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Experimenting, Recording

Breaking The Rules

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http://www.huckmagazine.com/art-and-culture/photography-2/eight-photography-rules-worth-breaking/

#1 The Rules of Objectivity 

#2 The Rule of Audience

#3 The Rule of Manipulation

#4 The Rule of Reality

#5 The Rule of Technicality

#6 The Rule of Ownership

#7 The Rule of the Camera

#8 The Rule of Rule Breaking

The Rule of the Camera – Part 1

For this image, I interpreted the Rule of the Camera as being a collection of images that were created by having slightly odd camera techniques in terms of settings but also camera movement.  This image below was in reality taken as a mistake however all my images were essentially mistakes in this particular shoot as it was about exploring the boundaries of the camera.  The image below is an image of a bay that was taken at night with very long shutter speed of 30 secs with an ISO that was slightly lower than I would normally take.  As I took the image i ever so slightly gave a little wobble o the camera which created this red light shooting through the sky which is of a lighthouse, however I like the image of the bay is still well in focus.  This links to my current project as in a later date, I feel I would  be interested in exploring light as this has a direct relationship with nature.

The Rule of the Camera – Part 2

For these last 3 images I wanted to explore a relationship with the present and the past by taking images of structures that have survived time since before cameras existed.  This represents the rule of the camera as it captures the spirit of time of when ideally cameras couldn’t capture at the time they were built.  The first is an image of an old harbour, the second is a sea fortress and the third is a chapel, all surviving and existing for centuries.  This relationship of shared history among each structure where for centuries people have lived and survived off these locations reflects the rule of the camera because I believe it captures not the process of survival, but the legacy of how these places have been used to survive which links, particularly the first two images.

Analysis, Research

The Theory of Creationism

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The definition for creationism is: “the religious belief that the Universe and life originated from “specific acts of divine intervention” as opposed to the scientific conclusion that they come through  about natural processes”.

https://www.google.je/search?q=alexander+mourant&safe=active&rlz=1C1GGRV_en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz7_Kb09fZAhVqI8AKHWImDs4Q_AUICigB&biw=1920&bih=949&surl=1#imgrc=RYBChTDwUEpmvM:

Related image

The main points of creationism are these:

Creationism takes the belief that all life was created by the actions of God.  Some Creationists say God did this in a single creative event whereas  other Creationists don’t limit creation to one event, but a constantly changing and adapting event.  Therefore organisms created by God can’t produce new forms of organism – only God can do this.  This links to survival because it shows that animals dont survive through chance, but they they have a specific purpose in life that they were created for to achieve.  Christian belief is that everything was created by God for his pleasure and glory.  “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created” (Revelation 4:11).  This theory therefore is composed of the idea that as the elderly passes away in nature and is replaced with the new, it is not so much because they don’t have the survival traits but the change found in nature is living evidence of God working in the world and re-enforces that creation is always happening and didn’t just happen once.   This explores the freedom of what life is as opposed to death because where evolution argues essentially life among beings is an accident, creationism sees life as having a particuler purpose in that we are meant to explore the limits of freedom in our lives which ultimatley passes down onto the generation below.

Big bang vs 7 day creation.  Baby, cells – microscopic cells

On the opposite hand, the Intelligent Design theory claims that some sort of supernatural designer was involved in the creation of life on Earth. It differs from Creationism because it divorces Creationist ideas from their roots in Scripture that a specific God had a purpose for everything he created.  Life on Earth – and also the universe- shows so much order, purpose and design that there must have been a designer.  Some living things contain certain types of complexity that are best explained as the result of an intelligent cause.  Some aspects of the universe show positive evidence of having been designed by some form of intelligence.   “We do not know how God created, what processes He used, for God used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe. This is why we refer to divine creation as Special Creation. We cannot discover by scientific investigation anything about the creative processes used by God.” (1)

All this is argumentative of a common point that counters evolution in that animals were created by God or someone rather than animals being a product of a common ancestor.  Interestingly where Creationsim argues where we came from, Evolution argues how we got here.  Therefore each argument is contrary to the other in that Creationism explains the reasons why life has existed and survived whereas  Evolution explains how life has survived.  This difference is significant to my project of exploring the freedoms and limitations of life and death, old and new because from a creationist viewpoint of change found in nature is part of God’s ongoing creation.

