final critical intro

When asked to think of “what we stand for”, my initial thought was of what we remember, our past memories and those of our families. Wide as this, it seemed to encompass belief and family; these are two themes that every person would stand for, and believe in. To show this, I got a set of old negatives, black and white photographs and old slides; for me, photographs are one of the best ways of capturing memory, and old photographs especially fit into this, as they are film camera photographs, when images could not be so easily copied and therefore each image was taken for a significant reason to show some part of the photographers own beliefs- as the pictures show, in their images of marriage, children, heritage, family portrait etc.

I wanted to show a few different stands underneath “past and present”, which makes the photos quite varied. At first I used the old photos to juxtapose with the present reality to ask questions about the present, or to suggest what people might stand for. For example, a photograph of a pair getting married mirrors a young couple just starting out, suggesting a continuation in the belief of love. In another situation, a family portrait in the foreground, with two people either side. The tow real people are walking in the same direction and in a similar way, suggesting family, but as they aren’t walking together, this suggests a problem; the two people are bound together by the photo, and they simultaneously look like the ones who are holding it; this offers an examination of the belief in family, how in the past family were a different concept, one maybe lost to these people. In other photos, the old photo or slide is held against a new photographic advertisement. This suggests the difference in our attitude to photographs; in the past what we stood for could be seen to have meant more, encapsulated only in one image. The way the hamburger engulfs the young woman, the Kodak is so much more vivid than the building, connotes the loss of the way what we stand for is shown in photography with the oncoming age of technology. With so many images so easily copiable, is the value and meaning lost? The more I placed the old photos against things, the more varied things they said; but in this the theme of the past infringing on what we do, belief and stand for, was consistent in every photo.

In the photos, I saturized the colour, and heightened the contrast. I did this, as I found the image became much more vivid and bold. I liked this effect, as often it made the photo more intense, and gave it a fairytale like feeling, one which I often think of my past in. I also like dhow, in some photos, the colours soaked into the old photos/slides/negatives so that they took on some colour of the scene, meaning that their connotation with the present seemed even more significant.

My first and final images, I felt where important, mostly as they didn’t fit quite as well in with the others. The first, with the photo of a father helping a child’s first steps, against feet, make a direct connotation between how our parents helped us stand, among other things, and therefore, we owe them what we stand for. This seemed like a good starting point for a comparison between past and present. The final photo, I took by chance off a train just as the sun came out, over-exposing all but the figure through the slide-frame. I liked this as a finishing photo, showing someone standing, waiting, caught in a frame, the white around almost like a flash to show the action of taking a photo; this image represents a photo being taken, the act of capturing memory, what someone is standing for, the frame around how we see people. A good suggestion of what we decide to take a photo of; how it might too show what we stand for.

draft final peice

When we think of what we stand for, our first impluse is, i think, to think of where we have come from, what we have grown up with, our family. The reason for this being that where we have grown up and what we remember usually forms a large part of our conciusness. What we are told as children, and the values our parents had that we remember, is usually what we come to beleive as right, as what we stand for.
In my photos, i wanted to illistrate this, and also to show how it is also not always the case. I got a set of negative images of old photographs and also a set of slides, and a set of old black and white photos. These had always appealed to me as well, as they have a lot of stories and values which are lost. I took these photos and put them in different places to make juxtapositions. There were some differing results.
Some of the results are that i showed what we stand for in the past is passed down, similair to what we stand for in the future. The picture of the negative of two people getting married, held up against the present images of a couple enjoying the sun on the beach, suggest what we stand form in forms of love and relationships and very smiliar, pased down. I used a neagtive for this image, so we can see through it, and so that it collects some of the colour of the day, suggesting that it still is relevent to the day.
In other photos, the past and present becomes oppositional. for example, when putting the photo of a woman looking longing out of the photo (a very striking photo) against a blown up image of a hamburger, we relize that times have changed. the photo which, it can be assumed, used to be held in much expectation, is held up against a image-saturdated world, where everything can be reproduced over and over, like the fast food image in the background. the photo is engulfed by the hamburger, and it looses what significance it held in humerous irony. Therefore, what we stand for is often lost within what society stands for.
The photos often held much ausment for me, as holding the image against another image can often make contrasts and meanings not usually apparent to a genreal onlooker. For example, the photo in the tube, of the couple being married held up against the tube. I made this photo black and white to mimic the photogrpahs soleum value system. however, the nature of the tube(rushing, lots of people not talking or touching, smelly, noisy, dirty etc) makes the photo take on a humour; the things we stand for, like marridge, are just aspects of daily life, and can be seen as unimportant as the tube.
The final picture of the series is of a guy through a picture frame, off the frame. The jagged angle of it, how you can see my own hand, and how the rest of the photo is obscured by over-saturated white light, suggests that i am taking a photo, making my own memory of someone waiting, which might too, then show what a stand for, and be taken by future generations. I liekd this idea, of that the way we concieve memories and values through memories is passed on, representing what we stand for to future generations.

