Mind-map of ideas
Monthly Archives: January 2022
Filters
identity- iNSPIRATIONS
The identity of a person or place is the characteristics they have that distinguish them from others.
Identity can be influenced by “place”, or belonging, your environment or upbringing. Many factors lie within someone’s personal identity, such as gender identity, cultural identity, social identity, geographical identity, political identity.
CLICK ON IMAGE BELOW FOR ANALYSIS OF INSPIRATIONS
These factors can change how people think of others and themselves which can also lead to a lack of identity where an individual may question who they are and may feel disconnected from who they are as a person.
INSPIRATIONS
CORINNE DAY
Corinne Day (Feb 19 1962 – Aug 28 2010) was a British photographer whose influence on the style and perception of photography in the early 1990s and onwards has been immense.
Self taught, Day brought a more documentary look to fashion imagery, in which she often included autobiographical elements. Her pictures unflinchingly document her life and relationships with a realist snapshot aesthetic-representing a youth culture set against the glamour of fashion and avoiding fictionalization or voyeurism.
Gaining notoriety both for a scandalous photo of Kate Moss in Vogue in 1993 and for pioneering so-called ‘grunge’ fashion photography, she was exiled from the mainstream fashion media-which had always been wary of her potential for controversy
FRANCESCA WOODMAN
Francesca Stern Woodman was an American photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring either herself or female models. Despite her short career, which ended with her suicide at the age of 22, Woodman produced over 800 untitled prints.
Influenced by Surrealism and Conceptual Art, her work often featured recurring symbolic motifs such as birds, mirrors, and skulls. Many of her photographs show women, naked or clothed, blurred, merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured.
RYAN MCGINLEY
Ryan McGinley was born on October 17, 1977, in Ramsey, New Jersey. He received a BFA in graphic design at Parsons School of Design, New York, in 2000. That same year he staged his first solo show of photographs, The Kids Are Alright, inside an abandoned warehouse in New York’s SoHo neighbourhood.
McGinley’s work typically features young, white models outdoors, captured in a carefree mode that the artist calls an “evidence of fun. He gravitated toward street culture early in his adolescence and began hanging out with a band of self-proclaimed outsiders—skateboarders, club kids, graffiti artists, queer-identified youths, and indie musicians.
Mood board, definition and introduction
Definition
The definition of identity is who you are, the way you think about yourself, the way you are viewed by the world and the characteristics that define you.
definition in photography: A photograph resembles the likeness of what appeared before the lens. So, in the case of a profile picture, family album or mug shot, identity is based on the repetition of sameness that is evidenced by the image produced by the camera.
Mood board
Claude Cahun
Claude Cahun, born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor, and writer.
Schwob adopted the pseudonym Claude Cahun in 1914. Cahun is best known as a writer and self-portraitist, who assumed a variety of performative personae.
Cahun’s work is both political and personal. During World War II, Cahun lived in Jersey and was active as a resistance worker and propagandist
Cahun lived in Jersey during the Occupation, her resistance activities during that time led to her imprisonment.
A death sentence was commuted and she was freed from prison when Jersey was liberated. She lived in Jersey with her stepsister until her death in 1954.
Since her “rediscovery” over a decade ago, Claude Cahun has attracted what amounts to a cult following among art historians and critics working from postmodern, feminist, and queer theoretical perspectives.
Photographs of Cahun posing in the 1920s and 30s in various dramatic settings and guises have been displayed alongside contemporary works, showing the timelessness of her work.
Identity: Editing
Some Before and Afters:
More Final Edits:
I like this image because it’s confusing me. I like how I can barely see my face and how my hair is so much shorter than it actually is and how I’m just blending into the background because of the slow shutter speed. 
I really like this picture because I think the slow shutter speed made it look interesting. I just like how my face is hard to see because it’s so bright and how it looks ghost like. 
This is one of my favourite images because it looks almost like my body is leaving my soul and I think that is interesting. 
I decided to keep this picture with the other ones because it contrasts them. Unlike the other edits, this image is colourful and happy and for once you can actually see my face and my smile. 
URBAN & INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPES
Over the next two weeks you will be looking at producing blog posts and responding photographically to:
- New Topographics
- Urban Landscapes
- Industrial Landscapes
- Camera Skills – vantage points
URBAN LANDSCAPES
The New Topographics
New Topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz) whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape…
The beginning of the death of “The American Dream”
Many of the photographers associated with The New Topographics including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon and Bernd and Hiller Becher, were inspired by the man-made…selecting subject matter that was matter-of-fact.
