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Essay: Truth and Photography: Can a Photograph Lie?

17 June 2024 Mr Toft Leave a comment

ESSAY: Photography and Truth: Can a photograph lie?
DEADLINE: Mon 4 Nov

Can a photograph lie?

robert-capa-falling-soldier — Robert Capa, *Death of a Loyalist Soldier*, 1936

Are all photographs reliable?

lflaga2 — Joe Rosenthal, *Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima*, February 23, 1945

A photograph is a certain delivery of facts?

Claims of truth that most people take for granted?

Tom Hunter, *Woman Reading a Possession Order*, 1997, after Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window, 1647-49

You often hear a photographer saying: ‘the camera was there and recorded what I saw’.

A common phrase is to ‘shed light on a situation’ meaning to find out the truth.

‘A picture tells a 1000 words‘, is another aphorism that imply images are more reliable.

Picasso famously said: ‘We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realise truth.’

Magritte’s painting La Trahison des Images in which he painted a picture of a pipe with the words ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ (This is not a pipe) goes some way towards an explanation.

Documentary photography’s central moral associations are:

depicting truth

recording life as it is

camera as a witness.

The photograph as evidence

Since its ‘invention’ in the 1830s, photographs have been used as sources of evidence. The direct (indexical) relationship between the sun’s rays and the resulting image makes photographs seem reliable as sources of information. No wonder that photography was enthusiastically embraced by organisations like the police who began to use photographs as sources of legal proof. And yet, from the beginning, artists working with photography began to create images which relied on the manipulation of their photographs using techniques like combination printing, undermining their evidential status. Photographs are very persuasive since they look so much like the things photographed. As Susan Sontag has pointed out, when we hear about something happening but doubt its occurrence, we tend to believe it to be true when shown a photograph of it. However, she also describes the way that photographs are peculiar in the type of evidence they provide:

The photographer was thought to be an acute but non-interfering observer – a scribe, not a poet. But as people quickly discovered that nobody takes the same picture of the same thing, the supposition that cameras furnish an impersonal, objective image yielded to the fact that photographs are evidence not only of what’s there but of what an individual sees, not just a record but an evaluation of the world. It became clear that there was not just a simple activity called seeing (recorded by, aided by cameras) but ‘photographic seeing’, which was both a new way for people to see and a new activity for them to perform.
– Susan Sontag from On Photography

Some initial questions:

What can photographs be evidence of?
How many types of photographic evidence can you list?
Which of your official documents include a photograph of you?
Why are photographs considered, in some legal circumstances, to be a reliable source of evidence?
How reliable is your Instagram feed or family photo album as a record of your life?

In 2016, the Michael Hoppen Gallery curated an exhibition of photographs entitled ‘? The image as question: an exhibition of evidential photography‘.

The exhibition featured a wide range of photographs from fields such as medicine, conflict, engineering, astronomy and crime. Originally used as evidence of something, torn from their original context and hung on a gallery wall, the photographs could be appreciated for their aesthetic qualities and artistry.

This was further emphasised by the exhibition hang which drew attention to the formal similarities between some of the photographs:

A limited edition of 200 catalogues were produced to mark the show, again conferring on the photographs the status of art object:

Part of the fascination with all photography is that the medium is firmly grounded in the documentary tradition. It has been used as a record of crime scenes, zoological specimens, lunar and space exploration, phrenology, fashion and importantly, art and science. It has been used as ‘proof’ of simple things such as family holidays and equally of atrocities taking place on the global stage. Any contemporary artist using photography has to accept the evidential language embedded in the medium.
— Michael Hoppen Gallery website

Do you know what London really looks like? Take our quiz and see if AI can fool you

After an image of the Pope fooled the internet, test yourself and see if you’re still one step ahead of artificial intelligence. Click here

TASKS: Produce a number of blog posts that show evidence of the following

Mon-Tue: ESSAY > Write a 1000-1500 word comparative essay on photography’s association with truth using both historical and contemporary images as examples.

