| Term |
Explanation |
Other References |
| Abstract Art |
Abstract art flourished
particularly in the
period between WW1 and WW2. The subject matter was irrelevant. It was
the patterns and the interplay of colours that affected the viewer.
Many artists still pursue this kind of imagery. |
Piet Mondrian, Kandinsky, Klee
Wikipedia
Examples |
| Abstract Photography |
I would define this as
photography in which
the principal subject is unclear or obscured, or is photographed in
such as way as to be unidentifiable, or where the subject is of no
relevance to the image. It can include m any areas of macro
photography, bizarre angles, use of reflections, movement blur etc. |
My
Examples
ilanphoto/abstracts |
| Aesthetics |
The study of what art is all
about - the
study perhaps of what is beauty, when a painting, a sculpture, etc is
defined as beautiful. To be aesthetically interesting the object must
stimulate the mind, the feelings and produce a feeling of pleasure.
Noone has yet produce a generally acceptable definition
of art or beauty etc.
Quote: "The term 'aesthetics' concerns our senses and our responses to
an object. If something is aesthetically pleasing to you, it is
'pleasurable' and you like it. If it is aesthetically displeasing to
you, it is 'displeasurable' and you don't like it. Aesthetics involves
all of your senses - vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell - and
your emotions." |
Ergonomic4schools
Philosophy.about.com
|
| Alienation |
To be divorced or separated
from your environment or social group. The word is negative in meaning.
Ih this picture the small boy is alienated - look at his face and the
toy grenade (is it a toy?) |
Diane Arbus grenade |
| Allegorical |
In which a photo gives
information about a subject, whilst actually about something else. This
was common with the Pre-Raphaelite movement in the mid 1800s...This
image is apparently a portrait, but it is more than that. |
Rossetti
Explanation
|
| Ambient Light |
The use by an artist of the
available light
on the image. |
lightingfacts.com |
| Analysis |
Examining a photograph for its
obvious
content and hidden meaning. You must describe a photograph in some
detail, before trying to interpret it! Often the significance of an
image is peculiar to you, and there is nothing wrong with that. Please
read my separate page on how to criticize a photograph. |
Analysis |
| Art |
Art (or the
creative arts)
commonly refers to the act and process of making material works which,
from concept to creation, hold a fidelity to the creative impulse
—ie. 'art' is work distinct from creative work that is driven by
necessity ie. vocation) or by any undisciplined pursuit of recreation.
As such, the term 'art' may be taken to include forms as diverse as
prose writing, poetry, dance, acting, music (both performance and
creation), sculpture and painting.
In common parlance, 'art' is most commonly used to refer to the visual
arts —in particular painting, drawing, and sculpting. Art
is a broad term, which may be interpreted in different ways, often
relating to creativity, aesthetics and
generation of emotion.
Notice that photography is excluded from this
definition! Many critics of art feel that photography is too mechanical
and now technological a process, unlike the delicate manual skills need
to paint or sculpt. However the near universal appeal of photography
casts doubt on this. People respond to photographs powerfully although
in different ways to paintings which are often less accessible
intellectually or emotionally.
|
Wikipedia |
| Art Photography |
A form of photography that
lived in the
1850s to 1870s, led by photographers such as H.P. Robinson Oscar
Rejlander and Julia M. Cameron. In their efforts to be called artists
they tried to make photographs as a painter might paint - they worked
in studios, to carefully planned compositions, using multiple printing
techniques from several negatives to achieve their end. However, the
results were rarely satisfactory! |
HP
Robinson etc
Examples
|
| Avant-garde |
Refers to those artists who are
at the fore front of changes, usually seen as very advanced compared to
current ways of doing things. Work is usually very experimental,
and often difficult to understand. It pushes the boundaries of what is
normally accepted. Unfortunately know who are currently the avant-garde
is rather difficult as their work is rarely well-known. Once it is well
known, it becomes main stream! DuChamp, calling himself R Mutt, was
definitely ahead of the field with his toilet photo! |
Marcel DuChamp |
| Balance |
Where the photography has tried
to maintain
equilibrium in his or her image by having similar tonal weights on
either side of the photograph. |
Kodak's
Notes |
| Banal |
Ordinary, uninteresting, boring |
Most personal photos! |
| Beauty |
The study of beauty is part of
Aesthetics.
Some argue that there are two kinds of beauty, natural beauty
and poetic beauty: the former being found in the contemplation
of nature, the latter in man's conscious, creative intervention into
nature through for example painting, photography, writing, music etc..
