Neoteric Photography aims to explore photography in an age where the image is everywhere. The image has become prolific yet easily forgotten. Hoping to find something to hold onto, something that will survive longer that it takes for pixels to appear upon a screen.
Today we were looking at quality control on Photoshop and so I chose and image to practice with. To begin I checked the actual pixels by zooming in and visually checking how sharp and clear my image was. I went over the whole image to check for dust and spots and blemishes.
I then opened the clone stamp tool by right clicking on the clone stam icon and then 'clone stamp' tool. My menu for this tool then appeared at the top my workspace
I then chose a blemish I wanted to remove the models face, I then clicked on ALT - and clicked on my mouse in area very close to the blemish to get the tight skin colour to clone. I then clicked gently over blemish in 'normal' blend mode. If that had not worked or it was too light or too dark I would have changed the blend mode for this blemish.
I continued using the clone stamp tool and did this for other areas with spots and blemishes and changed the blend mode accordingly. I can also changed the shape and size of the brush in the top menu depending on the area. I will always use a soft brush on portrait images. Opacity was 100% as we were removing errors in the image.
I then went on to look at the other adjustments so I went to 'image' in the top menu and then 'adjustments'. I went to 'curves' and the dialog box popped up.
I then gently moved the line to make the image very slightly lighter so that it popped a little when I added the to my website. I just clicked 'ok' when I was happy with the adjustment.
I also looked at sharpness so I went to 'Filter' in the top menu then I opened 'unsharp mask' in teh drop down box and the dialog box opened.
My image was fairly sharp but had a little softness so I very gently moved the sharpness amount from 50% to 73%. I then looked at the radius and this the radius of pixels to 3.0 pixels and then I changed the threshold to 8 levels.
Threshold means: 'Threshold in Photoshop is an essential feature that enables users to transform images into high-contrast, black-and-white versions. By selecting a specific level as a threshold, the tool converts pixels lighter than the threshold to white and those darker to black. This powerful image adjustment can be used to enhance artistic effects, improve image clarity, or determine the lightest and darkest areas of an image.' (Martin, 2023)
I then chose another image and completed the same visual checks and used the clone stamp tool again to remove spots and blemishes.
I then went to 'image' in the top menu and then 'adjustments' I chose to adjust the vibrance of this image as I thought I could make this pop a little more. Therefore I clicked on 'vibrance' and in the dialog box and moved the slider until I was happy with the vibrance level at +23. I thne clicked on 'OK'
I also looked at the image in black and white as often images may look better in black and white and sometimes it is nice to see the difference particularly when thinking about images for final project.
Therefore, I clicked on 'image' and then 'adjustments' and then 'black and white'. A dialog box then opened with range of colours that make up the black and white. I slightly adjusted tried as this will make the image slightly warmer as a black and white image. Once I was happy with the image I clicked on 'OK' to apply the changes. The results can be seen below.
This was just a practice. When I have completed my final shoot I will curate my images and then I will use these quality control techniques before I complete the presentation process ready for my website.
References
Martin, G. (2023). What Is Threshold In Photoshop? [online] PRO EDU. Available at: https://proedu.com/blogs/photoshop-skills/what-is-threshold-in-photoshop? [Accessed 29 Jan. 2025].
Please find my project sign-off here for this term. My project will be a short performance art film that is my response to the Trump Inauguration. I will be looking at other performance artists such as Yoko Ono, the Vienna Actionists and Pippi Lotti Rist to inform my project work.
I will begin my research on portrits by loooking at a photograph by Diane Arbus. I have chosen this image of Child with a toy hand grenade (1962). I chose this image as the boy drew me into the image, he looks strange and wild with hands clenched. Is this boy posing? Is the photographer directing this boy to strike this pose, pull this face or is this what the boy looks like? He is at the forefront of the image with background of the park dropping out behind him, it is a sunny day in New York City. The boy is slightly off centre and light of the tree creates a pattern of light and he is standing on a path and the leading line is disappearing into the park where we see others strolling in the sun in the background. looking closely at the boy with the wild look in his eyes and the hand grenade, I feel that this boy was directed, he looks directly into the camera, challenging the viewer. His dirty knees and wrinkled socks, his clothes with the dungaree strap falling off his shoulder emphasise that perhaps all is not well.
