Video plan:

Video: 
Our video will have transitions in the title for example we included a gradient/fade into the next clip so the everything went together smoothly. We also included montages/transitions like having multiple clips playing at the same time sharing a screen all in small boxes spread out around the screen.

Title and credits: 
We wanted to include a credits page and a title page, we made this on photoshop then imported it into Adobe premiere.

Music: We chose to get music from each decade to place over the clips from that decade which we will use YouTube Audio library, download the music and then import into premiere.

Sound effects: We used the Media sound effects to get the sound effect of a phone ringing for when the phone is put down in the first clips.

Editing process film

Here I imported the files and cut out the sections of the clips we didn’t need to make the clips sync and create shorter clips.

Then we positioned the videos so that they fit the frame by using the left hand panel and altering the ‘scale’ and ‘positioning’.

Cropping the clips

Then I cropped the beginning and end off of the clip to leave me with a clean cut clip with only the parts of the video I needed.

I added each clip to the timeline one at a time and carried on cropping the clips to leave us with only the parts we needed and to ensure all the clips aligned.

Layering clips

To layer the clips and create more than one clip on the screen at once I had to:

– Selected effects control in the top left
– Adjust the scale of the image which made the clip box smaller allowing the space for one than one image
– Then I adjusted the positioning of each clip which allowed me to move the clips to the sides and up and down

I then did this again but adding 4 clips onto the screen instead of 2.

Changing speed of clips

Some of our clips were too fast or faster than other clips which meant we needed to adjust the speed. We also had a period in over videos were we sped up all our clips to create a fast paced clip.

To do this I right clicked and selected the “speed duration”. Then change the percentage to make the clip faster or slower.

Title

We then made the title page on Adobe photoshop. We decided to use a black background with a central white written title.

Then we imported it into premiere and added a ‘dissolve’ transition to the start and end of the title page to let it flow in-between scenes.

Editing process image

To start our still image we imported the images we took into Lightroom and flagged the images we wanted to use for our digital image. Our images consisted of the 4 people from the group, each in a different outfit from a different era.

We then had left 4 flagged images which we felt were out best images and the ones we would use to create our final image. Now that we have our 4 final images we began to edit each image by adjusting the background, brightness, contrast, exposure and highlights.

Some of our images with a black background had a white floor which we had to edit to create a fully black background for the image. To do this, we opened the images in Photoshop and used the ‘Clone Stamp tool’ and selected a black area and drew around the feet. 

Once edited our images went from this:

To this as our final outcome:

Final still image

Final NFT video

https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/8c3bf225-0b55-436d-9ce7-387214bea506

1. Research a photo-book and describe the story it is communicating  with reference to subject-matter, genre and approach to image-making.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s photobook tells multiple ambiguous stories with a series of different people. The genre of the book is a type of contemporary art , ‘Operating in the gap between postmodern fiction and documentary fact, between slick convention and fresh perception”. The beginning of the book starts with ‘enigmatic domestic scenarios’ which featured diCorcia’s family and friends. He then goes on to photograph Hollywood drifters and hustlers in cryptic scenes, with moody yet vibrant lighting.

2. Who is the photographer? Why did he/she make it? (intentions/ reasons) Who is it for? (audience) How was it received? (any press, reviews, awards, legacy etc.)

Philip-Lorca diCorcia made these images in the photobook to display an alternative side to ‘American life’, and showing those who are usually hidden as to not ruin the reputation of ‘The American Dream’, such as male prostitutes. diCorcia payed the prostitutes the amount they would charge for their service in order to take their photograph in their work-life setting and atmopshere. The book is rated 4-5 stars across websites such as Amazon and ‘Goodreads’.

3. Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design of the book and apply theory above when considering:

The book is a hard-cover book with a dust jacket protecting the outside. The two inside pages are made of a grey cardboard-like paper, the rest of the paper is photographic printer paper.

Majority of the text is written in the same two fonts and in black, however some texts are coloured in red, such as Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s name on the inside of the dust jacket.

All of the images are displayed in the book in landscape. The images are all the same size, with a thick white border and the title and date of the image underneath. Pages without images are plain white. There is 55 pages with diCorcia’s images.

The cover of the book is made using a plain red linen with no image on the front. There is an image on the dust jacket, which is coloured a mustard yellow. It has Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s name on the front of the dust cover written in red, and the text ‘The Museum of Modern Art, New York’. The title of the book is literal.

