Tag: Hiroshi Sugimoto

A Model World

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Seeing the Miniature (Or is it?)

‘What is true of photographs is true of the world seen photographically’ (Sontag, 1977, p.79)
Marco Pece (2009) Mona Lisa

 

This session aims to introduce participants to the idea of the photograph as a constructed world of the real. Using miniature models, participants will explore the veracity of the photograph (or not), as well as specifically practicing thier technical skills in construction, story-telling, lighting and depth of field.

‘Photography can lie as to the meaning of a thing but never to its existence’ (Barthes, 1980, p.89)

This Session could be run in conjunction with:

Aims & Outcomes:

  • For participants to explore the construction of scenes using miniature models and backdrops.
  • For participants to consider the reality of the photograph (or not) and practice lighting, and depth of field.
  • For participants to conduct in depth research on the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto and apply these ideas to thier practice.
  • Participant Outcome: 3 (edited) final 6×4 digital prints

Research: the work of hiroshi sugimoto:

When I first arrived in New York in 1974, I visited many of the city’s tourist sites, one of which was the the American Museum of Natural History. I made a curious discovery while looking at the exhibition of animal dioramas: the stuffed animals positioned before painted backdrops looked utterly fake, yet by taking a quick peek with one eye closed, all perspective vanished,and suddenly they looked very real. I had found a way to see the world as a camera does. However fake the subject, once photographed, it’s as good as real. (Sugimoto, 2019)

You Will Need:

  • Digital cameras for all participants (and appropriate memory cards) *This session can also be run using Camera phones or Lumix cameras
  • Card readers
  • Access to computers (or laptops)
  • A selection of miniature models and material to make backdrops / dioramas
  • Consider also environmental scenes you could use: puddles / grass / stones / concrete / sand as well as buildings / landscapes / road scenes / bus stops etc to explore depth of field.
  • Flash-guns, lamps (or tin foil) to demonstrate lighting ideas
  • An introductory brief & Presentation (below) for participants to outline the ideas and provide examples
  • Prepared demonstrations on using apertures to effect the depth of field and using flash / reflected light
  • A booked room to critique participants work (either via a projector or via print)
  • Blue tack to pin the work
  • Costings and Risk Assessments

Presentation ideas: A (small) model world

Preparation Work:

  • Ask participants to read Karol Sienkiewicz (2010) ‘Lego Concentration Camp / Lego. Obóz koncentracyjny’ in Culture.Pl (March 2015) available here
  • Ask participants to watch Thomas Demand (2008) ‘Presidency’ from TateShots available here
  • Ask participants to independently research the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto
  • Ask participants if they have thier own digital cameras and cards
  • Make sure you have access to computers
  • Make sure there are enough team members to support participants (never assume thier prior knowledge)
  • Decide whether you will project the work or print it.
  • If you are printing it (6×4) make sure the Photo Lab are aware and be aware of timekeeping so they have space to print the work.
  • *If you are running this session off campus, make sure there is access to printers or projectors
James Casebere (1994) Asylum

Suggested Session Outline:

 

Neutral Vision (s)

Posted on Posted in Adaptable, Banal, Digital, Introductory, Landscape, Object, Place, Portrait, Space, TypologyTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Typologies & Types: Faces, Spaces, Places

‘Throughout the modern era, photography has been enlisted to classify the world and its people. Driven by a belief in the scientific objectivity of photographic evidence, the logics utilized to classify photographs-in groups and categories or sequences of identically organized images-also shape our visual consciousness’ (Baker, 2015)
Sophie Calle (1981) from The Hotel

This is an adaptable session which encourages participants to consider a potential neutrality and objectivity of photographic vision. Through the construction of a typology, it encourages participants to also think about the nature of comparative and investigative viewing (whether the subject matter is face, places or spaces).

 

‘I am an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it. My way leads towards a fresh perception of the world. Thus, I explain in a new way the world unknown to you’ (Vertov in Berger, 1972, p.17)

This Session could be run in conjunction with:

Andy Warhol (1962) Campbell’s Soup Cans

Aims & Outcomes:

  • For participants to explore the aesthetic implications of a ‘neutral’ view. Can photographs ever be objective?
  • For participants to visually consider how typologies work. Do they encourage investigative viewing? Can they transform the banal?
  • Participant Outcome: 4 (edited) 6×4 digital prints per approach (Faces / Spaces / Places)
‘For the first time an image of the world is formed automatically without the creative intervention of man. The personality of the photographer enters into proceedings only in his selection of the object to be photographed and by way of the purpose he has in mind’
(Bazin (1967) in Trachtenberg, 1980, p.241)
Jochen Lempert (1993-2016) The Skins of Alca impennis

You will need:

  • Digital cameras for all participants (and appropriate memory cards) *This session can also be run using Camera phones or Lumix cameras
  • Card readers
  • Access to computers (or laptops)
  • An introductory brief & presentation for participants to outline the ideas and provide examples
  • A booked room to critique participants work (either via a projector or via print)
  • Blue tack to pin the work
  • Costings and Risk Assessments
Bernd & Hilla Becher (1966-1997) from Winding Towers

 

‘This is a requiem for a lost world and shows that, through the passing of time, even that which was once considered purely functional and even ugly, can attain beauty when seen through the eyes of the most attentive photographers’ (O’Hagan, 2014)

 

 

Presentation ideas: constructing typologies:

Faces:
Spaces:
places:

Preparation Work:

    • Ask participants to read Sean O’Hagan (2014) ‘Lost world: Bernd and Hilla Becher’s legendary industrial photographs’ in The Guardian 3rd September 2014 available here
    • Ask participants to watch Francis Hodgson (2011) Thomas Struth – An Objective Photographer? In The Financial Times available here
    • Ask participants if they have thier own digital cameras and cards
    • Make sure you have access to computers
    • Make sure there are enough team members to support participants (never assume thier prior knowledge)
    • Decide whether you will project the work or print it.
    • If you are printing it (6×4) make sure the Photo Lab are aware and be aware of timekeeping so they have space to print the work.
    • *If you are running this session off campus, make sure there is access to printers or projectors
Tim Flach (2014) for The Sunday Times

suggested Session Outline: