Photographic Essay Research - Mathew Merrett

Mathew Merrett is an urban decay photographer. His work includes images of abandoned buildings, factories, mines and institutions in states of decay and rot which demonstrate the de-industrialisation, declining economies and change in lifestyles of our time. Merrett aims to capture buildings/objects that were once vital and abundant before the 'redevelopment cycle erases them'.

"To me, urban decay represents how a progressing society sometimes forgets its roots". - Matthew Merrett.

Source: www.thephotomat.ca

Source: www.thephotomat.ca

Source: www.thephotomat.ca

In his work, he brings attention to abandoned sites that are normally not given a second glance at. He believes that people get used to a certain view and do not consider the roots - such as what is inside the boarded up building that you may pass everyday. A view inside, he says, may take you back to the roots of a city.
He does not claim to be an environmental photography but he describes raising awareness and potentially encouraging people to save abandoned buildings as "an interesting aspect of my works effect".

For one of his projects, he travelled to Ukraine to photograph the aftermath of Chernobyl in the abandoned city of Pripyat. In an interview about his experience, he explained "It's the ultimate symbol of how human error can have a long term devastating effect on the earth".

Source: www.photographytuts.com

Source: www.thephotomat.ca

Source: www.thephotomat.ca

"By carefully visualising my surroundings as they once were and are today, the past and the present are captured as one". - Mathew Merrett.

Merrett is a big inspiration for my project because his work demonstrates how we need to pay attention to our surroundings and take care of our environment. Although his photography involves structures on a larger scale, a lot of it includes rusting metal, overgrown plants and weathered textures which I aim to capture in my project to portray nature overcoming industrialisation.

Re-appropriation of Image

Re-appropriation is a cultural process by which a group reclaims/re-appropriates terms or artefacts.
For example, the use of polaroid cameras. As technology advanced, digital photography became more popular and the use of polaroid cameras died out. However in recent years, polaroid cameras have become fashionable to use.

The 'Analog to Digital: The Indexical Function of Photographic Images' reading highlighted the argument of whether there can be a physical connection between a person and a digital image. This is because a digital image, unlike an analog image, is made up of data and can be edited easily - therefore it may not always represent reality as photographs historically do.
Using this technology, photographers are able to re-appropriate an image, such as its context or subject.



KERRY SKARBAKKA

Skarbakka is a photographer from Arizona. He uses digital technologies in his work in order to give the effect of an analog image. It appears that his images represent reality - however they do not. Due to this, his work has received both acclaim and controversy given the nature of the images he produces.

Skarbakka aims to represent the uncertainty of our world through his work.
"We live in a completely uncertain world, from austerity measures and corporate greed to clean food and water surpluses and climate change of an increasingly over-populated planet."
The images of him falling represent the uncertainty of what you are standing on/relying on to support you, as well as the uncertainty of where you will end up.
In addition to this, these images also bring uncertainty to the viewer because it is difficult to imagine how he would have captured these photographs.

Flickr and the Culture of Connectivity: Sharing views, experiences, memories - by Jose van Dijck

Van Dijck uses one of the biggest photo sharing websites Flickr as an example to demonstrate the 'Culture of Connectivity' in todays society.
Flickr allows constant interaction between users, dynamic exchange of images and has a constant stream of added pictures. Users are able to upload images through multiple means such as by email, mobile phone or straight from a digital camera connected to the internet. Users can then comment on each other's photos, join groups of the same interests, search for certain photos using tags, and vote their favourite photos.
The site aims to create 'collective perspectives', but what is collectivity and how has the mediated world affected this?

"Individuals articulate their identities as social beings by uploading photographs to document their lives; they appear to become part of a social community through photographic exchanges and this, in turn, shapes how they watch the world" (Van Dijck, 2011).
In this reading, Van Dijck looks at digital platforms such as Flickr and questions how appropriate the term 'collective' is in relation to perspectives, experiences and memory.