The repeated saturated yet gloomy colour palette of the images help to identify diCorcia’s narrative for the images. The narrative is told simply through images and their titles, which leaves a portion of the narrative for the audience to decide themselves.

The essay on the inside of the dust jacket, written by Peter Galassi, tells us about the images taken by diCorcia, as well as his personal life of university and living in New York. There is also text at the back of the book explaining the prints and sizes of the images and the camera that the images were taken on. On the next back page there is multiple lists of diCorcia’s education, acheivements, exhibitions and books.

The camera obscura

The camera obscura was the earliest form of camera dated, it was used centuries before ‘physical’ images could be printed. The camera obscura consisted of a box-shaped device used as an aid for drawing or entertainment. The method of a camera obscura worked by removing all light from a room, but leaving a tiny, circle opening on one side, and a reversed and inverted image was projected on the other side. Ibn al-Haytham, a mathematician, astronomer, and physicist, is said to be the first person to invent the camera obscura with a viewing screen in the 11th century.

Nicephore Niepce

Nicephore Niepce is said to be the inventor of photography. The French inventor was born in 1765 and began his scientific research in 1795 with his brother, Claude. Niepce was the first inventor to create a permanent photographic image, using a method he called Heliography, or ‘sun drawing’. This process consisted of producing a photoengraving on a metal plate coated with an asphalt preparation.

Louis Daguerre

Louis Daguerre, born in 1787, was a French artist and photographer recognized for his invention of the eponymous Daguerreotype process of photography. He became recognised as one of the founding fathers of photography because of his discovery. The Daguerreotype is a positive process, and consisted of using a sheet of copper plated with a thin coat of silver without the use of a negative. After exposure to light, the plate was developed over hot mercury until an image appeared. The issue with this process was the fact that the image would come out already negative, meaning the image couldn’t be copied.

Henry Fox Talbot

Henry Fox Talbot, born in Dorset in 1800, was an English scientist, inventor and photography pioneer. Talbot wanted to create images that would be considered to the standard of Daguerre’s Daguerreotype. In 1840, Talbot developed the idea of paper negatives and found that they could be taken with a much shorter exposure time. Although the image could not be seen for a long time, Talbot managed to chemically develop it into a useful negative, the image could then be fixed with a chemical solution. The solution removed the light-sensitive silver so the image could be viewed in bright light. Talbot’s revolutionary discovery allowed him to repeat the process of printing from the negative, meaning he could make as many copies of the same print which the Daguerreotype could not do. This was named the ‘Calotype’ in 1841. The following year Talbot was rewarded with a medal for his work from the Royal Society.

Richard Maddox

Richard Maddox was born in Bath, England in 1816. Maddox was a keen photographer and physician who often practiced the Calotype method for his images, but when the use of the ether vapour in the method became detrimental to his health, he was determined to invent a new method that would remove a lot of the difficulties in the process. Maddox prepared a number of plates, exposing by contact-printing them from other negatives, and putting each through a different exposure trial, using different substances such as rice and tapioca. In 1871, Maddox invented the lightweight gelatin negative plates. This invention allowed photographers to use commercial dry plates instead of having to prepare their own emulsions in a mobile darkroom, this method allowed for cameras to be small enough to be hand-held for the first time.

George Eastman

George Eastman was an American inventor and entrepreneur born in New York in 1854. In 1880, he perfected the method of making dry plates and organised the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company for their manufacture. Eastman produced the ‘Kodak’ camera, which he named due to the strong, incisiveness of the letter ‘K’. The Kodak camera was placed on the market in 1888, it was a simple handheld box camera containing a 100-exposure roll of film that used paper negatives. One the consumer used the film up, it would be sent back to manufacturer for developing, printing and reloading the film, producing their iconic tagline; ‘You press the button, we do the rest’. In 1889 Eastman began using transparent roll film, which has since become the standard for film photography. Later, in 1892, he reorganized the business as the Eastman Kodak Company. Eight years later Eastman introduced the ‘Brownie’ camera, intended for the use of children and sold for one dollar. By 1927, Eastman had a virtual monopoly of the photographic industry in the USA, and still remains to this day to be one of the largest photography companies in the world.

