Monday, 13 December 2010

Checklist

Attendance for some of you has been rather worrying this term. Whilst the inclement weather and dark evenings haven't helped, you must always check the blog and catch up on any work.
Use the Xmas holidays to ensure your sketch book is up to date. If the following work is not in your sketch book and annotated we will have to assess your suitability for continuing with the course.



F413: Coursework Portfolio
  • Candidates produce a portfolio of work from starting points, topics or themes determined by their centre.
  • The focus is on including work that shows exploration, research and acquisition of techniques and skills.
Your starting points for this term were Texture and Portraiture so you should have two separate sections exploring these themes.

For each you must include evidence of research into other photographers work and your own interpretation of it. All images must be annotated using the guidelines earlier in the blog.
You must make it very clear which are your images by providing the technical info of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. You should also get into the habit on commenting on the differences these settings make.

As it says above you need to demonstrate an acquisition of techniques and skills so you need to include your darkroom work.
You should also be experimenting with Photoshop, liquifying and layering opacity are good tools to start with.
Even showing the differences in cropping and framing are important and you can do this by printing screen shots of what you have done.

A Christmas Portraiture project is 'Hands', we discussed this in class, for those of you that missed it, think about photographing relatives hands and thinking about the stories behind the jewelry and the lives that have been lived, memories that can be passed down.You can add to your Texture pictures, close ups of baubles on trees are good for depth of field and lighting. Food leftovers, turkey carcasses in a Martin Parr style can also be good.

You took some pictures using the film SLR. We will be developing these in the dark room in January, so if you have access to a film camera (it doesnt have to be SLR), get yourself a film and shoot a reel. Take it to snappy snaps and ask them just to develop the negatives. We can then enlarge and print these negs in the dark room. I have a few spare reels of film if you have difficulty buying them (Jessops and Snappy Snaps do them, you need Ilford, ISO 100, 200 or 400).

You may find it useful to get some of your digital images printed out professionally. Put them on a  memory stick and take to one of the above shops or upload to a site like Snapfish or Photobox. These usually offer discounts for big orders, try and go for matt, with a white border and 7x8, these tend to look better than 6x4.

Thats all folks!
Make sure you take lots of pictures, look at lots of photography sites, print it all out and annotate!


Monday, 6 December 2010

The 10 best photographic portraits Penetrating profiles, from early-20th-century masterchefs to full-on modern celebrities

Kray Twins David Bailey

David Bailey: The Kray twins (1965)

The photographic guv'nor from east London. People have written him off so often but he is still shooting and as irascible as ever. I spotted him underneath a baseball cap recently and asked him how it was all going. "Nobody's using me, but the art world have discovered me!" he said. This picture of the Kray twins, whose gang ran a protection racket in London in the 60s, is classic Bailey: pure white background, no arms or hands, strong shape and form. I'm scared just looking at them.



 Sinead O'Connor Jane Bown I was lucky enough to work alongside Jane for nearly 15 years. This portrait of SinĂ©ad O'Connor really stunned me when she took it and I have it on my wall. Her photographs are always simple and powerful and I love the defiance in this one, where, unusually, the subject isn't looking at the camera. Always preferring to work in black and white, Bown has dominated portraiture for 50 years. Respect.

Look Here for the rest of this article

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

1st December

Great session with ex pupil Emma. Make sure you try out the techniques of bluring and liquifying before you forget.

Make sure you get out and take some snow pics while you have the opportunity. Try putting the SLR on shutter priority to try and capture whole snow flakes. If you can catch a snow balls fight put it on sports mode to get action shots.

Follow this link for a really good guide and ideas on how to shoot in the snow

Monday, 8 November 2010

Portraiture

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Your tasks

1. Discuss this statement

"The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt."

Henri Cartier-Bresson


2. Research 'self portraits'.
Write up your findings in your sketch book and take a picture of yourself. Write about how you have chosen to represent your self. You can use props or a significant setting if you wish.

Portrait of Something that I'll Never Really See, 1997
Gavin Turk, born 1968 (portrait originally taken by Anthony Oliver)


Photographers intentions
1. what are the photographers aims?
2. Who is the image for? More than one audience?
3. Does the image successfully communicate the photographers aims and intentions?

Analysing the image.
1. What type of photography is this? documentary, reportage, portrait, fine art, advertising, editorial?
2. What is included in the photograph?
3. What message does it convey?
4. What techniques do you think have been used to make the image?
5. Has the image been staged?
6. Has the image been manipulated in any way?

