Monthly Archives: October 2017

Filters

How much is too much?

October 3, 2017 Harrison Cummins 2 Comments

Photographic manipulation has always been prominent within the world of photography since the first picture was taken, dating back to 1826 or 1827 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Although photo-editing programmes, for example, Adobe Photoshop weren’t invented or accessible; image manipulation was achievable by editing and being selective of what you choose to capture or how you processed the image in the light room. Fundamentally, I believe when the image is deferred from what the raw photograph portrays or otherwise known as the ‘truth’, the meaning and concept of the image taken is lost. I comprehend multiple photographs may be used in a combination to form a unique concept; however, I feel this process becomes its own, individual art form and moves away from photography. Crucially, restricted editing is acceptable for the world of photography, manipulating image colour, for instance, putting images into black and white, is an acceptable process as long as the photograph portrays the truth behind the lens.

View from the Window at Le Gras. Click to enlarge.

The work of American photographer Ansel Adams is a demonstration of early photograph manipulation, as he created black and white coloured filters to cover the lens of the camera. The variation of colour enables us to interpret the image in a different manner if in comparison to the coloured version, however, despite the colour difference, the image depiction is still the same but the variation may help the photograph enhance the concept they’re trying to portray. The technique stated is an organic and traditional way of image manipulation, preventing the image from becoming something that it is not, just merely improving a concept. On the contrary, utilizing the modern day software’s of Adobe Photoshop is acceptable as long as the content of the image is not altered. I have frequently used this device for manipulating the colours and enhancing the quality by eradicating slight blurs or cropping the image, however, artists have previously taken it too far and deferred from the truth.

Image result for ansel adams

Another early instance of camera manipulation is the “Man on the Moon” controversy of 1969. It is reported that the United States’s NASA hoaxed the event by setting up a fake studio and destroyed evidence in order to compete and beat the technological advances of the USSR in what was known as the “Space Race”. In this case, I believe that the US have created this staged scenario to create and record a breakthrough event, however, due to the severity of the lie and how this would have fooled people globally, it is morally incorrect. Fundamentally, the principle of changing what the lens of the camera sees is in my opinion, a valid manipulation of photographs, so long as the images portray a specific meaning or concept and maintains the truth of the setting.

Image result for man on the moon 1969

Analysis, Independent Study, Inspirations, Personal Study

Personal study // Body image

October 3, 2017 Anna Houiellebecq Leave a comment

BODY IMAGE

Body image is a person’s perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body, according to Wikipedia. The phrase body image was first coined by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Paul Schilder in his book The Image and Appearance of the Human Body. Society over time has played a huge role in creating and developing the ‘perfect’ body image. The world has placed great value on these standards so much that a person’s perception of their own body is based on society’s opinion on the ‘perfect’ image.

Society’s view on the ‘ perfect’ body image has changed throughout history. On a website called Medical Daily, they show how this image has developed and progressed. They initially start in the 1800’s, with the ‘Rubenesque figures’. Peter Paul Rubens, a 17th century Flemish Baroque painter, was famous for his depictions of plump, sensual women. Up until the 20th century, curvy, voluptuous women were considered ideally beautiful in the U.S. and Europe. The image below is a painting by the artist Peter Paul Rubens.

The Bathers — Renoir’s paintings also depicted rubenesque figures, a type of body that was considered ideal in the 1800s.

In the website, they talk about how influential figures throughout history have inspired and changed the ideal body. For example, in the late 1800’s, Lillian Russell, a famous actress and singer was chosen to represent a women of ultimate beauty. The image below shows her big-boned and heavyset posture that was a popular trait in the 1800’s. This popular body image is sufficiently different to the ‘ideal’ body image of modern day. You can see just how much society has changed over time.

Lillian Russell

Another famous actress that influenced the changing ideal body type was Alice Joyce , who was part of the flappers during the 1920’s. The flappers were trendy women with bob hair cuts and slender, lean builds. They were confident women who smoked, drank, danced and voted. Women were becoming stronger and more powerful in their roles. The term “flapper” first appeared in Great Britain after World War I. It was used to describe young girls, still somewhat awkward in movement who had not yet entered womanhood. In the June 1922 edition of the Atlantic Monthly, G. Stanley Hall described looking in a dictionary to discover what the evasive term “flapper” meant:

The dictionary set me right by defining the word as a fledgling, yet in the nest, and vainly attempting to fly while its wings have only pinfeathers; and I recognized that the genius of ‘language’ had made the squab the symbol of budding girlhood.

