Photographers Gallery: The Annual Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2013

Over the half term on the 31st of May, I went to the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize Exhibition at the Photographers gallery in London. The Prize has been running each year since 1996 and was created by the Photographers' Gallery with the intention of promoting the finest contemporary photography. Between 1997 and 2004, the prize was known as the Citigroup Photography Prize. Every year the photographers gallery and other judges give a prize of £30,000 (funded by a german marketing company called Deutsche Borse) to a photographer who has made the most significant contribution to the photographic medium in Europe during the past year. The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2013 is generously supported by Deutsche Börse Group and media partner The Telegraph. The annual photography prize has been been described as "the biggest of its kind in photography in Europe" and "the most prestigious".

The Prize the year is on until the 30th of June 2013 and was open to the public on the 18th of April 2013. The artwork is being shown on the two top floors of gallery and this years finalists are Broomberg & Chanarin, Mishka Henner, Chris Killip, and Cristina De Middel. The winner of the £30,000 Prize will be announced on Monday 10 June. The panel of judges this year are; Joan Fontcuberta - artist, Andrea Holzherr - Exhibition Manager and art critic, Karol Hordziej - Artistic Director, Anne-Marie Beckmann - curator of the Deutsche Borse Art Collection, Brett Rogers, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery and is the non-voting Chair.

Chris Killip's work: 

Broomberg & Chanarin's work: 

Mishka Henner's work: 

Cristina De Middel's work:

Portrait Photography: Julie Cockburn

Julie Cockburn is an artist who lives and is based in the uk. Cockburn work has been in many different exhibitions and her work is included and shown in many collections world wide in the UK, Europe and the United States. Cockburns work involves of finding old 1950's portrait photographs and sort of modernises them and brings them back to life so there is a link between them the past and present in her work. Cockburn uses lots of different skills, techniques and materials to be able to manipulate the faces of these people in the photographs. 

Cockburn uses a lot of found photographs of women in her work I feel to try and contend against lots of rules and stereotypes of women back in the 1950's a before of she's tried to show how society and women have changed. Back in the 1950's were supposed to fulfil certain roles, such as a caring mother, a homemaker, cleaner and an obedient wife. Nowadays women are free and can do many things that men can do know with no rules against them. I feel that this manipulated portraits such as this one at the top called Blue Tattoo shows how if a women wants to now she can get as many tattoos as she likes, and I think its good that you can still see through the embroidering because it shows how women would've had to been presentable back in the 1950's.

Cockburn also uses techniques like cutting and collaging to be able to make these unique mysterious portraits. I think these portraits are quite intriguing and mysterious because of how on some Julie Cockburn has completely taken apart and manipulated the people faces in the images. When the images are completely manipulated and hard to see it is hard to figure out the persons identity and any information about them or why Cockburn has done this to there face. I feel that Cockburn does this on purpose by using found photographs of people years ago instead of taking her own photographs of people and/or celebrities so that people think more about why Cockburn could of done a certain techniques/manipulation to a particular persons face. Especially when I was looking at these two collage type photograph down below it made me think more about the photograph and try to look more into detail of the meaning. It also reminded me of a sort of puzzle that I could try to solve in my head to unmask the persons identity. Cockburn said herself at the Photographers gallery interview "By collaging a found image with embroidery thread, plasticine, sticky back plastic or tacky found objects it becomes a new image with a new history to unfurl and, by association, a new memory".

Portrait Photography: Jan Van Holleben

On the left is a photograph of a german photographer called Jan Van Holleben. Holleben was born in 1977 in Cologne and was brought up in the southern German countryside where he lived most of his childhood in a small community of family and friends and was inspired mainly from his parents who helped him develop his photographic skills. At the age of 13 was when Holleben followed his father’s photographic career by picking up a camera and experimenting with all sorts of "magical tricks". After pursuing a career in teaching disabled children, Holleben then moved to London to follow his career as a photographer and got a degree in the history of photography at 'The Surrey Institute of Art an Design'. Now Jan Von Holleben's work is being exhibited and published worldwide.

