Wednesday, 11 April 2012

Perfected Photography

"If it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it rips out your heart, that's a good picture" 
- Eddie Adams, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photojournalist.

Photography plays an influential role in the media. This is most evidently proven when looking back on history's progress. From the cave painting stories of France from as early as 15,000BC and the Australian Indigenous artwork to the first ever colour reproduction in a newspaper in 1936, it is really amazing to look at our progress as of the 21st century. 
Lecture four looked at digital manipulation. We were shown an image of Taylor Swift and I was left speechless. How could think be deemed beautiful in any way? It is kind of creepy.
Another form of photoshopping that we looked at was the image below that was of Sarah Jessica Parker (the actress behind my idolised Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City).
It is her hands in this image that change so dramatically from real life to the world of photoshop. 
To me, she is still beautiful. But by the media manipulating her hands to a much younger models, it is a clear message that Marie Claire is saying the beauty in age is absent in Sarah's case. 
They may refer to them as the "Hands of Death", but to me they are the hands of experience.
Digital manipulation is the essence of magazines.

From digital manipulation, we looked at what makes a photo great. It is framing, focus, angles, point of view, exposure, timing and the ability to 'capture the moment'. 

Timing is everything. Perfected timing brings perfected photography.

All I could think about were these two photos. They are the final moments of life for these two men. The first image is of a south Vietnamese police chief shooting a young man whom is suspected to be a Viet Kong soldier (1968 - photo credit: Eddie Adams). The second image is from the September 11 terrorist attack, it shows a man falling from a building to his death and is famously known as 'The Falling Man'. Both photographs proved to cause much controversy in regard to publishing a humans final moments of life. I got thinking about the ethics of photographic journalism, surely there must be a limit?
If you ever get chance, I really recommend watching 'The Falling Man'. It is mind-blowingly amazing.
Photography is great. It captures moments in history that are incapable of being justified by words.
19.03.2012

No comments:

Post a Comment