"The digital image in photographic culture: Algorithmic Photography and the Crisis of Representation" Martin Lister (ed.) (2013)

Source material: Lister, M. (ed.) (2013) The digital image in photographic culture: Algorithmic photography and the crisis of representation. Abingdon: Routledge (pp.22-40)

I started reading this chapter with a dictionary and YouTube to help my understanding of this. I was reminded of the Rosalind Krauss essay within Landscape and I seem to have gone off at a complete tangent although now I have a greater understanding of the portrayal of cinematic time and some of the issues around indexing. I may need to revisit this essay at some point.

Two conceptions of the image 
The chapter illustrates two different methods of portraying moments of time or photographic memories.

Titanic (1997) - "linear progression of structured moments" (Lister, M. 2013:22) life experiences are represented and then you die. Life has been frozen and flattened into a photograph. In this portrayal, visual representation is rational and cannot change. Settings and location give identity. Frozen moments in time are technologically complex but have no expressivity and spontaneity. Foucault - biopolitics - human body was bound to the world by mechanisms of representation.

Memento (2000) Film composed of 2 parallel sequences - black and white is chronological and colour is in reverse order, showing future past and future present. Photography in this film are "points of access that allow movement from one temporality to another following the topology of a band." (Lister, M. 2013:23) Time is a loop with blurred boundaries and was edited following an algorithm.

Memory here is an exploration of measurable time with cinematic time through photographs which depict time in crisis because it is not linear but is made up in several different ways. By placing photographs in this way, the meaning changes according to where it is placed in the sequence and location of the event in the narrative.

Is photography an archive and memory bank? Is it truthful? How photography is portrayed can be repetitive or uncertain and spontaneous. "Photography points in two directions at once; one side faces the objects, people and situations as they appear in the "real world" and is occupied with the representation of events by flattening their 4D space onto a 2D plane of the photograph.(Flusser 2011 as cited by Lister, M. 2013:25)The other side points towards photography's own  condition of manufacturing, which is to say towards the repetition and serial reproduction of the photographic image." (Lister, M. 2013:25)

I have not seen Memento (2000), although watching Arrival (2016), it occurred to me that this film mixes up the chronology of time and depicts three types of time. The basis for the film is taken from "Story of your life" written by Ted Chiang, a sci fi writer. The opening scene uses cinematic blue and the main character cuddling a child. So symbolism suggests to the viewer that perhaps this child has died. The film then follows chronologically the life of Louise (main character) with cut backs periodically to the child's life. Half way through the film, Louise tells her daughter that her name is a palindrome (spelt the same way backwards and forwards) which is the structure of the film. It is revealed towards the end of the film that the child is in the future. The heptapods (aliens) which the main characters meet and interact with consider time differently. Their time is in crisis and non linear, having the power to see into the future which is transferred to Louise which is why the flashbacks she is experiencing are future time. The theme of this film for me was that life is a journey, not a destination and so perhaps it doesn't have to be represented in a linear fashion.

Genealogies of representation
Heidigger - modernity - "world becomes a picture and human being becomes a subject." (Lister, M. 2013:25) Truth is certainty of representing. In the past, (up until Descartes - philosopher in 1600's) representation was allegorical or metaphorical. After Descartes, representation gained the status of a scientific method of enquiry which produced reliable and repeatable results, guaranteeing truth.

The Western world thought that representation of an image was like a diagram which opened up possibilities of seeing the world differently. Humans are rational and can objectify the world, but representation would "establish the human subject as a rational being capable of objectifying  the world, yet on the other hand it limits the ability to know the world only to those aspects of it that can be rationally represented" (Judovitz 1988:67 cited by Lister, M. 2013:)

Heidigger's "picture" actually means representation, knowledge, validation and rationalism.

In photography, Cartesian representation is truthful and scientific. Bazin suggests we accept what we see as the real object in time and space."

Photography has been re-contextualized into power and discipline. In 2005, photography was still accepted as an informal idea in which the world is divided through light and shapes the chemicals into an analogue print.

The porridge of the index
Digital photographs do not have the same cultural of linguistic properties as its analogue counterpart.
The two are different and the change from one to another allows theorists to stand back and consider the assumption and paradigms that are associated with analogue photography. Krauss. I had to read around indexing in more detail.