Young Earth Creationists believe that God created the Earth within the last 10,000 years literally as according to the way the Bible described this process.  Most Young Earth Creationists believe the Universe is around as old as the Earth is.

Old Earth Creationists believe that the physical Universe was created by God, but the event of creationism described in the Book Of Genesis is to be taken metaphorially and figuratively.

Gap Creationism argues that life was created on a pre-existing Earth, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Original act of creation.)”And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”  Therefore Gap Creationists can agree with the theory of evolution and with the ago of the Earth to an extent while holding a belief of Biblical Creationism as well.  However

Day Age Creationism believes that because the Bible doesn’t specify how long a day is, but in the Bible it could be millions or billions of years.  This view could also agree with scientific view regarding the

 

The Creation of the World – Genesis 

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse[a] in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 And God made[b] the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8 And God called the expanse Heaven.[c] And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

9 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth,[d] and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants[e] yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons,[f] and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.16 And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds[g] fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.”21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “Let us make man[h] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27 So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
    male and female he created them.

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

(1) Gish, Evolution? The Fossils Say No!, 1979

Experimenting, Planning, Recording

Breaking the rules///The Rule of Audience

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Planning

The rule of audience suggest that an artists work should appeal to someone or a group of people. This is the rule I am going to break. I will try to take photos that won’t appeal or impress anyone. I won’t make photos that directly relate to a person or group of people. I want to make photos that have no meaning, nothing for someone to relate to, completely random photos that have no artistic value.

Recording

I decided to first take photos that were out of focus and blurred. Initially this wasn’t meant to look good however, due to it being to abstract and having bright colors, these photos were liked by many people. In some cases you could say I broke the rule of Technicality but this wasn’t the rule I was breaking so even though I made photos people liked they have to be consider a failed attempt as people liked them. The photos below was creating below with the same mind set however this was my most popular photo. For the same reasons as before these photos did not reasons before it did not hit the brief I set for myself.

These photos below did succeed in my goal of breaking the rule of Audience. Nobody I have shown these photos liked them as they showed no skill, nothing interesting and all round boring. I have created photos nobody liked or appreciated. Although I have completed the objective I set myself I personally even I do not like these photos and wish not to continue with this any further. However the photos above is something I would like to continue to explore. Abstraction is something I have lightly touched on in my previous projects however I’d like to explore this further fulling immersing myself in color, distortion and composition. This task has made me realize that the rule I want to continue to break is Technicality.

Research

The Theory of Evolution

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To start exploring the change in nature I want to explore both the Theory of Evolution and the Theory of Creationism.  This is because by looking at the constant change in nature, I want to trace back not only the starting point from where change in nature originated from but also looking at the arguments for why change occurs, leading us to question is there a destination we are heading towards as change is continuous before change in nature stops.  What is the point of survival? Only to die again?  As I explore the Theories of evolution and creationism and the role they play in the change found in nature, I want to consider these questions as animals try so hard to survive but to be replaced soon with the new.  Therefore I believe in my images I take I want to capture the spirit and essence of why people animals believe life is so worth of living.

Image result for charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was a British Biologist who proposed the Theory of evolution through natural selection.  This theory composes of the idea that species change over time and give rise to new species whilst both sharing in one common ancestor.  Natural selection allows for evolution to be possible because it bases its thesis on that resources in nature are limited and so competition for these resources will only be favorable to whichever species has the traits to survive.  Reproduction will occur among these species and so the traits of past generations are adopted into the newer younger generations and increase in frequency.  “…Natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a great and sudden leap, but must advance by short and sure, though slow steps.” (1).  This idea fascinates me greatly because I am interested in exploring the ways in which the passing of the old into the new but how the new adopts the foundations from the previous generation.  This links to the idea of freedom in nature because the limits in one generations death is the freedom for the next generation in terms of its ability to survive.  This idea of a common ancestor between inter species includes all forms of nature from birds, bananas, fishes and flowers for example and so I want to capture the variety of methods of survival traits between the species, plants, the land and sea and other natural beings.  “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” (2)

