Brassai

Brassai was a journalist in the 1900's but had a passion for photography and was inspired by Paris to take photos to capture beautiful images of street culture, he wanted to "capture the beauty of streets and gardens in the rain and fog, and to capture Paris by night."

Brassai captured the essence of the city in his photographs, published as his first collection in 1933 book entitled Paris de nuit (Paris by Night). His book, gained great success, resulting in his being called "the eye of Paris" in an essay by his friend Henry Miller. In addition to photos of the seedier side of Paris, Brassai portrayed scenes from the life of the city's high society, its intellectuals, its ballet, and the grand operas. He had been befriended by a French family who gave him access to the upper classes.

I am inspired by his work because it captures parts of street culture that are not normally seen as interesting to look at, the lights and shadows and characters of people that are present in everyday life. It has really inspired for my own images that look at shadows and reflections.

Street Shoot Images

These images were taken just walking around the streets and taking photos of things that i liked and i thought were interesting. I kept in my mind all the photographers i had looked at and tried to show their style in my images. I feel that these came out well and i like the first two images a lot, however, the other images i don't feel reflect fully what i want to portray in my photos.

This photo was very over exposed, which helped me to learn what settings to use in my other photos. 

Exhibition involvement

I have been involved in the publicity for the sideways looks exhibition 2011, this involved writing and sending a press release out to magazine and listings companies to promote our exhibition for our work this year. This is an important process as it gets the word out that people can come and see our hard work and enjoy what we have to show them. I also sent out invites to a friday night 'private' viewing for the first night of the exhibition, which involved publicising the poster, the press release and ourselves to many different individual people and companies.

Here is a copy if the press release for the sideways looks exhibition 2011,

Sideways Looks Exhibition 2011

An exhibition of digital art from the production students of the Media and Cultural Studies degree at UWE.

Media and Cultural Studies students from the School of Creative Arts at the University of the West of England are holding an exhibition to show their work from their last year of university at the Paintworks event space.

It showcases digital art work in web media, video and photography that students have created in response to a critical understanding of our culture and society; and will be an informative, exciting and fun exhibition.

There will be a bar where you can buy drinks and socialise and talk to the students who have created the fantastic pieces of work

The exhibition will take place on the weekend of the 13^th of May with screenings for videos shown all weekend at various times along with the photography shown and interactive websites that will shown.

For more information on the work on show visit www.sidewayslooks.com/2010
For directions to the venue please visit the Paintworks website: www.paintworksbristol.co.uk/index.php?id=7

My Notes...

In order to make sense of what i was doing i wrote out notes to help me in my research and to help define what i was doing. This is them typed out how i wrote them.

Vivian Maier's self portrait's in the street,
her shadow in her photos

• culture being personal?
• not necessarily about yourself
• shows how you are distant yet part of everyday culture
• I am in the photo but you cannot see me
• behind the camera, realization of this in self portrait reflections
• how people are connected with everything around them without realizing.
• a connection between yourself and everyday life that represents what has become so normal and 'everyday' that we don't see it.
• street photography, the 'ultimate' culture photography?
• look at shadow photography

Why do we take pictures of ourselves?

• to relate to culture
• to be part of the world we live in
• to show others who we are/what we look like/show off?
• back to fashion photography-shows beautiful people as a big part of our culture
• what is beauty? composition, rule of thirds again
• how can shadow be beautiful?
• how does it express fashion?
• self portraiture
• street photography
• don't show face, just shadow and surroundings, 
• how does this effect our perception of beauty, person or place?

The Photographers Eye-Traditional Photography

The Photographers Eye is a book by John Szarkowski that i came across in my research in tradition photography. I found that it really helped me think of my images in a traditional manner. It had may types of images in it but i was more struck by the street and cultural ones, as these reflected what i wanted to explore in my images.

These first two photos i find particularly interesting as they depict shadows and reflections within photography culture and i find this a very interesting concept to look at.

Roger Fenton


Included in this book was work by Roger Fenton, who photographed The Valley of the Shadow of Death in 1855 when photography was a new method of capturing images.

Szarkowski comments on his work,

"Once he left his studio, it was impossible for the photographer to copy the painters' schema. He could not stage-manage the battle, like Uccello or Velázquez, bringing together elements which had been separate in space and time, nor could he rearrange the parts of his picture to construct a design that pleased him better.

From the reality before him he could only choose that part that seemed relevant and consistent, and that would fill his plate. If he could not show the battle, explain its purpose, its strategy, or distinguished its heroes from its villains, he could show what was too ordinary to paint: the empty road scattered with cannon balls, the mud encrusted on the caisson's wheels, the anonymous faces, the single broken figure by the wall." 

Arthur Rothstein


Another artist shown in Szarkowski's book is Arthur Rothstein. His work is important as he took some of the most important photos of rural America in the 1930's and 40's. His photos inspired me because they are pure images of simple parts of culture, they are beautiful pictures which show something of the people in them which is not a particularly beautiful subject as it highlights how poor and starving these people are. However, i find it amazing how he has made this subject into interesting images.

(Reference:

The Photographers Eye, Szarkowski, John, 2009, The museum of modern art, New York) 

The rule of thirds

In one of our lectures for this module we were taught about the rule of thirds. A rule about the composition of paintings and more recently photographs that invokes a traditional representation of a beautiful image. I am interested in this because it is a traditional way of making images look a certain way and i am looking at traditional photography, and i thought it would be interested to maybe have a look at how i can use this rule in a spontaneous and different way.

"Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner the diverse elements at the painters command to express his feelings" Henri Matisse

I think this also is true for photography, because it is important to get a photo that people want to look at and this rule happens naturally in alot of peoples work as it makes the image look attractive.

The pictures above represent the rule of thirds well as the points of interest are on or near the vertical and horizontal lines in the picture. It is said that this way of composing am image creates more tension and interest that just centralizing the subject.

This quote is by the inventor of this rule, John Thomas Smith in 1797, explaining how the rule of thirds creates an image that is more pleasing to look at than any other rule for creating images.

"In short, in applying this invention, generally speaking, or to any other case, whether of light, shade, form, or color, I have found the ratio of about two thirds to one third, or of one to two, a much better and more harmonizing proportion, than the precise formal half, the two-far-extending four-fifths—and, in short, than any other proportion whatever."

(Reference:

Smith, John Thomas (1797). Remarks on rural scenery; with twenty etchings of cottages, from nature; and some observations and precepts relative to the pictoresque.. printed for, and sold by Nathaniel Smith ancient Print seller at Rembrandts-Head May's Buildings, St. Martin's Lane, and I. T. Smith, at No 40 Trith Street Soho. )

The Origins of Street Photography in London

To further my research into street photography, i went to an exhibition in london that showed photography of the street from the 1860's. I was really interesting to see the culture from a time that does not exist anymore, and these photos inspired me to want to record a part of our culture that belongs on our streets and involves real people. I found that these images were so interesting because there was nothing fake about them. The early street photography was all on film in black and white, you could see every detail clearly and defined in its black and white form, although the main reason black and white film was used was because colour was very expensive at that time. I loved that nothing could be changed, there was no editing process of the actual photos because editing and computers didn't exist, much like the photos that inspired me form the beginning by Vivian Maier, they were spontaneous moments by normal people in the street.