A cool photographer

I was searching through photographers for fun the other day and I came across this guy, who i really like- Hossein Zare. He does some very cool landscapes portraits which are really bleak and beautiful, but also generally have quite strange elements in them, for instance:


The photo by itself (the one on its side) is already melancholy and weird, as it is so faded, and the tight rope between it is like a line between realities. I liked the surreal feel to this, because it takes a photo which might seem normal (a city-scape) and then flips it on it's head in a very subtle and understated way. When I saw the picture first (small), I thought it was a man tight roping between buildings. This could comment on how each building is its own world, as well as how we fail to imagine a parallel universe that is any different to ours; we literally are stuck in this structure. Many of his photographs are the same;


They all have a very simple aesthetic, very based on line and color and using this simplicity to transform the normal to the abnormal. The one above I liked because It leads the eye right back, and has almost a story-book quality to it. It doesn't real. On top of this, the footprints are the wrong way around, suggesting the more surreal nature of the photo. This is very photo-shopped; all this shadows have been taken out, making it feel story book.


I really like this one above, especially because it shows a simple and effective use of photo-shop, which isn't over the top. I also liked how he crossed normal boundaries in quite a subtle and understated fashion. This one I liked especially because he chose a business man (someone who you might not expect to be on a swing, or in a fantasy) to be on the swing. This grounds the reality, as the chains links him and earth, he links this weird fantasy to what we know. I liked this because it turns our ideas upside down literally.

The photographer is from Iran, and is self taught. He likes to "create an ominous atmosphere", and to "defy gravity", which make a sort of apocalyptic feel. This has little to do with my project, but I liked it a lot.



On this note, was going through some old photos, and found some photos my aunt took at my dads birthday party. I'll put them here before explaining why I find them interesting.

I think I liked these because they showed what was important to her. She had only 20 photos, and so she had to make sure that she didn't over-shoot. I took about 700 photos that day, some which look almost identical to these ones. However, it is these ones which I think of as the best ones. This is beacuse of the way they look, i thin. The grainy, gritty, contrast-y image speaks volumes on the photos which define y childhood. These photos are a representation, to me, of history, of before- they suggest someone who actually thought and cared for images and took these ones. This is interesting, and relates to previous readings about how highly we hold analogue photography and the style of analogue photography. i want my project to reflect this; these are disposable images in name, but actually they are interestingly held in high regard. The photos taken by the group can reflect this; that by looking the way they do, and by being finite, this makes each one worthy and count. I was wondering if this project does not work, about maybe giving my cameras to lots of people and seeing what their reactions are to being asked to photograph what is important/themsleves.

I wonder if then showing such photos to the public, if they would get the same feeling that I get from looking at these. I feel that this is an important attitude to photography. It also links into what we decide is "worth" a photograph and what isn't. This is a whole other question; and links especially to what we decide is important and beautiful. My aunt decided it was all our relatives, but I wonder what homeless people, or just random people might think instead. This leads me to new avenues! 

New Ideas

I have emailed a large number of people, including several community groups I have worked with before- which shows that contacts are very useful. I have had several tentative replies, so we'll have to see which ones are a definite.
Since then, I have had a new idea about gallery space. What I would love to do, id put all of the little photos in bottles, (with a spring on, so they come out) and then have a little light box so people can see them. There would be a massive pile of bottles with photos in, and people have the chance to pick up a bottle and see for themselves how the photos are. I liked this idea because it relates to the letter in a bottle- you throw it out, and hope someone will pick it up and read it, and treasure it- but you have no idea who. I liked this for both the kids (as this is a kid thing to do) and for the homeless, as this relates to waste, and hopeful hopelessness. Its also relatively cheap to make, whereas telescopes are hard to buy and it's illegal to put photos on the street.


I also have been contacting quite a few disabled people charities and schools. I have done huge amounts of community art work with most of these (Oska Bright, Isis Academy, etc ect) I feel like this would also be an interesting and "voiceless" group to document. We will see who might be interested/answer.

I have also come across a lovely photo documentary site online. The site shows photos (usually one) and has a voice over and soundscape, with someone essaying or talking about their experience, and things relating to the photo. I loved this as a style, because  it made you really look at this one photo, and the more the person spoke, the more life the photo gets, until you understand it right from the perspective of the person talking. I really liked that these two elements worked together to make the photo mean something different from what you thought, and exactly what the person who took it meant; this is really powerful and interesting. I liked that you get your first impression and then the actual meaning; they contrast nicely, showing what you expect and don't expect. This is pretty simple to make- it is just a lot of films- so I think I might try and copy this style for my own. Here is my favorite example of work:

http://cowbird.com/story/608/1000_Words/

Photography journals

I have been reading a journal, and notice that all reviews on photographers have similar aspects:

They start with the main theme, and then move onto a sum up of context, then have a quote from the photographer with mention to previous work, and then analysis. It usually finishes with where it's being shown.
Many of the projects follow this style, for instance the one in the "British journal of photography", which interviews Diane Smyth on her project "Farmers." The review starts off with a theme introduction- the fashion shoot idea of people versus "real people", and then goes on to talk about context, which in this case is her previous fashion photography. Then it interviews her, asking her why this is an important project, where it came from etc. It then talks about method and analysis of the photos, and then ends with future work and where to see this one. I liked this as a way to quickly sum up a project and anchor it in its historical/cultural place, so when we see the next 5 double-page spreads, we understand their ideas.

Longer written articles might focus deeply on history or cultural influences, or might include an interview with a photographer. One i liked was by Sam Taylor wood, who shot a project called "First Film", the interview signals to us many of the ideas above but in the voice of the artists which is nice, as you can understand why they made creative style choices in their own voice.
there are also short reviews, which slid over the deeper theory and ideas behind the photographs and focus on the more visual aspects. I noticed that more online reviews do this, even within the same journal. They focus more on the more obvious style, and on how to find out more or see previous work- it's much more brief.

