Women in Photography

Women in Photography

When looking back at early photography and when photography started we all tent to focus on the some of the most famous photography’s such as Ansel Adams, Henri Carter-Bresson, William Henry Fox Talbot, ect. but we never think about or consider any of the founding women photographers, for example photographers such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Dorothea Lange, Diane Arbus, this is something that is still continuing today, even though its slightly less noticeable, for example when thinking about more modern photographs we don’t think about photographers such as Sally Mann and Lauren Greenfield.

Julia Margaret Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron was a photographer who could have possible had one of the biggest influences on photography even to this day. she was a photographer who picked up a camera a at the age of 48 and went on to photograph and concentrate on famous and attractive people which could have been one of the first major influences to the photography we see today for example the photographs of famous people and celebrities we see everywhere today. One of the most famous photos she has produced is an image of the Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry which was titled "Ellen Terry at age 16" this was an image produced in 1864 and finally printed in 1913. in the photo it shows Ellen Terry leaning up against a wall, wearing a white top and a lot of jewellery, while the image itself looks very old and like it was produced when it was the style of the image, the stance an cloths worn in very modern and it still visible in portrait photography today.

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Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange was an American Documentary photography, most well known for her photographs which documented the great depression in American and photographs of migratory farm workers. When though when people look back and think about documentary photographs they usually think about photographers like Ansel Adams and Irving Penn, Dorothea Lange is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential documentary photographers. Even though her main works were around the late 1920's and throughout the 30's her name should easily be bought up with some of the greats and founders of documentary photography. 

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The photograph above is probably Dorothea Lange most famous photograph, it is a photograph called "Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California", the image was taken in 1936 near the end of the great depression, in the image is a woman called Florence Owen Thompson which her children, it was an image which I think was trying to capture the feelings of Florence and her children and most importantly I think it was trying to get the message of desperation across to the audience because Dorothea Lange has captured Florence while she looks very depressed and worried, also I like how she has captured Florence looking away from the camera which I think is trying to show that she isn’t worried or bothered about the photo being taken and has larger worries and thoughts on her mind. In this image Dorothea Lange has also taken a very natural shot unlike the image by Julia Margaret Cameron, mainly it’s down to the style of photography but i like how she hasn’t captured Florence while she’s looking her best and i think this adds to the message in the photo.

Sally Mann

Sally Mann is an American photographer who is most famous for her publication of Immediate Family in 1992, it is a publication which has been considered one of the greatest photography books of our time and a book which was very influential. Because it was a book which contained her children naked, party naked and some shots which wouldn’t normally be seen it for example children reenacting familiar situations or scenes it created a lot of controversy.

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The image above is a photograph by sally Mann called Candy Cigarette and was a photograph which featured in her book called Immediate Family, at first glance it looks as if she has taken a photo with of her daughter with a cigarette in her mouth, the main purpose I think is because the whole theme of the book was to be controversial and capture her children doing controversial things, either set up or natural, I also think it has been taken for a reaction, when first looking at the image we are shocked and have to take a second look at it, once we realise it’s a "candy cigarette" we calm down at start to look at the image in a different way, as a piece of art with a meaning behind it. I like a lot of images in this book because of the way Sally Mann has used the lights and tones, I think she has used them very successfully to create a lot of atmosphere and I think wants the viewer to use every component in the image and come up with a view about the message behind it and what it means.

Lauren Greenfield

Lauren Greenfield is an American artist, documentary photographer and documentary filmmaker who is famous for her books girl culture, fast forward and thin, she is also well known for her work which promotes issues with gender, the youth culture and consumerism. She was also named as one of the most influential photographs in May/June 2003 by the magazine American photo.

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The image above is a photograph taken by Lauren Greenfield which involves a high school student graduating and secretly playing a video game, it is a photograph she used in the book fast forward which is a book which mainly focuses on the issues of youth and that is clearly visible in the image above. in the image there is a high school student who is just about to graduate but while waiting she is playing a video game which I think show two age stereotypes, a student graduating which i think maybe signifies become responsible and an adult but also we have the video game and how she is secretly playing it which relates back to the behavior of a child. Another issue I think is raised here is the issue of gender, even though it is a women in the image she is playing a video game which is more stereotypically aimed at boys.

bibliography 

(1)http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/235.1977/?

