Monday 16 June 2014

Thursday 24 April 2014

Movie Posters of Genre

  •  Bright background making dark colours stand out
  • Main character center of the poster suggesting he is the center of the film
  • Bold text making the name of the movie stand out
  • Everything is sharp and in focus meaning everything is important


  •  Characters shaded suggesting they are a secret
  • Bright background making it stand out
  • Bold text contrasting the colour behind it making it stand out
  • Backlighting


  •  The tone of the image suggests sadness and lost
  • Title matches the image "Lone" he is alone
  • Background out of focus 


Thursday 13 March 2014

Crawley Future

Original Image 
 Manipulation 1 
 Manipulation 2
Manipulation 3

Thursday 28 November 2013

Superimposing a face on a object

Lasso = L key
Quickmask = Q key
Modify the edge of selection  = Select/Modify/Expand
Turn the selection into a layer= cmd/ctrl J
Move the Layer to another Photo= Move tool =V key drag to another photo
Scale the layer= cmd/ctrl T
Copy the Layer= cmd/ctrl J


Thursday 21 November 2013

To what degree should an image be manipulated to go into a fashion magazine?

To what degree should an image be manipulated to go into a fashion magazine?

Fashion photography has an incredible amount of image manipulation. So much that sometimes you wouldn’t even recognize the original person in the photo when both were right in front of you. Some of the techniques that go into manipulation in fashion include: makeup (which is a huge part of it), setting as sometimes the background is replaced with another later on in Photoshop, hardly any natural lighting is used in fashion photographs as most photos are shot in a studio, the clothes are picked for you to promote a brand most of the time and the last is models, you hardly ever see non skinny models any more and if they are they will be slimmed down in Photoshop. 

To what degree should an image be manipulated to go into a fashion magazine comes under what your opinion is on the matter and what’s acceptable and what isn’t to you. Over the last couple of years some magazines such as French Vogue have come under fire for over manipulating their images. The situation with French Vogue included model Crystal Renn who posed for the magazine. She had been battling with anorexia and had finally taken control of it. The photo editor for the magazine trimmed Renn down for size 10 to size 2! While Renn for unaware of this change it’s still horrifying to see that much of a change was made. 


Digital manipulation is not all bad. It can be used to correct photographer’s mistakes, such as: wrong exposure and red eye. The manipulation side can make the image in the photographers head come to life. For example, most of the landscape photos that you see today have gone through some sort of image manipulation. Contrast changes, highering/lowering exposer, turning up or down highlights and shadows, making the picture pop with clarity or even making the picture more colourful by changing the vibrance levels.


While some critic’s absoloulty despise photo manipulation it is a big selling point for the fashion magazines. The reasons for this is that we as a nation are so obsessed with how we look, how much we weigh and how other people see us. People will go out and buy these clothes mostly because of how the models look so good in them. The slim looking and pretty models help sell these clothes and help sell the brands. Too much photo manipulation I feel can put the industry down. For example, Dove released a video in 2006 showing how much photo manipulation is used to some models and the difference was unbelievable that you wouldn't recognize the person before they started editing. As long as you can recognize the person in the photo I don’t see the problem removing a mole or two just along as long as it looks natural.   

Thursday 17 October 2013

Portraiture Tony Vaccaro

Tony Vaccaro more known for his war journalism turned to taking portrait photos later on in his career. Vaccaro believed that the photos he took would reflect his own opinion and not the person in front of the cameras opinion. Celebrities would always be on guard and Vaccaro tried to capture his portraits when the person was off guard. For example, Vaccaro was invited to Pablo Picasso house in France to take some portraits  Picasso would do all these poses which is exactly what Vaccaro didn't want. He pretended that his Leica wasn't working which made Picasso's face drop which is when Vaccaro finger hit the shutter. One of Vaccaros most memorable portrait assignments was when he photographed Senator John Kennedy for Look magazine, just before he became president.

Vaccaro also tried to take the portrait that fit that person exactly. His style of portraiture was different from any other portrait photographer at that time. It was as if his perfect camera would have been an invisible one, catching people with a natural facial expression not a setup one.

“I want a great person. Somebody who gives something to humanity.” This is how Vaccaro picked his subjects.

  • tricking the person to reveal them selves
  • “I want a great person. Somebody who gives something to humanity.”