New Topographics inspired by the likes of Albert Renger Patszch and the notion of The New Objectivity
Parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses were all depicted with a beautiful stark austerity, almost in the way early photographers documented the natural landscape. An exhibition at the International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York featuring these photographers also revealed the growing unease about how the natural landscape was being eroded by industrial development.
The New Topographics were to have a decisive influence on later photographers including those artists who became known as the Düsseldorf School of Photography.
BLOG POST: Photoshoot / Practical Responses…
- Produce a list of places in Jersey you could go and shoot urban landscapes. Create a blog post as a mood board or photo shoot plan. Scrapyards, building sites, cranes, restoration yards, derelict ruins, car parks, underpass, harbours and dockyards, industrial centres, retail park, Stadiums, floodlight arenas, staircases, road systems, Circuit boards, pipework, telephone poles, towers, pylons, Shop displays, escalators, bars, libraries, theatres and cinemas, Gardens, parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, etc.
- Possible titles to inspire you and choose from… Dereliction / Isolation / Lonely Places / Open Spaces / Close ups / Freedom / Juxtaposition / Old and new / Erosion / Altered Landscapes / Utopia / Dystopia / Wastelands / Barren / Skyscapes / Urban Decay / Former Glories / Habitats / Social Hierarchies / Entrances and Exits / Storage / Car Parks / Looking out and Looking in / Territory / Domain / Concealed and Revealed
Look at how the New Topographics approach has inspired landscape photography and the way we document our surroundings / the way we are using and transforming the land.
You should look at photographers such as…
Ed Ruscha, “Every Building On The Sunset Strip”
The artist Ed Ruscha is famous for his paintings and prints but is also known for his series of photographic books based on typologies, among them Every Building on the Sunset Strip, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Some Los Angeles Apartments, and Thirtyfour Parking Lots. Ruscha employs the deadpan style found in many photographic topologies. The book shown above is a 24 foot long accordion fold booklet that documents 1 1/2 miles of the Sunset Strip in Hollywood.
Here’s another topology for you to look at by Ólafur Elíasson :
Thom and Beth Atkinson< Missing Buildings, 2016
https://www.thomatkinson.com/missing-buildings
Research a selection of these photographers and respond with…
- similar imagery from your own photo-shoots / image library
- analytical comparisons and contrasts
- a presentation of final images
Stephen Shore, Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21, 1975, 1975, chromogenic color print
Analysis and discussion… starting points and key features of The New Topographics
- Foreground vs background | Dominant features
- Composition | low horizon line | Square format
- Perspective and detail / cluttering
- Wide depth of field | Large Format Camera
- Colour | impact and relevance
- Nationalism vs mobility vs isolation
- Social commentary | The American Dream ?
- An appreciation of the formal elements : line, shape, form, texture, pattern, tone etc
Remember to use this
Follow this 10 Step Process and create multiple blog posts for each unit to ensure you tackle all Assessment Objectives thoroughly :
- Mood-board, definition and introduction (AO1)
- Mind-map of ideas (AO1)
- Artist References / Case Studies (must include image analysis) (AO1)
- Photo-shoot Action Plan (AO3)
- Multiple Photoshoots + contact sheets (AO3)
- Image Selection, sub selection (AO2)
- Image Editing/ manipulation / experimentation (AO2)
- Presentation of final outcomes (AO4)
- Compare and contrast your work to your artist reference(AO1)
- Evaluation and Critique (AO1+AO4)
What do I photograph?
ROADS / BUILDINGS / STREETS / ST HELIER / FLATS / CAR PARKS / OFFICE BLOCKS / PLAYING FIELDS / SCHOOL / SHOPS / SUPERMARKETS / BUILDING SITES / TRAFFIC / HOTELS
Where to shoot ?
ORDANCE YARD / ST AUBINS HIGH STREET / COBBLED BACK STREETS / OLD ST HELIER / NEW ST HELIER / FLATS / ESPLANADE / TOWN / CAR PARKS / FORT REGENT / FINANCE DISTRICT / UNDERPASS / TUNNEL / NIGHT TIME / PIER ROAD CAR PARK / HUE COURT / LE MARAIS FLATS / PLAYING FIELDS / SCHOOLS / ANN STREET BREWERY BUILDING SITE / SPRINGFIELD STDIUM
- Research and explore The New Topographics and how photographers have responded to man’s impact on the land, and how they found a sense of beauty in the banal ugliness of functional land use…
- Create a blog post that defines and explains The New Topographics and the key features and artists of the movement.
