In this very first lesson we were given two hand outs one with information about Keith Arnatt and his project 'Self Burial' (1968-69) in which Arnatt shows the idea of disappearance in a single sequence- presenting his images on a t.v screen. And the other hand out showed Duane Michals' project 'Things are Queer' (1973) and in this sequence, he keeps changing the meaning of the images by a surreal transformation of perspective and view. I was very interested in both these projects, I found them fascinating. We were told to go create our own sequences around college, this is what I did:
Ethics in photography
We had a discusion about ethics are in photography and when peoples etchics are applied to images taken by photography and the impact an image has/can have on peoples ethics. We looked at different photographers, images and projects that have raised ethical issues and talked about whats etchically wrong about them, and whats not- privacy, death,rasicm, children- mostly it's the way that we photograph (some of)these things and how we act that makes it good or bad. Sally Man's images of her children playing naked raised some concerns but she simply stated it was a natural thing for her children to be doing and she was just documenting them- I personally think that whilst some of the images are beautifully composed and taken, there are etchically wrong for me, so I don't want to even look but on the other side theirs the images taken by Philip Dicorcia, where he took images of people without their permission or knowledge which almost got him sued- I don't think these images are etchially wrong at all to be honest, the people are in a public area, out by their own will and want and a secrete snap of them shouldn't get them all wound up, compared to the really etchially wrong images that are out there such as the campaine by Benneton which aimed to shock people: they used a huge rage of offencive and shocking images when advertsing. We talked about what photography and images we would and wouldn't take and I came to the conclusion that I would photograph: Weddings,Babies(studio),Animals,Music photography, Crimes Scenes(science/crimes), I'd photography documentrys of things but if anything bad was happening I'd definatly try to help them and I wouldn't photograph: someone getting shot/stabbed etc,documenting war, pornography/nudes, paparazzi, dead bodies(forensic),anything rasist or offensive. Ethics are basically based on personal opionion and thought- something that can be ecthically wrong to someone else can be acceptable by another- it's just a case of whats too much and whats just enough when taking images that could be offensive.
Paparazzi
We got a chance to explore being a paparazzi photographer and experience ourselves first hand what its like to be one, having to map out where to be, run around chasing whoever it is and trying to get a "good" photo whilst running and having a hand in the way from the unhappy subject. We had to pick a place to wait for our tutor to come walking from and when he walked passed we had to talk as many pictures as possible, trying to get one "use-able" one and follow him around.
Here are some of the images I took on my phone:
It's safe to say that whilst paparazzi photography isn't hard with the technique side although it is hard to capture I picture that isn't blurry/out of focus, spoiled by either framing or unwanted content(hands) or simply not being close enough to the subject. I really enjoyed this lesson as without experiencing it myself I never would have realised that although its not technical in any way, it's still extremely hard to do and do successfully. I learnt as well that people who are paparazzi can spend years of their life dedicated and lose everything in the mean time trying to get one photograph that's worth thousands or more.
Documentary
In another lesson we learnt about the effect that documentary photography can have and how it can influence opinion and in some cases change laws.
Lewis Hine ( 1874-1940) an american photographer who was best known for his work in the early 1900's. His most legendary project, when he went around mills and factories in disguise taking images of the under age child workers trying to show and shock people of the horrible work conditions the children were working in, showing how unhappy they were and how unsafe it was for them- his images were so powerful that they were used as visual evidence in a case that made it so children would never be forced to work ever again. His images showed people the truth they needed to see, changed opinions and laws. When Hine took the images of the children working he got to know them and learnt a little about them and made the information about them captions for each image- the captions made the images stronger and made them even more shocking because paired with the images the information made the children more real, it created a personal attachment to the children in the images to the viewers and gave that extra boost of shock that really disturbed people.
Dorothea Lange(1895-1965) famous for documenting the great depression an it's effects on people and most famous for her project documenting rural poverty and highlighting the migrant labourers and farmers- it was in this project her most well-known image 'Migrant Mother' as taken- her images made sure that the people suffering didn't die of starvation as the government saw her images; the conditions they were in and things they had to do just to stay alive and rushed aid to them. Without Lange's images no-one would have known about these people and how they needed help, her images brought them to attention of others and it made a difference doing so. Lange also got information about these people and added a caption to the images.
Don McCullin was the last photographer we looked at in this lesson. The greatest war photographer of all time. He started off being a aerial photographer for the RAF then went on to cover the battlefields of Cyprus, Congo, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh - "The War Years". He spent many years shocking people with the grim reality of war and life out fighting them. McCullin gave people an insight to war like no other, his work most often seen as too much to cope with- each shot he captured had some much emotion within it and each filled with the horrid truth that people were normally hidden from or tried to hide from. His images are so powerful, it's hard to believe that there real and the people in the images are real- truly shocking.
