Research
What Is Appropriation?
Appropriation. verb (used with object), appropriated, appropriating.
1. to set apart, authorise, or legislate for some specific purpose or use.
2. to take to or for oneself; take possession of.
3. to take without permission or consent; seize; expropriate:
4. to steal, especially to commit petty theft.
(Lecture, Mike Downing, 16th January 2017)
Barbara Kruger
An American conceptual artist/photographer, born in 1945 and attended Syracuse University. Worked as a graphic designer and picture editor, Barbra Kruger was heavily influenced by her years working as a graphic designer. She took up photography in 1977, producing a series of black and white images with her own text printed boldly across the image. She takes a very feminist view towards her work, she comments on religion, sex, racial and gender stereotypes, consumerism and power within society.
Her work is very bold and in your face, the subject of the images is very ranged from people to objects such as cigars. The colour scheme of all her work is black and white imagery with the red banner and white text. The eye is drawn firstly to the text of the image then your eyes start to look at the rest of the image, this is because the eye is drawn to colour within the image. The artist has purposely done this in order to get what she says across to the audience making a statement about the image behind the text. Looking at one image in particular “Your body is a battle ground”, the composition of the image is split in two with the text cutting through the centre of the image. The whole of the image is an image of a women looking directly at the camera however one half of the face has been turned into a negative. I think that the reason behind this is part of the saying, I think that she is trying to say that not everything is black and white, everyone has their demons and everyone fights them in their own ways.
Basic Photo Manipulation Experiment
Original Images
In order to experiment with basic photo manipulation, I used the social media Instagram to collect my images. I clicked on the top 12 images on my news feed for this experiment.
Edited Images
For these edits I have cropped the image to get rid of the surrounding information, then using the invert tool and the circle selection tool I have inverted parts of the image in order to change the look of the image. Some of the edits have worked really well and look interesting to look at however some of the edits did not work and do not look as good, this could have been due to the lighting or framing of the original image as well as where I have positioned the inverted circle. I have tried to vary the positioning of the circle within each of the images in order to create different effects for example covering parts of the face or non of the face at all.
Photoshoot One – Items/ Products Found Inside
Original Images
Edited Images
For this edit. I have cropped the image taking the image completely out of context. Instead of a woman being comforted by her friend she is now alone in the image. This makes the image more depressing as she all alone making her seem vulnerable. I have adjusted the levels of the image and the saturation to make it appear darker than the original image. Using the filter tool selecting angled strokes, I have chosen this filter in order to try and represent how the woman is feeling within the image. This tool makes the image slightly blurred, this maybe how the woman is feeling in this image. Finally I have added a black border in order to make it look like a single image, not an image being cropped from another.