History of Photojournalism

21
History of Photojournalism By Ryan Harvey

description

University assignment

Transcript of History of Photojournalism

Page 1: History of Photojournalism

History of PhotojournalismBy Ryan Harvey

Page 2: History of Photojournalism

About me

Name: Ryan Harvey

Age: 20

Ambitions: Striving to �nd a direction in my photographic-journalism work and achieve the best I can in everything I do

Interests: In my free time I play the Electric Guitar, a FenderSquier Strat. I take photographs of things that interest me onmy travels and i’ve recently taken up Badminton.

Page 3: History of Photojournalism

Words and phrases pass us by every single day, we can put them into a con-text, but on several occasions we are unable to accurately define them. When attempting to investigate what a myth is, we must understand the original definition of the term, the oxford dictionary defines a myth as “a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events” however other’s might argue that this is a generalised definition that lacks explicitly, on the opposite end of the scale, some might argue that describing a myth as something that’s sole purpose is to “explain the relationship between Gods and Humans” is naïve or narrow-minded. Put simply a myth is a effectively a “story with a meaning” and seems to have played an integral part in our society to date, laying down the foundations of what we consider today to be faith and moral standing. Faith and moral standing take many forms which are the focal point of a large number of different arguments, religion being the centre-point, politics being another. An on-going religious debate is the historical validity of the the bible, some argue that the bible is a collection of mythological stories that idealise what a ‘good person’ should be, Jeffrey Small, the writer of an article entitled ‘The Bible: History or Myth?’ goes on to explain that “A literal reading of the Bible alienates much of our society” and that the stories within the bible were written during a period when “slavery was legitimate, an age when discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation was the norm”.

Certainly because of the debates raised around mythology, we discover things not only about ourselves but others, largely because of the moral standing we place ourselves in. Joseph Campbell, a mythologist and scholar described myths as being “clues to the spiritual potentialities of human life”, placing them of great importance to society and suggesting they are something we should strive towards, Campbell even went as far as creating terms to describe a mythological journey ‘monomyth’ and used to term to organise the similarities between different myths of different cultures, the purpose being to unify and serve as a spiritual reasoning amongst people, each and all ‘reading from the same page’ otherwise known as common ground. The fact that myths are now translated into numerous languages today exemplifies Joseph Campbell’s cause, we have access to the morality of people scattered around the world of different periods and places, this could be seen as enriching. Campbell can also be quoted saying “everything begins with a story”, it is the art of story-telling that enables us to be aware of myths told in ancient Greece, Rome and other ancient civilizations, all with their own set of myths or ‘stories’ to be passed down from generation to generation. Ancient Greek mythology is one of the most elaborate, largely due to the culture behind it, the art, the literature and sculpture and the ancient documents following it up all viewable even today.

Page 4: History of Photojournalism

Art’s importance in mythology has been prevalent throughout history, it has been indispensable and in some cases the sole resource for understanding or learning about a myth. Story-telling is a form of communication, and word of mouth does not always benefit people, but the power of the visual talks to them a thousand fold, for instance it is now understood that our stone age predecessors used the visual as a form of communication, potentially with one another, their belief system has been scrawled out on the walls of various caves for all to see and today the general public, but what they are viewing isn’t mere abstract scribbles of bisons and other animals, but rituals carried out by ancient civilizations, when viewing them we get an insight into their mind-set that is almost voyeuristic. Whilst evidence is in place to justify and support the drawing’s validity, much like myths, we still use the cave drawings as a means of understanding and it is this that creates conflict amongst people, as debates arise around which is more important for society, however, whether historical or mythological we learn from both and art’s involvement in the retelling of stories or myths is important for everyone.

In Greek mythology, the Gods are the driving force and take the largest role in their myth’s, much like the role of God’s in the ancient greek civilization. Greek mythology tends to always fall into the oxford definition of the term myth in that it is largely supernatural containing various mythological creatures and supernatural beings that have influenced the work of numerous artists to date. An example can be seen in Picasso’s work regarding the bombing of guernica as well as a large number of Picasso’s paintings, etchings and drawings, all of which typically use the minotaur as a means of depicting “violence and brutality”, Picasso interpreted the minotaur as a symbol of this largely due to myths involving it.

Another myth depicted by artists would be Narcissus, simply put Narcissus was a hunter who had an elevated sense of self, it was this disdain that attracted Nemesis, ‘the spirit of revenge’ to Narcissus. Nemesis attracted Narcissus to a pool with the intention to make him fall in love with the first person he saw, that being his reflection, Narcissus was unable to move after seeing his reflection and died glaring in the water. The origins of the term narcissism comes from this myth, narcissism meaning loosely ‘a fixation with oneself’. An extended and more engaging version of the myth can be read in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which Ovid – a roman poet – describes the history of the world from it’s creation to Julius Caesar in a mythological format.

