Truth of a Photograph

For many years people have wondered and raise the question does the camera lie? This is a question that can swing people both ways, of course with modern technology editing images and manipulating them is a lot easier this could prove that the camera does lie. Also people were able to do it 60 or more years ago this could make people think that the camera has never shown the truth.

The camera does lie

With modern technology and photoshop it is easy to see that nowadays that it is easier to manipulate photos which could say that nowadays it is much easier to prove that the camera does lie.

This image was taken during the 1960s which was manipulated to make it look less horrifying and some of the blood around the body was moved. Of course back in this time it was much more difficult to this as there wasn't any software commercially available to do this like Photoshop does these days. Over time when Photoshop wasn't available people would edit photos to make them look less horrifying or to remove people, as their is a Soviet image taken around the second world war when one person in the images was executed, he was taken out of the photo. This was a regular thing not only for the Soviets but for many others. Using this you could easily say that the camera does lie and never has told the truth.

The camera doesn't lie

People may also say that the camera doesn't lie and it photographs what it can see and can do no physical changes and that is all done on software like Photoshop. But it is possible to alter pictures in camera by using different settings. People do believe that the actual camera doesn't lie but the person taking the photo does as they can then take their image and put it into Photoshop and alter how they want then.

This is an argument that can easily swing people both ways and it is easy to see why people would probably argue both ways when discussing this topic. It is easily possible to argue very well for both side but I do believe that with all the modern technology available for people to edit their photos in that the camera probably does lie.

Aaron Yeandle

Today Aaron Yeandle came in a did a talk about his photography. He spoke about his different photographs he had taken over the past few years. The photos he showed us the most were his images he took when he spent about 18 months travelling throughout Asia, these images showed the vast differences of the countries that he visited.

He studied at both Burton College and Staffordshire University and in his early days of photography he took images of Stoke-on-Trent. He also took images of all the Union Jack items he could find in 2012 around the time of the jubilee and the Olympics.

When talking about his trip around Asia he showed us his images of China, Vietnam and Sri Lanka, he also visited Myanmar, Nepal, India, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. I looked at all the images after his talk it showed a very vast selection of images judging by what he said he enjoyed his time and it truly helped his photography and allows you to get images you wouldn't get before.

After listening to his talk his images were really good and judging by what he said travel is a really ideal thing for photography as it shows you places you wouldn't normal visit, overall I enjoyed his talk and images.

These images show to me the vast differences in Aaron's photography the one closest to the text was taken during Aaron's journeys around Asia this image is vastly difference to the one below mainly due to the fact that the one at the bottom is mainly about Britishness and the Queen which we associated with riches whereas the photo in Asia looks like it is trying to symbolise a poor person.

The photo of the child in Asia is the more impressive to me because it is quite a striking image because it shows the area that he is in, it doesn't look the nicest place but with a car and a motorbike in the background it isn't as impressive as it could have been had they not actually been there.

This image to me displays a much richer part of life than the one above mainly due to the fact that it is about the Queen who is someone we normally associate with riches.

Bailey, Donovan, Duffy

Today we saw a documentary on Brian Duffy, which also featured David Bailey and briefly spoke about Terence Donovan. The three were all British and from London, the three were most prominent during the 1960s and worked together during this time.

David Bailey is arguably the most well known of the trio, he is also the only who is still alive. Before becoming a prominent photographer he worked with as John French's assistant beginning in 1959 though was only there for 11 months. After this Bailey went on to work at John Cole's Studio Five, before joining Vogue Magazine later on in 1960. Along with Donovan and Duffy he photographed Swinging London of the '60s, this was a culture of fashion and celebrity chic. This allowed them to be elevated to celebrity status and the trio were nicknamed "the Black Trinity". Throughout the 60s Bailey photographed some of the most well known people around including Terence Stamp, The Beatles, Mick Jagger and notorious gangsters the Kray Twins. During his less prominent years in the 70s and 80s he continued to photograph some of the biggest names in music including the likes of Alice Cooper and Freddie Mercury. David Bailey's images all have a similar style in the studio they are all quite similar to this one by this I mean the background always seems to be white and he rarely uses the lighting to darken down the background like Duffy and Donovan have done. His images all look quite interesting as he doesn't get the model to just do one simple pose he mixes it around a bit a gets his subjects to do multiple poses. This photo is quite interesting as the model isn't looking at the camera, quite a few photographers do this but they don't get the model so completely ignore the camera like this and have their model side on like this, some do but it isn't common to see. That is the main reason I like this photo Bailey is attempting something not many people would have done.