I was thinking about my own intro- I might try and imitate (in a way) these types of writing. I would therefore do this:

1) One or two sentence summing up main theme
2) method
3) Context
4) In depth look at various shades of the theme- theory and influential artists
5) Conclusion

This seems to be the most obvious way to do it, and the most popular with the other photographer writers.

Next stage

My next stage... to identify which group i am going to document.

I specifically want to document homeless or children. I have been researching places in Brighton or nearby which might be interested in helping. As i have, I realize (perhaps obviously) that getting people to participate is going to be difficult, as these groups are protected by CRB and the like. It will be hard to convince organisations to let an outsider in, and to take the photos, and put them on the internet. especially as I am a 3rd year. I'm not sure how long it will take to get an answer, but hopefully they will be OK with it, I am just making my introductory email really nice.

For instance:

dear Sir/Madam,
My name is Robyn Furtado, I am a photographer, and I am very interested in
the representation of homeless people in the news. I always make a point
of
talking to people on the street, and find them interesting and often
traumatic people, but find they are stigmatized in society, with exception
to the Big Issue. As a photographer, I have come up with an idea to try
and
change these attitudes. 
Therefore, I would like to make a photo project in which I would give
people on the street disposable cameras, and let them document themselves
and the lives they live. These could then be put in a gallery, or online,
or in the big issue as a case study on homeless lives within the UK, from
their own perspectives, with some written accounts/stories to follow. I
feel this might give more exposure to homeless people and give them a
voice, as the Big Issue does.
I was writing to see whether the you at the Big Issue have any thoughts
about this idea; if you think it would work,or how might be best to go
about this,or if you would like to collaborate on the project. I think
this
would be a good chance for more exposure for homeless issues.
Thank you for your time, I hope to hear from you soon,
Robyn Furtado

i have also been considering the first hand in (after christmas) I am going to ask a group of teenagers to document their christmas's. This could reflect family life and different versions/cultures etc could reflect each other, and could comment on what we think we should take photos of/family etc? I have access to these people and could write a lot on the subject, relating it to the bigger project. This seems like a good idea.

Presentation done!

I did my presentation and 750 word essay, which i'll put below. This is the link for the presentation, i used prozei, which i don't really get, but it looks pretty cool:

http://prezi.com/gg7tp5xncxp4/photography-proposal/

The presentation went well, I actually managed to finish in time (5 minutes) and get through most stuff. I felt as through I covered quite a few projects which had inspired me, and a lot of these were independent research, and were multi-media, so felt this was good, as it covered a wide basis of ideas. I also backed this up with several theorists, most of which were independent- i used quite a few also. However, I also feel that I didn't do as well as I could have. For one thing, as i was nervous and wanted to get it finished, I rushed what I was saying. I felt that i spoke very very fast and might not have been understood. I also felt that my presentation did not go into depth enough in how theorists and projects linked. This was partly because of the time limit, but it was also partly because I tried to fit huge amounts in. I need to hone down my ideas so I have time to explain them properly and link the presentation. However, I did feel that the overall presentation worked in giving a brief start to what my idea might be.

this is my essay:

“Photography is never neutral” (Tagg, 1998, 63) and this makes it a “highly complex” issue. When we take a photo, as objective as is intended, it will always “represent the view of someone.” (Sontang, 2003, 16) To further this, if no photo can be objective, then when we take a photo, we are accessing pre-determined ideologies based on culture and hegemony, and will take photos in a certain way, the way we expect them- or society expects them- to look. Foucault argues that photography is an “expansion of the state”, and that documentary photography is a “means of evidence” with an “authority to arrest, picture and transform daily life.” (Tagg, 1998, 65) If we are to believe that a photo is ‘true’, and if we are to photograph something as culture determines us to, this suggests that we only document things in the way that society dictates, which is a worrying idea.

These issues of who controls representation and the complexities of representation are central to my proposal. Initially, I was inspired by photography projects like “The 100”(Knight, 2012-3) and “Beautiful Horizons”,(2012) which gave cameras to a selection of people, and let them document themselves. In the latter project, the group of people who were given cameras were street children from Rio, a group of people who have been continually represented in a victimized and bad light by western photographers. The project, which spanned 17 years, gave the children a voice and chance to create their own reality. This could be seen to be a “purer” or more “truthful” account of reality than somebody imposing their view onto the street children.

However, as the project progressed, I also became aware of further fields of investigation that the project could lead to. As Zuckerman suggests, the internet and cheap technology are the “great leveller”- we all have the chance to recreate our realities and share them online, and get others to engage in them. Interactive Medias, such as online documentaries and found photography, suggest communities can use technology to make their own realities. The online Hawaiian documentary, “Kupuna” (Hasen, 2012) for example, made by the Hawaiians in an online, interactive format to “document their fading history”- shows a community using technology to create an online space to keep their history alive; this suggests that representation is evolving for the better with new technology. However, I was also at the same time struck by similar projects- Miska Henner’s found photography and Juliet Ferguson’s “Stolen Images”, (2011) which suggested that online photography and internet sharing was “an expansion of state”- the culmination of a “surveillance society” or “society of control”,(Deleuze, 1992, 105) in which society is constantly watched, and how we engage with the world and understand representations is based on which company has most power or  money; suggesting that the internet is controlled by dominant hegemonies- therefore, interactive media was only serving the ideologies of a few. These two contrasts of online representation interested me.

From this research, I decided to make a project to challenge these ideas. I propose to give disposable cameras to a group of people-preferably people who are traditionally voiceless- and let them represent themselves. I have been in contact with several such groups- for instance a young people’s homeless charity and local school. I would then like to collect the photos taken and create an interactive online documentary, which can be accessed by all. To further this, they would also be displayed in a gallery at the degree show- though the structure of the gallery and online website will depend on the group of people. If I am to choose homeless people, I would create an online documentary narrative with interview and sound elements, and I wouldn’t show any work in the gallery, it would be in the street, where it could be accessible by everyone. If, however, I choose children as a group, then the online space will be more like a mood board for each child, with found imagery suggesting notable spaces and objects alongside the photos-to try and represent childhood’s sensory reality- and then in a gallery setting, will have the photos only allowed to be seen down a telescope, (or similar) suggesting a voyeuristic approach onto someone else’s reality. Each display of the chosen group would reflect their idea of their own reality and the photos they have chosen; space is important to each group of people, and I would build a gallery or web-doc to reflect this.