Page 5: History of Photojournalism

Ovid’s retelling of the myth allows modern day audiences to have a developed Narcissus character in mind, we begin to set a scene from which we begin to visualise. Importantly, artists have interpreted Ovid’s depiction of Narcissus. An interpretation is essentially opinionated, it is individualistic and we learn from opinions in a functional civilization, an artist in particular is Salvador Dali. Upon his return to Paris from his successful trip to America in which he found both fortune and fame, he began work on ‘Metamorphoses of Narcissus’, which can be considered to be important, it raises questions around Dali’s own self-worth values and narcissism. Gala, Dali’s long term wife photographs Dali staring into a pool somewhere in Catalonia, thought to be on the coastline.

The geological importance of the photograph becomes clear when viewing the painting, the ruggedness of the surface surrounds the painting placing Dali within the painting justifying further Dali’s exploration of self within his work, using the Narcissus myth as a tool to do so

Page 6: History of Photojournalism

Timeline of image acquisition

Page 7: History of Photojournalism

Timeline of image acquisition

Page 8: History of Photojournalism

Surrealism

Manipulated images and the like have strong links with the surrealism, and the aesthetic of such images are largely a result of surrealism. When considering an ‘image’ and its purpose we begin to understand that an image is a multi-functional visual that can be utilised by the masses. Surrealism used images to tap into repression,and along with Dada-ism, was considered as an anti-art movement, with Dada rolling the ball as it were and Surrealism pushing it home.

Maurits Cournelis Escher was born in 1898 in The Netherlands, Escher never really excelled academically largely due to illness and soon began pursuing an interest in woodcutting and print making, something he’d later pursue as a career after leaving school in 1922. Escher travelled through Italy following this and was particularly impressed with the Italian countryside.

MC Escher’s day and night appealed to me largely because it takes abstract somewhere it hasn’t been, it seemingly is quite a literal picture and Escher has used geometric shapes to blend a mirrored landscape image. The lines and shapes running through the picture make it hard to not be intrigued as you can’t help but stare in the distance analysing every field. The interlocking of the positive and negative birds make the two separate mirrored images become one entire image, the term, a “tessellation”. The image could be seen as an optical illusion of some sorts, as you begin to question and grasp onto anything that you deem literal, but we cannot be entirely sure. Day and Night was a product of Escher’s own interest in shapes and patterns.

Page 9: History of Photojournalism

Surrealism

I have explored surrealism in my photographic work, exploring boundaries and rules including motion blur, grain and high contrasts in order to abstract a self-portrait of myself.

Exposure: 6 secondsAperture: f/22ISO: 800

Page 10: History of Photojournalism

Freezing time as part of a narrative

Pieter Bruegel highlights what it is to freeze time as part of a narrative in his painting “The Blind Leading the Blind”, completed in 1568. The painting portays the fate of six blind men, the blind guide falls first, followed by the second and the rest of the group will eventually share the same fate however they are unaware. The painting is a response to a biblical quote “Can the blind lead the blind?, Will they both not fall into the ditch?”

Page 11: History of Photojournalism

I have been trying to immerse myself in Mike’s lecture and the notes I took from it. The lecture leant towards the frozen moment and it’s importance, particularly in story telling. At first it was hard to get my head around because I was placing it in an aesthetic context but after looking back at photographers i’ve previously looked at thing’s became a little bit more literal which has made it easier to explore narrative’s in photography. Robert Frank is quoted saying “It is always the instantaneous reaction to oneself that produces a photograph.”, we don’t always go out searching for a story to tell but sometimes it falls upon us and we as photographers have no other option but to react to these stories and retell them, whether we contrive the story or not, we tell the stories we want people to read into, the result of these stories is not a variable we control however, for instance a reaction to particular narrative could invoke various opinions which could be developed into morality, restructuring the way a person

Freezing time as part of a narrative

Paul Fusco, an American Photographic Journalist, created a series of images around the disasters and the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, in which a power plant erupted and nuclear waste was leaked into the atmosphere, killing several people and affecting the lives of almost every inhabitant of the town. Fusco explores the lives of those affected what’s more, he documents his reaction and the story behind each individual image in a supporting video. It is clear that Paul Fusco pays close attention to each person’s story before photographing them, everything is considered and processed which makes his images all the more interesting. The image of the boy in a wheelchair crying captured me the most, largely because of the way in which Paul Fusco describes the moment the image is taken, the boy “simply does not stop crying”, he’s in a permanent state of grief and sadness, the image itself leads us to believe he is looking to us for help. The Chernobyl series features a large amount of images with the same affect, we do

Page 12: History of Photojournalism

Exposure: 1/40Aperture: f/4.5ISO: 400

Page 13: History of Photojournalism

Propaganda

“We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand.”–Pablo Picasso

Page 14: History of Photojournalism

The chaos unfolding seems to happen in closed quarters provoking an intense feeling of oppression. There is no way out of the nightmarish cityscape. The absence of color makes the violent scene developing right before your eyes even more horrifying. The blacks, whites, and grays startle you--especially because you are used to see war images broadcasted live and in high-definition right to your living room.

