After a brief stint at Newsweek, where Smith was fired because he refused to move to large-format negatives from his beloved 35mm Contax, Smith was employed as a war correspondent for Life magazine in 1942. His experience photographing some of the most significant battles of the Pacific shaped his career, and his intentions to showcase the horrors of the conflict are clear in the shockingly detailed images. He felt that, through his photography, he would be able to galvanise those in power into not repeating their mistakes. He wrote “You can’t raise a nation to kill and murder without injury to the mind… It is the reason I am covering the war for I want my pictures to carry some message against the greed, the stupidity and the intolerances that cause these wars and the breaking of many bodies.” Unfortunately, he was seriously injured by mortar fire in 1945, and thus ensued two years of surgery, after which he continued at Life until 1955.

During his time with Life magazine, in 1948, Smith produced perhaps the most influential piece of photojournalism of the 20th century. This piece was called Country Doctor and followed the day-to-day life of the sole doctor for 2000 people in a small town in the Rocky Mountains of North America. The piece used and established the steps to creating a photoessay as Smith envisioned it, which are still used today by photojournalists the world over. These are:

• Person at Work
• Relationship Shot
• Establishing Shot
• Detail shot
• Environmental Portrait
• Formal Portrait
• Observed Portrait

By covering every single shot, the journalist is able to create a piece that fully explores the various aspects of a subject.

Task

PLANNING: Produce a blog post with a detailed plan of at least 3-4 photoshoots that you intend on doing in response to analysis and interpretation of Artists References above. Make sure photo-shoots relates to the ideas on how you intend to develop your project as set out in your Statement of Intent. Follow these instructions: what, why, when, where?

Shoot One

Who – For my third shoot, I intend to photograph locations that bring me a sense of nostalgia and that I visited a lot growing up as well as some locations that I visit a lot currently.

What – When taking these photos, I plan to edit them according to how vivid they are in my memory. If I don’t remember them clearly, I may edit them to be less saturated or perhaps make them appear almost dream like.

Where – These photos will be taken at their locations, such as be the pink elephant park, St. Saviours school, the garden center etc.

Why – While photographing objects will be important for my project, I think the locations of my childhood are also something that should definitely be incorporated. It will also be interesting to see how much these areas have changed, I could also potentially try to replicate some photos from the past at these locations.

Shoot Two

Who – I plan to photograph objects from my childhood that create a sense of nostalgia or a meaningful to me such as toys, books, or sentimental items.

What – Much like the cards, I plan to use gel lighting when taking photographs of my objects too. I also think it would be a good idea to potentially blur some or add a sort of foggy effect to some of the objects that I don’t remember clearly.

Where – Once again, I would likely take these photographs either at school using the studio or at home, where I would set up a small area in my house to take them.

Why – These objects will help to display my memory of what stuck out to me growing up and help me to look back on the things I have forgotten as well at the memories attached to the objects. I feel as though this is important to me since I often don’t reflect on how much different things and people have helped me over the years.

Shoot Three

Who – Lastly, I plan to collect old photos of me and my family.

What – My plan for these photos is to create a collage of these images in black and white to symbolise how over different time periods, memories remain through photos and live on.

Where – I will take all these photos from my house and collect some older ones through my parents.

Why – I think its important to include older images to signify how important memory is to photography. However, since I plan on collaging the images I will make sure to use one page.

Shoot Four

Who – For this shoot, I want to photograph just a blank set up while focusing more on the lighting.

what – I plan to use some kind of blank table as well as a blank background. I will use different colours in my lighting to make the images more eye catching.

where – I will most likely create these images either in the studio at school or set up a makeshift studio at home.

why – I feel as though having blank areas in my photobook will help to depict the loss of a certain memory, however I think that having lighting will help to showcase the general emotion I remember feeling.

Shoot Five

Who – For my first shoot, I plan to photograph birthday cards ranging from when I was younger, to more recent ones.

