Joel Meyerowitz - Street Photography
Joel Meyerowitz is a photographer who is most well known for his street photography, he has played a very important role in coloured photography in the mid 60s and even later. He was born in 1938 in New York and started his photography journey in 1962. He was the only photographers who was given unimpeded access to ground zero during 9/11. The images that he has captured during the wake of 9/11 have been apart of major national archive which have travelled to over 200 cities i 60 countries.
the thing that i like about his phots is the way that he has framed them as well the fact that he has captured them using a film camera. Furthermore the style of his street photography is also the style of photography that i have wanted to t for a while, this is because i find it fun and interesting how you can capture people in the least expected moment and also with how spontaneous.
the thing that i like about his phots is the way that he has framed them as well the fact that he has captured them using a film camera. Furthermore the style of his street photography is also the style of photography that i have wanted to t for a while, this is because i find it fun and interesting how you can capture people in the least expected moment and also with how spontaneous.
From all of the photos I've seen of his within this roll of film I personally really like this one because of how the courses have turned out due to the use of the 35 mm colour film. From what it look it has been taken on the streets of New York on a very busy street, these pictures where taken in 1965. The photo looks like it has been taken from eye level and in landscape. Although the photo has been taken in colour they still look like they have a greyish type of filter on top of it. This makes the photo look somewhat gloomy. In my opinion I don’t think that these photos have been staged I believe that they are candid pictures pf people going about their day, which is another reason why I love the pictures as
Exercise 7 - The Public Stage
For my first ever personal investigation I decided to go completely out of my comfort zone and go take pictures of strangers out in public using a digital camera. This was an extremely difficult as for me as doing these types of thing makes me quite nervous especially when i'm alone which I was for this photoshoot. I first began by seeing around my house near Lee weather there was much going on and when there wasn't so I decided to go Blackheath were I knew there would be a lot of people. Although there were many people there wasn't the space to stand around and take good pictures therefore I went to Greenwich which I knew I would have a better chance at taking pictures . Due to the fact that this was my first person investigation I don’t think that it is perfect and could use a lot of improvements as the task was to take pictures of the public and although I have done that I have better ideas for how I would do it next time.
Beat Streuli - Tanager Plage
Beat Streuli is a photographer who was born in Switzerland in 1957 and then later attended school in Basel, Zurich and then later Berlin. during the time that he was in Basel he attended art school where he mainly concentrated on abstract painting and installations. However it was during the time he was in Rome Italy where he rediscovered his fascination for figuration and photography. In the 90s he started to develop his own style of photography that he would be well known for. His first work was in Black and white format which he developed on a larger scale. He also went on to show case them in a monumental slide projection which was first showcased at PS1 in New York city. from looking at his work i noticed that his photographs are not there to criticise people or single them out in society but that they are there to to make the viewer thing about how they perceive not only a single individual but all people as a whole and our surroundings
The particular projects of his that cought my attention was his Tanger Plage where he has photographed people in Tanger Morocco.
The particular projects of his that cought my attention was his Tanger Plage where he has photographed people in Tanger Morocco.
When I first looked at this photograph I had this feeling of entrapment and claustrophobia, I noticed that i had this feeling with many of his images and what i realised from that is that its more the feeling of uncomfortably from knowing that someone is taking extremely zoomed in images of not only the world but also people. As well as this after knowing that these images where for his personal gallery of Tanger Plage.
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Special person
For this weeks exploration I decided to try out another one of the 13 way to begin a personal investigation. For this week I did the exercise of some one special to me and I went with my younger brother. Although the exercise requires me to also photgraog two other people he finds admiring I didn't get to do that as both of the people were not available however that is something I hope to further work on going forward with this project. My aim throughout this shoot was to just follow my brother around and photograph him doing his normal daily routine, which included things like going out, eating, playing games, hanging out with our cousins. I also tried taking photographs of certain things I like about him. Such has his love for cloths and fashion or certain features of his or hobbies he has. the reason why I specifically chose my brother for this shoot out of anyone is because since he was younger out of all of my all of my siblings he had this certain comfort around me where he could share or talk about things he didn't want to with others and that has continued as he's grown older. However the other reason why is because although we argue like sibling and get upset at each other I will always admire his for how passionate he is with his hobbies, how he takes care of Youngers round him and how is always supportive of the things I do. There is a lot I have to still learn and with my brother I'm always learning weather that be new slag or trends or even how to look at certain things from a different perspective. Doing this photoshoot with him helped me be able to gain inspiration for future photoshoots which he could hopefully be apart of.