The statement “survival of the fittest” is arguably misrepresentative of natural selection and what it composes of.  Individuals don’t survive, it is the traits of an animal that is found in the genes of the population and is passed through the generations is what survives.  The keys to survival are the traits that essentially survive.  Natural selection focuses more on the genes that code for desirable traits or characteristics that enable and ensure survival rather than the actions of survival in itself.  Molecular biologist Michael Denton wrote, “Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small… each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery… far more complicated than any machinery built by man .” [3]  Darwin confessed, “To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” [4]

Image result for charles darwin

  1. Charles Darwin, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life,” 1859, p. 162.
  2. Ibid. p. 158.
  3. Michael Denton, “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis,” 1986, p. 250.
  4. Charles Darwin, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,” 1859, p. 155.

Links

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/her/evolution-and-natural-selection/a/darwin-evolution-natural-selection

http://theconversation.com/explainer-theory-of-evolution-2276

https://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com/

 

 

Analysis, Research

Rinko Kawauchi // AILA

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http://rinkokawauchi.com/en/publications/384/

http://rinkokawauchi.com/en/works/253/

AILA

Here is another series that I really like by Rinko Kawauchi. All of her images have a very similer atmosphere that goes with her idea and concept of the world. Her style is very spiritual and pure. This puplication by Rinko was done in 2005. This is how she describes the series in her own words, “A chick, horse, dog, turtle and human beings…Some creatures are to die soon after the birth; some creatures are born only to be eaten by the others to sustain their lives. All the living creatures are accepting their fate in the life no matter what it is. The mysterious and precious moments of the birth of various creatures. The blessings of being living. The babbles, vividness, beauty, joy, and the ephemeral existence of the lives in nature.” Within the series she is interpreting every day situations through the images that she creates.

I love the pure, softness that Rinko has created through her use of editing. She has managed to collect a wide variation of themes, frames and subjects within this series. She has captures portraits, landscapes, abstract images and lot of images of nature.  Every images within the series tells its won story and has its own unique theme. When she combines all the images into a series they all have this flow because of the style she has created.

Analysis, Research

rinko kawauchi // Illuminance

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http://rinkokawauchi.com/en/works/194/

Illuminance

The series Iluminance was done in 2011. Kawauchi’s work has frequently been lauded for its nuanced palette and offhand compositional mastery, as well as its ability to incite wonder via careful attention to tiny gestures and the incidental details of her everyday environment. In Illuminance, Kawauchi continues her exploration of the extraordinary in the mundane, drawn to the fundamental cycles of life and the seemingly inadvertent, fractal-like organization of the natural world into formal patterns.

Research

rinko kawauchi // the river embraced me

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http://rinkokawauchi.com/en/works/48/

The River Embraced Me

This series by Rinko is about memories and finding them again. Her use of pastel and soft colours is what drew me to her work. I lover style and unique perspectives that she has.

Her exhibition unifies the stories of people’s memories with works of photography — featuring her brand new works shot across forty different locations, all inspired by memories of the people of Kumamoto. By capturing the backdrops of these recollections, the experience brings life to memory within the photographer, and as such allows the viewer to feel the budding of memories of their own. Within time, flowing like a river, we find our memories embracing all of us. Through the scenes and places captured within these photographs, one finds this photo collection to be overflowing with refreshing moments — ones that open the doors to our own memory. Through opening a new frontier through Aso in Kumamoto as the backdrop of Kawauchi’s previous work “Ametsuchi,” we find her continuing her foresighted expression of what it means to feel “alive in the moment” throughout this newest work.

