Term 2 - Week 6 - Museum Trip 2 Research and Photographic Response

Museum Trip:

For the first half of this museum trip, Sarah Powell, Rights Specialist, whom we met at the museum on our first visit in Week 3 of this term, returned to help us understand the terms of Copyright and how, when and why it is used.

Copyright (NZ Copyright Act 1994) is a set of rules that govern what others can do with artistic works. Copyright arises automatically when a new original work is created and the Copyright remains with the creator of the work, even if the work is sold or the Copyright is assigned to another person.

As Sarah explained in her presentation, Copyright applies to an "original" artistic, dramatic, sound recording, film, communication, typographical arrangement or literary work. However, Copyright doesn't apply to an idea, but it does apply to the material expression of that idea. You can not plagiarise a copyrighted piece of work.

The person who created the work is the first owner of any copyright in the work. However, if you create a work as an employee, your employer owns the copyright in any works created. It is possible to have joint copyright ownership - if two or more people create a work they all have copyright for that work.

Under NZ Copyright Law, if a work is commissioned, then the commissioner owns the copyright, not the creator unless otherwise agreed.

To learn more about copyright, visit this website: http://www.copyright.org.nz

The Unknown is the current exhibition that makes up the second half of this trip to the Auckland War Memorial Museum. I thoroughly enjoyed reviewing these artefacts because I feel as though, as described below in the description of the exhibition, you see that only one of the moments the image captured remains.

"For the Auckland Festival of Photography, F4 Artist Collective has collaborated with the Museum to display unidentified historical portrait photos from our pictorial collection, alongside photographs that have been augmented by F4.

Although the majority of the photographs in the Auckland Museum collection have a known history or identity, this project focuses on those that do not.

When you look into the frame of an anonymous image, you gaze into the unknowable past. A bittersweet sense of loss becomes inextricably associated with the printed objects in front of you. You become more aware of the objects. You start to see the glass, tin, copper, paper and velvet. You see that they are etched by patina, chipped, faded or oxidised. You see the unfathomable number of moments that were once a life. You see that only one of those moments remains. You see the last vestige of time bound to this little object, to the unknown." Auckland Museum.

Photographic Response:

I will be responding to "The Langue" images on the F4 website - Sue Jowsey and Marcus Williams.
Their work was recently exhibited at the Auckland Festival of Photography and this is their artist statement on their work:

This exhibition is based upon the idea that objects matter to us; they quietly provide a frame for our lives, often familiar and sometimes invisible. Objects are part of how we inhabit our spaces. Yet what makes an object evocative may not necessarily be one of value, use, aesthetics or ownership. Rather, consider them in relation to our emotional lives, how objects can bring together both thought and feeling - another person in the form of a gift, a connection to an intellectual life, or perhaps a particular moment in time or circumstance. 

Updated: 28/6/16:

Contextualisation: Honestly, these images disturb me on a level that I am uncomfortable with talking about. I feel as though these images were created in an insane asylum by a young boy who was severely injured in some way and has never gotten rid of the sever mental impact that it caused for him. This is however just my opinion and I do hope I haven't offended anyone by saying that. It's a very frightening and uncomfortable set of images to me and it made me feel fear like never before when I first laid eyes on them, that is what drew me to them in the beginning. They also greatly disturbed me and I wanted to create images that made me feel the same way.

This response is very different in comparison with other responses I have done, because I usually focus on colour or lighting but this time I am focusing on content structure and compositional techniques. I will be replicating the idea of layering with paper and other organic materials like my engraved wooden chessboard.

My Image Response:

My shoot really confuses me as I can't email the artist and ask what it all means; the content, colouring, lighting, subject. I am the artist and the photographer. I don't know what these mean, I was merely following a compositional technique I felt was incredibly obvious in my research of "The Langue".

I have a glass coffee table in my living room so I used that to help me layer the following image subjects and content. This is a very new and rather odd photography concept for me and I have yet figured out what these images are meant to make you feel, think or interpret. 
I simply used what I had around me at the time of shooting and spent about ten minutes just playing around with the paper and chess pieces. Below are the outcomes of spontaneity, something I haven't really played around with before as all of my shoots are usually thoroughly planned out to the last detail.

I wouldn't change anything in this process and I rarely feel as though if I were to do a shoot again, I would change my approach. I thought this through for days and even decided when and where I was going to do it and checked the weather to determine when the light would be cloudy but still bright. Like I do with most of my other shoots, I planned it to the last detail excluding my true intentions and context of the images as I don't really see them until I review them after I have edited them. I only know that I wanted to create something that gave me the same fearful and disturbed feeling that "The Langue" images above gave me.

This was the first image I took in this shoot and I felt it was important to mention it. This was the beginning understanding of the shoot as I made the connection between photography and paper (the photography paper brochure in the foreground) and chess (the chess table and pieces in the mid ground) for this shoot. This  is the catalyst for the props I used in the following images and helped me  form a context for this particular shoot.

This image was taken to experiment with layering directly on top of each other. Repetition is seen here quite profoundly and there was no other reason behind the image aside form experimentation with physical layering as discussed in the theme of my photographic response.

The aim for this image was to focus on just the layering aspect of the theme. There are three layers in this image. The first - Kiera's image, the second - the book, and the third - the chess pieces. This image was merely made to create some evidence of experimentation with layering and without any contextualisation; but now that I look at it, it looks like Kiera is looking at the dark chess piece wondering what it is with the light chess piece resting on her shoulder. Curiosity is my post-photographing evaluation and contextualisation of this image.

This image is very painful to me as I feel like the edge of the paper represents an arrow pointing near Kiera's eye. Also, the image construct shows only their nose and eyes, no mouths are in sight because they are either covered up by another layer or out of the frame. This image seems rather strange because of the innocence in the young girls face mixed with such frightening imagery interpretations.

This is my favourite image from the series because of how strange it looks. I have never experimented with layering in photography before; only in Photoshop. I took inspiration from the "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil" quote that I saw from a photographer on Instagram. As I had experimented with the chess pieces in the earlier photos (this was my last image of the shoot), I wanted to do something a little more strange rather than having it seem like an object that was just put there to take up space. 

I personally think this image is actually one of the scariest photographs I have ever taken because, to me, it looks so out of the ordinary next to the normal image next to it. It really creates a fearful contrast between the two setups. I looks as though the chess pieces have taken away two senses from my sister which makes me feel sad, nervous and scared all at the same time truly showing that images can have a powerful affect on the viewer which is something I aspire to create with every photograph I take.

Hello Everyone!

I have just recently hit 1000 page views!

Thanks to everyone who checks out my blog for this awesome milestone!

Nat :)

Portfolio Progression Part 3

Final Artist Statement:
I will be printing this out and hanging it up next to my images for the Friends and Family Night so that the viewers can gather an understanding of what goes in to my images.

Natalie Rogers

Friday, July 1st 2016.

"The Kids Next Door"

"Childhood is not from birth to a certain age.

And at a certain age the child has grown and

puts away childish things.

Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies."

- E.M

My portfolio is about the natural beauty and innocence of children that has been captured in moments of candor through organised photoshoots.

These girls are a part of my close family and friend groups and I wanted to capture not only beautiful images but also the essence of their youth and vitality.

This project photographs them in their everyday life and is an exploration of their character.

Final Images as individuals:
This can help with the viewing of my images in the line up I have described later in this post.

Below are 3 of favourite pairings from my book:

I really love this pairing because of the blues in the skies of each photo and how that connects the images and helps the page "flow" together. I also like this pairing because it is one of the few that I have in my portfolio that include three images (a diptych and a singular image).

With this pairing, I thought it would be nice to fabricate a sense of warmth through the colour tones in this image combination because a lot of my work so far is very cool and distant. I also knew as soon as I took these two images that they were going to be a pair because of how well they go together content-wise.

