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A5 Layout

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Assignment 5

Statement:

“Illumination” is a series of pictures that are meant to portray Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Light is most commonly known as a symbol of reality and truth, however; in this project I portray it as otherwise. I wanted to bring forth the deceiving element in light, so I took pictures where light is the most dominant feature but the picture itself was confusing or hard to decipher.  I was inspired by Plato’s allegory of the cave and decided to portray the story through these pictures. I noticed that the story was divided into three parts, all in which light played a factor. In the beginning, the people in the cave used fire to show shadows. They believed these shadows to be their reality. Here light is portrayed as a deceiving element. Later, one of them decided to leave the cave and found out that there is much more to life than what was in the cave. Light guided that person to discover new things. He decided to return and when he told the others of his finds, they grew angry and killed him. The light or knowledge that he had found was put out by his friend’s ignorance or refusal to accept change/knowledge.

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Final pictures

These are the pictures with the final edits, I still have to decide on a layout. The pictures are in order and they follow the story of Plato’s allegory of the cave. I wrote the words in the pictures in English and in Arabic.

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A5 updated

Proposal:

I will be doing a visual story of the journey of light. I’m going to be taking interesting pictures where light is the main element or has altered a picture vastly . In these pictures the main focus will be the light and I will attempt to take them in different times and settings as well. This project will contain abstract images that have been altered by certain lighting in an attempt to show how important lighting is. I also thought it could indicate how different people might view a subject, just as something as simple as different lighting may affect your opinion. I will be taking pictures in the day, at night, indoors, and in some I may be using different colored lighting. 

The aim of this project is to attempt to portray how sometimes what we see isn’t always true and it does so by following light in it’s daily course. I wanted to follow light in it’s, let’s call it destructive course, and attempt to portray it as a cunning element and break down or tone down the idea that it symbolizes ideal reality and illumination.

Research:

I first thought of this idea when i saw some natural lighting shot by Derrald Farnsworth in a project titled Journey of Light.

These were both interesting pictures and similar to the idea that I want to produce. A normal or natural setting that is affected by light and that makes it a bit more difficult to decipher.

However, upon reaserching further i stumbled upon a photographer by the name Leslie Ebrt who seemed to better reflect what I aimed to achieve from this project. She photographs odd lighting in normal settings and in one of her project she mentions what she was photographing. Her pictures are blurry. It’s very interesting to be able to follow lights journey through her room and the other places shes been. Her pictures tend to evoke certain emotions due to their chaotic elements. There’s mixes of colors and different brightness.

These are some examples of her pictures. I really liked that in some you could somehow identify elements of the picture that helps connect it to reality, such as the girl, the leaves, or the fire. But the rest of the picture is up to you to figure out what’s going on. 

Test Shots:

Timeline:

I will be done taking the pictures by the weekend and attempt to edit them by Monday (however I dont want to edit these pictures too much, I want most of the effects to be taken by the camera as I feel like that’s important to this project). I will then lay them out in the way i want to display them and write the captions that i want attached to them (If i am going to attach any).

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Assignment 5

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Assignment 4

Original picture:

Imitation:

Research:

This picture was taken by Paolo Pellegrin on 1/2/2005 and was collected in the 2006 photo contest. These pictures where taken backstage during the New York Fashion Week. Pellegrin first studied architecture but later on decided to continue with photography. Pellegrin became represented by Agence VU in Paris and in 2001, became a Magnum Photos nominee, and a full member in 2005. He is currently a contract photographer for Newsweek magazine in the US and Zeit magazine in Germany. New York Fashion Week is an event that happens twice yearly where US and international designers present their new collections in huge air-conditioned marquees in Bryant Park. The event not only attracts top models and designers, but also celebrities and socialites, lured in by the invitation-only shows and parties.