The boy in this image was called Colin Wood and, at this time in America, the Vietnam War (1955-1975) was at its height and the boy understood this Bree Hughes from the auction house stated; 'Arbus captures a boy on the cusp of adolescence yet still playing with toys—but the object is a plastic grenade, an object of war' (Cascone, 2017). The boy, Colin Wood was looked after by nannies and his parents were divorcing so he was quite angry and frustrated, 'years later he [Colin Wood] said of Arbus, ‘She saw in me the frustration, the anger at my surroundings, the kid wanting to explode but can’t because he’s constrained by his background’.' (Saatchi, 2021) This may be the context to the image and the boys' background but as a shoot the whole contact sheet tells more of a story. In most these images the child looks happy, contented, relaxed, smiling and even posing for th camera. This is not what Arbus was after nad in the final photo the one that was to become a seminal image in the art world, Bree Hughes states; 'In this photo, his patience has worn thin, as if to say ‘take my photo already!' (Cascone, 2017). I would argue that Arbus deliberately frustrated the boy to get the picture she really wanted. Arbus on this occasion had; 'spent almost eight hours shooting the family, deliberately employing her ‘truth-by-exhaustion’ technique' (Saatchi, 2021).
This image was taken with a square format Rolliflex camera and around this time; 'Arbus stopped using her 35mm cameras in favor of a 2 ¼ twin-lens Rolleiflex.' (Sothebys, 2016). The square format became her style and suited the portrait images she wanted to take. In the Sothebys catalogue the blurb states of this image; 'Arbus’s best images demonstrate the photographer’s uncanny ability to interact and empathize with her sitters, and in this photograph Arbus has entered the complex and brilliant world of the child with a vengeance.' (Sothebys, 2016) Again, I would argue that this is not entirely true, I do think that Arbus considered herself an outsider in society however, I don't think she always empathised with her subjects, as evidenced here she basically exhaused the boy till she got the image she wanted. Nick Tauro argues in a similar manner; 'this photo of a young boy playing with a toy looks positively unsettling. Perhaps that was her agenda all along. Possibly she knew full well that she could manipulate the viewer’s response.' (Tauro, 2017). This is interesting, as now we can start thinking about viewer response, so moving forward from photographer and sitter, we will examine the third person in the photograph the viewer.
As a viewer of the image, I am looking at this through the lens of history, however in this particular image this could be a child playing inalmost anytime, the clothes and people give the time away somewhat. This image now is considered a seminal image in the ouvre of Arbus however this was not always the case and Ingledew in his book 'Photography'; states 'One photographer interviewed for this book remembers Diane Arbus's prints - each now worth the value of a large house - being stuck up on a pinboard among the chaos of The Sunday Times art department for anyone to take home, so little were they valued.' (Ingledew, 2013) Our perception of what is valuable in artistic terms changes over time and at different times in history. At the moment Arbus's work is considered very valuable as historical document, attitudes of the time and the mores of society in her time. They are also valuable as they posit an ethical and moral argument about photgraphy. Are we just the voyeaurs looking on, is Arbus making us voyeurs and these individuals are still essentially freaks to be looked at. We now have reality TV whichis a modern voyeurism that is prolific. Social media of course has made evryone into voyeurs of others lives and not always in a good way. Did Arbus improve the lives of those she photographed or change people's attituse to those she photographed and to an extent she did by exposing people outside of society to those within it, she did make people think and consider their own attitudes. I hope that it did contribute (whatever Arbus's intentions) make society more a more considerate, tolerent and diverse place for us to live in today.
References
Benson, L. (2023). What happens when an arts icon dies? [online] @FinancialTimes. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/b932214a-4a2a-4acf-aa61-580c7d7d960e [Accessed 28 Jan. 2025].
Bunyan, D.M. (2012). Diane Arbus On Freaks. [online] Art Blart. Available at: https://artblart.com/tag/diane-arbus-on-freaks/ [Accessed 28 Jan. 2025].
