Assignment 5 - Virtual Essay

Long time, no see!

Today's entry I'm going to compare and contrast the works of Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, with photograph(er)s of present day.

As a reminder, Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was a pioneer in still photography using a method he and partner Joseph Nicéphore Niépce used called daguerreotype. You can read my first blog post for more information.

Choosing Daguerre is turning out to be a little tricky because one could say that all photography is like his because he was the first. However, Daguerre seemed to have focused on portraits and landscapes. These categories seem pretty broad but he literally did portraits and landscapes.

The following are five images I'm going to try and break down for you:

1. This is from Jerry Spagnoli, who lives and works in New York City. He takes portraits of people using a dageurreotype like camera and also uses the old methods to develope them.

I believe this man's name is James Ivory. I don't know much about him but this photograph is similar to the works of Daguerre because it's very old-timey. I can't tell if it's just the subject that's making it feel that way. The angle of the photo and also where the person is in relation to the actual photo is similar. The photo is still grainy but with the technology of today, there is still some detail. Also, by ‘detail’, I mean only his face is detailed. The rest of him is out of focus.

2. This is a photo of Barack Obama's inaguration. I didn't know it was also by Jerry Spagnoli until I started reading up more about it but anyway..

Kinda of looks like an Instagram, no? More about that below.

This is an almost unreal photograph! I love the blue sky (although probably photo shopped in) and everything looks old again. The building looks scratchy as with other Daguerre photos and the people are blurred probably because of the long exposure. However these people probably weren't moving too much and not quick enough so they were captured. I think the sky is clear not only because maybe it was a nice day but because of the long exposure. If you look at other Daguerre landscape photos there are never any clouds. The only thing sharp in this photograph are the buildings because buildings don't move!

3. This is from local photographer Mike Robinson.

Because everything in this photo doesn't move, he was able to capture, in detail, the bridge and the tree. This photograph is really light and has almost no real colours. This photographer also uses and older style of processing his pictures, which is also likely influenced by Daguerre. He also mostly does portrait and landscape photography, which you can see from the link above.

4. This is a portrait of Patty Smith by my favourite Annie Leibovitz.

I’ve talked about Leibovitz’ work before, and although it is a body of it’s own now, her older material reflected a Daguerre style. It is black and white; even though I’m sure colour film existed at the time, she chose to do this portrait, self portraits, and other modern photos in black and white. There are only real details on the face and some on her clothes. Even though it's a little grainy, her face and shoulders are the focal point of this photo. There isn’t anything in the background as with all portraits from Daguerre’s time.

5. You!

There’s an application (App) for iPhones called Instagram where users can take a photo with their phones and run it under filters to make it look old-timey. It’s popularity comes from the amazing photos it surprisingly takes as well as it lets you share your photos between other users over the phone or social networking like Facebook or Twitter. Now anyone with an iPhone can take pictures that look like they’re from the past. Landscape photos using Instagram often resemble that of a Daguerre photograph. Objects that are further away are more blurry and grainy that the objects that are closer.

*The first photo is by Julia Hurford. The second was found at OkayGreat, and the third was found at Nuwomb.

Assignment 3 - Group Blog Project

*By Justin Wong, Drew Urbonavicius, Dylan Tilston, and Alexandra Mero

Alterations are not allowed in press photography, but they are one of the tools used in contemporary art photography? Why?

After weeks of learning about press type photography it is known that it is very strict when it comes to publications. Although some photographers have modified their images, it is still changing the truth behind the photo.

On the other hand, contemporary art photography is considered to be more freestyle. The photographer is not limited and by no means is bound to any boundaries. They have no restrictions to what they would like to do with their art. The purpose of alterations in contemporary art is to give the audience a different or a new perspective of how the picture is to be read. The freedom that photographers have includes manipulations such as adding or removing or even moving objects and subjects into place. They can even changing the lighting effects or the color scale to bring in different moods. These alteration tools give artists their own personal touch when they spread their images to others.

Compare photographs of Sommer, Adams and Klett versus Parkeharrison, Muniz and Crewdson.

When taking a look at the two categories between the six different artists, distinct differences can be seen. The first group of artists that consists of Sommer, Adams and Klett, we noticed that their choices of prints are mainly black and white. Even though this group of photographers had the choice of colored film, they used the lighting on the scenery to give them the different shades. After looking at the images, it seems as though the main choice of shots consisted of portraits of people, landscapes and structures.

Alternatively the other group of photographers that includes Parkeharrison, Muniz and Crewdson contains pictures that are colorful. Their style of photographs is usually deliberately arranged. For example, Muniz is well known for capturing his artwork that is made from unique materials such as chocolate, puzzle pieces and sugar. Crewdson brings together a combination of different elements to recreate visual renderings of houses. Parkeharrison’s choice of shot consists of fixed objects but at the same time they attempt to bring out the feelings of the photo itself.

