An overall view of the past year of studying photography has produced many new photoshoots, some I loved, some not so much. However I’ve found I’m much stronger in my editing skills, composition of photos and now know how to push my camera to get the most from it. I loved learning new techniques like the HDR image merge as I felt it helped express the landscapes and urbanscapes I was seeing rather than a flatter version I was producing from the camera before using the technique. In terms of editing, on photoshop I have found many new ways to use the program, similarly with lightroom, both of these skills increased my creativity and encouraged me to try more complex, detailed photoshoots with powerful outcomes.
Summary of the Projects
nostalgia -summer task
studio lighting
headshots
landscape – romanticism
environmental portraits
femininity masculinity
Anthropocene
New topographics
Street photography
harbour project
origin of photography
mirrors and windows
Mirrors and Windows
Insightful, contrast, creativity
Mirrors
Windows
This project, while only short was eye opening. There is a big difference in shooting styles when trying to capture the raw reality and a story you dictate to a degree with posing, props etc. I liked how many good shots the windows method produced as I was open to many different shots and it forced me to get better and better ones. Where as the mirrors method did produce strong photos, telling the exact story I wanted, to do this though I had to plan and think about each shot. Both methods have benefits and have made me a better photographer when it comes to planning to then in the moment shooting.
Street Photography
candid, real, natural
This is a project that while pushed me to try different unplanned shots, but also looking and waiting for good shots really helped me develop my skills and realise I really enjoyed the candid photo style. I found when looking back at the images that I saw stories and images I hadn’t remembered till I saw the photo. I think it is a true insight into atmosphere that otherwise the viewer wouldn’t find in a posed photo. I also found I captured moments that were very specific to the area. The photos above for example help show St Malo very well, from a conversation between two people in the busy streets to a quiet moment to herself above the sea.
Harbour Project
small detail shots tell wider story
This project is a recent one. While my work has definitely developed since the start of year 12, with this project showing that, I have furthered my knowledge on different types of shots. I found in this project I had a great balance of well composed detail shots and shots that provided a bigger picture.
Studio Lighting
taught me valuable techniques
For this project it was at the start of my photography subject journey. While the topic wasn’t overly unique or an interesting concept it taught me a great deal about how to use lighting, cameras and studios. It also showed me just how good the ‘simple’ photos can be, they have a strong imprint on the viewer as they capture small details and can show a bold picture of the story you are trying to tell. I also noticed that I saw so many smaller details on the subject when using a plain background and studio lighting as it forced me to look at the photo and pick up the smaller details.
Notice or perceive (something) and register it as being significant.
How do you observe in photography?
It requires being present in the moment and fully engaged with the environment and the subjects within it. Observing in photography is key to capturing the perfect image.
Seek
Definition:
attempt to find (something).
How do you Seek in photography?
To seek in photography includes finding the perfect location, timing and subject to create the ideal image. Photographers will plan out their shoots and seek certain places and objects they want to obtain they don’t just go for everything and anything
Challenge
Definition:
a call to someone to participate in a competitive situation or fight to decide who is superior in terms of ability or strength.
a call to prove or justify something.
invite (someone) to engage in a contest.
dispute the truth or validity of
How do you Challenge in photography?
Photographers get their photographs noticed when they have produced a diverse piece of work that may have taken extra abilities to obtain. This could include getting dangerous shoots wand challenging themselves to do things that will make their photographs stand out from the rest and participate in a kind of competition to produce the most interesting pieces of work.
Read two texts above (John Szarkowski’s introduction and review by Jed Pearl) and select 3 quotes from each that is relevant to your essay.
Select two images, one that represent a mirror and another that represents a window as examples to use in your essay.
Use some of the key words that you listed above to describe what the mirrors and windows suggest.
Essay plan Introduction (250 words): Reflect on the origin of photography and describe in your own words the difference between the two photographic processes, Daguerreotype and Calotype. Consider how they could be viewed as either a mirror or a window of the world according to John Szarkowski’s thesis. Choose one quote from Szarkowski’s text and comment if you agree or disagree.
Essay draft
Mirrors and Windows, an exhibition of American photography since 1960, is John Szarkowski’s attempt to categorise the work of photographers which largely seek to explore outside of themselves. Whether an image is a mirror or a window is dependent on the photographer’s own sensibility, and whether or not it is a reflection of self.
