Tag: Context and narrative

Assignment 4Leave a comment

Assignment 4 – ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’

517401 OCA Photography

In looking for a photograph to write about for this assignment I came across the work of Alexey Vasilyev and in particular his series My Dear Yakutia. Vasilyev was born in 1985 in Yatusk, the capital of the Sakha (Yakutia) Repulic in Eastern Russia. The Sakha Repulic is a vast region with an area of just under 1.2 million square miles and a population of under one million. It is also one of the coldest places on the planet with temperatures dropping to minus 60 degrees celcius in winter. The series looks at the identity and daily lives of people … Continue reading Assignment 4 – ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’

Assignment 4Leave a comment

Assignment 4 – ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’

517401 OCA Photography

Write an essay of 1,000 words on an image of your choice. The image can be anything you like, from a famous art photograph to a family snapshot, but please make sure that your chosen image has scope for you to make a rigorous and critical analysis. • If you choose a well-known photograph, take time to research its context – the intentions of the photographer, why it was taken, whether it’s part of a series, etc. Add all this information into your essay to enable you to draw a conclusion from your own interpretation of the facts. • If … Continue reading Assignment 4 – ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’

Part 3Leave a comment

Exercise 3.3 – Masquerades (P.82) – updated

517401 OCA Photography

I re-shot the image to address the deficencies that I had identified in my previous attempt. The main changes were to move from a portrait to a landscape image and to re-position the elements within the frame, moving the sauce bottle to the left of the bowl and the spoon to the right. As I used the same sauce bottle as when I previously shot the images back in April, the sauce bottle is not full and it has the characteristic gunge around the top. To high-light this I removed the cap. I shot the image using a speedlight shot … Continue reading Exercise 3.3 – Masquerades (P.82) – updated

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Research point – documentrary photography (P.27)

517401 OCA Photography

Do you need to be an insider in order to produce a successful documentary project? In her essay Inside/Out, Abigail Solomon-Godeau examines the different types of documentary photography by looking at the writings of Martha Rosler and Susan Sontag and the work of American photographers Diane Arbus, Nan Godin, Larry Clark and Robert Frank. Looking first at the views of Sontag and Rosler, Solomon-Godeau writes: Thus where Rosler sees the issue of photographic voyerism and objectification as a synecdoche of a larger political/cultural totality, Sontag tends to locate the problem in photography itself. Nevertheless, and despite the important difference between … Continue reading Research point – documentrary photography (P.27)

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Research point – war photography (P.27)

517401 OCA Photography

Do you think images of war are necessary to provoke change? Do you agree withSontag’s earlier view that horrific images of war numb viewers’ responses? I do not think that war images by themselves bring about change, however, I think they can play a role in influencing individuals/society by showing the impact of conflict on combatants, and particularly non-combatants, which can in turn can encourage a quest for greater knowledge and understanding of why wars are being fought and questioning their legitimacy. The argument that Sontag makes in On Photography is basically that familiary breeds contemp, that repeated exposure to … Continue reading Research point – war photography (P.27)

Assignment 3Leave a comment

Assignment 3 – Putting yourself in the picture – reflection

517401 OCA Photography

I started this assignment feeling very disenchanted after receivng feedback for assignment two and so I did not really engage with the diary keeping element at the start of the exercise. After an initial attempt which lasted a week and a half I stopped mainly because I realised that I was not keeping a diary, more just writing a list of things that happened during the day. For my second attempt I tried being more forthcoming but I was still not comfortable about putting down in writing how I felt and over the course of the two weeks the entries … Continue reading Assignment 3 – Putting yourself in the picture – reflection

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Assignment 3 – Putting yourself in the picture – images

517401 OCA Photography

Like many photographers I feel more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it so this assignment presented something of a challenge. I found the diary-keeping tedious and after a false start just about managed to maintain interest for two weeks. When re-reading the enteries, the main point that came across from them was an unwillingness to reveal too much about myself. I’m not sure the best way of describing it, reticence, ambiguousness, self-restraint, holding back? Whatever the best term is, I wanted to take this feeling and translate into into an image or series of images and initially … Continue reading Assignment 3 – Putting yourself in the picture – images

Assignment 3Leave a comment

Assignment 3 – Putting yourself in the picture – work in progress

517401 OCA Photography

The idea behind my images for assignment 3 was that when I read through my diary entries it was clear to me that I was witholding information, I did not want to reveal much about myself. However, rather than go down the route of absented self-portraiture, I wanted to be present on the images but in a way that did not give the viewer the total picture. My plan is to crate a series of five images based around the themes of light and shade, silhouettes, screens, shade and reflections. Below are three images in both colour and black and … Continue reading Assignment 3 – Putting yourself in the picture – work in progress

Assignment 3Leave a comment

Assignment 3 – Putting yourself in the picture

517401 OCA Photography

I have been thinking about how to approach this assignment especially after re-reading my diary entries. The main point that came across from them was an unwillingness to reveal too much about myself. I have thought about how I would translate this into an image or series of images and initially thought of going down the route of self-absented portraiture but have decided not to pursue this approach. There are serveral reason for this but the main one is that it feels a bit cliched; the majority of the photographers we have examined in the course material have chosen to … Continue reading Assignment 3 – Putting yourself in the picture