WEEK 2 The second lesson we had to bring in 3 images, one from 1827-1945, another from 1946-1999 and the last one from 2000-present. Then we had to go around the room and guess which year everyone's images were from then write it down. Then finally, we stuck all our images in the correct sections on the wall.
Looking at the images when they're all separated into their different sections you can clearly tell the difference between them. The ones from 1827-1945 have a much poorer quality and are either black and white or a sepia colour. The ones from 1946-1999 have a little better quality but are mostly still in black and white and the latest ones are a really good quality and are in colour.
WEEK 3 Today we were answering the question ''what is a photograph?'' and the different opinions from everyone in the class. We had to get an object, photograph it and then print it out to scale and then photograph the scaled image next to the actual object.
WEEK 4 This week with Matt we went to the White Cloth Gallery in Leeds. It's a film and photography gallery and it's different to other galleries. This one has the pictures pasted onto the wall like wallpaper and they're much bigger. They aren't on the walls perfectly which makes them a bit more less boring to look at. The pictures were taken by 'Ewen Spencer' and they are about teenagers lives, going out and partying etc.
I liked this gallery because it was unique and the gallery itself was less stuffy and simple, the pictures weren't in frames so it was unlike any other.
These are a couple of the pictures that were on the wall in the gallery:
The great depression
Here are some photo's I took around the city of Leeds that I think relate to the great depression:
Paparazzi:
During this session we discussed photographers that take pictures of celebrities, politicians and other famous or important people.
Our task was to use our cameras and pretend we were the paparazzi, we had to find Matt and Freya and see who could get the best pictures of them without them seeing us.
These are my paparazzi pictures:
Ethics in photography:
In today's session we had to think about ethics in photography, things we wouldn't take pictures of and publish for everyone to see.
We were asked to consider things we would and would not take pictures off, here are my lists:
Things I would take pictures of:
Nature, buildings, animals, family, landscapes, bands, any events
Things I wouldn't take pictures of:
Naked bodies, animal cruelty or any kind of cruelty, dead bodies, racism/discrimination.
Freya:
Arnold Newman – “Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.”
website: http://photofocus.com/2010/04/28/photography-v-reality/
Week 1:
Introduction to new assignment.
We were introduced to the question ''The camera never lies: how truthful is the photographic image?''
We went through all the different topics we would be covering that we could include into our report. We also re-capped on sessions we had with Matt.
Week 2:
Historical and contemporary manipulation.
In this lesson we put photographs into 'Manipulated' and 'Non-manipulated' categories on our own to see how easy each of us find it to tell if images have been manipulated or not.
We looked at early manipulated images from the 1860's (Mumler's spirit photography).
They looked real but then we found out that the 'spirits' are just double exposures added into the background of the picture to make them look ghostly, which I thought was very creative but I disagree with it because people might get upset by this, especially when they found out it was fake. He was taken to court for fraud. This is an example of one of his photographs:
We looked at pictorialism which I only just learnt about in this session. I found out that people wanted to make their pictures look more painterly so they used manipulation techniques in the dark room.
I really enjoyed looking at the first case of celebrity retouching on Charles Dickens in this session too because it just shows how much could be done using the dark room when they didn't have the technology we have today like PhotoShop.
right image - unedited
left image - edited
Week 3:
Image manipulation in photojournalism.
In this session we looked at examples of staged photographs that have been used in the news.
We looked at an example where the photographer had moved canon balls into the road of a battlefield to make them more clear and staged photographs of WW1 planes but then it turned out they were just toy planes and figures staged to look like planes and people were on fire and were falling. I found this interesting because when you first look at them they look so real and it's amazing what people can do with a painted backdrop and models. But then when you think about it, back in that time they wouldn't have had good enough cameras to get such a clear image.
I think this is a topic I want to use in my report because there's a lot to talk about and it's very interesting. This is one of the images that was published.
Week 4:
Appropration.
In this session we looked at examples of people that have used existing images and text in their work and claimed it as their own.
We discussed whether we think it's stealing or not and if it's okay to use someone else's work as long as you change the context of it. An example we looked at was Picasso's work in cubism and Kurt Schwitters had taken his idea to create his own cubism art.
We then looked at Dada artists and followed their instructions to make our own Dada poem. We cut out lots of random headlines and bold words and sentences from a newspaper, muddled them up and stuck them down into sentences without thinking whether they're going to make sense or not. This was fun to do because in some cases the sentences we made seemed to make sense a little bit.
