Jumpology

Phillippe Halsman: "When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed towards the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears." (Phillippe Halsman's Jump Book, 1959)

f/4.5 - 1/8000 sec - ISO-6400

f/4.5 - 1/8000 sec - ISO-6400

In today's practical we looked at 'Jumpology'. This task was to get us thinking about subjects that are in motion. This would require a high shutter speed to avoid motion blur. This would mean that the image sensors of our camera's would be exposed to light for a very short duration of time. This would result in very dark images.





















To compensate for this, we used a high ISO sensitivity setting along with an appropriate aperture setting that took into account the weather conditions. I wanted to have a depth of field for my photographs that didn't blur too much of the background out too, so I selected the exposure settings you can see on the  left under my examples.

Moving Cars & Motion Blur

In this exercise, we took pictures of moving cars. The blur in the background was achieved by selecting a slower shutter speed than we would normally expect to use for taking a photograph of a subject in motion, however, we had to track the moving subject with the camera until the drivers window was opposite where we were standing.

As the centre of the road was quite far away from us, we selected an appropriate aperture that would bring the subject into focus and allow us to see the front seats of the car's interior. The middle image (below) seems to have the subject in better focus than the other two - this was achieved by stopping aperture down a step and slowing the shutter speed slightly.

f/22 - 1/50 sec - ISO-250

f/20 - 1/40 sec - ISO-250

f/22 - 1/50 sec - ISO-250

Inspirational Images

Gavin Watson is the author of a best selling book, 'Skins'. I find his work inspirational as I believe he manages to capture, in photograph, the meaning of what it's like to be part of a youth subculture. Gavin, from the age of 14, immersed himself in the the skinhead subculture and the two-tone and ska music scene and took photograph of those immediately around him. 

The photograph of his muse, his brother Neville, embracing a tape player conveys the importance of the relationship between music and identity within a youth subculture. You can't help but feel you want to know what song and band is being played.

The two pictures above this, who i'll assume were friends of Watson, capture youthful rebellion - both in fashion and in the act. In the top image, we see two young men enjoying destroying part of a building that has 'SKINS' engraved into its side. We can draw connections here between anti-fashion and anti-social behaviour.

In the image below this, the subject is placed in front of a backdrop covered in simple graffiti depicting political symbols and further references to music. While most would consider distaste at the poor graffiti, this style has become symbolic of the skinhead and punk movements.

3 Good and 3 Bad Photographs

Three Good

 By using a low-angle, I originally intended this photograph to exaggerate the height of the staircase. Accidentally, someone appeared in photograph as I took the picture. Now I've looked back at the photograph, the persons presence actually helped to emphasise what I was trying to achieve.

I found that the blank background really allows the viewer to inspect the subject. We can see how the natural light created a highlight on the side of the post. I also appreciate the angles of the signs and how they've been exaggerated from where I was positioned taking the photograph.


  On viewing this close-up a second time, I appreciated this photograph revealed the complexities of a simple subject. 

                                        Three Bad

This photograph is clearly too bright. You can't even see the subject, which was a long row of pebbles skirting a building.

I had hoped this photograph would have been a lot more darker from where I was standing inside to draw a focus on the movement of people through the doorway.

Again, I tried standing under the scaffolding so I could exaggerate the height. The photograph seems blurred, and I wanted the scaffolding bars to run parallel with the frame.

Photographer Research - Weegee and Lisette Model

Arthur 'Weegee' Fellig, 1899-1968

Weegee was known for his black and white street photography. He started out as a press photographer and conducted his work by following New York City's emergency services. From this, common themes in his street photography surrounded realistic scenes of crimes, injury and death.

As he sold his images to the press, he was selective about what images to shoot. He understood that in some areas of New York brawls occurred quite often and didn't follow up with a compelling story. So he would focus on areas like Park Avenue where such events were more scandalous. These would be the images that he could sell to the tabloid press. 

Weegee's photography give us a stark glimpse into human behaviour. I think he documents human behaviour at its worst, through crime and injury. Being a press photographer, I can understand why some of his images cause the spectator to be shocked at what they are looking at. Weegee had to sell his images to make money, so it would appear his themes were apt for selling to the press - real scenes depicting sensationalist stories.

Lisette Model 1901 - 1983

"Photography is the easiest art, which perhaps makes it the hardest."

Model's photography can also be considered 'street photography'. Her focus on unique individual's seems to be a passion of hers. I'm quite fascinated how she manages to tell us so much information about an individual in just one mere photograph.

