would think it would be hard, however, it was just like I was being a model for someone else, and since I’m very open, talking about my diabetes, I found it easy to show my emotions. Photographing events from having low blood sugar level in the middle of the night, to a regular check-up at the diabetes Centre, to an eye-screening at the hospital, and the different physiological outcomes I had to injure, all within one week.
Tom Rolls: Angel; The Perfect being? With this work, I am exploring Angels in relation to the project brief “Perfection/Imperfection” which I chose as part of my A2 final Photography exam. Throughout the project, my aim was to rekindle an idea of the Angelic being in relation to different people’s perceptions; for faith, protection, happiness, balance etc. I spoke with a number of different people about their definition of an Angel and what it meant to them.
I interviewed my local church vicar who gave me a very brought insight into angels in both a religious and personal sense. I came away bewildered at the fact that Angels are a very important part of people’s lives, and realised that there is a whole other dimension to the subject. Having researched and gained enough primary knowledge, I began transforming these different perceptions into my own interpretations and pieced together a visual binding of all the ways in which an Angel spoke to me through others. I made a film which documents my journey in the sense of exploring what angels actually symbolise today, and how its image and meaning has changed over time. I hope you will also find this a journey for yourself and come away reflecting on this inner dimension from your own personal viewpoint. Are angels in fact the perfect being, or is it in fact their imperfections which make them so sacred?
In retrospect, it’s clear I have thoroughly enjoyed the photography course as a whole over the past fourteen months. Being given the opportunity to capture images which will be assessed and given critical feedback by professionals is a very beneficial and enjoyable experience.
In Year 12, there was a particular freedom when capturing images which enabled us to work around a camera and explore a multitude of areas in order to find our own photographic style. Through this liberation, I was able to analysis and create my own images in relation to particular photographic genres, for example typologies. Although I couldn’t conjure up a meaningful image to photograph, I really enjoyed that subject which I could follow up in Year 13 but with more knowledge and photographic experience. Furthermore, I enjoyed landscape work that consisted of photographing buildings and suburban areas as I could explore unique angles and pay attention to infrastructure that we usually ignore, opening my eyes to the world around me more. Overall, I believe that was the most beneficial and significant factor about the photography course; opening my eyes to things I never noticed and took for granted. Photography has allowed me to become more open and more appreciative of the world around me.
In this image, I took four typology styled photographs of a garlic from all different angles and cut them up into even pieces of paper and stuck four of them together to create a refaced clove of garlic. I thoroughly enjoyed this hands on approach to photography.
For the future, I am looking forward to creating a collection of subversive photographs in order to create a visual rebellion against the powers that control, or once controlled our society. A focus on religion and death gives me an opportunity to link my three favourite subjects; English Literature, History and Photography altogether and create a memorable and hopefully influential piece of work or series of images, combined with writing which is another passion of mine.
In response to working towards this sense of subversion, I created a mood-board to help depict and draft some ideas together in order to chose the best route to go down to fulfill my photographic potential and to select what would best fit.
Following my drafting, I am contemplating and conjuring up a method of combining the stages of grief, the setting of a church and the services you associate with a church with the struggle of adolescent life and finding identity.
Tony Howell is “one of England’s finest Landscape photographers”, born in 1960 in Plymouth. I stumbled across this photographer whilst researching significant church photographs as his work was a prominent and regular feature in my search. I began to explore him directly and identify Howell’s different images of churches which gave me inspiration to create a church based typology. Admittedly, Howell is a commercial photographer whose main purpose is to sell judging by the information provided on him website, however, you cannot fault his work for this.
I would like to expand on this idea of subversion and inversion by ridiculing the influence and the power of the church. No religion in particular would be targeted but merely objecting against the concept of religious faiths. I’ve considered buying a priest or pope costumes and acting like a struggling or naughty adolescent in their clothing. This would coincide with the stages of grief, especially with the aspect and emotion of anger.
PERSONAL INVESTIGATION
You must produce a coherent body of work that demonstrates your knowledge and understanding of both practical and theoretical issues in contemporary photography and lens-based media. You can explore your ideas across different media from stills-photography, moving image to installation adopting an interdisciplinary approach to image-making by making references to other subjects that you may study or have an interest in, such as English Literature, Psychology, Philosophy, History, Media, Art or Science.
The aim of your Personal Investigation is to critically investigate, question and challenge a particular style, area or work by artists/ photographer(s) which will inform and develop your own visual language and emerging practice as a student of photography. The unit is designed for you to expand your interest, knowledge, skills and understanding of photography, and consider what makes your work special and personal to you!
We began exploring the themes of FAMILY or ENVIRONMENT in June when Tanja Deman and Jonny Briggs delivered a series of workshops to inspire you with new ways of thinking and making.
There is 7 weeks to complete your Personal Investigation and produce a number of quality final outcomes, prints, video, installations that will be submitted for the exhibition, Constructed Narratives at the Jersey Arts Centre 27 Nov. Tanja, Jonny and Gareth Syvret will be curating and making the final selection of work to be exhibited.
Now it is time for you to consider which theme you want to explore in depth, how you will do it and why?
DEADLINE WED 22 NOV
The options are for you to continue to explore FAMILY or decide to focus on ENVIRONMENT, or a combination of both – if possible.
– The focus this academic year is to develop your skills as Visual Storytellers across different genres such as documentary photographyand tableaux photography examining ways that photographers use a variety of narrative and reflective techniques associated with photojournalism and contemporary photographic practice. See here for inspirations from previous students Personal Study where subjects such as Family and Environment were explored.
If you choose ENVIRONMENT we want you to use this past exam paper as starting point for your creative journey. In addition, we have put together other exciting and creative starting points for you to choose as inspirations for your continued work. You should approach this as a MOCK exam where you now have 7 weeks to complete a project.
HOW TO BEGIN: Read the Exam Paper and Contextual References booklet thoroughly, especially pages 2-4 and page 7 which details specific starting points and approaches to the exam theme – make notes! Brainstorm your idea and research artists listed – look also at starting points in other disciplines e.g. Fine Art and Graphic Communication etc. Begin to gather further information, collect images, make a mood-board and mind-map, make plans and write a specification, start to take pictures and make a response to initial research. You must show evidence of the above on your blog– complete at least 4-5 blog posts.
PLANNER – TRACKING: This unit requires you to produce an appropriate number of blog posts that charts charts you project from from conception to completion and must show evidence of:
Research and exploration of your ideas
Recorded your experiences and observations
Analysis and interpretation of things seen, imagined or remembered
Experimentation with materials, processes and techniques
Select, evaluate and develop ideas further through sustained investigation
Show connections between your work and that of other artists/ photographers
Each week you are required to make a photographic response (still-images and/or moving image) that relates to the research and work that you explored in that week. Sustained investigations means taking a lot of time and effort to produce the best you can possibly do – reviewing, modifying and refining your idea and taking more pictures to build up a strong body of work with a clear sense of purpose and direction
Fill in the above 8 Week Planner by Fri 13 Oct.
