Moving on

I've been stuck on exercise 5 analyse an essay and it's holding me back quite badly. I've decided to move on with Part 2 Photography in Publishing 1 and revisit analysing an essay over the next few days. I know my deadline is flexible but I would like to keep up with it as much as possible.

I've worked in design for many years and really got a lot of satisfaction using Photoshop, Illustrator and Quark Xpress in previous occupations.  My present version of Photoshop is CS5 and I look forward to learning new tricks with the help section on the OCA Website resources section.  I subscribed to a design newsletter for a couple of years some time ago and it gave some exciting layouts and designs which I incorporated in the work I did then.  The shame was that it ceased publication which was so disappointing as I found it extremely useful.

Over my working life I have also been on several one-day/2-day design courses for publications and am interested in how magazine/newsletter design has changed since I first started.  I was always told that you MUST use a sans serif font (Arial or Comic Sans for example) for headlines and a serif font (Times New Roman) for body text as it makes the eye flow along the lines of text more easily.  When I look at newspapers and magazines now this accepted standard seems to have gone out the window and any font anywhere seems to be the rule of thumb.

Exercise 4 Research and Analyse

Picture 4: Afghan Girl 1984, Steve McCurry

Copied from website:

http://www.culturaitalia.it/opencms/en/contenuti/eventi/event_1788.html 
 

FIRST IMPRESSION – WHAT STRIKES THE EYE

This is a very strong image, very challenging with the subject looking directly at the lens.  I get the impression that this is a child/young woman from a very poor background going by the clothes she is wearing.  Steve McCurry has travelled the world making a living photographing the people he meets for the companies he works for, lucky man.  He is able to see a situation quickly through his years of experience, taking pictures as the scene changes and getting the strongest images.

THE GENRE

The genre would be either a simple portrait of the girl, whose name was Sharbat Gula which Steve discovered 17 years later when he returned to find her, or one with more of her living situation which could be used in photo journalism or a documentary.  This was part of a series of pictures documenting the area where she lived and the families in her village.  

  

See here for a comparison picture published in the National Geographic magazine in 2002, website address: 

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2002/04/afghan-girl/index-text

THE INTENDED USE

Steve McCurry takes pictures for a living as part of a documentary of people’s lives where ever he is.  He builds up a picture of the land and people for each assignment and, if possible, returns years later to document the changes that have happened to his previous stories.

IMMEDIATE SITUATION FACING THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Steve would have been faced with a wall of human misery and people begging for help as this picture was taken in a refugee camp near Peshawar, in Pakistan.  It must take a very strong person to keep taking photographs in the midst of all that misery.

UNPLANNED OR PLANNED

Steve works in a planned but unconscious way having made his living through photojournalism for many years.  His natural instincts would have allowed him to look around, talk to people and get the best of an unplanned situation.

TECHNICAL DETAILS, IF IMPORTANT

The most important thing with Steve would be to get the shot.  His many years of experience after graduating from a photography degree and working as a newspaper journalist in his home state was his freelance work overseas.  Experience counts for a lot in documentary work and getting the right settings for a decent image come as second nature after many years of experience.

STYLE OR MANNERISM

Researching Steve’s style of picture shows that he prefers the straight face to the camera portraits, similar to that of the Afghan girl that we’re discussing.  When I googled his name 1,400,000 images came up in 0.28 seconds so his name is well recognized through the world.  The portraits on the first page all see to be in the same style that of facing directly into the camera, well recognized as a very strong image in portrait taking circles.

PHOTOGRAPHER’S INTENT

Steve has spent his whole life documenting world situations and sending back photographs to major publications and agencies.  The pictures he took of the refugee camp on the borders of Pakistan would be to highlight the plight of the people who had had to leave their homes and flee to a safer environment. Refugees would have been subjected to harrowing journeys leaving most of their belongings behind and having to stay in large, possibly barren areas with little food.  Photojournalists like Steve would be sent to the camps to document the desperate situation that the refugees found themselves in with the hope that the civilized world would send aid to help them.

IS THERE SUFFICIENT INFORMATION AVAILABLE?

I think there is sufficient information about Steve, his picture and the general situation that he found himself in in 1985.  Much has been published about the conditions in the refugee camps over the following years for the general public to gain an idea of how bad conditions would have been.

SUCCESS

This picture is instantly recognizable as Steve’s work as it has been published around the world many times.  The fact that it was the first image brought up when I googled Steve’s name shows it is well recognized.

 

Life's little hitches

Talk about thwarted at every turn! I've just got my head back in gear, ready to get on with the remaining exercises in part one of this module and I got an email from Apple saying that my hard drive has been identified as liable to fail at any time.  I could input my serial number and they would confirm it.  Do you know where the serial number is on an iMac, under the foot! Do you know how big it is, miniscule? I had to upend the machine on my overcrowded desk, find the number, take a macro picture as it was far too small to read and then upload it to be able to read the number. What a fiasco. Then it turned out that my machine really was one of those identified as liable to fail.

I really thought this was a hoax, hoping it was as it meant taking my iMac to Exeter (30 miles away) to the nearest Apple dealer to have the hard drive replaced.  Not only have I had to back up everything on the current drive but it will take about 5-10 working days as they are so busy replacing everyone else's drives. You can't make an appointment and wait so I'll have to go back when it's ready to pick it up, another day wasted. Ohhh!!

So now I'll be without a machine for up to 10 working days, just when I was at my most creative for ages.