One of my favorite photo from others, and one of my work

This is my second blog in my personal website. And also as a home work of the module I sit in this semester. I waver between using a document or directly the email, so choose to write a blog. Something like the document but not, and same time just a link in the email without attachment.

There may be some problem of copy right because I will put other's work at here. However, nobody view this currently, andthis is being written in academic purpose. So, normally it's fine.

Fisrt Part: One of my favorite photo

Before I put the image here, I want to talk more about how I met this and why I noticed this.

The artist who made this work is Jo Bradford. I met her in the first day of the photography show 2022 in NEC. She is a speaker for analogue show case. Her speaking shows the progress of her cameraless photography trip. The image I will put here, it's not the first image in her slides and also not the last one. So, looks like not an important one. But, when I was asked a question of the significance of explaining the artworks, this image appear fast. There also is an essay I wrote in Chinese about this. You can view it by Click Here and translate to your language by your browser if you want know more of this question. Right, here is the photo I mentioned in this paragraph.

NINE STEPS, 2021. Copy Right: Jo Bradford. Click the Image for Original Page.

It can be seen as 36 single photos or a whole as one photo. I prefer as a whole.

I like this kind of very abstract photography works. But not all the abstract works. We know the art is not about beauty. So the art works have not to be beautiful. But I still prefer the works which look beauty, not ugliness or evil or something other. Jo, her works look beauty but not just beauty. Especially this one, it is deep, not just beauty, and have more thing inside. Peaceful, although erratic.

And as a photography from engineering background, I prefer the skillful technic while shooting, not an ignoring with photography skill. Pretty much of the photographer who work from art side will ignore the skillful technic because they focus more on the concept of their works. That makes most of their works only have a great story and without the link between their works and concept. Their works can't show their concept because the lack of skill. If you had read my essay which in Chinese and about the significance of explaining the artworks, you already how skillful Jo is with her works. I think she is exploring the boundary of photography. Not just an artist who work in photography. Especially the works of deep space photography made by dust (CONSTRUCTING SPACE series).

This kind of abstract photos can mean everything. Because they are the signifier without any strang link to real thing and we have never provide them any definition. Hence, they could be everything we want. Only base on the culture background of each person. Nobody have the same past and futuer, nobody will get same understanding with this work. But the special skillful thechnic she used with her work keep the value of this photo. That makes it not just nothing or anything, makes it sitll itself with special concept.

The combination of skillful technic, beauty but deep and peaceful, special concept but any concept. It provide a huge freedom to create the work follow the heart and touch the audiences' heart. That's why I favorite it and hope can do this kind of photography.

Second Part: One of My Work

It is difficult to choose one of my work. Because they are different. So, only one work can not represent my works. You can view some of them from my website but there is not any explaining of them because I still have no time to do this since the website was built two weeks earlier.

Tyne Bridge, 2022. Copy Right: Sihao Fan.

This photo was taken in August. When you view it, I hope you can click and zoom to as large as possible to view it whole in a large size. Actually, for myself, I print it out by Fuji Gloss paper in wet process in a large size. And please hang it higher than usual to make the human in the image just a little bit lower than your eye level.

As you know, I research in archival architectural photography. Before I took this photo, I had spent almost all of my time to practice with large format technical camera for 2 months. Because the shift and other function like tilt are important for architectural photography. In one of my practices, I took a portrait and a landscape for the same space by large format camera with instax film. A magic happened. These two images bring me two strong and differnet feeling of the space. One is low and narrow, the other is tall and open. Only one difference when I shoot was the direction of film. Skip the progress and wrong road, finally I find it is shift which made this happen. Because the instax film can not be put at the centre of film holder. When I turn landscape to portrait, and move the back to centre, I have to shift to avoid the shift, but I did not. So the shift happened and brought a strong feeling of the size.

Hence, I decide to spend some time to explore using shift and move to construct the feeling of size and scale. That will also help in construct the emotion of image for my main research. Someone noticed it before, and he write some similar thing in his book about architectural photography. But only about how to consturt the isolation feeling. Never noticed it works by a combination of shift and relation between each elements in the picture.

When I take this photo, I was throughing the Tyne Bridge to the new castle of Newcastle. I noticed that although it is the outside of the bridge, it also huge enough to be seen as the inside of an no-boundry space. From pretty much of the interior draft drawing, this enviroment is good at to show how large they are. Because the human on the ground at the bottom, and the top could extend from back to front and encircle all the other things. By the strong perspective of super wide lens, when the image large enough, we will raise the head for the bridge. And I choose shooting this when only one person pass by. A small single person compare with a huge structure which encircle her, I hope this will bring audiences some emotion. And I compared the position of this person, and find the left side better than centre and right. And without the person, the audiences won't notice there is a door showing the human scale in image. The person can help to construct the scale and size of this space and shift help to show the high of it. Not just use shift to keep vertical.

That is one of my work, although there are some other works focus more in the express of concept not feeling or emotion.

You can find it is different between the photo I favorite and the works I am doing. First, I'm still not creative enough I think. This also why I decide to sit in a Thinking Photography module. I hope to find out my creative by working with other young students who from art and only know a little in photography. Second, I'm some pragmatism. Base on the definition of fine art photography by Tate Gallery, it is the photography only focus to pleases the author. I hope my works can help others, and as much helpful as possible, not just pleases myself or a little group people have similar preference.

That's me, my favorite and my work.