Martina Mullaney

Martina Mullaney is an Irish photographer, born in 1972, currently living and working in London, UK. She is very well known for her project 'Turn In', for which she photographed lots of beds in hostels and night shelters. Another well known project is 'Dinner for One', which features many dining tables and other areas set up with a single plate of food.

For her 'Turn In' project, Mullaney visited many different hostels and night shelters, bringing across the the loneliness and isolation of the people using those beds. These are actually themes that show in a lot of Mullaney's work. The prints are beautiful, large-scale and full of colour. It is only after viewing them for a while that the sense of loneliness and sadness kicks in.

The 'Dinner for One' project is very similar and actually accompanies the 'Turn In' project. Again, the loneliness and melancholy are there. Mullaney wanted to show the decline of the ritual of the evening meal and the increase of people eating alone.

Again, as with so many of these interior photographers, I am surprised about my feelings of her work. The empty beds, the lonely plates on tables, they shouldn't interest me. I would've never looked at photographs like these in the manner I do now. In the past, I would've thought they were boring. Now, I find them fascinating. They're really simple photographs, but what they're trying to bring across is quite a strong message.



Image Sources:
http://www.source.ie/artists/artistsM/artmulmar.html
http://www.yossimilo.com/artists/mart_mull/

Location Photography - Interior Brief

The idea for my interior brief came along while I was talking to my tutor, Sian. Several ideas were going through my head, but because this was something that was totally out of my comfort zone when it comes to photography, I simply didn't have a clue where to go or how to set things up. At first, because I was very impressed with my Sian's photography, I thought about doing a similar project. That was, until she mentioned Simryn Gill to me.

Simryn Gill is a photographer from Singapore. I have a post in my blog about her in case you wanted to know a little more. Gill did a project called Dalam (2001). It was a project containing 258 photographs for which she travelled across the Malaysian Peninsula, knocking on the doors of total strangers and asked them if she could photograph their living rooms.

Hearing about her, it really sparked something inside me. I wanted to try this too. However, unlike Gill, who found most people were more than happy for her to take a photograph of their living rooms, there weren't many that felt confident enough to allow me into their homes. Truth be told, I struggled getting the nine separate images together for this brief. To me, that shows the difference in country and culture between Gill and myself. Here in Europe, there aren't many places where people are confident enough to invite a total stranger into their homes anymore. Whether that's because they like to keep themselves to themselves, they're scared I could be recording what's there to plan a burglary or perhaps the houses are full of stolen goods they wouldn't want on camera. I'm not sure about the reasons. But some of the looks I got would suggest I am the world's biggest criminal mastermind.

Part of Gill's Dalam project

My aim was to present a final image that represents people's lives. The photographs aren't overly composed and look slightly chaotic, which to me was to symbolise the lives of the people that own these rooms. Life isn't perfect. From homes with little children to the living room of an older lady that has recently passed away, every single one of these rooms would tell its own story. And that's what this was about for me. They're simply a tiny slice of someone's life. This image below is how this collection should be viewed. Not as the individual photographs, but as a collection. Almost as tho they're hanging on a wall in a gallery. The result of a project that turned out a lot harder than expected.

Looking at my images, I probably should have kept going to try and get more images and create a bigger and more impressive collection. It was so much harder than expected tho, which I think made me give up a lot sooner than I perhaps should have. That's not to say I didn't spent a lot of hours on this, but I think a bigger collection would've been nice. Another thing that has disappointed me is that one of the images has a blur on it. I am not sure about the reason for this, other than that the focus must've shifted when taking the shot. But the worst thing is that I did not notice this until I got the photograph printed in A3 format. The lack of money has prevented me from getting a new photograph and a new collective image printed out. It probably would've been nice if I would've been in posession of a wider lens, because it's surprising how small some rooms are and that way I would've been able to fit more in my images. Overall, I'm quite satisfied with the outcome. It does what I wanted it to do and it has been a great experience as well. Very daunting, but a reasonably original idea.


Image Source:
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/simryn-gill 

Lamya Gargash

Lamya Gargash was born in 1982 in Dubai, UAE. To this day, she still lives and works there. She has won several awards by documenting the private places and forgotten spaces in the Emirati society. Gargash studied Visual Communications at the American University in Sharjah and graduated there in 2004.

She takes photographs of unwanted buildings. From the semi-abandoned to the soon-to-be demolished. She has documented this very well in one of her projects called 'Presence'. A series of photographs that show a young culture that, after the oil boom, came to life and is now quickly becoming extinct because of the need to modernise everything at amazing speed. According to Gargash this leaves very little time to grief over spaces like this and therefore felt the old culture needed to be documented before this new identity was to take over. Although that is just one series, most of her photographs seem to follow this theme.

Her images really bring across this feeling of being abandoned to me. Looking at them and trying to put myself in the environment, I almost get the feeling I have to get out before the wrecking ball comes flying in. Dark rooms, empty kitchens and broken staircases make for stunning images of otherwise forgotten places. Really quite impressive. I never imagined I would've been impressed with images like this, but for some reason they have really touched something inside me.

Image Sources:

http://bldgblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/el-resplandor.html

Simryn Gill

Simryn Gill was born in 1959 in Singapore. She was raised in Malaysia and is now based in Sydney, Australia. Part of Gill's education took place in India and Great Britain.

She is an artist and a photographer who, by finding, collecting and using everyday objects, creates involving art objects. Examples of this are Red Hot (1992), a Native American headdress created from dried chillies. Forking Tongues (1992), a spiral created using things found in the kitchen, such as cutlery and dried chillies. And Wonderlust (1996), a suit created using coconut shells. A lot of Gill's art uses objects unique to her experience and with those objects and artifacts she draws upon parts of her culture and the cultures she grew up with. She also uses words in her art.

Gill has been the main inspiration for my interior brief. Whilst she is very well known for the photographs of the objects and artifacts mentioned earlier, it was her Dalam (2001) project that I based my images on. To form that project, Gill took 258 photographs. She travelled across the Malaysian Peninsula and knocked on the doors of strangers, asking if she could take a photograph of their living room.

I find her work fascinating. Projects such as Dalam, as well as the photographs of her art. Her art engages people. It makes people think about her travels, about the places and cultures where these objects and artifacts came from. From doing a similar thing to Dalam, I know how daunting it can be to do something like that. The funny thing is that in my project, hardly anyone allowed me to take a photograph of their living room. Whereas Gill found that surprisingly, almost everyone was happy to let her take a photograph. I hope it's nothing to do with me. But really, to me, that shows the differences in countries and cultures.


Image Sources:
http://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/collection/contemporary_asian_art/simryn_gill
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/simryn-gill

Location Photography - Exterior Brief

The following is the work I have done for the exterior part of our location photography brief. The brief was simple: Choose which sort of location photography you like most and produce ten photographs. To me, the choice was very easy. Being a photographer that favours landscapes to any other sort of locations, I decided that a landscape was going to be the location in which to produce my end result.

Before setting off on my shoot, I decided to think about what photographs and photographers have really made me think about how I take landscape photographs since starting my course. Photographers like Joe Cornish, Josef Hoflehner and Ansel Adams are all up there in my top list of people that inspire me when looking at their landscapes. From Hoflehner's dark, underexposed black and white photographs to Cornish's colourful, almost unreal and dreamlike looking images. They all contain parts that I would like to use in my own work at some stage. I would like to think some aspects can already be seen in these photographs I took.

I set off towards the Yorkshire Dales in Yorkshire (England, UK), where I discovered this beautiful, almost rain forest looking waterfall which had a stream leading towards an even bigger waterfall.

Because my photographs are all taken in one location, I have tried to take a few shots of the same subject from different angles. By doing this, photographs that initially look almost the same, actually have several different aspects to them. None of the images have been edited, apart from small amounts of cropping in the final ten images to take away a branch or a leaf here and there. These are the ten images I produced.
 

Unfortunately I can't provide any test shots, simply because there aren't any. So much time was spent making sure the settings were correct for the intended photograph, that the only other photographs I have available from that day contain squirrels, birds and one drainage pipe. Being together with a friend, who is also a budding photographer, has probably helped. We were simply able to discuss what our thoughts were on the matter of settings etc. and the resulting photographs are shown above.

I'm quite happy with my work, but I possibly could've made the water smoother by choosing a longer shutter speed. I think a longer exposure would've made it silkier, which was ultimately what I intended. Another thing is the tight cropping on some of the shots, although I think it works well and I'm not sure changing it would've improved my shots. Variety is another thing that perhaps is missing. But because I intended to shoot a series of photos instead of idividual shots it isn't much of an issue for me personally.