What – For this shoot, I will use gel lighting in order to make the photos more colourful and eye catching. I plan to use a range of colours and tones to find which ones work best.

Where – In order to take these photos, I will either be using the studio in the school or take them from home.

Why – I am taking the photos of the cards in order to represent my age in my personal study as I will be exploring my memories. Regarding the gel lighting, since we cannot gain many emotions from objects on their own using colours in lighting is a way to display them.

From my review and reflection I want to explore the theme of teenage life and ‘girlhood’ further exploring the idea of feminism. By exploring this It will show how our teenage years change and we explore new things and experience new things. To develop this project I will bring my camera to any social settings with my friends for example party’s, late night drives, getting ready with my friends and gatherings. By further exploring the idea of girl pictures by Justine Kurland and creating pictures of my friends at party’s and in social settings, shows how we are all growing up and making different decisions.

This will link to the theme of nostalgia as these years of our lives are the ones which shape our future and we will always remember these years for the rest of our lives. So by capturing these moments, people may be able to relate to the images or when I’m older I can look back and the images.

My images will be a mixture of staged and capturing the moment. By having some staged images this means I can take pictures of things which I might miss out when taking them in the moment. I wish to present my series of images in a photo book in a way which tells a story which people can understand without any text or context and read a story through pictures.

About

Toledano was born in 1968 in London, to a French Moroccan mother and an American father. He grew up in London and Casablanca. He received a BA in English literature from Tufts University in Boston.

Toledano considers himself a conceptual artist, believing that everything starts with an idea, and the idea determines the execution. Consequently, his work varies in medium, ranging from photography to installation, sculpture, painting and video.

Book reference

Toledano created the book ‘when I was six’ as a way to honor and remember his sister, Claudia, who passed away in an accident when he was just six years old. After his parents passing, Toledano discovers boxes of Claudia’s belongings that were kept by his parents and so the book is his way of getting to know, not only his sister but his parents relationship with her as well as showcasing some memories he had from the time.

In my opinion, creating a book such as this must take a lot of strength, since exploring something so painful would be difficult for almost anyone. The way Toledano showcases his sisters belongings in the book is symbolic in a way. His use of lighting is done in such a way that it depicts the knowledge he gains of his sister, information that was hidden away finally coming to light after all these years.

Why I chose him

I chose Toledano as one of my artist references due to his link to memory, much like the reason I selected Sternfeld. I also think Toledano’s use of lighting would be a useful technique to replicate in my personal study, since to me it represents something coming to light by just having a small section, or box, brighter than the rest.

Another approach I would like to try and replicate is with some objects, he makes them appear almost dream like or foggy in a way. I think this would be very interesting to do when I showcase something I don’t remember too well, such as an object or a landscape as it would represent how it’s not a clear memory.

Image analysis

Within this image, we are able to see a dress which seems to be preserved due to the well kept condition it’s in. This tells the viewer that the dress has not been touched in a long time, creating a sense of sadness when looking at the photo.

We are also able to see the lighting in this image, with the majority of the photo cast in a shadow except for one square. This square of light could symbolize the lid of the box being taken off, revealing the dress as well as memories of his sister. The dress is also off center, however, this means that our eyes are drawn to the light overlapping giving off a slightly more positive outlook, maybe suggesting that Toledano is feeling more at peace with his sisters passing.

Lastly, the colouring of the image is important. Majority of the tones in the image are cool, creating a calm outlook for the viewer, once again potentially linking to peace.

pinterest photos:

my parents photos:

Home

I took these photos along time ago one of the first projects I worked on with haulier I remember i enjoyed doing it however the photos are very basic.

Romanticism

this photo I really like however it only looks good in black and white and don’t really like using black and white I believe I should use more colour in my photos and I plan on using colour in my personal study

New Topographic

these photos I like I feel like these where my first proper good photos in photography however I don’t like using black and white but I believe the photos needed it or else they would of not looked good.

