Danny Santos

Danny Santos is a professional photographer based in Singapore, who's project on portraits of strangers I came across when trying to find something similar to my own portrait assignment. His work concentrates on strangers he comes across when walking the streets of Orchard Road in Singapore. He focuses on people who appear to look interesting that he encounters and often has to look twice at. Danny's aim was to capture people who were by all means not ordinary, but strangely wonderful. What stroke me about this project is how it is similar to how I have had to approach strangers in the streets of Hartlepool and ask to take their picture. Like Danny explains in his article, it's hard asking strangers to take a photograph of them because you don't know what their  reaction will be, similar to street photography. The outcome of this project is really interesting. Danny has captured strangers close up creating really beautiful portraits shown below, presenting that its not impossible and can produce a really good outcome.

http://www.dannyst.com/shooting-portraits-of-strangers/
http://www.dannyst.com/gallery/portraits-of-strangers/

Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon was one of the worlds leading portrait and fashion photographers up until his death in 2004, and still holds an iconic place in the photography world. Avedon's well known portrait work was so successful because of how character revealing they were about his subjects and also very minimalistic. His famous large scale portraits were nothing like the normal portrait's at the time because of what they revealed about the people in them. The simple white background meant that Avedon's subjects would stand out with no distractions or other context in the image, focusing the audience on what their expression is, what they are wearing and even what objects are in the photographs.

Avedon is argued to be the most influential fashion and portrait photographers of his time. His trademark style meant that no one else produced photographs like him, making him different and leading to a long successful career. His subjects are always standing up in his images, always facing towards the camera. The fact that his portraits just simply focused on the subjects, concentrates on the emotion the subjects bring, composing them to be very humane and compassionate, showing the human form in that instant when the photograph was taking, presenting the emotion the individuals in the image were feeling at that second. In the same as any other portraits, they always have the same outcome, but what makes Avedon's portraits so different is that he thought that portraits were pointless and ineffective unless they had a story behind them and presented a narrative, capturing his subjects showing something about themselves that would be apparent in the photograph. 

Richard's fashion work was also hugely influential in the twentieth century. He worked with Harpers Bazaar magazine and Vogue at different stages throughout his career, creating a different way of capturing and pressing fashion photography that was like no other from the beginning of his career. Avedon would have his models posing different to what was the norm of simple, still and lifeless shots that were generally filling up the fashion magazine. He would create images that were full of movement and excitement. His fashion photography was sometimes seen as quite controversial as he included nudity, violence and death, which also separated him from the "norm". He has separated and expanded portrait and fashion photography, which has created such a legacy of his work and an influential mark in the photography industry. Presenting his subjects in their true form, capturing and presenting something about them that shines through the photographs. 

Colour Printing

After getting our colour films processed we received them back ready to print. The colour darkroom is a little more complex than the black and white darkroom as their is no red light when printing, just complete darkness as the photographic paper is extremely sensitive when printing. It was a little bit difficult at first to get used to the darkroom, but the enlargers are quite similar to the others i have used in previous projects. The white light is okay to be on when setting up the enlarger and negatives and then once ready the light has to be switched off when ready to use the paper and make a print. Another difference is there are the filter settings already in built in the enlarger, which takes effect on the colour of the negative once it has been printed. After doing a few contact sheets and test strips, it began to become easier to print in the complete darkness.

FSA

The FSA; meaning Farm Security Administration, was organisation created during the Great Depression in the United Sates by the government. It was used to take action against the poverty in rural parts of America that had been hit hard by the economic disaster and where it has been mostly effected.The administration aimed to improve the way farmers who were affected were living and allowed the FSA to purchase parts of their land. It also gave an option to rehabilitate them into group farms if necessary so that it could be more financially manageable to live. They also provided loans to the farmers to that they could afford to keep working on their own farm and have enough money to be able to live and support their families. The FSA created a photography programme that illuminated the rural areas and has proved to be highly influential and produced iconic pieces of work. Only eleven photographers were apart of this programme, who worked on portrayed how the Great Depression had ruined the lives of the people they captured. From the beginning of the FSA, its photography has been included in hundreds of books and magazines. In the 1930's in would go along side stories that would explain the problems that they were trying to put across through these images and aim to make people realise the effect the Great depression had. Each of the eleven photographers had a different focus for what they were going to capture and the people they were going to present, it showed the people who lived in the city what it was like to not have a lot of money living in these desperate conditions, for example Dorothea Lange's work who has since became very iconic in the photography world. Her most successful image "Migrant Mother" taken in 1936, was one of the most used out of the thousands of images the FSA produced. The expression the women holds in the image, straight away shows the conditions and emotions that came with this event, presenting how bad life was for these individuals. The FSA was very relevant at this time as it brought attention to people like "Migrant Mother" which were then exposed to the public. It has been a hugely important association in history for the uses of documentary photography and influence of photographers over time, showing the importance of documenting and capturing life. 

