Dinah Fried - Famous Meals from Literature

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 

Alice in Wonderland 

The Catcher in the Rye 

Oliver Twist 

Eszter Burghardt

After being uninspired for a while I began looking for new and exciting art, insulation or photography, this is when I discovered the work of Eszter Burghardt, her work is different to anything else that I have seen through the use of macro. The way that she makes you believe that these spaces and landscapes are real, with the use of tilt shifts and high use of macro lens and filters. 

The images have both come from different bodies of work, the first comes from the series Wooly Sagas, while the second comes from the series Edible Vistas. All her work can be found here.

A WOOLY SAGA OF CREEK 

WOOLY MAGMA

VIRTUALLY FLAVORED

NO CAKEWALK

Mehmet Ozgur Smoke Art

While looking for inspiration for some of my own work I came across the work of Mehmet Ozgur and his work. As you might know his work is some what like the smoke art that I created in Photoshop some time ago. 
His work is magic, creating a serial and dream like state with in his images. What drew me to the work was the second image, this was the first that I ever saw. From here I looked into more of his work only to find that each image become more and more complex with new and exciting ways of capturing smoke in different forms. 
You can find more of his work here

Jules Ober Textured Landscape

While taking in part in an Adobe on-line course I have been able to read and take part in the weekly forums. While looking through I came across these images by Jules Ober. 

His images are cut into long rectangles are the area of the detail in the image. What makes these images is the way that you focus on one area of the image, the bamboo or the grass. The work really is more aesthetic then meaningful, but the way that your attention is captured works for the images very well. 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2004

A persons memories and mind it web, a tangle of good and bad, but what would happen if you could remove the pain and the sorrow from your thoughts, only keeping the things that made you smile or laugh. 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a film full of twists and turns that you would have never seen coming, tangling the idea of memory in it non chronological order confusing the viewer into falling into traps where they believe that they know what is going on. 
The film stars Jim Carrey as the main character Jole Barish, an man with little going for him self, and not much too say. However his whole life changes when for no reason he skips work and finds him self on a beach in Montauk, New York where he meets Clementine Kruczynski (played by Kate Winslet) From here on the film begins to twist and turn through out Jole and Clementine's relationship. After a while their relationship breaks down, and Clementine finds her self going to Lacuna, Inc. a New York company that will remove the bad memoires from your mind leaving you with no recollection of what you once knew of a place, person or a dead family member. Jole then finds this out and has the same procedure from this point on the film then is set inside Joles mind and memoires. As we walk through them in reverse we see Jole fighting to hold on to the very last few good day that Clementine and Jole spent together. In the last few moments of his first memory of Clementine she whispers 'Meet me in Montauk'  
Jole awakes in his bed the night after the procedure to find his car damaged but no recollection of how, we then see Jole at the train station (where we see him at the opening of the film). On impulse Jole leaves his platform and runs for the train to Montauk - 
'Random thoughts on Valentines day 2004, today is a holiday created by greetings card companies to make people feel like crap. I ditched work today took a train out Montauk, I don't know why I'm not an impulsive person'  

This film honestly left be with out any words, was a breath of fresh air to watch. I would honestly recommend it. Just stunning!! 

Ikea's Digital Camera

Ikea have just realised their own Digital Camera. The Kanappa as it has been called is almost entirely made form cardboard and has no digital back, thus bring back this idea of not knowing what you have taken till you upload the images onto your computer. The camera is powered by two standard batteries, has a memory of up to 40 images and a USB port for easy upload to your computer. 
The idea behind this whole project is the climet that we live in, Ikea are really looking into ways of sustainability as well as reusing all the card packing that they use for all their flat packed goods.  

The camera its self is really a point and shoot, but has brought back the days when film was widely used, however this does not mean that the waiting is long once the 40 shots are taken you just go to your own computer and see them straight away, so it could be argued that this camera brings back nothing that film once gave to us. 

Here is a video of the camera in action.

I would love to know what others think of this idea? Is photography becoming less and less of an art? Or do you feel that the idea of photogrpahy be accessible to every one is a good thing, alowing people to express them selves easier them before?

Explosions 2010 - Joschi Herczeg and Daniele Kaehr

Explosions is a highly complex body of work created by the duo artists Joschi Herczeg and Daniele Kaehr. 
The sets each have specially made explosions with in them that detonate when the shutter is released. The organisations allows us to see the moment of impact. The concept of the work is to evoke the feeling of unrest and anxiety, thus the work is set in a home environment, an area that the viewer can relate to.

