Photo Evaluation

Arnold Newman.

Formerly Condemned Political Prisoners, by British, in Gallows Room.

Likud soldiers prior to Israel's establishment.

Israel, 1967

Technically, this photo is phenomenal. As a photo that conveys a meaning it is amazing.

The first glance at the photo and you know those men are going to die and they are going to be hung. It looks like death row all standing in one row. It makes me a little sick to my stomach thinking that people actually died by hanging, and it's probably a practice that still goes on in many places across the world. Everything in the foreground is pretty well a silhouette and eerily frames the men.

The monochromatic coloring of the photo is fantastic. The men are dressed in a heavy orange while the rest of the room is all in shades of less vivid and saturated orange. It really holds the attention on the men with the silhouette noose hanging just above their heads. There are lines everywhere in the photo that constantly direct your attention to the men.

Jacob Riis Notes

*I apologize for the weird way this post probably looks. I don't know how that happened...*


Jacob Riis is a photographer from Denmark. Before he got into photography he was a carpenter and had other small odd jobs until he began working for a news bureau. After a couple of years at the bureau he was hired by the New York Tribune in 1877. He decided that he was  going to use his position to show people what life was like as a poor person. He would argue that the poor are not makers of their fate, rather the victims. (Spartacus) However, when he discovered that a written article didn't have the impact that he wanted he turned to photos. He never studied photography, rather had a problem and photography happened to be the solution.


Riis knew what it was like to not have anywhere to sleep at night and to have bad living conditions. He wanted to help the poor out and make people understand what was going on. He began taking photos of the people and the conditions that they were living in. He was one of the first photographers to use flash powder. Doing so gave him the ability to capture the insides of slums in New York and helped emphasize his point by capturing all of the grit and detail.


Riis showed the public his photos magic lantern shows. As well, many images were printed in some of his books. Whenever people viewed Riis photos, he shocked them. They responded to the photos as if they were a virtual reality. He accomplished his intentions with his photos. He presented the New York slums in a way that made people understand just how horrible some people were off. 


 "He (Riis) not only got the news; he cared about the news. He hated passionately all tyrannies, abuses, miseries, and he fought them. He was a terror to the officials and landlords responsible, as he saw it, for the desperate condition of the tenements where the poor lived. He had exposed them in articles, books, and public speeches, and with results. All the philanthropists in town knew and backed Riis, who was able then, as a reformer and a reporter, too, to force the appointment of a Tenement House Commission that he gently led and fiercely drove to an investigation and a report which - followed up by this terrible reporter-resulted in the wiping out of whole blocks of rookeries, the making of small parks, and the regulation of the tenements." (Masters-of-Photography)




http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAriis.htm
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/R/riis/riis_articles2.html

Untitled from "Study from Life" by Clementina Hawarden

Untitled. From the collection "Study From Life"

Clementina Hawarden. 1860. Albumen print from wet collodion on glass negative.

The photograph looks like a woman greeting another woman at a glass door (or window, it's hard to tell). The woman who would be greeting the other has her back to us and looks like she is dressed to the nines. She has a very large elegant dress on and her hair done up very daintily. Where, the other woman is wearing a hat with her hair down and a dark outfit on. Other than the two women, the only thing else that is distinguishable in the photo is the glass door the women are holding on to. In the background, it appears that there are some large buildings in the back and a stone balcony railing. However, those features of the photo are very faint, most likely due to how out of focus they are. Also, the edges are torn and it's hard to say if this was done by Clementina or after her death. It is very possible that it was done by her as this has been done to many of her photographs.

It's hard to say what the meaning of the photograph could be as there is very little known about the photographer. However, the photo is from a collection called "Study from Life," so it could be assumed that Clementina intended this photo to simply be of a woman who calls on a friend. The elegance and height of the woman with her back  to us can be interpreted that she is an important woman in society. Her back to us adds mystery to the photo, because with all her well to do-ness, you want to know who this woman is.

Overall, it's a well composed photo. The torn corners kind of act like a vignette. The corners are gone so your focus is pulled to them and then into the photo. I love the mystery that goes along with the woman who is all dressed up. I feel that is what this photo is about. You see the other woman and you wonder why she's coming to call and who she is calling on. Cropping the photo to put both women on the thirds line wouldn't be quite as effective as the way the photo is done. Being able to see the other side of the glass door on the left hand side closes the photo in. It directs your attention on to the two women.

