top of page
Writer's pictureAnthony Foster

Unit 2 contextual studios - Nick Rhodes


(R/615/513)

5 minutes talk about one thing

In three weeks time I am having to do a talk for five minutes on a subject and talk about why the subject matter had an impact on me.

The subject matter that i have picked to talk about is Marvel comics and entreatment. This is because when I was introduce to Marvel with the reshowing of the 90's tv animation series of X-men and followed up by the 1994 Spider-man animated series which linked up with the X-Men animated series. when watching on tv and seeing all of these bright, colourful, unusually different characters each one different to the other.

Also with help of my godfather ( a friend of the family) he had a collection of figures and statues of comic books characters that he has bourt and some that he has make from vinyl kits or car fillers ( this was because companys didn't the chartacter that he wanted for his set during his time of making the own statues) when I was younger my mum and dad would take me along with them to vistit him and I would normally talk to him about them and point out the different character that he had and ask questions to find out more about them and questions on where this person was and will he end up making or getting that chartacter.

With marvel I was intruiged with all the different types of chartacters and I manage to find ways to relate to them by my time in primary school with my dsylexits, not being able to fit in with everyone also and at the time being a different tone skin comapaired the others in my class.

Marvel for me stands for equally this is why they ended up creating the x-men during the time when coloured people and white people in america. just different people wanting to fit and help the world around them.The x- men during the 60's right through to the 90's help to put a stop to racism in America this was because they had a visual and something to relate to during the times. even today with the likes of the X- men film: days of furture past where they had different cast member where some who are part of the gay commute with the likes of Sir Ian McKellen and Ellen Page (who opened up to the public during the relises of the film and this year (2018) Just got married to her loving girlfriend.) Also the was Peter Dinklage known for his size; Omar Sy a black french actor; Hugh Jackman an actor from Australia; Fan BingBing chineses actors and Jennifer lawrence highest paid actress ( showing gender equally)

' X- Men which stand for racsism during the 80's' - Deadpool ( Deadpool 2 )

 

After we done the five minute, I am having to talk about 3 different people who have work with in the art world such as a photographer, designer, artist or painter etc. I will have to find out what the artist has been influxes by, what and how they had an impact on me and my life as a photographer.

For this we have to pick from the chose of 2 historical and 1 contemperly artist or one historical and two contemperly artist. This need to be done in a form of an essay and a 15 minute talk

The goal at the end is to not get other people inspired by them but to inform them why I chose the artist.

 

The three artist’s that I have picked out to discuss, analyse and share why they have an influence on me as a photographer. Are firstly (William) Henry Fox Talbot,Vivian Maiers who are both historical photographers and contemporary photographer being Annie Leibovitz. I will be discussing three images from each, stating what my opinion is, and I will explain what links the three artists together. I chose William Fox Talbot to be my first photographer to share about because he was a big influenced on every photographer that came after him including myself. Fox Talbot is well known and documented as the founding father of photography, even though he had competition with another scientist such as Joseph Niephore Niepce. Niepce had found a way to print a picture on bitumen; also there was Thomas Wedgwood who came up with photograms, however, couldn't get a picture to stay on paper without fading. On the other hand, Fox Talbot was the first to managed to find a way for the image to remain on paper without fading away. Therefore, this is why people today clams him to be the founding father of photography.Secondly, I choice Vivian Maiers because I find her story on how she became famous as a photographer after her passing to be very inspiring and make me wonder what she would have thought if she knew how much people love her work. Her life story was hard work for John Maloff (the guy who made Vivian famous) to reveal since the wasn’t any documents about her. So he had to act like Sherlock Holmes to uncover the secrets of Vivian's background.

Artist one I chose William Fox Talbot to be my first artist because he influence me by being the founding farther of photographer even though he had competitions with another scientist such as Joseph Niephore Niepce who found away to print a picture on bitumen also the was Thomas Wedgwood who came up with photograms, however couldn't get a picture to stay on paper without fading

William Fox Talbot was as an english scientist (1800 - 1877), at the age of seventeen he went to Cambridge university. In 1883 he became the inventor of photography and the first person to get an image , as we know it today with the tridnal darkroom practivse . In addiction to this he also came up with the three primary elements of photography:development, fixing and printing.

