Assignment 4 Virtual Essay

One of my favorite hobbies is to capture landscape photographs. The reason why I love taking natural moments is because of my childhood story. I was born in a little town, a rural area of South Korea. There was no transportation and no store, so if I went to go a store, for example, I had to walk for least 2 hours. Therefore, nature was not only a dictionary definition as the phenomena of the physical world for me, but it was also one of my best friends. I found many interesting and joyful things from the nature such as food and toys. As well as, each season gave me different joyful. For example, in winter time, I always went up the mountain to slide over the snow in a sleigh. When I went for sliding, my friends and I bought sweet potato and white potato so we made a bonfire to bake them. Therefore, when I take a landscape photograph, it always remains of the precious memory of my childhood life. That is why I love capturing landscape photographs.

Here are some pictures that I took 2010 fall of Toronto photos from Harbour Front. I went to Harbour Front at late afternoon because I wanted to capture sunset pictures. Weather was gorgeous and clear so I could use natural light. Especially, the woods were aflame with autumn colours. I believe that the natural light might make leaves more beautiful and gorgeous even if they are already covered by autumn colours. Therefore, everything made me happy, and I could get refreshment and recharged by taking landscape photographs.

I would like to introduce a Canadian photographer who is Andrew Collett. How I know him is that when I went to Starbucks Coffee shop, I saw his work by chance at Starbucks Coffee shop. When I got home and I googled him, I found some something in common with him which he loves capturing landscape pictures and using natural lights. Here is about him.

"Andrew Collett has always loved the character of the land, and the secrets it reveals to the patient eye. As a child, he spent his summers getting to know the landscape of Georgian Bay, Muskoka and beyond. He became an observer of nature, discovering the beauty of places and seasons that were often overlooked by others. Andrew started his career in the business side of visual design, and it was a number of years before he realized he had his own distinctive vision to express. In photography he found a powerful medium into which he could pour his boundless creative energies.

When a scene captures Andrew Collett’s eye, it’s because he has had a vision of what it could be at its best. It could be at four in the morning when the mists rise from the night-cooled land; or, at seven in the evening as a thunderstorm batters a distant line of dark trees. Andrew’s goal is to capture a scene in exactly the circumstances when experience tells him it will be suffused with the most intense emotion. He works hard to grasp a fleeting feeling one which lives for just a brief moment in a masterstroke of light, colour, shape, perspective… and timing. Gathered from the land, he brings moments to life and fashions into them into fine images that are celebrated in interiors of all kinds, where the echoes of what he has experienced will resonate for years to come.

Andrew Collett loves his work. He considers it a privilege and a responsibility to bring these celebrations of our land into people’s homes. His hope is that his renderings of our natural beauty may inspire dreams and memories, and a particular kind of hopefulness that he has felt while walking the trails and pathways of our boundless, natural inheritance.” (From his website)

As you see, the natural light makes clear and beautiful picture. So one of important his lessons that I realized when I read his article is how to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. The solution is that you should know how the light works. As a result, he says that if you really want to take a extraordinary picture, wait for the light. I love taking landscape photographs because it remains of my childhood life, allows us to take seasonal picture and has various topic that we can create whatever we want.

Source

http://www.andrewcollett.com/

Topic3: Alterations in journalistic photography

When I thought about this topic, alterations in journalistic photography, it could be ethical. However, I realized that what if people used alterations in journalistic photography, people could not deliver right information to viewers. The reason is that journalistic photography is to say a story and to tell the truth such as issues or news instead of writing. I believe that a photo has a strong influence compared with a written story because people can see and feel the moment. That is why there is a code of ethics guideline photojournalist. Here is one of rules among the ethic guideline which is “Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images’ content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects.” Therefore, the journalistic photography should have truth, fact and credibility. And altering photos cannot be ethical because it cause viewers mislead or misrepresenting the subject or story. However, if they use the alteration to just make a photo clear, that can be okay because I think an unclear photo could not deliver information clearly to viewers so that improving image quality and adjustments to contrast and brightness can be ethical.

Above photos are examples of alteration in jurnalistic photography that I found from the largest-circulating newspaper in Egypt, Al-Ahram, published a doctored photo Sept. 14. The photo misrepresents a state meeting and shows five leaders walking together. According to the article, "in the original photo, Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak is seen walking on the far left and steps behind the other leaders present -- Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Barack Obama, Palestine's President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan's King Abduallah II. But, the doctored photo moved Mubarak to the front center of the photo, making it appear that he was leading the group. " So after reading the truth story, do you still think that alterations in journalistic photography could be ethical? I don't think so because it is a fake photo and we should use the alteration for art.


