So far in photography I have learned about many different variants of photography and how they work. During my GCSE Photography course I learnt about how the different camera functions work on a Canon camera and how they can be used such as TV shutter speed, P aperture and many more. Then I learnt more about Photoshop and how to cut out and filter different pictures on there which then led to me learning more about low light photography in Component 2 of my GCSE course which I then brought into my 10 hour exam with me to secure my final outcome. I am now learning about evidence in the start of my A Level Photography course.
The word 'evidence' means to show proof that a proposition is true or valid rather than just the belief of it. It is known to make facts more or less probable. In Photography this could be described as the testimony to indicate critical information about the truth of a photograph or any other photographical evidence. Evidence can be counted as many different factors such as testimony, photographs, documents, video recordings and DNA testings. Evidence is important in photography for crime scenes as there would need to be evidence to prove the scene of the crime and show that no one has tampered with the crime scene. Since its invention in the 1830s photographs have been used as sources of evidence for a variety of different events all across the world. Photographs can also be used as historical evidence serving in informal contexts as evidence about many different things. However, photographs are not the only pictures that can furnish evidence.
The Mandel and Sultan book was a very significant part of evidence in photography as their original photos were used as documents and objective records of real life situations such as crime scenes, industrial experiments and aeronautical engineering tests. Mandel and Sultan stated that the term 'evidence' meant 'a poetic exploration upon the restructuring of imagery' when they first discovered it in the 1970s. In their exhibition the pictures that once served a purpose for evidence were stripped of their explanatory captions and institutional contexts and presented as expressive artefacts.
. Shaun Greenholdge made sculptures and panels and went to prison
. Books in National Art Library contain the evidence photographs
. One piece of photography at Tate Modern was exposed as a fake
. Shed was made to represent forger's workshop
. Wish for truth one of their greatest desires
. Photography only shows us one surface of the world
. Photography can never be isolated as it is part of encoding and decoding information
. Most important part of photography is the viewer
. Photographs are open-ended
. Christian Gerhastreiter spent 30 years of his life pretending to be a brain surgeon
. Books in National Art Library contain the evidence photographs
. One piece of photography at Tate Modern was exposed as a fake
. Shed was made to represent forger's workshop
. Wish for truth one of their greatest desires
. Photography only shows us one surface of the world
. Photography can never be isolated as it is part of encoding and decoding information
. Most important part of photography is the viewer
. Photographs are open-ended
. Christian Gerhastreiter spent 30 years of his life pretending to be a brain surgeon
The Grey Area
We are less trustful of photographs at this point in history because photography was a relatively new invention at the time so people may not fully trust it to have proper evidence. Photographs can also be fake due to different deep fakes and editing so it is difficult to fully trust photographs when it comes to evidence.
This is challenging for documentary photographers as most of their photographs rely on evidence to prove a certain event. However, during this point in history most photographs were not factual with evidence so documentary photographers may not be able to prove ay sort of evidence for a certain event.
The Grey Area may be an interesting place for photographers to explore between facts and fiction because it showcases many different highlights of evidence which could either be true or false depending on the type of photography or evidence.
I think that the term 'documentary uncertainty' means where there is an uncertainty for documentary photographers towards evidence as there may be no true evidence for the type of documentary photography symbolising a case of uncertainty within the photograph.
This is challenging for documentary photographers as most of their photographs rely on evidence to prove a certain event. However, during this point in history most photographs were not factual with evidence so documentary photographers may not be able to prove ay sort of evidence for a certain event.
The Grey Area may be an interesting place for photographers to explore between facts and fiction because it showcases many different highlights of evidence which could either be true or false depending on the type of photography or evidence.
I think that the term 'documentary uncertainty' means where there is an uncertainty for documentary photographers towards evidence as there may be no true evidence for the type of documentary photography symbolising a case of uncertainty within the photograph.
How I have interpreted 'The Grey Area'
I have interpreted The Grey Area by taking pictures of many different unusual objects and objects that may represent this type of photography. I have thought about this through the use of evidence as using photographs based off of evidence makes it more useful and helpful to take better photographs and ones that correlate to The Grey Area more with the unnatural type of photography that I have used. By doing this I have been able to strengthen my photography knowledge and skills to a wider range and this will benefit me as The Grey Area has helped me to take more pictures of unusual objects and provide more evidence to my project.
