Assignment 4 Virtual essay

OPTION 2

The photographer I have chosen is the world renowned photographer Nigel Barker from the hit TV show, “America’s New Top Model.” Nigel has gotten the opportunity to gain a lot of exposure due to the show and since has been named as renowned.Nigel’s most recognizable techniques are of using plenty of lighting and contrast to help portray the emotion and feelings of the models. Nigel Also, depending on the situation at hand, he can switch it up and use various elements and technique for different styles of photos. Nigel’s work can be seen as very , family oriented , touching and emotional and are all about bringing out the best positive attractions of his models. His style is to be very unique and interactive with his subjects so that they are comfortable and are able to open up to him, which can be seen through his photographs.

                          Nigel is not just an ordinary Photographer he also does inspriing speeches.

 

This first photo is of famous actor Brad Pitt, taken from his photo shoot with Interview Magazine. Here, Brad is seen relaxed back on a bright red set but is clearly put into focus by simply wearing a white shirt with blue pants. Nigel’s not only took photos of models, but also did layouts for advertisements. His photographs never directly endorsed the product, but someone manages to sneak them into his photos. Throughout the photo shoot, Brad is either seen smoking or someone else in the background would be smoking instead, but still have Brad in the foreground of the photograph.

 

The second photograph is of singer Rihanna, taken for Album . This photo is similar to Nigel’s work with respects to the emotion on Rihanna’s face; no photographer would ask their model to make a face like that for a highly recognized magazine. Nigel’s work is at its best when he knows his model is comfortable and open to the camera. He likes to take picture that give us a “capture the moment” feeling in some of his photo shoots, he allows the model of the photo be who he or she wants to be.

The third photograph I have chosen is of two famous women well known in the film and music industries, Beyonce Knowles and Jennifer Lopez. TAs seen in some of Nigel’s photographs, he would use two model wearing similar outfits and does an entire photo spread on them. Other similarities seen in the photo are elements such as the lighting and attitude of the photo and the models; limited lighting for a “darker” feel and emotionless models to give a sense of attitude.his photo was taken for an ad campaign for Pepsi back in 2005, which has both Beyonce and Jennifer working together for this photo shoot.

The fourth photograph is by another actor by the name of Bruce Willis, taken from a photo shoot by photographer Justin Case. A shot like this is let the model tell his own story trough his own eyes and emotion; no actions, props, or various angles are required. The photo has Bruce wearing all black, with a black background, and nice lighting shining down upon his face. Nigel also liked to keep his photographs simple, he believes that simplicity is what brings out the best of someone when photographed.

 

HURRICANE KATRINA in New Orleans 

Photographer: Michael Appleton

This picture was taken after Hurricane Katrina by Michael Aplleton. When you take a picture, that's it, that's all. What you've captured is what will show. And this is where Nigel comes in. His picture reminds me of the many emotions he captures in his picture. This photo can be viewd as art but at the same time it is very devastatiing.

DB 11 - Presentation Week 11: Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson versus Smith and Salgado

By researching and examiming the work of Andre Kertész and Henri Cartier-Bresson versus Eugene Smith and Sebastio Salgado we are able to witness two distinct approaches of photojournalism. Although the job of photojournalists are all the same, which is stating the truth and the facts of a particular event through photography; here we will explore the distinct types of approaches by some very famour photographers. 

Andre Kertész and Cartier-Bresson both stand for what they believe in. Their belief is that a photographer needs to be unseen, that the  should be no where in sight. In that way you get to see the photograph for what it really is , raw and true. By remaining unseen there are no other objects or factors to disturb the photograph in any way, shape or form. 

                   Srinagar, Kashmir, 1948 by Cartier-Bresson photograph of Muslim women was taken on the slopes of Hari Parbat 

                                                 Hill as they pray while the sun rises behind the Himalayas. 

Cartier-Bresson  who was considered the god father of photojournalism  was born in 1908. He is known for his ability to catch decisive movement or“snap shooting”, as well as his enjoyment for painting. He was able to capture the moment, and to freeze the reality on the pictures, just by feeling it. “Look at the atmosphere, the reflection. Why did I do it this way? Instinct. I have no other explanation. The subject offered itself to me and I took advantage”. (Icevska)  

                                               Kertesz: Landing pigeon, New York City, 1990 by Andre Kertesz

Above is a photograph that was taken by Andre Kertész. He explains how he managed to capture the "decisive moment." "Time and time again I went back to the same place, but it was never right.

                                                                The Wake, Spanish Village, 1951, W. Eugene Smith                         

 The Wake, Spanish Village, 1951, W. Eugene Smith

 The Wake, Spanish Village, 1951, W. Eugene SmithThe Wake, Spanish Village, 1951, W. Eugene Smith

                                                              Gourma-Rharous Mali, 1985 by Sebastio Salgado
                                “It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their  humanness.”