Jan Von Holleben has a massive portfolio of work, but after looking through his website I was really 

inspired and amazed by the portfolio called dreams of flying which consist of making children's dreams come true through the use of props and and having a creative imagination just like Holleben's. Holleben says that he always tries to bring influences from his parents and his childhood into his work (a Child therapist and cinematographer). Holleben uses his own past experiences, childhood memories and knowledge gained from his parents and earlier career to create these inspiring, happy, fun, imaginative and creative photographs. Holleben describes his own work as being "Direct, natural, playful, considered, honest, improvised, educational, fun, childish yet totally serious by approach!". I really like how he describes his work as being childish, yet in a serious approach, which shows that he is having fun and trying to get a creative childish approach when creating his work but is also trying to give a message through his work to get everyone who sees his work to be able to remember their happy chilhood memories or imagine their childhood dreams. When Kanye West, the world famous American recording artist, record producer, film director and fashion designer saw Holleben's work he posted a blog about it on his website saying: "Jan von Holleben makes dreams come true!".

When creating these photographs Holleben tries to bring people back into the reality of photography because he feel that now in the 21st century too many people rely on the use of photoshop and digital manipulation. In his bio he says that he learnt a lot of magical tricks from him father too develop and use in his photography. I really like the fact that he dosent want to digitally edit his photographs because I feel that his photos of these children are suppose to show dreams and turn them into reality. I feel that if Holleben did use photoshop or other softwares and digitally placed photographs of children in a location or the sky, I  think that they wouldnt look as intriguing and as visually exciting as they are now because everyone would know they are not real. Holleben says in many interview and statements that he wants to be able to make these look like reality to show childhood 'dreams of flying' using these 'magical tricks' that he has learnt from his father. 

After researching the makings of 'dreams of flying' I found a video on how these pictures are made and found that lots of pre planning and setup is involved in creating these on floor arial photographs. A big factor I noticed when watching these videos was that the kids were very happy running around and in the photographs. Holleben tried to interact and have fun with the kids throughout the photoshoot and also showed them himself how he would like them to pose and what emotions they need to show for different scenes from childhood books and shows. Holleben used lots of props in the photographs to set the scenes and visual manipulation (Holleben's 'Magical Tricks') by making sure the positions of the children look realistic like they are flying through the air, eventhough we the audience know that the children are just lying on the floor and the camera is taking a photo of them from above. 

Top Left: PeterPan & Tinkerbell, Bottom Left: The King Kong, Top Right: Tarzan & Jan, Bottom Right: The Superman.

Documentary Photography: Lin Osborn analysis

Lin Osborn was awarded a scholarship to Harrow School of Art and went on to study at Surrey Institute of Art and Design, graduating in 2001 with a BA Hons in Fine Art. Then attending Winchester School of Art where she became increasingly interested in photography, and has since been awarded an Associateship by the Royal Photographic Society.

Lin Osborn uses this tile composition effect and is a style that she uses for all her pieces of artwork. However Osborn uses this tile composition differently for her pieces of work, for some pieces of work she will focus on using the colours in the photographs for her composition of the tiles just like her most well known piece called rainbow and in others will focus on just using different photographs of an object, in a specific place or a certain time of year. I really like this tile effect because even though Osborn takes a lot of photographs, they are very detailed close up photographs. I feel that if these photographs were much further away photographs, like landscapes I feel that this technique wouldn't work as well because the smaller the photographs are the less your eyes get drawn to them and the less your eyes focus on them. I also feel that the use of a lot of photographs works well  for Osborn's work because not only does it give a style to her work it also makes her work better because I feel that If these photographs were by themselves I think they wouldn't be good enough and look as intriguing and as creative as her work now. I have also found from looking at Osborn's work and when doing analysis's I feel that when photographers use less photographs or even one by itself  you start to look more in to detail and how the photographer or artist has created the photograph using light and exposure etc. However for Osborn's work you look more at the overall piece and then look a little bit more into detail but can only look so far to see colours, outlines and maybe some text or significant objects or parts or buildings because of the size or quality of the photographs. This is also said in her statement on her website: "By repeating a series of images the artist is able to change the original isolated context. ‘En masse' the images have a power and beauty. 

