Why does Carolle Benitah and Annegret Soltau use embroidery as a way of understanding identity?

In what way does Carolle Benitah explore childhood memories through her work as a method of understanding identity?

How can memories be presented in the medium of photography as a method of understanding identity?

What are the elements of surrealism in the photomontages created by John Stezaker?

Can photomontages help explore the identity of an individual?

How does Carolle Benitah and John Stezaker present the concept of absence and presence?

How can instability and uncertainty be presented in the medium of photography?

How does Chino Otsuka document her cultural identity, ideas about displacement and international travels?

Why does Carolle Benitah and Claudia Ruiz Gustafson explore their past as a method of understanding identity?

Artist references

Quote: The question arises: if manipulation is the first thing someone thinks of in connection to photography. (Bright and van Erp, 2019: 17)

Bibliography

Bright, S. and van Erp,H. (2019) Photography Decoded London: Octopus Publishing House

Is It Real:

“The daguerreotype had aspirations to both realistic and theatrical, as well as to the commercial.” Pg17

“Mirror can serve as a metaphor to reality, whereas the red velvet evokes theatre curtains” Pg 17

“A mirror image that would soon be kept in a protective case lined with red velvet.” Pg17

“The question arises: if manipulation is the first thing someone thinks of in connection to photography” Pg17

“What is this picture illustrates is that it is not just photography that is complicated, but the concepts of realism and reality too” Pg18

“The process of manipulation starts as soon as we frame a person, a landscape, an object, or a scene with our cameras: we chose a portrait or landscape format” Pg18

Bibliography:

Bright, S. and van Erp, H.(2019).Photography Decoded.London:Octupuss Publishing House.

Bright and van

From your Personal Investigation based on OCCUPATION vs LIBERATION write an overview of what you learned and how you intend to develop your Personal Study.

how to take photos in low light

how to use lightroom and create collections and effectively chose and experiment wiht photographs will cvontinue to use effectively

how to use archives to influence my work whihc i will continue to use in my poersonal study (old occupation and liberation stories and family stories)

how to work with models and intreect with them – i may be using people in my photobook therefore i will contuinue to prectice

tha its important to get to kbnow the people youre taking phpotoas of so they become more conmfortable; it makes the images more relaxed

how to pose people

how to set up ligting and cameras for an objects photoshoot

how to place photogrpahs in a sequence that has narrative and tells a stroy – crucial

how to mix togehter archve and original images whihc i will continue to do

through studying still life how objects can carry ,meaning as well as their placement

Describe which themes, approaches (LANDSCAPE, PEOPLE, OBJECTS), artists, skills and photographic processes/ techniques inspired you the most and why.

i enjoyed montagihng archive images and using them to get my inspirations

i also really got inspired by listening to hedleys stories first hand

studying and responding to paul virillio

taking photos of the bunkers and mixing them wiht the surrounding landscape

the textures of the old bunkers

taking low lit photos in bukers

Richard Billingham: Ray’s A Laugh

Robert Adams: Summer Nights

Include examples of current experiments to illustrate your thinking.

PICTORIALISM

time period : 1880s to 1920s

Key characteristics/ conventions : Trying to make photographs look like paintings, Allegorical inspirations, spiritual and religious scenes+subject matter

Artists associated: Hugo Henneberg, Heinrich Kuhn, Hans Watcek (Vienna Camera Club), Julia Margaret Cameron, Peter Henry Emerson, The Brotherhood of the Linked Ring, Photo-Secession,

Key works: Equivalent (Alfred Stieglitz), What Remains (Sally Mann)

Methods/ techniques/ processes: soft focus, blurred and fuzzy imagery, long exposures

REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Time period: 1920s

Key characteristics/ conventions : accurate and descriptive records of the visual world, wanted too make photographs ‘photographic’ rather than ‘painterly’, Social Reform Photography,

Artists associated: Walker Evans, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Dorothea Lange, Jacob Riis, Lewis H. Hine

Key works: The Steerage (Alfred Stieglitz)

Methods/ techniques/ processes: crisp focus, wide depth of field

liberation childhood family separation archive Yoshikatsu Fujii Mateusz Sarello

How have concepts of family separation been explored in the photo books of Mateusz Sarello and Yoshikatsu Fujii?

Explore How both Mateusz Sarello and Yoshikatsu Fujii Convey the theme of separation and loss through their use of archive images.

