All Photography Session Notes

 8/2/2021

We need to look into the physicality of print.

• Book form 

Duane Michaels (Photographer)

• Known for his sequences of photographs 
• How humanity deals with emotion 

Learn to look at the picture subjectively 

• Learn that crits aren't personal but subjective 
• Remove the personal connections for a brief moment 

A series contains a collection of images which are contained within it's own right. We can have multiple sequences of photographs within different series. 

• This is similar to paining 
• Anything 2D

The photograph is what it is which is completely flat. We are explaining what our feelings are rather than the photograph. 

• We are talking about us as humans 
• Culture (our own or someone else)

Are we a technician or artists? 

Amsel Adams:

• Technician
• Studies greyscale
• He is important to photography
• His photographs aren't challenging, just beautiful

Don Mcullen:

• The picture makes you want to do something
• It makes you want to help the man 

We need to fail and be prolific with our work. 

David Hockney:

• Landscape artist
• Painting the landscape from life/memory
• His work is optimistic
• He uses bright colours
• Unrealistic
• Imaginary
• He is painting what he wants to see
• Abstract and literal

22/2/2021

Photobooks and how to display our photographs

Paul Hill 

• Look into Peak District photographs
• Dark Peak, White Peak (raised the bar for photobooks)
• Landscape photography
• The photographers place (look into)

(Sequences and Series) Consider within my work

Observations whilst walking (thinking and looking)

When I think of natural landscapes I think of lines within the environment

Paul Hill used the environment to draw from 

• His photographs remind me of pencil drawings
• His work shifted for obvious to simple and direct
• Abstract drawing and painting
• Almost looks like silkscreens
• We aren't looking at nature but instead we are looking as paintings and mark makings 
• They force us to think
• There is a political element to his work
• His works take on different shapes
• Square forces us to focus on the centre of the photograph 
• Goes from seasons within the landscape to the circle of life
• Two sides of the same coin
• Yin and Yang
• His work removes all human life within the space which allows the photographs to become a metaphor for the human mind
• They become more than a book
• We all change our own environments whether we realise it or not

1/3/2021

Dreaming: The Gokstadt (Thomas Joshua Cooper)

• His photographs are large scale 
• Uses a large film camera rather than digital
• Epiphany (What his work is based on)
• Titled in simplistic ways
• Has an identity
• Native American 
• What is identity?
• His photographs start to be literal but then becomes more abstract 

Point of no return 

• A map of two worlds (America and Africa)
• Where are we from and what we make from that
• There are no answers
• He placed points within these places and photographed the essence of these places
• The old and new world
• The photographs are abstract
• Furthest corners of the environment 
• His work is wrapped around history 
• He knows and understands his craft
• He offers the photographs to us, leaves clues, and invites us to come up with our own abstract reasons
• He spends a lot of time researching and establishing how the image will look
• This is crucial and important
• He has immense control over his work
• He doesn't like to justify his images
• He wants us yo figure out the reason behind his photographs for ourselves 

8/3/2021

Video About Domestic Photography

 The nature of the domestic

• Home, family, and the dust that gathers (dust is a metaphor) 
• Cleaners, mothers
• People ignore the mundane
• The photographer observes how her time and experiences became gendered
• Domestic drift (accepting the everyday) (Photographers previous work)
• Accepting Difficulty
• Disrupting
• Interfering with the glassiness of the domestic environment
• The story behind the photographs sent matter
• She photographs the signs of kindness and care within the home
• She photographs her sons
• She has an interesting way of exhibiting her work within a book format
• Understanding human resistance 
• Mushrooms poem
• Her frame of reference
• This is something we should all do
• Synthesise 
• We should all know what other artists are doing

Second Photographer

• See's stardust in the everyday after the death of her child
• The cosmos
• All this was seen within her home
• Dust, cobwebs, pregnancy scan
• "I come from the stars" photographers daughter
• Drawing and meditation
• Uses circles to show the universe
• On going
• Never ending

"The artist has to be quiet enough in order to reach full concentration" (Meditation like)

Look into Underland: A Deep Time Journey 

Discussion between the two

• When we are forced to stay inside we do look closer at our environments
• Bring a mother forces us to do this
• Understanding our inner self
• This is hard to do 
• It's a compulsion for some
• Frustration with photography
• Photography is neat, sharp
• The home isn't 
• Production value is high
• There should be a sense of wonder