Editing

i tend not to like editing too much, but have been enhancing colour and contrast to give the photos a nostalgic feel- as my theme now is Past and Present. I find when people think of their own past, they see it as very much flooded with colour/ nostalgic/ vivid (especially childhood) and i wanted to make the photos have this sort of feel to evoke the feeling of memories and distance. Also, i made the present the vivid one, wheras the past is the one which is black and whire or negative, suggetsing what we stand for is, in part, just a memory, ever present, but often at opposites to reality.
I have been using photoshop, but in some images, as i was often having to take through glass, you can see my reflection. It would be ok to mention this in the project (eg. image of person capturing is obvious representation of the present.) BUT would rather not have me there. Its quite difficult to edit me out though, as the relfection is over a very changing sky.


I wanted it to have a narrative too. I took an iage which i throught went very well as the last image; the image of somone standing at a trainstation, taken through a frame, so it looks like a picture being taken. the project is about memories already made- the last is about making an image/memory and what it is we decide to framer etc. the FIRST image, i think might be the one of someone being staught to stand (being stood up, infact) by their parent, next tp feet; represents what we stand for is what who taught us to stand for things?

A common theme

After taking lots of photos, and trying to whittle them down, i think a common theme between should be relationships. The old photos are always of people at moments of significance with each other, and often the most interesting photos i took are the ones with past relationships and present juxtaposed with each other. This also links into "what we stand for", as often people define their lives/beliefs etc by relationships with family/friends/partners. I decided to go back and re-shoot with this in mind.



However, i decided that a more interesting theme (less wide, and also one which linked more to what i had done already) was Past and Present. relationships of course link into this too, but what i found most interesting when taking photos was contrast. The old photos against the present seem to gain new meaning or juxtapose to add extra questions or thought. The picture above, for example, shows a couple sunbathing on the pier- a very touristy, english nostalgic thing to do. The placement of the negative image of a couple getting married can add extra things to this image. Instead of just a couple sunbathing, the photo might connote a memory of their own wedding, or an image of family members gettin gmarried generations before. This is what people stand for- what is within their family and the family memory. In the photo below, this can be taken a different way. The present colours are vivid and bright, with a pair gazing over the sea. The way they are looking directly matches the way the photo is looking; again suggesting nothing changes; what we stand for in the past carries on to the future (what is important.) then again, it could also juxtapose. The photo of the girl, though unknown, looks taken in 1930's, (from dress) and might connote the war/ her watching for her family to come back safe. What she stood for is both different from what the people in the present stand for, and also similair. Both are gazing into the future.






Therefore, i throught i would chose this over relationships; there is more depth to it.

ideas for project

WHAT WE STAND FOR:
What we stand for- beliefs in the bigger scheme of things.
A lot of what we stand for is what we remember; what we grew up with- the places and people. The only way we really have to keep these things are through memories and old photos. I bought lots of old photos (negative and non) and also old slides, and then took photos of them in different places. The results are differing; sometimes the placing a photo in a different place makes it loose meaning, and importance (thus- what we stand for is personal, but lost after you die, so therefore, is what we stand for as important as it seems?) OR it seems more significant- a photo on the beach of 2 old people juxtaposed next to 2 real people on the beach; the continuing trend, what we stand for we can pass down and last forever. This photo in particular, as its with 2 couples, links to the beileif of love/marridge etc- how what we stand for/believe in continues in many different ways.
In other ways, the photo next to crass advertisements of coke etc, make the photo seem lost- and memories less important (could be seen as a marxist critic, people lost to the consummerist icons of fast food joints.) In a different version of using the photos, I super-imposed the photos on to people. This gave them significance- almost like memory.