What happened to the photography? Is this its future?

When asked what happened to photography, we believe that photography is changing as time goes by. In other words, it is evolving. With the help of technology and the pace that it is growing at, this is the future of photography. Alterations and manipulations are much easier to be done nowadays compared to when Stieglitz captured his first photography.

Discussion Week 9

What's the role of photo journalism?
The role of photojournalism is to give the public a visual of what's going on. Preferably unbiased and as true as possible. Photojournalists are responsible for providing clear, truthful, and accuate images to their readers.

Are there rules that photojournalists should follow? Why? Why not?
Absolutely! There are rules to follow with any kind of journalism, sometimes a photo can tell you more than a written article ever could. A photojournalist must always be showing the truth. A photojournalist should also never doctor their photos unless it is to improve the actual photo.

Is the ethics of taking journalistic photos different than the ethics of writing a news story?
Absolutely not! Before I started at George Brown, I was in journalism and it was always easier to tell the truth with writing than to tell it in a photograph. The photographer should have the same principles like a writer journalist. They also have to be careful of what to include and exclude from their photos.

What's the impact of altering press photographs? Should they be edited (at all) in postproduction?
I can't stress enough how much photos have to tell the truth as much as written articles do, but I also believe a little bit of altering is okay. Only if it involves making it a better photograph.
For example, I was on a tour of the Toronto Star building a few years back and they showed us a picture of a man who was in a car and the glare from the window made it hard to tell what he looked like. The person who was working on the photo simply made it easier to see his face. Other than the glare, nothing was added or taken away.


I'm still having a hard time figuring out what group was supposed to do this week and where there information is :(

Discussion Week 6

1. My opinion based on the readings..

The Great Depression was a gloomy time for all. After the stock market crashed people were out of money, families weren't being fed, and they had to move out of their homes into shanty towns or onto the street.
The photos reflects this notion so well. This photo essay shows pictures of people living in tents, broken down houses and shacks, and men begging for jobs at employment offices. Very powerful photos indeed.

The Migrant Mother photographs show a very personal side of the depression. The woman living in a tent with children looks very unhappy yet it looks like she's thinking about a bright future.
However reading this CNN article tells a different story from her children, who are now in their early 80's. They felt shame, which you can see in the picture. The kids looks cute and shy but they're actually embarassed.


2. I had a hard time finding the group project for this week, maybe it'll pop up soon.

Assignment 2 - Photo manipulation

Hello again!

Today I'm going to discuss photo manipulation using Adobe Photoshop. I briefly talked about photo manipulation in my last post but this time I'll be doing my own photoshopping.

I'm not too experienced with photoshopping programs, I've only ever really taught myself to play around with colours until I think it looks better. Even if I did know really tricky stuff in Photoshop, I don't think I would ever do anything serious like in this controversial commercial for the company Dove.

The following photos I've touched up in Adobe Photoshop CS version 8.0.

This is a photo I took of Tim Delaughter of a band called the Polyphonic Spree. I took this photo in July 2007 at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto.

I find when I'm doing concert photography, red lights are my worst enemy. To be honest, there's not much I can do with this so in this situation I try to do my best in bringing out some of the details by adjusting colours and tones then making in black and white. Also it's best to brighten up the image before hitting the Grayscale button. In retrospect it looks kind of cool still but red isn't really what this band it about.

1) First I adjusted colour levels. I took out as much red as possible. Some of the details came out when I turned down the red.

2) Then I adjusted the saturation to try to take out even more red. This is tricky because you can change the whole look of the image really easily by adding or taking away too much colour! So I could, in theory, make this picture practically black and white by adjusting the red saturation levels to zero!

3) The second last step is to adjust Brightness and Contrast.
Sometimes adding more contrast can give it a dramatic and sometimes "old" look but it can also really darken your image.
If you have a dark image and try to make it bright, you might end up making your image look overexposed.
If you're finding you're constantly wanting to brighten up your images, you should maybe consider that you're doing it wrong. I rarely use these tools, and they didn't seem to do too too much for this photo anyway. Sometimes adjusting your colours will brighten up your image or sometimes even better, brighten up only certain parts of the image.

4) Grayscale; stripping all colour to make it black and white.

This photo is of Ted Leo in July 2008 during a free concert and Yonge and Dundas Square. Side note, one of the best concerts but it started pouring so they had to stop early!

1) The first thing I know I want to do it make him look less red/orange. You can tell on his shirt that there's a light shining on him making him look like that.
I'm again trying to adjust the colour balance. It's important to keep in mind which photos you want to keep colour. You need to make sure it looks like real life and not obscure colours where they don't belong due to bad photoshopping... Unless of course that's the look you want.

