Sally Mann

Sally Mann is an American born photographer, born in 1951 Lexington, Virginia where she currently lives and work. Her work is well known for her large black and white photographs. First of her young children called “Immediate Family.” Her images took a turn when she started to capture a series of landscapes in the southern states of the US consisting of Georgia, Mississippi and Virginia. She stated she “wanted to go right into the heart of the deep dark south” using a damaged camera lense and a camera that required her to use her hand as a shutter mechanism. She produced pictures with scratches; light leaks and focus at resembled those of the 19^th century. She went on winning numerous awards, including National Endowment for the Arts and Fellowships and also Guggenheim.

Sally gained a reputation through provocative pictures she captured of her children in the book Immediate Family. “Disarming in their insolence, truly owning their bodies, those children project boldly and defiantly – something we don’t necessarily associate with the naked body or the naked self” The pictures from her book were very controversial because she had taken pictures of her children in various provocative and nude poses.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFCozK4K1rpUSpoSD8gltAwHPhTqyu9fbE1SadHhyphenhyphen2iX7AzmEBh0uk6KUshGlwGMpmLOFi71FZb4umOxRco0P-Y-NtZw86LtVG3cWCXQskADHO1Ohu6KJAPlicX9cqX-qtVytQ_trDqAw/s1600-h/sally+mann.jpg

http://www.theslideprojector.com/art6/art6lecturepresentations/art6lecture13.html

Another aspect of Sally’s work contained a haunted landscape, corruption and innocence with life and death. In order for Sally to produce the work “Deep South” she travelled to the boarders of Mississippi and Louisiana to the Mississippi river with rich histories from the slavery of Africans to the Confederacy of the civil war.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_HLo9kccKdcs/SOqzjjx6aDI/AAAAAAAAACM/8dsG18y1vEc/s1600-h/Organic+-+Sally_Mann_Untitled_DeepSouth_1998.jpg

http://www.tufts.edu/programs/mma/fah189/2002/nmadahar/sallymann.html

One author that immediately reminded me of Sally Mann’s work was the photo of the Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange. Besides that of the black and white picture, both artists captured the type of environment they were exposed to. The pictures exposed a feeling of darkness and gloominess, Lange depicted it through the facial expression of the migrant mother while Mann used the landscapes which once wrought of slavery, war and sweat.

http://www.1adventure.com/archives/000203.html

A lot of people say Mann’s work resembled Julia Margaret Cameron because she used a hundred year old 8’’x10’’ camera which evoked a ghostly images of the early Victorian style photographer. The picture below was by Julia Margaret Cameron who captured a lifeless baby. The emotions can be shown through the dull and distressing of the image. The baby seems to lie lifeless, a sign of death with the attendance of family captured through this depressing time.

http://mytoday.tumblr.com/page/3

Timothy O’Sullivan was a photographer in the 19^th century. His most prominent work was called “The harvest of Death” which was captured on the battlefield of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1863. As you can see this is the aftermath of the battle which shows six dead Union soldiers lying dead with their faces up and stomachs bloated and their pockets picked and shoes stolen. Again the picture shows death and decay from the devastation aftermath of a bloody battle. The essence of fog and haziness adds an appropriate atmosphere for the finale of this event.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2005.100.502.1

Diane was infamous for her photography of “freaks” captured from the circus. It consisted of dwarves, drag queens transvestites and circus performers in which she was awarded Guggenheim. People saw her work as abnormal for the average viewers, just like Mann’s work Immediate Family which people thought was child pornography.

http://ponygraph.blogspot.com/2009/12/diane-arbus-1923-1971.html

Sources of reading

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/mann/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Mann

http://beautifulanddepraved.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html

There was an actual case that someone had been fired just because he had edited out a pair of legs as shown on the photo. A man named Allan Detrich who worked for Toledo Blade resigns for having the photo altered. Detrich stated "It should never have been done. I apologize to everyone that I've hurt. I'm going to pursue things for myself now. I hope that the people that I've met and known over the years are still friends, no matter what happens, and I appreciate all the friendships that I've formed in the community and all the eMails that people have sent me." However I believe the legs that had been edited did not compromise the story.

