A single figure small

The first exercise in this Chapter is to photograph a single figure that is small in the image.

Some forethought had been applied and the following images were taken when also taking images for Assignment 3:

This image was taken in M Shed, looking down from the landing on Floor 1 to the lobby. A woman is sat waiting for someone or something. The person well off centre in what is otherwise an image of architecture adds to the overall effect.

The people (and it is plural) are less evident in this image; sat on the landing stage in Bristol docks. Perhaps they are not sufficiently discernible within the scene - I certainly prefer the first image where the person is small but more evidently a part of the scene.

This was quite a challenging exercise to find subjects for but pleased with the results, particularly the first image as the context of the woman sitting at the foot of the stairs is nicely presented. Both images are essentially about the place, but the addition of the people helps to add a sense of purpose.

When doing this exercise, I recalled a favourite image of mine taken some years ago of Balliol College in Oxford:

I have always liked this image - the subtle colours, the converging horizontals and the soft light combine well. What is missing is a person, ideally small towards the end of the corridor. This would have added context and ameliorated the geometricality of the image.

British Journal of Photography iPad October 2012

The BJP iPad version in October has some very relevant articles for the People and Place course.

Michael Somoroff

A leading article looks at the portraiture work of Michael Somoroff, in particular the portraits he took of master photographers of the 20th century. Reproduced in a book entitled The Moment, Somoroff says he took many years to prefect the techniques for portraiture. "Studio still life is arguably the most difficult area of photography because you're starting with nothing", he says.

I reproduce below two of the most striking images of Brassai and of Jacques Henri Lartigue respectively:

Somoroff, M. (2012) reproduced in Interview. British Journal of Photography 5, p59.

Somoroff, M. (2012) reproduced in Interview. British Journal of Photography 5, p60.

The use of light is these images is wonderful; the darkened shadow effect in the Brassai image, and the window image for Lartigue.  In the latter, the light is cleverly reversed so the the stronger light comes from inside onto the left cheek.

The New Aesthetic

This article looks at a movement that commenced in 2011. Written by the founder, James Bridle. The principle is quite simple: superimpose images in a collage effect, as seen below.

It is interesting to see how filters and other manipulation techniques are being used here to mix the historical and contemporary. To quote Bridle:

"Filters help us negotiate one aspect of the transition from physical to digital, from linear to chaotic time and from experience to memory, because they provide an aesthetic cue for the formation of new metaphors".

Hence we have a very clear use of the filters to produce different images with different messages - exactly what I was talking about in yesterday's entry in the learning log.

The Garden

The Garden, a book about a family living in a swamp in Rome, has won the European Publishers Award 2012. It is a remarkable story of a family living underneath an underpass in Rome; an Italian father, a Russina mother, and their eight year old daughter.

It is a fine example of narrative; the story is captivating and enhanced by the darkened images taken by the author; Alessandro Imbriaco. He took the images mostly in twilight, with a consequent greying of the result. "The grey represents my relationship to the place", says Imbriaco.

The family live a life completely at odds with the surrounding urban environment - one anecdote recounts how Angela, the daughter, boils bark from a tree to relieve headaches. They have no facilities.

This is a very relevant article to the current module - a narrative setting out the relationship of a family with their surroundings in a very unusual environment.

Regrettably, I could not manage to copy any images into this article.