I quite like how in any of her images, the characters she chooses a larger than life. Take, for instance, the circus man and the singer above - I find it quite humorous that such big personalities are actually physically big people too. This is quite a playful technique Model has used in these images.

***

Both Weegee and Model were huge influences on Diane Arbus. We can see stark similarities in their work. I notice that in all of their images they seem to document a real life moment. Although, I struggle to work out whether Arbus' work is actually staged or not. We could see this a distancing away from the street photography and 'documentary' nature of her predecessors. Nevertheless, there is certainly a lot to 'read' in all of their works and all appear rich in photographic discourse.

G. Clarke - How do we Read a Photograph?

We need to read photographs more like a text than simply just an image. We know this as all reading involves a complex set of meanings (problematic, ambiguous and contradictory, for example) and relationships between reader/viewer and text/image. 

Photographic Discourse - The way in which a photograph achieves meaning. This is just like any other form of language and has its own conventions and histories.

'A photo is a saturated ideological context' - In this case we must be able to read it to see all of it's complexities and ambiguities.

Diane Arbus: Photos contain a photographic message and photography is a practice of signification.

We can see this a representation of our individual way with the world - a reflection of our beliefs about culture, our codes and our human values.

Images have illusory (not real) powers. We enter 'hidden' relationships when engaging with images, or in Arbus' terms take part in a photographic discourse.

Putting it into practice - Reading a Photograph

Identical Twins - Diane Arbus - 1967

If we take this image as a 'literal record' we can simply say this is a photograph of identical twins. But lets explore what we understand about the reading above.

We open up a photographic discourse by looking at the word 'identical'. This allows us to question what ideas about 'identity' are being explored in this image. While this is an image of identical twins, we can actually see a lot of differences about them; their facial expressions, their clothing, their hair. Arbus is telling us that these identical twins are actually unique individuals.

Further questioning:

The subjects have been photographed in a space/background that offers no contextualisation of when the photograph was taken (historical) or where (social). We could argue that Arbus didn't want us to attribute any more information about these twins and just to take them as the human beings as they are. The message she's telling us about human identity isn't confused by allowing us to place these girls in a social or historical context.

Why is the path at an angle behind them? 

Could the photographic message be further enhanced by this choice. Could this aspect of the image be telling us that our presuppositions about identity are also askew? Maybe this seemingly imperfection about the image is what causes us to look for a deeper meaning within the picture and not just accept it's apparent 'literalness' - an image of identical twins. The meaning is conveyed through difference, not similarity.

Other Points to note on 'how to read photographs'

We must consider other images in the collections exhibited to us. Could a wider, over-arching message be conveyed to us when we take into account the photographers' other work?

We must also understand any apparent influences on the photographer whose work we are spectating. For example, Arbus was heavily influenced by the works of Wee Gee and Lisette Model.

Photographer as Auteur

"The image is as much a reflection of the 'I' of the Photographer as it is of the 'eye' of the camera."

Photographers may have a common style or repetition of particular motifs in their work. We could see this as them leaving their visual signature through a body of work allowing us to identify the images with the person that has created them. It is a mark of creative authenticity. It's important to know of any of these when seeing the work of a photographer with a stamp of authenticity, it may help us to understand any ambiguous meanings of an image.

R. Barthes - The Denotative and the Connotative

A Family on their Lawn one Sunday in Westchester, NY - Diane Arbus - 1968

Denotative: And image of a couple with a child playing a distance away in the background. The female model on the left appears to be preoccupied with sunbathing on her lounger. The male model on the right has his head in his hand. We can place this image in suburbia, it appears to be a large garden space.

Connotative: The man and woman seem to be placed symmetrically, hinting at the notion of equality between the two. The man's hand gesture makes him seem exasperated or having feelings of dread and hopelessness. This could be a reflection on 1960s society and its stereotypes; where men would go out and work and women would lead a more life of domesticity. This is further emphasised by the fact the child at the back appears closer to the mother than the father. We could read from this that the strains of this relationship mean the child isn't close to the father, perhaps. The size of the garden may tell us about the excesses of living in suburbia. Do a family of three really need this much space to do what they are doing in the image? We could say the hedges at the back of the photograph seem to close off this large space for three people, and with the child playing alone at the back it hints at a sense of loneliness.

J. Ingledew - Photography

Photography In the Digital Age

Today, digital cameras are definitely more popular than film cameras and we can all be photographers without ever coming into contact with a film roll or a dark room.