With this project, I hope to not only give some people the chance to create their own reality and representation, but also to see how people use this power, to see if they create a reality which surprises the hegemonic norms and “appropriates the real.” This would be done by the participants using photography to create their world from their own perspective, and by using the internet to re-create it and engage with a community. I hope by using this interactive technique, the project will advocate a space where people have taken control of their own representation, instead of being represented by the hegemonic media controllers through which much photography is produced.

Reading and preparation for presentation

I have a presentation on thursday in which we have to talk about our ideas. I have been collecting a lot of reading and previous projects. Its only 5 minutes and I have a lot to say, so not sure how to cut down all my research. I have also done some more reading, which i'll write here:

Susan Sontang: Regarding the pain of others

"To remember, more and more, is not to recall but to be able to call up a picture"
"photographs have the advantage of uniting two contradictory features. Their credentials of objectivity was inbuilt. They always had a point of view. They were real and they were witness to the real. An objective record and a personal testimony"
When a photo is "less serviced", it gets more "compassion and belief" because people see it as not engineered. In the same strand, "photography is the only major art form that does not give advantage to those who are trained and experienced."
"photographs objectify. They turn an event or a person into something that can be possessed... and this is prized as a transparent account of reality"
COLLECTIVE MEMORY "photographs that everyone recognizes are now a constituent part of society that everyone chooses to think about" "collective memory- that THIS is important, this is how it happened etc... ideologies create sustaining archives of images, representative images, which encapsulate common ideas of significance and trigger predictable thoughts."
"It is felt that there is something morally wrong with the reality of photography"

John Tagg: The Burden of Representation

"The indexical nature of a photograph is highly complex, irreversible and can guarantee nothing at the level of meaning" "Photography is a new and specific reality, it is not a magical enamtion but a material product of a material apparatus set to work in specific contexts by specific forces""Photography is the reality of present discussions and meanings" (even old photos are judged in par with present day ideology)
--> The legal side of photography- who OWNS the photograph? If you take a photo of reality, do you own that space? Do you own what is shown? Do you own a space of time? The real second of captured space? Law has "appropriated the real"= photos are owned by a photographer, but if you are IN the photo, you are then given to the photographer, used by them- is this fair? an "imprint of personality""the camera is never neutral"
--> "photography is a mode of capitalist expansion"- a means of control? (Control societies) "photography is a means of evidence" "it arrives on the scene with a sense of authority to transform, picture and arrest daily life. This power is not the power of the camera but the power of the state which supplies it" -- suggests that we always take a photo in terms of state control and state bias. This links to ideas about surveillance society. The camera to control representation, to document and record and watch, photography as propaganda. photography is used to do this- and to understand this, we must look at photos, at "what they do and don't do, encompass or exclude, resist or include, "-READ.
"photography has a currency. Marx saw that this currency could take force as compulsory action of teh state" "photographs are an essential ingredient to many social rituals. It is difficult to imagine these rituals before photography. It is difficult precisely because the internal stability of society is preserved through the naturalization of beliefs which are historically produced and historically specific. it is through this light we must see photographs" "It is an apparatus of ideological control under the central harmonizing authority of the class which has state power"

For my presentation:
I was thinking of basing my presentation with mainly ideas and theories about representation and the ethics of taking a photo (as above,)
However, I was also thinking about including theories about online representation (if its changed) and if we have more freedom on the internet to change our representation. This could include found photography and fears of control society, and would link by interactive media (as my project is interactive, and self-documenting)
I am writing at the moment.

New ideas

Democracy of photographs:
http://hereisnewyork.org/index2.asp.html

This a blog which collected all the photos from the 9/11, and made a exhibition of them. However, it didnt tell the audience which were the professional photos and which were not. It used multiple voices to describe the attacks, and the horror of witnessing but not being able to help. Online, you can browse the photos based on tags, where the people were, their profession (if they were a hospital worker for instance) the timeline, and the media. There are also oral histories and things which can be accessed. I liked this because it used many perspectives at a level space, and the viewer has to actively look through the photos to find out what happened. Also, people journalism is celebrated, by putting 'amateur' photographs on par with professional ones.
In the final gallery, the photos were hung up like washing, and could be changed around if a viewer found one especially interesting. I liked this way of seeing- horrific photos in the trivial, and the ability to change or match photos on a line.


These have given me new ideas for my project and how my project will be shown.

Photoshop

We are doing photoshop today! Here are a few screen shots from our work, we are making new layers, from selections and copies, as well as making adjustment layers for saturation and hue and contrast. The ability to make layers means you can do non-destructive editing, so you do not destroy the first image, as well as allowing for experimentation with colour and style. 

We were also looking at the clone stamp tool, which means that you can get rid of blemishes or things you do not want in the photo, if there is enough similar scenery around. You clone stamp (with command) and then feather it, or turn down opacity, so that it blends in. This is useful for adjusting layers and getting rid of annoying or unsightly things in the photo.

You can also make a selection with the magic wand or selection tool, and then copy it onto a new layer. You can repeat this, to duplicate elements, or you can move it, to hide parts of the picture.

we were also using the blur tool, which can blur the background or foreground to make a forced look of DOF. We also used the burn or dodge tool. The burn tool darkens an area, whereas the dodge tool will bring up an area lighter based on already existing colours. By the tools on the top, you can change the shape of the brush, the size, and the hardness of it. You can also alter the layers by blending the layers (soft light and hard light) or changing layer opacity.
When suing the black and white colour wheel, you can take out all the red to increase the blue very dark, or take out the yellow to increase the white. This was done in film photography when they used filters (ie, when they used a red filter, the skies become black and impressive)

Ethics?

