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Jonny Briggs’ Task (Destroy an Image 5 Different Ways) – Archival Imagery Task Response

July 13, 2017 Jude Luce 1 Comment

When Jonny Briggs visited the school on 04/07/17 for his workshop he held for us, he set us a task to complete for the next time he visits the school on 18/07/17.

“find five different ways to destroy an image”…

I have chosen to destroy one image form my own personal archive. It is an image I have already experimented with – this being the image of myself and my dad sitting at the breakfast able on a holiday in France wearing similar raglan tops and with identical haircuts! I find this one very amusing because of the obvious similarities between myself and my dad when I younger, but still now that I’m grown up I get told I look lots like my dad.

I have already experimented with the image on Photoshop to attempt to alter its look digitally. I do enjoy this method because it allows me to play around with the Photoshop tools and find a weird way to make an image look different. When editing on Photoshop, I found it difficult to let my creativity run wild and my freedom seemed limited because I didn’t really know what I wanted to achieve. I am hoping that when I have the image in front of me physically, I will start gathering ideas as to what I can do to essentially “destroy” it. Therefore, as well as the digital edits, I have printed out around seven copies of the image so I can manually destroy it. I will upload the outcomes from this experiment once complete and explain my thought processes so it is easy to understand why I did it.

Here are the products from my session on Photoshop:

With each edit, I used the same page size and same sized image to show consistency and make a pleasing series of five of the same images it just edited differently. I also chose the same background colour being a faded out black because I felt like this allowed the image to stand out best.

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

With this edit, again focusing on the eyes, I have taken this particular feature out this time. With this edit, I decided to make it more simple and not edit the photo in any way apart from to take the eyes of both myself and my dad out of the frame. This is something Jonny does in his photos and was something I was really drawn to because of its simplicity but complex meaning behind it. I decided to remove the eyes of both subjects because although eyes can tell a million words through the way you look at something or someone – whether it be love or passion or anger etc. I wanted to address the idea that emotions can be so easily ignored and although you may look at someone with love, other gestures, such as your body gestures and your words can play a part in getting across your message. I also anted to see the effect of removing the eyes in this image because they actually play a big part in the story told because my dad is looking down at me, with what I now is love and happiness, however, I am looking away. But we both have a smile on our faces and this is what can show the sense of love.

Forward Slashes, Altered family photograph, 10 x 28cm, 2013 <br/> <br/>Jareh Das; In some of these altered family photographs, you have removed <br/>the eyes. I'm reminded of Peggy Phelan's observations that the formation of 'I' <br/>cannot be witnessed by the 'Eye'. In other we don't recognise our 'self' <br/>through our eyes. Do you think that your works through the camera's 'eye' <br/>somehow communicate or capture some of how the self is formed?<br/> <br/>The gaze is an important aspect in the work – beyond myself as a <br/>photographer looking through the lens, there is often a wish for the works to <br/>look back at the viewer, to return the gaze. The work could be seen as a <br/>rebellion against my father’s gaze from behind the lens when taking our <br/>family photographs. Whenever I take photographs of him or my mother, I <br/>suddenly feel in control, like there has been a power flip, that now it’s about <br/>the way that I see, unveiling an alternative family story. <br/> <br/>I’m reminded of times in public, when I realize that someone is looking at me; <br/>or even worse, our gaze meets. In that moment my mind splits into my <br/>fears and desires – that they are either attracted to me, or that they want to <br/>start a fight with me. That they think that I am attracted to them, or that I want <br/>to start a fight with them. It’s no wonder that so many people find it hard to <br/>look others in the eye, that when we look at an image we gravitate towards <br/>the eyes of the subject, and that fights so often start with the phrase ‘What <br/>are you looking at?’ <br/> <br/>I often entertain the thought that what our parents, Grandparents, and all <br/>those around us say to us – and even words and language in themselves, <br/>can categorize and shape the way we see the world around us. Our <br/>memories can cloud the way we see, and it is these artificial perceptions I <br/>wish to think beyond; to detach myself from my adulthood assumptions and <br/>see the world afresh like a child again. Because what we perceive can be a <br/>projection of our own fears and desires or tainted by our memories, <br/>I identify with Peggy Phelan’s observations. In this sense the work could be <br/>interpreted as how the conditioned self is formed, which reminds me of <br/>Narcissus, upon tearing out his own eyes exclaiming ‘Once I could not see, <br/>but now I can see.’ — Jonny’s image

