Assignment 1: Contrasts

Below are my pictures which I submitted for my first assignment.

Straight

Curved

Broad

Narrow

Many

Few

Diagonal

Rounded

Pointed

Blunt

Still

Moving

Rough

Smooth

High



Low



Large and small

Paul Graham - Whitechapel Gallery

Photographs 1981-2006

I went to the OCA’s visit to The Whitechapel Gallery to see Paul Graham’s exhibition on 21 May. 

Graham is one of the leading photographers working in fine art photography and has played a strong role in the development of photography.  He constantly challenged and reinvented the medium and its presentation. 

His approach centres on remixing the rich history and traditional genres of photography allowing him to create his unique visual language.

The main themes that run through his work in this collection is political and social issues, history, society and trauma.  He also works on the themes of denial and concealment which is particularly strong is Empty Heaven. The viewer cannot instantly see the significance of the images in this collection.  He reflects Japan’s investment in surface appearances and suppressed memories of the past.

Television Portraits is a series of images taken of people while they watched television.  In his interview which was being played at the gallery, he referred to having his subjects completely engrossed in something else while he was capturing them as ‘every photographer’s wet dream.’

This type of work was less about portraiture and more about observation.

His early British colour work can be seen in A1: The Great North Road, 1981-82 which is his version of the American road trip only in this case the trip starts in London and moves up north to Edinburgh charting the stark contrast between the north and the south along the way. 

His use of colour for this type of social documentary work was revolutionary at the time when black and white photography was seen as the only medium for this type of photography.

Beyond Caring is a series of work shot in dole offices around the country creating a unique view of unemployment in the mid-eighties. This work was shot mainly with his camera on his knee which gives rise to the unusual angles at play.  

Being Irish I found Troubled Land particularly interesting. Here Graham is working in Northern Ireland during the Troubles fusing traditional landscape photography with war reportage.  Each image contains a discreet signifier such as a Union Jack flag in the distance on a tree or a landscape setting with trees with political posters on them, which reveals the struggle over the land. 

This is also a series that explores the use of colour.  The colours of the Union Jack make the image which would not have been possible to do in black and white.

We discussed presentation for this collection as other students had seen these images in books but as they were so small the discreet signifiers could not be seen.  This has given me some food for thought about how presentation can enhance your work and how you should think about how your work is presented. 

Leaving the social and political themes behind, Graham’s work in the late 80s and into the 90s began to focus on history, society and the psychological effect of trauma on individuals and nations. This can be seen in New Europe where he journeyed across nine European countries to show the traces of European history at a moment of great political upheaval.   The most striking image of this collection is of a man looking onto blocks of flats in Germany.  He has no shirt on and he only has one arm. We are left to wonder about how he lost his arm and how the future looks for this country.

Ceasefire is an abstracted representation of the political.  It shows a temporary halt to hostilities in Northern Ireland 6-8 April 1994 through a series of cloudy skies taken above scenes of sectarian violence like Bogside, Omagh and Shankill. 

End of an Age is a series of portraits of young people across Europe on the cusp of adulthood.  Graham uses the combination of flash photography and the atmospheric lights of night clubs in this series.  The blurry shots with the ambient light depict those that are drunk and not wanting to be aware of the changes they are going through.  The flash photography produces a clearer more unforgiving image.

American Nights uses deliberately overexposed images leaving the viewer to search out the content and meaning alongside hyper-real colour images to emphasise the discrepancies of wealth in North America.

Moving the US in 2002, Graham’s work focuses on capturing moments as he sees them.  A shimmer of possibility records his journeys across America where he finds beauty in everyday events as they unfold in front of his camera.  

I found the themes and how Graham uses the photographic medium to depict them very interesting.  I think some of his work is very clever and I enjoyed having to look at an image for some time before I finally discovered its meaning. I had never real thought too much about how you can use colour so effectively especially given today’s obsession with black and white images.   

Paul Graham’s images can be viewed at http://paulgrahamarchive.com/index.html

As added bonus to this study day, Magnum photographer Ian Berry's exhibition This is Whitechapel was on too.  This work was commissioned in the 70s when Whitechapel was in a period of change as the established Jewish community was moving away and making room for the Asian population to take its place. 