The photo below is an image of Alice Joyce. Her slender, lean body was the ‘ideal’ body type during the period. Even though its only been 20 years since the end of the 1800’s, society’s opinion on the ‘perfect’ body type has already progressed and developed vastly since the rubenesque figures. The ideal body image was becoming more skinnier. Alice Joyce

During this time, men also had the pressure of body image. Women were behaving more and more like men, by taking up their roles. This was because by now, women could vote, drive cars, choose who they married, and even hold jobs that were previously allotted only to men. They began wanting attributes to define their masculinity. Mustaches were now the new trend fro me that would last for many decades. Here is an image of a sheet music cover design that symbolized that women were gaining more freedom and success in society, while men needed to cling to some physical semblance of masculinity.

We Must Grow A Mustache During the 1940’s to the 1950’s, the ideal body type was the ‘Curvy Pin-up Girls‘. Marilyn Monroe was the pinnacle of attractiveness in the 1950s, proving that a fuller female body was considered more beautiful than thinness. Society was again changing their view on what the ‘perfect’ body image was. The ideal female body may have been heavier back then, but it was just as scrutinized, criticized, and retouched as it is now.Take pin-up girls, for example: glamorous models or actresses whose photos were mass-produced and meant to be “pinned up” on a wall. Pin-up girl photographs were also turned into illustrations that were highly retouched and stylized. Similar to using Photoshop. During this same period, society was seen shaming skinnier girls in the same way mass media shames fat figures now. Men wouldn't look at me when I was skinny Skinny girls are not glamour girls

Both these images are advertisements from the 1940’s and 50’s. There were many advertisments during this period that shamed women in many ways. It was always about body types, but also offending their character and traits. By society’s opinion, women were never good enough, and could always improve their appearance in someway. This is similar to modern society. During the 1960’s, famous women again adopted a a slender, almost emaciated look. Curves weren’t as important as being rail-thin and elegantly fashionable, like the tiny model Twiggy and the slender, doe-like Audrey Hepburn, both of whom were fashion and body image icons during this decade.

During the 1990’s, this was when the unhealthy obsession with thinness began. Kate Moss, a famous model began her career with a series of Calvin Klein photoshoots in the 90s that started the waif heroin-chic look and glamorized “thinspiration’. Kate Moss created the phrase “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” Men were also under pressure to have their bodies strong and muscular. Although society has continuously pressured women and men to change and develop the physique to suite the ‘perfect’ type, now a days there are many movements and organisations created that promote body positiveness. They plan on overturning these outdated standards for women, and represent bodies of all shapes and sizes in the media.

Analysis, Artists References

Laia Abril VS Rita Puig-Serra Costa

October 3, 2017 Zoe Pannenborg Leave a comment

Laia Abril

http://www.laiaabril.com/

Laia Abril (Barcelona, 1986) is a multi-disciplinary artist working in photography, text, video and sound. After graduating in Journalism she moved to New York to attend ICP photography courses, where she decided to focus her projects in telling intimate stories which raises uneasy and hidden realities related with sexuality, eating disorders and gender equality. Was then in 2009 when she enrolled for 5 years at FABRICA – the Artist Residency of the Benetton Research Centre in Italy; where she worked at COLORS Magazine as a creative editor and staff photographer for 5 years; where she started a book making team with Art Director Ramon Pez.

Her projects – including several platforms as installations, books, web docs, and films; have been shown internationally including the United States, Canada, UK, China, Poland, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Turkey, Greece, France, Italy or Spain. Her work is held in private and public collections as Musée de l’Elysée, Winterthur Museum in Switzerland or MNAC in Barcelona. Over the last years her work has been highlighted getting nominated for grants and awards as Magnum Foundation, Prix Piktet, Foam Paul Huf and selected as a jury choice award at Santa Fe Center or Plat(f)orm PhotoMuseum. More recently she has been awardered with the Revelación Photo España Award, the Fotopress Grant and the Madame Figaro – Rencontres Arles award for her exhibition A History of Misogyny, chapter one: On Abortion.

She self-published Thinspiration in 2012, Tediousphilia (Musée de l’Elysée, 2014) and The Epilogue (Dewi Lewis, 2014), which was highly acclaimed and shortlisted for the ParisPhoto-Aperture First Book Award, Kassel PhotoBook Festival and Photo España Best Book Award and appointed by critic Jorg Cölberg like “A masterpiece of a photobook“. Her new book-project Lobismuller(RM, 2016) — holder of the Images Book Award, on the reconstruction of the story of the most enigmatic and bloodthirsty serial killer of the Spanish history, was presented in Paris Photo 2016.