This is the same edit as the one above, however told in a different perspective to get across a different meaning. Where the space was that the eyes originally filled, I have filled this with a red block. The reason I have done this is very simple and was just an addition tot he original edit to show a different narrative. I chose to colour the negative space red because red is an iconic symbol of love and we, most of the time use our eyes as a way of telling someone we love them if it isn’t verbally. This isn’t my favorite edit but I do like it and I have focused on the effect of love and showing this through all my edits – the love that is shown between myself and my dad and how strong and powerful it is – that a relationship can provide happiness – also shown in the photo. The concept of happiness is evident to someone who hasn’t seen the photo but for me, it has a stronger meaning and I connect more so with it which I like. For this edit, I simply cut the photo in half in using the ‘rectangular marquee’ tool to select what area of the image I wanted to adjust. I selected the area then copied it, deleted the original and pasted the area I copied so that I could move it about as I wished.

I chose to move the copied area of myself and my dads head closer into the original image so that it overlapped. I wanted to do this so that the arms of my dad which are wrapped around me as I laugh in his grasp were closer together so that it portrayed the idea that he was holding me very tightly – crating a stronger bond and a cohesion between us two. Although, this was occurring in the original, I wanted to emphasise this further, therefore moved the copied area so that I was closer into my dads abdominal and so there wasn’t as much of assistance between us as before. I also moved the image up a little bit once repositioned so that the table edges were in line with one another. And as you can see, here, I have again opted for the concept of love and creating strong bonds.

Schisms 3, Sister's head upon my body, Adapted family photograph, 2011 — Jonny’s image

This is my final edit that I produced and is one of my favourites because of the addition of text. I have again focused on what the eyes of each of us – myself and my dad can say and what they tell the audience. I cropped out the head of myself and replicated this four times and did the same with my dad also. This forces the viewers to look at the face’s of us only and derive some menaings and thoughts just by what we look like and what the orginal image may have looked like if they hadn’t seen it.

I wanted to confuse the audience again so flipped my head once cropped to face the other way to the original and I also moved my dad’s presence to the right of me instead of to the left – which is what the original was. However, to provide a clue that I have cropped the image, in the photos of my head, you can see the mouth and chin of my dad in the upper right corner – hinting that that he was originally looking down on me, however, now looking down at nothing. The emotions are still the same and it can be viewed that we are both smiling at nothing – perhaps there wasn’t actually anything funny in the original image and I am therefore making a new narrative for myself to interpret because I was so young at the time, I cannot remember the time the image was taken.

Adding to the idea of nostalgia and creating new stories and memories – I have arranged both sets of images in the style of a series of images from a photo booth. I really like this effect because each image is the same and it hasn’t changed as the series progresses which is usually what happens when having a mini shoot in a phtobooth. I wanted to show the idea of repetition in our lives – maybe going to the same holiday destination every time because it was what I liked and what my parents knew was safe (in the image we were in France).

As well, I have added in some type this time because I felt ike it would add an extra layer of narrative and give the overall work some more character. I chose to use the words ‘those loving eyes’ as I wished to narrow down the image to the focus of eyes and how they pay an important part in this image to tell a story and show emotion. I decided to replicate the word ‘loving’ several times as it works its way down the page fading gradually to black – showing that love is so easily lost at times in terms of romantic reltionships and I wanted to show that love is such a delicate thing.

