Daily Archives: November 25, 2018

Filters

Author:
Category:
Uncategorized

Essay Introduction

1 Comment

How do Rita Puig Serra Costa and Linda McCartney both share their relationships and memories with their family through the medium of photography?

Family Photos have been taken for hundreds of years as a way of capturing precious moments of people with their loved ones. in this essay i am going to look at to different photographers who have studied members of their family in their work. I will compare and contrast their work in a hope to gain a greater understanding of their photographic style and meaning  of their work.  I want to look into the relationship between the photographer and their subject to see how and if it effects the the end result. I also want to explore how this relationship is communicated to an audience, and how these private and personal photos can also be seen and read by outsiders. The two photographers I am planning on looking at have developed their work in very different ways but both manage to show great connection with their subjects and tell beautiful stories with their work. Rita Puig Serra Costa created a book surrounding her family history, the book contains a variety of images, from portraits, still life, landscapes and archival copies it creates a broad description of her family dynamic and the memories she has with them (be more specific about the book dealing with the memory of her mother). Linda McCartney on the other hand was originally a professional photographer of celebrities until she met her husband and musician Paul McCartney. As they got to know each other and build a family she captured and shared a large selection of photographs. Being in the public eye the family were regularly photographed however there is something very special about the connection they had which came across in the images. By researching this area I hope to gain a greater understanding of family, relationships and memories in photography to help me with my own project about my Grandpa. You need to provide more details here about an overview of your own project, what and how you intend to make photographic responses.

Over all there is very little evidence of any research and reading around the subject of memory and family photography. You must read the texts I gave you on Roland Barthes and his memory and philosophy around looking at an image of his mother. Include at least one direct quote from Barthes and comment on it.

AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas

sublime shoot: ballet dancer shoot 4

Leave a comment

For this shoot I wanted to shows some themes of surrealism and also emotions expressed through their style of traces woodman and how she blurs people moving in order to express an emotion. I chose a dancer due to the effect of the abstract shapes and forms creating patterns in the sky and such. I belive this response is quite interesting and definitely does contain more abstract themes to my previously more straight photography style of showing a clear demonstration of emotions. I belive due to how blurry it is as it forms a similar relation to both landscapes and portraiture both mixed into one similar over ruling theme. I wanted to experiment with both editing with and without colour, I have done this as I quite enjoyed experimenting with the juxtaposition of the bright red shoes, I then also developed more in photoshop and overlaying the images and ow this can combine to show a chaotic over ruling theme of both emotion and action, I belive those images clearly demonstrate that of stress, and a sense of frantic worry. I think dancing itself is an oxymoron. It is so beautiful yet causes the dancer themselves so much pain throughput the extensive training.

contact sheet:

Edits:

 

This is one of my favourite images from this shoot, I think the movement of the light and juxtaposition to the arms moving so quickly and frantically to that of the simplicity of the dancer being on point. I this creates an almost type of paradox that perhaps it could be further conceptualised to that of pleasure and pain all into one image itself.

This image has such a strong surrealistic undertone. The way the light forms and looks as though it is lifting her up. I believe this movement and almost angelic light shows a freedom and a peace to the image. I think this image is the symbol of the sublime, you could never plan this image which I think is such a primary purpose to being a significant and sublime. There is a freedom and unpredictability, there is also an expectation of danger as she will have to fall back down. I think I should do further experiment with this image and do believe possible with a lower saturation this will be such a successful

Overlapping images edited:

I think overlapping  these images makes them less clear in the way which you are now unable to see the point of the composition. I belive if I add more quotations which philosophers have spoken about which have a relation to the image it could be successful and further conceptualises the photos themselves.

A2 Personal Investigation

Specification for my political landscape project

Leave a comment

After multiple different ideas and discussions, I came to conclusion I would focus my project on the idea behind walls and the messages behind them. I used the theory “When walls talk” by Thomas McMullan as inspiration.  I was able to use this theory to inspire this specific project by focusing on the meaning behind walls and how they can create a sense of inclosure and isolation. I intend to capture different areas where these aspects stand out and I want to make aware of how these subjects can also create a sense of intimidation due to these man made structures. In relation to my photo book, I want to create a book that broadens the viewers awareness of the ever-everchanging and isolating environment within Jersey.

Throughout the theory there were multiple artists used however, there were a few that stood out massively and caught my eye over any of the others. Bruce Davidson and his ‘Subway’ photographs really stood out due to the fact he corporates human life within the dull underground graffiti which allowed these images to produce a powerful story and concept. Davidson was a strong source of inspiration as he included two aspects that I wanted to use throughout my project in the sense of the meaning behind the walls and also how society reacts to it and I feel that he has completed this strongly throughout his project. Furthermore, I thought that the artist Alex Webb and his photographs from Haiti was another strong source of inspiration as his documentary photographs conveyed the idea of isolation and intimidation however some of his images also contrasted against each other as they were also breaking the rule as some of the images showed holes within the walls which allowed the subjects to pass through them. I felt that this aspect created a strong however important contrast within the idea of isolation as his images show the subjects challenging the theory.