 Ethics and representation
What is our justification for looking? and what is our justification fro looking away? Should photographers be involved in their subjects?
Kevin Carter took a photo of a deing African girl with a circulating vulture. The photo is incredibly powerful and horrible, taken during a famine. The photo started a humanitarian movement across the world to help the people of the area. Many saw the photo as awful. Why didnt Carter help the child? Many saw his photo as exploiting someone else's pain, and condemned him for not stepping up and helping the child, while others saw the photo as a lie; some accounts suggest the child's parents were just there but Carter positioned the child to emote most horror. Either way, the controversy meant Carter committed suicide.
a similar account is a recent photo of someone jumping in front of a train in New York. ("the Bridge") The photographer was attacked for not stopping the person jumping, and accused of exploiting a last moment. Others saw this as an important issue as it expresses worrying ideologies and things that happen every day.
Another example is re-enactment, or shooting while asking people to act in a certain way- for example, an Italian photographer asked all the men in the street to whistle at this women, to produce a mood. This is "false", though it could be argued that it wasnt, if it was reflecting a normal experience.

Theater of the opressed

This is an organization which runs in across the world. It specializes in breaking down the "oppression" or repression of audience/creator relationship.  It does this through all medium of arts, though specializes, or starts with theater, where it encourages the audience to come forward, create the scene, take the part of the protagonist, devise an outcome etc etc- the ultimate objective is to "eliminate the private property and characters and stories" and liberate acting by "tearing down the walls." The movement was started to teach people to recognize and react to the repression in their daily lives. "Recognizing that humans have a unique ability to take action in the world while simultaneously observing themselves in action, Boal believed that the human was a self-contained theatre, actor and spectator in one. Because we can observe ourselves in action, we can amend, adjust and alter our actions to have different impact and to change our world.

Theatre of the Oppressed engages people in discovery, critical reflection and dialogue and the process of liberation! Through Theatre of the Oppressed we can better understand ourselves, our communities and our world. There are several series of techniques, tools and expressions of Theatre of the Oppressed. Below are some The Forum Project uses regularly. "

The writer talks a lot about this sort of (in my words) communist drama. I like this idea- it's a totally new and engaging way to break down traditions and encourage participation, community story-telling, and cultural debate. The author writes a lot about how important media and arts is for cultural discussions- about repression, and feminism and such- as through art and debating on what goes where and what happens next, you create a dialogue which ends at a place where people are happy for it to be. It has also been shown to be helpful for literacy and non-verbal communication, as well as for learning to critique mass culture, and not just accept it as "truth"- as the project started in Brazil, this is very interesting and a good idea.
He writes quite a lot about how this might be done with photography. The people were given cameras and taught how to use them, (focus etc etc) and then given subjects to take. Then they would discuss why people might have taken the photos to represent something. The different ideas and views of people open debate and artistic thinking, as well as creating debate for representation and the world we create, the reality we exist in.
came up with the idea of "event theater", whereby an image starts a debate, and spectators can discuss their own interpretations of the picture.


Here is an example of NYC oppressed doing a piece. It is interestingly un-western and unconventional, and I imagine is very challenging to be part of as an audience used to  normal theater.

In relation to my work, this is very useful, and I like it as an idea a lot.

An experiment

I went to Brighton today, and stationed myself outside, near the pier. I wanted to experiment with the public, which is a lot harder than it seems. I approached people and asked them to take a photo of the area- it could be anything, the pier, or their feet, or buildings (but ideally not each other) Most people didn't really understand why I was asking (and thought i was crazy) Luckily, I met some very nice Chinese tourists who wanted to interact. I asked about 15 people in the end, whom ranged from 17-35ish, and each took a few photos. The results are defiantly different from what I would take, for instance:

Quite a lot of these I was surprised at; they were well shot and had a definite style. There were also shaky and blurred ones, but some really nice shots. I was thinking that these work quite well to see what other people might take photos of, but they don't mean much- because all the people knew how to take photos, had been educated, and therefore were not challenged. I did notice something very interesting in how the people I gave a camera too acted differently when they were given a task and a camera. They were much less shy and took photos of everything. I find this an interesting outcome- that if you are given a task, or if you aren't taking photos for yourself, you come out of your shell.

Because of this shoot, I was persuaded against giving the cameras to random ages, and want to focus on a group or area. I am not sure who they might be! Have been thinking about this all week, and I have come up with a few groups; children, homeless, bike culture... hmmm.

Interactive media! and documentary /photography

Interactive media is a new(ish) idea which I think is a reaction to the internet, and many other issues. With the rise of people journalism, new internet realities and creation of media becoming something that a vast majority of people in the world have access to, media is not something owned by a few people at the top of the pile, trained in media production or business. With even the big news corporations using public journalists, there is a change in public being injected with an idea.
Interactive media has sort of grown out of this. There are several types of interactive media; the most obvious is interactive gaming. In things like Second Life, you can create a new reality, a new identity, and build new places- you work with others from around the world for this. There are also less scary things; people get obsessed with Farmville, or Candycrush- where you play against others and can win "money" online to build new things/get bigger farms. This encourages audience engagement and interaction with each other and the game.
There is also many strands of interactive art work, which are all quiet exciting and new. These could be online, as this: http://weavesilk.com/
 which is a website which encourages you to make video art based on the music. There are other interactive online art works, such as
There is also more traditional interactive art works, like this:

 Which is a wall on a street, where everyone can interact by writing their wishes on the wall, before they die.A similar one is this photo portrait "masher" which appeared in New York. The video takes photos of all of its visitors, and mashes them together, based on your eyes and face movements. It is meant to be about the fluid-ness of identity, gender etc etc

http://www.flong.com/projects/reface/

Similarly, I visited an installation in London called the "House of Pain", where you go into a house, scream as loud as you can, and watch the house light up and explode with colors, for everyone to see.