Objects proportioned according to the golden
mean seem to be more attractive. Some modern research seems to
confirm this, in that people whose facial features are symmetric and
proportioned according the golden ratio are consistently ranked as more
attractive than those whose faces are not.
However I believe that Photography is not entirely concerned with the
expression of beauty and form, but also with communication of the human
situation to other humans. hence the power of documentary photography
and photojournalism. |
Wikipedia |
| Bourgeois |
French word for the middle
class. However it is now rather rude, meaning people with steady jobs,
some money who are blind to everything but their own satisfactory lifes |
Wikipedia |
| Candid |
Normally meaning straight,
honest, in photography it means an un-posed photograph, often taken
without the subjects knowledge or agreement. Richard Bram is a member
of in-public.com |
Richard Bram
in-public.com |
| Capitalism |
Capitalism is a political
theory of the importance of private ownership of the means of
production (industry) in ensuring wealth and success for all people,
with the minimum involvement of the state in controlling industry
commerce and society. Money interchanges by means of profit, and wages
for labour.
Opposition to Capitalism has often led to violence from both the
factory owners as well, with many strikers being murdered.
Unfortunately there will therefore always be losers and so opposition
to the concept. It is in direct opposition to communism as defined by
Marxism, in which the state controls everything, ostensibly on behalf
of the citizen. |
Wikipedia
|
| Chiaroscuro |
It is defined as a bold contrast
between light
and dark
parts of the picture. Frequently used by portrait artists who worked
with their models in studio flats at the top of a building, their
models were bathed in pools of light while the surroundings were
virtually totally dark. |
Wikipedia Rembrandt
self portrait |
| Child Pornography |
Probably the most difficult
area to
discuss. Modern concerns about paedophiles have led to highly emotional
and irrational arguments about the nature of this, to the effect that
the most innocuous of photographs can be thus interpreted. You should
always be careful when photographing out and about. Any children
present? Then ask the parents for permission to photograph them, even
if they are not to be the main subject. And never attach any
identifiable information to the picture. |
Sally
Mann, David Hamilton,
Jock Sturges (I
am NOT implying that their photographs are child pornography but there
has been much argument over them.). |
| Cliché |
Something has been done so
often that it has no interest or value. Like the group graduation
photograph...yawn! |
Example |
| Codes |
All communication systems work
through what are called codes. For it to work the codes must be
commonly understood. However different societies have different codes;
a thumbs up may mean "great" for us, but something totally different to
another society group.
Photographs are particularly enriched with codes, though many of them
are obscure and interpretation of them is very much an individual
process. For semiotics, codes can represent the values of the society. |
Wikipedia |
| Communism |
A political approach to
society, in which all of society (i.e. the state) controls the means of
production. The communists believe that the middle-class (bourgeoisie)
who own the means of production exploit the working class (proletariat)
by paying them mere pittance for wages. It also seeks to establish a
"classless society".
Unfortunately the formation of communist states in the 1910s and
afterwards, led to the formation of dictatorships, in which power was
held solely by own person, and who would happily see millions of
unwanted citizens (i.e. reactionaries who opposed the state, on other
words the dictator) slaughtered. |
Wikipedia |
| Composition |
The structure of the
photography. The analysis of the photograph will reveal the use ofd
such techniques such as "rule of thirds", framing, diagonals,
triangles, balance of tones, S-bends to control the eye, reading from
left to right, moving into open spaces, positive and negative space,
etc. |
Some
examples Apogee Magazine |
| Conceptual Art |
Conceptual art or idea
art, is art in which the ideas
embodied by a piece are more central to the work than the means used to
create it. It was described by the artist Sol
LeWitt thus:
- In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most
important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of
art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made
beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes
a machine that makes the art.
- Does that mean the art can be atrocious, as long as
the idea is good? Perhaps then we're all artists at heart.
Photography and Painting etc. are both in fact very much conceptual
arts. You cannot create without having an idea.
|
Wikipedia |
| Connotation |
The term 'connotation' is all
the meanings
beyond beyond the literal description, i.e. is used to refer to
the social, cultural and 'personal' associations (ideological,
emotional etc.) of the sign. These are typically related to the
interpreter's class, age, gender, ethnicity and so on. Signs are more
open to interpretation in their connotations than their denotations.
