Monthly Archives: July 2018

Assignment 5 – Self Reflection before feedback

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Reflection

“Check your work against the assessment criteria for this course before you send it to your tutor. Make some notes in our learning log about how well you believe your work
meets each criterion.”

For this final assignment of Expressing your vision I have returned to my first love of documenting my family on a day out in Brighton.

I knew I was going to use this for this assignment, so I was more conscious of the images I was taking and am lucky that they are so used to seeing me with a camera in my hand that they largely ignore it!  Unlike my last assignment where I was able to go back and start again because I wasn’t happy with the results, this time it was a ‘one day only’ opportunity – so No pressure!! 

Technically, I have often struggled with taking picture of people moving in the past but since finding the auto ISO setting on my camera, I am now able to reduce blurring so am much more confident in that respect.

Having taken over 200 photos, my biggest challenge was whittling it down to just 10 photos.  Unlike other assignments where I ‘made’ the images and could take what I need for the project this was more about selecting 10 images that work individually, together and tell the story. To do this I set myself some strict criteria, each image must contain either a member of my family or myself (in some way).  It must add new information as per the brief and it must be compositionally pleasing.  I also wanted them to work together as a set and tell the story of the day.

Needless to say there were a number of permutations considered until I came up with my final 10. So I tried to imagine what it would look like as a magazine article and picked images that I thought would go enhance the story.  It meant having to leave out some images which I really liked, but I guess that’s what this assignment is about.  The ability to express your viewpoint for a subject within a limited number of images giving more impact and greater context to them.

mock up of what a magazine article might look like

Ultimately I am pleased with the results and the images I have chosen.  I do believe they are a coherent set which tell the story I wanted to tell and meet the criterion of the brief.  This section more than any other has made me think about how I select and present my work.  

and just to prove I was there on the i360 here’s a picture of me taken by my husband. A rare event indeed 😉

Ralph Flynn. The Day Trip, 2018

back to Assignment 5 – Photography is simple

Book Review – Ways of Seeing (John Berger)

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Having been nudged by my tutor to do some more reading, I ordered a number of books from the Essential and Recommended Reading lists.

Ways of Seeing by John Berger was the first book to arrive and it turned out to be a very timely purchase, as the first essay was all about viewpoint, which is just where I am in the course right now.

It is a small book that is split into 7 essays; 4 using words and images and 3 using only images.  They can be read in order.

 

Essay 1

Even a photograph. For photographs are not, as is often assumed, a mechanical record.  Every time we look at a photograph, we are aware, however slightly, of the photographer selecting that sight from an infinity of other possible sights.

The author argues that sight and seeing come before words and that whilst words are important, they are merely an attempt to describe what we are seeing.  Furthermore, he says that what we see is influenced by what we know.  Much of our ‘knowledge and experience’ is gained from historical art which we interpret from our current viewpoints.  He says that that art is also sanitized from reality by the artists viewpoint. This is evidenced by the quote:

What we make of that painted moment when it is before our eyes depends upon what we expect of art, and that in turn depends today upon how we have already experienced the meaning of paintings through reproductions.

Essay 2

This is one of the pictorial essays, which seems to be a comment of the portrayal of women in art and advertising. Beyond that I could no discern any great meaning.

Essay 3

in this essay the author discusses “the social presence of a woman a being different in kind than that of a man”.  He describes how women in art, particularly nudes are displayed for the viewer, (presumably a man) 

Essay 4

to follow

Essay 5

to follow

Essay 6

to follow

Essay 7

to follow

Conclusions and Reflections

To be honest got a bit bored with this, I think the point was made about the use of women in art, photography and advertising, so didn’t need to read the rest.  Although this was published originally in 1972 and woman’s rights wasn’t as high on the agenda then, it does still resonate and seems very pertinent to today

references: 

Berger, J, (1972). Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/34166/1/why-we-still-need-ways-of-seeing-john-berger

 

5.3 – Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare (place holder)

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Exercise 5.3
Look again at Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photograph Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare in
Part Three. (If you can get to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London you can see
an original print on permanent display in the Photography Gallery.) Is there a single
element in the image that you could say is the pivotal ‘point’ to which the eye returns
again and again? What information does this ‘point’ contain?
Include a short response to Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare in your learning log. You can
be as imaginative as you like. In order to contextualise your discussion you might
want to include one or two of your own shots, and you may wish to refer to Rinko
Kawauchi’s photograph mentioned above or the Theatres series by Hiroshi Sugimoto
discussed in Part Three. Write about 150–300 words. 

The element of Cartier-Bresson’s photograph Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare to which I continually return is the white space between the man’s legs and his reflection as he jumps.  It is the brightest part of the picture and looks a bit like an arrow pointing in the direction the man is jumping. It is image that is presented as one HC-Bs most iconic images.