The exhibition consists of a series of 30 black and white images which would have been the norm for social documentary at that time.  It was interesting to compare his work with that of Graham's use of colour in his documentary work. 

On the whole I feel Graham's work was more powerful and had more of an affect on me.  I think the sheer size of his images and the presentation of his work was more interesting than Berry.  I also liked the use of colour which is a little weird seeing as I always felt before that B&W images had more punch.  Graham has certainly made me think more about the colours I see and how they can play an important part in my work.

The Frame. Exercise 9: Cropping

I used three photographs I had already taken to explore cropping.  I usually try and avoid cropping my images as reducing the image size affects the overall quality.  I do sometimes have to crop some images though to remove unwanted obstacles that I couldn't avoid when composing the shot. 

Image 1.
I was not entirely happy with this image as I wanted the focus to be more on the actual old fashioned shop front and not the windows.  Cropping the picture allowed me to focus on the shop front.

As shot

Windows and pavement in the foreground removed.  The building now fills the frame. 

I like the door and the sign so cropping further still removes more of the building and provides a close up of the door.

Image 2
This picture has a lot of people in it and lacks focus a little.  I cropped this picture to allow the man on the left hand side walking into the picture to bring the viewer into the frame.  This give the shot more focus and you feel more movement looking at the picture. 

The woman reading the newspaper is clearer and adds dynamic tension to the picture as she is the only person that is stationary. 

As shot.

The man on the left leads you into the frame, only to be stopped by the woman reading the newspaper.

Image 3

Cropping this shot of Central Station in Copenhagen gave it a more creative feel when the focus shifted from the man waiting on the platform for his train to the architectural curves of the ceiling.

As shot

Cropped so the focus is on the man on the platform.

Cropped so the focus falls on the high ceiling.

The Frame. Exercise 8: Vertical and horizontal frames

The purpose of this exercise was to take a series of shots in a vertical format.  Up until now most of the shots I've taken for this course have been horizontal.  I have always felt pretty comfortable taking shots vertically and I tend to shot this way for people or tall buildings.  Taking a horizontal shot after a vertical was going to be a challenge for me. 

After satrting the project I found that I was constantly looking for tall buildings to take or trees for landscapes. 

Here are the results.  Some of the pictures are not affected too much by shooting vertical but for some vertical works better.  For the tall buildings vertical makes them feel even taller. 

The horizontal shot here shows more of the background.

This was one of those feeting moments where this girl was taking a picture of herself beside the fountain.  I chose to take this vertically as the focus was on the girl and not the fountain.  If I shot horizontally I would have got some of the fountain in the image and this would have taken away from the girl.

Because this white goat was positioned very high the shot was easier to capture vertically if I wanted to just have the sky as the background.  It doesn't work so well horizontally as the focus moves away from the sculpture's head.

Shooting vertically allows for a more close up shot of this statue.  Horizontally takes in the background to give more perspective.

I feel that both work well here.  I like the building in the background of the horizontal shot.

The vertical shot gives a greater sense of depth.

I didn't particularly like the railings on the window so the vertical allows me to exclude these from the picture.

Vertcial shot makes you feel like you are on the bridge just about to walk over it. 

The vertical shot minimises the busy background. Both formats work effectively.

The vertical shot makes the building feel taller.

The vertical shot was the most natural for me to use in this situation. 

The vertical shot is less busy in the background and focuses more on the memorial.

There were railings to the left of this image so the horizontal format wasn't suitable.

I think the horizontal image works best here as it captures more of the building.

Using the different formats gives two very different perspectives of the catedral entrance.

The vertical format focuses more on the building and was easier to compose.

I shot this vertically because I wanted to capture the size of the map this man is looking at. 

Shooting vertically allowed me to focus on the building and the Opticians sign which is what drew me to the shot in the first place. I could have focused on the sign alone for the horizontal shot but without the building I don't feel it would have worked.

The vertical shot allowed me to include more of the water and where it was landing.  However, I prefer the horizontal shot.