First Photograph (1827)
The worlds first photograph was taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1827. Captured using a technique called heliography which is a wireless telegraph that signals by flashes of sunlight reflected by a mirror. The photo was taken from upstairs window at Niépce's estate in Burgundy. The photo was exposed throughout the day and this can be seen by the fact that there is no direct direction of sunlight. He presented the photograph to the royal society but was unwilling to reveal any specific details about the image, so the royal society rejected his ideas. |
Daguerreotype and Calotype- 1939
Louis- Jaques- Mandé Daguerre was the inventor of the Daguerrotype. It was first announced to the Academy of scientists in Paris. Henry Fox Talbot invented the calotype in 1840. Both where in competition to create the first photograph. The Daguerrotype had two advances over the Calotype: The daguerreotype was clear, and the Daguerreotype was freely available to the public. |
Antione Claudet- The geography lesson 1851
This is a group portrait taken on a Daguerreotype. This photo was had to achieve as the models would've had to stay still for roughly the period of a minute. This Photograph follows a very similar attributes to fine art paintings. The triangular formation representing power and knowledge. The globe offered a scientific model, the book suggesting literary images; the engravings contributed to a visual rendering all brought together by the illusion of three dimensional space and infinite detail enabled by the Daguerreotype. |
Jean Baptise Louis Gros- Bridge and boat on the Thames 1851
Baptiste was one of the more accomplished photographers of this time took photos of the different cites that he traveled to. His photographs now act as an glimpse into what life was like during the industrial revolution. The key difference between this is that the photograph is able to capture much more detail than a painting allowing the viewer to see an relatively accurate representation of what technological advancements where. |
Still life of a Hunting Scene- Adolphe Braun
This category of still life photography emerged during the Baroque period in Italy. Adolphe Braun photographed still life paintings so he was very familiar with the movement. This image which the dead boar and bird, rifle, trump and woolly vegetation creates the ambiance of a sporting scene. At first glance the initial E stands out bu then the gruesome scene reveals itself. The Boar's lifeless body is less picturesque in comparison to the painting and by doing so highlights the reality of the romanticised still life photographs. |
Pictorialsim
Pictoralists hoped to express and engage feeling and scenes and felt that their images should be concerned with beauty rather than fact, very similar to fine art. They began to edit their photographs to make them look more like sketches in with the traditional art mediums in response to the backlash that photography was not an art and was instead more mechanical. Pictoralists belived that to make a photograph art that it had to have human intervention. Steichen's interest in the interrelationship between photography and tonealist panting is clear in one of its most famous pieces. At the time of the photograph the flatiron building was one of the tallest in the world, and its unique shape made it a iconic piece of New York's architecture. The building looms in the background in obscurity, the dark tonality of the building creates an ominous view of the future and what it is to bring . Steichen omits the tip of the building, as if its sheer scale could not be contained in the frame, suggesting that the growth of New York is happening at a rate faster than people can adapt to (need to do more research about this as I am not sure if this is the correct way of thinking about this). This photo is quintessential to the pictoralist movement due to the manipulation of the image. The photograph exists win three versions, each with a slightly different tone and feel, demonstrating how powerful colour can be in changing the mood. |
1904- flatiron building Edward Steichen
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Futurism
Futurism is an Artistic movement that started in the early 20th century which responded to the rapid developments in technology and society as a whole. Futurism is panically significant due to it's denunciation from its oppressive past. It was launched by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909 by his publishing of his Manifesto of Futurism which proposed an art that celebrated the modern world of industry and technology. Futurist Painting used elements of neo-impressionism and cubism to create paintings that explored the ideas of dynamism and movement of modern life. Even though there is no clear futurist photography movements, there are definitely photographers who inspired the movement and incorporated a similar ideology in their photographs. Photographers explored different experiments such as spiritual photoagphy, multi portraits, montrage affected and the chronophotographs of Etienne- Jules Marey provided a rich background in which a Futurist photo- athstetic gradually formed The photograph to the right was taken by Edward Muybridge in 1887. Muybridge's photographic skills where used to better understand if horse's lift all four of their hooves off the ground at one point during their sequence of movement. The