benll3photocsc

Thursday, 29 November 2012

Thursday, 15 November 2012

Commands Used
L - Selected 'Lasso' tool
Q - Focused the selected area for editting
Ctrl + J - Created a new layer from selection
V - Selected 'Move' tool
Ctrl + T - Allowed selection/layer to be manipulated freely

Ronnie Schwarzenegger

Superman in NY

Monday, 22 October 2012

Portraiture

What is a Portrait Photograph?
A portrait photograph is mostly defined as a staged photograph with either a person or more than one person posing. Portraits are traditionally shot from the mid-torso up, with some empty space above the

Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus was an 'unorthodox' portrait photographer that worked in the 1960s. Arbus grew up in a wealthy environment and thought that photography 'stripped away what you wanted people to see about you and revealed what you really are'. She took this into account in her photography, especially in her work with the Matthaei Family. The Matthaei Family chose Diane Arbus to take their potraits because of her reputation as a creator of 'radical chic' and her photographs ability to show 'raw individuality'. When photographing the Matthaei Family, Arbus focused on the daughter, Marcella Matthaei, because she took into account her own experiences in her wealthy upbringing and thought that photos taken of Marcella in the correct way could result in some interesting photos, which they did. She committed suicide in 1971, 2 years after her working with the Matthaei Family.

Marcella Matthaei
Diane Arbus liked this photograph of the Matthaei daughter because she thought is showed the true feelings of her life and her 'stuffy' living environment and that it was much more honest than that of a generic family photograph.

Monday, 24 September 2012

Photojournalism

Photojournalism
Photojournalism is the art of using photographs to communicate news stories.

Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was born 22nd August 1908 in Chanteloup-en-Brie in France and was the unofficial 'founder' of photojournalism. He was able to do this due to both the technology of the time and his own technique and skill, the technology in question was the 'Leica' Camera. The 'Leica' Camera was the first 'instant camera', a camera which could take pictures immediately without having to prepare the films and mechanism. Cartier-Bresson used something that he called the 'decisive moment'. It has been described as composing everything within the frame of the viewfinder and waiting for one solitary action to come into frame. Cartier-Bresson thought that if he waited for long enough in one spot, something would inevitably happen, be it a cyclist, a car, someone walking, running etc. Something would happen. One of, if not the most famous photograph done by Cartier-Bresson is 'Behind Saint-Lazare Station' (Below Left) which is a perfect example of the aforementioned 'decisive moment' as we assume that Cartier-Bresson did not know that some random man was going to jump over the puddle, it just happened.

Cartier-Bresson photo source

Robert Capa
Robert Capa was a freelance war photojournalist, working for Life Magazine and photographed various happenings throughout World War II, and a multitude of other wars also.

Photojournalism and Truth
Many people believe that what they seee in a photograph is true (within reason). Who could blame them? A photograph is mostly perceived as a moment in time encapsulated within frame as it was shown there and then. However, most photographs that people see in photojournalism have been tampered with in some way, be it newspapers, magazines, online sources etc. Also, most photos that are displayed are shown out of context, with a brief caption trying to give context but generally, the viewer doesn't have the whole picture when it comes to the context of a photograph.