From your studio, reflect on an aspect of two other students/group’s media work on the website in terms of specific insights they produced about a key idea addressed by the studio? 

THE USES OF PHOTOGRAPHY

I really enjoyed this semester of media. Up until this point, I have done mostly film-focused studios, so I thought I’d switch it up and do a photography course. I learned a lot throughout the semester and hopefully take my skills and learnings to future studios.

“UNMASKED” by Jennifer Tang

The hybrid photo-film created by Jennifer Tang titled UNMASKED was a great project that I think represented the key ideas of our studio. Firstly, the project had a meaning behind it, the feelings and distress around social anxiety and the ‘mask behind the façade’. A big part of the studio was exploring the way multifaceted ways photography is created and displayed, and that it did not simply have to just be a portfolio of photographs. This project is in film format, with multi-media and has a soundtrack, which is not what you’d traditionally believe to be ‘photography’. This is why I think this project was such a great example of our key learnings throughout the course, the versatility and innovation surrounding the vast creativity of photography.

 “Melbourne’s Palette” by Jinli Axtens

Much like ‘UNMASKED’, Melbourne’s Palette expands out of what a lot of us understand as traditional photography and dives into the many ‘uses of photography’.  This project is also in a video format, as well as being layered out like a collage. What this work really highlights in terms of some of the key ideas of Uses of Photography is the way they have used editing to enhance picture’s colours and group them this way. Photography is not only about taking pictures, but the process of editing as well. I thought that this key feature was represented really well in this project.

 

Choose one other studio from this list (we suggest selecting a studio that you would not normally be interested in). Then describe a key idea that you think the finished media/studio work communicated with reference to two specific examples (i.e. particular individual/group works) – Please note the name of the studio and the name of the work

SHOCK! A NEW HORROR!

 “Lost In-Between” by Lucy Liu

Firstly, I want to say that I think this short film was excellently made. The camera quality, camera work, editing and everything is of really amazing quality. I loved watching it. What I really enjoyed about the film was the psychological thriller type of genre it follows rather than being the ‘gory’ and ‘jumpscarey’ horror film. It added another layer to the film because the story unravelled its plot as you watched, and it allowed for the audience to put the pieces together themselves. Since the studio was about creating horror movies through a contemporary lens, I think Lost In-Between did this perfectly. The film was set in a modern environment in a single-family household. I think the ‘issue’ for the main character Lily, is something that a lot of people can relate to – an absent parent and the trauma that comes with this. The storyline added the contemporary lens to the film, and while it was in the horror-genre it was not unrealistic or dramatized too much to fit in to the genre. I think it was an amazing film.

“The Newsroom” by Jasmine Gould

This short film was also really enjoyable to watch. Once again, the studios focus was about creating horror movies through a contemporary lens. I thought The Newsroom did this well by having a modern environment – such as a news reporting room. What I think this short film did really well was the narrative form. Through flashbacks and visions (a feature common in the horror genre), it allows us as an audience to engage more with the story as the narrative’s questions are answered by the change in timeline. Why was she so stressed about work? Who’s the politician? These are all questions that are answered when we watch the entirety of the film and piece things together.

FINAL PORTFOLIO:

Saskia Assignment 4

 

BLOG 7

BLOG 8

BLOG 9

BLOG 10

BLOG 11

BLOG 12

Week 12

As I mentioned in Week 11, this is probably the happiest I have been with a final project so far throughout my media course. Photography has always been something very interesting to me, although I do not have much experience and are not very good at it. The project came out better than I originally anticipated, and I hope other people enjoy the portfolio too.

One key learning about your own photographic or broader media practice that emerged in the process of completing Assignment#4

In the process of completing this Assignment, one key learning experience that emerged was how important planning was. I was so grateful I gave myself enough time to edit everything, as it was definitely the most tedious process for my chosen project. I think normally I would leave the editing and finalising the least amount of time and it often meant that my work was good, but there was always something missing. Because I was able to properly plan out and get the starting stages of this project underway quickly, it meant I did have that extra time to perfect things I wanted to perfect. I learnt how important the editing process is in the photographic practise, and how much it adds to the final product.

If you had an opportunity to repeat the Assignment 4 project what is a key thing you would do differently to improve the final outcome (and what reason stopped you doing it in the first place)?

I think I would focus more on maybe an issue or concept. Although my project does have some social commentary, I don’t think it is a very strong commentary. Reading my feedback, I realised that maybe that was what was the drive for a lot of the projects, and mine didn’t seem as clearly to have an ‘issue’ that it focused on. If I were to have an opportunity to improve the final outcome, I think I could have some more political commentary – maybe some more text or images that convey the commentary. As well as this, I think I would also have used better lighting. Although I did edit the pictures in Adobe Lightroom, I wasn’t able to fully fix the lighting, which was obviously a mistake I made during my photography. If I had shot with better light I think both the photographs would have come out better as well as made the editing process a bit smoother for myself.

