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PHOTOGRAPHY AS REPRESENTATION

Course Code:

Π-2010

Semester:

2st Semester

Specialization Category:

ΜΕΥ

Course Hours:

5

ECTS:

6


Learning outcomes

  • Understanding the basic concepts of the photographic representation mechanism
  • Understanding the technical choices that determine the concept of appropriate representation and metamorphosis through specific technical choices
  • Understanding the concept of time in photography and the different ways that the time concept is included in the photographs
  • Understanding photography as a means of personal expression
  • Understanding the metamorphosis of the photographic impression and the technical choices that deliver it
  • Understanding documentary photography.

 

General Competences

  • Research, analyse and synthesize data and information, using the necessary technologies
  • Adapt to new situations
  • Decision making
  • Autonomous work
  • Teamwork
  • Working in an international environment
  • Exercise of criticism and self-criticism
  • Project design and management Respect for diversity and multiculturalism
  • Showing social, professional and ethical responsibility and sensitivity to gender issues
  • Promote free, creative and inductive thinking

 

Course Outline

Lectures

  • Analogue and digital technology. Photographic representation. The nature of the photographic view point. The degree of imaging (degree of similarity with visual reality). Iconographic conventions
  • Photographic language: I. Depth and frame. II. Photographic representation of space. Their use and meaning in photographic expression.
  • The concept of metamorphosis through the photographic representation of reality. The technical choices that transform an ordinary object in an aesthetic object.
  • Time and Photography: Analysis of Peter Wollen’s essay Fire and Ice (1984) with time as a subject and the time relationships in photography and cinema. Analysis of the types of time experiences contained in the two media as well as the ways in which the viewer is associated with them
  • The snapshot concept. Study example, the Decisive Moment. (H.C. Bresson)
  • Documentary photography and authenticity. The function of the representation code in the photo document. Study example: Photography of the farmers’ rehabilitation program against natural disasters and the financial crisis in the 1930s in the United States (FSA).

 

PRACTICΕ PART OF THE COURSE

The practice part of the course aims to deepen the relationship between visual perception and photographic representation. It covers three study areas:

  • The “representation of space” offers the opportunity of studying how perspective shapes but mainly the understanding of the way perception counteracts on the interpretation of the photograph. Furthermore another important study is to investigate the meaning of a synthesis that is created through the synthesis of the photographic frame.
  • The “representation of time” will examine the way we understand movement in photography (snapshot)

 

ESSENTIAL READING

  • Antoniadis Costis, Latent Image, Hellenic Center of Photography, 3η Revised Edition, 2014.
  • Bate, D., Photography – Key Concepts, Berg, 2009.
  • Barthes, R., Camera Lucida, Jonathan Cape, 1982.
  • Barthes,R., Image-Music-Text, Fontana Press, 1977.
  • Berger John, Ways of Seeing, Metaixmio, 2011.
  • Benjamin, W., For the Work of Art, Plethron, 2013.
  • Benjamin, W., The Author as Producer, Plethron, 2017.
  • Bright Susan, Art Photography Now, Thames and Hudson, 2011.
  • Campany, D., Art and Photography, London: Phaidon Press, 2003.
  • Cotton Charlotte, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, London: Thames and Hudson, 2004.
  • Freund, G. Photography and Society. [1st Edition 1974]. London: Gordon Fraser, 1980.
  • Frizot, M. (ed.), A New History of Photography, Koln: Koneman, 1994.
  • Jaeger, Anne-Celine, Image Makers Image Takers, Thames and Hudson, 2007
  • Lemagny, J.C. and Rouille, A. (ed.) A History of Photography. London: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
  • Markidou Natassa, Photography Critical Readings, Private Publishing, 2015.
  • Mora, G. Photo Speak: A Guide to the Ideas, Movements, and Techniques of Photography, 1839 to the Present, New York: Abbeville Press, 1998.
  • Sontag Susan, On Photography,Penguin 1977.
  • Frizot, M. (ed.) A New History of Photography. Koln: Koneman, 1994.
  • Lemagny, J.C. and Rouille, A. (eds) A History of Photography. London: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
  • Rosenblum, N. A World History of Photography. New York: Abbeville Press, 1984.
  • Wells, L. Introduction to Photography, Plethron 2007.