Truth, emotion, meaning. Three main things I learnt when researching these photographers; to have opinion changing images that shock and make a real impact and connection with the viewer you have to have a meaning to the images, a truth to the images that people don't normally see and the images have to be emotional- in order to make other people feel when they look at your images, you must be able to feel something when taking the images.
"The Camera Never Lies"
Historical and Contempory Image Minipulation.
It was in the 60's when lots of different editing programmes where coming out that National Goegraphic moved the Pyamids in their cover image closer together, that made people realise that if they can move pyamids, it should be easy to get rid of a few blemishes, freckles etc which pretty much started off the image minipulation craze.
In 1860, Edward William Mumbler created his first "Sprit" photograph using a double exposure technique. These photographs were popular with familes with cival war victims, with so many people dying around this time- people went for a "sprit" photograph to be taken to feel comfort after loosing a loved one. But Mumbler was taken to court for fraud in 1869 was people knew it wasn't really their loved ones in the images and some recognised them as Mumblers own family members- people knew it couldn't be possible so after Mumblers success and riches, he lost it all and died a poor man.
Pictorialism:
Late 1800's, people wanted to make images more artistic and creative. In 1854, "Fading Away" Henry Peach Robinson made an image up of 3 different images from different negatives: a composit image. And Jerry Uelsmann, a contempory photographer who used the composite technique too said "When I went to New York to show people, they would say it's interesting but it's not photography"
In 1867 possibly the first case of celebritity retouching was to an images of Charles Dickens taken by Dicken's offical photograper's Gurney & Son- Mattew Brady Studio took this image and retouched it, published it in 1867 and claimed it was there image but it was fake- the images was taken six year previously and they'd retouched the image in the darkroom, adding hair to Dicken's head, changing his shirt & beard etc.
Contempary digital retouching
Amy Dresser- very good with editing light & skin in images. She's famous for what she can do with reject images that mess up, she gets sent images in the middle of the night and is told she has a certain amount of time to make an image go from being a mistake to being a "mastepiece"- She using the old techqiues of dodging and burning but on modern programmes rather than in the dark room, she does this to create illusions of things(rather than making someone literally skinnier, she'd give the illusion of it as well as saving bad images she can also completely created an image that isn't real from compite images and using this techquie of using muliple images in order to create one.
My thoughts on minipulation etc:
I don't like either Amy Dresser's way of minipulating at all, I feel it's far too fake and obvious- just pure lies really but I do understand why and feel like some minipulation is needed/done: I think if its kept low key and isn't lying or creating an illusion then its harmless. The old ways of minipulation was much more sutal compared to now, and this is seen compared to Amy dresser's work which goes abit too far sometimes, but I do agree that sometimes her retouching of the images does make the image look better, but other images just look completly fake.
Food minipulation:
we watched a video made by Mcdonalds, showing why their food looks different when brought in store to the images they take of them- the video showed how a professional cooking and food decoration team take hours preparing this one burger and the care put into it, they say that they have to move the contents of the burger to the front of the bun, in order to show whats in side it, showing people what their buying, after everthings in place they have to melt the cheese just right to their liking and when the pictures done they go forward to editing any cracks in the bun off and worping the cheese to the perfectly shape..they mentioned that the in store buns take about 4-5 minutes to make, against the hours spent making the one they photographed and they also said that the boxes they use condense the buns size down with condentation and the insides arn't all pushed to the front which is why the burgers are smaller in store.
The video seems to answer the myth of how they look so different quite well but it just highlights the fact that you don't pay for what you see in the images, the burgers have being enhanced and fair too much time and care had being put into the making of the burger considering no care at all is put into the store brought ones by the looks of it. I agree though with why they do it: no one wants to see a horrible looking burger on an advertisement- this wouldn't make them want to buy it, sure it would be coreect but it would ultimately fail in marketing Mcdonalds and the food.
Dorethea Lange's possibly most famous image, 'Migrant Mother' was retouched as an april fools by a photography magazine into an haux article. The retouched involved making her smile, changing her shirt, making her look cleaner and all around unhappy and poor- people reacted badly to this 'joke' and the company had to apologise. When I first got told about this, I couldn't believe it to be honest, I just thought it was disrespectful and horrible- why would anyone want to mess with documentry images like that? any documentry images showing war, the great depression etc just shouldnt be messed with at all- it's offensive and cruel to be honest. These images stand for more than any other would, it's history and a time which people stuggled and died- serious times in which some people alive today could have being going through and other people who arn't around today because of these times that have familes and children that are/could affected by these times. They just too much emoion on this subject weather you have a connection or not, it's just not something you joke about really.
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