Spring 2013 History of Photography

I think because the photographer takes his pictures without people in it, it allows viewers more room for imagination. They can put themselves in the scene and try to get a sense of how those people felt. They do not have to be there and see how the people reacted. Just by looking at the setting, they can already guess how those people felt. For the photographer, he is more interested in the setting then the people. He wants to show the amount of destruction the homes have taken. In disasters people all react the same, but the damages are not always the same. It also makes the photographer more unique. Many people enjoy taking portraits because they want to capture the emotion. On the other hand, he wants to capture the view and not the emotion of the people. He could possibly think that portraits are too common and landscape pictures can give more imagination for viewers.

First of all, the eyes are not playing an important role in the overall expression of a sleeping person. Because of that, we can only see the person from his facial expression. Normally a sleeping person does not have any thought in their mind since he is not being conscious. Therefore, the most apparent expression to the viewer would be the time when an asleep person dreams. By that time, the sleeper will reflect their mental thought to their physical appearance and the expression from that asleep person would become more apparent to the outside viewers.

After reading the article and the have look the photographs by Robert Polidori. I really love the photographs that he took,and i his photographs aestheticize the settings of catastrophe. It is not about to change the setting, but the color and the mood. I think he did change the color of the photographs,also those photographs are very focus on theme and very attractive. In addition, when I first to look at the photos of Chernobyl, I do really feel about what have had happened in that time period. Because the that places are still messed up and not been clean at all. The feeling that he trying to express is wants people to have the same feeling in those places,makes people believes.

Effects in old films are very obvious, the older a film the more obvious the effects are. For the time period the effects were well done and some are even considered iconic (moon landing). These days we’re use to not even telling special effects apart from reality (for the most part) one good example from a recent film that blew my mind was the extensive amount of CGI used in The Avengers film. The way photography was made in a studio and the way this film was made seem similar. It gives this feeling that the makers had to come up with elaborate ways to do these effects just like photographers had to. The photographic camera and film camera have a lot in common, both are invented with the same concept of capturing light and saving that image for later viewing. Both are built similar and user many of the same parts, these days its hard to find a camera that does one but not the other. Of course the big difference between a photographic camera and film camera was motion. The only way to “catch” motion with a camera was by having multiple cameras set up to capture image after image then presenting them fast enough to show the motion. Film cameras work the same way but much more smoother.

A Trip To The Moon does recall practices of early photography. One of the first things that I noticed was the frame, the camera did not move. Individuals were placed inside of  the view of the camera only, if they moved out of the frame they were cut off.  The scenery was very one dimensional (although good during that era). In the short film there is also a backdrop that is consistently used through each scene. In the Smashing Pumpkins video the holographic appearance of the artists while they were singing, also their stoic postures in both the short film and video can be related to early photography. Differences are; movement, in the Smashing Pumpkins video there seems to be more special effects such as the smoke, movement of water and fire among others. Most importantly toward the ending the bubble that airlifted the couple away.

Robert Polidori’s photographs seem to have a lot of patterns in them, not all of them of course but a majority. Tons of details gets brought out, maybe its his use of a large format camera. I think its good that his photographs don’t have people in them, people get boring fast and a change is always welcome. I don’t think his photos give aesthetic to catastrophe but show us a very detailed “Real World” that we’re not accustomed to viewing. They are definitely powerful statements, statements of truth and a reality that we don’t see everyday. They show us the aftermath of a story we may never experience and hope we don’t go through. Whether it’s a terrible hurricane or a nuclear disaster.

Robert Polidori’s photography is very inspirational and displays a solid setting. I do believe that his photographs aestheticize the settings of catastrophe. Polidri has the ability to take the most gruesome or heartbreaking pictures and make them appear beautiful. In his interview he stated that his work is a part of him, he “embrace(s) things and ingest them and they become a part of (him)”. In order to take powerful photographs Polidri has to emotionally and physically place himself in the environment that he is capturing. His photographs of Hurricane Katrina and Chernobyl were two among many horrific working conditions, not to mention he did put his health endanger in order to capture and demonstrate the damage these disasters caused. His work evokes powerful emotions from viewers, although it may be a melancholy situation in history, his photographs somehow capture the slightest opportunity of beauty in the moment.

I’m a really big fan of the Smashing Pumpkins’ video, but I never saw the whole original movie before. It is funny for us to watch this kind of attempts to create special effects, but for that time, I believe Melies did an excellent work. The movie is similar to the pictures taken in the 19th century because everything is like arranged inside a studio. However, I believe that it was the only way for them to be able to create all this special effects. Something similar between the photographic and the film camera is that you capture reality inside a frame; you may have an idea of what is outside the frame, but you are limited to see only what the lens capture. However, one huge difference, is that in film, you have to be aware of motion. In a picture, you just capture a moment, but in film you capture “many moments”, so you need to prevent what is going to happen, in order to get what you want inside the frame. If I’m correct, in this movie the camera is not moving, so for example in minute 4 to 5, the entrance to the ship is almost out of frame to the left, so we miss some of the people coming in and making funny movements. Nowadays, the movies require Photography Directors, who are actually in charge of this kind of details, but I’ve seen so many movies that have many errors, and I think people who make movies should pay more attention to framing and composition inside the frame.

Georges Méliès was a genius doing all of those mechanical effects in Le voyage dans la lune. Most of the effects in the short film by  Méliès were either practical, physical and atmospheric effects. My favorite effect was the one where the moon occupies the whole frame and the spaceship lands on his left eye. I think this film recalls some practices of early photography. For example, in photography cameras were set up in a specific spot and was not move. The same way it was for film cameras, they were set up in front of the scenario that will record and was not able to move around. So, all of the performance had to be limited to a certain space where the frame of the film camera will take. Some of the similarities between the photographic camera and the film camera is that both can create optical effects using multiple exposures and they have to stay still. Some differences are of course, that photographic camera captures a fraction of time in a negative while a film camera captures motion and movement. It is amazing to see how the evolution of photographic and film cameras has changed.