Close to Home - Exercise 2
Today during class went to try out another exercise that I was interested in before stetting to focuses on one. And today I went with the close to home exercise, this task required me to walk around a 10 min walking distance from the school and take pictures from a specific distance and the focus was to move yourself instead of zooming in and out using the camera lens. I first photographed a couple of pictures outside of the school and then went to take the rest by Dover Patrol. I think the pictures turned out well as the lighting was great meaning the colours came out really well, that also means that when she pictures were too light I could edit them to lower the exposure. However some of them were too dark as I took them when the camera had low battery and when it wasn't taking the pictures properly. but even with this issue I was able to lighten up the pictures and which made the sunlight look like a very soft light on the cloths hangers. What I do think I could do better is to take more pictures around the dover area as it has a couple of interesting areas to take pictures of.
Creating structures for Photos
Homework
For homework we were told to find a way to present our photographs , whether it was in a physical or visual presentation. I chose to create a video of the pictures like the ones of my teacher. therefore I chose all my images and added them to iMovie where sorted them onto white backgrounds and then shorted them into 2 second clips, once that was done I just exported it.However one thing I wish now that I has added was added more effect s or some music to the edit. As well as this I wish I had created a more unique video which represented more style of photography and media. However I am glad that I chose these specific pictures to do this homework because it made me realise that I don't really want to do this exercise as I didn't feel that they were quite the style that I want to take pictures .
Second attempt
This was my second attempt at making something using my pictures. Of course the first time I had made a video expedition I use iMovie however on the second time I decided to use Canva where I was able to choose my template and only had to select the order of images and transitions. For most of the pictures I have put them either in the order they were taken or put them together based off their locations. Some are put together because of their colours. Once I had the presentation ready I downloaded it and put it on a hard drive and then on premier pro, where I wanted to add audio to it. I used a free site called thematic which lets you download music which is copy write free. After selecting the song I added it to the edit and slowed down the pace of the video as I felt it was to fast for the music. then I exported the vied and put it on YouTube. I think by doing the project a second time I was able to make better editing decision in term of what pictures I wanted next to each other as well as use my media editing skills to create a cool video exhibition.
Experimentation
During our task to make something out of our photographs I found the white frame from the Art Department and decide to use it as a frame. I then realised that for the amount of pictures I have I couldn't just choose 4 of them to be big in one frame, therefore I made them smaller so multiple could fit in one frame. before that I faced difficulty attaching the mount board to the frame so that I could then stick the images on the mount board.
Further Investigating
This weeks task was to go out and take more photos related to our last photo shoot. This photoshoot was to do with exercise 2 which is close to home. So for this task I went within a 10 min walking distance from my house but because I was already in lee green I devised to also take photographs there. I mainly took pictures in one particular part of lee green and that was by the Dojo where the stairs and the bridge is by Sainsbury. There is an art wall and many other interesting things there with I was able to take photos of one of them was the SUMO sign on a door and then the chair by the door. The other photographs were taken around my house which is not a very interesting place at all with very little things with look nice. However some things I did love from around my house was the street name sign and a look around the gate. Overall I think that some of the images taken have been successful however there are some which I could improve on. These can be things such as lighting, angles and more generally the things I photographed. When I next do a photo shoot I hope to be able to find the beauty in even the not so interesting parts of what I'm photographing so that they can be presented as aesthetic and beautiful.
