ESSAY DRAFT

15 December 2024 Mr Toft Leave a comment

DEADLINE: Essay Introduction-Pg 1 Draft MUST be handed in Monday 20 Jan 2024

DEADLINE: Final Essay MUST be handed in Fri 31 Jan 2025

Copy this essay plan into your own blog post, titled: Essay Draft:

Literary sources: Go to this blog post here: Theory: Literary Sources and copy relevant key texts relating to the subject of your essay and list in alphabetical order in your bibliography. In addition, find your own key texts in relation to artists selected for in-depth analysis in your essay and list these too. These texts could be interviews with the artist, or reviews/ critique’s written by others. See useful online sites/ sources here .

• Research and identify 3-5 literary sources from a variety of media such as books, journal/magazines, internet, Youtube/video that relates to your personal study and artists references .
• Begin to read essay, texts and interviews with your chosen artists as well as commentary from critics, historians and others.
• It’s important that you show evidence of reading and draw upon different pints of view – not only your own.
• Take notes when you’re reading…key words, concepts, passages, page number to be used for in-text referencing etc.

Essay Question

• Think of a hypothesis and list possible essay questions
• Below is a list of possible essay questions that may help you to formulate your own.

possible-essay-questions-to-investigate

Some examples of Personal Study essays from previous students:

Essay Plan
Make a plan that lists what you are going to write about in each paragraph – essay structure

• Essay question: Can truth and realism be shown through photography.
• Opening quote
  “Photography is the truth. The moment you capture it, you preserve the reality, but only for an instant.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson.
• Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why?
  Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Cindy Sherman.
  How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
• Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian. 
• Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
• Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
• Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
• Bibliography: List all relevant sources used

Essay writing: Here is a link to another blog post which will provide you with guideline about how to structure each paragraph in your essay.

ESSAY WRITING

Use of AI / ChatGPT – go to this blog post here for guidelines.

Photoshoot 1

For my first photoshoot, I went into the studio and took multiple photos of my friend who has tore her posterior talofibular and anterior talofibular ligaments so she is in a boot. But that helps out my theme as my theme is all about injured players who used to play everyday but now have to go back to normal day to day life in their cast/crutches.

I also used my other friend who deeply loves basketball, and let him use a pair of crutches and he had his leg behind him like he almost, ‘doesn’t have a leg, or its broken and he’s just holding it behind’. I also took a lot of photos of my friend just talking to someone else whilst on the crutches because I wanted him in the moment just looking like he doesn’t know.

Photoshoot 2

Hoops ‘n’ Dreams

For my second photoshoot which is my main photo ideas, I chose the idea with one of my teammates who struggles a lot with injuries. I have an idea of him and how is daily struggles that lead to loneliness and sadness having worked and trained all his life to play basketball, but due to having constant injuries involving breaking his ankle 3 times, and currently he has a broken wrist from basketball. He can only watch our games, support the team and can’t train anything like he used to at his full potential and intensity.

Many of these photos, I had an idea of how a few people are playing basketball, whilst he is just watching from the side of the court, looking sad and an idea of ‘what if’ (I didn’t get injured), or (where would I be at today without injuries). I really love this photo of him just holding a basketball with a cast on his wrist sat on a table below a basketball hoop with no emotion in his face/looking down at himself.

Additionally, a large factor involved in his backstory is that despite him owning many basketball shoes, Jerseys, shorts and skills, he is unable to use them anymore at this current moment because of his injury. As a result of this, he continues to wonder, ‘why did I train so hard to just constantly get injured.’

For my edits, I only changed the Clarity which makes the photo look more textured instead of smooth, because I felt like, the use of the concrete walls, old-styled table and basketball hoop matches his leg hair/muscle outlines and bone outlines to also not just show loneliness but to show the masculinity as well. I also added a radial gradient to help make a fake ‘spotlight’ over my subject to show light shining down on him making him the main focus point in the photo, to allow the viewer to see his emotion and expression.

I also have the idea of a team all doing a group huddle with their hands all together celebrating as a team, or getting ready to go into the game/half time. With Bruce (my subject) on the bench not with the team feeling sad and lonely again wishing he was part of the team and could play. I can achieve this by going to Langford or Beulieu courts which have basketball games every week and set it up with the players and my subject.

Another photo I took was this photo with the placement I got my subject to be sat in looking sad, holding his wrist, whilst the other people are playing together shooting around.

I then decided to make the left side of the photo in black and white with his arm in black and white as well to show difference as well.

I did minimal edits to the exposure and then added a radial gradient over my subject and used the brush tool to make the background black and white as well.

I have started a multi-exposure photo edit using photoshop, with a lot of different photos of Bruce all in different angles or places with the main photo of him sitting on the table looking down under the hoop.

I Started with this photo of my subject in the middle of the page. I chose this one because there is a hoop above him and with the light shining on him it helps show he is the main subject and could be used as the front cover for my story book. I then decided to crop off the two sides of the walls and replace it with a black background.

Then did it on both sides and imported another photo of Bruce sat down and removed the background off of him. Then created a light shadow/black outline around him to make him suit and blend in with the black background.

I then used the brush tool on photoshop and drew on the sharp edges from the black backgrounds to the main photo, the line in-between I didn’t want it to look sharp and also drew over the yellow line at the bottom and the top blue squares which I didn’t want in my photo.

Then I imported another photo of my subject but this photo was him with his body and face turned away from the camera so you can see his Jersey and number, and his arm resting on his knee. I also put him bigger than the other photos because I feel like for the best multi-exposure photo edit, all of the individual photos need to be different sizes and in different directions/places.

I then made the photo black and white because I want to show the theme of sadness/loneliness and the black and white overlay, really persuades the end photos and the sadness behind injuries in sport.

I then changed the lighting, brightness, exposure and contrast on each photo of Bruce. I chose to increase the brightness but also increase the contrast. So, his jersey stands out more, his wrist cast also stands out more, and overall it makes the whole photo darker but the subject stand out more and is better for a main cover as I want the viewers to focus on him.

Next, I imported this photo of his arm when he took a layup shot. I like this photo because it’s not his body or face and so there is no emotion through it, but, with his arm and wrist all covered up and in a cast, it shows the pain and struggles he has to deal with just to play again.

I then made it black and white to match the other photos and again increased the brightness which increased his arm sleeve brightness and the lighter parts on the ball. But, also increased the contrast so the whole arm/fingers/ball stands out compared to the dark/black background.

I next needed one last photo to take up the top middle/right space of my multi-exposure photo cover. But, I chose this photo of Bruce my subject going for a dunk before he had the injury with no cast on. But, I am not too sure how I want to implement the photo background involving the actual hoop he was dunking on and so I tried using the rubber tool and rubbed out an area of the black for the background to be seen but I will redo it and either involve a shape as the background or use the rubber tool again but make it look less random.

I also increased the brightness and contrast for this photo as you can see his jersey has very bright parts on and his knees/legs are very reflective and have bright areas too.

What I will do next, is fix the background of the top right photo of my subject, either using shapes or I will use the rubber and properly draw out a background. I could also try merge the brick background from the middle into the black sides as they look good together but they are still very opposite and don’t quite blend well yet.

I fixed the top right photo keeping the background around him dunking in the full photo because I like how it looks, cutting out the outsides of it though and the bottom of it just above my bottom picture of Bruce.

I also increased the brightness of each image as I felt like they were all too dark and now you can see them all clearer, especially the top right photograph, and you can see more emotion in Bruce’s face in the bottom right photograph.

I have done another small photoshoot at Millennium Park with my Subject Bruce. I chose Millennium Park because this is where he started playing basketball on an outside court with restrictions such as a net above the court which doesn’t allow high shots. Bad grip on the floor which is tarmac which has also caused past injuries to him.

For the beginning of my photoshoot I used Sports Mode on the camera with these settings.

It made my photos have Low ISO and low F-stop with a very fast Exposure time. The reason for these settings are set to that are because my subject is moving whilst shooting the basketball and so I have to capture him in frame and the ball moving in the air.

For these photos I used portrait mode with these settings.

Twelve

I am starting a multi image photograph with a lot of different photos of Bruce (my subject), playing around the court taking different shots or doing different moves.

I started by cropping the left side of the image to make it more central and added brightness and contrast onto Bruce making his jersey and the ball and even his arms and legs stand out more.

