Pages of my zine printed out and stapled together.
I like this little photo zine, it features all my best photos I took in St. Malo and displays them very neatly and tidy. They are all black and white to match that of a newspaper about St. Malo. The book overall uses A5 pages stapled together. The size makes me think its like a pamphlet sold to tourists in St. Malo.
We went to St Malo for a day trip to take photos inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Which involved Candid photography where you take photos of people in their unposed and genuine state.
“the average person will not be able to know what is true anymore.” – Geoffrey Hinton.
INTRODUCTION
Photography was invented as a new technology in 1839. And it was viewed as a threat to traditional artforms such as painting and drawing and was not seen as art because it lacked “something beyond mere mechanism at the bottom of it.”. Photography is supposed to represent reality and is a real life perception of things, yet also an illusion as the photo’s framing, perspective, subject and composition are manipulated by the photographer. AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a tool that is relatively new. In this case, it is a tool that can be used to enhance, distort, bend, fracture and all together change how a photo looks. It can even create completely new images or things in an already existing image. AI has already developed enough to the stage where it has the ability to fabricate false images and videos, which can create confusion and make people think differently about a certain topic. It is likely most of us have seen an AI generated/altered image or video and have even believed whatever it was, as interesting as it is dangerous. On the idea of AI being dangerous, Geoffrey Hinton, mostly referred to as the “Godfather of AI” resigned from his position at Google to bring awareness to the rise of AI and how it can have many potential dangers. He said in an interview; “Right now, they’re not more intelligent than us, as far as I can tell. But I think they soon may be.”. He worries that AI can become too unpredictable and can eventually start to cause harm.
PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE PAST
Photography in the past, before the digital age, had artists use ways of manipulating the photos. Both with the camera and in the darkroom. Many artists would put Vaseline on their camera lenses, put chemicals on prints in a darkroom and would also scratch negatives together, artists would even move things seen in the photo to make them look more interesting. All these methods were used by artists to make their photos look more like an actual art piece, this was called “Pictorialism”.
An example image from this era:
This is a photo called “The Valley of the Shadow of Death”, it is known as “the first iconic photograph of war”. It was taken by Roger Fenton in 1855 in Crimea during the Crimean War, the photo shows a valley there with lots of used cannonballs. It was called “The Valley of the Shadow of Death” because that valley had constant shelling there. It was later theorised that Roger Fenton had the cannonballs put on the road for the photo, thus creating an unrealistic perception of the event. But many people have combatted this allegation by saying it wasn’t fabricated at all, the Orsay Museum said “this is unlikely as the fighting raging around him would probably not have allowed him to do so”. Some people have also claimed that the cannonballs were put there from soldiers who were collecting them for reuse, and had put them there for the time being. I think personally that the cannonballs were intentionally placed there by Fenton, not to exactly lie to the viewer but to instead emphasize to the viewer about the dangers of war and to make the photo more serious and look more convincing. But people when they found out about the cannonballs being placed there jumped to conclusions and accused him of lying. When he really wasn’t trying to. To this day, it is unknown whether he staged the photo or not, and there have been many theories and claims supporting if he did or not. But no one really knows and no one will.
PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE PRESENT
Photography now since the digital age still alters the truth, and it’s never been easier now that we have things such as AI and Photoshop:
This is a “photo” called “The Electrician”, made by Boris Eldagsen in 2022. The photo shows a 40’s looking portrait of two women. This photo is from a series called “pseudomnesia” which is Latin for “fake memory”. The photos in this series are about “fake memories of the past, that never existed, that no one photographed”. The photo was going to win an award at the 2023 Sony World Photography event but the award was turned down by Eldagsen himself and he then revealed that the photo was actually AI generated. He used AI generators such as Midjourney and DALL E 2 to create the image. Which means anyone can use these platforms too as they are mostly free and are easily accessible, this could potentially bring dangers to our society as there are no regulations currently set for using AI generation and it only takes one image or video of a fabricated situation to cause bad things to happen. AI has increased our ability to create new images that has no relationship with either photography or the truth which can be very bad. Boris Eldagsen however, despite declining his award, believes that AI “isn’t a threat” and that it is used to “liberate artists”. I personally think that it’s a little scary the fact that AI has become so convincing that it can be passed as legit through checks made by actual staff at award events. But Eldagsen clearly wasn’t trying to fool anyone and was simply wanting to use his AI to make his album, it wasn’t his fault that it won an award and the fact that he turned it down only further proves that he wasn’t trying to “cheat” to win.
