A selection of ideas from other photographers to help me to achieve a good collection of photographs that represent Solitude. All photographers have been credited.
1. Type of production and brief details on Subject/Concept: Solitude(see post below)
2. Facilities: What facilities do you need for this project list all including software and hardware for the whole project? The kind of software I would possibly use photoshop. I would want to use a Cannon 400/500D, so I would be able to use the manual zoom and with the Cannon 500D I would be able to manual focus as well, also it is easier to change the shutter speed and the f numbers.As well as a tripod o steady myself. I would also hopefully be using the studio, some indoor scences as well as some outside shoots.
3. Finance: If you produced this project outside of the college you need to show how much would it cost to hire the equipment that you intend to use. The camera would cost about £500+ I would also be using software like Photoshop which would cost about £33 Models would cost £100 roughly
4. Contributors: Who do you need to help this for you project? This includes talent and crew.
Talent - three people maximum
Crew- Possibly one or two.
5. Presentation: How will you present the pictures? Will you include a soundtrack, think about copy write issues etc. Possibly a slide show with Creative Commons soundtrack. Also the pictures will be presented on my blog. These may be edited or raws depending on if I feel that the photo needs to be changed either contrasting the colours or editing the photograph black or white.
Solitude can be a personal isolation, a person removing themselves from everyday life, for meditation, to be able to concentrate on projects, having time to reflect on ideas, or just sometime for themselves. This can help the person more capable of being able to stay absorbed in their work instead of being distracted by the modern world. Sometimes people that get used to solitude/being recluse don't or will rarely interacted with the external psychical world, they like their world. Happy in their own bubble. For some people, having time of short solitude or isolation to recharge from the world.
The fashion photography is a high pressured industry. The shoots that come out are often very expensive. Fashion photography while mainly taken in a portrait style is differentiated only by the context in which the photograph is displayed. Portrait photography seem in either family/private albums or in galleries. Fashion photography is most commonly seen in the pages of fashion magazines Vouge, Elle etc. However some times these are always as clear. There are portrait head shots of editor, designers etc in the magazines and fashion photography can sometimes be seen in galleries.
Fashion photography was and is still used
Some of the problems that people find with fashion photography is that the image that ends up in the fashion magazine is altered, manipulated post-shoot in a program like Photoshop. These kinds of alterations are generally only seen in fashion, music and film photography, however in all photography there can be a bit of modding.
However the alterations that occur in fashion photography greatly changes the look of the model in the image, their faces are nipped and tucked, neck elongated, eyes made bigger etc this happens for both male and female models, see image below for an example.
Fashion magazines, Vogue, Elle etc would clear blemishes, add tan, the image would be airbrushed creating an more perfect looking image of the model, actor music, however gossip magazines would leave the pictures as they are to highlight this and have caption lines underneath and puff words to grab the readers attention and show the celebs looking more like everybody else.
Having the constant bombardment of the "perfect" man or woman, airbrushed, perfect hair and make up to the nines then altered. Some women from all around the aspire and wish to achieve this image of the "perfect" woman that the fashion magazine portray. However this has averse effect on women, it can lead to emotional problems and body issues such as anorexia and bulemia.
However this isn't just a issue for women, the constant ideal of the "perfect" man also has an effect on it's male audience. Male health magazines, having toned, tanned and good looking men as their front cover, promoting beautiful ripped men, leads to men having many of the same problems that women have.
The fashion photography that promotes the super skinny women or the super toned men to the point that the models are ill or pressured into this image. It can not be achieved by everybody, because some models have a high metabolism or have certain dietary carefully selected food and the size of their meals.
However there are some fashion magazine that are challenging the established views of having stick thin models everywhere. Italian Vogue (June 2011) had plus sized models (women that are sizes 10,12,14 onwards. Instead models that are size 4 and under) these models were on the front cover and show women of a more realistic size, being just a beautiful or being even more beautiful than super skinny models. I believe that it is better for many women's self confidence to see curvy models than tiny ill looking women.