And finally, with this pairing above, I wasn't sure about it at first but I've lived with it for a while and Ive grown to like the contrast between Kiera's freckles and Ashleigh's acne. I feel like these images are very personal and up-close that it almost feels like an invasive portrait, however I think a lot of young girls who view this will hopefully see that you can have freckles, acne or whatever skin condition and still be beautiful. 

Wall Layout:
I first lay these out as a normal line up and then separated them in to diptychs and individual prints.
I definitely was going to keep my final portfolio images as a line, I tried them in groups, formations and in many other ways but none drew me in more than having the line of them. I wanted Kiera's portrait to be dead centre as I think it is my strongest image; it is also my favourite photograph I've taken yet. From that foundation, I built my line with my understanding of even spacing not only throughout the line but within the images to achieve my most efficient and aesthetically pleasing viewing platform so far.

Term 2 - Week 6 - Silo Park Photographic Response and Research

Me and my fellow classmates all went on a trip to Silo Park: The Photography Festival in Auckland City and I thoroughly enjoyed viewing all the different images from each artist that I researched plus many more. I saw my first Auto Biographical photographs presented by Russ Flat and overall my favourite work was that of Ian Strange. Below I have done some research on the photographers of the exhibition and took a few presentation ideas away from the festival such as perhaps having a future exhibition in a park full of old Silo buildings.

Anna Carey:

Anna Carey is an Australian artist whose work overlaps photography, model-making, film and drawing. Through memory and imagination, she creates fictive architectural spaces based on familiar iconic architecture. She completed a Bachelor of Visual Media with Honours (first class) at Queensland College of Art and is currently undertaking postgraduate studies with QCA. She has exhibited at Photo la, Los Angeles; Artereal Gallery, Sydney; Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane; Dlux Media Arts, Federation Square Melbourne and the Museum of Brisbane. She has been shortlisted in numerous prizes including The Churchie National Emerging Art Award,  the Queensland Regional Art Awards and the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award which she received the acquisition award. Her work has been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, Artbank, Gold Coast City Art Gallery, University of Queensland, Caboolture Regional Art Gallery and numerous private collections.

Artists Work Explanation for Silo Park Exhibition:

Anna Carey is an Australian artist currently living and working in Los Angeles. Interested in the recuperation of memory while experiencing transient vernacular iconic architecture so suited to the mediums of photography and model making.

By conflating the real with memory and imagination she constructs miniature models of vernacular architecture, documenting these models with the camera and then displaying the resulting photographs. The camera lens magnifies the model with all its imperfections and reminds the viewer that the photograph has been constructed with a miniature materialized object.

In turn this creates a disorientating experience for the viewers and opens up a space for one to pause and reflect on their own experiences embedded within the familiar spaces.  

Anna graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Media majoring in Fine Art with Honours (first class) from Queensland College of Art and is currently undertaking her Doctorate with QCA.

My Opinion: 

I loved seeing these works as the first thing in the gallery that I played my eyes on. I instantly recognised the houses and bright blue skies from my research on Anna Carey. I think the work is a little strange but very interesting to ponder over the meaning of the context of the images and realising that these are reconstructed memories of hers, I instantly felt more comfortable knowing that these were created from memory rather than just thought of out of thin air.

Arthur Ou: 

Arthur Ou works in photography, painting, sculpture, and installation. He deploys photography within the contexts of these differing elements to elicit questions concerning photographic ontology, perception, and materiality. His work has been featured in group exhibitions held in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, London, Vancouver, Paris, Berlin, and Beijing; and in publications including The New York Times, Aperture, Blind Spot, Art in America, the Brooklyn Rail, Camera Austria, and The Photograph As Contemporary Art (Thames & Hudson). He has published critical texts in Aperture, Afterall.org, Artforum.com, Bidoun, Foam, Fantom, Words Without Pictures, and X-Tra. Ou initiated the biennial New School conference, The Photographic Universe, and is the creative director of the film series The Invisible Photograph.

He has exhibited internationally, most recently in “One Torino” curated by Gary Carrion-Murayari in Turin, Italy, "Pictures that Speak," at the Presentation House Gallery in Vancouver, Canada, and the 2012 Daegu Photo Biennale, in Daegu, Korea. He was also included in the 2006 Taipei Biennial, "Dirty Yoga," curated by Dan Cameron. 

