Social Commentary Folio Proposal

Social Commentary Folio Proposal

In Australia and in fact most of the world it is very hard to earn a living from art.
On average, artist income from art practice is low. Fifty per cent of all artists earn less than
$7,300 from their art in a year and less than $30,000 from all employment.
While some artists are able to make a living from their work, most artists support themselves
through work outside the arts and will continue to do so. Artists usually work two to three
jobs – their art practice, an arts related job such as teaching and a non-arts job in an area
such as hospitality. This makes the arts sector quite unique in that the majority of
professionals earn most of their income from other sectors. This in turn diminishes the
creative capacity of professional artists.

(http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/32519/2003_Throsby_changin
g_income.pdf)

When I first realised that all the people that I know who are practising artists all had day jobs
I got to thinking about the economic situation of artists in Australia
For my social commentary I am going to photograph a few different Canberra based artists in
their artistic environment (workshop etc.) and also in their work places (shops etc.)
juxtaposing the 2 different situations (work and art).
I have organised to photograph a silver smith who works as a fitter and turner, a fashion
designer who works in a book shop and an illustrator / visual artist who works in the public
service. I have also contacted an actor who works as a guest attendant at centre point tower
in Sydney and a composer / musician who works at a Big W store.
I intend to take portraits and also some candid shots to see what works best and then follow
the same formula for each different subject. I will shoot as many different subjects as I can
and choose the top 3 sets of 2 photos.

Tintype process

Tintype was first described (used) Adolphe-Alexandre Martin in France in 1853 and was patented in the United States in 1856 by Hamilton Smith. The tintype (or ferrotype) process uses a thin sheet of metal (iron rater than tin as the name implies) coated in a photo-sensitive emulsion (collodion). The tintype process is a wet type process meaning that it would the plate would be exposed then processed straight away. The image that was produce was reversed that the image produced by a mirror. Like daguerreotype photographs the process was one shot meaning that image would be produced directly onto the plate (no negative meant that the images couldn't be easily reproduced).

http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/tintype.htm

http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_early/1_early_photography_-_processes_-_tintype.htm

http://www.heartlandscience.org/comm/pdf/tintype.pdf



http://www.strever.org/Unknown/Unknown-Picts.html

War.... what is it good for? (Exhibition 18)

The exhibition Icon and Archive at AWM was one of my favorite exhibitions this year. but it got me thinking did it go some way to glorify war? was it meant to fill me with national pride? nationalism is a dangerous thing in my book.......... anyway, the photos were quite striking and are an important record... some of them were even beautiful....



I had too many standouts to put up pics of them all but here is a short list of my favorites

Frank Hurley
Supporting troops of the 1st Australian Division walking on a duckboard track....

Unidentified AWRS photographer
Interior of a damaaged French cottage at Villers-Bretonneux

Unidentified AWRS photographer
View of the ruins of the Cloth Hall and the Cathedral at Ypres

Len Chetwyn
Australians at El Alamein

Frank Hurley
Death the Reaper

Edward Cranstone
Prints from the album Australia 1939-1940

Damien Parker
They wandered off the beaten track

George Silk
Long-range shooting

Fiction.... based on truth

Terry O’Brien knew wrong from right,
Terry O’Brien knew how to fight.

Terry O’Brien loved boxing and beer,
Terry O’Brien knew no fear.

Terry O’Brien had faith in the lord,
Terry O’Brien hated the Protestant hordes.

Terry O’Brien believed in his fate,
Terry O’Brien was born into hate.

What Terry O’Brien was taught was a lie,
When innocent people in a shop had to die.

The warning call was to little to late,
The blast knocked out windows throughout the estate.

But Terry O’Brien only saw victory,
A group of men who think just like me.

Terry O’Brien joined a para (military) gang,
A real life cow bow with guns that go bang.

His new found glory would never yield,
Not so long as his streets were the battlefield.

Long story short I’ll cut to the hit.

We’ve really gotta stop this sectarian shit.

David Dare Parker

So, given that everyone else chose Trent Parke as their documentary photographer, I have gone to my second choice. David Dare Parke works for the Australia photojournalist agency degree south. His work inspires me because of the way he connects with the action that is going on around him. He can helps the viewer connect.
Check him out
David Dare Parke

M16 Dan O'Day (Exhibition 17)

Short and sweet.... Dan O'day's work was haunting, with really nice colours, I was a big fan of this exhibition. Not much else to say other than....The exhibition that shared the gallery (fathers and sons) would have been much better if there wasn't an odd mix of colour and b&w. I love both techniques and individual photos were nice and gave life to the subject but when a colour and a B&W prints were together it was just distracting.

beyond a reasonable pun (Exhibition 16)

Beyond reasonable drought at OPH down in the strangers gallery.... why it's called that is a stpry for another time. The exhibition, it really showed what a mess this country is in.... so dry, we live on the driest continent on earth (if you don't count Antarctica(yes it's a continent and yes its technically the driest)) yet we grow wet crops like cotton and rice.... to make matters worse we export the raw product and then buy it back as goods.......... whats with that? Oh no something got me started about the farming practices that are killing our country.
As for the photos the ones that stood out to me were

Dust to dust by Darren Clark.
and

Girl in the reservoir by Rodney Dekker