Connotation in other words is very personal indeed and can thus vary
enormously from person to person. However the concepts of denotation
and connotation are very interwoven. |
Very
intense discussion |
| Construction |
Where the image is actually
built to meet
specific criteria. The content and lay-out may appear natural but
isn't. Still life is an obvious example. Another is any portrait, where
the subject is fully involved in the taking, or a posed group
photograph. In fact any photograph can be described as "constructed"
since the taker has acted deliberately, and will have taken a
deliberate decision to select an image for printing. |
Sam
Taylor-Wood |
| Consumerism |
The demand for goods is called
consumerism.
It is this which drives the manufacturer and retailer to continually
bring out new and therefore "better" goods. Witness the massive rate of
replacement of computers, now slowing down as the technology advances
are insufficient to drive people to spend increasingly larger amounts
of money for some mythical improvement in quality and performance.
Currently the same powerful surge can be seen in the sale of digital
cameras: a new model consumer digicam lasts roughly 6 months. Likewise
rarity or sole possession also can drive the market to rapid price
increases - owning a genuine Picasso painting, or a Ansel Adams
original print - where the ownership of a famous name brings implicit
fame and hence envy.
Vital for the progress of Capitalism. |
Warehouseexpress.com |
| Continuous Tone |
When a photographer uses the
full range of
tone (as opposed to "hue" - colour") across the image. |
Comment |
| Copyright |
The Law of copyright is very
difficult. Generally all creative work is copyright UNLESS someone
states otherwise. For students reproducing other people's work in an
academic study for exam purposes only is legally acceptable, as long as
full acknowledgement is made. Otherwise be very careful!
Any photograph you take you own the copyright. Full stop. If a
newspaper wants to publish it you can charge them for that act. If they
do it without permission then you can sue them. |
Comment |
| Culture |
Photography is an important
part in establishing an identity and hence a culture. How a photograph
is taken gives much information away on that aspect. Photographs are
used to establish status, cultural identity, social standing etc.
Edward Curtis's photographs of North American Indians is a case in
point as is Augustus Sanders in Germany|. |
Curtis Background
to Curtis
Sanders
|
| Cutting Edge |
Very similar to Avant-Garde,
cutting edge artists are at the forefront of the latest approaches to
art. Unfortunately many photographers and artists regard themselves as
cutting edge - try a search on Google! - when they are not. Also
disturbing or provocative images are not necessarily "cutting edge"
either! |
This is
Venture (Portrait studio) |
| Denotation |
'Denotation' tends to be
described as the
definitional, 'literal', 'obvious' or 'commonsense' meaning of a sign.
There are in theory no overtones or hidden meanings in it. However
since everyone has a different background - age, gender, education,
ethnicity, social class, experience, etc. - not everyone will read the
same meaning into the sign! So denotation must imply some degree of
connotation... |
Very
intense discussion |
| Decisive moment |
Henri Cartier-Bresson, the
celebrated French photographer, defined this as the point in which all
the elements of the photograph came into perfect cohesion - i.e. the
perfect composition. It is not necessarily the peak of a movement. |
Jump |
| Deconstruction |
This is simply the
picking apart of
the
various parts of a photograph or other image. In doing so you reject
those parts which are unhelpful and then concentrate on those which
give clues as to the hidden meaning within an image. The idea was
introduced by Jacques Derrida in 1967. An important part of
deconstruction is the contrast of opposites e.g. Spontaneous/constructed
or Original/copy. It attacks the ideas that
signs and symbols are neutral by looking at the hidden meanings behind
them...
As a result you can argue that you can never know the real meaning
behind anything! |
New
York Times Aberystwyth
University |
| Derivative |
An image which is someone's
near copy of a well-known photographer's image, or where the style is
deliberately copied. generally there is not much additional creativity
in it. |
Comments(U.S.) |
| Diagonals |
A compositional elements,
the use of
obvious diagonals or diagonals linking obvious focal points in the
image give a strong sense of action or energy to the image.
|
Example
of diagonals
|
| Document |
A photograph can be regarded
as a document to some critics because it contains information. Because
of this a photographic document can inform the viewer. It can also
therefore be used to misled the viewer and be used as propaganda.
Unfortunately, photographs can also be misleading, in that vital
evidence is cropped out that reveals a different meaning. Very common
in Russian photography in the 1920s and 30s |
V&A
Victorian Trains |
| Documentary |
An area of photography
in which the
worker studies in depth some specific aspect of society or way of life.
