Tuesday, 13 September 2016

Critical and Contextual Analysis

What is fine art photography?

Fine art photography is photography created in accordance with the vision of the artist as photographer. It is a visual art whose products are to be appreciated primarily or solely for their imaginative, aesthetic, or intellectual content.

What is Documentary Photography?

Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life.

How is commercial Photography different from Documentary and Fine Art Photography?

Commercial is generally made to entertain the masses and has certain criteria or guidelines to fulfill a set idea for example if it is in a certain magazine it needs to be tame and clear, whereas the other two types of Photography have no limitations they are both artistic vision, whereas commercial is taken as a career to earn money, whereas the other two are not necessarily jobs.


“anyone with a brain knows that it is the quirkiness and imperfection in a person that attracts other people” nick Knight 



This image was taken in 1939 by the Jewish photographer Mendel Grossman, he entered in to the Lodz ghetto in Poland in 39, he was moved with a large amount of family (parents, 2 sisters, brother-in-law, nephew). Grossman was originally shot landscape- photography of flowers, clouds and still life, but when he went to Lodz ghetto he found his mission to photograph the persecution of Jewish people. 

The punctum of the image is the armband that the young boy is wearing it represents that the young boy has a certain level of authority, you don't expect to see someone so young being given a role to carry out and a certain responsibility, it totally shifts the whole meaning and dynamic of the piece as we wonder what the little boys role is, the connotations of his uniform are that he is a young Jewish officer employed by Nazis to enforce rules on his own people.

By the look of the young boys face with the uniform, he doesn't appear to take the situation seriously, the image connotes key themes such as innocence, evil, the question of what age really means and what maturity is, but the little boy's face seems to mock all of the absurdities of the ghetto. However on the other hand the image shows a lot of innocence as despite the job the young boy has been entrusted with, he doesn't seem to take it seriously but because the difference in clothes that they're wearing, they could be playing games and doing role play cops and robbers to escape all the horror and mess that the adults have created. 

The image is bleak and black and white, because of the time that it was taken it would've also been film, the whole composition of the shot is bleak, the dark drab clothes the boys are wearing, the jagged shapes of industrial looking buildings within the ghetto. The chimney which symbolizes the mass persecution of the Jews as when the Jews were murdered they would be cremated, this is a very powerful image with so many different elements, There is also a few sparse branches symbolizing death of nature and innocence. 

The studium of the image is interesting as you can clearly see that Grossman has told them to stand in that manner and for the young boy in the uniform to look at the camera, overall the composition of the image is very good as, there are lots of different shapes and subjects and leading lines. The tonality of the shot is very good as there is a lot of contrast, there are many shades ranging from white to black, and all depths of tone in between.

The way that Grossman was able to take these pictures and get them developed was by the fact he would hide his camera in his coat, despite the fact that he had to keep it a secret, the shot above is very clear, has a good frame and looks like he has taken his time to take it, he also had a secret darkroom in his flat, meaning he was able to develop his photography. This therefore shows that he was willing to die to show or at least try to show the world some of the atrocities of the holocaust through his photography.

Grossman illustrates that documentary photography is a definite tool, it is a type of photography that can be creative as well as realistic capturing human life and history.

















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