Jack Latham
Jack Latham is a British documentary photographer who was born in 1989 in Cardiff, Wales. He made a high variety of different projects during his career with his most famous ones being Sugar Paper Theories (2016) and Parliament of Owls (2019). Sugar Paper Theories is a series of images that revisit Iceland's murder case of Gudmundur and Geirfinnur. On the other hand, Parliament of Owls is about the effects that the vacuum of information can cause. Both of these projects are very significant when it comes to evidence and phonebooks as they can provide lots of different data and factors for different crime scenes or any type of event. What I like about Latham's photographs are that he is able to present his evidence very well and use different factors to make photobooks with series of photographs based off of real life events. Most of Latham's photographs are made in black and white to showcase how the photography may have looked like during the specific crime scene.
Sugar Paper Theories
Sugar Paper Theories is a photobook published by Jack Latham in 2016. This book represented a crime scene that happened in Iceland which Jack Latham then decided to make a book to describe the event using photographs. This occurred during the year 1974 in Reykjavik, Iceland involving the Gudmundur and Geirfinnur case which is also known as the Reykjavik confessions where two men went missing with Gudmundur going missing on the 27th January 1974 and Geirfinnur going missing on the 19th November 1974. To this day their bodies were never found so there was never any forensic evidence for the court. Eventually six suspects were convicted of manslaughter and were sentenced for a range of 12 months-17 years in prison. Jack Latham may have also represented the idea of 'The Grey Area' in 'Sugar Paper Theories' as there are many isolated photographs in an unusual area with a very sinister setting which may also raise many concerns about what may be happening in these photographs. Below is a photograph from Jack Latham's 'Sugar Paper Theories' which also involves some analysis and evaluation notes.
What I can see: I can see an old car next to a few numbered signs next to a body on the ground (could be a dead body of a potential murder scene) on a field of snow on an island by the sea with only one other island in the distance. I can also see two ships by the sea in the photo on the land with a small house in the distance on a hill to the left side of the photograph.
How is the space organised: The body is positioned in the centre of the photograph with the signs and the car just around the body. On the left side of the photograph there is a house on a hill with nothing else around it. Finally there are two ships on the right side of the photograph with an island further out into the distance.
How does this make me feel: This make me feel a very suspicious and nervy feeling as to why there is a body in the middle of nowhere on an island with nothing but one house and no other buildings around apart from two ships and one other island further out into the distance which could symbolise a potential murder.
Key Ideas/Questions: I think the ideas raised by the photograph are similar to Parliament of Owls as this also could represent a crime scene as there is a dead body on an island and the house could belong to the murderer. Questions could be raised about why no one else was around and why was there someone on this island in the first place.
How is the space organised: The body is positioned in the centre of the photograph with the signs and the car just around the body. On the left side of the photograph there is a house on a hill with nothing else around it. Finally there are two ships on the right side of the photograph with an island further out into the distance.
How does this make me feel: This make me feel a very suspicious and nervy feeling as to why there is a body in the middle of nowhere on an island with nothing but one house and no other buildings around apart from two ships and one other island further out into the distance which could symbolise a potential murder.
Key Ideas/Questions: I think the ideas raised by the photograph are similar to Parliament of Owls as this also could represent a crime scene as there is a dead body on an island and the house could belong to the murderer. Questions could be raised about why no one else was around and why was there someone on this island in the first place.
Parliament of Owls
Parliament of Owls is a photobook published by Jack Latham in 2019. This photobook was particularly successful because it won the British Journal of Photography's 2019 IPA award. This photobook is about exploring the effects a vacuum of information can cause. This project is focused on exploring the redwood forest in Monte Rio, North California to symbolise what a vacuum of information could bring to us and how it may affect us. I personally think that this project may also represent a crime scene as many of the photographs are in the middle of nowhere with just an isolated forest and an abandoned area with nothing else around it which could raise questions about why was this a good location for the project and what other ideas could be raised about it. Jack Latham may have also represented the idea of 'The Grey Area' in 'Parliament of Owls' as the chosen location for the project may give us the idea that the forest may be abandoned and isolated as it could give a very eerie feeling to anyone reading the phonebook which could also represent a potential crime scene. Below is a photograph from Jack Latham's 'Parliament of Owls' and many annotations and notes on the photograph.
