Susan Sintag - On Photgraphy

I was recommended this book by my tutor and so I thought I would briefly read through it.

Susan Sontag's groundbreaking critique of photography asks forceful questions about the moral and aesthetic issues surrounding this art form. Photographs are everywhere, and the 'insatiability of the photographing eye' has profoundly altered our relationship with the world. Photographs have the power to shock, idealize or seduce, they create a sense of nostalgia and act as a memorial, and they can be used as evidence against us or to identify us. In these six incisive essays, Sontag examines the ways in which we use these omnipresent images to manufacture a sense of reality and authority in our lives

I have briefly read though the book, it is an interesting read and gives you more of an insight to photography not the technical side. I only found one quote that I think links to my work for this assignment.

"photography may be more memorable than moving images because they are a neat slice of time. not a flow"

 A neat slice in time that can hold the most memories and emotions. people can remember those time with a photograph but with moving images you are just watch a video.

camera Lucida: reflections on photography

Grieving for his mother, Roland Barthes looked for her in old photos – and wrote a curious, moving book that became one of the most influential studies of photography

"the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially" Page 4

In other words, the photograph is never distinguished from its referent—that which it represents; it simply is what it is (illustrated by the fact that one says ‘this is me’ when showing someone a photographic image of oneself, opposed to ‘this is a picture of me.’) When we look at a photograph, it is not the actual photo that we see, for the photograph itself is rendered invisible.

when I read the quote I think about how a photograph can be looked at and repeated through word and mouth but the memories and emotions that the photograph shows can not be repeated.

filming

What I wanted to do for the short clip is to show that a person can remember what a photograph represent and why it was taken. I also wanted to look at how some one can also forget what is in a photograph but can remembers the emotions and also why the photograph was taken.

At first I shot the photograph that shows some of my family the photo is important to me and my dad because its of a time when they were missing my uncle who had passed away. In the photo you can see a small photograph which is a portrait of my uncle. I wanted to show the photograph first before the rest of the clip but thinking about it i could us it last to show what has been forgotten.

I also filmed myself drawing the photo from what I remember. after drawing the photograph from memory I realized that I had not included the photograph of my uncle who is the reason why this photograph was taken.

At the end of filming I realized that the video will seem quite personal with my dad remembering a day that pretty much devastated the whole family. Hearing my dad talk about the day that the photograph was taken and then the day my uncle passed away it does feel very personal and realizing that I did not include the portrait of my uncle made me feel sad and angry at my self for forgetting him.

Final Idea

These are some ideas for the short clip that I will be dong based on memory loss. What I want to show in the video is photos disappearing or slowly fading away to show a person loosing their memory. I would like to have the audio linked with the memory loss this could be a person talking about what they remember about some of the photos.

I would like to fade from photo to photo to show that the person is loosing that memory it would be better if I could only make part of the photo's fade to show partial memory loss.

A brief sketch for the idea the video might not be like this but it is a start. I will be expanding the ideas as I film.

Stan Strembicki - Memory Loss

Memory Loss, A Post Katrina Photo Album

Hurricane Katrina was the largest and third strongest storm ever to hit the United States. The official final death toll was at 1,836 victims, and millions were left homeless or affected in one way or another by the damage caused by the hurricane. Strembicki went back to what was left of New Orleans a month after being hit by Katrina

   

For his series Memory Loss, Strembicki found and photographed half-burnt and disfigured pictures of weddings, communions, family portraits, or simple scenes of daily life. As if death and destruction weren’t enough, Katrina had tried to erase memories as well.

  

http://faculty.samfox.wustl.edu/strembicki/PostKatrinaNOLA4.html

When I was looking for photos related to memory loss I found Stan Strembricki who found photos left behind by hurricane Katrina and put together this amazing album showing photos that were important memories to people which are now ruined and missing parts. Which I think can be linked to people loosing their memory.

Memory Loss- Idea

After think about my ideas and how we remember things so I thought I would have a look at memory loss. 

Memory loss, also called amnesia, occurs when a person loses the ability to remember events and information they would normally be able to recall. This could be something that happened only seconds or minutes ago, or a memorable event that happened in the past. The memory loss may have started suddenly or may have been getting worse over the last year or so.

Memory loss can be distressing, for the person affected as well as for their family. Relatives may fear the worst and assume it's caused by dementia, but this often isn't the case.

Stan Strembicki "memory loss"

I would like to show memory loss using photos in the video ether disappearing like they have been forgotten or turning cloudy like they are hard to remember.

http://io9.com/what-its-like-to-live-with-short-term-memory-loss-1457297762

 On the link above, their is a short video on what it is like to life with short term memory loss. What I found the most interest  is the comments that people have left about the video and also about their own experience with memory loss.