What core photographic concept/idea encountered during the 12 weeks of the studio (in readings or class discussions) has had the strongest impact on how you will approach photography in the next year?

The photographic concept that stuck out to me the most was in Week 5. That week, we spent the whole class experimenting with different lighting techniques. Although I probably won’t use a soft-box lighting kit in my personal life, the experimentation of different lighting techniques gave me an entirely new perspective on how lighting creates different effects. I had never used lighting gadgets before, so this was definitely a turning point in regard to my photography learning. I hope to learn more about photography over the next year as I have really enjoyed this course.

Week 11

Week 11 of my project proved to be an exceptionally demanding period to bring all the pieces of my creative project together. At this stage, I had successfully completed the photography phase, and my next critical step was my most feared part of the process, the photo editing and putting together my digital book. Unfortunately, it was not a seamless process; my laptop experienced malfunctions (I had to get it fixed), which caused me some downtime and frustration. Photoshop, my primary editing tool, presented its own set of challenges. I found it very difficult and tedious to remove backgrounds, change lighting and overall work around Photoshop and my editing went through many stages.

As my main goal of my project, it included me having to come up with descriptive and witty text around the photographs of the bags I had taken pictures of. This was a tedious task, and it took me many days to figure out what to say. I had to make the design aesthetic and copy the distinctive 2000s magazine style while also trying to make a social commentary on gender stereotyping and sexism in the modern era.

My favourite part of the week was once I had gotten all my Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom editing finished and I had typed up all the text, I was able to put it all together. I loved experimenting with how to make my portfolio look the best I could while staying as close as I could to my inspiration. I used Canva to put all of it together into my digital book. The design went through many phases throughout the week until I was finally happy with the result. Although the editing process was definitely the most challenging for me, it was also the most rewarding. Putting everything together and seeing all the work laid out, this is probably the proudest I have been throughout my media course so far of a final project. Although I’m sure there is a lot to improve on, I am proud of what I was able to complete and how it ended up.

Week 10

In week 10, I was unable to attend the class because of illness, and it was unfortunately mostly practical, so I did not get to do it. Nonetheless, I looked at the PowerPoint and read the Strobist’s ‘learn how to light’. I enjoy reading about different ways to use light and cameras because I am still learning a lot about photography. I unfortunately do not have much to reflect on from the class due to my illness and absence.

I worked on my project this week by organising my participants and getting the photographs done. Thankfully, I had a few friends who were willing to take place, they were really good about it. I bought a white backdrop for the background of my photographs to make the editing later hopefully easier. The shoots went really smoothly and well, and honestly was a pretty quick process. I took a lot of images and just sorted through the best quality ones. I am excited to get started with progressing my project further, I am sort of nervous about the next few steps.

Week 9 (Pitch)

Week 9 was the pitch for our projects. Because I was very unwell, I was not able to do the presentation in person and unfortunately could not receive extra feedback. My idea to do ‘what’s in her bag’ was generally well received by my tutor. I think the main thing I was worried about, which I wasn’t really sure how I was going to do, was the editing part of my project. I was reassured in my feedback that it would be a good challenge and something I should take on. In terms of what programs I would use for the project, I was sure I was going to use Photoshop, otherwise, I was quite clueless. The project, as pointed out in the feedback, was largely inspired by gender, fashion and contemporary consumerism and I would like to think that the project displays that. I intentionally did not want to include men in the project, because I think it took away from the point I was trying to make on stereotyping and sexism in 2000s magazines. The feedback really inspired me to rather than putting a girl’s name on the bag, I would stereotype each girl’s persona based on the contents of their bags. The images I found for my pitch, remained the most important inspiration for me throughout my production.

Week 8

In Week 8, the prompt of the week was ‘Photography and AI: is it writing with light vs lighting with words?’. This topic fascinates me because I truly do believe AI is the future. I find it interesting universities, workplaces and schools are trying to shut down AI usage rather than using it to improve work and use it to their advantage. After reading ‘How AI Imagery is Shaking Photojournalism’ I now know how controversial it is in the photography landscape as well. “In a conversation with Michael Christopher Brown, he explained that it was created with the “intention to explore, analyse and discuss what AI may enable for reportage illustration and to surface public conversation and questioning around what work of this nature may mean for image-based storytellers who care about reality and truth.”” (Terranova, 2023). I think the main point of creating photojournalism with AI, was to not only portray the photographs and the story, but to see how the public eye reacts with the introduction of AI into the art world. The reading discusses how a lot of reactions were a disappointment and how the photographer ‘didn’t really do anything’. Despite years of research and work on the project and working with AI, the images are ‘inauthentic’ because they are not real. I’d be interested to hear what people would think of the project had he not disclosed the images were rendered by AI. The ABC’s discussion on whether AI has a place in photography also really interested me. Photography is an ever-changing and developing art form, and I think it will be very interesting to see where AI can take this.

