Part 1: Analyse an Essay

For this exercise, we looked at the essay “Understanding a Photograph,” written by John Berger in 1972.

 

First, a sentence to summarise each paragraph:

Para 1: Is photography considered a fine art?

Para 2 : Not many museums hold photographs, making photography more accessible to the public.

Para 3: Works of art are valuable property.

Para 4: Images are infinitely reproducible, and therefore have no property value.

Para 5: A photo shows a message about the event it records.

Para 6: Why did the photographer choose THAT moment to record?

Para 7: Differences between photography and painting – painting involves arranging things.

Para 8: What gives the photo meaning may depend on the observer’s understanding of the background.

Para 9: The moment the shutter is pressed is what is recorded.

Para 10: Painting interprets the world in a different way, photography has no language of its own.

Para 11: Choosing the moment to preserve within a continuum.

Para 12: What is present and what is absent are both important in a photo.

Para 13: The message may be very simple.

Para 14: Photos are a view of reality that may be used against us.

 

Summarising his paper into one sentence: Photography is unique, and shouldn’t be judged in the same way as painting, sculpture and other fine arts.

 

John Berger is known for his socio-political stance. How is that reflected in his argument?

He makes reference to social class, and ‘nobility’ owning works of art, and of this being out of reach to the general public. At the end, he also talks about using photography as a weapon, which could be seen as political.

 

Are you convinced by Berger’s argument? If not, why not?

Not really, but the main reasons are to do with the fact that the article is 40 years old and the digital age has changed things considerably. Museums and galleries also seem to have more photography now, and it seems to be taken as a form of art. There is also a lot more digital manipulation, and this can be seen as unreal, in the same way potentially as painting might be seen. I also disagree that photography has no value as it is easily reproducible, again this is not always true, many images can be sold at auction for a high value.

 

What is your opinion of Berger’s writing style?

At first, I found the essay quite hard to read as it was a bit old fashioned. Some concepts have changed so much today that from that aspect it was also quite hard to read. It also requires a fair amount of concentration and reading through in order to get the overall message.

Part 1: Research and Analyse

For this exercise we were given 4 photographs to choose from in order to research the photo and then make an analysis of it, in a similar way to how we looked at our own photograph.
 

I chose the image of the ‘Afghan Girl’ by Steve McCurry, as this is an image I have seen as part of an exhibition of his work from Muslim countries at the Islamic Arts Museum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a few years ago. The image was printed in a large format as you walked into the exhibition, and made you stop and look more closely. I also bought a set of Steve McCurry postcards many years ago, and put this one on my wall at boarding school. I also remember seeing the National Geographic documentary about them trying to find her again.

The first impressions of this photo are that I am drawn to her piercing green eyes, and the rich colours of her clothing and the background. The non-descript look on her face both hides and shows emotion. The colours under her ripped scarf are the same as the background, making her fit well into the environment.

Steve McCurry was on a photo shoot for National Geographic, documenting the lives of orphaned refugees from Afghanistan who had crossed in to Pakistan. It was during the Soviet War in Afghanistan, and her parents were killed in the fighting, prompting her grandparents to take her and her brother to Pakistan. He was telling the story of their plight, and went to a tent village where they lived to do this. This photo was taken in the school. When he saw the girl, she was extremely shy and so he photographed her classmates first and then approached her. He knew once he started he had a limited time as people in this situation get bored easily.

The shoot was planned in that he was on assignment, but on this kind of assignment I am not sure how much you can predict the images you will capture. To take the shot, he used a Nikon FM2 with a 105mm f2.5 lens. He used Kodachrome colour slide film. It was taken in December 1984, at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan.

The photo is well and evenly lit, there seem to be no shadows on the face. The colours are rich and clear. The photographers intent was to capture the lives of refugees from Afghanistan. This lady has only been photographed twice in her life, at this time and then when the National Geographic team returned in 2002 to try and find her. Steve McCurry has a lot of images in his collection in the same style, cropped portrait focusing mainly on the eyes.

There is a lot of information about this image and the story of the girl’s plight. There is also a lot of information about how the image was taken, and there was a documentary about how National Geographic found her in 2002.

The image was successful, one report says that the editor developed the film and then contacted Steve McCurry to report that they had a good photo. The image then made the cover in June 1985, then later the cover of National Geographic’s 100 Best Pictures. The image has also been used by Amnesty International to symbolise the refugee problem. When the team returned to find the girl in 2002, she was given funding so that her children could go to school, which is something she desperately wanted for them.

