YEAR 1 CORE Assignment : Task 4 : How does visual language communicate ideas and meaning

To look at and explore how different visual language is communicated to show meaning, I attended the 'Other Worlds' photography exhibition showing the work of 12 photographers from former soviet states. I decided to compare two photographers' work and how their photograph use different ways of communicating meaning using visual language.

Photographer 1 : Boryana Katsarova

The style of Katsarova's work is fine art. I think the pieces aim to make the viewer feel an emotion. I think the strongest visual element of the pieces is that they all work together well as a set. The dark murky colours and frosted glass brings them all together and makes them look strong. Katsarova's work is quite dark and eerie, and the pieces are often quite abstract and the viewer may have trouble working out what the photograph was/was about. I really like how the images are murky dark colours but have an injection of red which ties them together. It's hard to work out if they are real life people/events or whether the photographs have been staged. They look staged because the people always seem to be looking at/towards the camera, however, the emotions on their faces look real. The message the images convey is that these people are going through a tough time. They look like it's hard coping with the cold weather and they often look quite miserable.

Here is the description that acompanies the set of images:

"Heavy snow storms and record-low temperatures over the past two weeks have blocked many regions in Bulgaria, as well in the entire European region. The exceptionally cold weather and snowstorms that hit Europe in the beginning of February 2012, caused traffic chaos, road closures, straining emergency services, grounding flights and pushing the death toll past 300 and that left entire villages cut off.The temperatures dropped to around minus 20 Celsius, officials have appealed to people to stay indoors and be careful. Police searched for homeless to make sure they didn't freeze to death."

I think the idea behind these photographs is to show the tough times people have to go through to survive the harsh winters in Europe with temperatures dropping to minus 20 celsius - these are very harsh conditions and homeless people could die because of the cold. I think Katsarova was trying to portray that just to go about daily activities like getting the bus or going to work are a very hard thing to do and the weather makes everything more depressing and brings people down. Officials appealed for everyone to stay indoors, but some people just can't afford to do that and need to go to work, or they need to go get food and they risk their lives by doing so by going out into the perishing temperatures.

I personally think with this set of images, the idea is better than the content because the idea to show how hard it is to cope with the harsh winters is really good, but because all of these images are taken through glass I'm not sure how well this works. I really like the frosted glass which shows how cold it is and brings the images together as a set, I just think the idea is slightly better than the outcome. The imagery creates mood and emotion through the colours. They show that the people in the images are going through dark times, and the red could signify that the cold is dangerous and could cause death.

Photographer 2 : Lilla Szasz 

The style of Szasz' work is documentary. I think the strongest visual element of the pieces is that all of the people in them are either standing up or sitting down face on to the camera staring right at it. This brings them all together and makes them work well as a set. All of the images are square, and I personally am always attracted to square photographs and think they almost look stronger than standard rectangular ones. The people within the photographs almost seem to be emotionless when looking at the camera, none of them are smiling, they are just staring at the camera. The visual elements of these images are that they aren't set in a studio, and they're not staged. They are photographs of people in their own homes. The images are primarily a cream background with nice bright lighting, and elements of colour from what the people are wearing/what they have in their houses. The message that these images are conveying is that these people have been through a lot by fighting for their country and they are displaying their achievements and are proud of them by wearing their medals. The images also show that these people have lived and worked together and are attactched to each other because they have been through so much together.

Here is the description that accompanies the set of images:

“As members of the Russian army, they fiercely fought German occupation from 1941 to 1945. They fought in many battles along the Russian front in World War II, and in major battles in Odessa, Moscow, and Stalingrad. These soldiers played an important role in defeating the Nazis – a victory which they celebrated in the streets of Berlin alongside American soldiers. And finally, after not being able to live with post-war anti-Semitism in their own country, they immigrated to the New York City area. Their common experiences in the war, in its aftermath, and as immigrants to the United States bind them deeply to one another. As The New York Times explained, “As Jews who shared both deprivations of a brutal war against Hitlers forces and postwar anti-Semitism under a Soviet system they had risked their lives to preserve, their allegiance is not to the former Soviet Union, nor to the Red Army, nor even to Mother Russia, but to one another”

I think the idea behind this set of images is to show the journey that this group of people have been on and the pride that they share to have been through it together and to have played an important role of defeating the Nazis. Without them, the world may have been a very different place if the Nazis hadn't been beaten. I think that with this set of photographs the outcome is more important than the idea. I think the photographs are very strong and quite moving, yet simplistic with people just sitting/standing and looking straight into the camera with no fancy set up or studio - just natural shots of people in their homes. I think the idea is good to show this group of people and how they are attatched to each other and to show the pride in what they have been through, but I think the images are more effective than the idea because no idea could show the emotion on a persons face to show they'd been through a lot the way that a picture can.

The imagery creates mood and emotion by photographing the peoples faces - I think their faces show that they have been through a lot. Emotion is also created by displaying all the medals that the comrades have been awarded during their lifetime. This brings a huge sense of pride and achievement to the photographs.

Comparing the two photographers:

The difference between the two photographers work are that Katsarova's work is more of a form of art whilst Szasz has gone down the more documentary style. Another difference is that Katsarova has taken her photographs in a rectangular format whereas Szasz' images are in a square format. Katsarova's images are more of a set because the colour scheme is quite limited and the images are very similar which makes them stronger as a set whereas Szasz images were all taken in different places with slightly different lighting/colours in each photograph.

The similarities between the two photographers work are that they both use narrative image making. I think that they are both trying to tell a story through their sets of images - Katsarova is showing how hard life is during these cold times with temperatures falling to around minus 20 celcius. Szasz is showing the story of the comrades lives and showing the journey they've been through and the pride they have in what they've done.



I decided to look at another style of photography and talk about how they use visual language to convey ideas and meaning:

Venture Photography:

Venture photography is studio portraiture. I think that the strongest element of their work is that they clearly find out something about the person/people that they are photographing and exaggerate some of their qualities to make them more personal. You can tell they do this because an image/set of images of a person/group of people may be a certain colour to show they like it or props may be used to show that they play guitar etc. The photographs created at Venture are often taken in a white studio with the white background being quite bleeched out. Sometimes this can be distracting and a little too much if the background is too bleeched out. They use props to show personality and sometimes edit them afterwards to add colour or effects to show personality. They have lots of different styles of photography - single photographs, couples, weddings, teens, groups, family portraits etc. I like the family ones because they are really relaxed and they are often action shots just capturing the family having a good time.

The main idea behind their work is to please their clients - if the client is not happy about the photographs that have been taken they won't want to buy them which loses them money. Obviously another idea behind the portraits at Venture is to make money. If people didn't want their portraits taken, they wouldn't make any money and therefore wouldn't be able to run the business. The most important part of Venture's photographs is the outcome - the idea doesn't matter if the client isn't happy with the final outcome and doesn't want to buy the images.

Their imagery creates mood and emotion by making their photographs natural if possible and also exaggerating personality. Mood may be created if a person really likes dark colours like dark blues and purples then they add that as an effect afterwards which could create a really interesting mood and effect to the image. Emotion may be conveyed by e.g. if there is a photograph of a baby laughing it could make the client/viewer happy when they see it. I think the way they get their clients/subjects/models to relax when doing the photoshoot is a really important visual element when they take their photographs because it makes them look really natural and perfect for family photographs - I personally am not really a fan of the staged ones where people are just stood up and it looks slightly awkward.