Discussion 12

Advancement of Digital Photography

Digital cameras were a huge advancement in photography.  The first generation ones had fewer upsides to them compared to now.  You had this camera that now didn't need film, had a view finder on the back and was really small.  The memory card made it very easy to transfer images from your camera to your computer.  You could also take as many pictures as you wanted since it wasn't wasting film anymore.  If you had some images that you didn't like then you could get rid of them.  Later on you could get standard digital camera which were almost on the level of the old SLR cameras.  These also cost 7-8 times less.  For those that liked the SLR could get the new DSLR which still provided the much better imagery that SLR's had over regular cameras.  There were also functions that would be very tedious for regular cameras that digital cameras could do with ease.  Things like exposed shots and motion sensor shots could be done now with the press of a button. 

Discussion 6

Documenting the Great Depression

During the great depression television had just recently been released to the public.  Not everyone had one and those who did probably could only get local channels.  The people new they were in a depression but it was hard for people to see the extent of it.  Photographs bridged that gap.  Photographs gave the general public the ability to see what was going on in the rest of their country. 

The image Migrant Mother from Dorothea Lange became one of the most famous photos out of the Great Depression.  It was sort of the epitome of the depression.  Here was a mother with her children huddle around her.  All of them were hungry and desperate.  There were probably many people who saw this image and could relate.

Discussion 2

Introduction

Hi, I'm Rob.  I am currently in Game development.  I have always been interested in photography.  I have always preferred taking pics of landscapes and animals.  I probably have bought over 7 cameras(digital and film).  I currently have a Fuji Film Fuji Pix s bridge camera and a 8 mp camera on my phone.  I am hoping to get a small camera soon for events where my Fuji isn't allowed.

Discussion 1

What We See

With the advancement of cameras came further advancement in science.  Before to see anything close-up scientists would individually have to view it through a microscope.  Now we are able to view plants and animals under the microscope and take high resolution photo's.  This helps greatly when trying to teach students in university.  Before the close-ups would be illustrations and only showed the most important parts.  Students can now see it exactly how it is which would be a great advantage.

Assignment 5- The Work of Dorothea Lange

 Nikki Sixx

 Sabi Sabi South Africa - Nikki Sixx

 Nikki Sixx

 Nikki Sixx

 Nikki Sixx

 Cambodia. - Nikki Sixx

Inside Angkor Wat… - Nikki Sixx

Photography is one of few things that can stand the test of time.  Even with the advancements in cameras many photographs taken 100 years ago have more impact than photographs taken today with the best camera money can buy.  Dorothea Lange is one of these photographers.  Even though her most famous photos came from the Second World War her photographs have stood the test of time.  A simple Google search for famous photographers will show sites with lists of the top photographers.  In the majority of these lists Dorothea Lange is in the top 5-7.  Dorothea believed in creating happiness out of sadness and that the camera was a powerful tool.  She also had plenty of patience and roamed until the right shot showed up.  The images above are similar to that style Dorothea used.

                Dorothea Lange took photographs which captured a moment in time.  “Photography takes an instant out of time altering life by holding it still” was a famous quote from her which is represented in her work.  This idea means taking a moment in time and making it immortal.  All of her subjects showed varying emotions and looked natural; like the people never knew she was there.  A good way she shows this is with the subjects not looking at the camera. Her most famous photograph “Migrant Mother” depicts these ideas and techniques very well.

                Dorothea Lange travelled to many places.  While travelling she would document the rural hardships people endured.  She took many photographs during this time.  Her most notable ones were during the great depression and inside the Japanese-American internment camps after the Pearl Harbour incident.  She tried to take photographs of the people who were supposed to be at some of the lowest times of their lives.  From her images no one would be able to tell this.  Her main belief was to make her photographs uplifting even if the subjects were not.

                Unlike the photo-journalists of today Dorothea was more humble.  She would not get in people’s faces or ask them to pose for her.  She was considered a very quiet and stealthy photographer.  She would wander around until she saw something she liked.  Once her camera was out if she noticed the subjects objected in any way she would not take the picture and put the camera away.  Many times those who had objected would eventually open up as everyone got used to her.

                Dorothea thought of her camera as a powerful tool. “I believe the camera is a powerful tool for communication and…a valuable tool for social research which has not been developed to its capacity.” Is something she wrote in her application for a Guggenheim Fellowship.  She left her portrait studio so that she could photograph economic disasters.  She felt using her camera to show the mass audiences what was going on in the world was more important than the ordinary photography she was previously doing.

