This was my favorite chapter so far, and many interesting points were brought up. One that stood out to me was hegemony in the representation of photography. It takes resources to get your work visible in the main stream, so the images presented will be limited by the people who are able to get their work distributed in such a way and what their goals are. In our economic structure, as this chapter pointed out, that goal is often to sell something.
Advertising used to be the art of communicating why your product was better than all of its competitors. However, much more subversive methods are utilized today. A popular tactic is to make the viewer feel inadequate in some way usually about something highly personal, visceral, or culturally significant. Things like your sexual life, body-image, or mental happiness. Photographs are usually about more than just what is in the frame. There's the context in which it was taken and in which it is being read, the intentions of the photographer, and in this chapter particularly also the industry supporting it. In images taken, selected, and modified for advertisements, I think the intentions are selfish, context is vain, and industry is bloated. Photography itself is not to blame, as it is a medium of communication, and perhaps we just need better things to communicate and better communities to do it with. However, since the photo is an image, photography may be a particularly easy medium to use when someone only wants to show the surface, whether that objectifies women or conceals labor relations. The art of photography then, I think, is to sculpt that connotative image that lies beyond the borders of the picture into something worthwhile.
Q: Does viewing hyper-real glamourous images of people function to reduce our perspective of real people into just images of people?
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Work in Progress #3
At the start of this project I wanted to focus on a medical waste incinerator in unincorporated Apopka, but the nearby landfills provided ample photographic opportunities. In essence this project is about what we abandon and the lengths we go to in order to keep it out of sight and out of mind.
The top image does the best job at conveying that idea. The first version is pretty similar to how it was taken originally. There's the barbed wire of course in the foreground, keeping everyone at a distance, and the addition of the green leaves help soften the image, just like people need to both protect themselves and present themselves as affable. The barbs are more threateningly symbolic than practical. If anyone really wanted to get in, they could. The background, relatively out of focus, appears to be an empty field, perhaps prompting the viewer to ask why exactly is this being protected by barbed wire. Underneath the mask, out of sight, lies all of our dirty little secrets. We don't want to deal with our waste, so we just cover it up and say "Do not enter, violators will be prosecuted."
In the second version, the leaves and ground were modified to appear more dead, illustrating what lies underneath. The real substance of the hill in the background is literally garbage, things that are as good as dead to us. So now, everything is dead -substance and facade.
Google Reader Response #9
http://www.urbanautica.com/post/46061591048/jim-naughten
Usually when doing these reflections, I try to find images that ignite something in me that I feel compelled to say, so this time I thought I'd use an image that is not particularly working for me and try to flesh it out.
There's a picture of a person of African descent. The ground desolate, the sky is clear, and the clothes are odd, not to mention that the person wearing them does not look comfortable. The top button of the shirt is fastened, which conveys either a sense of professionalism or uptightness. The red accessories I find to be weird, but then again fashion is not my thing. According to the description, German missionaries are responsible for bringing this style over starting in the 19th century.
I don't find this picture to speak well of German missionary clothing choices. Fashion and the subject's dejected facial expression aside, this is the desert, and button-down polo shirts and dress pants are not desert attire. Better clothing would cover almost the entire body to protect the skin from the sun and be light to allow heat and breeze to pass through. I'm presuming that the natives had perfectly good, well-adjusted clothes to begin with, and didn't need German missionaries messing everything up.
Usually when doing these reflections, I try to find images that ignite something in me that I feel compelled to say, so this time I thought I'd use an image that is not particularly working for me and try to flesh it out.
There's a picture of a person of African descent. The ground desolate, the sky is clear, and the clothes are odd, not to mention that the person wearing them does not look comfortable. The top button of the shirt is fastened, which conveys either a sense of professionalism or uptightness. The red accessories I find to be weird, but then again fashion is not my thing. According to the description, German missionaries are responsible for bringing this style over starting in the 19th century.
I don't find this picture to speak well of German missionary clothing choices. Fashion and the subject's dejected facial expression aside, this is the desert, and button-down polo shirts and dress pants are not desert attire. Better clothing would cover almost the entire body to protect the skin from the sun and be light to allow heat and breeze to pass through. I'm presuming that the natives had perfectly good, well-adjusted clothes to begin with, and didn't need German missionaries messing everything up.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Google Reader Response #8
http://www.lenscratch.com/2013/03/the-2013-alexia-foundation-winners.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lenscratch%2FZAbG+%28L++E++N++S++C++R++A++T++C++H%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Once again pulling from Lenscratch. This body of work depicts fire rescues in slums or factories of Bangladesh. When I was first scrolling through them, I thought that they were all taken on the same day, but according to the descriptions, they were taken over the span of four years. That makes it even more upsetting for me because that makes fires like this a reoccurring theme rather than a freak accident that has been dealt with.
