a person who watches or notices something.’to a casual observer, he was at peace’.
a person who follows events closely and comments publicly on them. ;some observers expect interest rates to rise’.
a person posted in an official capacity to an area to monitor political or military events ‘elections scrutinized by international observers.’
SYNONYMS: spectator, onlooker, watcher, voyeur, looker on, fly on the wall, viewer, witness, eyewitness, bystander, sightseer, commentator, reporter, blogger, monitor.
SEEK
VERB
attempt to find (something):’they came here to seek shelter from biting winter winds’ :SIMILAR: look for, be on the lookout for, search for, try to find, look about for
attempt or desire to obtain or achieve (something): ‘the new regime sought his extradition’. ‘her parents had never sought to interfere with her freedom’ SIMILAR: pursue, go after, go for, tr, attempt, endeavour, strive.
ask for (something) from someone: ‘he sought help from the police’. SIMILAR: ask for, request solicit, call on, invite, entre, beg for
(SEEK SOMEONE/SOMETHING OUT)
CHALLENGE
To call to someone to participate in a competitive situation or fight to decide who is superior in terms of ability or strength. SIMILAR: dare, provocation, summons
a call to prove or justify something ‘a challenge to the legality of the banning order’. SIMILAR: opposition, defiance, ultimatum, confrontation with.
VERB
invite (someone) to engage in a contest. SIMILAR: dare, summon, invite, bid, throw down the gauntlet, to defy someone to do something.
dispute the truth or validity of: ‘it is possible to challenge the reports assumptions’ SIMILAR: question, take exception to, confront, dispute, take issue with.
I will be photographing bubbles like the ones in Kawauchi’s work. I will also possibly explore photographing some ordinary objects and scenes like the other artists I looked at.
Where?
At home, perhaps also in surrounding area for some plant related images.
When?
In daytime for outdoor images (especially with good sunlight) and any time for indoor images.
How?
I will be using a tripod to take these images as I will be using a small aperture and large shutter speed which will increase camera shake. I may even choose to use a flash at some point.
My intent for this project is to focus on the strategies and tactics behind games such as chess, checkers, cards etc. I will be photographing both people playing the games as well as the actual pieces themselves in addition to taking images that represent my artists references while sticking to my theme of games. My reason behind this idea of games is that it links into the theme of observe seek and challenge since we observe our opponents, the pieces and the game itself all while seeking to win and beat our opposition. The challenge is the game itself, coming up with strategies and tactics to best the person we are playing against.
When presenting my study I plan to create both a photo book as well as prints that I will manually edit. The main aesthetic that I plan to go for is contrasted black and white photos, while also having some of my images in colour but keeping the tones muted. This way, my images will all fit together when producing my photo book or prints as they will have a consistent theme while also remaining interesting to the viewer as it will cause them to focus more on the details in the photograph. In order to accomplish this I will be using Light room classic as well as Photoshop if need be to edit my images.
Godfrey Reggio is an American film director, while he has made many movies the one that stands out the most and the one he is most known for is his movie, “Koyaanisqatsi”. Which is a documentary movie made in 1982 and is an hour long observation of the man-made world that features no commentary or words, only simplistic music to go in the background. It makes heavy use of time-lapse, jump cuts, multi exposure, freeze frames, match cuts, split screens and slow-motion shots of several cities in America. The movie took inspiration from other movies such as “Man with a Movie Camera” – (1929 by Dziga Vertov) which also used the same cinematic techniques, believed to be the first time in cinematic history.
More on the meaning and the details of the movie, The title “Koyaanisqatsi” means “life out of balance” in Hopi. Additionally, The reason for the lack of dialogue was explained by Reggio, when he said “it’s not for lack of love of the language that these films have no words. It’s because, from my point of view, our language is in a state of vast humiliation. It no longer describes the world in which we live.”
This movie is not the only one of it’s kind, it is actually the first entry in the “Qatsi film trilogy” – It was followed by two more movies, Powaqqatsi (1988), which means “Life in Transformation”, and Naqoyqatsi (2002), which means “life as war”. The trilogy is supposed to depict the relationship of nature, humans and technology. In the future, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, aesthetically, or historically significant”.
