The photographer's Eye Written by John Szarkowski this article talks about his book which is an investigation of what photographs look like and why they look that way. The article itself is split into sections which take you on a journey through photography and how it came to be. Some of the elements along this journey include when the first camera was made, how photography quickly grew in popularity and how the process of taking an image has now changed. With the article in sections each gives a clear understanding of the element being talked about. What i found most interesting in this article was how photography was found by scientists and painters and then how people who came from all different jobs and backgrounds took on photography and made it their hobby or passion. One of the first issues that came around was an artistic problem not a scientific one being that the public believed that a photograph could not lie. We however now know how this is false and how some images can be manipulated.9l9§§9 The thing itself This section of the article talks on how photography dealt with the actual and one did not only have to accept this fact but to treasure it. One learned that you had to be able to recognise the worlds best works and moments and anticipate them to make them permanent. This requires both intelligence, acute and supple. This section also talks about how that originally the public believed that images could not lie. Thus photographers saw how the eye saw an illusion and the camera saw the truth, so in a sense people gave more credit to the camera rather then their own eyes when taking images.
The detail The photographer was tied to the facts of things and it was his problem to force the facts to tell the truth. Outside the studio one could only record the truth as he found it and it was found that this left images to be in a fragmented and unexplained form, not as a story but rather in clues. This meant that the photographer's could not assemble clues in a coherent narrative meaning that if images could not be read as stories they could be read as symbols. An example of using the narrative in photography was the heroic documentation of the American civil war by the Brandy group then the larger photographic recording of WW2. The function of these pictures however was not to make the story clear, but to make it real. "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough"
The frame An example of the frames use is if the photographers frame surrounded two figures, isolating them from the crowd in which they stood, it created a relationship between those two figures which had not existed before. The central aim of photography in a sense is choosing and eliminating using a line which separate the in from the out. During the first half on the century photographs were printed the same size as the exposed plate. Therefore since enlarging was generally impractical in the darkroom a photographer decided to use only a fragment of his picture, without reducing its size. the sense of a pictures edge as a cropping device was one of the most interesting ideas in the 19th century.
Time All photographs are time exposures of shorter or longer duration, and each describes a describes a discrete place in time. In the days of slow films and lenses however these images would describe several seconds or more, and if the subject moved it would result in an image which had never been seen before eg. a dog with two heads. However these images were considered partial failures yet produced in quantity. Images like this were widely recognised till 1878 when Muybridge successfully photographed a galloping horse. He discovered there was a pleasure and beauty in this fragmenting of time that had little to do with what was happening.
Vantage point Much has been said about the clarity of photography but little has been said about its obscurity. Pictures from a birds view, or the worms, or pictures in which the subject is distorted by extreme foreshadowing or by an unfamiliar pattern of light are examples of an unexpected vantage point. "The evasive nature of his imagery, which was shocking but obscure, like ancient or atrocity photographs". For a photographer much of his sense of reality are anonymous and untraceable gifts from photography itself. The history of the photograph ha been less of as journey then a growth which has penetrated our conscience like an organism, photography was born whole.
Photograph analysis
In the image itself we see a group of what look to be school children or teenagers celebrating or having a street party. I believe it could be a street part as in the background shadows we can see the silhouette of rooftops of houses. The detail in this image seems to be the range facial expressions on the children’s faces. Some of which are happy, in distress or simply confused. However upon closer look we can see two older lady’s in the background which could further back my idea of this being a block party. The framing of this image is very important this is because it seems to be a chaotic action shot with many things going on, therefore we can assume the photographer had to pick a certain frame at the centre of the action and eliminate anything else surrounding it. We know that there is most likely more to this image then what is framed as we can see distant faces towards the back of the images and limbs of other people towards the side of the image. As for the vantage point, the photographer took the image looking straight on into the action and at roughly the same height as everyone else. This could of been done as he was caught up in this celebration and wanted to take an image as memorabilia or to make it as if us looking at the image felt more involved and included.
Photo Analysis In this image i can see a man and a women standing together holding some fruit and veg. This is a naturalistic portrait and i can recognise that they are standing in front of a tree from the rough texture and the familiar lines running up the wood. This image reminds me of a generic country side farming couple or a image you'd find on the on the side of a advert of fresh farm produce. The main lines in this image is the lines on the tree behind the couple, these have lots of texture and you can see the depth in the lines. Light in this image seems to be a natural light as there is not just one focus or beam of light instead light is scattered all over the image. Space in this image is used to show the relationship between the man and women. I think the two are a couple as they are standing pretty close together and seem to be smiling or trying not to giggle. The thing that strikes me most in this image is the facial expression on the man, this is where i got the suggestion that he is trying not to laugh as he has a very wide grin and his eyes are slightly squinted which i would believe would be the expression someone would pull when laughing. If i were to title this image i would have it be called something to do with the countryside but also linking to the tree as i think this is a key aspect of the image. If i were inside the image i think it would be around spring or summer time as thats when the crops would be ready so it would be warm but i would find shade under the tree. I think this artist made this image to maybe reflect the types of different people or different jobs in his area.Furthermore i think it would be nice to live in this image, as the couple have warm facial expressions and seem like innocent farmers i think they have a simple happy life. In the image i think the use of detail is effective, i think including the detail of the fruit and veg allows me to infer that they are a farming couple.
Diptych analysis
As we can see above on the left we have the image I was given. After doing some analysis into my image it was then put together with the image the person next to me had. Following on the whole class then put their diptychs together to form an exhibition. We spoke about each diptych and found that our diptych worked really well. This is because we came up with ideas such as the left image could be after the loss of a partner, furthermore we also liked how the crinkled sheets on the left image are similar to the lines on the corn the man on the right is holding.