photograph was taken as a horse sped by it tripped wired connected to 16 cameras in rapid succession. Muybridge developed the images on site and revolved that the horse is completely aloft with its hooves tucked underneath for a brief moment during a stride. Photography made it possible to see things that where unable to the naked eye, creating a new purpose for photography. This photograph helped inspire the motion- picture industry and Futurist Artists as they tried to capture movement in their paintings, as can be seen in nude descending a staircase, Marcel Duchamp, 1912 another example of futurist photography is Bragaia's Un gets del capo which translates to a gesture of the boss. Bragaglia was the leader of Italian Futurist photography; the photograph was taken in collaboration with his younger brother Arturo Bragaglia. In 1911 he published the first of three editions of the book futurist photodynamism in 1914 the brothers where excluded from the Futurist group by Umberto Boccioni. The movement in the photograph was representative to the rapid speed of change at that time. This photograph was revolutionary of the time due to its catering of moment. This photograph is part of a triptych including a photo of somebody typing and somebody moving into a foetal position. |
Edward Muybridge- Animal Locomotion plate 626, 1887
Anton Giulio Bragaglia- un gesto del capo, 1911
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Vorticism
Vorticism is an art movement that started in London un 1914 by Wyndham Lewis. They where a group of artists who held only one exhibition in 1915, unfortunately World War 1 ended the Vorticism movement although there was a brief attempt to revive the movement with Group X in 1920 but unfortunately was unsuccessful in gaining popularity. Vorticist painting infused cubist abstraction with a hard-edged image derived from the rapid speed of development. Typically unmodulated colour was used in paintings liberating itself of any traditional representational value; instead it reflected the energy of modern life as manifest in machinery, factories and the docks, popular music and dance. It rejected the romantic elements that characterised the futurists' stress on speed and movement. Vortirists viewed that Abstraction was the way forward, for example Wadsworth and Etchells, began their completely abstract design at the Omega Workshops however they felt as if they where unsuccessful but by the late 1914, recognisable imagery vitally disappeared. 'Workshop' by Wyndham Lewis is a key point of the Vorterist movement. As the founder of Vorticism he surprisingly didn't produce many visual pieces of art dedication many of his early career to writing and engaging with other Literary and artistic members of the scene in pre- WW1 London. The workshop is one of Lewis's clearest representations of Vorticism with the hold lies and the bright colours creating an cramped composition of subjects. Still to this day the meaning of the painting is unclear but I interpreted it as an arial view of London's growth. This is because of the blue in the centre of the painting representational of the sky. At this point in time their was a more pessimistic view of the future which can be seen in this painting as this rapid urban development is beginning to consume them and take over the way of living that they knew. Although the image cannot capture conventional movement the Lewis was able to show the movement of time in this painting. Alvin Langdon Coburn's Vortograph's where seen as the first truly abstract photographs. The picture consist of an pattern made of sharp diagonal planes directing the viewer gaze to the top of the image. They contrast with the crystalline shapes on the lower left of the image. the light is embodied in multilayered planes which they appear tangible as the fractured object from which they are thrown off from. This is a transitional piece for Coburn from his pictoralist photographs with his impressionistic qualities of 19th century paintings. This inspired him to turn towards a more avant- garden approach to his art later in his career. |
Wyndham Lewis- Workshop 1914-15
Alvin Langdon Cobrun- Vortograph 1916-17
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Constructivism
Constructivism is one of the most influential modern art moments in Russia in the 20th Century. It was inspired by the October revolution in 1917 and acted as a beacon of hope for many of the most advanced Russian artists, who supported the revolutions goals. It was in intersection of Cubism, suprematism and Futurism. They believed that art should directly reflect the modern industrial world. They where passionate about creating new constructions to destroy the tractional artistic concentration with composition and replace it with construction. Their goal was to yield ideas that could be put to use in mass production, serving the ends of a modern communist society. This movement ended by the mid 1920's as a result of Bolskevik's regime's increasing hostilely to avant agreed art but the movement acted as inspiration for artists in the West. One notable artist who was a part of the constructivism movement is Aleksandr Rodchenko. He worked in many different mediums thought his life and became an important spokesperson in promoting the ideals of the government. The stairs is powerful image, it shows a woman alone carrying her child. Her loneliness appears to question the functioning of the country in a cereal part of the city. The women appears powerful and determined. The contrast of the shadows reinforce that impression. The arial pose of the photograph makes the cider in the mind of something threatening and as of they have information that she does not know, creating this authoritarian structure of power. |
