Reflection on blogs. (entry 11)

I personally believe the E-portfolio experience forced me to research and engage more within the world of photography. It also allowed me to reflect on the topics through diverse
perspectives : the artist's , the student's and the educator's. Playing these diverse roles, it helped me to create links between photography and education. Furthermore, by reading new articles and doing research on various topics such as memories, identity and documentary photography, it allowed me to discover artists from all decades.

Being active on a blog forced me to be responsible and up to date. Not only the blog itself had to be up to date but it kept me aware of the current trends in modern photography. Additional research made me discover news methods of working, using photoshop in ways that are beyond amazing.

I am sure students from any level would benefit from an exercise such as the E-portfolio, for the same reasons as I did. Overall, I would qualify the whole process as rewarding.

When Reality is not Good Enough : Digital Photography (Entry 10)

In the age of Instagram and smartphones, it seems anyone can be an artist. Add a filter to your cluttered concert photo and the image suddenly transforms into a nostalgic, moody scene straight out of Rolling Stone. Digital artists are pushing the boundaries further by not only setting moods but by staying away from using those stereotypical filters but rather relying on their imagination to create unique masterpieces.

I always believed that you have to start with a fairly good image, it is important to make that image as strong as possible, and then use technology to enhance the vision you're trying to say. ( If you want to create surrealist art) Since people are now able to push the imagery so much further with digital retouching, the technology got in the way of the idea and students nowadays tend to think that a poor picture can be fixed in photoshop. As educators, it is important to talk about the importance of using good pictures. It is not photoshop that makes the photographer a professional.

Retouching photos in quite an ancient concept.Ansel Adams, one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, retouched his images. In the darkroom, Adams would burn his shadows darker and dodge the brightness lighter to create dramatic black and white photos. This is comparable to using the High Dynamic Range technique or the Dodge and Burn tools in Photoshop.

The digital age made that possible and offered a way for artists to bring life to images that previously existed only in their imaginations. 

I found multiple impressive images created based on photography on the web which recquire incredible skills in photoshop. Most are by unknown artists, but they are quite beautifully done, here is the link: 

http://121clicks.com/inspirations/75-most-creative-digital-photo-manipulation-art-works

Classroom discussions (Entry 9)

I believe that the topic of digital photography is an important subject to cover with students of all ages. We see modified images everywhere and regularly. Posters, magazines, television and Internet, all modes of communication are bombarding us with images of a contemporary idea of what reality looks like.

 As educators, we need to educate students and have them double look at these images to identify what is real and what is not. We need to raise a general awareness that most images are digitally enhanced or transformed.  

I enjoyed tonight' s discussion. For the first time, everyone interacted and it was stimulating. We discussed mainly the new concerns about photography and what teachers should know to pass accurate knowledge to their students. I think it is also interesting to see things on different perspectives and think about the other side of this situations. We are criticizing the artist for transforming reality but this person must be working hard and professionally to achieve that gorgeous result. Ina  way, cant he be recognized for his talent and skills at using Photoshop in such a clever way?  I believe it is important to seize the opportunity to use digital technologies to our advantage. In which circumstances? This could also trigger an interesting debate. When is it appropriate to use manipulation, other than for sales?

In engaging students in discussions, they learn , exchange ideas and get inspired.It allows each individual to share their perspective and their understanding of how they perceive photography and its relationship to the medias. 

Memories Contact Sheet ( Reflection 3)

  Reflection -  Memories Never Die

Concept

From a scientific point of view, it is fair to say that memories are simply the results of the synthesis of two proteins in your brain in response to stimuli that originates from the unconscious. (http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/human-memory.htm)  From en emotional point of view, I believe memories are reminders of past experiences that make an individual the person he/she is in the present. Memories, positive or negative, leave profound marks on the soul and forever play a role in one’s decisions, ideas and preferences.

In my photographs, I am demonstrating the concept of repressed memories. For the first photo, I chose to photograph and empty room with a door slightly open, representing the human brain retrieving an idea and letting it explode to the surface. Not only I used confetti to exaggerate the effect of explosion but also indicate that the memories are positive since the confetti are usually part of joyful events.

