Pinterest Board
James Freeman Gallery - Old School
Old School' is a solo exhibition of photographic and sculptural work designed by Liane Lang whilst she was an artist in residence at Eton College in 2014. “Eton was unique to me for having been put to the same use in the same place for more than 500 years, a layering of grand political histories and small personal stories that felt too complex to unpick. The boys who study there also seemed aware of the weight of this history, and the desire to make a mark is inherent in many small acts -- none more so than the propensity to carve one’s name into the walls and benches of the school, a tradition dating back centuries and leading to a palimpsest of inscriptions.”
These inscriptions were the catalyst for the sculptural works on show in this exhibition, bronze resin casts of the real wooden beams and benches containing five centuries of student graffiti. These small and secretive acts of vandalism are reminiscent of youth culture today - the recurring action of attempting to stand out and be remembered. |
Another Kind Of life
Looking at themes of subcultures, countercultures and minorities of all kinds, the show features the work of 20 photographers from the 1950s to the present day. 'Another Kind of Life' follows the lives of individuals and communities operating on the edges of societies ranging from American to Indian, and the exhibition reflects a more diverse view of the world as captured by photographers. Driven by personal and political motivations, many of the artists have sought to provide a true to life representation of the disenfranchised communities with whom they spent months, years and even decades with, often conspiring with them to construct an authentic identity through the camera lens.
Movement
The shutter and aperture controls of a camera limit the exposure time and the outcome of a photographic image. These controls can capture movement in different ways, and depending on how movement is captured, both freedom and limitation can be conveyed. For example if a moment is captured and the subject is striking a pose that constricts their body, the figure will be frozen in a still that portrays the limitation within them, and the physical limitation of the human body.
Francesca Woodman
Francesca Stern Woodman (April 3, 1958 – January 19, 1981) was an American photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring either herself or female models. Many of her photographs show women, naked or clothed, blurred (due to movement and long exposure times), merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured. Her work continues to be the subject of much critical acclaim and attention, years after she died by suicide at the age of 22, in 1981. Her images often have a dark, enigmatic and spectral atmosphere that can be observed to portray a sense imprisonment, which is aided by the derelict surroundings and the inclusion of a black and white effect.
Response
I feel that I effectively captured the aesthetic present in Francesca Woodman's work in my response above, demonstrating how blurring can convey freedom whilst also confining the subject to their surroundings. Though Woodman mainly portrays a subject trapped in their environment, I attempted to convey some of my subjects in positive and freeing environments. This was mainly done by not including a black and white effect in some of my photos, releasing the bold colours of the clothes the subject is wearing. I felt that the completely white background gave a sense of purity, and the subjects facial expressions and body movements further signify her liberation. My grayscaled images were an attempt to relay the message that Woodman conveys in her photos, and I chose a brick wall as a background as i thought that this would portray the harsh setting needed to help show the limitation and restriction of the subject.
Photoshop Extension
Frances Berry
Frances Berry is a photographer, painter, and collage artist from Memphis, Tennessee. By re-working vintage photographs via digital collage and other Photoshop techniques, she gives life to interesting surrealistic works. Her work has appeared at the 2014 Biennial Roadshow in Marfa, Texas, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, as well as galleries around Memphis. Her incorporation of blur in her images can suggest freedom in some of her work, yet she is also able to confine her subject where necessary.
Response
I am happy with my initial response to the work of Frances Berry, however I now realise that I should have stretched the background more than the subject for a similar effect to Berry's images. Otherwise, I feel that I effectively captured a sense of freedom in the two images, without constraining my subjects with the use of the borders that Frances Berry uses. The blur further signifies the freedom of the subjects, and suggests the wide scope of the human personality.
process
Fast Shutter Speed
Philippe Halsmann believed that people expressed their true selves when they jumped:
"Starting in the early 1950s I asked every famous or important person I photographed to jump for me. I was motivated by a genuine curiosity. After all, life has taught us to control and disguise our facial expressions, but it has not taught us to control our jumps. I wanted to see famous people reveal in a jump their ambition or their lack of it, their self-importance or their insecurity, and many other traits."
