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In the early 1950s Philippe Halsman carried out a photoshoot with the entire Ford family to celebrate the company’s fiftieth birthday. Although the shoot wasn't a success this day would kick start one of Halsman's most famous projects by asking the family to jump for their photos at the end of their shoot. Following this Halsman began his six year period of ending every shoot by asking his subjects to jump, photographing all of his most famous and accomplished sitters. His subjects included the likes of Richard M. Nixon, Marilyn Monroe, Groucho Marx, Marc Chagall, Sid Caesar, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and several corporate presidents.
“In a jump, the subject, in a sudden burst of energy, overcomes gravity. He cannot simultaneously control his expressions, his facial and his limb muscles. The mask falls. The real self becomes visible." This was identified as a new psychological tool by Philippe, of which he named 'Jumpology'. |
ROBERT LONGO
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FRANCESCA WOODMANFrancesca Stern Woodman, born April 3rd 1958, was an American photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring either herself or female models. Many of her photographs show women, naked or clothed, blurred (due to movement and long exposure times), merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured. Her work is often said to explore the representation of gender and the relation of the body to its environment.
Following her suicide in 1981 at the young age of 22 her images have been opened to a greater meaning, often assumed to become a physical portrayal of her struggle in mental health and the limitations she feels in her trapped state. |
UTA BARTHUta Barth uses her works to deconstructexpectatins of visual representation - drawing attention to the limits of the human eye. She brings about a deliberate disregard for photographic subjects and the usual straight forward angles of the camera. Each image is carefully composed, slightly off-set, limiting our view of the subject. In some of her images she uses light and shadow, as well as glimpses of pieces of furniture, enough to reveal shapes and identifiable forms but seemingly capturing nothing in particular. |
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Richter is a German visual artist. Richter has produced abstract as well as photorealistic paintings as well as photographs. Since the mid 1980s Gerhard Richter has created more than 2,000 Overpainted Photographs – of which are still continuously produced to this day.
The process begins with a group of commercially processed 4×6 family snapshots, taken by Richter himself or others whilst at home, on holidays or usual day trips. The second step is to then take these images, coating them in leftover oil paint. Various colours are melded together, dotted on top or smeared on a long plastic blade that Richter uses to scrape paint across his canvases. The underlying photograph is obscured, leading the viewer to struggle to fill in the pieces of the figurative story, creating a sense of mystery or unknown. |
SEUNG HWAN OH
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LUCAS SIMOES |
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For his series ‘Impermanence’, photographer and microbiologist Seung-Hwan Oh cultivates fungus that he applies to his film prior to photographing and through this process. Through this process, the microorganisms slowly devour the film and the resulting image is a blur of abstract lines and colours.
Oh has gained control over the effects of the microbes on the films, but never the action of the microbe itself, thus this uncertainty will always be part of the process. |
Simoes is a Brazilian artist based in Sao Paulo. The photos above were selected from several series, including 'nostalgia', 'ausencia' and 'adios'.
Simoes has a background in architecture and design which explains his accurate use of geometric shapes within some of the photographs. Using the combination of collage and use of fire to manipulate the face, he provides a sense of desperation to destroy a memory the photo holds. Fire is an obvious recurring theme amongst the majority of his images, all playing with an element of destruction and manipulation of the human face to physically erase the subject. This seems to link to both freedom and limitation, with the freedom stemming from erasing the past, whilst simultaneously limiting what the viewer may see. Restricting them from viewing the subject at the source of the artist's pain and memories. "In all my experiments, done with burning, creating distortion, the intention is to intervene in objects or images that carry meaning, and by doing so, create a new representation that oscillates between beauty and strangeness, movement and depth. There is a certain perversion to it, to modify the meaning, the strange fascinates me, and make it become beautiful is even more interesting." |
IRVING PENNAround 1948, photographer Irving Penn began making unusual portraits of a number of celebrities. Each one was asked to position in a small corner (smaller than 90°), this was created with two studio flats pushed together and a carpet on the floor.
The photographic studio was no longer a neutral environment but became an active agent in the creation of the photographic reality. In some of his other studio images we see electrical cables and photographic material scattered on the floor. In a portrait of Georgia O'Keefe we see the supports for the corner flats. Within the corner portraits, the studio becomes an architectural limiter of the subject movements and the resulting compressed and claustrophobic environment isolates the subjects’ personalities in an abstract, artificial corner of the world. “The walls were a surface to lean on or push against. For me the picture possibilities were interesting; limiting the subjects movements seemed to relieve me of part of the problem of holding onto them.” |
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I would have liked to vary the lighting in this series, possibly using tungsten lighting to test its effect, as well as changing my subjects positioning. This would give a greater range of emotion to the image.
