Eadweard Muybridge, born April 9, 1830 and died May 8, 1904, was an English photographer important for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion and in motion-picture projection.

Muybridge’s experiments in photographing motion began in 1872, when the railroad magnate Leland Stanford hired him to prove that during a particular moment in a trotting horse’s gait, all four legs are off the ground simultaneously. His first efforts were unsuccessful because his camera lacked a fast shutter. The project was then interrupted while Muybridge was being tried for the murder of his wife’s lover. Although he was acquitted, he found it expedient to travel for a number of years in Mexico and Central America, making publicity photographs for the Union Pacific Railroad, a company owned by Stanford.

In 1877 he returned to California and resumed his experiments in motion photography, using a battery of from 12 to 24 cameras and a special shutter he developed that gave an exposure of ²/₁₀₀₀ of a second. This arrangement gave satisfactory results and proved Stanford’s contention.

The results of Muybridge’s work were widely published, most often in the form of line drawings taken from his photographs. They were criticized, however, by those who thought that horse’s legs could never assume such unlikely positions. To counter such criticism, Muybridge gave lectures on animal locomotion throughout the United States and Europe. These lectures were illustrated with a zoopraxiscope, a lantern he developed that projected images in rapid succession onto a screen from photographs printed on a rotating glass disc, producing the illusion of moving pictures. The zoopraxiscope display, an important predecessor of the modern cinema, was a sensation at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago.

Analysis

Muybridge’s most famous image is the image which started the cinematic world. This image is shows a horse running in a typology like grid, which when played in quick succession creates a sense of movement. Taken with a self made camera Muybridge created this image for railroad magnate Leland Stanford who wanted to prove that a horses legs don’t touch the ground in one point of its gallop. After this was proved many people dint believe it and discredited the project, which Muybridge lashed back at by creating a zoopraxiscope which was like a projector which played each image after each other creating a sense of movement. The image was taken with an exposure of 2/1000 of a second, and a special shutter he created to allow the right amount of light in to take the photo.

I feel I can use this in my work by creating typologies of stalls to tell a story about the subject of the photos. I feel it can also be liked to Qingjuns work as all of the images are similar, and can be put into a typology as well..

The work of Huang Qingjun’s “Family Stuff” photographed families and their possessions outside their homes in poor regions of china to give an insight into their lives, and tell a story about their lives from their belongings. Qingjun’s work explores families lives in detail by showing all they have, which can build a story in the viewers eye. Qingjun uses colour in his photos which helps to create an interesting image by giving colour to the subjects possessions, which helps to easily identify them. This projects fit into the theme of ‘Variance and Similarities’ because It looks at how each individual with the same level of poverty looks different, and has different belongs even though all the subjects are below the poverty line.

To respond to Huang Qingjun I visited Millbrook car boot and took images of the different stalls, people and the things they were selling. The intended effect was to tell a story about the people from their belongings which I believe I have achieved successfully in my images. The outcome of my images is visually similar to that of Qingjun’s as the images showed a subject and their belongings.

Contact Sheet

Edits/Typologies

As these images are all similar, and yet different I feel it suits the photos to be displayed in a typologies grid. This allows the images to be compared to each other closely, whilst also seeing the differences that are clearly between them.

Huang Qingjun, a Japanese photographer born in 1971 in Daqing, convinced families in china with very little to move all of their belongings outside and be photographed with them. The project called “Family Stuff”, which spanned over 10 years, shows Chinese families with all their belonging. I like this project because I feel it tells a story about each family just from their belongings and how much they have, and I feel I can incorporate this into my work.

The “family stuff” project spanned over many years. and the main dates of the project follow. December 2007, “Family Stuff” works exhibition in 798 Photo Gallery, Beijing, China. 2009 and 2010, “Family Stuff” works exhibition in PHOTO Exhibition, Paris March 2012, “Family Stuff” works exhibition in AIPAD New York, USA. November 2012, “Family Stuff” works exhibition in Conceptual Renewal-A Brief History of Chinese Contemporary Photographic Art, Beijing, China September 2013，“Family Stuff” works exhibition in Photoquai Photography Biennial, Paris September 2013, “Family Stuff” works 10 years anniversary exhibition in 798 Photo Gallery, Beijing China

The reason I want to use Huang Qingjun as my inspiration is because I find his images interesting. This is because I feel that they tell a story within the photo. I wish to recreate a similarly styled set of images, showing a person and their belongings to try and tell a story in a still image.

To do this I will visit car boots. I feel that car boots are the best place to try and recreate this story as I can Photography people with their belongings. Normally in car boots people are selling their unwanted belongings and can tell a past story rather than their current story which Huang Qingjun’s project showed.

This image shows a family outside with their belongings with the house in the back ground. The image has been taken with a wide depth of field as all of the image is in focus. The photo appears to have been taken on a dim day outside so the photo would have had to be taken with an ISO of about 800. It creates a sense of loneliness as the image is taken in a desert with very little possessions in the photo. This creates a minimalist image and shows this families wealth, whilst also telling a story and creating questions such as why they’re in this rural and deserted area.

