Week 3: Digital Camera

This week we took photos around campus and then had a bit of a play in Gimp (download here: http://www.gimp.org/downloads/). I've also used Picassa (download here: http://picasa.google.com/). I love my click-and-shoot camera. I can take almost as many pictures as I like - and see them or delete them or adjust the shot or the camera and shoot again! Some people take that as being skill-less as if the quality of (or interest in) the photo depended entirely on the quality of camera! However, our lecturer reminded us of two principles, that in taking photos we still need to take photos with an intention and, therefore, need to make some decisions, for instance:

• set up the shot with poses, costume, framing and so on, or


• impose some kind focus or rule (completely candid, a theme, particular patterns etc) upon our photo-taking,

and are we choosing to take the photo:

• using automatic settings, or


• using automatic and manipulating digitally, or


• adjusting one or more elements of whatever can be adjusted on the camera

Or any combination of the above.

I chose to take my photos on automatic settings and manipulate later. The theme I imposed upon myself was that of surveilling students unaware (see previous post). Here's one of the results:

In this photo I have applied various filters to make the photo more grainy and saturated as if it was old and taken under difficult circumstances. I have made the target appear to glow - the way once we put something in our attention we are immediately hit in the eye by the many examples in our environment. I have also added a collage element to give a more 3D effect. The girl in the foreground was cut out of one photo and pasted onto a new layer which i then re-sized and used a mask to (roughly!) brush out her original surroundings so they are invisible.

Maybe this is the 'camera never lies' element, but it's rough so we know its a fake - we might forget that the audience can usually read our text! Finally, I pixelated the girl's face, partly to protect her privacy but also to suggest an air of covert operations and the format of so much news where broadcasters must have something to show, but must also stay within the Privacy Act. This says so much about our need to show 'progress' in daily events as our assumption that identity lies in the face.