In my second photo, I am demonstrating the same concept but in a slightly different way. I am depicting the theme of bad memories. By throwing a box in the snow, I am representing one’s thoughts being forgotten behind intentionally like empty, useless boxes or trash, left on the street.  It can also display the idea of trying to forget, trying to force thoughts in a box so they never resurface and hunt the individual.

In both images, I tried to use the rule of third,  placing the main subject on an important interjection. I also wanted to be minimalist and use empty spaces to illustrate the pureness of the mind, how transparent it is. Furthermore, by doing conceptual minimalist images, I wanted to create images that would intrigue the viewer and create a mysterious atmosphere.

Technicalities

I did my shoot with a Leica R4s and Ilford 400 35 mm film.(I did not use Delta 400, so I ended up having more grain in my images) I spent numerous hours in the dark room. The first roll of film that I developed ended up being underexposed. I believe my second roll was more successful, for that reason, I made the contact sheet based on that shoot. My contact sheet recquired and unequal exposition. I exposed the first rows for twenty seconds and the bottom rows for ten seconds, using an aperture of 2,8 an no filter.

  

For the Good Memories shot, I tried multiple times to achieve a decent amount of exposure. My picture was a bit underexposed so the exposure time was quite short. I tried 10 seconds with no filter, it lacked contrast. The most successful print has been exposed for ten seconds, with an aperture of 2,8 and I use a filter of 3.

For the Bad Memories shot, I also tried multiple exposures before I reached a decent time, giving me decent tones. It was difficult to achieve a good exposure because most of the image is white. (snow)   I started with an exposure of 12 seconds and it was obviously not enough. After several tries, I achieved a decent result using an exposure time of 55 seconds, an aperture of 2,8 and a filter of 2. I tried using a filter of 3 and the snow became extremely white and I lost all tones. I had to burn certain areas to accentuate the different grays. I exposed the portion where the box is for an additional 12 seconds and the lower border of the image for 10 seconds, allowing me to obtain a pale gray at the bottom, defining the image from the photographic paper.

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Mikayla Whitmore & Memories (Entry 8)

'Taking a picture for posterity at a birthday, wedding or concert may harm our ability to remember the event fully, researchers believe in a phenomenon known as 'photo-taking impairment effect' `

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10507146/Taking-photographs-ruins-the-memory-research-finds.html)

Dr. Linda Henkel of Fairfield University in Connecticut conducted the study, in which participants toured a campus art museum. Some were assigned to take photos; others were asked to simply remember what they saw. Subjects were tested on their memories of the museum a day later.The students who took photos fared significantly worse at correctly identifying items from the museum, and recalled fewer details of those they did remember

A second study by the team of researchers  also presented an interesting twist: Taking a photograph of a specific detail on the object by zooming in on it with the camera seemed to preserve memory for the object, not just for the part that was zoomed in on but also for the part that was out of frame.

"These results show how the 'mind's eye' and the camera's eye are not the same," says Henkel.

The concept of memory is fascinating and can be explored in many ways. While researching the topic, I discovered a photographer who uses the idea of memory as her main theme. Her name is Maykayla Whitmore.

Whitmore was born and raised in Las Vegas and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in photography from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2010. Her work has been exhibited and curated at multiple venues in Clark County. She currently balances her studio practice with work as a concierge on the Strip. She most recently presented new work in a solo exhibit at Kleven Contemporary in downtown Las Vegas.

 She is fascinated by memory and how our minds record and file away seemingly insignificant details. She says also being interested and how the brain seems to reconstruct memories whenever we are explaining them, we are re-imagining them. She mentions in an interview : 

“We pass by overlooked objects until something alters our perception,” Whitmore said. “Individual memories fall by the wayside, figments merge together, dreams become possible and truth is no longer cemented by fact.”

