Title

Think of a title for my piece was a challenge. I really wanted to sum up my photographic essay in a clever compact. Whilst discussing Dijck's 'culture of connectivity' in class we were talking about the technical name for this generation which is 'Generation Z' we talked about how it could be said to stand for Zombie- I might play with this concept in my title. 

Individual photographs will probably be more intricate in relation to the factors which change across the essay. I would like to incorporate some kind of social media related jargon and play with the concept of constantly waiting for '.... liked your profile picture' '.....shared your post' '....added you as a friend' etc   

Circulation and authorship of the image

Who owns the authorship of an image?

Some artists use the work of others to create their own for example (agdhf) and her use of flickr images to create a larger image. So who is actually the 'author' of said image??

Is this ethical? For some artists to take credit for other artists work? Interesting the learn that it should be considered acceptable for an artist to use the work of others if they use it in a different and new way, making it something different and new - making the seond artist in the process the author because they are the creator of the new work.

Interesting to know I could incorporate the work of another into my own. 

Cultural, imaginaries and landscapes

Editing landscape photography has produced some very visually pleasing and interesting outcomes. This kind of manipulation can make comments and communicate messages with the audience of the photographs. It might represent a different side to the same reality. These products can be very powerful in their symbolism and narrative. The concept of cultural imaginaries combined alongside landscape photography is a very interesting topic. It is unlikely that I will look further into this though as my main interest lies in portrait photography but this idea is appealing.

Analog to digital: Indexical Function of photographic images

analog photography has often been referred to as a reflection of reality because it uses the natural bouncing of light into the camera. In contrast digital technology uses coding to create image.

The reading talks and questions whether an image existing in a digital newspaper is less reliable or 'real' than one printed in a physical newspaper. This is a concept I find interesting. Is an image less real if it only exists in digital form?

Does the ability to enhance and manipulate digital image make it less real. This is one reason why some consider analog photography to be a better representation of real life. But in my opinion it is down to personal experience and presentation which reflects in image- digital or analog. Every version of reality is someones 'real' experience.


I don't think that whether a picture was created using analog or digital photography can determine whether a photo is real or not.

Project development

Thinking in depth about the composition of my photographs, I have planned certain aspect which I will intend to make consistent through my photographic essay.


Coloured image:
 Initially I considered making all my photographs black and white, to draw the attention of my audience to the most important element of the photographs, the person and the technology. But I feel that coloured image would be more appropriate in helping me to depict to my viewers aspect such as historical context, social context and to present environmental and situational components such as what the subject is doing? where is she?


Framing:
I want my framing to be consistent throughout my photographic essay, I did want to experiment with close up shots but I think it will be a lot more effective and have much more appeal as a narrative essay if all the shots are consistent in how they capture the subject, from the same slight high angle and a mid shot showing the subject and her surroundings without being a long shot. I want to use the surroundings as the punctum element of my work, making the photos interesting to the audience.

Composition:
I want to compose my photos in a way that it can be seen that my subject is aware of the photographs being taken but there is no direct address made between the subject and the viewer. I do not intend to break the fourth wall in my work

Thinking photography - Burgin

Does photography impose a point of view?

Photography has a way of showing us elements of the photographer. Portraying messages through their eyes, through their viewpoints, often presenting a very specific point - allowing audience to see this in the same way as the photographer did/does. Framing and composition of image plays a huge part in this.

Burgin makes it clear how important ideologies are, so that they can be reinforced or subverted by the photographer. Therefore making social, political, economical etc statements through image. The same concept might be captured and presented by different photographers in different ways therefore showcasing different viewpoints the same subject at the same point in time could be captured from conflicting viewpoints and this may result in influencing the audience in different ways.  

This reading was very helpful in highlighting the power of the photograph and how it represents the photographer and his or her viewpoints in many ways. It is interesting because it takes a set of coding to create an image but it must also be decoded by the audience on the other end. This is something I will consider when composing my images what kind of stance I am taking towards ideologies set and how I am constructing a view point.

Technology, youth and photography research

Whilst researching the concept of youth and technology to gain more insight into my theme, I came across a project which is similar to mine in many ways.

Sebastian Kainey from Australia created a photographic project which also explores modern technologies ability to isolate western youths and develop a strong dependency on electrics and social networking.

project development

Gender, gaze, otherness and photography

When trying to understand a person we assign them to a group or groups. this usually depends on classification according to elements such as gender, age, class, race, sexuality etc

Stereotyping 'reduces, essentializes, naturalizes and fixes difference'
stereotyping basically defines the way society labels differences.

When otherness is used in reference to gender, the word 'other' suggests minority or steering away from norms which reflects a lesser of power for this group.


Lee Miller - photographer who was a fashion model prior to her becoming a photographer. Most well known for her photography work during the second world war. Miller subverted gender roles through her photographs showing conflict up close and personal, unlike majority of women from this time period who stayed at home, whilst men were expected to fight.