Research

response to manipulation shoot // artist research // rinko kawauchi

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http://rinkokawauchi.com/en/

rinko kawauchi

Rinko Kawauchi is a Japanese photographer born in 1972. Her work is characterized by a serene, poetic style, depicting the ordinary moments in life. She studied at Seian College of Art and Design and graduated in 1993. She worked in advertising for several years after graduationg, but later became a fine art photographer. In 2001 three of her photo books were published. They were Hanako (a japanese girl’s name), Utatane (catnap), and Hanabi (fireworks). Kawauchi’s images are rooted in Shinto, the ethnic religion of the people of Japan. According to Shinto, all things on earth have a spirit, this shows in her work because no subject is too small or mundane for her. Most of her images are in a 6×6 format.

I came across this photographer after doing my manipulation edits task. Her work is quite similar  and in the same style as Laura El Tanawy. Both their work contains a bleach, bright atmosphere that I love. Her images are extremely pure and have this innocent sense to them. She is aiming to capture the world as she sees it, with a spirit in everything and everyone. Although all of her images are quite dis-similar they all contain a beauty that link to each other in someway.

Within her many series she chooses to fragment certain scenes. She sees the beauty in everyday life and captures it. Her images range from landscapes to portraits to abstract scenes. She pinpoints the beauty that she sees and displays it, closely observing it.

Within her work, she doesn’t have a set theme like most photographers who choose to focus on one thing, such as a memory, or a a certain object. Kawauchi uses the world as her subject. She fragments the beauty of every day situations and uses her photographing style to manipulate them. Kawauchi is breaking the rules of photography like the photographer Laura El Tanawy. She fragments the scene rather than framing the whole thing. This is what makes her images so unique and interesting. They all tell their own specific story. I also love the colour and aesthetic of her images.

Uncategorized

PROVOKE

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Provoke was a Japanese magazine which rejected glossy commercial imagery and the style of documentary photography. The Provoke era refers to its influence on photography made in post-war Japan. Provoke was initially set up to challenge the idea that photography has its own language, independent of words. Following the decimation and rebuilding of Japanese society after the Second World War, photography played an important part in a new self-definition of Japanese visual style, set apart from Western influences.

Provoke was a magazine with only three issues in the late 1960s, but its influence continued into the 1970s and 80s. It set itself apart from the photojournalistic style of the day, looking for a more subjective voice and validation of the person behind the camera. The images are often grainy and disorderly, reflecting the social and political upheavals taking place across the nation. The magazines main purpose was to contrast with the glossy imagery of commercial magazines which were around at the time. Takuma Nakahira and Yutaka Takanashi were founding members of the Provoke group. Daido Moriyama joined a little later, bringing with him his early influences of Cartier-Bresson, but with a desire to be a witness with more self-expressive intent.

This youtube clip details how the Provoke magazines was set up and then the ways in which it began to be used by the three photographers listed above to change the practical and theoretical meaning of photography. Provokes main focus comes from the name, the photographers aimed to provoke people with their imagery and even more so provoke visual language. The background is crucial to understanding the emergenece of breaking the boundaries of documentary photography.

Provoke was founded during the moments of massive changes in Japanese society around the 1960’s. One of the most notable for triggering this emergence was the ratification of the US-Japan security treaty which lead to companies in japan acting in an neoliberal way which had never been seen before in Japan. Protests from workers in factories are even more so farmers began to protest and millions of Japanese citizens took to the street campaigning and protesting against the government. This is when protest photography became huge being accompanied by about 80 protest ooks which were filled with images of the mass amount of participations that these protests had. The images and books spread visual information and was used to mobilize new protests by provoking them to join. The photographers documented the performances of these events and the images became dynamic and ephemeral which are the exact elements which ‘Provoke’ as a magazine adopted in their photography.

