Guest Lecture- Amelia Beavis- Harrison

Amelia Beavis-Harrison is a Curator and Artist currently based in Nottingham. She runs the Lincoln Art Programme, which is a live art commissioning body in Lincoln. As well as running this project she works freelance. After finishing University she moved to Nottingham.
Her curatorial practice aims to investigate curating in public environments with live art. She is interested in the relationship that art work can have within site contexts in a wider environment that may have a direct/ organic/conflicting relationship.

One of her recent pieces of Artwork is the 2010 challenge, where she was given a different task to do each month and she has to record her work in a sort of Art form. Anyone could set her the challenges and they could be to do anything, but she mostly stuck with close friends and family who gave the tasks. These tasks varied from her not having to think about art for a whole month. Others tasks were more challenging as she would have to show how she did the task, for example A task she did was to apologise to anyone she had hurt or upset in the past, so she took the idea of letting balloons go and in each balloon was a note with the apology on. She let them go from the top of Nottingham Castle.


http://www.ameliabeavisharrison.com/




 Another piece of Artwork she did was called 'The imposter' in which she had someone wonder around the streets of Lincoln with a mask of a pig hiding their identity and then people from another art group were to search the streets of Lincoln to try and find 'The imposter'. Although I think she is a good artist, and has a lot of ideas to do for her projects, I wasn't too keen on her work as I found it very odd and didn't really mean anything, although the 2010 challenge I thought was quite good as this actually had a purpose and meaning and I liked the way she presented it with the balloons that she let go reading 'sorry' .

Erik Knudsen- Guest Lecture

One Wednesday 7th December we had a Guest Lecturer named Erik Knudsen came in to do a talk and presentation on his work. He was born in Ghana to a Danish father and Ghanaian mother and later on went on to grow up and to be educated in Denmark as well as studying in Britain for a short while. Film Maker and is now the Professor of Film Practice at the University of Salford, in Manchester. In his different types of documentary video he shows a variety of scenes which mostly show peoples lives and how they cope with on a day to day basis. During the lecture, consisted of focusing on 4 different themes Courage, Simplicity, Humility and Creativity. In his work he uses these themes.


His work is mainly based around short documentary films, where he uses peoples lives to create each film. Although one of his films named 'One day Tafo' is a reflection on his life as it was set in Akim, Ghana where Knudsen had spent most of his life, Due to his nationality being both Danish and Ghanaian. I feel that his video clip that he showed was incredily moving in the way in which it showed the awful conditions that the Ghanaian slaves had to live with. To create this film he visited an old slavery ground which he then used the noise of the the slaves being tortured and beaten to create the emotional scenes. It also created a very sinister effect due to the fact how derelict the grounds were, like they had just been deserted and left, making it feel haunting for anyone who may visit the location.

Also he creates films which consist of no speech , just the background noises of everyday activities such as cars passing by, birds, and people talking. I feel that this is effective in some of his films, for example, 'Vainilla Chip' which is set in Cuba, showing a short documentary of a Cuban man selling ice cream. I did like this video when it started to make sense what it was actually about. During the film the man comes across photos of his wife who had died, this was very moving as it was clear that he was mourning the death of his wife. I think that by having no direct speech in the film expresses the lonliness that the man is obviously feeling, it also make it more powerful as you are concentrated on how he is carrying on living his life, clearly difficult for him as at one point in the film he gets emotional which I think has an even greater way of making the viewer empathise with him.






http://www.onedayfilms.com/page/erik-knudsen

Not only does he create films but he is also into Photography and has taken a number of photographs in various countries such as China, Cuba and England. Being a Film maker still enables him to have a good eye for caputring the right moment and shows emotion within his pictures, as he knows exactly the right moment to capture his shots. He photographs everyday life and quite a lot of his work has a sort of moody, sinister feel to it. Especially with the dark grey skies and the darkening contrast of colour.
I really like his photos, the cooling tones mixed in with the black and white shows more emotion within the photograph, I also like the way he uses a documentary style in his work by capturing all aspects of everyday life.

The Pros And Cons Of Digital Photography

Over the years, new technology and equipment has practically re invented the world of the Photography, a way in which it has gone from wind up film cameras, to new state of the Art SLR Digital Cameras which are popular by both professional and the Amateur market, but Digital Photography still has both its pros and cons.

Firstly, starting with the pros of Digital Photography, I feel out weighs the cons. The main thing about having a digital camera is that there is no waiting for your photos to be developed and seeing whether they have turned out well, by using Digital this allows us to browse through our images while still on the camera or even if they have been downloaded onto a computer before deciding which images to keep. Whereas if using a film camera, if none or some of the images haven't turned out well or the way you specifically wanted it will require you to buy another film, at a cost and start the process again. Also by using Digital cameras, you don't neccassarily need to print off every single photo, which would be a waste of ink as you wouldn't be printing off images you are certain on, unlike film cameras, you have no choice as this is the only way that they can be viewed.

