Part 2 of 3rd Session

This lesson also included our role as a photographer, some images we were shown were of people being tortured or being starved, if you are the photographer what is your role? are you only there to document what is happening or can you help the people you photograph. Thinking about this situation, some photographers are only their to exploit people and don't care what distress these people are witnessing. We the audience will never know if our favored photographers helped the victims they photographed. We were shown different ways of photography and different techniques, such as shutter speeds, exposures, layout of the photograph and Photoshop.

We saw images that had a long shutter speed, hence the image being blurry like so many we were shown, this is a method that can be used in both film and digital and greatly effective in photography.

There are 2 different way of laying out your photos, one is by how you lay your scene out, the image we were shown was entirely made out of paper. It was a layout of an office and down to the last detail was made out of paper, so this layout never existed. 

The second way of layout is how you lay your images once taken or developed, Like Dwaine Michael s his images were lay out as though it was telling a story, I have read his book and he shows his images with a small amount of quotation which gives you a better understanding of what the pictures mean.

Photoshop plays a huge role in photography, you never know if the image you are looking at is the original or if it has been altered, we were shown an image that was taken on film, there were two images one was the original and the other was edited. The original showed two men stood by a lake and the edited one showed only one man, they had taken one of the men out, this shows editing photos has been around for a long time and shows what you can alter and how easy it is. Most images we see today that are advertising something have been altered in some way to make what ever they are selling more appealing, whether it be a film, magazine or clothing.    

today's lecture

followed on from last weeks, but more topics were raised today that made me feel uncomfortable and was not a light subject. We spoke about an artist known as Meyer who based an art project on ten fish being placed into ten blenders, the blenders were plugged in so it was up to the viewers if they wanted purify the fish, upon opening two fish were blended and a further 5 on the Sunday, I find this disgusting. Although many people will say "they are only fish" its besides the point, its un-necessarily and didn't need to happen. Luckily some petitioner's had the same view and protested which led to police ordering the plugs to be pulled out. I can see how Meyer wanted to show how we have control over what dies and what lives but I think in this instance it went to far. 
We were shown another image of 4 models from different designer labels all wearing animal fur, I found this a strong image because it shows how far some designers will go to make a profit, the irritating thing about the use of animal fur is they only kill the animal for this product, once they have the skin and fur they have no need for the carcass, which is a waste of an animal, I am truly against this and don't condone it for any reason. After discussing this topic we arrived on the subject of animal testing and were shown which companies test on animal, there were some on there that I didn't recognize to be a harm, but after discovering I wont be using these products in the future.

PART 1

Reading Sally Manns Interview

Just looking at the images and reading that they were donated to a Anthropology Centre (body farm puts us on edge, as were not used to this type of imagery only in films, and only then it isnt as realistic, but after you read her interview you see a different approach to it. In the interview it explains that she took images in both colour and black and white, I studied Photography as an A-level so I know that images in different colours give of different moods, like black and white is more subtle, I think thats why Sally Mann went for this so that her images didnt seem as powerful, if she went for her colour images I can imagine them being very shocking showing how the flesh looked like and how grim these bodies looked. Sally Mann stated that she wanted to photograph the un speak-able like she did with her children and her husband, although some people will still have their opinions in this area its all a matter of how you see it and how you interpret it. Although I see the images of her children wrong, I dont see the photographs of her husband wrong, because shes photographing an adult in the nude and I can imagine she has done these in interesting ways that wouldn't be considered as pornography. I can understand where she is coming from when she says "That attitude started in the 1800s with the rise of romanticism and the emphasis on the importance of nature and honouring the dead. And with that came an almost prudish attitude to death. It used to be sex that was the unspeakable but now nobody wants to get old and nobody wants to die" because not many people spoke of sex but nowerdays its everywhere, you cant escape it, when you walk down the high street,magazines and internet. So it shows how time changes certain things, Although I dont think images of dead bodies will be publicized like this but it is showing us that it isnt something to fear or to not talk about, its part of life like sex. However I understand Sally Manns uptake to her photography but I'm not sure how I feel about it, as its not an everyday thing to see naked bodies.

October the 5th Creative Histories

During our second lesson of Creative Histories we split of into groups that included 2 people from 3 different areas of study where we would talk about the ethical s of each of our subject, being a fashion student there are many topics that raise awareness such as The use of animal fur and skin, whether myself as a designer would condone this or be against it, there is money to be made in animal fur but its up to an individuality to see the right and wrong of it. How clothes are made in other countries, this topic is always in the papers about how much they pay the workers and how much we sell our clothes, I have read some articles about "people who made your clothes" and in other countries they earn the price of a top in a month, which ridiculous to how much they make and home much profit we make, but some designers do not see this as a problem more so cheap labor. There is another high topic with fashion is the size and health of models, how designers choose to have size 0 models to promote their clothing, I presume seeing someone gorgeous and slim wearing it will make the public want to buy it so they look just as gorgeous, but in reality it is give youngsters un-real expectations of how they should look and of what size they should be, which portraying a un-healthy out look.   Other people from other subjects gave us their views, such as graphics which included Airbrushing - false advertisement, especially when businesses are trying to sell make-up but end up enhancing it in Photoshop for instance adding lashes to make a certain mascara more appealing or airbrushing blemishes to make a foundation seem clear and concealed, after all it is the advertisement that intrigues us to buy this product, but only a selection of us know the power of Photoshop, and how far that product actually goes. Advertising a bad product, some business are always striving for more money so they will promote anything whether the product is un-healthy, dangerous or illegal as long as they have their money at the end of a working day. Our final subject to give us their opinions was Photography, but I'm not going to write about it at this instance as this is what our lecture was about. The Ethnics of Photography, during this lecture we learnt the history of photography and the first steps of taking photographers, our tutor showed us a selection of images from different photographers and ages with different methods, this was an interesting lesson as it gave us an insight on the history of it and how it originated. We also learnt about the different types of photography such as Sports,Fashion,Nature,Crime scene and advertising, I think this gave the students who take photography an idea of what trade they wanted to go in. During this lesson we spoke of how photographs taken in the past were no long acceptable today as their content was explicit, looking at these images I can see why they are not acceptable I see no reason for taking images of this sort and I don't see of what interest they were to a photographer, I think there is a fine line between photography and pornography, specially of this caliber, they are not tasteful in any context. But this is on of the ethical for photography, is it pornography or photography, and many can argue which belong were, I am open to nudity in photography but today's images were disgusting. We were also shown images from when Britney Spears had her break down, and how paparazzi would wait outside her house and expose her, I found this upsetting as she was being hauled into an ambulance whilst photographers fling at the doors and windows , it appears to me that these people dont have respect and are only there to sell photos no matter what they are of.
Todays lesson was very two sided, people would often have a for and an against of everything, there is no right or wrong it is all matter of opinion. Which I find interesting because people get to express their opinion on different subjects.