There are some that criticise having plus sized models. They believe that this sets a bad example for women, that plus size models would lead women to lead unhealthy lifestyles. However I personally feel that stick thin models has lead women having so many problems and issues with their bodies trying to achieve this tiny size. I feel that plus size (which I think is ridiculous to call models of size 10 up, when they are a more natural size) is better in the long run as these women aren't obese, they are just a normal healthy weight.
Marilyn Monroe, one of the sex symbol of the 20th century was roughly a modern size 12. Below is a picture of her at her smallest, this is a much better image than that of stick thin models we have today.
In fashion photography there can sometimes be a clash between the creative side, art directors and photographers, versus commercial side of fashion.
Portraiture was originally a form of fine art. It was only available to those of the upper class and of royalty. These kinds of portraiture were costly. Throughout the centuries, portraiture moved in to using models, while less accessible to the poor to buy, they could be seen in them. The development photography, the first portraiture was produced by Robert Cornelius, a self portrait in Oct/Nov 1839 on approximately a quarter plate daguerreotype. This was the first photographic portrait image of a human to be produced.
Before the discovery of the photo the oldest known photograph portrait, was this (to the left) made by Dr. Joseph Draper, New York 1840, the subject is his sister Anna Katherine Draper. Count Sergei Lvovich Levitsky designed a bellows camera which significantly improved the process of focusing. This modification has influenced the designs of cameras for decades and can still be seen in use in some modern professional cameras. Levitsky was the first to introduce interchangeable decorative backgrounds while in Paris. He was also the first photographer to portray a photo of a person in different poses and even different clothes. Levitsky first propose the use of artifically lighting on subjects in a studio setting along with daylight. He would say of its use, "as far as I know this application of electric light has never been tried; it is something new, which will be accepted by photographers because of its simplicity and practicality"
In the mid 19th century photography become popular and in July 1888 Eastmans's Kodak camera went on the market with the slogan "You press the button, we do the rest". Photography became available to the mass market in 1901 with the introduction of the Kodak Brownie, this lead to portraiture to become accessible to all. While most portraiture is stage/posed model, some are more like street photography, still partially posed, there was more of a base and real looking feel to the photographs that were produced.
One of the photographers that did this style of street photography was Diane Arbus(above). Her photographs feel like a mix between social documentation and portraiture. The models are staged but we have glimmers of their lives, as many of her subjects seem to look passed the camera. Them seemed to be reflecting on their lives. However there is a sort of intimacy between Arbus and her subjects. This could be because she was curious about people’s lives, and in awe of their individualizes. As well as the fact that she spend time with her subjects to build their trust could be one of the reasons of the astounding mix of surreal but real images.
In portrait photography the main focus is the subjects face, the main idea is to focus on the subjects face, personality or even their mood. The subject control how they should look, while with styles like that of Arbus’s, the subject is shown from both how they and she believe they should be shown. Portrait photography the subject is often looking directly into the camera.
We commission portraits for many reasons, most often the subjects of portraiture are non professional models. family portraits in special occasions, such as weddings. These kinds of portraitures are more often to be seen for private viewing rather than being shown in a public exhibition.
I personally like Diane Arbus’s style, she is very influential to be and I find that her images while sometimes shocking do strike a chord in the viewers.
Ten years after 9/11 we look back on one of the most infamous images to be taken at the time. Thomas Hoepker's 'Young people relax during attack on the World Trade Center' has caused controversy being released not in the Magnum's book of 9/11 at the time but five years later in September 2006.The image was released to be shown in one of Hoepker's retrospective exhibitions in Munich to commemorate his fifty years of being a photographer. We look at the impact of this photograph now and the life of Thomas Hoepker, one of Magnum's most commended photographers. While many feel that Hoepker is an artist he himself claims "I am not an artist. I am an image maker". [1]
'Young people relax during their lunch break along the East River while a huge plume of smoke rises from Lower Manhattan after the attack on the World Trade Center.'
