Plans for a new exhibition at the Photographers' Gallery

I look forward to the Photographers' Gallery opening their doors in May. The Deuche Borse prize's exhibition is on and I am planning a visit.
I've just had a look at the shortlisted artists: Pieter Hugo, Rinko Kawauchi, John Stezaker and Christopher Williams. Very interesting!
More info is on the photonet website: http://www.photonet.org.uk/index.php?pid=594

I am keen to find out more about Rinko Kawauchi, the Japanese artist nominated for the prize.
Rinko Kawauchi (b.1972, Japan) is nominated for her publication Illuminance, published by Editions Xavier Barral (France, 2011). In her work, Kawauchi creates an imaginary space where the fantastical is possible— evoking moments of dreams, memory and temporality. The images in her book Illuminance, the results of both commissions and personal projects, span fifteen years of her practice and have the ability to turn the mundane into the extraordinary and poetic.

Website: Jason Bell

I really like Jason Bell's website - clear, light and clean, plenty of space for the images, easy and simple to use, at the same time - very efficient and effective.

http://jasonbellphoto.com/#/photographer/Jason Bell/

I am more and more tempted to choose light / white background myself. I think that Jason's choice of individual elements to include on the page is excellent, and the proportion is just about right.

Project: A web gallery

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I have looked at a number of photogrpahers' websites and it's been a really good learning experience. My observations:

1. I was shocked to see that a number of 'not so well' designed websites  seems to be much higher than a number of well-desinged and well-presented websites.
2. Some companies provide domain hosting and website development services specifically to photographers but I've noted with regret that many websites that they produce look very similar (probably because they keep using the same templates over and over again).
3. It's important to think of who the website is for (who is the customer), who will be using the website and for what purpose before committing to anything. It's also helpful to try and imagine yourself being this customer/ end user and try to re-create their experience. Testing an idea of a website or a pilot website on people that might be the customers in the future, might be useful. Their feedback might change the way the site is developed and used.

Below are some websites that I've looked at this week:

This website offers a lot of good pictures, carefully catalogued into separate folders. The person who created the site was quite methodical but I found the number of images included was just too overwhelming for me - I did not know where to look and felt like in a big supermarket with too much choice. Maybe limiting the choice is not such a bad idea?

Project: A web gallery

A link to my portfolio of work displayed on the Royal Photographic Society's website:

http://www.rps.org/portfolio/6615-Anna-Allen/

My flickr photostream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63191587@N07/sets/

Project: A web gallery

Learning points:

At this stage I am not yet ready to create a website but the leaning points from this exercise will help me to develop one that displays my work in the best possible ways.

It is possible to generate web galleries and contact sheets in Photoshop and Lightroom. I practiced generating web galleries in both programmes and found the whole process easy and intuitive. The web gallery output has two main functions: it is used to select the images that will be displayed online and also for generating the HTML codes that will be necessary for building the website. There are many output options available now, including one for Bridge. 

The web gallery converts all colour modes into sRGB so there is no need to worry about changing the colour modes. There is no need to resize each image to the viewing size either as this could be done automatically. It is easy enough to change the position / the order of the images by just dragging them to a new location. 

Real or fake: continued...

Skills and learning

This exercise gave me an opportunity to practice the whole range of selection and adjustment tools available in Photoshop. It also helped me to practice and further develop my workflow that I designed in the assignment one.

Through this assignments and the Part 4 exercises, I‘ve learnt to use the clone stamp tool more effectively and I also experimented with brushes of various hardness and size.

I was also able to practice removing and adding an object, as well as altering or replacing the background.

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Techniques considered and used

For the exercise I selected:

1)     Two long-exposure images of passengers waiting for a train at a train station.

2)    Two separate images of CCTV cameras taken on a bright day against a blue sky background

I started by thinking about the positioning of the elements on the cover sheet. I decided that the best place for the book title will be at the upper part of the cover (I will need to leave some space for it). The author’s name might be best placed at the bottom of the cover sheet. I wanted to place my two images of the CCTV cameras against the blue sky at the top corners of the cover sheet – to make an impression of the cameras overlooking the scene.  The torn/ distorted paper will be at the central part of the sheet, between the cameras.

I considered using  the following tools and techniques for this assignment:

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Ethical considerations

This assignment raises the dilemma between using some altered content and only including true unaltered images. In doing so, it raises the question about the validity and ‘truthfulness’ of an image that has been altered.

On the basis of the previously completed exercises, my view is that the answer will depend on the circumstances of an individual assignment and the use of the image. My personal preference is to keep the image adjustments and corrections to the minimum where possible; however, this often depends on the assignment and how well it is possible to convey the key message without altering the image content. In some circumstances it might be necessary to make some changes to the image.

Drawing inspiration from Maurizio Cattelan

A retrospective of Maurizio Cattelan's work  at the Guggenheim Museum is trully inspiring! I had a similar idea for a photographic installation so his work seems close to my own yet unrealised ideas.

Real or fake: continued...

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Reviews
It was helpful to look up some book reviews online. These reviews convinced me to look beyond the main plot of the book and explore the Power and Control relationships unpacked by the novel.
I found one of the reviews from a book club particularly encouraging. “This novel has so many layers that our group was able to have its longest-running discussion over what has been our shortest selection to date. There’s women’s lib, race relations, man versus the Man, man versus machine, what it means to be crazy, treatment of the mentally incompetent, and much, much more.”