Contextual

Robert Capa - The Falling Man

September 5th 1936, Cerro Muriano

Denotation

In this image there is a loyalist soldier at the moment of death. The surroundings appear to be on a hillside in a desert, the grass is thin and wispy. In the distance you can see mountains and a valley in between. The sky is cloudy but the sun is shining because the shadow on the loyalist soldier is very hard on the ground. The soldier is falling to the ground as he dies and he loses grip of the gun in his hand. You cannot see the bullet woundon the soldiers body. There appears to be somekinfod messenger bag on the soldier.

Connotation

Robert Capa was a Hungarian 20th centuary combat photographer and photojournalist who covered five different wars. The photographer died when he stepped on a landmine in southeast Asia, he died with his camera in his hand. My chosen image is titled 'Loyalist malitia man at the moment of death' believed to be taken on September 5th 1936 in Cerro Muriano during the spanish civil war. There has been a long controversy of the authenticity of the photograph a Spanish paper had said it been staged and many beleive the soldier was posing for Capa when the soldier was shot possibly by a sniper. The equipment Capa used for the spanish civil war was a 35mm Leica. Capa's 35mm Leica hand-held camera gave him the mobility necessary to manoeuvre in dangerous situation.

Capa hated conflict, and photographed people on both sides of hostilities as individual victims of the destructive forces of war. When photographing the sufferings of innocent civilians, Capa often turned his lens on the children. Although he rarely photographed the dead or grievously wounded, Capa focused more on the survivors who were caught up in the ordinarities of life when surrounded by a maelstrom of destruction. In all Capa allowed viewers to experience the wars as intimately as if they were right there when it happened. Capa originally wanted to be a writer however he found work in photography in Berlin and grew to love it. He was known to say "If your images aren't good enough, you aren't close enough".

Week Two

This week I have been looking at lomography and I wanted to recreate the effects using photoshop. I followed a tutorial on my link list that i found best for me, I used Photoshop CS2 to get the effect that I wanted.

This is the image i found most successful out of the five. I took these set of images using a Lumix Panasonic DMC-FZ18. I particularly like the colour in this image the added saturation and contrast makes it look authentic.

I like this image because of the symetry in the iron railings and the lamp post works well against in addition to the symetry of the railings. I think I could have made the vignette a bit softer as it is draws attention away from the image.

I find this image appealing because of the colour, the yellow woody colour of the poles goes well against the saturated sky. I feel I've made the vignette too heavy and would re-do the same image with better weather conditions.

I feel I've done the same for this image and made the vignette too heavy, however I enjoy the perspective oif this image it shows how grand the poles stand tall.

I find this image appealing because the lighting came out really well on this image, the shadow in the folds of the crane are really crisp and the head is in focus but the tail is not and the shadow on the wall just tips it all off however I didn't like the vignette on this image I prefer it without.

Week One

Telegraph Pole
Mevagissey,Cornwall
February 2010

I took this photo with a digital SLR Canon EOS 350D The reason I took this image is because I liked the way that the shadow falled hard on the back of the pole. I also think I used the rule of thirds perfectly on this image and the way the wires grow thinnner in the distance as it grows further away goes nicely with the sky fades to lighter tone in the corner of the image.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46935747@NO2/4352922410/sizes/l/

I am comparing my image to that of the link above. Both of the images have that clear sky in the background wich starts to fade towards the sun. They both have hard lighting from the sun adding a nice tonal range to the picture.

Telegraph Pole 2Mevagissey, Cornwall
February 2010

For this image I wanted to capture the telegraph pole from another perspective, It is very similar to the image above with a different view and added trees. I enjoy the way the branches look as though they are reaching up to the sky.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46115052@NO3/4235989045/

I have found a similar image to my own image in the link above. The similarities between the two is they both have dead trees reaching up towards the sky but the sky on the other has clouds and birds on the wires and also the sun is behind it creating a silhouette of the pole.

For this image I was using a Canon EOS 350D.

Black Cat

Mevagissey, Cornwall

February 2010

The reason I took this image is because I wanted to capture my cat in a different perspective because normally he'll be lying about being lazy. I like this image because of the nautural light coming in from the window to the left side of the frame slightly lighting the face and the side of the body almost creating a silhouette. The lighting on the face reveals those cat eyes, whiskers and nose.

www.flickr.com/photos/gislinad/1232487763

The image in the link above is as similar as I could find to my own image. The lighting in the images is very similar, I think the image is using natural light but the cat in image is a solid silhouette which goes perfectly with the white background.

Tree Silhouette I took this image using a canon EOS 350D. The reason I took this image is because I liked the way that the sun treacled through the trees creating a strong silhouette on the sky in the background. I also enjoy the way the sun looks like a star and immedietly draws attention. There was no meaning behind this photo I simply saw the scene and captured it.

Lomo Look
I took this image with a Canon EOS 350D. The reason i took this image is because i wanted to recreate the lomo look. I like the splash of colour I got from the sun, the red really stands out and adds a range of colours. I then used photoshop to edit it. First I added a vignette using the lasso tool to draw a free hand circle around the image and inversed my selection to select the edges using a feather of 90 pixels. With that selection I then played with the levels to darken the edges creating a vignette. I discovered these useful tips from this link http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-digital-photos-look-like-lomo-photography. I think the image turned out a success and got the look i wanted.