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second artist: and Cristina de Midde

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Cristina de Middel  is a Spanish  documentary artist who is currently living and working in Mexico. She has self published many of her works and has focused on many different projects such as the southern Africa space program . Her work is critically acclaimed and she had sold out many of her books ad  works across the world. She has been nominated for many huge photography prizes all around the globe. Her work is an ongoing investigation to focus on the ambiguous relationship of what is the truth. She blends her views od documentary and conceptual phoqogorhic practises, she does this through practising with the reconstruction of archetypes and her found burr of what is reality and what is fiction. Her photojournalistic gaze as an outsider allows her to create views which she can presently see within the landscape she is is innovate with her work creates critically acclaimed series , such as the image above which focuses on a failed program for space. this could come onto terms of predicting the future of presenting a false sense or recreating an occasion that is happening elsewhere in the world. Her stages reenactments and obscure narratives allow a continuously interesting new body of work. Her work is that of fiction but can serve as a subject relative to todays world. Her photography can work just as well as being fact as it highlights our expectations of how reality is flawed. Her exhibitions are international and have won the prize for infinity award and the international centre award. 

To me the image above has a child like sense of a false sense of reality and the hope and childlike ignorance a child has. This is mirrored through the handmade costume and the stance which conveys power and confidence. The angle of the photo being a low shot also attributes power to the man, it shows a confidence and his gaze perhaps highlights a longing for a reality that will probably never happen. The atmosphere to which they are surrounded is relative to the location of Africa and them having a space program in such a poor area. The light tonal colours of the outfit creates such a strong juxtaposition to the atmosphere itself and shows the artists disagreement of political standards and corruption within the government structure of their properties. It shows a false reality to the people of Africa and thinking they have an opportunity to be part of this space program but it is not a possibility.

I believe this piece is very interesting in how to shows a false reality .I believe that the person  look secure, and composed, and how this is not an accurate scenario to someone who too would be faced with many bugs such as this. The image contains a beauty within these horrible bugs that would scare many people. This image symbolises the death and ignorance and suffering people have to live with.Her images purpose a sense of reality throughout he false tablo images which are obviously set up but insure a deep meaning. it interests me the way in which all of her work contains and obscure image with an equally as obscure narrative story within it too.

Midde had a realisation that her work did not have enough impact. because of this she stopped believing in raising awareness by pointing out the problem. She wanted to start a debate within her images and see how many different approaches she could take in order to start the making of a solution. She has said ‘ straight documentary photography is about imposing an opinion (that comes from mass media’s agenda) and the audience has very little to add to it, and the dimension of the problem makes it impossible to react’Because of this imposing a different reality were she promotes a solution and not the problem itself there is a new dynamic and an essence of courage within her work.The language employed when searching the chronicle of the world is outdated, the reaction is no longer the same. People are no longer impressed by the document itself and some contexts needs to be provided. Midde wanted to ‘include my opinion and my vision of things in the way I try to explain the world.’ The inspiration of her work is generating a context from newspapers, magazines and then sharing it she portrays as a selfish process. Midde stays on the surface because she believes this is the most interesting subject to a topic, due to it being a visible concept. It enables people to see a problem and understand it a-lot better . This is how her work presents a new reality to so many because it is not meant to show a problem, but easily present a solution.

AO1 Develop Ideas, Case Study

breaking the rules: reality: artist: peter watkins.

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Peter watkins

Watkins is a visual artists based in London, his work within photography started with his autobiographical elements incorporating sculptor, and spatial elements. His work is always about achieving a mediated practice of how a certain material is perceives and lost throughout different processes and time.Many of his works are award winning and can be found in many exhibitions And collages across Europe.