Film and Digital Photography

Digital photography was first developed by an Eastman Kodak engineer called Steven Sasson in 1975. He built his first prototype from a movie lens camera lens, a few Motorola parts, 16 batteries and some newly invented Fairchild CCD electric sensors, which is a transistorized light sensor on an integrated circuit. He named this prototype the US patent 4,131,919. This camera is pictured above, it was the size of a printer and weighed nearly 4 kilograms. The camera could only capture black and white images, which were contained on a digital cassette tape. Sasson and his team also had to invent a special screen just to look at the images. Digital photography has developed vastly since then and today, an Apple iPhone 12 has 12-megapixel cameras. This means there is 12 million pixels in an image, compared to Sasson’s prototype which had a resolution of 0.01 megapixel and took 23 seconds to take the image itself. With the development of technology, anyone can take an image simply with their phone in a second, capturing exactly what we see with an equally clear quality.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/history-of-digital-cameras-from-70s-prototypes-to-iphone-and-galaxys-everyday-wonders/#:~:text=The%20first%20digital%20camera&text=The%20first%20actual%20digital%20still,invented%20Fairchild%20CCD%20electronic%20sensors.

Pictorialism

Pictorialism was at it’s most popular between the 1880’s to the 1920’s. During this time, photography was known as a science and not considered an art form as a piece of machinery was creating the work, rather than physical human hands. Photographers wanted to eliminate this theory, and therefor combined photography with the physical aspects of art. Artists would use methods such as putting Vaseline on the camera lens to create a blurred effect, or manipulate their images in the darkroom by scratching the negatives or putting chemicals on the images to make them look more like paintings. Some popular artists associated with this era include Julia Margaret Cameron, Alfred Stieglitz and George Davidson. These artists became pioneers of this era and created some of the most iconic photographs of that period of time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictorialism

Realism/Straight photography

Straight photography, or Realism photography, reached it’s popularity between the 1930’s to the 1950’s. Straight photography had opposite principles to those of Pictorialism, the artists wanted to represent the images exactly as they are seen by the human eye. Photographers would use the ability of the camera to make accurate and descriptive records of the visual world, they embraced the idea of photography being a science rather than art, to capture realistic images of the real life world. Some iconic artists from this period include Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Paul Strand. The method of straight photography simply consists of taking an image, and leaving it how it would be viewed in the real world. Unlike pictorialism, straight photographs are unedited, apart from possibly black and white conversion, removing intrusive dust, or maybe adjusting exposure. This method provides clear and realistic images to capture everyday life as seen through the human eye.

https://www.imaginated.com/glossary/what-is-straight-photography/

Modernism

Modernism was at it’s peak during the late 19th century to the mid 20th century. This movement consisted of rejecting Victorian traditions and religion, and focusing on scientific advances. Photographers began to experiment with light, perspective and developing. Science within terms of preserving our damaged environment was at a high, and because of this, began the trend to seek out the answers to fundamental questions and research. Modernism consisted of documentary style images due to the trend of fascination with scientific discoveries. The camera was used as a technological tool rather that to create art. Some iconic photographers during the peak of Modernism include Imogen Cunningham, Edward Western and Ansel Adams.

Postmodernism

Postmodernism rose in popularity in the later 20th century, and unlike modernism, consists of a variety of themes. Postmodernism builds on the themes and conceptual ideas that began forming during the period of modernism. The main themes that run through postmodernism consist of surrealism, expressionism and other similar ideas. During the postmodernist era, we see a departure from the traditional rules of art, and the experimentation of different techniques such as placing subjects in strange arrangements and even the absence of a definitive subject. Some iconic photographers from the postmodern era include Lee Friedlander, William Eggleston, Andreas Gursky.

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The second artist in which I feel their work has a strong impact on communities within the environment is Terje Abusdal as her work evolves around the different naturist environments that exist. She has realised several books such as slash & burn, Hope blinds reason and radius 500 meters.

One of Terje Abusdals projects in which she has done is called Finnslogen which translates to The Forest of the Finns. This is a large contiguous forest belt along the Norwegian Swedish border in Hedmark / Vãrmland where farm families from Finland were settled in the early 1600s. The Forest Finns were slash and burn farmers; ancient agricultural method yielded plentiful crop but they required large forest areas as the soil was quickly exhausted. This photograph project in which Terje Abusdal has done highlights the strong beliefs while also investigating what it means to be a Forrest Finn today.

