Unit 4: Communication in Art and Design

Unit 4:Visual Communication in Art and Design 

Hand-in Needed for 16th!!

• the brainstorm of ideas 
• Alec Soth
• 8 page zine template
• Mark Power (Poland) & Jack Latham (Iceland) video comparison/ evaluation/ thoughts  
• Medium format camera
• The journey project
• Film Image Colour Balance in photoshop 

Activity's

Reading images: explain a Photographer & their work based on Description, Technical, Formal, Emotional, Contextual, Meaning and layout of images

Find one Photographer with good/ interesting visual language

(list on Moodle)

Lewis Wickes Hine: 

Lewis Hine was a American Photographer who operated during the US economic expansion during the early 20th century. His abilities in Sociology & Photography was very effective when pursuing social reform in the manufacture industry where he used the relatively new medium of photography to convey his argument using visual means. He started using cameras for documentary photography in 1907 while working as a staff photographer for the Russell Sage foundation where his photos showed the plight of the working class and the extent of income inequality throughout the USA Booming period during the early 20th century, He used his photography to successfully campaign against child labour in factories and the workplace,

Girl Working In a Carolina cotton mill in 1908 (one of may photos taken under the portfolio titled Child Labour: girls in factorys)

A mechanic working on a steam pump (this image is known as the steam fitter), the mech

Hines most famous image is of the builders working on the construction of the empire states building 

Proposal for project 

+ brain storm

subject
Shape & texture
objects
accessible locations
themes
commentary
objective
variety
surrealism vs tangible reality
Colour, adjacent & contrasting
Audience
golden mean
viewpoint/ perspective
contrast
leading lines
horizon lines
vanishing points
light & shadow
texture
colour
shape
tone
adjacent
pattern
geometry
levels
abstract imagery
juxtaposition
silhouette
backlighting
orientation
luminance
framing
symmetry
rule of triangles
overlap
radial
golden hours
off center
angles
orientation
proportions
movement
aspect ratio
zoom
fill frame
distance
colour balance
simplicity

Zine/ booklet photographer
inspiration

Alec Soth

Approaching Strangers

Zine template: creation process

To create a Zine, one would need a piece of paper which would be split into 8 sections with 4 on one row the right way up and the others would need to be upside down. once you have your image setup one would have to fold the paper an appropriate number of times along the fold points between each picture, starting with a fold in half long ways and the fold over short ways, after this fold the the two half pages into quarter pages, after fold out into the two halves and cut down the folded center between the ridges through the nearest quarters to the center, after this point you should have a slit through the center of the paper, after this fold a quarter out at each crease to create a X shape, once this step is complete the fold the Zine together to make the booklet.

Journey photos: tell a story

life round redcliff, the small details, the story of the coastal path, 

Objective: lighthouse

Battery ran out 2/3rds through, forgot backup
cut hand on bramble while being careless
many people walked through shot
a large portion of time was spent experimenting with the camera & working with full manual settings to get different results of image
dynamics of a photo

REDCLIFF

I choose red-cliff as I had a close relation with that area of coastline, the adventure started on the edge of Hillside road and ended when I arrived at the lighthouse outside fedon village. Each Image played on the relevance between the human & natural dynamic on the local coast, I experimented with many different ideas and subjects in my images, some focused on human interactions with nature for positive and negatives, some we based on the effects of nature in combination with time on natural & man made structures while some focused on the wondrous dream like world of the Redcliffe coast. Every image has a simple concept behind it which can be interpreted as it is seen or by what it represents to the one observing the photograph.

comparison between photographers

Notes: Evaluation of videos on photographers

Mark power (TEDx) & Jack Latham (VICE)

Notes made:

journey brief & context

cinematography

photograph composition and subject

photograph
format of explanation

Mark Power is a English British photographer who in autumn of 2004 given an assignment go out to Poland for one month this ended up as a two year journey Photographing the remote parts of Poland as an outsider looking in while also conveying the emotion of the country while being as non intrusive as possible.

Jack Latham is a Welsh British photographer who went out to Iceland to follow the story of the Myth & legend of the island & weave it into a murder mystery that wasn't solved, he did research on important locations and looked into the dynamics of the police investigation and also contacted relevant people to the investigation to get an idea of possibilities of what could have transpired.

