National Geographic

Noticed that the back of this magazine from 1970 - 2009 has had a sponsor or image from a camera company on the back cover.......Every single mag......

Thought this was interesting.... Thats all......

Caitlin Steele (P)

Caitlin Steele

Paper-based Portfolio

We had the chance to look at another students Portfolio today.  Caitlin Steele who had also attended Borders College a few years back, having left school not knowing which route she wanted to head into. She had started out doing a BTEC in Art & Design course and then then did a Visual Communications course. From there she attending Heriot-Watt doing Fashion Communications. She told me when asked that without doing these first courses she wouldn't have gained vital knowledge she is using and practicing now.

Her portfolio seemed very small to what I was expecting. She had maybe ten photos with small descriptions on the back of them. Because it is a fashion based course she has to keep her work up to date and can't use work older that 2 years old.  She told us that she would stay up some nights ready for the newest edition of magazines that where of interest to her.  While her work didn't seem much I know from my own planning and mind mapping that the road from idea to finish entails a lot of work. I do like how neat her portfolio was and the honestly and truth she spoke about from starting out to now.

I found in encouraging that she didn't know where her career was going or the path she was heading for.  I also feel like this and could relate somewhat.

As a group of ten the Heroit-Watt girls did a charity event for Halloween, she told us how they started with a budget of £0 and raise over £2000 for fireworks and tents and catering. Asking local businesses for supports etc. She said that it was a lot of work and working in a bigger group was hard because you couldn't just run with your own ideas.  The team won an award for best event 2016.

Caitlin was honest and told us that event organising wasn't for her and she had found it all rather stressful.

online effect

online effect

online effect

Another topic she did was on internet safety and social media. It was to raise awareness of the fact people aren't always who they said they are online. She did this by adding a modern contemporary twist. Inspired by Allen Ramsey and the bold nature of a Portait of King George III and also by the minimalist Sir David Wilkies works, Catilin tried and tested lighting, realities, vulnerabilities, defenses and communication.(or lack of it) She also thought about space and enhancing effects while emphasizing other parts of an image.......However, do you the viewer see any of this looking at the pictures of the above? I know I wouldn't have guessed it was an online safety connection.....

Jeff kooks photo inspired 

A later topic was a photo inspired by the artist Jeff Koons. From this she had placed plastic on a models face......it was to represent vanity and plastic surgery of today........I like how I had also used Koons as an example for my painted seating plan Sculptor of Bananas and she had a totally different view on a take for a photography brief...... I find this is an interesting reality that most artists see so many different things in the one subject.  In my class topic we have all done and had
different results and outcomes.......I like the idea of viewing more students work and hearing from them as a way of learning. But I also take away from it that a good strong image doesn't need to be explained to make it a good picture. Even upon reading stuff, people with take from it what they want...

my own inspired banana by Koons 

my own inspired banana by Koons

Ever the sceptical (P)

Haining Workshop

Today 21st March we got a great opportunity to join a group workshop at The Haining House and Loch....

Reflections was the theme and because were doing a photography assessment also, we got the chance of bringing the two together.

At the beginning we were encouraged to ask the other groups what or why they were doing things. This would give us a better understandings as to how others think. Different views from an array of different individuals and groups of students. We were also told to go and explore the area.

After a walk near the loch and woodland (somewhere I'd been before) I couldn't help to notice all the dead wood and fallen trees. At this time of year new buds are coming through and I did like the two existing side by side next two each other. I also thought about how I was putting myself in the same place......we all were..... trying to create or add to the surroundings.......

We were given mirror glass and coloured glass to use. With this I thought about my own reflection and decided to draw around my own image in the mirror. My golden hair I decide to cut out with yellow glass and stick it to the mirror, using red for lips and brown to represent the distant trees around the loch, blue for the loch and green for the grass....

I was getting a little bored playing with my mirror as couldn't find a place to put it so that when others looked in they would see themselves with my hair and lips on they image........

I went back to house and took out a sketch book and charcoal.......

without really thinking to much about what I was doing I drew some of the trees near me, I'll never drawn a tree before and I was bored .......Once done I thought about reflecting the blue glass onto my picture to add some colour into it....

 

dont know if u can see the blue....and its upside down!!

liked this glasses effects

Old tree I added some glass to! Why not sure really.... line form texture

Added a circle mirror in this old log to reflect house

I didnt think I really learnt much or that I made the most of the visit as I could of on this trip.........Speaking to other artists however was good and I enjoyed hearing ideas. Like, one man showing me the photos he took for ripples on the water. It was pattern and gave an unusual abstract pattern......Or the lady that took photos from inside and placed them to recreate some reeds models to place with the real reeds...taking the inside out.. However, can't help but feel it was just an arty farty bringing together of not very much. (talented people mind you) But just a little pointless for me all the same......