Thomas Joshua Cooper

Thomas Joshua Cooper is an American photographer. He was born in San Francisco in 1946. Cooper is considered one of the best contemporary landscape photographers.

Thomas Joshua Cooper

Cooper studied at the Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1969. Three years later he received a master's in photography from the University of New Mexico.

Nowadays, Cooper lives in Glasgow, Scotland. He is the founding head of photography at the Glasgow School of Art.

Cooper's images can involve days, weeks or sometimes even months of preparation and research. That's why according to Cooper he doesn't "take" his photographs, but "finds" and "makes" them. Travelling all over the world, he has visited some of the most isolated places on earth. The choice of location always begins with a map. He picks a location on the map, tracks it down and achieves the photograph he wants.

Cooper uses an AGFA camera that's over a 100 years old. He also uses specially made photographic plates. With the use of a chiaroscuro technique, using the highly contrasting variations of light and shade in his photographs, combined with the silver prints layered in accentuating selenium and gold chloride, he achieves exactly what he wants from the landscapes. Whether it's the unique identity of a wave, the velvet looking flow of the water or the visceral geology of a rock formation.

Some of his work is really inspiring to me. All these black and white images with the high contrast and that velvet look of water is something I certainly will use in my own work at some point in time. I would like to think some small elements are perhaps already visible in my exterior work. There are always some images that aren't to one's taste, but overall he's definitely a photographer at the top of our profession.

Image Sources:

http://www.fadwebsite.com/2009/05/06/thomas-joshua-cooper-true-at-haunch-of-venison-review-by-hannah-hayes-walker/
http://www.northuist.org/blog/2012/02/06/thomas-joshua-cooper/
http://www.gmggallery.com/exhibition82.html

Ansel Adams

Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, famoust for his black and white photographs of the American West. He primarily used large format cameras.

Even though the large format cameras are big and heavy, take a long time to set up and the cost of film is expensive, Adams still preferred them because of their high resolution. This helped in making sure his images were as sharp as they could be.

Ansel Adams

He produced his first portfolio in 1927, which earned him nearly $3,900. A huge amount for that time. It was called Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras and it contained his famous image Monolith, The Face of Half Dome. It was at this stage that Adams felt his photographs were worthy of the world's critical examination.

Monolith, The Face of Half Dome

Adams was especially productive, as well as experimental, between 1929 and 1942. It was in 1931 that he put on his first solo exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution, which featured 60 prints taken in the High Sierra. Over his 60 year career, Adams has put on many exhibitions. He also published in magazines, co-founded a magazine, wrote a childrens book with his wife.

He also founded Group f/64, together with Imogen Cunningham, Willard van Dyke and Edward Weston after doing a group show at the M.H. de Young Museum in 1932.. This organisation was all about 'pure and straight photography', rather than pictorialism. This is quite funny really, because Adams' famous Monolith photograph would have been unacceptable by their standards, because he used a strong red filter to create a black sky.

Moonrise

Adams has always been well known for his photographs of the National Parks in the US, especially Yosemite National Park, documenting what they were like before the influx of tourism. He contracted with the Department of the Interior in 1941, to take photographs of the National Parks, Indian Reserves and other locations. They wanted mural sized photographs for their new building. Part of the deal was that he could also use some photographs for his own use. Unfortunately, Adams forgot to record the date of his famous photograph 'Moonrise', which shows the moon rising above a small Mexican village, with snowy mountains in the background. Because nobody knows the exact date, it is unclear whether this photograph belongs to the U.S. Government or Adams himself.

I really like his work. Having a big passion for landscape photography myself, looking at his images brings a smile to my face. There are many photographers out there with a similar style. Most, if not all, inspired by Adams. I've tried to use certain aspects of his work in my own work, especially of the images taken from a lower angle. This man deserves all the praise people give him, pure genius.

Image Sources:
http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/adams/home.htm
http://artroots.com/art/art14_index.html
http://mandatorymovieblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012_01_01_archive.html
http://www.outoffocusphotography.in/index.php/ansel-adams-photographs/

Andreas Gursky

Andreas Gursky is a German visual artist, born in Leipzig in 1955, known for his large format architectural and landscape photographs.