Many of his works are based off a memory from when he was younger. This includes when he was driving down a long straight road and how within the weather conditions the vision is dull and grey. He has vidid memories of what people wear are occasions listing ‘ My mother is seated front left, in the passenger side, and my father is driving, wearing a merino jumper with interconnecting diamond shapes; the kind golfers wear.’ He suggests he has a strong interest in time and the way in which people age and die. His view of immortal life has been occurrent since he was 2; he purposes the almost obvious ideal that the older you are the sooner you will die. However he is soon saying that it was not true and his mother killed herself. ‘Some months later my mother would end up walking into the North Sea, her final act in a series of events that came to sum up her final few months of life.’ This to me emphasis the reality of life and how aversions are confused with the expectations that we hold. It was not a true reality to expect his father to live longer. He talks much about the reality of life being held within memories and time and everything else is built around this.’The memories of this time, and what is built around it, creates a foundational narrative of sorts that I can accept to some degree as authentic’

His memories are coloured by recollection, through telling stories seen within images he is able to bare a rhythm and structure of the narrative fiction. He has said ‘ recollections are transfigured by narrative but also brought to life by them’ There is a purity of memory yet this is not a consistent sense of reality. No matter how authentic something might seem it is no more than a insufficient narrative which is incomplete with assumptions. Because of this nothing is reality so why should our photography be made to convey the truth and the exact reality when this is not possible as it is a view of our voice as a reflection of our own reality.

His project ‘The Unforgetting’ is his culmination of works seen through years of work. It allows his trauma and emotions surrounding the loss of his mother to be associated with the history of memory. He bounds his photography up into objects, places and people which are too associated with the family.

The interests for me within his work is how she shows a surface as an outward appearance and an exterior boundary. This work successful shows what the camera is seen to be faced with and yet shows what photography is able to unveil through these images.  His images not only communicate . A story and emotion of his self inflicted pain but also many highlight a texture and a from, this is done in a way to pick away the exterior or who or what we are and depthen the understanding and communicate who people really are through their history and belongings.

many of his images question the possibility of what lies beyond. To my mind his works presents a person or object and instead of us agreeing with what he sees he wants us to ask but what is beyond this image or within the person or inside the cave. We should not agree with what we are given because this isn’t a clear representation fo reality but we should search within what we see int he image to tell us more. I think this image above is fascinating. The complex and deliberate composition focus on areas which belong and are of significance to the man himself.

What I want to take from his work is the way in which he successful conveys a families history and presents it in such a way to show how a memory is subject and not the presentation of a real Occassion. I believe i too will take his ideas os using old family photos and object to present the person in my own reality which might not be directly theres. He uses much of his work to explore a connection to his past and things which you expect are not how they happen.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, Coursework

Breaking the rules planning: reality

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Research and notes from lewis bush article:

What I was inspired by through Lewis bush’s ‘eight rules’.  The only way to tell them is to take a few risks, break all the rules and pioneer a new way of seeing the world. posing his subjects, manipulating his prints, and often becoming dangerously over-involved in his stories.But documentary is not journalism,#1 The Rule of Objectivity.#2 The Rule of Audience: audiences, of shaping public opinion and perhaps in the process shaping policy.“undermine this hierarchical, class-based relationship between images and their audience”.#3 The Rule of Manipulation, this forbids photographers from using digital editing to manipulate the meaning of their images.very stage of the photographic process is a manipulation, and is open to no less egregious misrepresentations.“I see propaganda and reality as two sides of the same coin,” she says. “Propaganda is an essential part of everyday life in North Korea, and because of that a reality in itself.”#4 The Rule of Reality“creative treatment of actuality”vents which were then, and still are, yet to transpire blend of fact and fiction “They had been forced to wear makeup and my informants had described it perfectly: bright red lips, pink cheeks and blue eye-shadow.”#5 The Rule of Technicality, Lacking the clarity of a conventional documentary image, her work hints at the uncertainty engulfing the country at a time of change.“It was about responding spontaneously to the events around me,”#6 The Rule of Ownership, His interest in these images, he says, lies in the fact that “the people who are running the show, that’s the stuff they’re working with.”#7 The Rule of the Camera“I have always understood, or at least attempted to understand, the close communion one must have with story. When the story is served by all the elements, an opening up of technique and creative possibility in how that story gets told is laid out for you.”“The body is becoming part of this new informational economy,” says Orton, whose visceral reaction to a utilitarian image is a reflection on the relationship between living bodies and their representations.#8 The Rule of Rule BreakingWhen it comes to working on sensitive topics and with vulnerable subjects, the expectations and standards have never been higher.But good practice, ethical practice, more often stems not from any formal rules of documentary