"Starting in the early 1950s I asked every famous or important person I photographed to jump for me. I was motivated by a genuine curiosity. After all, life has taught us to control and disguise our facial expressions, but it has not taught us to control our jumps. I wanted to see famous people reveal in a jump their ambition or their lack of it, their self-importance or their insecurity, and many other traits."
Response
I am happy with my initial response to Halsmanns work, as I feel that I captured the personality in the jump of a child effectively. Despite the harsh brick wall that I chose as a background to convey a sense of the limitations that many children face today (for example in poverty and famine stricken places around the world), I feel that I successfully shot the freedom of a child's imagination and body without any social preconception. A combination of aspects helped to give the images this effect, as I noticed in Halsmann's photos that the subjects facial expressions, limb and overall body action told different stories. For example, Halsmann's image of American icon Marilyn Monroe has a variety of aspects that may convey features of her personality. Although she appears delighted in her facial expression and overall body motion, her arms appear tense at her sides with her fists clenched, perhaps implying that she isn't as buoyant as she appears.
2ND RESPONSE
I again feel that I adequately shot these photos to capture a sense of antipathy as opposed to my previous shoot, in which I set out to convey the freedom of the mind of a child. Through rigid, clenched body movements, I attempted to invoke the limitations that animosity can bring about and the human potential for loathing whilst also depicting the freedom of the human body and the complex capabilities of the physical being. Throughout this unit, my movement tasks have gone extremely well as I felt that I have consistently shown through my photography that both freedom and limitation can be conveyed through movement of the human body.
Weightless
Water is a substance by which humans and objects can feel weightless in. The buoyancy allows for physical and mental drifting, and can be photographed in powerful and effective ways to convey freedom and limitation. For this task, I wish to portray the freedom of soulless objects; uncomplicated objects that do not feel or face the everyday challenges that many humans do, through photographing them floating or drifting in water.
I am happy with my shoot, in which I used chess pieces and placed them in water allowing them to float and drift around, capturing a soft and serene atmosphere that truly conveys the simplicity of objects. Some of the paint on the chess pieces began peeling away in the water, creating an interesting flowing effect in the water that could perhaps further symbolise the infinite freedom of objects: free from pain when being destroyed. I really liked the effect of the flowing paint in the water, and I hope to recreate and better the effect in the future, possibly in a strand.
Pushing the Limits Of Photography
There are many preconceptions about a photograph, such as the need for it to be in focus, framed well, with good exposure and composition. 'Pushing the Limits of Photography' will challenge some of these preconceptions and expectations, and ask as to whether society values an image less if lacks certain elements that make a photograph 'socially acceptable'.
- Focus
- Composition
- Exposure
- Damage
Focus
Hiroshi Sugimoto
‘I decided to trace the beginnings of our age via architecture. Pushing my old large-format camera’s focal length out to twice-infinity — with no stops on the bellows rail, the view through the lens was an utter blur — I discovered that superlative architecture survives, however dissolved, the onslaught of blurred photography. Thus I began erosion-testing architecture for durability, completely melting away many of the buildings in the process.’
Response
WWW: Lack of lense focus creates 'dissolved' look that Hiroshi Sugimoto references
EBI: Use a black and white effect to give the images more of an eroded look
EBI: Use a black and white effect to give the images more of an eroded look
Composition
Ute Barth
Barth’s color photographs from the series “Grounds” (Adbusters, 2003) provide numerous examples of her soft focus approach. In one of her images, the photograph just catches a glimpse of the edge of a windowsill with a curtain draped over its ledge. Blurred but clear enough to reveal the shapes and forms as identifiable, the small, unframed image seems to drift toward nothing in particular. Muted colour tones reinforce the sense of calm in the image by their understated presence, and the lack of of a focal point appears to open each image up to interpretation.