Cascone, S. (2017). Revisiting Diane Arbus’s Most Famous Photo on Her 94th Birthday. [online] artnet News. Available at: https://news.artnet.com/market/diane-arbus-birthday-890000 [Accessed 28 Jan. 2025].
Ingledew, J. (2013). Photography Second Edition. London: Laurence King Publishing.
Saatchi, C. (2021). Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park NYC, 1964. [online] Charles Saatchi. Available at: https://www.charlessaatchi.com/child-with-a-toy-hand-grenade-in-central-park-nyc-1964/ [Accessed 28 Jan. 2025].
Sothebys (2016). (#33) DIANE ARBUS | ‘Child with a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N. Y. C.’ [online] Sothebys.com. Available at: https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2018/a-beautiful-life-photographs-from-the-collection-of-leland-hirsch-n09835/lot.33.html [Accessed 28 Jan. 2025].
Tauro, N. (2017). Worth a Thousand Words: Diane Arbus. [online] Nick Tauro Jr. Available at: https://www.nicktaurojr.com/blog-1/2017/7/17/worth-a-thousand-words-diane-arbus [Accessed 28 Jan. 2025].
For my photography project, I had explored ideas and the one that I wanted to go forward with was similar to the Sunil Gupta images with the concept of a place and a portrait. I was going to venture out to start photographing significant doorways as I had 5 in mind ready for this concept. However, as it turned out Sunday was a rather miserable day in Leicester with high winds and rain! The rather gloomy shot below reminds me somewhat of Lowry with his industrial images!
Not to be too downhearted about this I did a few shots indoors as the portraits themselves would be domestic. Here are my contact sheets below, I just did these on a 2 second timer and the settings were monochrome, F3.5, ISO 200, with no exposure compensation to begin.
The shot of my own door was awkward as I was as far back as I could be in the very small corridor to my opposite neighbours. My door will be in the as it is very important so this is the shot, but I will see if I can find a way to get the whole door...
The EXIF details for this shot were F3.5, ISO 800, Shutter Speed 1/60. Technically the shot is okay however I do need the whole door as stated.
The other shots were around medication, sleep and reading. The reading shots did not work so I won't post any here - I wanted these to be at a different angle and closer up. The sleeping is okay however again these will be reshot
The EXIF details for this shot were F3.5, ISO 1600, 1/20 shutter speed. My camera clearly was on auto ISO as it adjusted to a higher ISO as conditions were quite dull. Therefore the shot is clear and sharp as it was on a tripod the shutter speed was unaffected by shake. I will reshoot in better light and with more consistent shots for the final images.
The other shot I tried was the medication shot, This again is okay however I want to work on the angle and see if there is a better way to do this. I chose this as the medication was in sharp focus - I had a choice between face or medication in focus..
The EXIF details on this image were ISO 1600, F3.5, 1/15. Again, camera was on a tripod so the image is sharp. The ISO adjusted to compensate for dull conditions. I will now just mock up a final piece to see if this idea will work for the final images.
This is a mock-up and here the door is safety, and the meds are stroke I like the concept and do think this will work - I will now start shooting the images I will use for the final images in the portfolio. I liked the black canvas but I also tried this out on grey
I will experiment further with final canvas and colour to see what will work best for final portfolio, I will also write out the concept to add to my website for presentation.