               Dorothea Lange was a photo journalist who believed that her camera was a tool.  She believed that informing the world about the economic disasters through her photography was more important than her old work as a portrait photographer.  She wanted to express everything that was going on but she was never willing to take a picture of someone who objected.  She had a firm belief that photography takes a moment time and keeps it still  while altering life.

References

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0812/beyond-icons-and-the-art-market-dorothea-lange-as-documentary-photographer.html

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fachap03.html

http://www.thefirst10000.com/2012/05/beyond-photography-robert-hughes-meet-dorothea-lange/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/dec/06/dorothea-lange-biography-review

Assignment 2 - Artistic Vs Press Photographs

Artistic

Press

Every day there are many photographs taken. The majority of these can be categorized into photos for personal use and photos meant to be shared.  Of the photos meant to be shared the 2 most popular groups are artistic and press photos.  These 2 types of photos have totally different meanings.  Artistic lacks meaning and is meant for the viewer to interpret and give thought on it.  Press on the other hand tells you what it is trying to convey.

                Artistic shooting is about getting the perfect shot. It can be attained by waiting for the perfect shot, making a set up or by manipulating the shot to your liking. Above I have 2 artistic photos taken from the amazon rainforest.   One shows a pair of parrots just having some fun and the other is a nice scenic view of a waterfall.  Depending on whether the photographer for the parrots was a professional or an amateur the way this photo was taken could be totally different. An amateur may have crawled through rainforest waiting hours for the perfect shot with the perfect lighting.  A professional may have brought 2 trained parrots in, set them up perfectly then taken the shot.  The waterfall would have taken less time; just setup and wait for the shot.  The image also looks manipulated as well.

                Press photos are meant to be informative for a large audience.  The images themselves may not always tell the whole story, but they’re usually accompanied with a news article, news report, website page or blog post.  These images can be manipulated, but unlike artistic photos the manipulation isn’t to make it look pretty.  Above I have 2 images that were meant to tell stories about incidents happening in the Amazon Rainforest.  The first is a picture of a small tribe which had little to no communication with the outside world.  This fact is made evident in the image since the tribes people are looking at the helicopter the picture is taken from.  The people are pointing at it with confused looks on their face.  It is also mentioned in the article that this tribe went extinct because of a possible bad interaction with a drug group.  The second image is meant to show the amount of lumber illegally deforested over the last 23 years.  This image has been has been manipulated to make it easier to understand without its article. The image was turned into a line graph showing the amount of forest cut down from 1988 – 2011. The space above the line has an image showing the rainforest untouched.  Under the line has an image that shows and area of the forest that has been clear cut

Reference 

http://www.newser.com/story/110968/brazil-releases-photos-of-endangered-tribe.html

http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html

http://www.pipestonetravel.com/?p=295

http://multichrome.blogspot.ca/2011/01/top-10-mysterious-places-to-visit-in.html

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Assignment 1 - Photo Manipulation

Here is the first assignment for my online elective Photography: Shooting the Truth.  We were suppose to take a couple images we either found or took ourselves and were suppose to photo-manipulate them.  In terms of my skill with photo manipulation it's okay. I am in the Game Development program and we have used Photoshop a lot for assignments, but we have only done a little of this sort of stuff.  We had 1 class in first year that taught photo manipulation.  That was 2 years ago so i had forgotten a a lot of stuff. This assignment was sort of a refresher into photo manipulation.

The first on i did was a cityscape shot of Toronto.

The first is the original and the second is the manipulated one.  My aim for this picture was simply to change the atmosphere/weather.  I changed it from an overcast evening with the sunset in the background off picture to just a regular overcast day.  To do this i had to separate the city and water from the clouds since the clouds needed a lot less done to them.  For the clouds i just turned them black and white and put a bluish-gray cover overlay on it.  For the city and water i did the same but i had to overlay the black/white layer with the colour overlay onto the original image so i could keep the color from the paint, metal and lights on the buildings. I had to a bit of clone stamping on the water to get rid of areas that were reflecting too much colour from the original sky.

For my second image i decided to turn a picture of a green forest into an autumn forest.  I always like the scenery of autumn and since it is officially autumn I decided that it would be something cool to do.  Unfortunately i miss judged how long this would take and had to stop before i was totally happy with it. To start out i black and whited the image then threw a blank layer over it that was set to overlay so the image showed underneath it.  I then grabbed a couple colour from an actualy picture of autumn trees then started brushing over patches of trees with each colour.  Some trees look natural but it seems the red i chose was too vibrant and it's obvious that it's just red painted over black and white.

Well that is it for my photo manipulation assignment.  I actually had a lot of fun doing these, but I am still a little bummed about the second photo.