Dont see the purpose just like the idea of the readymades by Marcel Duchamp or Dada. For me it just begs the question why?

I forward to seeing the work everyone did at the exhibition later down the line. Or to be proved wrong as usual later, when the penny finally drops! 

Photo Documenting and Journalism (P)

Photo-documentation an Photo-journalism

Pictures that tell a story!

These are some photos of a walk in the woods I went on... putting the images together could tell a story and the person viewing it can deceiver it anyway they wish..........  

 

 How important is it to be able to tell a narrative or story from a photo!

A picture is worth a thousand words

getting from A to B 

This wasnt a true path but a set of difference images from different woodland walks at different times. However when put together a quick glance would let you think that it was a set up. Arrow-steps-seating. While this isn't a great example you get the idea hopefully.   

In journalism for instant I can see why the images of tragic news are there to inform us all of the emerging events that are taking place. Brutal and truth captured in an instant, a single second.

War being a good example

 

 Eddie Adams
Photo journalist

 Adams was a photographer who's work includes celebrities and politicians such as Mother Theresa and Ronan Reegan. However he is more known for his work in the Vietnamese war.

Adams work during the Vietnam War has since won prizes.

One photo is so iconic that it is the picture most people think of when they think of Vietnam: a Vietnamese general in Saigon executing a Viet Cong suspect. 

 

 This man just raised the pistol and Eddie made a picture of an interrogation, but the man pulled the trigger.... was one verison of event.

One of Adams' frames was the very instant the bullet entered the man's head — the moment of death.

War was said to haunt Adams afterwards, but this photo has been used since and demonstrations  truth of war.  Members of the anti-war movements used it to say how unjustified the war had been. For others it was just a very real scene.  Films of this execution were also taken but the photographic image itself was said to be more of an impact on people as you have time to consider all of what is happening.


There is always war, hunger, racism, poverty, pollution and corruption. Photographers are charged with making images that don’t look like the same photographs we have seen time and time again. Having to continually think about how to make compelling images, if you want stories to change things or at least make a viewer stop and think.

 Bill Brandt

Photographer working in around 1920's before the war  and was noted for his work in Social documentation.  Mixing with the likes of people like Man-Ray and Ezra Pound you can imagine that Brandt's photos could be a bit wild and surreal. Brandt however did more documentation than surreal. But he'd also use editing techniques like turning work Policeman in Dockland Alley to look like a night time scene while it was taken in daylight.

Policeman in Dockland Alley

The 'day for night' technique employed by cinematographers was to transform images photographed in daylight into night scenes.

He'd also use family members to act out scenes....... so how can we trust what we is as true life?

street scene of couple in Peckham was his brother and sister-in-law

his wife feature here in the red light district

Diana Arbus captured an image of a young boy holding a grenade in Central Park.

questioning belief

Another way of asking the question of real and truth.......what questions does this raise with you.....The viewer....



It can be disturbing seeing a young innocent boy with what looks like a grenade, the look of wildness in his eye and the way his hand is clasped uptight. Something disturbing maybe happening?

However Arbus had kept asking the boy to move around and while he was happy to go along with it at first, he then got annoyed and said to her....Just take the photo already!!! It was in this moment the image was captured....... Reading what you will.

So this gives the question what is the difference between photo-documentation and photo-journalism?

Keeping it as simple as possible I think that to document could be more a planned set up like the Brandt's London life photo's (while this was a personal commission) the journalism side would be a more spontaneous photo as in the War photo taken on the street in Siagon....

However, this isnt to say that although every picture can tell a story, the question is..what is the intended story?

Another way to make a different view on the world of this is the briefs or commissions......

A brief for someone could be used to document a wide number of things

Shelter commissioned artist Nick Hedges in 1968 to document the way families were living.......‘Make Life Worth Living’ shows many images of families living in filthy, cramped conditions - sometimes without electricity, heating or running water - as well as one family who were woken up in the early hours by demolition ball knocking down their tenement. 




50 years on and the images show how far we may have come with housing etc.  Documenting poverty but also social set ups.

This quote also is an example of our modern day living

“The insecurity, the ill health and the anxieties that young families, the poor and the elderly face is unfortunately as real now as it was then. It points to our failure as a society to address the basic needs of our fellow citizens.”

After 50 years and not that much may have changed....... More Housing, Less Land, Farming effect, More Trade, Less Work, Technology Advances, Less Social Scene............. Knock on effect that keeps going.......Environmental issues and climate change........

What documenting changes will be shown in the next 50 years and what changes will we have learnt from it....???

I'm now getting confused with it all to be honest and feel like I'm waffling on a bit haha...... So with that said I think I've summed it up best I can..