Responses to "The Great Divide" handout

“Some believed that art photography should take its lead from contemporary scientific findings. Others rejected science as hazardous to the timeless values of art and to the need for self-expression through art forms. Many felt that mass-media photography was not only vulgar and sensational, but also a symbol of the cheapening of modern life. Just as the fine arts had inspired some Victorians to devise High Art photography, turn-of-the-century photographers contrived Pictorialism—that is, a kind of photography that rejected industrialization for evocative, often hand-painted photographic images.”

Today, photography is used in science all the time—and some of the “science-y” photos are actually quite artistic, blurring the line between art and science. Film photography itself is half-art, half-science—specifically, chemistry.


“Initiated in 1912 and ending during the Great Depression, Kahn’s archive amassed film and photographs from fifty countries. The Archives de la Planète (Archives of the Planet) contains four thousand black-and-white photographs, approximately 100 hours of film, and 72,000 autochromes, the largest of its kind in the world. Kahn believed that when his collection was viewed by people it would motivate them to embrace human differences and, thereby, contribute to world peace.”

Kind of sounds like The Family of Man (Edward Steichen).

I think that that’s an awesome idea—and it would be really cool to do a show around at least some of the photos/footage.


“Increasingly press photographs emulated the casual look of the snapshot, and the few artists remaining at newspapers made their drawings look more sketchy, as if done quickly on the spot.”

I both like and dislike the idea. Yes, documentary photos are done quickly, and you don’t have a lot of time to compose a good shot if you’re, say, covering the protests/war in Libya. But I associate the word “snapshot” with photos taken by people who might not really know what they’re doing: they just leave everything on AUTO and just shoot, sometimes with a complete disregard for things like composition.

But as for sketch-like drawings, I like the idea. It saves time, too, if all you do is a quick gesture drawing. One minute—done.


“In contrast to their simple subjects, they [the Pictorialists] strove for tonal complexity, choosing techniques such as platinum printing, which yielded abundant soft, middle-gray tones. They favored procedures that allowed for handworking of both negatives and prints. Their results were in obvious visual opposition to the sharp black-and-white contrasts of the commercial print. Pictorialist photographs were frequently printed on textured paper, unlike the glossy surface of commercial photographs, so that they resembled watercolors, evoking the earlier Victorian photographs of David Octavius Hill and Julia Margaret Cameron, which they admired and exhibited.”

If we were somehow able to go back in time and bring a Pictorialist back with us, I think they’d have a blast in the NBCCD photo studio, because what a lot of us are into right now is similar to what the Pictorialists were doing back in the 1800s, except that some of what we’re doing involves digital cameras, which might take a bit of explaining (no film! What’s this chip thingy-dingy? I can see the photo right away! What’s this? What’s that? How do I develop the photos?).


“Portraiture was thought to be done better by women, who were considered to possess a more intuitive grasp of the sitter’s personality and a wider range of emotional response than men.”

I see this as both a positive thing and a negative thing: on the one hand, it makes sense, but on the other hand, for some reason I seem to be reading something sexist into the idea. I guess it’s because of how we’re brought up in the West: girls are encouraged to be more sensitive, whereas men are told to suck it up and “take it like a man.”

Gaspard Mix Tournachon, better known as Nadar, and Muybridge

Bohemian, family was "of radical leanings," was interested in "many of the era's most daring ideas in politics, literature, and science." Worked in journalism before taking up photography. First to photograph underground using artificial light, and from a balloon.

Bio from Masters of Photography

Eadweard Muybridge: name was originally Edward Muggeridge. First changed his last name to Muygridge, before changing it to Muybridge (first name was was only changed once, when he changed his last name the first time. "Eadweard Muybridge (b. 9 April 1830; d. 8 May 1904) was born Edward James Muggeridge in Kingston on Thames, and it is said that because this area is associated with the coronation of Saxon kings, he took on a name closely resembling (as he saw it) the Anglo Saxon equivalent."--from Adventures in Cybersound

selfies!