(2)https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/dorothea-lange-migrant-mother-nipomo-california-1936

(3)http://d2jv9003bew7ag.cloudfront.net/uploads/Sally-Mann-Candy-Cigarette-1989-Courtesy-of-Phillips-detail.jpg

(4)http://41.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrybc23me41qjvsrlo1_1280.jpg

Landscape and Photography

Landscapes

When it comes to painting and art the landscape genre is one of the most, if not the most popular genres of art, it is a genre which can contain and make almost anything its main focus, for example the landscapes main focus can be rolling green hills, a dry desert, a magnificent mountain range or a city full of buildings, this is one of the main reasons it’s so popular because it appeals to a very large audience and a variety of audiences. 

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The genre originally started in the seventeenth centre and carried on growing in popularity, some of the most famous artist to produces these landscape paintings were people like Aelbert Cuyp, Claude Monet, John Constable and JMW Turner. when the genre first started out the piece of art that were produced were usually painted with oil and was done on a canvas and unlike we see now where the main focus can be anything, back then the usual thing you saw were landscapes of magnificent places such as Rome, Greece and Milan, but shortly after this was helped change by an artist called Jacob van Ruysdael who started painting and showing people regular landscapes, the sort of areas that were around him at places he was familiar with. it stayed like this throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centre but once we reached the nineteenth centre the genre grew and gained massive popularity and started to change, whereas before the main focus was nature and a lot of natural things painters started creating landscapes with the main focus being rural and urban areas, this is because at this time there was a lot of urbanisation and industrialisation. before and during the nineteenth centre the genre started to be used in art movements such as impressionism, expressionism and even surrealism, because of this landscapes didn’t just stick the traditional images they started becoming more, they started being pieces of art with certain messages behind them coming from the artist, a good example of this is a piece of work by Hubert Roestenburg called Autumn near London and one of the most famous examples of this is the piece of work by Vincent van Gogh called starry Night.

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Photography and landscapes

As the genre of landscape art started changing, process, types and ways to produce art also had meaning pieces of art in the landscape genre would change from oil and canvas pieces of art like when the genre started to more modern ways such as photography. Because all the rules of landscape photography stayed the say for example the main focuses could involve almost anything the audiences have still stayed the same, they are still very wide and reach a lot of people. Because they ways to produce landscape images has evolved and became more modern they have also expanded and reached new audiences, for example with photography a landscape piece can also be used as a document and as commercial use such as in a newspaper or on the news or in magazines and articles, not just certain news stories and articles either it can be used for many different things such as nature, sports and urban environments. Because of new technology as well there are different and improved ways of capturing landscapes and producing this genre of art, for example the panoramic feature which most modern cameras are able to do, this gives the viewer a lot more to look at and makes them feel like they are one with the place and know the place more rather than just a straight on view a single particular thing, people are now able to manipulate images as well which can be used to improve landscapes, if you wanted a more surreal effect but a lot of details and information you can go onto a program such as Photoshop and manipulate the image to get it how you want it or how it should look with the decided genre or path the photograph is going to go down, pPhotoshop has also made it possible to change things simply as well for example you could capture an image of a some rolling British hills in the middle of the and the photography might want to see what the image would look like as an image that has been taken nearer the time of sundown, without Photoshop and other pieces of software this would have been much harder to do, the photographer or painter would have had to do to the specific place at a certain time to be able to capture the actual mood the right colours to use. Another feature which has been made available by photography is that fact you can use different lens for example lenses of very high quality and lenses that are able to zoom in significantly, because of this it makes it possible to capture very intricate things and things that might not be able to be seen without the technology. In landscape photography there were many famous artists/photographers that helped evolve the genre of landscape artwork and the profession of photography, for example a photography who has done this is Ansel Adams who is very famous for his black and white landscape photographs of America, which contained a lot of contrast, details and emotion, some people found these photographs to be so inspirational they have gone back to the same locations and took the images with new developed technology. Another photographer who is well known for their landscape work is Andreas Gursky who is very famous for his use of colour, textures, lines and shapes, he every had one of his images sold for 4.3 million dollars in 2011 and which was a world record at the time.