Response
WWW: Unframed, lack of focus and lack of a distinct subject create a soft atmosphere
EBI: Less objects and distractions in the frame, explore different environments to roads
EBI: Less objects and distractions in the frame, explore different environments to roads
Exposure
Sally Mann
Sally Mann manipulates exposure in film and digital photography in order to alter the atmosphere and mood of the images she shoots, often resulting in ambiguous photographs that are difficult to interpret. The lack of contrast in many of her darker photos adds to this effect, flattening the image as opposed to increasing its vibrancy and resulting in an opening for a freedom to different interpretation and representation.
Response
WWW: Different environments, varying contrasts and exposures made for visually ambiguous images
EBI: Some of my images colour tones are too muted and soft, darker colour tones would have recreated the ghostly effect in Mann's images that added to their ambiguity
EBI: Some of my images colour tones are too muted and soft, darker colour tones would have recreated the ghostly effect in Mann's images that added to their ambiguity
Damage
Through damaging images, interpretations of freedom and limitation can each be achieved depending on the photograph being damaged and the type of damage that is being done. For example, if the type of image being damaged is a heavily edited and idealised portrait, then it can be said that human limitation is being conveyed through the destruction of the human face and the rebellion of the 'perfect' portrait. Alternatively, it can also be said that this conveys the freedom of human imperfection through the damaging of an unnatural image.
Seung - Hwan oh
“Impermanence” is a series of portraits by Korean photographer and microbiologist Seung-Hwan Oh who drowns his films in a cultivation of fungus mushrooms. The bacteria devours the film for an abstract and destroyed result; a beautiful way to mistreat a film and to rebel against perfect and idealised images. |
Response
With the images below, I used a combination of tools such as paint and wire in order to deface them and rebel against social ideas of a 'perfect portrait'. The image to the left depicts a hippie standing behind a metal fence, possibly conveying the social limitations that the hippie movement of the 1960's wished to escape. I decided to convey the subject further, adding to this effect whilst the bright colors expressed the freedom of the individual. The photo to the left is one of a cross dressing male prostitute in Chile, taken by Paz Errazuriz in the 1980's. To me, the image conveys a set of people on the fringes of society, and I wanted to deface the image in order to amplify this effect. Using wire, I destroyed and scratched off the face of the subject, giving a further sense of the ostracization that many people living on the edge of society encounter every day; the people who the media and the government rarely focus on.
Limiting Space
Around 1948, photographer Irving Penn began making unusual portraits of a number of writers, artists, musicians, politicians, dancers and other celebrities. Each one was asked to position in a small corner (sharper than 90°) created with two studio flats pushed together and a carpet on the floor. Within the corner portraits, the studio becomes an architectural limiter of the subject movements and the resulting compressed and claustrophobic environment isolates the subjects’ personalities in an abstract, artificial corner of the world.
He once explained. “The walls were a surface to lean on or push against. For me the picture possibilities were interesting; limiting the subjects movements seemed to relieve me of part of the problem of holding onto them.”
He once explained. “The walls were a surface to lean on or push against. For me the picture possibilities were interesting; limiting the subjects movements seemed to relieve me of part of the problem of holding onto them.”
Response
My response below uses a similar technique to Irving Penn, often constraining the body of the subject in a tight and enclosed triangular space. I feel that this works the best when finding tight spaces, as the triangular shape gives a strong perspective of how enclosed the space that the subject occupies is. Overall, I am happy with this shoot, as I captured the same tight, cramped aesthetic and atmosphere that occupies Irving Penn's photos, which is further added to by the stiff and constrained body poses of the subjects. One aspect that I could improve on is my framing, as I feel that I didn't capture enough of the surroundings in order to gain a better perspective of how constrained the subject really is.
BlackLight
Keld Helmer Peterson
Keld Helmer-Peterson was a Danish photographer who was inspired by Albert Renger-Patzsch, the experiments at The Bauhaus in Germany and by Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Art Institute of Chicago. He achieved fame for his colour photographs but he also published several books of black and white images that explore dramatic contrasts of tone. In some, we are presented with images that are black and white with all mid tones have been removed. He created and found these images, using both cameras and flat bed scanners to achieve the effects he was looking for. The books encourage us to consider the space around the image and the accompanying text as integral to the meaning of the work.
