Lady Ruthven, ca.1845 by Hill and Adamson, published in Camera Work XI, 1905.

These are objects which need to be seen in person to be fully appreciated, as it is not only the rendition of the image which is of importance, but also the fibrous texture, tone, and weight of the paper which impart another dimension to the photograph which may not have existed in the original.

From the first time I lay eyes on a Camera Work, photogravure, followed by seeing an exhibition which had a gravure by Ray Metzker, I’ve appreciated the diverse range of tones, colours and mood that are obtained from this painstaking process. For me, it’s the cream of all photo-mechanical reproduction!

Three photogravures from Osvald Sirén’s The walls and gates of Peking (1924).

The Minnow Pool, ca. 1845 by Hill and Adamson,
Printed as a Photogravure in Camera Work XXVIII, 1909.

Detail of a fern from Karl Blossfeldt’s Urformen der kunst (1928).

Technically, the successful execution of a photogravure is no small task. At its heart it is an intaglio process, which means that ink is applied to paper via thousands of tiny “channels” or pits etched into a metal plate which act as wells to hold the necessary amount of ink to form an image when a sheet of damp paper is pressed against it. The trick, is in navigating all the variables of each step required to make a plate in such a way that the tonal rendition of the image does not suffer from “blocked up shadows” due to too much ink, or highlights which lack the definition due to not enough. Each photograph being reproduced requires a different interpretation, and as such years of experience are required to master this process which is an art unto itself.

Initially developed in the 1830s and the result of French, English and Czech refinements, throughout the 19th and 20th century it was seen as a process which was so painstaking that it was reserved for only the finest publications. Due to this limited use, it is a process which has a cult following but also a limited number of practitioners. We’re very fortunate to hold many fine examples of this fabulous process in our Special Collections.

Sir John Herschel, 1867, photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron. Photogravure from Camera Work printed 1913 (left) and photogravure from Alfred, Lord Tennyson and his friends printed 1893 (right).

Beyond the works held in our Photographic Collection, there’s a treasure trove of Photographic Books illustrated which should not be missed. Follow this link to see examples from our library’s collection. Also, keep an eye on Lux which has recently featured one of the greatest photogravure books ever made.

-MB

V Maucomble
Rue De Grammont 26 Paris
Coloured salt print
exhibited exposition sur les produits de l’agriculture et de l’industrie Paris et Londres                 1849 bronze medal
Bought in Gent from a friend collector

It can’t always have been so. Most artists of previous generations spent long years perfecting technique, generally based on the work of those who had gone before. Most crafts are still learnt on an apprenticeship model, even the professions such as medicine and the law.

So is there any value in trying to produce work influenced by past masters of the art? Influenced rather than trying to make direct replicas. I think there is. I think it helps with the learning of technique and can fire enthusiasms which take us on our own path.

An example.

I love the work of Julia Margaret Cameron, (British, 1815-79). She followed the apprenticeship route herself, working with photographs and photographers before starting to take photographs herself in 1864. Taking her photograph ‘Pomona’ as a starting point I set out to produce a similar allegorical picture with some of the properties of her work.

Julia Margaret Cameron: Photographic study “Pomona” (Alice Liddell as a young woman), 1872

I came up with the idea of trying to portray two female figures as ‘Night and Day’. Here’s the result:

Copyright Simon Shaw 2012

So go ahead choose a favourite photographer and try and produce an image in their style. Not as good as being able to be with them as they work but still a fine way to learn.

Kevin Bacon and Bob Gruen talk music photography, shoot backs, cameras, John Lennon and more on Episode 4 of Capture.

A fresh and informative look at the art of photography and the stories behind the images. In each episode, renowned celebrity lensman Mark Seliger invites a fellow photographer and celebrity photography-buff into his NYC studio to share the story behind their images and discuss their common passion.

Episode 4:

You can catch the other episodes here:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2F2FCF0E84C97696

I have not watched all of the episodes yet so proceed with caution if you have young children around.

Recently I came  across an inspirational video shown below on Ian Ruhter’s wet plate photography. Its a great story of a photographer/alchemist pushing the limits of the process with all the highs and lows that come with it.

The plates measure upto 48×60 inches and must be some of the largest ever created. It would be wonderful to see them in person.He is currently photographing people in various U.S States who have inspirational stories to tell as part of the Silver & Light project.

Here is Ian using high powered strobes to capture fast paced movement. The most incredible thing about this video is the average exposure time for a wet plate collodion image is anywhere from 5 seconds to a few minutes, but through the use of high powered flashes Ian is able to capture movement using this old photographic process.

http://www.ianruhter.com

http://ianruhter.tumblr.com

In a magazine that usually focuses on South Asia, why review an exhibition of Eugène Atget’s photographs of Paris, showing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, in Sydney? First, this is an outstanding exhibition, by a man who virtually invented a new category of photography. But there’s another reason. Atget worked in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the Paris that he captures is a city in flux, where the old is rapidly giving way to the new. Arcades are being replaced by department stores, horse-drawn carts are giving way to cars and trams, and grand developments are replacing slums and overcrowded neighbourhoods. This is not so different from the Indian cities of today. Atget’s genius was that he thought to capture the old before it vanished completely. Somebody should do the same for Delhi, Lucknow, Jaipur, Bangalore – and so on.

