Words to study for M & N words vocab test: The “Teach yourself” version

Dear 3A2,

I hope you studied for your vocab test over the weekend. If not, here are the words! Study them before Wednesday!

N Words:

Novice – someone who has no experience in an activity

Nonchalant – not seeming to care

Nabbed – to catch someone doing something illegal

Niche – a job or activity that is perfect for someone

Nepotism – When you are in a position of power, you give the best jobs to your family members

Nondescript – ordinary

Nitpick – the anoying habit of arguing about unimportant details

Novel – new and unusual, attracting someone’s attention

M Words

Assignment 5: Realism, formalism, expressionism

These 3 “-isms”, are to me, understood as styles in conveyance of artistic message.

Realism is simply the renaissance period or the period before the camera came into being. Painting is then used for documentation, and the subject is painted as real as possible.

Formalism comes into the picture when the artist emphasizes on the aesthetics and form of the image. Composition and structure of the image is more important than any message. The sole function is to concentrate on the picturesque quality of the image.

Expressionism reminds me of the expressionist movement in Art history. Objectivity is less apparent, and only subjectivity is portrayed in the picture. The message behind the image is strong, assertive, and compels a change in thought and opinion of the viewer.

Together with the theme, Creep, I saw creep as a noun, and as a person in particular. An irritating person that is considered a nuisance.

noun 1 informal a detestable person. • a person who behaves in an obsequious way in the hope of advancement.

This is pretty straightforward, the venue, the name, the message the loan sharks wants to put across, and the information of the debtor. It’s just a documentation of the scene as it is.

The loan shark who wrote on the wall is thus the creep. The vandal who is out to cause distress to both the owner and the cleaner responsible for cleaning the walls.

I racked my brains a little when I thought about how to “formalize” this subject, yet fit the theme of creep. Then I found a nice and coincidental triangle that is formed with the number ‘3’, and coincidentally, it surrounds ‘6’ and ‘9’, which are multiples of 3 as well. So I tilted the angle, and cam up with this shot.

The idea of creep is still there, but it does not surface that obviously, and the form of the numbers are presented first. Writing on the walls/vadalism is something a creep would do, thus it still fits the theme.

I literally crept down the stairs and took the picture from downstairs and through the railings of the stairs. It forms an image that resembles the idea of being behind bars, or being constrained.

This expressionistic image can be seen in a couple of ways.

Firstly, it talks about the confines of individual families living in HDB flats. Every family exists within their own “cubicle” without ever thinking about the family right next door. We’re living together, and at the same time, worlds apart. Not until we see scribbles as such on the walls that we realise that a particular household is having financial problem/going through a hard time.

The creep is thus, not only the the vandal, but also us. We only look through the boundaries of our homes at a safe distance, and observe the happenings of our neighbourhood, but never really confronting/ approaching one another to care for them.

Second reading: Vandalism is a criminal act, and the vandal(creep) should be put behind bars.

Third reading: This is my favourite, and the initial intent when i took this shot. It’s the idea of being in a societal rut. This is actually a common sight in the HDB estates, but the names and information changes. Think about it then, that also means that in every HDB flat, there is one or two family going through a financial rut. multiply that by the number of HDB flats in Singapore and we do get a very different picture of life in the heartlands. That the economic growth or promise that Singaporeans are wealthy is perhaps only as true as it gets on the newspapers. In reality, there is a good number of people caught in a particular social strata, and is forever caught in a rut of financial problems.

but who do we blame for being poor? Do we live in an economy where the rich gets richer and the poor get poorer? And why do we live in a society where politicians up their own pays while others are out sourcing for money to get by? Perhaps the ‘creep’ is no one in particular, not the loanshark, not the debtor himself, but in reality, society gives us the creeps at times.

Benchmarks will be updated later. Need to look through other works again.

self assessment

I don’t have blurred images this time round! Technicality wise, I have finally mastered how to use the shutter and aperture function properly. I did proper post production, and named my file properly.

I also thought hard about the theme and settled for a vandal in the HDB estate.

When I presented it to the class, there weren’t any response, except that it’s quite clear which photo belonged to which “-ism”. So I thought I nailed it.

At the end of the lesson, Mr. Reddy kept my picture (actually, much to my surprise) and I thought I got it right after all.

I also took a picture of something that “would otherwise go unseen”

The only challenge is to think about looking at the vandal from different perspective. The formalism picture was hard. How do you create a formalist picture from words on the wall? I thought I did the best I could by picking up numbers that jumped out (multiples of 3).