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Oriella Sidiqi
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In this photoshoot I tried out the experiment of shoot first think later which s exercise 4. I look these photographs over the course of 4/5 days whenever I went anywhere. What I found when doing this exercise was that I was less worried about what worked and what didn't and felt that I didn't feel pressure to fit a certain concept. this is because I knew that in the end the photos would in some way go together weather it had to do with colours, vibe or location. What I also tired to do this time is to capture some elements or textures such as the wavy stone wall or the grass. After I took these photos during the editing process I also changed the exposure brightness and contrast of all of the photos this was because some of the colours in them looked flat and didn't stand out the way I wanted them too. Further more I experimented with proximity and different types of photography, this is because although I usually like taking radome photos almost like snapshots I also tried to take pictures of nature which I would never mix with street photography. However I did this because I wanted to show a contrast with the city and man made this and nature, and even though I have less pictures of nature in the final gallery of photos i still wanted to incorporate some and tried hard to even though its not something I would do which is why I think I struggled to pick out more of the nature ones I took which can be found in the first gallery of photos. Over all I think that most of the photographs were successful although I would have liked to have incorporated more images of nature in the finale gallery. As well as this I think that next time I should try to experiment with different types of lightings such as morning noon and then night to create a more divers range of photos. in the future what I would want to create with some of these pictures is a Analogue Collage which is where you cut out parts of the picture and stick them onto one another to create a what looks like a fictional photo, one person who does this is Ahbin Choi who is an artist on instagram.
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Windows and Mirrors
JOHN SZARKOWSKI
John Szarkowski was a photographer of the 1960s and 90s whose post war photography has become some of the most influential works not only in photography but also in history and many other things. he has published many books such as The Photographers Eye, Winogrand: Figments form the Real World as well as Mirrors and Windows: American photography since 1960.
He published Mirrors and Windows in 1978, which included photographs taken by other photographers form 1960s to 1973 which had either been lost or never recorded as a work of art or Photography as at the time people didn’t believe photography was an actual line of work. |
… there is a fundamental dichotomy in contemporary photography between those who think of photography as a means of self-expression and those who think of it as a method of exploration.
-- John Szarkowski
when looking at photography there are many interesting concepts , and one of these is mirrors and windows. in the lesson we looked into weather we thought certain pictures where mirrors or windows into the world based of our own interpretation of the phrase. what I found is that when I'm looking at a photography that has been taken by someone else i see that photograph as a window , this is because I feel a distant connection to the image as i wasn't one to take it or witness the moment. however when I'm looking at a photo that has been taken by me it feels more like a mirror as i'm seeing that moments of when i took the photograph but also the final image. What's interesting though is that there were certain images which i had taken yet related to them which then made the images mirrors for me .
the task we did too experiment with mirrors and windows was to look at around 35 images of different things and places and people and to put them into a scale of what we thought they were mirrors or windows? what we found from this was that although me and my partner agreed on where most of the pictures went there was one image which we both strongly disagreed on. this was of a rough looking new bag that was brought in by the person and photographed. my side of this was that i though that image was a window as i felt it looked vintage and like something hat would be on display at a museum due to the way the bag was photographed . However my partner strongly believed it was a mirror due to all the memories that it hold and its a reflection of the person that had it . this is where we realised that the way interpret whether a photo a mirrors or a windows is very different.
the task we did too experiment with mirrors and windows was to look at around 35 images of different things and places and people and to put them into a scale of what we thought they were mirrors or windows? what we found from this was that although me and my partner agreed on where most of the pictures went there was one image which we both strongly disagreed on. this was of a rough looking new bag that was brought in by the person and photographed. my side of this was that i though that image was a window as i felt it looked vintage and like something hat would be on display at a museum due to the way the bag was photographed . However my partner strongly believed it was a mirror due to all the memories that it hold and its a reflection of the person that had it . this is where we realised that the way interpret whether a photo a mirrors or a windows is very different.
Alfred Hitchcock
Rear Window
My Response
Alejandra Carles Tolra
Alejandra Carles Tolra is a photographer as well as a lecturer based in London, however she previously studied in the US to get her MFA in Photography in Massachusetts Boston, and even before that she attended school in Barcelona Spain where she is originally from. she recently took a visit to our school and helped us learn more about photography as well as show us her own work. she has recently also published her own project called Where We Belong, which is inspired by a festival she had attended in Bath and saw groups of people dressed up in regency cloths for a Jane Austen Festival. she asked around about why people would dress up and found that it was because they were big fans of Jane Austin and called themselves Janites. she then spent the next 3 years with some people she hd met and went to their gathering to help her take her photographs with and unbiased mind.