Reality: Rule number 4

I thought reality was such a interesting concept that would allow me to question its rules in many circumstances.  To my reality lies between three main concepts. I believe tablo photography and a staged sense of altered reality would question the proposition of what reality is.  I believe there is a sense of trust seen within reality and people believe what they expect to be reality. I could change this by doing a documentary series in a way which is not expected and also a specific small angle of what is actually the truth. E.g a study of school with the reality of how people are treated and what happens behind the scenes and when not at school for learning. My second aspect of intrigue is the concept of predicting the future, and the power of invention and to from something which is not currently real. This allows a sense of lies of perhaps what people would want in the future e.g hope. This could also incorporate into Tablo photography as it would be set up in order to create a frame that has not officially happened.I could do this through thinking of a political concept or and environmental impact, so predicting who will win the election, what changes will be soon developed to St Helier, or the deterioration of the environment. As this has not happened but the plausibility caused produce a sense fo reality to readers. This could possibly be a recreation of something that has happened or started to happen elsewhere, war, poverty and such. This creates a sense of awareness to people who are oblivious in rich areas such as jersey. My last inspiration Is the appearance of a false reality seen within an appearance or a sense of personality, this could be developed further into someones culture and what is expected of them to look and act and Additionally how someone presents themselves, through styles, fashion and makeup.  I believe this is a-lot more apparent especially with  young teenagers trying to change who they are in order to be and create someone who they are not. So creating a false sense of reality.

research: when searching the word ‘reality’ through the concept of photography many images come up which a-lot of documentary photography in order to tell the ‘truth’ Much of which is very harsh and hard hitting and show people a scenario that is not particularly nice to look at. Such as seen within this image you can see a young injured girl who instead of people getting help they photography her for story to encourage help which they could have given. The camera is constantly manipulated and everyones truths will always be different. Because I believe every photo-lies in some manner i think to create something that is not reality will be relatively straight forward when i know my concept of my shoot.

To further what concept I should really narrow into i will do further research to see which photographers are too inspired by how a narrative is told and how lying further does not change how the camera already shows a small part of a large story anyway.

AO1 Develop Ideas, Develop, Developing

The Rule of Technicality

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A Minor Wrongdoing, 2015. Henrik Malmström.

The word ‘rule’ is defined as one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity. This shows that the word rule is linked to control and standards – rules govern what we should and shouldn’t do.  When looking at photography, the rules can often be what is acceptable to photograph and what is not, where a subject should be placed, and which camera settings should be used to capture the technically correct photograph.  Below is the origin for the word ‘rule’. It originated from the latin word ‘regula’ for ‘straight stick’ and progressed through French in order to come around in the Middle English language.

The word ‘technicality’ is defined as ‘a point of law or a small detail of a set of rules, as contrasted with the intent or purpose of the rules.’  This shows that technicality links into rules as they are small details which should be set a certain way in order to stay in line with the rules governing. In terms of photography, this is the settings of the camera; the ISO, the shutter speed, the aperture and the exposure.  The technicalities and rules of camera settings suggest that photographs should be exposed correctly, be in focus and be aesthetically pleasing but technicalities can be changed in order to challenge these rules.

By El-Tantawy, from the Egyptian revolution

In Lewis Bush’s article ‘Rule Breakers‘, he explores eight rules within photography that are worth breaking. One of these rules is the rule of technicality.  Bush says that “the camera technology of today means the real skill and the real statement sometimes lies in taking a wilfully ‘bad’ image”.  By saying this, Bush is trying to convey the idea that it is alright to go outside the conventions of ordinary camera settings in order to create experimental photographs that would not normally be deemed aesthetically pleasing, but by using unique technicalities, photographers and artists such as Laura El-Tantawy and Henrik Malmstrom have used these technicalities to show creative expression.  For example, El-Tantawy renders photographs of the Egyptian revolution with long exposures to express a personal vision of the event. El-Tantawy says “It was about responding spontaneously to the events around me” when speaking about the photographs as they showed what she felt and what she saw in the moment.