A similar interactive installation is this video, in which a room reacts to movement and voice, with blinds, floor movements, lights and mirrors. You experience depends on you, and how you act and sound:

There are also interactive music videos, such as this one by arcade fire, where you put in your address and the video uses google maps to rein-act scenes where you live. There are also more, where you can play a instrument in the band.


Finally, (and most importantly) there are also many online documentaries.

One of my all time favorites is this one by Jigar Metha, "18daysinegypt", which is an online documentary using the media of citizens- tweets, photos, video clips, documents, accounts- to map out the 18 days of revolution in Egypt. In the documentary, you can walk through google maps and interact with different sources, pick days and times and find out time spans and what happened when- it is like a giant online visual map of the 18 days of revolution.

http://beta.18daysinegypt.com/



here is another, an interactive documentary, with photos, soundscapes, videos and accounts of what it is like to live on this small Hawaiian town La'ie, from the disappearing voices of the elders, who knew traditions before the tourists came. The documentary is about re-capturing voices (especially the natives) told from their voices. This is interesting because it is a western film maker coming in to try and help these native Hawaiians regain what is being lost, through a medium of film- this relates to what I want to do.

http://www.kupunainteractive.com/



Interactive photography:

The main idea for interactive photography is the idea of Googlemaps- which millions of photos documenting and recording earth- an interactive, objective view of the human inhabited world. These images are very interesting and both create an online reality while also representing an outside reality to as much extend with as little human intervention as possible. There has actually been so much google maps street art- for instance this website: http://googlemapsart.wordpress.com/ which "finds" images from satellites and puts them in galleries:


There have been others who use google maps to comment on society- such as this image, one from Google, but has "clouds", when you zoom in, these clouds are actually words associated with each place, via news patterns. The more you move around, the more it becomes clear how news language shapes our idea of continents (by how they change)
http://imaginarylandscape.fr/



There are numerous "interactive" photography sites online, showing panoramas of famous cities. Though interesting, this doesn't have any narrative. I have been doing some internet searching, and actually found some really interesting photo documentaries online.
One i really liked was this:
http://hollowdocumentary.com/
Its an interactive soundscape and photo documentary of Mcdowel County.

More readinnnngngng

Stranger than fiction:

Isnt all photography a sort of unreality? All photography is a fiction, be it posing a person, or setting up a shot, or adhering to ideology and moments. Photography should be a way to tell stories and convey a message, and should not be so obsessed with the "real", (what is the real anyway?) Documentary photography started out as "a way to tell stories with photographs"- there is no mention of reality. We need new tools to address and understand photography, instead of keeping it in a frame.

When we look at my generation of photojournalists, many of them have started asking their subjects to pose for images they would include in their documentary projects. That’s reshaping reality – it’s close to being fictional. If you assume it, it’s not dishonest.”

Instagram, the new economics of photo journalism. 
 I have always been a bit skeptical of instagram, as I feel like it is a sort of "fake" photography; take a photo, hike up the contrast and add a few filters which make the light yellow and weather the image, and anything looks "nostalgic" and filmic. Of course. But I feel like this is "cheating" and boring. Especially as most of the 80 million users just take self takes and pictures of their food or cats.
Actually, there seems to be a lot stuff going on on Instgram, which I wasn't aware of. As the article shows, a lot of photo journalists have taken to the website, and use it to update followers on their travels, photos, and news whats going on. (ooooo instagram photos of starving children, hashtag hashtag hastag) These photographers all seem to say similar things; Instagram lets them connect to their fans better, lets them immediately update their photos, and to share ideas and photos quicker and cross-platform. Many mention things which I'm sure they made up (cross platform geo tagging? seriously dudes.) and say that they have more connection to their public, which they can converse with, and who can follow and know what they are doing; as well as potential employers. It is also easy to make a narrative- the tagging allows for connection to bigger projects and ideas, and a narrative construction of projects.
As one said, "photography is now about creating a relationship with an audience. And instagram is a limitless space to post countless interesting works for free, with an engaged audience reach of millions."
I want to highlight the audience engagement bit, which links to a "public screen", and i feel has truth and mysteries. In truth, yes, if one photo gets lots of likes and retweets and whatever, you will decide to keep redoing this sort of idea- in this way, photography is evolving to become a discourse based on audience interest. In other ways, this is a smoke screen. Audience are interested in what everyone else is interested in; what society tells us to be interested in, what the "opinion leaders" are interested in (and them selves) so this flowery sort of idealized democracy which the internet is meant to be, is actually a controlled thing, and Instagram is popular now because of a whole series of culture happenings which tell us edited old looking photos are cool.

- some disagree with instagram, one telling us that it "devalues" photography (what does that mean? devalues! As if everyone having access to it devalues it) and that there is no money in it. and photographers are not credited for their work. This is true, and is part of the idea of photography having to evolve from a set position to a new idea- and it is still changing, so if it is a good or bad thing is hard to decide.

John Berger 

- Argues there are two types of photograph; the private and the public. The public photo is one which is used in newspapers and online, one that is "torn from its context/reality" and has become "arbitrary". The public photo is a "strangers view on things." A private photo is one which is "inside the home", a photo which might have a narrative to you, and is "living", because it is "within your home community."
- Argues that photos are now an agent of capitalism and the "immediate gratification of reality", an agent of surveillance, and spectacle for the masses. Photographs are taken to remember something, and this takes over from memory. Photos are now about commodification, and control, they are used to mean something, as an argument.
-Suggests we must stop trying to "use" photos in this way, and suggests to stop photos being a dead reflection of history, a "public" ideal with no meaning, what we need to do is "look at public photos, take upon ourselves to learn from them/use them to build history, so they become living in a living context"- taking the dead into our own lives. Makes a "family of man- public photos become private" Do this by not having a photo as an argument, but as a narrative, with many connections and links, like a memory.

