History 7th September

James Nachtwey

“Am I the blood sucker?, am I the vampire with a camera?”

Became a war photographer in the Vietnam war.

Took him a while to become confident in this job.

“In a war the normal codes of civilised behaviour are suspended.”

“Is it possible to put an end to human behaviour that has existed through history with photography?”

-having the power to voice the hardships he witnessed.

- he is a very reserved man, he have a very set routine

-he connects with his subjects, doesn't just photograph them and leave.

some examples of his photography

lesson 4

History of photography

Colonialism

Movies today by:

Brook Andrews.

“Message stick”

Tracie Morphett.

“Nice coloured girls”

1]

“You’re just showing another primitive part of us.”

Wants to make art that is not just about aboriginality.

“ He has taken the museum object and liberated it”

2]

Ohhhhkaayyy….

Very interesting imagery.

Im not sure what I think about this film, its very in your face. It is a very different perspective of the time.

lesson 3

History photography lesson 3

Research:

LJM Daguerre

Creator of the daguerreotype.

The 1^st daguerreotypes took 20mins to take.

William Henry fox Talbot. [English]

Created the negatives.

Wrote “the pencil of nature”

Had to subscribe to receive the book, it was quite expensive.

Nadar.

Nadar by Nadar 1858

Nadar self portrait 1855.

Was one of the 1^st to take photos of famous people.

Hippolyte Bayard.

Self portrait as a drowned man 1840.

Frederick Scott Archer, Inventor of the wet collodion process 1880

Lewis Carroll – Ambrotype.

Julia Margaret Cameron.

Photo: Charles Baudelaire, 1863 by etenne Carjat [woodburytype]

Bird cage 1900

“how can we use photography to see what we cant see?”

Movie “Click”

Medium format camera’s

Tutorial 1

In this lesson we talked about the DVD we watched yesterday, not that we have a lot of work to discuss today.

we discussed:

that photography is a democratic medium.

Photography, Is it art, or is it not art?

that photography is indexical.

and that when reading text we need to establish when it was written, and the language of the time.

we also spoke about the hand outs that we were given last lesson, "photography and australia" - Helen Ennis, "Daguerrotype" - Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre & "Contemporary thoughts on the history of photography" - Grant B.Romer.

we were encoraged to purchase the book "Looking at photographs – Gordon Baldwin"


not a very big class today as it is the 1st lesson we have had.

History of photography lesson 1

Going to the:
National archives
Library
Sydney over night – find own accommodation

There will be a series of short exercises’ like last semester and a test at the end of the year.


MOVIE TODAY
“The genius of photography”
[on youtube as well.]