Ideas For Exploration

Whilst exploring the rule of technicality I will be looking at altering camera settings to create unconventional photographs that are both interesting and unique.  I can take inspiration from both El-Tantawy and Henrik Malmstrom for this investigation as they both create unique and unconventional photographs. I think that Malmstrom has a very interesting approach in his book ‘A Minor Wrongdoing‘ in which he photographs subjects at night with a very high ISO to create grainy and underexposed photographs so I will continue to study Malmstrom. I will be able to explore street photography/documentary photography through this whilst also exploring the people within Jersey. Whilst doing this I can also look at creating out of proportion photographs or ones which do not consist of a conventional composition to further explore the idea of breaking the rule of technicality.

Whilst focusing on taking inspiration from Malmstrom, I may also look at changing technicalities which Malmstrom did not, such as shutter speed and aperture in order to make my photographs more unique and interesting. I hope through exploring this that I will be able to show my understanding of the rule of technicality and my understanding of the camera technicalities and conventions.

 

A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas

Breaking the Rules

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William Eugene Smith  broke nearly every rule in the book: posing his subjects, manipulating his prints, and often becoming dangerously over-involved in his stories.

When asked by one interviewer why he so persistently ignored many of the fundamental tenets of documentary photography, he tersely shot back: “I didn’t write the rules – why should I follow them?”

Abstract forces like corporate malfeasance, cyber-warfare and climate change make demands of visual storytelling – demands which can only be met if photographers refuse to play by the rules inherited from their forebears, rules which some of them did not deign to follow in any case.

The Rule of Manipulation

Almost every stage of the photographic process is a manipulation, and is open to no less egregious misrepresentations.

To paraphrase the documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, you don’t need to manipulate an image to mislead an audience; you simply need to change the caption. And yet used openly, in the right context, manipulation can reveal truths that a single image alone never could.

Dutch photographer Alice Wieling “I felt that, with mere documenting, I wasn’t able to tell the story as I was experiencing it,” she says of the stage-managed excursions to which journalist-visitors are subjected. Her response was to digitally merge her photographs of official North Korea propaganda with her own images of workers and decaying factories.

https://www.stephengill.co.uk/portfolio/portfolio/nggallery/album-1-2/coexistence/thumbnails/page/1

Stephen Gill created a new body of work and a book responding to an industrial wasteland that is the remains of the steel-making industry in the city of Dudelange.

“For eight months leading up to my first visit to the territory, my mind increasingly started tuning into the microscopic worlds within worlds, and I became ever more aware of the many parallels between patterns and process in the pond and those in our own lives as individual humans within societies…Slowly I became committed to the idea of attempting to bring these two apparently disparate worlds — so physically close yet so different in scale – visually closer together.”

In order to draw these two worlds together Gill employed the use of a medical microscope from the University of Luxembourg and a pail of water scooped from the pond. With the microscope, he studied and photographed the miniscule creatures and plant life.

 

He could not bring the people to the pond, so he dipped his underwater camera into its water prior to making portraits of the Dudelange residents. Later on, he also dipped the prints into the pond itself, so microscopic life was also transferred onto the surface of the paper.

Using Stephen Gill’s work as inspiration can directly link to my concept of environment as he focused in this book on the affects of the industrial wasteland on a pond nearby looking parts of life that coexist but don’t belong together.

About Stephen Gill

Gill is a British photographer, who mainly draws inspiration from his immediate surroundings of inner city life in East London and more recently Sweden with an attempt to make work that reflects, responds and describes the times we live in. Stephen Gill was introduced to photography at an early age by his father, and his first photographs reflected his interests in birds, animals and music.

“Stephen Gill is emerging as a major force in British photography. His best work is a hybrid between documentary and conceptual work. It is the repeated exploration of one idea, executed with the precision that makes these series so fascinating and illuminating. Gill brings a very British, understated irony into portrait and landscape photography.”
Martin Parr

Outside In by Stephen Gill:

“I hoped through this approach to encourage the spirit of the place to clamber aboard the images and be encapsulated in the film emulsion, like objects embedded in amber. My aim was to evoke the feeling of the area at the same time as describing its appearance.”