The essay question (hypothesis), Photography and Truth: Can a photography lie? is designed to explore the idea of photographs as forms of evidence. Of course this is relevant to all photographs. To what extent can any photograph be relied upon to tell us the truth? With new technology, such as generative AI that produce content from images and texts that already exist on the internet, it also raises questions about originality, appropriation and authorship. These issues are central to contemporary artistic and photographic practice and students should be alert to them. Is the photographer always the one who presses the shutter? Does it matter?

DEADLINE: Wed 3 July

Follow these instructions:

Select two images that have manipulated truth, one historical using camera technology, one contemporary using AI technology as examples to use in your essay
Research history, theory and context of both images thoroughly and make notes.
Read several sources (both online and on paper) to acquire sufficient knowledge and understanding
Provide a critical perspective by referencing different points of view from sources.
Select at least 2 quotes per image from sources you have read that is relevant to your essay question.
Use Harvard System of Referencing and provide a bibliography
Use key terminology specific to art and photography from the matrix/ sheet below.

Essay plan – use as a guideline

Hypothesis: Photography and Truth: Can a photograph lie?

Opening quote: to set the scene choose an appropriate quote from key texts or source that you have read and understood. Or select something Will Lakeman said in class discussion around ethics using AI in photography.

Introduction (250 words): Describe how photography from its invention as a new technology in 1839 was viewed as a threat to traditional artforms such as painting and drawing. Provide an overview of why photography (like all other art forms) is an illusion and a representation of reality (reflect on your essay earlier on the Origin of Photography). Explain what AI is as a new technology, and how it is already part of lives, give examples (Google, speech recognition, generative AI etc). Discuss both human and societal benefits and potential dangers of AI, again use examples such as Geoffrey Linton resigning from Google to bring awareness, or Sam Altman’s (CEO of OpenAI) being questioned by USA congress. Select one quote by either Linton or Altman and comment (either for or against). Introduce the two images that you have chosen as examples of the above.

Paragraph 1 (250-500 words): Describe how photography in the past (before the digital age) could be manipulated, both in-camera and in the darkroom (eg. reflect on Pictorialism’s use of chemicals and scratching surfaces in distorting images and earlier masking/ collaging technique sin the darkroom.) Provide an example of an image (see case studies below) from history of photography where the truth was distorted. Describe circumstances, context, different points of view and new discoveries or theories around the origin or meaning of your chosen image. Use either direct quote, paraphrasing or summary from sources and comment (for or against). Make sure you provide your own interpretation of the image too.

Paragraph 2 (250 -500 words): Describe how photography now since the digital age has been altering the truth from faking images in-camera to using image manipulation software, such as Photoshop. Provide an example of an image (see case studies below) produced using artificial intelligence that looks ‘real’, but are in fact a digital construct. Provide analysis of how generative AI such as DreamStudio, Midjourney or DALL E 2 has increased our ability to create new images that has no relationship with either photography or the truth. Use same formula as above and use either direct quote, paraphrasing or summary from sources and comment (for or against). Make sure you provide your own interpretation of the image too.

Conclusion (250 words): Refer back to the essay question and write a conclusion where you summarise in your own words both similarities and differences between your two image examples. For example, compare and contrast how historical images in the past and digital images made today, using new technology such as AI, have altered reality and distorted truth. Conclude with a statement on how you envisage the future of photography and AI image-making might change our perception of reality, and attitude towards truth.

Bibliography: List all the sources that you have identified in alphabetical order. Apart from listing literature you must also list all other sources e.g. websites/online sources, Youtube/ DVD/TV.

Quotes and referencing: You MUST reference some of the sources that you have used either by incorporating direct quotes, paraphrasing or summarising of an idea, theory or concept, or historical fact.

Use Harvard System of Referencing…see Powerpoint: harvard system of referencing for further details on how to use it.

