OCA BA (HONS) PHOTOGRAPHY COURSE
Apr 30
by andyof in I&D_assignment3, Identity&Place, Research 0 comments

Elena Brotherus

Elina Brotherus works in photography and moving image. Her work has been alternating between autobiographical and art-historical approaches. Photographs dealing with the human figure and the landscape, the relation of the artist and the model, gave way to images on subjective experiences in her recent bodies of work Annonciation and Carpe Fucking Diem. In her current work she is revisiting Fluxus event scores and other written instructions for performance-oriented art of the 1950s-70s. Elina Brotherus lives and works in Helsinki, Finland and Avallon, France. She has an MA degree in Photography from the University of Art and Design Helsinki (now Aalto University) and an MSc in Chemistry from the University of Helsinki. She started exhibiting internationally in 1997. Her works are in public collections including the Pompidou Centre, Paris, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Museum Folkwang, Essen, and MAXXI, Rome, to name a few. Her work has been given prominence in numerous art and photography books and magazines. She has published eleven monographs, most recently ‘Seabound. A Logbook’ with AKO Kunststiftelse and Kehrer Verlag. She has been awarded, among others, Carte blanche PMU, France, in 2017, the Finnish State Prize for Photography in 2008, and the […]
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Dec 28
by andyof in Relay, Research, Uncategorized 0 comments

Research Task: Relay

  Examples of relay in contemporary photographic practice include Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself and Sophy Rickett’s Objects in the Field (see interview in the Appendix to this course guide) where clashes of understanding or interpretation work together to create a perhaps incomplete but nonetheless enriching dialogue between artist and viewer. Look these pieces up online. Investigate the rationale behind the pieces and see if you can find any critical responses to them. Write down your own responses in your learning log. How do these two pieces of work reflect postmodern approaches to narrative?     Some definitions: Anchorage: words that help limit the meaning of an image or ‘anchor’ its meaning. Relay: alters or advances the. meaning. – Text that advances the image by supplying meanings not found in the image itself. example: film dialogue, ‘zine captions, visual pun. Image and text brings their own new bit of information to the overall message. Postmodernism: Postmodernism is a broad term used to describe movements in a wide range of disciplines, including art, philosophy, critical theory, and music. Many view it as a response to the preceding modernist movement, but where modernism simply reacts against classical concepts, particularly in the arts and […]
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Apr 03
by andyof in Assignment 5, Research 0 comments

Photographs and Context

The meanings of photographs rely on and are influenced by context. The meanings are not contained solely within the photographs themselves and a combination of factors including the viewer’s world view, knowledge and understanding, and the context in which the image is seen. context noun the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood. the parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning. meaning noun what is meant by a word, text, concept, or action   In his article ‘Photographs and Context’ Terry Barret explores the impact context has on how we read, see or interpret a photograph. He discusses the example Robert Doseneau’s photograph of a man and women in a Paris bar to demonstrate how a photograph is highly dependent on the context in which it appears. The same photograph appeared in 3 publications- as part of a photo essay on Paris cafes in a popular magazine, Le Point, in a brochure by a temperance league, and (without Doisneau’s consent), a French scandal paper with the caption “Prostitution in the Champs­Elysees.” All three presentations […]
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Dec 31
by andyof in Research 0 comments tags: Atget, light, Michael Schmidt

Light

‘Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography’ George Eastmann ‘John Loengard, the picture editor at Life, always used to tell me, ”If you want something to look interesting, don’t light all of it.’ Joe McNally ‘I prefer to work with neutral diffused light, i.e. to produce an image without noticeable shadows. The viewer must allow the objects portrayed in the photograph to take their effect upon him without being distracted by shadows or other mood effects’. Michael Schmidt   The qualities of light Light can completely alter how an image is perceived. The colour and quality of light can change over the course of a day (and seasons), whether it’s the warm light of dusk on a summers evening or darkened light of a storm approaching, it can define a photograph and add emotion. The quality of light adds to the creative pallet of the photographer and includes: Direction (impacts shadows and texture) Reflection –anything we see is a result of light bouncing off an object. Refraction – Light can pass through some objects and be redirected. Put […]
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Dec 28
by andyof in Blog, Research 0 comments

Decisive Moment

Write up your research on the decisive moment in your learning log taking care to give a proper account of the three differing views offered above, and any further research you’ve undertaken independently. What do you feel personally about the decisive moment as a visual strategy, or just as a way to take pictures? Conclude your post with your own perspective on the debate at this point in time. Lamour de court Watching the L’amour du court I was struck by the way the different artists-photographers, painter, musician, expressed their approach to their art (and the artistic gaze) and how all expressed, albeit in different ways, a higher level of awareness that transcends the ordinary to make something unique, and an aspiration to do so. For Cartier-Bresson, it was the confluence of recognition, geometry, form, and even luck; for Aviigdor Arikha it was the losing of learned recognition and stripping things down to their barest form to allow pure perception to take over, while the musician Paulo Beschi accepts the uniqueness of very performance and accepts rather than be terrorized by it. Cartier-Bresson When talking about taking photos (or making images) he says “ the basis is geometry..I go for […]
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Some photographs in Country doctor can be encountered on their own with each providing its own narrative- see examples below:

w-eugene-smith-country-doctor-09

Image 1 of 5