Both photographers we in a foreign land the new little about however Mark was under contract assignment to Poland which the expanded into a more personal project where he and acquaintances took a extended journey around non-tourist Poland for a 5 year period while Jack's personal project was funded though a competition by Nikon cameras & Vice to create service of images on he subject while using a NiKon camera and being followed by a Vice film crew which would make a cinematic and expressive documentary of Jacks Icelandic journey. Mark explains his experience and thought process as a lecturer in a Tedx Talk lecture on Journey photography & on extended photography projects, he explains his idea of storytelling by chance, by self interpreting outside a comforts zone to get a more emotional response out of his images but he also gives history and background on Poland which is relevant to its culture, Jack also looks into the history of Iceland and how it effected local people however the only history that mattered was regarding the Investigation and the murder. For Jack, creating atmosphere is everything & to get this he spent time researching all the important details while Mark spent 5 years experiencing the country by going with the flow of things which allowed the journey to almost create its self.

Each one of the journeys of Mark & Jack compare and contrast in a variety of ways, for their method of starting, the process of the journey to the technique and thought process behind each photographer's work.

booklet template

the process of creating a booklet in InDesign

Published works of photographers

Yoshinori Mizutani:

Mizutani is a Japanese photographer who I known for his brightly coloured selections of portfolios which are conventionally set within an urban environment and depict beauty in geometry, patterns and luminosity in the everyday.

Parrots

Colours

camera use

medium format

Mamiya RB 67

As a group we went out with the medium format film camera to to get to grips with how to use a film camera, we each took turns in capturing an image but we needed to use spot meter to ensure that the exposure was correct as with film there are no second takes. After the process of loading in the film and a tutorial of the basic functions and settings of the camera we took it in turns to take images of one another, we would photograph once each & also pose once each. 

Medium Format Film Image colour balance

Using photoshop to fix Photographs Taken with the medium format camera, after scanning in the negatives and converting them into useable photographs one would have to correct colouration problems and dust spots that occur in exposing film. The first thing to do would to balance out excessive redness in the image and increase the green and blue hues in the image to bring back the strong colour given off by the sky and grass , after this one would have to use the patch tool to get rid of the dust spots out of the image, after this one may need to sharpen and resize the image for use.

Project name: COASTAL LIFE?

proposal: Items of a coastal life

The project brief I have chosen is the subject is Items of a coastal life where I would photograph the objects associated with the coastline, this brief gives a clear subject matter in which I can focus my ideas around with the goal of painting a picture of the British coast without directly showing the actual physical Coastline as the direct subject in the images. The objects must relate to the narrative of the coast in some way as a close or distance reference, the actual limitation is the focus on a subject matter however the techniques used in composition and methods capturing the subject have no limits, the subject is nonspecific to give the largest amount of opportunities to capture interesting subjects throughout the duration of the project with a variety of narrative angles on the same subject. 

Over the course of the duration of this project I hope to develop my observational and technical skills while also challenging my skills as a photographer, looking or the ideal subject with a clarity in its narrative captured with effective technical composition is important when looking for items & objects that relate to british coastal life, this project gives me the opportunity to improve my ability and aptitude for photography in general and not just specialised aspects of photography.

The action plan is to first look at the work of photographers who focused on the objects of locations rather than the location its self & what the differences in the narratives used and variations in way's they compose their images. the next action is to developing a pool of ideas and inspirations into an easy to understand compendium which will act as my guideline for the project while also finding ways to display my compendium of ideas in the images I take and in the layout & presentation of my published project.

My interpretation of the coast of britain and the fragile relationship between natural and the flotsam & jetsam left on the shore. Photographers Martin Parr, Paul Seawright & Yoshinori Mizutani inspired my project in terms of the subject focus & narrative. What I will do to ensure completion of the task and what equipment Ill use readily available equipment.

Photos Taken
I took over 400 images during this project with 35 final images available for the booklet


FlOTSAM & JETSAM Images

starting image for Jetsam: 5183

4877

4881

4883

4890

4898

4901

4903

4906

4928

4943

4956

4947

4988

4993

5184

5234

5244

5245

5250

5301

5308

end image for Jetsam: 5192

starting image for Flotsam: 5339

4919

4923

4925

4927

4931

4909

4945

4961

4968

4972

4985

5085

5180

5188

5313

End image for Flotsam booklet: 5340

Booklet Production:

the book layout

 each image in order shown

Text Pages: Front & Back Pages

The important information about the book is located on the cover but mostly on the back page...

Editing to PDF

The final book

Unit Evaluation

Memos

lens-culture.com

(use moodle)

http://www.photobookstore.co.uk/

https://moodle.cityofbristol.ac.uk/moodle/pluginfile.php/64900/mod_resource/content/1/Reading%20Images.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spn7JJSRng4
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/video/picture-perfect-jack-latham-322
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEhT4caTVnY