After working for 5 years on her long-term project On Eating Disorders, Abril started her new project A History of Misogyny – which first chapter On Abortion will be published by Dewi Lewis on 2017; and she is currently developing her second chapter On Hysteria.

Here is some images of her book ‘The Epilogue’

video link –

Image Analysis

Laia Abril’s book, The Epilogue, gives a voice to the suffering members of her family after losing her 26 year old daughter, Cammy. Through this set of memories, pieces of text, diary entries and objects the Robinson family reconstruct the memory of Cammy, after losing her to Bulimia, a serious eating disorder. Although Abril produces the book in memory of Cammy, it has a deeper meaning of showing the struggle many young people have when dealing with being bulimic and the daily struggles they go through. The book also shows the impact of this illness on the family members which it hugely impacts especially when it comes to such a devastating end, showing the grieves of the family members wishing they new so that she could of done more to help Cammy.

Throughout the book sections of text are included next to portraits of family members, friends and loved ones that knew Cammy and spent time with her through her illness. You can sense the frustration of people that were close to her and how they wish they could have done things differently. The inclusion of text gives more depth to the photograph and provides explanations of life events and some of the symptoms of effects this deadly illness has, spreading awareness to readers. I also think that text was included to provide closure to the families, the words they speak which are illustrated in the book is a way of them saying their final goodbyes to a loved one.

I chose the above image to analyse as i felt it was a simplistic image but alongside the context of Cammys story, it is a very hard hitting image which has a huge impact on the audience. The image is of scales which plays a significant part of the victims life as a key part of the illness bulimia is weighting yourself to check on your weight to make sure that you aren’t putting on weight. For Cammy as her illness was so serious she probable weighed herself at least twice a day. I found that this image was emotionally very powerful and stood out to me because it represents her daily routine and a key symptom of the illness, it is also the actual scales that she used which is even more powerful because this object has a memory to the family. The image begins to make you really think about what Cammy went through and the family. Although the image seems to be simple as it is on a white background and placed in the center of the image, the angles have been considered as the shot is looking down onto the scales and therefore the audience feels like they are looking down at the scales which is the view Cammy would have been looking at a lot, having a big emotional impact of the audience.

Rita Puig-Serra Costa

http://www.30y3.com/rita-puig-serra-costa-where-mimosa-bloom-en/

Rita Puig-Serra Costa is a photographer living and working in Barcelona. Costa is an editor for Perdiz Magazine and whilst working for this publisher she combines her commercial assignments with personal projects which she does in her own time to produce her own works. For example her first book, ‘published in 2014, ‘Where Mimosa Bloom’ is a photographic memory series to show her honour and respect for her mother. Costa is currently working with Salvi Danés and David Bestué on a new project.

“Where Mimosa Bloom traces a walk across the memory. It tries to remember a mother who is no longer here through objects, persons, and moments, which take us directly to her person. That’s an homage of Rita to her mother Yolanda. An attempt to assemble in a book her familiar universe.”

Where Mimosa Bloom, was a project very close to Costas heart and shows key links to family as it is a book in memory of who her mother was, using old memories, photographs and objects which had significance to her mother and family. Through her book she creates a meaningful story of who she is and childhood memories. This links to our family assignment as she really looks into personal archives to find out about her mother and then document it to create a photographic narrative of her mothers existence.

Planner & Tracking

Tracking Sheet

October 2, 2017 Jude Luce Leave a comment

Analysis, Personal Study, Research and analysis

Archive Photography: Ugne Henriko (Mother and Daughter) vs Irina Werning; re-staging images; re-enacting memories

October 2, 2017 Adam Seal Leave a comment

Ugne Henriko, Mother & Daughter

I really like this photograph because it accurately shows the aspects of similarities between mother and daughter from a documentary side but also the tabloid side shows an exaggerated and staged side beyond the physical appearances that are similar but the deeper meaning between the two similarities of the character too. For example the documentary side highlights the physical similarities of mother and daughter and how their likeness brings about a connection as if they are programmed and the daughter is another version of her mum. This is so much so that it is hard to tell who is the mum and who is the daughter. Interestingly I believe that this style of documentary photography incorporated spreads the message of the deep love between both subjects. This now borders and touches upon the idea of Tableaux photography in which it describes the emotion and relationships between each subject on a personal level. Clearly with their their similarities they appear close, however with the fact that the photograph has clearly been manipulated to look a quite a dark, sad scene which then poses the question about whether they have quite a staggered relationship. It appears that despite at face value they may have similarities, but under the surface it is clear that there is a strong and similar sense of sadness expressed towards one another. This is evident in particular features such as high levels of contrast – increasing the sharpness of the feelings towards each character.