In my project, I will start by looking at Yoko Ono. I am looking at Ono because I am interested in exploring her Fluxus performance artwork as I will be creating a piece of performance art. In this post I will be analysing Yoko Ono's 'Cut Piece' (1964)
Yoko Ono, Cut Piece (1964)
Yoko Ono sat on a stage in 1964 and her performance was to invite the audience to take a pair of scissors and cut her clothes off her body. 'This work challenged traditional norms of audience participation, gender roles, and the dynamics of power and vulnerability' (Fiveable, 2025). The reason I chose this work is because when I was at university this is one of the first works I recreated as a photographic piece. I like the challenge to create this in images as it does challenge the audience and in the performance itself takes power away from the men doing the cutting and the power balance goes to Ono as she sits dead eyed looking out while her clothes are removed. Ono stated of performing the piece; 'When I do the Cut Piece, I get into a trance, and so I don't feel too frightened. There's several layers of meanings. So of course I was saying, hey, you're doing this to women, you know? We're all in it. But also, at the time, it's much better to just go with it. And that thought of letting women know that, you know, we're all going through this, but don't fight, let it happen. By not fighting, we show them that there's a whole world, which could exist by being peaceful.' (MoMA, 2015) The idea that this represented the power of men and her response interestingly is to not fight, let it happen and be peaceful is perhaps, now, a too passive response. As I will make a film of my response to the Trump inauguration, one of the key things that is devasting is how women will suffer from the chain of events that led to this. One of the most important is the overturning of Roe vs Wade (1973) which gave women the right to legal abortion. Now that this has been overturned and states can decide whether women have this right it has already resulted in women not receiving healthcare, maternal deaths and women being denigrated for trying to a obtain and abortion. FIGO (International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics) states; 'Lack of access to safe abortion care is one of the leading causes of preventable maternal death and disability. Each year 47,000 women in the world die as a result of unsafe abortion and an estimated five million are hospitalised for the treatment of serious complications such as bleeding or infection. We urge governments around the world to take steps to mitigate the harms of unsafe abortion.' (Randals, 2021)
Moving from the women's rights issue, I would also like to discuss the making of this piece. Ono was part of the Fluxus movement which began in the 1960s and was prominent through the 1960s and 70s, 'George Maciunas, the primary founder and organizer of the movement, described Fluxus as, "a fusion of Spike Jones, gags, games, Vaudeville, Cage and Duchamp".' (The Art Story, 2012). The idea, at its heart, was to break down barriers to art and creativity. For women performance art offered an ideal method for creating art as they did not need materials or equipment, often they used their own or others' bodies and they could cheaply use community space, public spaces and their own domestic spaces to perform. This performance was on stage and cheaply recorded on film so it it freeing for both the artists and for the creative process. The audience also has an interactive and immersive experience.
I will be creating a video more because now in a way is less physically interactive, more interactive online. I don't necessarily think that this is a good thing... however to connect to an audience I can post this video, it will still be cheap and easy to make and I will need very little equipment as I plan to use my domestic environment, outdoors in locations close by, stock footage and free simple editing software. Looking at Ono's film I do like the stillness and the black and white so I will be thinking carefully as I am keen on stillness.
The message of Ono's work whether it is an active stance on the power balance of men and women or a too passive message, as I suggested earlier, is still up for debate as; 'Ono has remained ambiguous about the work’s meaning, allowing the viewer to form their own judgement. This has polarized art historians who fail to agree on the message behind the various violent and passive aspects of the performance.' (The Art Story, 2012). It is a feminist work and is still a powerful and seminal piece that has influenced other artists and their work. This work has meant much to me when I started to make work and still remains important and relevant today.
As a beginning to my work, I have put together a very short storyboard of the first few cuts from the performance I will make. I used a Canva storyboard template and then I uploaded the images which are representations of the shots I will make - I edited these on Photoshop.
My next step will just be a test shoot and short edit to see if this idea will work...
References
Art-Sôlido (2017). Yoko Ono: The Cut Piece that changed forever the relationship between artist and audience. [online] Art-Sôlido. Available at: https://artsolido.com/2017/02/18/yoko-ono-the-cut-piece-that-changed-forever-the-relationship-between-artist-and-audience/ [Accessed 23 Jan. 2025].
MoMA (2015). Yoko Ono. Cut Piece. 1964 | MoMA. [online] The Museum of Modern Art. Available at: https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/15/373 [Accessed 25 Jan. 2025].
Randals, R. (2021). Post-Roe v Wade: Call to mitigate the harms of unsafe abortion | Figo. [online] Figo. Available at: https://www.figo.org/post-roe-v-wade-call-mitigate-harms-unsafe-abortion [Accessed 25 Jan. 2025].
In my performance art film/photographic project for Digital Arts I will be creating a film of no more than 5 minutes. This may contain still and/or moving images. The concept is my response to the Trump inauguration. I will be using a Olympus DSLR camera to film the footage/take still images and I will use Clipchamp to edit the film. The project will then be aded to my website as final portfolio by the beginning of March.
