-Portrait Debate: No two people agree. Person or not? Candid or not? Why the strict definition? This will unfold throughout the rest of the curriculum.

-Homework insights: conceptual and technical. Conceptual: consider how different the same person can look. Structure, not content. However, most will look upon these and think one is “realistic,” while the other is wacky or arty. Our contention is that they are EQUIDISTANT from reality. Everything we did with image B to unflattering, we did in equal and opposite proportion image A in order to flatter. Wide angle lens unflattering, the telephoto lens unrealistically flatters. Angle of light unflattering, butterfly lighting unrealistically sharpens the face, etc. they are equidistant from reality. It isn’t that image A is more realistic, it’s that it is more FAMILIAR. It’s how we always see people conveyed in portraiture and thus it matches our expectations, whereas the other image defies our expectations. This repeats the theme of logic vs expectations, Image A is both more logical AND in line with expectations, Image B is both less logical AND defies our expectations. Which part of that is more weighted in the viewer’s perception of whether the image is successful or a failure.  Parable of the celebrity: we curate celebrities to always look like this. If you’ve ever seen a celebrity up close in everyday life, the reaction is usually “they look so normal.”  Of course they do.  Think of someone you know, close your eyes and picture their face. Your brain is conjuring a selective composite of all the angles you’ve seen them from, all the lighting conditions you’ve seen them in (waking up on the pillow looking up their nose, seeing them in the drivers seat with harsh light from the rear view). Now picture Jennifer Lawrence. You’ve ONLY ever been allowed to see her this one way. When she’s lit in magazine shoots, in her films, on talk shows and interviews. Imagine a dystopian future where we’ve become so vane that we have little floating orbs that hover in front of us always giving us butterfly lighting. That’s what we’ve done to Jennifer Lawrence. We curate celebrities that way. Then you’re standing behind one at the UPS Store, and she’s under broad fluorescent lighting and you see she has the same flaws all humans have, same texture in her skin, same asymmetries, etc. So here’s the bigger theme here: superficial red herrings in how people THINK photography affects our culture, as opposed to how it ACTUALLY affects our culture. 2 or 3 times a year some magazine gets caught red handed over-photoshopping a model, the before and after pictures are leaked, and then the media gives us a barrage of articles about how this is giving young people an impossible standard to live up to and leading to eating disorders. Meanwhile something not happening a few times a year, something happening tens of thousands of times a day is that every celebrity in the world in every movie, tv show, interview, talk show, and news reading is being lit a certain way to flatter them in ways that you will never see in your own mirror at home. This OBJECTIVELY does more harm than the occasional photoshopped magazine ad, but nobody ever mentions this at all.  Ever. Ever.  These red herrings suck up all the attention while the more substantial ways that photography influences society always go unabated. Similarly. How many headlines have we seen about how “photojournalism is misleading” only to read the body of the article and realize, oh, they’re talking about superficial red herrings again. Obama’s inauguration was shot at one time of day, and Trumps at another.” Yeah, we knew about that bias 100 years ago. Timing bias, shooting one subject over another, etc. Red herrings that people keep repeating. What the article SHOULD be saying is that even if we shot the exact same subject at the exact same time, we could still easily bias the audience’s perception through photographic structure. The same inauguration crowd shot at the same second can look totally different with a compressed telephoto lens. But you never see any articles about structural bias in photography. Ever. And so the red herrings allow the real biases to go unabated. Another conceptual note is that we’re moving to facial recognition software. Don’t you think their algorithms will have to take all of these principles into account in order to be accurate. Another way that the underlying principles of photography have far reaching impact on society, without people ever really thinking about it. Also introduces the important idea that studying these principles, as well as the practice of photography in general, might become the early vestigial catalyst toward greater long term applications (AI, augmented reality, simulation, visual language, understanding autism, etc.). Technical notes for this assignment: should have struggled in some obvious ways. First not enough light. It meant you had to compromise some camera settings, perhaps your ISO, or your shutter, or your depth of field, or all of them. Remember we said last week, no compromise in the studio. But you had to compromise. Not compromising is predicated on strobes. No continuous light source gets as bright as a strobe. Even when you add a few hundred watts, you get something so hot it’s a fire hazard, it makes subject sweat, products melt, etc. And that only buys you 2 or 3 stops. Even if LED’s could burn as brightly as strobes, you’d still have the problem that it would blind the subject. Strobes allow ANY camera setting you want (iso 100, aperture 32, and shutter speed of 250), they can be brighter than the sun and they do it without getting hot or blinding anyone. So INTENSITY is about half the pie chart here, when it comes to advantages of dedicated studio strobes. Next is PRECISION. You can be accurate to within 1/10 of a stop in lighting every part of the scene, so no post processing. Then it’s MODIFICATION. Can be softened in ways hot lights can’t (no melting, no fires), and can be shoved through very small modifiers in ways hot lights can’t. Finally, COLOR temperature is easier to control (less post-processing). So if you don’t have dedicated studio strobes expect to compromise your camera settings, several potential constructs are off the table, and much more time post-processing. If you do have them, expect totally uncompromised results, more potential constructs, faster and without post. That’s why we need studio equipment. If your camera technology has an origin story of a bunch of asshole marketers sitting around a table discussing how they can alter their operating system and what new features will impress uneducated photographers and tech blogs, by contrast, studio equipment has an origin story of “some knowledgeable photographer couldn’t get the exact results he wanted, so he jury rigged a device to get the results, and eventually patented it and some company started producing it. Cameras are designed for consumers, we as serious photographers are just passengers, an afterthought. Studio equipment is designed for serious photographers. One last conceptual note. The Image A shot was harder for one more fascinating reason. We’re SO USED to that shot, any deviation at all is obvious. Topo Chico/New Coke analogy. Most photographic constructs have the luxury of only needing to be like 75% faithful to the construct to be effective. But for the headshot, it’s so ubiquitous that if you’re only 91% faithful, we mostly notice the missing 9%. A lack of tilt, for instance, or just a lack of catch lights. 

