For this assignment I had to take a series of five portraits building on the exercises in the unit exploring portraits taken outside (street) and inside (studio). From the brief I was unsure whether the series could be either street … Continue reading Assignment 2 – vice versa
The objective for this exercise was to shoot a series of three images of different people, either indoors or outdoors, using the same background. Having opted to shoot outside I struggled to find a background that I thought was interesting … Continue reading Exercise 2.4: Same background, different model (P.70)
For this exercise I have to select ten images from my archive and separate them into two sets, one that can be thought of as windows, the other as mirrors. These are the definitions used by John Szarkowski in the title of the 1978 exhibition he curated at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MoMA) in New York. The full title of the exhibition was ‘Mirrors and Windows: American Photography since 1960’ (Marien, 2014). The press release from 1978 states MIRRORS AND WINDOWS has been organised around Szarkowski’s thesis that such personal vision take one of two forms. In metaphorical terms, … Continue reading Exercise 3.1 – Mirrors and windows (P.74)
Julian Germain (1962 – ) is a British photographer who studied at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham and the Royal College of Art in London. His work For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness features images of Charlie Snelling taken over and eight year period from April 1992 until Snelling’s death in 2000. Germain met Snelling when he passed his house on his way to photograph a football match in Portsmouth. Intrigued by the brightly coloured yellow and orange house with plants, shells and things found on the beach for sale in the front window, Germain … Continue reading Julian Germain – For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness
Joel Sternfeld is an American photographer in the documentary traditon of Walker Evans and Robert Frank. A contemporary of Philip-Lorca diCorcia, his work was pioneering in its use of colour and exploration of social issues. Among the work featured on … Continue reading Joel Sternfeld
Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s work Heads is a set of portraits taken in New York’s bustling Time Square. To create the work diCorcia mounted a powerful strobe light on scaffolding and used a remote control to activate the camera and flash and … Continue reading Philip-Lorca diCorcia – Heads
One of the photographers I came across whilst undertaking Context and Narrative was Dave Heath. I saw a small exhibition of his work at the Photographers Gallery and blogged about it here. Heath had a difficult childhood, his father leaving the family when he was one, his mother abondoning him when he was four and his grandparents declining to raise him. As a result he was raised in an orphanage and a series of foster homes in Philadelphia. It is possible that this difficult upbringing influenced his work much of which has a sense of sadness about it. Many of … Continue reading Dave Heath
Having thought about my second shortlist of eight images I have decided to discard the following three images. I have decided to discard this image as the man’s eyes are not visible. In this image the burnt out high-lights on … Continue reading Exercise 2.2 – Covert (P.64)
This talk was one in a series being run by the Royal Academy and featured David Bailey in conversation with Tim Marlow, the Chief Executive and Director of the Design Museum. The talk was loosely scheduled to coincide with the … Continue reading Artist in conversation – David Bailey – Royal Academy
Closely consider the work of the practitioners discussed above, then try to shoot a series of five portraits of subjects who are unaware of the fact they are being photographed. The five photographers mentioned in the introduction to this to exercise, Walker Evans, Philip-Lorca diCorza, Lukas Kuzma, Martin Parr and Tom Wood; all adopted different approaches to capture covert images. Evans and diCorza’s approaches were very technical with hidden cameras and remote shutter release. Tom Wood adopted an almost polar opposite approach of hiding in plain sight; by regularly attending the same venue and giving prints to the people he … Continue reading Exercise 2.2- Covert (P.64)
OCA517401I&P 