Landscape photography

ThesisIn this century landscape photography calls to mind the powerful images of the American West captured by Ansel Adams and Timothy O'Sullivan who exploited new territories by shooting abstract images and overwhelming panoramas of the West. Landscape photographs inspire a deeper appreciation of nature and make people aware of the urgent need for additional environmental protection measures. "Landscape photography makes natural vistas accessible to the masses and helps them realize their responsibility to the land". ( The expressionist landscape, a master photographer's approach, Yuan Li, 1989, p.9) The natural landscape is one of the first subjects most photographers shoot - but the majority of the resulting images are not successful. They appear to lack a connection between the subject and their viewers. The answer to the problem is that a lasting impression has to be created. Most of the pictures are too far removed from the daily lives of most people to be able to produce either an emotional or intellectual response. Landscape photography , however, can and should reveal the bond viewers have with their natural surroundings. The power of a photographic impression lies in the realistic portrayal of what takes place in a split of a second and the inclusion of a deliberate element of design. Landscape photographers have to be sensative enough to perceive an image based on what lies before their eyes and at the same time the photograph must give the impression that the photographer was in full command of the situation while making the image. All photographers - and most viewers - are aware of the difference between reality and an image. In Landscape photography there are specific factors that explain the difference : in a picture there are carefully composed but artificial boundaries which contrast directly with human vision which is limited only by the obstacles present on the land. A photograph's boundaries occasionally create tension in the image that is not present in reality. The boundaries limit what can be included in a photograph and force the viewers to focus on elements in the picture. One of the secrets of taking a good photograph lies in the statement of Helen Manzer:" Before releasing the shutter, ask yourself what excites you in the viewfinder." (Yuan Li, 1989, p.12

The influence of the visual elements of cover design on the appeal of art and cultural magazines: case study is book fare in Oulu

Design of magazines - a complex and time-consuming process, often requiring custom solutions. Developers need to know what impact on the visual component of information influence on the audience. The purpose of this case is to gain an understanding of what kind of visual elements of paper media influence on the choice of viewer. As a particular type of magazine were chosen art and cultural magazine with a reason to narrow research and to get depth knowledge about this topic. The study is structured that in the first chapter the information about purpose and research questions is provided. Second chapter describes research materials and methodology that were used to collect data. The third chapter gives the literature review that focus subjects of the study. In the chapters four, the results of the research is analysed and conclusions are made. After all chapters made generalised conclusion using data from the literature review and data collected from the interviews

Street Art and Space

Various forms of street art, such as murals, anamorphic painting or urban interventions, become an important component of urban space. The paper examines examples of selected works of urban art in the context of space and its reception. These unexpected “events” entertain and educate. They become, on the one hand, a tourist attraction, and on the other hand, a major voice in the debate on the public nature of visual urban sphere. Although ephemeral and inconspicuous, usually reluctantly accepted by architects and urban planners, they successfully urge viewers to reflect on space and its existing functions

Francis Bacon and the practice of painting

This article addresses the question about why painting continues to be relevant in our contemporary cultural climate. A key reason can be located in the means by which the material of paint can be utilized, manipulated, and perceived through entire sensory and bodily mechanisms. As the practice of Francis Bacon (1909–1992) demonstrates, it is within the elusive behaviour and handling of pigment that the full transformative potential of painting can be released. In fact it can activate a whole field of sensory responses on the part of painter and viewer. The painter can manipulate the material to achieve a variety of effects but needs also to acknowledge how the material can potentially assume an independent life of its own, an almost unruly character. The strength and enduring quality of painting which links modern to postmodern practice, lies in its potential to utilise the painter's tacit skills as well as releasing the inherent and ‘unruly’ qualities of the pigment. The potential of painting practice lies within the orbit of the individual painter who can recognize implicitly how to let the paint ‘work’ according to the needs of the image being constructed

The Archigram Archive

The Archigram archival project made the works of seminal experimental architectural group Archigram available free online for an academic and general audience. It was a major archival work, and a new kind of digital academic archive, displaying material held in different places around the world and variously owned. It was aimed at a wide online design community, discovering it through Google or social media, as well as a traditional academic audience. It has been widely acclaimed in both fields. The project has three distinct but interlinked aims: firstly to assess, catalogue and present the vast range of Archigram's prolific work, of which only a small portion was previously available; secondly to provide reflective academic material on Archigram and on the wider picture of their work presented; thirdly to develop a new type of non-ownership online archive, suitable for both academic research at the highest level and for casual public browsing. The project hybridised several existing methodologies. It combined practical archival and editorial methods for the recovery, presentation and contextualisation of Archigram's work, with digital web design and with the provision of reflective academic and scholarly material. It was designed by the EXP Research Group in the Department of Architecture in collaboration with Archigram and their heirs and with the Centre for Parallel Computing, School of Electronics and Computer Science, also at the University of Westminster. It was rated 'outstanding' in the AHRC's own final report and was shortlisted for the RIBA research awards in 2010. It received 40,000 users and more than 250,000 page views in its first two weeks live, taking the site into twitter’s Top 1000 sites, and a steady flow of visitors thereafter. Further statistics are included in the accompanying portfolio. This output will also be returned to by Murray Fraser for UCL