Documentary Photography 2012/13

As well as the feedback we have already recieved for our entire project including the blog and my 24/7 images, there was also some notes around the images, which I have decided to show on here, this would be useful if I was to retry my 24/7 project or change any of the photographs in anyway. Any feedback or notes are useful to get the best possible marks! - Once again, I have used the purple text as any notes I wanted to make on my images, and the red for the notes my lecturer has made. So there are a few photographs which I could potentially change to get the extra marks, and as my lecturer stated, it would be nice if there were more photographs of my grandmother interacting with others, which I did not have many of. Also, I could include other family member, including my Grandfather, just to show that she isn't on her own.  It might be worth going to take another shoot with my grandmother!

F EEDBACK S O F AR. During our second week back in the New Year, we recieved feedback about our 24/7 project, and also our journal/workbook/progress or in my case, my blog, if it was brought into our lecture, luckily I just gave my lecturer the link to my lecture.  On the images - "Narrative isn't that clear. A good establishing shot and images of her talking to customers, also what does she do there? Cut down the 'at rest' images and include more of her talking to customers. Photography is good, narrative is weak. [50]" Written Evaluation - "I'm taking the bit on the blog as the written element? Needs to be critical- look at the images individually and as a sequence - do they work? Show them to others. How can you make them better? [42]" Visual Diary - "Blog is looking good - good annotation made by you. It would be better if you explored further, maybe contemporary documentary etc. If you keep going as you are, it could ...

With regards to my blog, I have decided to use different colour text throughout in order to organise my own text and those which I have looked at from various websites, I've also tried to include the websites which I have found the information from.

24/7 Project - On my Grandmother I decided to do my 24/7 project on my grandmother. Currently living in a terrace house in my home town with my Grandfather, my grandmother, Glenda, lives a fairly interesting day to day life, if I do say so myself. Currently in her late 60's, and still working a part-time job in a small cafe in town, my grandmother enjoys cooking and every week she'll head to her usual club for a night of bingo and drinks.  I decided to base the project on 'Mam' mostly due to the fact that I know her, and know she'd be easy to photograph and I wouldn't need to tell her not to smile, I could be floating in the background quite easily,  unnoticed, and this was important when trying to capture her every day doings.  Personally, I don't feel that close to my grandmother, even though I can easily spend time with her, chatting and what not, but I don't know feel like I know what she's really like.  I really enjoyed spending this t...

24/7 - Glenda Jones - A Day with Mam. Planning To begin, I met Mam in the small coffee shop which she goes to most mornings before she beginnings work at 11am or if she's not working. She was there with my Aunty, as she normally is, where they sit and chat over a cup of coffee with a free refill. I was fairly, unnecessarily nervous and shy, but this eased off as the day went on. When Mam got to work I decided to take the Sander style photograph straight away, while it was quiet, then I kept in the background, photographing now and again, unnoticed, focusing on the area where Mam works. I noticed the yellow from the bright colour scheme, filled the photograph, which I thought might be slightly over powering, but when I'm only planning on using 4 or 5 of the photographs of my grandmother in work in the final selection, I figured that the yellow might not be so obvious, especially after they've been turned black and white. While sitting in the coffee shop, takin...

It is important to research various different styles of documentary photographers, as well as portraiture and various other which I have looked at, there is also the contemporary style documentary photography. Researching this would give me a better idea about how you can push the boundaries of photography.  http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/c/contemporary-documentary-photographers/ I began my research by searching for contemporary documentary photographers on major gallery websites, as the screen shot above shows, the V & A website had the most useful page. It highlighted the work of several recognisable contemporary documentary photographers, these photographers included: Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Clare Richardson, Albrecht Tubke, Deirdre O'Callaghan, Roger Ballen, Tina Barney, Donovan Wylie and Allan Sekula. The V&A showed a single image of each of the photographers, but it also included an interview with each one, which was very useful. Out of ...

Richard Avedon Richard Avedon was best known for his fashion photography and the minimalistic portraits that changed the world of fashion. He shot photographs for such well known fashion magazines as Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, capturing the emotion and movement of his models, a huge leap from the usual motionless, still fashion photography. He was born in New York City on May 15th, 1923. His mother, Anna Avedon was part of a family of dress manufacturers and his father, Jacob Israel Avedon owned a clothing store called 'Avedon's Fifth Avenue', so from the start he was brought into the world of fashion. He instantly took a great interest in fashion, and he would enjoy photographing the clothing in his father's store. At the age of 12, he joined the Young Men's Hebrew Association Camera Club. “One evening my father and I were walking down Fifth Avenue looking at the store windows. In front of the Plaza Hotel, I saw a bald man with a camera posin...

Looking at the works of Sander & Avedon Even though we looked very briefly at a collection of street photographs, there were a selection of photographers that we looked at in depth who we could have used for Street Portraits but they would also be useful in other aspects of Documentary Portraiture. The photographers which we focused on in class included August Sander and Richard Avedon, both very recognised portraiture photographers. August Sander. Sander is to be considered one of the greatest photographers of history, and was revolutionary in his work towards Documentary Photography.  A German photographer, who spent seven years as a miner and a period of national service before he became involved in the arts. He studied painting in Dresden in 1901 which opened the opportunity to approach photography artistically. He began working for photographic firms in Berlin, Magdeburg, Halle and Dresden from 1898 which developed his interest in the medium. He worked and ran ...

Farm Security Administration http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fabout.html The Farm Security Administration or the FSA more recognisably known as, was a project set-up by President Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1935 and 1944 as an extensive pictorial record of American life. The project initially documented cash loans made to individual farmers by the ResettlementAdministration and the construction of planned suburban communities. The second stage focused on the lives of sharecroppers in the South and migratory agricultural workers in the midwestern and western states.  The images show Americans at home, at work, and at play, with an emphasis on rural and small-town life and the adverse effects of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and increasing farm mechanisation. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Jack Delano, Marion Post Wolcott, Gordon Parks, John Vachon, and Carl Mydans In total the collection consists of about 164,000...

Assignment Three - 24/7 This assignment is a a 24/7 narrative assignment, and in depth documentary recording of 24 hours in the life of someone who is employed, this will allow the chance to capture the person in work and out of work.  It is required to find a subject to photograph over the 24 hour period, to create a 'day in the life of' feel.This can be carried out over several days and then brought together to create the narrative.  The work has to show the subject at both time of work and time of rest and at least one photograph should be in the style of Richard Avedon, this should include a white background, and one photograph in the style of August Sander. It must be completed in Black and White, but can be shot in either digital or film.  It must be clear where the subject works in the photographs, what that work entails. It's important to keep your eyes open for the decisive moment! and look for composition within your photographs and in th...

"Hi! How would you like to help me with my University Project?" And these lovely strangers said yes. Here are my final photographs for my Street Portrait Assignment. I was extremely nervous when approaching strangers to photograph. It was difficult to find the approachable strangers, who might have been more than happy to help, although it did take me a long time to approach the first person I photographed, but in the end I forced myself to do it, especially as I was running out of time because I'd put it off for so long, simply down to my nerves. After asking the third or fourth person, it became easier to accept rejection and moving on.  I was very surprised how many people actually said yes! To begin, I asked people if they had a spare minute, but this gave them a chance to say they were busy, so I changed my opening line to "How would you like to help me with my university project?" I thought this worked very well, making people feel like they wer...