Research
Larry Clark: The perfect childhood (1993)
I read the photo book the perfect childhood by Larry Clark as I was particularly interested In his use of combining visual mediums into a final product. For a series of images in the book, He would have images he wanted to photograph on a television screen and then every photograph that screen with his camera. This added a low-fi, CCTV effect to the images and lets you see how each LCD light individually formed the image on the screen. And psychologically is distances the audience further from the subject.
Week 2
For this shoot, I shot models in a studio. I wanted an opportunity to photograph people under a stable source of light so I could have a good foundation for scanning the negatives to allow me to experiment with manipulating the tonal histogram & colour filtering before scanning. I also experimented with focus; when I shoot with a soft focus I feel more of a disconnection to my subjects and it gives the image a 'muted' feel.
Research: Walter Benjamin
“Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space” (Benjamin in Wells, 2010, p. 43).
[Wells, L. (2010.). The photography reader (Repr. ed.). London [u.a.: Routledge.]
Benjamin’s views are similar to Roland Barthes’ views in that they both believe that any reproduction of reality can never be held as the truth. Although Barthes believes that a reproduction of reality (writing, painting, photograph) is rather a valid adaptation that can then be appreciated for the choices the artist has made in showing their perception of that reality; compared to Benjamin who noted photography’s separation from time & space so reality could not be contained in the image.