Trailer for Koyaanisqatsi.
A drone video documenting the aftermath of “Storm Ciaran” in Jersey, could be inspiration.
Personal Response
I want to make a film project on the Storm Ciaran aftermath too, I can visit places in Jersey that are still damaged/being repaired and document each site into a non-commentary movie. With fitting music in the background. Another choice I can take is documenting St. Helier in a more similar fashion to the movie, with the same type of music in the background. Things I could have in the movie could be time-lapse footage of the busy roads like Victoria ave., time-lapse footage of the sun setting or rising, rainy days, busy streets full of people etc.. Another thing I can experiment with is setting up a camera pointing at me sitting on a bench sitting still, then having time-lapse of people walking past, almost to make it look like I’m literally observing everyday life. A certain music genre I have in mind is synthwave, to bring out the more abstract and unusualness of life – to make it more interesting.
The camera lens is another demonstration of a powerful gaze, referred to as the photographic gaze, simulating the gaze of the naked eye. Indeed, the former could even be more powerful than the gaze of the naked eye due to photographic permanence.
The act of photographing people involves a process of observation, scrutiny and looking. Sometimes the gaze is returned, and sometimes it is rejected. The power of the gaze can create complex relationships between the subject, the photographer and the audience.The camera lens is another demonstration of a powerful gaze, referred to as the photographic gaze, simulating the gaze of the naked eye.
The gaze, as a visual act, generates modes of power, domination, and control. It has the ability to categorize people, generate feelings of shame, and assert one’s superiority. Susan Sontag in On Photographyaddresses that “photographs are a neat slice of time, not a flow” (17). The stillness of a photograph provides it’s power and makes it more effective than television broadcasting or film. Photography, then, has the ability to capture in “still time” the expression of oppressed subjects as the camera gazes at them.
JOHN BERGER – WAYS OF SEEING:
In Ways of Seeing, an influential book based on a BBC television series, John Berger observed that ‘according to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome – men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at’ (Berger 1972, 45, 47). Berger argues that in European art from the Renaissance onwards women were depicted as being ‘aware of being seen by a [male] spectator.’ Ways of Seeing is based on the 1972 BBC series and comprised of 7 essays, 3 of which are entirely pictorial, Ways of Seeing is a seminal work which examines how we view art.
Berger adds that at least from the seventeenth century, paintings of female nudes reflected the woman’s submission to ‘the owner of both woman and painting’. However it can still be argued even through woman’s feminist movements, women are still being viewed sexually and through and objective manner through the male gaze.
‘A man’s presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. His presence may be fabricated, in the sense that he pretends to be capable of what he is not. But the pretence is always towards a power which he exercises on others. By contrast, a woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her.’
The juxtaposition in the quote located in Berger’s bool ‘Ways of Seeing’ presents the contrast between gender stereotypes. The man is shown to be more in power and control, whereas the woman is described as dainty and submissive. This quotation shows the past and present view of the gender stereotypes which can also be supported by Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ theory where women are sexualised for the male gratification.
FORMS OF GAZE:
the spectator’s gaze: the gaze of the viewer at an image of a person (or animal, or object) in the text;
the intra-diegetic gaze: a gaze of one depicted person at another (or at an animal or an object) within the world of the text (typically depicted in filmic and televisual media by a subjective ‘point-of-view shot’);
the direct [or extra-diegetic] address to the viewer: the gaze of a person (or quasi-human being) depicted in the text looking ‘out of the frame’ as if at the viewer, with associated gestures and postures (in some genres, direct address is studiously avoided);
the look of the camera – the way that the camera itself appears to look at the people (or animals or objects) depicted; less metaphorically, the gaze of the film-maker or photographer.