However, I think the dark grey backdrop and low lighting accentuated the luring shadows within the image. In addition to this the retreating figures give a greater sense of restrictive spacing, as well as the limitations imposed on emotion. Overall I think I created a consistent depressive mood within my images, making them more coherent. |
Willi Dorner is an Austrian artist, in one of his bigger projects 'Human Bodies in Urban Spaces' he squeezes human bodies into nooks and crannies around the city. He enlists groups of dancers in brightly coloured clothing to run around, scaling scaffoldings, and shaping themselves to different structures in the city.
This project points out the urban functional structure and to uncover the restricted movement possibilities and behaviour as well as rules and limitations. Passers by, residents and audience are motivated and prompted to reflect their urban surrounding and there own movement behaviour and habits. This project is consistently moving. The performers lead the audience through selected parts of public and semi-public spaces. A chain of physical interventions set up very quickly and only existing temporarily "Generally speaking I am still interested in how we can perceive architecture/space through our body or more precisely speaking through all our senses besides the visual one." |
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This project was interesting as it almost became a subversion of the previous framing devices task, with each body occupying the framed space. The project allowed for more creativity in the variety of restrictive spaces and how the human figure can twist and adapt to the space its confined to. I was able to use different structures in my images, differentiating between height, width, height off the ground.
It may have been better to replicate my original inspiration- Willi Dorner's use of brightly coloured clothing as it may have drawn greater attention to my subject. Some spaces were more hidden and darker than others, so it would have helped to highlight my focus of the image. |
Patrick Cornillet is a French architectural painter born in 1968 in France. Cornillet often works in Nantes.
His recent work features constructions in empty surroundings. Fragments of architecture left in the centre of the painting, in suspense. Unclear is if these structures have ever served a purpose. It limits the viewer to its purpose, it's location, and restricts any assumptions they may make. It is an ultimately bare image, restrictive of any other subject matter featuring within. Cornillet’s more recent work can be viewed as ‘severe’ or ‘naked’. These images evoke the ruins of a fallen society, standing as naked as fragmented. |
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I thought this strand was extremely successful, the tools used meant the cut around the edges were sharp. With the buildings being in colour I also felt that I was able to further emphasise the stark contrast between the structure against a plain background. Almost removing it further from its original scenery and making it appear even more out of place. If I were to change aspects of this project I would like to experiment with isolating multiple buildings in one image. This may bring a greater element of chaos, to the image. It would also be interesting to assess what other limitations could be made if the building itself was dissected and spread across the page. Isolating elements and encouraging the viewer to piece them together. |
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Tyler Spangler, 30, is an American digital artist based in California. His colourful, chaotic images explore the colour, form, and photography through the medium of digital collage.
Over the last two years, Tyler has created five 440 paged books filled with his own designs and worked on countless collaborations internationally. He has a BA in Psychology and is an Art Center College of Design dropout. |
For this particular image I used a smudge tool, specifying my brush to 'Flat Fan High Bristle Count'. I wanted to use this as I thought the obscure pattern of the brush may create a new interesting pattern, different to the softer smudge effect on my previous images.
I followed the same pattern with my brush, moving it in an up and down motion, entirely shifting the positioning and distorting my subjects facial features. |
For these two images I destroyed my photographic paper by using a bleach spray, spraying it directly onto the image and letting it sit for a minute as to ensure it would react to the ink. I then washed the bleach off the image before placing it in a dryer.
Next time I would experiment with using less bleach, or adjusting the nozzle of the spray as to ensure it did no remove entire sections of the image. Possibly experimenting with with more of a drip effect to create a more distorted aspect within the series. However I was able to effectively follow the idea of limitations as I have obscured the viewer from viewing the image, whilst simultaneously giving them the image almost a more fluid look, working into the idea of freedom. |
For this development I used architecture in the Barbican and the Trellick Towers as the subject of my images.
These Brutalist structures were a popular form of architecture which flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s. In modern architecture these buildings have gained greater appreciation due to their stark contrast to contemporary designs. The buildings I selected have gained particular attention, so I selected these to test whether their structures were familiar, or decipherable through the small peepholes provided through the developer. I also hoped the raw plain concrete would juxtapose the random splattered pattern of the developer. |
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This was the least successful of all experimentations. The images I had taken were too isolated with limited buildings in the background and surround my subject there was not enough structure to scratch away. The lines scratched in also seemed to blend slightly with the different floors of the building and was not as effective in drawing attention towards the centre of the image.
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masking tapeThis was my original attempt with the masking tape. I only used one layer to start, and found that it was not thick enough so the image was still able to be exposed on to the photographic paper. On top of this the masking tape was too thin and peeled away very easily in the developing bath, this meant it was unable to prevent complete development on the entire image.
To resolve this I used roughly 2 or 3 layers of masking tape on each image, ensuring it wraps all the way around the photographic paper to prevent it from falling apart. |