This photo is one her most well known pieces of work costing £875 for the full scale piece (70x100cm) or £50 for a (40x50cm) scale print. This piece of artwork consists of close up detailed photographs of different coloured packaging and foods focusing on text, images on packaging and logos.     

Lin Osborn also has many other pieces of artwork that you can by and look at on her website. Osborn has many different variety of photographs in different countries, of different objects, different packaging and also of nature throughout different seasons.

When looking through Lin Osborn's portfolio on her website I found that she took lots of photographs of nature and I was inspired by this and wanted to take the same approach to create my inspired work around the theme of nature. When taking my photographs I found that in my garden I had a variety of different coloured flowers. So after taking a bunch of different photographs I then tried to create the same style just like Lin Osborn's other piece called rainbow. I also used photo filters and adjusted the colour balance on the photographs to bring out the bright flower colours. Overall I really like my piece and had fun creating it and feel that I will possibly use this tile effect in future projects when presenting my work.


My Inspired Artwork:

Marithe and Francois Girbaud: Last Supper Advert

Marithe François Girbaud is an international clothing company based in France. It was founded in 1964 by François and Marithé Girbaud. The stores are located in Paris and Beverly Hills. In March 2005 Marithe and Francois Girbaud redesigned the painting of the Last Supper by Da Vinchi in their ad for jeans. In this ad all disciples and jesus are shown as women and the only male figure in the advert is portraying the character of john and is only wearing jeans and is naked from the waist up.

This advert was shown in big cities such as Paris and New York and also shown in the fashion capital of the world 'Milan'. The ad was shown in magazines and on billboards for weeks in paris and new york but however was banned in milan where Da Vinchi's painting is held because many people and the authorities found it offensive. I am a christian myself but however I am not overly religious and still do question my religion but when looking at this advert I did not find it offensive but do see why many religious people did find this offensive. I feel that many people found this photographed advert very offensive because of how the sacred religious Da Vinchi painting has been copied, changed and modernised like a parody and a joke just to advertise jeans which really even isn't the main focus in the photograph.

I also then compared the photograph to the sacred painting of 'The Last Super' and saw that the adverts composition of people in the photograph and the amount of people is nearly the exact same as the painting. I also saw that 'John' in the photograph is shown differently to how in the painting because of how he is leant over the women who is hugging him. This could show that she is being sexual to the man in the photograph by kissing his naked neck and body which people could find more offensive because of how he is the only man in the image and how the advertising company is trying to show 'sexual equality' between men and women, which they say in their defence. I also asked my mum who is a bit more of a religious Christian than I am to see what her view on this advert was. She felt that its very intriguing and doesn't find it offensive but sees it as a bit of a mockery of peoples religious beliefs, she also couldn't quite figure out what they are trying to advertise in the advert. 

Marithe and Francois Girbaud's didn't want this to offend religious beliefs but however wanted to prove a point about femininity. Their defense was: "Modern society has enabled women to achieve sexual equality with men only by sacrificing their femininity. This advertisement´s interpretation of Leonardo´s painting does not trivialise the sacred, but rather creates a new perception of femininity by presenting men, instead of women, in a position of fragility". The company also said that image is not offensive but a tribute to women. It was inspired by Dan Brown's bestseller The Da Vinci Code". However this advert was still banned by the advertising standards of Italy and by a french judge because they found it offensive to Catholics. The french judge said: “The offence done to Catholics far outweighs the desired commercial goal,” he said. He ordered that all ads on display be taken down within three days". 

These are also some other adverts that have made a parody of the 'Last Super' painting and used it to promote their products or company.

AS-A2 Breif

  What goals can you set yourself for this project?

For this Unit:3 AS-A2 photography pathway project I want to set my self the target of learning new terminology and be able to incorporate it into my analysis's to create much more in-depth, objective and subjective analysis's.  

  What are you going to do to meet the requirements of the project?

I am going to look more in-depth in to artists and pieces of their work so that I can create better analysis's of the photographers I look at.