#advancedconceptsinphotography

So... my presentation is tomorrow morning and I am anxious to get feedback mainly. I know I have some solid ideas, but once I started to research into them with more detail I found there is a lot of ground to cover. This is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact it could prove to be useful as the more research I have the better and easier my dissertation will be to write and follow. Personally going over this presentation again I feel like time leaning more into questioning the ethics of photography surrounding ideas of the mainstream media influencing misjudgment, misinformation, racism and/or many other unethical issue that occur socially in contempory media. 

Feedback:

Most people from the presentation responded well/ preferred the last section of my topics ideas. With ideas surrounding the affects off media/publicity feedback was to maybe focus on a specific minorities/issue I.e vitiligo and analyse the use and effects. Present dissertation backwards - the ideas is my presentation of presented from start to finish could incorporate some of all my ideas as they could weave into the analyse. Ethics can be used to analyse the use of specific models in specific case studies. Find specific case studies/ occurrences. How it used? Who is affected? How it affects the sitter? Who is in control? Is it ethical? Can/ will these views change?

Idea one: 

Discuss the social impact photography has had on self image. Compare to artists that use the social media contacts as an aesthetic for their work. Richard something uses five photographs from each person he is photographing and re-photographs the subject in the best frame he finds for each subject. He finds this easy as something that is hard to do as a portrait photographer is capture photograph of a person how they would want it to look. So by re-photographing an image already taken he is reproducing the aesthetic. This shows the impact of the way photographs are being taken in this generation not only on the uses of social media but also for artists such as photographers and even editors for example magazines. 

•The impact of representation in food photography. advertisement - Survey? 

Idea two : 

The idea of ethics;  social media and the way people document video suffering abuse murder. People have become numb to suffering. How photojournalist have influence or allowed the public to believe it is justified to photograph or record such devastating moment. Idea of how easy it is for the public to influence or be part of the news. The public has taken over the job of the photojournalist. News outlets depend on The snapshot aesthetic & this has become overly popular almost appraised as people want to be able to use technology to their advantage as it adapts. Justifications of Self-satisfaction with the act is an idea that people feel like they’re doing something even though they are not physically helping. and even then it is not doing anything apart from videoing capturing the event they could have avoiding recording in the first place. Kants idea of deontological ethic can be applied to this area to debate the ethics of allowing your self not to do the morally ‘right’ physical acts. Ethnicity being a trend, homelessness, War, murder, abuse, famine and natural diseases are all examples of subjects photographed that can be argued unethical but have become apart of (society) social norms. 

Incoming Richard Mosee

Engaging a viewer 

Personal intrest 

Stereotype photography 

Current issue: coronavirus/ media outlets

Further ideas: 

•Effects of social media media in general on mental health links to photography in truth. How people see them selves- camera distortion - self image - selfies. •Photojournalist’s / paparazzi photograph people’s lives without authority no laws governing media use publications. 

Photographer/ paparazzi aggravating celebrities to get a reaction to photograph. The fact that the photographer has control over the production of an image (post production) and the narrative behind the subject can be dangerous/ not always what the subject wants - unethical. 

•Camera capabilities in this generation. 

Emmanuel Kant - A photographer to help argue against Ruff’s interpretation of portrait photography is  Emmanuel Kant. His theory of deontological ethics can be applied to question whether or not under a series of rules, the morality of the action itself is right or wrong . However a consequential theory of ethics can be applied as consequentialism is a normative ethical theory. The consequences of an action are all that matters when taking an ethical decision to act. 

Morality is primarily focused on the interests of other people and the idea of deontological constraints.

USEFUL LINKS FOR TOPIC IDEAS. 

https://www.today.com/style/models-skin-conditions-answer-hurtful-questions-powerful-portrait-series-t166568    - insta artist 

https://www.bustle.com/articles/138249-11-people-whove-embraced-the-beauty-of-skin-conditions-that-make-humans-unique-photos    -    black milenials 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecarter/2018/11/23/meet-the-black-millennial-bringing-diversity-to-stock-photography/#290fa174500b    -  11 models embraced the beauty of their skin 

https://sevenpillarsinstitute.org/ethics-101/applying-utilitarianism-are-insider-trading-and-the-bailout-of-gm-ethical/  - Ethics/ consqeuncialism 

http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s10814.pdf - ethics |  Sarah Greenough, Picturing a Collection, Presenting a History. 