Her artwork is focused on capturing, analyzing and romanticizing moments that no longer exist. They are the results of significant moments in her life.

http://www.mikaylawhitmore.com/

http://lasvegascitylife.com/sections/ae/art/artist-mikayla-whitmore-talks-about-her-work.html

The Truth, Photography & Social Networks (Entry 7)

 We live in a generation in which everyone has a access to a cellphone a similar digital device which he can use to take photographs.Digital photography is now accessible to most and this accessibility has definitively changed the definition of photography over time, in positive and in negative ways. As discussed in Lasen & Gomez-Cruz's article, this modern aspect of photography is redefining the meaning of terms such as privacy and public and the identification of the casi non-existent boundaries between the concepts. It is now a frequent practice to publish self portraits to strangers on the web or images of where we are located at any times, displaying our lives to every stranger who wishes to see.

The selfie phenomenon opens the door to instant gratification. Often, images are posted to serve a purpose such as displaying a certain aspect of the self or to validate it by receiving likes or comments. Only what we want the 'others' to see is shown and a whole new self is projected online. In the article, the author says that teenagers especially often take hundreds of images before selecting a single one that will be posted. I find this particularly interesting and it demonstrates how much individuals are interested in their own image and how photography depicts their lives to others in order to impress them. It is interesting to compare how years ago, the selfie was not even a concept people would have thinking of, I can see no images of me at ten years old holding the camera, pointing to my face.

This whole idea of the perfect self makes me question the role of photography nowadays. Even professional photographers, trying to push further the boundaries are creating amazingly surreal digital photography, which again is not depicting the truth, Or sometimes, images are intentionally manipulated to make the society perceive a reality that has been created. The media are sending these messages of beauty and perfection which is not reflecting the reality to a audience who is self absorbed and who is spending its time taking selfies. Vicious circle!

It is an interesting topic that could generate debates in classroom. I would discuss photo manipulation, the selfie generation and how the media accentuate the desire to show an invented self on the medias with students,

The Selfies - Reflexion (Reflection 2)

I consider the pinhole assignment to be more of a challenge than a traditional assignment.  I Think it was a fun exercise to do but in all honesty, I doubt I would use the concept to grade students  in a classroom because of its lack of preciseness . I believe pin hole photography requires a lot of practice and unless you are an experiment vintage photographer that uses that process, chances are the results will be mediocre.  I find the whole process is based on guesses and luck.

I would do that type of activity in an after school program , simply for pleasure. I’m not going to lie, we were pretty happy when we saw our first images appearing on the paper.

Our group decided to focus on the Instagram culture of “Selfies” . We chose that topic because it is a mode of self-portraiture that is relevant to teenagers, it is definitely part of their today’s youth’ culture.

As mentioned in my blog about working as a team, we began the project by creating multiple pinhole cameras to shoot multiple at a time.  We also wanted to try out different model so we find what works best in terms of shapes and sizes to capture our subject. Honestly, we had a hard time to take decent photographs. We tried different approaches : we used a chart to determine the exposure time, we used an application  (lightmeter) on the Iphone, we guessed exposures based on the amount of clouds and we did ultra long exposures inside.  It took multiple times before obtaining ANYTHING on our paper. As soon as we notice a shape, ( or was it a dot?)on the paper, we began to determine the exposure times based on the previous image results. 

We developed the images that seemed to be the sharpest. We did tests like we previously did in the photogram assignment to evaluate the proper exposure times. We obtained a decent amount of gray tones, black and white in our two final photographs.  The technical process was extremely lengthy .

Developing the lesson plan as a group was  great, it allowed us to divide the tasks and to take charge of a particular part instead of the whole document.

I think this project would be difficult to execute in the school setting because rare are the schools equipped with a darkroom. Overall, I find working in the darkroom interesting for older students but I believe it can be quite complicated for younger students and demanding since that experience as been quite difficult for us to accomplish and we are university students. Also,  using the darkroom demands the students to buy photographic paper and equipment that can be expensive. I am not sure I would feel comfortable asking the student (or their parents) to buy expensive photographic paper, especially for a project that often offers mediocre results.

I also feel the need to mention that winter is not the best season to do pin hole photography. We only has a very limited amount of sunshine per day, adding additional anxiety.

Even if I found this assignment a bit frustrating, I found that doing that assignment in groups  was definitely  a good idea. It was also interesting to see how it is possible to create with a simple box as a camera and the first results are quite memorable.