Use PLANNING-TRACKING-PERSONAL INVESTIGATION-AUTUMN-TERMfor a full overview of what you are required to do in the next 8 weeks. You are required to self-monitor your progress and will be asked to upload Tracking-Sheet with an update on a weekly basis to your blog.
To achieve a top marks we need to see a coherent progression of quality work from start to finish following these steps:
TASKS: Make blog posts with evidence of the following:
REVIEW > REFLECTION
1. Produce a blog post that reflects on your work you have produced so far, including workshops by Tanja and Jonny. Describe which themes, artists, approaches, skills and photographic processes inspired you the most and why. Provide an overview of what you learned and include examples of previous work to illustrate your thinking.
RESEARCH > ANALYSIS 2. Gather as many visual inspirations as possible that may help you to develop your response to your chosen theme. Look at a range of visual material – photographs, films, paintings, drawings, design etc that provide some inspiration for you in the way you want to develop your idea. Make a mood-board and a mind-map and produce at least 4-5 blog posts that illustrate your thinking and understanding. Use pictures and annotation and make a photographic response to initial research!
3. Artists references: Select at least two new photographers and write a thoughtful analysis of each artists and consider how their work is referencing your chosen theme(s) and ideas. Discuss the subject-matter, content, concept, context, construction, composition, camera, then compare, contrast and critique.
Ask yourself: What? Why? How?
Produce a mood board with a selection of images.
Provide analysis of their work and explain why you have chosen them and how it relates to your idea and the theme of FAMILY
Select at least 2 key images and analyse in depth, FORM (describe what you see, composition, use of light etc), MEANING (interpretation, subject-matter, what is the photographer trying to communicate), JUDGEMENT (evaluation, how good is it?), CONTEXT (history and theory of art/ photography/ visual culture,link to other’s work/ideas/concept)
Incorporate quotes and comments from artist themselves or others (art critics, art historians, curators, writers, journalists etc) using a variety of sources such as Youtube, online articles, reviews, text, books etc.
reference sources and embed links to the above sources in your blog post
Make a photographic response to your research into the work of others.
Remember to MAKE YOUR BLOG POST VISUAL and include relevant links, podcasts, videos where possible.
Use this model of critical analysis for looking at images
PLANNING > RECORDING 4. Write a Specification: Finding your voice and unique way to tell a story. As a photographer you are always looking for photo-opportunities and for stories that only you can tell. Try and find a personal angle on a story which will make it unique and choose a subject you have access to and can photograph in depth. Write a specification with 2-3 ideas about what you are planning to do; how, who, when, where and why – based around the theme of Family or Environment and Illustrate with images/ examples.
5. In the next 3-4 weeks you need to plan and record at least 4-5 shoots and make around 250-400 photographs. If you need access to a place, visit family members or a group of people you may need to arrange appointments/ organise dates/times etc. Try and complete one photo-shoot per week. See below for more inspiration and guidelines.
mini-DEADLINE: 1st Photoshoot or photographic response to your project MUST be completed by Mon 16 Oct.
We will have a Masterclass on Mon 16 Octon how to use Lightroom and you must have unedited images ready for processing
Think about lighting, are you going to shoot outside in natural light or inside using studio lights? If portraiture, shoot both inside and outside to make informed choices and experimentation. Remember to try out a variety of shot sizes and angles, pay attention to composition, focusing, scale, perspective, rule of 1/3rds, foreground/ background and creative control of aperture (depth of field) and shutter speed (movement). Process images using Lightroom and select from these 15-20 work prints for further experimentation. Produce 2-3 blog posts from each shoot and analyse and evaluate your photos through annotation showing understanding of basic visual language using specialist terminology.
Half-term: You have one week off school and this is an ideal opportunity to make your final set of pictures, experiment, and make a final edit. Don’t waste this time!
DEVELOPING > EXPERIMENTING 6. Show development of your idea by reviewing, modifying and analysing your images and go out and take more pictures in the same or different location. Experiment with different processes and methods using Photoshop/ Lightroom appropriate to your intentions e.g. cropping, adjusting levels/ exposure, colour correction/ b/w, sepia/ monochrome, blending/ blurring, HDR, panoramic/ joiner, montage/ collage, text/ typology, borders/ frames. Produce at least 3-4 blog posts with pictures and use annotation to explain what you did and how you developed your idea further in a thoughtful and considered manner.
7. Be critical and selective when you edit your photographs. Do they benefit being part of a series or are they best if presented as a single photo? Think about sequence and relationship between images – does your series of images convey a sense of narrative (story) or are they repetitious. Annotate! Make sure you have tested and tried out different ways of presenting photographs e.g. window mounts, foam-boards, frames etc. Finish and refine studies and produce 2-3 blog posts with your final outcomes, including thoughts on how to present them and a final evaluation.
PRESENTING > EVALUATING 8. FINAL PRINTS: final outcomes must be ready for printing no later then end of your MOCK Exam .
Make sure you save your final images in a high-resolution, min 4000 pixles on the long edge and save them in your name into the relevant print folders here:
Show evidence of how you intend to present and display your final prints in the exhibition – make mock up in Photoshop. You should be aiming for about 5-7 images that needs to be displayed as a cluster; for example, 2 x A3, 3 x A4 and 2 x A5. For some of you it might be better to display images as a set of diptychs (2 images) or a triptych (3 images). We will help you making this decision.
Mock Exam: One whole day in class Mon 20 Nov: 13A Tue: 21 Nov: 13E Wed 22 Nov: 13D
9. BLOG:Go through all your blog posts and make sure that you have completed them all to your best ability, e.g. good use of images/ illustrations, annotation of processes/ techniques used, analysis/ evaluation of images and experimentation. Remember to MAKE YOUR BLOG POST VISUAL andinclude relevant, links, podcasts, videos where possible.
Write a final evaluation (250-500 words) that explain in some detail the following:
how successfully you explored your idea and realised your intentions.
links and inspiration between your final images and chosen theme(s) including artists references
analysis of final prints/presentation in terms of composition, lighting, meaning, concept, subject, symbolism etc.
10. Statement: You must choose one image, a title and write a paragraph about your project and final set of images. We need these for the Gallery guide for the exhibition. You should be able to use some of what you wrote in your evaluation above.
See here for previous examples of artist statements gallery booklet
11. Mounting. Once the exhibition is finished (in January 2018) you will need to mount and present your final prints.
Your final outcomes must be presented in a thoughtful, careful and professional manner demonstrating skills in presenting work in either window mounts, picture frames, foam-board, and/ or submit moving image and video based production and upload as Youtube clip to the blog.
Make sure you label with name, candidate number, attach velcro and put in a BLACK folder.
AO1 – Develop your ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
To achieve an A or A*-grade you must demonstrate an Exceptional ability (Level 6) through sustained and focused investigations achieving 16-18 marks out of 18.