All three of the photographers which founded provoke magazine began to show a new conceptual approach to photography were the outcome was unpredictable as they shot the photos without looking through the viewfinder and instead ‘ shot from the hip’ creating spontaneous imagery. The artists were questioning established documentary photography and experimenting with breaking the boundaries of what were thought to be the rules of photography. Their images were judged as being rough, grainy and blurred which contrasted with what classic photographers labeled documentary photography should be. Nonetheless there were always shown differences between the three photographers as Yutaka Takanashi who was the most classical amongst the three photographers did not seem to push the boundaries as much as the others, still using the viewfinder when making his images. ‘Provoke’ seems to be an examination of photographers possibilities and lead the way for other photographers to push the boundaries of photography.

“Today, when words have lost their material base—in other words, their reality—and seem suspended in mid-air, a photographer’s eye can capture fragments of reality that cannot be expressed in language as it is. He can submit those images as a document to be considered alongside language and ideology. This is why, brash as it may seem, Provoke has the subtitle, ‘provocative documents for thought.”
— Manifesto of the Provoke Group by Kohi Taki, Takuma Nakahira, Takahiko Okada, Yutaka Takanashi, and Daido Moriyama – http://www.photopedagogy.com/provoke.html

Photography was too explanatory, too narrational for me. […] It was natural for me to join Provoke. […] They said they were photographing atmosphere. But I was very precise and careful. […] But my work changed after I saw how they worked. I saw that I could not control everything. I understood that photography is only a fragment. I used to be a photographer who interprets things via language. And then Provoke changed me.
— Yakuta Takanashi

Furthermore i watched this video by Daido Moriyama  where he reflects on the rebellious youth culture of late 1960s Japan, a period when he and his colleagues were working on the avant-garde photography magazine Provoke. He discusses his attempt to deconstruct the medium in his series Shashin yo sayonara (Farewell Photography) (1972), though it ultimately deconstructed him. Daido Moriyama was on of may of the young photographers who were involved in the provoke magazine and in the short video he suggests that young people i this time had the motivation to express themselves and that they were inspired by the feelings of rebellion to produce radical photography which allowed them to express themselves. When Provoke came to an end, Moriyama ould not settle with taken normal photography an this is were he continued his social rebellion through photography and produced his photobook ‘Farewell Photography’ where he questioned every little thing about photography as he was “excessively caught up in a desire to deconstruct photogrpahy”.

When looking at photographers such as Daido Moriyama, Takuma Nakihara and Yutaka Takanashi words such as radical, expression, unpredictable, spontaneous, grainy, blurred, unique, individual, protest and rebellious come to mind. These Japanese photographers which used social rebellion as inspiration and motivation for their photography capture extremely unique images which break the traditional boundaries of photography, but i think that there is a need for photographers who want to get there message across to break the rules and produce pieces which are different and radical as this catches the eye of the audience, the viewer, the political protests. To me, to provoke means to initiate question and debate of the meaning of something. And that is exactly what the provoke photographers where doing, they were questioning the boundaries of photography and therefore making others also question it. I think that once a subject is brought into the eyes of individuals as being question by one it has the domino effect to provoke offers the also question this and what the Japanese provoke photographers have caused is a longitudinal debate of the possibilities of photographers.

 

 

 

 

 

Analysis

comparison // mine and Laura El Tanawy

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Mine

My final edited image was created using Photoshop. I used the double exposure edit to layer two images on top of each other. My image has a bright exposure like Tanawy’s and also contains the use of pastel colors. This creates a feminism feel which is similar to Tanawy’s. The two images that I used where very different. I used a silhouette of branches hanging down with the sky as the background. I also used the reflection from inside a window to layer over it. Both of the images together create this interesting dimension with the use of the reflection as well as the silhouette.

 Laura El Tanawy

Tanawy’s image also looks like a double exposure edit. I used this image as a comparison to mine because I think its one of the most interesting from her series. The image contains silhouettes of trees and aspects of nature that she layers to create her final edit. She combines many scenes to create this dreamlike, spiritual atmosphere. This image is very bright and full of pastel colors. This style is very similar to my edit because it is also bright and full of pastel colors.  I like the contrast within the image because it contains pale yellows and also harsh reds. The image has a tropical feel because of the palm trees and the birds in the center of the frame. The colors in the image create consultations of pain and hatred with the use of the harsh reds.