Nollywood

For my essay I have been researching Bollywood, Hollywood and Nollywood. I found the photographer Pieter Hugo had done a series of images on Nollywood Horror. he uses alot of superstision and local myth. I looked through the series and thought they were interesting and differnt from any other photograohy I had seen. But I don't really like them. I found alot of it not nice to view. But I think for me what I like most about photography is how it can capture beauty. But I don't find these images beautiful. Although I do think they are cleaver and show Negerian film culture.

I read an article on him, I liked this quote when talking about this photograph:

"A famous western cinematic symbol upon a body totally unhindered by western decadence, representative of an African culture that intends to be influenced by the west but not so much that it loses touch with itself"

I like the quote becasue I think it shows how Nollywood intends to have its own identity rather than become a clone of Hollywood which I think would be assumed that it would as a natural progrestion. I think people in the west can assume that western culture is the 'correct' way to be and other cultures should be striving to become like the west. But i think this photograph shows how Negeia is developing in its own way and doesnt need to try and be a copy of Hollywood in order to appear correct.

So even though I don't particularly like the images, I think they are important.

www.peiterhugo.com

I like these...

I often go on Tumblr and look at photos of things I find inspiring, interesting or just different. Here are 2 I really liked. They both have layers of different images, kind of like a double exposure. This technique adds texture and depth to the images. I like it because even not all the detail in all the layers can be seen there is just more depth to the image.

I like how it makes the photographs a bit fussy and they don't seem perfectly in focus. I think this adds to the dreaminess of the photos and creates a mystical feel. I like how images of leaves and flowers have been layed over the portraits given a kind of natural feel to them.

Recently I've been interested in double exposures and I really want to start experimenting. These photos are a good reference point for me. I would like to also use leaves and people in my images. I think this could create really interesting patterns and shapes.

Lara Jade

Me and my housemate where showing each other photos that we liked the other day and she showed me this photographer, Lara Jade.

I found her work interesting as she uses light in different ways. I saw that in a lot of her work she used light to flare in part of the image, like in the ones above. I liked this because its kind of a rule not to photograph into direct light but she has used it to her advantaged so that her images are eye catching. I think if she hadn't done this technique then her images wouldn't be as interesting and would be a bit normal and boring.

Here's a couple more of her work, I like how she uses black and white and colour. I really like the

image to the right, it looks like a double exposure which is interesting as it gives a kind of dreamlike quality to the image.

In a lot of her work there looked like there was a lot of Photoshop which I don't normally like but I think she has done in quite well and it doesn't look to over the top.

When I looked into her a bit more I found out that she is only 2 years older than me! This was inspiring as she was so young but already doing so well and her images looked great.

Here's more of her work www.larajade.co.uk

Magazine cover

I like the cover of this magazine. I like the bright bluey green and pink, its eye catching. I think its good how the pink is echoed in the star on the models face as it gives consistency and brings attention to the models.

I like how the magazine is really simple and there is hardly any writing, this means that the magazine has to rely on the bright colours and photograph rather than advertised articles.

The photograph is in reference a beauty shoot inside, but I like how the image works on its own. I don't think its really tells a story is references to anything life changing but it is an interesting image.

Tavi's blog

I read this blog where this girl, Tavi, writes about fashion. She wears really random thing and takes pictures of herself and posts them. I like how she does this because she always tries to be creative and different in her pictures. She writes about what she was trying to show in the picture and I think its interesting. I like how she tries to incorporate the environment into her pictures. She takes them with a self timer. Even though some of the images aren't amazing I like the creativity and her passion which motivates her to do it. Her framing and poses are always interesting. I think its good that shes not trying to do crazy fashion shoots but shes being individual about how she shows her fashion. So even though she loves fashion and always writes about others work she isn't trying to copy them but shes doing something completely different.