Reflection:

I believe what makes a photograph famous is a lot of things. Usually the quality of the picture isn’t the deciding factor. especially since this particular picture that I’ve chosen for the assignment is a bit blurry. In my opinion, a photo becomes famous when the idea that the photographer wants to capture and deliver resonates within people or when a picture makes people stare for a long period of time coming up with stories or reasons to why this picture is evoking a certain emotion. In this particular project, Pellegrin sheds a new light on New York fashion Week. using black and white and the blurriness made it feel raw and unedited which contradicts what fashion advertises with their edited to perfection models. 

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Research

Image 1:

Artist: Spence Platt

Title:  Visions of the Decade: Ceasefire in Beirut

Date:  15 August, 2006

This picture shows us young Lebanese driving down a street in Haret Shreik, a southern suburb of Beirut, to check on their homes after bombardments by Israel. The picture shows us wreckage, which is a sign that something bad happened. The first thing that caught my eye was the red of the car and then I wondered what was an expensive looking car doing in the middle of all this wreckage. All the people in the car seem to be distracted. One is blowing into a tissue, perhaps she was crying. another is staring at her phone with a worried expression. the one in white is staring out of the car with anticipation as if she cant wait until they arrive to their destination. The man directly behind the car is staring at the camera distastefully and there are two men near the wreckage who are on their phones, perhaps calling up friend or family to tell them the bad news. There is some kind of irony between the car and the destroyed neighborhood. Before reading the description, I thought they were tourists touring the poor parts of town. 

Image 2:

Artist: Robert Frank

Title:  Trolley—New Orleans

Date: 1955

Frank was born in Switzerland but moved to the US. He decided to travel across america, from New York to California and discovered that America wasn’t the land of the free and instead found a lot of alienation and racial prejudice. These picture produced a lot of controversy. Half said that Frank had betrayed his recently adopted home and the other half agreed with his criticism. This picture is of a trolley in new Orleans and the passengers in it look haunted. This gives off a feeling of hurt and exhaustion. The black and white of the picture also adds on to the haunted feeling.

Image 3:

Artist:  Taryn Simon

Title: The Innocents

Date:  2005

Simon photographed wrongfully accused people in the place of a crime. The scene of a crime is a place that has affected these people greatly even though they’ve never been to it. Simon says that “Photographing the wrongfully convicted in these environments brings to the surface the attenuated relationship between truth and fiction, and efficiency and injustice”. The person in the photo is staring directly into the camera and usually liars tend to avoid eye contact so this could be symbolize that the man is innocent. The man is hiding under a mattress but the mattress inst really covering anything, this could symbolize that he has nothing to hide. This picture is staged by the photographer as the man has never been to this place and the photographer wanted to imitate the position in which the actual criminal was found.

Image 4:

Artist:  Diane Arbus

Title:  A Family On Their Lawn One Sunday in Westchester, New York

Date: 1968

Diane Arbus was known for capturing  unusual and eccentric pictures in a compelling, thoughtful manner. This photograph was originally included in a photo essay called Two American Families, published in the London Sunday Times Magazine. Apparently, Diane walked up to the women in a bookstore and asked if she could take a picture of her with her husband and child and the women suggested that Diane wait until the weather became warmer so she could take the picture by the pool.  Part of the caption for the image, based on Arbus’s correspondence, reads, “The parents seem to be dreaming the child and the child seems to be inventing them”. This scene is staged but not by the photographer, by the family. They knew they were being pictured and even requested the place and time. However, what’s interesting and captivating in this picture is that it doesn't seem to be that way. It really looks like the picture was taken without their knowledge as no one is really posing. The kid is playing by the pool, not paying any attention to the camera and the father has his face covered, and the mother has her eyes closed.

Image 5:

Artist: Heba Khamis

Title: Banned Beauty

Date: November 12, 2016

This picture is from a collection called Banned Beauty. This projects aims to shed light on a common practice in Cameroon called breast ironing, where grandmothers and mothers flatten their daughters breasts using iron-heated objects in order to protect the girls from getting rapped or being distracted from school or work by getting pregnant. This specific picture is that of an 11 year old girl named Suzanne. I believe the photographer used black and white in order to signify the psychological damage that some of these girls go through. It gives it a sadder and bleaker look. In this specific picture the only thing covered are her breasts and aside from her face, your eyes gravitate towards it. That could’ve been the intention of the photographer and perhaps even she chose to use this floral cloth in order to be able to grab the viewers attention. 

