Learning Log
2nd April 2013
Continuing from my Learning log for
Assignment 2, I just read this article on J.M. Colberg’s Conscientious website[i]
about a lawsuit between a collector of William Eggleston’s print, Jonathan
Sobel, and William Eggleston. The collector was suing Mr. Eggleston stating
that Mr. Eggleston has ‘devalued his collection’ by reprinting works that the
collector had previously acquired, in it’s original format, from the
photographers’ oeuvre v.
This brings me back to my question regarding
MOMA’s acquisition of two of Tom Hunter’s images. No doubt an organization such
as MOMA would make sure they bought all the material that Tom Hunter produced but,
could Tom Hunter, at some point in the future say, I’m not happy with the original
version so I have revisited it and produced the version that I wanted to in the
first place, siting technological improvements as to the reason why the second
version of the work is now being produced.
In the music industry you have a similar
situation where an artist in the early stage of their career signs the rights
for the work to the record company in perpetuity. Later in the artist’s career,
he feels he wants a better deal either in terms of royalty or developing other
markets. The solution the artist takes is to re-record the music for which he will
have full control over. The record company keeps the original and the artist
exploits the newer version[ii].
With an image, there is less likelihood
that the initial image is reproducible, unless all the elements used to create
the original are still available. In terms of a tableau this could be possible
depending on the time passed since the original was made. But, if the image is
one of a fleeting moment then the image as it was is no longer possible to
recreate but the title could be used to create a lineage between the new and
old iterations of the image.
What does this mean for the ownership, exploitation
and future of the ownership of the negative or the digital file?
What’s probably alarming in the Eggleston
case is that the new, larger versions of the images where printed from digital
information. Does this mean that before the originals were sold they were
scanned? Which it must have. Which would mean that at any point in the future
the ‘new format’ could be continually used to exploit the market for sort after
collector prints vi .
Colour
3 levels of the effect of colour:
1
The visual level – basic what
you see is what you get. Black cat, read door blue hat.
2
Expressive – the emotional
level where colour is used to trigger a feeling – a sunset maybe an example of
this.
3
Symbolic – the cultural level
where colour triggers associated feeling based on ones upbringing – American
flag could be a example of these. Even without the stars and stripes arranging
the colours anything like the order in of the flag will trigger that
association in an American.
The photographer has the opportunity to
affect the colour in an image. By changing either where he stands or what is
attached to the lens, one can have control of the order and or palette of an
image.
Hue – can be changed either buy waiting for
the light to change or by adding a filter.
Brilliance – this is what lightness would
be in Photoshop
Saturation is the state of the colour from
its pure state to its unsaturated, greyer dirtier state.
Primary
Colours
Yellow
– Pure yellow is just yellow. There is no dark
yellow unless mixed with other colours like black. Vigorous and sharp.
Blue – Is the darkest primary colour. It recedes and is seen as a cool
colour. Blue is seen as passivity, withdrawn, reflective
Red – advances especially when placed nest to green. Seen as dense / solid.
Secondary
Colour
Orange - mixture of yellow and red. Bold
Violet – Mixture of red and blue seen as mystery and immensity.
Green – the colour with the widest range to the human eye.
Broken
Colours – The condition of colours found in the
real world. This could be an aged painted wall that parts of it have faded over
time or dirtied so that we don’t see the pure colour as it came out of the tin.
Subtle
Palette – rewarding in its subtle effect. Being
able to identify them, a good way to train the eye.
Interference colours - oil slicks
Black and white – Lack Hue.
Black - also be called D-Max as it is the
maximum density your able to reach on a negative or on paper. Black can never
be too black.
White – is the lack of any tone. Care need
to be taken when recording it. Over exposed you lose details. Under exposed it
looks too gray and muddy.
Blending colours – The colour in
photographs is enmeshed in the structure[iii]
Basic Colour Combinations – Red / Green,
Orange/Blue, Yellow/Violet.
