Steve/ Tony- Task 7

Andreas Gursky - Photographer
Gursky is a German visual artist known for his large format architecture and landscape color photographs, often employing a high point of view. Rhein II, an image by Gursky, was sold for £2.7m at Christie's, New York on November 8, 2011, becoming the most expensive photograph ever sold.
In one of my previous projects, location techniques, I was inspired by the flat, 2 dimensioned theme carried throughout his photographs. This inspired me to create a flat-like image, shot at dusk of the sea.

Original image of sea inspired by Andreas Gursky.

As noted above, Gursky uses large formats. This is relevant as most of his images are 10-foot wide. In most of his pictures, the way he digitally manipulates his images makes them seem quite unrealistic, but shows the artful planning of his manipulation processes. Whist taking a closer look at a group of his images, I noticed some similarities. One of which is symmetry and reflection. On more then one occasion, I noticed that the bottom section of the image is a reflection of the top. As well as this, some of the words colours etc in the images have been swapped around, The idea behind this, I think, is to play with the notion of order and artificiality in the image.

Andreas Gursky was born in Leipzig, Germany in 1955. He grew up in Düsseldorf, the only child of a successful commercial photographer, learning the tricks of the trade before he had finished high school. In the late 1970s, he spent two years at the Folkwangschule (Folkwang School) West Germany’s leading training ground for professional photographers, especially photojournalists. Finally, in the early 1980s, he attended the Staatliche Kunstakademie (State Art Academy) in Düsseldorf, where he studied under Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose photographs had achieved prominence within the Conceptual and Minimal art movements. Gursky currently lives and works in Düsseldorf. Gursky takes his inspiration from a wide range of sources, for example a black a white photograph in a newspaper, the subject is then researched at length before the final photograph is shot and often altered digitally before printing. During the 1980s and 1990s Gursky's work took on an increasingly global range of subjects, and he presented his images on an ever larger scale.

Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali was born in Spain in 1904. When he was a child, he showed strange behavior and often interrupted his class in school. As he got older, he started to paint pictures that came from his dreams. His dreams and his paintings were scary and unreal.
Dali went to art school in Madrid, Spain. He got kicked out, and never finished. He even spent time in jail. However, he continued to paint, and his art style became known as Surrealism. Salvador Dali drew everyday items, but changed them in odd ways. For example, one of his paintings is of melting clocks.
Before he died at the age of 85 in 1989, Dali had created works in film, ballet, opera, fashion, jewelry, and advertising illustrations.
Some famous works of his are:

The Persistence of Memory
Crucifixion
The Sacrament of the Last Supper

He once said, ' Don't bother about being modern. Unfortunately it is the one thing that, whatever you do, you cannot avoid. '
Meanings:
The persistence of memory.
The well-known surrealist piece introduced the image of the soft melting pocket watch. It epitomizes Dalí's theory of "softness" and "hardness," which was central to his thinking at the time. As Dawn Ades wrote, "The soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, a Surrealist meditation on the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order." This interpretation suggests that Dalí was incorporating an understanding of the world introduced by Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. Asked by Ilya Prigogine whether this was in fact the case, Dalí replied that the soft watches were not inspired by the theory of relativity, but by the surrealist perception of a Camembert cheese melting in the sun.
Soft watch at moment of first explosion.
He first painted the soft watch in "the persistence of memory" and it has a different meaning than in the "soft watch at the moment of first explosion." The soft watch itself is a surreal symbol which addresses the unimportance or the irrelevance of time during the process of a dream. The soft watch exploding addresses nuclear physics, Einstein physics and its relation to time. So in the exploding clock we can see time disintegrating, with einstein moving objects and the faster they move the slower they experience time. So Dali has moved that irrelevancy of time from the process of dreams to physics. Dali was an avid reader of the sciences and included many of its branches to his art from psychology, biology, chemistry and physics.

The persistence of memory 1931

Soft watch at moment of first explosion

Leonardo Da Vinci

In 1452, Leonardo Da Vinci was born in an Italian town called Vinci. He lived in a time period called the Renaissance, when everyone was interested in art. Even though Da Vinci was a great artist, he became famous because of all the other things he could do. He was a sculptor, a scientist, an inventor, an architect, a musician, and a mathematician. When he was twenty, he helped his teacher finish a painting called The Baptism of Christ. When he was thirty, he moved to Milan. That is where he painted most of his pictures. DaVinci's paintings were done in the Realist style.

Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull, and he outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. He made important discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science.Leonardo was and is renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is s the the best known and most visited, and also the most sung about and most parodied work of art in the world, and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number because of his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination. Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

Mona Lisa

The painting, thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, is in oil on a poplar panel, and is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506. It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at theMusée du Louvre in Paris. The ambiguity of the subject's expression, frequently described as enigmatic, the monumentality of the composition, the subtle modeling of forms and the atmospheric illusionism were novel qualities that have contributed to the continuing fascination and study of the work.

La Scapigliata

The work is an unfinished painting, mentioned for the first time in the House of Gonzaga collection in 1627. It is perhaps the same work that Ippolito Calandra, in 1531, suggested to hang in the bedroom of Margaret Paleologa, wife of Federico II Gonzaga. In 1501, the marquesses wrote to Pietro Novellara asking if Leonardo could paint a Madonna for her private studiolo.

Leda and the swan

Leonardo da Vinci began making studies in 1504 for a painting, apparently never executed, of Leda seated on the ground with her children. In 1508 he painted a different composition of the subject, with a nude standing Leda cuddling the Swan, with the two sets of infant twins, and their huge broken egg-shells. The original of this is lost, probably deliberately destroyed, and was last recorded in the French royal Château de Fontainebleau in 1625 by Cassiano dal Pozzo. However it is known from many copies, of which the earliest are probably the Spiridon Leda, perhaps by a studio assistant and now in the Uffizi, and the one at Wilton House in England (illustrated).

Steve/Tony- Task 6

Key art movements

Stone age

The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used in the manufacture of implements with a sharp edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4500 BCE to 2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking. Stone Age artifacts include tools used by humans and by their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporaneous genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus. Bone tools were used during this period as well, but are more rarely preserved in the archaeological record.

The symbols and drawings which were carved into the stone always involved things such as hunting, animals and people. The animals painted and carved are thought to represent strength and are thought to have been painted to impress the women. Not much is known about the symbols, as no language was used.

Mesopotamian

Art of Mesopotamia has remained in the archaeological records from early hunter-gatherer societies, such as the bronze age, iron age etc. Mesopotamia brought significant differences in cultural developments, including the oldest example of writing. The charactoristic art form was the polychrome carved stone that decorated imperial monuments. The carvings showed images such as chiefly hunting, war making and animals. The animals shown, particularly horses and lions are represented in great detail. Human figures are ridgid and static but are also carefully detailed, and are included in scenes of sieges, battles and individual combat.

As well as paintings and carvings, the Mesopotamian period brought the introduction of sculpture to the art world. The sculptures were carved ivorie and bronze. Animals such as Lions and winged beasts with bearded human heads were sculpted.

Egyptian

In a more narrow sense, Ancient Egyptian art refers to the canonical 2nd and 3rd Dynasty art developed in Egypt from 3000 BC and used until the 3rd century. Most elements of Egyptian art remained remarkably stable over that 3,000 year period with relatively little outside influence. The quality of observation and execution started at a high level and remained near that level throughout the period.

Ancient Egyptian art is the painting, sculpture, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization in the lower Nile Valley from 5000 BC to 300 AD.Ancient Egyptian art reached a high level in painting and sculpture, and was both highly stylized and symbolic. Much of the surviving art comes from tombs and monuments and thus there is an emphasis on life after death and the preservation of knowledge of the past.

The art forms are detailed images of gods, human beings, heroic battles and nature which were intended to provide solace to the deceased in the afterlife.

The art was created using mediums ranging from papyrus drawings to pictographs and include sculpture carved in sandstone and granite. The art clearly shows the strong religious beliefs, and always represented Pharaohs, gods, man, nature and the enviroment.

Greek and Hellenistic

Hellenistic art is the art of the Hellenistic period and dating from 323 BC to 146 BC. A number of the best-known works of Greek sculpture belong to this period, including Laocoön and his Sons,Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. This art movement is quite like Mannerism.

The greek sculptures were always technically perfect, making the heroic people in the scultures flawlessly symmetrical which gave the viewer a sense of excapism, as no real person could look that beautiful in real life.

Hellenistic art experimented with how the body moves and how it looks in action- how torsos twist, muscles bulge, etc. Hellenistic art is also highly dramatic, filled with humor, agony, anger, and other emotions. The Dying Gaul by Epigonos and Leocoon and His Sons by Athanadoros, Hagesandros, and Polydoros are good examples of Hellenistic art.