This is a classical use of photography, providing valuable evidence
for historians and sociologists, as well as simply informing members of
the public. In the 1930s the tradition of photographic newspapers rose
to dominance with "The Illustrated London News", "Picture Post" etc.
Famous documentary photographers have included Eugene Smith, Lewis Hine
etc |
Picture
Post Illustrated
London News
Eugene
Smith Lewis
Hine
Magnum
Home Page
|
| Editorial images |
A photojournalist could
submit many thousands of photographs from a major mission, e.g. Iraq.
Only a few will ever be used in a newspaper, and a few more used if
published in a book. Selecting the wanted photographs is the editorial
process. The act of selection could be seen as an act of censorship or
propaganda, in that we are only allowed to see certain images and
others may not be desirable for us to see, e.g our soldiers mangled by
a bomb. Thus when Prince Charles marriage to Princess Diana was
breaking up all the photos of them showed miserable faces and
postures... |
Getty
Images |
| Enigma |
An enigma is a puzzle, but one
that cannot be easily solved. A photograph is in itself an enigma
because it catches a fraction of time, has close contact with reality,
yet is basically a piece of paper with marks on! The image is
interpreted by our own minds, which therefore lays open to question,
what are we looking at! Minor White's photos often omit detail that
helps to identify place and scale and are enigmatic. |
Devils Slide |
| Equilibrium |
The balance between dark tones
and light tones is rather like a see-saw: many images fail because all
the dark (=heavy) tones lie on one side of the picture. |
Apogee Magazine |
| Ethics (ethical) |
The study of what is good -
moral - behaviour and what is evil - immoral behaviour. Ethics plays an
important role in photography. If you pay to take a photograph of a
tramp, are you exploiting his bad luck? Should you take photographs of
people whose lives are dysfunctional? |
Billingham Background |
| Fantasy |
Closely connected with Science
Fiction and Fantasy, fantasy explores impossible worlds and beings. It
is rare in photography, and usually exploits digital imagery to modify
the photographic content. |
Fontcuberta - Orogenesis
Ueslmann |
| Fine Art |
Usually regarded as painting
and sculpture, fine art is always seen as part of the visual arts
scene. There always has been a major argument about whether photography
can be viewed as fine art. Disputed by many artists and art critics,
but claimed by many photographers, I can't help but think that this is
a meaningless question. Intellectual, manual and visual skills are
prevalent, in fact prerequisite in both media.
Fine Art photography has no value outside that of its aesthetic content
and should be looked upon as stand alone images, created purely for the
indulgence of the viewer, and, lest we forget, the photography
enthusiast. |
Ansel Adams
Dan
Massey
Wikipedia |
| Formalism |
Formalism refers to the
style of criticism that focuses on artistic techniques in themselves,
in separation from the work's social and historical context, in other
words, how it's done is more important than what is in the image.
It is therefore, the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely
determined by its form: the way it is made, its purely visual aspects
and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as
color, line, shape and texture rather than context and content.
Formalism dominated modern art from the late 1800s through the 1960s.
You can therefore argue that Group f64 were Formalist in their
approach to and style of photography. |
Example
(Last year in Marienbad) |
| Feminism |
Feminism largely focuses on
limiting or eradicating gender
inequality and promoting women's rights,
interests, and issues in society. As a result the strength of the
photographic image has lent itself particularly strongly to feminist
photographers, who own a massive number of websites on that theme. |
Barbara
Kruger
Jo Spence -1
Jo Spence-2
ArtLex
|
| Frame |
Refers to the edge of the
actual photo.
Outside the frame, nothing is known, except in a limited way through
related images moving on, or by deduction from the contents. This the
picture is a "fragment" its juxtaposition unknown and this leads to the
enigma in all photos. Hence photos are themselves "surreal" being
abstracted from the present moment, acquiring a primary meaning apart
from that moment and being capable of being reproduce ad infinitum. |
Paul
Hill |
| Framing within the photograph |
Here the subject is framed e.g.
a castle
from between the branches of a tree, a face looking out through
partially drawn curtains. This is done to focus attention on the main
subject. Can become a cliché if overdone, i.e. too many photos in the
set contain frames. |
Photonhead.com
City Hall |
| Gaze, The |
Looking
is not
indifferent. There can never be any question of 'just looking'.
