Personal Journeys and Fictional Autobiographies

© Lena Aliper (2012) - Jack and Jill Story no.12
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I am quite intrigued by the photographs produced by artists working in this genre although I’m not sure how they are so incisive in their picture-taking. I have a diary like most people who own a smartphone of photos but it is sporadic at best. I am part of a large family but when I take photos of them its usually at formal occasions in groups or they pull a funny face! Working more seriously with a visual diary or getting a deeper perspective of my family’s lives intrigues me. However, I am aware that I would need to exhibit such work in an exhibition of some sorts eventually so I would need to be comfortable with the content being displayed publicly.

Psychogeography

Assignment 3 - Documentary - Photograph 4
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I would say that pschogeography is the genre of photography I am naturally most aligned with. I can often be found using my camera as a flâneur wandering around the city and more recently in my local area which encompasses Deptford. I am sometimes aware of where I am headed and sometimes get completely lost, even in my own area, finding new streets and viewpoints within what I thought were familiar places.

Tableaux Photography and Gregory Crewdson

The View From Primrose Hill
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Tableaux photography means 'living pictures' and involves the staging of the image, often through theatrical lighting. I had been aware of the tableaux genre of photography before but had managed to skip the part of the definition that the lighting often played a major role. Therefore I had been of the impression that a tableau was simply a staged photograph; particularly one that was made up of composites in order to tell a story.

Constructed Photography versus Non-constructed or ‘Straight Photography’

A Rough Sketch With Annotations Showing How in My Eyes Constructed Photography Differs From Straight Photography
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I was inspired unusually by a video game to make this post which I suppose had been in the back of my head for a while now. In the game Kingdom Hearts III (2019), there is a photography mini-game involving photographing Mickey Mouse emblems. Most of them are against surfaces and are just hard to find. However, one is made up of 3 different circles on 3 different planes that wouldn’t make sense unless viewed from the right perspective. Of course I had come across Georges Rousse before whose work is very similar in execution of this concept but it also made me think of normal or ‘straight' photography. Here, differing subjects are brought together through juxtapositions to form interesting photographs.

Study Hangout 21st February 2019 for Vilém Flusser’s (1983): Towards a Philosophy of Photography

© Stephen Gill (2010) - Outside In
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I attended a Study Hangout on 21st February 2019 with some of my fellow students specifically about Vilém Flusser’s (1983) book: Towards a Philosophy of Photography. I found I came away with lots of thoughts and inspirations. In the study hangout we quickly identified that the distinction between redundant and informative images was one of the key parts to Flusser’s philosophy.