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http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2007/04/toledo03.html

After researching on various press companies such as The New York Times, Globe and Mail, LA Times I have not found sufficient evidence of any regulations on altering press photos. There are also no codes of ethics or regulations that reside in countries but I believe there are some companies that enforce this. I believe reporters should have the right to enhance the quality of the photo without changing the context of it. Pictures provided should be fact and not mislead or misrepresent the story because they would be challenging their own integrity.

There should be some editing but to a certain extent, for example the pictures I altered in the photo manipulation assignment. I made the pictures a lot clearer and detailed so the viewers can see it more precisely without having to closely examine it. Overall I think editing a picture to improve its quality is fine but to a certain extent that you alter its true form would not be acceptable. In this course we had examined different ways and methods that photographers captured their art and majority of the time, due to their editing it has improved their artwork exponentially.

http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2007/04/toledo03.html

Press photography versus art photography

Make Love Not War by Steven Miesel

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/make-love-not-war-steven

Soldier crying http://shanerogerson.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/soldier-crying.jpg

Soldier in battle http://www.agmates.com/images/24a.jpg

First of all, press photographs and art photographs are both represented differently because of their purposes. Press photography is an image that is meant to tell a news story and there are some regulations on how much you can edit the photo before releasing to the public which varies on the company. Art photographs however are images that reflect on the photographer’s style of shooting and editing an image. Art photography these days tend to be used a lot in print media and commercially.

Above are 4 pictures on war. The main differences of the pictures are that press photography capture a realistic event at that moment. The photographer captures the agonizing emotion that the solider is portraying as the two come to the aid of a fallen comrade. The image of the solider crying defines how much of an impact the war has on people. The reason for the tears might be because of his distant loved ones at home or even a horrific event that happened on the battlefield which lead to the tears.

The photos by Steven Meisel are found in the vogue. “Critics say that Steven's images glamorize the war in Iraq.” However, the photographer’s intention was to use the theme of “war” to show his artistic values of the dirty soldiers in the middle of a warzone hence the title “Make Love not War.”

Another difference is that the press photos don’t seem to be edited at all, maybe to capture the environment of the battlefield because they aren’t as clear and well detailed compared to the works of Steven Meisel’s photos. Stevens photos are professionally edited to allow a higher quality for the viewers to capture his imagination and because the photos appear in a prestigious magazine like Vogue.

Sources of reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photojournalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_art_photography

Week 9 discussion

What's the role of photo journalism?

The role of photo journalism is to use photographs with the intention of reporting it to the media such as; newspapers, magazines, television and the internet. The pictures allow the viewers to have visual feel which connects them with the story, without it, readers feel they are only grasping half of the report. It allows viewers to see images of that certain time, accuracy and gives accountability to the public.

- Are there rules that photojournalists should follow? Why? Why not?

There is no code of ethics or regulations that reside in countries but in the industry of photojournalism but there are some media companies that do carry it. I believe reporters should have the right to enhance the quality of the photo without changing the context of it. Pictures provided should be fact and not mislead or misrepresent the story because they would be challenging their own integrity.

- Is the ethics of taking journalistic photos different than the ethics of writing a news story?

The ethics of journalistic photos and news story are the same. The only difference is that the delivery of the message. Journalism is portraying in pictures and news stories are portrayed in video recording. Both have the same purpose. The stories are both the same but just voiced out differently.

- What's the impact of altering press photographs? Should they be edited (at all) in postproduction?

There should be some editing but to a certain extent, for example the pictures I altered in the photo manipulation assignment. I made the pictures a lot clearer and detailed so the viewers can see it more precisely without having to closely examine it. Overall I think editing a picture to improve its quality is fine but to a certain extent that you alter its true form would not be acceptable.

