Photography dilemmas

I’m taking part in a Grundtvig Partnership Project COLEARN (http://cla.mixxt.eu/), in which the main goal is to investigate different ways of collaborative learning.

Together with group of students we decided to check, how can we learn to take interesting photos and prepare photo-exhibitions. We want to present our works from all partner countries of the project.

Our first “object” was Turkey – Istanbul and Enez, where we stayed for almost three days. We took a lot of pictures, but for the exhibition to be shown in our centre, we picked up 10 of them. Our goal was to show in this way our story – how we experienced and see Turkey. The photos you can find here: https://plus.google.com/photos/112245605764209144091/albums/6049201507837820913?authkey=CNXRgvzmv4e78AE

We are amateurs/students in this matter, so their quality leaves much to be desired, but anyway we like them, and, what is more important, we believe that we achieved our goal. These photos tell our story – they show most important places we saw and most important situations we experienced.

So we printed our photos (size 30×40 cm), framed them and presented in one of our classrooms. The result looks like this: https://plus.google.com/photos/112245605764209144091/albums/6050320883833397521?authkey=CLPtouuvnZT15wE

Preparing this exhibitions we had to made many decisions. Among other: What we consider as most important places/situations? Which pictures are the best to show it? What is more important – quality of the picture or what it shows? Which size to choose (many factors – space, money, resolution of the photos, and so on)? How to present photos on the walls – one line, to lines, other way? And so on.

I think, we did something interesting, but I see that we made some mistakes in our collaborative work – finally our photos don’t look as nice on the walls as they looked on the computer screen. Now we are preparing for the next exhibition and want to avoid at least some of previous mistakes.

What do you think about this idea? This particular one and in general – are there any “golden advices” for people who want to do something like this? What should we improve? Maybe some of you prepared something similar? I’m very curious about your ideas.

Łukasz

First of all I really like your pictures. I’ve never prepared exhibition, but my first thought was : this should be more chaotic. Like Turkey is, i believe. All pics together, closer themselves, maybe in different sizes some of them? Every place is like lots of colours, smells, sounds and images, but Turkey, what i see in the pictures, especially. So, little bit more chaos to show it.

I want to answer your few questions.
I’m not going to say a world about the choice of the photos because
I don’t know which have you rejected.
This set makes a good impression.
The point is if in your opinion the atmosphere of those places can be felt.

My advice refers to the presentation of those photographs.
I’ve made improvements which are a subjective choice.

1. You are right. It’s different when you watch photos in the computer.
A little bit like a movie. Photo by photo. We don’t see the whole set.
Then we receive a relation between “now” and “later”/”then”?/.
In the exhibition we can see relations between the whole gruop of photos.
If we have created such group.

2. I’ve put together two groups.
I’ve rejected the third place with windows.
Looking in the direction of the light source isn’t a good idea.

3. In the groups I’ve created two lines and made photos closer.
As a result they create better relations between themselves.
The middle line should be at a height of our sight.

4. I was trying to put photos which show something closer/far away
above/beneath themselves. In your choice there was a lack of close shots.
It’s good when two following photos are made in different shots.

5. A technical piece of advice: it’s better to show your photos
without a glass framework.
In the glass we can see reflections which disturb us while watching.
We can use antireflective glass or put a foil on the photos to protect tchem.

I’m very curious about what do you think about my advice…

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/116757610531142089517/albums/6054005741130693809

Anna, Krzysztof,
Thank you for your opinions about our “exhibition”.

I see you both would reorder the pictures. I fell, you are right, but I still have some doubts. Thank you, Krzysztof for excellent presentation of your idea. I like the set of 4 photos very much – the choice of the pictures and the way, how they are ordered.

However I have a problem with the set of 6 photos. There are too many things happening in this place. I cannot focus on only one picture, and I feel, they don’t match togeter – they are from the one story but completely mixed up. For me they are too close to each other.

Maybe this is because there’s a lot of chaos now, but on the other hand the photos are arranged in a very structrued way?

Maybe the problem is that I am the coauthor; this order for a viewer has no matter?

Maybe, again, it looks not good (at least for me) only on the computer screen, on the wall it would be different?

Anyway, even when I’m not conviced to first idea anymore, I’d change your proposal too, maybe littlebit in Anna’s way.

From other things – I do really miss closer shots in this set of photos too! And you’re 100% right – because of glass, you often cannot see the picutres, especially in the sunny days.

Thanks once more time!
Łukasz

[admin]

Łukasz,
you’ve reached the point. The reason why you have a problem with this set it that
you are the author of those photos. At exhibitions it is usually made by art curators.
They can see it form the other point of view. Let me become such an art curator.
I found Annas comment that she needs a bit of a chaos in this set very interesting.
And she is right. I would place there more photos maybe in different size.
But you’ve shown us what you have.
That’s why I created those two groups. In the previous proposition I’ve focused
more on visual things than on how to compose a set. I can’t compare them
to the reality so I’ve made it as you can see.
I know it’s a subjective point of view but I made myself an art curator:)

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/116757610531142089517/albums/6054005741130693809/6055224021684232514?pid=6055224021684232514&oid=116757610531142089517

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/116757610531142089517/albums/6054005741130693809/6055224058991923058?pid=6055224058991923058&oid=116757610531142089517

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by admin.

Krzysztof,
It looks great now! I like it very much. You could be my art curator 🙂

You can see also, how it could be without glass.

Thank you!

Hi Krzysztof,

Could you please advise us on a few technical issues you mentioned? In two weeks we’re going to Spain on the learning partnership project and our collaborative task (teachers and learners) is to prepare a photo exhibition on the sites visited and the experiences gained.

– Printing the photos: we did it before in an ordinary photo shop but maybe it’s worth going to a special lab which uses different printing technology?
– I suppose professional framing systems are very expensive but do you think we could foil the pictures ourselves? I mean first fix them to a plate (plywood, plexi, etc) and then cover with proper foil? Or without special equipment this would be difficult?

These are basic technical things, sorry, but we’re also debating some artistic issues here in our team – the results should be visible soon after our trip.

Thanks a lot,

Olek

[admin]

Hi Aleksander,
Technical things are important too.
From my experience I can tell you that prepearing your photos by yourself ends with a disaster.
You need special equipement and a lot of experience in doing that.
Everything what you need in size 24×30 cm would cost about 6€.
Here I send you a link to a laboratory where I print my photos:
http://www.fotonet.info/index.php?&action=c_powiekszenia

You can also add frames but it would be more expensive.
I suggest doing passe-partout together with a photo, here come my exapmles

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/116757610531142089517/albums/6054005741130693809/6058498259078187122?pid=6058498259078187122&oid=116757610531142089517

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/116757610531142089517/albums/6054005741130693809/6058498259264603010?pid=6058498259264603010&oid=116757610531142089517

Good luck
Krzysztof

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by admin.

Thanks a lot, Krzysztof.
so you mean we can print passe-partout with the photos instead of framing them and fix them directly to the wall?
Olek

I think so.

Krzysztof