-> To me, this seems a naive and pessimistic idea. How does he mean us to interalize ALL photographs? To do this with some photos i understand, but the sheer number, and sheer pain of alot of photos, mean that this is an impossible idea. He also seems to not think that public photos also have narrative to us, if we are living through it, and to what we might have read. This may not be a LIVING account of it, but there will almost always be some context, to which we will make links.

photographer research (as recommended from class)

Ken O'hara
A Japanese photographer who became famous for his close ups of faces, in a project called "one." I'm not quite sure how this links to my project, but it definitely does encourage a creepy voyeurism- you have to look right at their faces, there is nothing else see. In that way, i guess it is very interesting because there is no bad representation here; you can only look at one place (their faces) and only see what is there; there is nothing to tell you about culture or wealth or context; they are also all shot in the same way, which is leveling the field. Here are some of his portraits:

  


I really like this idea, because it focuses on the people, not about the people, which I think is quite an exciting and important thing for a portrait to do; there is no interference. It also is quite claustrophobic and personal; in general you are never this close to a person; here you can see everything. I like this firstly because set up models and with air brushing, people look fake; whereas these people can be seen as "anti-portrait", as in, you can see every blemish and line. I also like this because there is no distraction, and you can only look into their eyes, and at their level. This is voyeuristic, but also quite dis-arming.

Matthew Brady

An early photographer of the American period, he took photos of the poor in America; he did this as a documentary project, and was of the idea that photography is for recording, and should not be "for art", that is should be a precise science. An interesting street documentation photographer, as he was one of the first, and this shows in his (film based) photographs.

He aimed to try and show "what will be history". This photo above is one taken during the American civil war. I like his use of film, and how the quality is because of it. Early documentary photography tried to objective, and this is shown by the distance, and by the anti-framing of his shots. There are many other photographers like this, who I could use as a historical basis for my project.

Martin Parr
A british photographer best known for photographing the middle class (and critizing them) He is one of favorite for portraits because he gets an incredibly interesting social portrait. I liked his photos for their bright, holiday-photo feel, but with that sort of underlying commentary on the middle class values. I would want his photos as a sort of aesthetic feel to my piece, though I will not have any control over this.



Mishka Henner

Mishka Henner belongs to a small but growing group of artists who, instead of purely using the internet as a promotional tool for their work, appropriate photographic images circulating on the world wide web to create innovative artworks that question a clear definition of authorship, ownership and originality.
-Got famous by doing a project where he took images from google street view of prostitutes waiting for clientele on the street; these images are not his own, but yet his idea to take them and make them his own- make you look at them- is what makes it photography.



He has done lots of similar things with found footage on the internet, especially from google. For instance, "pumped" and "dutch landscapes", which are the world from above, as seen by googlemaps. From the pumps, he has made animated giffs which change from summer to spring. This added movement gives the photo a timelapse.

Feedback!

I got some good feedback from my project. A lot of people liked it, and there were several good ideas about how to show the work- my favorite was an idea of voyeurism (something I hadn't even thought to go with my project) and about a way to show it where you looked through glasses or something. I was thinking maybe I could take one of those viewing telescopes from Brighton (or hire it, you know) and try and make a slideshow in it. If I was doing this in relation to childhood, it would be like viewing your childhood (with an object you only use, really, in your childhood) I really liked this idea!

Other ideas- A lot of people mentioned Humans of New York (i mentioned him earlier) because he talks to people on the street, and gets their idea. There is also a ted talk to look at him.

-idea of the gaze.

-idea of photos being "more pure" if an amateur takes them.

-Matthew Brady/Martin Parr to look at

-community theories; who makes a community etc etc

-project to look at- disposable camera project, Tina goes shopping, Henri Latigue, izismile.com

-Idea of the "other"

I has lots of good feedback, which was awesome! The main concern is that I find a group to focus on, which I will do now. I was wondering if i could do a pre-shoot, in Brighton, by approaching people and asking them to photograph themselves in any way they want... Might get some strange shots from that, and maybe an idea of this. I will now look at all of these suggestions of documentary and photographers, and try to get some more research into ideas.

Lighting a studio

We were lighting in the studio today with the Wafer Lights. It is quite similar set up to lighting off studio. First you have one light, and you use the flash of it to light meter against the subject. the light meter has to read the same as the aperture number of the the camera- if the number is too low, turn the power up and vis-versa. This process is repeated with a fill light, and then with both fill light and main, to check it isn't over-exposed. If it is too over exposed, you can change the shutter speed, or turn aperture up a stop. here is a useful aperture/shutter-speed chart:

It is important to realize that when lighting, you have to decide what the aperture is, based on the depth of field, and then set shutterspeed to this. We wanted the aperture to be 5.6, and then had to make sure the light meter of the flash matched this much. We had transmitters to do this on the camera and light meter. 
After this, we realized that the white infinity-curve background was grey instead of white. 

This is because the camera's exposure meter reads everything at a mid-grey, which it takes as a middle between the most exposed and least exposed areas of the photograph. You can change the tone of grey by light metering in different areas. Ansel Adams devolved the "Zone System", which is useful to work out how to expose properly. This is what Adams suggested what each zone meant.

Ansel Adams' description of zones (geared towards black and white printing)

Low values Zone 0 Complete lack of density in the negative image, other than film base density plus fog. Total black in the print. We will omit zone 0 from the remainder of this tutorial; zone 1 will be considered pure black. Omitting zone 0 makes little practical difference. Zone 1 Effective threshold. First step above complete black in the print. Slight tonality, but no texture. Zone 2 First suggestion of texture. Deep tonalities, representing the darkest part of the image in which some detail is required. Zone 3 Average dark materials. Low values showing adequate texture. Middle values Zone 4 Average dark foliage. Dark stone. Landscape shadow. Recommended shadow value for portraits in sunlight. Zone 5 Clear north sky (panchromatic rendering). Dark skin. Gray stone. Average weathered wood. Middle gray (18% reflectance). Zone 6 Average Caucasian skin value. Light stone. Shadows in snow in sunlit snowscapes. High values Zone 7 Very light skin. Light gray objects. Average snow with acute side lighting. Zone 8 Whites with textures and delicate values (not blank whites). Snow in full shade. Highlights on Caucasian skin. Zone 9 Glaring white surfaces. Snow in flat sunlight. White without texture. (The only subjects higher than Zone 9 would be light sources; they would be rendered as the maximum white value of the paper surface.)