Private Moon by Leonid Tishkov

The Private Moon series is a huge body of work that looks a indoor and outdoor insulations, that illuminate the surroundings. The work its self a a visual poem, explaining the idea of   and thoughts of Chesterton a writer who explained the idea that there is no personal faith, in the same way each person can not have their own private sun or moon to them self's. 
The visual poem tells a story of a man that met the moon her self, and stayed with her for the rest of his life. Each image that you see in its self is another section of the story. 
In the start the moon was hiding from the sun, hidden away in a tunnel, she came to a man house and stayed in his loft, he cared for her and covered her with blankets. 
"Each photograph is a poetic tale, a little poem in its own right.
Therefore each picture is accompanied by my own verse" - Leonid Tishkov. 
The work has been accompanied by seven Haiku's short Japanese poems that in a way sum up the work. Haiku's wirrten by Leong Liew Geok 3 October 2008

Moon at window sill,

Smiling crescent parked outside,

Unwilling to budge 

On flat roof with me

Silent witness of lit rooms:

Unknown company 

Bent over with you

Piggyback-rider,

to gauge—Water below bridge! 

My yoke of white jade,

Sole passenger to ferry

Wherever I row 

Your Brightness on sled

I lug across waves of snow.

Why can’t You float home? 

At this opening

You’ll wait, light at tunnel’s end,

Anticipating 

I’ll come to take you

Home to your usual table ….

Here—eat these apples! 

Stuck on snowy roof

You’re prostrate, an empty stage

I’ll shovel upright 

You’re there, attic moon,

Before I end an antique

Trip to count cobwebs 

Side by side we lie—

Keep your whole self covered, else

I won’t get to sleep!

Has digital photography devalued the photograph?

Quote taken from the interview with photographer Ricky Adam, Digital Vs Analogue photography - Full Interview http://digbmx.mpora.com/photo-ops/ricky-adam-destroying-everything/


"What role does post production play? Is there a difference between working with chemicals and working in a 'Digital' darkroom as fer as the 'Legitimacy' of the final image?" 
"So long as the image hasn't been manipulated in any way a good photo is a good photo, regardless of what short of camera was used to take it. You have to be a lot more resourceful when shooting film. For one you shoot fewer photos, but in doing so I think you learn a lot more about composition, lighting, ect. I often wonder how many more photos I would have if I could have shot digital when I first started out? Would I even have pursued photography? Possibly not...." 


My Response 
Film and digital photography have been competing for quite some time now , the digital world has taken over our day to day lives from how we cook to the way we read a book. 
Analogue photography fought to become an art form, and once it finally did it became more and more popular, this in the long run lead to more efficient ways of making a photograph, leading up to now the DSLR and to mention the printers.    
Having only ever really used Digital photography before university I liked the ease of being able to take as many images as possible, however now that I have used both 35mm and 120 film I feel that digital was not teaching me anything other then how to press a shutter. with analogue you have to arrange the shots and think about what you are taking. 
However this is not to say that digital is not to be congratulated on its cheep and easy ways of making your own photos, but this does not mean that they will be the beast out there.  
It is a hard question but I do not feel that analogue will be over taken as of yet by the digital world due to the quality and thought process that goes into making an image with the use of film. 

Viewer or Voyeur? The morality of reportage photography

Third post on My Course, looking at the moral ethics of Photography. 

Don McCullin 

Farah Abdi Warsameh's Stoned to Death, Somalia, 13 December

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/mar/08/world-press-photo-sean-ohagan
http://www.iwm.org.uk/exhibitions/shaped-by-war-photographs-by-don-mccullin

My Response 
Photography can be any where at any time, allowing us to see the world for many different things from beauty to blood shed, but when do you stop and decide what should or should not be photographed or seen. 
Personal the Guardian article did not shock me as much as I thought it would, having watched the news form an early age and being exposed to such images and truths of humanity I became some what desensitised to the idea of the death and killing. However this does not mean that I did not find such an image up setting. 
The work of Don McCullin is not as shocking, the images might show war but they do not show too much of the harshness of war. Such as blood and direct death. 
Over all I feel that over the past few years the world has become harder, the images that McCullin produced, the the time would have shocked and upset. Where as now we need to see the worst of the war to be shocked, However even now this is hard with the amount of death that we are exposed to. Not just through the News but in film, Tv and Video Games.  

This image was found on Tumblr of an ex-soldier who lost both his legs, this image is as far as I understand it is an re-enactment of when he lost his legs. However when I first saw this image I have to say that I was more shocked then seeing Warsameh's image. 
The reason for this is that, in Warsameh's image we know that the man is dead from the body langue of the others and the man that is deceased. What makes this image shocking this that the soldier seams un-fazed  that he has lost both his legs, he is calm smoking his cigarette and looking directly at us. In some ways it make this image very intense to look at, we almost feel that we should not be looking at him.  

Layered Drawings - Nobuhiro Nakanishi

Nobuhiro Nakanishi works with photography and sculpture, creating large works that 'float' off the wall. The images a compressed much like the idea of a giant flip book. 