Get yourself familiar with the assessment grid here:
To develop your ideas further from initial research of mind-maps and mood-boards on the themes ENVIRONMENT you need to be looking at the work of others (artists, photographers, filmmakers, writers, theoreticians, historians etc) and write a specification with 2-3 unique ideas that you want to explore further.
Follow these steps to success!
Research and analyse the work of at least 2-3 (or more) photographers/ artists. Produce at least 2-3 blog posts for each artist reference that illustrate your thinking and understanding using pictures and annotation and make a photographic response to your research into the work of others
Produce a mood board with a selection of images.
Provide analysis of their work and explain why you have chosen them and how it relates to your idea and the exam theme of ENVIRONMENT
Select at least 2 key images and analyse in depth, FORM (composition, use of light etc), MEANING (interpretation, subject-matter, what is the photographer trying to communicate), JUDGEMENT (evaluation, how good is it?), CONTEXT (history and theory of art/ photography/ visual culture,link to other’s work/ideas/concept)
Incorporate quotes and comments from artist themselves or others (art critics, art historians, curators, writers, journalists etc) using a variety of sources such as Youtube, online articles, reviews, text, books etc.
Make sure you reference sources and embed links to the above sources in your blog post
Plan at least 2-3 shoots as a response to the above where you explore your ideas in-depth.
Edit shoots and show experimentation with different adjustments/ techniques/ processes in Lightroom/ Photoshop
Reflect and evaluate each shoot afterwards with thoughts on how to refine and modify your ideas i.e. experiment with images in Lightroom/Photoshop, re-visit idea, produce a new shoot, what are you going to do differently next time? How are you going to develop your ideas?
To help you get started look at the starting points in the Exam paper on pages 22-25 under Photography. Look also at other disciplines such as, Fine Art, Graphic Communication, Textile Design, Three-dimensional design – often you will find some interesting ideas here.
However don’t just rely on these pages and starting points in the exam paper. Often those students that achieve the highest marks are those that think outside the box and find their own unique starting points.
Photography Agencies and Collectives World Press Photo – the best news photography and photojournalism Magnum Photos – photo agency, picture stories from all over the world. Panos Picture – photo agency Agency VU – photo agency INSTITUTE– photo agency Sputnik Photos – photo collective made of Polish and East European photographers A Fine Beginning – photo collective in Wales Document Scotland – photo collective in Scotland NOOR – a collective uniting a select group of highly accomplished photojournalists and documentary storytellers focusing on contemporary global issues.
Here is a folder EXAM 2017 with a lot of PPTs about various genres and approaches to photography: USE IT !!
M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Resources\EXAM 2017
Here are some thoughts from me on different artists whose work makes link and references to the theme of ENVIRONMENT.
Chris Jordan: Midway Message from the Gyre
Definition in dictionary (noun):
1. the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates.
2. the natural world, as a whole or in a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activity.
synonyms:
the natural world, nature, the living world, the world, the earth, the ecosystem, the biosphere, Mother Nature, Gaia;
wildlife, flora and fauna, the countryside, the landscape
This broad definition encompass almost everything and the obvious approach to thinking about the environment is a place. However the concept of an environment can be interpreted in different ways.
Physical – observed and recorded environment Psychological – constructed and imagined environment
Using binary opposites we can divide these environment into;
nature/ culture light/ darkness east/ west
exterior/ interior private/ public masculin/ feminine
During AS Landscape project we explored exactly this is we began by looking at Romanticism in landscape photography as exemplified by Ansel Adams and his contemporaries in Group f/64 and ended up with questioning this overtly idealised monochrome aesthetics with the advent of New Topographics in the mind 1970s – a group of photographers questioning the prevailing monochrome and romanticised aesthetic of depicting nature at it most sublime and beautiful by making images of the urban man-made world.
As A-Level students we want you to develop the binary concepts of natural vs man-altered environments and combine this with what you have learned during A2 in terms of documentary and narrative and incorporate your understanding of storytelling and use of archives to enrich your photographic study.
See old blog posts here:
Sea / Coast / Marine Environment In the Photographic Archive at the Society Jersiaise there are significant works by early Jersey landscape and architectural photographers such as Thomas Sutton
Remains of ruined coastal defence tower, Tour du Sud, La Carrière, St Ouen’s Bay, Jersey. Plate from Souvenir de Jersey, published 1854.
Other photographesr in the Photo-Archive who explored Jersey landscapes, topographical views, town, countryside, build-environments etc . Samuel Poulton, Ernest Baudoux, Albert Smith , Edwin Dale, AK Lawson, Paul Martin, Godfray, Frith (put in surnames first for searching online catalogue here.
Baudoux, Ernest. View of Victoria College, St Saviour, with boys standing informally outside
Gustave Le Gray (French 1820 –1884) was an early pioneer of seascapes.
Combination printing, creating seascapes by using one negative for the water and one negative for the sky at a time where it was impossible to have at the same time the sky and the sea on a picture due to the too extreme luminosity range. Combination printing was an early experiment of HDR photography where you expose for bright and dark areas of a landscape scene.
Contemporary approaches to views of horizons between sky and sea, see inspiration from Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto whose monochrome images are minimalist and spiritual in their expression.
If you intend to explore sea landscapes you must do contextual research in relation to the art movement of Romanticism – see below. Technically you must make images exploring diverse quality of light, expansive views and weather patterns at different times of the day. Make sure to use a tripod, cable release and apply exposure bracketing and experiment with HDR techniques in post-production. Other techniques such as panoramic images and Hockney ‘joiners’ and Typology studies are also appropriate.
Jersey west coast has unique identity and geography. For many it is place of refuse from work, school and where they go for relaxation, leisure, beach, surfing, walking. If we think about Jersey and an island surrounded by water and with a one of the fastest tidal moments in the world you can look at photographers who has explored the notion of sea or water in interesting ways.
Michael Marten: Sea Change Excellent use of diptych and triptych and exploring low vs high tides to see how it changes a landscape scene
Mark Power: The Shipping Forecats Intangible and mysterious, familiar yet obscure, the shipping forecast is broadcast four times daily on BBC Radio 4. For those at, or about to put to sea, the forecast may mean the difference between life and death. InThe Shipping Forecast, Mark Power documents the 31 sea areas covered by the forecast,
Subject of water – both studies done on the Thames River in London
Roni Horn: Dictionary of Water
Water is a series of photographs of the surface of the Thames. It is ever-changing: now swirling, now scrunched like black tin foil, now in Turneresque lemon and flame colours, now plucked up into dune shapes. Each is annotated with tiny numbers, which refer to footnotes. The footnotes, hundreds in total, worry away in small type under the images – they happen, in other words, under the surface, and concern what the water suggests and conceals. (“Black water is sexy. / What is water? / What do you know about water? Only that it’s everywhere differently. / Disappearance: that’s why suicides are attracted to it. / You can’t talk about water without talking about oneself. / Down at the river I shot my baby.”)