"Migrant Mother"

http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/dorothea-lange-migrant-mother-nipomo-california-1936

Artist, Designer, Author

Art has an emotional and spiritual impact on people, whether it is by its creator or spectators. The debate of artists being authors is a debate that has been widely researched. Steven McCarthy, Graphic Designer, wrote a book "The Designer as Author" which explores the role of designers/artists that have to take on different aspects for their projects. The point of being a designers shows that we have an obligation to address problems that come with it, so therefore have to explain and narrate these factors. Films and books that are produced are meaningful in the way that they communicate to show life as it is and why it is worth living. Designers and authors use this when presenting their work whatever it may be, to communicate and highlight the importance of it and the value it holds to its creator. Events have been recorded over history that show we can communicate with others, such as cave paintings many thousands of years ago, that highlights how we can be connected through what we create. Communication is also important in the sense we need other people to gain ideas and inspiration, to then go on to construct and organise our next project. For example Van Gogh had a creative partner who was also a painter who would often work with and around each other, feeding ideas off one another. Other artists and designers use apprentices, who would learn off them, then creating more projects that have been inspired from themselves. Jeff Coones is a very successful and well known artist, known for his reproduction of sculptures and objects. Jeff works with around 120 people who also create his sculptures, and without them they would not be produced and Jeff would not result in having any work. This is an argument of the designer using other people and not themselves to create their art and would not themselves become the author. The debate of when is art art and when is design design for when it relates to each other is is also often brought up for when it counts as author. This occurs because every piece of design, art and photography whatever form it maybe becomes itself at a certain point. Although it does not have a certain moment, it often depends on the opinion of others for the determination for what it truly is.

The Photographic Message

The photographic message is an issue that has been debated since the creation of photography. Each image holds a meaning and insight into what the photographer has thought when taking the image and what they have wanted to put across through the photography. Roland Barthes created a theory that applies a system in which we can denote and connote images. Denoted means how the photograph is portrayed and literally comes across. Connoting is the references and symbolic meanings that is in the message of the photograph. Depending on what the image is for, depends on the message behind it. Such as if the photograph is for advertising the message would be to benefit what is being advertised whether it is for a holiday or something for the audience to purchase. The message also depends on our knowledge as an individual and will see different messages to other people because photography has so many different meaning's, we translate them in our own unique way. Text also has an important role in the photographic message because when we see images in a newspaper or next to a story, it instantly changes our opinion depending on what it says. If we just look at a photograph we then will decide what we think it means, but if we then read something about what is happening or what the image is about it then will change what we think. This is important because it is then the text that illustrates the photograph rather than the image being the the only crucial element. Barthes goes on to explain how it is also important how close the text is to the image because it is the structure that also determines the connotations in the image. Below I have included examples of the photographic message. It is a self portrait by Nan Goldin, and straight away is clear that it is a woman who has been beat up, the denotation. The connotation then is that the woman may have been in an abusive relationship or she has been in an accident.
The realism in photographs is also a debate in the photographic message. This includes that idea that realism is the signifier in the actually photograph and that we only see the subject matter for what is is. Semiotics is also included in this, in how it signifies between what we seen straight away and what the concept of it is, interpreting the image as a collection of signs that are there to be read .The photographic message theory by Roland Barthes proves to be useful when analysing photographs and shows us that a photograph is more than what it just appears.

Nan Goldin

Documentary photographer, Nan Goldin started her photography career during her teenage years. Her work has always heavily focused on the people who surrounded and were involved in her life. Her lifestyle is shown to be a subculture of living in the transsexual communities of Boston and New York, presented in her images of this glamorous way of living but also holds elements of the darker side of violence and drugs. In the documentary "I'll be your mirror" by filmmaker Edmund Coulthard,  it shows Goldin explaining her life that is captured through her images of the people who are and once close to her. The document of her life and events of times in her life is what makes the images so candid and interesting, which holds the connection of emotion that is apparent of what Nan had with these subjects in the photographs. The images hold a narrative of the certain experiences her and her friends had. During the documentary, it shows how much trust the subjects had with Nan because they were a family, which even though she is not in the images the feeling that it is her life and that she has a relationship with these people is still there. The experiences of violences and AID's in Nan's life is definitely apparent in her image because of the dramatic sense and honesty it shows. She also explains in the film how her work just happens and is never planned "I've never believed in a decisive portrait of someone" she states, which is what makes her work so successful in how she has captured these people in their worst and best moments, that has nothing to hide. The way Nan Goldin's lifestyle and career has been joined together presents a journey that is so personal has made her one of the most well known and successful photographers of this day because of the connection between her subject's and herself. They are moments in time that are frozen but show the life within it that is full of emotion that has featured throughout her lives work and have became physical memories. The images that I have included below are what I feel are relevant to what I have mentioned above. They show exactly what her life include, with the environment that is shown to the emotion on her subject matters faces. It is what has made Nan Goldin so iconic because her photographs are full of truth. There is nothing to hide in these images, you can feel the stories within them which makes you want to know more.