abdelazizabouelkhair

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Art by The Sea: The Beauty of Alexandria

One of my favorite mind-clearing acts as a person who lives in Alexandria is to take a walk or drive along the coast of the mediterranean at sunrise. The sight of the sea is always calming and gives space for my thoughts and problems to melt away as I gaze at the sea. One day as I was on one of these walks, my eye wandered to the Stanley bridge and the adjacent artwork on the wall of San Giovanni’s restaurant, which is currently under renovation, and I thought to myself: “ there’s gotta be a ton of these beautiful landmarks all along the coast,” and this brought to mind the main idea of this assignment. A lot of the photos I took may not be aesthetically brilliant and some of the artwork is battered and damaged. But overall, all of these small monuments that attest to the brilliance of some alexandrians still captured my heart and my eyes. The idea started out as simply photographing some of the architectural landmarks around the city such as the citadel and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, but as I took a trip along the coast, I noticed a ton of other art ranging from elaborate mosaic artworks to ragged graffiti and statues. Even Da Vinci's rule of human proportions has a monument by the sea. Most famously, there is a statue of Alexandria’s mermaid which is reminiscent of greek statues and aesthetics whose influence is all over the coastal city. By the time I was done with this assignment, I had a newfound appreciation for the little details by the coast of my hometown.

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Photography foundations: Final assignment proposal by: Abdelaziz Abouelkhair Idea synopsis:artistic landmarks along the coast of Alexandria

One of my favorite mind-clearing acts as a person who lives in Alexandria is to take a walk or drive along the coast of the mediterranean at sunrise. The sight of the sea is always calming and gives space for my thoughts and problems to melt away as I gaze at the sea. One day as I was on one of these walks, my eye wandered to the Stanley bridge and the adjacent artwork on the wall of San Giovanni’s restaurant, which is currently under renovation, and I thought to myself: “ there’s gotta be a ton of these beautiful landmarks all along the coast,” and this brought to mind the main idea of this assignment. A lot of the photos I took may not be aesthetically brilliant and some of the artwork is battered and damaged. But overall, all of these small monuments that attest to the brilliance of some alexandrians still captured my heart and my eyes. The idea started out as simply photographing some of the architectural landmarks around the city such as the citadel and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, but as I took a trip along the coast, I noticed a ton of other art ranging from elaborate mosaic artworks to ragged graffiti and statues. Even Da Vinci's rule of human proportions has a monument by the sea. Most famously, there is a statue of Alexandria’s mermaid which is reminiscent of greek statues and aesthetics whose influence is all over the coastal city. By the time I was done with this assignment, I had a newfound appreciation for the little details by the coast of my hometown.

Test shots:

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Photography foundations: Assignment 4 By: Abdelaziz Abouelkhair

This is a recreation of a photograph taken by Sally Mann and included in her book “Photographs & Poetry” which included 10 pictures and 10 poems printed by 21st editions in a limited edition of only a hundred and ten copies numbered 1 to 100 and the other ten from A to J . The book’s price right now is an exuberant 16,000 dollars which shows how important Mann’s photographic work is.

The pictures were published in 2005 but were taken nearly 25 years before that; in 1979. Mann’s photographic style is taking candid looking photographs that have grace and show the naturalist side of humanity. A lot of her photographic work shows her three children in their daily lives on a farm in Virginia. Her photographs are often nude portraits of her young children which was controversial but, in my opinion, it does not take away from their innocence.

Her work takes place in the south of America, in Virginia where she was born and where she still lives till today. It also comprises themes of slavery, motherhood, and the effect of the monochromatic look on the meaning of photography as her often haunting photographs show the effect of darkness on light and vice versa.

This is demonstrated in the photograph above as it shows the exposed skin against a backdrop of soft, dark fabric contrasted with the slightly more textured, light fabric that covers the skin which speaks to society’s anti naturalistic tendencies that prefers covering rather than exposing and how that is associated with racist tendencies through the use of light colors in covering the foot and dark colors in exposing it.

This also speaks to how naturalism blends black and white without prejudice as evidenced by the contrast of skin tone against the soft, satin-like, dark fabric below the foot.

The picture itself gives off a gentle, ethereal vibe that captures the gracefulness of the human body. The choice of photographing the foot is also interesting because it is the base of the body and as such it could be a metaphor for the social structures that keep society stable and in check.

This photograph is iconic not only because it is aesthetically pleasing, which it is, but also because it is very expressive despite looking almost meaningless at first glance. What makes a photograph iconic is its use of visual vernacular to express the photographer’s point of view and the concepts that they are trying to convey in a graceful and artistic manner. Photography is not based in matter of fact, even if photojournalism aims to capture objective truth, photography is based in emotion and expression of human tendencies in an innovative, deeply meaningful way.

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Photography Foundations: Class Activity 2: Question 1 To be a photographer in the modern age

Ah, to be a photographer. To embody the human struggle for meaning by being the world’s true visionaries. Simply by observing the world around them, photographers manage to encapsulate all that is natural in an ironic duality of construction. Photography captures organic motions, such as emotion and action, but in its simplicity lies a promise of speaking to one’s thoughts in a way that is much broader than what meets the eye.

