Having been born in Concord, Massachusetts, photographer Bill Armstrong now lives and works in New York.This fine Art photographer has exhibited in extensive collections across the world.These pieces are taken from ‘The infinity series’: a body of work Armstrong started in 1997.
I chose these images to represent secrets as I feel that Armstrong himself describes how he ‘conjure and world that hovers between the real and the fantastic’ (billarmstrongphotography.com) and i think this has strong links the the theme of secrets, mystery and the unknown. The artist has created this by blurring each subject in the photo, almost allowing them to disappear but Armstrong also describes ‘how the eye continually tries to resolve these images, but is unable to do so, and how that is unsettling’ and that I feel that this also represents the idea of not knowing something like a secret or being veiled behind something due to with holding a secret. Each image is created in vivid, colour, drawing the eye to the shapes within each image rather than just the subject. |
"In 2018, Hayward Gallery reopened with the first major UK retrospective of the work of acclaimed German photographer Andreas Gursky. Known for his large-scale, often spectacular pictures that portray emblematic sites and scenes of the global economy and contemporary life, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant photographers of our time."(https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/hayward-gallery-art/andreas-gursky)
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My intentions for this task were to show the history of the buildings in my school and local area. I think that this boded well with the topic title because it was an interesting insight into the secret past and history of my surroundings which I might have otherwise not known about.
In the beginning of this task I took a different approach to the other that I have displayed below. I decided to hold up the old images in front of the scene that I was photographing (see to the right). However this did not give me the desired effect that I was looking for and I decided that I would rather achieve my aim digitally on Photoshop. I decided to take another direction because I could line up the image and the background precisely and I could find a good balance between the lighting in the foreground and background. So once I had decided to change my approach I went out and took picture from the perspective of the old images. I then scanned in the old images and layered them over my own image. Next, changed the opacity of the image and lined them up. I wanted there to be a faded effect between the old and new image, I did this by gradually increasing the opacity of the rubber as I moved closer to the centre the image, rubbing out the sides and making the edges softer. My finished product is displayed below. |
This exhibit at the ‘photographer’s gallery’ has a compilation of work from various photographers from throughout the past 50 years which documented feminism, sexuality, gender and social constructs through time. It does this by displaying simple portraits of people being their true authentic selves, with small blurbs explaining the groups which are displayed in each section of the exhibit. I think that the photographers wanted to display the different lives that people led and shine a light on a new and somewhat mysterious (at the time they were taken) group in society. Overall I believe this is one of that main aims of art, to show and display new and I know cultures or concepts and this exhibit is a perfect embodiment of that.
In this particular image (displayed on the left) I think that the photographer and the model are trying to show the blurred lines between genders which is still a current and prevalent discussion being had in our current society. I think this because the image shows a very beautiful male, which are words that are not usually put into the same sentence when discussing old fashioned and tradition male gender stereotypes, which is something that many of pieces in the exhibition display. |
Ataxia "Glitch" from bif on Vimeo.
This work is called 'past-forward it was made in 2015 by Mathieu st Pierre. His images show a glitched portrait. This links in with the title because in order to create this affect you have to change the coding of the image and compromise the composition of it. This imagery is eye-catching and colourful. There is an inserting abstract element to them while still having clarity.
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To create this effect I enlarged the image onto the paper as I would normally but then dripped the developer onto the paper so that only certain part would start to merger and develop. I did this strategically so that the face would fully develop and the background would be patchy.
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This one was created by squashing up the associate underneath the enlarger; this is why you can see my hands in the image. Apart from this it was developed as normal.
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Irving penn creates beautiful images from things thing that are associated with being ugly. he does this by collecting them and displaying them in an exhibit like way, putting them on a clean and crisp background and adding flattering filters and effects to them. i think that he wants us to consider the beauty and art that we can find in everyday things or things that we think are ugly and useless.
Irving Penn could perhaps be addressing bigger issue which could be the rise of smoking which is a fatal habit but he manages to find beauty in it, which could elude to the idea that there are more that one option of certain thing and and more than one view point, this project helps shine a light on both if this views. this concept can be a applied to any area of life. |
mariah robertson creates stunning images using long roles of photo paper. she does this by putting chemicals and dyes on the images. she is one of the members of this new abstract photography movement, i think through her work she wants us to take a new perspective on photography and view as more an art than a practical process. i think she wants us to reconsider the boundaries of photography and how they can be broken out of and broken.
the photographer uses her darkroom and rolls of chromogenic paper to create her series of hand processed colour. she creates the effects on the images through altering and tampering with traditional developing processes. this helps the photographer achieve her aim of breaking out of the confines of "photography culture" which tells to you to 'frame this way' and 'work this way'. this is something mariah robertson wants to stay clear from , this is the reasoning for her un =regular shaped images and her giant and also incredible installations. i think that this unconventional approach to "photography culture" is what this makes this work and its artist unconventional. |
in this image the picture that i had originally enlarged onto the paper didn't show up clearly, i think this is because i used old photo paper and on this particular sheet the emulsion had been painted on and this is where the brushstrokes behind the stripes and ink stains come from. to create the effect of the striped i put masking tape on the image while i enlarged and developed it and only took it off the image when it was still wet, then i put yellow and blue ink all over it in a random way.
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this image that i have taken of this final product does not show very clearly the faint imagery of the cigarettes in the background which i enlarged onto it, for this image i used old photo paper as well but one which hadn't had emotion painted onto it. i also used masking tape to create the stripes on this picture but waited until the image was dry until i took them off.
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to create this picture i enlarged 2 images onto the paper and then exposed it to light after putting it in the developer. then after i had put it into the stop and fix i let it sit in a trap of yellow dye. then after that i creates puddle go blue dye onto on the picture and let it sit there
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before i put this picture in the fix i took it into the light so that it would form a punk hue, this did happen but its not very visible in the picture. then after finishing the development process i strategically formed a puddle of blue dye on top of the image and let in stain the picture. this was the outcome of that process.
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Lauren Marek
Lauren Marek creates objective imagery of people and the feature that make them unique and different e.g. scars birthmarks, eye colour, fingerprints or hair. The photographs show the details of a person although doesn't show the persons whole body or face. She presents her smaller images in a grid form which makes up a larger image; this is symbolic of the features accumulating to make up a person's identity. She wanted us to consider key pieces that make the person an individual. The viewer is able to gather a sense of the individual’s identity through key details and characteristics. |
In this response I was completely inspired by the tools I had around me and the desire to work more in the darkroom and develop my film skills, I also thought that my development idea would be a good way to approach the black and white photography that I mentioned in my last strand's development ideas. To create this response I used an very old camera (shown in image '1') where you place the film paper into the back (shown in image '2'). I used a digital camera to gage how I long I would need to open the shutter in the old camera for (because this has to be done manually). I had seen other images that were also created this way and obviously due to the camera, they came out blurry and messy so it thought that his would be an interesting extension to the other blurred images I had created.
My development process in explained in more depth below: |
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3) The obvious choice now was to expose it for 6 seconds and this is how I got my desired effect where you could see the person but it was still blurred and had a level of ambiguity to it.
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This image was exposed for too long overall with each burst of light making the original positioning darker and darker and this actually cancelled out the effect and didn't make it clear in the image. In addition there is not much negative space and a lot of black from the jumper that I'm wearing so it hard for us to see the other figures. I tried to rectify this in my next attempt
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This image was much better suited to apply this technique to because there is more negative space in the image for me to position the negative so that you can see the figure. In addition to this I exposed the original figure for less time s that it had other attempts to darker with other exposures. I really like this image and the effect that it had, I think after a lot of refining this was a successful end product.
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