CASE STUDIES

Explore case studies where images have ‘lied’ and truth has been manipulated, distorted, staged or altered. Choose two images – one historical and one contemporary – for your essay from case studies listed below that questions the notion of truth regarding the photographic image and its relationship with reality and explain why.

**Case Study 1:** Roger Fenton, *Valley of the Shadow of Death*, April 23, 1855

**Case Study 2:** Robert Capa, *Death of a Loyalist Soldier*, 1936

Vu magazine, Sept. 23, 1936. Robert Capa’s Spanish Civil War coverage with the “Falling Soldier” photograph

**Case Study 3:** Joe Rosenthal, *Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima*, February 23, 1945

Joe Rosenthal’s original caption: “Atop 550-foot Suribachi Yama, the volcano at the southwest tip of Iwo Jima, Marines of the Second Battalion, 28th Regiment, Fifth Division, hoist the Stars and Stripes, signalling the capture of this key position.”

03onphoto3-articleLarge — **Case Study 4:** Steve McCurry, *Taj Mahal and train in Agra*, 1983.

The images of renowned photographer Steve McCurry, who made the famous and iconic image of an Afghan girl for a front cover of National Geography has recently been criticized for making ‘too perfect pictures’ which not only are boring but reinforces a particular idea or stereotype of the exotic other.

Read this article by Teju Cole in the New York Times Magazine which compares McCurry’s representation of India with a native photographer, Raghubir Singh who worked from the late ’60s until his untimely death in 1999, traveling all over India to create a series of powerful books about his homeland.

Read this artcicle on Petapixel in In defense of Steve McCurry’s images

What is your view? Back it up with references to articles read and include quotes for or against.

03onphoto1-master675-v3 — Subhas Chandra Bose statue, Kolkata, 1987. Raghubir Singh

Reference to Coldplay’s new video also highlight the idea of cultural appropriation that harks back to Britain’s colonial rule and exploitation of the Orient.

3506 — **Case Study 5 >** Jeff Wall, Approach, 2014.

Jeff Wall is a Canadian artists known for his large scale tableaux image presented in light-boxes. Today, most of his images resemble reportage and, as such, are likely to incense his detractors, who claim he’s not a “true” photographer. His most contentious new work, called Approach, shows a homeless woman standing by a makeshift cardboard shelter in which we spy the foot of what could be a sleeping vagrant. Wall tells me it was shot under an actual freeway where the homeless congregate and that “it took a month to make, working hands-on” – but he won’t divulge just how staged it is. Is this an actual homeless woman, or an actor? Is the shelter real, or was it built by Wall’s team of assistants to resemble one?

Re-creating images from memory is crucial to Wall’s practice – perhaps because it flies in the face of the tradition of photography as an act of instant witnessing.

“Something lingers in me until I have to remake it from memory to capture why it fascinates me,” he says. “Not photographing gives me imaginative freedom that is crucial to the making of art. That, in fact, is what art is about – the freedom to do what we want.”

Read full interview with Jeff Wall here

In terms of truth or communicating an idea that make references to a real social problem such as homelessness, does it matter if the image is staged or not? Where does authenticity come into the picture?

installation-d-web — Jeff Wall exhibition with his trademark images presented in lightboxes.

**Case Study 6 >** Boris Eldagsen. *The Electrician,* from the series *PSEUDOMNESIA,* 2022. Credit: Boris Eldagsen/Co-created with DALLE2/Courtesy of Photo Edition Berlin.

AI-generated image wins photography award, but artist turns it down

Artist wins photo award with AI generated image, sparking debate | DW News

Berlin-based photographer Boris Eldagsen rejected the recognition from Sony World Photography Awards, saying that artificial intelligence (AI) images and photography should not compete with each other in similar contests. In a statement published on his website, Erdagsen said that he applied to the competition “as a cheeky monkey” to find out if such events are prepared to handle AI-generated content. The photographer also urged for debate on the role of AI in photography. “We, the photo world, need an open discussion. A discussion about what we want to consider photography and what not,” wrote Eldagsen.

