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.