Artists Work Explanation for Silo Park Exhibition:

Artist's statement - "Through photography, one of the recent concerns in my practice deals with notions of the landscape as an artificial phenomenon. The urge to photograph the sea grew stronger after I relocated to NY from California some time ago, which also arise from the desire to picture an entity that I consider a connecting force between the two places — California and Taiwan — that I consider my "homelands." These photographs also extend to the interest in some of the specific sites where key modernist photographic works were made, though at the same time wanting to disrupt the clichéd beauty that comes from representing the sea. The black calligraphic areas in these seascapes are deliberate disruptions become decorative elements that directly obstruct an illusionistic view of the photographed scenes."

My Opinion:

I like the overlay of pattern on the images as I feel it brings the images together and gives them (especially the striped photographs). I also like the black and white of the images and how that aspect of editing pulls the images together too. Overall I really like how Ou bought the pieces together through the editing techniques and not necessarily the subjects of the images being all identical.

Ian Strange:

Suburban is a multifaceted photography, film, installation exhibition by artist Ian Strange. Between 2011 and 2013 Strange worked with a film crew and volunteers in Ohio, Detroit, Alabama, New Jersey, New York and New Hampshire to create, photograph and film seven site specific interventions incorporating suburban homes. The recording of these interventions through film and photographic documentation forms the basis of this new body of work.

Artists Work Explanation for Silo Park Exhibition:

Burn series is a part of a larger body of work entitled SUBURBAN. Over two years Strange worked with a film crew and volunteers in Ohio, Detroit, Alabama, New Jersey, New York and New Hampshire to create, photograph and film site specific interventions incorporating suburban homes. The recording of these interventions through photographic documentation forms the basis of this work.

The most dramatic of all his approaches, however, is the Burn Series in which, with the involvement of the fire department in Ohio, houses were set alight and burned to the ground in an act of symbolic requital; the surviving record of their existence being Strange’s art-directed photographic documentation.

Strange’s photographs and videos challenge the idea of the family home as a place of warmth and safety by simultaneously elevating and destroying it, both literally and figuratively. In doing so, Strange reveals his own antithetical relationship with the suburbs and invites us to explore our own response to them. 

My Opinion:

This is my favourite works out of the whole exhibition. I particularly like the contrast between the oranges and yellow complexion of the fire and the faded colours of the house. I also love how the fire is the main element in this photograph and the fear and brightness of the burning house really drew me to the work to begin with.

Russ Flatt: 

Russ Flatt is a New Zealand Artist and Photographer born in Changi, Singapore 1971. He has had multiple solo and group shows presented throughout Auckland and also a multitude of Collections that reside throughout Auckland. Flat has also won many awards including Auckland Festival of Photography Annual Commission in 2016, Wallace Arts Trust Vermont Residency in 2015 and Elam School of Fine Arts Post-Graduate Photography Prize in 2013.

Artists Work Explanation for Silo Park Exhibition:

The Auckland Festival of Photography 2016 features the 6th Annual Commission, this year presented by Sacred Hill. Each year, an Auckland-based photographer is commissioned to create a new body of work for exhibition during the Festival. The commission provides an opportunity to support and promote an Auckland photographer as well as create a cultural and artistic asset for present and future Auckland audiences to enjoy. This year’s commissioned artist is Russ Flatt.

Kia whakatomuri te haere whakamua.

I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on the past.

Russ Flatt’s carefully staged photographs utilise different genres, modes and points of view in order to recover and reconstruct memories and past events. 
His work addresses notions of identity by looking towards a re-imagined past in order to recognise the present.

Russ Flatt graduated with a Post Graduate Diploma in 2013 from Auckland University’s Elam School of Fine Arts. His work is held in collections including Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, the James Wallace Arts Trust, Auckland Council and the University of Auckland.