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Assignment 3

Reflection:

Street photography is actually pretty nerve wracking but once you start talking to people and asking for permission to take their pictures, things become a bit easier. Most people shied away from the camera so it took some time before I managed to find someone who agreed to having their picture taken. 

It was very nice to sit with people and watch them remember stories and parts of their lives that they don’t usually talk about that often. They felt genuine and those who talked were very pleasant. It evoked an emotion in me that made me want to talk to more people and hear more stories.

[reemelmaghraby]

Assignment 2

Image 1:

Image 2:

Image 3:

Image 4:

Image 5:

Image 6:

Image 7:

Image 8:

Image 9:

Image 10:

Reflection:

Visual composition can be thought of as the organization of the elements of art according to principles of art. When taking a picture of an object; changing the point of view can make a huge difference. While taking most of the pictures in this assignment, I had to interfere with most of them and change elements, add elements, or add lighting in order to get a better or visually appealing picture. Sometimes using visual composition could completely change the object itself. When taking some of the pictures, the object itself isn’t clear in the final product and that makes the photo more interesting and appealing.

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Assignment 1

Photo 1:

Shutter Speed: 1/30 | Aperture: 4 

Photo 2:

Shutter Speed: 1/125 | Aperture: 8 

Shutter Speed: 1/125 | Aperture: 5.6

Shutter Speed: 1/125 | Aperture: 4

Photo 3:

Shutter Speed: 1/125 | Aperture: 16

Shutter Speed: 1/2000 | Aperture: 4 

Photo 4:

Shutter Speed: 1/250 | Aperture: 4 

Shutter Speed: 1/30 | Aperture: 11

Photo 5:

Shutter Speed: 1/125 | Aperture: 5.6

Shutter Speed: 1/125 | Aperture: 5.6

Shutter Speed: 1/125 | Aperture: 5.6 

Photo 6:

Shutter Speed: 1/4000 | Aperture: 4

Shutter Speed: 1/400 | Aperture: 4 

Photo 7:

Shutter Speed: 1/80 | Aperture: 5.6 | Focal length: 55 mm

Shutter Speed: 1/80 | Aperture: 5.6 | Focal length: 35 mm

Shutter Speed: 1/80 | Aperture: 5.6 | Focal length: 18 mm

Reflection:

I always thought that using a professional camera would be a lot harder but taking these pictures proved otherwise. I was honestly nervous because this was a completely new experience to me. In the beginning things were a bit confusing, the pictures weren’t coming out right and there always seemed to be something wrong with the photos I took; however, the more photos I took the easier the process became and eventually working on the assignment became fun. I fully started to understand how to work with the camera, and when a picture turned out wrong, I knew how to fix it. And playing around with the shutter speed and aperture became fun and exciting. It was quite interesting to see how different pictures could come out depending on the settings you place. I played around with the camera beforehand and ended up taking some interesting pictures. This assignment also helped me further understand the difference between a photographer and a person with a camera. Anyone could simply snap a picture but a photographer has to put a lot of other things into consideration like light to try and improve the quality of the photo.

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I’ve chosen the following three questions:

- If everyone is a photographer, what does it mean to be a photographer today? How would you define it?

- Is photography really an ‘art’? Put into words why you think it is?

- What makes photography ‘unique’?

Photography is a unique type of art. I know that it might not seem like art because everyone can take a picture but there is a lot of thought and consideration that is put into a picture. The most obvious is the subject of the picture. Almost all pictures are supposed to have a certain meaning or symbolism in order to convey a message to their audience. The details around the subject are also important because again they could tell us a story or more about the subject of the picture. I’ve also learned three more terms that a photographer puts into consideration when taking a picture. The first is called composition. Composition is when the photographer creates a pleasing picture that attempts to draw the audience’s attention into the photo. And there are a lot of rules to that and surprisingly most of these rules came from painters back in history. Another thing a photographer has to pay attention to is the vantage point. This is basically where the photo should be taken from, from which point of view. Sometimes the camera could get certain views that we wouldn’t have been able to see with our own eyes and this could help the photographer convey his idea. The last thing is Time. This makes photography unique. When a photographer takes a picture, they freeze a moment in time and it stays there forever. All these elements are also what makes a photographer nowadays different from someone with a camera on his/her phone. So much thought and consideration is put into taking a picture and that is what makes a good photographer.

