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The theme of variation and similarity can be seen throughout many types of work one of which is an experiment by Californian photographer John Baldessari. This experiment was influenced by Baldessari after he did it in 1973. His aim was to get all three balls to line up mid air and take a picture as they do so. it was really challenging to throw them up and get them lined up and take the picture at that exact moment.
My Attempt:
This image of Sugimoto’s expresses his style. Evidently, the black and white theme continues but he uses animals instead of people or objects as his subject. In the image, Hyenas, Jackals and Vultures appear to be fighting over something, likely a kill. This fighting is a fine line where life meets death, the kill itself is represents the dark side of that spectrum. The weather also plays a vital role in exposing this theme which is only emphasized by the black and white. The horizon marks the border between the light and the dark, the margin that represents the border between life and death.
Despite the image being constructed post shoot, it looks very real and to the viewer, it creates a sense of fear perhaps and an exaggeration of the line between life and death. Visually, the image stands out by being unique and interesting with its wild subjects however the composition of the image itself increases the image’s likability. Being black and white, the image attracts a nice contrast between light and dark, linking to the theme of life and death that we see in the subject matter. Further,more, the sky has little structure and retains a rather smooth texture yet the shading adds a real depth to the image and almost sets the brightness of the entire image and creates an effect making the image appear brighter yet still having a meanness to it.
This image, despite using fake subjects, is quite a fascinating image when it comes to the taking of the image itself. It could appear that Sugimoto put himself in danger being so close to wild predators. He captures a lot of lives in that image and that fact even further expresses how fragile that can be as they fight over a kill. I would think that he used a wide angle lens at quite a close range, maybe only 5-10 meters from the subjects. I would believe he used a faster shutter speed and a medium ISO to capture the birds flying perfectly still but also having the light in the image to light the foreground but not too much to have the background (sky) to be over-exposed.
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The American Civil war started 158 years ago, and back in 2011, it was its 150th anniversary. To commemorate this milestone, The Atlantic made a special issue featuring photographs from the civil war itself.
These photos were taken by war correspondents to bring the ugly visuals of the frontlines to those at home, in a realistic and modern way of viewing them.
This new way of viewing and photography process was called stereo photography, also known as stereography. This was one of the first uses of a type of three dimension photography that was accessible to the public, providing they had access to a stereoscopic viewer, which is what created the 3D effect that has been kept alive and modernised through the years.
Also as these photos were taken over 150 years ago, they were taken with plate cameras so you can see the lens edges and exposure lines on the sides.
Analysis:
Her work combines factors of identity, race, culture, history and memory. I think it is evident throughout all of these artists work, there is a defined clarity to their relation to that of similarity and variation. However it is divided into the narratives of peoples, places and an emotional responses to the title. I started off with looking at ‘Simpson’ She uses her work in order to repeat an understanding of peoples lack of attention, and their uncomfortablity within learning and seeing new aspects of people. She claims to create a dynamic which makes people uncomfortable, as it is within the open relationships of artworks and viewers, that they grow and become more susceptible to understanding a narrative, and learning from the piece of art themselves. I Believe her work is work which becomes more interesting once you know and have learnt the understanding to why she has done what she has done. To my mind, her work is slightly repetitive with a lack of change, I would rather she expresses a narrative thought ,rather than a repeated image, however, this was her aim when creating this art form. Her work not only has her own influence of her black identity, and narrative of peoples lack of attention. But it too links to connections of fine art being multitude of creative mannerism, clearly influencing her work.
Hiroshi Sugimoto is a Japanese born photographer, who first began taking interest during his time in highschool. Although Sugimoto studied Politics and Sociology at university level in 1970, he decided to ratrain in 1974 and recieved a BFA in Fine Arts at the Arts Centre College of Design.
Sugimoto describes his work as an expression of time exposed photographs which act as a time capsule for a series of events in time.
Many of Sugimotos photos lack the physical detail which would allow the photos objects to be distinguished, and instead strongly focuses on the lighting and textures. Sugimotos photos do not follow a certain pattern, and his images do not specify the subjects in which we are looking at,suggesting that he follows the surrealist movement.
Sugimoto produces a vast amount of his images using a large 8×10 format camera on a long exposure, creating the blurred effect that some of his images have.
We thought that this artist linked in well with page 8 of the exam booklet, which is the fine art response to variation and similarity. This response was based on the artists Nick Greaves and Bluegreen Pictures.
Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard’s photography of moving animals captured movement in a way that had never been done before. His work was used by both scientists and artists. He developed a miraculous process for capturing movement on film. This approach to photography influenced media and other motion animation industries to produce picture animation. In 1872, Muybridge began photographing a galloping horse in a sequence of shots. He eventually came up with a more complex method of photographing horses in motion. By 1879, he had proven that they do at times have all four hooves off the ground during their running stride. Over the next few years, he produced thousands of photographs of humans and animals in motion. Eadweard presented his photographic methods using a projection device he’d developed called the Zoopraxiscope.
This image portrays several images of a pig running. The sequence of photos shows how the pig is moving. The colour isn’t natural because of the camera that Muybridge used. This old camera that was used in the 1800s creates a sepia, vintage effect. He usually uses images of horses, but in this particular image, he used a pig to show the contrast between the two animals, and how they move in a similar way. The repetition of the images shows the variance of each image, and how each photo differs from the others due to the pigs movement. The way they are produced in a grid makes it easier to compare all the images.
Nick Greaves
He studied geology and environmental sciences at the University of Aston in Birmingham, England. His passion and interest in Africa took him to Southern Africa in 1976. Greave’s interests in wildlife, conservation & photography originally developed independently, but slowly all these came together over the years, and he was able to combine all these passions into his current position as a multi-tasker, dividing his time as a professional safari guide, photographer and author. Nick’s love of wildlife and the outdoors quickly led to an interest in photographing the world around him, and over the years his photography has become a never ending search to capture the moods and wildlife of Africa and elsewhere. This interest has led to a full portfolio covering much of the flora, fauna, culture, and heritage of Southern Africa.
This image taken by Greave’s is portraying the mushrooms that appear as part of the wildlife’s nature in Africa. The repetition of the mushrooms that spiral up the branch of the tree trunk shows the variance between the mushrooms- although, they are all of a very similar size, shape and colour, which makes all the mushrooms seem very alike – this is similar to Murbridge’s work as they both take photos of the same object, yet they all vary in their own ways. In Greave’s photo, he only displays his repeated objects (mushrooms) in one single image, instead of in a grid format like Muybridge portrayed his work. Maybe this was because in Greave’s photo, the mushrooms were all bunched together already, so that it was easy for him to take his repetition photography in one image instead of putting them together in a grid layout like Muybridge did. This photo has a lot of natural colours, due to Greaves taking this image in 1996; the technology of cameras and online software at this time is obviously a lot more improved than when Muybridge took his series of images of animals in the 1800s.
Michael Wolf was born in 1954 in Munich, Germany and was raised in the United States, Europe, and Canada. He attended the North Toronto Collegiate Institute and the University of California, Berkeley. In 1976 he obtained a degree in visual communication at the University of Essen, Germany.
Wolf began his career in 1994 as a photojournalist, spending eight years working in Hong Kong for the German magazine Stern.
Wolf states that a decline in the magazine industry led to photojournalism assignments becoming “stupid and boring.” In 2003 he decided to work only on fine-art photography projects.
Wolf’s current works are spread between Hong Kong and Paris mainly and
his work focuses on the structure and repetitiveness of daily life in big cities. He has has many notable projects such as ‘100×100’, ‘Bastard Chairs’ and ‘Tokyo Compression’.
This short video is something I do everyday, a daily repetition.