2) I'm finding that removing red is making is look brighter too, which is great because I want to use the Brightness tool as little as possible.

3) Then I'm adjusting the Hue/Saturation. Again, this tool makes it possible to get rid of whatever colour you want all together. That's not exactly what I'm trying to do though; I am however trying to give his face a more normal fair skin colour.
In this instance I'm of course trying to get rid of the red. I'm finding that the more red I take out, the more yellow remains and he's beginning to look like he has jaundice.


So now he doesn't look like a tomato. I've also managed to brighten up the background a bit by changing the way the colour blue or cyan look.

I can't do anything fancy but I think I've taught myself all I need to really know.

Assignment 1, Part 1

Hello again!
Today I'm going to be writing about portrait photography, then and now.


What are the main differences and similarities between portraits in the early days of photography and portraits today?

There are many differences from then and now. There are even many different styles and types of portrait photography now because we have so much more technology. Sometimes it's artistic like the works of Annie Leibovitz, and sometimes it's boring like your high school graduation photo.
The only two things that remain the same in my opinion is that portraits usually contain one subject in the shot and that it's a longish exposure to get all the details in one's face.
I find now there is also more lighting involved, especially if you're shooting for a magazine or a high-profile person/event of some kind.

This old family portrait was taken in 1891 Ireland most likely using the Daguerreotype process (This process was discussed in my last post and also a little bit below). This family would have had to hold perfectly still for at least 30 seconds, if not then they would be blurred. Most photos in that time were taken against really plain backgrounds and people had to sit so they would be less likely to move. All the white dots are just from the aging of the actual photo.

This photo of legendary musician Iggy Pop was taken in 2000 by Annie Liebovitz. The lighting is perfect and the shot, although probably not 1000th of a second, still much faster than that of the family above. Look at all the detail everywhere! Face, arms, torso, and even his jeans!


And finally the embarrassing middle school portrait. Nothing too special but there is still clearly much more detail and you bet the exposure time was still faster than the portrait of the family. The photographer may have used a lighting kit as with the other two but this one was probably doctored to take out blemishes or other unflattering bits (More about lighting and doctoring later).

Who was the photographer and who was the subject of photographs in the past and today?
The process of Daguerreotypes process was developed by Louse Daguerre together with Joseph Nicrphore Niepce. Although not used for portraits at first, with time they became more popular around the world by other people making the same instrument (See my last post for more details).
Eventually it did catch on one could be charged a minimal fee to have their portrait taken, much like one can get their passport photo done today.

Portraits in this digital age can be done by anyone, anywhere, and with anyone or anything in them. I mentioned before that there are different types of portraits and here are some examples of modern portrait photography, and of course, pay attention to the detail and note that they're all in pretty amazing colours!

Environmental portrait: a portrait of someone that tells a story about what they do for a living. This is of a cranberry farmer.


Wedding portrait: Every couple does them, and they're almost always "action shots" which absolutely could not be done in the past.


Pet portraits! This one is of my cat by local photographer Piotr Organa. Could you imagine trying to photograph a dog or cat in the 1800's, you'd get a big blob.

What was the impact of technology on the portraits in the past and today?
Technology has had an immense impact on portrait photography and the photography world as a whole. There are new technologies being introduced everyday from many different companies. Portrait photographers are lucky to be able to use more lights, more light trickery, Photoshop programs, better lenses, better bodies, and of course it's all digital!

This is the basic lighting setup for a portrait. Light trickery plays a part in modern portrait photography because you can change the mood of the photo as well as the subject itself. For example, you can make something look dramatic, or fun, or straight-up insanely amazing.


I'm not at all saying that Photoshop programs are the devil because it surely has other uses than just making people look better. Touch-ups like this are okay, when limbs go missing it's a problem.


This Canon 50mm f/1.2 will set you back $1600.. talk about fancy new technology!

Sources:
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dagu/hd_dagu.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype
*I hope I credited everyone, and I left watermarks on pictures that had watermarks

Discussion Week 3

1. My opinion based on the readings:

I think something that has been reproduced over and over again loses it's artistic value. One example of this is the Mona Lisa. The original painting by Leonardo Da Vinci is in the Louvre in Paris, France. The painting is so prominent in pop culture and it's been seen in so many ways that the one time I was in Paris for a few days I had no desire to see it. I can't say the same thing for everyone because I'm sure it attracts people from all over the world every day.

Photography is both a contribution to art and a tool to make art. They go hand in hand! You can't contribute photographic art without a camera. The only argument I would here is that with today's technology, everyone thinks they're a photographer, and so everyone thinks they're an artist.