Alexander Rodchenko- The Stairs 1930
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Bauhaus
The Bauhaus was a modernist art school in early 20th Century Berlin. It's approach to cheating had a major impact in Europe and the United States even after its closure in 1933. The Bauhaus was influenced by 19th and 20th- Century art movements such as Art Nouveau. The combination of moments sought to Level the distinction between the fine and applied arts, and to reunite creativity and manufacturing. This changed over time and by the mid- 1920's the vision was to unite art and industrial design, returning back to the original and most import achievements. Some famous artists that studied there include: Kandinsky, Klee, Breuer and many more. In 1926 László Moholy- Nagy beagn to take photograms. In this photogram the artists hand seems to materialise out of the darkness and float in space behind a grid of white lines. the relationship between shadow and light is somehow Abel to mange to materialise on the page but are also able to capture the traces of physical contact. Moholy- Nagy's photograms represent the peering technological advancements of the Bauhaus and the re-exploring of basic ideas and trying to reinvent them. László Moholy- Nagy was among many different reopen artists who experimented with the photogram. |
Photograms- László Moholy- Nagy 1926
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Dada
Dada is an art movement formed during the first world war in Zurich in reaction to the war. The art is often satire and nonsensical in nature. It was infected by nanny other avant grade movements but with a wildly diverse output allowing it to create an massive impact on culture. Dada's aesthetic made mockery of nationalistic attitudes and proved a powerful impact on artists in its many European cities the movement gradually died out with the establishment of surrealism although the ideas that it gave allowed the surrealist movement to occur. Dada's criticism of the bourgeois culture liberated art as we know it be able to criticise systems that are put in place. Fountain by Marcel Duchamp is one of his most famous works and is perceived as an iconic piece of the Dada movement and twentieth century art as a whole Duchamp reviled that the idea for fountain arose from a conversation with Walter Arnsberg who was a prominent art collector and Joseph Stella in New York. Duchamp purchased the urinal from the supplier and arraigned for the sculpture to be submitted as an artwork singed by 'R. Mutt' who was an made up name of the Urinal. The name was a pun on the German work Armut meaning poverty. When it was submitted to the Society of Independent Artists they said that it could not be considered a piece of art and was indecent. Duchamp and Arnsberg resigned in protest. By submitting his work Duchamp was questioning what is art and who gets to decide who gets to determine what is art, which is still a question that we are unable to answer to this day. When the sculpture was written about Edward Mutt says 'wether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it.'. This created the idea that art is defined by what the artist chooses and not how others may perceive it. The positioning of the urinal questions the ideas of gender, what was previously an object used by men has been moved on its back and creates a hip-like shape and the plumbing elements being perceived as female genitalia. Hannah Höch's, Cut with a Kitchen knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany captures the political chaos in Germany after WW1. All of the fragmentation is captured in the collage, the contrast of the long war and the complete breakdown of life as we know it. The idea of cutting items and piecing things back that makes sense to Höch, focusing on this fragmentation as defining culture at that moment. The magazines and newspaper cut outs shows how current change is happening at that time and is being recontrstued. The fact that she used a Kitchen Knife shows how rapid things where changing and she had to use what she had access to as if she waited to find a scalpel than something else would change. It also shows how something that is domestic could undermine cultural values. As an female artist she faced a lot crisitsm about where work, which is able to be seen in this collage. In the centre of the image the German expresonaist Käthe Kollwitz head has been taken and positioned above the dancer Niddy Impekoven's body. The fact that this is the centre of the image and everything revolves around it shows the combination of art that is possible if it was a safer place for women to express themselves. At the bottom right hand side of the image there is a small portrait of herself against a map of Europe where women had the vote at that time so we know that she was thinking about the role of women in society of the art world. If you divide the image in quadrants in the top left there are the anti- dada figures in which you can see Kaiser Wilhelm II with two wrestles make up his moustache. there are other political figures again positioned on top of female dancers and then to the left of it two generals conversing with another standing on top of his head creating a comical sense of power. In the bottom right hand quarter you can see the world of the dadaists in which you can see Dada I Sten in which you can see many different famous dadaists and Lenin, Johannes Baader and Karl Radek all together on a cross representing religious imagery. In the top left hand quarter there is Dada propaganda in which the viewer can see Albert Einstein saying 'hehe young man, Dada is not an art trend'. In the bottom left hand quarter you can see dada persecution, in which ou can see Karl Libkenchet and Rosa Luxembourg who where jaded and torcheres and then assassinated in 1919 and he is saying join dada. |