My Opinion: It was interesting seeing this type of auto biographical photography on such a personal scale. I liked the warmth of the photographs but that's really all I liked about these images. I'm not quite as comfortable with being so personal in my photographs about MYSELF so that's the only level of dissatisfaction that I had for these images; how personal they were to the artist. I do on the other hand also like the composition of the images and how they are balanced so nicely. 


Photographic Response:

I am responding to Ian Strange by recreating images with a pop of bright colour and all other aspects of the image are faded colours. Throughout the images I have taken and edited in Camera Raw below, I feel I have emulated Strange's work appropriately by recreating the colour techniques. In order to do this I reduced the saturation panel and then used the brush tool to remove any of the lowered saturation from the area I wanted the pop of colour in.

Because I prepared this shoot and planned it carefully, including the camera settings and time of day, these photographs were successful on the first try and I did not need to take more than one of each shot thanks to the use of the light meter on my camera screen.

My favourite image of mine is the globe image because the change in the saturation surrounding the globe is very subtle but it really drains the surroundings effectively and I also like how the background is plain black, white and grey. I think there is a level of minimalism to this image also as its simplicity gives it a lot of room to add character in the image.

Photographic Genre:

I think the photographic genre for my photographic response lies in the editorial genre due to its non-fictional aesthetic. These photos definitely come under documentary and nature sub genres because of the fact, these were the things that I have literally documented and are my surroundings. Plus the nature aspect of some of the photographs adds the genre of the images.

Term 2 - Week 5 - Sanji Karu Photographic Response and Research

Last week we had Sanji Karu from Skar Imaging Company come in and talk to us about the differences between the type of paper you print on and the relationship and effect it has on the quality and detail of the images.  I really enjoyed learning about all the different types of paper and  how the binding process for portfolios works. I never realised exactly how much effort went in to the whole printing and portfolio process until Sanji explained it and showed us the video of the binding process.

Sanjars Website: http://www.skarimagelab.co.nz

Skar Image Lab which provides technical services for Visual Artists & Professional Photographers, primarily inkjet printing, film scanning and retouching. I produce prints and scans for personal work, exhibitions, commercial work & portfolios. I provide a personalized service for my clients ensuring that their requirements are met. The advantage of working with me is that you are communicating to the person that is going to produce your work. You need not rely on the front counter person or salesperson to relay the information across to the technician.

Research:

Sanjar suggested some artist models and I listed my favourite below:

Paul Chapman: http://pauljchapmanphotography.zenfolio.com


What I've discovered as a theme throughout Paul Chapman's work is an organic aesthetic. His images include multiple natural materials such as wood, glass and styrofoam. His work also revolves around animals and greenery such as plants, trees, flowers, woods, food, animals and humans and mostly sticks to earthy colours. 

I personally find that there is a certain aspect of simplicity and calmness to his photographs. Especially the ones I'm showing below, they make me feel quite serene. Whether it is the undisturbed nature, harmonious colours of the fruits image or the incredible detail in the raindrops on the rose petals, I like all of these images. I also spotted that Chapman shoots a lot of closeups which also inspired my below images. I think the genre of his work is a nice mix between candid and environmental with ambient lighting.

However, I would not consider him an artist model, but more so an inspiration for my personal work, like Dave Sanderson. 

Photographic Response:

I tried to stick to the theme of plants, greenery and food as much as possible so I photographed different aspects of my garden and really experimented this time around with my editing in terms of changing up my typical style of colourisation and aesthetic. I really brought out the highlights and added a lot of contrast and shadows to my Raw files in Camera Raw this time around whereas I wouldn't usually add this much to any of my photos. i think it has really brought out the rainy weather in this style of editing so I am pleased in the sense that my editing has portrayed the sky even though the sky isn't in the image. I feel as though these images are definitely more complete than some of my other work. I think my genre for this work matches his genre (a nice mix between candid and environmental with ambient lighting).

Photographic Genre: I feel as though my work in my photographic response would fit in to the genre of editorial as my work is non-fictional and completely honest. I would also put it under the sub-genere(s) of life and nature due to its environmental relationship to the world surrounding myself.