Just what is photography(P)

Just what is Photography?

I've been asked to analysis photography, photographers and different fields that an artist works from.......

So with such a big scope where do I begin!

At the beginning with the likes of William Henry Fox Talbot or Joseph Nicephore Niepce. The men who gave us the first images of this scientific way to capture light, creating an act of drawing in a photogenic form.                          .

World's earliest surviving photograph, 1826 or 1827: View from the Window at Le Gras

Photography has moved on since the days of Talbot and while his findings were relevant at the time, I feel now the modern day definition of photography opens up such bigger and different elements!





 Concept

Why, why a photograph of the subject?  What thinking goes into taking a photo? Why not a drawing or sculpture, description, writing or the subject itself? What is the intention?

When out walking at the weekend I intentionally took my phone/camera with me! I wanted to capture my surroundings and being in my home town I guess I wanted to capture my past also.  To capture what I was feeling or experiencing at that very point in time. Looking at the photo's I took I think I failed to get the exact emotion or sense of power that in myself I had created! Either from memory or actual being there!

The places I visited had changed from when I was young and didn't have the same idle I had originally hope for. The tree I had wanted to visit had gone and the woodland itself was some what dead from the memories I had as a child.  Things change.......

Documentary Photography
To document means to record, the idea of truth or to capture a person or moment in history!
So I guess this makes documentary photography either a long-term project or way of story telling!

Photojournalism
As I see it this is similar to documentary and could fall into the same category... Used as the same way a journalist writes about a topic this captures it....Photojournalism has been used to capture massive world events from world wars, social documentation to modern day disasters...

Ernest brooks world war 1 photographer

Ernest Brooks Trenches

    

Streets of London John Thomson



Streets of London 1876-1877





boy found on Turkish beach........2015

So what do my photos fall into? Self expression or opportunistic moment of time with no relevance what so ever to anything.....My time, my moment and ME...OR as the brief says My World - My View - Self, place & space. .Does that make them irrelevant.....Who decides what category or importance a photo has? My intent was to take some nice photos of life, my life and the way I was viewing it at the time....Going back in time also, an older me against a once forgotten backdrop. While I can't compare my own images to the ones above, for me they are just as important and relevant as it was my life my moment and my time...

For me this image does and doesn't show the scale or power of these pylon's...The size and noise that come from them when standing underneath is something quite eerie. Changing in climate change and resources are again another example of history!  

Tilting of the phone adds different viewing

working life......standing in another man boots

old pottery piece in the river probably from the jam pot of a miner. I collected lots of these pieces from my walk. All from past links for my village.  Leaving a story to my families life and working of history....relevant and existing,  forgotten but there all the same. 

Pattern and colour, texture and shadow

chance happening. No edits used here but interesting how the colour has been distorted (why is that?)

Another old used bit of history gone by.......had enough relevance at the time of taken the photo!

  I noticed in the region I was at the past was everywhere to be seen, yet many wander about without looking. The old miner pits and bits of crockery, the plyons and wind turbines, the old forest dead but with signs of spring still shooting through...new buds with dead wood......

For me this is documenting history past and present........As to how to turn my expression into what is being asked of me I find hard! To understand the difference between wedding photography and evaluate or analyse the practice I'm struggling to grasp a starting point. Location Photography falls under so many different categories and can include things like fashion...... or editorial that its making it complicated.



Playing with phone camera without edits (P)

walks home and family life

David Bailey (P)

David Bailey             


    

Curious Things!  


After watching a documentary called Stardust on David Bailey and his exhibition of past portraiture photography (Not a retrospective) I found out about a man with a very varied career, spanning 50+ years.

Source http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/bailey/exhibition/in-conversation.php


Starting out as a young curious 13 year old David took his mums camera out and basically messed around........He's said himself that he wanted to take photographs of birds and make them look like Disney had. He'd take shots of pigeons and sparrows and with the help of a teacher at school learnt to develop them. He idolized the trumpet jazz player Chet Baker and as he himself was learning trumpet wanted to photograph himself looking like the pictures of Baker. These photos taken by William Claxton would later be some sort of influence to Bailey.  (if not already from the curiousness of the young age)

chet baker - Bailey wanted to look like him

Bailey who was dyslexic was encouraged by a friend at 16 to learn to read and write. He was introduced to the work of Picasso and his interest in art blossomed. The renaissance period in particular captured a sense of style in him that later he referenced in his work.......Saying, like the renaissance artists drew women in all the glory without the imperfections or scars of life, photography did the same with the likes of Photoshop....