Read Boris Eldgasen’s own comments om his website here, where you will also find hyperlinks to many articles and interviews given about the image and his refusal to accept the Sony World Photography Awards 2023.

Seymour, Tom (18 April 2023), The camera never lies? Creator of AI image rejects prestigious photo award. The Art Newspaper. (Accessed 19 June 2023)

Boris Eldagsen has accused the Sony World Photograph Awards of failing to distinguish between a photograph and a DALL-E 2-created image, while the organisers condemn a ‘deliberate attempt at misleading us’

Bush, Lewis (20 April 2023), ‘AI photography is here to stay—here’s why we should be worried’. The Art Newspaper. (Accessed 19 June 2023)

Maybe we should direct our attention less on whether these images count as photographs, and more on the moral right or wrong of how they work

Grierson, J. (17 April, 2023) Photographer admits prize-winning image was AI-generated. The Guardian News & Media Ltd. (accessed 19 June 2023)

German artist Boris Eldagsen says entry to Sony world photography awards was designed to provoke debate.

Williams, Zoe (18 April, 2023), ‘AI isn’t a threat’ – Boris Eldagsen, whose fake photo duped the Sony judges, hits back. The Guardian News & Media Ltd. (accessed 19 June 2023)

The German artist caused uproar this week when he revealed the shot that won a prestigious award wasn’t what it seemed. But, he insists, AI isn’t about sidelining humans – it’s about liberating artists

Parshall, Allison, (April 21, 2023) How This AI Image Won a Major Photography Competition. Scientific American (accessed 19 June 2023)

Boris Eldagsen submitted an artificial-intelligence-generated image to a photography contest as a “cheeky monkey” and sparked a debate about AI’s place in the art world

Bartels, Meghan (March 31, 2023), How to Tell If a Photo Is an AI-Generated Fake. Scientific American (accessed 19 June 2023)

Artificial-intelligence-powered image-generating systems are making fake photographs so hard to detect that we need AI to catch them.

**Case Study 7**: **David Fathi** > False image generated by AI using Midjourney showing Emmanuel Macron in contact with police officers and taking to the streets to protest against the retirement age reform in France.

Here is a statement by David Fathi: The Machine Seems to Need a Ghost about his new project and use of AI in his work.

‘Generative artificial intelligence and machine learning are rapidly advancing. Anyone can use image generation tools to create without needing specific technical or artistic skills. The images generated by these tools challenge the notions of work and creator, as if they were algorithmic ready-mades. Like Marcel Duchamp’s urinal, bottle rack or snow shovel, they are products of mechanization and automation (industrial for Duchamp, digital for these new creations) and displayed in an art gallery. The artist does not have to paint, photograph or sculpt; his choices and decisions shape the work. The algorithm draws from a huge database of images that mirror our world without replicating it accurately. The generated images look more and more realistic and close to reality but also act as a distorting mirror, exaggerating all the stereotypes and biases of our visual culture.

We are at a turning point where human production has not yet been contaminated by artificial production. However this will soon change as the tools themselves use their own creations as input. Gradually the feedback loop, an endless cycle where culture ceaselessly refers to itself, will come to dominate the database, risking getting stuck in nostalgia for the past and trapped in a closed , meta-stable, system. Duchamp’s ghost still haunts us, an unavoidable reference in the history of contemporary art, often quoted, copied or parodied by generations of artists that followed. He became an art cliché despite himself. Duchamp himself described his own art as “meta-irony” to describe his art – a form of critical distance holding its own questioning.