Value of colours Yellow 9, Orange 8, Red /
green 6, Blue 4, Violet 3.
Intuitive use of Colour – Understand colour
harmony but follow intuitive response to a potential colour image.
Red / Green Harmony – have the same
luminosity so the is a harmony in their combination. When seen at the same luminosity
they appear to vibrate.
Blue / Orange – Orange is twice as luminous
as blue. Best balance is when blue is
twice the area of orange. These colours don’t react to one another the same way
as red to green.
Yellow / Violet – Yellow should occupy 1/3
of it relationship to Violet
Multi-Colour combinations - The strongest
combinations are 3 colours. Red, yellow blue are the most powerful. Strong
colour combinations = short sharp shock. Too many of the same thing = tiring.
Soft Colours – diminishing the colour
intensity can help direct the eye to more detail in an image. This could be why
black and white images have the affect of making you focus on form and not
distracted by colour elements.
Colour contrast – the feel of a colour can
change depending on the colour next to it. Green next to orange will seem cool.
The combination of yellow orange green feels like green would seem the heavier
colour.
Distance – a small amount of a warm colour
on a cool colour will add depth as the warm colour is seen to advance and the
cool colour recede.
Coolness and warmth – Blue is seen as light
and airy. Blue / Green = water orange / red = heat dryness.
Visit
to the Photographers’ Gallery.
There was a study visit to the photographers
gallery planned but I am not able make. I went to see the Deutsche Borse
Photography prize contenders outside this visit.
I am a fan of the Cristina De Middle’s
work, The Afronauts. I think it is a
great conceptual work. The blurred lines between fact and fiction counters, in
my opinion, the immediate conclusion one gets to when considering whether there
could ever have been a Zambian space mission. The fact that there was, even
though it was misguided and floored from the outset, is one of the surprises
the book springs on you.
The found image verses the found image. The
image sourced / searched for using the Internet. The image sourced walking the
streets or hometown verses the image conceived through fact but delivers a
fiction in a format that projects a truth. Or does it?
The Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin work
is a powerful critique of wa
Chris Killip’s work seems to be the odd one
out. His work is from the classic era of documentary photography. Reading Gerry
Badger’s essay on Killip, gives you a greater insight into Chris Killip’s work.
What wasn’t obvious to me while at the photographers gallery was the political
aspects of Killip’s images. Looking at the images again in the exhibition
catalogue at home, it is easier to see the commentary in the chosen images.
Even though there is an underlying politic
in Killip’s images there seems to be a softness about his images, maybe even an
empathy with the area and people he is documenting. For me, and for this reason,
Killip is the odd one out in the prize competition. It’s either one of two
things, 1, he is the outright winner as in the traditional sense his is a photographic
work in the classic mold. Or 2, his work in this competition is completely out
of place and also out of step with the modern photography that owns up to it
roots in conceptualism and presents it’s modern face with unashamed rigour. By
this I mean, all the other entrants in the completion openly exploit modern
technology to get their message across. Killip’s is the only work that harks
back to another time. Although, his work is as relevant now, in this time of
austerity as it was then.
My winner would be The Afronauts. I think
this conceptual book, based on a fact, challenges your perception of the possibility
of an African nations ability to join the space race and also your perception of
an African nation, at that time and also today. It puts you right at the centre
to challenge your prejudice. Not in a sense of colour prejudice but your prejudice
in the automatic belief that an African space mission is unviable as an idea
let alone for the Zambian nation to actually have setup a government space
mission. Although the actual space mission completely failed and was flawed
from the outset, the books playfully romanticise this idea and from it produces
great images and a great object in the book itself.
Mishka Henner’s work is based on found
images using Google maps to source these images. For me, this is where the
problem lies. Mishka explains his process in an interview on the Photographers’
Gallery’s’ website iv. I think that this type of project, one where
images are found online specifically, are a product of the access to more
images via the internet and because of the mechanised way these images are
made, there is a treasure trove of images waiting to be found and all it needs
is a patient researcher and a computer. I think in this case, the photographer
becomes the curator and presents images that he finds, which the public maybe
curious to see and find interesting but I don’t think it becomes a photographer
photographic work.
