The new & improved idea.

Following on from my thoughts on potentially collecting images of photographic errors on the web, I have decide it would be better to make a collection that presumably no-one or not many people have before as photographic glitch collections already are quite popular on the internet. I have moved on and decided to make a collection of myspace profiles of those on the two extremes of emotion, happy/joyous vs depressed/suicidal. The publication will show images from their collection as well as text from their profile. I am very much interested in the psychology of those who spend much of their time on internet profiles. To avoid any bias I am only choosing those who label themselves to be experiencing that relevant emotion. Hopefully the extremes in contrast will help to provide some kind of understanding of the individuals and raise question why they exprience these emotions.

This is digital pop. We are the Andy Warhol of the Internet

At the halftime show of SuperBowl XXXviii Justin Timberlake sang the line "I'm gonna have you naked by the end of this song" and tore the right breast from Janet Jackson's costume. A scandal ensued, and the following day news outlets in North America digitally altered the image of Janet's breast on television and in newsprint. The unaltered image of Janet's breast was available on the Internet, which caused it to be, in the words of the Lycos Top 50, "the most searched for event in the history of the Internet".

The incident was referred to as a "wardrobe malfunction", a glitch in the half-time show that provides an erotic error to launch the signal text of glitch art.

This is digital pop. We are the Andy Warhol of the Internet.

Reading

Click here to read a very well written essay on photographic glitches.

The problem with photography

I am very much intrigued by photographic "error". The camera somehow taking its revenge, in obscuring reality. The fine fine details of an image showing through. The deconstruction of an idealism and perfection that many photographers are so persistent to achieve.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/veloopity/125053610/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/larskristian/127523667/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nycbone/61772919/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lukeroberts/171861268/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iangallagher/263010408/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iangallagher/263142943/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlndrr/248137351/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlndrr/248137148/

What is the role of text in photo publishing?

Apologies for the late posting...
Text and imagery have always been linked in publications, and the role text plays in accompanying photos in publications is widely varied.
Text, letters, language have always been primal tools in communication. There are some things that an image can not capture, that a written description may. The majority of photos are very much so fixed in time, for after all they are taken within a single moment that has past. Text can provide information beyond what we can see or ever know regardless of how much we study the picture. It can provide us with a background to the origins of the image, in for example its exact time and location, information about the scenario they were placed within or things external to the frame of the image. Biographys on the publisher and the artist themself is very much common to be released alongside images. At times, in order to understand more conceptual imagery, text can provide information on related theories and movements that the images may be associated with in order to gain a full understanding and appreciation of the work. Though the saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words, a few words combined with that picture makes the picture a thousand times larger.
Text, is also used by the artist themselves within the composition of the image, where photographers have written alongside their images, at times in a poetic manner (Duane Michals, Robert Frank), or at times in the factual manner, right alongside their imagery. Photographers have traditionally kept writing to a minimum, with their strongest form of communication assumed to be in the imagery and not in their words.
Steichen's Masterprints book is an example of text used alongside the imagery to procide background to a time around when the picture was taken. The text varies from letters, to extracts from conversations, to personal diary-style entries. The text is not always directly linked to the content of the image, but in the prose, and emotions felt in the writing an aura is created around the images.
Text is also linked to imagery in a graphical sense, where the combination of text within imagery is used in a very symbolic manner.
Advertising and promotion is virtually non existent without the use of text or symbolic logo to back it up. At times too much text can be seen as the company who is really trying to connect, whereas in the form of a graphic logo, or one worded brand names, it is more about the package of the two that comes together to provide consumption needs.


Recently text in photo publications, has come one step further through the help of photo blogging. People can now interact with text to one anothers images. To express opinions on the images, ask questions, and debate issues raised amongst a vast community ranging from professionals to just somebody who has something to say the opportunity to express ones self through words directly to the publisher seems easier than ever. In showing a history of all that has been said it avoids questions being repeated, and provides an extended background on the image.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/christinawill/6865934/

What constitutes photo publishing practices now?

Photo publishing has and always will be a process of communicating visual information into the sphere of the public realm. A photograph in history has always been an effective tool of communication, and in its early day’s photo publishing revolved around providing mass distributed information, in use of newspapers, press/media releases, information that seemed crucial for everyone to know and understand regardless of their literary skill. Since the mass production and development of technology of the tools required to publish photographically, its purpose today has evolved into various forms since becoming universally accessible.

Since the arrival of the internet, people have been able to openly express themselves and create virtual realities revolving around any subject they choose. In its most accessible form, the online ‘blog’ has provided many with an opportunity to publish their own images, without the complications of owning their own website. In its template form, the content of the published images becomes very much the focus, and not the package it is presented in. The rapid increase of users browsing the internet for images has levelled or perhaps even outweighed in some cases, the practice of finding printed/projected images in the public realm. Perhaps this could be due to the ease of finding the images you require through the development of search engines that not only can find images from web logs, but the majority of all internet sites across the world.
A problem that has always faced photo publishing and the public’s access to publishing is financial. Many people who have images, ideas, expression they wish to share with the world, can rarely finance the cost of mass production printing and distribution. With the exception of costs for internet usage, the cost of publishing and sharing your images with the world is cheap and easy, cutting out the costs and complications of all the middle men. There are still many positive reasons for publishing to print. The tradition of books, its physical presence, its appearance on the bookshelf, and its ability to be utilised independently, in contrast to the dependencies the internet has on electricity for example has its advantages. The freedom of style is another advantage in contrast to the templates of websites, internet explorers and computer monitors.
Another realm of photo publishing that has recently developed is independent publishing. People can share published images, in any manner they wish, without necessarily complying with minimum print runs that publishers may require, or the censorship/approval from people above to back the book financially. The aesthetics of independent photo publishing comes in the way of being free to express as they please and still be able to share it with many. The ability to find these books worldwide comes at the cost of purchasing an ISBN code, which allows anyone to be able to access the ISBN database in order to purchase the required publication.
In a nutshell, photo publishing has grown and developed itself to the realm of the public sphere, where now everyone who can receive its information can too publish.