Social media platforms such as Flickr are promoted as a 'collective effort' where users form relationships and establish communal experiences - thereby leading to collective memories. However the term 'collective memory' assumes that the individual and the collective are separate entities that are associated through mechanisms such as the media.

Hoskins, however, proposes 'networked memory' or 'contemporary memory' to label the concept of memory given technological advances. He suggests that there is a technological unconscious that leads to a co-evolution of memory and technology. This technological unconscious involves powerful, digital environments that operate unbeknownst to those using these environments and those affected by them.
Van Djick also outlines Hoskin's argument of connectivity vs collectivity. Generally speaking, collective memory means that people experience a connection between what happens in general and how they are involved as individuals. Whereas networked memory requires a new understanding where minds are intertwined. Therefore Hoskins announces the end of collective memory because the basis of future memory has been transformed. Instead, he proposes the term 'connectivity' as the meaning of memory has been reinvented by connectivity and intertwining shared memories.
Another aspect that makes up Hoskins argument of a contemporary memory is the concept of 'mediated memory'. Notions of place and time are usually related to the definition of a memory. However, as memories are becoming increasingly mediated due to the growing use of photo sharing platforms, the boundaries of present and past are no longer given.

Van Dijck's 'Culture of Connectivity' is defined as a networked culture where social interactions and cultural products are inseparably entangled in technological systems. As outlined by Hoskins, connections are made and social media sites such as Flickr are an example of platforms that allow these to be constructed. Such platforms are embedded in a culture of connectivity where social networking sites are involved in our daily lives, where we may share photos or exchange memories of the past.

Experimenting with Data Bending and Glitches

All digital photographs are made up of digital data. If this data is altered, this change comes across in the image - this is known as data bending.

For this image, I used Audacity to 'bend' the data. This involved putting the data from the photograph into an audio format. I then added effects onto the audio clip such as delay, reverse, echo etc and exported it as an image.
I really like the effect it had on the leaves of the tree giving them an almost blurred or smudged effect.

This is another example of my attempt at data bending. For this image, I used 'text edit' programme to display the data of the original image in code. I then moved around, and delete small parts of the code in order to disrupt the data and create this reverse and colourful effect.

Analog to Digital: The Indexical Function of Photographic Images

Due to today's technology, it is much easier to edit digital photographs compared to in analog  photography. This raises the question as to whether this disrupts the connection between photographic images and reality.
Historically, there is a belief that photography is representative of reality. It is argued that viewers continue to read digital photographs as representative of reality - a function that images have maintained despite the transition from analog to digital.

"Digital photography, and especially its apparently invisible manipulability, destroyed the photographs privileged connection to the object" Damian Sutton, 'Real photography'.

Dzenko argues that the process of reading photographs is affected by the context of the image, and that whether or not a photograph is created or distributed with digital technology its indexical function is not contradicted as many theorists have suggested. He argues that if you only focus on the supposed lack of indexicality in digital images, you ignore the social uses of analog photography that are now performed by digital images.

These ideas are relevant for my photography project because I will not be digitally creating or producing my images. They will, in fact, represent reality because I aim to portray what humanity is doing to our planet and how nature is fighting back against it.

The Work of Representation - Stuart Hall

In this chapter, Hall looks at a key process in the 'cultural circuit' of today's society - representation. He looks at what representation has to do with culture and meaning, as well as how meaning is formed.

Representation is producing a meaning of concepts in our minds through the use of language.
Hall explains that each individual has a 'conceptual map' that differs from one another. We use these to organise, arrange, and classify concepts. However, we are able to communicate with one another because we share broadly the same conceptual map, therefore we make sense of things in a vaguely similar way. This is all within a culture, and in that culture we share meanings and thereby contruct a social world.

Hall defines 'signs' as words, sounds, or images which carry meaning. These represent concepts and links we have in our heads which combine to make up the meaning systems of our culture. Within cultures, we share the same ways of interpreting these signs.
In photographs, there are visual signs - also known as iconic signs. These have a certain resemblance to the object, person or event to which they refer. The meaning that a person takes from these signs (and therefore from the image) is constructed by the system of representation.

