The Nude, Conceptual Approaches to Fine Art Photography

The Nude, Conceptual Approaches to Fine Art Photography, by Jennifer (Zivolich) Emery, published by Amherst Media, ISBN: 978-1682032527

This is a paperback fully illustrated book offering ideas for images of nude females. The book was okay, it described lighting layouts for the studio subject matter illustrated and tips on health and safety if using a fire eater, but it wasn’t very technically detailed nor did it offer a comprehensive range of poses that could help inspire fresh ideas. Only good if you want to copy the ideas presented but not much use in helping you find inspiration.

The Adobe Lightroom CC / Lightroom 6

I have just read this book for a better understanding of Lightroom.  I first discovered Lightroom when I took up photography again and began to learn about the art of digital photography.  After a bit of research I purchased Adobe Photoshop Elements and got the basic principles of how it worked but I struggled to understand the connection of Adobe Bridge and I only understood that Adobe RAW was to be able to read my camera’s RAW files and nothing more.  I then came across Lightroom read the reviews and decided to try it.  It seemed to do all the things I needed and it didn’t need Adobe RAW however, I was a little confused as to why and Adobe had made it and where it sits in the workflow for a professional.  I found Lightroom easier to understand and use; so I have found it my best programs for photo editing.  Talking to other serious photographers, it appears that they all tend to use it more than Photoshop, which has been kept for just more extensive and complicated editing, as when required.  This book co-oberates this idea as the intention of Adobe to create a more user friendly photo editing package and also recognising that not all photos will want or need extensive editing and also the feather in the cap of this software is the batch editing capability for commercial photographers who will need to do basic adjustments to RAW images for straightforward output.

However, Photoshop is much more than just an editing suit it offers photo management tools that allows you to archive and retrieve your photos in lots of different ways; so you can cross file your images and retrieve them using all sorts of methods from date, location, camera, lens, or search words.  Lightroom is also compatible with Photoshop and an edited picture can be exported to Lightroom for further editing.  This is a very good book to read it is 700 pages of detailed information and I would highly recommend reading it and keeping it handy on your book shelf.

 

The result of my final Assessment.

512659 Shaun Mullins PH4CAN Results Letter

512659 Shaun Mullins PH4CAN Marksheet

I have received my marks and confirmation that I have passed!  Which is great!

I am however, a little disappointed at the marks I got as I did my very best and read as many books as I could lay my hands on to fully understand the theory and concepts behind this course and put them in to practical practice.

I found my photographic assignments very challenging, and I spent a great deal of time reading for research and brainstorming for ideas which my blogs illustrate with my handwritten notes, sketched ideas.  I was disappointed that as a result of all that my images are criticized as being ‘stock-photography’.  It is also very ironic because at one point when I really couldn’t come up with any ideas I tried looking for stock-photos for inspiration but found nothing of any use.  So clearly their is a great stock-photography web-site I don’t know about, or maybe I’m just not good at asking the right questions to find them.  Anyway, these images came out of my head not anyone else’s but as I keep reading in every book OCA lists, “There is no such thing as a new idea” (unless you are an Assessor of cause)  Maybe, my ideas were cliche; I don’t know, I haven’t seen enough photos like mine to know, but I guess the assessors have.  I bow to their experience.  My images were considered too obvious,  hopefully in time my experience will teach my imagination to be more sophisticated and in turn more subtle.  My new course is also helping with ideas of motifs and the rule-of-three which I can use in photo essays to be able to put over an idea in subtler ways as they do in Hollywood.  Art like science works best with cross-fertilization of ideas, theories and practices.  For example, Geologist and Paleontologists have a better understanding of their work by being aware of the others sciences.

With regards to my essay, I was congratulated on producing a good essay.  I was criticized for reading too diverse range of books and authors; but at this stage of my course I am still trying to learn as much as I can whilst looking for something that can inspire me enough to confidently specialize in.  I prefer portraiture work and the Film-Noir images I did with Nikon really gave me a buzz; so I think that style of work is my forte.  I love using all kinds of lighting to create interesting / stunning images and just using natural-light I find boring.  This is where I think I will start drilling.

Anyway, I passed and I now need 40 points to reach my 120 which I hope I can achieve for my next course which was a new challenge, film-making.

If anyone other than myself bothers to read this, please wish me luck!

About Looking by John Berger

John Berger, About Looking (1980) London: Bloomsbury. ISBN: 978-0-7475-9957-9

Among my pile of books yet to read as part of my studies I had ‘About Looking’ by John Berger.  I have only recently been introduced to this author through my Context and Narrative Course, I read his book ‘Ways of Seeing’ and watched the accompanying BBC TV program on YouTube which I found very interesting. I then went onto read ‘Understanding a Photograph’, in preparation for my fourth assignment.  The recent sad news of John Berger’s death prompted me to read this book, ‘About Looking’.

This book is made up of a selection of essays, Berger wrote from the mid 1960’s up to the late 1970’s.

His first essay examines how man looks and sees himself; how he regards animals and his world around him and compares this to how other animals regards themselves, man and the world through their eyes.

