A City in the Mind - Peter Fraser

Portraits come in many forms, however what would we expect a portriat of a city to look like? 
Peter Fraser - A city in the Mind, has addressed this idea with inspiration from the Vintage Classic, Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. 

Peter Fraser - A city in the Mind Exhabition at the 

Brancolini Grimaldi Gallery 

Invisible cities, being a collection of short chapters where by Marco Polo shares his travels and stories with the Emperor Kublai Khan, however the langue barrier between the two men means that Polo uses objects to help tell his stories. 
It is not only that this book was an inspiration to Fraser's work that makes it important it is that idea that, images are language - A picture paints a thousand words. 

With this in mind Fraser has asked us to look at this work and allow us as the viewer to make up our own mind about what city or place he is trying to describe to us, although we know that this is a portrayal of London we still might find that some of the works, might evoke a memory of another city that we might have been to before. Such an image to do this would be the conch shell. 

In some ways this body of work could be seen as the blue print for a city, a city that is in the process of being built. Each image could be seen at the building blocks for a functioning city, for example the first image we see is of a song thrush, this being the adding of nature to the city. Moving on form this image we come across the image of the model city, a representation of people with in a functioning city, again the image Who's Who is again could be read as the adding of people to a city being built. 
As we move through the images we can start to see more objects that we would associate with civilized live such as chairs and chandeliers, however back track a tiny way and we can see representation's of a city thought the stacked playing cards making a tower, much like that of a skyscraper of a city such as London.

Peter Fraser - A city in the Mind Exhibition 

at the Brancolini Grimaldi Gallery 

Over all this body of work is thought provoking, allowing the viewer to understand the different ways in which a city can be seen though different eyes, other than our own. Allowing our judgements of a city to be brushed aside and see a city in a new light.      

Edward Burtynsky - Oil

Oil, one of the most essential raw materials known to man, one that we use in everyday life and don't even realise. In our modern day and age we are using more and more oil to keep up to speed with the growing economy of our planet. 
Edward Burtynsky's Oil exhibition at the London Photographers Gallery addresses these issues through his images of the life cycle of oil. 

Oil Fields #19a - 

Belridge, California, USA, 2003 

This vast body of work has been in the making for nearly twenty years allowing Burtynsky to travel the world finding areas rich in oil that are being pushed to the very limit. 
The show its self was split up into three of the four sections, these were Extraction and Refinement, Transportation and Motor Culture and The End of Oil. 

As we move through this large body of work we are taken through the stages of oil and its life cycle. However in what way are we viewing this? Most would see this as a life to death progression, but in some ways it could be seen as a death to life story as well. 
In the words of Barthes "The Greeks entered into death backward: what they had before them was their past" 
The relevance that this has to this body of work is the idea is the idea that the use of oil is a circle, what is before the oil is its past as well as its future, as eventually it circles back around. 
Although with this in mind we might need to, once again look at Barthes Camera Lucida, and again at the idea of death and photography. "Whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is a catastrophe"   

Shipbreaking #13 -Chittagong, Bangladesh, 2000

Polly Morgan - Endless Plains

Endless Plains is Polly Morgan's most recent body of work that includes a whole taxidermy deer, hollowed out and filled with bats. 
This body of work might look grim to some, however it is a reminder to us of the way that life and death works.

As humans it is easy to sometimes be seduced by nature's beauty, thus forgetting its power and control over our lives. In Morgan's body of work we are reminded that nature is not so kind. 
What makes this work disturbing is they way that life is depicted, it is not as if Morgan has frozen time, but more like she has taken control of time, setting up the Tableau of life and death. 

Polly Morgan, The Fall,  - All Visual Arts Gallery London

The Fall is prime example of the the circle of life, the fallen tree might have died, however it gives life back to the animals in the forest. As well as allowing fungi and mosses to grow on the trees's surface. However to complete this circle the fungi is killed and eaten by the birds that land on the fallen tree. Once more the words of Barthes come's to mind once more.

"Death is the harsh victory of the race, if the particular dies for the satisfaction of the universal"

Polly Morgan - All Visual Arts Gallery London

The Max Wigram Gallery is now hosting, till the 11th August six new hyper real paintings to blow you away. 
The work tilled cornered makes a highly contemporary body of work, by looking at these spaces with in the home White asks us to look at them in a different way, thus painting them to look like something that they are not. Not only do the images look hyper real, but White has used photographic techniques such as selective cropping to draw your eye to the subject in question. 

