1 -How does photographers Paul strand and Edward Weston use photography to explore modernism through portraits.
2- How does Realism present portrait photography in past and present
3- How has photographer Carole Benitah explored childhood memories through Identity?
Write 3 literary sources from a:
Harvard system of referencing
Bibliography: (book reference)
Barthes, R. (1993) Camera Lucida. London, vintage
How to incorporate a quote inside my own writing
*own text* … critic Roland Barthes says; ‘I decided then to take as a guide for my new analysis the attraction i felt for certain photographs’ (Barthes, 1993; 18)
Referencing online sources:
How to incorporate a quote inside my own writing
Blah blah blah critic … says; ‘text from article referenced’
My first photo shoot for my personal project is based on my most recent artist reference by Chris McKenney. I used his ‘self ghosts’ project as a basis for the shoot, using my little brother as the subject as I felt a younger silhouette was representative of the age I started to have conflicting thoughts of my identity. Natural outdoors lighting was used for these images and were set in my garden on walls, around bamboo and oak trees. I had a high level of control as I positioned my brother where I pleased, I made sure I went out when there was reasonable amount of light and when the wind was at a low force so that the bamboo leaves were stagnant. Some of the images were originally overexposed, this was due to the harsh light filtering through the clouds, so I either cropped it out or selected the area and decreased the exposure. I chose black and white to create a cold tone to represent how you feel when you remember a memory that you forgot about and never wanted to think about ever again. These memories can change your mood in an instant and they crop up at the most random times.
The white wall represents the tabula rasa and how we all all born a blank slate, throughout life its in our hands to decide where we belong, what we like and what we want. I used a wide lense to capture the white wall and the brown wood in order to optimize the contrast as well as symbolizing the conflict. The black and white represents the to and through I had with whether I sat in my family.
Oak trees have a much slower rate of growth, its around 0.5m per year. The hands around the oak tree link to each other as it takes them years to grow and so do our hands. It’s the idea that I needed time as a child to get used to the changes like an oak tree it takes a long time to reach your full self.
I used the sheet over his head to symbolize the lack of identity I had and how I didn’t see where my place was in my family. Bamboo can grow 1 mm every 90 seconds, it’s one of the fastest growing plants in the world. In this image bamboo is representative of the divorce and how everything was changing around me and fast but I was stuck in a cycle of conflict and confusion as to how I fit into this change. New step-mum, new step-siblings suddenly I wasn’t the only child, I wasn’t the only women in my dad’s life he had a new wife who I now had to call a step mum whether I liked her or not.
I used the window that was semi-transparent as I wanted to move the focus away from my brothers facial features because your looks are such an important part of you identity. I want to just focus in on his hands to display the fact that identity isn’t just how you dress it’s also your DNA, your fingerprints, your bloodline, who you genetically call family.
Hands were significant to me as I child as I used to fiddle with my thumbs, pick at my fingers and suck my thumb at times of stress they were like a stress mechanism that relaxed me in times my anxiety was high. The window this was taken at is on my side door, no one ever uses it. The side door symbolizes how I felt, my family weren’t ignoring me, I had a purpose but I felt useless.
In this image I wanted to keep in the bathroom as it represents the home I had but how it just felt like a building to me, which is how I feel about my Dad’s current house. The idea that my brother has assess to the house but he feels like he locked outside and he looking in on the rest of his family, hes the outcast. Although he has a family who loves him he fells a distance between them, he doesn’t know if he fits in so he stays outside in order to let the rest of the family get on without friction.
The cardboard box signifies the constant movement to different houses, I have moved to six houses, which were all down to my parents finding new partners. The idea that whenever someone moves they can easily just pack up their worldly belongings and relocate to a new setting.
My personal study will focus on the construction of fantasy within society. Within my work I will explore what creates this fantasy from childhood such as the media, sterotypes and the childish mind. My project will address matters that match my views of society such as the idea of cradle to grave and unrealistic contructs such as unrealistic body images. I plan to uses images of toys and dolls that represent the childish mind and the fantasy society contructed at childhood. I will also take images of real things to represent the awakening due to loss of innocence that comes as you get older. I was inspired by Shiela Pree’s photo series Plastic bodies, which focuses on unrealistic body images and the misrepresentation of women presented in dolls, and the majority of Laurie Simmons’ work such as her series Early Black and white (1976) and Earlier Color Interiors (1978). I’m inspired by their contruction of reality through the childish fantasy.
EXHIBITION JERSEY ART CENTRE
On Friday afternoon we went down to the Jersey Art Centre to look at an exhibition called “Invisible Hands.” This exhibition shines a light on Jersey from a migrant workers perspective.
The hard work that seasonal farm workers put in has been more than important for Jersey’s economy for more than 150 years yet their presence on this island continues to be undocumented despite the impact they have. This exhibition is based so that people realise what some people have to go through to have even the smallest of happiness. A polish artist named Alicja Rogalska teamed up with some ordinary migrant workers and asked them to photograph “a day in the life..” to which she also teamed up with a group that discuss local issues called ‘The Morning Boat”
From Rogalska’s work she did several interviews with the migrant workers to which they explained in detail what its like to live a week in their life.