"Peirce defines the index as a category of signs that maintains a physical tie to its referent[...] e.g. Photographs, especially instantaneous photographs are very instructive because we know that they are in certain respects exactly like the objects that they represent." (Schwartz, J. 2017)

This classification was too simple which led to confusion. Is there an indexical relationship within digital mediums? Photography is now more down to the algorithm of the data collected by the camera. Pixels can be manipulated so truth can be questioned. Although even analogue photography was not always truthful.

Where is the image once it has been uploaded to the internet?

References
Lister, M. (ed.) (2013) The digital image in photographic culture: Algorithmic photography and the crisis of representation. Abingdon: Routledge
Schwartz. J. (2017) Is a photograph still an index if it's on the internet? Available at: http://dismagazine.com/discussion/41736/a-discursive-mask/ [last accessed 31/01/2017]

Bibliography
Arrival (2016) directed by Dennis Villneuve [streamed] 21 laps entertainment, Lava Bear films USA [last accessed 31/01/2017]
Canfield, J. (2016) Arrival's ending explained [online] available at: http://screenrant.com/arrival-movie-2016-ending-time-explained/ [last accessed 31/01/2017]

Ectoplasm: Photography in the Digital Age - Geoffrey Bachten (1999)

Source material: Bachten, G. (1999) Over Exposed: Essays in Contemporary Photography. New York: The New Press. pp.9-23

Context - article now 17 years old. In 1999, digital photography was in its infancy. Milestones included Nikon D1 digital camera, photography highway.com (where photos could be uploaded to and stored), lithium batteries and compact flash cards had only just been made available.

Summary of the main points from this chapter:
Following the themes of photography is dead arising from two main concerns in 1999 over technology (introduction of computerised images) and epistemological concerns regarding cultural changes, ethics, knowledge and validity) Bachten explored whether these could signify an end to photography.

Balzar viewed daguerreotypes as black magic thinking portrait photography removed a spectral layer from the body which was transferred to the photo.

Motion blur from a slow exposure time was overcome by propping the subject up with a frame giving them a corpse like appearance.

Development of "Memento Mori" (photographing the dead)

Double exposure produced ghosts - became a profitable business

Photography replaced miniature paintings and prints made from copper or steel engravings.

Walter Benjamin wrote The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936) in which he hypothesised that photography transforms an aura or authenticity into a commodity which would speed up the downfall of capitalism. "One could expect [capitalism] not only to exploit the proletariat with increasing intensity, but ultimately to create conditions which would make it possible to abolish capitalism itself." (Benjamin, as cited by Bachten, 1999:12) Bachten concludes that "like the
daguerreotype, it is a force that is simultaneously positive and negative." (Bachten, 1999:12)

Development of photography in the 1800's came from death of the Natural Philosophy and Enlightenment.

1839 - Talbot defined his early photography as the "art of fixing shadow."(Bachten, 1999:13)

Daguerre captured passing of time by taking 3 exposures at different times of day. "By bringing the past and the present together in one viewing experience, Daguerre showed that photography could fold time back on itself." (Bachten, 1999:13)

1845 -  The Athenaeum "photography has already enabled us to hand down to future ages a picture of the sunshine of yesterday." (Schaaf as cited by Bachten, 1999:13) Photography important for recording passage of time and intimating at individual's mortality.

Barthes - Camera Lucida - photography shows the past and future in same photograph. Reality is truth to presence rather than truth to appearance. ("A matter of being ... rather than resemblance" Bachten, 1999:14)).

Death of chemical photography predicted by increase in digital imaging. More research and advertising was put into digital imaging and related products. Bill Gates (1989) bought company which leased electronic images and a fee was paid for "use rights".

Public concerned with image integrity - scanning and manipulating of images altered "truth" of documentary images. Users of digital imaging argued for creativity and art form. In an attempt to identify manipulated images to the public, papers considered adding an M to manipulated images which raised the question of truth and validity. Photography is manipulation of light levels, exposure times etc.

Sontag and Krauss believed a photograph was proof of being if not truthful.

Digital images could be created from a computer programme but looks like a photograph. A representation of perceived representations. Digital image is virtual reality. People were defending the reality of the photograph.