LESS MENTIONED FORMS OF GAZE:
the gaze of a bystander – outside the world of the text, the gaze of another individual in the viewer’s social world catching the latter in the act of viewing – this can be highly charged, e.g. where the text is erotic (Willemen 1992);
the averted gaze – a depicted person’s noticeable avoidance of the gaze of another, or of the camera lens or artist (and thus of the viewer) – this may involve looking up, looking down or looking away (Dyer 1982);
the gaze of an audience within the text – certain kinds of popular televisual texts (such as game shows) often include shots of an audience watching those performing in the ‘text within a text’;
the editorial gaze – ‘the whole institutional process by which some portion of the photographer’s gaze is chosen for use and emphasis’ (Lutz & Collins 1994, 368)
MOODBOARD:
THE MALE GAZE AND HYPERFEMININITY:
WHAT IS THE MALE GAZE?
The male gaze is a feminist theory that states that cinema narratives and portrayals of women in cinema are constructed in an objectifying and limiting manner to satisfy the psychological desires of men, and more broadly, of patriarchal society.
The term was popularized, fifty years ago, by the British film theorist Laura Mulvey. Mulvey wrote, in 1973 an essay called “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” of how the “male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly.”Mulvey sought to break the conventions and exposing the cinematic conventions in stereotyping women by reinforcing the patriarchal fantasy.Mulvey also notes that Freud had referred to (infantile) scopophilia – the pleasure involved in looking at other people’s bodies as (particularly, erotic) objects. In the darkness of the cinema auditorium it is notable that one may look without being seen either by those on screen by other members of the audience. Furthermore, Mulvey argues that various features of cinema viewing conditions facilitate for the viewer both in the voyeuristic process of objectification of female characters and also the narcissistic process of identification with an ‘ideal ego’ seen on the screen.
‘An idea of woman stands as lynch pin to the system: it is her lack that produces the phallus as a symbolic presence, it is her desire to make good the lack that the phallus signifies’ Mulvey presents this idea that a women’s body its one for the male pleasure, which confirms this idea of the male gaze. Women are exposed highly objectified, and sexualised in order to please the patriarchal society that women are seen as a submissive accessory for men. Furthermore, this idea of highly sexualised women, alludes to the idea of hyper-femininity that highlights the way women are viewed by the male gaze, and how they should present themselves in society.
MY INTENTION FOR THE EXAM PROJECT THROUGH THE PHOTOGRAPHIC GAZE:
For my exam project through the theme, Observe, Seek, and Challenge I plan on studying and photographing females through the male gaze and exploring the idea of hyper femininity. This reinforces the photographic theme of ‘gaze‘ as Laura Mulvey states the ‘structures ways of seeing and pleasure in looking’ which enforces the concept of men gazing at women. In order for this project to fit with the exam requirement’s I will be focusing on the male gaze, and how men have a sexualised view of women which can be seen through the artist Cindy Sherman. In one of Sherman’s photography projects she emphasises the idea of sexualising women for the male society and she interprets this by exaggerating the beauty standards through the hyper-realistic makeup. However, through her interpretation you can argue that she is challenging the beauty standards by taking imagery of the hyper-real makeup by creating the unexpected and forming it into art. The makeup she presents in her photographs challenges the incredibly high beauty standards in the patriarchal society, which could also work for the exam theme ‘challenge’. However in another project she firmly focuses on reinforcing the stereotypical view of women, which could be a protest of the stereotypical views of women.
Cindy Sherman reveals how dressing up in character began as a kind of performance and evolved into her earliest photographic series such as “Bus Riders” (1976), “Untitled Film Stills” (1977-1980), and the untitled rear screen projections (1980)
I chose this case study from the exam booklet, relating to my work.
I will be taking photos of different abandoned buildings/ bunkers/ old places and anything I think relates to my project of capturing derelict locations.
Here is a list of artists and their work that I am inspired by. I plan on taking photos similar to these:
This mood board has been inspired by some of the photographers I saw in a photography exhibition in Paris. it includes images by Rene Groebil, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ralph Gibson and Cindy Sherman plus many more.
Still life photographer – I like this artists images for capturing objects that link to family, which connect with the ‘seek’ part of this topic. I want to seek into the lives of my family members to seek and observe their past.]
Alec Soth
Rita puig serra costa – where mimosa bloom
julian german
André Kertész
For the portraits these are some of the photographers that I like the editing style of:
Dorothea Lange
Diane Arbus
Robert Frank
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Because I want to capture a full story of my family, I will also photograph places, inside and out. I like Henri Cartier-Bresson’s style of photographing spaces.