Sources:
http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/editordetail.php?id=877

Topic 2 Press photography versus art photography

Everyone can be a photographer because today, digital cameras and cell phones with camera are popular so that it has become something of a necessity. People are very familiar to capture the moment which can be something his/her birthday or graduating day. These are all vivid moments in our lives. Therefore, the photos bring back lots of good memories. I believe there are slightly differences between art photographs and press photographs. Differences are who use techniques or not. For example, press photography follows the standard guideline such as NPPA: code of ethics. The reason why they follow a certain rule is because they deliver issues or news to public so that that has to consist of truth, fact and credence. However, there are no standards and guidelines for art photography. I believe that art photography is a creative art. Someone who captures a moment as an art spends for a long time to get the exact moment and the exact time at the exact place. They then bring the picture to the bark room to produce a precise picture. As well, they can reproduce and manipulate it if the picture has a problem of quality of colors and lighting. Reproducing and manipulating makes a picture tangible, so even if viewers cannot touch, they can feel it. I found the definition of art photography is "the art photography refers to photographs that are created in accordance with the creative vision of the photographer as artist." However, the press photography just provides visual support for stories.

I would like to introduce one art photographer who is John Davies and one press photographer who is Anthony Suau. According to the John Cavies profile, John Davies is "one of today's most outstanding British photographers, he became famous through his research on the English industrial landscape, observed in vast and detailed views."

According to John Davies profile, "John Davies's work belongs to the world of contemporary documentary photography. Faithful to a refined, pure black and white, taken on as the absolute rule of a subtle, analytic style. He chooses the vastness of space inhabited by the powerful elements of nature and the contradictory ones of culture to operate in two directions. On the one hand, the evocation of emotional states through the photographic rendering of a space-light that is alive, almost metaphysical, and recalls the symbolisation of the forces of nature in Turner. On the other, a crystal-clear gaze that sounds the material aspects of the contemporary landscape which is tied to the development of the productive activities and concrete structuring of the world through the molding power of economy and property."


Anthony Suau is an American award-winning photographer. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for his photographs of the famine in Ethiopia, the World Press Photo of the Year in 1987 for a photo taken during a demonstration in South Korea, the Robert Capa Gold medal in 1995 for his photos from Chechnya, and a second World Press Photo of the Year in 2008 for a photograph taken in Cleveland, Ohio depicting an officer securing a home under foreclosure at gun-point.

He has been a contract photographer for Time since 1991 and has published several books, including 'Beyond the Fall', a 10-year photography project portraying the transition of the Eastern bloc starting from the fall of the Berlin wall, and 'Fear This', about the war of images and slogans being played out at home while America is at war in Iraq.

Cited
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Suau
http://www.johndavies.uk.com/abiog.htm

D9 Shooting the truth: Photojournalism

The role of photo journalism is collecting, editing and presenting news material for publication or broadcast. The photo journalism creates images in order to tell and delivery a news story or a one’s story. In addition, the photo journalism includes documentary, social, street and celebrity photography.

Why photojournalists should follow the rules is that because it is a general guideline that helps photojournalists avoid any ethics issues. As well as, according to the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), each newspaper, news group or press association you may belong to as a photographer may have its own rules and regulations regarding ethics in photojournalism. If you want to become a photojournalist, it is important to understand how ethics play in your role in reporting the news.

The basic premises of the NPPA's nine standards are:
1. Accurately represent subjects
2. Do not be manipulated by staged photos
3. Avoid bias and stereotyping in work; provide complete information and context
4. Show consideration for subjects
5. Avoid influencing the actions of the photographic subject
6. Editing should not give the wrong impression of the subjects in the photograph
7. Do not compensate persons involved in photographs or in getting a photograph
8. Do not accept gifts or other favors from those involved in a photo
9. Do not purposely interfere with the work of other journalists

The difference between the ethics of taking journalistic photos and the ethics of writing a new story is a picture. The meaning of a picture is a visual representation. Therefore, people cannot touch, but people can feel the situation and see the happen compared to a written news story.

Here is an article that I found. This is very interesting and I agree that photojournalists should do it for only technical issues and not for the purpose of altering the actual image. Here is a story.

The point at which editing becomes an ethics violation is a fine line. For instance, the NPPA takes both an artistic edit and a montage edit to task in 2006. In one instance, the photograph's colors were altered to create a more stunning visual. In the other, two photographs were fused together to create a photo that never really took place. Although the second incident is clearly an ethical violation, the first is not quite as clear, because it was color manipulation. Yet both are breaches of ethics, because they alter the way the events actually looked. Similarly, the altered photograph of Iowan septuplet mom Bobbi McCaughey that appeared on the cover of Newsweek in 1997 drew much criticism for appearing to have straightened her teeth. Photojournalists need to take care that when they edit photographs, they do it for technical issues and not for the purpose of altering the actual image.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photojournalism
http://photography.lovetoknow.com/Photojournalism_Ethics

DB 6 Documenting the great depression

The photograph is the most effective way to show and express issues, feelings and even history. FSA, Farm Security Administration, was an effort during the Depression to combat American rural poverty. FSA emphasized rural rehabilitation efforts to improve the lifestyle of sharecropper, tenants, and very poor landowning famers. They had a program called “photograph program”. Here are some photos.

Look at photographs. You can see or feel it how they strruggled to live during the Depression to combat American rural poverty. In addition, black and white photo shows more emotion.

Migrant Mother photograph was the most powerful images of the deression era. Migrant Mother reflects the victims who suffered the most in the United States during the 1930s. Here are some Migrant Mother photographs.

Look at the her face. there is no smile as well as happiness. she just looked at somewhere and fed a baby. In the photo, you can see a mother with her baby. The mother closed her eye which looks like her heart is heavy with sorrow because of poverty and hungriness. So Migrant Mother photograph influence indirectly on socity through the photograph.

Cited
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_Security_Administration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Owens_Thompson

Assignment 3 Photo Manipulation

As people know, the widespread use of digital media and social networking plays an important role in today. For example, social networking users such as Facebook enjoy uploading their pictures on their own homepage and checking comments under the picture. Therefore, today photo is a kind of friend.
As the digital camera industry has been developed rapidly, photography also incredibly developed due to the design application such as Adobe Photoshop CS4 as well as various of camera functions. As a result, photo manipulation is an art because you can create and use a skill to make an unique photo. In addition, from the lecture I found something that photographers always try to find the new way to express and create a unique picture. Manipulation is one of the key that allows you create, design and fix your photo. That is why someone says that "photo manipulation is an ever evolving collaboration between photography and graphic design," because the manipulation of a photo gives a realistic view of an unreal picture. Here is some examples.

As you see, you cannot say these photos are realistic picture, but it is an art.

Here is another example. I was not good at taking photo and using a photoshop program even if I have a DSRL camera and a photoshop because I thought everything seemed to be complicative. However, after using that, I realized that taking and making a unique picture is fun and easy. Especially, with the photoshop this can be done very easily.

I took these pictures when I went to New York. It was beautiful and clear day so I could take many beautiful pictures. However, I wanted to make this picture to be antique. I used the photoshop application. It was very fun and simple to change. I just found a black and white function and clicked. Finally, I got an antique picture.

In conclusion, the photo manipulation is a great sources of inspiration. People can re/create, re/produce and design their pictures. So I think anyone can be a great photo designer once they know the photo manipulation.

Cited

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/40-examples-of-incredible-photo-manipulation/

http://www.instantshift.com/2009/07/20/80-excellent-examples-of-photo-manipulation-art/

D3- Can art be mechanically reproduced?

I think that no matter how many times you reproduce the picture, it is still art if the picture is different from the original picture. The reason is that as the technology is growing up rapidly, people can make unique and creative pictures by their own skills or techniques. My opinion is that art can be everything which is created by person or people so that definitely photography is art. The reason is that today’s photography is not only just a picture, but also it is an expressive art that people create and improve on their picture in order to be unique through the computer program. As a result, as the social communication is being famous, people might enjoy uploading their picture on Facebook, blogs, or Twitter as a moment of their life or an art.

How and why Henry Pitch Robinson created Feading Away is the limitation of photography which impacted on him to reach to the combination printing. So the most his picture is Fading Away which is a composition of five negatives, in which a girl dying of consumption and members of the family. As a result, Feading Away is contact prints.