[no title] 1999 Roni Horn born 1955
Mark Dion:Archeaology
Archaeological excavations aren’t limited to ancient Egypt or Stone Age villages. In 1999 during the Tate Thames Dig artist Mark Dion and volunteers collected found objects from the river bed and displayed in the cabinets.
Tate Thames Dig 1999 Mark Dion born 1961 Purchased with assistance from private benefactors 2000 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T07669
Nature as Environment: In their most recent collection of work, The Meadow, photographers Barbara Bosworth and Margot Anne Kelleyexplore the connections and relationships formed between humans and the natural world. Over the course of a decade, the two have taken numerous photographs of an area of land in Carlisle, Massachusetts. Combined with Kelley’s writing, the collaborative project resulted in this uniquely-crafted work. The land they have chosen serves as an ideal subject, composed of paths and abandoned farmland reclaimed by the vibrant foliage.
The Meadow Barbara Bosworth
Embodying a diaristic style, the final product has the feeling of a handcrafted scrapbook recollected from someone’s bookshelf. Tucked as if by accident between the pages are small booklets bearing the photographers’ experiences, and the occasional fold-out triptych which embellishes the arts-and-crafts vibe. A detailed appendix documents the numerous foliage, fungi, and pebbles found during the exploration of the meadow. They even transcribe the logs of the previous property owner, who chronicled day-to-day the teeming life he discovered on a series of wooden doors.
Finn Larsen, Tracks
Walking 50 km of a train track from one end to another over a 5 year period in different seasons and light recorded the landscape along a track that you ordinary only would see in fleeting glimpses travelling at high speed.
Other who has explored nature vs man-made environments within a confined parameters albeit on a much larger scale is Richard Misrach who for decades have photographed the border and desert like terrain between the USA and Mexico. See books Violent Legacies and his latest installment Border Cantos – a multi-faceted approach to the study of place and man’s complex relationship to it in a unique collaboration with composer and performer Guillermo Galindo.
The Wall, Jacumba, California an image Misrach captured in 2009.
Galindo fashions instruments to be performed as unique sound-generating devices. He also imagines graphic musical scores, many of which also use Misrach’s photographs as points of departure. A unique melding of the artist as documentarian and interpreter, the book will include several suites of photographs drawn from a number of distinct series, or Cantos―some made with a large-format camera as well as an iPhone.
Culture as Environments
Within the history of landscape photography the wild west hold a particular fascination in the minds of early explorers, settlers, scientist and artists. Early landscape photographers include Timothy O’Sullivan, Carleton E. Watkins and William Henry Jackson whose work was a major influence on people like Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Minor White
Timothy Taylor
In American cinema the advent of the genre, Westerns where frontiers people battle native American indians against a backdrop of sublime Grand Canyon. Another more serene rendition of the American West can be seen in the road movie Paris, Texas by filmmaker Wim Wenders – who also uses photography for location shoots and photographic books.
Wim Wenders
Others who has explored the unique landscape of the wild west or America’s deep South is John Divola, Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Richard Misrach, Ron Jude, William Eggleston
Richard Misrach
John Divola
Ron Jude
Robert Adams
William Eggleston
Lewis Baltz
Narrative as Environment
We looked at Alec Soth during the Documentary module as a poetic lyrical story-teller who combines landscapes, portraits, still-lives and other visual material in his photo books.
By way of a follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut monograph Sleeping by the Mississippi (reveals the unique characters and landscapes Soth encountered during a series of road trips along the Mississippi River) Alec Soth turns his eye to another iconic body of water, Niagara Falls. And as with his photographs of the Mississippi, these images are less about natural wonder than human desire. “I went to Niagara for the same reason as the honeymooners and suicide jumpers,” says Soth, “the relentless thunder of the Falls just calls for big passion.”
Alec Soth: Niagara
Alec Soth Niagara
Using a large-format 8×10 camera like Ansel Adams Soth worked over the course of two years on both the American and Canadian sides of the Falls. He depicts newlyweds and naked lovers, motel parking lots, pawnshop wedding rings and love letters from the subjects he photographed. We read about teenage crushes, workplace affairs, heartbreak and suicide.
Theo Gosselin goes on roadtrip with his friends and make a set of images evoking a cinematic quality
Theo Goselin Sans Limites
Ron Jude: Lick Creek Line
Lick Creek Line extends and amplifies Ron Jude’s ongoing fascination with the vagaries of photographic empiricism, and the gray area between documentation and fiction. In a sequential narrative punctuated by contrasting moments of violence and
beauty, Jude follows the rambling journey of a fur trapper, methodically checking his trap line in a remote area of Idaho in the Western United States. Through converging pictures of
landscapes, architecture, an encroaching resort community, and the solitary, secretive process of trapping pine marten for their pelts, Lick Creek Line underscores the murky and culturally arbitrary nature of moral critique.
Ron Jude
Typology means the study and interpretation of types and became associated with photography through the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose photographs taken over the course of 50 years of industrial structures; water towers, grain elevators, blast furnaces etc can be considered conceptual art. They were interested in the basic forms of these architectural structures and referred to them as ‘Anonyme Skulpturen’ (Anonymous Sculptures.)
The Becher’s were influenced by the work of earlier German photographers linked to the New Objectivity movement of the 1920s such as August Sander, Karl Blossfeldt and Albert-Renger-Patzsch.
August SanderKarl BlosfeldtAlbert-Renger-Patzsch
See also the work by Americans, William Christenberry and Ed Ruscha’s photographic works on types e.g. Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1964). Every building on the Sunset Strip (1966). Or Idris Khan‘s appropriation of Bechers’ images.
Ed Ruscha, 26 Gasoline Stations
William ChristenberryIdris Khan
See previous blog post for more guidelines and a photo-assignment.
Not least of the Bechers’ legacy is their lasting influence on subsequent generations of artists who use the photographic medium today, most notably the students taught by Bernd Becher at the Düsseldorf Art Academy between 1976 and 1996. Among his most renowned students are Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff, and Thomas Struth.
Andreas GurkstThomas Struth born 1954 Ferdinand-von-Schill-Strasse, Dessau 1991 1991Thomas RuffCandia Hofer
From Germany, apart form the legacy of the Dusseldorf Kunst Akademie headed by the Becher’s another school of photography, the Werkstatt für Fotografie (Workshop for Photography) was founded in Berlin by Michael Schmidt who invited several leading American photographers, including William Eggleston and John Gossage, to teach there.
Michael Schmidt Waffenrufe
Responding to the wall between East and West in Berlin Schmidt produced a seminal work, Waffenrufe. Another body of work Berlin Nach 45 show empty streets of East Berlin made in the early hours as a quite testament to post war German architecture and urban city planning
Conceptual approaches to natural/ man-made environments
Tanja Deman is a Croation artists who will be Archisle’s International Photographer-in-Residence in 2017.