As the audience looks the the work, it begins to blend together creating silhouettes of the landscapes that are printed onto the  Plexiglass acrylic. 

"In a foggy landscape, we no longer see what we are usually able to see - the distance to the traffic light, the silhouette of the trees, the slope of the ground. Silhouettes, distance and horizontal sense all become vague. When we perceive this vagueness, the water inside the retina and skin dissolve outwardly toward the infinite space of the body surface. The landscape continues to flow, withholding us from grasping anything solid. By capturing spatial change and the infinite flow of time, I strive to produce art that create movement between the artwork itself and the viewer's experience of the artwork." -  Nobuhiro Nakanishi  

Sand Art - Andres Amador

Andres Amador creates his work using the beach as his canvas, where by he carves floral patterns into the sand. The work is created in only a few hours before it is last forever to the sea. The beauty of this work is that it is lost to sea, its only by the reproductions through photographs that we can see and appreciate these works.  
What's fascinating about the way that Amador works is that he uses Google Maps to find areas that have large areas of sand. 

The work is crested with the aesthetic quality in mind, each image is unique. What is hard to get across in the images is the actual scale that Amador works. 

                                                                             

The Language of Water and Adrift With Flowers - John Grant

The Language of water 
The body of work 'Language of water' by John Grant looks that that way in which water moves, the way in this is explored is by using die to see the different currants that have been made by the water as it moves around the canister. 
This work again requires the attention of the viewer, by looking at the work you can begin to see the different shapes and patterns that are made by the dye in the water.   

'My interest is to create imagery that holds attention. Speaking out from a source of 

wisdom, connection to self, or from some seemingly important question or even simple

wonderment.

I express myself using contemporary photographic tools, but stretching them as

imagination allows.' - John Grant, Artist Statement. 

Adrift with Flowers 

The second body of work that looks at creating abstract images that look more like detailed illustration. 

The flowers are submerged in tanks of water where they are suspended in ghostly formations. 

The use of water in Grants work could be seen and represented as many different things. Water is a powerful force, but it has calming qualities that relate to nature and life.  

'In my photographic work I seek to distil and dramatize natural elements, transforming them into symbolic metaphor. I embraced the often clichéd or sentimental botanical portrayal, presenting objects in ways that infuse them with an enigmatic quality that expands expectations and tweaks the imagination.'  John Grant - Statement.         

Murmur - Richard Barnes, 2005

Murmur - Richard Barnes, 2005

The work of Richard Barnes looks at the patterns of starlings as they fly. These patterns are known as a 'Murmur'. As the birds fly the create synchronised motions though out the sky, as they do this they are feeding covering large amounts of sky as they do.  What makes this work is that its simple and  aesthetically pleasing to the eye. A work that requires looking and studying. 

This work was a reminder of the work of Rinko Kawauchi and her work Murmuration.  The work was created for BPB 2010 (Brighton Photo Biennial).  Kawauchi produced this body of work along with Stephen Gill and Alex Soth. Each artist was curated to create images as their views of Brighton. Each artist looked at Brighton in very different ways.

Murmur - Richard Barnes, 2005

Rinko Kawauchi Murmuration

"Acclaimed Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi has been drawn to the spectacle of flocking starlings at Brighton Pier. Here during the winter months at dusk, the birds gather in their tens of thousands, wheeling around to create a mesmerizing swirling cloud called a murmuration. Kawauchi is fascinated by the ephemeral nature of this phenomenon and, continuing with the theme of the flock, she has also trailed groups of people through the city. This commission, her first in the UK, is supported by funding from The Japan Foundation, The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and The Daiwa Anglo – Japanese Foundation." - http://www.bpb.org.uk/exhibitions/9148/bpb-curated-strange-familiar-three-views-of-brighton/

Frozen in Time - Riusuke Fukahori

The work of Riusuke Fukahori looks at sculpture in a very different way, through 3D painting. The work at first looks just like the fish have been trapped inside the resin. 
The box is created with a layer of resin poured into the base, from here Fukahori paints the underside of the fish, so the fins and tail. The the next part is the body and so on and so on, until you get a full 3 dimensional fish trapped in time. 
The images look as if they are still moving, the motion is still visible to the eye, misleading you into thinking that they are real fish. 

Blackfield - 2008, Zadok ben David

Zadok ben David is an Israeli artist that works with sculpture big or small. His series Blackfeild is made up of hundreds of sculptured flowers embedded into sand. On one side the flowers are painted black and on the other is full colour. The sculptures are only a few centimetres high and resemble the hight of a real garden of flowers. 
The work looks at the ideas of human behaviour and feeling's, the black is one side of our self's while the colour is the other. 

"It's a metaphor for human behaviour and feeling. In hard times, it's easy to see the world as black and depressing, but with a little effort, if we view things from a different angle, we can find the same world much more positive and optimistic" - Zadok Ben David. 