In the case of the Adam Broomberg and
Oliver Chanarin’s work they have found images also from the Internet but this
is different. War Primer 2 is based on a book called War Primer by Bertolt Brecht
originally published in 1955 which itself ‘sampled’ newspaper clippings and
placed poems with these clipping to critique the newspapers use of it’s medium.
Broomberg and Chanarin’s work augments Brecht’s by updating it with ‘sampled’
images from the Internet. The difference to Henner’s work is that Broomberg are
searching for images taken originally by someone then uploaded to the Internet
not made by drone and stitching software.
I think the distinction between human and mechanical is were the
difference lies.
But for me, as powerful as the Broomberg and
Chanarin’s work is, it’s the concept and the curating that is powerful
here. It is still a curated work.
30 June 2013
At this point I know that War Primer 2 has
won the Deutsche Borse prize but I would have given it to Cristina.
Photography - the key concepts
Connotation - the cultural information
implied by the photograph but not represented / seen in the photograph.
Denotation - is the image that is
presented in the image.
Scripo visual - the relationship the labelling
of the image has on he viewer in describing the image and guiding his
interpretation of the image. Refer to image 1.1 fox Tolbert. The description
confirms a reading of the image and we accept that the image is as described
but it could equally be a completely made up scene that is labelled to direct
our understanding / interpretation of the image.
Metonymy (highlight to define. i.e.
ride for car / track for horse race)
The denotation of an image is as
dependent on the knowledge of the one who describes the image as the one who
reads it. Both are dependent on their knowledge of the subject of the image and
the language of an image to understand the image.
Polysemic - the photograph has the
potential for many meanings dependent on the knowledge the viewer or the reader
brings to viewing the image. You could say that each reader has their
interpretation, the image-maker, the describer and the viewer/s
Talbot's image first example of truth
being implied but not stated. In other words the image was made outdoors and
ordered to look like a library indoors. The labelling led us to believe it was
made indoors but the technology of the time was not ably sufficient for indoor
image making. So, our reading of the image is directed by Talbot to imply its
origins and to disguise its true origins.
John Tagg - Caribbean migrants 1950s -
1960s
Jo Spence - very difficult to look at
once you realise she is knowingly documenting her life. Her life with an
illness that she knows is killing her.
Victorian aesthetics - naturalism and
pictorialism are the foundation of the Victorian aesthetic. Impressionism is
the painter’s answer to the photographs aesthetic.
Concepts formed in the 1920s - 1930s
Montage
Realism
Formalism
Democratic vision
Modernism
Documentary
Political photography
Psychical realism
All formed in this period in avant
guard manifestos - constructivism / futurism / surrealism also by individual
writers photographers
The 1960s - 1970s
Barbara Rosenblum - photographers at
work
Structuralism - new thinking of society
and culture.
The civil rights movements - issue of
race
Women's movement
Semiotics - signs / language of
photography. Semiotics is not unique to photography buy to the language of
signs used throughout life. I.e. languages / symbols.
The concept of an object is given a
reality in our choice of name. The signifier refers to the signified but this
is based on cultural accepted naming concepts that are routed in language. The
example use in the book is dog, chein or izu all names for a dog but are all
signifier in their own language outside of this language use the signifiers
have no relevance in another language system. A table is only a table if you
speak English. Then the concept and the nome culture is accepted.
Antithesis - is the used to describe
the contrasts found in an image. To describe the use of the antithesis is to
describe the contrast found within an image. Antithesis is used to
describe
Jacob Riis - staged images
John Thompson - images - street life in
London
Henry Mayhew - images
Sublime is the ying to the picturesque
yang. The picturesque presents an ideal / idyllic scene where as the sublime is
darker, tense.
