John Baldessari |
John Baldessari is an American conceptual artist . Some of his work includes image appropriation, paintings , sculptures, collages , photography and film. His most well known motif is placing a coloured circle over the head of someone in the photograph. Many would say that he transformed the world of pop art by using skills such as painting, printmaking, sculpturing, etc. One of the main things that make his photos unique and different from other pop artists is his use of covering faces with bright colourful dots which force us viewers to look at the entire photo, and not just the main subject so we don't end up focusing on the particularities of the subject. Jon Baldessari did not like the idea of his photographs and creations being too serious, so adding the colourful dots helped ease the viewers into the photo without it seeming to dull and serious.
He was also a tutor at Cal Arts- university of California, where he taught many students who went on to become successful artists.
He was also a tutor at Cal Arts- university of California, where he taught many students who went on to become successful artists.
Homework - collaboration |
One of our first tasks was to collaborate as a class to create a collage of 20 images. Individually, we had given each other a set of 4 or 5 instructions to take photographs depending on the instructions given to us. Once each of us had taken their photographs, we had a set of around 85 photographs. We stuck each photo on the wall in rows of 14, to make it easier to look at all of them and decide which ones we wanted to keep or remove. We went through each photograph and discussed the positives and negatives of each one, to decide which ones we wanted in our final 20. We then took all the remaining photographs down and put them back up, however this time we grouped them based on which ones look good together - e.g. colour coordinating photos, nature photos, portraits, landscapes. Looking at them in a different composition definitely helped us look at things from a fresh perspective and helped us make our decision quicker. Finally, we organised our final 20 photos until we were happy with the composition and the results were successful .
Instructions :
- Photo of a group of people
- photo of a purple flower
- a photo of somebody reading
- a vintage car parked
- Photo of a group of people
- photo of a purple flower
- a photo of somebody reading
- a vintage car parked
My Response
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When I first heard about working in this collaborative way I remember thinking back to a previous project where i collaborated with a class. This was different though as the rules were written by each class member and then we swapped so we didn't really know what we were going to get. Some of the instructions were quite difficult as they were specific-so they they took longer to do as I had to explore. When i did explore though I had to search for the image and this in a way forced me to look around in another area and I saw things in a different way, We discovered underground tunnels and undiscovered places which we able to explore.
Final exhibition |
Alfred Steiglitz and Georgia O'Keefe |
Today we were looking at the art of instruction and collaboration between artists. We were given two photographs from their collaboration exhibition, and told to annotate what we saw in each photo. The meaning behind each photograph is unknown - we don't know who’s hands are in the photo, what objects the hands are reaching out to, why the hands are they main subject of the photo? All of these questions are important to make the viewer think, as they were taken to generate curiosity and interest. Although we don't know why these were taken, we can tell that in the first photo, the hands appear to be posing for the camera, as if they were put in a certain position waiting for the photo to be taken. However in the second photo, the woman seems to be more relaxed as we can tell from her facial expressions ; her hands also seem more natural, as if they are just resting. They do look like they are posing, but in more of a relaxed manner. We can't tell exactly what Georgia O'Keefe is thinking about as her facial expressions aren't very clear, which leaves us thinking about the photograph in further detail.
In these two photographs however, I personally think that O'Keefe had most of the control, as she was the one moving around and posing, whilst he was clicking the button on the camera at the right moment in time. In the second photograph, we can see that the only visible person is Georgia, and Alfred is the one telling her how to pose and actually taking the photographs.Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Steiglitz's collaboration was successful in the end as they later got married in the future.
Fictional Character Photographs |
We were given the task to create a description of a fictional character that we made up in class. We wrote about their age, short backstory, their interests, what type of photography interests them the most. The descriptions we all made got mixed up and each of us got a random description and we didn't know who wrote them. Our homework was to understand our character and go out and take photographs as if we were the character in the description. My character was someone who's favourite colour was blue, and who like taking photos of the sky and nature, but occasionally also architecture, but not super modern ones. My character had a family who owns a cafe so she would often take photos of her favourite drinks that she would order.
When i was taking these photographs, I had to imagine myself as the character that was given to me. In order to get these photos I had to think about where my character would be in that moment taking those photographs. As my character likes nature mixed with architecture, i thought about going into London as there are many parks that border with big houses and famous landmarks. I went to some cafes during the week as well and took photos of what me and my friends ordered. This fitted well with the theme of the photoshoot as my character owns a cafe.