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Pus9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=photographer+that+uses+five+portraits+of+his+subjects+and+photographers+one&source=bl&ots=TlBoXq2Ci-&sig=ACfU3U0gK7WmhOTg9_eJgTNXTD1EurP95g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiTspv1lf3nAhXtQUEAHT8TDgcQ6AEwEHoECA4QAQ#v=onepage&q=photographer%20that%20uses%20five%20portraits%20of%20his%20subjects%20and%20photographers%20one&f=false - Photography Reinvented: The Collection of Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker. Contributions by Philip Brookman Andrea Nelson Leslie Ureña Diane Waggoner

https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/diverse-stock-photos/  -  statistic about companies here to help minority groups. Representation Matters. CreateHER Stock  Photos 

https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/why-does-ad-industry-keep-making-racist-mistakes/1590498

Summary: 

In both cases for my dissertation topic ideas I would be focusing on the connection between photography and the being; the affects photography can have on a person and they’re opinion to a specific subject. 

 Teemu Hupli’s lecture - 22.01.2020

Analogue digital shift -> Theory by Peter Osborne

Ontology of photography: nature, essence of photography

Photography being an indexical medium started to be questioned with the invention of digitalisation, especially in documentary. Adnan Haji’s photograph  of Beirut from 2006 is a good example of how we started to question this dilemma. Above, we can see Haji’s original photograph on the right and the one he published on the left. This caused a bit of a scandal as we can clearly see that the photograph on the left has been retouched.

“Given the proliferation of digital images that look exactly like photographs, photography may even be robbed of its cultural identity as a distinctive medium.”           (Batchen, 1994, p.47)

What Batchen mentioned above, is a problem that came out due to how digital images were manipulated, but we now know that analogue images were also manipulated from the start. The image below is a a good example of an manipulated analogue photograph. (by Oscar Rejlander, Two Ways of Life, 1857)

But what is really important is not when the images was taken, it is the moment when it is seen, visually.

Infinite Exchange: The Social Ontology of the Photographic Image

by Peter Osborne

Photography not being a particular art/medium, but concentrates more on the image that has been produced.

Photographic image being the current historically dominant form of the image in general.

There is no ontological difference touching the indexicality of an image whether it is digital or analog.

Approaches photography historically/philosophically and via their relations to the concept of art.

Photography as an event between photographer, subject and place.                                                                                                          by Azule

“What does digitalisation tell us about the nature of photography in art?’ (Osborne, 2010,p.62)

But how can we distinguished the art from the non-art? There has been a certain level of anxiety coming with idealisation, one of them being the death of the photographic profession. But those can’t be link to digital manipulation as images were already manipulated with analogue. Osborne even believed that those anxiety had nothing to do with photography itself and more with a capitalist theory. He linked it to a marxist approached.

Objects in general can have to different values:

The use value: quality of the object (example, strawberry can be eaten when a chair cannot be eaten)

The exchange value: the quantitive value, commoditise that can be exchanged (example one chair is worth six strawberries / depends on the individual need of the commoditor)

We could also relate this to how people take photographs to promote themselves on instagram. -> exchangeable self (promote yourselves can’t exists without a brand.) 

This lecture kept by David Campany was based on the relationship between Photography and its Context; it is a very important concept from which derive, together with Research, the aim of a piece of work. Without research and interest to a subject of research is almost quite impossible to create a solid project. As written in the Power Point presentation of the lecture “Photography is not enough, because when photography is only photography it isn’t even photography”.

Photography can have a variety of potential context: a photographer can decide to present his project in a gallery to then re-present the work in a photo book as subject of an essay, to then publish it in a magazine and so on.

Advanced Concepts in Photography: Week 5: Lecture 5 Notes.

Advanced Concepts in Photography: Week 4: Lecture 4 Notes.