Study Task 4

Proto-Question - How does photography and drawing differ in regard to visual journalism and reportage work?

I have found out that there is a difference between the two processes of image making, which highly influences the resulting outcomes and how they are then read by an audience. They both have unique characteristics in the way they are produced, altering the possibilities and limitations of each. For example, with photography there is the decisive moment, which is often a fraction of a second where the image is captured by the camera, whereas with drawing there is not one moment that the image is captured in as drawing takes longer than pressing a shutter. This moment therefore is waited on by both photographer and artist, but the photograph is an instantaneous and immediate reaction, and the drawing is a slow one. Drawing is also more of an interpretation of the moment, influenced greatly by the hand of the maker, where the photograph is often more believed to be a true to life depiction, with less choices and influencing factors involved. Yet they are still both processes of choice, so each is entirely dependent on the creator of the image. There is then also a question of the truth of the image when they are created by a subjective human being, which could differ between the two processes again. The moments either side of the captured moment are not always clear or present in the resulting image, which effects whether it holds up as true or not. And the image itself could distort or mask the truth of the situation the moment was a part of, representing it in a false way. 

‘To leave a drawing in the state of its immediate production was, for me, an honest record – not of what I had seen but of what I had done in response to what I had seen’ - W. John Hewitt, ‘The Scribbler’, Varoom

‘What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially’ - Roland Barthes, ‘Camera Lucida’ 

Example - presidential candidate Bob Dole fell on a campaign, the resulting photo showing him on the floor grimacing, giving an impression of him to be weak and unstable. However it doesn't capture the immediate moment after, where he gets right back up and laughs off his tumble. Where a drawing could have been different is that the time it took to draw him on the floor, he would have had time to start getting back up, so perhaps the drawing would then not just capture that one misleading moment. 

This image also breaks the dispassionate observer theory that photographers are just passive onlookers; one of the photographers can be seen saving Dole's head from hitting the ground, instead of getting a potentially front cover shot. 

Study Task 3b - Overview

• Drawing and photography are linked, but also vastly different processes in telling stories and documenting situations. Each has its own benefits and difficulties.
• There is an ethical responsibility and conflict with both photographers and illustrators when creating work about difficult and corrupt events. (dispassionate observer)
• Susan Sontag - Regarding the Pain of Others (context to images, empathy, history, backstory to images)

-Practical - Today's Nuclear Unrest, documented and explored through photography, drawing and writing, to portray reportage work in its differences between the creative approaches. 

Study Task 3 - Images and Theory

HUMAN BEING OR DISPASSIONATE OBSERVER?

Questions role of photojournalists and whether they care more about their photographs than the subjects depicted in them. Challenges the ethics of taking photographs of situations that the photographer themselves could have gotten involved in and potentially helped.

This photograph of Presidential candidate Bob Dole in 1996 is an example of this questioning; one photographer can be seen saving Dole's head from hitting the ground missing a potential front page photo opportunity, while the others get the shot without regard for Dole's wellbeing. There was also then an argument by some news analysts at the time about whether a photo of Dole in such a compromising position is fair to take and then to publish for sales, concluding that it wasn't. 

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=z3JqJFO5qMUC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=the+dispassionate+observer+photography&source=bl&ots=F78E8GIPmQ&sig=1hnpgKE9k7dr0PYuY7jZThyR_Yw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwipwJepva3XAhVGthoKHZIPDFAQ6AEIOjAD#v=onepage&q&f=false

There was greater controversy in 1993 with a photo of the Sudanese famine, depicting a starving child being stalked by a vulture. Kevin Carter, the photojournalist who captured this horrifying moment, received negative responses regarding this photo, calling him inhumane for not helping the child, despite him not being able to for his armed escort of soldiers. Carter was very tormented by his experiences which contributed to him taking his own life a year after this picture was taken, yet without it the sheer extent of the suffering of the famine would not have been made known. 

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/kevin-carter

In this case perhaps drawing would not offer a better alternative to taking a photograph. The fleeting moments of both of these scenarios may not have been possible to capture in the drawn image. Even as reportage illustrator George Butler argues that 'drawing is a handshake' ideal for gaining subject's trust when creating work about them, the pure practicalities of drawing vs photography means that photographing the above events was the best means of telling the story. 

Study Task 2 - Reading and Understanding Texts

The text I chose was an article on Varoom website called 'Scribbler' by illustrator John Hewitt. In it he discusses his experiences touring with the band The Pogues in the 80's alongside a photographer, capturing what he saw and experienced in a little sketchbook.

He explores the similarities and differences between drawing and photography as creative processes and how they both are able to capture a situation and tell a story. This idea is something which I want to explore in my project, how photography is different from drawing in how they are created and also how they are then read by an audience. 

My poster explores the process of drawing from life, the fast and interpreted marks that are made in order to capture what is seen in a short space of time; this is given context by a quote from the article, which sums up a big part of that process. 

Study Task 1

There are intrinsic links between me, my practice, my interests and the work I want to make in exploring certain subject matters. Story telling is something I am interested in consuming as we as producing, linking with reportage work, print making and publishing. These are avenues I wish to explore not only in COP but within my practice as a whole. A lot of what I am interested in commonly revolves back to stories, and the human experience in life and how that is told to an audience. Empathy is involved in this process and something which is inherent in my character. 

From this, I know that my COP project is going to be linked with reportage and founded in story telling, wether this is directly telling people's experiences or exploring an issue that effects people's lives. 

End of Module Evaluation

Studio Brief 1