Irene Werning, Back to the Future

I like these two photographs based on an archive approach to photography. The boy on the left is clearly a child and the boy on the right is his older self re-united with the world of his childhood. This photograph is interesting because it suggests that the boy growing up hasn’t grown up very much at all and is still the same person despite how much one goes through growing up into adulthood. This is strikes me as interesting because it goes against the common experience that most people change immensely throughout their childhood. It almost says to me that this particular person had very good memories of his childhood and with that, relives his childhood today. The lighting I also like too is one which is quite mellow and washed out with strong raw colors. This shows how distant this memory of himself as a little boy is, however with these warm colors, this communicates to us that these are positive memories. I like how this photograph is distinct in that it shows quite positive and happy emotions referencing to the character’s past because it is quite relatable to many people’s childhood’s themselves.

This photograph is another comparison of the similarities and differences of how time changes us through our of journey of life. I find this photograph interesting because again, it is a recreation of the girl’s childhood, however on purposefully, it doesn’t try to appear directly identical in the appearance. In fact the roles reverse in the sense that instead of on the surface the characters appearing identical and having a deeper meaning beneath the surface, here the photograph shows on the surface clear differences in each character but under the surface that is where the similarities are apparent. I like how the characters are next to each other however we can clearly see the differences in the characters themselves such as their clothes, food and general posture. However the fact both are partaking in the same activity in the same location shows an inextricable link between both characters. The fact there is so many apparent differences arguably shows the similarities are that both enjoy being different.

Analysis, Contextual Study, Personal Investigation, Research and analysis

Martin Parr – Life’s A Beach, Tableaux Artist Inspiration

October 2, 2017 Adam Seal Leave a comment

For my Tableaux shoot I was heavily inspired by Martin Parr’s shoot: Life’s a beach. Despite Martin Parr who uses documentary photography to convey the general feeling of the beach among how it is felt among the public. I decided to use this as a way off showing Tableaux photography to express the difference between the general public’s view of the fun possibilities at the beach and focusing on my most personal and intimate feelings of the beach that are specifically constructed.I believe in my shoot, without including people in my photographs, I can construct the camera’s viewpoint as my own as I am seeing it through my own eyes. Martin Parr however by focusing on how other people respond and interact with the beach in an environment where lots of people are doing the same thing, it appears to describe the general attitude to what the beach is associated with. However with my shoot I wanted to not include anyone else so I chose more of an isolated beach to construct more of my own pure reconstruction of memories.

Image result for martin parr life's a beach

This photograph particularly strikes me because it is somewhat likened to my own shoot in the sense the little girl portrayed is away from a lot of the large crowds and hustle and bustle. This re-enforces my view of showing mine or someone else’s personal relationship with the beach. However the fact we can’t see the girl’s facial expression, how she is looking away towards the larger crowds and the focus on the Union Jack, is suggestive that this girl is somewhat institutionalized with the rest of society. She may be enjoying herself which is most evident by the warm, bright lighting which the photograph is shot in, but it shows that she is still somewhat influenced by society. My photographs aimed to contrast with this in the sense I wanted to depict a very uninfluenced view of from society of my childhood memories on the beach.

Image result for martin parr life's a beach

I like this photograph, as again it shows the common belief of the sea being associated with the beach. I on my shoot decided to take photographs of only my kayak and boat incorporating them with the sea as most of my time I spent on them rather than swimming as that is most personal to me. However Martin Parr chose swimming as more people do that when at the beach and so he could document this. My form of Tableaux photography in a sense is somewhat like documentary photography because I am essentially documenting my own feelings towards the beach by constructing certain childhood memories that are personal to me. I find it interesting how like in the previous photograph despite the warm lighting and playful nature of the people involved in the photograph showing they’re clearly enjoying themselves, we still can’t see anyone’s face – emphasizing the idea of how most people when it comes to the beach, are all the same.

Independent Study, Research and analysis

INITIAL IDEAS // BODY IMAGE

October 1, 2017 Anna Houiellebecq Leave a comment

For my personal study, I want to explore different ways we can represent the human body. Within the project I want to show how body image has changed throughout time. The ‘ideal’ body image has constantly been developed and manipulated to suite the views of society and the media. I aim to be creative with my shoots, while at the same time, showing through my images the development and manipulation of body image. I want to do a wide range of shoots containing completely different perceptions of the human body. Although I don’t want to focus my whole project on the issues of Body Image, I am including some aspects of body dysmorphia within the context of my project. I mostly want to be creative with my ideas, but at the same time include meaning and context.