Though this is more of a problem for those who shoot on film cameras, this is important when shooting on a white background. To make it look white, you take a reflected reading off the white wall. If the wall is the same fstop as the aperture you are shooting at, (which it should be) you can increase the aperture of the lights or camera by 2 stops and the wall should start coming out white. This is similar in outside photography- Select an area of the scene, meter it, then adjust the exposure by the difference between the zone you want in the final image and zone 5 (middle gray).

Lisa Barnard

We had a talk by Lisa Barnard, a photographer who is interested in photography which is interactive and makes fluid the lines between producer, work and viewer. I found her work quite interesting, as she often used found imagery and virtual photography, both of which can be argued to ber "not her work." AN example is some pictures of Margerat thatcher she found in an old conservative building. She took photos of these, which were at various stages of rotting, and these became an art project,as below.



These photos are, of course, someones else's wrok, but by photographing them now in a different context and condidtion, we are asked to think different things about them; I thourght that this was an intersting way for photography and who might own it, to go.

She also has done quite a lot of virtual photography, in respect to army soliders having to interact with a "virtual world" as a way to deal with war trauma. Quite a lot of her photography is therefore shots of a world which is non-exsistant. (as below)
This raises quite a lot of intersting questions about photography; photography is obsessed with the idea that it is "a representation of reality", whether or not it can be argued to be this is something critics are constantly talking about. Here, she is photographing a controlled and compltley computer based virtual reality, with a digital camera. In terms of Manovitch, this could be seen to be a total change in photography; it is now only numbers and screens, and virtual effects. In other ways, this is still photography, she is capturing a moment and asking us to look and think about it; in this picture opposite, we are asked to try and understand what a solider might face during a war, and in this trauma clinic, and are faced with our own ideas of whether or not this is satisfactory.


A final note on Barnad; she said she likes to have an egaged and interactive audience; not just photos on a wall. I liked this idea, and have looked at some of her installations for ideas. She osten has a mix of information and video, as well as photographs. She also set up light boxes, in which the photographs are set up, and you can walk around, to make the art work appear more 3D, and interactive, not just on a wall.

Readings- Sontang, Bates and Meta data

Notes on the Margins of Meta-data

--> Significance of meta data to image economy: 2 types of meta data- firstly the one the camera gives it (data, shutterspeed, camera make location) and the next is the tags comments, viewing, pins, ratings etc.
---> Tagging can be seen as democratic, users can make popular images by tagging them/ like bombing, tag spamming, etc distorting the algorithms of search engines. This realeses images from their stillness- new meaning and continuous re-invention, and it gives users the ability to control and change this.
--> Meanings of photos on the internet becomes unstable; meta data can be changed, and the ability to distort the algorithms of the search engine mean that some images can become more viewed. Also, users can delete/change their interactions, so continuous changing nature/value of photographs. The far-ness of an image from the original also means it seems to have a destabilization of meaning; there is no link between original meaning, users give it meaning. Suggests that this doesnt mean there is less meaning, just less foundations.
---> Networked image is instantaneous, and can be given many representations and significant; up to user. This makes it not static.
---> a digital image is never singular; it can reblogged, retweeted, repeated, etc etc


LINKS to "From public spheres to public screens", and the idea that photo has become the most important economy: "Images create reality", "image events", photographs and TV images have become a new currency by which we discuss ideas and there is public discourse. What is important is what becomes talked about on the news and which images circulate and gain cultural capital.
The idea of a "public screen", where everything acts on dissimulation via images; the public use images as a way to understand the world, and reality, and can use images as a way to get power; if an image gains lots of internet attention, it often has to addressed (jn a political system)

Susan Sontang:
To live is to be photographed, to have a record of one's life, and therefore, to go on with
one's life, oblivious, or claiming to be oblivious, to the camera's non-stop attentions --- or
to stop, and pose. To act is to share in the community of actions recorded as images. The
expression of satisfaction at the acts of torture being inflicted on helpless, trussed, naked
victims is only part of the story. There is the primal satisfaction of being photographed, to
which one is now more inclined to respond not with a stiff, direct gaze (as in former times)
but with glee. The events are in part designed to be photographed. The grin is a grin for
the camera. There would be something missing if, after stacking the naked men, you
couldn't take a picture of them.

The pictures taken by American soldiers in Abu Ghraib reflect a shift in the use made of
pictures --- less objects to be saved than messages to be disseminated, circulated. Most
soldiers possess a digital camera. Where once photographing war was the province of
photo-journalists, now the soldiers themselves are all photographers --- recording their
war, their fun, their observations of what they find picturesque, their atrocities --- and
swapping images among themselves, and e-mailing them around the globe.
There is more and more recording of what people do, by themselves. At least or
especially in America, Andy Warhol's ideal of filming real events in real time ---life isn't
edited, why should its record be edited? --- has become a norm for millions of webcasts,
in which people record their day, each in his or her own reality show.