This raises the question of where these meanings come from. In order to answer this, Hall touches upon three different approaches:

Reflective approach - meaning lies in the object, idea or event in the real world. The true meaning already exists in the world and is reflected in language which acts as a mirror.

Intentional approach - the speaker or author places their unique meaning on the world by using language. The words mean what the author intends they should mean.

Constructionist approach - neither objects, ideas, events etc nor the individual users of language can fix meanings.
If meaning is constantly changing and is never finally fixed, then taking the meaning from something must therefore involve an active, conscious process of interpretation.


Semiotics - the study of signs in culture, and of culture as a sort of 'language'.
Hall explains that all cultural objects convey meaning, therefore we use signs to make sense of cultural practices that depend on that meaning. The semiotic approach looks at underlying rules and codes through which objects produce meaning.
E.g. Clothes. Clothes have the simple function of covering your body, keeping it warm. However, they are also signs that construct a meaning and carry a message. For example, an evening dress may signify elegance. These signs allow clothing to convey meaning and to function as a language - the 'language of fashion'. The items of clothing are the signifiers to which cultures correlate particular types of clothing with certain concepts - these are the signifieds.

Denotation - the simple, basic descriptive level where understanding is wide - most people would agree on a meaning.
Connotation - wider, secondary kind of code which connects them to broader themes and meanings.

Representation is working at a second, broader cultural level.
In photography, the viewer looks for signs and uses their meanings to interpret them and thereby figure out what certain subjects represent to them.

Producing meaning depends on interpretation, and interpretation involves encoding and decoding (Hall, 1980). Encoding is putting things into the code and decoding is the person at the other end interpreting the meaning. As meanings are always changing, the codes of a culture also change.

Flash Photography

The Inverse Square Law

www.digitalcameraworld.com

The inverse square law measures the intensity of the flash in relation to the subject.
It states that for every unit of distance an object is away from the flashgun, the intensity of light it receives is 1/distance2.

www.photography.tutsplus.com

DIRECT FLASH

Essentially, if the model is in very close proximity to the light source and they move a slight step in either direction, they'll be either massively under or overexposed as the light is of a higher intensity and more concentrated.
However if the model is further away from the light then they can move several steps in either direction and still be clearly visible as the light is more spread out because it is of a further distance from the subject.

 These photos show my attempts at using a direct flash. They were taken outside during the daytime, and I used the brick wall as the backdrop to experiment making the background underexposed and overexposed.

I experimented by being close to the model and using a bright flash of 1/4, this made her very exposed.

As shown in the image above, the model and the background are very exposed. You can begin to see around the edges where the light from the flash does not quite fill the whole frame. The flash is very bright and concentrated as it does not have a large amount of distance to allow for the light to spread out.

For this photograph, I kept the camera on the same setting but stood further away from the model. After looking at the Inverse Square Law, I expected the model to be less exposed than she turned out to be. I thought that because the light from the flash spreads out more, it would not be so concentrated on her - however her upper body and a section of the backdrop behind her are still quite exposed. This leads me to believe that perhaps the other camera settings weren't what they should have been.

I think that using a direct flash in photography can be very effective. Being able to change the exposure in such a dramatic way could contribute to the connotations of the photograph and I would like to experiment further with this in my final project.

BOUNCE FLASH
This is used in order to avoid overexposure when using a direct flash. The flash head can be angled in order to reflect the light off of a wall, ceiling, or reflector connected to the flash unit. It gives a softer, diffused light that is flattering for portraits (particularly because it prevents red-eye). 

I experimented this by angling the flashgun so that the light reflected off of the wall, I also used the diffuser attached to the flashgun to soften the light. 
I don't think these pictures turned out particularly well because the wall on the right hand side is just overexposed and therefore only half of my models face is lit up nicely.