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Response
WWW: Removal of mid tones, choice of setting and strong contrasts between black and white make for highly effective and visually stunning images
EBI: Perhaps needs more of a focus on man made items in order to fully appreciate the idea behind Peterson's project: the consideration of space
EBI: Perhaps needs more of a focus on man made items in order to fully appreciate the idea behind Peterson's project: the consideration of space
Strands
For my strands, I want to revisit the effect of water in photographs, as I enjoyed shooting the 'Weightless' set task earlier in the project and I feel that it can accurately portray either freedom or limitation. I enjoyed looking at how paint and ink freely flows in water, so I will look to photograph this element of the topic further. Something I also want to do is to photograph reflections such things as water and glass, and observe the world through the distorted lens of water bodies such as lakes and rivers, as I feel that this can portray a familiar landscape in an unfamiliar kind of way. Another aspect of the 'Freedom and Limitation' set tasks that I enjoyed was looking at the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto and Ute Barth, whose photos challenged social expectation of a perfect photo, distorting aspects of images such as composition, focus and framing. I will seek to do this by taking photos of things whilst not looking at them, and without any knowledge of what settings the camera is using. Below is another Pinterest board that I created that looks at different photographic approaches to each of these topics, and images that I not only take inspiration from but may seek to emulate in future developments.
1st Strand - Ink In Water
Alberto Seveso
Illustrator & Digital Photographer Alberto Seveso was born in Milan, he grow up in Sardinia but is now working and living in Bristol (UK) as a freelancer. His passion for graphic art started when he was in a young age and he was really fascinated by the graphic of skate decks and the cover of music CD of metal bands in the early ‘90s. From this passion he started to create his artworks. By using specific ink consistency and a dedicated pouring process, Alberto creates the images below. While often the end result is careful planned, a lot of the process was discovered by a chain of creative mistakes.
Response
I was happy with my response to the work of Alberto Seveso, and I really enjoyed the process of putting ink into water as I loved the effect of the colour flowing through the transparency of the water. I feel as if I could have improved the contrast of the images as they don't quite stand out as well as Seveso's work does. This could be improved by using a better lense on my camera, as well as rethinking the setting and what type of material I use to hold the water in, as there are unnecessary reflections and shadows in some of the images due to the glass jar and setting I used to capture my photos.
2nd Strand - Reflections
William Eckersley
William Eckersley is a London based photographer who spent four years capturing beautiful nocturnal landscape photos of London, and his work with the Thames is particularly stunning due to the interesting reflections he manages to obtain in his photos. Eckersley uses a long exposure in his photos, giving the water a gleaming yet soft and polished look that I may seek to respond to at a later date. The reflections in the Thames that Eckersley captures are very soft and act almost as a distorted mirror to the real world. I also want to create more abstract reflections at some point, and fully explore how a water body is able to distort our perceptions.
Response
For this strand response, I originally was meant to shoot images of the reflections of a body of water, however the recent bad weather made any sort of reflections hard to come by. Instead, I decided to look at how taking photos through water distorted the real world, and the effect it has on the images. I set up lots of flashing Christmas lights in my house whilst in the dark, and shot photos through a transparent plastic water bottle. The effect that shooting images through water had on the photos was extremely interesting, as it created many different forms of abstract light patterns, ranging from harsh to soft light. Many of the images below are unedited, and were taken simply using a low aperture.
3rd Strand - No Look Photography
Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Ralph Eugene Meatyard was an American photographer who made his living as an optician. He experimented with various strategies of photography including multiple exposures, focus, depth of field, motion blur, composition and framing, often pushing these aspects to the limit in order to challenge social expectation of a photograph. Two of his series, including 'No Focus', are particularly concerned with focus and depth of field, both stretching the expressive potential photography and the camera when capturing the ordinary world.