Digital imaging is still subject to the people who take, make, programme the image just as in photography. Human values and culture important in the process and control of photography and digital imaging.

Changing world makes us question  issues such as how human we are with GM foods etc. So what happens to the culture of photography? Peirce - real and representation inhabit each other.

Derrida "this concept of the photograph photographs all conceptual oppositions, it traces a relationship of haunting which is perhaps constitutive of all logics." (Derrida as cited by Bachten, 1999:22)

"Photography will cease to be a dominant element of modern life only when the desire to photograph, and the peculiar arrangement of knowledges and investments which that desire represents is reconfigured as another social and cultural formation. " (Bachten, 1999:22)

References
Bachten, G. (1999) Over Exposed: Essays in Contemporary Photography. New York: The New Press.

Bibliography
Practical Photography Tips. (n.d.) Digital Photography Timeline - Part 2 1990's. [online] available from: http://www.practicalphotographytips.com/Photography-Basics/digital-photography-timeline.html (last accessed 6/1/17)
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7/1/17

I was interested to read a press release published by Kodak Alaris during CES (Computer Electronics and Tradeshow) 2017 which promoted Kodak's development of an old product Kodak Professional Ektachrome Colour Reversal Film E100 Extremely fine grain. This will be on the market by the end of 2017. It was discontinued in 2012. This is a slide film which is colour positive when exposed and processed.

"Resurgence in the popularity of analog photography has created demand for new and old film products alike. Sales of professional photographic films have been steadily rising over the last few years, with professionals and enthusiasts rediscovering the artistic control offered by manual processes and the creative satisfaction of a physical end product." (Kodak Alaris, 2017)

“Film is our heritage and we remain committed to meeting the evolving needs of today’s film shooters,” said Dennis Olbrich, President – Kodak Alaris Imaging Paper, Photo Chemicals and Film. “We’ve been listening to the needs and desires of photographers over the past several years and wanted to bring back a color reversal film. In assessing the opportunity, EKTACHROME was the clear choice.” (Kodak Alaris, 2017)

This once again raises questions of the future of the digital image. Will we be looking at the death of the digital image in a few years from now? If a large company has reinstated an "improved film" after 5 years, will other companies follow suit? Is there a move afoot back to analogue processes or is it that dedicated film users prefer this medium? Will the photographers or users of the images try and justify that these are "film" images instead of digital images and how does this address the issue of asking the consumers of images to question the validity and truth of images? It will be interesting to follow this during Digital Imaging and Culture.

Reference

Kodak Alaris. (2017) Kodak Alaris Reintroduces Iconic EKTACHROME Still Film. [online press release]. Available from: http://www.kodakalaris.com/en-us/about/press-releases/2016/kodak-alaris-reintroduces-iconic-ektachrome-still-film (last accessed 7/1/17)

I knew the Spice Girls - Joan Fontcuberta (2014)

Source material: Fontcuberta, J. (2014) Pandora's Camera: Photogr@phy after Photography, London: Mack pp.56-63

Summary of the main points from this chapter:

Discussion of the differences between analogue (chemical) photography versus digital photography.
Fontcuberta uses the analogue and modern photobooth to illustrate certain points. In the old photobooth, the subject cannot control the lighting, background and frame making the photograph a uniform object whereas in the new booth, the subject can choose who to be photographed with from a list of famous people and change variables which question the reality of the image.  The subject can retake the image several times before paying until content with the outcome; culturally acceptable but the unconscious gaze is lost.

Digital photography is ubiquitous (found everywhere) and used by the press, in advertising, documentation, family reunions, holidays etc. whereas users of analogue photography find it more difficult and more expensive to use film making it now more of a craft. As photographers we have to balance the pros and cons and bear in mind that new may not necessarily be better.

Death of photography may be seen as being comparable to the art world's death of paintings. Issues have to discussed before the rebirth. This could be similar to the different era's in photography [expand] photography to post-photograpic era.

