Task 1. Different Applications of Photography

Jenny Strand

Advertising Industry

Photography is used in the advertising industry to get peoples attention and to of course advertise the produce the best way they can. With this example image, it’s unrealistic and obviously not real and that’s what will catch peoples attention. There are many factors involved when using images to advertise something. You’ll find where possible a well known/famous person is used in the ad to catch people’s attention straight away and if they think that person uses the product being advertised, there’s more chance the audience will go out and buy it. For example the beauty appeal is used with things like shampoos. Then like the example used there’s visual effects used to make it different. If a famous person is in the advertisement, it’s obvious more people are going to pay attention. A company that has done just this recently is the Got Milk? Campaign. They’ve used a series of celebrities from actors to singers and bands. This type of thing works really well as it sticks in your mind. By using a variety of famous people, the more fans they get, there fore the more recognition the product will get. They’re not just addressing a specific type of audience. The more out there the advert is, whether people think it’s bad or over the top, they still will have caught their attention and that is what matters.

Fashion Industry

Photography is used in fashion because that’s the main thing we see fashion through. For example fashion is every where, fashion week, magazines on television. The only way to show fashion is through images. Fashion images and photo-shoots mainly feature in magazines. As you can see above the model Alexa Chung features in Elle magazine and you can see in the corner that the clothes she’s wearing are advertised with where they’re from and the price. By having Alexa Chung feature in the magazine, girls who like her will go out and buy what she’s wearing. This is often what a lot of magazines do. Then they go on to normal models wearing more clothes and have them feature in the magazine through a full length shot. It’s not just clothes this happens with, the same concept is also used for hair styles, make – up and so on. It’s all about making the product/clothes look good and desirable. Celebrities will always feature in the magazines and what they were wearing and where. The audience likes this because they get to know more about the celebrities in question and what everybody’s wearing at that specific time. This also gives the designer/shop a reputation and recognition.

Music Industry

Photography is used in the music industry to show the audience their favourite bands/artists and them in action. For example many images we see pictures in music magazines of a particular band or artist singing and then a story/interview about that specific time in their lives. By doing this the bands get more recognition and the fans are more aware of what’s going on with them. Andy Willsher is a very famous music photographer who usually takes images that feature in all the big music magazines such as NME and Q. Music images often have the ability to become iconic very quickly. For example the image of Amy Winehouse is now one of the most iconic of her. He does portraits and image of the artist in question performing. Fans like seeing these kind of images as they want to be well aware of what’s happening and if they’re missing anything. Without photography in music some people wouldn’t find it as appealing. The singers wouldn’t be known by face if no photography was involved. It’s a big reason of them getting the fan base they do. Because artists and bands aren’t pictured as much as other industries are, when they are it’s sometimes a big thing for the fans and it gets them talking about the artist more than usual for a time.

Sports Industry

For this, I looked at Bob Martins images as I like the techniques he uses. For example in the picture of the cyclist, he’s accentuated everything in the picture. He’s done this by using a slow shutter speed. By doing so it’s created a colour mix of the banners and audience that were originally clear in the picture. This means all the focus is on the cyclist. The colours capture you for the right reasons. After looking through a variety of his images I can see he uses the same kind of techniques. As you can see with the two images below, by mixing colours and different shades, he makes the images a lot more interesting to look at. By darkening the image of the swimmer and upping the contrast, you pay attention to he swimmers physique and the effort of the sport itself and with sports photography, it’s to do just that. It’s promoting it and making it look appealing and quite fun.

Bob Martin

Photo journalism

A photo journalist is a photographer that collects news and events by taking images that will represent them. For example they’d be the person that takes images of the Olympics to accompany the news. They take pictures of every day things. A photo journalist is the same as a reporter how ever you’ll find they have to make more on the spot decisions and they often carry camera equipment with them as once the opportunity has passed, they can’t get it back. They also have to be quite careful of what images they capture as they have to think of the audiences reaction and whether it’s appropriate. In a news situation, if it was a quite well covered area and there was a lot of attention surrounding it, they would have to extra careful not to cause offence to people and so on. The photographer I’ve researched, Dorothea Lange, was a documentary photography as well as a photo journalist. Her images were to get a reaction and she photographed quite important and serious things. The image what features the children is them at a public school in San Francisco prior to the internment of Japanese Americans. In the end her images were so critical that the army impounded them.

Fine Art Photography

Fine art photography is photography that has a meaning behind it, whether little or small. They don’t feature in magazines, just galleries and exhibitions to be sold. Fine art photography stands to contrast photo journalism. These sort of images are used cards (birthday, Christmas), post cards and calendars. They can be quite conventional or as you can see below with the flag, quite different. The style will change for the different themes.