introduction too provoke
Provoke was a photography group that originated around the 1960s in reaction too the terrible devastation and destruction Japan was left in after the second World War. The group consisted of three main photographers, Yutaka Takanashi, Takuma Nakahira and Diado Moriyama. The groups manifesto states that their photography "can capture fragments of reality that cannot be expressed in language as it is.", basically meaning that their photos express emotions, feelings and meanings that cannot be communicated in our modern language, this is why the groups subtitle was "Provocative documents for thought" because it basically summarises and underlines Provokes whole objective.
Daido moriyama
Daido Moriyama is a Japanese photographer who started taking photographs when he was really young. He joined the group "Provoke" in the 1960's and he has a very specific style of photography. He says that he "can't photograph without a city" and so most of his photos will come from his just wondering around crowded areas and snapping all sorts of different things that he is drawn too. Loads of his photography has a very strong sense of movement, with many blurry and grainy effects which can sometimes cause the photo to look quite confusing as you won't know whats in the picture, although this is all part of his style. Almost all of his photographs are in black and white because he thinks that colours can be "vulgar" and having the image in black and white gives the photo "stronger elements of abstraction and symbolism". He is also very concerned with photos being an expression of his "desire".
|
My response
For my response I decided too use my iPhone 6 camera instead of my canon, this is because I wanted to replicate Moriyama's style of photography the best that I could and by using my phone camera it was easier too create the blurry, grainy and almost lower image quality effects that Moriyama uses for some of his images. I also used the "Provoke" camera app, which was made through inspiration of the provoke movement and style, with filters and post photo editing tools that are made too help create grain, high contrast, blur etc. I chose a day where it wasn't cloudy to get good lighting and left early in the morning so that the sun was low in the sky so that the photos would have an extremely high contrast when converted too black and white. Because Moriyama nearly exclusively takes photos in cities, I wanted too find a nice crowded, commercial location with loads of things and people too photograph so I chose too go down in the centre of Greenwich and see what I could snap down there. During the way down there I actually decided to start too take photos out of the car window, of people walking by and anything else interesting that I could see too try and clone the strange concepts that Moriyama uses in his photos, I was also trying to achieve some blur or grain which I actually struggled with because of the such good lighting conditions. All in all I think that the photos were a success and I'm pleased with the way they turned out, the photos are too me confusing, interesting and have a very similar feel too the Provoke and Moriyama style of photography which was exactly what I was aiming for.
|