Clocks For Seeing
Berris Conolly
Berris Conolly is a British commercial photographer who was born in 1948. His work was mainly based on commercial and documentary photography where he worked in photographing and documenting the streets of North and East London in black and white. Conolly did this to document aspects of London that the public eye do not usually see and to also highlight memories for people to look back and see the history of London aswell. He originally documented his work in the 1970s in his hometown of Hackney before moving to Sheffield towards the end of his photography career. What I like about Berris Connolly's work is that he showcases many aspects of his hometown and other parts of London so that people can look back on the history of London and see how much it has changed over the years from the 1970s compared to now. Conolly may have specifically chosen to use black and white for these photographs to document how London may have been viewed to people during that time so people may gather many different feelings towards how the photograph represents London. I believe this photograph shows a true depiction of the photography topic 'Clocks for Seeing' because it has a very significant representation of the subject and relates a lot to how historical and contemporary photography should be showcased.
Verity Milligan
Verity Milligan is a Scottish landscape photographer who is based in Birmingham, England. Her work is mainly based on taking photographs of urban landscapes of different locations within most of the UK such as the Lake District, Peak District, Warwickshire and many more significant locations, Milligan did this to document many landscapes of the UK and bring aesthetically pleasing photographs and to specifically pay tribute to where she grew up and started getting inspired by landscape photography in the town of Corby. What I like about Verity Milligan's work is that she symbolises many beautiful aspects of landscape photography so many people can be aesthetically pleased and also look back on the photographs as a piece of history at that specific location. Milligan may have chosen these specific locations to showcase how different elements of landscape photography may be showcased towards the public eye and to also showcase a different technical approach to contemporary landscape photography as a whole. I believe this photograph shows a true depiction of the photography topic 'Clocks for Seeing' as Verity Milligan uses a variety of different landscapes to highlight the history and aesthetics of the landscapes around the UK and also showcase a different side of photography in aesthetically pleasing locations compared to towns and cities.
Michael Shainblum
Michael Shainblum is an American based contemporary landscape photographer who mainly based his work in different aesthetics of landscapes in the USA where he worked in gathering different aspects of landscape photography in aesthetically pleasing aspects of the USA. Shainblum mainly did work on landscapes because he wanted to have the ability to not only give his photographs a high level of versatility but to also gather new dynamics of photography that no one would have thought about which makes his work highly unique compared to other landscape photographers. Shainblum did this throughout most of his career increasing his popularity as a landscape photographer leading up to now where he now works in photography utilising the range of time-lapse. What I like about Michael Shainblum's photography is how he chooses very aesthetic locations to bring life to his photographs and gather more people to enjoy the type of photography he makes. Shainblum may have decided to use these specific locations to aesthetically please his followers and the public eye as a whole but he could have also done this to create an impact of landscape photography for other people and inspire them to create landscape photography of their own. I believe this photograph shows a true depiction of the photography topic 'Clocks For Seeing' as the photograph provides a wide range of pleasing aspects and aesthetics which can also highlight why Shainblum has chosen these particular locations to take his photographs.
For these photographs I decided to base my photography on different landscapes in different locations at night or at low light hours. I intended to capture these photographs at different locations and at different views as I took some photographs at the centre of certain photographs and others on the left or right hand side. Another feature I included was that I took some photographs in 0.5x zoomed out, some at normal view at 1x and some in 1.5x or 2x. I personally feel very satisfied with my outcomes as I feel like I used the aesthetics of the photograph very well and many parts of the photograph were captured in lots of detail and composed very well. However, I feel like I could've improved the lighting of some of the photographs as the lenses may have not captured some of the photographs perfectly.
Niall McDiarmid is a British environmental photographer who specialises his photography in different environments and towns such as Brighton. He does this by going from town to town and taking photographs of different people or certain places in towns to have a wide range of different photographical structures. One particular piece of photography that McDiarmid uses in his work is that he specialises his use of vocal viewpoint and aperture to get a wide range of views in his photography and bring a variety of effects to all the photographs he takes and uses in his work.
These images are based on my own interpretation of Niall McDiarmid's work. To do this I used a vocal viewpoint of 55 on manual focus so that the camera could adjust manually and I could control the different viewpoints of where I took my photographs and his much detail could be captured within the photographs. I personally believe that the photographs were composed very well and laid out in some great positioning to capture the environmental portraiture of the photograph in more detail. However, I feel that the photographs could've been captured more clearly as some of the photographs have bad quality as they may have not been focused properly.