David Bates: Photographic Theory

Three types of photographic theory: the Victorian aesthetic, (photos; reality versus art, whether photography is just a "copy") 1920/30's and mass reproduction (photography as a new way to see things, changes the way we represent ourselves and view each other, change in "meaning") and 1960/70's (photography as a significant formation of social/political/cultural meaning)

Semiotics- the idea of signs and signifiers, connotation and denotation within a photo. The way we understand the world is by a "structure" of understanding based on a language of signs, the signs add together to make meanings. There is only an arbitrary meaning between word and photo. Photographs are a representation of a signifer, (representation without words) but the meaning of this signifer can have polysemic meanings depending on cultural context and language.
Barthes and Saussure are important men in this theory; recognized a relationship between signier and signified. They both helped to devolop the idea above in terms of structuralism.
The way we understand photography depends on a set of codes- perspective, focus, the understanding of how a photo works. Importantly: Rhetoric; the idea that we understand a photo is made up of codes; they are constructed by a photographer and by society. Photographs can be manipulated and used to form an argument.
There is an argument between semiotics and realism; realism focuses on the similarities between the signifer and the signified, the reality the photo catches (when we look at a photo, we know it "happened",) whereas semiotics looks at the differences between the two (the photo signifies a reality, but what is signified is polysemic and constructed. We know that someone took a photo there, but the reality and "truth" of it are disputed)
post structuralism: That structures can change and be controlled, and that there is a deeper form of looking which is to do with the human psyche and nature. Relates to punctum?

Pitch

Documentary photography aims to record the lives of people or places; however, this always seems to be subjective and to be from the point of view of the photographer, so I decided to instead give the camera to the people, and see how what they take differs from my own photos. I am not sure whether I will do a photo project showing a place (St James street, Covered Market) or age range (children vs adult) just children, or myself versus the person I am documenting. I hope to combine the photos I have into a sort of online documentary of photos, or to create an interactive installation by the degree show.

In the style of http://www.juliangermain.com/projects/no-olho.php

This was doen in 17 years, I will not have that space of time, but this varied and interesting style is what I am thinking of doing. i would also like to create a sort of online space for it.

http://the100.thinkplaymake.co/ Or like this; voices of many people working to make a big project.


possible ideas

1) Get 24 different people in brighton- from child to grandma, busniess man and beggar- to take 24 photos in 24 hours, and map it.

2) get people in an all-encomapssing place (ie- covered market oxford, or snoopers paradies, or st james street) to take photos over a month or week, and then to make a online map of them, with written accounts. (in the case of covered market/snoopers paradise, this could be about troubles of independce)

3) Work with children in several classes and encourage them to take photos of their lives, and then do an installation wherby you have to be small to view it- representing themsleves.

4) Children versus adult; this would probably have to base around some event; buit might show the difference in adult photo taking (which is dominated by convention) and child photo taking (which is not)

5) Give the camera to people who do not often have voices. I was thinking homeless people (not sure how that would work) tio take photos of Brighton and their lives. I was also thinking some of the mentally handicapped people who work on the Oska Bright film festival; they do not often get a chance to express themsleves creativly.

6) Finally, and more conventionally, portraits where I take a photo (how i think a portrait should be) contrasted with their own ideas of how they should be represented.


Possible theories this relates to:
-Anything ethical- about represntation and if its right to take a photo.
-Disposible and it's "analogue" nostalgia
-A what is photography" debate on whether photography has to be just someone holding a camera. (art versus reality)
-How we read a photograph and conventions of a norm.

Photographer Study; Brandon Stanton, HONY

A photographer, (documentary)

Brandon Stanton

Brandon is a self taught photographer in New York, who took to taking photos of people in the street when he was unemployed. he posts a few a day, and writes a caption underneath (a quote which the person says to him during conversation.) 

The blog is called "Humans of New York", and now has several million followers, a best selling book, and most photos get 50,000 likes on facebook (more or less) here are a few examples of his work:

""I haven't slept in a very long time."

"Why's that?"
"I work two jobs at two different hotels. I just finished three shifts in a row. Last night I went to my room service job at 11 PM, and worked through the night until 6 AM. I went home to take a shower, then had to be at the other hotel for my front desk job at 8 AM. I worked there until 3:30 PM, then ran back to the first hotel for another shift that started at 4 PM. I just got off a few minutes ago, and I'm sitting here to rest for a moment before getting on the train home."
"Oh, wow."
"I work this hard because I'm a single parent. I came here when I was very young from the Dominican Republic. I'm very happy with what I have done. I started with nothing and I raised two kids. But I have to work two jobs so that they can get an education and go to college. I tell them everyday: 'Look at how hard I work. Look at how I don't have time to sleep. I can't control my own time. I can't manage my own schedule. This is why you need an education. I work this hard so that you can do the things that I am unable to do, and have the things that I can't have.'"

This man became very animated while discussing his ideas on happiness. He extended the index finger of each hand, and brought them very close together, as pictured: "Babies are happy with this much," he said. "All they need is one ounce of milk." Then he started to slowly widen the space between his fingers, until they were very far apart: "Adults," he said, "are not even happy with this much."

He pulled his fingers close together again:
"You only need this to be happy," he said.

Then he pulled them far apart again:
"You do not need this."

"I'm an artist. I paint murals."
"What would you say to a young artist?"
"Fuck the rules."

"Do what the fuck you want."

There are several things that draw me to this type of photography> Firstly, the interaction between subject and person; you don;t just look at them, you hear something about their personality, and often these little snippets of something are so profound and honest, they change the photo completely. The project spans all ages and races, from all sides of the city, and this makes it really interesting from an anthropological point of view, as well as just happy that such a mix of people exist together peacefully. What is also positive is that members can interact, they post replies and comments, and these are generally sweet and supportive of the person- Brandon has created one of the nicest places on the internet by giving everyone a voice- from subject to viewer, and this equalizing seems to mean that everyone is lovely to each other.  

I was also interested in this because it takes away from normal portraiture, the subject is seen and engaged in conversation, and rarely set up to be photographed; which makes it feel very real. 

I would also like to mention the idea of value in photography and online (which we discussed in class today). These photos are noticed because they can be accessed so easily, and because they relate to hundreds, thousands of people- each one captures something very pogniant, but when looking you often click through them quickly, which seems to lessons their value. Despite this, the quotes and everyday expereinces of people is what has drawn millions of people to this site, so I feel like what is important to note is that value has changed in terms of photography; with this atleast, what isn't important is the physical copy and the individual photo, it is the community created around, the idea of everyday voices speaking and reacting and being seen and saying things which we can ALL relate to; the value of the photo is therefore in its interest and cultural value. Relates to my idea too!