Category: Photography
Photography has loads different kinds of applications or places they will be used to demonstrate or promote brands and business’. Some examples of photography applications would be:
- Fashion
- architectual
- fine art
- advertising
- newspapers
The first application I’m going to write about is advertising, for this section photography is the most important thing because it can only focus on one thing in an image. Advertisement photography varies from s billboards and bus stops to the sides of buses. The aim of this is to make people remember the photographs as its the first thing they will see and the last thing they remember. But this can be hard as they only have one image to make it work, its not like tv adverts when they have at the least 2 minutes to sell products. When photographers take images for an advertisement its vital that they are clear about there message that the company wants to project or it can get messy and the public that are reading won’t understand. Some advantages of advertising would be that it fights competiton by keeping your company name and products in the region of advertising you won’t be risen by other business’s. Also its good to get your products out in the open more instead of just putting them on shelves of shops. a few examples of disadvantages would that some people may copyright your images that you take and try re style them to gain money An example of this would be when people take images from the internet without permission and use there photos on billboard involving a different business. Also when teenagers and young adults graffiti or ruin billboard or draw over faces in public.
Next i am going to write about my next application of photography which is photo journalism. The photographs for this are usually of people involved in the incidents or taken by journalists themselves these are most used in newspapers or magazines. With journalists they sell the photographs to a company or use their photographs first hand and put them in their own artifices. They are usually mugshot images or close ups, an example would be if the article involves celebrities they may go out and use paparazzi to take images them off guard to make them appear bad or not looking there best if the article is talking down on them. Therefore the main skills for photo journalism is to tell a story through the photographers rather than just taking the image. Advantages of photo journalism would be that you get to get unclose with famous people and be involved in serious events, you also get to travel to nice and bad places to see whats really going on in the world. Disadvantages would be that some people won’t appreciate you taking photos and they will lash to at you; possible abusive.
Fashion photography is a popular application, its used mainly in magazines to advertise clothes, makeup and fashion in general. It is the photographers job to make sure that the photographs are eye catching and worthy to sell the products. Usually women are used as eye candy to sell products. An example of this would be Calvin Klein they involve attractive men and women to up sell there products and attract the attention of viewers. Also celebrities are used to make fans and people that love that celebrity feel obliged to buy the product because they wear it. Advantages of fashion as an application would be that no matter what it will attract attention especially if the models are good to look at, the will believe they will look like that. A disadvantage would be with fashion photography would be that some boys or will may feel it stereotypes and if you dont wear their products you wont be as good.
Fine art photography is when photographers go to place where theres sunsets and pretty views to capture an image as they see. Fine art photography doesn’t need to sell a product or tell a story it just needs to look good, usually photographers try to add as much into a photo as they can but they sometimes follow photography techniques such as rule of thirds and other composition techniques. The most popular fine art is landscape images and the setting would be in outdoor places such as views and place where it most natural and this won’t be in a studio. They usually work freelance and have a website or blog with their photos on and will try to sell them on to people and making business’s or money. Advantages of fine photography would be that it looks simplistic if it was around your house art work or in a simple office setting the mood. I think fine art will go with light coloured rooms wether thats black and white pouter of a orange sunset it will set a vibrant feel. It also attracts a narrow audience, it appeals to an older audience as there is no dramatic effect to the photographs or bold colours its simple natural images. Disadvantages would be it may not be everyones taste and liking; there is so many other types of photography that people embrace.
Newspapers is the last application of photography that I’m going to write about, this application is very similar to print based photography this is because they both include real life images from paparazzi and journalists. Newspapers include articles about law related scenarios such as murders, people going missed but they also write about good things like weddings and awards thats eon locally to promote the bay. Advantages of newspaper would be that some of the images haven’t always been accepted by the person themselves for example journalists will manipulate images through photoshop which may upset some individuals; that could apply as a disadvantage. An advantage would be the public get benefits such as seeing what happens in the celebrity world and endures an involvement with everyone.
Overall, my favourite application of photography is the fashion industry, I enjoy looking at their pictures and think they are the most interesting.
These are a screen grab of john Free’s photography which I really like, they’re mainly images of happy people spending time with friends or family or they be been stopped in the street. The photos he takes don’t have any colour which contrasts with the photos themselves, considering the images are realism of people living every day life but the photo has no colour or happiness to it. It fits well because his images focus on one point of a photo such as rule of thirds, his composition is always focused on one face or something in the image of which he lives.