Really interesting to see how elements of otherness can be explored through the photograph and how a photographers sense of otherness through characteristics such as gender and  sexuality can sometimes be seen through the images they produce but sometimes it is not identifiable at all. 

Working with a Nikon D7000

Dijck 'The culture of connectivity' 2011

Dijck looks in depth at five major social media platforms: Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Flickr and Wikipedia. She considers the internet history of all these networks and critically speaks about the correlation between age and/or career and how a person depends on social media.

She highlights how platforms such as these have altered the way we communicate amongst ourselves and other important elements such as self expression, how we harness our creativity and most importantly how media platforms invade our daily routines in ways much deeper than we would consider without much thought.
Dijck also talks about how corporations no longer look to facilitate social networking and an effective means of connectivity but look to exploit users through these servers full of information.

Concept of 'sharing', 'liking' and 'trending' are just part of our everyday life experience. It is scary to learn about the shifting ownership status and business models found within these platforms.

Dijck is critical of the way in which this has 'normalized' within our lifestyles, and describes this as being a battle of politics and ideology over information online.

This reading has made me much more aware of my own online usage and the information which passes through my computer[s] on a daily basis. It is shocking to read about how these platforms have developed in such a short period of time to facilitate for corporations in a 'social' way.

This is particularly appropriate to my project as I am looking in depth at the correlation between age (young adults/ teenagers specifically) and dependancy on sharing, liking, posting, friending and trending in everyday life. Dijcks research is definitely something to consider trying to communicate through my work.

‘’Many of these widespread presence of platforms drives people to move some of their social, cultural and professional activities to these online environments. Teenagers like Zara cannot imagine a life without facebook, and sandra has become primarily dependent on Twitter for maintaining customer relations.” - Jose Van Dijck

Image format

Image formatting is the storing and organisation of images. Digital date makes up these image files.  Images can be stored in compressed, uncompressed and vector form. The most common image file formats are JPEG, TIF, PNG and GIF. File formats such as JPEG are usually popular because they make the picture file much smaller for storing.

Web 3.0 The Semantic Web

Describes the progression of the web and its abilities, with particular focus on photograph and video sharing on websites- using a  series of specific codes which allow these materials to be reused and shared by users for example HTML and URL.

The 'Semantic Web' refers to a common framework which allows data to be shared and reused across boundaries digitally.

We are currently working towards Web 4.0 with developed features such as intelligent personal search and distributed search.

Examples of this photo sharing include sites such as Flickr which is a photo sharing community, where users can upload photographs and create photo albums to be shared across online communities. It has over 17 million monthly visitors, over 8 million monthly registered users and over 500 million photos.

Web 3.0 has allowed website like Flickr to organise the material into categories such as 'most viewed' and photos can be viewed in a slideshow format. Tagging and geotagging can be used to find specific photographs and reach a broad range of geographical destinations.

Penelope Umbriaco, photographic artist who collects images which have already been taken to 'reinterpret' their meaning. Seen in her 2006 piece 'Suns (from sunsets) where she used flickr to retrieve a large number of sunset images, which she found to be the most uploaded image.

This information is particularly useful and appropriate for me to understand as it focuses on the technological elements of photography and the involvement of the web. Networking and sharing over the internet. It highlights an advance in technology and how it is affecting our lives. 
Considering that my photographic essay holds a theme around the involvement of technology in our lives it was really interesting to develop a deeper understanding of Web 3.0 and the concept of this semantic web which is constantly evolving. The statistics given showing how many people use sites such as Flickr is huge. Which really supports the message of the work I am trying to create, concerning our obsession with constantly sharing information with the world and consuming the information of others.

Depth of field and Aperture

I have been exploring depth of field, which can be controlled using aperture priority, using a wide aperture gives a close up focus and tends to blur the background, emphasising the subject or object which is close to you as the photographer. Whereas a narrow aperture will give a much larger depth of field, giving focus to a wider range, showing the background more clearly. 

Wide aperture would be more appropriate for portraits and narrow aperture would be used for landscape photography.

Wide aperture:

 Narrow aperture:

Playing with light and shutter speed

When playing around with shutter speed, I discovered that using a really slow speed I was able to create really interesting images where artificial light was caught when i moved the camera whilst the shutter was closing. I really like the effect this has on photos and the way it merges the colours of the environment being captured and the way detail is lost

Shoot 3

Photographer research:Senol Zorlu

Born in Turkey, Zorlu is most well known for capturing simple but moving emotive images, which express people, culture and economical situations from different parts of the world. His career began in 1996 when he was captivated by African children in Madagascar. Aside from this project it is hard to find much material from Zorlu online. He is considered an 'underground' artist.

His work is very powerful in exploring concepts of identity based on culture and geographical location. His work is known to be very moving and personal and mostly consists of portraits. I find his work very moving and beautiful. His composition is very pleasing to look at and I would like to experiment with subject placement in a similar way to how he has in his work. 