A response to Guernica, by Alejandro Escalona. The emote and provoca-tive painting by Picasso forced the world to sit back and take note of the horrors seen in the bombing of Guernica not to mention the Spanish Civil War in itself. The painting now serves as a reminder of the tragedies of war, anti-war propaganda and image of peace. Whilst Picasso stayed very literal when questioned about the piece, it is clear that hidden imagery is seen throughout the chaos, fuelling the intensity, for instance the right hand of the man on the very right hand of the painting resembles an aeroplane, a bull can be seen in the body of the horse as well s a human skull.

Guernica is an embodiment of the power that paintings can withold socially, or at least did. They can become symbolic of specific things, be it negative or positive although propaganda pieces are usually negative in the sense that they are attempting to get the people on board of a particular

Propaganda

Page 15: History of Photojournalism

Propaganda

Beat the Whites with the Red wedge is a political propaganda piece by El Lissitzky, otherwise known as Lazar Markovich Lissitzky. The inten-tions of the piece was to promote the ‘Red Army’ also referred to as Bol-shevik, the Bolshevik were wholeheartedly left wing who adopted the ideology of Karl Marx and opposed the ‘White Army’ a group who were anti-communist. The conflicting political directions of the two groups naturally caused civil unrest, the Bolshevik favoured the masses or the peasants of Russia, whereas was White Army was argued to favour the

Karl Marx was a German philosopher amongst other things, but is known for his creation of the Marxist theories and beliefs. The basic fundamentals of the movement was extreme equality and a classless society.

The red wedge in El Lissitzky’s image is a symbol of absolute power, revolution and the political colour of the left wing dominates the white circle it is penetrating. The text in the image says “With Red Wedge” and then “Beat Whites”, text was frequently simple when combined with images during the Russian Revolution this was largely due to the audience the image was to be received by, peasants, the majority could not read so the image had to say what they could not interpret via text. The white circle represents the White Army and their political structure, unchangeable and in an anti-revolutionary position, it is suggested in the image to the masses that the White Army rejects change of all sorts and that things will continue if change does not come about.

Page 16: History of Photojournalism

Propaganda

The simplicity of this poster exemplifies the wit of the Bolshevik in constructing a poster tailored to the audience. “Work is essential, the rifle is near” instructed workers, the lower classes and the like to keep working and fighting in the face of the civil war taking place.

Page 17: History of Photojournalism

Images that make social comment

Social commentary, despite there being a hierarchy of different opinions, is ultimately the aforementioned, an opinion but can be defined as an observation. The validity of an image that provides social commentary should always be questioned, it is this that makes social commentary so intriguing to me, the fact is questions will always invoke more thought than an answer and answers, in an opinionated persons mind will always invoke more questions.

Mondrian was a writer and a theorist and a contributor to the De Stijl movement. The De Stijl movement was essentially based around expressing a new utopian idea of spiritual harmony and order, considering this when looking at his work ‘Composition A’ it becomes apparent what the purpose of the piece is. Social commentary images always require context, the painting highlights this as we would otherwise be looking at squares and rectangles, it calls for an equilibrium or a state of simplicity with the primary colours at a time when the world was surrounded by political and social disrepute.

A modern day reference to the De Stijl movement would be the band, The White Stripes album appropriately entitled De Stijl. The album cover uses the simple shapes and aspects of Composition A, largely because of Jack White’s admiration of the De Stijl movement, particularly the furnishings by Rietveld.

Page 18: History of Photojournalism

Once upon a time... Paul Martin – 1864 – 1942

Little was known about Paul Martin during the victorian era, partly due to his inability to conform to the photographic style at the time which was essentially making photographs the closest thing to painted portraits as possible. Although, it can be suggested his style opened up the two main areas of honest photography to date, the amateur snapshot and professional photojournalism. It is important to explain, Martin made his living selling photographs commercially but his passion lay in natural phenomena and the recording of what he saw fit, especially what pleased him.