When talking about portraiture photography he said he liked to capture the true self of the person.

Bailey

This was where Bailey was different and maybe this gave him an edge on other photographers working at the time of 1960's.  Bailey entered the world of Vogue magazine doing bits and pieces of work but also doing freelance (vogue would have been a hard venture to break for an east end rogue like Bailey at the time) With the youth of him and two others Bailey had an edge and mixed with alot of famous and well known people.  He probably would of never thought a 54 year love hate relationship was starting out at the magazine.

The fashion photography later gave him his reputation and his style and his sense of approach to how fashion was viewed changed the world of fashion......no longer boring back drops of models in rooms, David took the model out into the world around them and created not only a image but a photograph in the sense of changed view. Location photography.. Bailey couldn't careless about a the pretty dress!

This is where for me I make a connection with Picasso......The ever changing processes and reinvent fullness that Picasso also had in his career.


                                


What makes a successful artist?

Bailey said he just looked and seen. Quote, “I’m interested in people,” he says, “and whatever you see in the photograph, whether you call it glamour or drama or edge, it’s already in that person. I can’t put it there. It’s finding it and bringing it out. I can see the moment when they look the way I want them to look, or the way I think they should look or they don’t want to look, or whatever. It’s the moment that counts. It’s the only thing we’ve got in life really, and nothing captures it the way a stills camera does.”

          
Notice the black frame on the photos.This is how Bailey intended them to be and doesn't want them cropped.

Bailey said he looks around and sees design everywhere - everyone or thing important.... So what makes a photographer? Is it as simple as looking through a lens and snapping what you see? Is it passion or having the balls to get stuck it.... Is it life and your upbringing!

Do photographers choose or does photography choose them

How different are artists to photographers?

From fashion to editorial to location photography what is the real difference...What defines the style or image to determine such a difference.. Like the use of typography as an art form, its everywhere and yet most of us don't notice or even care about the careful selection or purpose/difference of wording....

With photography its the closest thing we have to history or capturing a moment or person.

David's work could fall under these categories,

Location Photography as I understand is done somewhere other than a studio....maybe outside and the photographer may have to think quick for a setting, weather, distance, lighting and angles etc... its a bit more free or so I think?

Editorial Photography is similar to fashion or location but more to define in photo form what a story maybe trying to portray in a magazine or paper. Fit for the purpose!

Fashion Photography its all about the product or style. It is most often conducted for advertisements or fashion magazines.  Photographing garments but also interpret the underlying ideas or themes of the season, the clothing range, the designer or the brand. A lot of shoots are done in the studio.

However the way he documented history with his work over the years (sixties) I'm sure he defiantly could be an example in many other areas......His producing of advertising and stage and film!

What a story, not bad for a cockney geezer from the East End.

Also looked at some of his adventure work

Outside our culture we are all the same!

Bailey has spent time travelling the remotest parts of the world.

Nagaland
 

http://anglianomega.net/david-baileys-epic-journey-in-to-nagaland/

 Papua New Guinea in 1974
 

David Bailey directs the Valentino Men’s Spring/Summer 2016 campaign and has his finger in many ads or campaigns of fashion. See his moving image which I think has a somewhat surrealist touch to it.
http://www.visualartists.co/artist/davidbailey/movingimage/

MY VIEW, well as I'm just starting out I can't really say to much or appreciate the work of David Bailey as many would. But in truth I'm inspired by his view and working relationships. Either with people or subject. The way he engages with the people and brings out the sense of a person.
Timing and knowledge would have taken time to learn but with a curiosity like he had I can see how the working life would have been fun. Again I seem to be writing about doing what you love or being true to yourself etc.....etc...as a final conclusion. Many artists have spoken of these same quotes or similar words over the topics I've covered so far.  What a career and I know I will be curious myself to learn more either on photography or Bailey himself!

some more famous faces!
  

love his roughness 

 

Sources of photos from google images