The self-portrait assignment was one of those times when I have difficulty coming up with an idea—but when I finally come up with one, I start to build on it and the whole thing starts to come together extremely quickly. In this situation I decided to play around with rear-curtain sync (called second-curtain sync in my camera’s manual). So I put on some music (a combination of Green Day and Charlotte Church) and danced around my room for one to eight seconds at a time. I then realized that in some of the photos it looked as though I was interacting with a portrait that I took of my FVA academic advisor Adam MacDonald that I have tacked to my bulletin board. So I decided to play it up and really interact with the portrait (mostly using implied line, though in some of the photos I got up close and posed with the photo: "scolding" him, posing with the photo as though it’s the most normal thing in the world—all the while fighting back a serious case of the giggles), as well as sticking my face in front of the camera like people do sometimes with point ‘n’ shoot cameras (a night out with the girls, etc.). I ended up having so much fun that I didn’t get to bed until about midnight—on a school night.

I shot the photos in my room, primarily because that’s where all the elements of my idea are based. Although I could’ve done the shoot somewhere like the first-floor lounge—which would’ve given me more room to move around—I’m glad I shot it in my room. Besides, it was quiet hours (ten PM to eleven AM on school nights)—and as a result, I lowered the volume on my computer (I was playing the music off of iTunes).

I’d learned about rear-curtain sync in Lighting: Available Light and On-Camera FlashTech, and although I haven’t used it much since then, I decided to try it out for this idea to capture the movement. I tried different exposure times and light configurations (floor lamp on or off, table lamp on or off, etc.).

Except for all the junk in my room, I would probably show them. I’d probably do a reshoot in a bigger space that doesn’t have so much stuff on the floor (a living room, perhaps—but definitely not a lighting studio: it would look too formal and stuffy for the look I’m after). But in general I’m very happy with the portraits.

Maggie Jean Chestnut Residence and Renaissance College (which is attached to the residence) have been the setting for a lot of my assignment photos that weren’t taken in the lighting studio: my Freedom to Read photo, one of my photos for the target assignment for Re-Presenting Ideas and my photo for the first assignment for Professional Practice being some of the most recent shoots.

The residence and the college (especially RC) have a lot of interesting nooks in which to take photos, and I have yet to run out of ideas for shoots—either for assignments or for myself.

I would probably print them at about 8" x 10"--definitely no smaller. Since I've been using the studio's printer, I've fallen in love with printing BIG--probably because I've never had the resources to do big prints before. And because I've finally been won over by RAW format.

2/24/11: PS I came up with a title for the photos today while uploading them to Facebook and Flickr: Self-Portraits of the Artist with her FVA Academic Advisor.

Lauren Greenfield

Part of Greenfield's Thin series, in which she documented several women who were receiving treatment at Renfrew Center in south Florida. The photos document the ups and downs as the women go through treatment, as well as follow-ups after they're discharged.

Part of Greenfield's Teen Lipo series, in which she documented Brook Bates before and after her liposuction surgery. Brook, who had the surgery when she was twelve, is believe to be the youngest to have the procedure in the US. Before having the surgery, Brook was pre-diabetic and had tried everything else in order to lose the weight.

Part of Greenfield's Thin series, in which she documented several women who were receiving treatment at Renfrew Center in south Florida. The photos document the ups and downs as the women go through treatment, as well as follow-ups after they're discharged.

Part of Greenfield's Thin series, in which she documented several women who were receiving treatment at Renfrew Center in south Florida. The photos document the ups and downs as the women go through treatment, as well as follow-ups after they're discharged.

Part of Greenfield's Girl Culture series, in which she documented the different things girls deal with today.

Definition: DOCUMENTARY:
Pulling attention to a subject or a person, telling a story without flinching, and without editing the story to tell it in a "prettier" way. Telling it like it is.


Reflection:
I love Greenfield's work: one of the things that I like about documentaries (both photography and movies) is the fact that they aren't meant to sugarcoat life, which is how I try to live and photograph (when depicting something that isn't exactly pleasant, I don't like to try to pretty it up), and her work is a wonderful example of that approach.

I don't know if I would do that kind of photography: it fits with my personality, and how I see the world and live life, but at this point I'm more interested in pushing the creativity to the limit--and then pushing it even further (e.g., cranking up the colours, clarity, etc., in Camera RAW).