Fountain- Marcel Duchamp 1917
Hannah Höch's, Cut with a Kitchen knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany 1919
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Surrealism
Surrealism is an art movement that exposed the workings of the mind, captioning the irrational, the poetic and revolutionary. Its aim was to change the way that we perceive the human experience, rejecting a traditional vision of life and favouring one that tapped into the uncurious mind. Surrealists beloved that the rational mind repressed the power of imagination, pithing it down with taboos. The movement was heavily influenced by Freud and Marx's revolutionary psychoanalysis of the contractions in the everyday world and spur on revolution. Building upon the anti- rationalism of Dada, the surrealists made inspiring art and offered a new direction for exploration, as Max Earnest dais: 'creative is that marvellous capacity to grasp mutually distinct realities and draw a spark from their juxtaposition'. Surrealist photography has merged with dada photography as it is difficult to differentiate between the two movements. Dada's improvisational practises and surrealists desires to understand unconscious thought combined into what we know as surrealist photography today. In the past photography was used as a tool to document reality, surrealist photographers rejected this role and created progressive techies to create images jarringly detached from photography's original uses. The art that was produced often challenged the viewers perceptions of photography and their personal bias that one brings with themselves when they view an image. The practice originated in Europe and spread to America and has shaped art and photography as we know it even to this day. Distortion #51 by André Kertész is one of his most significant portrayals of surrealist photography Commissioned by Le Sourire a provocative magazine in 1930's France, the images combined sexuality and metamorphosis in a warped reality. This photograph was taken in a funhouse mirror in a fairground. The image is able to capture an out of body sensation caused by the warped mirror. the strange angles and warped view of the models body and by doing so documenting the surrealist alternative realties and normalities. In the series there are many different female nudes where the models nudity is both sexual and anti- sexual due to the deformation. The womans exaggerated screaming mouth creates an ugly disturbing nightmarish quality that reflects the surrealist interests in dreams. An modern interpretation of this series may be that the woman is distressed by her manipulation from the male gaze and how she has succumb to being distorted to fit an unrealistic beauty standard. Claude Cahun is a gender neutral lesbian photographer, sculptor and writer. They chose to rename themselves in 1917 to better fit their neutrious identity. Cahaun was keenly attuned to the quintessentially modern condition of self-aliensation- a sentiment expressed with exquisite economy by her hero. inspired by their hero, the French poet Arther Rmbaud in his famous line 'je best un autre' (I is another). In series of self portraits Cahaun poetries a wide array of guises some clearly machine and some feminine and many inbertween as seen in the self portrait 'I am in training do not kiss me'. this was done by using makeup, costumes and props along with a verity of experimental darkroom techniques. The images offer a panoply of personals that subvert and challenge gender norms. They also question whether identity is something stable and fixed. Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore where life long collaborators and became romantic partners. The photographs where seen by few in their lifetime and where not seen until the late 1980's and early 90's by the public. In this self- portrait they appear magnetically bound to their own doppelgänger which is an embodiment of their internal struggle. Without Cahaun's revolutionarily work many other art works regarding identity may not have been seen or even created. |
Distortion #51- André Kertész 1933
Que Me Veux- tu?/ what do you want from me Claude Cahaun 1929
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In this piece of work Bayer is responding to the impact of his move to Berlin from the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus was a art school which is known for its socialist ideology, the school was forced to move to Berlin in 1930 due to the far-right ideology that was rising in Germany at that time, the school ultimately closed in 1933. Although Bayer left the Bauhaus in 1928 to open a graphic design firm, he was still aware of the rise of the fascist Nazi party.
Bayer’s intention for the image was to try and capture that themes of collective isolation which he faced when he first was in Berlin. This can be seen in the background of the image in which one can see a building, typical to baroque architecture in Berlin. The repetitive and monotonous repetition of the windows and how cramped they are to each other represents the claustrophobia of the cramped living conditions. The hands cast a shadow on the building represented a detachment from the city, this is further reinforced by the hands floating fin the image as the forearms have been cropped out. The hands and eyes are from two different people which shows that this detachment from the city wasn’t unique. One interpretation of the hands is that they could be being used to cover ones face, similar to how the Nazis shielded the Germans population of the barbaric actions that they were doing, of course this is a modern interpretation with the gift of hindsight. The eyes on the hands could be representative of socialist ideas to show that they are not naïve about the ideals that the Nazi government was trying to push. At first glance the hands appear symmetrical although one can see that there is small variations between the two similar to how one might appear to be the same as everyone else but the small variations between all of us is what makes us unique further pushing the theme of collective isolation. In this piece Bayer is using the tools that he has learnt being a commercial artist and Is using this in his work to create a piece of art that shocks the viewer. He is subverting images that he has taken and is using them for his own personal expression, for example the eyes in the centre of the image. He uses hand applied pigment which can be seen when the image is looked at closely. This rough process in the photocollage represents an urgency in the image due to the impeding rise of fascism. The harsh lines on the hand could also represent an danger and possesses almost a knife like quality. Hurray, well done. You are the only member of the group who has completed the task correctly. Thoughtful personal interpretation supported by facts. |
This was Doretha’s first photograph taken outside of her studio. Her studio was at a crossroads where she could overlook the men who were waiting to be fed by the White Angel Breadline, a charity that helped feed starving people who were looking for work. She decided that it was something that needed to be captured for and wanted to push herself out of her comfort zone of classical portraits. The image is incredibly provocative as even though she was telling a story of the masses she forces the viewer to confront the man who is facing away from the crowd. Although his face is obscured by his hat the viewer can see his desperation through his crouched over pose suggesting the burden of emotions that society was experiencing at that time. The image was later published in the San Francisco Call which described the scene as ‘Seamen without shops, longshoremen with no cargo to load, carpenters with nothing to build’. There are lots of similarities of this image to modern day, with people still queuing up for food banks due to the divide between the rich and the poor increases.
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White angel bread line, San Francisco, 1933
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This is a photograph taken after her most famous image ‘migrant mother’. Lange had really developed her unique style and really understood the economic and social climate due to her work with the Farm Sectary administration. What is key about this image is the billboard with the phrase ‘next time take the train, relax’. Which juxtaposes against the two people walking to Los Angeles for economic opportunities. Some view this as the two people walking to economic prosperity and others perceive it as the mocking from the upper class. Lange explains that the image is about suffering with dignity, their neat clothes their shoes showing little wear. She was interested in their story and admired their preventability in the face of adversity.