When looking at the work of Andre Kertesz and Henri Cartier-Bresson versus the work of Eugene Smith and Sebastio Salgado the similarities would be capturing of events that occurs around us or infront of us. All are capturing the truth in their eyes and sending the viewers their own message. The differences would be Andre Kertesz and Henri Cartier-Bresson both tries to stay low while they're shooting; therefore, allowing the end result to not be affected by their appearance. While Eugene Smith and Sebastio Salgado alert their shooting subject and developing a close relation with them; in  another words they are the opposite of A. Kertesz and H. Cartier-Bresson. We could also define them as one side were shooting a truth image and the other side as fake image or far from truth image.Its basically shooting from 2 different worlds.

What’s the better journalistic approach? 

I believe that the better journalistic approach would be to stay low or rather invisible. Since it's for journal/news and the main purpose for these photos were to display the truth. As we also discussed in our past discussion that the truth is the truth; it should never be alternated in any ways.

Work Cited:

"About W. Eugene Smith." American Masters. Educational Broadcasting Corporation, 18 APR 2002. Web. 14 Nov 2010. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/w-eugene-smith/about-w-eugene-smith/707/>

"Andre Kertesz." Photography Now. International Fine Art Photography Index, n.d. Web. 14 Nov 2010. <http://www.photography-now.net/listings/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=363&Itemid=334%29>.

Friend, David. "Cartier-Bresson's Decisive Moment." Digital Journalist Dec 2004: n. pag. Web. 14 Nov 2010.

Icevska, Gordana. "‘From today painting is dead’ or let’s paint with the camera." Shooting the truth: How Photographs in the media betray us 04 NOV 2009: 20-39. Web. 14 Nov 2010.

Icevska, Gordana. "The world of Photographers and Photojournalists." Shooting the truth: How Photographs in the media betray us 29 OCT 2009: 3-17. Web. 14 Nov 2010.

Photo Credit:

Andre Kertesz
Landing pigeon, New York City:
"Photographers Gallery"-http://www.photographersgallery.com/photo.asp?id=2893
Carnival, Paris:
"Andre Kertesz: On Reading"-http://homepage.mac.com/curatorial1/Kertesz%20web%20gallery/

Henri Cartier-Bresson
Srinagar, Kashmir, 1948: 
"After Image"- http://www.afterimagegallery.com/bressonsrinagarnew1.htm
Séville, 1933:
"Nouvelles Images"-
http://www.nouvellesimages.com/Seville--1933_Henri-CARTIER-BRESSON_art~PH2467_id~cartespostales_mode~zoom


Eugene Smith
The Wake, Spanish Village
"Artnet"-http://www.artnet.com/artwork/424021118/the-wake-spanish-village.html

Sebastio Salgado
Refugees in the Korem camp:
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/salgado/salgado_covers_full.html
Gourma-Rharous Mali, 1985:
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/salgado/salgado_mali_full.html
Reindeer graze on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula:
"Environment of Man"- 
http://www.environmentofman.com/2009/05/sebastiao-salgado-the-great-humanitarian-photographer-of-our-time/         

Press Photography vs Art Photography

Press photography mainly deals with the capturing of images that are used for news,documentations,entertainment and lifestyle stories for publicaton.Their main purpose is to capture the audience by showing the emotions of the images and trying to portray what it is like for the people in the photographs.When these photos are taken they are then altered, in this way it is no longer the original and then published in newspapers and magazines.

 

           Rescuers help survivors after Earthquske in Sichuan, China By :Bo Bor 

               http://www.mirror.co.uk/2009/02/16/world-press-photo-competition-115875-21129076/ 

When dealing with press photography, you have to be creative and make your photos believable, while following various types of codes of  ehtichs and guidelines. Photographers must also ensure that there are mixtures of validity and reliabiltiy.

 

     Photographer Carlos F. Gutierrez, Patagonia Press for Diario La Tercera, showing Chaiten volcano erupts, Chile, May 2, 2008

                       http://www.mirror.co.uk/2009/02/16/world-press-photo-competition-115875-21129076/ 

In contrast to press photography, art photography is somewhat more difficult to define. Technically there is no definition of art photography because art is looked at in many different ways. People have many ways of viewing art and art can only be determined based on a person. Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses and emotion (Wikipedia), Persoally I think we can define art based on what we see, based on what the books says that art is not. It is not like commercial photography, in that it is not produced to sell a product or promote an image. It is not journalistic in nature where a photograph is taken to capture or tell a visual story that coincides with a written one.

