Portraits

Friday, 4 February 2011

Uniform

A uniform is what identifies everyone as part of one community, at school there's a uniform in order to make everyone equal, at work there's uniform to represent the company and stand out to customer's or clients.

Dictionary definition: (adjective)

1. Always the same, as in character or degree; unvarying

2. Conforming to one principle, standard, or rule; consistent

3. Being the same as or consonant with another or others

4. Unvaried in texture, colour or design

Paul Shambroom, meetings.

Joe McNally - The hero's of Ground Zero (book)

Photographic portraiture and commodity culture

"The way in which photographic genres were affected by capitalism is illustrated in Tagg's essay by the demand for photographic portraits in the nineteenth century by the rising middle and lower-middle classes, keen for objects symbolic of high social status. The photographic portraits were affordable in price, yet were reminiscent of aristocratic social ascendancy signified by 'having one's portrait done'. "

Photographic portraiture and commodity culture - page 196 Photography: A Critical Introduction (third edition), Edited by Liz Wells. Published 2004

In the beginning of photography equipment was large, heavy and only affordable to those who were classed as high-class within society. Also because it's was classed as a luxury to be photographed again only high-class and middle-class social groups were photographed. Portraits were seen as a way of keeping a snapshot of time.

Bill Brandt

20th Century Photographer

Website: http://www.billbrandt.com

After looking at the Brandts images of closes up on the body it has encouraged me to look at exploring close ups myself.

Eliot Elisofon

Unfortunately I couldn't include any images as they wouldn't save properly.

Website: http://sirismm.si.edu/siris/eepatop.htm

Archive of images available from: http://collections.si.edu/search/results.jsp?view=grid&fq=online_media_type%3A%22Images%22&q=photographs+OR+negatives&fq=name:%22Elisofon%2C+Eliot%22

Thursday, 3 February 2011

Relationship between the photographer and models.

I've had an idea... I was thinking about the relationship between the photographer and the model and how the model never knows the model yet there allowing them to photograph them anyway. I was then going onto thinking about how people will act around me when I ask to photograph them. I know that it would be easy to photograph my boyfriend and brother as they are both always happy to be photographed and willing to listen to what I ask them to do. I then thought about my parents and how it's always difficult to photograph them as they always end up telling me what to do.

Anyway moving onto my epiphany, I was thinking about what people would write if I gave them a piece of paper to write something about the photographer, I then also thought about if I asked the model to write the relationship to the photographer on a piece of paper, would like affect how they act within the outcome of the image? Would the images of my family be different to those of people I do not know very well?

I am going to experiment with this in one of my photo shoots to see what the results are as I am very excited to try it out.