Respons to Alejandra Carles Torla
This week we were given the task to take 30 photographs around some of the words we were introduced to from Alejandra's workshop. We had to take the pictures while thinking about what the world meant to each of us as individuals as well as what we felt and thought about when we see the words and even what we imagine when we hear the word.
The images I took mainly reflect light, friends, collaboration, performance and dreamlike as well as some of the others. I think that this photoshoot was somewhat successful but I do wish that I was able to think more abstract for some of the other words. i think that although at first i really struggled to figure out what i wanted to do in this shoot and what type of pictures i wanted to create, i was able to reflect and rethink on the words and how i wanted the photos to represent the words. i believe if i was to this task again i could do a better job at representing words such as posed enlightened, home and fiction.
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Portraiture
Today we experimented with portraiture in pairs. The task was to take 12 successful portraits of your partner, we could also choose between environmental portraiture and studio portraits. I decided to got to the studio to take my portrait as I always wanted to use gel lighting to take cool and colourful photos. At first I wasn’t sure about how I wanted my model to act or pose so i started with just head shot type of photos from one place. I started to move around more and see what the lighting was like from different angles. I think this was affective because even though for my first model I had the same lighting set up the whole time by moving around I was able to create different compositions and mood with the photos. after looking around the studio to help find something that can inspire me i found a clapper board and used it as a prop. I then got the model to hold it up to their face and pose with it however they feel like. i think the the portraits with the prop helped the photos look more playful.
The images above are from my second attempt of taking portraits, however what I did different this time was that I went out and took more environmental portraits rather than studio style portraits. This is because i wanted to see what type of portraiture I liked taking photographs of better. From this shoot I don’t think I was able to choose which one I like better as I don’t think that the environment that I was in is the type of environment I would take portraits for which is why I don’t think I was able to take photos to the best of my abilities.
This was my attempt at environmental portraits from outside of school with some of my friends, my inspiration was Nico Froclichs portraits of people form south london and although its nothing like his work I think it was still a good attempt at taking environmental portraits but I still think that there is a lot more to improve on. As well as maybe trying a different camera next time as I feel that whenever I take pictures on the Cannon EOS I don’t end up liking the images as the white balance is off, I tried t fix it through the setting it still had a lot of white cast across the images. I think that I should try to edit them in iPhoto’s to see if there will be a difference. I feel that my favourite pictures are of the girl as I think the back ground was nice as well as the lighting. I also really like the image of the guy at the bus stop with the construction site behind him.
we continued to experiment with environmental photography in the camera work shop however this was the first time i had taken portraits using manual settings, i think that it was easier than i expected but i still had some difficulty because this day it was actually way too bright. i think that the ones i have chosen are quiet good in terms of the aperture being right and the ISO being correct. I also like the fact that these where shot RAW means that the quality of the images are way better than the other images i have taken.
Nico Froehlich
Out of the entire South of the River project by Nico Froehlich my favourite photo is this image of a grocery shop, I think the reason i like it so much is due to its composition and how it has been framed to capture the shop as a whole the people around it as well as the poodle in front of it which reflection of the shop onto the water. I also like how your eyes first get drawn to the water and then up to the shop as it creates a feeling of curiosity to know more about where this is but also look at the people and analyse the image more. I think that although it seams like a simple photo for those who enjoy photography we can see the amount of though and consideration that went into the image which make us as the viewer appreciate it more.
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Hicham Benohoud
Hichman Benohoud was born in Marrakech Morroco in 1968 and went to school to study a degree in visual arts
Personal Investigation Exam - Clementine's World
Today we had a mock exam/making day, which is basically when you are given the task to go out and create photographs from 3 of the options that the examiners give you. I chose task 2 which was colour theory, this is when you choose one colour a photography around and area and create at least 20 pictures. I chose the colour orange as I though it would be a bit difficult to photograph as its not a colour I usually see as pretty. However what i found through this task is that I can make ways for it to look nicely composed and aesthetic. What I began to do was change the cameras white balance to B6 G4 and used that to create most of the photographs, I did this because I felt that I would not have enough time when I got back to school to edit every photo individually and heighten their colours. I think that this photoshoot has been my most successful among all of the ones I've done so far as I think that the composition as well as the colours togethers go very well together