Shop Task

We were given the task to go into a shop and take photographs of the owner at work, interacting with customers and images to contextualise the shop.

Portraits

Keeping with the theme of gaze,  we took portrait photographs of each other and photographs of us interacting.

With portraits and images of them interacting, you can capture the personality of a person. This is found through gaze - as you look deeper into an image.

For example this photograph shows a humanitarian gaze - my subject looks directly into the camera and her slight smile demonstrates her friendly but shy personality. 

Gender, Gaze and Otherness

Otherness is the quality or fact or being different. As a society, we assign people to a particular group according to gender, class, age, nationality, race, sexual orientation etc in order to 'understand' them.
We often put people into stereotypes, and these automatically categorise what 'belongs' and anything that doesn't is categorised as being 'other'.
As a result of being 'other', a person is excluded from the norm and therefore is given less power. For example females possess less power than males. This gender stereotype is often challenged by photographers - this will be demonstrated in the examples in this post.


Nan Goldin

Nancy 'Nan' Golding is an American photographer, born in 1953.
The key themes of her work are gender, love, domesticity, and sexuality. Her main subjects include women looking in mirrors, drag queens, sexual acts and the culture of obsession and dependency.

Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a Taxi, NYC, 1991

This image shows two transvestites in a taxi. This is what we see at first; their exaggerated make up, large earrings, provocative outfits and their wigs.
However, the longer the look at it the more you get a feeling of them staring back at you. This creates a sense of gaze where you find the meaning of an image by focusing on it for longer.
I think that Goldin uses this gaze to connote that these people are aware that they are classed as 'other' but they own it - the attitude in their faces shows that they are proud of this fact and do not care if they are accepted or not because they are just being themselves.
In this piece, as well as her other work, Goldin empowers people that are considered as 'other'

Nan One Month After Being Battered

This image also reflects Goldin's theme of empowerment, particularly for women, 

A woman that has been abused is shown as a sign of 'weakness' however the woman in this image is presented as brave and strong. This is because despite her bruises and bloodshot eye, she still puts on lipstick, nice jewellery and does her hair demonstrating that she is still powerful, and will not be held back by her gender stereotype.

Vernacular Photography - My Group Presentation

Everyday, Everywhere...

Vernacular photography refers to photographs taken by amateur or unknown photographers who take everyday life and common things as subjects.

This can include:

Travel or vacation photographs

Family portraits

General everyday life

With improvements in technology, camera equipment is more accessible to everyone with regards to reduction in size, affordability, and ease of use. Particularly now that a very large majority of people own smartphones that allow you to take good quality photos, and share them on social media websites using just one device. 

This classifies us all as amateur photographers as we capture vernacular photographs of our everyday lives on our phones.

With vernacular photography, I feel that there is an element of simplicity and reality. 

For example, the photograph above shows a man looking at a woman that he is supposedly in a relationship with, or that he has just slept with. As she has her back to him, he gives her this longing stare which connotes feelings of love or lust for her. An emotion like this could not be captured in more 'staged' or 'posed' photographs because they aren't real and do not show true, everyday life in the way that vernacular photography does. 

Martin Parr

Martin Parr is a British photographer, aged 63. 

At first glance his photographs seem exaggerated or even grotesque because of the strange motifs, garish colours and unusual perspectives.

However he enables us to see things that seem familiar to us in a completely new way by presenting a unique perspective through affectionately satirical photographs of English society. 

He creates his own image of society - individual characteristics are accepted and eccentricities are treasured.

“With photography, I like to create fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society’s natural prejudice and giving this a twist” – Martin Parr

S    Small World - 1990

The Leaning Tower of Pisa from 'Small World' 1990.

This image comes from 'Small World', a book of tourism photographs by Martin Parr. It shows visitors to The Leaning Tower of Pisa facing away from the famous landmark, posing for a photo, and smiling 'falsely'.

This photo looks at consumerism in our society. There is the contradiction of tourist 'hotspots' attracting such a large number of visitors, however ultimately the quality of their experience is diminished due to the loss of cultural identity to tourism.

“We are surrounded by propaganda, whether it be in travel supplements, holiday brochures or advertising. I just show things how I see them” – Martin Parr 

This quotation from Martin Parr demonstrates the key theme in vernacular photography - reality. It takes away the idealistic views we have of travelling and famous places as shown to us consumers in advertisements, films, television and brochures. 

The Last Resort - 1986

New Brighton, Merseyside 1984

Parr regularly visited the coastline in England to photograph people on the beach spending their free time by the sea. 