Mark Cohen
Mark Cohen (born 1943) is an American Photographer famous for his close up, innovative street photography. His photos are always taken from waist height so that subjects are often unaware that they are being photographed, meaning that he can capture moments of reality instead moments that are influenced by the known presence of a camera. Cohen also likes to keep his wits about him while he walks, and finds that holding the camera low allows him to be extra watchful for antagonists. "If you have your camera up to your eye, you can't keep track of what's going on," says Cohen. "By holding my camera down here" – he gestures to his waist – "I can suddenly take pictures."
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REsponse
For this shoot, I went to Alexandra Palace and took many photos at random intervals whilst walking around, not looking through the camera or focusing on anything in particular. I didn't frame any of my photos with the intention of capturing a single subject, nor did I set the aperture and ISO level to anything in particular. I was very happy with the result, as each of the images I took were not to the social expectation that many photos are, yet also stretch the limits of photography and challenge viewers as to what really is the composition of the 'perfect' photograph.
REflections - Development
For this development, I travelled to Coldfall Wood in order to shoot photos of reflections on the lake at the back of the wood. The weather was clear which meant that I had a much easier time finding different angles of photographing reflections on the lake surface. I was happy with my shoot as the reflections that I captured were fairly clear, and in some photos it is difficult to see the point that separates the real world from its mirrored counterpart. In future developments, I may seek to turn the images upside down and distort the reality line even further, as well as experiment with different types reflections, for example the reflections in glass.
Edits
Reflections - Development 3
For this shoot, as opposed to using water, I photographed a London Bridge and its surroundings through the perspective of a crystal ball as I wanted to shoot images of a different sort of reflecting surface, and see the differences that a new surface made. I felt that I captured an interesting aesthetic in my photos, utilizing the distorted reflections of the landscape that the crystal ball gave off to good effect. The images ask the question as to what is the correct perception of the world, and if the human eye is limited in its view of the 'real' world. In future developments, I would like to find a surface or stand to place the crystal ball on, as the presence of a hand holding the ball in every photo slightly takes away from the overall effectiveness of the shoot, and I may also look to play with ideas of symmetry, as I feel that this will help me to further portray the limitation of our perceptions when we see the world, and introduces another possible perspective that distorts what the human eye traditionally sees.
Reflections - Development 4
For my next development of 'Reflections', I went downstream of The Shard and visited the area surrounding Westminster and the London Eye. This time, I placed the crystal ball on a stand for the most part to avoid having my hand in every photo, which was effective as I felt that this obstructed much less of the photo, making the image seem more natural. I have also explored with turning some of the images upside down so that the image in the ball is the right way up, playing with reality in a way that I haven't done before. I may seek to do more of this in the future, as well as exploring the effect of symmetry and the limitations of the human eye.
Reflections - Development 5
From my previous developments, I have learnt that my images are far more effective when they aren't obstructed by something holding the crystal ball in the photo. In this shoot, where I travelled to the Monument outside Waterloo station, where I made a conscious effort to minimise the effect of a stand or a hand holding the object. I was happy with my shoot as I feel that the fence separating the crystal ball and the background landscape further adds to the idea that the human eye is limited in its perceptions, and the fence acts as a visual representation of this idea that humans are only able to perceive the world in an often distinct and narrow way. As I have done in my previous developments, I used a shallow depth of field to focus mainly on the distorted view of the world displayed in the crystal ball instead of the background, as it is the reflection which is the most visually interesting aspect of each image, with each photo showing a familiar world in an unfamiliar manner.
Final Piece
For my Final Piece, I intended to drastically visually alter my images using Photoshop in order to further portray the limitation of the human eye, and the fact that the world can be and is perceived in many different ways by various forms of life inhabiting the planet. In order to help me build on and improve the work done in my previous developments, I incorporated symmetry and a Photoshop technique known as 'Tiny Planet' (in which an image is distorted using Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates > Rectangular to Polar), resulting in powerful and effective images that act almost as a culmination of the different ways in which life can be perceived. Using these techniques, I feel I was able to create a Final Piece that definitively demonstrates the narrow limitations of the human eye, challenges viewers to ask themselves the question of how they perceive our world, and furthermore, asks the question as to which perception is the correct one and whether our perceptions are even real at all.