Roman

Traditional Roman sculpture is divided into five categories: portraiture, historical relief, funerary reliefs, sarcophagi, and copies of ancient Greek works. Roman sculpture was heavily influenced by Greek examples, in particular their bronzes. It is only thanks to some Roman copies that a knowledge of Greek originals is preserved. One example of this is at the British Museum, where an intact 2nd century AD. Roman copy of a statue of Venus is displayed, while a similar original 500 BC. Greek statue at the Louvre is missing her arms.

In Greece and Rome, wall painting was not considered as high art. The most prestigious form of art besides sculpture was panel painting, i.e. tempera or encaustic painting on wooden panels. Unfortunately, since wood is a perishable material, only a very few examples of such paintings have survived, namely the Severan Tondo from circa 200 AD, a very routine official portrait from some provincial government office, and the well-known Fayum mummy portraits, all from Roman Egypt, and almost certainly not of the highest contemporary quality. The portraits were attached to burial mummies at the face, from which almost all have now been detached. They usually depict a single person, showing the head, or head and upper chest, viewed frontally. The background is always monochrome, sometimes with decorative elements. In terms of artistic tradition, the images clearly derive more from Greco-Roman traditions than Egyptian ones. They are remarkably realistic, though variable in artistic quality, and may indicate the similar art which was widespread elsewhere but did not survive. A few portraits painted on glass and medals from the later empire have survived, as have coin portraits, some of which are considered very realistic as well.

Pliny, Ancient Rome’s most important historian concerning the arts, recorded that nearly all the forms of art — sculpture, landscape, portrait painting, even genre painting — were advanced in Greek times, and in some cases, more advanced than in Rome. Though very little remains of Greek wall art and portraiture, certainly Greek sculpture and vase painting bears this out. These forms were not likely surpassed by Roman artists in fineness of design or execution. As another example of the lost “Golden Age”, he singled out Peiraikos, “whose artistry is surpassed by only a very few… He painted barbershops and shoemakers’ stalls, donkeys, vegetables, and such, and for that reason came to be called the ‘painter of vulgar subjects’; yet these works are altogether delightful, and they were sold at higher prices than the greatest [paintings] of many other artists.” The adjective "vulgar" is used here in its original meaning, which means "common".

Middle ages

Art during the Middle Ages saw many changes and the emergence of the early Renaissance period. Byzantine Art was the name given to the style of art used in very early Middle Ages Art. This period was also known as the Dark Ages ( 410 AD - 1066 AD ). The Dark Ages were followed by the Medieval era of the Middle Ages (1066 - 1485) and changes in Middle Ages Art which saw the emergence of the early Renaissance Art. To appreciate the full extent of the changes in Middle Ages Art and the Early Renaissance it is helpful to understand its fore-runner - Byzantium Art and its effects on art during the Middle Ages.

The art forms are charactorized by:

• Pietisic painting (religious art)
• Sombre tones
• One dimensional, No perspective
• No shadows
• front faced figures
• long, narrow faces
• No attempt to show realism

Cubism, futurism, supremativism

Cubism was a truly revolutionary style of modern art developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. It was the first style of abstract art which evolved at the beginning of the 20th century in response to a world that was changing with unprecedented speed. Cubism was an attempt by artists to revitalise the tired traditions of Western art which they believed had run their course. The Cubists challenged conventional forms of representation, such as perspective, which had been the rule since the Renaissance. Their aim was to develop a new way of seeing which reflected the modern age.

Futurism was an avant-garde movement which was launched in Italy, in 1909, although parallel movements arose in Russia, England and elsewhere. It was one of the first important modern art movements not centred in Paris - one reason why it is not taken seriously in France.  Futurist ideology influenced all types of art. It began in literature but spread to every medium, including painting, sculpture, industrial design, architecture, cinema and music. However, most of its major exponents were painters. It ceased to be an aesthetic force in 1915, shortly after the start of the First World War, but lingered in Italy until the 1930s.