'The Last Resort' was one of his first works that earned him wide recognition in the photography world. All of the photographs are taken in New Brighton, Merseyside between 1983 and 1985. This is when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister and there was a very high rate of unemployment in the north, and an economic decline. The photographs capture the working class - those most affected by Thatcher's leadership.

This image shows the overcrowding of the seaside resorts at this time. Margaret Thatcher wanted to reduce the power of trade unions, and to me this image reflects the working class and everyone facing the same struggles of unemployment, lack of money and hardships of life coming together in one place - like a trade union. 

Getting to Know the Camera

Manual Exposure

Changing the ISO on the camera adjusts the cameras sensor to light and how much it allows in the image - this is done using the 'M' function on the camera dial. The higher the exposure, the brighter the image.
If the exposure is too high the image becomes 'overexposed', it is too bright and can become unclear and grainy - particularly if it was originally quite dark.
A low exposure setting will make dark sections of an image even darker.

High exposure

Low exposure

Shutter Speed

The shutter speed is a measurement of how long the shutter stays open for. This is controlled by putting the camera in 'S' mode (shutter priority).
Increasing the shutter speed by one step reduces the amount of time the shutter is open by one half.
Decreasing the shutter speed by one step increases the amount of time the shutter is open by one half.
The longer the shutter is open for, the more light enters. Therefore, if you take a photo of a moving object with a slow shutter speed you will get a blurry image that shows the movement of the object. However if you take a photo of a moving object with a fast shutter speed, you will get a clear image as there was less time to allow for light to enter the camera.

Slow shutter speed

Fast shutter speed

Aperture

Aperture controls the depth of field of the camera. It is controlled by putting the camera in 'A' mode (aperture priority).
Depth of field is the amount of distance between the nearest and farthest objects that appear in sharp focus in a photograph. A higher aperture results in a longer depth of field and vice versa.

I found it difficult to select the right aperture setting in order to show this, however this image that I took  is an example of a photograph with a decreased depth of field.

Composition

Rule of Thirds

This is where lines divide the frame into thirds from top to bottom and from left to right. The focus of interest is to be placed at the intersections of these four lines.

My attempt at a photo adhering to the 'Rule of Thirds'

Golden Ratio

This is a way of dividing the frame into portions in order to place the subject in an aesthetically pleasing position. It is based on the 'Golden number proportion' which is a mathematical sequence of numbers - discovered by Leonardo Pisano.

An example of Golden Ratio taken from the internet

Dynamic Symmetry

This is an alternative way of creating the focus of an image. It is based on Golden Ratio, however it uses diagonal lines instead of a grid to establish the most pleasing place for the point of interest.

Dynamic Symmetry creates the same 'hotspots' as the Rule of Thirds

How to Read a Photograph

When reading a photograph, you look at the 'photographic discourse' to find the meaning of the image and what the photographer has done to achieve this.
This involves looking at the denotative and conotative  meanings in the photograph.
Denotative - the literal meaning and details in the image.
Conotative - the deeper meaning of elements in the image; how they reflect certain attitudes or expressions in society and what they are used to represent.

Roland Barthes introduced the concept of studium and punctum in his book Camera Lucida.
Studium - looking the cultural, linguistic and political interpretation of the image, the literal meaning (denotative).
Punctum - the deeper, personally touching details and meaning (conotative).

It is also important to research the social, economic, and political factors at the time the photograph was taken in order to achieve a broader analysis.

"A Family on Their Lawn One Sunday in Westchester, New York" - Arbus 1969

My Interpretation
Studium - The photograph shows a family in their garden. The two parents are relaxing while their child plays by their self behind them. In terms of composition, Arbus has used the 'rule of thirds' technique in order to draw attention to the parents - making them the focus of the image as they are placed at the intersections of an imaginary grid that splits the frame into thirds from top to bottom and from left to right. Additionally, the upper third of the frame is taken over by the forest which appears to be very dark and intimidating due to the low exposure that Arbus used.

Punctum - You would imagine that with such a large garden the family would be wealthy and therefore happy; however as our eyes are drawn to the focus points of the wife and husband we see a contradiction to this. On one hand, the wife looks very relaxed and content with her arms stretched out and her eyes closed. The man, on the other hand, appears to be frustrated or concerned as he is covering his face with his hand - which is often a sign of despair or worriedness. Finally, there is the child playing behind the parents alone that creates a sense of neglect and loneliness. This leads me to think that the family are, in fact, not happy.
The idea of the 'American dream' comes to mind when I look at this image. This is a goal that is achieved by having a good job (traditionally by owning your own business), to be able to afford a large house and comfortably finance a happy family - something that was particularly popular in the 1960's. This leads me to think that the husband in the photograph is facing issues with money that his wife is oblivious to - and these troubles are represented by the dark, looming forest behind them.