Culturally do we consider digital photography as "having a visuality" (Fontcuberta, 2014:59) as it is composed of pixels rather than chemicals? How much is covered under digital photography? Hypographics? Infographics? Referred to by Bernard Stiegler as "analogico-digital images" (Fontcuberta, 2014:53)

Unique identity of images - chemicals are replaced by information. The eye cannot tell the difference although we "know" that we are deceived. "Post photography occupies a parallel position in the new culture of the virtual and the speculative."( Fontcuberta, 2014: 59)

Culture and values were applied to chemical photography and the same or different values need to be applied to digital photography. Because the 19th century was linked to memory, documents, archiving and control and surveillance, chemical photography embedded the idea of truth, identity and objectivity.

Fontcuberta sees digital photography as similar to painting, in that it is composed of pixels which can be modified and combined with another image. This can also be done with a chemical photograph although using different techniques and processes, so he argues that, "in essence, a pictorial image and a digital image are identical." (Fontcuberta, 2014:60) Fontcuberta hypothesises that artists could have progressed from painting to digital imaging without photography.

However, within photography, values and communication about the subject were established. Traditional photography was based on realism and reflected the real world. When photographs are constructed, realism disappears and the image becomes illusionary. Technology and truth are unsettling and the object is lost from memory. Meaning then has to be established.

Digital photography, like traditional photography, can convey fiction which people believe to be authentic because scenes have always been manipulated. So the viewer has to become more critically aware of the content of the photograph, whichever the medium.

In traditional photography, a photograph was seen as an object. With digital photography, it floats in cyberspace. The content of a photograph ensures it is displayed or archived in different places - e.g museums or official documents.

"Digital technology has dematerialised photography which has now become pure visual data, content without physical matter, an image without a body." (Fontcuberta, 2014:62) Preservation and conservation of digital photography will have to be considered.

References:
Fontcuberta, J. (2014) Pandora's Camera: Photogr@phy after Photography, London: Mack

"Obedient Numbers, soft delight" Geoffrey Batchen (2002)

Source: Batchen, G. (2002) Each Wild Idea. Cambridge, MA. MIT Press. pp.165-174

The Oxford English Dictionary [online] defines digital as:

"Digital (of signals or data) expressed as a series of the digits 0 and 1 typically represented by values of a physical quantity such as voltage or magnetic polarisation.
1.1 relating to, using, or storing of data in the form of digital signals
1.2 involving or relating to the use of computer technology" (Oxford Dictionary, 2017)

Computing and photography as we know it were developed at around the same point in history, by people who shared interests and were part of the same peer group. Social and cultural conditions were examined from the birth of computing and photography as well as political and representational challenges. This chapter elaborated on Fontcuberta's observation of why digital photography could have been developed at the same time as computers.

Summary of the main points from this chapter:
The impending death of photography because of the emergence of digital photography as we know it today encouraged debate on whether photography and computing share a common history.

Modern computer pioneer - Charles Babbage (1833) Analytical Engine (English). Friends with Fox Talbot and John Herschel. 1839 - Fox Talbot sent 8 prints and calotypes (paper negative coated with silver iodide) to Babbage which he displayed on the wall. Babbage displayed a working model of  the Difference Engine. Batchen speculates that "Babbage's drawing room encountered photography and computing together for the first time at the same time." (Batchen, 2002:165)

Talbot contributed to the design of Babbage's later computer. Babbage enabled Talbot's prints to be distributed in Italy. Babbage sat for a stereoscopic portrait and news of his death was photographed by Reijlander.

1839 - Talbot's image from a camera obscurer was subject to debate the "identity of photography... the source of it's generative power [and] was a photogenic drawing produced by the cultural merger of camera and chemistry , or [...]nature spontaneously representing itself?" (Batchen, 2002:166)

1837 - Babbage decided his computer enabled nature and God to represent itself in mathematical equations.

1839 - photography accepted in America to make photographs of landscape.

1839 - Talbot's contact printing of lace (taken from the lace itself) was seen as a representation of reality. Argument for photograph seeing "the world in binary terms, as a patterned order of the absence and presence of light." (Batchen, 2002:167)

1839 - Talbot made a photogenic drawing of lace (negatives produced on paper) magnified 100x through a lens demonstrating mathematics applied to photography.

1844 - Talbot made positive and negative copies of the lace (colours differed). Reproduction and repetition of the same object possible.