After Feed Back

From getting some feed back from my tutor I researched another photographer (Vik Muniz)  and looking at a website that is based of re-photographing memories (Dear Photograph). I also looked at Kodak's slogan.

Another Idea

I had a thought about having a family member maybe my Nan or Dad talking about a photography. They could be talking about the memories that they think about when looking at the photo also their feelings and thoughts about it too, not only that they could describe the photo.

Kodak

Eastman Kodak Company is the world leader in helping people take, share, enhance, preserve, print and enjoy pictures — for memories, for information, for entertainment.

Kodak's slogan started people thinking that taking photographs of family and friends is great way to

preserver memories which people did and still do but digital not always printed.

Dear Photography

The website shows a number people around the world re-photographing scene from the past it could be their past or someone they love like childhood photos. I found the website to be quite interesting.



 

 

"Dear Photograph,

Trafalgar Square 50 years ago and my Granny never looked happier! If my house was burning down, this would be the one possession I would be desperate to save. I miss so many things about my Granny but most of all I miss her beautiful smile.
Clare" 

http://dearphotograph.com/

The photographs and the quote is from the website. i wanted to copy the quote because made me think on why we keep photos and sometimes why we treasure them. I thought about how I could have some one talk about the photo first why its so important to them and how it makes them feel before describing it. It would give the listener or the viewer a sense of how the photos made the owner of the photo feel.

  

Vik Muniz

The Best of Life. Here,from an interview with Peter Galassi, is Muniz's own description of his project:

"The Best of Life Series, for example, are drawings of very famous photographs made entirely from memory. When the drawings were good enough to look like a bad reproduction of the original image, I photographed them and printed them with the same half tone pattern we usually see in these images for the first time in the papers. In these works I tried to find out what a photograph looks like in your head when you are not looking at it. They carried the structure of the famous news pictures but they were in fact very different."

  

Photograph of a kiss in Times Square on V-J day (August 14, 1945) by Alfred Eisenstaedt, and memory rendering of it by Vik Muniz. Interestingly, there seem to be a lot of claimants to be the sailor portrayed in this photograph.

Photograph of astronaut Buzz Aldrin by Neil Armstrong, 1969, and memory rendering of it by Vik Muniz.

Photograph, "The Unknown Rebel", taken by AP photographer Jeff Widenerin Tiananmen Square in 1989, and memory rendering of it by Vik Muniz.

One interesting thing going on in these pairings are the left/right reversals. Note that each of those three images are reversed horizontally: the tanks slope high left to low right in Muniz's memory, but the other way (and not as much) in Widener's photograph; Muniz remembers Aldrin's right arm, not his left arm, being bent up; and the kissers bend to the left not to the right. I wonder what's going on here (is there a cognitive scientist in the house?)

It would be quite interesting to have someone draw, ever from memory or from someones description, a photography it could be another idea for this g, filming some one drawing a family photo from memory or from a description of a photo from memory.

Shimon Atte

Shimon Attie is a visual artist making evocative work using photographs, video installations, new media, and works on paper.  “Concerned with questions of memory, place, and identity, Shimon Attie gives visual form to both personal and collective memories by introducing histories of marginalized and forgotten communities into the physical landscape of the present.”

 

 

The photos are quite hunting since they show a past that was a devastating for not just the country but the world. I think projecting the photos on to the building show how things have changes which could symbolizes how peoples thought have changed.

interesting opening sequence

At the workshop to introduce this assignment we looked at some opening sequences, I wanted to look at some more opening sequences that I thought were interesting and may give me some ideas for my own video. Their are a number of opening sequences that are quite interesting as they have to show you what the series is like without giving anything away I wanted to look at some more.

Sons of Anarchy is a show based on a bike club/gang that goes through lies,death and a lot of trouble I really enjoy the show and the opening sequence is also really good.

The video only shows parts of peoples body only focusing on the tattoos. It doesn't give much away to what the series is about but it does give you small hints like the tattoos. The hint are what i found interesting about the video it show the full person only the area were the person is tattooed.

memories

In psychology, memory is the process in which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved. Encoding allows information that is from the outside world to reach our senses in the forms of chemical and physical stimuli. In this first stage we must change the information so that we may put the memory into the encoding process. Storage is the second memory stage or process. This entails that we maintain information over periods of time. Finally the third process is the retrieval of information that we have stored. We must locate it and return it to our consciousness. Some retrieval attempts may be effortless due to the type of information.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory)

I know Wikipedia is not completely reliable but I quite liked this defininition.

memories- ideas

With memory as a theme it can give you a great amount of potential. I could use my own memories, a family members or even a friends memory as a main part of my video. I could use old photos and old family videos to create my own video.

I do like the idea of using old family photos I could do quite a lot with them for example I could show the photos in the video while having someone talk about the memories that the photos bring back. The problem with that would be who would I focus on?