John Free’s images also revolve around concept and how you see a photo, for example in this image what we see and there the photographer can see is two different opinions and views. He see’s colour and culture whereas we see no colour and wonder what she’s doing in his image. By doing that he is attracting people to look at the photo, her top and object brings the photo together nicely. The zebra crossing and her top matches together.
I am pleased with my own photography work, I felt that street photography was quite a hard topic to choose from because I had to go out and find buildings and parts of a city that would make a good street photo. The day I went out the weather wasn’t perfect so I had to adjust the brightness and some other effects through photo shop. But I was happy with the outcome of the photos, i managed to capture the general public walking through my shots infant of buildings and `I asked the homeless if I could take pictures which they were more than happy with. I also took close ups of street signs and architecture I loved.
For my target audience I feel it would be aimed more at middle classed people, this is because you usually see street photography on walls of offices and buildings in plain rooms, It gives more essence to the rooms. That’s why I chose street photography I felt it was different and nice to see real things and people creates more of a happy vibe than having portraits and staged shoots when its not how people really are. The age and gender I would base it around 20- 40 middle aged men or women, this is because I’m not certain younger children will see the concept of the images they will just look at it as a photo. For example famous street photographer Joel Meyorwitz art was one I personally liked a lot because the photos he would take was always of a time in the past that was important or it would be happy or sad photos of people. The gender for my photography isn’t the most important aspect to my work. I feel if you enjoy looking at it thats fine.
My photos do not really have meanings behind them, before I went out and took my images I researched quite a few street photographer and then I went for a similar kind of style. The only image i would say has meaning is the image of the homeless man. This is because I have seen that style of image quite a few times whilst browsing street photography; For example Joel Meyorwitz had a very similar image that he had taken. The image is black and white but hes smiling, I think it symbolizes although hes home less doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the right to be happy. The pre production was rather simple, after I did my research on different ways of using a camera and the things it can do with ISO, shutter speed etc I felt a lot more confident. Post production, for me is always the easier bit i know its going to be a sum up of my production but the planning is always initiating ideas and making sure its good.
The improvements I would make on my images would be having more faces and people involved, I doubted this because I didn’t feel the public would be to happy me nagging them to take photos of them without some kind of license or importance. On the other hand it was a success because the images I did produce some did come out really well,I like the angles , the composition of one object and how the images came out in general, the only major things I changed were the brightness and effects. Next time if i was doing this production again I would take more time to do more topics in photography, instead of focusing on one area I will do different types such as; abstract, portraits and landscape.
The link to photographers through my images would be the inspiration I took from there work. I particularly liked the homeless images with a black and white filter, because most of street photography is black and white anyway but I felt if they were in colour they wouldn’t have the same aspect. Also Joel Meyorwitz took photos including zebra crossings and posh people walking across the roads. In exeter I managed to get a shot of a man in a suit walking past a building and I quite liked it, reminded me of the images I had shot myself.
Overall I think my first experience of a photography unit went well, the pre production work all welded together and helped me through my photography.
With This image I didn’t add much editing, but i toned down a slight blur to focus the image on the ‘bills ‘sign but you willed up also looking at the bush.
This image is one of my favourites,it has the strongest message and atmosphere to it. makes people wonder who is he and what is he doing. for this i increased the structure to give the image a more urban effect.Also the black and white congrats with the photo itself. he’s smiling but the photo is dark.
These are two of my favourite photographs that I have taken in Exeter. The first image, I wanted to give of the street photography vibe but also fashion at the same time. Its a quite popular brand and with the reflection of the buildings in the images i felt it was what i am looking for. The shot mainly focuses on the sign ‘ Fat face’ which I like. Also it contrasts with the clothes rack in the shop. The second image has the strongest message, with my topic being street and architectural images, I decided it was the image that related to my photography the most. I applied the black and white effect to show the sadness of the scene. the fact that he’s homeless and living on the streets but he is happy and still content.
These images are me in general testing out a camera, using different lighting techniques and angles to adjust to what i will want to be doing. This photo of Chloe walking across the road is the only example of images such as’ street photography’ what i could produce in college.
These other photos are taken in the studio, again, just practicing with the lenses, angles and amount of light.
Racheal Leonards blog 