The Genius of Photography : Snap Judgements

The genius of Photography : Snap Judgements
Questions:

1. How many photographs are taken in a year?

It is estimated that around 880 billion photographs have been taken in the year 2013 and over the last 176 years over 3.5 trillion photographs have been taken throughout the world.

2. How does Gregory Crewdson work?

Photographer Gregory Crewdson, who features in this documentary describes himself to have a "disconnected "relationship with photography as although he has great interest in taking photographs he prefers to not use a camera himself to take the photographs. At the beginning of this documentary we see Gregory Crewdson as he and his  production team attempt to get a specific photograph . They use cinematic lighting and actors to act out the scenes. At the end he creates 6 final images which would sell for around $60,000 .


3. Which prints command the highest price and what are they called?
In the photography industry it is the original prints that command the highest price as they are of the most value. These original prints are said to be vintage because they have been taken by the photographer themselves and may be their signature work.

4. How does Ben Lewis see Jeff Wall's photography?
In this documentary, photography critic Ben Lewis comments how Jeff Wall's photographs seem to bee concerned with racial stereotyping, and he deems Wall to have brought photography back to how it used to be in its glory days.

5. How many photographs has Andreas Gursky produced and what scale (size) are they?
Photographer Andreas Gursky has produced two photographs himself, Rhein 1 and Rhein II, which sold for over $3 million dollars, sized 5x7 inches.




6. How does Seydou Keita's pictures of Africa differ from those taken by the media?

Photographer Seydou Keita was from Mali, Africa. He was born in 1921 in Bamako, Mali, and died on the 21st of November in 2001 in Paris, France. He was a self-taught portrait photographer. He is mostly known for his portraits of people and families that he took between 1940 and in the 1960s, which are acknowledged  to be a record of Malian society as well as works of art.

He was relatively unknown until his photographs turned up in a New York Exhibition without his knowledge. Keita's pictures of Africa differed from those taken by the media as while the media took  vivid photographs of those suffering from illness, starvation and disease, Keita took portrait  photographs of people in more "normal" circumstances, such as lying down or eating or sleeping . Keita's work was blown up to 80 times its original size at the Gagozeean Gallery in New York City, and his work attracted the attention of professional dealer of Jean- Marc Pathras. Following Keita's death in 2001, there was a battle over the right to his negatives between Pathras and Gursky.


Chosen Photographer: Paolo Ventura  5 Photographs

Italian photographer Paolo Ventura was born in the year 1968 in Milan, Italy.  He studied arts at the Accademia di Bella Arti di Brera (The Academy of Fine Arts) in Milan form 1989-91. He currently lives and works in New York City.

Paolo Ventura envisioned specific scenes that he wished to take photographs of, and he seems to have a particular interest for war scenes. However, these war scenes no longer existed so he took the initiative and decided that he would create such scenes himself. He set to work creating minature buildings, trees, and other objects to build up his scenes, also hand crafting small doll-like figures  complete with outfits to act out the scenes which he would photograph .

This was quite an unusual and previously unheard of idea, as most photographers prefered to use live models but Ventura found the figurines easier to work with, and this has contributed to making his work unique. In 2006 he released the series War Souvenir as a monograph, followed by the acclaimed photobook Winter Stories in 2009. Ventura has enjoyed much success with his works,which includes: La Zuavo Scomparso, Behind the Walls, Civil War, The Automaton, Winter Stories, War Souvenir, and his newest series The Infinite City.Ventura has had many solo and group exhibitions across the U.S and Europe, and much of his wok is on display in museums such as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Unicredit Bank Collection in Milan to name a few. Ventura's work is both ingenius and distinctive, and I like his work due to its uniqueness, especially the use of "dolls" to act out the scenes and it is clear to me that Ventura is quite a visual genius.

1. Bodies of Soldiers in a trench- Civil War

2. Man on stairs- Lo Zuavo Scomparso

3. Puppet on chair- The Automaton

4. The British Soldier and his spotted horse- Winter Stories

5. Army men and their wives- War Souvenir

Composition

1. Pattern -windows of DBS

2. Depth of field- pair of slippers

3. Colour -my bedroom wall

4. Framing- vase in window

5. Texture- cement line

Light

1. Pencil case in Natural light

2. Pencil case in Golden hour

3. Dusk

4. Tungsten light

5.Fluorescent light

The Genius of Photography: We Are Family

Questions and Answers:

1. Who said: " The camera gave me  the license to strip away what you want people to know about you, to reveal what you can't help people knowing about you"?
American photographer and writer Diane Arbus said that having a camera allows her to strip away what people know about her and to replace with what people can't help but know about her.

2. Do you think photographers tend to prey on vulnerable people?
After watching the documentary The Genius of Photography: We Are Family (Episode 5), I would have to say that it is true that photographers tend to prey on vulnerable people. For photographers it was easier to take photographs of people that were homeless, poverty stricken, ill or migrating- perhaps because these people would have allowed them to take these photographs in the hope that the photograph would help them or others in some way. Photographs were taken during times of great hard-ship such as the Great Depression in 1930's America. 