Objective / Subjective
The objective photographer, based on the description
that is of a neutral camera view, Richard Avedon’s American West can be seen as
an example of the Objective photographer and Objective images. Avedon’s use of
a white back ground and high resolution, large format film, allows the subject
to be studied in detail by Avedon’s camera which is tripod based to allow for
the highest fidelity in capture.
Robert Frank can be described along with
Henri Cartier Bresson as Subjective photographers. Their esthetic is one of the
moment. One that is captured and based on a moment that is as quickly taken as
is gone.
The Still Life.
The still life as a painterly subject
would, before reading this section, just have been a painterly concept used in
photography as it was in the painters world. But the over exposure we have
today to the still life is such that it doesn’t even register that most of the
images we see in our daily life are still life images. Create to convince you
that something is worth it but you never think of these images as still life
just as advertising or
Daido Moriyama interview in the Telegraph.
Daido talks about what photography is to
him. He says
“I think by nature I’m almost
biologically apolitical,” he says. “For me photographs are taken in the eye
before you’ve even thought what they mean. That’s the reality I’m interested in
capturing.”
“For me, capturing what I feel with my
body is more important than the technicalities of photography. If the image is
shaking, it’s OK, if it’s out of focus, it’s OK. Clarity isn’t what photography
is about.”
Books verses prints in a gallery.
Gallery
Visits
10th April 2013 - Art Gallery
New South Wales, Sydney
The
gallery had an exhibition of images by Helmut Newton
We
used to talk about love – Contemporary Photo Media
Body
Double – video and sculpture instillation by Julie Rrap
12TH APRIL 2013 – White Rabbit
Gallery, Sydney, Australia
The
gallery specialises in contemporary Chinese are from 2000 onwards.
19th April Study visit V&A
Print Room
I had been to the V&A just previous to
this visit and had visited the history of photography exhibition but the chance
to see the prints close up also revealed a lot about how images appear online
or in a glossy magazine or photo book. What was good to see was what the
process looks like. What an albumen
print looks like and how it differs to a silver nitrate print. When you see
these online they look amazing and somehow seem to be at an unobtainable level
but to see them up close you see that the print even the great ones look
nothing like their online versions which seem to have an added gloss to them.
Holding the print I your hand says, yes this is a great picture and the
artistry is there to see but it was made by human hands which have left their
mark.
29th April 2013 Deutsche Börse
Photography Prize
28th June 2013 Three Shadows
Gallery Beijing, China
30th June 2013 Tokyo
Metropolitan Museum of Photography
World
press Photo 2013
The Aesthetics
of Photography Five Elements
1968 Japanese
Photography
6th July 2013 Roppongi Museum of
Art – Andreas Gursky
Colour
relationships
Orange Blue.
From an image making perspective this
combination of colours was pretty straightforward to find.
Red Green
This combination is readily out there and
common place but finding something that made a good image was difficult.
Yellow Violet
This colour combination was extremely
difficult to find. I could not find
examples of this combination in the ratios need in the man made world. Even in
nature it was difficult to find the colours close enough to make an image from
them.
Colour
combinations that appeal.
As this guy was walking towards me I could
see how brightly coloured he looked as I was standing by this shop shutter. The
orange paint on the shutter added to help with the balance of the colours as a
whole. The black jacket provided a frame along with the black shutters. The
green shirt with the yellow buttons and collar support the yellow hat. His red
/ pink glasses are balanced by the graffiti, all combine to make an image where
the colours seem to jump out at you but feel punchy and balanced.
While in Japan I liked the graphic character
of the pedestrian crossings which in some areas in Roppongi where freshly
painted. I could see the graphic potential in the crossing but wanted to find a
way to use that in an image. While I was walking around Ginza I tried a few
experiments, varying the angle of the camera while trying to catch people or taxis
on the crossing. In this image I thought about the lines of the crossing
interacting with the frame first of all and took a few frames to see how that
looked. Then I waited for a taxi to drive by. In this frame all the diagonal
lines line up through the frame giving the red band across the taxi a more
dynamic appearance. With the motion blur and the fortunate gesture of the
driver, makes the image more dynamic, almost like the taxi is moving through
the frame.