Henry Peach Robinson created Fading Away because he wanted to show the world that photographic art could be controversial, even if it was a staged event. A lot of today's photography is staged like this, just look at any magazine for example.

What is happening now with digitization is what I mentioned before. The medium is so easily accessible and relatively inexpensive that anyone can take photos and call it art, even if it isn't. Facebook and social networks are filled with trendy people who think they are creating art. Some people actually are and have found their talents through it, and good for them, really. Not everyone with a camera can take a good photo.
On the other hand, it's easier to share pictures with other people over social networks.
It's a double edged sword methinks.


2. My reflection on the groups presentation:

I think I was on a different page. They definitely get into more detail about everything from counterfeiting art to advertisers being able to use photographs instead of painting or drawing them like on Mad Men.
Overall I think they did a pretty good job.

Week 2 - Learning activities

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to pick one from the list or just do both, so I'll do both.


Why did the world first love photographs?

In my opinion I would think people liked the idea of keeping a physical record of something they've seen or liked because we all know that memory eventually fades. Even though photography has evolved into an art form (some might even argue a science), people still take pictures for the same reasons they used to; a long lasting memory.


Who were the first photographers?
Apparently photography went as far back as 4th and 5th century BC. Someone discovered that certain chemicals are affected by light and they just kept working with those.

Daguerreotype is one of the oldest types of photography. It was an image produced on a highly polished, silver-plated sheet of copper. In 1829, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre had formed a partnership with Nicéphore Niépce, and they both were trying to discover a way to capture photos. They were both influenced by what they saw in their camera obscuras, which I'll talk about later on.
Niepce died in 1833 but Daguerre continued their work and eventually got the courage to start showing his invention to other scientists. On August 19, 1839, Daguerre explained the process for the Académie des Sciences and the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

From Wikipedia: Boulevard du Temple, Paris, Spring 1838, by Daguerre (the first photograph of a person ever made). The image shows a busy street, but because exposure time was more than ten minutes, the moving traffic does not appear. Only a man getting his boots polished, the shoe-shine boy, and two people sitting at a table nearby stood still long enough for their image to be captured. The image is reversed (as were all Daguerreotypes) as is evidenced by the writing on a building in upper left.

Eventually his invention started appearing in other parts of Europe through other scientists and eventually to North America.
Although an amazing invention at the time, the complex and labour intensive process led to other devices to be made. Also the mercury that it needed to make pictures eventually poisoned people who may have used a Daguerre.


Before that was the Camera Obscura, which didn't actually make photographs, but projected an image of its surroundings on a screen. It could project and image on a piece of paper and then someone could come over and trace the image. Using mirrors, you could project a right-side-up image.

18th century artist using a camera obscura

Before that was the Physionotrace. This method of portraits didn't actually yield photographs. I've had a really hard time trying to figure out how people used to get portraits with this machine because in this video it just looks like a silhouette
Physionotrace


After Daguerre however, was the Calotype process. It was introduced in 1841 by William Henry Fox Talbot, using paper coated with silver iodide. A negative was exposed in the camera, developed in a dark room and then printed on sensitive paper much like how film is developed nowadays. Without getting into the chemical details, it was superior to Daguerre because it was a little bit easier to make copies of an image.

London, 1845 taken by Talbot

Under near-total darkness, the sensitive calotype paper was loaded in the camera. It was exposed, sometimes for as little as ten seconds, usually for a time closer to a minute or more.

Again, the processing was quite similar to how film is treated nowadays (from the University of Glasgow): An invisible latent image was formed by the action of light. A fresh solution of gallo-nitrate of silver was brought into play. Washed over the sheet of paper in a darkened room, it developed a visible image, usually within a few seconds. When the operator judged that the development had proceeded far enough, the paper was then washed over with a fixing liquid. This was sometimes a solution of potassium bromide and sometimes a solution of hypo. Washing and drying completed the process.


Anybody who inspired me and why?

When I first got into photography was during my first year of college in 2005. I was studying journalism at the time and we had to learn how to shoot our stories. But eventually I got into concert photography because of my passion for music.

My influences included some local photographers who I eventually became friends with and who could give me pointers from time to time. I love looking at pictures of my favourite bands in action and it's challenging because sometimes you never know what they're going to do next.
(Rock Paper Pixels and Sticky Magazine)

Also specifically Annie Leibovitz who worked for Rolling Stone magazine in the 70's and 80's and more recently for Vanity Fair. She's more a portrait photographer, it's something I haven't seriously tried my hand at yet. It's intimidating but that's why I like her so much.
(Vanity Fair work)


Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dagu/hd_dagu.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calotype
http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/specialcollections/collectionsa-z/hilladamson/calotypeprocess/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Fox_Talbot