Reading: Chapter 7
Prelim critique: 2/28
Final Critique, all work due: 3/7
Background
Cartier Bresson...example of "The Decisive Moment"
As photographers, the frame is perhaps our most important tool. With the camera, we frame our subjects, including what we feel is important for the picture, and excluding what isn't. Essentially, we are editing from the visual world with our frame. A common goal in photography is to try and get it all in one frame—to create a singular image that conveys our full expression, sharp, clear, with a single point of view.
Further, we capture single points in time, often orphaned from the longer story. They float, untethered without revealing what came before or after, or for that matter, what else was going on at that time.
There's value in all this—but it can also be limiting!
How can we extend the story of a photograph? What happened before our decisive moment? What happened after? What did the other person see? What about the fly on the wall? Sometimes we need multiple images, multiple frames to convey the breadth and richness of our visual story.
For this project, explore one of the following, based on your interest:
How can photography be used to create a narrative sequence, to convey a story through time? Think about change and movement...what changes? What moves? What stays the same? How does this change tell a story?
Duane Michals (and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDY4d-HqWKk) used extended sequences of images to convey complex and (often amusing) narratives. Some of these visual story lines went in a straight lines, sometimes they made bizarre circles and spirals.
Countless photographers have borrowed his approach to make narratives of their own.
E.Sariozkan
elodie fougère
New Orleans photographer Jennifer Shaw illustrates the trials her family faced during and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The images are told through the use of toys and figurines.
http://jennifershaw.net/hurricane-story/
Metaphoric narrative
The photographer Masaru Goto created a compelling narrative documenting the difficult subject of his mother's sickness, decline and eventual death. He draws a comparison between the life-cycle of cherry trees passing through the four seasons from the blossom stage through the shedding of leaves as extended metaphor for the phases of a human life, from full glory to eventual decline. The result is sad, but poetic and contemplative.
Narrative ideas to get started:
Prelim critique: 2/28
Final Critique, all work due: 3/7
Background
Cartier Bresson...example of "The Decisive Moment"
As photographers, the frame is perhaps our most important tool. With the camera, we frame our subjects, including what we feel is important for the picture, and excluding what isn't. Essentially, we are editing from the visual world with our frame. A common goal in photography is to try and get it all in one frame—to create a singular image that conveys our full expression, sharp, clear, with a single point of view.
Further, we capture single points in time, often orphaned from the longer story. They float, untethered without revealing what came before or after, or for that matter, what else was going on at that time.
There's value in all this—but it can also be limiting!
How can we extend the story of a photograph? What happened before our decisive moment? What happened after? What did the other person see? What about the fly on the wall? Sometimes we need multiple images, multiple frames to convey the breadth and richness of our visual story.
For this project, explore one of the following, based on your interest:
- Narrative Sequence
- Conceptual Series
How can photography be used to create a narrative sequence, to convey a story through time? Think about change and movement...what changes? What moves? What stays the same? How does this change tell a story?
Grandpa Goes to Heaven
Countless photographers have borrowed his approach to make narratives of their own.
E.Sariozkanelodie fougère
The Personal Telling of Story
Jennifer Shaw
Jennifer ShawNew Orleans photographer Jennifer Shaw illustrates the trials her family faced during and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The images are told through the use of toys and figurines.
http://jennifershaw.net/hurricane-story/
Metaphoric narrative
The photographer Masaru Goto created a compelling narrative documenting the difficult subject of his mother's sickness, decline and eventual death. He draws a comparison between the life-cycle of cherry trees passing through the four seasons from the blossom stage through the shedding of leaves as extended metaphor for the phases of a human life, from full glory to eventual decline. The result is sad, but poetic and contemplative.
Narrative ideas to get started:
- Create a character and story...depict this visually, telling the story through a sequence of images. Shoot in a way that links the images together in a coherent way.
- Choose or stage a sequence of actions and consequences that are related...show us the before, during and after in a compelling way. Even better, throw in a twist or surprise.
- Illustrate a recent (or current) news event using a fictional or illustrative approach. Instead of photographing the actual events, recreate the event in a compelling or believable way through a sequence of images
- Take a photo every hour for a day...document what you are doing or seeing. Or what someone else is seeing or doing. What stays the same in every photo? What changes?
- Same place different time...photograph the same place, the same way, but at a different time...vary by minute, hour, day, week...decide one method and keep it constant
- Same person different time...photograph the same person, the same way, but at a different time...vary by minute, hour, day, week...decide one method and keep it constant.
Jeffrey Milstein creates a typology of aircraft.
Bernd and Hilla Becher are particularly associated with this mode of art (conceptual typology)
Jeff Brouws Artists like these are concerned with cataloging and "collecting" with their camera. For instance, Brouws isn't interested in singular train cars, but the almost endless variations between numerous cars. Working with a mode called typology, he creates grids that simultaneously show similarity and contrast.
Jeff Brouws Artists like these are concerned with cataloging and "collecting" with their camera. For instance, Brouws isn't interested in singular train cars, but the almost endless variations between numerous cars. Working with a mode called typology, he creates grids that simultaneously show similarity and contrast.
Idis Khan quite literally quotes Bernd and Hilla Becher's work with industrial architecture, but layers the multiple variations of structures within a single frame instead of a grid.
On more of a documentary, story-telling mode, Lucia Ganieva, creates rich biographical portraits of people relating their persona to their vocation, past, workplace, etc. using diptychs and triptychs. Notice how the frames work together to build meaning.
There is a long history in photography of objectification based on race, gender, stereotypes and notions of the "other". African Americans have been notably objectified in this way, unfortunately. Photographer Myra Greene turns the tables on this history with her clever and effective series: "My White Friends".
On more of a documentary, story-telling mode, Lucia Ganieva, creates rich biographical portraits of people relating their persona to their vocation, past, workplace, etc. using diptychs and triptychs. Notice how the frames work together to build meaning.
There is a long history in photography of objectification based on race, gender, stereotypes and notions of the "other". African Americans have been notably objectified in this way, unfortunately. Photographer Myra Greene turns the tables on this history with her clever and effective series: "My White Friends".
Andrew Moore captures how time and economic forces, seemingly beyond our control, can change a city. He depicts decaying structures related to the auto industry in Detroit, to tell a sad story of a city that was once a vibrant and thriving place. Each photograph carries an echo of the past, and is operates very tightly around the central idea. While each image is strong, the work should be considered the whole series, rather than the individual photos.
Denis Darzacq creates images of individuals in ordinary settings that appear to defy gravity. The project gains strength through repetition and variation within this theme.
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HonzF8LbLE
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HonzF8LbLE
Project Description
Choose one:
Choose one:
- Narrative Sequence
- Conceptual Series
- Output methods... what you will physically make?
- Letter size physical prints to comprise a sequence or series.
- How much to do? If you are doing a sequence or series, aim for 5-7 printed images. It may depend on your project—discuss with instructor.
- Keep in mind that this is a multiple week project, so an ambitious level of shooting is expected, to contribute to a strong, final selection of images
- All of your individual photos that go into this project should be edited appropriately in photoshop. This includes the skills covered so far in class: WP/BP, global tone adjustments (brightness and contrast using curves and/or camera raw), color adjustments, local adjustments (dodge and burn, blending mode curves with masks), sharpening. All Raw conversions must be smart objects.
- Jpeg versions: jpeg, quality 10+, sRGB, no longer than 1500 pixels in one direction (use image processor to set this up)
Reading: Chapter 7
Prelim critique: 2/28
Final Critique, all work due: 3/7
Prelim critique: 2/28
Final Critique, all work due: 3/7
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