“The results included some highly detailed macro recordings amongst and within the landscapes and portraits. I like to think of these photographs as in-camera photograms in which conflict or harmony has been randomly formed in the final image depending on where the objects landed.”

Other Stephen Gill Zines

https://www.stephengill.co.uk/portfolio/portfolio/nggallery/album-1-2/hackney-flowers/thumbnails

Photoshoot Plan

For my first photoshoot i wanted to incorporate Stephen Gills style of photography looking at smaller details around an area like he did  in the area containing a pond situated within an industrial wasteland. I want to manipulate the way the camera takes the photo and how it image appears. For example to create a blurred effect i will place something over the lens so I am physically manipulating the camera to produce something unique. I also want to manipulate the images by taking objects i find in an area and superimpose them onto the image of place them in front of the lens. I can relate this style of work to my concept of environment and pollution by making the subject of my images objects and rubbish I find surrounding the area I go and base my whole image around it. I like the way Stephen gill used a medical microscope to see what was in the pond water, the images making interesting patterns. To interpret this i can look for similar patterns and marks. I could also manipulate these photos after they have been taken by doing what Stephen Gill did and dipping his printed out images into the pond water (the environment) he was photographing. To experiment with the images further I take I will print out my photographs and physically add objects I find around the area I am exploring and retake the image.

http://www.gupmagazine.com/books/stephen-gill/coexistence

A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas

Breaking the Rules of Photography

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8 Rules of Photography

#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 I chose to break was the rule of manipulation. Manipulating an image can be done digitally using camera settings or photoshop or physically through the use of collage.

An area that I want to look at relating to pollution, would be to manipulate landscapes in order to demonstrate visual pollution caused by industrialisation.

A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas

Political Landscapes – Guernsey Photography Festival 2018

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Lisa Barnard

Lisa Barnard is one of the featured artists from this years photography festival. In her series, titled “The Canary and The Hammer”, Barnard details the inherent human reverence of gold and its affair in the ruthless endeavour of progress. A common theme amongst the series is the investigation into man’s abstract but innate desire to occupy territory.

The project was photographed across four years and four continents connecting seemingly disparate issues and aesthetics through a mix of stills, moving images and archival materials.

I am drawn to her work as I can see elements of pollution, where one image demonstrates an industrial landscape and another showcases a dirty river in the form of a portrait.

Jaakko Kahilaniemi

Jaakko Kahilaniemi is another of the featured artists from the 2018 Guernsey Photography Festival.

100 Hectares of Understanding is an exploration of an 100 hectare area of forest in Finland, inherited by Jaakko in 1997 when he was only 8 years old. The project includes both tangible and intangible approaches and visualizations of what forest and forestry mean to the photographer and how the unknown becomes familiar.

I was drawn to this series due to its simple aesthetic. The viewer is forced to think about the concept behind objects in the images.

A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas

What is Pollution and How does it impact our environment?

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Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change.

Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants.

In 2015, pollution killed 9 million people in the world.

Major forms of pollution include: Air pollution, light pollution, littering, noise pollution, plastic pollution, soil contamination, radioactive contamination, thermal pollution, visual pollution, water pollution

A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas

Political Landscapes – Ideas

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Mind Map

Politics – “the activities associated with the governance of a country or area”.

Landscape – “all the visible features of an area of land, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal”.

I decided to look into conservation further by researching the ways in which we impact the environment. This led me to factors such as pollution, overpopulation, animal mono culture, hunting, poaching and deforestation.

I chose to look at pollution as an overall topic as I believe it is a global issue that impacts different areas in different extremes.

Analysis, AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, Case Study

My Response To Lewis Bush

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In my response to Lewis Bush I am going to be photographing the financial sector within St. Helier in both day and night and then creating a double exposure effect with these photographs in photoshop. The inspiration for photographing the financial sector comes from Bush’s ‘Trading Zones‘ and the use of double exposure comes from his project ‘Metropole‘ in which he used this technique throughout. I will be carrying out two photoshoots for this response – one in the daytime and one at nighttime. This will allow me to be able to work with a wide variety of photographs in order to create different effects and settings within the edits.