Key aspects for these shoots/ images will be light. After studying Rinko Kawauchi, I have learnt the importance of light, and the emotions it draws.
Different lighting techniques:
Rambrandt
Butterfly
Natural
Studio
Different angles: above, underneath, sides
Bright/ dark
FILMS:
I also like the idea of making short films for each family member
For this week, I have decided to take inspiration from the 2nd starting point given in the exam paper, which is shown above.
Rinko Kawauchi
Rinko Kawauchi was born in 1972, in Shiga, Japan, and graduated from Seian Women’s College (now Seian University of Art and Design) in 1993.
Her work explores the subtle aesthetic of wabi-sabi, which is defined by Wikipedia as ‘a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.‘ This means that it focuses on details, textures, and gestures that are often overlooked by us in the haste of everyday modern life.
It was close to melting point, and one could see the lake if one passed through.
Silence had spread out there; no waves, no sound.
I thought I might fall in by accident if I stared too long; I thought the glacier might devour me. I got scared and began to look around for what was missing. Where could I find the centre? Where will I find this circle, where can I dig up this gold?
And after a while I realised: It can only be found on the surface. Yes, I searched for the sun within a glacier.
—Rinko Kawauchi, to accompany her series “Search for the Sun,” 2015
I would like to take inspiration from this artist because it is not the usual style of photography I would go for and it would allow me to explore a more unknown (to me) area of the medium. I think it would be fun to get creative with this style. I like Kawauchi’s images because of their beauty in simplicity as well as their careful composition – they are created to stimulate pleasure of aesthetics.
Clare Gallagher, William Eggleston, Josef Sudak
The other artists mentioned on this page of the exam paper offer a more open brief when added to the work of Kawauchi.
Clare Gallagher‘s work focuses on the domestic life, highlighting the struggles faced by women, and especially mothers, in the home. Her images are simplistic and show only everyday, mundane items, but in a thoughtful and stimulating manner, especially when combined with her philosophy.
William Eggleston‘s photographs are characterised by their playful palette and imagery relating to the urban landscape of the American Midwest and its inhabitants. His images are exciting and colourful; they connote the consumerism and suburban lifestyle that populates the history of this area.
Josef Sudek‘s images are inversely dark and sophisticated. Shot on black and white film, the mise-en-scenes capitalise on the struggle between light and shadow. His work focuses on the mundane too, but uses drama to exemplify the lack of mundanity.
I aimed to dissect and analyse the topic title as a whole, segregating each word into their own category and Including photos that somewhat resonate with them and also match the sort of photos I wish to take.
Ideas:
Observe: I can take pictures which are landscape, showing a scene or view of somewhere in Jersey. Jersey does get some very good sunsets at evenings, in all sorts of colour varieties. Another thing I could take landscape photos of are different views and angles of town and the several estates dotted around Jersey, making reference to my estate photos I took during my Anthropocene project, which I also believe are some of my best photos taken. I’d like to have my photos focus on the world and society as a whole, just people getting on with their day and going about life, getting up to all sorts of activities and events.
Seek: For this, I am not sure, to seek something you would have to want something, and we people all want something different, and often a lot more than just one thing. It could involve exploring the world to see all sorts of places, achieving a goal such as climbing the highest mountain or competing and becoming the champion in a worldwide sport. Or simply to find meaning in life, which is at the same time virtually impossible. To encapsulate these sorts of things in one photo would be difficult, but I could make photos that can enable anyone who views them to make their own interpretation on it, and apply to themselves and what they want. Something like taking photos of someone who is showing an emotion, but with their identity hidden, perhaps with a colour being shone onto them to reflect their emotions. Similar to my photoshoot a while ago which I named “Headshots”.
Challenge: I want to make photos that go against the norm and equilibrium. Something new that people haven’t seen before. This could be of something abstract, full or empty of colour, contrasting or simple, confusing or straight forward. I could take photos of something that people see everyday but never take notice of or appreciate.