In conclusion, computers and photography were linked by "the transformation of human beings into data - in this case, digitised for the purpose of making predictive judgements that fix them in space and time (that photograph them). (Batchen, 2002:171)

Batchen compares the computer's lack of boundaries of power (where the user becomes the subject and the object at the same time) to the disciplinary power of photography using Michael Foucault's theory of panopticism where the subject becomes the prisoner and the jailer (or the subject and object of their own gaze) somewhere between reality and virtual.

Batchen recommends that contemporary critical art should be composed of maths and philosophy.

"An object is frequently not seen, from not knowing how to see it, rather than from any defect in the organ of vision." (Babbage cited in Batchen, 2002:174)

References
Batchen, G. (2002) Each Wild Idea. Cambridge, MA. MIT Press.
Oxford Dictionary. (2017) "Digital" definition. [online] Available from: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/digital (last accessed 5/1/17)

The found image in photomontage

"Use readily available images to make a short narrative series of 4 to 6 collages based on a recent or contemporary news event." OCA course material

February 2017. Donald Trump, having been elected as the President of the United States of America, continues to divide citizens with his policies. On day 1,  he proposed the 2 pipelines through Keystone XL and Dakota Access which passes near tribal land belonging to the Standing Rock Sioux which President Obama had blocked. The natives are still demonstrating against Trump's proposal. One of the images I was going to create was a bulldozer going across the Sioux land until I found an image posted on the internet which Google advertised as being posted 2 days before similar to this one. (I should have saved the one I came across). I questioned whether this was a "real"image or created and searched the news to find out what may be happening. However, Trump's news does not seem to be entirely accurate.

NBC News 9/2/2017

Instead, I used the idea that Mount Rushmore (in Black Rocks, Dakota near to the Sioux tribes) is seen as a tourist destination which people like to impose their self or their ego onto. Mount Rushmore "signifies achievements of the U.S. symbolised by the four great leaders." (Ulmer: 1994)

Day 2 saw one of Trump's themes throughout the election campaign come to fruition. Trump thinks America should be for Americans and his plans to build a wall between America and Mexico has been a source of media interest since the campaign. Since coming to power this is still high on the agenda with radical plans to stop non Americans entering the country. Using the Brandenburg gate (now considered a symbol of unity,) I juxtaposed Trump's vision of America onto the Berlin Wall which was built to restrict movement of people from East to West Berlin.

Yesterday this was floating around the internet, and a quick Google check revealed composite images of Trump and Ikea.

Covarrubias, S. (2017)

By the end of Week 1, Trump banned people travelling to America from 7 countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days. His administration took the issue to the American Supreme Court who ruled that the ban was unlawful and thus suspended.

Trump is still fighting to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)...

References
Covarrubias, S. (2017) Fake News: Ikea builds Trump a prefab border wall. [online] Available at: http://www.hotsaucedrops.com/?author=104 (last accessed 21/2/17)
Ulmer, G. (1994) Metaphoric rocks: A psychogeography of tourism and monumentality. [online] Available at: http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/text-only/issue.594/pop-cult.594 (last accessed 21/2/17)

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Peter Kennard
Kennard's career span 50 years, and documents political unrest through photo montage. Inspired by John Heartfield. Informs the public through the "visual culture of conflict and crisis in modern history."(Slocombe, 2015) Kennard communicates events by sharing images to inform the public such as fly posters, protest placards, newspapers etc. Photo Opp (2003) by Peter Kennard and Cat Phillips shows Tony Blair taking a selfie against a burning oil field to document the controversial Iraq policy.

Kennard uses ideas which people are familiar with and presents them so that people have to look at what they see. The "Haywain with cruise missile" (1981) (originally painted by Constable) contains American cruise missiles instead of hay. In "Boardroom", a skeleton is reading a book called "protect and survive" with an image of a nuclear family on the cover.

Reference
Slocombe, R. (2015) Protest and Survive: Why Peter Kennard is political dynamite. The Guardian. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/may/01/blair-selfie-peter-kennard-political-dynamite (last accessed 9/2/17)

Bibliography
IWM (2016) Art.IWM ART 17541. Available at: http://www.iwm.org.uk/learning/resources/contemporary-art-and-war (last accessed 5/2/17)

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Lisa Barnard Chateau Despair
Barnard's book uses photographs of Mrs Thatcher's derelict Conservative office which conflict with the memories of her party's leadership with which she took Britain through the Thatcherism years after her landslide victories. Interspersed among the conservative blue walls and faded carpets are found campaign photographs of Margaret Thatcher ruined with age which make the viewer question the success of the campaigns, documented history and individual memories.