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Additionally another photography project in which Abusdal has done is called Hope Blinds Reason. I personally believe that Hope Blinds Reasons is one of her projects which stand out the most for me as they have a powerful meaning behind the photographs.
Hope Blinds Reason is a visual narrative from a series of journeys made in India along the river Ganga, from its source in the Himalayas to its delta in the Bay of Bengal. It is a story about an attempt to come to terms with one of the most elementary of human experiences, love and loss. I feel that this therefore relates to the negatives and positive in which nature has and the strong influence it has on people.

Additionally I feel that the way in which the photograph has multiple different contrasts, as well as play on colours makes her photos more unique than other artists. The uses of harsh and warm lighting in her photographs adds specific detail which also creates a strong outline of the different textures.

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For my personal study I have decided to link three artists work to earth and power. This will hopefully help me within my personal study with inspiration from other artist as well as developing my knowledge of this specific topic to a further extent.

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Robert Adams – Robert Adams was born in New Jersey and moved to Colorado. He was a professor of English literature for several years before fully committing to his photography career in the mid 1970s. He also released multiple books such as; The New West, Summer Nights, Los Angeles Spring as well as several others. In 2009 Adams was awarded the Hasselblad foundation international award in photography. Robert Adams bought a 35mm reflex camera in 1963 and this is when he began to take pictures mostly of nature and architecture.

Personally I find Robert Adams work very aspiring due to the fact that each photograph in which he has taken is very unique in there own particular ways and has different morals behind each photograph. However they are all very similar to each other due to the minimalistic contrasts within the photos and the mutual tones used. Additionally I also feel that you can clearly see the main focus in each photograph as well as the non focus which is mainly based on the backgrounds. In my opinion I feel that the photographs which he has taken involving architecture are highly more interesting for one to look at as each building may portray a different story of who may coincide there.

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Throughout my personal study, I aim to explore how the fashion industry impacts our social identity. I have always been interested in fashion, even from a young age. Fashion does outline, express, and shape our identity. Fashion and clothing are both there as a fundamental tool in which people construct themselves. Sometimes we all want to construct a new identity using fashion, the way we dress is like communicating without words.

An important issue within the fashion world is that most people shy away from statement pieces, or even clothing items that are a little out of their comfort zone as they are afraid of judgement, whether we like it or not, people will judge us by our appearance. The global editor of vogue claims it is important that you are happy in what you wear and to do it for yourself instead of others. However, some people are the opposite. When it comes to the people who aren’t totally sure who they are inside and don’t have the words to explain it, fashion can be one of the best ways of expressing who you are, with one simple glance from a stranger you begin to show a glimpse of your identity.

To develop my project, I will research famous Vogue fashion photographers and create shoots that are similar to their work. The artists I aim to explore in detail and become inspired by are Guy Bourdin and Irving Penn. Bourdin is known to have widely changed the face of fashion photography forever and Irving Penn has been known to alter our perception of beauty. Within my personal study I will also explore Anna Wintour, the Global Editorial Director of Vogue, her use of the magazine shaped the fashion industry and she is known to have changed how the world gets dressed.

My final outcome of this project will be produced in a photobook.

FASHION

VOGUE Photographers

Charles Jourdan & Guy Bourdin

Between 1967 and 1981, Bourdin produced some of his most memorable work under the employment of shoe designer Charles Jourdan, who essentially became his patron. His work for Jourdan employed anthropomorphic compositions, suggestive narratives and explored the realms between the absurd and the sublime. His surreal aesthetics were delivered with sharp humor and were always eagerly anticipated by the media.

Widely considered to have changed the face of fashion photography forever, French photographer Guy Bourdin’s innovative voice and visionary work is no longer seen solely in the context of commercial photography but is well esteemed in the annals of contemporary fine art.

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Guy Bourdin created impossible images long before photoshop, Some of Bourdin’s best-known pictures feature mannequin legs sawn off just below the knee. Those legs, says O’Neill, were “so brilliantly placed you can almost see the whole woman – the sense of her was so strong”. Usually the images were created by Bourdin drilling the mannequin’s feet through the ground then positioning them.

He was meticulous in planning his photographs, sketching out the composition and scouting locations in advance, and yet “he made it look so effortless. Today photographers can very easily make a model fly but when they do it it doesn’t have the same charge or aura.”