I will be researching many artists and photographers who will influence my work, such as Jenny Saville. I aim to Incorporate their ideas into my own shoots, but at the same time include my own concepts and contexts. I will explore in many ways how the human body can be represented and perceived. I want to include my love for art within this project by using and working with different materials, including paint, Clingfilm and other objects. At some point in the project I want to create some sort of suit or outfit that someone will wear during a shoot. The point of this is to express and symbolize how the ‘ideal’ body image has changed through time. It will also represent people dealing with dysmorphia, and how what they endure. The images bellow are ideas that I aim to incorporate within the outfit.

Another view I want to incorporate and research within my project is the use of the body to represent emotions. The body is an expressive tool and I aim to photograph it in a creative way symbolising certain emotions. I believe this will end up being the main aspect of my project based on body image.

Analysis, Experimentation, Independent Study, Inspirations, Instruction, Preparation, Recording

Memories of Childhood / Tableaux Shoot

October 1, 2017 Jude Luce 1 Comment

Childhood Nostalgia

After researching the work of a couple of tableaux photographers, being Alfonso Almendros and Maria Kapajeva, I really wanted to get underway with my own tableaux photoshoot, however, I did not feel like I wanted to produce a series of images in the style of either Kapajeva or Almendros because I wasn’t completely attracted to their work in order to implement their style into my own example.

However, I had a look through a photo book which present in the classroom at school. It was a book entitled ‘Where Mimosa Bloom’ by an artist named Rita Puig-Serra Costa. In her book, she also specialised in aspects of tableaux photography in the form of photographing objects – still life as such and portraits of the family members and then pairing the images together. However, the meaning and concept goes beyond what the simplicity it sounds like. The objects photographed in a studio style as opposed to photographing them in their natural environment or where she found them are then digitally directly placed in this photo book on the opposite page of a portrait also taken by Serra-Costa. It seems as thought the portraits are of family members and the objects paired with each portrait is relevant in some way to the subject of the portrait. Although there is no direct explanation or link between the two, a narrative is drawn by the audience where we provide out own explanation of what could be the intention of this – there is obviously a meaning of the object in relation tot he subject but this is not actually explained. I found this very intriguing and eye-catching in its minimalism and wished to attempt a series of my own in the style I witnessed by Serra-Costa in her book ‘Where Mimosa Bloom’ which is about her family and place they live.

The primary results are below. I first attempted by completing my own memory and I will then go onto do the same process with my other close family members, including my mum, my step-dad, my nan and my girlfriend. This will provide a very compete and cohesive set of image which tell a visual story of not only my childhood memories about the loved ones around me.

Explaining the Series' Process

Here are the images I created in response to Rita Puig-Serra Costa’s images from her series ‘Where Mimosa Bloom’. My aim from this series I have created was to show my own family through a composition and the juxtaposition of old archives in comparison to contemporary, staged portraits of their life now and how they look back on to the memory they have shown. I have presented nt only my own childhood nostalgia but the others around me to create a cohesive narrative accompanied by very thoughtful inserts of written notes by each individual to he;p the audience understand what is going on in the photo. Each individual has explained why they have chosen the object they have and what it means to them as well as the memory it brings back. I attempted to show this connection to a particular object even further in the portraits where I asked my subjects to create a facial expression/show through their presented emotion the feeling the object gives them when looking back on its worth of their childhood.

To create the studio-like images of the objects each subject handed me to accompany their portrait, I set-up a mini studio in my room suing black card. I collected a couple sheets of black card from my school to take home t allow me to produce to the still-life images. In my room I have two very large windows both with very large window sills as the windows are almost like alcoves in that they are very far into the wall. This allowed me to set up the black card on the window sill and this was perfect as I allowed for lots of natural light which resulted in my objects being perfectly lit and the conditions for this were great when I would come back for school each day. I created an infinity curve using one sheet stuck to the wall and then competed the set-up with another sheet on the flat surface and I would place each object on the curve and then adjust my camera settings accordingly to account for the lighting already provided which obviously illuminated the right side of each object and this allowed for an interesting look to each image where the left ide would be in the dark and I would aim to under-expose each very slightly to get the best effect of the black background. For the notes written by each subject, I got each of them to hold their own note with their hand so it adds a personal touch and I would photograph this against the black background also.

I don’t really feel a need to explain the actual chosen object of each person because the explanation in the words of the subject themselves is provided in written form and I feel like my words won’t do the memory justice because a memory is a very personal and it is best told fro the perspective of the person with that memory. I have attempted to get as close in to the note as possible to it is legible at the same time as keeping the hand in frame and I hope that the handwriting is not too difficult to read.