-Systemic analysis of commercial tropes: First, one word concept the image needs to convey > which one branch of LSAT physics is most associated with that idea > final protocol that usually exploits JUST that one technique. Very linear and predictable. Band portrait needs to be dynamic, spatial depth is most associated with dynamic, so wide angle lens. Pregnancy shots need to be sentimental, light is most associated with sentiment, high key backlighting. Etc. End discussion by reversing the analysis. Protocol of food/product shot, only uses space, does it because the image needs to isolate the food, see it as an end unto itself, and not a means to an end, not as part of a relationship. Editorial photographs would shoot food the opposite way, as part of a relationship of information. Again, this is originally very logical, but also now conforms to our expectations.

-Definition of Documentary. Is there any place where the Venn diagram doesn’t overlap with art. Something you can say about documentary you can’t say about artists? Students can never do it. Walker Evans attempt with “branch of art that needs to be unambiguous.” But my definition is that it is a voice (style). Documentarians tend to limit their subjects to human struggle, and we now expect human struggle to be delivered to us in a certain tone of voice. A grave, gritty, serious, stoic and profound tone of voice. Can’t be bubbly and dynamic, or commercial and desirable, etc. That would defy expectations and freak people out and you’d be labeled an artist.  Like commercial photography, documentary is a SHARED style or voice. Unlike artists who can choose a unique style, documentarians are generally expected to adhere to some specific boundaries. Difference between Doc and PJ, largely that PJ is a hired gun shooting their employer’s agenda, Doc is self assigned and shooting own agenda. Time frames - PJ is superficial (literally not pejoratively), done in an hour or a day, and Doc is substantial, 6 months to 2 years. Most important difference is that PJ shoots preconceptions, often a specific image the editor asked for (“vertical portrait  of the owner“) whereas for Doc the story can change and evolve away from original intentions.  Bruce Davidson first shoots preconceptions of graffiti broken windows, etc., then shoots portraits. That can never happen in PJ. A PJ gets the shot they need no matter what, the convention center job fare that has to look full because the headline (and reality) say it was full. Also they differ in terms of the constructs you’re allowed to use. Organizational authorship vs archetype.

-Only 4 shots in Editorial. Person Place Action Thing. Key is that each one has to link the subject to other information and cannot simply isolate subject or make subject an end unto itself. Portrait can’t be a headshot. Has to link person to story. Scene-setter can’t be a landscape or architectural shot (pure aesthetics), it has to link the place to the story or describe the place narratively. Detail can’t be a product shot, has to link to story, etc. 

Editorial taxonomy:  Person/Place/Action/Thing shot with organizational and informative structures, you’re a photojournalist, Person/Place/Action/Thing shot with ideological archetypal structures, you’re a documentarian, Person/Place/Action/Thing shot with strictly commercial structures (desirability structures), you’re a wedding photographer or travel photographer, and Person/Place/Action/Thing shot with aesthetic constructs, where the aesthetic value of the image is as important or more than the informative value of the image, you might be National Geographic.