Another way in which Digital cameras are more suitable is that, unlike the Film cameras they contain all their essentials inside the camera most of the time, such as memory cards and batteries that are designed to be small, light and easy to carry around. With Film cameras you have to always make sure you have spare film in case you run out, as there is only a fixed number of shots you can take eg. 35  so this would require buying more films, which could turn out very expensive in the long run. Also before having the photos developed all of the film has to be used, so you aren't able to get just the photos you want, instead you have to waste time using up the rest of the film. Which, if the images are not all of what you wanted is a waste of money and film.

Also, with digital cameras, you are able to take off the lenses which will make them easier to carry and plus there are many different types of lenses you can choose to put on. Whereas with a film camera they tend to be quite bulky and heavy, which if been carried around for lond periods of time could be quite uncomfortable. Digital cameras can also be much easier  to view the photos with other people as you can upload them onto a computer and browse through them or either put them onto memory sticks, discs or a memory card. You are also able to have multiple copies of the photographs and you can print as many copies as you want. Whilst having the images in a computer, this allows you to edit the pictures if needed and you can do many different thing to them such as altering the contrast or even changing them to black and white.

Even though I feel that Digital Photography has more advantages than Film cameras, there are still some disadvantages as you have to have certain equipment such as computers and leads to enable you to download the pictures, also in order to print the pictures you will need to have access to a printer. Also if you need to edit your photographs, there are many different programmes such as Photoshop and Illustrator    which you will need in order to create good quality images. Overall I think that Digital Photography is a much more easier way to produce images as there are many different things you can do to them.

http://www.digicamguides.com/introduction/pros-and-cons.html

Guest Lecture- John Myers

Today, on Wednesday 29th February we had a Guest Lecture, John Myers who is an Artist after doing a degree in Art where he specialised in Sculpture and has had a successful career out of building sculptures and having them exhibited in numerous Galleries. As well as Sculpture work he has done a bit of Photography which too, has been successful and has had his main work exhibited at Galleries across the Midlands.



One of Myers projects that he spoke about during the lecture was named 'Middle England' which has shown to be his most successful piece of work, which consisted of a number of portraits of individuals as well as famillies living in Stourbridge and the black country, but most of his images are of people he knows. The main people that John Myers looked up to and inspired him were Diane Arbus, August Sander, E.J Belocq and Lewis Hine.

His work is mainly shot with a 5x4 format camera, where he uses natural light instead of artificial lighting. He also likes to shoot his photographs in a documentary sort of style, so he captures the people in their natural setting without having to set up props or any other extra objects.

http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk/programme/current/event/495/middle_england/


 As well as portraiture he also did a series of photos which were of televisions and substations, which I didn't really understand why he wanted to photograph these objects. I much prefer his portraits as they have more meaning, and can tell more of a story with the expression of the people or by how they are acting in the picture, due to him taking natural photographs.

Extreme - Fujifilm Student Award

For this assignment, which is going to be completed over four weeks, in which we are going to be entering the 'Fugifilm Student Awards'. The assignment title is called 'Extreme' With this I will be able to choose any subject to which I feel is portrayed as being extreme, whether this being Weather, sports, or body piercings. We are to take our final images on film camera, being either colour or black and white film. We are not able to edit our images as digital cameras are not allowed to be used.

There are many definitions of the term extreme, but is mostly commonly know for it meaning dangerous or exceeding the degree of the matter, and going beyond the average or ordinary. When the term is used within Extreme sports it can be defined as being dangerous or hazardous.

As there is a large field in which extreme can be connected with, so using the internet I was able to look at different types of 'Extreme' During this time I came across many subjects that I could use, these included:

*  Hairstyles
*  Tattoos
*  Face/Body paintings
*  Sport
*  Make overs
*  Fashion
*  Close ups

For my Extreme theme, I decide to choose to do Extreme close ups of household objects, I decided to do this as there are a lot of things I am able to do with them, and will not be limited to what I can take photographs of, these could include flowers in the house, vases, ornaments or even different sections of walls/ wallpapers.

http://www.fujifilmstudentawards.co.uk/

These are a few images from my first photo shoot of close ups, I randomly chose objects in my house that I thought may work well and give me different ideas to develop them further or relate new images to them. The top image is of roses, I like the idea of photographing natural things in different environments, and the colors I thought were quite vibrant so by therefore doing a close up shot you can see the different tones of pink. The image in  the middle is just a simple house decoration hanging from a drawer handle, Although it is not all completely in focus, I think it works well by having the top of the heart in focus it allows you to see the contrasting colored pattern on the decoration. The next image is one of my favourites.