Week 5:
Staging.
We were given some photographs and we had to look at them closely and try to work out whether we think they're staged or not. It turned out all the photographs we looked at were staged. I found this interesting to do because I found things in the picture that looked like they were placed there on purpose. For example, in the image I was given, the statues on the fireplace look as if they were purposely turned to face the camera.
We discussed why we think photographers might want to stage their photo's. I thought they might want to give a stronger message from their photograph. Also, because they have the option to stage their photograph, they can imagine in their head what they want their picture to look like and get that exact outcome so they have a better chance of getting a better photograph if they do this.
I want to use this topic in my report because I like to use for and against arguments on staging photography. For example, I think it's wrong to stage a photo if it's going into the news because then the audience are getting giving false reality, but if the photographer does pictures in a mystical kind of scene then it's ok. For example, Kirsty Mitchell's photography. This is one of her images:
Freya:
Arnold Newman – “Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.”
website: http://photofocus.com/2010/04/28/photography-v-reality/
Week 1:
Introduction to new assignment.
We were introduced to the question ''The camera never lies: how truthful is the photographic image?''
We went through all the different topics we would be covering that we could include into our report. We also re-capped on sessions we had with Matt.
Week 2:
Historical and contemporary manipulation.
In this lesson we put photographs into 'Manipulated' and 'Non-manipulated' categories on our own to see how easy each of us find it to tell if images have been manipulated or not.
We looked at early manipulated images from the 1860's (Mumler's spirit photography).
They looked real but then we found out that the 'spirits' are just double exposures added into the background of the picture to make them look ghostly, which I thought was very creative but I disagree with it because people might get upset by this, especially when they found out it was fake. He was taken to court for fraud. This is an example of one of his photographs:
I really enjoyed looking at the first case of celebrity retouching on Charles Dickens in this session too because it just shows how much could be done using the dark room when they didn't have the technology we have today like PhotoShop.
right image - unedited
left image - edited
Week 3:
Image manipulation in photojournalism.
In this session we looked at examples of staged photographs that have been used in the news.
We looked at an example where the photographer had moved canon balls into the road of a battlefield to make them more clear and staged photographs of WW1 planes but then it turned out they were just toy planes and figures staged to look like planes and people were on fire and were falling. I found this interesting because when you first look at them they look so real and it's amazing what people can do with a painted backdrop and models. But then when you think about it, back in that time they wouldn't have had good enough cameras to get such a clear image.
I think this is a topic I want to use in my report because there's a lot to talk about and it's very interesting. This is one of the images that was published.
While I was researching about staged images, I found the first case of staging! It was in 1840 and was by Hippolyte Bayard. He set up his camera and took a photo of himself as a victim of an act of suicide. The image is called 'self portrait of a drowned man'. I think this is a wrong way to start staging images because I think it's too morbid. This is the image that was taken:
Week 4:
Appropration.
In this session we looked at examples of people that have used existing images and text in their work and claimed it as their own.
We discussed whether we think it's stealing or not and if it's okay to use someone else's work as long as you change the context of it. An example we looked at was Picasso's work in cubism and Kurt Schwitters had taken his idea to create his own cubism art.
We then looked at Dada artists and followed their instructions to make our own Dada poem. We cut out lots of random headlines and bold words and sentences from a newspaper, muddled them up and stuck them down into sentences without thinking whether they're going to make sense or not. This was fun to do because in some cases the sentences we made seemed to make sense a little bit.
Week 5:
Staging.
We were given some photographs and we had to look at them closely and try to work out whether we think they're staged or not. It turned out all the photographs we looked at were staged. I found this interesting to do because I found things in the picture that looked like they were placed there on purpose. For example, in the image I was given, the statues on the fireplace look as if they were purposely turned to face the camera.
We discussed why we think photographers might want to stage their photo's. I thought they might want to give a stronger message from their photograph. Also, because they have the option to stage their photograph, they can imagine in their head what they want their picture to look like and get that exact outcome so they have a better chance of getting a better photograph if they do this.
I want to use this topic in my report because I like to use for and against arguments on staging photography. For example, I think it's wrong to stage a photo if it's going into the news because then the audience are getting giving false reality, but if the photographer does pictures in a mystical kind of scene then it's ok. For example, Kirsty Mitchell's photography. This is one of her images:
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