I then added another photo of Bruce doing a spin move with the ball, I removed the background around him so its just his figure and I also increased the brightness and contrast on him too, to stand out more for the overall image.

I then added another photo of my subject, but what I really like is how his jersey is white so it stand out a lot when I increase the brightness and contrast of him and also how the number 12 from his jersey is showcased all around in the photo and that is what the overall photograph will be called.

Next I added this photo of Bruce taking a jump-shot with him in the air, I raised him up because he was in the air whilst shooting and I will need to add a shadow below him to make him seem more ‘in the air’. I also added more brightness and contrast onto him to match the other images.

I finally added this last photo of Bruce next to the free throw line with his number 12 fully showing to the camera, with increasing the contrast and brightness as well so he stands out the most.

I then decided to make the whole image in black and white which helped with the different brightness from each photograph of Bruce and I when I add shadows to each photo of Bruce it will look better.

This is the end photo I created on Photoshop with the shadows involved as well but I wanted to add a Vignette around the whole photo which I did in Lightroom creating this.

This is my overall final photo of Bruce my subject playing basketball around Millennium Park Court.

Tom Hunter does similar style photos to Philip-Lorca diCorcia with the still, staged photos with the theme of loneliness. Also, Tom Hunter is a London-based British artist working in photography and film. His photographs often reference and reimagine classical paintings.

Emotional: The effect of these images makes me feel sadness, with a use of loneliness joined, this is because a lot of his photos are very dull, dark and gives a ‘lost’ sense in them. There is no stereo type for them but it shows how they might not have money or might be struggling with something. They also have no emotion in their faces, which help express the sadness and depression.

Visual: These photos are very central based with the person being the main focus in their environment. They are also on the darker shade of editing with commonly not looking at the camera with light coming in either through the natural light like the window, or the sun on the woman in the grass, or an electrical light like the lamp on the second photo, but even the lamp makes the photo look dull.

Technical: The people are always in the centre of the photo or if there is two people like the first one with the woman and her baby, they are both evenly each side with the woman holding a piece of paper in the centre of the photo.

Conceptual: These photos make theses subjects look lonely or make them look like they are struggling with something to showcase it through the photos that many people wouldn’t expect with their day to day lifes.

Contextual:

All of these photos have a similar theme with both women in the last two photos by themselves expressing sadness, or being lost, or almost having an idea of ‘no plan for their life’.

The first photo involves a women with her baby in a house/flat that looks run down, whilst looking at her bills or some piece of paper to do with money. This gives an idea to the photo that she might not have enough money to support herself and her baby and doesn’t know what to do.

I can use Tom Hunter as another artist reference because firstly, he has similar photos to Philip-Lorca diCorcia but also, for my actual photoshoot theme, with the basketball player/team, I can photoshoot them ‘expressing sadness’ after a game loss, or maybe photoshoot the whole team happy celebrating together after a win, but then focusing on one player after they all leave and go home with him regretting plays and mistakes he made during the game linking back to the sadness.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia uses a lot of still, dull, no emotion photos that involve a lot of loneliness throughout his photos.

There is a specific photo he uses which is called ‘Bruno. 1993’. I think this photo resembles the ‘Ophelia’ photo which many artists have recreated before.

I think his photos are all staged with having a constant theme of odd-looking people stood or sat down by themselves, or showing loneliness in their house or their environment, but with his ‘Bruno. 1993’, photo I think it was his version of Ophelia.

With the grass, forest theme all around and with the person in the middle lying on their back with there arms either side, maybe it’s trying to show they died, or passed away peacefully, but diCorcia used a baby instead of a women to show his take on this recreation.

I will be producing two photoshoots, with one being a document – (realism/ factual/ public) and the other photoshoot being tableaux (romanticism/ fiction/staged).

Documentary
For my Documentary/realism and factual photoshoot, I will be using ideas such as street photography and a mix of environmental portraiture going around town/popular places in Jersey and taking different photos of how different people live there life, or what they do for work and how their lifestyle is. For another photoshoot, I want to take multiple photos of how the traffic builds up either on the avenue or near the tunnel underneath the roundabout in town.

