Uses of Photography – Assignment 2
on Month: November 2020
on Uses of Photography-Week 5
on At the beginning of this week’s class, we talked about assignment 2 ‘Mimesis Project’ which is about intimate photographer and Brian showed us some amazing examples in class. These examples help me to get more details about this project.
Chasing the light-why and how does it matter?
Then we discussed reading ‘Light and the Aesthetics of Abandonment: HDR IMaging and the Illumination of Ruins’ by Alyssa Kushinski (2016). This reading is really meaningful to talk about the lights and lighting in photography. Lighting is an important factor in photography. For photography, light has a great effect and influence, mainly reflected in the following aspects: First, light can meet the basic illumination requirements of photography. Second, it can show the structure and color of objects as well as the specific location of objects. In photography art, if you want to present a perfect photographic work, the use of light is indispensable, the proper use of light can achieve the artistic modelling of the picture pursued in photography. Light is the medium through which information travels between continents within the thousands of miles of fibre optic cables beneath the surface of the earth, but it is also the medium through which visual information is transmitted from right before our very eyes into our bodies.(Kushinski, 2016)
By distorting pictures and abandoned tonal range, it will usually get visually exciting shock, present a totally different from we can see every day the chaos of the reality in a contemporary image, this sense of shock is usually done by distorted pictures tonal range through tonal mapping is shown with a high dynamic range of optical image.
I had tried to shoot HDR images with my phone before. The reading inspired me to try with a camera. HDR images look incredible in colours, texture because they increase the amount of detail in shadows and highlights.
I went to see the dentist so I missed the class in the afternoon. When I went back I checked my classmates’ work, the lighting exercise, and I got some useful lighting information from them.
Mimesis：
About this project, I am considering that I don’t have lighting equipment at home but I already asked my friend to be my model which is a good process. I intend to imitate Albinsjodin or Arnaud Montagard from Instagram. Portraits are very interesting to me. Considering the editing and some production work. There is a lot to do for this project.
Reference:
Kushinski, A., 2016. Light and the Aesthetics of Abandonment: HDR Imaging and the Illumination of Ruins, Transformations (28). (online) Available at: <http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Kushinski_Transformations28.pdf>
Uses of Photography-Week 6
on Mimesis Project Reflection
In this ‘Mimesis’ photography project, I chose a photographer I am interested in from Instagram named Albinsjodin. His work is always cinematic, with dark tones and a shimmer that highlights the subject. Each photo is telling a story, expressed through light and emotion. He never mind put the subject in the dark or supposes to say the dark is an essential part of his work.I n order to show the level of the photos, there must be bright and dark, light and shadow, then there must be dark part in the picture, If not handled properly, the picture will often become relatively flat without layering sense, or make the picture look unclean. Albinsjodin is really talented in adjusting the lights and expressing his feelings to tell a story from the photograph. I also want my photograph to demonstrate something, through the lights and emotional expression. I don’t want to focus on his specific work and duplicate them. What I did is to get the information from his work, imitate his style and learn about his skill and his way to tell a story.
Albinsjodin 2020, untitiled
Chloe, Z,.2020
I used the shutter in my apartment to create the back light and it was a rainy afternoon at around 5 o’clock where the natural sunlight is kind of grey. As Albinsjodin, I put my model in dark and lower f stop to f 4.5 and shutter was 1/800.
I don’t have lighting equipment at home so I used my lamp which could not create the atmosphere that dedolight may achieve and in this photo, the light was scattered. I am not happy with that but I will figure it out next time.
Edited these photos with Lightingroom, I focus to edit with the highlight, shadow and brightness. Adjust the tonal curve to achieve the different level of the lights in the photographs.
From this project, I tried to imitate my favourite photographer and do some practice focusing on his work and learning to take photos according to their ideas. I learned some basic knowledge and skills about photography and still need to do a lot of experiments in controlled lighting. To be more creative, jump out of the comfort zone and take in more knowledge of artworks from well-known photographers.
Reference:
Albinsjobin, 2020, Instagram photos, available on
Uses of Photography-Week 4
on In this week’s class, we watched Finding Vivian Maier (2013). The film reveals two sets of her life: brilliant but anonymous as a nanny for 40 years, she left behind more than 100,000 negatives of Chicago street scenes and street portraits, which were discovered by filmmaker John Maloof at an auction in 2007 and made her widely regarded in photography as one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. I was fascinated by her work and her mysterious life.