- ANSWER : What was the new topographics a reaction to?
- A case study on your chosen NEW TOPOGRAPHIC landscape photographer. Choose from…ROBERT ADAMS, STEPHEN SHORE, JOE DEAL, FRANK GOLKHE, NICHOLAS NIXON, LEWIS BALTZ, THE BECHERS, HENRY WESSEL JR, JOHN SCHOTT ETC to write up a case study that will inspire your own photography.
- Analyse one image of this photographers work. Use the vocabulary support sheet to help. https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo22al/2020/08/20/photo-vocab-support/
- Produce a list of places in Jersey you could go and shoot urban landscapes. Create a blog post of a visual mood board and photo shoot plan. Scrapyards, building sites, cranes, restoration yards, derelict ruins, car parks, underpass, harbours and dockyards, industrial centres, retail park, Stadiums, floodlight arenas, staircases, road systems, Circuit boards, pipework, telephone poles, towers, pylons, Shop displays, escalators, bars, libraries, theatres and cinemas, Gardens, parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, etc.
- Possible titles to inspire you and choose from… Dereliction / Isolation / Lonely Places / Open Spaces / Close ups / Freedom / Juxtaposition / Old and new / Erosion / Altered Landscapes / Utopia / Dystopia / Wastelands / Barren / Skyscapes / Urban Decay / Former Glories / Habitats / Social Hierarchies / Entrances and Exits / Storage / Car Parks / Looking out and Looking in / Territory / Domain / Concealed and Revealed
- First photoshoot inspired and influenced by your first chosen urban landscape photographer. (+100 photographs). Can be any urban landscape photographer, but remember to include a brief case study and examples of their work that have influenced your work.
- Select, consider and decide on best images (show contact sheets)
- Develop ideas through digital manipulation (ie: cropping, contrast, colour balance etc.)
- Realise a final outcome.
Once you have completed your photo walk from Havre Des Pas to La Collette you should aim to make comparisons with photographers and their work
Your image selection and editing may be guided by this work…and you must show that you can make creative connections.
For Example Albert Renger Patszch and The New Objectivity
https://www.atlasofplaces.com/photography/new-objectivity/
Keld Helmer Petersen
https://www.keldhelmerpetersen.com/1950-1959
- Second photoshoot inspired and influenced by your second chosen urban landscape photographer. see list below URBAN PHOTOGRAPHERS (+100 photographs). Can be any urban landscape photographer, but remember to include a brief case study and examples of their work that have influenced your work.
Ensure you experiment with different vantage points eg: worms eye view etc. - Select, consider and decide on best images (show contact sheets)
- Develop ideas through digital manipulation (ie: cropping, contrast, colour balance etc.)
- Realise a final outcome.
- Select one of your photographs to compare and contrast against one photograph of your chosen photographer.
- Create a venn diagram to illustrate the similarities and differences between the images.
- Using this information and prompts from the Photo Vocab Sheet write an in depth and thorough analysis. https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo22al/2020/08/20/photo-vocab-support/
Always ensure you have enough evidence of…
- moodboards (use influential images)
- mindmap of ideas and links
- case studies (artist references-show your knowledge and understanding)
- photo-shoot action plans / specifications (what, why, how, who, when , where)
- photo-shoots + contact sheets (annotated)
- appropriate image selection and editing techniques
- presentation of final ideas and personal responses
- analysis and evaluation of process
- compare and contrast to a key photographer
- critique / review / reflection of your outcomes
- Eugene Agtet
- Ed Ruscha
- Thomas Struth
- Gabrielle Basilico
- Gerry Johansson
- W. Eugine Smith
- Rut Blees Luxemburg
- Panos Kokkinios
- Naoya Hatakeyama
Eugene Agtet
Ed Ruscha
Thomas Struth
Gabrielle Basilico
Gerry Johansson
W. Eugene Smith
Rut Blees Luxemburg
Panos Kokkinios
Naoya Hatakeyama
- Alexander Apostol
- Bernd & Hilla Becher
- Donovan Wylie
- Edward Burntsky
- Frank Breuer
- Gerry Johansson
- Joel Sternfeld
- Josef Schultz
- Lewis Baltz
- Charles Sheeler
Alexander Apostol
Bernd & Hilla Becher
Donovan Wylie
Edward Burntsky
Frank Breuer
Gerry Johansson
Joel Sternfeld
Josef Schultz
Lewis Baltz
Charles Sheeler
Technical: Shoot using different vantage points.
