POSTMODERNISM ATTEMPT

POP ART ATTEMPT

CUBISM ATTEMPT

PINHOLE CAMERA EXERCISE

Pinhole cameras!

- The basics of camera obscura was founded by Abu Ali Hasan Ibn Al-Haitham (Alhazen) (965-1040AD) when he invented the pinhole camera (camera obscura)

- The camera obscura has been used for over a thousand years

- The first camera obscura was simply a small wall in a wall of a dark room or tent

- Light passing through the hole created an inverted (upside-down) image of the outside scene on a white screen placed across the room from the hole

- Artists were the first proper used of the camera obscura as they figured out they could trace the image

- There were a few factors when projecting the image onto the wall such as

• Sharpness - size of the hole, quality (or smoothness) of the hole
• Lens Choice - hole is the aperture, distance of wall to hole is the focal length
• Exposure - trial and error but nowadays digital cameras can figure it out automatically

When attempting to create my own pin hole camera, it really wasn't working out. No image I got was clear nor properly exposed. I had many attempts of which nothing came out nicely or good, AT ALL.

So instead of showing my failed attempts, I'm just going to show some of my favourite ones I've come across when having a search!

These photos were taken by street photographer, Scott Speck.

My opinion on pinhole photography. Well, it's not really for me. I can admire it and see the beauty in pinhole camera photographs, but it's not really my style and not something I can see myself eagerly doing. I can appreciate a pinhole camera photograph well, and understand now the struggles of taking the photos, but it's just not something I'd be going out of my way to do.

IDEA MAKING PART 2

When I finally sat myself down and thought i'd cemented my idea, it still had lots of cracks in it. Like, location, styling, make up, hair, all of these things were all dependent on the day.

I wasn't able to get to my friends beforehand to see if their hair was the exact same tone or both white, nor was I able to test make up on the two of them because I didn't get a chance to see them.

Location, we were going to use my friends house because the other two of us live with a parents and knew it'd get too crowded, so his house was free, of which that's in the eastern suburbs and I hadn't gone around looking for locations around there before the exact date of shooting.

So on the day I went to shoot I went and shot, and got some pretty amazing stuff.

It wasn't the exact idea I'd had in my mind BUT it had come out even better!

Here are the final photos I got.

'INCESTUOUS TWINS'

I'm extremely happy with the final photos. I like that they look a little overexposed, just because it adds to the light of the photo. I like subjectively looking into the overexposure as it's got a little less detail, adding to the concept being incestuous siblings. There's no need for detail, it's just fact and that's that.

IDEA MAKING PART 1

Coming up with your own ideas seems to be something photographers/artists either find extremely difficult or really easy!

I think of myself and my idea process as somewhere in the middle of that where I like to come up with ideas but processing them to reality is often difficult. I often like location scouting or having a weird concept in mind. 

I recently bleach two of my friends hair at the same time and they both ended up with platinum blonde hair. I immediately came up with the idea of them being twins, but then again, almost incestuous together. Although they aren't actually related, they do look similar, just with both having platinum white hair and blue eyes and similar skin tones, I wanted to make them pose together to be a little bit disturbingly incest but at the same time beautiful in doing so.

I guess this is an influence of Postmodernism and Modernism together, where I'm examining the characters and making the unnatural thing they're partaking in seem beautiful.

I wanted the photos to be quite close in frame, showing their closeness.

I also wanted it to look really natural, so I wanted the models to be naked, or at least look as naked as possible.

More thinking will have to come into this though. Location isn't set. I'd like the location to not depict the scene but at the same time help a little bit, even if it's just in the design of the frame. 

POST MODERNISM

Post Modernism within Photography!!

Beginning of the mid-to-late 1960's, when Abstract Expressionism had already been falling out of public favour for some time, many artists were turning towards mixed media art forms, such as
- Conceptualism
- Super-Realism
- Neo-expressionism
which in turn were the founding movements of Post Modern Art.
It often is an expression of the idea of utopianism in ideal or absolute form.

BAUHAUS

Bauhaus has attempted this idea through a minimalist way. He's helped add to the idea that Postmodernism is an attempt to muddy lines drawn falsely clear. 

Often pictures of somewhere where the area really isn't beautiful, and nothing special, has been captured in a way that makes you want to go there and think it's actually amazing.

I like Postmodernism in this sense. I like the idea that it makes me want to go somewhere which is actually nothing special, but the part of Postmodernism that I don't like are the portraits. Although yes, the point of a lot of portraits was to make the ugly person (or what society would consider ugly) seems beautiful, to me I just don't relate and often don't see the beauty.

These kind of images, although they are art and not always meant to be understood, I don't find this kind of Postmodernism interest or interesting however, I do enjoy when fashion photography incorporates Postmodernism like this:

I like fashion Postmodernism, although it does almost cross into Pop art as well, but just without the products or mainstream imagery (but not always). I like the bright colours and beauty of the figure, doing something that's considerably still not beautiful but she's made this seem so. 

POP ART

Pop Art within Photography!!

- Pop art is often associated with the New York 1960's fashionable art scene
- Pop art is ACTUALLY driven from the 1950's London Art Schools
- "The Independent Group" was a subversive collection of students at the Institute of Contemporary Art in 1953 and 1954.
- This group included Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi, Peter Blake, John McHale, Lawrence Alloway, Peter Reyner Banham, Richard Smith and Jon Thompson.
- Pop Art appreciates popular (or material) culture
- Incorporates recognisable imagery, such as products and parts from media
- Usually very bright colours
- Flat imagery inspired by comics and newspaper photographs
- Lots of images of celebrities

Pop art and Dada and relatable. Dada was a massive influence on Pop art as they both use information of the times. Dada used visual arts, poetry and other medias, and highly focused on the issues of the war, whereas Pop Art has evolved to incorporate all different medias and popular culture of the time. They're relatable because they both deal with the issues that were current at those times.

Pop Art's influence on contemporary photography is very strong! If it weren't for the Pop Art movement we wouldn't have a lot of genius photographers out in the world today. Lots of photographer's who use product placement and other media's in their photos to make a statement. It wouldn't be acceptable if Pop Art didn't exist.

CUBISM

• Began in Paris in 1907 by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso
• A big influence on the two founders of Cubism was the Post-Impressionist artist, Paul Cezanne, who rejected traditional artists ideas on perspective
• The single viewpoint in nature was abandoned and scenes were depicted as geometric shapes
• Volume, space and time created multiple viewpoints
• African and Micronesian cultures were two of the most prominent influences on the development of cubism during 1907-1909
• Cubism can be divided into two different stages – Analytical and Synthetic
• Analytical Cubism –highly abstract, scenes, objects and figures. Broken down and reconstructed. The colour palette was often monochromatic.
• Synthetic Cubism – as the movement continued to develop, the artists started to incorporate real objects into their work. The subject in the images was starting to become more central rather than having other planes depicting its importance.
• Collages employing the subjects were constructed with addition of stronger colours
• It was a major influence on the Dada movement which in turn influenced Pop art

How to represent time in a photo

• Multiple exposures
• Long exposures
• Collages made of images taken at different times
• Images produced by cameras that expose over time with movement

 Merced River, Yosemite Valley, Sept. 1982, David Hockney

'Shrooms' by Marisa Schwartz

 Cate Laskovics









'Cubism' by Josh Naylor

SURREALISM ATTEMPT

My own interpretation of a Surrealist photograph.

Surrealist's like to use the subconscious mind as part of their works so I've incorporated the idea of split persona's and ghosts/spirits.

MODERNISM ATTEMPT

My own interpretation of a Modernist Photograph.

Inspired by Diane Arbus' photographs of people regarded as "freaks", I wanted to create my own scene with siblings acting almost incestuous and a little creepy.

PICTORIALISM ATTEMPT

My own interpretation of a Pictorialist photograph.

SURREALISM

•  During the Modernist period a number of important historical events occurred one being World War I that influenced a Modernist art movement called Dada.
• Based in Zurich, Switzerland (neutral country) it was a direct reaction against the war, bourgeois and art.
• Visual artists used everyday items and technology to convey their message
• Collages and photomontages were assembled with techniques similar to the cubist.
• This art movement ultimately led to the development of Surrealism.
• After the war ended, artists experimented with a process called ‘Automism’ which is a process of creating without thinking
• They liked to create from their dreams
• Andre Breton coined surrealism: “Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.”
• Photography later on came into Surrealism in the works of Man Ray, Maurice Tabard.
• The use of such procedures such as double exposure, combination printing, montage, and solarisation dramatically evoked the union of dream and reality
•  Other photographers used techniques such as distortion and rotation to get a surrealist effect
• Hans Bellmer obsessively photographed the mechanical dolls he fabricated himself, creating strangely sexualised images

Romain Laurent's works convey a surreal sense of humour. He had worked for some of the world's largest ad agencies and fashion magazines, and Laurent's work has been commissioned by companies such as Microsoft, Nissan and the Discovery Channel.

MODERNISM

Modernism

• Definition: Modern character, tendencies, or values; adherence to or sympathy with what is modern.
• Background: Modern Art refers to art created roughly between 1867 and 1975. Major movements included Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art. 

In 1907, Pictorialism was challenged by a new way of photography called ‘Straight Photography’ which is photography that is sharp and clear, based upon only what the camera could do, un-manipulated in the darkroom.

·      Paul Strand: –

o   ‘Wall Street (1915)’

o   ‘Blind Woman (1916)’

o   ‘Fifth Avenue (New York 1915)’

o   ‘Portrait (Washington Square Park 1916)’

o   ‘Lathe No. 3 (New York 1923)

Paul Strand (October 16, 1890 – March 31, 1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century. His diverse body of work, spanning six decades, covers numerous genres and subjects throughout the Americas, Europe and Africa.

Photo Realism – moving away from pictorialism

Modernist Painter: Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Charles Scheeler, Charles Demuth, John Marin, Georgia O'Keeffe, Abraham Walkowitz, Gerald Murphy, Edward Hooper

Modernist Photographers: Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand

Charles Scheeler : 

• American painter who is best known for his precise renderings of industrial forms in which abstract, formal qualities were emphasized.
• Sheeler studied at the School of Industrial Art in Philadelphiaand then at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He contributed six paintings, mainly still lifes, to the New York Armory Show of 1913.
• To make a living, Sheeler turned to photography about 1912. Initially he worked on assignments from Philadelphia architects. He moved to New York City in 1919 and the next year collaborated with the photographer Paul Strand on a film, Mannahatta, a study of the buildings of the city. During the early 1920s he received recognition for both his paintings and his photography. In 1927 he made an outstanding series of photographs of the Ford Motor Company's plant at River Rouge, Mich. This assignment was followed in 1929 by a series on the Chartres cathedral, France.

Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky, August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American modernist artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself a painter above all. He was best known in the art world for his avant-garde photography, and he was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. Ray is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called "rayographs" in reference to himself.

Avant-garde refers to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics.

Avant-garde Photography was the type of photography that interested me the most out of the Modernist movement. My favourite of the avant-garde photographer’s was Diane Arbus.  

Diane Arbus 

(March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971) was an American photographer and writer noted for black-and-white square photographs of "deviant and marginal people (dwarfs, giants, transgender people, nudists, circus performers) or of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal". Arbus believed that a camera could be "a little bit cold, a little bit harsh" but its scrutiny revealed the truth; the difference between what people wanted others to see and what they really did see – the flaws. A friend said that Arbus said that she was "afraid ... that she would be known simply as 'the photographer of freaks'", and that phrase has been used repeatedly to describe her. In 1972, a year after she killed herself, Arbus became the first American photographer to have photographs displayed at the Venice Biennale. Millions viewed traveling exhibitions of her work in 1972–1979. Between 2003 and 2006, Arbus and her work were the subjects of another major traveling exhibition, Diane Arbus Revelations. In 2006, the motion picture Fur, starring Nicole Kidman as Arbus, presented a fictional version of her life story

A young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C. 1966

Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962

Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962

Identical twins, Roselle, New Jersey 1967

Boy with a straw hat waiting to march in a pro-war parade, N.Y.C. 1967

Xmas tree in a living room in Levittown, Long Island 1963

 "Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but they made me feel a mixture of shame and awe. There's a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats." - Diane Arbus