Assignment 2

After our first presentation we were given a brief for our second presentation, for this presentation we were again using the same photographer, mine being Rut Blees Luxemburg. This time we had to look at a monography by our photographer, we had to research the following points and include what we found/learnt into the 5 minute presentation we have to do:

 

·        What is the significance or meaning to the overall title of the work?

·        What was the social context at the time of the works production? (consider the year, location, political or economic climate, photographer’s own personal circumstances, etc.)

·        Is there an interesting story to tell about the way the work was made? (consider the technical, psychological or social challenges the photographer faced in making the work)

·        Is the work considered to be important or significant in any way? If so, why and by whom?

·        What are the recurring themes or ideas contained in this body of work?

·        Consider the book design – orientation, scale, paper texture and weight, the materiality of the cover and binding. Think about the layout (are images presented full-bleed on a page or are they framed? How prominent is any text accompanying each image?)

·        Consider the information accompanying each image (including text, graphics, drawings, captions, titles, etc.)

First presentation...

During our first presentation I took notes, writing down the information I had learnt about other photographer's, from the other people who were doing presentations in my group.Here is a summary of the notes I made for each photographer.

Bernd and Hilla Becher

• Black and white photographs of mine shafts and industrial buildings 
• They were taken after the second world war
• They were a couple who travelled together to different places to take the photographs
• They documented different areas of the world, taking photographs of the same structures at different times.
• The used large format cameras (8x10) so that the images can be blown up big.

Francesca Woodman

• She took self portraits
• Also specialised in surrealism and futurism
• Within her self portraits she doesn't show all of her body, hiding one part such as her head - playing hide and seek with her camera.
• There is blurred movement within her photos
• She wasn't really revealing who she is/ her personality to the viewer
• Her work relates to her thought process and how she was feeling

Keith Arnatt

• His photographs explore identity - how values are shown
• He makes art out of items we would usually see as anything interesting, being rubbish
• His portrait series documents life and peoples reactions to being photographed
• He makes things interesting due to the use of colours
• He uses shallow depth of field

Pieter Hugo

• He is a portrait photographer as well as documentary and art photography- gallery work
• He focuses on African communities - which is his culture.
• He draws you into his images, they have a deeper meaning than what you would initially think
• He photographs people in their environment, showing reality - people fought for what they needed.
• He photographed where people live.
• You get a sense of what it must of been like - they had to burn old computer parts to get things such as copper and money
• He documents real life situations

Tom Hunter

• He explores his neighbourhood - photographing people
• He photographed their environment as well as how they live
• He wanted to show how all people should be seen the same
• Capturing reality
• He re-creates scenes from old paintings 

Richard Billingham

• He takes family photographs, documenting their life style and whats happening
• He shows his family lifestyle
• You are able to see how his family are through his photographs
• He uses a film camera
• There was a lot of motion within the photographs of his father - due to the fact that he was a drunk and he was unable to keep him still

Wolfgang Tillmans

• He used photocopiers to produce work buy photographing them
• His firs exhibition was in 1988 - work shown was monochrome laser photocopies
• He had metaphorical political views which was shown within his work

Philip Lorca DiCorcia

• Documentary of the great depression - Walker Evans
• His work was influenced a lot by others
• Choreographed images - he sometimes payed people to feature within his photographs
• In one series he used a strobe light trigger to capture images of people as they walked past a laser
• DiCorica has done editorial work for 'W' magazine - advertising

Presentation - Assignment 1

From the research that I have done over the past few days I have definitely been able to look at Rut Blees Luxemburg's work in a different way, having a better understanding of how she takes her photographs, what camera she uses, the time of day she goes out to capture her photographs as well as other things.

I have put all of my findings in to this first presentation; I have uploaded images of my presentation below

 

I think what I have written about within my presentation sums up everything I  have found out about Rut Blees Luxemburg over the past week, I have definitely gained a better understanding of what type of photographs she produces and how she produces them, as she is a night time photographer ( night/ early hours of the morning) she looks at the city when its empty with no people around, and picks up on the things that we wouldn't necessarily pick up of during the day when its light and there is lots of people/traffic around, viewing the environment in a different way.

Assignment 1

For this assignment we have to produce a 5 minute presentation on the photographer that we received. We had to research the following areas and incorporate what we found into the presentations:

• What is their approach/what tradition does their work belong to?

• What is their work about?

• How is their work made? What equipment/techniques do they use?

• Where have they published their work (books, galleries, magazines etc)?

I feel that by researching all of these things I will be able to gain a better understanding of how/why Rut Blees Luxemburg creates her photographs. 
I will take all of the information I have found/learnt and include the most significant and important things within my presentaion.

Exploring photographic practice

For this assignment we have to produce numerous presentations, exploring and researching a photographer.
We received the name of the photographer we would be using by picking a name out of a box, the photographer I got is Rut Blees Luxemburg. I have already researched this photographer previously, therefore I knew a little about her, but not a lot so I knew there was a lot of research and reading that I needed to to to gain a better understanding of her and her work.