Why Is Vantage Point Important?
Your vantage point affects the angles, composition, and narrative of a photograph. It is an integral part of the decision-making process when taking a photograph.
We often spend more time considering camera settings and lighting, than exploring viewpoints. A picture taken from a unique vantage point makes us think about the subject in a different way. Perspectives from high or low angles add emotion to the photograph.
Eye-level vantage points provide a feeling of directness and honesty. Changing your vantage point can include or exclude part of the photo’s story.
As you look through your viewfinder, ask yourself some questions:
- How could I add interest to the subject?
- How can I show the viewer a new perspective on this subject?
- Do I always stand in this position when taking photos?
- What else can I include in the frame to tell the story? How can I make this happen?
TRY LOOKING UP, LOOKING DOWN, AT AN ANGLE, FROM A DISTANCE, A WORMS EYE VIEW ETC.
WORMS EYE VIEW
TYPOLOGIES and the landscape
Bernd and Hilla Becher – Typologies of industrial architecture
Read this useful introduction to the Becher’s work from American Photo magazine which describes their interest in the ‘Grid’ and their influence on future generations of photographers, members of the Düsseldorf School.
The term ‘Typology’ was first used to describe a style of photography when Bernd and Hilla Becher began documenting dilapidated German industrial architecture in 1959. The couple described their subjects as ‘buildings where anonymity is accepted to be the style’. Stoic and detached, each photograph was taken from the same angle, at approximately the same distance from the buildings. Their aim was to capture a record of a landscape they saw changing and disappearing before their eyes so once again, Typologies not only recorded a moment in time, they prompted the viewer to consider the subject’s place in the world.
The Bercher’s influence as lecturers at the Dusseldorf School of Photography passed Typologies onto the next generation of photographers. Key photographic typologists such as Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Demand and Gillian Wearing lead to a resurgence of these documentary-style reflections on a variety of subject matter from Ruff’s giant ‘passport’ photos to Demand’s desolate, empty cities.
You could:
Create your own typological series documenting repeated forms where they live and work. For example, you might like to choose one of the following subjects:
- front doors on the street where you live
- cracks in the pavement
- fences and walls
- the colours of all the cars in the supermarket car park
- telegraph poles viewed from below
- TV aerials silhouetted against the sky
KEVIN BAUMAN
Images from 100 Abandoned Houses – A record of abandonment in Detroit in the mid 90’s by Kevin Bauman
MocK EXam Guidance
Day 1
Select your images in Adobe Lightroom and clearly show your selection process on the blog…include your reasoning for your choices eg how do they link to your artist reference?
Edit, manipulate and enhance your images using Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop (or other methods)
Take regular screenshots to show the key changes in your process
CONTROLLED CONDITIONS : Essentials
- You will have 15 hours to complete this unit…focus on selecting and editing your final images / set of images
- Remember to label each JPEG in the print folder with your name
- Minimum 1 x file per A3, A4, A5
- Ensure that your final images are a direct response to your chosen photographer (s) and show a clear visual link
- Print size images = ADD YOUR a4, a3, a5 MEASUREMENT TO SHORT EDGE in Lightroom / Photoshop
- BLOG SIZE images = 1000 pixels on SHORT EDGE
Always ensure you have enough evidence of…
- Mood-board, definition and introduction (AO1)
- Mind-map of ideas (AO1)
- Artist References / Case Study (must include image analysis) (AO1)
- Photo-shoot Action Plan (AO3)
- Multiple Photoshoots + contact sheets (AO3)
- Image Selection, sub selection (AO2)
- Image Editing/ manipulation / experimentation (AO2)
- Presentation of final outcomes (AO4) ENSURE THIS IS A SEPARATE BLOG POST
- Compare and contrast your work to your artist reference(AO1)
- Evaluation and Critique (AO1+AO4)
Day 2
Aim to complete your editing…review and reflect on your process
What is working well?
What do you need to change or improve?