Artificial intelligence raises ethical, artistic and social questions that are only an acceleration of the same questions that have followed the inventions of printing, photography, computer or the internet. The growing automation only makes it harder to escape our current system and the “meta” has become a refuge. This constant self-reference, reflexivity, circularity of our art, our technologies, our culture is becoming a trap where the past’s ghosts still haunt our present thinking.’

**Case Study 8: Philip Toledano >** Trump as a poor man

Philip Toledano: (mrtoledano) For the final act of the trump series, let’s think about who donald trump would be if he didn’t have his fathers money. If he hadn’t had a gilded life of privilege handed to him. What if he was just Donny from Queens ? What would his life look like? What would he be doing ?

Philip Toledano: I’ve noticed a lot of work uses ai to recreate photography as it is now-some sort of reflection of reality -but what’s utterly intriguing is that AI has its own voice. For instance, this image of the two men fighting I would argue is much more interesting than the one I posted yesterday (can you see what’s different ?) because (metaphorically) I allowed ai to have a say -now this image asks more questions (which is ALWAYS a good thing in art)

READING > REFERENCES > SOURCES

Below are some background text on some of the topics of discussion, such as truth, ethics, realism, representation and genres of documentary photography and staged photography (tableaux). Reading a couple of these texts would provide you with the background knowledge and understanding that is required for you write a critical essay on the topic around photography and truth. It is your own responsibility to research relevant information and context around the two images that you have chosen from case studies above.

Documentary > Truth > Realism > Ethics > Representation

A short PPT on Documentary Photography

Bright, Susan (2019) Is it Real? in Photography Decoded. London: Octopus Publishing Group Ltd.

Sontag, Susan (1977) ‘In Plato’s cave’, Chapter 1 in On Photography. London: Penguin Books

Here some helpful resources on Sontag: On Photography from PhotoPedagogy

Max Pinckers Interview: On S peculative Documentary
How fact and fiction today in documentary photography is blurred

Here some helpful resources on ethical questions regarding the photographer’s position of being inside or outside from PhotoPedagogy

Tableaux Photography > Pictorialism > Narrative > Cinema

A short PPT on Tableaux Photography

Bate, David (2016) ‘Pictorual Turn’ in Art Photography. London: Tate Galleries.

How Tableaux has been influenced by Pictorialism

Tableaux-Photography

Susan_Bright_Narrative

Stephen-Bull_Photographs-as-art_Pictorialism_Modernism_Postmodernism

Artificial Intelligence > Ethics > Regulation > Media – current debates

In March, some prominent figures in tech signed a letter calling for artificial intelligence labs to stop the training of the most powerful AI systems for at least six months, citing “profound risks to society and humanity.” The letter, published by the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit backed by Elon Musk, came just two weeks after OpenAI announced GPT-4, an even more powerful version of the technology that powers ChatGPT. In early tests and a company demo, GPT-4 was used to draft lawsuits, pass standardized exams and build a working website from a hand-drawn sketch.

Lets watch this interview on CNN with Dr Geoffrey Hinton who says ‘AI could kill humans and there might be no way of stopping it.’. The man often touted as the godfather of AI quit Google, citing concerns over the flood of misinformation, the possibility for AI to upend the job market, and the “existential risk” posed by the creation of a true digital intelligence. For more context read articles in The Guardian and NYT (New York Times) too

‘Godfather of AI’ says AI could kill humans and there might be no way to stop it

other clips DeepMind CEO on AI Godfather Hinton’s Google Departure | Watch (msn.com)

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: “If this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong.”

AI Principles

The Asilomar AI Principles, coordinated by The Future of Life Institute (FLI) and developed at the Beneficial AI 2017 conference, are one of the earliest and most influential sets of AI governance principles. Read all principles listed, especially those linked with Ethics and Values.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=538404941814298

AI and Ethics Panel (vimeo.com)

AI and Ethics Panel

The University of Florida hosted a panel on ethics in artificial intelligence on Tuesday, May 2, 2023, with faculty members exploring the important role of ethics as scientists race toward increasingly sophisticated AI technologies. UF faculty members Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Duncan Purves, Tina Tallon and Sanethia Thomas participated in the online panel, which explored various topics related to the ethical implications of artificial intelligence, including algorithmic bias, ChatGPT and the social impact of AI on different communities.

