Today in class, we were shown a photograph of a Vietcong dissident wthat was about to be assassinated. This particular photo shows us the the shosck and horro r of the Vietnam War, which promptly led to various anti-war theologys.
We were arranged into small sociablae groups. We first learned about photo doctoring and various properganda techiniques. Stalin was well knwon for emplying such techiniques for disarming his political opponents. When governments employ tactics of media to favour themseves, it is called properganda.
Soon after, we were given a photogrpah of what looked like a warzone, but was infact a photo of an earthquake in Italy. We were aslso taguth that zooming into one aspect of the photograph can alter its entire meaning.
NOT FINISHED YET!!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
#1 Introduction to photo journalism.
Yesterday, we had a detailed introduction to photo journalism. First and foremost, we were viewed a BBC 4 documentary called ' The Genius of Photography'. This well made documentary exhibits to us the development of the daguerreotype, which was a pioneering photography technique in the 19th century.
A drawback of the Daguerreotype was that there was no negative from which to produce lots of images. An idea that predates the daguerreotype is the 'camera obscura', which involves blackening up a room, and puncturing a small hole in a wall. This beams a projected upside down image upon a wall.
This could be considered the inspiration for future developments such as the camera.In the second session, we looked at how a camera works. The usage of a common camera can be described in 3 nutritious portions. On every camera there is a shutter. The shutter controls the amount of time film is exposed to light.
Should a strip of film be exposed to excessive light, it could disturb the silver salts and distort a presentable photo opportunity.The aperture is another important camera feature. It works like the iris of the eye. The less light involved in the shot causes the aperture to widen, while the more light provokes it to decrease in size.
Camera shake refers to when a hand holds a camera. It is a common problem when long shutter speeds are used on a camera that is handheld. It can cause the image to look blurry and unprofessional.Finally, the 3rd session focused on Semiotics and representation. It could be described as the way we process images.
To better explain this, we could take an image and divide it into the denotations and connotations. Denotations describe what we visually see in an image, while connotation describes the meaning of image, and what it represents.
Signifier and signified are also two important elements in to explaination of Semiotics. Signifier is what the viewer percieves the image to be, while the Signified what the image itself, regardless of what the view thinks it is.
A drawback of the Daguerreotype was that there was no negative from which to produce lots of images. An idea that predates the daguerreotype is the 'camera obscura', which involves blackening up a room, and puncturing a small hole in a wall. This beams a projected upside down image upon a wall.
This could be considered the inspiration for future developments such as the camera.In the second session, we looked at how a camera works. The usage of a common camera can be described in 3 nutritious portions. On every camera there is a shutter. The shutter controls the amount of time film is exposed to light.
Should a strip of film be exposed to excessive light, it could disturb the silver salts and distort a presentable photo opportunity.The aperture is another important camera feature. It works like the iris of the eye. The less light involved in the shot causes the aperture to widen, while the more light provokes it to decrease in size.
Camera shake refers to when a hand holds a camera. It is a common problem when long shutter speeds are used on a camera that is handheld. It can cause the image to look blurry and unprofessional.Finally, the 3rd session focused on Semiotics and representation. It could be described as the way we process images.
To better explain this, we could take an image and divide it into the denotations and connotations. Denotations describe what we visually see in an image, while connotation describes the meaning of image, and what it represents.
Signifier and signified are also two important elements in to explaination of Semiotics. Signifier is what the viewer percieves the image to be, while the Signified what the image itself, regardless of what the view thinks it is.
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