Hicham Benohoud |
Hicham Benohoud is a Moroccan photographer who had a profession in visual arts. In 1998 he showed thousands of small ID photos arranged one against each other and glued onto a canvas, or attached to a wall. In total there were 4455 tiny images grouped onto one wall. Benohaud had a project called 'La salle de classe' which was inspired by his years as a teacher. His work was based off of staging photographs using objects used in classrooms. These photos can have many different meanings depending on the person who may view them. To me, the black and white effect of these photographs add to the mood of the students who look tired/ bored, and how often classrooms and school put restrictions on how students can express themselves.
Performance |
This photoshoot was inspired by Hicham Benohoud and his work with staging objects in classrooms.We used objects we found in the class and tried to recreate photos that he made in our groups. I think that the photo of Maryam with the green cellophane was the best one we took because we captured the cellophane falling at the perfect moment. The shadow aligns nicely with her and the cellophane and the reflection on the wall fits in well. We used props we found inside the classroom and tried to keep our facial expressions as serious as possible as we were inspired by the work of Hicham Benohoud and wanted to recreate his photos using the materials we could find. In previous projects, I would like to put these photos in black and white, and maybe take them from a further away angle to make the photos as similar as possible.
True story |
This weeks homework was to take photos of a story that has happened to us previously. I took these photographs when I went to a trip abroad to France. I tried taking these photos when the sun was setting so that the colours could all link in together and look like a sequence of photos that are happening in chronological order. If I were to take these photos again, I would make sure that none of the surrounding objects are blocking the view, and that the main subject of the photo , e.g. the ship, is in the centre of the frame.
Broomberg and Chanarin |
Broomberg and Chanarin are two South African,London-based photographers who are most famous for their international exhibitions that were displayed in numerous public and private collections.'Scarti' is the italian name for 'scraps', which reflects this collection of photographs as they were made by accidentally overlapping two photo together from Broomberg and Chanarin's photobook which were first published in 2010 as single images. These images are far from a normal photograph that we would see in our day-to-day lives. The use of manipulating colour and light to change the meaning of the photograph is very intruiguing, as we would never see something like this in real life. These photos are all individual and unique to look at as they have taken two completely different photo and combined them to create something out of the norm.
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The list
- The camera is blind and doesn’t understand the mood. Make an image with your camera of a mood
- Make a portrait of something you love
- Make a portrait of something you hate
- Recreate a dream or a thought in a series of 10 images.
- Create an image you don’t understand and create an image that asks questions
- Make images where the subject is on the edge of the frame and then make images where the subject is outside of the frame
- Make a portrait of something you love
- Make a portrait of something you hate
- Recreate a dream or a thought in a series of 10 images.
- Create an image you don’t understand and create an image that asks questions
- Make images where the subject is on the edge of the frame and then make images where the subject is outside of the frame
Mood photos |
At the start of the lesson, our teacher asked the class to write a short paragraph describing how they felt this morning. Depending on what we wrote, we had to come up with different moods associated with that paragraph description. For example, most people wrote something about the rain, saying that it completely ruined the mood. This meant that one of the moods they could've chosen to photographs would be sadness.
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It's not easy to photograph a specific mood, as people can interpret the photos from different perspectives. Some things can influence the way we see photographs massively. For example, colour and lighting can help make a photo seem sadder than it truly. A photograph in black and white would instantly make us think about sad things to do with photograph.When it comes to lighting, a brighter photo can seem more cheerful than it actually is.
Dream sequence
Developing an idea
For my chosen artist, I have chosen Carolle Bénitah's : 'Jamais je ne t'oublierai'. I have chosen this book to further my research because I find it interesting how the photographs are composed. Similarly to the front cover of the book, the photographs are completely in black and white, with the main subjects being covered in golden dots and strikes. Most of these dots cover the faces of the people in the photos so their identities remain private. In other portraits of people, we often see the entirety of their upper body being covered in gold.However, some photos have no people or animals in them at all, and are just landscapes which are a mix of nature and also some buildings in the background. In these specific images, the parts that are 'covered' in gold the most are the subjects that take up the majority of the photo. For example: the sky, trees, pavement\ land, etc.