Josh Kline on the unfolding disasters of climate change and AI

Artforum editor in chief David Velasco visits Josh Kline at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art to discuss “Project for a New American Century,” his first institutional survey in the US. Kline, whose work graces the cover of the April issue, reflects on his world-building art, the unfolding disasters of climate change and AI, and why he still sees the future as a place of hope. In the April issue: Colby Colby Chamberlain on the art of Josh Kline.

https://www.artforum.com/print/202304.

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Theory and Context

17 June 2024 Shannon Nairn Leave a comment

Henri Cartier-Bresson and the decisive moment

Who was Henri Cartier Bresson?

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French artist and humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment.

What is the concept of “The decisive moment”?

The concept of the decisive moment implies that in the constant flow of events, there are moments in which the arrangement of everything within the frame is perfect. These moments are always spontaneous, so a photographer must be ready to click right away.

MOODBOARD

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experimenting

17 June 2024 Chanelle Leave a comment

Here I used AI to try and add some more details to my photos, I highlighted the spot I wanted to add more and typed in what I thought would look the best, for example I had a blank space to work with therefore I just added some different posters and a plant to fill the space.

Here, I used AI to add more details to my photo, this allowed me to add people, different objects and change the perspective of the photo. For example, the original photo is an alley way that has graffiti and no people, when I used AI I was able to add children to make it look like they were drawing the graffiti, I also added cans of spray paint on the side to make it look more believable and also adds more colour and details to my photograph. In the back of the photograph I added a person in the back to make the picture more full.

Here I did the same thing as the photo above, i added people and also changed some of the people in the background to make the photo look different, I tried to change some small details such as the bag on the lady sat on the bench. I also added a dog which I don’t really like but kept in to show the differences in the original photo and the edited photo.

Here, I added a different effect to the colour, I selected the area I wanted to change and pressed (CTRL U) this allowed me to add a brighter colour or a more faint colour. I wanted to make my photo to stand out therefore made the colours bright and bold, I kept selecting different areas in the photo to see what looked right and what looked wrong. I really like how this photo turned out as the photo looks really vivid.

For this experiment I tried to make one person stand out as you can see the green person is more bold than the other people. Here I had to duplicate the photo and then move one of the photos either to right or left.

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St Malo Day Trip

17 June 2024 Eden Mulliner Leave a comment

Summary

The photos that were taken in St Malo were inspired by Henri-Cartier Bresson whose photography looked at “The Decisive moment” Where he world capture certain things that were about to happen like a child jumping over a puddle or someone drinking a coffee outside a café, his photos capture these unexpected moments by him waiting in anticipation for the exact right time. All of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photos are all in black and white and some have high levels of exposure to them making them brighter in some areas of the image and causing there to be a lot of shadow in other areas increasing the contrast between light and dark.

Contact Sheet

Edited images before and after

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Evaluation for edited images

All these photos are taken with the decisive moment in the image and trying to capture unexpected things. The images I took are a mix of architectural images and images with people which creates a good variety of images.

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George Marazakis Artist Research:

16 June 2024 Marta Leave a comment

The photographer was born in 1976 in Creta Island Greece where he lives with his wife and their son. He studied mechanical engineering and works for the municipal of Heraklion.

George photographs and seeks to capture our “degradation of the planet” as an “autoimmune disease”.

The idea to frame his natural landscape as a symbol for disease did not come to him right away. He slowly made the connection over time after he realized that he was continuously drawn to a generating a certain type of landscape photography.