Proposal:
What I would do and why
I would photograph other artists--let's say, members of an orchestra (maybe the Passamaquoddy Bay Symphony, or the Bangor Symphony). I would photograph the members during rehearsals, hanging out, doing other stuff besides playing their instruments--basically, orchestra life (and I'd try not to show too much favouritism towards the violin section heehee). Documentaries have been made about orchestras, dance companies, etc., before, but each one is different, whether it's the orchestra/company, or the approach used in the documentary.

differences between the average untrained photographer and the trained photographer

Untrained:

• poor composition
• poor focus
• lack of understanding of what the different things (white balance, ISO, exposure compensation, etc.) do--leaving the camera fully on Auto is good enough

Trained:

• Total opposite: the trained photog wants (and needs) to know about all the little options in the menu and buttons and dials on the camera, as well as how to focus properly and how to compose an image.

FYI, as the daughter of a self-taught photographer, I'm hesitant to generalize photographers who haven't taken courses or been to art school. However, I do know that not everyone is as awesome as my father (who's one of my favourite artists). My mom, for example, isn't after quality: she uses her photos as a guide for her paintings (which are gorgeous--she, too, is one of my favourite artists).

window light portrait assignment: what I liked and didn't like, or: photographing Peter!

Let's start with the more negative of the two questions: what I didn't like. I can't come up with anything. Seriously. Photographing Peter was such a treat. I could write a whole blog post about that fact, but I won't.

From an entry from my main blog (you're going to love this, Karen ;-) ):

After class I worked on my first photos for Peter's assignment (I still have a tiny bit of gouache--from the set I bought at the beginning of FVA year--around my fingernails), as well as Karen's assignment. I originally planned to get a student to pose for me, but just as I was about to ask, Peter noticed me. And here's the thing about Peter: he's one of those people who can always tell when something's up. So he asked me if I had a question. I told him that I was looking for someone to pose for Karen's window-light assignment--and he volunteered! I couldn't believe it. But there were some perks: since he's one of my teachers, he offered a few tips--we even went through the manual, which I have on my flash drive, when neither of us could find a live view magnifier on my camera--no luck (I googled it this afternoon [January eighth]: nothing).

window light portrait assignment photos and captions

Just so you know, these aren't the originals: these have been downsized and save as JPEGs. I doubt Blogger would tolerate me uploading a bunch of nine-megabyte RAW files. EEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!

Peter Gross, head of the Photography Studio at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, poses for Annapurna Moffatt in his office (which has only one window--facing north) on Wednesday afternoon.

Peter Gross, head of the Photography Studio at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, poses for Annapurna Moffatt in his office (which has only one window--facing north) on Wednesday afternoon.

One of the benefits of photographing a teacher is that they'll give you tips on how to make better images. Also: making Peter look scary just doesn't work. Trust me.

Peter Gross, head of the Photography studio at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, poses for Annapurna Moffatt in the studio classroom (two windows: one facing north, the other facing west) on Wednesday afternoon. Peter raved about the light.

Peter Gross, head of the Photography studio at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, poses for Annapurna Moffatt in the studio classroom (two windows: one facing north, the other facing west) on Wednesday afternoon. She chose this photo to print out at school (8" x 10").

Photography Studio head, Peter Gross, directs his photographer, first year Diploma student Annapurna Moffatt, by showing her how gorgeous he looks with reflected golden light shining on him in front of the NBCCD copy stand Wednesday afternoon at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design. "Head of the studio head," said Peter. Annapurna was fulfilling a window light assignment for her History of Photography course: photographing people.

Photography studio head, Peter Gross, poses for a window light portrait assignment for Annapurna Moffatt's Photographing People class.

Karen Ruet (NBCCD Gallery coordinator) was also in the classroom at the time (all the while trying to get Annapurna to ignore her--as if!), and she, Peter, and Annapurna were talking when Annapurna took this photo.

Peter Gross, head of the Photography studio at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, poses for Annapurna Moffatt in the studio classroom (two windows: one facing north, the other facing west) on Wednesday afternoon. While "scary"doesn't work, "serious" does.

Photography Studio head, Peter Gross, poses for a window light portrait assignment for Annapurna Moffatt's Photographing People class on Wednesday afternoon.

When I showed Peter the photos, he likened the last one (my least favourite) to the work of Richard Avedon.

Photo by another photographer (inspiration).