REFERENCES

Amber Terranova, ‘How AI Imagery is Shaking Photojournalism Links to an external site.‘, Blind [online magazine], 26 April 2023.

ABC News, ‘Boris Eldagsen turned down a prize for his AI-generated image, and started a whole new conversation about art Links to an external site., 15 May 2023.

Week 7

In week 7, we discussed expanded photography with the prompt, ‘How can we use the term “expanded photography” to think about the possibilities of contemporary and photography? And how to extend our own media practice’. Expanded photography has interrelated but differing meanings from the week’s readings. Cramerotti (2011) argues the term makes sense of photography in ‘excess’ and how it exceeds it’s recognised meaning. Soutter (2016) argues that photography is not a destination in itself, but instead one method among many. I found it difficult to wrap my head around what really Expanded Photography really was, from my understanding after the readings and personal research, it is expanding the boundaries of traditional photography and giving the photography more context- literally expanding photography. Such as location, formal, and socio-cultural. The activity being creating a cinemagraph helped to further develop my understanding of expanded photography. Expanded photography breaks the grounds of what I traditionally understood as ‘photography’ by finishing the activity with a moving GIF file, something uncommon in photography.
With the rise of social media, it questioned photographers’ authenticity, “would digital technology undermine the craft of analogue photography and, more worryingly, its veracity? Would the invisible hand of Photoshop render not just the process, but the so-called “truth” of photography, obsolete?” (O’Hagan, 2018). I found this discussion very interesting, but I think digital technology and social media often add a lot of authenticity to photographs. Because anyone can take a picture at any time, I feel as though a lot of photographs now are more ‘organic’ or ‘informal’ than they used to be. Without having professional cameras, lights and backdrops, average people have a creative medium at their hands. Despite the rise in editing like Photoshop as well as Face Tune (which decreases authenticity), I think technological access and the digital rise has done a lot of good in terms of authenticity in photography.

 

REFERENCES
Lucy Soutter (2016), ‘Expanded Photography: Persistence of the Photographic’ PhotoResearcher 26, pp.36-43.

Alfredo Cramerotti (2011), ‘The Truth of Experience: Notes on Expanded Photography’, Digicult (66), August.

Sean O’Hagan (2018), ‘What next for photography in the age of Instagram’, The Guardian, 14 October

Week 6 

What were some key discoveries in this module in terms of your creative process? (It may be useful to break this down into the different phases of creative inspirations, pre-production planning and organisation, the actual shoot, and post-production and presentation).

In this module, I struggled a lot with the idea of creating something with a stranger as that seemed really out of my comfort zone. Luckily, we were able to do someone that wasn’t in our close family or friends. Thankfully, I have a friend who spends a lot of her free time doing little paintings for herself. I know she has always done this, and we’ve talked about it a few times and when this project came up, I knew she would be right for it. She does not do it to show off her work and does not claim to be a good painter, but rather does it out of enjoyment and as a sort of stress relief. I found it really interesting that it is something she does to unwind, whether it is printing a picture and colouring it in or doing watercolour scribbles. I’ve never been one to have a particular hobby, so I love that she has a ‘comfort’ activity to do in her spare time. The actual shoot was very easy-going, she was comfortable and communicated with me if there was anything I wanted her to do. I just let her do her thing as I snapped a few pictures around her. I got about 30 pictures and narrowed them down to my favourite 10, which demonstrated her ‘story’ of a break/downtime in her busy day-to-day life.

What were two key learnings in terms of the experience of ‘collaborating’ with your ‘stranger’/participant?

The first key learning experience was to let things happen organically. I found myself being quite stressed out about what the pictures were going to turn out like and what they were going to be of. I tried to write down some points on my phone of photos I thought would be essential for the ‘story’ but I found that it just came to me very naturally. In the environment she was in, I made to capture all her little painting equipment as well as her surroundings. She said she prefers to paint outside when she can although it is more rare, especially when the weather is no good; luckily, we got very fortunate.

My other key learning experience was time management. Now that someone I knew was doing a favour for me, everything was on her time. We found it quite difficult to find a day where everything matched up for the both of us, and I had originally planned to get two pictures of her at work and her at university to better display the ‘story’ of this being her ‘downtime’. Unfortunately, she went away for the week, and we were unable to do this. As a result, I learnt that I have to be a better planner and give more time for myself to carry out my ideas.

Otherwise, I think everything went pretty smoothly and generally I am happy with how my pictures turned out.