[reemelmaghraby]

I was intrigued by two projects. One By Mariam Ismail and another called ‘Cut Me a Smile’ by Karoline Schneider. They both tackle the subject of women oppression of some sort. They were both very creative and attempted to use props and different techniques to give a message to the audience. Both of them were mostly black and white which I think gives off a dark vibe. However, ‘Cut Me a Smile’ used a combination of poetry and photography to get her idea across, while Mariam Ismail only used photos, some of which had words.

Even though the techniques where quite different, there was still a lot of shared ideas and I think that’s due to the similar topic they shared. I found it very interesting that there were common elements in these two projects because the topic was about women.   

[reemelmaghraby]

Video 2 – Interview: Laura El Tantawy

1.       Do you think other Egyptians will manage to find their identify or explore it more when they see these projects?

Yes, I think upon looking at these pictures, you can get a deeper understanding on where you stand and attempt to understand what is going on, especially if you’re similar to Laura El Tantawy in the sense that you’ve been brought up outside of Egypt.

2.       Can this project paint a different light about Egypt to non-Egyptians?

I’m sure that it does. A lot of people aren’t aware of what happens in Egypt or perhaps they don’t understand it. This project, a collection of stories and texts could help illuminate the issue to others.

3.       Does the fact that an Egyptian photographer took these pictures change the way people respond to it?

I’m sure that this affects the way Egyptians may view this project. Having an Egyptian take these photographs would make most Egyptians feel more comfortable with it as she probably understands what’s going on and can explain it accurately. It also creates a feeling of oneness and makes the project seem genuine.

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Video 1 – Interview: Khalik Allah

1.       What type (Genre) of photography does he make? Can you name any others?

I think his genre is documentary. It seems like the photographer is more interested in the subject or person he’s capturing rather than the photo itself.  Other genres are advertisement, medical, fine arts, and landscapes.

2.       He said: ‘Purpose in life is to extend the light into peoples lives’. What does he mean by this? Do you agree?

I think that this idea could be applied both literally and metaphorically. He usually takes pictures at night and yet he plays around with the lights in the photo. In doing so he is extending light into these peoples lives. By photographing them, he might be giving them a feeling of purpose or importance they otherwise wouldn’t have felt before. Or perhaps, he is extending light into our lives, the people who see these pictures. He’s trying to enlighten us with information about these people in an attempt to spread awareness. I do agree, I feel like pictures could be very impactful.

3.       He also said: ‘To make knowledge born’. How does his photography do that?

Perhaps he means that photography helps spread knowledge. The photographs of the people he meets is supposed to spread knowledge and awareness about their situation and lives. If no one takes pictures of these people no one would know of their situation.

4.       How would describe the role of photography from his perspective?

I think he views photography to shed light on an important topic. He uses it to share an important story about people who’ve been treated wrongly by the justice system or by society in an attempt to spread awareness.

5.       Can his type of photography bring out understanding, as he claims?

Yes, most of the times pictures affect people more than words can. When people see others, who are hurt they tend to feel more empathetic. And it resonates more, you associate a face to the suffering. This type of impact can definitely bring out understanding.

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If everyone is a photographer, what does it mean to be a photographer today? How can you define it?

In a time where almost everyone has the ability to take decent and sometimes great pictures, it is somewhat difficult to tell what exactly puts apart a photographer and a person with a camera. Some would say a photographer is someone who earns money from taking pictures and yet some people who call themselves photographers don’t earn money from it. I personally believe that a photographer is a person who loves to take picture. A photographer loves what he does and is always looking for ways to improve his skills.