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In conclusion I think because technology has improved and developed it has helped improve all art forms and genres, it has helped widen and attract more audiences, added new features and ways to capture and produce a piece of art. even though there are a lot of positives I also think that because some of the pieces of art have been produced with a camera it has created a lot of conflict and has been questioned by a lot of people whether or not it’s actually a piece of art and not just a document, I feel like even though a photograph hasn’t been created but the photographer/artist straight out of their imagination I still feel like it’s a piece of art, involving the artists emotion, feelings and aesthetics which appeal to audiences.

bibliography

(1)http://historylink101.com/art/FamousLandscapePaintings/images/502013.jpg

(2)http://images.all-free-download.com/images/graphicthumb/william_haseltine_landscape_art_216740.jpg

(3)http://hubertroestenburg.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Hubert-Roestenburg-Autumn-near-London-German-Expressionism-L.jpg
(4)http://www.moma.org/wp/moma_learning/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Van-Gogh.-Starry-Night-469x376.jpg
(5)http://anseladams.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/1901006-2-412x300.jpg
(6)https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/gursky-rhine.jpg

What is a Photograph?

What is a Photograph?

The most straight forward explanation of what a photograph is that it’s an image/picture that has been produced by a camera through a digital or chemical process. but there are many different opinions on what a photograph actually is for example people believe that it’s a form of art and a way of  people expression themselves, a document and a way of capturing a moment or memory and even a science, with the process and how the camera actually produces the photo.

Photography as a Science 

Photography has a very different element to it compared to other arts because the artists/photography isn't fully connected to the photograph/piece of art, this is because in between there is a scientific element, in modern photography it’s the digital and print and back when photography first started it was darkroom and the pinhole technique. Even before this there was a technique which uses silver nitrate to change colour once it was exposed to light, this was a technique discovered by Johann Heinrich Schulz in 1727. around 100 years after this a man called Joseph Niepce created the camera obscura but wasn’t the greatest thing to uses for photography as it took 8 hours to produce an image which is why a man called Louis Daguerre created the Daguerreotype which decreased the time down to 30 minutes, even though 30 minutes are a much shorter time it was still hard to capture a moment which is why the collodion process was created meaning a photography could be created in seconds. the science of photography i think can be used both positively and negatively, negatively because it can be the only thing some photographers focus on and not the actual outcome of the photograph, i think it can be used positively because it can help improve the outcome of the image if the photographer is knowledgeable in the and about the science of it. when photography was first created it was more for the scientific side off it because it was the first time anything like this had be created and there were a lot of people who wanted to learn and know about it although once figured out and learnt about, it was then pushed towards the artistic and documentary side and what could actually be captured rather than what the process was to actually capture the image.

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Photography as a Document 

Documenting out of all the uses for photography is the most popular. it can be used in many different situations for example it can be used commercially in newspapers, magazines and in television documentary's where something needs to be clearly shown, it can be used for personal uses such as weddings and events where family members and people want to remember things. there are also a photographers that purely focus on documentary photography which makes it very useful for photographers trying to tell audiences a story and inform an audience, it is also a type of photography which can focus on many different subjects it doesn’t have a select focus which I think makes it very popular compared to some of the other photography categories. documentary photography is a form a photography that came about at the start of the twentieth century, it was big during this time because people were starting to hear about photography and it was a form of visual communication that was just becoming popular, this meant that photographers were using the popularity of photography to show situations that they think needed to be exposed and people needed to be educated on. Some of the early documentary photographers are people such as Jacob Riis, Henri Carter-Bresson, Tim O'Sullivan and Robert Capa.

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Photography as a Art

Photographic art is a category of photography that is slightly harder to recognise than the rest, because its usually down to the viewer or the actual photographer when capturing the image or viewing it, there also might be a lot of opinion towards a certain piece of art for example one person might see it as a photograph documenting something and telling a story or another person could see it as a very beautiful image and think it’s a really attractive piece of art, for example a photograph by Steve McCurry called "Afghan girl" is a originally a photograph that was supposed to document what was happening in Afghanistan and the people of the country but others like myself look at it as a piece of art because of the colours, contrast and details. Photographic art started to come about in the early 1900's after people had explored the camera and the processes to take a photo, photography was starting to be used as an art form and a way to express emotions and feelings, this can be seen in certain art movement’s ones like expressionism, DaDa and surrealism, i think one of the main reasons it was used as an art form in some of these movements is because it hadn't been used for art or a way of telling a story which is what got audiences attention. some famous photographic artists in my opinion are artist/photographers like Ansel Adams, Irving Penn and Martin par.