Blackfield - 2008

True to Life Painting - Dennis Wojtkiewicz

The work of Dennis Wojtkiewicz explores that idea of nature thought fruit's, each image shows the  delicate and intricate workings of the different fruits and vegetable that we consume on a daily basis with out thinking about what they look like on the inside. 

Each image is almost translucent and highly detailed, the images almost look like they were photographed, however this is not the case, each image is painted in oil paint.   

The Never Ending Wall - Noemie Goudal

Noemie Goudal's work looks at the landscape and how we consume the land with out thinking and the invasion of our man made substances into our landscapes. 
The images really raise awareness of the environment and how we interact with it.
'They loved it so much that they consumed it all at once. Then left.' (Sustain Exhibition & Award 2010 Themes: Noemie Goudal (MA Photography, 2010)

The work is set up of instillation that are large scale printed images that hang at the end of empty buildings, giving the illusion of the room continuing on out side. 
This yet another very interesting and helpful view on the idea of landscape photography, taking out the idea of the Picturesque and turning it into something that we can all relate to, environment, beauty and change.   

Hair Clips and Fake Nails - Laurel Roth

Laurel Roth works with sculpture, however the sculptures that are the most stunning come from the series Peacocks. This is a body of work that is created from hair clips and fake nails. The work is created to represent the choices that we make as human beings and the process that we take. 
The sculptures are made of artificial beauty products that are used on a wide bases, however the heads are skulls painted to match the beauty of the rest of the body -  

'The birds' heads are, again, mere skulls - that which lies beneath the décor. Their trimming is nothing more then the cheap tricks women regularly use to costume themselves' (Endless Beautiful Adoptions - Stefanie Sobelle)
The work reminds the viewer that there is a darker side to beauty, and that the surface beauty is just the beginning. 

The Deception People - Rob Mulholland

Rob Mulholland is an artist that works with sculpture and the environment. The Vestige project looks at our relationship with the landscape, The landscape that Mulholland used for this project is in Scotland. The land was once fields, however after the 1st World War there was a vast need for timber. The area was then plated up with fast growing trees thus creating a vast, lush, green landscape. 

Rob Mulholland - Vestige

'The figures absorb their environment, reflecting in their surface the daily changes of life in the forest. They create a visual notion of non – space. A void as if they are at one moment part of our world and then as they fade into the forest they become an intangible outline.' (Rob Mulholland - http://www.robmulholland.co.uk/#/vestige/4535738995)
The figurs almost reflect the idea of the ghosts of this very landscape, and how no matter where we are we leave out mark, no matter how small. You really have to look at first to be able to see the figures, in some ways your eyes almost reject them. 

The Shooting Gallery

The Shooting Gallery is a new show on Channel Four, on Friday nights. The show runs for an hour and looks at various different photographers and short film makers from across the world. 
On the 23th March is first episode was aired, it looked at seven different photographs that all looked at very different subjects. 
The first photographer was Irina Werning and her work 'Back to the future'. In this project Werning takes old photos and recreates them in the exact same way, the old difference is that the people in the images are older, much older - http://irinawerning.com/

The second photographer was David Gillanders, the images were complied into a short film, Called Neglected. Gillanders went underground for three years in Odessa, Ukraine, where he photographed the young children that have been orphaned and left to live off drugs as a pack. The film was heavy and highly emotional to see, children as young as eight shooting up - http://www.davidgillanders.com/

Irina Werning - Back to the Future

David Gillanders - Neglected

The third photographers that were looked at were two Japanese wedding photographers, that have changed the way that a traditional wedding photographs is made and creating  a more stylized, almost fashion wedding style.

In Focus is the next work that was focused on by Pete Eckert, a blind photographer that creates incrdibale images of light trails and the use of long exposures. The work that Eckert creates is inspiring and comfoting, that he can still create the art work that he loves - http://www.peteeckert.com/photos.php

Dark Clouds was the second short still film piece that looks the price that China is paying for it booming industry that, as Western consumers contribute to. Images were taken by Ian Teh - http://www.ianteh.com/

A life Alone is a touching film that looks at one mans tough struggle after the death of his wife. Maisie Crow photographs Tom Rose in his house alone, struggling to come to terms with the death of his wife. This was a tough watch Rose just seamed to desperate, so alone in such a big house - http://www.maisiecrow.com/content.html?page=1

Finaly the last photographer that was looked at was Noam Galai and his photo the scream. Galai posted his image of his face onto his Flicker page and with in a short amount of time his face was used on T-shirts, as graffiti art, graphic desing, magazines and book covers. While Galai knew nothing of this. The short film called 'The Stolen Scream' looks into his feelings about how his image has been used with out him ever knowing.