Although he was ‘discovered’ and widely admired by such influential photographers as Berenice Abbott and Man Ray, Atget never saw himself as anything more than a craftsman. Having failed as a painter, he set himself up as a photographer in the 1890s, with a prosaic aim. He would document the street scenes of Paris, and sell his prints for artists to use as models. Studiously avoiding the heroic new Paris that was under construction at this time – the Eiffel Tower is probably the most glaring example – he concentrated on the alleys and courtyards, the markets and gardens, the drinking dens and old houses that would very soon be gone. Sacré Coeur and Notre Dame both make appearances, but in the background, behind more ordinary structures. A passport-size photo of the photographer reveals a burly, workmanlike face; a later portrait, by Abbott not long before his death, has him turned modestly away from the camera, a shrunken man in a dark overcoat. Abbott had hoped to photograph him in his patched workclothes, which she felt would have revealed so much more about the artist.

The 181 photographs in this exhibition show Atget to have been much more than a chronicler of his time. An instinctive feeling for composition and perspective marks each one, drawing the eye into scenes that appear to have no natural point of focus. One photo shows no more than a flagstoned footpath running between two walls, with bare branches protruding overhead. It is enough. Most of the pictures lack a human presence, airbrushed out by long exposures, or deliberately avoided by the photographer. They convey an eerie sense of a deserted city, perhaps foreshadowing its looming submission to the demands of modernity and the car. Occasionally Atget’s figure makes a barely-discernible reflection in a shop window, truncated by a door- or window-frame; yet his personality suffuses the work as surely as the photo chemicals that reportedly stained his hands. The merit of his work was well understood – within a decade of starting out, he had sold collections of pictures to the Musée d’Histoire de la Ville de Paris, the Musée Carnavalet, and the Musée de la Sculpture Comparée.

When Atget does photograph people, he focuses on the underclass – street vendors, prostitutes, rag-and-bone men camped in slums outside the city – and captures them with great empathy. One frame catches an exchange between a furniture hawker and a customer, the only photograph of its kind in the show; another finds the great photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue as a young boy, utterly immersed in an open-air puppet show. The viewer gets the sense that there are many more subtleties buried in the work, where life is documented in minute measurements, which would only appear after dedicated study.

Atget used an 18 x 24 cm view camera with glass plate negatives, developing the film himself. He contact-printed the work in sunlight, judging the density by eye, and never enlarged his work. This practice gives the show a uniformity that speaks of both seriousness and simplicity. The small size of the prints encourages close examination, creating an intimacy that discourages casual browsing. The viewer is forced to see.

Although Atget’s approach was minimalist, his work is divided into eight sections for the purposes of the exhibition. They read like a Yellow Pages: Vehicles, Gardens, Interiors, Small Trades, Shops and Shop Displays. Yet the photographer’s versatility is profound: each section coheres strongly within itself. A series of studies of trade symbols over doorways gives a glimpse into a vanished city; the interior shots of his own home reveal an unpretentious clutter; the pictures of public gardens display a luminous beauty, one after another after another. Leaving the gallery, you feel as if you know this city, even though it vanished 80 or more years ago. As the photographer himself wrote in 1920, “I may say that I have in my possession the whole of Paris.”

Angus McDonald

No, it’s not an Atget and it’s not Paris. It’s Sydney from the Art Gallery of NSW, and I took it because you can’t take pictures in the exhibition.

Travel gives you insight into so many layers of the cultural fabric of a country. You learn things you don’t get from books or in school. Lifestyles, local cuisine, language, religion and even a sense of the traditional clothes people wear in different countries. As I walked through a museum in Slovakia for example, I noticed that traditional Slovakian dress had some similarities to the Mayan outfits I saw when I was in Guatemala last month.

We had a fantastic tour guide for our weekend in Slovakia. Dusan Bevilaqua drove us all over the Northern Slovakia. He was so very attentive to our needs and bent over backwards to make sure he took us to the most unique and historically interesting and culturally significant attractions in the region.

He took us to incredible museums and Cathedrals that showcased the great artists, woodcarvers, furniture makers, alters, musicians and family dynasties of the country.

We toured castles, cathedrals and stopped at local cafes for tea and coffee to warm us along the way. Dusan seemed to know everyone and was even able to get us into Cathedrals and museums that were closed to the public.

A highlight of our weekend was being taken up to the bell tower of a local Cathedral and not only watching the Bell ringer pull the thick ropes down to ring the bells, but also be given the opportunity to ring the ancient bells ourselves.

I had no idea how difficult it would be to pull the rope down then hold on while it literally pulled you up and off your feet. Very cool experience!

The Northern Slovakian landscape is absolutely majestic and timeless with snow capped mountains, winding rivers surrounded by foliage and forests. I feel as though I’ve stepped back in time as we drove from village to village in search of more castles, cathedrals and chateau’s.

Its been a great and insightful long weekend here in Northern Slovakia. Next stop is Bratislava for the Festival of Photography and participating in the Portfolio Reviews.

Check out my observations about the the Slovakian History of Photography Museum at Transmedia as well. Click Here!!

The slide show below will give you a visual snap shot of my weekend touring around northern Slovakia. All for now…must catch a train! Enjoy the show!

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Josef Maximilian Petzval Museum

One thing I love about traveling is stumbling upon unique and interesting places where you least expect them.  Our Slovakian guide Dusan mentioned to my traveling partner Roberto and I that he knew of a little photography museum in a nearby village in Slovakia.  We said we were interested in seeing it so off we went.

The museum is centered around the personalities and early technological  innovations that contributed to the invention of photography.  Two of those early innovators being Jozef Maximilian Petzval and Otto Petzval who invented the optics (lenses) that made it possible for the development of photography.

Petzval is considered to be one of the main founders of geometrical optics, modern photography and cinematography.  According to Wikipedia,  “among his inventions are the Petzval portrait lens and opera glasses, both still in common use today.”

The museum has a vast collection of old cameras and photographic equipment going all the way back to the camera obscura and excellent and informative displays tracing the earliest beginnings of photography starting with the camera obscura to the first photographs and development / evolution of photographic optics.

There are historical displays about Joseph Niepce who made the first photographic image with camera obscura,  the image required eight hours of light exposure and later faded. and Louis Daguerre’s first daguerreotype – the first image that was fixed and did not fade and needed under thirty minutes of light exposure.

Since I teach the history of photography I found the museum and displays particularly informative and enlightening.  The entire museum is essentially a detailed time line of the life and work of the Petzval brothers and then goes on and tracks the technological evolution of analog photography all the way to the innovation of digital photography.

The staff were incredibly friendly and were willing to give us detailed background information about the museum.  All in all our visit to the Slovak Technical Museum was a highlight of our day.

Museum Staff Levika Timockoua and Amalle Lacusoua

Petzval is quoted as saying…“I have overpowered the light, I have it in my bag, but there is still a lot of darkness in the world.”

The chances are, if you’re reading this you’ve come here because you’ve followed  a link from my Twitter feed @photographs_etc or a re-tweet from someone else’s feed. You may also have reading this because you’ve followed some links as part of a google search.

All of this sounds normal to you doesn’t it? As is the fact that  I also have a website containing personal photography (it’s at www.nick-lloyd.com if you’re curious.)

The fact is that digital communication has utterly, completely and irreversibly changed the dynamic that allows anyone anywhere in the world, the possibility to find and maintain an audience for their photography.

But it wasn’t always this way. Ten years ago, one of the tools mentioned above didn’t exist. Go back another 10 years to 1992 and you can take out all the other tools I (and probably you too) commonly use and take very much for granted.

The world before the internet existed, for photographers was very different. It was a world in which photography ‘stars’ existed in books and magazines and if you were lucky, you could see their work as original prints in a gallery. And the only way to find out what was happening in the world of photography was to buy a magazine. Its was also harder to find like minded souls. Much harder.

As an example, the very first time I met a group of like minded photographers, who were interested in making & talking about original, independent, creative photography wasn’t at a camera club. It was at one of the very few workshops concentrating on independent photography in the UK. A pleasure that I actually had to pay for.
This was just 25 years ago in 1987. Talk to anyone involved in photography over 40 and this will sound very familiar. It really was different. So very different to how easy it is to connect today.

Which brings us to Margaret Bourke-White (1904 – 1971.) And the very different world in which her most famous photography was created and consumed.

There are many interesting aspects to her work not the least of which was her status as one of the very first celebrity photographers at a time when picture magazines were emerging as a major mass market medium.

Born, Margaret White in the Bronx, New York to a jewish father & Irish-Catholic mother worked her way to become associate editor and staff photographer of Fortune magazine, where she stayed until 1935 (she wouldn’t be the last major photographer employed there – see here for more on Walker Evans work at Fortune.) 
The same year she was employed by Fortune, Margaret White added her mother’s surname, “Bourke” to her name and hyphenated it.

Fortune wasn’t a small-town trade magazine. Founded by Henry Luce, working there was a big break by anyone’s measure of success. On hearing that she got the job, “I wrote my mother: “I feel as if the world has been opened up and I hold all the keys.”

Evidently she thrived in the competitive (mostly male dominated) business of magazine photography producing effective photo journalism, at a time before TV, when picture magazines were one of the primary avenues of communicating current events to the masses.

It’s worth noting that among the many essays Bourke-White completed for the new publication, was an essay on Soviet Industry (see below) when she became the first foreign photographer allowed into the country to take pictures.

Iron puddler with glasses parked over his brow, at the
“Red October” Rolling Mills (and below) Stalingrad  (c.1931)

 

Bourke-White was then (re-hired?) by Luce as the first female photojournalist for another new picture magazine (Life) in 1936 on a starting salary of $12,000.

For more than 30 years, Margaret Bourke-White worked for this leading picture magazine. But not all her work was created exclusively for Life.

She was also involved in producing longer pictorial essays published in book form, including ‘Eyes on Russia’ (1931) ‘North of the Danube’ (1939; with Erskine Caldwell) ‘Shooting the Russian War’ (1942) and ‘They Called it Purple Heart Valley’ (1944)

 The most notorious book (at least to modern eyes) she produced was made in collaboration with the popular southern novelist Erskine Caldwell. Working as a photographer/writer team in the poverty-stricken rural areas of the American South, the work they produced was published in 1937 by Viking Press with the title ‘You Have Seen Their Faces’.
This book is very rarely mentioned in contemporary photography circles. Mainly due to the influence and critical appreciation of a book published 4 years later, ‘Let Us Now Praise Famous Men‘ (1941) by writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans, which was (and continues to be) seen by many as the definitive portrait of poverty & the landscape & manners of the rural southern united states.

 At the time it was published, Bourke-White & Caldwell’s book was criticized for its bias and exposure of racism in the south. That seems odd looking with modern eyes at many of the photo spreads & accompanying captions in the book. Looking at the photographs & captions, one is struck by what to modern eyes is the casual racism of the captions and the photographs with which they are linked but also what seems the lack of compassion and insight by Calwell & Bourke-White. 

Given the job at hand, it seems extraordinary that so little thought appears to have been given to a sympathetic marriage of word & image.

According to Caldwell, Bourke-White. “was in charge of everything, manipulating people and telling them where to sit and were to look and what not. She was very adept at being able to direct people.”

Perhaps that’s why the individuals depicted seem no more (or less) than props within the pages of the book. 

Given that Bourke-White’s experience up to that time was regularly producing, or rather constructing effective photographs to compliment written journalism – all to punishing deadlines, it’s perhaps not surprising that her photographic contribution to this book lacked subtlety. Or insight. 
She was extremely competent at making symbolic, individually striking photographs that could compete with adverts in the restricted format of a somewhat disposable weekly magazine. 

Caldwell’s description of her working methods seems to very effectively describe the working habits of a commercial working photographer. She was a trouble-shooter and a problem solver. All evidently good qualities for a high profile working photographer. But not perhaps qualities associated with a more reflective & self-conscious artist.

In comparison, Evans & Agee’s book, a wonderful sprawling mixture of journalism and self-confession, innovative narrative and clear headed naturalism is quite rightly regarded as a superior document of its times.
Evans, by temperament and circumstance took a more measured view of those who came into the view of his various cameras. And history has taken a very positive view of his judgements and taste and those of his creative companion James Agee.

(I’ll comment more on the book when I write my appreciation of Walker Evans, as part of my series on master photographers.)

1937

1941

Tenant farmers daughter (Let Us Now Praise Famous Men)

 
(You Have Seen Their Faces)

Floyd Burroughs (Let Us Now Praise Famous Men)

(You Have Seen Their Faces)



 Allie Mae Burroughs (Let us Now Praise Famous Men)

 

(You Have Seen Their Faces)

  

(You Have Seen Their Faces)

At around the same time, Bourke-White, (like Dorothea Lange and her companion photographers from the Farm Security Administration) photographed drought victims of the Dust Bowl.
A period when severe dust storms caused major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands in the 1930s. 

In the February 15, 1937 issue of Life magazine published her photographs of dust bowl survivors, one of which was to become one of Bourke-White signature’ images and one of handful of images indelibly associated with  that period in American history.
The photograph showed black drought victims standing in-front of a sign which declared, “World’s Highest Standard of Living”.

Its an amazing photograph and one worth looking at in more depth. All of the people shown are standing in line, waiting for relief supplies. Dressed in coats and jackets, most of them are looking right at the camera and us, more than 75 years later in 2012.
They don’t actually seem like victims do they? What strikes me, more than perhaps any other single element in the photograph (apart from the ironic image behind them) is their quiet dignity and resignation.
If they resent the lifestyle & cheery nuclear oneness of the white-bread family behind them it’s not apparent. They have more important things on their mind after all.

It’s a great image. It’s certainly a critique of somewhat ill-advised  advertising (did they not know the local demographic?) It also ‘seems’ like a critique of capitalism, for isn’t that the ‘american way’ that lay behind their woes?
I don’t know what white families (like the one in the poster behind them) would have made of the image at the time the photograph was published. But you can be sure that black families, enduring the many hardships of the Great Depression knew what the picture was about. They might have smirked at the irony in the picture but you can be sure they wouldn’t have been laughing.

Back at Life, Bourke-White continued to contribute photographs to the magazine. Helping (with the other contributors) to ensure that Life’s circulation continued to grow and outpace their competitors.
To give an example of how popular Life had become, it went from 380,000 copies of the first issue wo more than one million a week four months later.

During this period, Bourke-White became the first female war correspondent (and the first female permitted to work in combat zones.) Some examples of that work are shown below.

Moscow 1941



An Allied artillery barrage at night, the Italian front, 1944

In the spring of 1945, travelling with Gen. George S. Patton. She was on hand to witness and photograph the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. As she later said,”Using a camera was almost a relief. It interposed a slight barrier between myself and the horror in front of me.” 

The photographs she took, published in Life were among the first images to show the world the full horror of Hitler’s Nazi madness. Another of Bourke-Whites ‘signature’ images is shown below.

Buchenwald in April 1945

Bourke-White continued to photograph for Life on and off until her semi-retirement in 1957 and then her full retirement in 1969.

It’s important to say, that although Bourke-White’s reputation was as a hard-nosed photo-reporter, (professional colleagues including other photographers often apparently regarded her as imperious, calculating, and insensitive) what’s often missed is her photographic curiosity & interest in innovation.

A good example is the series of photographs she took from the vantage point of a helicopter. Flying lower than a plane and able to traverse large distances quickly, Bourke-White took many interesting and very modern photographs.

Sidebar:
The photographer Weegee took many memorable photographs at Coney Island including this famous photograph (when almost every single person on the beach seems to be looking at the lens.) 

He also took harsher photographs, including a drowning incident, which features a young woman seemingly oblivious to the tragedy taking place by her side, smiling at the camera.

Bourke-White’s image (below) is no less stark. Perhaps the ultimate ‘helicopter’ view/perspective, where crowds of humans, losing their scale, swarm like ants towards the center of the near tragedy on the sand. The woman involved did survive, but one wonders what she would feel looking at the compelling evidence of her fellow man’s (and woman’s) wish to insistently gaze upon her personal trauma?

Beach accident (near drowning)  Coney Island

Other photographs in this series are just as compelling including:

Trains after snowfall, Chicago, 1952.

                                                             Interesting postscript. 

While the photographs in You Have Seen Their Faces, could be taken as an indictment of Burke-White sensibilities, she did in fact take many interesting photographs in black communities in the US (and around the world.)
None of these photographs were perhaps more fascinating than a series she took in colour on the subject of segregation in South Carolina. Only it wasn’t published in Life Magazine.
This series of photographs, only recently available online, is as fresh as any modern photo-journalism and is intensely sympathetic to the people she is photographing in the black community.
Looking at every aspect of their lives, from arrests by white police to evening dances at a juke joint it’s a remarkable series of photographs.

A belated (and positive) testament to the career and photography of Margaret Bourke-White.
One of the first major photo-journalists. And still one of the best.

Created & published by Nick Lloyd

A fabulous resource for those who either do not have a large library or much time to devote to their passions! Or simply put do not want to end up with a book shelf which looks like the one above.

Have a look at the content on the page below and judge for yourself. My edition is the 1988 soft cover reprint (shown above) that I believe is also out-of-print. Finding a used copy should not be too hard.Another fine publication is the “History of Photography Magazine”

” History of Photography is an international quarterly devoted to the history, practice and theory of photography. It intends to address all aspects of the medium, treating the processes, circulation, functions, and reception of photography in all its aspects, including documentary, popular and polemical work as well as fine art photography.”

Let’s have a look below at the index of the above issue which I especially value for the excellent article on Czech Photography.

“The journal aims to provide a significant resource to diverse communities, including, but not limited to, academics, curators, independent scholars, undergraduate and postgraduate students – indeed, anyone with a serious interest in the history and practice of the medium.”

Somewhat staid and academic in my opinion but still useful for the passionate sight-seer if you can stomach the subscription price. If you are not part of Academia your out of  pocket would be $396 for 4 quarterly issues in the year 2005. This kind of serious money could have bought a number of very, very good photo books. I believe however that there is a personal subscription rate at a far lower price.

A superb book that focuses solely on the photo book, if you can find a copy, is the softcover book : The Open book  subtitled “a history of the photographic book from 1878 to the present”. Published by the Hasselblad Center/Gothenburg Sweden under the direction of Hasse Persson in 2004. A  typical page in The Open book looks like this:

Edited by Andrew Roth author of  The Book of 101 Books published in 2001. The Open book with 421 pages also has different essays including one by Gerhard Steidl, publisher of some very famous photo books.

- My start at Leeds Met

For my first week we didn’t really have lectures as we had to enroll, but going in on this week gave me the chance to talk, and make friends with people who are doing the same course as me, which is Photographic Journalism. I was super scared for my  first week, I was nervous I wasn’t going to make friends, and also nervous that id get lost, (which did in fact happen a couple of times that week might I add.) However my first day when I went into the lecture theatre and sat down on my own in the corner, all scared but pretending I was fine within seconds of sitting down, we had to stand up  to collect these cards and I found  I was talking to lots of people and making friends really quick, so I went home feeling much more happier about this what seemed to me a big new stepping stone in my life.

During that first week we came in on one of the days and to my surprise had already been given a task, Which was we had to go  into Leeds city centre, and take pictures of things which was wrote down on our task sheet. We went in big groups of people. I felt this task was more of a getting to know people who are on our course task, And it helped loads as it like gave me the chance to meet other photographers and see their interests and to see a different outlook on what they like to do with photography. This task was really fun to do and gave us all the chance to experiment with ideas. I really enjoyed it.

After my first enrollment week, the next week after we started an introduction week to all our lectures. This was basically getting to know what we were going to be doing for our first semester. So we started off by learning a little about each different subject, as Photographic Journalism is split up into all different kinds of subjects, so for example we have journalism, Which I have really started to enjoy, we have started off our blogs on WordPress, and im really finding an interest with writing now which I didn’t before. I have always loved doing english so maybe im enjoying writing blogs because it’s very similar to english writing in some ways. I find that when I research something that interests me, I can write about it forever. Another subject we started to look into is history of photography, which I would never of said would interest me before, but I found it fabulous! It’s a really interesting lecture and i found myself going home telling my mum about all sorts of different things. I found it really interesting to look into, one thing that really caught my attention was when my lecturer started putting pictures on the board of a cave man’s drawing of a horse, that you could see was galloping of the ground. Years later people was trying to figure out weather horse’s feet left the ground while in gallop, so a photographer created a motion picture of 20 images, which showed that they in fact do, but it amazes me how the cave man has drawn the horse in gallop way before anyone else took pictures of it. It goes to show they must have been very clever in the way they looked upon their pray, anyway ill stop getting carried away writing about one thing. But this was really enjoyable.