While I was photographing the landscapes affected by human interactions in the middle of natural spaces, the topography started looking like a body to me – like something with the early stages of psoriasis on its skin,” he explains. “If humans are a product of nature, then we can say that we are a disease attacking our own organism, just like an immune system can attack its own body – like autoimmune diseases.”

In George’s photographs of the ominous tone as well as the muted colour scheme of the landscapes were surprisingly taken in Greece. George tells the reader that “I almost never go out shooting in harsh light, and I really love heavy clouds and fog, which are hard to find in Greece. To achieve this result, most of my work is made in the winter, in the early morning or late afternoon.” I like in George’s work that the term composition visually it is a recurring pattern seen across as each of his photographs focus on a sort of shaped layout like the use of rectangular buildings across the image or the muddy ground formed in an “x” positions in contrast to the greenery around it.

Whilst George works with this critical issue of the climate degrading he still hopes that the series can shed light on the possibilities of finding a cure. That hope is solidified in the title, which directly points to the possibility for this ‘cure.’ Marazakis concludes.

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Anthropocene/Virtual Gallery – George Blake

16 June 2024 George Blake Leave a comment

Virtual gallery of edits:

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Theory & Context – Henri Cartier-Bresson

16 June 2024 Eden Mulliner Leave a comment

Biography

Henri Cartier-Bresson was born in Chanteloup France and travelled around the world with his camera and became totally immersed in his environment. He was the oldest of five children and his family where wealthy, Bresson was educated in Paris and showed an early love for literature and arts which showed how creative he was as a young adult. His great grandfather had been an artist and he had an uncle who was a noted printer. This influenced his love for photography. His photography covered some of the worlds biggest events such as The Spanish Civil War and the French Uprisings in 1968.

The decisive moment

The decisive moment implies the constant flow of events, there are moments in which the arrangement of everything within the frame is perfect. These moments are spontaneous so the photographer must be ready to take the photo in the moment right away.

Mood board

Image Analysis

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photos are all about capturing unexpected moments at the perfect time and the perfect moment. The colour in Henri Cartier-Bresson photos is black and white and there is a lot of shadow. There are a lot of geometric shapes and patterns in Bresson photography which draws your eye to the image making it more interesting and aesthetic to look at. The lines in the image also help to draw your eye to the image as the geometric shapes and lines act as leading lines for the focal point. This photo has a slow shutter speed which makes the figure of the person a little blurry. The arrangement of the image creates many geometric shapes and lines which makes the image more aesthetically pleasing to look at. The lighting in this image is very bright and there is a lot of exposure in the puddle that the person is jumping into. There is also a lot of shadows in the image which contrasts against the high exposure in the puddle.

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Henri Cartier-Bresson and the ‘decisive moment’

15 June 2024 Saskia Leave a comment

“A good photograph is made when the inner vision behind the closed eye corresponds with the vision of the open one behind the viewfinder in the moment of pressing the button.”

How does Henri Cartier-Bresson view the activity of photography?

He views it as an extension to the eye, capturing unique and decisive moments in time. Cartier-Bresson said;

‘Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera.’

He sees photography as a way to connect humanity;

“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which gave that event its proper expression.”

Captures a once in a lifetime moment;

‘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…”

Introduction

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a humanist photographer, considered a master of candid photography, that captured the movements of people through the world.

He looked through his heart at things that connected with humanity with an extension of his eye, camera, similarly to hunting.

He described what he was aiming to capture as the “decisive moment”, he waited for something interesting to happen, e.g. someone walking past him holding an umbrella, and then took a photo.

Background

Henri was brought up in a wealthy family in France, he was introduced to the arts at an early age. He was initially drawn to painting but soon discovered photography which turned into his passion.

With a camera, Henri was able to interact with the world. He travelled to various places extensively, from Europe to Africa, and absorbed various cultures doing his early years.

These experiences helped to shape his outlook on life and hone his philosophy: photography isn’t just about images; it’s about capturing the essences of existence. His philosophy then matured into what he termed as the decisive moment.