Personal Response.
1. How does the image make you feel?
2. Does it remind you of anything? personal experiences, other photographers work.

Madame Yevonde

Vivien Leigh
by Madame Yevonde
colour dye transfer print, 1936
19 in. x 12 1/2 in. (484 mm x 317 mm) uneven
Purchased, 1999
NPG P742
Benjamin Woodward
attributed to Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)
albumen print, 1850s
8 in. x 6 in. (203 mm x 152 mm)
Purchased, 1986
NPG P312
A Discussion
by David Octavius Hill, and Robert Adamson
calotype, 1843-1848
5 1/4 in. x 7 7/8 in. (134 mm x 200 mm)
Given by an anonymous donor, 1973
NPG P6(143)

A really interesting image, very early in photographic terms but a very modern, naturalistic compostion.

8th November

Monday period 3 and lunch time isn't working so we will revert to the original timetable of after school every Monday and alternating Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.

I hope you managed to get some good firework pictures.

Please ensure you have a good selection of Texture images, manmade and natural, your own and established artists.

We will now turn our attention to 'Portraiture'

Sources of art portraiture

The National Gallery is a great space to start. Dating from the 1840s one can really trace the development of photography from it's conception through to a developing art and media form.

Tuesday, 19 October 2010

Watch this, Tuesday, 7.30 Channel 5

Work for half term

1. Please make sure your sketch books are up to date.
2. Go to a photography exhibition and write about the experience.
3. Take lots of photos! More texture and start thinking about 'portraiture', out next theme.
4. Try digitally manipulating your images. You could take one image of a flower and make it larger, smaller, change the opacity, colour, exposure, angle etc and create a composite image. Re read the article from the BJP and try and write a similarly arty one of your own.

18th October

Now you should have a good set of man made and nature photographs.
You have been given lots of worksheets recently so you need to use those to guide you in your note making.
1. Choose the images you are most happy with and edit it them in iphoto using, crop, enhance and adjustments.
2. Keep print screening your process, print these out and annotate them in your sketch book until you are happy with an image that you should print out larger and annotate according to the worksheets.
3. Now you need to think about a conceptual approach to your texture pictures, look for existing artists and respond to their work. Try overlaying images and changing opacity or consider the work of Lisa Creagh and her 'digital garden'. Here is an interesting article about her



On her website there is a very good article where her work is written about in fine art terms, perfect as a guide for the style of writing you should be aspiring to.

Tuesday, 5 October 2010

Where to look

It is sometimes hard to know which photographers to use. As a general starting point, look at these:

Magnum

The Photographers Gallery

List of famous photographers

5th October

Sketch books.

By now you should have:
1. Intro to dark room techniques:
An explanation of pin hole photography. Some examples of artists work and a description of your own experience of it.
An explanation of Photograms. Some examples of artists work (look at Many Ray) and a description of your own experience.

For the next few weeks we will be leaving the dark room and looking at using digital cameras. In particular we will examine the theme of 'Texture', both man made and natural.

Within this we need to push your use of the SLR cameras. So, when taking shots, change the aperture & shutter settings several times for the same compostition. This will allow you to immediately see the difference in outcome these settings can create. Depth of field should be manipulated as should the framing of shots.

Combined with this should be your exploration of artists you admire and their work on texture. So a typical investigation should consist of:
1. Brainstorm/mind map theme.
2. Sketch ideas for images
3. Exploration of existing photographers work.
4. Take at least two images that you admire and explain why using textual analysis sheets.
5. Choose one of these to act as a spring board for your own photography.
6. Print out a few and experiment with cropping and manipulating digitally in iphoto initially ( we will move on to Photoshop later).
7. From within iphoto find out the info shutter speed, aperture and ISO and note down. Annotate the results of this research, what aesthetic result does it have?
8. Produce your favourite image and do a textual analysis of it, explaining how it 'works'.

Monday, 20 September 2010

Tasks:

Write up pin hole camera activity in sketch books. You should include:
1. explanation of process
2. examples of other artists work
3. your attempts, even if it went wrong, explain how long you exposed it and why you think it may not have worked.

Research Man Ray and photograms.
Find a composition you really like and get props ready to produce your own in the darkroom.
Write all this up in your sketch books (available from reception).
Answer this question:
What was Man Ray's influence art and photography!

Monday 20th September

Slight change in timetabling. Instead of after school on a Monday we shall change the lesson to Lesson 3 on a Monday going into lunchime, weeks A & B.

This way there will be smaller groups in the darkroom and/or tutorials and a longer time to get the darkroom/equipment set up.

Let me know if there are any problems with this.