Photography was said to be invented in 1839, that was the year that Louis Daguerre, a Frenchman, and Henry Fox Talbot, an Englishman, played an important role in announcing rival processes that would ‘fix the shadows’, to adopt a physical form to these images. The beginnings of photography were ultimately about the struggle to see which method would thrive. With how money and industry was a huge focus within the early beginning of photography, and had huge impact on what photography looks like at the present date, the method which photographs could be reproduced at a quick and commercial rate triumphed.
One of these processes innovated by Louis Daguerre, daguerreotypes, are photos which have a different kind of connection which is more intimate, as the process features no separation between the material the image is being shot with and the finished result. This is because the same plate within camera is the same plate which is eventually displayed as the photograph. Despite this method’s unbelievable range of values and detail, presenting the brightest whites and the deepest blacks, these photographs, if not gilded, could easily be wiped off with the slightest touch. Although a downside of this method was that only one image could be made from daguerreotypes, which was not ideal for the market photography was creating, which focused on money and industry.
The other process innovated by Henry Fox Talbot, calotypes, are photos much more reproduceable, ‘Talbot recognised that human communication was through paper’. Ultimately, Talbot’s method of making photographs dominated the Daguerreotype as multiple copies of the same captured image could be created, instead of one which could be lost quite easily, which was not in the market for photography at the time, as businesses wanted photographs for commercial use instead of sentimental purpose.
Paragraph 1 (250 words): Choose an image that in your view is a mirror and analyse how it is a subjective expression and staged approach to image-making. Choose one quote from Szarkowski’s thesis and another from Jed Pearl’s review which either supports of opposes Szarkowski’s original point of view. Make sure you comment to advance argumentation in providing a critical perspective.
Images that are mirrors in photography are a romantic expression and a personal reflection of the photographer’s sensibility, as they project themselves onto things and sights of this world. Cindy Sherman, a photographer who explores this intimate aspect of photography, explores a personal perception of self identity and behaviours within the world around her. The collection of photographs named ‘Untitled Film Stills’ which Cindy Sherman produced in the 1970s and 1980s seem to deliberately rely on caricatures of female subjects in movies, staging these photographs by taking on the role of the actress, instead of adopting a performative approach in the creation of her works. She stated, “Once I set up, the camera starts clicking, then I just start to move and watch how I move in the mirror. It’s not like I’m method acting or anything. I don’t feel that I am that person. I may be thinking about a certain story or situation, but I don’t become her. There’s this distance. The image in the mirror becomes her—the image the camera gets on the film. And the one thing I’ve always known is that the camera lies.” (C. Sherman, quoted in Ibid., p. 23).
Sherman delves deep into exploring an enhanced personal perspective of self identity and the world around her, aiming to address how she perceives the projective eye which invokes a violent penetrative gaze on women during the 1970s and 1980s for the viewer, rather than expressing her own identity. Her performative artistic production of what could be an untitled film still of a woman under the pressure to act for the male gaze in film and other types of media relates directly to the concept of a mirror photograph, reflecting Sherman’s own sensibility. The idea of Szarkowski’s mirrors and windows theory is a very binary stance on photography, and I believe Cindy Sherman’s photographs, whilst objectively being viewed as a mirror extend further than simply that, and are able to criticise a much deeper issue within the world of public media.
Paragraph 2 (250 words): Choose an image that in your view is a window and analyse how it is an objective expression rooted in the notion of realism. Choose one quote from Szarkowski’s thesis and another from Jed Pearl’s review and follow similar procedure as above ie. two opposing points of view and commentary to provide a critical perspective.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, On a train, Roumanie (1975)
Images that are windows in photography act as a window for the viewer to see something primarily factual and external to the photographer’s own sensibility, where the exterior world is explored in all its presence and reality. Henri Cartier-Bresson, a photographer who coined the term ‘decisive moment’, explores a factual and documentary-based way of photographs, and capture a moment in time which is usually not staged.
Conclusion (250 words): Refer back to the essay question and write a conclusion where you summarise Szarkowski’s theory and Pearl’s review of his thesis. Describe differences and similarities between the two images above and their opposing concepts of objectivity and subjectivity, realism and romanticism, factual and fiction, public and private.
