Evidence Photobook |
Today we looked at a photobook called ' evidence' by Mandel and Sulten. It was first published in 1977 and is considered a highly infuential book in the photography industry. This book is a sequence of 59 uncaptioned images sourced from major archives from American technological and research institutions. The use of these strange positionings of the photos in the book make it seem increasingly obscure as we flick through the pageso;;, forming confusion but at the same time curiosity in the viewers mind. As these photos were taken out of context and put into the book without any captions, it forces whoever is looking at the photos to form their own opinions and ideas as to how and why these were taken and put into this order.
Experiment #1 |
Today we were given an instruction sheet for photographing a photograph.
- Photograph the photograph so that light is reflected on its surface, partly obscuring the subjectPhotograph the photograph with someone else’s hand (holding, pointing, obscuring etc.)
- Photograph the photograph in an unusual place
- Photograph the photograph inside a book. Consider the relationship between the photograph and the adjacent text/image(s)
- Photocopy the photograph. You may do this in any way you like. Photograph the photocopy.
- Damage/disrupt the photograph in some way. You may use simple tools to help you. Photograph the damaged/disrupted photograph.
Sound of silence |
For this task we had to create a story in the 'grey area', by creating a fictional story using photography. In my group we created a sequence of photographs about Mr Kane. The idea behind our story was that he is a music teacher who once had a strong passion for music, but over time his love for music slowly died and is now remembering his days when he used to love it.
Sugar Paper theories - random sequence |
Todays task was quite different to the ones we usually do. We were given a set of 12 photographs from the photo book 'sugar paper theories' by Jack Latham in both black and white and colour and were given the instructions to create a story out of the photos we were given. The sequence of the photos all somehow had to link to each other in some way, which made it challenging seeing as some of the photographs were in black and white and some were in colour. My story was about a man who lived in an apartment who spent years in his office drawing out maps to an unknown place to find a long lost item of value. He then finds an entrance in his basement which takes him to a cold environment. He does not know the area very well, so he gets lost and cant find his way back. On his way trying to look for his way back, he finds an old tunnel, and to his surprise he found the missing item.
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Jack Latham - Sugar P
Jack Latham is a British documentary photographer who describes his practice as operating between fact and fiction. Two of his most successful book include 'A pink flamingo' , and 'sugar paper theories' - a book about the Gudmundur and Geirfinnur disappearance case in Iceland, This case was about the memory distrust syndrome in which 6 innocent people confessed to murders they did not commit. Despite the lack of bodies , witnesses or weapons , these 6 people were convicted of the murders of two men on the basis of confessions withdrawn by the police in interviews. The book is made out of new photographs, texts and archival imagery. Latham enjoys exploring the grey area between truth and fiction, and his ultimate goal and the reason he decided to make 'sugar paper theories' was to make people outside of iceland aware of the case. These photographs were taken out of context, and not put into any particular order, making us think about the story behind each one.
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Jack Latham created this book using a number of tehniques such as the 'french folds' where the photos are printed onto the page and folded so the viewer never gets a chance to see the 'full picture'. Much like this unsolved mysterious case, we never get to see the truth behind it, or whst it would be like to 'unfold' the case. The way this photobook has been presented to us viewers makes us question our perception of reality and dependability when it comes to photographs, especially something as significant as a murder investigation.Compared to many other photographers, Latham manages to have a fresh perspective on things, taking meaningful photographs which make us think about the deeper story behind each one.
The Grey Area |
Photographs can often be very difficult to trust, as we don't know if they have been manipulated in some way.
Clocks for seeing |
In today's lesson, we discussed how clocks are similar to cameras and photos. When looking at a camera, we see the rectangular shape with the lens being circular which is similar to how clocks looked like almost a century ago. If we look back at a portrait that was taken of us 10 years ago, we see the difference between our younger selves and us now. We only have the evidence in photographs, the time between when the photo was taken, and us now is not recorded, so we cant see what happens in that space of time. This is much like a clock, we only see the time in that moment, the rest is gone as its in the past.
DeCARAVA |
For this project, we were asked to think about what different communities we are each part of, and how we would photograph that community. If someone in 50 years time had no idea what that particular community was like, they would need photographs to help them understand it better. Our task for the next few weeks is to capture our chosen communities as if we were the official photographers for them.For me personally, I chose to photograph the Italian community in London, as I feel most connected to that one.I need to think about how I want to represent the community, as people would only be able to see it through my photographs. My teacher asked us where we would usually find our chosen communities, and what we could photograph to make it interesting to the viewer of the photos.
Italianicity - Roland Barthes |
Photozines |
My response: |