Photo manipulation

before

after

This photo was taken when I went to Fredericton, PEI

Here is a picture of a dish I had in cuba. First, I had to resize the picture smaller to focus on the dish and removed the outer sides of the phot to deemphasize objects like the piece of bread and crumbs. Next step was croping the photo to remove the other unwanted parts of the photo. I then rotated the picture to get a better angle of the shot or to just center it, because the photo was a bit bright and had a glare to it I reduced the white balance to make it a bit darker. The vibrance was increased slightly to reveal the colours of the redness and dulls it out a bit so more details can be seen. Exposure was decreased to show better textures, things like the shrimp and the pasta has more body to it, you can now see it more clearly. The last thing I did was increase the contrast to bring out the picture more, adding colour.

before

after

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://s2.desktopmachine.com/pics/Lambo_Reventon_195_1024x768.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.desktopmachine.com/framepic.php%3Fid%3D11727%26size%3D1024&usg=__UKRCVt0CF47CmvxbTZIsgOBcbjQ=&h=768&w=1024&sz=87&hl=en&start=49&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=M4cdUN73C2n6SM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlambo%2Breventon%26start%3D42%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26ndsp%3D21%26tbs%3Disch:1

First of all, the photo was cropped so the car would be in an upright position. I lowered the exposure to make the photo alot more dull, more like an old fashioned photo. Reducing the sharpness makes it look like the car was shot going at high speeds, adds a bit of blurriness. The saturation was deceased signifigantly so the photo would be in a black and white aspect.

After
before

http://www.lifewithhope.org/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=140019801&sec_id=140004676

Here is a picture of a rainbow i took off the internet. First step was increasing the exposure to make the photo more textured. Clarity was added so it makes the elements in the photo more appealing. I added a bit of warmness to give it a more autumn feel to the environment. I made it brighter so the colour in the rainbow would be more noticeable. Also the orange was reduced which made the leaves more red to show the changing of the colours.

When something is reproduced for so many times is that art? What's the importance of the mechanical reproducibility of the art? What was the impact on mechanical reproducibility on the society?

If something is reproduced a lot of times, technically speaking it is still art. The importance of mechanical reproducibility of art is to allow innovation. It helps educate and enlighten to produce new and exciting art. We learn from others achievements and drives us to generate better and a more remarkable artwork.

Is photography art, or contribution to the art? Is it just a tool used by artists?

I believe photography is an art because someone has to be skillful and knowledgeable enough to capture art. It’s like comparing an amateur to a professional. For example if you were to capture a photo of an egg, how would you do it? The amateur would probably think, there’s nothing special about this egg and just take a snapshot of it. But the professional would be mindful enough to add lightning, backgrounds and different flashes to add more depth into the subject.

How and why Henry Pitch Robinson created Fading Away? What was the reason?

Henry intended to capture a picture of a grieving family over the coming death of their daughter because he wanted viewers to see the emotion the family was going through. The photo was created by Robinson’s imagination, which many viewers felt the scene was quite painful to be rendered as art.

Photography has impacted the world of art and influenced some changes in the area of accessibility to art. If mechanical reproduction created revolution, what is happening now with the digitalization?

Digitalization allows us to change and alter images with ease which was not attainable in the past due to technology. Because some images do not exist in this world it allows us to bring our imagination to life to produce new works of art. Digital creativity allows people to create new and unsought of ideas to life

Photo Journal Topic 1 - The role of portraits in the early days of photography and portraits today

Barack Obama By Pete Souza

Albert Einstein by Arthur Sasse

Regarding the differences of portraits taken in the past and today, I think they’re any big differences except for the quality of the picture. Portraits are defined a verbal picture or description, usually of a person. Usually, portraits are taken from the chest upwards to show the expression of a person. Over the years, photographers have found out different ways of taking pictures by adding sets of lighting. Lights are use to create shadows or illuminate the portrait adding more depth to it.

Pete Souza is the official white house photographer. He started as the white house photographer when Ronald Reagan was in power. He worked for the Chicago Tribune(newspaper) for 10 ten years before moving onto a photographer for the white house. His other workings include covering the war in Afghanistan and freelancer for National Geographic and Life magazines.

I could not find a biography of Arthur Sasse

Portraits have had quite a significant change from the past till now. As of now, most people can get their hand on a camera for an affordable price compared to before when it was just discovered. According to history, the first picture ever taken was in 1814 by Nicephore Niepce using a sliding wooden box camera in Paris. Pictures then had to be developed in a dark room which was very time consuming. Since then the camera has evolved digitally. These days, photos can be easily edited from the print and instantly printed from a computer. Because of digital editing p I sometimes find it hard to determine whether if the portrait of the person looks exactly like the person in real life. Because of digital editing images can sometimes be misleading compared to before when digital editing was not invented yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Souza

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_camera