I have another better idea, of going to a bonfire night with a lot of people around watching the bonfire and fireworks and taking photos of random couples hugging, having arms around each other, maybe even kissing each other whilst a firework goes off. This may turn out not as good as I imagine because it will be very dark and especially because there will constant flashing lights from the fire works, plus the fire flames from the bonfire.

Tableaux
For my Tableaux photoshoot I have multiple ideas of either masculinity and femininity with showing different stereotypes or flipping the stereotypes around. Another idea would be about a story line with two friends meeting up to either sell drugs, or a different story line with them meeting up. Another idea links with the idea I just mentioned, but instead it could be a crime scene where one kills another and hides his body or similar thoughts to that. Finally, could do a photoshoot with either emotions or phobias such as claustrophobia with a photo of someone trapped in a small place surrounding themselves.

I went to the fireworks/bonfire night and these are some of the photos I took.

I selected a few photos I want to edit which are these photos.

Here I really liked the use of the bonfire with the grass almost path to the bonfire, which I can edit to create an essential ‘fake’ pathway which leads to the bonfire using Black and White on the outside of the photo with uplifting the green in the grass and the orangey/red bonfire.

In this photo I really like the use of both a male and female sat down watching the fireworks over them, I could of gotten lower to the ground and centred the fireworks in between them, but I have an idea of maybe either keeping them both ‘alive’ in the photo and in colour, or creating a B/W silhouette around one of the couple, with an idea of ‘The other partner wishing loved one was watching the fireworks with them’, but they are as a “ghost” sat next to them in B/W, sort of photo.

Something sort of like this where the male partner remembers when they watched the fireworks together in the past, she was next to him watching the fireworks but she isn’t physically there, just spiritually watching next to him.

Started by designing and drawing out a mood board, with explaining what each term, ‘Observe, Seek and Challenge’ meant. Then got stuck on ideas, so started to draw different icons around the title such as, hearts, lighting bolts, flowers, waves, genders, even square roots, to try give me ideas.

This ended up helping as now I have an idea that I want to do which involves waves and surfing or something alone the 5 mile road which involves a surfer with his board and next to this bungalow.

My next idea involves two basketball players, one being very tall whilst the other isn’t so tall and give a documentary photoshoot of how they get ready pre-games or how they play in-game.

Another idea is to showcase the difficulties and challenges between male and female basketball and why they can’t play in the same league. Also, how different athletes get ready before the game and play during the game.

Sam Taylor-Johnson spoke about how ‘Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.’ This is showing and explaining the ‘Male gaze’ arguing that it has an indirect influence, forcing women to unconsciously ‘self-police’, their own behaviour.

Finally, I have an idea which I will go forward with, which involves using my friend who is very into basketball and plays it everyday and night. But, he gets injured a lot, so I am basing my idea for observe, seek and challenge around him and showing where he trains, (Langford/Beaulieu), where he started, (millennium park), who he plays with, (the coach, the team), his injury signs like, scars, stitches, casts, crutches.

Langford Sports Centre, which is the main place we train at and the place my Subject trains the most.

Beaulieu Sports Hall, which is where most of the games are held at and one of the main courts in Jersey.

Millennium Park, the outside court we all started playing basketball at especially my subject Bruce. It doesn’t have the skatepark in now so I will have to go take photos of it in the current time.

Introduction:
Photography can turn something ordinary into extraordinary, photography transforms what it describes. Early origin’s of photography starts with Camera Obscura, this is when you have a blacked out room, with a tiny hole from the outside world showing the light into the room. After around 1-2 hours of patiently waiting, there will show an upside down natural photo of exactly what is on the other side of the hole in the wall. A darkened box with a convex lens or aperture for projecting the image of an external object on to a screen inside, a forerunner of the modern camera. In the modern world, images can act as (emotions, memories, and identities), suchlike humans, offering a view into lives, places, and perspectives outside of our own. These dual roles make photographs complex and multi-dimensional objects and allow photographs to explore so many options. As mirrors, they allow us to see ourselves and our experiences through images. Whereas windows, they expose us to ideas, cultures, and ways people live their life’s, fostering a deeper understanding of the diverse world we live in. The balance between these two functions reveals how photographs can be both personal, but also explore the outside-world, intimately tied to the viewer’s own journey, while also broadening their view beyond them. The Daguerreotype and the Calotype are two early photographic processes, each with distinct characteristics and technical methods. The Daguerreotype uses a copper plated sheet with a thin coat of silver to create a detailed image on.
The Calotype is the original negative and positive process which was invented by William Henry Fox Talbot. This process uses a paper negative to make a print with a softer, less sharp image instead of the daguerreotype.