Martin Parr

Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer and photojournalist, he is a member of Magnum Photos and focuses on the aspects of modern day life of people, and is also a member of Magnum Photos. He started working as a professional photographer and has taught photography from the mid 1970s, he was recognised for his black and white photography, but then he switched to colour photography in the 1980s.
Since 1994 Martin Parr has been a member of Magnum Photos, and has had almost 50 books published and has ha his work featured in over 80 exhibitions worldwide. The images that he produces are very bold and burst in colour and he likes to add humour to his work. The way he creates these bold colours is by using a ring flash, Macro Lenses and high saturation film. As well as taking photographs he is a collector of postcards and other objects to show popular culture, since the 1970s Parr has been publishing postcards and have become very popular with the public.

For this task I was to take a minimum of 3 photos that were inspired my Martin Parr, which enabled me to look at themes such as colour, humour and people. I decided to look at colour as I thought I could capture some bright close ups.

                      This is my favourite image I took, as I think it looks natural and that the cups and teapot have just been left n the table, and it doesn't look as if it has been purposely set up for the photo. I also like the contrast of the colours, especially how the yellow teapot and the flowers stand out from the rest of the objects which have a more pastel colour.

http://www.martinparr.com/index1.html

This is another image that I took, inspired by Martin Parr. I wanted to try a different approach to my previous image. In some of Martin Parrs work he takes pictures of people on the streets, in a normal day to day setting where none of his work is set up, it is all natural. In this picture I wanted to try and get it in the style of one of his pictures with the people in their normal setting. Also by having the bright colours on the two signs, which I altered the contrast to make them stand out more. I think that by doing this shows more of a similarity between this picture and Martin Parrs work.

Guest Lecture- Jade Birchnall

Today, On Wednesday 1st February we had a Guest Lecture by Jade Birchnall who is currently a photography student at Manchester Metropolitan University. During her talk she explained her work and some of the projects she has done during her time at University.

Some of her work that she showed us today was very interesting, she showed us a project she recently did which was focusing on the effects of senile dementia, her grandmother suffered from this illness so it was particularly interesting as she could relate to the topic herself, which gave it a more personal feel. In one part of the presentation she used the voice of her grandmother over one of her images that she exhibtited. These images included a note of instructions for her grandmother to read, such as visitors she will be having in the day and this note included what they had to do. As well as photographing this she also contacted the Nursing home named 'The Little Sister Of Poor' which is a Roman Catholic religious institute for women who suffere with Dementia and this particular Nursing Home was run by nuns. During her time in  the Nursing home she did portraits of the people who lived there. During the lecture she said that she felt awkward whilst in the home and she had to build a form of trust with the residents before they would allow her to take the photos.

Her main choice of camera is a medium format but she also took a lot of photos using a film camera but this made the images grainy, which she wasn't keen on, so then tried using a lighting kit to enable the images to become less grainy.

The next set of work that Jade showed us was completely different from the previous work she had done. She visited The Baby Platinum Gentlemans Club to photograph the peole who worked there, who were mainly strippers. She went here with her friend named Amy Clarkson so they could both take different photographs where Amy took full body shots of the strippers and Jade took photographs of different parts of the body. I think that the images that jade took were much less provocative than the full body shots which came across as quite intimidating and were quite elegant.

I enjoyed the talk from Jade, especially as she is of a similar age which I think made it more interesting as nit gave me an insight to what could be in the future for myself. Not only did she talk about her own work but she was able to give information on what University life will be like and how it differs from College, which was really helpful.

Jill Cole - Guest Lecture

Today, Wednesday 18th January we had a Guest Lecture, Jill Cole who is a Documentary Photographer and artist. In her work she uses the environmental issues that occur on a day to day basis and portrays that within her work. Not only is she an Artist and Photographer but she participates and conducts her own lectures in order to show others how her wok is influenced. During her lecture she talked about her current project she is doing, in which she uses a layering technique where she takes a number of photos and layers them on top of one another and bring pieces of each image through to the top layer giving off really interesting effects. I like the way she wants to show the different layers of the forest by using this technique.