Andreas Gursky

Between 1981 and 1987, Gursky studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he was heavily influenced by his teachers Hilla and Bernd Becher. The Bechers are known for their distinctive method of cataloging industrial machinery and architecture without any emotion or passion. Gursky's large scale photographs show a similar method.

99 cent

Before the 1990's, none of Gursky's images were digitally enhanced. However, since then he has openly admitted that he relies a lot on computers to edit and enhance his images. A lot of his photographs are taken from an elevated vantage point, which enables him to show scenes that are normally beyond reach. Some good examples are his '99 cent' photograph and the 'Chicaco Board of Trade' photograph.

Chicago Board of Trade

Whilst Gursky is very famous for his busy scenes full of colour, one mustn't forget his landscape photography. Gursky's 'Rhein II' photograph, depicting an empty landscape with the river Rhine flowing through it, sold at Christie's auction house in New York for $4.3m (£2.7m) in 2008. This makes it the most expensive photograph ever sold.

Rhein II

I am very torn when I look at Gursky's photographs. On the one hand, I really don't like his images. It's chaotic, it's too busy or in the case of 'Rhein II' it's simply too boring. But on the other hand, I totally get his work. I can see what his intentions were and I can see what makes these images so special. I suppose this is the difference between looking at something as the 'normal me' or as the 'photographer me'. One thing his images do for both 'me's' is mesmerise me. They have this abillity to make you look at them for long times and constantly find something different you didn't see before. Very special indeed.

Task 3 - Camera Types

There are many different camera types. From digital to film, 35mm to large format. Every single one has its advantages and disadvantages, so it can be confusing finding the right camera for the job. Below I will talk a little bit about some of the important types of cameras. First, let's talk about a few of the formats available in photography before we discuss the types of cameras using these different formats.

ISO 400 Fuji 135 Colour Film (35mm)

35mm

35mm film is probably the most popular film used by people today. Each image on the film is 36x24mm and is commonly known as "full-frame" format. In 1934, Kodak introduced it under the term '135'. The full-frame format has now been adopted by many high-end Digital SLR Cameras.

Original 120 and 620, Modern 120 Film

120 Film

120 film was created by Kodak for use with their 'Brownie' No. 2 camera. Intended for amateur photographers, it was quickly overtaken by the 35mm '135' film. However, together with its relative '220' film, it remains the only Medium Format film widely available for professionals and amateurs.

Medium Format (left) and 35mm (right)

Medium Format

Medium Format is a term used to refer to a certain type of film and the cameras that use this film. It is used for film, and cameras that use film, that is larger than 36x24mm but smaller than 4x5 inches. Anything bigger is referred to as 'Large Format', which I will discuss too. The image on the right shows the size comparison between 'Medium Format' and 35mm.

Large Format

Large Format film

Large Format refers to film or the cameras that use film larger than 4x5 inches (102×127 mm). The advantage is that a Large Format image has an area 16 times the size of standard 35mm, thus containing 16 times the resolution of a standard 35mm. This means Large Format images are of a much higher resolution and often contain much more detail. They're often used for images that have to be enlarged to a high magnification while still requiring a high level of detail.


Now that we've discussed a few popular types of film, let's talk about some of the different cameras that use these types of film.

Single Lens Reflex (SLR)

The inner workings of a SLR camera

SLR cameras are often 35mm, but can also be Medium Format. They use a prism and mirror system that allows the user to see directly through the lens, meaning "what you see is what you get". Unlike viewfinder cameras, where the image captured can differ a lot from what the user saw through the viewfinder. SLR cameras are available with many different lenses and many different lenses can be bought. Some examples are removable lenses, fixed lenses, prime lenses (fixed focal length) and zoom lenses (range of focal lengths). Before the SLR cameras, all cameras with a viewfinder had two light paths. One directly through the lens onto the film. The other above (Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) cameras) or to the side (Rangefinder cameras). Because the two path were different, it meant the captured image could differ greatly from what the photographer had seen through the viewfinder.


Medium Format SLR

Medium Format SLR cameras are the same as normal SLR cameras, but use Medium Format film instead of the 35mm film. This means that there isn't a standard size to the prints. Instead, the image size is only restricted by the size of the film. Therefore, the images could be anything from 36x24mm to 4x5 inches.