Her art is inspired by her interest in the perception of space, physical and emotional connection to a place and her relationship to nature. Her works, incorporating photography, collage, video and public art, are evocative meditations on urban space and landscape. Observing recently built legacy or natural sites her work investigates the sociology of space and reflects dynamics hidden under the surface of both the built and natural environment.
Tanja Deman Fernweh
Fernweh series explores the concept of a modernist city through its extreme relations to the landscape. The images are placed on a blurred line between a past which reminds us of a future and a future which looks like a past. Scenes are referring to the modernist ideas and aspiration of a man conquering the natural wild land and subordinating it to the rational order, and the consequences of those aspirations, which switched into the longing for an escape from urban environments.
Tanja Deman Collected Narratives
Collective Narratives is a series staging a moment of contemplation of nature and built environment. Natural spectacles, framed in theatrical space are contemplated by an audience. These constructed images consolidate: geological formations; a projection of an urban environment; an arena; a deep chasm; a theatre and a crumbling slag-heap through a very active kind of watching.
While making the series ‘Collective Narratives’ I was interested in different types of spectatorship and architectural settings in which they are taking place. Moreover, the notion of a ritual in which a large group of people gathers and participates in order to experience something together by observing, intrigued me. I see these spaces for cultural and sports spectacles, as zones of pure potential, where the world must be rebuilt or re-imagined every time they are in use. Having liberated them from their utilitarian, commercial restrains, and the environments in which they were created, I allow them to cross the boundary of reality.
Together these scenes examine time and the strange modes of spectatorship attached to the inanimate world. A collective witnessing of phenomena that are usually experienced in private atmospheres.
Staged / Constructed Environments Land art is art that is made directly in the landscape, sculpting the land itself into earthworks or making structures in the landscape using natural materials such as rocks or twigs
Robert Smithson Spiral Jetty
Land art was part of the wider conceptual art movement in the 1960s and 1970s. The most famous land art work is Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty of 1970, an earthwork built out into the Great Salt Lake in the USA. Though some artists such as Smithson used mechanical earth-moving equipment to make their artworks, other artists made minimal and temporary interventions in the landscape such as Richard Long who simply walked up and down until he had made a mark in the earth.
A Line in the Himalayas 1975, printed 2004 Richard Long born 1945 Presented by the artist (Building the Tate Collection) 2005 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T12035
Land art, which is also known as earth art, was usually documented in artworks using photographs and maps which the artist could exhibit in a gallery. Land artists also made land art in the gallery by bringing in material from the landscape and using it to create installations.
Parallel Stress 1970 Dennis Oppenheim
As well as Richard Long and Robert Smithson, key land artists include Hamish Fulton, Walter de Maria, Michael Heizer, Dennis Oppenheim and Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Hamish Fulton(born 1946) is a British walking artist. Since 1972 he has only made works based on the experience of walks.
Wind through the Pines 1985, 1991 Hamish Fulton born 1946
William Christenberry making typological studies of vernacular architecture traditional to the deep American South.
Christenberry also made little sculptures or 3D models of some of the buildings he had photographed
Photography and sculpture
Photographic installations which are site specific and 3-dimensional is very in vogue right now. In the exam paper starting point 4 is about artists exploring the material nature of a photographic image and the idea that photographs can be sculptural. Here are a few artists to explore
Felicity Hammond is an emerging artist who works across photography and installation. Fascinated by political contradictions within the urban landscape her work explores construction sites and obsolete built environments.
The Space Between @ ART ROTTERDAM 2017
The Space Between @ ART ROTTERDAM 2017
In specific works Hammond photographs digitally manipulated images from property developers’ billboards and brochures and prints them directly onto acrylic sheets which are then manipulated into unique sculptural objects. http://www.felicityhammond.com/
Lorenzo Venturi: Dalston Anatomy
Lorenzo Vitturi’s vibrant still lifes capture the threatened spirit of Dalston’s Ridley Road Market. Vitturi – who lives locally – feels compelled to capture its distinctive nature before it is gentrified beyond recognition. Vitturi arranges found objects and photographs them against backdrops of discarded market materials, in dynamic compositions. These are combined with street scenes and portraits of local characters to create a unique portrait of a soon to be extinct way of life.
His installation at the Gallery draws on the temporary structures of the market using raw materials, sculptural forms and photographs to explore ideas about creation, consumption and preservation.
Watch our exclusive interview with Lorenzo.
Boyd Webb (born 1947) is a New Zealand-born visual artist who works in the United Kingdom, mainly using the medium of photography although he has also produced sculpture and film. He was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1988. He has had solo shows at venues including the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.
Boyd Webb Abyssogramme, 1983
Initially he worked as a sculptor, making life casts of people in fibreglass and arranging them into scenes. He eventually turned to photography and his early work played with ideas of the real and the imagined. Through mysterious and elaborate compositions created using actors and complex sets built by the artist in his studio. In later years his focus shifted to a cool observational style, his work less theatrical and technique less elaborate.
James Casebere pioneering work has established him at the forefront of artists working with constructed photography. For the last thirty years, Casebere has devised increasingly complex models that are subsequently photographed in his studio. Based on architectural, art historical and cinematic sources, his table-sized constructions are made of simple materials, pared down to essential forms. Casebere’s abandoned spaces are hauntingly evocative and oftentimes suggestive of prior events, encouraging the viewer to reconstitute a narrative or symbolic reading of his work.
Caspar David FriedrichJames Casebere
While earlier bodies of work focused on American mythologies such as the genre of the western and suburban home, in the early 1990s, Casebere turned his attention to institutional buildings. In more recent years, his subject matter focused on various institutional spaces and the relationship between social control, social structure and the mythologies that surround particular institutions, as well as the broader implications of dominant systems such as commerce, labor, religion and law.
Thomas Demand studied with the sculptor Fritz Schwegler, who encouraged him to explore the expressive possibilities of architectural models at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where Bernd and Hilla Becher had recently taught photographers such as Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, and Candida Höfer. Like those artists, Demand makes mural-scale photographs, but instead of finding his subject matter in landscapes, buildings, and crowds, he uses paper and cardboard to reconstruct scenes he finds in images taken from various media sources. Once he has photographed his re-created environments—always devoid of figures but often displaying evidence of recent human activity—Demand destroys his models, further complicating the relationship between reproduction and original that his photography investigates.
Christian Boltanski(born 1944) is a French sculptor, photographer, painter and film maker, most well known for his photography installations and contemporary French Conceptual style. Boltanski’s subject matters are history and life duration. Vulnerability is his strength, and reflecting upon absence is his way to express his passion for what is real. And so Boltanski builds his own archives, moves shadows around the gallery space, or brings forgotten memories back to the surface through the eyes and faces of strangers that emerge from found photographs; he synchronizes the sound of the human heartbeat to the rhythm of history; he creates settings with old clothing so that individual stories may not be dispersed; he investigates fate and challenges, through irony, the transience of things to propose the art of time.
