Week 11 & 12: Final Folio

I decided to keep my folio down to my best city skyline photos along with maybe some of my best natural landscape and texture pictures that clearly show my intention.

Originally I intended to go with very abstract photos from the unique and different parts of the city that also showed how the Urban landscape was transformed by natural and unnatural light.
However I found myself taking more and more pictures of Melbourne's most recognised buildings such as the Eureka and the Rialto along with some other unknown buildings on Collins street.

The idea of presenting the photos as a pdf book was decided on when I realised it would show the transformation and completely different look that the varying light gave the buildings best as I could show two photos on opposite pages at the same time to give better impact.
I ran into some problems with some of the photo quality especially in regards to noise interference as I wanted the photos to show a very natural and the particularly smooth clear skies. This was a result of only having a 4.0 mega pixel camera on me at the time that I took some of the photos. However, they still turned out ok.

Once I had put all of the photos into the pdf book file I realised the texture photos and reflecting lights off natural objects such as the ocean and plants really did not fit in or get my intention across so I kept it down to just the three buildings The Rialto, Eureka and 550 Colllins Street building with the multiple shots I had taken at different times of the day and night.

I did also include one abstract picture I took on South Bank one night of a lamp post that I put as the front cover because I thought it represented my initial idea and overall intention the best which was to show not only the city lights but how light constantly changes and transforms the cities surface appearance and overall look. In addition, I think this could also symbolise the essence of Melbourne's Central Business District and how the many small and big businesses have to contstantly change and improve their overall look and representation to keep up with the times.

Week 9 & 10: Folio Work

So I've been ruthlessly narrowing down my pictures and trying to find my best abstract photos that are good quality while getting the idea across about what my intention is with my photographs. Above are a couple that I have considered but am still a bit unsure about.

Week 8: Brassai Presentation

Above: Album page (clockwise from top left) the three Halasz brothers, Hometown Brasso, Brassai in Cavalry uniform during his service in WWI, The house he grew up in and a family picture with his mother and brothers.

Paris, 1953, Chairs in the Luxenbourg Gardens in Winter. Brassai Archives, Paris. (D. E. Poirier 2005, p.200)

PARIS, 1929, Gilberte Robbe, Brassai Archives, Paris. (D. E. Poirier 2005, p.58)

Above: a boy draws graffiti on a wall from the rougher part of the Paris Streets

Brassai and his wife Gilberte

Picasso

The Surrealist painter and artist Salvidor Dali was among one of Bassai's famous friends that also included Picasso (photograph above Salvidor's) who is one of the most recognized cubist painters in the world. Brassai took both of their portraits.

Paris, 1930, Hairdressers' event, Brassai Archives, Paris.

These last couple of pictures portray the high society of the city life such as its ballet and grand operas

Paris, 18935, haute couture soiree, Brassai Archives, Paris. (D.E Poirier 2005, p.95)

I was supposed to present on Brassai (Gyula Halasz) in week 8 but got sick with the flu. So since I couldn't present in class thought I could put up some of the great pictures and info I found on him in the blog.

Brief Biography:
Born on the 9/09/1899 as Gyula Halsz in Brasso Transylvania
Died July 8th 1984 in South of France
His mother was American and father Hungarian and he had two younger brothers.
He studied painting and sculpture at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest.
Served in the Austro-Hungarian Army in the First World War.
1920 he worked as a journalist in Berlin.
1924 he moved to Paris and would stay there to become a French citizen and live out the remainder of his life.
His job often led him to wonder the streets late at night and take photographs which he used to supplement his articles for more money.
He said that he used photography 'in order to capture the beauty of the streets and gardens in the rain and fog and to capture Paris by night.
Later Gyula Halsz went by the pseudonym Brassai that means 'from Brasso'
His first collection of photos were published in 1933 in his book Paris by Night which had great success resulting in him being called 'the eye of Paris' in an essay written about him by his friend Henry Miller.

References:
D.E. Poirier 2005, Brassai an illustrated Biography, Flammarion, Adago, Paris.

Week 7: Abstract Pattern

After taking more and more photos over the past weeks I've found that I am most interested in capturing the surrounding world rather than the people that inhabit it.
I've decided I want to concentrate more on taking abstract photos for the fine art practice of light.

As my subject matter is of contrasting urban city life with more natural objects I found that there are a lot of patterns in some of the pictures I take such as an overexposed natural light and artificial light spot present in the majority of my pictures but I found that I like it because it give the pictures more of an ambiguity and a sense of looking more into what the picture is about.

Week 6: Image Size and Editing

After going through how to change the pixels and the image sizes on photoshop in class I decided I wanted to find out a bit more about what else you can do with editing images. So I went on YouTube and found these helpful videos.. the only problem was that they went for 10 minutes or a bit longer but were still interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44mV3NsLmXw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9xjYx_Nh9s

Aireys Inlet

Over the weekend I went to Aireys Inlet on the Great Ocean Road and took lots of photos. I wanted to try and make more abstract pictures so I went down to the river to see what I could find.

While I was wondering around taking photos I noticed a little blue Wren bird or as they are now known as the 'Superb Fairywren' flying over towards my stepmothers new Subaru Forester, I ran after it because the vibrant colour of his blue and black Feathers really caught my eye.

He kept flying into the revision mirrors and staring at himself trying to figure what was going on...
I think he must have thought it was another bird in his territory that he needed to fend off because he kept attacking himself in the mirror and then would fly off and come back 5 minutes later and repeat the same process...

I learnt a lot more about being patient when I was trying to capture pictures of the blue Wren as he was so erratic and fast, making it hard to capture the majority of his movements so I got a lot of blurred images at first but finally got some still shots of him staring curiously at himself..



This shot was not taken at Airey's but at the Melbourne Zoo a while ago. I thought I would put it up as it goes with the theme of the photos from Airey's with all the wetland animals and natural still shots.







I really liked the simplicity of this mug and the way the lighting illuminated it so I took a black and white photo..