Twin Lens Reflex (TLR)

Classic Rolleiflex TLR

TLR cameras are cameras, as the name suggests, with 2 lenses. Both lenses are of the same focal length. One lens is the photographic objective lens (the lens that takes the actual photograph), while the other is the lens connected to the viewfinder. The viewfinder is usually positioned on the top or the side and mirrors used to get the scene from the lens to the viewfinder. TLR cameras most often use the Medium Format '120' film, although there are a lot of examples of TLR cameras using different formats. There are no general purpose Digital TLR cameras, since the era of the TLR camera ended long before the Digital era began. The only exception is the rather expensive Rollei Mini-Digi, which was introduced in 2004 as more of a collector's camera.

Large Format Cameras

Most Large Format cameras are 'view cameras'. These cameras have a front and a back part which are called 'standards'. The front standard contains the 'lens pane' (which as the name suggests contains the lens) and the back standard contains the 'film pane' (which contains the film). The bellows is a flexible box, pleated like an accordion, that sits in between the two standards and makes it so the standards can be shifted and tilted. This shift and tilt movement was especially good for architectural and close-up photographers, because it gave them a better control of rendering perspective and increase apparent depth of field. It would help them solve otherwise impossible depth of field problems and they could create special effects that would be impossible to create with conventional fixed-plane fixed-lens cameras.


 Instant Cameras (Polaroid)

Instant cameras are cameras that use self-developing film and generate a developed film image. The most popular instant cameras were formerly made by Polaroid Corporation. 

Polaroid SX-70

The original idea, by Edwin Land, behind this type of camera was that they would be easy to use for everyone. In the early days, a photographer would take a picture and pull a large tab at the back of the camera, which would pull the negative over the positive. The image would then go through some rollers to spread the developing agent. After waiting the required time, the photographer would open a little hatch at the back of the camera and would peel the positive from the negative. He would then need to coat the black and white positive in a fixing agent, which would prevent fading. This was a messy procedure which led to the development of coater less instant pack film which didn't need this coat of fixing agent anymore. 

2 photographs taken on instant film

The later integral film cameras, such as the Polaroid SX-70 shown above, managed to really bring Edwin Land's idea to life. The photographer would simply take the photograph and the camera would do the rest. It would adjust exposure, take care of focus and simply eject the photograph which would then develop without needing any intervention from the photographer. In October 2009, Polaroid announced they would bring back their classic instant film cameras after they announced a year before that production was to be stopped.


Rangefinder Camera

A Rangfinder camera is essentially a camera with a rangefinder fitted to it. A rangefinder is a mechanism which allows the photographer to measure the distance to his subjects, allowing him to take photographs that are super sharp. Most rangefinder cameras display two of the same images of the subject. One of the images moves when a wheel on the camera is turned. When the two images merge into one, the correct distance can be read off the wheel. Older cameras then needed that value transferred to the focus ring, giving the correct focus.

1947 Foca Rangefinder Camera

Nowadays, digital cameras have a rangefinding mechanism that measures the distance using electroaccoustic or electronic means. And of course also focus automatically using the autofocus.

Pinhole Camera

A pinhole camera is really simply a box, entirely light-proof, with a tiny hole on one side. The light will pass through the hole and project an inverted image of the scene on the other side. In other words, the image will be upside down. Because pinhole cameras require lenghty exposures, the shutter would be operated manually by using light-proof material to uncover and cover the pinhole. To create a photograph, the scene could be projected on photographic film for example. Once the scene has been exposed on the photographic film, the photographer would simply develop the film as normal.

The principle of a pinhole camera

It can be a little tricky to find the right size required for the pinhole. The smaller the pinhole, the sharper the image, but the image becomes dimmer too. If the pinhole is too small, the sharpness worsens due to diffraction.

An example of a 20 minute exposure taken with a pinhole camera

 The Camera Obscura is a very well known example of the pinhole camera. Often, people would use a light-proof room with a little hole on the window side and project the scene on the walls of the room. It is often used for drawing or entertainment. In drawing, the scene would be projected onto paper, upside down, and traced for a perfect representation of the scene when turned around.

Image Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:135_fuji_film_macro.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Film_size_comparison.jpg

http://benneh.net/blog/tag/large-format

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/camera5.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/120_film
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin-lens_reflex_camera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_camera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_camera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_film
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_camera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangefinder_camera