Victor Burgin (1982c, 188)
When anyone looks at an image there is the question of
what exactly does the viewer see - and think. In a simplistic way, a
heterosexual man will almost certainly "gaze" at a photograph of a
woman in quite a different way to a heterosexual woman. You can ring
the changes yourself. Furthermore the nature of the woman in the image
will also control the internal often unspoken response of the viewer.
In a similar way you can question the "gaze" of the photographer - what
is their motive for taking the photograph in that way? This becomes an
important part of the analysis.
You must also challenge the "gaze" of the model, if human. Why is it
directed away from the camera? Why is it directed at camera - and
indirectly the viewer? Is it challenging, confrontational, neutral, etc. |
The Gaze
(Aberystwyth University)
David
Chandler (A.U.)
|
| Gender |
Gender is a major issue for
many
photographers. Although the word photographer is neutral, it is still
assumed that most "professional" photographers will be men, despite
women such as Anne
Geddes or Annie
Lieboviz. Gender issues - feminism, transsexuality, gay and
lesbianism - often a major theme in photography normally from people
who are themselves actively involved in those scenarios. |
A
difficult website |
| Golden Mean |
This is derived from
Mathematics! It works
out that the best proportions for something to look attractive are
1:1.6180 (it's actually more complicated than that...)
A simplified version of this is the so-called Rule of Thirds. Divide
a photograph into exactly thirds and place your subject on the lines,
or even better on the intersections. |
golden
mean "Rule
of Thirds" |
| High Key |
The use of predominantly light
tones within
an image, often to portray innocence, freshness, purity etc, and in
more stereotyped images, feminine and baby attributes. |
See Low Key; David Bailey |
| Humanism |
Wherein people are most
concerned with other people, especially the disadvantaged. Humanist
photographers are concerned. Examples right |
Capa
Salgado |
| Icon |
An iconic image is one which
is taken to
represent far more than the image itself. A classic example is the
photo of Che Guavera, taken by an unknown Cuban photographer. Guevara
became to symbolize revolution at any level or scale, especially
amongst students even those who disliked his political significance.
An icon is an image, picture, or representation; it is a sign or
likeness that stands for an object by signifying or representing it, or
by analogy, as in semiotics; in computers an icon is a symbol on the
monitor used to signify a command; by extension, icon is
also used, particularly in modern popular culture, in the general sense
of symbol
— i.e. a name, face, picture or even a person readily recognized as
having some well-known significance or embodying certain qualities. |
Guardian
Article Che
Guevara Wikipedia |
| Imperial |
for a long time Britain had an
enormous empire across the world. Imperial refers to something belong
to the empire. Another related word is colonial (colonialism) relative
to owning, literally another country, usually "primitive". Both words
are very negative. |
British
Empire 1912
History |
| Interpretation |
This is the explanation of what
an image or
photograph means to you. It is related to the word connotation.
Interpretation is always personal, but must be clearly based on the
image content though obviously significant extrapolation is perfectly
reasonably. |
Arizona
Guide
Aberwystith University
North
Carolina Uni |
| Installation Art |
Art made for a specific space
and exploiting certain qualities of that space, more often indoors than
out. The term became widely used in the 1970s and 1980s. In fact any
integrated exhibition of art can be construed as Installation Art.
However it should really involve a wide variety of media painting,
sculpture, video, music - and of course photography |
Artlex
Example(Filliou) |
| Joiners |
Invented by David Hockney (who
now disowns
them!), these are images made by taking many individual ones of small
parts of the scene and then pasting them together to a form a
representation of the scene. They were intended to follow the movement
of the eye as it collects information from the scene and integrates
that to form an understanding of that scene. Unlike a single image it
is far more time dependent. |
Wikipedia Hockney
Joiner |
| Juxtaposition |
Where two (or more) things are
placed together often in contradiction of each other, e.g. a discarded
pram next to a brand new Rolls Royce. It can be ironic or humorous |
Nick_Turpin |
| Kitsch |
Shallow, over sentimental
photograph often marketed as art. However some photographers
deliberately use kitsch as a over-riding aspect of their
photographs.
Anne Geddes has successfully made a career out of Kitsch baby
photography.
Pierre et Giles combine this with strong homoerotic imagery... |
Anne
Geddes
Pierre et Giles |
| Landscape Format |
When the picture is
horizontally aligned.