CONCLUSION
Photography in the past, when altering an image, was much harder to do as there wasn’t much technology or tools to help do it, but at the same time it seemed a lot more fun and interesting as you had to actually interact with the environment and actually think more about what you want to do. It also seemed mostly harmless as you couldn’t really achieve much with faking a photo and conveying any lies. Modern age however, it is much easier as we have AI and other things like photoshop to alter and create images, being much easier and quicker. You don’t have to involve yourself with changing things in the actual place when you’re taking the picture – if you’re even taking an actual picture that is, which I’m not a fan of particularly. I also don’t like how easy and accessible it is too, anyone can make a fake image or video, which is good but can be very scary when you think about what things they can make and make people think, it will also just be a nuisance to deal with as rumours and theories about controversies and situations etc. are already annoying enough to deal with. And the fact that you could even win awards by making fake photographs is very unfair for other people who took actual photos, why take the time to go out and make a real photo when someone else sat at their desk can make an award winning photo with just a few clicks? The future of photography is unclear and undecidable given the potential with these new tools, one day we might not even need cameras because we’ll be able to make our own photos with an app or software.
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French Photographer, he is considered to be the father of Photojournalism and one of the masters of Candid Photography. His work involved capturing “everyday” things in his photographs along with human activity. Perhaps to embrace and appreciate the things in life that the rest of us take for granted.
A book he made, “Decisive Moment”, which was originally named “Images à la Sauvette”, contains some of his best images of “everyday” life. In the book, he wrote:
“For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to ‘give a meaning’ to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.”
This book was or is considered one of the most important photobooks of the 20th century. Robert Capa has described it as “A bible for photographers”.
This is a photo that is in his book:
The Technical aspects of this photo involve the lighting. The lighting of the photo is very neutral as it has both dark areas and bright areas, combining the two create a neutrally balanced lighting level.
Some Visual elements are the texture that is seen in the grain of the image, the grain is the faint static you see all over the image. This is due to the old camera or old printout. You can see repetition in the gate’s bars, one after the other and even the whole image has been repeated in the puddle’s reflection.
A Conceptual element is what happened to this place and why the man is in the middle of the puddle trying to jump out. I think that the rubble seen in the background and some in the puddle suggests that perhaps there was a building where this man is now, and maybe it was destroyed in a rainstorm judging by the big puddle. The man seen in the background behind the bars is watching the man jump, he may have just been a person that was walking past and stopped to see what was happening next to him. Or maybe he knows the jumper and is waiting for him to get out.
I plan to photograph everyday life on the streets of Saint-Malo, like crowded streets and other activity happening. Preferably without them being aware of being photographed in order to capture them truly being themselves.
“Playtime” is an art/photography project created by Will Lakeman and there is currently an exhibition displaying his work being held in the Capital House. It features several photos of AI altered images of Fort Regent from times ranging from the 70s to the late 90s, when it was a main tourist attraction, the main theme for the project is “Nostalgia” as the photos are from Will Lakeman’s perspective and depict the fort in the way he remembers it.
The photos themselves feature the swimming pool, the outside playground, the funfair, the arcade and more. The photos being Lakeman’s own interpretation of how he remembers the fort makes them appear distorted and mysterious, they look like the things you would see in a dream.