Here are my manually made edits:

Independent Study, Instruction, Preparation, Research and analysis

Reflection of Workshop w/ Tanja Deman

July 12, 2017 Jude Luce Leave a comment

Yesterday, on 11/07/17, Croatian photographer Tanja Deman came into the school to hold a workshop with us. It was centered around looking at the shots we captured form out shoot at Grosnez and L’Etacq a few weeks ago – she wanted us to reflect on what we caught and start thinking about ideas for creating photo montages and photo collages like hers.

She also set a task before her workshop yesterday for us to gather some out favourite images from the shoot, and link them to our artist references to then begin gathering thoughts about what we could o with out images and I began creating some edits. These are on the blog.

The workshop consisted of Tanja getting us to open up Adobe Bridge on out computers and to begin organizing our folders so she can come round to our work areas and look at what we have produced – this was what the opening part of the lesson was made up of. From working with Tanja before in the photographic academy which took place in the Easter holidays, I was aware that she was very reliant of using Bridge to arrange her image and she essentially is an advocate of the software program to use as a tool for seeing all your images together and she encouraged all of us to use it regularly in future work. She briefly went through the essential tools within the program to help us.

I like that in the image above, Koenning has, as it seems, attempted to contrast the effect of land and sea. The left image being land and some sort of bush or tree being the subject contrasted against a black background so that it absorbs the light and makes the red of the tree stand out. The right image being sea and a fish being the subject. I love the contrast between content and colors of the photo – that the right one is almost over exposed and looks as though a flash has been used but I really like this effect and I find the cold blue very enticing. I thought about contrasts in my images when editing in post production. I chose to use the method of overlaying images and creating a collage of just two images to contrast subjects. I like the effect of layering images because it can hide features of the background image and the new image can replace what is missing and create a new outlook and a new narrative.

In the above image I crated, I wanted to show the effect of contrasting two images. I really like using a black and white image that is heavily contrasted so that there are deep blacks against faded out whites and neutral greys and then a more vibrant, smaller image on top. I wanted to contrast the vast and wide landscape in the background that is very empty against the more close-up macro of the yellow plant and greenery surrounding it. I love the juxtaposition of feeling micro and feeling mega! There is also more evident detail in the macro which contrasts to the vaster landscape where you cannot pick up detail as much and to add to this, I also blurred the image in the background using the motion blur tool on Photoshop.

By the timer she had come round to my work station, I had organised all my folders so that she could have a look and give some advice on what I can do next to progress. I really enjoyed seeing Tanja again because it is helpful that she already knows my style and has seen my photography work before so knows that I nave a particular way of photographing and editing images. I think this was evident from my sets of edits I presented her ans I believe she enjoyed looking at them. I did show her my images that I collected from the archive in advance to the workshop but I have no intention of using them because I don’t feel like they would relate to what I want to produce, however, the other artist references, including Superstudio, Luigi Ghirri and Katrin Koenning will be influential to be further edits. In particular, Katrin Koenning’s images – I hope to take into account her work when planning another shoot so I can capture images that reflect her very aesthetically pleasing style and technique of paring two images together – almost like half-frame photography.

My image inspired by Luigi Ghirri’s warm and retro colours and environments

Once Tanja had had a look through my edits and given me her thoughts on them, it had given me some sudden inspiration and there were thoughts going through my head about her I could improve and move forward with ideas she told me she liked. She especially liked the pool images where I had played about with overlaying and re-sizing images to create more of a collage where proportions are a bit confused but had a nice effect on the audience. She told me to progress with this style and play about more and more with overlaying and re-sizing on Photoshop and to just go crazy with it until I have some works that look very muddled but effective. The images of myself in a pool in France on a holiday last summer with the use of an image of L’Etacq are my favorite as well and once again used contrasts to juxtapose man-made swimming areas – being the pool and natural constructions of beach and eroded rock over time to create a seascape.

