Evaluation- Photo Object

Object and Body, Objects In Time, Photo Object, Photography As Object, Still Life, Year 2

For this photo object unit I chose to specialise in photography as object. Over the past four weeks I have investigated Still Life, Object and Body, Photography as an object and objects in time. Out of these four mini units I decide to specialise in photography as an object. I felt this subject related the most to my previous work as I come from an art and design background. Over the pass few weeks I have created a body of work relating all of the topics, the weekly workshops for each of the units I found really useful. This unit has given me the opportunity to work within different photographic environments to create work in a professional environment.

I have found this unit a good opportunity to get back into to my course after the summer break. By having such a short unit with a close deadline helped me get back into the swing of working. This project I felt had its positives and negatives, the project’s positives were it gave me a chance to familiarise myself with working in studios again and using the university’s equipment and softwhere. The downside of this project was, I didn’t feel the work I produced was to the best of my ability. I could have had more attechion to detail in my the development and making of my final collages. This project was not my strong point as I work more as a documentary and portrait style of photographer, however I am open to new ways of creating work.

Overall I am happy with the work I have produced for this unit, even though I do not feel it is the best of my abilities, I have put a lot of time had effort into this project to create the work I did. I am really looking forward to the next unit which is moving image. I have never worked with video before so I am looking forward to working with a new media. Learning from this photo object unit I am going to produce more test shoots and trails before I start to create my final piece. The eight week unit length instead of four should give me the opportunity to research more in depth and produce a higher quality final outcome.

Weegee- Object and body

Object and Body, Photo Object, Year 2

Weegee is a very known street photographer, specializing in photographing crimes or emergencies in society. based in new York city, he captured the current issues at the time. I have chosen to research Weegee because his picture “the mannequin”, taken in the 1940’s because it relates to the subject of object and body. This photograph is particularity interesting because the photograph features both a body and a body as an object. Weegee is one of my favorite documentary photographers of all time, his eye for detail in social situations is why he is one of the greatest photographers of all time.

I chose to research Weegee for Object and body because of this photograph of a man carrying a mannequin. The Photo could have a number of different meanings relating to object and body. The object in the photograph being a female mannequin, could portray the objectifying attitude men had towards women at the time this photograph was take. The female gender at the time would have been largly viewed as objects rater then human beings during the 1940’s, to please their husbands and bring up the children at home, so its ironic that the photograph taken by Weegee the female is in fact the only object in the photograph, surrounding by a group of men.

By adding relevant objects into photographs can portray meaning into photographs. By using objects that relate to the body that is being photographed can be a useful tool when creating meaningful pieces of artwork. I will consider using objects that relate to my subject in future shoots. This could relate to my final piece for this unit because I am making the body an object within my collage work.

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Mann Ray – Object and body

Object and Body, Photo Object, Year 2

Mann Ray is one of the most well known artists of all time, from his invention of the Rayograph to his famous collage work, Ray has a huge portfolio of amazing pieces of work. I chose to research Mann Ray in relation to object and body because of his work from 1936 photographing Dora Maar with an african mask. The idea of placing an object with the body is something fine artists and photographers have done for many years. Ray’s image from 1936 shows both object and body together, however the object is a mask with clear facial features, making the object a clear relation the body in the photograph. The mask is placed parallel to the models face, perhaps indicating the similar features or purpose of the model.

The model (Dora Maar) is laying with her head on the table with a lifeless look on her face in a some what similar to the expression on the mask. Mann Ray posed the model in such a way to possibly to point out the model could be replaced by an object. Both Marr and the mask have comparable qualities. By placing the model and the mask together could indicate to Ray’s vision of the future, replacing models with objects. The image by Ray could also point to models being treated as object and not as human beings. The second theory seems more likely as Ray would have had to been very ahead of his time to think of such a theory. Looking at Mann Ray’s image of Dora Maar from 1936 has helped in my research for this photo object unit.

This photograph along with Ray’s many other pieces of work has inspired me to consider using various different objects in the photo object unit. Since my final piece is going to be based around image manipulation/collage I will consider using objects to manipulate my images, either through the use of collage or in the raw photographs.

Object and Body Workshop

Object and Body, Photo Object, Photo object test shoots, Year 2

Today I took part in another studio based workshop, once again there was two different studio set ups for me to use each with slightly different lighting set ups. The main difference between the studio set ups was the backgrounds (one with a white background and the other with a black background). Each studio set up gave me different results due to the difference in equipment. The main benefit of this workshop was getting to use the Hasselblad cameras. Getting the opportunity to use Hasselblad to shoot in the studio was a privilege. The workshop looked at relating people to objects so during this workshop I focused on simple portraits.

Because of my artist research linking to collage work for my final piece, I decided to use this studio session to focus on capturing simple portraits. I wanted to focus on plain portraits because I am later doing to use the photographs from this workshop and create a series of different collages, deconstructing the face of the model and putting the print back together again. After shooting in the workshop I chose one photograph to edit in the second half of the workshop. In the afternoon I took part in an advanced photoshop lesson. I was taught a number of very useful photoshop skills that will come in handy in the future, these skills included; burning, curves, shot heal and layers. During this photoshop session I was also introduced to Wacom tablets. Wacom tablets are a handy tool which makes editing a lot easier and a lot more precise.

Overall I found this workshop to be really useful especially the photoshop workshop. I now have a greater understanding of the importance of photoshop and how I can improve my work through the use of photoshop. Below are the photographs I took from todays workshop sessions and some of the outcomes I produced during this workshop.