Thursday, 28 April 2016
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, 27 April 2016
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.
Narrow aperture:
Wide aperture would be more appropriate for portraits and narrow aperture would be used for landscape photography.
Wide aperture:
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