Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004), a French photographer who is considered to be one of the fathers of photojournalism and masters of candid photography. He sought to capture the ‘everyday’ in his photographs and took great interest in recording human activity. Henri Cartier-Bresson was a humanist photographer influenced by surrealism.
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.”
Image Analysis
In this image from Cartier-Bresson he uses leading lines, shown in red. He does this to lead your eyes to the cyclist on the road. The rails are what is used to create this, he has done this by standing at an angle where it creates all different lines which draw your attention to the person cycling. By turning the image black and white it brings out the shadows and creates contrast. I will use this image as inspiration for when we go to st malo, and try to create something similar.
Street photography (also sometimes called candid photography) is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents[1] within public places. Although there is a difference between street and candid photography, it is usually subtle with most street photography being candid in nature and some candid photography being classifiable as street photography. Street photography does not necessitate the presence of a street or even the urban environment. Though people usually feature directly, street photography might be absent of people and can be of an object or environment where the image projects a decidedly human character in facsimile or aesthetic.[2][3]
In this image the photographer has captured an image of what looks like a couple in the street. The woman in the image looks like she is startled or distracted by something, whereas her partner is looking at her with passion. The lighting in the image is natural lighting but the photographer has edited the image to be in black and white. The image being put into black and white creates a mood to the image as if they are in love but she is being distracted by something. The structure of the people being sat behind them makes it feel as it they are talking about the couple and having a judgment on them. The way the photographer is positioned gets all of the cars and busyness in the back of the image. This creates the idea that they are in their own bubble and do not care about anyone else.
Nostalgia is something that is both cosy and comforting but also deceptive and an illusion – explain how? Think about your own childhood memories of growing up in Jersey (or elsewhere). Are there specific moments that you treasure, or rather not want to remember? Think about what triggers the feeling of nostalgia, for example music, movies, places, or people. See below for more definition and ideas around theme of nostalgia.
Nostalgia in photography
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, nostalgia evokes “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for a return to or of some past period.” In photography, we can use nostalgia or the effect of nostalgia as a powerful tool to add emotional impact.
The four components involved in nostalgia are self-reflection, autobiographical memory, emotion regulation, and reward. The brain systems associated with these components work together to produce our subjective experience of nostalgia.
“These images are the generated of using Artificial Intelligence applications in an attempt to recreate my dreams. The input is usually (not always) my own images, processed with a range of machine learning software applications.”
Lakeman is a photographer who has nurtured an obsessive interest in ‘the Fort’, and has spent his adult life revisiting weird dreams of this iconic building and its heyday in the early 1990s. With the works accompanied by a custom soundscape, smell and touch, Playtime encourages visitors to revisit their own dreams
Review
I enjoyed ‘Playtime’ by Will lakeman. I liked the fact his childhood memories of fort regent are turned into his dreams. By creating these interesting, fun, and playful images to show what fort regent once was. By using AI technology he can make these dreams a reality in an image by using different online software such as Photoshop Beta version and dream studio.
My final outcomes were successful and came out the way I wanted them to. By mounting them up onto foam board to display them in a sequence in which it tells a story. I really like the colours in the images, they create a happy joyful feeling to the images. My artist references were Justin Kurland and Sian Davey. By researching and getting more inspiration from them I started to build more ideas of what pictures I can take and where to take them.
How did I plan this project:
I planned to take inspiration from Justin Kurland and her ‘Girl Pictures’ project. I thought of areas in the island which would fit well and have a similar environment as her work. Living on the north coast of the island I have a pathway down to the cliff paths. On the sides of the paths there are grass areas which we used to create most of the images. In these areas there was trees, flower patches and lots more greenery. We walked further and found a fort which had a bridge which we thought could be a good feature to incorporate.
What could I Improve:
If I were to change or cretic anything I would have done another photoshoot or edited more of my images to be printed out for the print folder. By doing this it could have added more of a story to my group of images.
Image Mounting
I printed my images onto different sized papers to lay them out to see how I want to display them. I wanted my pictures to tell a story. So the way I lay them out is important. Using the images which I put into the print folder I used spay glue to stick my individual images onto. After doing this I put them into the order in which I think works the best to tell a story. I am happy with the way my final outcome turned out I think that it tells a story and shows an adventure. It also shows the idea of femininity and what it is to be feminine.
To display my multi exposure images I used a double window mount.
My photoshoot was inspired by Justin Kurland I tried to recreate her images but add a personal twist to the shoot.
Justin Kurland – My Image
I decided to compare these images because of the idea that girls are in the grass playing with flowers and doing girly things. They are also similar in the fact that there faces are not in the image and and looking away from the camera. This shows they are in the moment and having fun.
To create these images we were walking on the cliff paths and noticed an area of flowers and long grass. The image taken is staged to try and look as close to Kurland’s images. The image represents femininity and what it is to feminine, or the stereotype associated with it. The light in the image creates a soft image. The colours give of a happy and joyful emotions from the models laughing and looks like they are having fun.
This image is similar to the first image, by using different angles it starts to create a story of what is happening in the pictures. It also represents girls doing girly things such as platting hair with daisy’s. The lighting in the image is natural lighting from the sun onto the models back. By the model being at this height it creates a shadow onto the other model creating some contrast in the image. The main colour in the image is green so the models wearing white and blue means that it doesn’t take away from the natural colours in the background.
The lighting in this image changed from the images above, this adds an effect on the fact they are on an adventure. Walking on the cliff paths in the north coast we came across a fort with a bridge. The model sitting on the bridge while the other is standing creates levels in the image.
By going through my images and selecting the images which I think go well as a set. Flagging my chosen images allows me to exclude the images which I do not want to edit.
Taking inspiration from Kurland we went out to the cliff paths on the north coast. We found an area of flowers and grass to try and recreate her girl pictures. We found an area of flowers on the cliff paths, similar to her work. We also found an old fort with a bridge which created some nice pictures.