This is not reserved for landscape photographs, but can also be used
for portraits. |
Landscape format portrait
Portrait format
portrait |
| Low Key |
Images in mainly dark tones
with the main
subject wholly or partly lit, so that their face stands out from dark
clothes and against the dark background. |
Rembrandt
Self-portrait Low
Key Portrait |
| Marxism |
See Communism which is very
strongly founded in the theories of Karl Marx. He claimed that "The
history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle." |
Wikipedia |
| Modernism |
Modernists see photography as
an imprint of
nature, a tracing of reality, however crafted and shaped. Group f64
thus developed a very highly technical approach to photography to
reveal detail in the most "accurate" way possible, using large format
negatives, and a very precise exposure technique called the zone system.
This approach is still very popular amongst many Pictorial
photographers, aiming at a literal vision of the world, especially
Landscape and wild life photographers. |
Ansel
Adams_Moonrise Edward
Weston Pepper |
| Monograph |
A book devoted solely to the
work of one photographer. Often a showcase for his or her best works or
someone very novel |
Aperture |
| Naked |
Although nude and naked
have the same objective meaning (i.e. not covered by clothing) and a
common origin, they have differing subjective connotations, which
partly match their differing origins ("nude" originally had a meaning
of "plain, bare, unadorned" in a broader sense when introduced into
English from Latin "nudus", while "naked" derives from the common early
English word for "unclothed" that is has the same meaning as "nudus").
Some consider one term more appropriate than the other. Nude runs from artistic or
tasteful absence of clothing by choice at one end or non-erotic, to
naked, a non-artistic condition of being without clothes at the other,
i.e. deliberately erotic.
Edward Weston took many photographs of nudes, supposedly artistic.
Helmut Newton on the other hand, took photographs of unashamedly naked
women!
|
Helmut Newton
See
Der Stern |
| Negative Space |
(See positive Space) An image
contains positive and negative space. The positive space defines the
important part of the picture. This is then surrounded by negative
space. The interaction and positioning of these leads to clear
compositional improvements when constructing an image. |
Negative-positive Space
Apogee
Negative Space |
| New Aesthetics |
Cindy Sherman, Sherry Levine,
Richard Prince etc |
Background
Sherman
Levine
Prince |
| New Documents |
Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand,
Lee Friedlander, Diane Arbus |
Background |
| New Objectivity |
Perhaps better called "New
Matter-of-factness". A photographic movement which started in Germany
during the 1902s. It was typified by Karl Blossfeldt "The World is
Beautiful". They photographed with great care and accuracy, often
manufactured items or plants. |
Frankfurt-kitchen!
blossfeldt
photograph |
| New Topographies |
Robert Adams, Stephen Shore,
Joe Deal and Nicholas Nixon |
Background |
| Nude |
See naked |
Edward Weston |
| Objectify |
To turn someone into an object
rather than a human being i.e. to deny their individuality so that they
can be used. Frequently photographers are accused of this when
photographing women in the nude. |
Ratajczyk
(female photographer) |
| Panorama |
A photograph which is
significantly longer than its height. Often used to emphasize sweeping
landscapes, or very large groups of people, especially children.
Special panoramic cameras are obtainable. |
images/panorama.jpg |
| Perspective |
The use of perspective lines
leading to or nearly leading a vanishing point. These lead to strong
feeling of depth in the image and leading to a 3-dimensional
interpretation. The effect is strengthened by the use of wide-angle
lenses, and reduced by telephoto lenses. The latter is especially
important in photographing people rather than caricaturizing them. |
Tower Bridge London |
| Photojournalism |
The use of photography to
record current events, normally for publication in a newspaper.
As always, strong, exciting composition makes the difference between
the ordinary picture and the Pulitzer Prize! |
Victoria
and Albert Museum
Zeppelin Airliner aflame |
| Photomontage |
As a technique it first
appeared as combination printing in the 1860s. However its strength was
during the Nazi regime of the 1930s when e.g. John Hartfield used
photomontage to build powerful propaganda images against the Nazi
government.
Hockney's joiners uses a similar technique but based on polaroid prints |
John Hartfield
Another Photomontage
See also History, joiners
|
| Pictorialism |
Photography has always
been a medium for the production of attractive images, especially of
landscape or unusual places. Pictorialism has never gone away and never
will ,despite the scathing criticism it receives from many critics.