This scene, of a bus stop in China, seemed
to have a lot of elements already. The trees framed the tower blocks giving the
background height and the green trees nicely border the blue sky. The blue of the bus stop advert balanced with
the trees and the sky. The lower third is nicely partitioned in the frame by
the bus and the bus stop. The woman running toward the bus gives you an entry
in to the frame. The woman running has a pink top on which forms a nice
triangle with the man at the bus stop and a man to her right holding a pink
bag. I’m not sure I saw all these relationships whilst taking the picture but
that little bit of luck makes the image work.
What I liked about this stadium venue in
China was the unusual design of the complex and, from my position on the path towards
the complex, the perspective of the path and the lines as they go towards the
stadium. While I was waiting for elements to present themselves I noticed this
father and his son walking towards me but unusually with the son leading his
dad who is listening to his mobile phone. This reversal of roles adds to the
reading of the image. Also, I noticed the nice colour elements. The father and son with blue tops. The father
with red shorts and the red banner with writing to the right of the frame all
seemed to sit will with the greyness of the stadium complex and the sky. The colour elements grab your eye, as they
are not competing with other colour elements in the frame. What I would have
liked would be not to have the girl in yellow in the frame, which I think
breaks the connection the reds are making. Even with the yellow in the frame
the reds are enough to show a relationship. The message that this is China is
communicated with the red of the shorts and the lettering in the banner.
Colour
into tones in Black and white.
Original Colour
Yellow filter
Red
Filter
Green
Filter
Colour
Harmony through complementary colours.
With
this nighttime image from the back streets of Roppongi, Japan, when I saw this
girl sitting on the metal street bench, I saw the green of the fence and the
pink of her bag. I looked for an angle that would lead you along the bench
towards her, and then follow her gaze, which leads to the red light. I don’t
know if this girl was a working girl but the way that perspective works it adds
a little question to the image.
To get this image of the ginger haired lady
I had to run after her in Trafalgar Square. Once she realised I wasn’t trying
to sell her anything, or rob her, she stopped and spent a few minutes with me
to get this image. The idea for this came from 2 places. One is a Lee
Friedlander image of his shadow on the back of a woman in front of him vii which
for me is as opportunist as it is great and the other is an idea I had for a
project of ginger haired ladies. I would
have preferred if the sky at the time was cloud less but the effect is still
achieved.
This
image of the mother combing her daughter’s hair before was taken in a Hangzhou
morning market in China. The mother and daughter seem to be caught between to
blocks of colour. The red of the chicken pieces in the foreground and the green
of the poster in the background.
Finding yellow and violet combinations has
proved very difficult. It was then a surprise to see this combination of a
yellow painted wall and violet kiln bricks outside a foundry in east London. The
bluey grey background to the container of bricks allows the subtle colour of
the bricks to stand forward and not be lost and the weathered yellow wall
balances the bricks with it’s faded quality.
Colour harmony through similar colours
This man was sitting outside his house in Gangzhou China. He seemed to be all ready set for me to take a picture with his very calm and relaxed posture.
Thai Monks Guard house Bangkok, Thailand. I was walking around a monks temple and was just about to leave when it started to rain. I took shelter in the entrance to the temple having passed this man in the guard hut. As I was waiting for the rain to stop I started thinking there must be a picture here. I was joined taking shelter by a man on a motorcycle wearing a white helmet. he looked interesting and I thought about asking him if I could take a picture of him, just before I was going to go up to him, he removed his helmet and for me the picture I saw was gone. At that point I turned and saw the guard in the hut I had just passed and thought that would make an interesting image. I took an image to see if it worked while I waited for the rain to stop. It looked good but I would need to get closer. Once the rain stopped I approached him and he said yes. I took a few pictures moving closer each time. The closer I got the better the picture looked. It reminded me of the famous saying which is 'if your pictures are not good enough your not closer enough' and slow down!!