I find looking at this image five years after it's release and ten year after the event of 9/11, this picture has become history and memories of the past. Life goes on and just because a historical event has happen doesn't mean that we sit around and watch or stop. Human life slowly moves on and back to the normal routine. Ten years on we are the group in the foreground moving on with our lives, we are connected to the event, but separated by the blue sea between it that becomes ever wider as time passes it natural course of time. However this is not the only photograph taken by Hoepker on the day 'New York, NY, view from Manhattan bridge during aftermath of World Trade Center attacks'
'New York, NY, view from Manhattan bridge towards Brooklyn Bridge and downtown Manhattan during aftermath of World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001'
This photograph tells a very different scene to the peaceful, unknowingly tranquility of the first photograph. Looking at this photograph, it feels like a perfect beautiful day became a spot of destruction and terror. The dark billowing plumes of smoke are the central focus of this image. The normal view of the cityscape becomes lost in the smoke , it is background fading through the smoke. Viewing this image you feel unsure of what will happen is this what is possible to happen elsewhere in the world. The affects that while it may not directly affect you, lingers on the mind for some time.
Thomas Hoepker was born in Germany 1936. He started taking photographs at sixteen, which he sold to classmates and friends. He worked for a photographer for Munchner Illustrierte and Kristall between the years of 1960 to 1963, photographing from over the world. He joined Stern magazine as a photo-reporter in 1964.
Some of Hoepker's most famous images have been that of Heavy Weight Champion Muhammad Ali. Hoepker talks about following Ali in a interview with http://blog.leica-camera.com He comments that they were his first photographs for Stern Magazine, where he was working as a staff photographer. He notes that "I first met Muhammad Ali during a world championship fight in London, but I did not confine myself to photograph him boxing. I also photographed him in more private moments, for instance, while he was being measured by a tailor on Savile Row. Our motto back in those days was, “We stay until we are kicked out”. And, as a matter of fact, Muhammad Ali never kicked me out."[2]
An inmate moment between Ali and Belinda Boyd, later his second wife.
Hoepker has and will be a very noted photographer for time to come. His photographs have a outlasting effect and comment to us, decades after the subject was taken. It seems almost ironic that the 'Young people relax during attack on the World Trade Center' response has become the focus and remembrance of Hoepker's work over five decades. All his other works feel dismissed by this one photograph and people's responses to it. Forgotten is his celebrity photographs of Andy Warhol and Muhammad Ali, which shows us a inmate side to the Heavy Weight Champion's life. His photographs around the world of forgotten and secret worlds; photograph in which a Geshia preparing a tea ceremony in Kyoto. That even though Hoepker has won multiple awards and had multiple exhibitions.His life work is summed up by one 9/11 photograph.
Having the constant bombardment of the "perfect" man or woman, airbrushed, perfect hair and make up to the nines then altered. Some women from all around the aspire and wish to achieve this image of the "perfect" woman that the fashion magazine portray. However this has averse effect on women, it can lead to emotional problems and body issues such as anorexia and bulemia.
There are some that criticise having plus sized models. They believe that this sets a bad example for women, that plus size models would lead women to lead unhealthy lifestyles. However I personally feel that stick thin models has lead women having so many problems and issues with their bodies trying to achieve this tiny size. I feel that plus size (which I think is ridiculous to call models of size 10 up, when they are a more natural size) is better in the long run as these women aren't obese, they are just a normal healthy weight.
Hoepker has and will be a very noted photographer for time to come. His photographs have a outlasting effect and comment to us, decades after the subject was taken. It seems almost ironic that the 'Young people relax during attack on the World Trade Center' response has become the focus and remembrance of Hoepker's work over five decades. All his other works feel dismissed by this one photograph and people's responses to it. Forgotten is his celebrity photographs of Andy Warhol and Muhammad Ali, which shows us a inmate side to the Heavy Weight Champion's life. His photographs around the world of forgotten and secret worlds; photograph in which a Geshia preparing a tea ceremony in Kyoto. That even though Hoepker has won multiple awards and had multiple exhibitions.His life work is summed up by one 9/11 photograph. 