Tanja then finally showed us some of her work on Photoshop using hr own laptop where she gave us a very quick masterclass on how to make the most of the tools on Photoshop to create a good collage. She demonstrated her skills and told us what she does to create what she does.

Research and analysis

Documentary Photography

July 6, 2017 Anna Houiellebecq Leave a comment

Here are a few websites that I used to gain an understanding of what Documentary and Narrative Photography is,

https://www.learningwithexperts.com/photography/blog/storytelling-photography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_photography

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/documentary-photography-open-society

According to wikipedia, Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically covered in professional photojournalism, or real life reportage, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit.

Documentary photography follows a topic or story over time, whereas photojournalists who cover real-time events such as breaking news. Documentary photography further deepens our understanding and emotional connection between unjust acts throughout the world. It can capture and sustain the public’s attention and mobilize people who are interested in important social issues such as human rights.

According to Geoff Harris, “a picture is worth a thousand words” The image below is from the Open Society Foundation. The person who took the image is called Christian Holst, who is a documentary photographer. He writes about the image in great detail, talking about who the man is, and a bit about his life.

“A novice monk puts on a clean robe in a monastery in Rangoon. Novices like this young man will study for 10 to 13 years before they are able to pass required tests and be ordained as monks….”

Christian Holst’s In the Quite Land: Life Under the Military Regime of Burma

Documentary Photography is very important because it has the power to highlight stories that aren’t gaining attraction. They create a diverse range of perspectives. Photography has the influence to inspire people, and tackle issues such as corruption and discrimination. Documentary photography does this.

Here are some more examples of Documentary photography.

Research and analysis

Surrealism

July 6, 2017 Anna Houiellebecq Leave a comment

I used this website to research Surrealism because I was really interested in this style.

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-surrealism.htm

surrealism – a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images. Surrealist artists use the unconscious to enhance the imagination as a tool for their artwork. They believed that the rational mind repressed the power of the imagination. Many Surrealists are influenced by Karl Marx. They hoped that they could reveal the contradictions in the everyday world and create revolution.

Surrealism grew out of the Dadaism movement, which was a also repelling middle-class ideas. The most influential character for Surrealists was Giorgio de Chirico.

Surrealism shared a lot of anti-rationalism of Dada. The original Parisian Surrealists used art as a get away from violent political situations. They used it to address the unease they felt about the world. They explored fantasy and dream

Research and analysis

Dadaism

July 6, 2017 Anna Houiellebecq Leave a comment

I used this website to gain an understanding of what Dadaism is. ( https://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/dadaism.htm )

MAN RAY (1890-1976) ‘Cadeau (Gift)’ 1921 (Flat Iron with Brass Tacks)

According to wikipedia Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century. Also refereed to as ‘Dada’, it was a from of artistic anarchy born out of hatred for social, political and cultural values. It contained elements of art, music, poetry, theater, dance and politics. Dadaism was was more of a protest movement rather than a style of art.

Dadaism was a very large movement during WW1 because many artists , writers and intellectuals what extremely opposed to the war. They used their art as a way of creating confrontation and provocation. Many traditional art movements were attacked. They launched a full scale ‘assault’ on the art world. “Dada questioned the value of all art and whether its existence was simply an indulgence of the bourgeoisie.” People involved with Dadaism claimed to be anti-artists.

RAOUL HAUSMANN (1886-1971) ‘ABCD’ 1920 (collage)

RAOUL HAUSMANN (1886-1971) ‘The Spirit of Our Time’, 1920 (assemblage)

Experimentation, Planner & Tracking, Research and analysis

Plan for Tomorrow

July 5, 2017 Adam Seal Leave a comment

For tomorrows workshop we have been asked to bring in an image that can be destroyed, I chose this:

I simply tore it up, and stuck the pieces back together in a collage style photograph as I wanted to show the idea of a broken relationship.

