'i woz here': Stories we leave behind

The theme of this photo essay is 'i woz here', which is appropriately misspelt and styled in the video as handwriting typically found on a class desk or toilet door, to indicate the sub theme of 'stories that we leave behind' in everyday aesthetics.

The photos in this video represent transience as described in Susan Murray's Digital Images, Photo-Sharing, and Our Shifting Notions of Everyday Aesthetics as the moment, which had 'limited time in the spotlight' (Murray 2008 p.140), has passed and what remains now leaves clues which communicate details of this moment to viewers without them seeing it.

The video takes the viewer on a journey through the day in the life of a family member heard in the audio or someone in relation to them. It begins with being inside their house in the morning, to where they have journeyed outside during the day, to activities they would have engaged in at night. New photos lay on top of previous ones that fade into the past along with their subject.

They are stylized in Photoshop with an orange like hue and corners that fade to black which represent an afterglow and transience of a now passed moment in time. 
Exactly who is seeing these clues or who has left them behind is ambiguous. The final photo is one of flowers on a telegraph pole, which could indicate a tragic end to the story. Perhaps the father has passed away and will never receive the message or experience those photographed moments again, or perhaps he missed the call because he is mourning the death of his secret lover and the photos were actually memories of theirs.

The sound chosen was originally music that audibly expressed a nostalgic feel to this video as songs 'become a kind of commentary on (a) film' (Frith, 1983 p.172), however, I felt the sound of a voicemail message would more clearly communicate the theme of transience and 'support . . . its visual system' (Frith, 1983 p.172) as an answering machine itself is an everyday aesthetic. Once I placed the new audio over the visual, the video took on a new and more complex narrative. 
The complete audio heard is a juxtaposition of three samples I have edited to tell one story.

Tools used in creation of video:

iMovie, Photoshop 3.0, 3.2 mega pixel camera on Nokia 7230 phone. Photographs taken in Chatswood, Wollstonecraft and Lane Cove and transferred to my Mac Powerbook Pro via Bluetooth.

Creative commons licensing:

Sounds/Audio derivatives of;

'Hi Daddy' by daveincamas 

- www.freesound.org/people/daveincamas/sounds/31490/

- Attribution CC BY 3.0

'Voicemail' by Pidgin 

- www.freesound.org/people/pidgin/sounds/9903/

- Sampling Plus 1.0

'Andrew Voicemail' by mindtriggerz mom

- www.freesound.org/people/mindtriggerz%20mom/sounds/60838/

- Sampling Plus 1.0

MAS110 reader references:

Murray, S 2008, Digital Images, Photo-Sharing, and Our Shifting Notions of Everyday Aesthetics, pp 140, in Macquarie University, MAS110 Introduction to Digital Media Production: Unit Reader, Session 2, 2012

Frith, S 1983. Mood Music, pp 172, in Macquarie University, MAS110 Introduction to Digital Media Production: Unit Reader, Session 2, 2012

All aspects of assignment by: Laura Baker

Photo Essay - Vandalism, Graffiti and Reflection

We chose to have our theme of urban decay be about vandalism. Our sub theme was how the light reflects or plays a part in the picture and graffiti. The vandalism we found ranged from simple graffiti to smashed televisions and glass. Seeing vandalism is an every day thing, even if we don’t always notice it. The scenes we found may have been damaged and full of destruction, but we found a way to make it look more like art than a place of abandonment. 


The vandalism was located throughout the city and found in almost every place we looked and observed. From the tiniest tagging of a name, to a large area of colorful spray paint and unreadable words. Each place had it’s own form of vandalism where people defaced what they could with the tools the scenery provided.

Mattee1283 (January, 2012)

Misty Heart

Creative Commons License

http://soundcloud.com/mattee1283/misty-heart

Gary Almeida
Katherine Ryan
Stephen Abdallah

MAS110 Photo Essay Daniel Bosca and Rob Stilwell

MAS110 Photo Essay
Daniele Bosca and Rob Stilwell

Arches and Indistinct

Music: Boc - Gene Went Home (2012)
Creative Commons: Attribution, Non-Commercial
http://soundcloud.com/stefano-glynatsis/gene-went-home

The theme Rob and I decided to go with is the use of arches within the urban areas and city architecture and how the style has made its way through modern tools and technology. We mainly focused on gathering images of arches through Victorian style building in the CBD and at the rocks and later searched for places that used the style that one would normally not pick up on their day to day lives like a bike ramp or a bin. The sub theme we focused on is the indistinct. We drained some colour while sharpening and defining the images to emphasise the textures that would accompany the architecture and how it contrasts with modern, aforementioned tools. These themes relate to being mundane as both the modern and historical methods of arches are commonly tedious and viewed as unimaginative which the video would like to denote while attempting to give evidence to the contrary. All the things the video displayed are things that us as members of a westernised culture use and mainly ignore which further emphasises what makes it mundane.