3. What is Larry Clark's Tulsa project about?
Photographer Larry Clark' s project was about his own life. His photo-book title Tulsa focused on the things in society that are not openly talked about. This included the use of drugs, consumption of alcohol, and sexual inter-course. Clark took photography of nice, normal people that were acting out by taking part in such activities. Indeed, one has to admire Clark's work, which is in a way a reflection of his own lifestyle. He intended to bring these taboos to the attention of the public perhaps in an attempt to show how people really behave.


4. What is the title of Nan Goldin's most renowned work?
 The title of Nan Goldin's most renowned and also controversial work was "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency", which was controversial as it featured those in society that were looked down upon/ out-casted in society such as transsexuals, prostitutes and homosexuals. She shows the normality of those deemed to be "freaks" of society.


5. What does Araki photograph now? What is his "philosophy"?
Japanese-born  Photographer Nobuyoshi Araki started his career by first taking photographs from his honeymoon and later documented his marriage and family life over a period of 20 years. However, following the death of his wife in 1990, Araki now takes photographs of nude women. Indeed, his work has even been considered poronographic by critics. However, one must note how Akari is skilledcapturing every day life-in the past he has made private moments very public.

 6. What was Richard Billingham's work about?

British photographer and painter Richard Billingham was born on the 25th September in 1970 . He began his career first as an ethusiastic painter, but is best known for his photo-book " Ray's A Laugh". This photo-book is a portrayal of the poverty and deprivation Billingham experienced growing up with his alcoholic father Ray and chain-smoking mother Liz. Billingham uses cheap film to take photographs for his photo-book, which provided brash colours and poor focus. This adds to the authenticity and over-all frankness of what he experienced in his every-day life at home.











 Five Favorite Photographs by Richard Billingham

Exposure = Aperture and Shutter Speed

1. Aperture- Shallow depth of field

2. Aperture- Great depth of field

3. Slow Shutter Speed

4. Fast Shutter Speed

5. Panning

Airbrushing and Slimming

Woman before

Woman after

Model before

Model after

The Genius of Photography: Paper Movies- New York by William Klein

William Klein-Photographer, Painter, Film-maker

In our latest Understanding the Image class we saw the latest documentary in The Genius of Photography series- episode 4 Paper Movies. This documentary relives the journeys undertaken by photographers to produce some of the most acclaimed paper movies. This particular episode looked at Robert Frank's work during the 1950's, William Klein's  fascination with the side-walks of New York, Garry Winogrand's powerful perception of Central Park Zoo, Tony Ray Jones's work focusing on  the English seaside, and finally, William Eggleton's thoughts on Memphis and the American South.

After watching this documentary, my favorite photo-book would have to be William Klein's  photo-book " New York", where he explored the bustling streets of New York City in great detail.

William Klein is an American-born French painter, photographer and film-maker, and is best known for his ironic approach in photography and film-making. He was born in New York City in the United States on April 19th in 1928, and was born into an impoverished Jewish family. Klein graduated from high school early at the tender age of just 14, and enrolled at the City College of New York to study sociology. When he was 18 he enrolled in the U.S Army, where he served until he was discharged.

 After his discharge from the army, Klein went to study at the University of Paris(commonly known as "The Sorbonne"). He trained as a painter under the guidance of his mentor, French painter Fernand Leger. William Klein had considerable success in this field, but he was dissatisfied. He later became a photographer for Vogue magazine despite having little or no training as a photographer, and became famous for his photographs and photo essays.

Klein later went on to win the Pixar Nadar award in 1957 for his  widely- acclaimed photo-book New York, which was a book of photographs that he had taken when he briefly returned home to New York in 1954, following months of travelling. Klein's work includes the use of wide-angle and telephoto lens, natural light, and also motion blurring. His photo-book focuses mainly on the streets and people hurrying to and from work on a daily basis.

Broadway and 103rd Street, New York- by William Klein (1954-55)

An example of his work where he used wide-angle lens would be the photograph of two children he took on the streets of New York. The photography is in black and white and is eye-catching due to the fact that one of the children is pointing a gun almost into the lens of the camera. The boy turns out to be holding a toy gun but his face is scrunched up, giving him a rather menacing look. In stark contrast to this, we see the other boy, presumably his friend, looking sweet and innocent and blissfully unaware of what is happening. This is perhaps Klein attempting to show that innocence can often get caught up in acts of violence.

Another image shows a boy squatting down on the street. His surroundings appear to be warped around him and this is because William Klein has used a blurring motion technique, where he blurs or distorts what is seen in the photograph. Like the photograph with the two boys, this photograph is also shot in black and white. I find this photograph to be distinctly eye-catching and strange- it's as though we are observing an optical illusion of some kind.

Boy squatting an example of blur motion

William Klein is described to be one of the "fathers" of street photography, and I feel that this title is well deserved. Klein has that rare talent to bring the dark, dull streets of New York to life, and to capture busy passers-by in his lens and make them look extraordinary. In this documentary, Klein is praised for his determination to capture such images and he himself recalls how he would literally "hound people" to get his photos.

 Klein also explains that some of the best photographs can happen by accident, saying: " That's what's interesting in photography-the accidents."  I feel that Klein's photo-book has a faster rhythm compared to that of Robert Frank's. But this is perhaps due to the fact that William Klein is more aggressive, and he is described to possess a great deal of energy. And this particular, excited energy is observed throughout his photo-book New York.