)
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/kellywestmars/4165860643/)

I like the idea of spreading the photos around and only showing small parts so that its like some one is trying the remember but cant remember the whole thing.

I did look at Jackson Patterson who photography shows two scene in one I like the thought of layering photos together or videos so that it seem that the memories are confusing.


(http://favim.com/image/588437/)

I could also hang the photos up or have them collages on a wall their are a couple of idea that I like to try out. The photo above is a great example of what I would like to do. If it works I could great a video that moves from photo to photos showing the full photo and only small parts. The light would be similar as well since I want to high light some photos and hide others.

Le Jettee

Time travel, still images, a past, present and future and the aftermath of World War III. The tale of a man, a slave, sent back and forth, in and out of time, to find a solution to the world's fate. To replenish its decreasing stocks of food, medicine and energies, and in doing so, resulting in a perpetual memory of a lone female, life, death and past events that are recreated on an airports jetée.

Philip Tolledano Days With My Farther

The series is a record of his relationship with his farther who had no short term memory, his farther forgot that his wife had died and that he went to her funeral. The series sounds quite interesting because not only did he photograph his farther he photographed his notes that he left around the house giving him a small insight to how his farther feels.

 

I like how he photographed his farther notes that he had left around the house it would be a  great idea to do something similar but with memories of the photos I want to use, but not just my memories but others as well. I also like the idea of making up memories to show someone who doesn't remember the full story so they make up their own. 

Christian Boltanski

He using photos that he procured from the archives the photos are of the victims from the holocaust he places the photos in installations using other items from the holocaust which does have a impact on anyone who sees them. he also uses lights to highlight the photos.

 

 

You can see the size of some of his exhibitions that he puts together from the photos above. I really like how Christian Boltanski  makes you look at the holocaust victims and makes you remember all the information that you know about how they lived and suffered at the hands of the Nazis. 

Thomas Ruff

Thomas Ruff was in New York on the 09/11/2001 he photographed the scene,  but ended up losing all photos from that day so he became obsessed with other people photos from that day. He became interested in memory- losing memory  though pixilating other photos to showing how the more we look into something the more we can sometime forget.

  

The photos are not his own he downloads them from the internet, which their is some discussion about since it is not his own photography but it his idea. The idea about the photos being pixelated which represents the lose of memory it is quite interesting since the photos are not in focus giving you a slight insight to how a person with memory lose might find it difficult to remember important events.

Renaud Augusts

The project The day before_Star system include images of the night sky on the eve of historical events. To achieve this, he uses software that enables him to replicate a constellation at a given time and place.

 

The photographic series, The day before_Star system, is a series of 12 photographic images that represent a map of the sky on the eve of a military bombing. The work shows what the populations of a given place could see on the eve of their death the day before the bombings of Guernica, Dresden, Caen, London, Baghdad, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Sarajevo… and here: New York.

The series is a different view on how to create a piece of work based on memories. It doesn't show the sadness and destruction that New York or Hiroshima survived instead their are the stars.

Jackson Patterson-Recollected Memories

Even though this assignment is based on videos I found Jackson Patterson quite interesting with how he created a series of photos based on memories that I have not seen yet.

Originally from Arizona, Jackson Patterson books a series of photomontages inserting family photos in the arid landscapes. By mixing moments and stories through these beautiful pictures, he questions the relationship between people, space and memory. Some superb photographs to discover in images.

I wanted to mainly show the photo above as I find it to be quite inspiring for my own video as it shows two photos layered over each other which gives me an idea of layering photos over parts of the video gives you the idea that the person is remembering something.

workshop- Intro To Premier Pro

On the screen their will be 4 main windows. The top left window is the original clip that has not been edited. The window on the top right is the sequence were the video has been edited. The bottom left window is the project window were you can upload your clips. The bottom right window is the sequence window were you can see how you edited video is laid out.

 

The bottom left is the project window were you can up load you clips. you can see what is in your video, this is quite handy as most videos look the same you can also get an idea on how to edit the clip.

The top left window which is the original clip help you to know what you have changed compared to the edited clip. As you can see the top right will show the edited clip which I have not done yet

The bottom right window will show you the length of  the clips and you can edited how the clip will be linked and you can also edit the audio in this window as well.

To change the speed of the clip right click on the clip that you want to speed up or slow down then click onto speed duration you can then change the speed by typing it in.

You can also use effects on your clip which can be found in the project window as you can see I have chosen mosaic and dragged it across to the sequence window on to the clip that I wanted the effect on this is the result.

Another effect that i chose to stay with in black and white which is found in the project window as well.

This is the export window which can be found when you click onto file-export-media you can save all of the video or part of it, if you choose to.