Category: Assignment 5

The category containing all posts for assignment 5.

Assignment 5. Photography Is Simple.

Brief

The final assignment is an open brief. Take a series of 10 photographs of any subject exploring the theme ‘Photography is Simple’. Each photograph should be a unique view; in other words,
it should contain some new information, rather than repeat the information of the previous
image.

Research

In part 5, we are told that our response to an article about context will be submitted as part of assignment 5. My post on this can be found here.

In the course text, we are given Miho Kajioka as an example for our research [1]. When reading the article written in ‘Lens Culture’, I was taken by how she described nature. With something as devastating as an earthquake and tsunami being the thing which ‘reconnected’ her to photography.

She said “The roses I saw in Kamaishi bloomed simply because it was spring. That beautiful and
uncomplicated statement, made by roses in the midst of ruin, impressed me, and returned me to
photography.”

She refers to a japenese poem, Written by the Zen monk Dogen;

In the spring, cherry blossoms,
In the summer the cuckoo,
In autumn the moon, and in
Winter the snow, clear, cold.

I find some comfort in knowing that whatever is happening in our world, nature continues to grow around us. Whether that is plants, the weather or our animals.

In a world currently taken over by the Covid-19 pandemic, I have found peace in nature when even my own house sometimes feels unsafe. At the start of this pandemic, a family member told me that it is like living in a war zone. He is part of the armed forces, and described the similarities of waiting for a daily briefing in both situations. A daily death count. A daily infection rate. An ever evolving plan. All of this fed in to our homes through televisions and radios, invading our safe space.

Taking influence from the article from Miho Kajioka, and these feelings of my own peace in nature during this time, I decided my series of photographs should be based around this. Nature during a pandemic – life goes on.

I also looked back on an article which was mentioned earlier in part 5, about the deutsche börse prize [3]. The cover photo of this article showing a seemingly over exposed photograph, taken by Rinko Kawauchi. I was reminded of this image when looking at the work of Kajioka.

[4] Untitled – Rinko Kawauchi
[5] bk 0477, 2019 – Miho Kajioka

Further Research After Feedback

Miho Kajioka was born in 1973, in Japan. At aged 18, she moved to California where she studied Fine Art at the San Francisco Art Institute. Kajioka’s career progressed to journalism, where she was involved in news and documentary programs on the television. In all the articles I have read about Kajioka, she always says there was a turning point when she decided to go back home, to Japan. After covering the news of an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

In January 2021, an article was published in the British Journal of Photography with Kajioka [7]. She reflected on her career and even gave an insight in to what the pandemic has meant to her. Reading this article, I found myself relating to some of her answers around her photography.

“I still don’t know how to use cameras properly to take pictures. Many of my good images were born by accident and I love the fact that I don’t have full control over my works.” (Kajioka , 2021).

This quote helped me to see that it is not always a essential to have a vast technical ability to create photography, to create art. We all interpret things differently and as this course title hints, we find a way of expressing ourselves and our individualism. Kajioka found a love for photography while studying painting.

When speaking of the pandemic, she said

“Because of the Covid-19 situation I’ve enjoyed being alone again, finding beauty in my daily life” (Kajioka , 2021)

For me, the pandemic made me feel completely isolated. Although never alone, I’ve also never felt lonelier. This assignment let me take photos in a nearby wood where I took my daily exercise, so this was my way of finding the beauty in what became my everyday life through this terrible time.

Looking through Kajiokas work, I really enjoy having to look for the image within the frame. I actually thought it was a clever way to get you intrigued by the photographs. Although I haven’t used Kajioka’s style of working for my assignment submission, I wanted to use her freedom to photograph things which made her happy.

I had originally planned to present my work in the style of Kajioka, and therefore I have edited my submission photographs in this way too. When looking at the assignment brief, I wanted to stick to ‘photography is simple’. To me, simple is also unedited. For that reason I chose not to submit the edited images. Also, when taking the photographs for this, with Kajiokas style in mind, I found I was only taking photos where I could see a clear contrast would be seen, for example, tree lines against a clear sky. I didn’t want to limit my images so I decided to use influence from kajiokas love for photographing for the enjoyment of it. That is where I found that photography really can be simple.

Below are my submitted images, but edited, as a comparison.

After editing and uploading, I personally prefer these images. But, I have always preferred black and white photographs. It was only after reading my tutor feedback that I realised I should have included the fact that I had considered this and had chose not to go forward with it.

Below is a comparison.

  • [9] Miho Kajioka

With both my own and Kajiokas image here, I like that the eye focuses on the people within the frame rather than their surrounding. Sometimes the surrounding space is so busy or colourful that it takes away from what you were trying to capture. My image is more obviously edited. I used an app to adjust the brightness and shadows within my frame, whereas Kajioka uses the development process to get to this point. I like the silhouette within my frame but the way Kajioka has almost faded the trees in her image and made the people pop, feels as though they were added in after. The background has such a subtle tone in comparison. I feel the over exposure works well to create an interesting image.

Approach

I am lucky enough to live down the road from some woods. For my daily exercise, I have walked up the road to walk around the woods with my camera. For this assignment, I took photographs over 4 separate days. The weather changed dramatically over these days. There was a cold, dry day. Then there was snow. And then there was a bitter cold frost. I was really happy with the weather for these images. It gave me more opportunity to capture something new each day and see things differently. The ever changing weather allowed me to capture nature as I intended.

I took my camera, with only a 55-250mm lens. This allowed me to zoom enough for the animals within nature without disturbing them, and to photograph my surrounds too.

I have edited my chosen 10 slightly, just to show them as best as possible.

Contact Sheets

My Work

Where Covid-19 Does Not Seem To Exist

Photography is simple.

When thinking of photography, depending on your ability, photography might indeed seem simple. If you have all the equipment and have been practicing for a long time, yes, I’m sure photography comes easily to you (most of the time). When considering that most people now have a mobile phone capable of taking sharp photos/ videos, again, yes photography seems simple. Can it really be that standing in the right place at the right time is all it takes?

Personally I do not consider photography to be simple. Even while taking the photographs for this assignment, I considered what to use as my ‘theme’, what to take a photo of, where to stand, what settings to use, composition, lighting, subject, camera lens, zoom, focus and more.

I wanted to go back to the most simple form of photography I could find. Within the assignment breif, it says “you should just feel comfortable with your subject. It should say something about you and, in the end, you like it!” which is why I chose Nature as my subject. I wanted to take photos just for enjoyment.

Reflection

In assignment 3, the indecisive moment, my tutor commented on the “simplicity” of my images. He said I should keep these in mind when I got to assignment 5.

I did not want to complicate my photos with titles or lots of editing.  I considered changing them all to monochrome, to take away any distracting colour. However, the images with red berries lost interest for me. I wanted them to run as a coherent set so decided to leave them all in colour rather than split between the two styles.

I also considered adjusting the brightness within the frames, taking influence from my research in to Kajioka and Kawauchi. I wanted to achieve an over exposed kind of finish. However, this only worked with the photos with a strong line and obvious blank background, like the silhouette of the trees. I had tried to take more photos with this in mind, but was weary of the breif stating that all shots should show something new. I didn’t want my set to feel repetitive.

References