MAS110: Everyday Aesthetic: Advertising by Night

MAS110: Everyday Aesthetic: 'Advertising by Night'

Nicholas Olive and James Ditchfield

The everyday aesthetic that we have encaptured throughout our YouTube video is ‘advertising by night’. This is a hugely interesting as well as significant component of our lives in contemporary society, which ultimately conveys the notion that Sydney embodies a wider community that ‘never sleeps’. As the consumers of a prospering society we are all subject to such compelling advertising that seeks to establish its product with colour that contrasts the natural by night. Therefore, as witnesses to these amazingly sophisticated displays, we are all intrinsically affected and whether conscious of the fact or not, we develop a specific connection to their product; leading to their success as an enterprise. Our photographs capture noteworthy examples of this effect and attempt to develop a distinct contrast between the focal point and the natural surrounding. Furthermore, the music that complements the video works parallel to the notion of ‘night’, especially when portraying scenes of the city and widely recognized nightlife. A more profound and intense tone is used to bring life to the still images that appropriately inaugurate the distinction between darkness and the light attained by advertising. 

Theme: Advertising

Sub-theme: Night

Music: 'Dirty Night' by Dexter Britain (2012); available at (http://soundcloud.com/search?q%5Bfulltext%5D=creative+commons), Published under a creative commons - Non commercial - Licence type: ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).

Mailboxes- 'Character and personality' 

Created by Adam Golledge and Jack Brooks

Theme: Mailboxes
Sub-theme: Character and personality

Mailboxes are a symbol of urbanisation. Out the front of every house, shop or workplace across Australia a mailbox sits. Each mailbox has its own identity. The mailbox once was an integral means for communication in society, each with its own personality and character traits. Yet in today's digital-dependant culture, we discovered the mundane and stock-standard look of the modern mailbox. As 'old vs. new' and 'uniformity and individualism' was brought forward it is clear how the mailbox illustrates Murray’s concepts of amateur photography and everyday aesthetics as well as the need for personality and character. Traveling across Sydney suburbs, inner city and city we discovered the older and more dilapidated the mailbox, the more character and personality it has. We expressed this idea by emphasizing the various colours in the photos of "old" mailboxes and contrasted them with the bleak, bland, uniformity of the 'new-age' mailboxes. The soundtrack by Singleton, helps explore these ideas due to the somber yet passionate tone and lyrics which reminds us, when presented with seemingly unattractive objects or people, by looking deeper we can often find much more interesting inner-beauty expressed through character and personality.

Music By Singleton- 'The One'
Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike
(BY-NC-SA)

Jack Brooks
Adam Golledge

The Decay of Advertising MAS110

The Decay of Advertising 

Advertising is a prominent aspect of modern society, which remains a constant with our everyday encounters. Focusing more closely on this theme we were attracted to explore the idea of decay, as this aspect of advertising often goes much more unnoticed despite how closely it surrounds us. Murray’s concept of the change of the everyday image can be demonstrated through our video and concept as it focuses on capturing the ‘small and mundane’ aspects of advertising that is a primary element of our surroundings. Bridget and I took photos from the inner west and the northern beaches areas in order to gather a variety of photography, which portrayed advertising, and our subtheme of decay. The incorporation of melancholy music “With Progress” found on Soundcloud also enhances the sense of discomposure represented throughout the video. Ultimately we chose to explore this topic because while advertising constantly surrounds us we take little time to notice and reflect upon its decay and where and why it is occurring. Enjoy.

Tiarne Heath & Bridget Langtry

MAS110 Colourful Trash

Colourful Trash

The mundane concepts that has been captured photographically in this video is trash and colour. Although the term 'trash' is often referred to as the typical waste we create and dispose of, such as bottles, containers and paper; I've found that it goes beyond that - it can be as simple as a chair or of a much greater magnitude like a car or building. However, they can also be considered as objects that have been abandoned and disowned by the previous owners, but they still display signs of new life as seen by the graffiti and stencil art covering them after they had been abandoned. As such, my photographs capture both aspects of the notion of trash, in some photographs there are graffiti-covered dumpsters and SULO bins and others are a lone fire extinguisher left in an abandoned warehouse and an staircase in an abandoned building in Berlin. The music that accompanies the video compliments the colour and tone the images set. The eeriness and moody nature of the song correlates well with the bursts of colours from the photographs as well as the notions of dilapidation and the mysterious undertones the abandoned objects and its surroundings radiate through the pictures.