 

                                                        Nadar Terror  http://www.amadelio.com/vlog/tag/diane-arbus/

Instead art photography is more treasured, to some people more valuable. It can also be viewed as artistic and interesting. (e.g Old antique buildings, landscapes,natural elements). Whereas press photography cannot been altered and edited art photography are usually are edited. Alterations are not acceptable in press photography, because it represents the reality. Alterations are used in art photography, because it is fiction. Photographer choose to keep the original photo and not have to many of that copies so that they can be sold at a higher auctioned price.

 It is very hard to distinguish between the 2 types of photographs, because they do look alike at times. For instance the photograph can be looked at as a Press photographed of a very rare flower, instead it is an art photograph. I think it is very unethical to alter Art photographs, the fact being that art is suppose to be original. And by editing the images to me it is no longer art. Press photograph on the other hand can be altered to sell the story or to improve the qulaity.

 

 

In general, press photography provides the audience with facts about present events that are taking place around the world.  The audiences are then able to make their own judgment based on the written news and the image accompanying it. It provides them with the validity of the event and a personal connection to the subjects of the news story as well. 

Art photography is like any other form of art.  Art photographers similar to painters are free to express their artistic vision and feelings through their unlimited resources and techniques. The image does not have to be related to any media event- the image can be of anything and everything.

Work Cited 

Westbrook, D. (2007). A brief history of photojournalism. Retrieved on November 13th, 2010 from  http://www.photographyschools.com/photojournalismhistory.htm

Wikipedia contributors, . "Press photography." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia., 27Jan2009. Web. 13 Nov 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Press_photography&oldid=26675030

http://www.mirror.co.uk/2009/02/16/world-press-photo-competition-115875-21129076/

http://www.mirror.co.uk/2009/02/16/world-press-photo-competition-115875-21129076/

http://www.amadelio.com/vlog/tag/diane-arbus/

http://www.scanner-magic.com/scanography-fine-art-photography.html

Shooting the Truth: Photojournalism

  David Bracho Photojournalism 

What would the world be like if all we had were a bunch of newspapers with stories that included only words? Wouldn't that be less appealing, less encouraging for people to read?  This is where photojournalism plays an important role, photographs are included in newspapers and  magazines so that it can  tell stories and make everything believeable or seem accurate. Photojournalism is a form of journalism where people (edit, collect and present material for broadcast) that creates images in order to tell a news story. In some cases a photo can tell a story just by looking at it, but adding a story to a photographs makes it alot more interesting.

There are rules that photojournalist should follow, they must tell it as it is and must not change or alter the story of photographs. They  must not mislead the audience in any way or edit the photographs in a negative way that would totally change the story. From where I stand I think that the rules are there for a reason, if there were no rules photojournalist would be able to do what they want with the photographs and the stories.

Basically the ethics  of taking journalistic photos and ethics of writing a story are the same, there are rules and guidelines that are to be followed. All photojournalists have to respect the images and tell the truth of the photographs. Altering press photographs can result in both positive and negative effects in terms of ethics of photo journalistic. Nothing is wrong in altering a photograph to improve the quality as long as the audience can still see the story behind the photograph. By editing a picture, people may view it differently and it may be wise to keep the original for accuracy. In this diverse society there are many views when you look at photojournalism and thats what makes it interesting.

 


http://www.davidbracho.net/index.php#mi=1&pt=0&pi=1&s=0&p=0&a=0&at=0

 

Assignment 2 : Photo Manipulation Assignment

     We all face challenges in life, some we can handle and sometimes we feel like giving up. I found my love for photography when my father passed away and I only had 1 memory of him, which was one small picture that I carried around in my purse. I then learnt about scanners, I then blew my small picture up and also tried to fit a picture of myself next to him. Back then, there weren't so many tools and free sites to edit pictures so I only used this website called Imikimi.com to just do custom made photos with the cutest frames you could ever imagine.

    Today I am a grown woman, with a lovely daughter and I am very proud to say that she has the most amazing father on earth . When I look at my daughter with her father, I remember the way my dad would looked at me, the way we played and the fun times we had together. When I look at how happy I am today and how much I have changed since I've started my very own litte family ,I feel overwhelmed.

     

This is me and my significant other. I chose this picture  to so how much we have changed in the past few years. I took the colour away to show how different we are and how we have became alot stronger because of the child we creative togheter,before we became parents we were just a couple of teenagers looking to have a good time.

Now, we are older and understand what responsibilty is all about. I am now proud to say he is now finished with school and has a job ,and is great with his daughter.. Personally the contrast of the photo showed the now and by me taking it away showed the after. I am a very reserved person and this blog has gave me what I have needed, a start. By this I mean a reason to write, I have not sat back and looked at how amazing my life really is.