Martin did sell his negatives to the press but they were barely used throughout his lifetime, however upon his death and the passing of the Victorian Era we began recognising his photography as an example of Victorian life. An important part of Martin’s work to consider is the fact he had to ‘speed up’ his equipment in order to capture, the equivalent to ‘flash’ photography of today, but Martin’s seems to gain credibility in the fact it is compositionally sound, well considered and almost poetic, there is no masses of excessive technology involved simply a camera and a person behind it who’s sole intention and purpose is to document the world before him.

Page 19: History of Photojournalism

Once upon a time...

Martin, in a sense reminds me of one of my favourite Photographers, Robert Frank which explains my immediate attraction to his work. They both create intuitive work that captures the zeitgeist of their respective time, the photographs left from their legacy display quirky compositions that are very telling of everyday life. The scenes being photographed would have been quite normal at the time but acts as an indicator of changes occurring, or differences in a social group, essentially the development of the world because the inevitable truth is, things change at a constant rate the only thing we can con-trol is the documenting of the change.

Frank’s intentions were very different however, the purpose of him photographing his everyday was to ultimately create a resource by which America could view themselves both honestly and literally. Frank, like Martin saw the world around him and noticed it’s flaws, it’s quirks and photographed them. Frank’s published book The Americans was initially very poorly received, again like Martin’s work, but went on to be one of the most popular collective group of images in photography to date.

Robert Frank:

I have been frequently accused of deliberately twisting subject matter to my point of view. Above all, I know that life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference. Opinion often consists of a kind of criticism. But criticism can come out of love. It is important to see what is invisible to others. Perhaps the look of hope or the look of sadness. Also, it is always the instantaneous reaction to oneself that produces a photograph.

Page 20: History of Photojournalism

The journey

Journey, ‘an act of traveling from one place to another’ although not always as simple. The idea of the Journey has been a metaphorical hub for centuries although the literal sense of the word has resulted in the discovery of nations and culture alike. One notable ‘journey’ would be ‘The Grand Tour’, wherein people, typically young males would set out on a journey through Europe to enrich themselves along the way gathering artwork, artifacts and souvenirs.

The Grand Tour was largely exclusive to those who had the socio-economical means to fund it, they would have to pay for travel expenses, accommodation, guides, potentially translators, passing through Paris, Florence, Venice, Rome, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Amsterdam and Antwerp all for the span of twelve months. As cameras weren’t an option on the 18th century grand tour, the responsibility of having something to remember the trip by was left to sketches made by the respective tourist’s, journals and any artifacts of substance one could gather.

William Klein:

You look at a contact sheet with a magnifying glass and you see a shot, suddenly it all comes back—that was a nice day, you wanted a walk, your feet were hurting, you felt that you would hit on something.

“”

William Klein was one photographer that had great influence on what it is to go on a photographic journey. His approach being to include all the things that went against the ‘rules of photography’, much to the distaste of his critics at the time. Motion blur was prevalent as was his use of wide angle lenses, his images were often out of focus, high in contrast or severely over-exposed, Klein used high grain film frequently and this led to his reputation as an ‘anti-photographer’. Despite this, Klein argued that the images people saw were of the real New York, not a picture perfect image, he argued New York much like other cities was not a perfect place to live and this led to him being rebuked often and considered ‘incompetent’

Page 21: History of Photojournalism

EvaluationWhen compiling the research housed in my blog, it was easy to see how it would all piece together. However, before the actual process I was worried that it all might

look out of place as the aesthetics of placing things hadn’t really occurred to me before now, therefore I spent time experimenting with di�erent ideas to see what worked best, which held me back.

I was held back initially due to an injury to my writing hand, making it di�cult to use a computer or laptop and take notes in lecture. I was given the opportunity to get an extension although I took the conscious decision to not accept it as I felt it would give me an excuse to not reach my full potential, something which has bothered me

in the past.

When looking back at the module as a whole, I �nd myself remembering how interested I was in lectures. History is an interest of mine and Mike made it easy to listen to, translating it into my own words proved to be fairly challenging at �rst but once a rhythm was in place I was able to write more and more.

Mike stated that we were to use blogs as a place to hone our research solely and this troubled me somewhat as for me, organised workspaces make me feel like I’m head-ing in the direction I would like, despite this I managed to get used to the working pace and even found a way to use it to my advantage.

What I found most challenging about the History of Photojournalism module was the aesthetics and if I could spend more time researching di�erent methods of maga-zine making I would do, however I do not. The depth of the research is something I most appreciate about my product and the e�ort I put into each task, having found

myself towards the end of the semester cutting out paragraphs.

The assignment on a whole has taught me how to use a blog e�ectively when housing research and to plan out tasks before initially starting them, to take time when thinking about ideas and utilising brainstorming methods such as mind mapping.