Will Lakeman:
Will Lakeman is a photographer and writer who was born in Jersey. He spent a lot of his childhood around the fort with his brother and experienced what it had to offer during it’s prime when it was a main tourist attraction. He has a condition called Synesthesia, which is when you can essentially see sounds, shapes and music etc. as colors. This made lots of his memories of the fort slightly different from other people’s. He wanted to start his “Playtime” project to revisit his memories of the fort to show us how he remembered it. And also to memorialize his brother, who died in 2007 from a heroin overdose.
The Exhibition:
The exhibition had all kinds of items. It had an old sign of the fort’s mascot, a large collection of his photos that were made for the project, an old arcade machine, a dark room with more photos being lit up to show themself and an old lifeguard seat from the pool. Lakeman also made sure to have the smell of the pool in the building to make the experience better.
“I am interested a lot about nostalgia, when people talk about what life was, they are not talking about reality but what their memory is.”
“I am interested in making those images, but I also understand that it is not reality and that you cannot go back there. I try to make them spooky, very colourful and weird, because even in a nice dream, there’s always something that happens that is a little bit weird. I wanted to try and capture that in an image, to make people remember and think about their own dreams.”
My Thoughts:
I thought the exhibition was pretty good as a whole. I found the images very interesting along with the items too. I think it’s interesting also to learn and understand what the fort used to be and feel like before I was born. I think it’s cool that he has used an AI to produce these images, It’s as if the AI also knows what a dream would look like especially of a topic that existed far before itself has, AI is only very new so as time goes on and it improves who knows what else people can use it to do, both intriguing and scary.
The word “Nostalgia” comes from the Greek terms, nostos (return) and algos (pain).
Nostalgia is a word that is used to describe and encapsulate the sentimentality of the past, whether that be for a certain event or era or even a thing that played a big part in your life. It is a word that is associated with looking back at the past and remembering how things used to be. Some examples would be remembering a toy from your childhood that you made a lot of memories with, or an old tv show you used to watch when you were younger. It is a feeling that makes you cherish old times and it can make you want to return to them but you can never, hence the Greek words, nostos (return) and algos (pain).
I decided to make a virtual gallery featuring some of my best photos covering my Masculinity, Headshot, Studio and Environmental Portrait projects. Unlike last time, where I would take screenshots of the gallery template and edit my images into the frames later using photoshop. I actually instead made an account on the gallery website to create my own gallery to import my images in to showcase them on the walls. A much easier and quicker method I should’ve used in the first place:
Evaluation
Masculinity: I like my images on masculinity a lot. I feel they turned out very good in terms of sharpness and quality. I do feel I could have improved in quantity however and doing my Dijkstra inspired work too which I never got around to doing. But I’m still very happy with the photos I ended up with.
Headshots: I think these are one of my best photoshoots, I loved the overall quality these images turned out having. And the process of taking these photos was actually quite fun. The colours we used I think were very good combinations and lit up a perfect amount of the photos while still keeping them dark. Having three models is also very good in quantity too. I think editing them by covering the face of one image with another was very good too.
Studio: I really like these images as I feel they have really good quality. Jude’s hoodie would come out very well detailed and textured despite being in a dark environment which I really like. Some photos showed half of his face which I really like too because they made them look so much better. Some we took had Jude facing away from the camera which also came out very nice. Something that I wish was better, and this kind of still annoys me, is that the photos were higher quality. I’m not sure whether it was the settings I saved the photos to in Lightroom or the camera lens being a little dirty but something kept causing them to appear lower in quality and a little blurry. I will make sure to prevent this next time.
Environmental Portraits: Out of all the four, this one is easily the worst. Most photos just didn’t turn out very well and had the similar blurring situation that the Studio photos had too. Also some photos I took were way to close to the subject’s face. And the photos put simply, were just not interesting. I was told to take my own pictures outside of school but I didn’t get around to doing any so I had only the ones I took in school as a practise. Not a very good situation to be put in. I will learn from this and make sure to not let this happen again.