The sense of claustrophobia that some of the images allows the viewer to notice that the subjects in these images are not anything that special, however this allows the viewer to have more connection with the work. By creating images that show a 'real' space the viewer can then connect to the work or be more drawn to it. 

Each image has been hand painted onto aluminium, thus this is why there is a small section left unpainted at the bottom of each painting, the paintings have then be vanished and placed inside a large plastic box. Both these elements add to the shine and the reflection that you get on the surface of the images. Once more this adds to the photographic quality of the images, much like snapshots of a family home then printed as part of the album. 

Photography as Animated Art

Over the past 100 years the camera and the image have undergone huge changes, the biggest being the change over from film to digital. However bigger changes have begun to happen due to new technologies and the introduction of social networking sites and blog site such as Tumblr. The image can now be viewed by more people then ever before in one space, and now the image is becoming more clever. 

The image its self has never been a stand alone medium, but more a combination of many other arts. The Camera Obscura was originally a tool used to paint real time settings however this (on top of the chemical discovery) was the start of capturing the image. Although this might be the case we have to then look at the arts such a performance, when making an image we are conducting or capturing a performance of nature or setting one up with in a controlled space, which ever way we look at it there is a show happening in front of our lens each time. 

"Yet it is not by painting that photography touches art, but by theater"  - Barthes,R., 1982, Part One, Camera Lucida, London, Jonathan Cape, p. 31. 

The gif is a popular and now thanks to social networking sites such as Tumblr a very well known file format for images, the image simple hold data making a image act in a way a video would, the difference is that it is played over and over again in a loop. Once more this touches on the side of performance photography. 

The gif has now been used and abused, making it some what tacky and over used. In some ways the gif is past redeeming its self as as part of photography, its use for comedic and mick taking is now its soul purpose, but there is hope for image and performance to co-exist as one. 

The gif, however is now being challenged by a much more subtle performing image, with the new use of the iphone application. 

Now I hear you all scream out in despair, the iphone making images that are worth paying attention to, and I would have to agree, taking pictures on a phone is simple. 

The app its self is basic and the whole idea is as easy as taking a picture on your phone, however it bring together the subtlety of movement and image. The app allows you to take a short video but cut it down so only one part of the image moves. Thus creating a setting, a feeling of being a part of the setting, a different kind of atmosphere to that of the still image. 

So I will leave you with a few examples and let you make up your own minds, do you think there is hope for the Cinemagraph. 

Photography Meets Design

Commando Group (A group of people who specialize in visual identity, art direction, illustration and photography).

The objective of this project is to investigate the boundaries between photography and graphic design/illustration and hopefully produce something remarkable in the process. The original photographs were provided by photographer Damian Heinisch. - Tumblr 

The work produced by Heinish and the Commando Group has a strong fantasy feel linking it back to the idea if Kittelsen's work, however not only that the work has something else hidden away, something that is perhaps more apparent in Kittelsen's work. The strong element of darkness. On first inspection these creatures of the mountains are sweet, perhaps a child's illustration much like the Gruffalo. However when looking back at these images there is a fear of these creates some where in my mind,  the shear scale of them makes them feel powerful and domineering over the viewer. Image too is also an image that unnerves, the fact that the creature is crying. This emotion on a creature so big scares and questions, when that emotional what could something of that size do? 

Theodor Severin Kittelsen

However this work makes you feel you can see then creatures as defenders of the landscape. 

How The Face Changes With Shifting A Light Source

Sparkles and Wine - Teaser 

Lighting can easily be taken for granted, yet it is one of the most important things when it comes to any kind of visual art, whether that be photography, instillation or film. What makes this interesting is the effects that the light has on the face and the features, it allows us to see just what different light positions do to effect the face, the mood and the emotion of the image. However this video also uses colours to evoke more emotion on top of the lighting, this being something to bare in mind if you were trying out some of the lighting positions that have been used in this video. 

Colours will also change the mood, cold colours (such as blues, purples) making for a more vulnerable image while warmer colours (such as red, yellows, pinks oranges) making for a more aggressive or sexual appearance.  

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.