Brian Duffy was a photographer who was best known for his fashion photography during the 1960s and 70s. He began his freelance work in 1955 as a fashion artist for Harper's Bazaar. He became impressed by the photographers work at the company that he knew it was the thing for him and after beginning, he joined Vogue in 1957. After leaving Vogue in 1963 he went on to work for several other major publications including Glamour Magazine and Esquire. He was also hired to shoot the second ever Pirelli calendar in 1965, which he shot in the South of France and in 1973 he was commissioned to shoot a second Pirelli calendar, becoming one of very few photographers to ever shoot multiple Pirelli calendars. He created this calendar in collaboration with Allen Jones, a sculptor and Phillip Castle, an air brush specialist. Duffy also had a ten year working relationship with musician David Bowie, where he shot three album covers for the singer. In 1979 he promptly ended his career and began to burn his negatives, but neighbours and the council prevented this and most of his work was saved. Brian Duffy's images are quite different to David Bailey's as Duffy does use the lighting to create a darker background whereas Duffy doesn't. This image is quite interesting as it shows John Lennon posing with something but I wouldn't know what it is, the way he has used the lighting to create the dark background is really brilliant and compliments the image brilliant and is similar to the image below.

Terence Donovan was a photographer who was best known for his fashion photography during the 1960s. He began photographing the aftermath of World War II in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He was considered along with Bailey and Duffy the first true celebrity photographers due to their intense recognition worldwide and his notable work as well. He also worked for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue and away from photography he was also a film maker and made some 3000 TV commercials. His filming began in the 1970s following a decade of successful photography where he became one of the biggest names in photography during the 1960s. He also directed several music videos for Robert Palmer. Terence Donovan's images seem to be the most experimental of the three as he uses many different lighting techniques in the studio as he clearly has done in this image of Lady Diana. He also uses many props in his images as well, the models also seem to be given plenty of freedom to do what they want in the images. It also looks like he goes out on location to take his portrait images a lot more than Bailey or Duffy. His images are in my opinion the best of the three as not only does he show loads of experimentation in the studio but also out on location with several images showing his incredible range in photography.

Ewen Spencer

Ewen Spencer is a photographer who has been working in photography since he left Brighton University in 1997. During the late 90s he worked photographing youth culture in London, these helped to build up his self published book Open Mic released in 2005, this was based around different underground rap clubs. He also released a follow up book quite recently. His photos he took of the music scene in London were published in Sleazenation Magazine. He said that when he shot the Grime Scene in the late 90s and early 2000s that he would shoot on film in black and white even though he would normally shoot in colour and that he would shoot around twenty rolls a night. But he was in for a shock when we would shoot the nightlife in New York when he shot twenty rolls the people he was shooting for weren't impressed with his lack of images he was expecting Spencer to shoot about 100 rolls a night.

I feel that images were meant to document the nightlife of different areas and the youth cultures in these locations as well. I feel his images show the subculture of youth very well it shows many differences and how diverse the youth culture actually is.

I have look over a fair bit of his work and I would say that a lot of his work is really interesting, looking over his work on his website it isn't all based around the same thing but around a vast amount of different projects and genres, which I find really fascinating. I feel there are a lot of strong images on his website and very few weak ones, if any at all.