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Before getting into photography, Carolle Benitah worked ten years as a fashion designer. In her photographs she incorporates memories, how time passes, and also family. In her photos we often see that the photos are clearly older as she likes to include photos of her family from years before she was born. Her role as wife, mother and daughter also influences her work massively. Carolle states that she does not have many photographs from her family from before she was born that show her family history, so she buys most of the photographs from flea markets as she said it makes her happy to see them all together having a good time. She then keeps them anonymous by covering their faces with golden shapes.
My first response
When i was taking these photos, I thought about the process Carolle Benitah went through to achieve her final results. The vast majority of her photos were found photographs that she then altered to call her own, which is one of the things i decided to change when taking inspiration from them. Her photos are also in black and white, which is something I will change once I get to the editing part of the project. Once I take more photographs, I will change the photos to be black and white. Looking at Benitah's photographs, I want to recreate them in my own way, so I will be including the gold elements to my photos using gold leaf.
Particularly with these types of photos down below, the photos have been manipulated to a point where it doesn't look like there were real people in the photo to begin with. The people in these look almost fake, as if they have been photoshopped or cut out and stuck onto the page. At first, I didn't think much of these photographs, but after observing for a while, I found something interesting. Carolle Benitah uses her images as a way of mourning her ideal family life. These people in the photos are almost 'fading away' and we have no way of seeing their faces on paper because now they are just a memory. She bought most of these photos from markets, and adapts them to her style. As she doesn't have memories and photos from her family, she creates her own 'absent memories' using old photos she finds in her day to day life. By creating these photos, she can create an imaginary lifestyle that she never had but always wanted to experience . The use of the gold leaf creates a barrier between this alternate reality and this reality. By covering the faces with gold leaf, we feel distant with the faces in the photos, as if we have no connection to them personally, but we still feel a sense of familiarity when looking at them.
Carolle Benitah has a similar project called 'Le Cube' , which also includes the covering of peoples faces and keeping them somewhat anonymous . The idea of this project is to disrupt the theme of an ideal family by using embroidery to create designs that split the photos from happiness. Benitah says that this is a long process that is a representation of time passing by and people changing. She's very persistent in her ideas of an 'ideal family' being a myth, and we can see that through her use of embroidery in her photos throughout this project. In all of these photographs she uses red thread, which depicts an image of violence and loss. The photos that she used in this project are quite different to the ones she used in jamais je ne t'oublierai, in the sense that these were not 'found photographs' but rather those she had discovered in her own house from 40 years prior.
Carolle Benitah has a similar project called 'Le Cube' , which also includes the covering of peoples faces and keeping them somewhat anonymous . The idea of this project is to disrupt the theme of an ideal family by using embroidery to create designs that split the photos from happiness. Benitah says that this is a long process that is a representation of time passing by and people changing. She's very persistent in her ideas of an 'ideal family' being a myth, and we can see that through her use of embroidery in her photos throughout this project. In all of these photographs she uses red thread, which depicts an image of violence and loss. The photos that she used in this project are quite different to the ones she used in jamais je ne t'oublierai, in the sense that these were not 'found photographs' but rather those she had discovered in her own house from 40 years prior. When looking through these photos, she experienced emotions of both familarity but also the unknown. She found it intriguing how these moments that were captured represented who she is as a person , and how her family origins were on paper.
Once she picked out the photographs she was going to work with, she added needlework to the paper. When growing up, she was taught that needlework and embroidery is a particularly feminine art process, and that 'good girls' learnt how to sew and knit whilst waiting for the man to return home. Her mother told her that the 'perfect woman' had this quality about her. As she grew up with this mentality she realised that this idea isn't correct, but including it in her project would be interesting as a representation of her family history.
Once she picked out the photographs she was going to work with, she added needlework to the paper. When growing up, she was taught that needlework and embroidery is a particularly feminine art process, and that 'good girls' learnt how to sew and knit whilst waiting for the man to return home. Her mother told her that the 'perfect woman' had this quality about her. As she grew up with this mentality she realised that this idea isn't correct, but including it in her project would be interesting as a representation of her family history.