The other lessons of Week A, Wednesday period 6 and Week B, Tuesday period 6

Wednesday, 15 September 2010

Man Ray

Photograms were used in the 20th Century by a number of photographers, particularly Man Ray, who called them "rayographs". His style included capitalizing on the stark and unexpected effects of negative imaging, unusual juxtapositions of identifiable objects (such as spoons and pearl necklaces), varying the exposure time given to different objects within a single image, and moving objects as they were exposed

Other artists to look at:

Wednesday 15th Sept

We will have another go at creating pin hole images.
We will also be making 'Photograms'.
This is where you lay objects on light sensitive paper. Bring some objects that you would like to place , things like perspex jewelry, dried flowers work well.

Have a read of these articles to get you in the mood and be on time please as everything takes ages in the darkroom.

http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Making-a-photogram

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogram

Man Ray is an artist famous for creating Photograms, have a look at his work for some inspiration!

rams&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title

Tuesday, 7 September 2010

Pinhole Cameras

A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens and with a single small aperture — effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box. The human eye in bright light acts similarly, as do cameras using small apertures.

Up to a certain point, the smaller the hole, the sharper the image, but the dimmer the projected image.

A pinhole camera's shutter is usually manually operated because of the lengthy exposure times, and consists of a flap of some light-proof material to cover and uncover the pinhole. Typical exposures range from 5 seconds to hours and sometimes days As far back as the 4th century BC, Greeks such as Aristotle and Euclid wrote on naturally-occurring rudimentary pinhole cameras. For example, light may travel through the slits of wicker baskets or the crossing of tree leaves.

A pinhole camera consists of a light-tight box with a pinhole in one end, and a piece of film or photographic paper wedged or taped into the other end. A flap of cardboard with a tape hinge can be used as a shutter. The pinhole is usually punched or drilled using a sewing needle or small diameter bit through a piece of tinfoil. This piece is then taped to the inside of the light tight box behind a hole cut through the box. The best pinhole is perfectly round.

Pinholes (homemade or commercial) can be used in place of the lens on an SLR. Use with a digital SLR allows metering and composition by trial and error, and is effectively free, so is a popular way to try pinhole photography.Special features can be built into pinhole cameras such as the ability to take double images, by using multiple pinholes, or the ability to take pictures in cylindrical or spherical perspective by curving the film plane.The concept is very closely linked to Camera Obscura

http://www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorer/pringles_pinhole.html

You can also make them with 35 mm film

http://alspix.blog.co.uk/2005/12/31/matchbox_pinhole~428481/



How to Make a Pinhole Camera



Pinhole cameras are easy to make and fun to use!

You will need to bring these items with you to your next lesson.

A box with four sides, a bottom and a lid (a shoebox would be best). It would be best to paint the inside of this in matt black beforehand so it is dry.

A sheet of black sugar paper or a roll of tinfoil

Sellotape

Scissors

A needle or drawing pin

Bluetack



1. First, you will need to make sure that no light can get into the box once the lid is on, so

tape up any rips or joins. (Don’t put the lid on yet though!)

2. Cut a hole in the side of the shoebox.

3. Cut out a square of sugar paper or tinfoil. Make sure it’s bigger than the hole and then tape it to the inside of the box so the hole is covered.

4. Take your drawing pin or needle and very carefully make a small hole in the centre of the foil.

5. Create a lens cap over the front of the lens that you can easily remove but keep lightproof.

6. In the dark, bluetack a piece of photo paper on the opposite side of the box to your hole. Tape up the lid of the box and ensure the lens is covered up.

7. Take your camera to the position you want, point the tinfoil end of your camera towards something bright & expose for 10 seconds in the first place ( it will take some experimentation with exposure time depending on the lighting conditions and the size of your aperture & box).

8. Bring the box back to the darkroom. In the dark, open the box then develop, rinse then fix the paper.

9. Take digital images of the whole process and research camera obscuras and pinhole cameras so you can add it to your sketch book.

Links
Alternative Photographic Processes

Monday, 6 September 2010

Outline of course

<div style="width:425px" id="__ss_593346"><strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/shsgmedia/outline-of-course-presentation" title="Outline of course">Outline of course</a></strong><object id="__sse593346" width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=photo-08-3-1221151166882424-9&stripped_title=outline-of-course-presentation" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><embed name="__sse593346" src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=photo-08-3-1221151166882424-9&stripped_title=outline-of-course-presentation" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><div style="padding:5px 0 12px">View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/shsgmedia">shsgmedia</a>.</div></div>