His next essay looks at pictures by August Sander the famous farm hands going to a dance photo, Young Farmers (1914) and another image of a local musical band posing for their photograph and he discusses how their suits give away their status in society despite their smart attire.

Also included is an essay on the works of Paul Strand.  The rest of the book moves away from photography and looks at works by other artists from the 17th century such as Hals through to Artist’s such as Francis Bacon and Giacometti of the 20th century.

An interesting read, Berger had his own style of writing and if you have heard him speak you can almost hear his voice coming through the pages of the book.

He was clearly very passionate about art and I am sure a nice guy to have met.  I am sure all who were fortunate enough to have met him will miss him.

The Burden of Representaion, Essays on Photographies Histories by John Tagg

I have just finished reading this book that I began in November!

Tagg looks at how photography has been influenced and how it has influenced history in Europe and North America by examining historical records in the UK and Europe and USA.  Taking examples of photographs taken in the 19th century for recording likeness’ of prisoners, photos of slums such as in Leeds that were used to push to challenge the Local Authorities and fight for improved living conditions for the poor.  Images taken in the early part of the 20th century to document the results of economic rescission in the rural community of the USA.  Tagg analyses both images and back the ground events to produce a strong argument for his book and often makes reference to a French philosopher, Michel Foucault, that who I should perhaps find more about and how his ideas may help in my creativity.

An interesting book, a little heavy and have your dictionary to hand but worth studying as his method of research is good and his idea that arguments that are not fully tested with good background research are weak and likely to be biased.  I think Tagg alludes to this when referring to John Berger and Susan Sontag.

 

Formal Assessment covering letter

Shaun Mullins

512659

Context and Narrative.

shaun512659@oca.ac.uk

https://shauncn512659.wordpress.com

3, Liberty Hall Rd

Addlestone

Surrey

KT15 1SS

01932 853454

07805 926364

shaunmull@hotmail.com

Tutor: Clive White

15^th January 2017

Dear Sir / Madam

Please find enclosed with this letter my clam-shell photo-box containing five folders holding: printed photographs, essay, introductions, Tutor reports and other associated documents for my five assignments.  Each folder is marked with my name, number, course and assignment and each photograph has been similarly labelled.

Please refer to my Word Press blog to review all my work.  All my notes and exercise work has been entered in to my blog (please refer to the link as above).

I hope that I have provided you with enough information and that you will find my work to be of a sufficient standard to be able to carry forward to the next step for my ambition to earn a degree.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Yours faithfully

Shaun Mullins

Formal Assessment for assessment V, 3x items, labeled 1 – 3

For this submission I took on board my Tutor’s comments and using Photoshop cleaned up the background altering the crop slightly and made small adjustments with the dodge and burn tool.

I have provided a folder containing my photograph, my 1000 explanation including the 300 word introduction  club-class and my Tutor’s report shaun-mullins-512659-photography-1-context-narrative-assignment-5 and the image.

 

Formal Asssessment to assessment IV, 2x items, labeled 1 – 2

I have provided in my folder a printed 1000 word essay  amended-final-draft-its-a-lilly-1 and my Tutor’s report.  shaun-mullins-512659-photography-1-context-narrative-assignment-4

For this assessment I chose to print the first page of my essay containing the image on photo quality paper through my Canon printer for better image reproduction as the image was taken from the internet and was only 72pdi in quality.

Formal Assessment for assessment III, 16x items, labeled 1 – 16

I have reprinted all my photos using the adopted lilac Hue style suggested by my Tutor as I like the result and further to his comments, I also re-took the photo of image 5 standing on the soap-box for a better composition and made some Photoshop improvements to some of the other images for example image 3 (please refer to my earlier blogs) .  Included in the folder is my Tutor’s report, Shaun Mullins – 512659 – Photography 1 Context & Narrative – Assignment 3 (1)  My 300 word introduction labeled 1 of 16 300-word-introduction The character descriptions from my friends and family and a printout of the associated anchoring text marked 6 of 16 a-self-portrait-as-regarded-by-others

Formal Assessment for Assessment II, 9x items, labeled 1 – 8a and 8b

For this assessment, taking on board my Tutor’s comments I took two new photos one for image to simply change the composition from portrait to landscape for consistency and I changed the last image for a strong picture.  I also reprinted all the images using my Tutor’s suggestion of adding a little lilac to the Hue as I was unhappy with the colour cast I appeared to be getting as I couldn’t get a perfect black or grey.  This intended Hue is very subtle and I like the result.

Included in the folder is my Tutor’s report Shaun Mullins – 512659 – Photography 1 Context & Narrative – Assignment 2  a printed copy of the anchoring text for each image  marked 8a the-unseen and my 300 word introduction marked 8b redundant-reflections and the photos.

1# I HAVE RECENTLY BEEN MADE REDUNDANT

2# Companies are now looking to recruit from a headhunting point of view.

3# I found another job – the learning curve was steep.

4# I spent a lot of time away. However, my Company decided to sack me.

5# This came as a huge blow – My health began to suffer.

6# My wife persuaded me to adopt a dog.

7# I am now making a fresh start with new hope.