Music: Yumi, "Radiohead - Nude (yumix)" (2011)

Creative Commons: Attribution

Camera: Canon EOS 7D, Nikon P7000

Shooting locations: Sydney (Dunlop Factory 2012), Melbourne (2011), Berlin (2012) and Mykonos (2012)

MAS110 Photo Essay - Waiting Spaces & Boredom

MAS110 Photo Essay - Waiting Spaces & Boredom

Joshua Brogan and Samuel Ryan (42855640 & 42888336)

Our photo essay has reflected concepts of capturing mundane properties through everyday photography in a variety of ways. Our main theme of waiting spaces encapsulates the routine practice of waiting that we experience each day as part of our lives. While in these spaces, few appreciate the urban surroundings that have been put in place to allow us to wait, but when viewed outside these contexts, one can understand their necessity. Our sub-theme plays off of the main theme because in the waiting spaces, we all experience boredom as we pause and become stagnant until we are able to continue onwards. The reason we chose benches, bus stops and other waiting spaces was so we could express what is typically mundane when in the moment, yet surprisingly interesting when observed from a separate context. The non-occupancy of the places that were photographed enhances the lack of appreciation for the spaces and also the concept of aloneness, which ties in with boredom. Our music choice of “Revolve” was made because of its bright and upbeat nature, again harnessing the interesting features that we found in the seemingly mundane aesthetics we captured under a separate context.

Music: Revolve - Hisboyelroy (2005)

Creative Commons: Attribution, Non-Commercial
http://ccmixter.org/files/hisboyelroy/430

MAS 110 Photo Essay- Then and Now

MAS 110 Photo Essay- Then and Now
By Sean Moran 42501350 and Christian Clay Dequina 4294944

Main Theme: Connecting "Then and Now"

Sub-theme: Passages 

Our concept revolves on the idea that photographs are the “passageways” to our memory. And through our memory we are all able to recapture important moments of our lives, creating an alternate reality, with it being able to “connect” the past and with the present. We as individuals reflect on those photos and are "transported" back to the very moment where we had our first drink, first fight, first trip…Photographs then are modes of transportation or we could say 2DIMENSIONAL TIME MACHINES. And when building a time machine, one must need SPEED…TIME...SPACE AND LIGHT!!

We wanted to focus on the process of making a time machine. And as such each of these photographs are divided into sections that depicts these ideas. We also retained the sub-theme of passages throughout the presentation, by depicting it through our series of photographs on tunnels and corridors.

The photographs themselves pose as instruments of passage, connecting the elements of time and place whilst also exploring the differences that arise from the diverse subject matter. The images depicting the train stations represent a modern world, fuelled by speed and urbanization. This is in contrast to the images of the old houses and building, reflecting upon the quieter and simpler lifestyles of the past. The recurring motifs of train tracks and tunnels are a metaphor for the ideals of passage, connecting from one place, or time, to another.

MAS110 Photo Essay - Angular Walls

MAS110 Photo Essay - Angular Walls

Angular Walls: A photo Essay by Devon Boyle (42502446) and Federica Thorn - (42869706)


Theme: Walls

Sub-Theme: Angles

The theme we have chosen for the photo essay is walls with the sub theme of angles. This relates to Murray’s concepts of amateur photography and everyday aesthetics as walls can be defined as a mundane necessity of life that is usually overlooked and underappreciated by the majority of society. There are many facets to a wall that are not appropriatly recognised by society therefore we will attempt to capture such elements in a selection of 24 photographs. We have taken a variety of photos around areas such as Newtown, Glebe and the Inner city of Sydney, particularly in back streets ,where many of the walls are neglected and old, evident through the vandalism they wear. Thus, we have endeavoured to capture walls which display such vandalism. We have utilized a 35mm film camera to create a grainy affect that portrays a run down “atmosphere” subsequently highlighting all angles in the photo. In addition, we have edited the images through iPhoto utilising the cropping option as well as adjusting colours, to ensure the images convey an appropriate run down impression. In order to complete the photo essay we have used a song named Obvious, by Plastic Alibi which we believe captures the reflective mood we have aimed to create within this series of photographs.

Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEI_FJgoMrs 

Music‘Obvious’ by Plastic Alibi (2009) available under an available under an Attribution Noncommercial Share-A-like license at http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/265857/obvious#