Initial ideas-I did a mind map and came up with these sort of ideas:

• the literal What we Stand for; pictures of people standing up, the different reasons of them standing up...---> pictures of people's shoes, the ones that always are what we stand up in. what can they say bout people?
• Representation; is what we stand for what we show? pictures of different sort of people; whether we reprsent soething different. etc
• beleif/relegion, we stand for this; images of churches/religous buildings etc. What we stnd for, maybe whether this is what we need to stand for? if it still in use today
• past and present ---≥ we stand for what we remember; family memories, ancestors. Their values are usually wh`t we stand for, so should capture that as a form of belief
• friendship; photos of friends, against people alone. is what we stand for only important to people we know?
  
• street art; shows something that people stand for. cliche?

----> think i might choose past and present. it has lots of interest.

Stanmer Park

I wasn't here for the assignment, but i often go to Stanmer Park to take photos, so here are some from last autumn:

I liked it in autumn because of the colours of the leaves- they were really bright, and especially (as in the photo) when the sun went through them. I used quite a large aperture (as in, high) to let in lots of light. I also changed the settings on my camera for high contrast/high saturation; I like the effects of this on the picture, it gives the subject more life.







This next photo is kind of similar; i thought it looked like someone had thrown some paint at it. Placed just off centre for effect, used high saturation/ quite a low shutterspeed (apparently 100) (why the sky is so white) Tree looks like it has character.



















Taken in January- i made it black and white on the computer. I really liked the way the trees are all straight up and down and have no branches- making the light on the path stripy, and the light on the sides of the path (on the trees) also is stripy (zebra?) Luckily there was someone walking down at a point of perspective, which adds interest, as your eye is led to him.















Woods! Stanmer park in September, i liked the light (again) made by the trees. Shutterspeed was 80, i think, as it was actually quite dark in the trees.












Snow at Stanmer- the rest of the world was either white or black (snow or object) and it was quite a relief to find these leaves- their color really stands out against the background.

Reading

First week:
How do we read a photo?
The text was about how reading a photo is a complex thing, not passive, but affected by cultural, historical and personal experiences. People often see photos as a "mirror", but he deconstructs this, to show that culteral genre (like, a portrait, or landscape) tells us firstly how to read a photo. Then our own experience and opinions also affect what we see and therefore what the photo means to us.
Beyond this, Barthes is used to show how we read a photo; the denotative and connotative things within the photo, and also the "stuctium", the general passive viewing, and the "punctum" which is the things in the photo which might lead us to a deeper, critical viewing. I liked this idea, as it gives a nod to both forms of looking at photos and also because it is true that when you view a photo, often there is something "not right" which makes you look twice, and then the further you look, the more idea of the what the photo means, or what the photographer is trying to say, becomes clear.
final note of that the photo is not just about the "eye" but about the "I"; photographers are always trying to show something; which codes and conventions are included? i thought this website, photos of 2011, was particularly interesting for this.
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzfeed.com%2Fmjs538%2Fthe-most-powerful-photos-of-2011&h=_AQG0TG2k
The website was funded by a rich USA company; the images are very (sinisterly) focused on America. However, as important news photographs of the year, they are also good to look at to see the dominant conventions/ideologies in America, as well as the world.

A way of seeing
I really enjoyed reading this. The text writes about how art has been mystified by art critics and the upper class to give it value now its uniqueness has been ruined by postmodern developments in technology which allow for reproduction. As pictures can be reproduced over and over, they loose the cultural, unique, upper class ideologies- the picture can be viewed anywhere, by anyone, and people can read it in such a multitude of way, in so many different time scales, that the art looses its original meaning. The writer claims that now art is defined by who owns it and how much money it costs, allowing for the "borgeois" to keep control of the art world, which once only belonged to them. (postmodernism) Therefore, the way pictures are descirbed panders to brgeios values and perceptions of art, allowing them to keep it within their own power. The writer wants to bring art "to the public" and stop allowing hegemony over pictures. Anarchist reading, very interesting.