One piece of her work that I really like is called 'Between here and there' which created in 2009 consists of her putting birds into individual bags and photographing the movement. At first I didn't like the idea of the birds being confined into a bag and then photographing the struggle of them trying to get free, But at the end of her work she writes what exactly happened and what the images were trying to show. The birds were part of the National Nature Conservation and were waiting to have their identification tags attached to their legs, so while they were waiting she was able to photograph them, as soon as this had happened they were then released into the wild again, and none of the birds were harmed. The idea of this project was to show the movement and how fragile the birds are.

http://www.jillcole.com/

Hayward Gallery - London Visit

On the 17th November we went on a trip to London to visit 3 different Galleries Somerset House, The National Portrait Gallery and the Hayward Gallery. Each Gallery was completely different, with both the type of work and the was that it was exhibited. The Hayward Gallery contained two types of work, one half of the Gallery was by the artist George Condo, his work was in an animated style and was quite strange. The other piece of work in the Gallery was by Pipilotti Rist, this was very interesting in the ways that this work had been produced and shown. The National Portrait Gallery hels the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize which consisted of different types of portraits by a number of artists, there was a range of varitey with each portrait and they were very interesting. And finally Somerset House exhibited '20 years of the dazed and confused' Magazine, this was really interesting and had a wide range of interesting Fashion Photography.

My favourite exhibition that we visited was the Pipilotti Rist in the Hayward Gallery, the exhibition consisted of sculptures, videos and other pieces of Artwork that showed her career from when it began in the 1980's to the present day. The exhibition is named ' Eyeball Massage'. The exhibition itself is very energetic, although has a calming and relaxed feeling to it, in the way it has soothing music and flowing movement within the videos exhibited.

Throughout the exhibition there were so many different videos and each one was shown in its own special way, especially ones that weren't shown too obviously on a big screen, some were placed in small holes in the floor so you really had to look into it, others were projected onto material that was suspended from the ceiling. My favourite part of the exhibition is the way in which she allows the audience to be incorporated within her work, as it allows a personal connection between the viewer and the work, the audience do not then feel rushed, they can walk around at their own pace. I feel that the atmosphere in the exhibition was very relaxed and calming, it took you into a world of peace and quietness. I think this was due to the soothing noises and ambient lighting, together with the soft flowing movement of the videos, none of the videos were showing aggressive or harsh movements. Combining this peaceful sound such as trees blowing in the light breeze made the exhibition more interesting as it made you feel you were personally in the videos.

http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/hayward-gallery-visual-arts

I really enjoyed this exhibition, I found the ways the videos were shown very interesting and unique. Even though they are not really photography related and more video, I still like the attitude that it portrays, I think it works better with video than it would have perhaps with photography, due to the fact that you are able to see the flowing movements. This is an exhibition I would definately visit again in the future and I think it is a technique definately keep in mind for the future.

The Invention Of Photography

A photograph is created by light falling onto a light sensitive surface usually by using film or digitally, most are to be created by using a camera and by using the lens to focus the visible wavelength of light that is also visible to the human eye.  The term 'Photograph' was coined by Sir John Herschel in 1839 and is based on the Greek term 'Phos' meaning light and 'Graphe' meaning drawing.

The first black and white photograph was made in 1822 by French inventor  Joseph Nicephore Niepce built on a discovery by Johann Heinrich Schultz that silver mixture darkens under exposure to light.

The process of this technique was refined by Louis Daguerre, he found that by firstly exposing the silver to the Iodine vapour, before exposure then to the mercury vapour which was heated to 75 Celsius and exposed them to light for several minutes, after the photograph was taken the image was then 'Fixed' in salt water. This is what then led to the famous Daguerreotype. Most of his work consisted of portraits as they were thought to be more rare and sought after, this process took several minutes and differed from his pictures of the streets in Paris which showed no human activity or and people in the street, this was not because he didn't photograph any people, due to there being a long exposure with movement the people became invisible, this was when the faster lens' were introduced for portraiture. 

In the 1840s the first attempts of colour photography was tested. Early results were encouraged by obtaining a solar spectrum by projecting it onto a surface, this proved to be successful, but the dim  image found in the camera required an exposure for hours even days. Over the next 70 years or so, experiments increased and raised hopes making nothing of practical value. The 'Three Colour Method' was first suggested in 1855  by Scottish Physicist James Clerk Maxwell.

In the late 1981, Sony invented the first electronic camera called the 'Sony Mavica' This was a new camera that didn't have a film to work and was the first commercial electronic camera. After images were taken on the camera they were then put onto a television monitor or colour printer to be viewed. Event though this was technically the first electronic camera to be made, it is not considered to be a true digital camera, it was just the start. Since the 1970's Kodak had invented a number of sensors that converted light into pictures, until Kodak then came up with the worlds first mega pixel sensor that produced 1.4 million pixels and was capable of recording a 5 x 7 inch quality print. 

This is the Sony Mavica, which was the first electric commercial cameras.

http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/stilphotography.htm