How are you going to sequence and order your images / prints ? This can drastically alter the story and impact of your images. Think about the size and shape of your images too…
Remember : 1 image = statement / 2 images = a question
Day 3
- You must aim to complete all of your Identity Blog Posts.
- Complete a VIRTUAL GALLERY (add your images to a gallery in order to show the presentation of them…)
Making a Virtual Gallery in Photoshop
Download an empty gallery file…then insert your images and palce them on the walls. Adjust the persepctive, size and shape using CTRL T (free transform) You can also add things like a drop shadow to make the image look more realistic…
…or using online software
How I did it:
Step 1: Go to www.artsteps.com
Step 2: Sign in / up.
Step 3: Create.
Step 4: Create your own location or choose a template.
Step 5: Upload your images, put them in your exhibition, name it and give it a description.
Step 6: Present / view your Exhibition.
- Add your images to the print folder here…M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Image Transfer\Printing Yr 12 IDENTITY
- Complete any unfinished work from last term if you have time
File Handling and printing...
- Remember when EXPORTING from Lightroom you must adjust the file size to 1000 pixels on the Short edge for “blog-friendly” images (JPEGS)
- BUT…for editing and printing when EXPORTING from Lightroom you must adjust the file size to Short edge for “high resolution” images (JPEGS) like this…
- A5 Short Edge = 14.8 cm
- A4 Short Edge = 21.0 cm
- A3 Short Edge =29.7 cm
This will ensure you have the correct ASPECT RATIO
Ensure you label and save your file in you M :Drive and then coip across to the PRINT FOLDER / IMAGE TRANSFER
For a combination of images, or square format images you use the
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP > NEW DOCUMENT + PRINT PRESETS on to help arrange images on the correct size page (A3, A4, A5)
You can do this using Photoshop, Set up the page sizes as templates and import images into each template, then you can see for themselves how well they fit… but remember to add an extra 6mm for bleed (3mm on each side of the page) to the original templates. i.e. A4 = 297mm x 210 but the template size for this would be 303mm x 216mm.
Identity: Photoshoot 2 + extra
2nd Photoshoot Contact Sheets – Inside
For my second photoshoot, I focused on taking pictures of myself in my own room. I used a tripod and a timer and had to manually press the button on the camera in order to take the pictures and because of that most of the images are out of focus. However, I like the way they look because I feel like it adds more personality. The only props I used were a match box, a glass bottle and a book. To improve I think I should take more pictures and try out different angles and the use of more props would also make the images look better.
I lit some matches, placed them on a piece of paper and took some pictures of them because I thought they looked interesting. 
Here I tried taking close ups of my face, hands etc. To improve I would have to take more images than this because most of them turned out bad and my selection is limited.
Extra Contact Sheets – Outside
This is not a photoshoot and the pictures were not planned, they’re just random photos I’ve taken in the past 2 weeks or so. I think it’s a good idea adding them here because they are part of me and who I am as an individual.
Best Images:
I have picked these images as my best shots because I like the framing of some and how they are not in focus. I think they will all look good together later on.
Idea for my final outcomes
List of ideas –
- Collaged
- Collaged together in the shape of an object/person
- In a Sequence
- One photo/multiple photos in a frame
- Create the illusion as if the photos have been taken on a polaroid.
- Creating a virtual gallery.
How I will do it –
I have decided to create a virtual gallery which can be done on photoshop.
- Choose 3-6 pictures which I think work well together that create a message.
- Edit them on Adobe Lightroom.
- Upload them to photoshop and arrange them on a template picture of a gallery from the internet.
claude cahun
Claude Cahun, born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor, and writer.
Schwob adopted the pseudonym Claude Cahun in 1914. Cahun is best known as a writer and self-portraitist, who assumed a variety of performative personae.
Cahun’s work is both political and personal. During World War II, Cahun lived in Jersey and was active as a resistance worker and propagandist
Cahun lived in Jersey during the Occupation, her resistance activities during that time led to her imprisonment.
A death sentence was commuted and she was freed from prison when Jersey was liberated. She lived in Jersey with her stepsister until her death in 1954.
Since her “rediscovery” over a decade ago, Claude Cahun has attracted what amounts to a cult following among art historians and critics working from postmodern, feminist, and queer theoretical perspectives.
Photographs of Cahun posing in the 1920s and 30s in various dramatic settings and guises have been displayed alongside contemporary works, showing the timelessness of her work.