Over Easter, and the week leading up to it I hope to visit these different car boots areas to take pictures of different car boot stalls for the similarities and variation project. The places I wish to visit are:

• 7th April – Millbrook Car Boot Sale 7 am – 1 pm
• 7th April – St peters youth and community center 9 am – 1 pm
• 14th April – Millbrook Car Boot Sale 7 am – 1 pm
• 14 April – St peters youth and community center 9 am – 1 pm
• 21 April – Millbrook Car Boot Sale 7 am – 1 pm
• 21 April – St peters youth and community center 9 am – 1 pm
• 28 April – Millbrook Car Boot Sale 7 am – 1 pm
• 28 April – St peters youth and community center 9 am – 1 pm

As many car boots are open early and finish quite early I don’t think that I will be able to make both of them in the same day so I will rotate which ones I go to each week so hopefully I will have four different photo shoots for the end of Easter. I will be taking inspiration form Huang Qingjun who photographed families with all all their possessions for his project “family stuff”. Although I’m not photographing families with all their possessions, i hope to create the same effect of telling the stall owners story by photographing them and their “stuff”.

Modernism

Modernism is a general term used to describe trends in photography from around 1910-1950 when photographers began to produce works with a sharp focus and an emphasis on formal qualities, exploiting, rather than obscuring, the camera as an essentially mechanical and technological tool.

Paul strand was an American photographer born in 1890 in New York, who was one of the pioneers of photography in the 20th century. From the 1950-1960 he travelled around producing different photo books. One of Strands most well recognised photos is “wall street” which was taken in 1915. It shows a moment in time where workers are walking past the J.P. Morgan and Co. building in new York on Wall Street, where the image takes its name. The photograph is most famous for its reliance on the sharpness and contrast of the shapes and angles that lead to its abstraction. This photograph is considered to be one of Strand’s most famous works and an example of his change from pictorialism to straight photography. Strand moved from the posed to portraying the purity of the subjects. It is one of several images that stand as marks of the turn to modernism in photography.

Post-Modernism

Postmodernism is defined as a late 20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism, which represents a departure from modernism and is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions, a mixing of different artistic styles and media, and a general distrust of theories.

Hiroshi Sugimoto is a postmodernism photographer born in japan in 1948 his most famous work is his seascapes work which has a minimalistic approach. One image from this work is the Aegean sea, pillion image, which shows an image of an ocean taken from a spot around japan which many of his images were like in this project.

For this experiment I took six photos to start off and then I went through the process of Creating the GIF. These are the six original photos.

-The process

1. Upload your images to Photoshop.
2. Open up the Timeline window.
3. In the Timeline window, click “Create Frame Animation.”
4. Create a new layer for each new frame.
5. Open the same menu icon on the right, and choose “Make Frames From Layers.”
6. Under each frame, select how long it should appear for before switching to the next frame.
7. At the bottom of the toolbar, select how many times you’d like it to loop.
8. Preview your GIF by pressing the play icon.
9. Save and Export Your GIF.

After following the process the final GIF I was left with looks like this. I feel it shows variation and similarities of keyboards, monitors and the mouse, which is the bases of the project I will be working towards.

After going through the exam paper and gaining understanding of what variation and similarities can mean i have generated a few ideas i could pursue to show ‘variation and similarities’.

• Front doors – Front doors are the entrance to peoples homes which would explain a lot about the house and the type of person who lives in the house.

• Bag belongings – The belongings of peoples bags will show what they carry around, without knowing a person a lot can be told about the kind of person they are.
• Car boot sale – A car boot sale is a large collection of peoples belongings, by visiting one you can photograph each stall which can tell you about a person through the belongings they have brought to sell

• Wardrobes – A wardrobe holds peoples cloths and other belongings, which can be used to tell what kind of person they are, as people are judged by their appearance often.
• Key sets- Key sets hold keys and key rings that people have collected, and use. They show what kind of person they are as the have many different keys to doors and key rings, which can tell a story about a person as they are always with them.

The title for our exam is ‘variation and similarity’. In this blog post I will be exploring and breaking down the title, to discover what it will mean and how I can explore different ideas for this project.

Variation

In my point of view the word variation means the slight changes and differences between things. Variation as defined by the dictionary is ‘a change or slight difference in condition, amount, or level, typically within certain limits’. The word variation comes form the Latin word variātiōn which stemmed from the word variātiō. 

Some synonyms of this word are:

• difference
• fluctuation
• alteration

Similarity

In my point of view the word similarity means something to be like something else, or the same with a few ‘differences’. Similarity is actually defined as ‘the state or fact of being similar’ and ‘a similar feature or aspect’. This word comes from the old  French similaire which comes from the Latin similis.

Some synonyms of this word are:

• comparable
• identical
• related
• complimentary

Binary opposites

Variation and similarities is an example of binary opposites. Other examples of binary opposites are: