Wednesday 12 May 2010

Photographers of strong women

http://www.mapplethorpe.org/biography/

& Helmut Newton (bit rude, be warned!)

Sunday 25 April 2010

Political slant on photography.

David-LaChapelle-Rape-of-Africa DAVID LACHAPELLE: The Rape of Africa at ROBILANT + VOENA from 27 April

Very influential fashion/music photographer, David La Chapelle, has taken a political angle for his latest exhibition. drawing on old masters' paintings, he has re composed them in a contemporary and political way. Exhibition just opening at teh Robilant and Voena gallery in London.

Article from the Independent 
 Inspired by Botticelli's 'Venus and Mars'
Alessandro Botticelli Venus and Mars

Tuesday 13 April 2010

Ideas to include in your sketch books.

Remember, for all of these ideas you should find some examples of other artists work to link to & write about your images:

These are in no particular order and some images will fulfill more than one category.
If in doubt about which to include, think 'decisive moment'.

1. Colour contrasts
2. Depth of field
3. Movement ( experimenting with shutter speeds, moving camera with subject then keeping camera still as subject moves through).
4. Nature
5. Man made
6. Portraiture (with or without significant props). Studio posed and snatched.
7. Parts of the body (hands, back of the head, tattoos, scars, jewelry etc)
8. Twilight ( street lamps, looking into illuminated houses from the outside, shops)
9. Night (seafront lights, car lights, street lamps, parties, nightclubs)
10 Light and shadow, texture.
11. Black and white
12 Concepts: week in the life, hobbies, proportions warped (chocolate tin for instance)
13. Reportage: anything you are interested in Camp Bling, seafront alterations, a journey from start to finish, deterioration of high street.
14. Experimentation in darkroom: photograms, black and white film processing and printing, cyanotypes, pinhole camera. Include test strips & mistakes!
15. Experimentation in digital format: obviously Photoshopped creations, keep and include screen shots of process.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Stuff we did today

Looked at Rankin's work.
Discussed some out of perspective Photoshop work like this....
Next task, a week in the life of......take snaps, even on your mobile phone to illustrate your working week.


Tuesday 2 March 2010

Friday 5 February 2010

John Gay 1909-1999

John Gay emigrated to England from Germany in 1935.
His preferred themes were light and shade, animals and children, informal shots of ordinary peoples, work and leisure, rural subjects, modern architecture and London.


He makes a good comparison with Bresson. He was working at the same time, in black and white, and was a great observer and catcher of the 'decisive moment'. His images are so quintessentially English though. Indeed he worked with the British poet John Betjeman who himself has been credited with capturing the essence of 'Britishness'. Perhaps a fore runner of Martin Parr?

Monday 1 February 2010

"The simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression... . In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a leitmotif." — Henri Cartier-Bresson