Ladies First - BSG

On Friday night my art teacher from high school was apart of an exhibition at the Brunswick St Gallery. The exhibition featured several female artists, revealing an array of styles and approaches. My house mate and I were asked to create a short film that documented the set up and opening night. I also took this opportunity to take a few snaps. I approached photographing this event in the same vein as my previous market photos, focusing on human interaction.I encountered a few technical challenges, due to the nature of the lighting in galleries and the set up of the gallery with a diagonal dividing false wall. The combination of both of these things created scattered and bright lighting that made it difficult to generate a completely sharp focused image. However I did manage to produce a few images that I particularly like due to the artists artwork interaction which features.

'I'm A Photographer - Not A Terrorist!'

Street photography has had particular prevalence in contemporary art circles, capturing a universally familiar pulse of city life. The central origin of street photography arose in New York during the 1960's, with founding practitioners Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand and Joel Meyenowitz forging a distinctive genre. These key figures continue to influence current productions and methodology associated with street photography. While street photography can be linked to such pioneers as Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, it wasn't until the 1960's that a notable attitude and distinguishable genre was forming.

Sean O'Hagen's article on this genre in the Guardian, brought to my attention the similarity of intention and methodology of my market photographs as this genre. As I have stated in a previous blog entry, my intention as a photographer is to observe rather than control my world. The images I captured a the markets were not focused on perfect camera settings and contrived compositions, but rather to quote Winogrand:
"When I am photographing I see life. That's what I deal with. I don't have pictures in my head...I don't worry about how the pictures are going to look. I let that take care of itself. It's not about taking nice pictures. That anyone can do."

Unfortunately street photography, especially the more aggressive forms, is under threat, caused largely by an era the article describes as 'an age of anxieties, both big and small, real and imagined'. Terrorism, paedophilia, intrusion, surveillance and the insistent right to privacy all endanger the future of this distinctive genre of street photography!

Photographic Observations At Camberwell Markets

After the previous success of capturing everyday events and the interaction of people at the Queen Victoria Markets, I began considering other kinds of markets for photographic exploration. I decided on the Sunday Camberwell Markets, as the goods for sale and type of people which attend provide an interesting contrast to the Queen Vic Markets. The Camberwell Market essentially thrive off the philosophy that 'one man's trash is another man's treasure'! There was an element of scavenging and competitive rummaging that was not present at the Queen Vic Markets. The essence of my photography is to make myself invisible so as to capture peoples uninhibited interaction with products and people. The third image below is of me capturing a woman trying on a helmet, I have pressed the button to take the photo at the precise moment she recognises that I am indeed photographing her. I think adds a humorous aspect to the image in relation to my intention of being invisible!

Below are some of my more successful images from the Camberwell Markets:

Trent Parke - An Observer Of Our World!

I examined Australian contemporary photographer Trent Parke for my presentation due to his highly distinctive and vivid visual signature. While researching his approach and and style, I came to recognise that I share some similarities in relation to intention and approach. From my recent experience and observation of photography, as a medium of mass production and consumption, I have recognised two distinctive approaches:

*Photographers who construct and attempt to control their world, and then seek to represent and capture it visually

OR

*Photographers who wish to observe their world, with no intervention

I find myself to be increasingly in the latter category, gaining the greatest interest and inspiration from simply observing the world around me.

Trent Parke's series of work, 'Minutes to Midnight', observes and reveals an aspect of Australia that many of us are unfamiliar with, bringing us particularly dense and alluring images. The images captured in this series were a product of a two year long 90,000 km journey across Australia, capturing a psychological portrait of this nation. The aspect of Parke's work which makes it distinctive is his revelation and capacity to capture the transformative power of Australian light. This is a detail which I think would advance the artistic quality and observational capacity of my photographic works.