Contact Sheets

Editing Process

I carried out the double exposure editing on photoshop. I started by using the quick selection tool to separate the building from the rest of the photograph and clicked the ‘refine edge’ button to create a blank background. I then placed the second photograph over the base photograph and added a layer mask in order to shape the second photograph in line with the base photograph. After this I used command-L in order to edit the levels of the second photograph and so changing the black/white/grey properties. Next I selected the blending option as ‘lighten’ to allow the two photographs to merge. I repositioned the second photograph over the base photograph to create a double exposure effect then brought the background forward to reintroduce it to the composition. Finally I repeated this with multiple photographs to create a disorientating composition.

My Edits

 

Analysis

In this photograph I have used natural lighting in order to capture the natural shadows and contrast of the new finance centre in St. Helier.  This natural lighting allowed for reflections in all of the windows which creates a variety of tones throughout the composition. This variety of tones creates contrast between the dark black frames and the grey tones of the windows.  I used a deep depth of field to capture this photograph to ensure that every detail was in focus including the reflections in the windows.  By layering multiple photographs over the top of the original I have been able to create dark frames and dark shadows to contrast with the lighter tones – I think that this create a much more dramatic and slightly abstract photograph. I used a shutter speed of 1/60 to capture the original photograph along with a fairly low ISO of 200 in order to ensure that the photograph is exposed enough but is as high quality as possible. This high quality photograph allowed for the similar photographs overlayed on top to blend in well to provide more contrast and structure to the photograph.

There is no colour in this photograph as I thought that the black and white filter really allowed the black dark tones to come out to provide more contrast and shadows within the photograph. The lack of colour also allows the viewer to focus on the dark lines and paths running throughout the composition and so emphasising the disorientating intent of the photograph. The tones throughout this photograph are mostly gray with streaks of black running throughout it – there are not many bright tones in this photograph which I think works well as the grey and black tones allow the original photograph and the photographs on top to blend well together to create a photograph that is familiar to someone from Jersey but unfamiliar at the same time. From the way that I have cropped this photograph using perspective crop it is a very 2D and flat photograph except for the photograph overlayed in the bottom third of the photograph. This bottom third of the photograph appears to come towards the viewer which sends the rest of the photograph to the back, ultimately creating a sense of confusion within the viewer. The windows and lines throughout the photograph are very aesthetically pleasing as they create a pattern of squares and lines, making the photograph more intriguing. There is no immediate viewpoint that they eye is led to due to the abstractness and pattern throughout the photograph. The line straight down the middle of the photograph creates a sense of division within the composition as well as a sense of satisfaction due to the organisation of the placement.

I took inspiration for this photograph from Lewis Bush’s project ‘Metropole‘ in which he looked at the collapse of the British Empire and how in its place globalised capitalism grew as London has been rebranded as “a city of demolition, cranes, and glittering new high rises”.  ‘Metropole’ aims to record the effect of this on London through the form of documentary photography and I aim to show the effect of how Jersey has changed with the construction of the new financial centre and all the new flats and other offices within the area. St. Helier has changed drastically over the past couple decades and it may seem as if it is moving too fast for some of the residents that have lived through these stages. This photograph was taken as part of a shoot of the new financial centre, I took the original photograph and layered multiple photographs of the same centre over the top to create a disorientating effect.

I have attempted to recreate the double exposure that Bush used in his ‘Metropole‘ project in order to convey the idea that as the financial centre grows and as construction within the area goes on at the rate it is, the people of St. Helier are becoming more lost and disorientated as this is no longer the St. Helier that they’ve lived in for all of these years.  Bush used this effect in order to create the “sense of loss that many Londoners feel” in the big city. This theme of a feeling of loss within the city links to the genre of ‘political landscape’ as it looks at both the present and past in St. Helier showing how it has changed and how the residents of St. Helier are feeling about it all.  I think that the government of Jersey is focusing too much on construction and not what would really benefit and satisfy the people of Jersey.