Figure 1

One of the key images that Talbot created was the image titled ‘The Open Door’. Created on salted paper from paper negative and said to be dated before May 1844. An image of an old wooden door with a broom stick leaning on the stone door frame and old dead vines cling to stone walls. In the background of the image appears to be a small window with a diamond pattern on it. I get the impression that Talbot would of made this image on a day with natural sun light as he wouldn’t of been a way to do add in more light, and perhaps that Talbot was experimenting on the idea that trying to capture a still image outdoor lighting as most of his image was done inside.

Figure 2

The second image (see fig 2 above) is called Nelson’s column under construction, dated back to the first week of April 1844 created on salted paper print from paper negative. The photo shows one of England’s famous landmarks ‘under construction’ compared to the open-door image that it made a month later this image shows seem to be last sharp and it done with a long exposure time which gives the image the ghostly look. Since the exposure time wasn’t too long because it doesn’t pick up any movement. It would have needed to be done when the was a lot of light in the sky for Talbots experiment to work.

Figure 3

The last image of Fox Talbot is called A Scene in a Library is an image of just books on a self which was created before March 22, 1844, on a Salted paper print from paper negative however this image has a great hiding meaning as it turns out that the image is an intellectual self-port.

 

Artist two - My second artist is Vivian Marier:

As my second artist that I wanted to talk about is Vivian Maier (“who took nanny pictures?”) because I find her story of how she came famous very inspiring. Maier’s was born in New York 1926 but spent most of her youth in France, then in 1951 she moved back to the US where she spent most of her life being a nanny and a photography moving between Chicago and New York City. In 2008 Health started to get worst which ended up her being force into a nursing home and pass always shortly in 2009. Since Vivian didn’t came famous until after her death when a guy called John Maloff came across her work in a box at an auction however it wasn’t easy for him as the wasn’t documents about her, so he had to act like Sherlock Homes to find out information about her. John Maloff was the guy who found her work and turned it from being in a storage bin into the academy awards.Her work was never seen part from though her view finder all one hundred and fifty thousand of them “secret street photographer” before street photography was a big thing. She didn’t like talking about her photography, but she was very focused on creating photography, she didn’t even know about any photographer also she had no hope of her own, so she just put her photography into storage unit but un her old age she had to sale the storage lockers to pay for her rant. Vivian Maier’s work was a project that was self-motivated which gave her the freedom and independence that she wanted. Within her work you can easily tell that she liked to capture and document, just being in the moment a long side that you can tell she had to either get up close to the subject matter or wait for the subject matter to walk close her and walk into the space of the frame of the camera.She was just a shy close of person who was a nanny but also a photography.

Figure 4

The first key image of her work that I want to talk about is untitled however it was done in 1953 New York, NY. A black and white image done on a film camera this image has a good example of leading lines What I find in interesting about this image is that it hard to tell that it is New York without any famous landmarks clearly seen. Unlike Fox Talbot because of the with the change and development of technology within photography, she was able to capture movement as the can be seen at the bottom foreground of the image.Finally with the image I believe that it stands out to me from the rest of her work because it

(add image)

Figure 5

The second key image that I like of Vivian’s work is unfortunately is not dated and does not have a title, however there are so many clues in the picture of the period when it was taken, and the time of day; furthermore looking into Vivian's history and the architecture it is clear that it would have been shot during her time in Chicago and taken in the ‘60s.

The photo gives a great impression of a building that is getting knocked down. Since it doesn’t have a date or title to provide a better insight into the image of the viewers. The building is getting knocked down by a boulder hitting it, also in the background it is clear to say that the image was taken in the early afternoon; evidence of this is a clock in the background of the image and the clock is displaying that the time is around about half one in the afternoon.

I am given the impression that it is another image which Vivian was just passing by, just doing her job as a nanny and she happened to notice it on her journey.

Figure 6

Unlike the previous image (Fig,5 ) this image was given a date and place, on December 21st, 1961, Chicago, but just like the last picture (Fig, 5) it does not have a title; however, I believe that this was a good thing because it then allows the viewers to make up their ideas on what to the figure lying down on the ground.

I love this as it allows the viewers to have an open-minded approach to what is going on in the image, for example, did the subject matter fall to kill themselves; collapsed due to a medical reason or even perhaps was attacked, and the attacker did a runner.