Even though the combination of digital photographs and the computer have provided us with new territory to explore (editing and manipulation), we could think that the medium has become a lot more accessible in recent times.

Why do we like Photographs?

"Photographs get at the essence of things." pg 12

Photographs have an ability to provide us with information, gain an emotional response from the viewer and also inspire us. With reference to the photographer Nan Goldin who claims with photography 'you don't lose anything again', Ingledew explains how our lives can be told through photographs from birth to death and all the experiences in between. Photographs preserve, making something that was once 'unseeable', now something we can easily see.

The Power of Photographs

Photographs can be a tool used for social change and to change public opinions.

"A great photograph can be worth tens of thousands of words." pg 15

However, we a photograph speaks in a universal language - we can all understand it - Ingledew claims. I would disagree with this part of the reading - surely, interpretation is dependent on the viewers unique cultural contexts? Surely, one person could understand an image differently to a person of another culture? A picture of a steak may be seen as a record of simply a meal to one person, but for someone who is vegan or vegetarian it may mean something completely different - a symbol of speciesism and therefore murder, perhaps.

Eye and Cameras

The camera allows us to view and register events in ways our eyes simply cannot They are able to use exposures of fractions of seconds up to hours. The photographer must set an aperture to brighten or darken images where they eye adjusts instantly. The camera obviously has ways of showing us things are eyes can't, opening up a whole new visual world ready to be discovered.

Camera Obscura

Cameras today are still made up of what they were when photography was conceived - a black box with a hole to allow light in, a lens and materials that are sensitive to light.

'Camera obscura' means dark room (this is how cameras got their name). During the Renaissance, people understood that a small hole in the wall of a dark room would project images of scenes outside on to the opposing wall.

Giovanni Battista della Porta and Lenses

Battista della Porta experimented by placing lenses in the hole of a camera obscura at the the end of the 16th century, and found that an upside down image was created on the opposing wall. He gathered an audience to view his findings and got others to dance around outside. Their image was projected on to the wall and the audience fled in fear. Luckily, Battista della Porta wasn't charged for sorcery!

1800s - Joseph Nicephore Niepce

Creator of the world's first photograph. He coated sheets of pewter with bitumen of Judea, which hardens when exposed to sunlight.

He placed this in his camera obscura which overlooked a pear tree and pigeon house. He was able to separate the soft areas that received less light from the hardened areas which received more. The first photograph was created from a direct positive image (no negative). Niepce called this a 'heliograph', meaning sun drawing.

1800s - Daguerre

Daguerre refined the process of Niepce. He used a silver plate in a camera obscura containing Iodine, this created light-sensitive silver iodide. Once exposed, the plate captured the image but wasn't yet visible. To develop the image, he used mercury fumes and salt to make the image visible and fixed (not over develop).

The process spread and became popular all around the world. The resulting images were called 'Dageurreotypes', and those that made them were exhibited their works for the public to see. They even signed their names at the bottom of them, as an artist would sign a painting.

Henry Fox Talbot

Daguerre's process had a problem. It was complex and the images could not be reproduced. In England, 1841, Henry Fox Talbot presented a new process which worked by by creating paper negatives and using primitive cameras called 'mousetraps' which contained light -sensitive paper. He called this the Calotype, waxed paper negatives that for the first time allowed multiple prints of the same photograph to be made.

1870s - The requirement of 'Shutters'

During this period photographic plates that were so sensitive to light, required to be exposed to light for spans of time so short that photographers could not do this themselves. The first shutters were like small guillotines.

1872 allowed Eadweard Muybridge to photograph a horse as it galloped to show at a point during it's gallop all the horses feet didn't touch the ground. This was achieved by creating a shutter that was rigged by elastic bands.

George Eastman 1854-1932

Eastman was founder of the Kodak company who saw the commercial possibilities of the camera. He basically created the 'roll of film' so 48 exposures could be taken in one roll of film in a camera. This allowed for photographers to take numerous photographs at once and work with ease. The roll of film was lightweight compared the fragile glass and metal plates used before.

Eastman allowed photography to become accessible to everyone - he created the Kodak that could take 100 pictures on a roll of film which you could then mail to the Kodak factory to print the pictures. The camera and images were then sent back to the photographer.

By 1900, Eastman and Kodak were selling $1 cameras which allowed for six pictures to be taken. Photography became an accessible medium to just about everyone.