With each stitch I make a hole with a needle. Each hole is a putting to death of my demons. It’s like an exorcism. I make holes in paper until I am not hurting any more. - Carolle Benitah
Continuing my response
After thinking about Benitah's work and the decisions she made throughout her project 'Jamais je ne t'oublierai' , I have decided on what my next steps are. At home, I recently found some old family photos that I did not know I had. I spent a while looking through them trying to remember any details from when they were taken, but most of it is unknown to me. Similarly to Benitah, I found it interesting how each of these moments that have been captured on camera have influenced the course of my life and have shaped me as a person. It would be interesting to see how I could edit and manipulate these photos, using both photoshop and the tools I have available to me, to create a new meaning behind them. By doing this I could create an entirely new reality and find those 'lost memories'. I'd like to continue with the story. Using the same camera that my dad used.
Half term - continuing
The photos below are just a few of the old printed photographs I found from many years ago. Continuing from my idea of creating a different story surrounding a specific memory by creating new photographs, I will take a sequence of photographs for each photograph down below. The first one is of me and y mum around 10 yers ago. This photo was most likely taken on my dad's old film camera, which he still has today. I will use the same camera he used to create my sequence. The second is a portrait of me when I was younger. Just like the previous photo, I will use the same camera to create a sequence. For the last two it will be a bit more challenging as I was not present in those moments. The third photo is of my mum and her friend's on a day at the beach. For this, I will go to the beach with my friends and recreate this event. The last photo was taken about 60 years ago and is of my grandma on the right, and her friend on her left.
I'd like to create the memory around them. For example, the photograph of my Mum and I is a photograph which I'd taken which was probably taken after we visited the beach. I can also remember the image of the shark, which was my grandad's. I visited Italy a lot more often. I want to create images which will continue with the memory of what happened during those days. I'd like to perhaps think about recreating the images perhaps using the gold leaf to obscure what I can't remember. Memories are a little hazy at the moment. This was when my sibling wasn't around so I had my parents to myself. This work is about my family and the memories of the time.
1 memories recreated burned, gold leaf sewing
2. recreating as it bv \
1 memories recreated burned, gold leaf sewing
2. recreating as it bv \
Memory mindmap
In this lesson I chose a photo from an old photo album to see what I could remember. I made a detailed mindmap of specific details from when this photo was taken. For example the time of day , the place, surroundings, any objects near me, people present, any nearby decorations(wall /floor) , etc. This was useful because I want to recreate this photograph of me using objects that I have currently. Now that I have written down everything I can remember from that day, I can take object's such as beach toys and take an updated version of that photo again.
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Paul Graham - "Photography is easy, Photography is difficult"
This is an extract from Paul Graham's book 'Photography is easy, photography is difficult.' I agree with this article , as taking photographs is easy because there is something to photograph everywhere, however that's what makes it so challenging. Everyone takes photographs so it's hard to get a photo that is entirely unique, but behind each photo, there is a different purpose as to why it has been taken.
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Namsa Leuba
Namsa Leuba is a visual artist who works in fashion and performance genres to explore aspects of her African heritage and culture.
Ruth Ossai
My second response:
Over the past week I took photos using my dad's camera, trying to continue my idea of continuing a memory. I asked my friend's younger siblings to be in the photos as they were the only ones who looked somewhat like me when I was younger. These photos, particularly number 4, remind me of when I was younger the most. When taking these photos, I had to think about whether I was going to take them with my phone , or with my digital camera. I went with my digital camera as I liked the way they looked far more.
List:
After I chose a photo of me when i was younger, I looked at it in detail and noted down every object that I could see/remember. I then went home to see what I could find that was in that photo, or what was related to it. For example, I can't see any sea shells in the photo, but I know I went to the beach earlier that day so it makes sense to have them there. My intension for this photoshoot was to display everything that was related to this photo. Beach related things especially. Such as shells, sunscreen, hairbrush, swimwear, etc.
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Triggering Memories
In the last week I took photos of everything that reminded me of my childhood, or anything that triggered a memory. All of these photos are very different from one another, with almost no links between them, but they all reminded me of something. I had to think about what I could photograph and how I would do it. The first photo was a photo I had taken in winter, when it was snowing, and the view from the balcony here reminded me a lot of how the view from my grandparents house looks like when it snows. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. The second photo is taken in a shop near my house that sells Italian food, and those biscuits were ones that I used to eat often. I liked how the colours of the packets went well together, but if I were to take these photos again I would step back and include more in the frame.