I find it interesting that the person’s head is lying with a newspaper under it.

If this image had a title, it would lose the impact of wonder.

Vivian Maier wouldn’t of been able to do photographer as a hobby if William Fox Talbot didn’t manage to be able find out a way to make an image to stay onto paper which then lead to photographer to grow and develop into film photographer which then allowed people like Vivian Marier’s to buy and pick up a film camera for personal reasons or to make a living out of photography like Annie Liebovitz. why

 

Artist three

Annie Liebovitz a celebrate American Photographer who is well recognised for her work of taking photos and engaging with celebrity portraiture and dream like Disney portraiture for promotion use. Her photography normally has a subject matter in an intimidating setting and pose. Liebovitz started of taking painting classes at the San Francisco Art as an undergraduate, three years later she ended up doing work for the Rolling Stones, years later in 1983 she began working for vanity fair. Then in 1996 she was chosen to be the official photography for the Atlanta, Georgia Summer Olympics

Annie Liebovitz is one of my favourite photographers because of her work as fine art photographer that she uses in her photography and work that she has done for big films the likes of Les Misérables, Disney’s Cinderella and Brave also the work that features worldwide famous people like Queen Elizabeth, Johnny deep, Michael Jackson and John Lennon just to name a few…

Today she has her very own studio where she runs classes on teaching people everything she knows about photography and tells them about the true meaning and story’s behind her images.Her carreers as a photographer has spain nearly over five decades. Starting in the 70’s where she became a widely celebrated photographer working for the rolling stones magazine, the Vanity fair, Vogue and in many different inderpending projects. Her repertion as a fine art, commeration and portraiture photographer keeps on growing due to her having a very distinetive style.

“ whether she photographing the famous and powerful – or simply the woman next door – Annie always captures something unexpected and deeply personal” – Oprah winfrey.

Annie’s portrait photos have a dutch masters painting feel to them. This might be down to her having a big fine art background and a great love for painting.In her portrait images they all are very well uniformed with a bold choice of colour tones, a fascinating lighting style, with a unique poses which allows for a very detailed image. All of her images appear to have a clear and spare fouce.

Her work features at least two different light souces with one of them normally coming from the side and the other one being direct on the subject matter. Both of the light souces tented to have a large Octabox.

Some of her portrait that are done outside has a bit of a deep depth of filed from the subject matter to the background with normally creates a negative space however the portrait work that has been done in a studio tends to have more of a shallow depth of filed to them but still keeps a bit of negative space

Figure 7

The first key image of Annies work is called “The Cast of Friends” simpily because it is just the main cast members from the really popular tv show Friends, which aired in the ‘90s.

The image has the cast dressed in old western country farm clothing style of the 1920’s America. it clear to say that it was part of a 2page spread this was part the Vanity fair magazine

Figure 8

Secondly, the next keys image from Annie is title “The Boy Who Would Be King” three different images of the ‘king of pop’ in different poses. Put together to create one big finally image. Just like (fig 7) this is another 2page spread that was also featured in the Vanity fair magazine

Figure 9

The final image that want to discuss is called “Agnes Martin”. It named after the person in the image.

Annie has said that is one of her favourite’s photographs because of the back story behind it and why she took the image.

I came across this image on a YouTube clips advertisting her master class that she runs in her very own studio and on the advert Annie herself was explaining and how she really love the image and her opinion on it also she told us how Agnes who ( was an American Abstract painter.) would just sit there in her studio everyday “I sit here and wait to be inspired” Annie would reply with “ well isn’t that what we all do sit and wait to be inspired”.

Just for the same reason of Annie this is why I love this image too. I like how it just a simple image of a simple woman, simply sitting there.

 

Overall view

 

Workshop| Screen Printing

Make sure the image has alot of contrast and you have done all your post production


open an image into photoshop and set the page size depending on what size you want to print the image out at

then set the resolution to 300 dip for an image bigger than A4 overwise set to 150 dip if the image is A4 or smaller


make the image fit the page

Edit - Transform- Scale


Image - Mode - CMYK Colour

CMYK stands for...

C - M -

Y -

K - black ( K= key colour B isn't used because you might end up a different colours that start)

the output need to be the same as what you have set the resolution




print

 

Find plan research wright and talk


4 views0 comments
bottom of page