Bibliography
Gost books. (2013) Chateau Despair by Lisa Barnard. Available at: https://vimeo.com/57283237 (last accessed 5/2/17)
Gost. (n.d.) Chateau Despair / Lisa Barnard. Available at: http://www.gostbooks.com/books/31/chateau-despair (last accessed 5/2/17)
Rawnsley, A. (2013) Chateau Despair by Lisa Barnard: The real Iron Lady by Gillian Shephard review. The Guardian [online] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/mar/25/chateau-despair-iron-lady-shephard-review (last accessed 21/2/17)

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Cummings, C. (2014) "Hannah Hoch review." In The Guardian. [online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jan/13/hannah-hoch-whitechapel-review (last accessed 5/2/17)

Though a digital lens

Part 1

Discuss a photograph that takes an existing work of art as its starting point. Write a 500 word reflection on your chosen piece in your learning log.

Prosperine (1874) Gabrielle Rosetti

Fig 1: Prosperine (1874)

I came across this image in every charity bookshop I visited. I was planning to use this for part one, until research led me to an exhibition the Tate had run last year called Painting with Light (2016). I also discovered Minna Keene (Observation 1: Pomegranates 1905) had made a different photograph using the same painting as a basis which is mislabelled as Zaida Ben Yusuf's photograph by more than one site on the internet, questioning the truth of the internet as an archive.

Rosetti made 8 paintings of this, not being satisfied with his original attempt. He wrote to WA Turner, a customer in 1877 explaining the meaning behind the Greek myth which led him to paint the picture. William Morris suggested to Rosetti that painting Morris's wife as a representation of this myth would work as it was similar to their own lives. In mythology, Persiphone ate a pomegranate given to her by Hades resulting in her spending part of the year in the underworld.

The painting contains several signifiers :

Pomegranate - marriage, fertility, seeds indicate number of children (in this case number of months to spend with Hades in another world)

Ivy - perennial life, immortality, strong affectionate attachment

Gloomy corridor - trapped in her own world

light in the middle of the painting = passage to another place

Wrist angle - submissive

Facial expression - resentment

“The odor of pomegranates” (1899) Zaida Ben Yusuf 

Fig 2. The odor of pomegranates (1899)

Zaida Ben Yusuf (1869-1933)

Born in London to a German mother and Algerian father. She became an American citizen working in a portrait studio on 5^th Ave New York with work published in magazines and exhibiting in photography exhibitions.

Ben Yusuf photographed artists, actors, writers and political people in her studio. As part of the International Photography Congress in Paris (1900), Frances Benjamin Johnson presented 142 photographs by 28 women photographers, which also exhibited in Moscow. This image featured amongst her exhibited work In 1901 she was voted one of 6 “Foremost Women Photographers of America” by the Ladies Home Journal.

This publication was influential to middle class American women, inspiring them to recreate the images and develop a style of photographs representative of the Pictorialist movement who favoured beauty over reality. By using a soft blur, the image was similar to paintings.

Comparing the“The odor of pomegranates” with Dante Gabrielle Rosetti’s “Prosperine” (1874) both study a young woman looking at a pomegranate. In Rosetti’s painting the pomegranate is partially eaten suggesting that the fruit is reflecting regret about Rosetti’s love life (see above). Ben Yusuf’s uneaten fruit explores temptation (such as in Adam and Eve’s forbidden apple) seductiveness and desire. The averted gaze and expression suggests intimacy. Ben Yusuf’s subject is a study of form. The folded light drapes and pale skin contrast with the patterned drapes of the curtain, creating an emphasis on light and shadow. Rosetti captured the light in a different way - to show the gloomy life 

she shared with William Morris (her husband) and the bright light she could go to with Hades (Rosetti) with whom she shared an intimate relationship. The pomegranate seeds would normally represent fertility and the number of children the woman would have. In this case it refers to spending 6 months with Hades.

Part 2

Next remake an existing work of art using photography.