Environmental Portrait Scans
Environmental Portrait Individual Edits
I took these pictures on the Fuji GS645S medium format camera with Ilford HP5 400 ISO black and white film. This is a film camera that is mainly based on taking different photographs with two images overlapping to be fully focused and the pictures are then processed in black and white font to present a sophisticated outcome. What I like about these photographs are that there is a lot of good composition in the foreground and background of the images and the people in the photographs are focused on particularly well. However, I think these photographs could have been better if they had been focused better and the images had overlapped each other more to create a more clearer outcome of not only the person but the background of the photograph as well.
Photographs inspired by Sugimoto/Moriyama
Environmental Portraits - Fuji GS645S (35mm)
Environmental Portraits - Nikon FM (120)
Exhibition Visits
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Hiroshi Sugimoto is a Japanese photographer who was born in 1948. Sugimoto has mainly focused his work on capturing different subjects such as dioramas, wax figures and architecture which he did by re-exploring ideas and practices from the 19th century whilst also using a large format wooden camera and mixing his own darkroom chemicals. Over the past 50 years, Sugimoto's photography has rearranged and stretched the different concepts of space, light and time that are integral to the medium. His photography received so much recognition that to this day they still receive international acclaim and they have also been presented in major institutions across the globe. Nowadays, Sugimoto has added architecture and sculpture into his multidisciplinary practice and he has also become an artistic director on performing arts productions. What I like about Sugimoto's photography is that it shows a true depiction of capturing the subjects that Sugimoto will have wanted to take and how it showcases the different ideas he may have used for his photography. The photograph was likely taken around the 1980s in Japan and it was taken to represent different subject matters that Sugimoto may have liked during his photography career. To this day the photographs still have a huge effect on photography as a whole as the photographs are now presented in different galleries across the UK and other parts of the world meaning the photographs did achieve their original purposes. These photographs confirm my knowledge of Sugimoto's photography as a whole and they could be used as historical knowledge to showcase how Sugimoto presented his photographs over time.
Daido Moriyama
Forget everything you’ve learned on the subject of photography for the moment, and just shoot. Take photographs - of anything and everything, whatever catches your eye. Don’t pause to think.
- Daido Moriyama
Daido Moriyama is a Japanese photographer who was born in 1938. Moriyama has mainly focused his work on 200 large-scale installations as well as many photobooks and magazines which he also focused on Japanese magazines, interest within the American occupation and his engagement with photorealism. Moriyama then focused his work on a more self-reflexive period in the 1980s and 1990s where he reflected on different aspects such as memory, reality and cities through tireless documentation and reinvention of his own archive after he started following on towards the essence of photography and his own self. What I like about Moriyama's photography is that he showcases how he uses different landscapes within his photographs with elements of people and cities as well which symbolises his engagement with photorealism. These photographs were likely taken around the 1980s in many different cities likely in Japan and it was taken to represent Moriyama's self-reflexive period as it represents many of his different aspects. These photographs are a true depiction of Moriyama's subject as they achieved their original purpose of engaging with photorealism whilst also engaging in Moriyama's large-scale installations during his career which also confirms my knowledge of how Moriyama presented his work to his audience and how he may have made these photographs. To this day, these photographs still create a significant effect on photography today as Moriyama's work is still very popular and it is used in many different galleries across the UK and other parts of the world and his photographs could also be used as historical knowledge as they could link to his self-reflexive period in the 1980s and 1990s and also relate to his engagement with photorealism.
How I made my photozine
To make my photozine I started by using InDesign to make a template of two separate pages to use different photographs on with the first page being like a poster with one stand out picture and the other page having multiple pictures on the same page. I used different photographs that I took from my 'Clocks For Seeing' project that I have been working on to make the InDesign template to then help me make my photozine. After I did this I then printed all the pictures from the template out onto 1 piece of paper where I then folded the different photographs to make different foldable pages and turn the paper into a foldable photozine. I personally like this photozine because it represents some highly sophisticated and aesthetical photographs that I have taken from my 'Clocks For Seeing' project. However, I also believe I could use a wider variety of photographs in the next photozine I make for my photography project.