This was because Johnny started talking about failures and mistakes in photography and if they were necessarily a bad thing. Interestingly, a wide range of viewpoints were expressed, including my own which felt that how can a creative subject like photography, ever have anything wrong. Obviously this leads to then in this context that a mistake, is when something occurs unintentionally and from this, this causes for us to go on a tangent. However I believe that it is hard to categorize mistakes in photography, because this comes very close to what the journey of photography is all about. Therefore mistakes are normal and are in a sense intentional as that is natural in photography.

To demonstrate this, we drew faces with our eyes closed and analysed how despite what we intended to do, how differing our results became. This task was very thought provoking because it led us to compare the figure in our head an how that can mask reality. This is obviously a very prominent issue in everyday society when we can be so focused on producing an intended result, our ayes can be closed to other areas that are opened up and let us develop our ideas.

Here Johnny told us to get an image and have a “play” with it, and show how we could explore the root of family relationships. I chose to create a torn effect by tearing the photograph into various parts, and stuck them back near together to create a jigsaw effect, with a stronger emphasis on the situation not being fixed, but permanently broken. I felt this way because I wanted to explore how despite family relationships breaking down, arguably the long term feelings towards one another are somewhat impacted. I like how I have created a smashed glass feeling which coincidentally links with our debate over the idea of mistakes as I initially was’t prepared to create this effect, and only after judging how close I wanted the pieces together I decided I could create a shattered glass effect. This way I feel I made the photograph to exaggerate its feelings towards brokenness.

Research and analysis

Johnny Briggs

July 5, 2017 Adam Seal Leave a comment

Johnny’s statement: “In search of lost parts of my childhood I try to think outside the reality I was socialized into and create new ones with my parents and self.

Through these I use photography to explore my relationship with deception, the constructed reality of the family, and question the boundaries between my parents and I, between child/adult, self/other, nature/culture, real/fake in attempt to revive my unconditioned self, beyond the family bubble.

Although easily assumed to be photo-shopped or faked, upon closer inspection the images are often realised to be more real than first expected. Involving staged installations, the cartoon-esque and the performative, I look back to my younger self and attempt to re-capture childhood nature through my assuming adult eyes.”

Image result for jonny briggs photographer

Independent Study, Research and analysis

Jonny Briggs Activity Review – Fear in the Process of Creativity…

July 5, 2017 Jude Luce Leave a comment

On 04/07/17, Jonny Briggs came in to school to give us another talk and include us in his style of work again. He had more tasks set up ofr us to immerse ourselves into the style of photo collage and he gave us a briefing about his work again to refresh us. The more intimate and inclusive experience was really helpful and beneficial to my development in the field of photo collage and producing work int he style of both Jonny and Tanja.

The session began with Jonny asking us is we had any primary questions for him to answer. Then he began to talk to us about his recent works in Jersey and what he is doing in his residency that could provide an influence to what we produce. The most prominent topic of discussion was the thought of fear within work and if it is an aid to the creative process. A heated discussion on this concept leas to many different views about the question Jonny asked us – whether fear is a good thing, or if something good can come from mistakes in a creative process. Jonny began to tell us about a piece of work he is really focusing on in his residency and tat he feels has the most relevance to his life. He told us that he has a focus on creating series of works in locations of authority and an explanation he provided for this was that an authoritative figure was missing from his family when was younger as his relationship with his dad was lost but he re-gained this sense of authority in his life through the school he wen to being very strict. He said that he has a plan to produce a photoshoot in the old police station, in particular in its evidence room where there are empty shelves throughout the room. He plans to cover the room in red lipstick and says that this freedom to essentially create a mess makes up fro the strict upbringing he had where at times he would feel dislocated. This gives him freedom to make something that has an association with desire and something that possesses a sexual connotation into a thought of disgust if shown in large quantities – as in this sticky mess. I found this relation to family, although strange and unpredictable very interesting. He told us that fear should not be a thing that hinders the creative process and you should embrace it. He then transferred the question to us and told us to give our opinions on whether fear is a good thing and something that helps us move forward with our work. I personally believe this is true because a good artists will take the idea of fear and use to their advantage to produce something that questions the normalities of art. I said that in my personal experience, if I came across something that scared me, and if I did not not know what I wanted to do in order to advance and complete something, I would freak out and essentially implode with stress and fear but this would spur me onto to do better – I would use it as a tool of determination and use it to motivate myself. The idea of forcing myself to achieve a goal even it requires me to go outside my comfort zone is a determiner of success because it means I am trying new things and the risk you take as to whether the outcome will be a success is all part of the creative process and how you learn from your mistakes. This idea made me think more about how I can use fear to improve my work and I think I will take into account that when I don’t know what I’m doing, I should fight that and remove the blanket of comfort – as Jonny described it and move forward.