His talk its self was actually quite fascinating as well he spoke about all the different photos he took and many different projects and the fascinating stories behind some of the images and the projects and how luck can also play a part in his work which is quite handy in his images.

Overall I would say that his talk and his work is brilliant and that he is definitely a photographer who is worth looking into more and finding more out about.

Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz is an American photographer who mainly specialises in portraiture images. Leibovitz grew up travelling around the US in a car so she says that she always saw the world like it was a view finder due to the car windows. Leibovitz began working for Rolling Stone magazine in 1970 after meeting with art directors, in 1973 Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner appointed her chief photographer a position she would hold until she left the magazine in 1983. Leibovitz would also work taking photos for Vanity Fair and briefly Vogue.

Throughout her career Leibovitz had worked with some of the biggest names in the entertainment business, notably working as the tour photographer for The Rolling Stones' tour throughout the Americas in 1975. She is also well known for her image of John Lennon naked kissing Yoko Ono mainly due to the fact that around 4 or 5 hours later he was shot dead. She has also taken official portraits of Queen Elizabeth II.

She believes that growing up in the family car looking at the world through the window was a major factor in her becoming a photographer as she says it was like looking through a view finder. She also started photographing whilst with her father when he was stationed in the Philippines during the Vietnam War. She also went over to photograph in Sarajevo in 1993 during the Yugoslav War.

Leibovitz has constantly been praised for her work not just by fellow photographers but other people who have had their photos taken by her.

The top image features Scarlett Johansson posing on a beach this image is quite interesting due to the dark beach, I believe that Leibovitz would have done this effect in camera as it is quite unlikely that it would have been that dull. It does remind me of a beach that I visited in the UK. The fact that the image is dark and dull in colour it actually makes it quite a striking image. The colours in the image may be quite dull but it does make the image that bit better. It does look like the background effect would have been done on Photoshop but after watching the documentary on her I believe that it is most likely that she would have done it in camera.

The second image shows Meryl Streep, at first I thought that she was wearing some sort of facial cream and simply pulling it off, but on closer inspection it looks like something completely different but I know nothing about facial cream so it could well be. But one thing is for certain she isn't pulling something off her face, she is actually pulling her skin. I think it is quite an interesting photograph as most people wouldn't get their models to do something like this. This is mainly what makes it the image it is.

Tom Hackett

For this weeks guest lecture was Tom Hackett. He is a sculptor and artist who's work is quite surrealist and is quite interactive. He tries to make all of his work interactive and enjoys it to see people take a lot of care of his work and looks after it as if it was their own. His work is always quite big and uses a lot of objects, he also likes hanging things, for instance his work where he hung buckets from an art museum and when he hung library codes from the ceiling of a former library. He has done a lot of work with rivers where he collects water after different time intervals e.g. 5 or 15 minutes. When he spoke about the his stories about his work they were very strange and quite odd, which is quite similar to a lot of his projects.

A lot of his projects are quite unique and quite strange which I guess is what surrealism is all about, but to be honest I didn't find him or his work that interesting.  When I look at his work I find it to be very surreal which is exactly to sort of thing that he was going for. His work was very interesting all the strange ways he creates these truly bizarre sculptures and what he does with them e.g. with the dogs he walk with one down the street.

Overall I would say that he was quite and interesting person and his work was too but since it wasn't anything to do with photography I wasn't that interested in it much.

Revolver Revolver

Todays guest speaker was Chris Redshaw from graphic design agency Revolver Revolver. He spoke about what it is like to work for an agency and how most agency will have very few employees around 4-6 in total.

He said that when his company are doing projects for clients they spend a few days understanding the brief, meeting with the clients and planning out the work before actually beginning the work. He said that they will take a day break just before the work actually starts to focus on other work or getting more ideas for what they can do for the project.

Revolver Revolver is Chris' own company that he started in 2008 with a bit of monetary help from Derby University. In the six years since the company began he has worked for some of the biggest clients including designing for Formula 1. The company currently has 5 employees who work constantly together and they do get to know each other really well.