In my opinion and view, I feel like this photo is clearly classed as a ‘mirror’ photo instead of a ‘window’ photo because firstly, you can tell it’s staged with the young boys face being in one of the windows with the crack on it. But, also the fact that where a bullet or rock hit the window, (that’s what the shatter and damage looks like it could of been hit by), is exactly where the boys eye is, to perhaps symbolise the hurt within him or the struggles he has to live through everyday. Also, the fact that the photo is in black and white, also adds more thoughts and feelings on to the overall photo, whereas instead of it being in colour, being able to see the boys bright, vibrant clothes, with the house through the window which could’ve had a bright orangey/red roof or if there was grass on the floor. This would make the viewer not feel as bad and wouldn’t express the photo as sad as it should be. But, it is in black and white, to help persuade the viewer of the time, place and even the struggles that the boy had to live in everyday. Finally, a good factor that helps this photo, is that the boy is also very young, which helps photographs and ideas to showcase sadness and struggles from a young age.

“Photography was easy, cheap and ubiquitous, and it recorded anything: shop windows and sod houses and family pets and steam engines and unimportant people. And once made objective and permanent, immortalized in a picture, these trivial things took on importance.” – John Szarkowski.

“Authority and Freedom. A defense of the arts.” – Jed Perl

These quotes relate to each other with Szarkowski’s meaning how unimportant people are to be made as objective and permanent, immortalised people inside a photograph. Which is similar to Perl’s with his quote meaning that people aren’t free and do not have authority and so they are used in photos as well and that the lack of authority and freedom – objective and immortal, these circumstances act as a defense of the arts.

This is a window photo because the term ‘window’ means that it is not staged and it is natural. I can tell this is a window photo because the photographer is sat in a car and just snaps a women walking her dog with no expression in her face, in the middle of an area with trees and grass and with the dogs full body not in frame helps the idea of it not being staged because it was just a quick snapshot and just captured the dogs face.

Paragraph 2 (250 words): Choose an image that in your view is a window and analyse how it is an objective expression rooted in a sense 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.

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.

A Mirror reflects a portrait of the artist who made it, or a window, through which one might better know the world.

In the summer of 1835 William Henry Fox Talbot experimented with various chemicals to develop paper coatings suitable for use in a camera. He placed small wooden cameras that his wife called “mousetraps” all over his estate. The earliest surviving paper negative dates from August 1835, a small recording of the bay window of Lacock Abbey (left). In 1978, the German photographer Floris Neusüss visited Lacock Abbey to make photograms of the same window. He returned again in 2010 for the Shadow Catchers exhibition at the V&A to create a life-sized version of Talbot’s window.

The idea of photographs functioning like windows makes total sense. Like the camera viewfinder, windows frame our view of the world. We see through them and light enters the window so that we can see beyond. Photographs present us with a view of something.
However, it might also be possible to think of photographs as mirrors, reflecting our particular view of the world, one we have shaped with our personalities, our subconscious motivations, so that it represents how our minds work as well as our eyes. The photograph’s glossy surface reflects as much as it frames. Of course, some photographs might be both mirrors and windows.

“The two creative motives that have been contrasted here are not discrete. Ultimately each of the pictures in this book is part of a single, complex, plastic tradition. Since the early days of that tradition, an interior debate has contested issues parallel to those illustrated here. The prejudices and inclinations expressed by the pictures in this book suggest positions that are familiar from older disputes. In terms of the best photography of a half-century ago, one might say that Alfred Stieglitz is the patron of the first half of this book and Eugène Atget of the second. In either case, what artist could want a more distinguished sponsor? The distance between them is to be measured not in terms of the relative force or originality of their work, but in terms of their conceptions of what a photograph is: is it a mirror, reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it, or a window, through which one might better know the world?” 
— John Szarkowski, 1978.

I started with the front cover being one of the ex-captain’s of the harbour as he is one of the main reasons for all of these boats and workers being able to be here.