A2 Exam 2018: Freedom and/or Limitations
Freedom and/or Limitations is the 2018 title for the A level Photography exam project (Unit 2). You will have a period of 8-10 weeks (plus the Spring half term and Easter holiday) to develop your ideas through preparatory studies before spending two days in the studio realising your final outcome as part of the 15 hour, controlled assessment. You should aim to be ambitious in your final outcome and presentation.
The exam paper is full of ideas to help you get started. Your photography teachers will also set class and home work tasks that will enable you to have the best start possible for your exam project. Make sure everything is documented clearly on your weebly.
The exam paper is full of ideas to help you get started. Your photography teachers will also set class and home work tasks that will enable you to have the best start possible for your exam project. Make sure everything is documented clearly on your weebly.
Homework 1: Initial Research
Create a pinterest account and a new board for the exam theme. This is a brilliant way to search for inspiration. You simply search for different, related themes, photographers or techniques and 'pin' them. Click here to see Ms Powell's board.
Zoom out, screen shot your collection of images and present on your weebly as an image and embed as a link (you will have to make the 'board' public to do this). We will come back to this once the set tasks are complete. Keep adding to this board over the course of the project. You will see more and more A level students and teacher boards on Pinterest as the project progresses.
Zoom out, screen shot your collection of images and present on your weebly as an image and embed as a link (you will have to make the 'board' public to do this). We will come back to this once the set tasks are complete. Keep adding to this board over the course of the project. You will see more and more A level students and teacher boards on Pinterest as the project progresses.
Half Term Homework
1. Practical Task: Choose at least one of the following tasks to photograph
Framing
Use the limits of frames in the environment and the edge of your viewfinder to crop your observations.
Break the structurePhotograph buildings in a way that breaks the structure of the subject and the image.
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Testing the limits of photographyVisit his site for ways to push film photography to the limit:
http://coolgirlsshootfilm.tumblr.com/tagged/experiment |
2. Research Task: Exhibition Visit
Visit an exhibition that genuinely interests you. Do not be overly concerned about linking it to the exam theme- we can make a connection later.
Use the usual analysis framework and also consider how the exhibition has been curated.
Gallery Visit - The Barbican - Another Kind Of Life
Touching on themes of countercultures, subcultures and minorities of all kinds, the show features the work of 20 photographers from the 1950s to the present day. Another Kind of Life follows the lives of individuals and communities operating on the fringes of society from America to India, Chile to Nigeria.
The exhibition reflects a more diverse, complex view of the world, as captured and recorded by photographers. Driven by personal and political motivations, many of the photographers sought to provide an authentic representation of the disenfranchised communities with whom they spent months, years or even decades with, often conspiring with them to construct their own identity through the camera lens.
Featuring communities of sexual experimenters, romantic rebels, outlaws, survivalists, the economically dispossessed and those who openly flout social convention, the works present the outsider as an agent of change. From street photography to portraiture, vernacular albums to documentary reportage, the show includes the Casa Susanna Collection, Paz Errazuriz, Pieter Hugo, Mary Ellen Mark and Dayanita Singh.
The exhibition reflects a more diverse, complex view of the world, as captured and recorded by photographers. Driven by personal and political motivations, many of the photographers sought to provide an authentic representation of the disenfranchised communities with whom they spent months, years or even decades with, often conspiring with them to construct their own identity through the camera lens.
Featuring communities of sexual experimenters, romantic rebels, outlaws, survivalists, the economically dispossessed and those who openly flout social convention, the works present the outsider as an agent of change. From street photography to portraiture, vernacular albums to documentary reportage, the show includes the Casa Susanna Collection, Paz Errazuriz, Pieter Hugo, Mary Ellen Mark and Dayanita Singh.
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Class Task 1: Movement
The shutter and aperture controls of a camera limit the exposure time and the outcome of a photographic image. These controls can capture movement in different ways. How you capture movement can give the impression of freedom or freeze a moment, trapping the figure in a still that appears to imprison them.
1: Fast Shutter SpeedPhilippe Halsmann believed that people expressed their true selves when they jumped:
"Starting in the early 1950s I asked every famous or important person I photographed to jump for me. I was motivated by a genuine curiosity. After all, life has taught us to control and disguise our facial expressions, but it has not taught us to control our jumps. I wanted to see famous people reveal in a jump their ambition or their lack of it, their self-importance or their insecurity, and many other traits." TASK
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A more conceptual approach- Robert Longo
The Men in the Cities series made Robert Longo famous in the 1980s: larger-than-life drawings from photographs of sharply dressed business people writhing in contortion, a sort of death dance of the modern man. Created between 1977 and 1983, the figures appeared trapped in a tortuous moment, limited by their daily grind. The lack of background exemplifies this idea. Despite the dynamic movements the figures are sharp with no sign of movement or blur.