The Reserve of Dead Swiss 1990 Christian Boltanski born 1944 Presented by the Fondation Cartier 1992 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T06605
Documentary vs Staged Photography
If we examine documentary truth (camera as witness) versus a staged photograph (tableaux photography) all sorts of questions arise that are pertinent to consider as an image maker. Remember our discussion we had at the beginning of September when we began module of Documentary and Narrative. We discussed a set of images submitted at the World Press Photo competition on 2015.
Tableaux Photography and the Staged photograph
Tableaux photography is a style of photography in which a pictorial narrative is conveyed through a single image as opposed to a series of images which tell a story such as in photojournalism and documentary photography. This style is sometimes also referred to as ‘staged’ or ‘constructed photography’ and tableaux photographs makes references to fables, fairy tales, myths and unreal and real events from a variety of sources such as paintings, film, theatre, literature and the media. Tableaux photographs offer a much more ambiguous and open-ended description of something that are subjective to interpretation by the viewer. Tableaux photographs are mainly exhibited in fine art galleries and museums where they are considered alongside other works of art.
Tom Hunter, Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson, Duane Michaels, Sam Taylor Johnson (former Sam Taylor-Wood), Hannah Starkey, Tracy Moffatt, Vibeke Tandberg, William Wegman.
Tom Hunter, Eviction order after VermeerJeff Wall Invisible ManGregory Crewdson Twilight
Watch video behind the scenes of Gregory Crewdson shoot
See my PPT om Tableaux Photography for more details
Mishka Henner, Trevor Paglen, Doug Rickard, Daniel Mayrit all use found images from the internet, Google earth and other satellites images as a way to ask questions and raise awareness about our environment, state operated security facilities, social and urban neighbour hoods, prostitution, and London’s business leaders of major international financial institutions.
Mishka Henner, Levelland Oil Field- Texas
US oil fields photographed by satellites orbiting Earth.
Mishka Henner Dutch Landscapes
Mishka Henner: I’m not the only one, 2015
Single channel video, 4:34 mins
Photographer Trevor Paglen has long made the advanced technology of global surveillance and military weaponry his subject. This year he has been nominated for the prestigious The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize which aims to reward a contemporary photographer of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution (exhibition or publication) to the medium of photography in Europe in the previous year. The Prize showcases new talents and highlights the best of international photography practice. It is one of the most prestigious prizes in the world of photography. Read more here
Trevor Paglen
Doug Rickard is a north American artist / photographer. He uses technologies such as Google Street View and YouTube to find images, which he then photographs on his monitor, to create series of work that have been published in books, exhibited in galleries.
Months after the London Riots in 2008 (at the beginning of the economical crash) the Metropolitan Police handed out leaflets depicting youngsters that presumably took part in riots. Images of very low quality, almost amateur, were embedded with unquestioned authority due both to the device used for taking the photographs and to the institution distributing those images. But in reality, what do we actually know about these people? We have no context or explanation of the facts, but we almost inadvertently assume their guilt because they have been ‘caught on CCTV’.
In his awarding book: You Haven’s Seen the Faces.. Daniel Mayrit appropriated the characteristics of surveillance technology using Facebook and Google to collect images of the 100 most powerful people in the City of London (according to the annual report by Square Mile magazine in 2013). The people here featured represent a sector which is arguably regarded in the collective perception as highly responsible for the current economic situation, but nevertheless still live in a comfortable anonymity, away from public scrutiny.
See also this book Looters by Tiane Doan Na Champassak
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PERFORMANCE
Tableaux photography always have an element of performing for the camera and the exam themes lend themselves really well to revisit Performance in Photography and explore fantasy, fiction, parody, alter-ego, identity etc.
See blog post here for more creative starting points
Read my blog post from last Summer when we were exploring Tom Pope’s practice in Photography and Performance and the themes of Chance, Change and Challenge . You should be able to find some starting points.
For example, write a manifesto with a set of rules (6-10) that provide a framework for your performance related project. Describe in detail how you are planning on developing your work and ideas. Think about what you want to achieve, what you want to communicate, how your ideas relate to the themes of Truth, Fantasy or Fiction and how you are going to approach this task in terms of form, technique and subject-matter.
A list of art movements that you may use as contextual research. Many of them also produced Manifestos:
Dadaism, Futurism, Surrealism, Situationism, Neo-dadaism, Land/Environmental art, Performance art/Live art, Conceptualism, Experimental filmmaking/ Avant-garde cinema (those studying Media make links with your unit on Experimental film)
Here are a list of artists/ photographers that may inspire you:
Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Yves Klein, Bas Jan Ader, Erwin Wurm, Chris Arnatt, Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, Joseph Beuys, Chris Burden, Francis Alÿs, , Sophie Calle , Nikki S Lee, Claude Cahun, Dennis Oppenheim, Bruce Nauman, Allan Kaprow, Mark Wallinger, Gillian Wearing, Marcel Duchamp and the Readymade, Andy Warhol’s film work, Steve McQueen, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Marina Abramovic, Pipilotti Rist, Luis Bunuel/ Salvatore Dali: , Le Chien Andalou, Dziga Vertov: The Man with a Movie Camera
images
Photography and Sculpture:
Images produced through transformation of materials and making things to be photographed. See work by: Lorenzo Vitturi (Dalton Anatomy), Thomas Demand, James Casebere (see Emily Reynolds work), Vik Muniz, Chris Jordan (Midway Atoll), Stephen Gill.
For those interested in exploring identities, stereotypes, gender, alter-egos through self-portraiture using varies techniques such slow shutters-speeds, use of dressing up, make-up, props, masks, locations (mine-en-scene) Often these images are questioning ideas around truth, fantasy or fiction.
Francesco Woodman, Cindy Sherman, Claude Cahun, Yasumasa Morimura, Gillian Wearing, Sean Lee (Shauna) Juno Calypso
Stranger than Fiction: Should documentary photographers add fiction to reality?
Documentary photography belongs to the realm of truth, yet some photographers are testing the boundaries between reality and fiction in a bid to reach a public that is accustomed to these narrative forms in the literary and cinematic worlds. In contemporary photography today your have what some people call Fictional Documentary (similar to TV genre such as doc-drama) where you interpret real or historical events through fiction. This is often expressed through a personal and artistic vision which are operating somewhere between fiction and fantasy with some elements of truth or historical data that has been re-imagined.
See the work of: Cristina de Middel (Afronauts, Sharkification, This is What Hatred Did), Max Pinckers (Will They Sing Like Raindrops or Leave Me Thirsty), Vasantha Yogananthan (A Myth of Two Souls), Ron Jude (Lick Creek Line), Eamonn Doyle ( i ) Paul Graham (Does Yellow Run Forever), Yury Toroptsov (Fairyland, House of Baba Yaga, Divine Retribution), Gareth McConnell (Close Your Eyes), Joan Fontcuberta
Cristina de Middel AfronautsMax_Pinckers_from_the_series_Will_They_Sing_Like_Raindrops_or_Leave_Me_ThirstyVasantha Yogananthan ‘A Myth of Two Souls’Ron Jude Lick Creek LinePaul Graham Does Yellow Run ForeverYury Toroptsov House of Baba Yaga
Environment and Street Photography
Classical approaches between the flaneur (Cartier-Bresson) and confrontational (William Klein) see – previous blog post and ppt here.