His work has influenced me to venture further into experimenting with close up photography which might be something to consider in my photographic essay. A sense of narrative concerning elements of identity can de decoded in his images. 

photographer research: Henrik Knudsen

Knudsen is a photographer from Denmark who is based between London  and New York. His focus in photography tends to revolve around metropolitan life. He finds a lot of inspiration in cinema. This is reflected in his work which shows strong elements of character development and narrative. 

His work communicates messages of person and place which is something which I find very interesting and I will take inspiration from his work in this sense.He has used travel as a base for his photography work. Knudsen's work would be appropriate for me to look at as his story telling style will be useful in its format to me as the brief takes the form of a photographic essay.

I really like his projects which focus on individuals and show development in identity and character. This is definitely something to consider when taking photographs for my final essay. I like how it is clear that the subjects of these photos knows that they are being taken but the fourth wall is still there visually- no eye contact is made with the camera. This is the kind of style I will take with my portrait photographs.I also like the impact which the environmental factors play, they are really important visually in these photos. They make up a huge part of the composition.

Photographic Essay: Photo plan

Photographic essay: Problems with overexposure

On my second shoot the natural lighting meant that it was really hard to compose photographs and to view them afterwards proved really difficult- so these are the end result. overexposed, which means I will have to reshoot, this part of my photographic essay.

I've decided to play around with angling and focus but I think I need to make sure the photographs in my essay show consistency and flow artistically but in a logical, chronological way. 

I also need to relook at my depth of field when taking photographs in this essay to help try and convey the message in my structure. 

I've decided to play around with angling and focus but I think I need to make sure the photographs in my essay show consistency and flow artistically but in a logical, chronological way. 

In future I need to be more aware of my subject placement, the photographs from this day have come out very disorganised and aren't constructed well. 

Role of technology in identity

 I asked my friend Ashleigh if I could photograph her just in her room, doing normal daily things. She spent the whole time either on her phone or on her macbook, which gave me some progression towards developing the topic for my photographic essay.

Ashleigh's room was very stimulating visually but she spent most of the time I was taking photos sitting at her laptop. This was very interesting. It might be interesting to look into the way people present themselves through social media in comparison to in a comfortable situation at home.

I like how the contrast I used in my photographs have come out, making the room seem very vibrant, highlighting other elements of her identity aside from the role of technology - but not subtracting from the key element which is the laptop she is on and the phone in her hand.

I found that it was hard to try and keep details from around her to try and represent her environment as well as, showing the focus on her and the technology and the relationship between them as the most important message of the photographs.

I also tried to play with lighting and found that it was really interesting to see that we very easily lost the details in lots of elements of the room, but the technology within the images, were always still visible. This could be used to signify the key role which technology and social networking plays within today's society. We are drawn visually to the electric details in these images because they are deemed important.

Photographic essay: Project idea mindmap

"The endlessly seductive puzzle of sight"- Diane Arbus Clarke's 'The Photograph'

Clarke's 'The photograph' speaks very importantly of the active role the photographer plays within photography and the relationship between the reader and the image being a connection between the reader and the photographer.

From reading this text, I found that I was looking much further into the meaning and symbolism behind a photograph. Clarke talks in depth about the cultural and historical conjuncture behind a photograph and the information that we can infer from a photo has little boundaries. It has helped me to realise that the act of reading a photograph is a very complex process, in which our expectations play a huge role.

Clarke deconstructs images captured by Diane Arbus such as 'Identical twins 1967' and we can see that there is much more to this image than what we can see on the surface, there are issues of identity and culture seen through symbolism. This is something that is evident throughout many of Diane Arbus' work.

 Photographers in this process take on the role of an auteur, with the photo being a product of the photographer, reflecting a specific viewpoint, which further highlights how photography is a very active practice. The message found in a photograph can be explained as a series of codes, values and beliefs of the culture it is representing. Clarke describes photos as having a narrative structure which in relation to its historical and social context.

After reading this, I will think about the symbolism in my photographs in more depth and consider how I am presenting the historical/social context to my readers. I will definitely consider the message I am trying to send when composing photographs more closely.

Identity of Brighton: Seafront

After deciding very early on that I was more interested in portrait photography and focusing on this, I decided it might be interesting to explore other options and look at landscape photography. I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

 My focal point was on the identity of Brighton, especially from a tourist perspective we would consider Brighton Pier to be a crucial part of Brighton's identity so I decided to start there. The weather and time of day I chose to photograph in gave me conditions where natural light was limited, I was conflicted by this when actually taking the photos- but in hindsight, I am really pleased with the outcome. There is something dark and pretty about the composition of these photos with the synthetic light from the Brighton pier sign creating a gloomy aesthetic to some of the photos.

Despite this photo being quite dark, I really like the way the colours have come out in it and that a seagull has disturbed the makeup of the photo, I think it keeps nicely with the aesthetic of Brighton.

 I later ventured further into the empty back streets of Brighton where I found a much more grungy feeling mood, I think this is presented in my last few photos.