“I hope that this will be the trigger for change, but also that people will get some perspective and empathy from it. I guess it’s really about empathy, especially in the images taken by the workers,’ Ms Rogalska said. ‘You really see them as people with their lives – it brings it back to the human level rather than just talking about waves of immigration.“
‘It’s very easy to take things for granted if you are born in an affluent place. You don’t have to leave your families and your children and work in an unfamiliar place. But they may be terrified that something might happen to them because they don’t have the money to go to hospital. That’s what I wanted people to understand through this exhibition, a bit more on a human level.’
Chapter we looked at; “Is it Real?”
Example
Harvard Referencing;
Bibliography – BrightS. and Van ErpH. ( 2019 ) Photography Decoded. London; Octupus Publishing House. Page 17.
QUOTES;
“The mirror can serve as metaphor for reality…”
“If manipulation is the first thing someone thinks of in connection to photography, what does that say about the value of the photograph as a reflection of reality?
“Under what circumstances are these images to be trusted as real?”
1 st one – Text in book
2nd – online article
3rd – Youtube interview
Harvard System of Referencing –
Bibliography:
Sherman,C. (1997) Cindy Sherman: Retrospective .
New York: Thames&Hudson
How to incorporate a quote inside my own writing.. critic/ writer/ artist/ Cindy Sherman says; ‘The adoption of femininity as a sign of the ways in which particular subjects are allowed to experience themselves produces the subject ( whether anatomically male or female) as an object trapped within the inexorable purview of the projective gaze.” (Sherman 1997:38)
“Daguerre’s technique gave a unique image : it can only be copied by being re-photographed – something that already suggests photography’s complicated relationship with reality.”( Bright and Van Erp. 2019:17 )
“If manipulation is the first thing something thinks of in connection with photography, what does that say about the value of the photograph as a reflection of reality?” ( Bright and Van Erp. 2019:17 )
“And what does a ‘real photograph’ look like: Is it something you can hold? Is it something you can see on a screen and alter?” ( Bright and Van Erp. 2019:17 )
“The daguerreotype didn’t make up what was in front of the camera, as a mirror doesn’t lie.” ( Bright and Van Erp. 2019:17)
“The process of manipulation starts as soon as we frame a person, a landscape, an object or a scene with our cameras.” (Bright and Van Erp. 2019:18)
“From Daguerre’s age to ours, photography has undergone a transformation, not only technologically but conceptually.”(Bright and Van Erp. 2019:18)
Bibliography: Bright, S. and Van Erp, H.(2019), Photography Decoded. London: Octopus Publishing House
The book ‘Photography Decoded’ authored by curator and writer Susan Bright and curator, writer and photo-historian Hedy van Erp.
IS IT REAL?
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Bright, S and Van Evp, H. (2019) Photography decoded, London; Octopus publishing house
‘Photography emerged into a 19-th-century world that was undergoing rapid transformation on almost every aspect’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 17)
‘The daguerreotype had aspirations to both the realistic and the theatrical, as well as to the commercial. The ‘mirror’ can serve as a metaphor for reality, whereas the red velevt evokes theatre curtains, within which the beautiful drama would unfold’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 17)
‘The question arises: if manipulation is the first thing someone thinks of in connection to photography, what des that say about the value of photography as a reflection of reality?’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 17)
‘Daguerreotype didn’t make up what was in front of the camera, as a mirror doesn’t lie’- Louis Daguerre (1787-1851). (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 17)
‘the lack of human subjectivity makes it an example ofg ‘true reality’.’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 18)
‘the process of manipulation starts as soon as we frame a person, landscape, an object or a scene with out camera: we choose a portrait or landscape format. What often follow is the addition of non-realistic filters, editing, altering and cropping. The binding principle of photography, however remains its relationship to reality, especially when at question is documentary photography or a picture in the news media: we are convinced that ‘it happened’- that the events they represent were real, that they actually took place’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 18)
‘One can the ask: what are the difference between reality and witness and points of view’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 18)
‘reality, witness and point of view can actually blend into on other’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 18)
‘obscure the lines between fact and fiction’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 18)
‘documentary elements in combination with the artists obsession and the sense of voyeurism that this evokes’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 18)
photography has undergone a transformation, not only technologically but conceptual’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 18)
‘We know that if ten people were asked to take a photograph of the same scene, this would result in ten different photographers, with as many dissimilar points of view. On’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 18)
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Bright, S and Van Evp, H. (2019) Photography decoded, London; Octopus publishing house
‘in today’s culture, photographing oneself or being photographed has become almost as common as eating and sleeping’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 149)
‘out online identity is more commonly seen as an outward gesture of our personality and identity and of how we wish to present ourselves in the wider world’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 149
‘the mirror in the frame is part of photographic self-portrait and its history’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 149)
‘Questions of self and identity have long concerned artists and are intensified as digital lives become ubiquitous and an aspect of performance becomes the norm in terms of modes of behaviour’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 150)
Bibliography – Bright, S. and Van Era,H (2019) Photography Decoded. London: Octopus publishing house
Bibliography – Bright, S. and Van Era,H (2019) Photography Decoded. London: Octopus publishing house