Photographers are agents of perspective; meaning that in every photograph, whether staged or candid, lies the photographer’s opinion of the world around them. By isolating one moment in time, the photographer makes history out of even the most mundane moments. Take for example Gregory Crewdson’s tableaus, they take note of improvised moments that, as the narrator of the documentary described them, capture suburbia's nightmare. By creating pictures that intrude on humanity’s most intimate moments, Crewdson captures a mundane moment and fills it to the brim with meaning, which is why people clamor for rare photographs, they may have an untraditional aesthetic side to them, but the true allure of a picture is in the impact it has on an audience. The subjectivity of a photograph is where it’s true genius lies. To create a moment that is at once familiar and at the same time foreign through speaking to the audience in a vernacular they understand by intuition to convey something that they never thought of before that at once hits them with a different view of the world around them and brings it to the forefront of their understanding as something that gives emotion through visual information. That is the true genius of photography.

Photography’s core premise of carrying meaning instantly makes it an agent of change. By showing a different perspective, Photography can bring to the audience’s minds a reality that is outside of the one they live in, making them realize what they need to take action. One instance that truly reflects that is the photography of Martin Parr. His Photography stands to address the far from perfect reality of the life people lead, instilling a sense of provocation which is the primary antecedent for action. The shock value of his photographs is abrasive, but at the same time poignant and revealing. Some people may choose to look at it as intrusive or voyeuristic, which is definitely one of the ways to look at it, but another way to look at it is to view at as some sort of a visual taunt, arousing the thought of examining one’s life in a contemplative, albeit slightly judgemental manner.

Like any art form, we can try to describe photography in order to define it in a literal way. Just as saying that music is making sounds or describing painting as stroking a canvas, Photography is the recording of light. However, this definition deprives photography of its connotative meaning, the true allure of a picture is not in the visuals themselves, but the meaning and emotion that these pictures instigate. There is no one way to define what it means to be a photographer, but one can venture a guess by saying that to be a photographer is to be a purveyor of a visual journey through the lens of their own perspective that intends to bring meaning to a seemingly meaningless moment.

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Photography Foundations: Assignment 3a

The photo above is taken from Taryn Simon’s book “The Innocents” which portrays people who were imprisoned for a crime that they didn’t commit, highlighting the role of photography in criminal investigations and the pursuit of Justice.

The picture captures larry mayes, who was incarcerated for 21 years following a false indictment for rape, robbery and unlawful deviate conduct.

The victim was a female who worked at a supermarket when two criminals walked in on her and accosted her with a gun and robbed the market; kidnapping her and raping her in the process.

The photograph depicts the scene where Mayes was arrested which is the Royal Inn in Gary, Indiana where the police found Mayes hiding between the mattresses in his room. Mayes was sentenced to 80 years in prison.

I believe that this picture has a lot of hidden meaning in the colors and shapes that analogize many feelings and metaphors.

For example, the contrast between the brightly colored lower mattress and the drab colored mattress which Mayes is hiding under reflects the difference between the realities that Mayes faced outside versus inside prison.

The empty cabinets stand as a symbol for the lack of weight that the conviction of Mayes carried, with only Mayes’ golden tooth being the only thing that identified him as a convict.

The generally disheveled appearance of the hotel room is uncharacteristic of a hotel room which reflects the state of the justice system in the U.S. at large.

The colored outfit of Mayes represents the fact that perhaps he was convicted of this crime because of his skin color

The blue color of the ground shows that despite everything, Mayes is trying to stay afloat in a stormy world where people like him face incarceration and more demeaning acts simply because he is black.

The picture has a surreal element to it overall. From Mayes hiding under the mattress to the empty cabinets and the mishmash of patterns between the wall, the mattresses and Mayes’ clothing, the picture is quite unusual.

The half removed wallpaper signifies the amount of years that Mayes’ spent behind years as a large, blank fraction of his life. The vertical patterns in the wallpaper itself also signifies the bars that Mayes was locked behind.

The mattress over Mayes back is bland and ragged, signifying the burden of being a convicted felon behind bars and how life in jail is blank and flavorless in contrast to the mattress below Mayes which is brightly colored to reflect the kind of life one can lead outside.

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Photography Foundations Assignment 2

Photo 1: rule of thirds

Photo 2: shape

Photo 3: texture

Photo 4: Color

Photo 5: frame in frame

Photo 6: creative light movement

Photo 7: light direction

Photo 8: point of view

Photo 9 & 10: color to black & white

Reflection:

this assignment brought into perspective many elements of photography that I wasn’t aware of it before. it taught me the basics of framing pictures and knowing how to place your subjects in the frame. furthermore, it taught me how to play with light and capture it in moving situations to create an artistic effect in addition to realizing the importance of texture, organic shapes and color in pictures to create the illusion of 3 dimensional photography.