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On the Road to Los Angeles, California. 1937
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Dorothea was hired by the government to document the rounding up of Japanese people in the bay area. In February 1942, two months after pearl harbour, thousands of Japanese Americans fled the west coast of America after Roosevelt signed Executive order 9066. Which ‘prescribed military areas… from which any or all persons may be executed’. Within weeks many Japanese and Japanese Americans sold their houses and told to report to ‘assembly centres’ which was makeshift accommodation. Although Lange was opposed to the enactment of this order, she felt that it was important to record what was happening. In this image you can see the distress of the little girl from the actions of the government. Doretha is trying to get the viewer to have compassion for the young girl, this is further emphases by Lange being in eye contact with the girl. She is performing the pledge of elegance to show that she is an American citizen and deserves to be treated as so.
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One Nation Invisible, San Francisco, 1942
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This is part of a series that I did for my representation of a person final piece. I directed my grandma via FaceTime to take photos around her house and then she instructed about what to write about her response to the image underneath and the story it told. Because the image is clearly explained I chose to label it as objective as it is clearly stated and not open for the views interpretation as it a clearly stated fact.
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This is a self portrait of Nan Goldin after she was physically assaulted by her ex-boyfriend. She stairs directly at the camera, forcing the viewer to see her swollen red eye, the bruising on her face and because of this is makes it very hard for them not to sympathise with her. For this reason I Chose it to be subjective as even though they may not know the context to why she was beaten up the viewer immediately feels empathy for her
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This was Oscar Abdulla's final price for their documentary photography and photojournalism at the London collage of communication. Their piece was about the ethic cleansing at the so called 're-education camps' of Uyghur Muslims in China. The piece is a video of what outline of the camps look like if you where driving through it. The audio that plays over the video is of a woman's experience in the re-education camps. I chose this as subjective as it is based on fact although it is mainly digitalised so it is very hard to truly totally understand what is happening.
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The link is attached to the image to watch the video
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Starting in 2006, Faces and Phases is an ongoing series of photographic portraits of black lesbians and transgender individuals Muholi has met in South Africa and beyond. The portraits work as a visual statement as well as an archive, presenting and preserving an often abused and ostracised community through visual records. The work is displayed in a large hall with some of the portraits on a opposite wall, they are the portraits of people who have died as a result of hate crimes against the Queer community in South Africa. For this reason I chose subjective but had it a bit lower down than the above images as even though you can see the fears in the models faces it is unclear about the organisation of the piece without proper context and I believe that Muholi has successfully created a piece where the viewer wants to know more about it.
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This was part of a project where I took around 150 portraits and asked people to write down their opinions about politicians, or a message that they wanted to share during the 2019 election. The woman in this photo was a NHS worker who had fears about the privatisation of the NHS, she explained her experience of many of her colleges emigrating back to their counties of birth after the Brexit vote and the impact that it had on the NHS. I chose this image as subjective as although it is a fact that is clearly stated, leaving little up to the imagination, their is an lack of clarity of what the question that I asked her and her facial expression conveys her fears for the future of the election.
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This photograph I felt perfectly summed up the balance between subjective and objective. Although the subject in the photograph is real the photograph is staged. It is clear that the mother and her children are struggling and afraid of their future due to future food security but when the viewer understands that the image is staged it makes them question Lange's motives and what she was trying to convey in the image, luckily she was using the image to shine a light on the topic of poverty in America and used it to campaign for the democratic nominee.
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This image is part of Robert Frank's Americans series captured in the 1950-60s. I chose this image as the line in- between subjective and objective due to the person in the second windows face is obscured by the American flag, although the patriotism is clear not much else is so I think that there is quite a bit open for interpretation.
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This is one of the first objective pieces due to the deliberate cropping by Hilliard. although we are aware that a person has died Hilliard has deliberately cropped the same image four different times to convey that they have died in different ways: crushed, drowned, burned and fell. The image is later composed into a cross like formation, so the viewer can see all of the elements that could've contributed to their death. The viewer never understands why the person died.
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This was a second image from my finial piece where I asked people their opinions about politicians. This woman chose to leave the page blank, passing comment on how in the current political climate there is so much misinformation it is very difficult to truly understand what will actually come out of the politicians that politicians make.
I chose this image as objective as there is very little that can be taken form the image without knowledge about the topic, I think that it is interesting how she is just stating her pure opinion without fear of judgement. |