Modern building standards take fire exits into account, but crowded Bangladeshi textile factories don't. Too many people plus too few exits make fires even worse. The last picture shows some of the unidentified bodies, wrapped up and ready for burial. The DNA tests they receive post-mortem is, I'm guessing, the most modern investment they've been given. It's a shame that level of investment was not given when they were still alive working in the factory. The other pictures show fire fighters responding to the situation or fellow workers risking their own lives before the officials arrived. Even though poor conditions lead to these events too often, there's still a level of dignity among the workers and slum dwellers as they help each other through tragic times and look through the burnt remains.
Once again pulling from Lenscratch. This body of work depicts fire rescues in slums or factories of Bangladesh. When I was first scrolling through them, I thought that they were all taken on the same day, but according to the descriptions, they were taken over the span of four years. That makes it even more upsetting for me because that makes fires like this a reoccurring theme rather than a freak accident that has been dealt with.
Modern building standards take fire exits into account, but crowded Bangladeshi textile factories don't. Too many people plus too few exits make fires even worse. The last picture shows some of the unidentified bodies, wrapped up and ready for burial. The DNA tests they receive post-mortem is, I'm guessing, the most modern investment they've been given. It's a shame that level of investment was not given when they were still alive working in the factory. The other pictures show fire fighters responding to the situation or fellow workers risking their own lives before the officials arrived. Even though poor conditions lead to these events too often, there's still a level of dignity among the workers and slum dwellers as they help each other through tragic times and look through the burnt remains.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Chapter 4 Reading Response
This chapter discusses photography less as an art form that artists do and more as a social tool integrated into the fabric of our lives. For example, it is difficult to do much of anything without an ID, and that requires a picture of yourself, so you must submit both your image and your information the archives to be able to navigate through various institutions.
Photography of the body is inevitable tied to body politics. Since most industries were run by men, it is no surprise that pictures were largely created for a male audience. Also, the industry of photography existed and still exists in the economic system of capitalism, meaning that there is economic incentive to create pictures that will sell. Photography seemed particularly suited to objectify people, particularly women, because pictures only show the surface and turn the subject into an object to be looked at. Since pictures are social constructions, the dominant pictures in a given society are a reflection of the people in charge who have the resources to publish on a large scale. They also say something about the culture's values, as something in a picture must have been important enough to visually capture and distribute.
Q: Do pictures sometimes seem more real than reality, and how does that affect our perception of reality?
Google Reader Response #7
Photomation
http://www.americansuburbx.com/2013/02/review-gunter-karl-bose-photomaton-2013.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Americansuburb+%28ASX+%7C+AMERICAN+SUBURB+X+%7C+Photography+%26+Culture%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
I found this post intriguing because the pictures here were taken without a photographer. Between 1928 and 1945, machines were set up in public places in Germany that allowed people to take pictures of themselves anonymously, like modern-day photo-booths. In such a case, the intention lies solely with the person being photographed. They decided to get in and how to pose, and the machine took care of the shutter.
Without a human photographer, the person can probably be themselves more naturally, as long as they are comfortable in the photo-booth. The machine handles the mechanics of taking the picture, but the subject has complete control otherwise. They don't have to worry about looking silly in front of people or being judged by the photographer, because machines don't judge, they just take the picture. It could be thought that the participant is both the photographer and the subject, similar to a camera set to a timer and set on a tripod. The article states that this set up lends itself to a narcissistic appeal, which may be true, but I think that narcism has too negative of a connotation. Rather, I think this is more like a visual journal: a private expression of yourself that is for yourself, only in picture form. But be careful that your visual journal does not get posted on an internet blog in the next few decades.
http://www.americansuburbx.com/2013/02/review-gunter-karl-bose-photomaton-2013.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Americansuburb+%28ASX+%7C+AMERICAN+SUBURB+X+%7C+Photography+%26+Culture%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
I found this post intriguing because the pictures here were taken without a photographer. Between 1928 and 1945, machines were set up in public places in Germany that allowed people to take pictures of themselves anonymously, like modern-day photo-booths. In such a case, the intention lies solely with the person being photographed. They decided to get in and how to pose, and the machine took care of the shutter.
Without a human photographer, the person can probably be themselves more naturally, as long as they are comfortable in the photo-booth. The machine handles the mechanics of taking the picture, but the subject has complete control otherwise. They don't have to worry about looking silly in front of people or being judged by the photographer, because machines don't judge, they just take the picture. It could be thought that the participant is both the photographer and the subject, similar to a camera set to a timer and set on a tripod. The article states that this set up lends itself to a narcissistic appeal, which may be true, but I think that narcism has too negative of a connotation. Rather, I think this is more like a visual journal: a private expression of yourself that is for yourself, only in picture form. But be careful that your visual journal does not get posted on an internet blog in the next few decades.
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