Thus for concept development, I give myself 50/50

For Aesthetic quality: (because no more blurred images) 49/50

in total: 99/100

the one mark is deducted because I’m sure there’s always one more way to look at the vandal, and I’ll keep exploring.

sidenote A day after I took the shots, I passed by the same spot and the words were painted over! I’m one lucky photographer man.

Notes on Notes on “The Gaze”

I know this is not required, in fact Mr Reddy didn’t emphasize the importance of theory in the lecture, but being a theory junkie, I’m a sucker for theoretical readings of images. And since this is a learning journal, I’ll talk about The reading for week 7 here.

I encountered Mulvey’s feministic take on film spectatorship in other modules before and couldn’t agree less with her views. Not because I’m a feminist but because however we try to emphasize an egalitarian society, the images of women (young and beautiful) still starkly emerges as the symbol of visual pleasure.

Somewhere on the site, it was mentioned that women, unlike men, do not have the liberty to watch, but can only watch themselves being watched. I thought that was an extremely well put statement, and is truthful to a large extent.
____

In the last lecture(wk7), Sir mentioned the variants of commercial photography, and the prevalence of the female face/form in photos for commercial purposes.

The image of Kate Moss thus came to mind, and Lacan’s concept of the dignity of the Thing sprung up. KateMoss, in the world of fashion photography, represents an unattainable aura that is distinct from the rest. She’s not the ideal beauty, (in fact, she’s even a little between weird looking and acquired taste) but that is her appeal. The sublime aura that she projects in her photos, and thus make her all the more unattainable. This is the anti-thesis of the perfect beauty, but it has the same (or even more) resonance with the intended audience.

For those interested, there’s an article on Kate Moss and Lacan Here)

So what have we found?

I find this idea binding the images the class has presented so far. From my obsession with taking pictures of rubbish in Assignment 2 (and Stephanie as well), to Paul’s obsession with taking pictures of rotting and seemingly “ugly” things, to Michelle’s beautifully composed pictures of supposedly ugly construction sites. I guess the appeal of these things to them is what is binding the appeal of Kate Moss as well.

So what is appeal? Is it a shift in the perspective we look at any and everything? Or is it when the distance between the subject and us is so great and only then we can appreciate the beauty of society without being bound by its implications in reality? I find the latter disturbing, it’s as though beauty is a mere illusion, and so distant.

Assignment 2: Depth, Presence, Contrast

In today’s tutorial, we understand presence to be a ‘window’ that engages the viewer. Sir later explained that engagement would imply that the image is more than just a picture and would draw the viewer into that 3D space.

I presented this two pictures to the class:

It was an extremely hot and sunny afternoon, so I had to increase my shutter speed by a whole lot in order to avoid overexposure.

ISO: 100 1/50 7.1

I also had two other shots of the durian shells, but one of them is seriously over exposed, and I didn’t like the other one because the ATM machine can be seen and it’s rather distracting:

edit

I realised I forgot the part on self assessment here. Here goes:

Self assessment:

For the picture on the bottles and newspapers, I give myself 45/50 for technicalities and 48/50 for visual appeal. In total it’s 93/100. I think my composition for this picture comes from a unique perspective, and the close up of the two “rubbish” does convey and tells audiences the story behind the person who threw them away. When questioned which are the pictures that created a sense of entry into the space, Stephanie pointed out mine, so I guess my composition works. 🙂

For the picture on the durians, Mr. Reddy said that it would be better if the man is not so centralised. However, I like the way i positioned the camera to capture the durian shells that eventually leads to the seller. Mark mentioned that the durian shells gave the picture texture, and thus adds contrast and depth into the picture space.

I give myself 43/50 for visual appeal, but because it is overexposed, I give myself 42/50 for technicalities. In total: 87/100

The two photos together, adds up to 90/100.

Benchmarks:

I think Mike did a great job on this assignment. His picture of the night sky was breathtaking. I love love love the colours, and the peek-a-boo horizon that makes a nice composition. I give him 97/100 for this assignment.

Paul also did a great job on his collection. I think what is most commendable about his work is that he puts in a lot of thought in the series. I saw his album and they are organised in terms of colours. The vibrancy and contrast in the colours were stunning. However, When compared with Mike’s works, Paul’s photos felt a bit distant, and does not engage me as much as Mike’s. Perhaps I can’t blame Paul for technical issues (because he has them, no doubt) but Mike just chose a really good subject, and took the chance when he had it to photograph the sky in that state.

Nevertheless, Paul still made the tops list with 96.5/100.

Assignment 2: image 1: A ‘life’ once lost

How many times have we tried to alter our states of mind to get on with life?

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”

— Albert Camus
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For the second assignment, I’m documenting the things people throw away, as they are the remnants of an experience that has passed, an emotion that was once alive and a vignette of life that has died.

more pictures to come.