2: Slow Shutter Speed
Although she was the model in most of her work, Francesca Woodman’s photographs do not function as typical self-portraits. Rather, she used her own image to explore the representation of gender and the relation of the body to its environment. Now that we know that Woodman committed suicide at 22 we can project a greater meaning on the images. Some critics have considered the images in the context of her mental health at the time and reached conclusions that she felt trapped and was looking for a way to escape.
TASK
- With your camera on shutter speed priority, using a slow shutter speed and a tripod, photograph the other members of the group moving.
- It works best if part of the body remains still and in focus.
- Think carefully about the location to give the best context to your ghostly figure or use the studio (examples below)
- Consider how you use expression and edit the images to evoke either a sense of freedom or imprisonment.
Extension: Photoshop and ScanographyIncorporating blur in an image can suggest freedom or appear to confine the subject depending on how it is used. The photo distortions by Frances Berry on the right, traps the women in their assumed roles.
Explore these techniques
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Class Task 2: Pushing the Limits of Photography
What do we expect from a photograph? Focus, strong composition, good exposure? Do we value an image less if it lacks any of these elements? Create images that challenge these preconceptions.
Challenge each of the following expectations.
Challenge each of the following expectations.
Expectation 1: Focus
We expect images to be in focus. However, how do we respond to an image or a place when it is out of focus? Does it suggest something else other than the object/subject being photographed?
Look at the photographers below and use the focus on your camera and your understanding of depth of field to push your images to the limit. Can an image become too blurred? Photograph both natural and man made structures. When do they become unrecognisable?
Look at the photographers below and use the focus on your camera and your understanding of depth of field to push your images to the limit. Can an image become too blurred? Photograph both natural and man made structures. When do they become unrecognisable?
Expectation 2: Composition
We expect there to be a subject to a photograph. What happens when the focal point is out of shot? Do we feel hard done by? Does it open other possibilities in terms of interpreting the image?
Compose images that allude to a subject ie. we might just catch a glimpse of something on the edge of a frame. Alternatively, brutally crop the subject out of the shot.
Compose images that allude to a subject ie. we might just catch a glimpse of something on the edge of a frame. Alternatively, brutally crop the subject out of the shot.
Ute Barth
Barth’s color photographs from the series “Grounds” (Adbusters, 2003) provide numerous examples of her soft focus approach. In one of her images, the photograph just catches a glimpse of the edge of a windowsill with a curtain draped over its ledge. Blurred but clear enough to reveal the shapes and forms as identifiable, the small, unframed mounted image seems to drift toward nothing in particular. Muted colour tones reinforce the sense of calm in the image by their understated presence.
Expectation 3: Exposure
We are taught to pay attention to the light meter and adjust our exposure accordingly. What happens if we manipulate the exposure to over and under expose our photographs? Recap how to manipulate the ISO in Manual mode and alter exposure using the Aperture/Exposure Compensation Button.
Technical Tip 1: ISO
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The Aperture/Exposure Compensation Button has 2 functions.
A) Aperture Selector: to set the aperture (on Manual mode), hold down this button and turn the dial to the preferred aperture. B) Exposure Compensation: used to alter the standard exposure set by the camera. You can make the image under or or over exposed with this function, and it can be used in any creative shooting mode (apart from Manual). This setting does not automatically cancel when you turn your camera off, so you must manually reset it to zero when you’re done taking photos. |
Look at the photographers below. They manipulate exposure in film and digital photography to alter the atmosphere and mood of the images. Sometimes the lack of contrast flattens the image and makes it difficult to 'read'. What could you photograph to create a similar effect?
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Darren Almond
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Sally Mann
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Post Production
All of the expectations can be challenged in post production- contrast, brightness, cropping etc. Look at the work below and alter your images so that the contrast is pushed to an extreme and much of the information is lost.
Keld Helmer-Peterson was a Danish photographer who was inspired by Albert Renger-Patzsch, the experiments at The Bauhaus in Germany and by Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Art Institute of Chicago. He achieved fame for his colour photographs but he also published several books of black and white images that explore dramatic contrasts of tone.
In some, we are only presented with images that are black and white. All mid tones have been removed. He created and found these images, using both cameras and flat bed scanners to achieve the effects he was looking for. The books encourage us to consider the space around the image and the accompanying text as integral to the meaning of the work. |
Technique
Expectation 4: Damage
We are taught to handle negatives and photographs with care. Look at the photographers below. What have they done to the images? What effect does this create? Does your response change depending on the subject in the photos and the way it has been damaged?
Chemical: Seung-Hwan Oh
“Impermanence” is a series of portraits by Korean photographer and microbiologist Seung-Hwan Oh who drowns his films in a cultivation of fungus mushrooms.