Camera and Lens

Leica rangefinders were a revolutionary piece of equipment in the world of photography. These cameras were compact, reliable, and their design was more discreet than the large and conspicuous cameras of this era. This allowed Henri to use a quick and unobtrusive shooting style, which is essential for street photography.

Another reason why Henri favoured this camera was because of it’s quiet shutter, this was because it allowed him to capture moments without drawing attention to himself, letting life unfold naturally before his lens. this silent operation was crucial for someone who believed in capturing authentic, upstaged moments.

Henri had also preferred the 50mm lens because it offers a field of view close to the human eye, ensuring that he captured images that felt natural and immersive to the viewer.

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Anthropocene/Evaluation – George Blake

15 June 2024 George Blake Leave a comment

Evaluation:

For the Anthropocene Topic, I believe my outcomes are a unique take on what usually isn’t massively associated to Anthropocene but still proves to be through its deeper meanings and historical context.

By covering the topic of conflict, my images show how the affect of Anthropocene is omni-present in every aspect of life. More specifically , my images go to show how through generations of human impact and change, the element of war leaves scars and resonates within the world and society till this day.

By using foam board I was able to create a 3D effect for this edit I made.

By incorporating some text, I believe this improved the outcome of this edit. Using text allows to create a deeper meaning to the image as what it means can be broken down into ambiguous definitions.

As mentioned before, text helps to add meaning to the work, in this case, It works as an education tool to inform the viewer of what went on within the subjects contents.

Comparison:

My work

Martha Rosler’s work

Taking inspiration from War collages, with their particular artists such as Martha Rosler, as well as different art movements like the soviet Avant Grande, these all helped me visually and conceptually base what I wanted my outcomes for these images to look like.

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My Anthropocene Altered Landscapes – use of AI

14 June 2024 Ruby Hoy Leave a comment

My aim is to create 2 altered landscapes which can be presented together that feature all of the industrial areas in Jersey.

Contact Sheet

(I took these screenshots after doing some experimentation with my images.)

Editing Process

Edit 1

To create my base image, I merged the following:

This is the result:

I opened this image in photoshop and, although I liked the stream, I felt like it wouldn’t have went with the theme I was going for so I used the Content Aware Fill feature to remove it, as well aa the fence, house and building. This was my result:

As you can see, it is not the best standard, however, this floor won’t be seen when the montage is completed. By removing this stream, it gives me a lot more space and opportunity to be able to make this piece even better.

After this, I added my first layer, the quarry. I cropped this part from a different image and pasted it onto this then used the eraser tool to clean it up a bit. I then aligned it where I would like it and lowered the brightness so the colour was more similar. Once I was satisfied with it, I used AI to merge the quarry into the hill and, at first, it created trees so I then told it to remove them.

Next, I cropped out a pile of waste and a pile of gravel which I took at La Collette and aligned them where I would like them. I then decided here that I think it would look good to make the floor of the entire image gravel so I played around a bit with the generative fill until I was happy with it.

I then cropped some cyclinders from Bellozanne and a pile of granite from St Ouen from photos I took and pasted them into my edit. After doing this, I put them where I would like them and slightly distorted the cylinders so they looked more in place.

One I had done this, I tidied up the parts which I cropped then used Generative fill to create tyre tracks in the floor.

Finally, I added the tower from La Collette behind the hill and flipped it horizontally, changed the perspective and skewed it. To finish off, I increased the brightness and this is my finished product:

In B&W:

Edit 2

I have done this edit during our mock exam and during my first few steps the blog was down, therefore, I couldn’t record my progress. This is what I have done so far:

Within this time, I used an image of the dam and added two buildings from Bellozanne on one side and a random ploughed field from St Peters on the other. For the field, I distorted and warped it to match the slope then used AI to make it blend in at the bottom. Finally, I also used AI to remove the building at the bottom of the dam and the flowers which were on the grass.