I also chose this picture and did some color editing and also I included a Sunshine. This picture to me signifies how precious a child walking into your life can be, how a child can light up your life. A child is a blessing and everyday I look at my dauhgter I am in a better place. I am at ease, everything in my world seems better. Sure I may get stressed at times having to wake up in the middle of the night to make a bottle, or having to get up every second to change her diaper. But I have come to realize that , that is the reason I love being a mom. Pictures can all have different meaning and that whats makes it special. Besides having her name tattoed on my body I also had her feet printed with paint so that I can forever have memories of her as a baby. There is a saying that action speaks louder than words. But usually I would say that a picture says something greater than one can ever say. Its about taking the time to look at the picture and understand what it is really trying to say.

Patricia :)

Assignment # 1: The role of portraits in the early days of photography and portraits today

 What are the main differences and similarities between portraits in the early days of photography and portraits today?

  

Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some
works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others
quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the
doing something else." - Leonardo da Vinci

Although I have started comparing painting and not portraits, I just wanted to outline the difference of pictures  in the past and today. Notice how Mona Lisa took her posture so serious, and Bre on the side is just relaxed and taking a photo for maybe a cover of a magazine. The background of the Mona Lisa seems to ‘fade’ or become more blurred and out of focus the further from the subject it extend, where as Bre's background has been obviously edited and as we all know she is not in the country she is portraying. 

Growing up as a child I never really grew up with television, so the only thing I knew were books, radios and newspapers. I remember cutting out the pictures from the newspapers and making my scrap books from the notebooks I was suppose to use for school . In my early years growing up I always enjoyed looking at  this band called 'Original Concept' I always looked at their photos from the magazine stands. Today when I look at my favorite bank Day 26 , I see so many differences yet so many similarities. Firstly in the earlier days most photos were black and white as the first set of telelvsions. Portraits of people were not as clear as the photos today. They are clearer today and has better quality with all the new camera's that are being invented.

2. Who was the photographer and who was the subject of photographs in the past and today?

In the earlier days anyone didn't just take a picture and call themselves a photographer. People had to be trained to take pictures, especially pictures that were to be published. Most of them were painters, some were even artist. Their subjects were mainly  people or a person, not to mention, self-portraits were very popular back in the days. Today, the subject varies from people to places, to animals to tiny creatures such as bugs and tiny objects such as leaves (just like the photo of the 3 leave, taken by one of my closest friends) and the list goes on.


  What was the impact of technology on the portraits in the past and today?
 Technology has had a great impact on portraits in the past and today. You are now allowed to edit, photoshop and even crop other objects onto someone else`s body. Personally, I think that technology has definitely took originality away from portraits that were from the earlier days.
For instance this picture has now been edited so many times , if you were to search this image up you would be able to find about 4 or 5 pictures that has been redone and discriminated from this original picture.

Technology has helped photography in so many ways. Technology has allowed for cameras to be produced cheaper. Nowadays, anyone who has a camera can take a portrait of whomever or whatever they want. Technology has also improved on the quality of the portraits. In the past, pictures were black and white and the coloured portraits were only hand-painted. Nowadays, pictures can be printed both in black and white and coloured. Technology has also found a way to save time both in taking and printing pictures. In the past, it takes so long to develop a picture while today, pictures can be easily printed.

 

Every body in light and shade fills the
surrounding air with infinite images of
itself; and these, by infinite pyramids
diffused in the air, represent this body
throughout space and on every side. ”  
- Leonardo da Vinci

Work Cited 

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/daguerreotype/file.htmlhttp://gardenofpraise.com/art17.htm

http://www.suite101.com/content/mezzotints-copying-portraits-before-photography-a204322

 http://gardenofpraise.com/art17.htm

Can Art Be Mechanically Reproduced?

  I definitely think that art can be reproduced. In the earlier days there were no such thing as a digital camera, some pictures were painted and some with a camera that was probably owned by some of the more wealthier people.Today there are digital camera and there are many different photos that are being reproduced.
  Of course,it would never be able to replace  to the old one but it could be sort of the imitated version. Art can be anything from an old house to a pictureof an old couple living their lives together. However we choose to look at it I would not agree that art cannot be reproduced. I myself loved editing photos and one of my favorite was the Martin Luther King picture that is always displayed when he says I had a Dream.

And this picture has been taken and has been edited so many times. All are different but they still symbolize what he stood for. Martin Luther King reminds me alot of President Obama for a very strange reason. Maybe it is because he did indeed predict that one day there willl infact be a black president and here it is. I look up to him and to me he stands for equality.He stood up for African Americans as myself.  I am totally for it when it is said that art can be mechanically reproduced. From a person that loves photos I reprodcued photos everyday to make them alot more unique than they really are. :)