“An artist whose distinct style is instantly recognizable, Guy Bourdin’s use of color, frame and form is highly unique and utterly surprising.”
─── Torres, R. (January 4, 2021). Guy Bourdin, Independent Photographer.

As such, their work greatly compliments each other, both shooting contorted female bodies, scenarios tinged with a surrealist element, and employing the use of props, harsh lighting, bright colours, and pure melodrama. Bourdin continued to work for Vogue until 1987.

“I have never perceived myself as responsible for my images.
They are just accidents. I am not a director, merely an agent of chance” —– Bourdin, G. (1981) Guy Bourdin, The Independent Photographer.

Horst P

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Horst P. Horst (1906-99) created images that transcend fashion and time. He was a master of light, composition and atmospheric illusion, who conjured a world of sensual sophistication. In an extraordinary sixty-year career, his photographs graced the pages of Vogue and House and Garden under the one-word photographic byline ‘Horst’. He ranks alongside Irving Penn and Richard Avedon as one of the pre-eminent fashion and portrait photographers of the 20th century. His extraordinary range of work outside the photographic studio conveys a relentless visual curiosity and life-long desire for new challenges.

The 1930s ushered in huge technical advancements in colour photography. Horst adapted quickly to a new visual vocabulary, creating some of Vogue’s most dazzling colour images. Horst’s colour photographs are rarely exhibited because few vintage prints exist. Colour capture took place on a transparency which could be reproduced on the magazine page without the need to create a photographic print. 

Annie Leibovitz

Over the last 50 years, Annie Leibovitz’ eye has helped direct, guide and capture the fashion industry’s greatest talents. Leibovitz has been described as an Artist Who Changed Fashion Photography Forever. She is an American portrait photographer best known for her engaging portraits, particularly of celebrities, which often feature subjects in intimate settings and poses.

In 1999, Vogue sent Annie to Paris to cover the couture collections for the first time and surprised her by casting Sean Combs alongside Kate Moss. The shoot was a cross-cultural straddling of two worlds: rap culture and high fashion.

Across more than 340 photographs, 90 of which have not been seen since their original magazine publication, Leibovitz’ fashion photography for publications such as Rolling Stone, Vogue and Vanity Fair is collated: including Sarah Jessica Parker in front of a mountain of pillows, Natalia Vodianova as Alice and Marc Jacobs as the Caterpillar, and Andrew Garfield, Lily Cole and Lady Gaga as Hansel, Gretel and the Wicked Witch.

Wonderland

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“Looking back at my work, I see that fashion has always been there,” says Leibovitz in the preface to Wonderland. “Fashion plays a part in the scheme of everything, but photography always comes first for me. The photograph is the most important part. And photography is so big that it can encompass journalism, portraiture, reportage, family photographs, fashion… My work for Vogue fuelled the fire for a kind of photography that I might not otherwise have explored.”

“This is the way it is in photography. Most celebrities are forgotten but fashion lasts.” —– Danziger, J. (2006) The New York Times

Mind Map

I created a new mind map shown above. I mentioned points about friends, community identity and family. I highlighted family as I believe that is the route I would like to go down for my personal project.

Statement Of Intent

What do you want to explore?

I want to explore the idea of identity being a combination of your personality and the history of your family that came before you. I want to go into the idea of influence from different places/ people and how it defines who you are. I want to look into my personal family history and who I actually am as I think bringing myself closer with my history will give me a better understanding of the person that I am.

Why it matters to me?

This matters to me because I love history generally so looking into my family history is of great interest to me so that I can find out what kind of lives my close and distant relatives lived. It would be interesting to find out what parts of the world they come from and the struggles they may have experienced and overcome.

How do you wish to develop your project?

I want to use some of my favourite photography techniques with my project including photomontage, black and white photography, candid/ portrait and landscape photography. I will also make the photos vintage looking so they fit with the idea of family history and look as if my photo-book is an old family photo journal.

Two photographers I want to look at are Daniella Zalcman and Patrick Zachmann. They both look at the idea of family identity in two different ways but their methods are both unique.

When and where you intend to begin your study?

I intend to start my project by speaking to my Grandmother who in the past has looked into our family history. I want to take photos of some of the documents/ old photos she has and try and recreate them or photomontage them.