We were asked to look at a YouTube presentation featuring Entrevista Joachinn Schmidt. He argues the changing role of the camera over the centuries. For example, it was required in the early 20th century, to have some knowledge of the technical aspects of the camera such as ISO, shutter speed etc. However, he now asserts that this now is not the case. Technology not just in cameras but in phone cameras has moved on to such an extent that a novice can take a technologically acceptable image.
(138) ENTREVISTA JOACHIM SCHMIDT (Comissariat exposició D'Ara Endavant)) - YouTube
He also states that millions of photographs are produced daily in the 21st century, compared to other centuries. Joachiun also asserts that in previous centuries, it was the artist job to create images. However, today, we create our own images for mass viewing. The shift from making pictures has also changed to sharing images on social media sites.
In our society, there is an overwhelming amount of information, images and points of view regarding the simplest of things. This could be reviews about a local public house to images taken by customers of the food served. The internet is awash with this.
Other Peoples Photographs
According to http://otherpeoplephotographs.wordpress.com "Assembled between 2008 and 2011, this series of ninety-six books explores the themes and visual patterns presented by modern every day, amateur photographers. Images found on photo sharing sites such as Flickr have been gathered and ordered in a way to form a library of contemporary vernacular photography in the age of digital technology and online photo hosting. Each book is comprised of images that focus on a specific photographic event or idea, the grouping of photographs revealing recurring patterns in modern popular photography. The approach is encyclopaedic, and the number of volumes is virtually endless but arbitrarily limited. The selection of themes is neither systematic nor does it follow any established criteria — the project’s structure mirrors the multifaceted, contradictory and chaotic practice of modern photography itself, based exclusively on the motto “You can observe a lot by watching.”
Other People’s Photographs (wordpress.com)
photographs and memories - Bing imagesMishka Henner
Hanner's work consists of collecting signs and symbols of our time. Mishka Henner sees himself as "a Magpie" who collects conceptual fragments which used to criticize or take an ironic look at society. Especially our culture and political system. He is interested in "powers" that are the structures of our society as well as focussing on the internet. Hanner states that " “There came a point where working with photography meant that most of my time was spent on the computer. It struck me that the screen itself could almost be a canvas, and that the internet holds within it an abundance of material.” In Search of New Materials: Making Art with the Internet - Photographs by Mishka Henner | Review by Selina Oakes | LensCulture
One of Henners series called Landfall has 15 12" picture disk images which represent different hurricanes. taken from satellite which track them. They include audio recordings of hurricane chasers adding commentary and actual satellite tracking of the hurricanes. They all have male and female names which are given to them by The World Metrological Organisation christens them in advance. Then they strike on areas which are predicted by the WMO and followed by storm chasers.
Henners work is contextual insofar as it uses data from the WMO and storm chasers to create an account of the hurricane. As mentioned above, he has used the screen as a canvas that carries the images of the hurricanes. Contextually, he tackles the subject of climate change and global warming-through accumulating data from numerous sources.
Paul Graham.
The Present.
Paul Graham is a photographer whose works The Present looks at the concepts, street photography and time. He will take an image on the streets of New York then seconds later, take another image of the same people. The result isn't a narrative like typical street photography. Rather " undramatic, but true to how we comprehend the street" Paul Graham | 1000 Words (1000wordsmag.com). Rather then the planning of every detail of an image and the photographer attempting to create an image that represents "street theatre" instead we see Graham working with chaos as a concept. Similar to Joachinn Schmidt use of random images above.
According to Paul Graham " None of the photographs could be described as ‘decisive moments’ in the street photography sense, where every element of the image is in perfect synchronisation, thereby creating a formal, if not an actual drama. Of course, his pictures are moments, and certainly decisive because the photographer has captured them, and more importantly selected them, but in imagistic terms Graham is aiming at a kind of divine ordinariness" Paul Graham | 1000 Words (1000wordsmag.com)
In a world of the contrived and aesthetically perfect, photographers such as Graham, Henner and Schmidt collect images which are decisive moments but ordinary in appearance. In our world of states monitoring our movements in public and CCTV being evident everywhere in our cities, we are filmed and recorded more now then ever. These systems create images who have no technical skill or are decisive moments, just snapshots of us doing our business. Looking at the work of Paul Graham, I cannot help but feel that this was the catalyst for his series The Present.
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