Here is a picture of the cave mans drawing, and also below is the photographer that created the motion sequence of the horse in gallop. It’s really amazing.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=caveman+horse&num=10&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=632&tbm=isch&tbnid=LQjMKkc4CSyuNM:&imgrefurl=http://toppledidols.blogspot.com/2010/06/caveman-monday.html&docid=S0U9Utf4_LFcXM&imgurl=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xPuuY5tbLZg/TB_wrjbfKlI/AAAAAAAABQA/pJloII3cE-Y/s1600/cave_painting_horse.jpg&w=693&h=443&ei=aFt0UJO8J4LG0QWY9oGwDg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=152&sig=113965225459399254813&page=1&tbnh=98&tbnw=154&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:74&tx=136&ty=21http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=horse+in+gallop+animation&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=632&tbm=isch&tbnid=C__46jV-9uExiM:&imgrefurl=http://ast.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivu:Muybridge_race_horse_animated_184px.gif&docid=o3zyJU6oxaTbVM&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Muybridge_race_horse_gallop.jpg/360px-Muybridge_race_horse_gallop.jpg&w=360&h=264&ei=llt0UMyFEunO0QX6rYCwBg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=99&sig=113965225459399254813&page=1&tbnh=134&tbnw=183&start=0&ndsp=17&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:71&tx=51&ty=48

Another subject we have just started getting into is of course Photography! Which I am enjoying so so so much it’s so fun! I think im enjoying it because I enjoyed photography so much in six form, and that this time it’s really going to help me understand my camera, and how to take amazing pictures and understand everything about it. We had a photography introduction. Which showed us all the subject’s were going to be looking into which all where things im really interest in finding out more about, so im really looking forward to it. For my first week we looked into iconic images which was so fun. We basically looked at lots of images that were very iconic, and found out the meaning of the word. We looked at images from Maralin Monroe holding her skirt down from the wind. To images that have had an effect on the world, like earthquakes, and the Vietnam war. And our task of that day was to go out in groups and try to copy the images and try take them so they would portray the same iconic strongness about them ill post a few of the images we did below…

- Original

- Ours (yes we used a banana as our gun.)

- Original

- Ours (going in the opposite direction!)

- Original

- Ours (somehow doesn’t quite have the same effect, wish we could have gone higher up but im a bit scared of heights!)

So there’s a couple of quite a lot of things my first week had to offer. And as you can see its all very interesting, and i cant wait to find our whats next and what were going to be looking into. I’ve really enjoyed meeting everyone and getting to know people and making friends, which im going to be working with for three years, and also meeting my lecturers. Finding out what each different one of them are specialists in. I’m not too sure whats going to be coming up next but if its anything like the past weeks so far im really going to be enjoying my course.

So far im very happy with everything that’s been happening!

Reflection

I felt my task for creating an article for my start to university life was interesting as it enabled me to get started into the writing format and it let me see and find my own way to go about blogging, my first blog i ever did was the ‘what sort of journalist i am’ one and I felt that was to sort of properly sett me of and give me an idea of what the blogging world is like and how to fit into it.

There are plenty of books which  chronicle the history of photography, but Photography: The Whole Story, edited by Juliet Hacking (Prestel),  is one of the best we’ve seen. What makes this concise, visual compendium  unique are its images. Yes, the familiar classics are here, but  a good number of the photos have not been widely anthologized. The book is also acutely  sensitive to avant-garde influences—a fresh reminder of just how much of the medium was (and is) experimental. It’s a breathtaking digest from photography’s birth to the present— complete with a “Key Events” timeline for each entry. With  over 1,000 images,  it’s  one of those reference books that’s hard to set aside. It will certainly lead readers to explore individual photographers and movements more deeply.

Click here to order on Amazon.

2. Yousuf Karsh telah mengambil foto-foto yang bercerita, dan yang lebih mudah dipahami daripada banyak orang lain. Setiap potret nya memberitahu Anda semua tentang subjek. Dia merasa seolah-olah ada sebuah rahasia tersembunyi di balik setiap wanita dan pria. Apakah dia menangkap mata berkilauan atau sikap yang dilakukan benar-benar sadar, ini adalah saat-saat ketika manusia kehilangan sementara topeng mereka. Potret Karsh yang berkomunikasi dengan orang-orang.

3. Robert Capa telah mengambil banyak foto terkenal saat perang. Dia telah meliput lima perang, meskipun nama “Robert Capa” hanya nama yang ditempatkan untuk foto-foto yang diambil oleh Endre Friedman dan yang dipasarkan dengan nama “Robert Capa”. Friedman merasa bahwa jika Anda tidak cukup dekat ke subjek, maka Anda tidak akan mendapatkan foto yang bagus. Dia sering berada di parit dengan tentara ketika ia mengambil foto, sementara sebagian besar fotografer perang lainnya mengambil foto dari jarak yang aman.

4. Henri Cartier-Bresson memiliki gaya yang membuat dia alami pada setiap daftar sepuluh fotografer top. Gayanya telah pasti dipengaruhi fotografi seperti halnya orang lain. Dia adalah orang yang pertama yang menggunakan film 35mm, dan biasanya ia ditembak dalam warna hitam dan putih. Kami tidak menghiasi oleh lebih dari karyanya sejak ia menyerah kerajinan sekitar 30 tahun sebelum ia meninggal. Ini menyedihkan bahwa ada foto-foto sedikit oleh Cartier-Bresson untuk menikmati.

5. Dorothea Lange mengambil foto selama Depresi Besar. Dia mengambil satu foto dari seorang ibu migran yang juga berjudul dengan nama itu, dan dikatakan menjadi salah satu yang paling terkenal dalam sejarah foto. Pada tahun 1940-an, dia juga memotret kamp interniran Jepang, dan foto-foto ini menunjukkan saat-saat menyedihkan dalam sejarah Amerika.

6. Jerry Uelsman menciptakan gambar yang unik dengan foto-foto komposit. Menjadi sangat berbakat di kamar gelap, ia menggunakan keterampilan ini dalam komposit nya. Dia tidak pernah menggunakan kamera digital, karena ia merasa bahwa proses kreatif adalah lebih cocok untuk kamar gelap.

7. Annie Liebovitz melakukan potret fotografi baik dan paling terkenal karena karyanya dengan Vanity Fair dan majalah Rolling Stone. Foto-fotonya yang intim, dan menjelaskan subjek. Dia tidak takut jatuh cinta dengan orang-orang yang difoto.

8. Brassai adalah nama samaran untuk Gyula Halasz, dan dia terkenal karena foto-fotonya orang biasa. Dia adalah bukti bahwa Anda tidak perlu melakukan perjalanan jauh untuk menemukan subyek yang menarik. Dia menggunakan orang-orang biasa untuk rakyatnya, dan foto nya masih menawan.

9. Brian Duffy adalah seorang fotografer Inggris yang ditembak fashion di tahun 60-an dan 70-an. Dia kehilangan minat fotografi pada satu waktu, dan membakar banyak negatif, tapi kemudian mulai mengambil foto lagi tahun sebelum ia meninggal.

10. Jay Maisel adalah seorang fotografer modern terkenal. Foto-foto sederhana, dan ia tidak menggunakan pencahayaan yang kompleks atau kamera mewah. Dia sering hanya membutuhkan satu lensa pada acara foto, dan ia menikmati mengambil foto dari bentuk dan lampu yang ia menemukan menarik.

Tentu saja ada fotografer terkenal lainnya yang mungkin menjadi bagian dari daftar top 10 Anda. Ada banyak yang harus dipelajari dalam seni dan kerajinan fotografi dan dari orang-orang yang menginspirasi kita kebanyakan.

Tentang Penulis:
Morris Pawtucket menulis tentang fotografer terkenal sepanjang sejarah yang telah mengubah cara kita melihat. (http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/top-10-most-famous-photographers-of-all-time/)

I stumbled upon photographer Andrew Millar selling his beautiful prints while I was indulging in my weekly browse of the Brick Lane markets earlier this summer. Photographers like Andrew have mastered the humble and wonderfully vintage Polaroid camera, turning instant photography into an exceptionally skilled art form. By playing around with manipulation techniques Andrew has succeeded in creating some truly unique and beautiful double exposure photographs. The blending together of two different photographs creates an amazing effect and is an interesting way to explore contrasting concepts. I loved them so much I just had to invest in a few for my wall!

Here is a selection of my favourite, I hope you are inspired. If you like what you see, head over to Andrew’s Facebook page, he is always uploading more … http://www.facebook.com/pages/Andrew-Millar-Polaroid-Photography/264748093543585 .

Finally, if you know of any other good instant photographers I’d love to hear about them!

The first part of our history of photography lessons.

This PowerPoint presentation takes us from the 1700′s to 1905 with the invention of the first 35mm camera.

The brilliant Jon Nicholls from Thomas Tallis High School has kindly sent over a link to his pinterest. If you are looking for inspiration for your photography look no further!

The link features pinboards such as: Sketch Book Ideas, Photo Display Ideas and Abstract Imagery.

You should definitely take a look

Thanks Jon!

http://pinterest.com/tallisarts/
THIS LINK MAY CONTAIN NUDITY

The argument over whether to shoot JPEG or RAW has been around for quite some time.  It may not dominate the camera forums as it once did, but the question keeps being asked and keeps being answered by photographers on both sides of the fence.  There is, however, a great deal of information now available and it seems that it boils down to this: For anyone who is interested in making good quality images, there is no argument for not shooting RAW.

If you want ‘MacDonald’s’ photos, shoot JPEG.  If you want the best possible images, shoot RAW and learn how to use whatever programs you use to post process.  If you don’t shoot RAW it is simply inexperience or laziness. Or both.

Now don’t get me wrong.  JPEG images are fine for many photographic needs, but a common argument offered by those who advocate JPEGs for all of your photography is that if you know what you are doing and understand your camera, you don’t need to shoot RAW, except when you may need to ‘fix your mistakes’.  This is poppycock.  The obvious end to this line of argument is that most professional photographers don’t know what they are doing, don’t understand their equipment, and have to fix a lot of mistakes, because most of them shoot RAW.  Shooting in RAW is NOT about being able to fix your mistakes.  It is about giving yourself the greatest number of options now and into the future.

While it can be argued that most of the images in the world are JPEGs, they are also made with iPhones or ‘point & shoot’ cameras. If you can be SURE that you are only ever going to use your images on a website or your smartphone it doesn’t matter what you use.  If that is your aim you don’t need to buy an expensive camera, either—a $100 ‘point & shoot’ or your phone camera will take images that are fine for a website or for your child’s party.

But if these were the only uses you were intending for your photos you wouldn’t be worrying about it.  The fact that you ARE worrying about it means that image quality is important to you and you probably should be shooting RAW.

The real issue arises, I think, because many people confuse the ‘capture’ of images with ‘end use’.  If you know for sure what the end use of your images will be, and as long as you are aware of the consequences of your choice, then use what you feel is right.  For instance, a professional photojournalist whose images have to be shot and uploaded to a news site in a few minutes for reproduction in magazines or newspapers or on websites may want to shoot JPEG.  It’s quicker in this instance, and a photographer’s worth in these days of instant media is tied to her speed.  The faster the pictures are in the better.

When you decide to shoot JPEG, whichever camera you use, you need to make decisions before you take the shot.  When you select from the menu either ‘Neutral’ or ‘Vivid’ or ‘Black and White’ or ‘Landscape’ (or any of the other multitude of possibilities) you are telling your camera that some of the information coming into the camera needs to be ‘tweaked’ and parameters which have been pre-set in the camera start their work, increasing contrast, dialing in sharpness, dropping out blues—whatever the factory has decided.  While it is true that these effects may be overridden to some extent with your processing program, you can never know what the actual relationships were, because that information has been lost.  RAW is just what it says—raw information.  The decisions are made in the processing, AFTER the image has been shot.  This needn’t take much longer than doing it in camera, but it allows you to see the results on a proper monitor, rather than a 3” screen on the back of your camera that you need to look at in uncontrolled lighting.  Add to this the fact that programs such as Lightroom allow you to make the changes as the images are imported into your computer, and you have a ‘workflow’ that is pretty quick and certainly more accurate than in-camera processing.  And if you use a program like Lightroom, your editing is non-destructive, so the original file is never altered—but that’s another issue.

If you shoot RAW you have ALL of the data that the camera is capable of recording, and you can convert this information to any type of file you need for the application for which it will be used.  By storing your RAW files you can, at a later date, revisit the original information.  By starting with a JPEG, you never have the original information, but an interpretation and interpolation of it.

Many argue that JPEG images take up less space, and this is true, but two things need to be thought about here.

• Firstly, camera and computer memory is cheap and getting cheaper by the day.  The EXTRA that a RAW file takes up over a JPEG is immaterial.  Even if you shoot with a Nikon D800 and take 14-bit uncompressed RAW files at around 70MB per image (the largest on a DSLR by a long way) you’ll still get 100 images on an 8GB card.  (A full-sized JPEG out of the D800 is nearly 17MB.)  That is, the CF card for the camera can hold the equivalent of three rolls of 35mm film, for the same cost as three rolls of 35mm film—except the card is re-usable.  You’ll get nearly 30,000 of those images on a 2TB hard disk that costs around $100.  If you’re into film it costs more than $100 for negative files for that many images.
• Secondly, the reason a JPEG is a smaller file is that your camera has taken some of the information that your sensor has recorded and tossed it in the garbage.  It’s gone.  (Remember that the reason you had to shell out all that money for the camera in the first place is that the sensor is the most expensive part.  If you want what the sensor is capable of, save yourself the money and buy a cheaper camera.)

But if you are seriously worried about space, take fewer photographs.  Everyone who grew up with film had to learn what to take and what not to take.  Or be more ruthless with your editing, because we all keep more images than we should.

Shoot RAW and you can convert to JPEG, TIFF, or DNG.  Shoot JPEG and you’ve got what you’ve got.  You have already allowed the camera manufacturer to dictate to you what your images should look like.  There’s no going back.  (It is true that you can convert a JPEG to a TIFF file, but it’s too late—the information has already been lost.)

If you’re still not convinced, do some homework.  Find out all you can about the different types of files. DON’T accept opinions as facts—even mine!—go to the source of the facts. Read as widely as you can.  For anyone interested in the Industry Standards have a look at http://www.updig.org The Universal Photographic Digital Image Guidelines (UPDIG) is an umbrella group representing many of the world’s important professional photographer’s associations.

The guidelines state:

5. File Formats: The best quality comes from capturing and editing in a raw file format. The advantages of raw file formats are: choosing color space when the file is processed; greater bit depth; the ability to adjust white balance, saturation, exposure (to a degree) and tonal characteristics; adjustable noise reduction; and correction for lens aberrations – all in a non-destructive manner. Raw files may be processed in a variety of software, from the camera maker’s own to many third party products, and even by using the built-in raw processing of Apple and Windows operating systems. Converting raw files to DNG format is considered an excellent method for archiving raw files. DNG was designed as a more universal file format than camera-specific raw formats such as NEF or CR2.

My final argument is this: if JPEG images were as useful as RAW, would camera companies maintain the option?  The upshot is that if you have spent $1000 to $5000—or more—on a camera and lenses, you are wasting your money if you shoot JPEGs.  You are not allowing the wonderful piece of technology you have in your hand to do what it does best, which is produce great quality images.

© Stuart Peel 2012