I thought the crossings in Roppongi, Tokyo had a very graphic character and was waiting at this one for something interesting to happen. This man and his girlfriend looked interesting as they approached the crossing. I started to take pictures and liked this one, one because of the blue of her dress matching the background and also the way it looks, almost like a film still.
Babies being taken for a outing in Tokyo, Japan.
Colour
Contrast Through Contrasting colours
Hangzhou
China. These guys were aware of my presence but did not change their relaxed
manner as I approached them with my camera. The grey wall and dull orange of
the street paving allowed the very contrasting colours to leap at you. The
brooms hanging from the window were a welcomed gift.
As I
was leaving the Museum of Art Roppongi, Japan, I noticed this man sitting. His
manner was very peaceful and his choice of clothes slightly unusual which drew
me to him. The red
This image from Guangzhou China of a street
vendor looked like a classic street scene before I pickup my camera to try and
capture it. I took a few pictures before the man looked up and realised I was
taking pictures of him but he continued to allow me to take more frames and
liked the results that I showed him. This feels to me as a nicely balanced
image colour wise and composition wise. The divisions feel natural and each
section has it’s own thing going on that compliments the next section.
This image from Hangzhou, China is a very tight
crop. I could not get close to the subject so framed to crop later.
Colour
Accent using any of the above
This
images was inspired by a book I saw which is all about businessmen and their
suits.
A
street cleaner in Hangzhou China. I approached this very kind man to take his
picture to which he agreed. I took a couple pictures and was subtle trying to manoeuvre
him so that the red street sign behind him was visible. I then waited for a bus
to fill in the other side of the image. I have few other versions but this one
with the crop to cut out the overcast sky, worked the best.
I
approached this man outside the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square he seemed to
have been placed there perfectly for this assignment. His blue suit and green
tie and cuff links balance the grass. The only thing I would have preferred is
a wide lens, as I wanted more of the grass to balance out the blue better. He
was happy to allow me to take the photo as I told him I did not want to include
his face I just wanted his suit against the grass.
With
this image of the telephone box and the lady with the red hand bag, I spotted
the orange cup next to the phone box and thought it would be good to get two
telephone boxes the cup with a red bus plus someone walking past in red in the
same picture. I waited for a while and whilst I got a few variations of the
idea, the strongest one was this one with an unusually silver painted bus. But,
the black coat and the posture of the woman with the red handbag make the image
dynamic. The swing of the bag seems to point you towards the cup and the single
telephone box that is visible. This cropped version concentrates the
relationship of the main colours. The orange pops out between the to red
elements either side it. Having more detail of the telephone box and the lady
did not add to the image.
[1] Colberg, J.M. (2013) Judge Rules William
Eggleston Can Clone His Own Work, Available at: http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/2013/04/judge_rules_william_eggleston_can_clone_his_own_work/
(Accessed: 2nd April 2013).
[1] Arendt, P. (2005) Play it again, Mick, Available
at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2005/sep/27/popandrock1
(Accessed: 2nd April 2013).
[1] OCA (n.d.) Basic Colour Theory, Barnsley:
Open Collage of the Arts.
iv The Photographers Gallery (2013) Mishka Henner, Available
at: http://www.thephotographersgallery.org.uk/mishka-henner-3
(Accessed: 13th July 2013).
v
Harris, G., Burns, C. (2013) Court dismisses lawsuit over Eggleston
reprints, Available at: http://theartnewspaper.com/articles/Court-dismisses-lawsuit-over-Eggleston-reprints-/29285
(Accessed: 2nd April 2013).
vi
Duray,D. (2013) Judge Dismisses Collector’s Lawsuit Against William
Eggleston , Available at: http://galleristny.com/2013/03/judge-dismisses-collectors-lawsuit-against-william-eggleston/
(Accessed: 2nd April 2013).