Most people looking at photographs want scenes they can appreciate and
enjoy, rather as they would with a water-colour landscape painting. |
Henry
Peach Robinson 1806s
Frank Meadow Sutcliffe
Alfred Stieglitz
Wikipedia |
| Point of view (POV) |
Alexander Rodchenko, in
the 1930s explored using really odd, different points of view to obtain
photographs that were very different. He climbed above, took from low
down, or used mirrors. |
Rodchenko-1
Rodchenko-2 |
| Pornography |
Is the explicit display of
sexual activity
purely for profit and gratuitous stimulation. However nudity and sex
are legitimate subjects for photography and art. It is the reason for
taking such images and the method of showing that may distinguish
between legitimate and illegal imagery.
Many people feel that the reality of photography makes the subject even
more immoral than if in paintings.
One of the big issues is that of feminism and exploitation. At first
seemingly clear cut, the subject is becoming blurred as more women are
now producing pornography, willingly taking part in it, and watching it
for pleasure. |
Any "girlie magazine" such as
"Playboy",
"Mayfair", "Hustler", and photographers such as Helmut Newton, Edward
Weston, David Bailey, Annie Liebowiz, John Coplans, Man Ray, Nan
Goldin, Wolfgang Tillsman, Jurgen Teller, Sally Mann, David Hamilton,
Jock Sturges, etc.
See also Andreas Dworkin for the opposite point of view.
|
| Portrait Format |
When the picture is vertically
aligned.
This is not reserved for portrait photographs, but can also be used for
landscapes. In the examples I've used the original picture to produce
both formats. I'll leave to work out which was original! |
landscape landscape
landscape portrait |
| Positive Space |
See negative space above |
Negative-positive Space
Apogee
Negative Space |
| Post-modernism |
The post-modernists see
photography as an
ever-shifting product of culture, a representation that depends, as the
British critic John Tagg put it, ''on the institutions and agents which
define it and set it to work.
For the critic Andy Grundberg,
postmodernism is above all a condition, in which reality, authentic
experience, originality, and individual artistic vision have become
obsolete. As Grundberg puts it, postmodern art tells us "that
things have been used up, that we are at the end of the line, that we
are all prisoners of what we see."
Postmodern photography, then, is less about representation than about
representations of representations, about symbols whose meaning can
never truly be deciphered. Images don't reflect who we are and
what we know as much as they comment on who we think we are and
simultaneously shape how we understand ourselves.
|
Lee Friedlander
William
Eggleston Garry
Winogrand |
| Post-structuralism |
Breaks the specific
relationship stated between image detail and its significance. It tends
to place the emphasis on the activity of the reader in a productive
process of engaging with texts (i.e.here images).The subject who does
this engaging does not therefore have any kind of stable identity and
unified consciousness, but is him/herself structured by language. We
can't stand outside language, or, in Derrida's terms, 'there is no
outside of the text'. No signifier is ever free of any other signifier,
all linked together in infinite semiosis.
Thus no signification is ever closed.
Whatever that means! I interpret that as meaning, we are far too
complicated and implicated into our social structures that we are in
fact controlled by our use of and need for language. This makes the
meaningful interpretation of photographs impossible. |
Structuralism
and Post-Structuralism |
| Punctum |
Roland Barthes, in "Camera
Lucida" invented the term as something in an image which pricks, and
disturbs the viewer. It is the unexpected punctum which, in his mind,
turns the good photograph into the exceptional. |
Camera Lucida (Roland Barthes)
studium |
| Realism |
Ever since its birth
photography has always been associated with realism. Its ability to
reproduce an instantaneous slice of the real world has deceived most
people to regard the camera produced image as that of complete honesty.
Although modern digital imagery tricks allow us to alter the "real
world" to one of even complete fantasy, those abilities have always
been there, they were a simply much more difficult. Assuming the
genuineness of an image is therefore a dangerous road, even if the
photograph is still regarded as a legitimate trace, even as a primary
source of historical evidence. |
Cottingley Fairies
Jerry Uelsman |
| Reportage |
The use of photography in the
day-to-day publication of newspapers. It is basically photo-journalism.
It overlaps with documentary photography. |
Andrew
Turner Margaret
Bourke-White |
| Signs |
A term from Semiotics. In semiotics,
a sign is generally defined as, "...something that stands for
something else, to someone in some capacity." but is NOT that
something.
Similarly the cross signifies Christ's death on the cross, and in that
respect is also iconic. |
Wikipedia |
| Signified |
That for which the sign stands.
For example Roman Catholicism; the Pope is not Roman Catholicism
- but an image of the pope can signify that Christian belief.