Steve/ Tony- Task 4

Interview with Tom Poultney, Photographer
Tom Poultney is a photographer who also teaches photography at Leeds City college. He specializes in documentary and conceptional photography, as well as commercial, although he prefers documentary and conceptional.
Poultney has many reasons that contributed to him becoming a photographer. He has always been a visual artist and has always used lens based media as it is the most concise. He also believes that photography is the best medium in which to exhibit his work as it is the best field to communicate his concepts.
His qualifications contributed to his love of photography. He studied fine art at Leeds university and also studied to gain a masters degree in fine art, although he specialized in photography and other lens based media. Before and during university, he originally thought he would specialize in sculpture and painting, but after practicing lens based media he changed his artistic medium.
At the age of 21, he began working as a self-employed photographer. He has always tried to achieve a healthy medium in his work of commercial work, which is higher paid and personal project photography.
Poultney's career goal is to be able to shoot much more personal projected work, and be able to turn down work which he does not find particularly inspiring to focus on personal projects. He would also like to continue teaching and improve on teaching as well as selling his photography books.
The inspiration for his work comes from many different mediums. They include looking at photography books, discussing photography and art with other artists and admirers. Two of his favourite photographers are Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.
When asked which shoot was his favourite that he had ever done, he said that the current shoots are always the ones that he is most into, until he moves on to the next project. At the moment, his best shoots are the ones he is doing currently, these shoots are a project named 'nothing' and a documentary project about people who have been disrupted by industry. The documentary project will be accompanied by an article about the topic.
Various other questions were asked in the interview, such as who was the most famous/well known person you have shot. He shot the girl group Girls Aloud for a cancer research campaign as well as various shoots for the BBC and look north.
He shoots all his images using digital photography, which he started using while at university when digital was a new technology and was trendy. However, if he was a student now, he would prefer to use film as it is more experimental.
When asked what job he would most like to do, excluding pay and talent, he said his current job.

Steve/Tony Task 2

Interview of Tom Poultney- Photographer
1. Why did you become a photographer?
-Always been a visual artist, and it was the best field to communicate and exhibited work. lens based most concise 
2.What did you study?
Studied fine art, masters. Specialized in photography and other lens based media. Originally started uni thinking he was going to sculpt and paint. At the age of 21 he started working as self employed.
3. Career goal?
To be able to shoot more self based photography. More involved in good teaching and good personal project photography. Wants to be able to turn down work. Wants to sell his photography in books.
4. Inspiration?
Books photography, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon. Talking about photography. Discussing with other artists.
5.want to be
Tryed paint, sculpt. Was the best fit, felt right, worked the best.
6. Most interesting shoot?
Likes different. Most current is what he is most into. Current projects- Photographing 'nothing'. Documentary, People who have been disrupted by industry, accompanied by article work injures.
7.Most liked genre of photography?
Photographing people, documentary, conceptual.
8. Does not like
Crap jobs in the rain
9. Biggest celebrity/well known person shot?
Girls aloud. BBC, Look north
10. Studied at leeds Uni
11. Digital or film?
When he first went to uni, digital was new and trendy, so he most liked that. If he was a student now he would like Film
12. Dream job?
Self based photographer.

Steve/tony-Task 1.

History of art research
Stone age

Mesopotamian

Egyptian

Greek and hellenistic

Roman

Indian, chinese and japanese

Middle ages

Mannerism

Romanticism

Fauvism and expressionism

Cubism, futurism, supremativism, de stijl

Postmodernism and deconstructivism

Core project evaluation

For this project, the brief informed us that we should create a project with our own initiative based upon certain topics. I chose the topic Northern Landscape. I chose this topic as I thought  it would follow a recurring theme of previous projects I have completed, as well as improving my knowledge and technique of the topic.
Instead of doing the conventional Landscape photographs, I decided to make my images different by shooting them at night using no flash and a extremely slow shutter speed. I knew this would be a good idea as I had previously practiced the technique in three other projects. This proved to be successful and I have improved on my technique through-out the course. One example of how I have improved is In my first project using night photography, I did not use a tripod. I also did not check my white balance, so all the images appeared orange. In my later projects, I have improved on this aspect by using a tripod to improve the steadiness of the camera and the overall image quality. Another way I have improved is that I have now learnt the correct way to change the white balance using a simpler setting on my DSLR camera.
Before shooting, I used various processes to plan my shoot. This helped me as it reassured me that nothing in the shoot could go wrong. Another reason why I planned my work was so my shoots would be organized in terms of locations of shoots, time management and limited technical difficulties. 
I completed the set tasks for the research and planning stages, as well as my own individual tasks which  I completed in my sketch book. This involved advanced planning of the tasks and rough notes.
I am happy with how my images turned out as they have gone exactly to plan and you can tell they were well organized. 
When presenting my work in an exhibition, I decided to use three ways to present the images. These were on foam board, home made books and a projection. This abled me to present work in a professional manner through three mediums. This is useful to work on in the future to chose which medium to use if I have a second exhibition. I preferred the foam board as they can be seen on a much larger scale. 
If I could change anything about my work, I would have gone to different locations around yorkshire to differ from leeds. This would show diversity in my work.

Health and safety - Core project

These images were taken of the health and safety sheets provided in the core project brief. I have completed these before shooting my final images as a way of seeing what risks were present on the shoots. These proved to be useful in preventing potential risks and helping reduce risks before the shoot.