In 1948-49, Vivian began using a Kodak Brownie Box Camera to photograph buildings and people in the Champsos region of France. But her real career as a photographer began in 1952, in the New York Metropolitan area, where she was inspired in a way that small French villages could not. She started using the Rolleiflex 3.5 camera: This camera has the advantage of concealment. It is hard to imagine how subjects would have posed and expressed themselves if a long gun with a large lens was placed in front of their face. Today, in Beijing and Chengdu’s shopping central, we see so much shoot and run photography, which only adds to the value of Vivian Maier: I’m photographing you, but you better not know it.
street snap in Chengdu Taikoo Li Shopping Central
Vivian didn’t even abide by what was expected of women at the time: elegance and femininity. Instead, she slobbered two feet from the open window, snapping pictures of sleeping men on the side of the street. Her work is not sexy, but it is by no means sexless. She photographed abortion billboards, adult stores and strip clubs. Most of the people in Vivian’s photos are shot from the low angle, which means the camera position is very low, which adds a little bit of grandeur and humor to her characters. Instead of clicking the shutter aimlessly, her style of photography is composed of calm consideration, framing, removing unnecessary elements and then the local customs were collected in black and white film.
Although I like her experience, I don’t like the way John Maloof digs into her life so deep. Vivian’s friends in the documentary said she doesn’t want to be exposed and she will never let this happen.
After discussing the documentary, I went out for the exercise. I asked some passerby for their permission to make a photo of them. It was pretty lucky most of them said yes. And it was kind of funny that a woman on a bike said yes but when the light turned green she just left.
Reference：
Finding Vivian Maier, 2013, Documentary Film, directed by John Maloof & Charlie Siskel. Available at: <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uEpFcaMEsd1IQygGqjfC6Rk9SIUmXdyM/view?usp=drivesdk> (Accessed 12 November 2020).
Uses of Photography – Assignment 1
on Uses of Photography-Week 2
on At the beginning of the class, Brian invited us to come up with any living or dead person if we have a chance that we could have a face-to-face coffee/tea/drink with. The first person that came up from my mind is my dear grandpa who passed by 10 years ago. But he comes to my dream usually. Then I was thinking of Leslie Cheung, the most talented actor and singer in my heart. He is the model of both my mom and I. So if I have such an opportunity to talk to him, I may admire his courage that he was dare enough to be himself at that strict time in China. And it could be a great time just looking at him.
In the reading ‘Photomediations: A Reader’ edited by Kamila Kuc and Joanna Zylinska, “We are all photographers now.” (Zylinska, 2016). The revolution of photography, the trend that the connection between internet and digital cameras, in the recent history of photography is not the arrival of digital cameras but rather the broadband connection of these cameras to the Internet – in effect turning every photograph on the Web into a potential Frame in a boundless film.(Zylinska, 2016) I guess without the internet, no one would see the photos you take which takes away their significance. It is Amateurs versus professionals now.
How can I get more out of my camera?
Go manual.
Then we watched How to Nail Exposure Using Manual Mode narrated by Sean Tucker. As a media student, ISO, aperture, shutter speed are familiar to me. The main point is how I could maintain these in a skilful way that can create what I want exactly. Tucker shows his talent in using different depth of field and his works really demonstrating some stories. Whether it was black and white photos, it was telling something.
For exercise 2, I went out and took a few walks to the garden nearby. I took 64 pictures and chose 4 of them. Without editing, I see my weakness of achieving a successful exposure. It was not enough. Which encourages me to take more and try more. The one I feel satisfied with is this photo below. It shows two objects: dogs and the bench. That shows both dynamic and static.
From other classmates’ work, I really appreciate Bee created by Jessica which shows some noise on a black and white photograph that is vivid and narrative.
Using the camera technique to show the atmosphere we want, share our feelings and create emotion is a huge subject I am trying to make an effort with. Think before you shoot. Consider more with white balance, shutter speed, ISO, aperture, depth of field and so on. To be more familiar with these will help me to deliver my stories, feelings and emotions from photographs.
Reference:
Kuc, K. and Zylinska, J., 2016. Photomediations: A Reader. London: Open Humanities Press, pp.7-13.
Tucker, S, 2018, How to Nail Exposure using Manual Mode [YouTube], viewed on 6 November 2020, available on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUtlZ3sahz8&ab_channel=SeanTucker
Uses of Photography-Week 1
on This first week of class of the spring flexible studio got us through the overview of Uses of photography, and provided us into the structure of this semester. We started with our first reading ‘On Photography’ written by Susan Sontag. In the excerpt my group and I discussed, we all agreed that the article image is a souvenir, is our furnished evidence and helps us to keep memories. It records both memories and histories which shows your formal participation. For the other part of the reading, photographs are often considered ‘truth’ or ‘reality’. Susan mentioned “photography is an elegiac art” which is able to “record what is disappearing”. It captures things that are so far away in time and distance, that it allows us to bring back our memories and build a sense of intimacy with what we are capturing and continue to talk about what photographs mean to certain people. We reflect or try to identify with some form of reality in the photographs that we associate with them.