Figure 3 Hering, H (1856-7) Florence Nightingale

Illustrations

Figure 1. Rosetti, Dante. (1874)  Prosperine. [online] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rossetti-proserpine-n05064 last accessed 2/4/17

Figure 2. Yusuf, Zaida. (1899) The odor of pomegranates. [online] Available at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/zaida/gallery/newwoman01.html last accessed 2/4/17
Figure 3 Hering, H (1856-7) Florence Nightingale [photograph] Available at:  https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw111411/Florence-Nightingale?LinkID=mp03298&wPage=0&role=sit&rNo=10 Last accessed 26/2/18

Bibliography

Crompton, S. (2016) She takes a good picture: six forgotten pioneers of female photography. Guardian. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/may/06/underexposed-the-forgotten-female-pioneers-of-photography last accessed 2/4/17

Kerr, M. (2016) How photography and painting focused the Victorian mind. Apollo International Art Magazine. Available at: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/how-photography-and-painting-focused-the-victorian-mind/ lasst accessed 2/4/17

Lawson, S. (1995) Dopplegangers. Available at: http://wendymcmurdo.com/text/dopplegangers/ last accessed 2/4/2017

Linssen, D. (2007-2017)  American Women Photographers 1900-1940. Oxford Art online Available at: http://www.oxfordartonline.com/public/page/benz/themes/AmericanWomenPhotographers last accessed 2/4/17

Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (n.d.) Zaida Ben Yusuf. [online] Available at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/zaida/gallery/newwoman01.html last accessed 2/4/17

O'Hagan, S. (2012) Hisaji Hara review. The Observer. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/feb/26/hisaji-hara-photography-hoppen-review last accessed 2/4/17

Tate (2016) Painting with light: Art and photography from the Pre-Raphaelites to the modern age. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/painting-light last accessed 2/4/17

Tate (2016) People behind the pictures - Painting with light. Availabe at: http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/people-behind-pictures-painting-with-light

last accessed 2/4/17

Tate (n.d.) Prosperine. Dante Gabrielle. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rossetti-proserpine-n05064 last accessed 2/4/2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJQYSPFo7hk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-XnQ2Wsxl8

Layering techniques

Artists such as Corinne Vionnette, Idris Khan, Helen Sear and Esther Teichmann use layering to create contemporary composite images. I had previously looked at Helen Sear's work and concentrated on the work of Khan and Vionnette because the context of their photographs appealed to me.

Corinne Vionnette (Swiss artist/photographer) “Photo Opportunities” (2005-15)

Corinne Vionnette held solo exhibitions in Dubai (2009), Switzerland (2012) and New York (2015) and has been part of collaborative shows.

Vionnette builds up her image of a tourist destination from around 100 or more tourist photographs found on the internet and turns them into a photograph reminiscent of an impressionist style painting.

Her interest stemmed from a trip to a tourist destination in Pisa, Italy where she watched people photographing the same image and wondered what they looked like, if the photographs used the same angle of view and questioned what photographs they have stored on the internet. She was curious as to what people wanted to remember from their trip. This reminds me of the objectification of places into commodities (e.g postcards and stereoscopic views) in the 19th century and instead people take their own images as cameras are more accessible to everyone.

Using one prominent feature of the landscape such as the point on a tower or a dome on a cathedral or a column on the Acropolis to line the found photographs up, Vionnette also includes different seasons and times of day. The images are made transparent and layered which gives the impression of the number of tourists who visited the places. What starts off as a personal memory to a tourist is shared on the internet and becomes a collective memory built up of the place by the photographer. Vionnette is interested in the modification of people's behaviour following the rise of digital photography noting the move away from archiving in a family album to archiving online to share with family and friends. 

Vionnette’s research is based on the number of tourists visiting a particular place and how the tourist place is represented in brochures: i.e. symbolism or landmarks. She uses the cliches of tourist destinations and her work questions motivations of tourists who take pictures at these places, showing the abundance of the same images.

Other artists who have used this type of layering are Ken Kitano, a Japanese artist who builds up portraits of people using a similar technique to build a common photograph of an occupation “Our Face” (ongoing).  Idris Khan e.g. St Pauls London (2012) monochrome image built up from layers of images to form a composite image, not necessarily lining any points of the buildings up. The monochrome effect gives the image sketch like qualities. Khan's concept varies from Vionnette’s in the sense that he explains time, place and memory are represented in his images. This is how I view both his and Vionnette’s work.