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My conclusion 

I feel like photography doesn’t has a specific category I think that it’s mainly down to the photographer themselves to decide what path the photography going down and it’s up to them to add certain techniques and styles to show what category the image is in but I also feel that the a massive decider on this is the actual viewers opinion and what they think the image is. I think some photographs obviously have a direct route what they were intentionally made fore for example a photograph in a newspaper of a burnt house, that is a photograph that is there to document the event. I also think that a photograph can have multiple categories and shouldn’t need putting into a certain one, I think that because there are many different opinions on it that’s one of the reasons it’s such a great visual communicator and art form because it speaks to different audiences in different ways and appeals to a lot of people very differently.

bibliography

(1)http://aub.ac.uk/wp-content/processed/background/50,50,2095999482/2012/04/Photography-Dark-Room-AUB_photography_7u5c5387.jpg
(2)http://shooterfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/henri_cartier_bresson_bicycle.jpg
(3)http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGS/Shared/StaticFiles/Photography/Images/Content/afghan-girl-portrait-article-phot-127438-in.jpg

DaDa

DaDa Movement 

The DaDa movement was an art movement which came about during world war one and started in Zurich, Switzerland but then spread all across Europe and the rest of the world to cities such as Paris, berlin and even cities like New York. It was movement which reacted and retaliated to the horrific nature of the war and the things which had led to the war, things such as nationalism. It was a movement which was influenced by many other art movements such as cubism, futurism and expressionism but aside from art movement it was mainly influenced and motivated by the environment the artists were living in and a reflection of their reality. the movement came to public's notice around 1916 and ended around 1924, because it was a retaliation against the war it was very likely that it would be at its most popular during this time but once the war had ended the art movement hadn’t completely disappeared, it went on to become very influential and powerful movement and influenced movements such as surrealism and Avant garde. It also influenced many different artists at the time. One of the reasons they influenced so many artist was because they reached a lot of audiences due to the many different outlets such as photography, literature, sculptures, poetry, paintings and most famously collages. One of the reasons it went on the influence surrealism and Avant garde is because it was one of the first movements of art which didn’t focus on the looks and the aesthetics of the art but rather focused on the message behind it.

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Hannah Hoch 

Hannah Hoch was an artist born in Germany on November the 1st, 1889. Her first experience with art was at the school of applied arts in Berlin, where she did a course in glass design but was then interrupted by the first wold war; she enrolled again at the school in 1915 and then studied painting and graphic design. Just after this in 1918 she met Austrian artist Raoul Hausmann who then introduced her DaDa circle in Berlin. She was the only woman in the Berlin DaDa circle and was most well known for her photomontage works which involved perceptions of gender and different ethnicity's.

Hannah Hoch - Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the beer-belly of the Wiemar republic (1919)

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Cut with the Kitchen Knife was a piece of work created in 1919, it was a piece of work which was a photomontage that reflected Hannah Hoch's political and social views at the time of Germany's transition just after world war one. In this piece of art you can see that one of the subjects she has focused on is the subject of gender, for example you can see she has used words like "kitchen knife" and "beer-belly", these are words which were associated with typical gender stereotypes at this time. i think she has also used the words "beer-belly" as a way to point out the German army who were very highly focus on in the media at this time. I feel like she has made the image so it has a very negative effect on the audience because of the dullness and the lack of bright vibrant colours used in it, the only colours which are used are browns, beige and the colour is blue which usually represents things like sadness. In the image she has placed text in various parts, she has used the name of the art movement 'DaDa' in it I think to make sure that everyone is clear with what the image is trying to represent and that there is more than the aesthetics of the image and a story behind it.