Links:

http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/photography/events/2011/september/07/revealed-the-true-story-behind-the-afghan-mona-lisa/

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2002/04/afghan-girl/index-text

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/03/0311_020312_sharbat.html

http://www.changesinlongitude.com/steve-mccurry-afghan-girl-cover-photo/

http://www.lomography.com/magazine/lifestyle/2011/03/01/influential-photographs-afghan-girl-1984-by-steve-mccurry

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/steve-mccurry-photographing-the-essential-soul-2013387.html

Part 1: Analyse a photograph

For this we were asked to analyse one of our own photographs, following a 10 part structure. It has to be an image we were happy with and we then wrote around 500 words about it.

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My first impressions when I look at this photo is of an English summer, and I am drawn to the golden colour of the cliff on th right hand side. The contrast between that and the blue of the sea and sky reminds me of home and the changes between seasons that I miss in Borneo. I am also drawn to the lines just off the centre of the picture.

The genre of the photo is landscape, a British beach scene. It fits the genre without question, although there are people in the distance they are most definitely not the subject of the photo.

The photo was taken as part of a project for the OCA landscape course, looking at different levels of the horizon. Whilst doing the shoot, I was also taking photos in order to have shots of the area to look at as I live abroad. I wanted shots that showed the contrast between the sky and sand.

As I was walking along  the beach taking shots of varying horizon lines, I saw the log in the distance and decided that I wanted to use it in some shots. I liked the shape of the log and the way the colour almost blended with the colour of the sand. There are people in the shot but they are far in the distance and only just visible.

The photograph was semi-planned – I had the shoot planned for the landscape module, but along the way I was looking for different viewpoints and shots in order to show people the beach when I went back overseas. I was conscious that I wanted something to show the colours, although I was not out shooting at golden hour due to availability of transport. The horizon line is placed using the rule of thirds, in the lower third of the image.

The shot was taken on a Nikon d90, at 18mm as I wanted as wide an angle as possible. I used an aperture of  f11 to show a little more detail in the shot, and a shutter speed of 1/640s as the sun was quite bright in the scene. The ISO was 200, the lowest I could set on the camera as it was a brightly lit scene. I knelt down to get a slightly different perspective and to help get the log where I wanted it.

I took it in a style to show the strong colours, although a deeper blue in the sky would have better shown this.

The intent of the photographer in this case was to take an image to use to show others and for her to remember the place. During the shoot I was using and challenging the rule of thirds, and in this case think it works. Post processing involved a slight change in levels and sharpening.

I believe the image works for the purposes I took it for. Of course, images are subjective and others may not think that it is successful!

Analysing the image helped me look at it in depth and think a lot about it. I had to look closely and think about the decisions I took at the time. Using the structure helped me to organise my thoughts more clearly and gave me a chance to critique my work in detail.

Part 1:Write a Caption

The first caption was about the SUBJECT of the photo:

A young green turtle swimming around Pom Pom Island in the Celebes Sea, Sabah. Green sea turtles are drawn to the sea grass which forms a major part of their diet. Pom Pom Island has lost a lot of coral to bomb fishing, but the conservation group TRACC are working on coral replanting, attracting more marine life back to the island.

The second was a caption about the photographic elements of the image:

The angle the turtle is taken at indicates that the photographer must have been swimming alongside, and the all important eyes are clear in the image, despite the front not being the main focus. There is evidence of other marine life in the background, and of the deep sea being ahead, adding an element of mystery to the image.

Part 1: Describe a Photograph

I was out taking underwater photos of fish when I found 3 turtles at various parts of my swim. I wanted to swim with them and document them with both photo and video as they are amazing creatures to watch and I wanted to share the experience with my family. I have always been fascinated with turtles and the water around Pom Pom Island in the Celebes Sea has a lot of them. I wanted to take photos so you could see that I was swimming with them rather than being in front and getting the turtle head on as this may frighten them. I was almost swimming above this young green turtle when I took the photo. I have only taken photos of turtles once before, the other times I have seen them I have not had a camera with me. The first time I was pretty happy with the images but feel this time was better as I knew more about what to expect. The other thing I was noticing as I shot was that there is some more coral now and a lot more fish, this is an area where bomb fishing has killed lots of coral but replanting has meant the fish are coming back. Turtles like the area as there is grass for them to feed on and they also nest on the island. I used my Nikon coolpix underwater digital camera as this is waterproof to 10m.. I used it in the special underwater mode, then changed the levels slightly in photoshop elements 8 until I felt the turtle was the correct colour as I remembered it. The water was quite shallow and we were mainly over sand rather than a large coral reef. I also had to be quite mindful of what direction I was taking photos in as looking in some directions meant the light was terrible due to the angle of the sun on the water. I also had to swim pretty fast to keep up – turtle chasing is definitely a good form of aerobic exercise!