Thursday 10 October 2013

Thomas Hoepker - Karen Assignment


Thomas Hoepker born on the 10th of June 1936 in Munich, Germany first started capturing images at the age of 16 years old in which he received an old 9x12 glass plate camera from his grandfather. He developed his photos in his family’s kitchen and bathroom which he then began to sell them to friends and classmates. Hoepker studied Art History and Archaeology at Goettingen in Munich, Germany between 1956 and 1956. It was in Art History where he was taught about understanding images and composition. He still continued to sell his images during this period of time to help finance his education. 4 years after he left education he began working for Münchner Illustrierte and Kristall as a photographer between 1960 and 1963. During his time at Münchner Illustrierte and Kristall he reported from all over the world. After working for Münchner Illustrierte and Kristall for 3 years Hoepker left and in 1964 he began working for Stern Magazine as a photojournalism, also in 1964 Magnum Photos began to distribute his archive of photographs. In 1968 Hoepker received the prestigious Kulturpreis of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie.


http://robertacucchiaro.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/thomas-hoepker-muhammad-ali1.jpgIn 1972 Hoepker worked as a cameraman and producer of many documentary films for German television. From 1974 and on Hoepker collaborated with his first wife, Eva Windmoeller who was a journalist. They first collaborated in East Germany and then in New York where they both eventually moved to work as correspondents for Stern Magazine in 1976 and from 1978 to 1981 he was director of photography for the American Edition of Geo. Working as an art director between 1987 and 1989 for Stern in Hamburg this is when Hoepker became a full member of Magnum Photos. Hoepker won many awards for his photographic work but in 1999 he received an award from the German Ministry of Foreign Aid of Death in a Cornfield for a TV film on Guatemala.

http://wevelostcontrol.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/thomas-hoepker-9-11.jpgOn the 11th of September 2001 America had their worst terrorist attack in history as the twin towers were stuck down by hijacked airplanes and this is the reason why most people now know Thomas Hoepker and this is the reason why I am writing this. The photo that Hoepker took that day has been known as one the most iconic images of the horrific 9/11 attack. Hoepker chose not to the release the photo because he thought that it was too “confusing” to be release straight after the events and it wasn’t until 2006 on the fifth anniversary of the attacks the photo made its first appearance in a book and instantly caused controversy.

Hoepker used the Leica camera for much of his career because of its light weight, small in size and access to see everything. Later on in his caeer when Nikon and Canon came around he would mainly use the Lecia for wide angle shots and the Nikon or Canon for telescopic shots. Only in 2002 did Hoepker make the switch to using digital SLRs. In 2003 Hoepker became president of Magnum Photos but in 2006 he stepped down.


Thomas Hoepker now lives in New York with his second wife Christine Kruchen and now shoots and produces TV documentaries.

Thursday 3 October 2013

Henri Cartier Bresson

1) Why is he famous? - Henri Cartier Bresson was the godfather of photojournalism, famous for his decisive moment images, the king of the decisive moment. He believed if you waited you would get the image you want, "into this space life will come". He most famous image taken in 1932 of a man jumping over a puddle. Its described now as the man jumping into the unknown, as Europe jumping into the unknown.  

2) Why is his work significant in Photojournalism? - Henri's work is significant to photojournalism because photojournalism is about capturing that decisive image. Photojournalists would have to be in the right place at the right time and sometimes wait days at a certain place to capture that image that could tell a story. This is extremely similar to Henri's work and inspired lots of photographers at that time. Henri would stalk places out hunting for that image, he was like an animal ready to pounce at his prey.     

3) Find and upload to your blog some work of theirs -




4) What Camera/Technique did he use - Henri used a Lecia 35mm film camera which launched in Germany in 1933 it was; quite, light, very small and while modern day cameras now cover both eyes the Lecia would leave one uncovered so you could still look around for that decisive moment. He owned one of the very first Lecias and because he was quite wealthy he could afford this revolutionary camera. He would only shoot with a 50mm lens when shooting for himself.

Photojournalism War Photography

Robert Capa/Tony Viccaro
  • Describe the different circumstances that these photographers experienced as Photojournalists in WW2: Robert Capa sent into WW2 to photograph the war for Lifestyle Magazine he was able to drop in out of the war. Tony Viccaro, a soldier photographing the scenes for for personal use, he had no escape from the war. Both photographed for different reasons but together captured powerful images of the war. Both of their work was to get close, to close in some circumstances. They would risk their lives multiple times to capture these decisive moments, it was that important. Once these images were captured Capa would send them to Lifestyle Magazine to be processed in the dark room but not all went to plan. While being processed the images melted but being rushed and this ruined the photos but their was still one roll of film left and these are images that were released the rest would never be seen. Viccaro, not having the luxury of a magazine processing the images he had to them himself in the battlefield. He found a destroyed camera shop and scrimmaged around to find the chemicals and once he did he would wait until their was no moon light and poor each of the chemicals into soldiers helmets and then hang the images off trees nearby. Once it turned morning he would go to the trees and their was his images although, the army destroyed some of images as they didn't want photos of dead american soldiers being seen by the public.

  • Find and upload to your blog some work of theirs:
    Robert Capa

    Tony Vaccaro


  •  Describe the difference between the video footage and the photograph of the "Execution": The differences between the video footage and photograph are quite extensive in my opinion. The video is around 5 seconds long but when I look at the image is find myself looking for around 2 minutes. Video cant show a lot of emotion in a short space of time, you cant see the detail on the mans face as hes being shot, you cant see the muscles tensing in the arm of the shooter. These are all emotional attachments that you miss in the video footage. It like a film, you are just watching whereas as the photo its as though you are the there seeing this man about to be executed. Photojournalism is a way of telling you what has happened or telling a story in a single picture.