Basic Proposal

The way that the simple addition of people can shape and give life to an environment interests me greatly. A perfect example of this can be the way that skateboarders transform often-mundane urban spaces and architecture into hives of activity and colour. I hope to be able to document this around London in the hope that I may highlight an alternative way of looking at the art of skateboarding. If you skate, you see the city in a very different way and I think this view can be transferred to others through imagery. My images will be in deliberate contrast with each other. There will be pairs of images portraying each section of architecture or area. One will be void of people, life and movement and the other will be vibrant incorporating the architecture in some sort of action sports photography. To highlight the dullness of an uninhabited city, that half of the images will be in black and white.

lain Borden architect.
Photocultures blog, Alex Villar and Valie Export.

Photo Sharing Communities

The role of online photo blogging communities has always been that of sharing personal information. It is fundamentally an online phenomenon where the birth of the internet has made vast networks of people from around the world available to be open to each others lives through imagery. The very notion that means that the World Wide Web questions concepts of belonging and ownership also suggests to me that peoples attitudes towards things that are seemingly ‘theirs’ are equally changed. This can include such intimate aspects of a person’s life like family and health to more face value information such as mug shots visited locations. The variety of different online photo sharing communities simply reflects the diverseness of people’s interests. Examples could include http://www.worldisround.com/ where individuals share their own travel experiences with each other, giving others a strange opportunity to travel in the exact footsteps of someone they’ve never met before. A slightly more trivial example would be http://www.intpetclub.com/ where the objective is to let others see imagery of your pets. I am going to turn my attention to http://www.myspace.com/ which as a genre of online networking and chat seems to use its photo sharing capabilities in a different manner. As opposed to with the previous examples I gave, Myspace.com doesn’t seem to have an overruling concept to govern or give guidelines to any part of its network of users. From a simplistic profile site where the emphasis was heavily on words and information, it has grown into being heavily image based with the introduction of html editing and a large incorporated photo section. It’s all about coverage with the users of myspace now and portraying a certain image. Each persons profile page is a massive advertisement of themselves with no other main basis for using photographs. In many scenarios people seem to want to create unity with their images and in that way link themselves with a certain ideal or trend (see examples). Another option that myspace gives its photo sharers is to completely lie about there real identity. As with more traditional photo communities online, truth is the mainstay of all the sharing and blogging because there is little point in feigning and interest in something you are obviously not interested. Alternatively with myspace, identity is the overall genre and it is something that everyone has an interest in and a will to fake it at the same time to create a better advertisement for themselves in order to attract ‘friends’.

Ice Lounge Site

Wooster Collective

What’s the Role of Text in Photo Publications?
Text can have an immense effect on various forms of photo publishing. In traditional forms of this form text accompanies the image. The photo takes main stage and the words written will be intended to simply make situations and circumstances more clear to the readers or to possibly highlight an aspect of the photo. Examples of this could be in newsprint where each photo will have a caption assigned to it or in art publications where a brief few words would credit the each work to an artist and other general information. Pamphlets and flyers will also strive to give people unquestionable information to sell a concept or train of thought. In this way, text coupled with images is a very formal way of teaching people with no hesitation about something. As mentioned before these publications are something that people are more subjected to rather than with some sort of consensual interaction. Text here is more of a sidekick to the wow-factor of the image than something with relevance in its own right. New media technologies make it clear that text can become form in itself. Things are not just handed to us to digest; they can provoke interaction and speak to the individual. Often in an exploitative way advertising will seemingly speak to each and every one of us using psychology to probe and comment on aspects of our lives. In this way it is equally the text that will speak to us as well as the image. In online blogging communities the text and the image can work in any way a human can dream possible. The freedom that is given to the individual in blogging means that a photo can simply be used to highlight a certain aspect of what is written (as with my use of this medium). This approach is heavily weighted with text and information, however it can be just as easy for a blogger to post pictures with little more than a title or date. In art books and publications text can give uniformity and a vital bond to a series of photos which could make or break the work and its concept as a whole.

WHAT'S PHOTO PUBLISHING?
Photo publishing in modern times is an extremely broad title that covers a wide range of different media techniques. Traditionally the two words conjure up thoughts of newsprints dispersed to the masses with little other reasoning than transporting details of recent events. This kind of photo publishing is a very one-way system, with the few clearly preaching to the many in an informative Eurocentric manner. By Eurocentric I mean that from a western frame of mind, the things that are deemed worthy of the public knowing are showed to us. The system can be easily exploited unsurprisingly in the obvious case of propaganda. No option for participation is available for the reader. Another media area that arises when thinking of photo publishing’s traditional forms would be that of art books and manifestos. Anchored deep within high cultured, fine art these items are expensive and can engage on no great level with its readers. They are merely vessels to transport the image of works of art around the world. As is clear, traditional ideas of photo publishing will bring to light notions of information passing down set routes through society and of bringing to light specific events all in a one way system where there are producers and receivers.
In modern society there is one invention that has thrown the notion of photo publishing into a whole new area along with most other aspects of society. This is without a doubt, the internet. It has changed the way that society views, owns, and displays its pictures massively. Even with forms of copyleft and even the apparent strictness of copyright, images online belong to everyone and it’s a very distinct and true statement to make that the internet has opened up a whole new level of sharing. Now everyone who has internet access is a photo publisher whether they know it or not. Networking sites such as Myspace.com and programmes like MSN Messenger all require and/or encourage the uploading of pictures so to define yourself to people across the web. So now it seems that photo publishing isn’t only a tool to advertise you and your skills as a specialist for business purposes but is now a way to advertise just yourself in an informal arena where people will swap comments and share for no financial gain. Moving on from this almost accidental online publishing community we would find a very similar, but more purposeful collective know as bloggers. With every intention of making themselves and their photos known to the world they regularly post whatever they want with no boundaries. They have their own concepts and ideas that they wish to convey to whoever will be willing to look. These realms have made the World Wide Web into a mass, ’many-to-many’ information sharing space.

OMG.