Christ's death on the cross is signified by a necklace with a cross. In
the example see if you can work out some of the signifiers and the
signified! |
signified |
| Signifier |
That which does the actual
signing, in the example above, the Pope is the signified.
The necklace with a cross is the signifier. Like other signs can, of
course, signify than one signified! |
Pope Benedict
|
| Silhouette |
An object when standing in
front of a bright light will form a black shape. Originally used in
inexpensive portrait before the invention of photography, it can
produce a very dramatic image. |
Roger
Clark site |
| Stereotype |
Whenever a particular style is
always sued
in specific situations, it becomes stereotyped. For example, all female
and baby portraits being done in a soft focused, high key way,
contrasting with all male portraits being strongly side lit, and low
key. |
Anne Geddes
best known photographs of babies are stereotypical. They are always
cute, cuddly and in impossible situations. |
| Still Life |
An image mnade up of inanimate
objects
carefully arranged and usually lit to give maximum details. Derived
from the classical paintings of flowers, fruit bottles of wine etc. |
Artcyclopedia
De
Heem 1660s
Paul
Cezanne |
| Structure and Structuralism |
Is when the arrangement of the
various items within an image, i.e. the structure are more important
than the central subject. This closely relates, of course, to
Modernism. It assumes that there is a specific relationship between the
image detail and its significance, that is, between the signs and the
signified. |
Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida |
| Style |
Style is the identifying
features of an artist's approach to image making. This is difficult in
photography, as the very nature of the medium is not very revealing,
unlike a painter who may be characterised by his/her brush strokes,
desgin and composition, etc. |
Michael Langford "Achieving
Photographic Style" |
| Studium |
Studium is similar to
denotation, that is, it is the body and identifiable structure of the
photograph. However, Barthes considered that although a photograph may
have an admirable studium, it is not necessarily more than just good,
not outstanding. What turns this good image into outstanding is the
prick of the punctum, that makes you stop and think again. |
Camera Lucida (Roland
Barthes) punctum |
| Surrealism |
Surrealism appeared in the
1920s as a development of Dadaism. It emphasizes the importance of the
imaginative sub-conscious - remember how weird dreams can be? So many
of the images look like someone's dreams. As such they also often
include very strongly sexual and erotic images. The term is often used
colloquially to describe unexpected juxtapositions of objects.
The best known surrealist was Salvador Dali. |
Wikipedia
Dali Persistence of memory |
| Surrealism in Photography |
takes the idea of surrealism
into photography, which some believe to be a strongly surreal medium in
itself. Fantasy is becoming an important aspect of modifying images. |
Jerry Uelsman Man Ray |
| Symbols |
In photography, symbols are
signs which are easily recognised. For example deliberately showing the
use of barb-wire in a landscape photograph is a powerful symbol of
"Private - Keep Out". In that sense it is obviously another form of
signifier. |
Wikipedia |
| Tension |
Photography is often used to
report on tragedy, violence, anger hatred etc. As such the image needs
to have a high element of tension in it. This can be achieved in many
ways, e.g. putting the main subject too close to the edge, or even
being half-cut off by the frame. Any such imbalance, if done
deliberately can introduce tension into a photograph. Also using
extreme emotional cues in facial expressions can do the same. |
Cindy
Sherman |
| Thirds, Rule of |
A useful guide in some ways, it
is inaccurate in artistic terms, being only an approximation to the use
of the golden mean. By deliberately avoiding the rule can introduce a
distinct feeling of tension into the picture. |
Silverlight
notes
Wikpedia golden
mean |
| Trace, The |
Jacques Derrida introduced this term in his
efforts to
develop the semiotic theory of Photography. It is a minute moment of
time, selected from the ceaseless flow of time by the photographer,
thereby inevitably ignoring the rest. Because of the briefness of that
slice the photograph often contains details unnoticed by the artist at
that time often by virtue of the naturalness of what was seen, but
which becomes obvious when looked at on the flat surface of a print. |
Theoretical
Discussion |
| Triangles |
A compositional
technique for linking specific elements of a scene together. By using
the base as lower in the picture it also gives a significant degree of
stability to it. Conversely by putting the peak at the bottom the image
becomes highly unstable and hence displays tension. |
Architectural
study |
| Vantage Point |
The position from which a
photograph is taken. Interchangeable with view point. |
Eiffel
Tower 1
Eiffel Tower 2 |
| View Point |
Someone's opinion on a
photograph (or something else). however it is frequently used to mean
vantage point. |
Geoff Lawrence |