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Q & A with Max Hirzel Review:

The talk with Max Hirzel about his work on his silent film “Migrant Bodies” serves to highlight the distinction between the media’s representation of the migration crisis and the more complex reality. It does so by picturing a different perspective through photographing the management of migrant people’s corpses pulled from a shipwreck in 2015 in Italy. The talk is part of an exhibition about Jacob Lawrence’s work about stories of displacement, Encapsulating the struggle of migrants and refugees in different art forms. Many of the problems that affect the media’s representation of migration come down to motives; oftentimes the discussion of migration is driven by a political agenda that takes advantage of people’s fear of migrants, which is triggered by propaganda, to push laws that label migrants as illegal people rather than help them. Another problem with the media’s representation of migration is how it superficializes the issue in order to give fast news that is much simpler than reality in order to give space to more lucrative pursuits like marketing. This misinformation coupled with the sensory overload of the audience led to the desensitization of the audience to the problems of migrants, rendering their perspective to be against migrants rather than to instill compassion towards them. Herzel tried to break this cycle with his work, which he claims is not the first or last work of photojournalists about migration, through capturing a different perspective that is much closer to reality. The photographs in his silent film shows people who lost their identities, and lives, trying to forge a new life for themselves, many of the pictures focus on authorities trying to identify the corpses of migrants and getting in touch with their families to show the feelings of loss that the migration crisis brings to many families. The efforts to care for the dead bodies of migrants reflects a strange irony. The immigrants who were identified and given a proper burial would have been treated as illegal people and detained or discriminated against had they lived to reach the shore. This reflects the hypocrisy of the global community at large towards migrants. Many rush to mourn the loss of life, yet few exert an effort to save it or value it. This is the central theme of migrant bodies. The authorities were quick to dispatch a task force to identify and bury the migrants, yet they wouldn’t have been so quick to give them work or residence.

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Photography Foundations: A1 Reflection

A1 taught me how to use different apertures to focus on different subjects through different depths of field and how to use that to bring to the viewer’s attention to the subject of the photo. I also learned how to properly expose subjects using the light meter for guidance. Lastly, I learnt how different shutter speeds can capture a moving object in different stages of blurriness and how to use that effect to draw with a moving light or capture a freeze frame of multiple objects moving as if time had stopped.

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Photography foundations: Assignment 1

Photo 1 (f5.6, 1/1000 s)

Photo 2A (f/5.6, 1/800 s)

Photo 2B (f/4, 1/800 s)

Photo 2C (f/8, 1/800 s)

Photo 3A (f/4, 1/4000 s)

Photo 3B (f/16, 1/250 s)

Photo 4A (f/22, 1/30 s)

Photo 4B (f/11, 1/250 s)

Photo 5A (f/8, 1/10 s)

Photo 5B (f/8, 1/15 s)

Photo 5C (f/8, 1/15 s)

Photo 6A (f5.6, 1/2500 s)

Photo 6B (f5.6, 1/500 s)

Photo 7A (f/4, 1/30 s)

Photo 7B (f5.6, 1/4 s)

Photo 7C (f5.6, 1/4 s)

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Photography Foundations:Canon simulator samples

Photo Sample 1: Correctly exposed bracket (f/5.6, 1/30 seconds)

Photo Sample 2: Underexposed bracket (f/8, 1/30 second)

Photo Sample 3: Overexposed bracket (f/4, 1/30 second)

Photo Sample 4: Depth of Field at f/4 (f/4, 1/60 second)

Photo Sample 5: Depth of Field at f/16 (f/16, ⅓ second)

Photo Sample 6: Moving Object at 1/30 second (f/5.6, 1/30 second)

Photo Sample 7: Moving object at 1/250 second (f/2.8, 1/250 second, 400 ISO)

[abdelazizabouelkhair]

Photography foundations Class activity #1:

Khalik Allah’s Photography is a mixture of candid and documentary photography, capturing a raw, visceral experience that is real and documenting for the world to see so that people know the reality of the people he shoots.

All of Khalik Allah’s photography was done in the streets of Harlem where he saw drug addicts and heavy police presence and just general chaos which inspired him to document the struggle of these people such as in the shot above where the very young addict looks to the sky above with a hopeless vacant gaze in a shot that vividly captures the reality of inner city children.

He believes that his purpose is to extend the light into people’s lives, which I took to mean shedding light on the people trapped in the dark so that people know their issues and empathize with their unfortunate circumstances. Photography can do that as it captures life, with all what that implies, it can tell the stories of the people in a form that is immediate and multidimensional in that every layer to the story of the photograph is present to the eye on first glance but it has so many layers that there is more than meets the eye.

The homeless man in the second picture is staring solemnly into the camera with a look that conveys deep sadness and anger upon society for his condition as well as internal agony as he clenches his lighter and raises his fist in a defensive manner. These are the type of people Khalik Allah hopes to shed light on.

Khalik Allah believes that one of his duties is to make knowledge born, and what that means is to unleash the knowledge that is inherent to his photographs by capturing the moment and taking the knowledge inherent to the moment he is trying to capture and documenting it for the world to learn from. He does not create knowledge, he is just a messenger of the moment he is capturing.

Photography’s role in Khalik Allah’s eye is to capture knowledge and reality for people to connect and empathize with each other and learn to see the world with a different perspective.

Perhaps one day if the public empathize with the people that Khalik Allah photographs, then it would shed light on their issues and bring out the understanding he hopes that his photographs would bring