Within the context of environment lets look at: Eamon Doyle – Dublin Trilogy Richard Wentworth vs Eugene Agtet Michael Wolf Peter Bialobrzeski: Cairo Diaries Kyler Zeleny: Out West John MaClean: Two and Two, Hometown, New Colour Guide Lee Friedlander: America by Car Antonio Olmos: The Landscape of Murder Jason Larkin: Waiting
Christopher Anderson: Capitolio Capitolio is New York documentary photographer Christopher Anderson’s cinematic journey through the upheavals of contemporary Caracas, Venezuela, in the tradition of such earlier projects as William Klein’s New York (1954-55) and Robert Frank’s The Americans (1958). It presents a poetic and politicized vision, by one of today’s finest documentary photographers, of a city and a country that is ripping apart at the seams under the stress of popular unrest, and whose turmoil remains largely unreported by Western media.
Abstraction with a city environment: Saul Leiter Ernst Haas Nagoya Hatakoeyama: River Series Stephen Gill: Talking to Ants, other projects Siegfried Hansen: Hold the Line Antonio M. Xoubanova: A Small Universe
A Small Universe is my imagining of the universe in 2.5 seconds and 10 linear metres of street.” “The project is a 2.5-second-long feature film comprised of images and sequences which reference the beginning of things – technology, religion, the universe, the street, love, matter and its different forms, the basics of the human condition, contemporaneity, advertising and the end of existence.” “The images in the book represent a space according to their size; they are containers of time. An image captured at 1/40 second shutter speed is physically 10 times larger than another shot at 1/400 second. The size of each image is determined by the amount of time it contains. The book is therefore an attempt to materialize something as minimal, abstract and complex as 2.5 seconds of existence – a fragment of matter, or a small space.” “If the universe is defined as the total sum of all matter, time and space, this book of “street photography” is the attempt to address a controlled universe and the elements it contains, which in the end reveal themselves to be complex and uncontrollable.”
Focusing on people, faces and private space Satoshi Fujiwara: Code Unknown
City or nature at twilight/ night
Awoiska van der Molen: Sequester Christen Lebas: Blue Hour Todd Hido Rut Blees Luzembourg Bill Henson Maciej Dakowicz: Cardiff After Night Richard Renaldi: Tales of a City Ken Schles: Night Walk Chris Shaw: Life as a Night Porter (link to Sophie Calle) Oscar Monzón: Karma – takes a voyeuristic look through the car window.
Case-study: Environment as one site
Anders Petersen: Cafe Lehmitz Krass Clement: DRUM Klaus Pichler: Golden Days before they End Andrew Miksys: Disko Ciaran Og Arnold: I went to the worst of bars…
Environment as a Personal or Psychological space
Cindy Sherman: film-stills
– image hanging of door – girl who committed suicide Claude Cahun Elina Brothers Patrick Willocq
Anne Hardy Robert Frank – recent work such as his trilogy: You Would, Park/Sleep and Ta UF, Tal AB
staged environments (tableaux)
Tom Hunter, Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson, Duane Michaels, Sam Taylor Johnson (former Sam Taylor-Wood), Hannah Starkey, Tracy Moffatt, Vibeke Tandberg
Environments for animals:
Raymond Meeks: Animal Shelter Nico Baumgarten: How the Other half lives Christopher Nunn: Ukranian Street Dogs Gary Winograd: The Animals
AO1 – Develop your ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
To achieve an A or A*-grade you must demonstrate an Exceptional ability (Level 6) through sustained and focused investigations achieving 16-18 marks out of 18.
Get yourself familiar with the assessment grid here:
To develop your ideas further from initial research of mind-maps and mood-boards on the themes FAMILY you need to be looking at the work of others (artists, photographers, filmmakers, writers, theoreticians, historians etc) and write a specification with 2-3 unique ideas that you want to explore further.
Follow these steps to success!
Research and analyse the work of at least 2-3 (or more) photographers/ artists. Produce at least 2-3 blog posts for each artist reference that illustrate your thinking and understanding using pictures and annotation and make a photographic response to your research into the work of others
Produce a mood board with a selection of images.
Provide analysis of their work and explain why you have chosen them and how it relates to your idea and the exam theme of FAMILY
Select at least 2 key images and analyse in depth, FORM (composition, use of light etc), MEANING (interpretation, subject-matter, what is the photographer trying to communicate), JUDGEMENT (evaluation, how good is it?), CONTEXT (history and theory of art/ photography/ visual culture,link to other’s work/ideas/concept)
Incorporate quotes and comments from artist themselves or others (art critics, art historians, curators, writers, journalists etc) using a variety of sources such as Youtube, online articles, reviews, text, books etc.
Make sure you reference sources and embed links to the above sources in your blog post
Plan at least 2-3 shoots as a response to the above where you explore your ideas in-depth.
Edit shoots and show experimentation with different adjustments/ techniques/ processes in Lightroom/ Photoshop
Reflect and evaluate each shoot afterwards with thoughts on how to refine and modify your ideas i.e. experiment with images in Lightroom/Photoshop, re-visit idea, produce a new shoot, what are you going to do differently next time? How are you going to develop your ideas?
Often those students that achieve the highest marks are those that think outside the box and find their own unique starting points.
Photography Agencies and Collectives World Press Photo – the best news photography and photojournalism Magnum Photos – photo agency, picture stories from all over the world. Panos Picture – photo agency Agency VU – photo agency INSTITUTE– photo agency Sputnik Photos – photo collective made of Polish and East European photographers A Fine Beginning – photo collective in Wales Document Scotland – photo collective in Scotland NOOR – a collective uniting a select group of highly accomplished photojournalists and documentary storytellers focusing on contemporary global issues.
Here is a folder EXAM 2017 with a lot of PPTs about various genres and approaches to photography: USE IT !! M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Resources\EXAM 2017
Here are some thoughts from me on different artists whose work makes link and references to the theme of FAMILY.
This is the closet thing I had to an image of my father. A cut out of him in my mother’s photo album.
Diana Markosian ‘Inventing My Father’
Junpei Ueda:Pictures of My life
I have this desire to sum up my life in the form of a story.
My parents killed themselves, one after the other, in the winter of 1998.
My mother’s depression led her to take her own life, and my father followed her nine days later. Having suddenly a closer relationship with death at just 21 years of age, I decided to write down the things I saw around me, as they were, and to capture in photographs the emotions I would only be able to feel then and there.
I was alone in the house we had all lived in as a family. I had almost completely lost sight of the point in living. But even so, I kept on living. Though my parents weren’t there, I had the many paintings my father left me and the family pictures my mother loved taking. They spoke to me and consoled me.