Constructed landscapes

I found this topic quiet weird however and I don’t really like the style of this type of photography I do believe my photo turn out alright.

Anthropocene

I really like these photos I believe i got the mood of the topic on point and the photos look good.

Studio Portraits

I like theses photo found it fun experimenting with the studio lighting and the photos turned out really good.

Femininity And Masculinity

I like these photo thought they turned out really good.

AI Photos

I really liked this topic and I most likely will be using AI in my personal study if not I will definitely be experimenting with AI to see what photos I can get and if they fit with the theme.

nostalgia/ St-Malo

I really enjoyed the st-Malo trip I got some great photos from the trip and St-Malo is a beautiful place with a lot to explore so I had fun going around taking photos of different thing and places.

Troy Pavia focuses on night time photography with mostly all of his photos he goes around the place he photographing and adds colored lights to his photographs he does this by lowering the shutter speed and walking around his photo basically painting with lights. I really like the way he paints with lights in his photos and I would like to try and do something like this in my personal study. Troy Paiva was born in 1966 and has been talking photo since 1989 he went to school at the university of Massachusetts Dartmouth hes written four books and helped with other had a dozen magazine appearances and has done photography workshops hes still alive to this day and is actively looking to do talks/ speaking gigs he also does freelancing and hes still doing photography. I want to make a couple of my photos the same way he makes his so i will be going around at night taking photos of things that remind me or give me the same feeling as the his work and then I will paint with light and see if I can get the same effect.

Elizabeth Castle FINAL.mp4
this is the Elizabeth castle film

Liam Wong is a Scottish photographer and games designer. He was Artistic Director of Ubisoft Montreal and was involved in the design of game series like Crysis and Far Cry. He is known for his cyberpunk, sci-fi style of photography. Wong is the author of the book To:ky:oo his book is a collection photo from Tokyo he says “I got lost in the beauty of Tokyo at night” To:ky:oo was published was published in 2019 and the photos look amazing. Liam Wong hasn’t done to much in the photography world however I really like what he has done and his night photography is very well done with the neon lights and all the vibrant colour really make his work I cant wait for his next pieces of work and I know it will be great. he got another book called after dark which was funded by crowdfunding which got 5x over the initial £40,000 target To:ky:oo focused more on the neon lights and bright colours but his new book After Dark goes for a more darker more depressed theme he travelled around the world visiting different city’s such as Seoul, Paris, London, Chongqing, Osaka, Hong Kong and his hometown city in Edinburgh. there are about 200 images in his photobook the photos in his book are a collection of photos from different city all over the world collected over years, Liam Wong decided he didn’t want to make a separate book for each city and decided to make a book with all of the best photos he got from each city

This is a mood board compiled of Latoya Ruby Frazier’s works.

Latoya Ruby Frazier is an American artist and now professor of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Born in Braddock (Pennsylvania), she started her photography journey at sixteen by documenting her hometown. This stemmed into the production of her first photobook. In this book ‘The notion of family’ she explores racism and economic decline in America’s small towns, as shown in her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania. She portrays the hardships of Frazier’s family, who grew up there, through her images. She has included a selection of photographs; landscapes, portraits, and objects. She particularly focuses on capturing black and white photographs of herself and her family.

Latoya Ruby Frazier draws upon very personal and intimate aspects of her life to create meaningful photographs. She combines this with facing issues of racism and economic injustices. These result in the creation of her raw images of friends and family. Frazier says “the collaboration between my family and myself blurs the line between self-portraiture and social documentary”. This shows how she puts herself in front of the camera, in a vulnerable light, allowing viewers to see very personal details about herself and her life. This adds to her impactful images and allows her to address serious world issues through her work. Because her own family was part of her project ‘The Notion Of Family’, and it was a reflection of herself, it allowed her to give her photographs a deeper meaning and understanding. The process of image making is also a lot more effortless as the subjects become comfortable in front of the lens when having a close, trusted family member creating the images.