Hannah Hoch - Bouquet Of Eyes (1930)

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Bouquet Of Eyes was a piece of work created by Hannah Hoch in 1930, it was a collage which included eyes being placed in the shape and format of a bouquet of flowers. I think in this image there are a lot of messages she is trying to get across, one of the reasons I think is that there is a lot of focus on people and I think that she is emphasising that people are looking at other people to be a certain way and conform with the world and it would be noticed if anything you did was wrong of different. I think she has softened this as well and tried to tell people other things because of the colours used in the background, we can see a very calming orange at the top of the image which transfers into a slightly darker orange at the bottom, which I think makes the viewer look on into the image rather than just looking at it. Another point I think she is trying to make is that everyone is equal, I think she has done this with the eyes, some she has the eye and the surroundings of it and some are just images of the eye-ball, I think she has done this to represent that we are all equal because you can’t tell where there eye belongs to someone of a specific gender, race, sexual orientation, religion or nationality, but in this image I think she has focused in gender because of the shape the eyes are in which is a bouquet and would be more associated with women.

Raoul Hausmann 

Raoul Hausmann was a artist who moved to Berlin at a young age, his first experience with art came from his dad who taught him how to paint, his first professional experience with art came from his work with a magazine called "Der Sturm", up until 1917 he worked with many different magazines in many different sections such as literature, in 1917 he discovered Dadaist thinking in a magazine called "Cabaret Voltaire", because he was very inspired by Dadaism and was a big fan of expressionism he would then go on to be inspired to make the group called "Club DaDa" along with fellow artists such as Hannah Hoch, Andre Breton and Francis Picabia. During this club he along with the other artists involved instead of concentrating on traditional types of art involving paint and oil paints they would concentrate on things like photomontages poster poems and collages which were a combination of a lot of types of art, because this was done at this time many people were shocked which conformed with what they were trying to get a cross in the art I think.

Raoul Hausmann - The Art Critic (1919)

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The Art Critic is a piece of work created by Raoul Hausmann in 1919, it’s a collage which contains a poem poster that was created but Raoul Hausmann. in this image we can see there is a cut out of two people (one is the body and other the head) in the foreground which is made to be the main focus, in the main focuses hand we can see a sharp object and i think because it’s called "the art critic" I think the object is there to emphasize the disapproval of certain pieces of art. in the background we can see a money bill just behind the main focus on his shoulder, I think this is there because it relates to when people say you have an angle and a devil on your shoulder telling you what to do, in this image I think it shows that money is his main focus and that’s all he’s listening to. In the background we can see that there is writing, rather than this meaning something I think it’s there to draw the viewer’s eye to the back of the image so they can see all the different layers.

Raoul Hausmann - Tatlin at Home (1920) 

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Like a lot of other DaDa pieces Tatlin at Home by Raoul Hausmann is a photomontage, it was created by Raoul Hausmann in 1920 while DaDa was very popular. in this piece of work we can see a man in the image called Taltin, this is a message in the art aimed at and against Vladimir Tatlin who was a painter and architect who was into the constructive movement and believed that art had to have a reason and had to be rationalized, whereas Raoul Hausmann was a big fan of using his art to send a message and tell a story, because of this an artist like Tatlin was a perfect main focus to use. in this image there are a lot of dark and negative colours used such as dark reds, blacks and grey, I think Raoul Hausmann has used these specific colours to excaudate how much he doesn’t think art needs a reason behind it and can be used as a way to express and tell stories. In this image we can see Tatlin who’s the main focus with a lot of machinery and non-natural things in his head I think he has done this to stick with the theme that art needs a reason and needs to be justified, I think he has done this to say that its natural to show emotions and feeling in art and that reasoning and rationalization comes from a mechanical mind that’s been built by things that have been taught to us throughout our life.

bibliography

(1)-http://www.designhistory.org/Poster_pages/images_posters/Hausmann1924.jpg

(2)-http://www.dada-companion.com/hausmann/images/1920_200px_tatlin.jpg

(3)-http://www.artvalue.com/image.aspx?PHOTO_ID=1952813

(4)-https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/Hoch-Cut_With_the_Kitchen_Knife.jpg

(5)-https://armtaste.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/elramo.jpg

(6)-http://www.dada-companion.com/hausmann/images/1919_200px_critic.jpg

(7)-https://utopiadystopiawwi.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/hausmann-tatlin-at-home-1920.jpg?w=195&h=300