Essay question: How have artists such as Toroptsov shown memory and remembrance through their use of photography.

Opening quote: UNDECIDED – “I have no personal memories”

Introduction (250-500 words):  What is your area study? Landscapes/Historical landmarks.
Which artists will you be analysing and why?
Yury Toroptsov as he links to both landscape work and memory/remembrance.
How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
Through using landscape photography to capture the idea of memory and remembrance of the war like he has with his father by photographing his home town.

Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian.
Going to try and begin with a modernist approach within my photography but may change it up as I go along.
May use archival images to show historical/theoretical context within my work.

Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Yury Toroptsov, focus on his “deleted scenes” project – about his father – links best to memory/remembrance, uses lots of landscape photography.

Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Chris Dorley-Brown and his book The Long Way Round – also about his parents, love during the war and after the war.

Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced.
Refer back to each artists work, then compare it to how I have made mine and whether it truly represents the idea of memory and remembrance like theirs have.

Bibliography: List all relevant sources used:
Academic sources blogpost, will add them within the photobook essay.

Planning

When researching occupation stories and information on bunkers on the island, one of the stories that stood out was Operation Hardtack 28, a commando raid to gain intelligence on defenses and to capture a German soldier to take back to England for interrogation. To successfully land on Jersey, the six commandos had to land at Petit Port as it was rarely defended. For my photoshoot I am going to record the path the commandos took from the landing site to get further inland. I will also take photographs of the Wolfs Lair shack, the storage shack was significant to the operation as it was used by the commandos to hide from any German patrols.

Photoshoot

Selection & Edits

Evaluation

I believe the photoshoot was successful as the majority of images were sharp and had good lighting. I also believe that my final selection of images from the shoot will make a solid start for my photobook narrative.

“it is not just photography that is complicated, but the concepts of realism and reality too.” (Bright. S. and Van Erp. H. 2019; 18)

“we choose a portrait or landscape format. What often follows is the addition of non-realistic filters, editing, altering or cropping.” (Bright. S. and Van Erp. H. 2019; 18)

“photography has undergone a transformation, not only technologically but conceptually. Initially described as a means of capturing or freezing ‘real life’,” (Bright. S. and Van Erp. H. 2019; 18)

“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?” (Bright. S. and Van Erp. H. 2019; 17)

“what does a ‘real photograph’ even look like: Is it something you can hold? Is it something you can see on a screen and alter?” (Bright. S. and Van Erp. H. 2019; 17)

• Essay question: How does Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange portray the importance of family ?

• Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question.

I will be looking at Walker Evans and Latoya Ruby Frazier as they both include images of family while a change in their daily lives were happening. Walker Evans based his images when the great depression was happening and took many images of large families during this time.

Although he doesn’t look at immigration and the effect of being apart from a family member, he does look at how having a family helps when one is going through a hard time. In his images many of the family members smile even though the great depression was happening at that time.

Latoya Ruby is a photographer who photographed her family while an economical downfall and a rise of racism was happening within their hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania.

I chose her as one of my photographers because her images look at her own family.

To respond to their work I will be taking images of my own family, the family I have in London which includes my parents and younger brothers, and the family I live with in Jersey.

• Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian. Link to power points about isms and movements M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Resources\Personal Study

• My work connects to Realism

• Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.

• Walker Evans
• Influences : August Sander
• Photographer during the Great Depression
• Series Cotton Tenants
• Looks at three families in Hale County, Alabama

• Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.

• Latoya Ruby Frazier
• Influences : Carrie Mae Weems and Dawoud Bey
• Photographed her own family
• Her home town of Braddock, Pennsylvania had an economic downfall because of the steel industry collapsing, and had a problem with racism which affected her family.

• Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced

• They both look at families during a crisis
• they both use black and white images
• They both both a documentary style
• They give different viewpoints because of their differences – Frazier gives a woman’s and a person of colour’s viewpoint, Evans gives a man’s viewpoint
• They look at families in different contexts – Frazier looks at her own family in a small town affected by a local economic downfall, Evans looks at three different families during the Great Depression which would have affected the whole of America.
• Frazier is looking at her own family so she has those personal connections while Evans is looking at families who he has never met before.

• Bibliography: List all relevant sources used

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/walker-evans-documentarian-of-the-great-depression-2106462/

Jesse Rhodes

November 4 2010