In section 2, Susan talks about how photography is more commonly used as a form of amusement rather than art, which was thought to be its original purpose. This opinion was quite ahead of the time for the 70’s, as it is an idea that has become more and more relevant with the boom in technology and the development of social media. She also spoke about how households with children are more likely to have a camera which would absolutely be true a couple of decades ago, however, with the accessibility to technology nowadays it’s probably an opinion that is now outdated.
The moment I got inspired to photography like many people I began with my first film camera from my parents. I still can’t forget the first photos I took of a butterfly in a park. The beautiful black and blue butterfly just suddenly flew away in front of me and I quickly captured that moment. At that time, it takes about a week to wait for the film to develop. Unfortunately, for some reason, it didn’t print well. From that on, I know I want to seize moments and capture the memories with shooting.
“I believe photography is a tool to express our positive assessment of the world. A tool to acquire ultimate happiness and belief” said by Ansel Adams. I totally agree with him and that’s actually what I feel with photography.
During our exercise, our classmates showed their great talents, Patrick’s portraits really amazed me, he kind of created a dramatic scene and film quality. What I did for my portrait I shot a photo with my kitty from the bottom angle that I was holding my cat trying to create the scene in The Lion King but it seems totally different.
Self Portraits, Australia, 2020, digital photographs. Three versions of the same self portrait taken from different viewpoints
In the future, in this course, I want to try things more different, to be more creative and break my limitations. It was such a great time to see other’s work, to see how they achieve their creative works.
Reference:
Sontag, S, 1977. On Photography. London: Penguin Books.
Adams, A, azquotes. viewed online
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Uses of Photography-Week 3
on For today’s class, we had held the Pecha Kucha presentation. In class, we shared our favourite photographer which was fascinated by different photographer artists for diversity areas such as fashion, architecture, portrait, landscape and so on.
My favourite one for recently is Ante Badzim, an Australian photographer based in Sydney, whose approach is to show the true beauty of the subject, where it demands attention by introducing space and minimising distractions.
The simplest of things, when isolated, can represent something beautiful. What we take for granted often seems to be the most important , when he brings attention to those simple elements, it can function as a reminder to truly appreciate our surroundings. As for me, I am actually a maximalist but Ante is a less is more person. What I found from his work, I see a clean, clear, peaceful and quiet world that is healing touch within me.
The fine details and primitive experience are becoming rare in contemporary life. The way he wants to celebrate the beauty that is overlooked by creating visuals that offer moments of reflection and appreciation really inspires me.
Byron shared some Bill Henson’s work which attracted me with his lighting skills. He was so brilliant to get the detail from the subjects. The other one that I respect is Reuben Wu shared by Ricky, who also has excellence skills on lighting and use of drones, really nice as a halo.He kind of creates high acutance and portrays a splendid fantastic vision of the world focused on landscape.
After that we were separated into groups to discuss the photo editing. Bella, Lorinda and I shared the steps of the editing process. So we start from the crop then manage the saturability, contrast, brightness, colour temperature, white balance, acutance, shadow and highlight.
And about the editing parameters, we all agree that we don’t have some specific datas. It depends on the atmosphere we want for the photographs.
Some edit tools like VSCO, Snapseed, PicsArt on our mobile phone are now more professional that can compare to photoshop on Laptop. As for filters, some people may say it kind of ruins the authenticity. Personally speaking, filters could help us to create a story from the photos. Somehow it can help us to create a feeling or atmosphere we want. And also, some colour tone we may not achieve at the shooting. For example, if I want to shoot some subject in a vintage way. I set up the exposure, aperture, ISO and it just could not get to what I want. The filter VSCO C1 which is a golden colour tone gives me a way more easier to achieve what I want and just put a little bit of noise on. The photo from the 80s just appear. What I said is fillers could be a way to tell a story from photos more creative and easier.
Talk about the lighting room, I haven’t tried it before but it seems easy to work with. I will try to practice more and let it be one of my editing skills.
What I have absorbed from today’s class is the masters’ creativity and their skills shared by my classmates. That inspires me to work with colour and make it more attractive.
Reference:
Ante Badzim Instagram：https://www.instagram.com/ante/?hl=en
Ricky-Reuben Wu: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hdwMfAqEj-zbBhoPdEZ_8v2bZ1m8_3VD