DVD of Diane Arbus

Born in New York in 1923 Diane Arbus said of her work; "Going where I've
never been, documenting people on the fringes of society and finding the
astonishing commonplace."

She loved to go into people's houses and photograph portraits of people in
their own, natural surroundings. She had a knack of setting people at their
ease and therefore capturing images that are essentially natural and relaxed
but often contain elements that intrigue or even shock the viewer.

Her series of "Freaks" is probably her best known collection. "most people
go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were
born with their trauma, they've already passed their test in life, they're
aristocrats", she said.

A collection of unusual-looking people, "Freaks" is an insight into that
which we might normally look away from, be self-conscious about looking at.
The tattooed man with the wild look in his eyes, the dwarf family, the
identical twins.

Diane Arbus committed suicide in July 1971.

Some example of her work

Monday 6th April

Course orientation

Read through all the preparatory literature included with the course, "how
to", "when to", "where to".

Sent off my intro sheet to my tutor, Norman.

Started browsing through the first 20 projects. Fairly elementary stuff; D
of F, shutter speeds and moving subjects, focal length, composition. Good to
have it all "formally" set out though, some interesting looking exercises in
there.

Looking at the level of difficulty and depth of the projects, I believe I
should be able to get through 4 or 5 per week, including getting out and
taking the pictures as well as writing up what I've done and what I've
learned from it. Hopefully I can keep up the momentum. By the end of this
year I hope to be well into the next module.

Made a list of various images I will need to shoot and get printed for the
first group of projects.

Saturday 4th April

Visit to CODA, Apeldoorn

Wyman Shoots

Bill Wyman, ex Rolling Stone, is also an avid photographer.

The exhibition here of his images is interesting in that it shows us a
behind the scenes, relaxed version of the other band members while on tour.
Mick Jagger clowning around, Charlie Watts in pensive mood.

Bill Wyman's images, though competent, are not spectacular. The value of
this collection is in the fact that the photographer was an accepted member
of the subject's inner circle, they are relaxed around him and his camera
and therefore more natural and less aware of the lens.



Yesterday

Nico van der Stam is a veteran pop-photographer in the Netherlands in the
70's and 80's. He photographed many, many pop icons and bands in their very
early years. This display of his work is very diverse, from studio colour
portraits to black and white performance shots. It was almost as if they
were by several different photographers, so different were the styles of
image. The manner in which the hundreds of images were presented was also
very interesting; giant 2m vinyl singles stood upright in rows with the
images attached to the back of them, 10 to 12 per single, all genre and
nationalities mixed in together. At the end of the hall was a wall of
"singles" with prints of the bands and artists. A set of headphones could be
plugged into a socket at each of the images and the most well known song
from that artist heard. Great fun.

They all looked so very young!

CODA is an interesting venue and one which we will be visiting often in the
future. 17th of May is the "big changeover" New exhibits will be available
from then (noted in diary).

Today, well yesterday really, my study pack arrived from OCA (the Open College of the Arts).

I've started this blog as a means of recording my progress through the course(s).

This first course is "The Art Of Photography".

This blog will also enable my tutor to keep an eye on how I'm getting on and steer me along as we go.

Here we go then!