Happiness is “living alongside the people you love”.
Matt Eich:I Love You, I’m leaving Love You, I’m Leaving is my meditation on familial bonds, longing, and memory. The series borrows from personal experience and the visual language of the everyday in order to create a fictional account that mirrors my reality. Made during a time of personal domestic unease, I photographed as my parents separated, and my family moved to a new city.
https://vimeo.com/102344549
Yoshikatsu Fujii:Red Strings
I received a text message. “Today, our divorce was finalized.” The message from my mother was written simply, even though she usually sends me messages with many pictures and symbols.
I remember that I didn’t feel any particular emotion, except that the time had come. Because my parents continued to live apart in the same house for a long time, their relationship gently came to an end over the years. It was no wonder that a draft blowing between the two could completely break the family at any time.
In Japan, legend has it that a man and woman who are predestined to meet have been tied at the little finger by an invisible red string since the time they were born. Unfortunately, the red string tying my parents undone, broke, or perhaps was never even tied to begin with. But if the two had never met, I would never have been born into this world. If anything, you might say that there is an unbreakable red string of fate between parent and child.
Daniel W Coburn, The Hereditary Estate
Daniel W Coburn, The Hereditary Estate
Colin Pantall ‘All Quiet on the Homefront’
Tim Roda ‘Family Albums’
Colin Gray ‘The Parents’
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Colin Gray ‘The Parents’
Denis Dailleux, Egypt, Mother and Son
Denis Dailleux, ‘Egypt, Mother and Son’
Mariela Sancari (Moises is not Dead)
Yury Toroptsov ‘Deleted Scene’
Philip Toledano ‘Days with my Father’Mitch Epstein ‘Family Business’Jason Wilde ‘Vera & John’
Sill Arse Broke It
Jason Wilde ‘Silly Arse Broke It’
See also photographers such as: Nick Waplington (Living Room), Nan Goldin (The Ballad of Sexual Dependency), Corinne Day, (Dairy), Martin Parr (Signs of the Time, Common Sense, The Cost of Living), Chris Killip (Isle of Man: A book about the Manx), Wendy Evald (This is where we live), Inaki Domingo (Ser Sangre), Lauren Greenfield (Fast Forward, Girl Culture), Nicholas Nixon (the Brown Sisters), Robert Clayton (Estate), Tom Hunter (Le Crowbar), Valerio Spada (Gomorrah Girl), Martin Gregg (Midlands), Alain Laboile, (At the Edge of the World, Sian Davey (Looking for Alice, Martha), Laia Abril (The Epilogue), Rita Puig-Serra Costa (Where Mimosa Bloom), Pete Pin, Carole Benitah, (Photo Souvenirs), Richard Billingham (Ray’s a Laugh), Larry Sultan (Pictures from Home), Matt Eich: I Love You, I’m leaving,Yoshikatsu Fujii: Red Strings, Junpei Ueda: Pictures of My life,Sam Harris (The Middle of Somewhere), Dana Lixenberg (Imperial Courts), Philip Toledano (Days with my Father, When I was Six), Mariela Sancari (Moises is not Dead), Yury Toroptsov (Deleted Scene, The House of Baba Yaga), Colin Gray (The Parents), Daniel W. Coburn (The Hereditary Estate), Tim Roda (Family Albums), Denis Dailleux (Egypt, Mother andSon), Diana Markosian (Inventing My Father), Amak Mahmoodian (Shenasnameh), Colin Pantall, (All Quite on the Homefront), Mitch Epstein (Family Business), Jason Wilde (Vear & John, Silly Arse Broke It), LaToya Ruby Frazier (The Notion of Family),
Family can be interpreted in different ways, one is to consider it in relation to the concept of HOME – which can be interpreted as both family or community. Home is also more than just the four walls of your house where you live with your family. Jersey, the island where you perhaps are born or where you grew up can be considered a home too. Home can be interpreted as a community. If you are away from home you often think about your home with a sense of nostalgia. Home can be associated with memories, feelings, hopes, fears etc.
Or Laura El-Tantawy and her project the uprising and protests in her homeland of Egypt ,In The Shadow of Pyramids
Safeya Sayed Shedeed, the mother of a protester who died after being shot by police officers on January 28, 2011 (a day locals dubbed the “Friday of Rage”), cries as she waits to hear the result of a sentencing trial for former president Hosni Mubarak and former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly who are being tried on charges of corruption and giving orders to kill protesters. ÒI want to avenge my son,Ó she said. ÒWho will get my sonÕs rights back?Ó
Members of Egypt’s central security forces take position on the rooftop of a building on a street near Tahrir (Liberation) Square, where clashes erupted with demonstrators and police fired tear gas on Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013.
A young boy emerges from the water after taking a dip in the River Nile as day turns into night in the Egyptian capital.
View from a rooftop overlooking Tahrir (Liberation) Square as hundreds of thousands took the streets of the Egyptian capital and across the country to support a call by Egypt’s Defense Minister, General Abdelfattah al-Sisi to take to the streets for a popular mandate to fight terrorism and violence on Friday, July 26, 2013.
Consider the issue of being inside or outside of the situation. You can explore your own home as an insiders point of view, or you can choose to photograph someone else’s home as an outsider. This could include extended family such as grandparents, uncle & aunties etc. Your photographs can show an everyday family event e.g. breakfast, dinner, watching TV, playing games, private moments, social interaction etc. You can also choose to follow one person and record their life in private including your own.
Have a look through this PPT
Shots: Think about making a number of different shots, portraits (formal/informal, environmental), still-life (interiors, personal objects, family photos/albums), landscape (house, garden, Jersey etc) Explore different ways of framing shots using wide-angle and standard lens, explore different angles and points of view (low, high, canted, dead-pan). Remember to adjust camera settings and exposure for different lighting conditions.
A few inspirations: Have a look at this five-day workshop in a small village in Greece. Under the guidance of Magnum photographer Jacob Aue Sobol, 21 emerging photographers interrogated their ideas of what ‘Home’ looks and feels like.
Here is one participant’s thoughts
Most of us, we believe that HOME is a place that we sleep at nights, that we have our personal belongings, a place that protect us. Now I believe that HOME is my memories, my feelings, my fears and my hopes but also the place inside my mind that makes me feel nice, secure and warm, the place where my friends are, the place where I can make new friends.
Welcome to my HOME
Read this article about Wendy Evald’s collaborative project, where we live where she worked with different communities in Israel and the West Bank, giving out cameras so people could photograph their families and surroundings from an insider’s point of view.
Bert TeunissenDomestic Landscapes : A Portrait of Europeans at Home
Visit Guernsey Photography Festival 2014 where one of the themes was Family. Also, check out the GPF 2016 edition which begins on Thursday 8 September until 30 September. If you happen to be in Guernsey during this period you must visit some of the exhibitions.