Clementina Hawarden Notes

1822-1865. She began photography in 1857.
Just like Julia Margaret Cameron, she used the people around her as her models.
It is believed that she started experimenting with stereoscopic photography.
She was one of the first photographers to be experimental with her work.
"The full-length looking-glass mirror which often appears in her pictures was known as 'psyche' and is a visual pun on the Greek God "Psyche", who represented the spiritual aspects of mankind. So the mirror and figures together in her pictures seem to represent the spiritual and material aspects of human life." (V&A)
In 1863, she had her first of two exhibits with the Photographic Society of London, and won silver awards for both exhibits.
It's believed that she died in 1865 because her immune system was weakened by the photographic chemicals.
Her medium was albumen print from wet collodion on glass negative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clementina_Maude,_Viscountess_Hawarden
http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/photography/photographerframe.php?photographerid=ph030
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/l/lady-clementina-hawarden/

What He Likes About My Photo

Tyler Ellis. Summer 2011.

This is my boyfriend, Tyler. We both have a thing (and by thing I mean BIIIG THIIING) for cameras. I shoot stills and he mostly does video. Anyway, he had this photo as his profile picture on facebook for awhile. The main thing he liked about it was that it made his lens look BIG. As, it's actually a small lens. It's a 50mm f/1.4 USM. He's a guy. He likes big things...

There's a short story that goes along with this photo. It begins with, he was taking a picture of something and just before he was done I told him to hang on where he was 'cause I wanted to take a photo. So he did, but I couldn't get the reflection in the lens to look the way I wanted to (in real life it was reflecting some really awesome colors from the other side of the river). However, after I took my test shots he thought I was done and then kept walking. He didn't think I was taking a photo of any importance and didn't want to keep standing there. The photo above is the test photo that I took, which I showed him later on in our walk that day. He saw and said it was awesome! He really liked it. To which my reply was, "It was going to be better, but you wouldn't let me take it." I made him kind of embarrassed that he didn't wait.

So, overall he liked the photo as it was. He said my framming was fantastic, the colors looked good together, the exposure was good, and again, it made his lens look really big. To which I also say, it's a completely unedited photo (except for the fact that it was shot in jpeg and processed by the camera.)

"Sadness" By Julia Margaret Cameron

"Sadness." Julia Margaret Cameron. 1964. Carbon Print. 9 1/2" x 9 1/2".

The photograph "Sadness" is a study that Cameron did of actress Ellen Terry at the age of sixteen. This photo is a simple close up of a girl leaning against a wall. The photo is very soft especially around the Ellen, with focus a stop short of sharp on her. A feature of this photograph that adds a sense intimacy is that it is circular rather than rectangular or square. This brings the viewers focus directly on the girl. The only other parts of the photo that can draw the focus are the dark line in the background (which still directs attention to Ellen) and the pattern of the wall paper.

What really makes the meaning of the photo is Ellen holding her necklace and the tilt of the head against the wall. This represents sadness in the way that many women do this when they are sad. It is a common and recognized action by women. The emotion Cameron is trying to communicate is evident without the title of the piece.The slight underexposure of the photo creates a feeling of heaviness and a little darkness to the photo.

Photography at the time was about facts, a true representation of life. Julia sought to show the emotions of a person: to represent who a person was. This photograph of Ellen does just what Cameron intended. At the time of this photo Ellen was  married to painter George Frederick Watts. The two hadn't been together a year before they split up. Ellen recalled for her autobiography how difficult the relationship had been for her. "While [Ellen] Terry may have been striking a pose for Cameron, the picture's title and Terry's expression suggests that Cameron was probing Terry's conflicted and anxious soul." (Photogravue.com) Cameron excelled at her intention. Visually and technically, the photo is stunning. 

http://www.photogravure.com/blog/2007/10/julia-margaret-cameron-sadness/

http://masters-of-photography.com/C/cameron/cameron_articles2.html

Julia Margaret Cameron Notes

Cameron was forty-eight when she first delved into the world of photography. She was given a camera as a gift and was taken to it. The world of photography was something she sought to master. Being the wife of a retired jurist, she did not need to make a living off of her work. This gave her total freedom to take photos as she saw fit.She took inspiration from the novels, poems, and other literature she read.

What she saw as great importance in her work was the emotion of the model. The techniques that she used contained soft-focus, close up, and darkroom manipulation. She was known for even kicking her tripod to ensure she had a soft focus photo. This was all unlike most other photographers of the time. As well, one thing that was important about her was the fact she was a female photographer. Most photographers of the time were males.


http://www.victoriaspast.com/JuiliaMCameron/juliacameron.htm
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/j/julia-margaret-cameron-collection-highlights/
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0810030.html