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How my work relates to these artists

Following the study of Vionnette and Khan's series of layered digital images, I looked at local tourist places. Elizabethan houses hold an interest for me, particularly as my locality is dominated with houses built by or used by Bess of Hardwick. 

Research

Using the internet, I investigated which tourist and social media sites housed images of the buildings. Instagram, google maps, google, Flickr, trip advisor etc. I searched for images taken from the same angle of view (discovered there is a snapchat filter which reverses images) Some images I used were screen shots as they could not be downloaded.

Images

Chatsworth Hunting Lodge, Derbyshire

Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire

Rufford Abbey, Nottinghamshire

Wingfield Manor, Derbyshire

Bolsover Castle, Derbyshire

Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire

Learning points 
The more images available of somewhere the more layered the image is (mine have used between 7 and 15 images)
Moving layers around in Photoshop creates a different image May take several attempts of layering to give the right amount of transparency
Some images on Flickr are the same image with different processing techniques

Image needs scale – large building against small people. Trial of Robin Hood sculpture did not work due to the scale of the statue and people.

Bibliography
Alexander, J. (2012) Inside the view. Available at:  http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2012/10/inside-the-view/ (last accessed 2/2/17)
Campany, D. (2017) Helen Sear, Inside the view. Available at: http://davidcampany.com/helen-sear-inside-the-view/ (last accessed 2/2/17)
Government Art Collection. (n.d.) Idris Khan in Dublin. Available at: http://www.gac.culture.gov.uk/720.html (last accessed 2/2/17)

Galerie-photo (2012) Corinne Vionnette, Photo Opportunities. Available at: http://www.galerie-photo.com/corinne-vionnet.html (last accessed 2/2/17)

Jones, G. (2013) Photo Opportunities: An interview with artist Corinne Vionnette. Available at: https://petapixel.com/2013/10/23/photo-opportunities-interview-artist-corinne-vionnet/ (last accessed 2/2/17)
Jones, G. (n.d.) Corinne Vionette and the democratic snapshot .Available at: http://www.inthein-between.com/corinne-vionnet-and-the-democratic-snapshot/ (last accessed 2/2/17)
Miro, V. (n.d.) Idris Khan, St. Pauls, London 2012. Available at: http://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/14-idris-khan/works/artworks15671/ (last accessed 2/2/17)Newman, C. (2011) Looks familiar: Corinne Vionnette at Arles Photography Festival. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/8607995/Looks-familiar-Corinne-Vionnet-at-Arles-photography-festival.html (last accessed 2/2/17)
Web odysseum (2012) Superimposed portraits - Ken Kitano. Available at: http://webodysseum.com/art/superimposed-portraits-ken-kitano/ (last accessed 2/2/17)
Yale, M. (n.d.) Photo Opportunities. Available at: https://www.lensculture.com/articles/corinne-vionnet-photo-opportunities (last accessed 2/2/17)
Yale - Preston, M. (n.d.) Photo Opportunities. Available at: http://www.corinnevionnet.com/-photo-opportunities.html (last accessed 2/2/17)

Preliminary exercise

This day involved a supermarket shop as well as photographing the everyday images at home. I went for a walk around the village and was surprised by the amount of images I found. The images I drove past at bus stops etc are not recorded.

I was surprised at the number of signs outside the co-op. Trip hazard as well as advertising. It is opposite a Tesco so they are making a point with the images in the window as well as outside the shop. The housing estate advertises new houses which don't look like this.

I thought I would be bombarded by images. The amount of images (especially the unrecorded ones) is surprising and it is no wonder we get image blind at times. Most of the images are advertising. I stopped reading the online articles in the local newspaper because of the number of adverts.  Couple this with social media and I  wonder how the photographer gets their work seen. Thinking back to an earlier exercise in Landscape, perhaps one of the advantages of attending a gallery exhibition is that the viewer has space to look at specific work. It becomes an event rather than a bombardment. I thought Facebook had a good idea when I found I could save articles. However, my saved list became longer as I didn't have the space to read it all.