Below are images from this series 'Minutes to Midnight':

An Oasis Within Sydney

After my trip to the country, I spent a few days in Sydney which was a completely different change of pace, until we visited the warf and park area in North Sydney. It was quite early in the morning so not a lot of people were around so it felt like we had stumbled across an undiscovered oasis. The focus of my muse was again this contrast between the organic and inorganic. These are some of the better shots I took:

Food For Thought In The Country Air!

Whilst this blog is somewhat delayed in it's being written, my trip to the NSW countryside over Easter was quite influential in the progression of my portfolio of photographs. I stayed at my Aunt and Uncles farm just outside of Bathurst in NSW, and was reminded of the distinct contrast in the visual environment from the country to the city. This change in scenery encouraged me to examine more closely the visual components of my world and infact got me thinking more laterally, which is quite in keeping with the Romantic Poet's belief in the country air to do so!

A site of particular interest for me on the farm was the old shed, which once was productive in shearing mobs of sheep on mass, however is now a storage home to a random collection of unused furniture, Gum Boots, old electrical appliances. This contrast between old and new, previous function and current function all mashed in together provided some really visually interesting shots. In addition, the physical structure of the shed as hand constructed in the late 1800's from local logged trees, provided interesting organic lines and shapes which contrasted well against the inorganic shapes and colours of modern technology. I found some technical difficulty as the shed was very dark and as such needed to have the ISO up quite high to allow enough light into the camera, however in doing so the images became a little grainy. However I still feel the images capture well my intention and are really quite visually interesting. Below is a short list of some of the better shots I took:

On Show At The ACP - Zed Nelson and Olivia Martin-McGuire

The Australian Center of Photography (ACP) is the nations longest running contemporary art space. The two current series of work on exhibition, 'Love Me' by Zed Nelson and 'Sleepers' by Olivia Martin-McGuire, could not have been in greater contrast in relation to intention and philosophy. 'Love Me' is a collection of images that explores societal values and the persistent quest for physical perfection. The subjects of Nelson's series features school girls, pageant entrants, body builders, vaginal reconstruction surgery candidates, Iranian's queuing for nose jobs, plastic surgery junkies and New Yorkers having foot surgery to fit into Jimmy Choo shoes. Nelson's series negotiates the boundaries between documentary and artistic photography. The harsh bright lighting of the photographs encourages the viewer to judge the subjects, within the portraits, based purely on physical appearance, an irony considering the the work sets out to challenge this trend. The series is successful in highlighting the ill health of a society obsessed with physical appearance. I left the exhibition with a disgust for the superficiality of society and almost a sense of despair.



In almost stark contrast Olivia Martin McGuire's work 'Sleepers' is a series that captures subjects transitioning into the uninhibited realm of the unconscious. The production quality of the works was achieved through the use of a medium format camera, allowing the artist to produce large scale prints which maintain fine detail with crisp accuracy. All images of the 'Sleepers' were shot in the artists studio on the same bed, adorned with pale yellow sheets, allowing a sense of unity throughout the series. Due to the large scale, sense of vulnerability and the sheer lack of inhibition of the subjects, the works are intensely intimate.

On Show At Stills Gallery - Pat Brassington

Stills gallery in Sydney is committed to exhibiting Australian contemporary photographic work. Their current exhibition is a selection of works from female artist Pat Brassington's recent series 'A Perfect Day'. A distinctive theme within Brassington's oeuvre is her beguiling surrealistic imagery. The colour palette within the series makes reference to a kind of post apocalyptic scenario, with a theatrical staging of figures which evokes both the unconscious and the absurd.

A work that particularly stood out for me was titled 'Rub Your Eyes', and featured a girl lying face down on the grass, swamped by her mountainous skirt. While this scenario generates a sense of familiarity, it simultaneously raises uncertainty with bleached and acrid tones making the landscape an unknown entity, counteracting connections of nature with the idyllic.

Brassington pushes the limits of photography as a medium, challenging the notion that a photograph captures a snippet of reality.

Re-View Review

The NGV established their first separate curatorial department of photography in 1967, with the current permanent collection standing at over 15, 000 photographs of which 3, 000 are by international artists (NGV, 2010). The recent photography exhibition at the NGV, 'Re-View', showcases 170 years of photography as a fine art and celebrates the 40th anniversary of the NGV's acquisition of it's collection. The exhibition reveals the progression of styles and techniques for capturing, developing and producing a photographic image.

As an exhibition 'Re-View' was relatively small, showcasing largely international artists. The exhibition looks at each decade from 1840 onwards, revealing remarkable images that have been influential in photographic history and the establishment of the medium as a unique art form. The common muse within the exhibition, which transcended all decades, was human perception and the projection of perceived or factual reality. Portraits were particularly prevalent within the exhibition, often providing a psychological insight into the personality and temperament of the sitter, allowing the viewer to be engaged in the stranger's reality. Despite ourphotography course being entirely digital, the progression of image qualities and finish resolutions through the decades particularly interested me.


Reference:
NGV, 2010 'Re-View', viewed 30th March 2010
http://ngv.vic.gov.au/review/

The World Around Me

Inspired by this weeks lecture that examined Cartier-Bresson and Lee Freidlander, I was intent on capturing moments from everyday life using the convenience of my digital camera. On Saturday morning I made my way to the Victoria Markets for food shopping. The array of fruit and vegetables provided a visually interesting backdrop for the bustle of people and the exchange of goods. From the photographs I have uploaded I particularly like one where the man is purchasing a pumpkin. Unaware that I was photographing either of them I was able to capture an ordinary moment in time. I also was quite pleased with the compositional elements in the photograph.

First Experimentation With An SLR

Given a list of 12 words to inspire and spark interest in the world around us we were all sent out with a camera each for experimentation. Having never used an SLR, my main focus was composition with limited experiment with manual function. I would, however, like to become more familiar with the manual function of a digital SLR. The photos attached to this blog entry are those which I felt were most successful during the session.

Jill Greenberg and the Developement of Portrait Photography

Greenberg's photographic curiosity is centered in portraiture, a genre which was established with the advent of the camera. Greenberg is a prime example of an artists who has a 'personal vision that is readily identifiable'. While portrait photography of the early 19th century was highly formal, structured and emotionally austere, Greenberg explores the intense emotion and the true identity of her subjects.

Greenberg is known as 'the manipulator', combining harsh lighting in the capture stage with heavy digital editing in Photoshop. Greenberg told Digital Photo Pro that she uses 'a lot of masking, apply colour curves, dodge and burn. It's all done by hand, like painting.' These techniques could be interesting for my own experiment in digitally manipulating photographs in Photoshop.

Greenberg's work is often clouded by controversy, particularly her 'End Times' series in 2006 which featured hyper real, stylized portraits of toddlers. The toddlers were captured in moments of intense emotion, through controversial methods such as offering the child candy and then taking it away, which some deemed unethical. Greenberg, however intended it as a post modern political comment, stating; 'The first little boy I shot, Liam, suddenly became hysterically upset. It reminded me of helplessness and anger I felt towards the current political and social situation. I made me think of my outrage at our false reason for going to war in Iraq and the scandalous way the conflict was sold to the American people'.

The Perpetual Debate - What Is Art?!

Discussions in the workshop brought to light the difficulty of producing ‘fine art photography’ in a climate that has essentially commercialised and made readily available the camera to a mass market. Having never studied photography before, I found myself daunted by the prospect of establishing something unique and distinctly ‘ME’. What could I possible do, that is radically different to anyone else?

I viewed segments from the second series of ‘The Genius of Photography’, which provided a great quote to sum up my quandary:

‘The dilemma and the strength of photography is that it’s the easiest medium in which to be competent, but the hardest medium in which to have a personal vision that is readily identifiable.’

The visual arts has always been a passion of mine, largely practising the in the fields of mixed media painting, drawing, and graphic art I additionally found this comparative quote interesting:

‘There are no accidental masterpieces in painting, but there are accidental masterpieces in photography.’

I think this quote reveals the spontaneity of the medium and therefore the challenge.