The bacteria devours the film for an abstract and destroyed result. A beautiful way to mistreat a film and to rebel against perfect and idealised images. |
Burning: Lucas Simoes
Painting: Gerhard Richter
Buried: Stephen Gill
Stephen Gill has again used his surroundings as the inspiration for this beautiful and evocative series. Hackney Flowers has evolved from his series and book Hackney Wick. This times Gill has collected flowers, seeds, berries and objects from Hackney, East London, that were then pressed in his studio and re-photographed alongside his own photographs and found ephemera, thus building up multi-layered images extracted from the area.
The resulting project is an interesting 2D-3D mixture – almost a collage. Gill also repeated the process that he has used in some past work: he buried some of the base photographs for a period of time allowing them to decay a little. According to the Nobody Books site, the idea is that this burial (and resurrection?) stresses his collaboration with the area.
The resulting project is an interesting 2D-3D mixture – almost a collage. Gill also repeated the process that he has used in some past work: he buried some of the base photographs for a period of time allowing them to decay a little. According to the Nobody Books site, the idea is that this burial (and resurrection?) stresses his collaboration with the area.
Sewing: Diane Meyer
Check list- to print
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Class Task 3: Limiting Space
Around 1948, photographer Irving Penn began making unusual portraits of a number of writers, artists, musicians, politicians, dancers and other celebrities. Each one was asked to position in a small corner (sharper than 90°) created with two studio flats pushed together and a carpet on the floor.
The photographic studio was no longer a neutral environment but became an active agent in the creation of the photographic reality. Irving Penn had already allowed the studio to have a presence in his images. In some of his other studio images we see electrical cables and photographic material scattered on the floor. In the portrait of Georgia O'Keefe (below) we see the supports for the corner flats.
Within the corner portraits, the studio becomes an architectural limiter of the subject movements and the resulting compressed and claustrophobic environment isolates the subjects’ personalities in an abstract, artificial corner of the world.
He once explained. “The walls were a surface to lean on or push against. For me the picture possibilities were interesting; limiting the subjects movements seemed to relieve me of part of the problem of holding onto them.”
The photographic studio was no longer a neutral environment but became an active agent in the creation of the photographic reality. Irving Penn had already allowed the studio to have a presence in his images. In some of his other studio images we see electrical cables and photographic material scattered on the floor. In the portrait of Georgia O'Keefe (below) we see the supports for the corner flats.
Within the corner portraits, the studio becomes an architectural limiter of the subject movements and the resulting compressed and claustrophobic environment isolates the subjects’ personalities in an abstract, artificial corner of the world.
He once explained. “The walls were a surface to lean on or push against. For me the picture possibilities were interesting; limiting the subjects movements seemed to relieve me of part of the problem of holding onto them.”
In the studio...
Restrict your viewer using the rolls of paper and the exhibition boards. Begin by using the Penn images and the images on the right (Photopedagogy @ Tate Exchange) for inspiration.
To move away from these points you should also consider:
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Around the school site
Fit yourself into confined spaces around the school site. Austrian artist Willi Dorner squeezes human bodies into nooks and crannies for his Bodies in Urban Spaces project. Groups of dancers, climbers and performers wearing brightly coloured clothes run through busy shopping centres and high streets, cramming themselves into doorways, alcoves and any gap they can find in public buildings.
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Whilst these are extreme, consider simplified versions with the subject engaging with the camera. You should still be attempting to create a 'portrait'. How does the location make the subject feel? Can that feeling be conveyed through the photograph? Does the photographer have to get into particular position to capture the best angle / composition?
What's next?
When all the set tasks are complete you need to explore three strands. When you present these on your weebly you must include a rationale linking your idea to the theme, a photographer and a set of observations. Use the resources below to inspire you but don't forget your own pinterest board from the beginning of the project.
Project Expectations
Ensure that you have satisfied the following Assessment Objectives tasks by the end of the project:
AO1 - DEVELOP
Make sure all set tasks are completed. By the end of the project, we would like you to have analysed three images by artists relevant to your ideas using the Form, Process, Content structure. A good response does not mean an exact copy.
AO2 - EXPERIMENT
In order to show a good range of experimentation, start by taking 3 sets of different observations in response to 3 ideas based on your research. It is important to show refinement of ideas and techniques throughout the project. Make sure annotation considers subject, concept, approach, technique, formal elements etc as appropriate.
AO3 - RECORD
Remember that we are looking for a good technical and compositional understanding in your work, along with a clear explanation of ideas. This is where you can gain marks for your control of media. You can also gain marks for research and collecting of resources however, only collect what you need to move on practically.
AO4 - REALISE
Develop and refine your best ideas further working towards an exhibition outcome, which will be completed during your examination period (12-hours) at the beginning of the Summer Term.