Jonny then set up a task for us to do and he told us to draw a face – any face at all – a generic face, but with our eye closed. He gave us 3-4 minutes and then we had to open our eyes and see what we had produced. It was very weird to see what we had drawn because obviously the image was not what a face would look like because usually when you tell someone to draw a face, they would spend lots of time finalizing the intricate details of the features but crating s simple drawing with no boundaries apart form the limitation of us being blind created much freedom for me experiment and go wild with my thoughts. Although it looked very odd, there is no rule that states something does not look how it should or that if something does not provide a direct representation isn’t good. Breaking boundaries can result in a pleasing result and differentiation is a tool for creating new work as it can encourage new thoughts and new ideas from seeing things in new perspectives. I really enjoyed the task as it allowed dot be free in what I produced with no one to tell me that it is not good – and this is how everyday art should be.

I then drew an image of someone in the room, I chose to draw Harrison. I found this task much more difficult than the first because I was given a criteria to fill and limited my freedom for creativity in a way because I was not allowed to draw anything knowing that it would be accepted either way; I had to draw someones face and use my memory to put the features in the correct position. This task limited me more so and I therefore did not enjoy it as much. I would prefer to be told to get on with something and then do it in my own personal way that suits my style. This is how many photographers and artists get by nowadays because creativity and uniqueness is key. However, there is a theories who stages. His name is Kirby Ferguson and he says tat you cannot create without being influenced by others. I can totally agree with this but he also goes as far as to say that there is no originality in art today because each idea is derived form something that already exists. He describes the idea of copying as ‘simple-mimicry’ which I find quite fascinating and amusing because, yes, to some extent it is true.

Overall, I really enjoyed the workshop with Jonny because he is a modern day photographer who suits my style of work and he addresses personal issues through his now art which I admire and think is very brave – which I will have to become as I unveil my own archives gradually. He also wanted us to use the objects and images we brought in to create some photo collages or photographic scenes that mean something to us and gave us a task for homework to find five was to destroy an image. I am eager to get going with this and hope to conjure up some weird and ‘outside of box’ methods. I will publish these once finalized.

Here are the objects I brought in:

teddy given to me by my sister when she was born

bag made by Nan which I used to put my toys in

cricket ball given to me by my Dad when I was younger

Planner & Tracking, Research and analysis

Jonny Briggs-preperation

July 5, 2017 Anna Houiellebecq Leave a comment

On July 4th, Jonny Briggs will be coming to Hautlieu to do a work shop with us during our lesson time. For the workshop, we’re expected to bring in items of significant meaning, like something that could relate to us personally, or to our family. Examples of things we could bring are photos, clothes, jewelry or gifts that we were given that mean a lot to us. We are expected to write a bit about why we choose the items and why they are significant to us. If the items are of more importance then it would be a more detailed response to why we choose the items. We were also asked to bring in an image or more than one image that we could use to manipulate by hand, similarly to how Briggs showed us during the workshop and the Archives.

Independent Study, Planner & Tracking, Research and analysis