We all encounter photographs on a daily basis. For a few decades now, commentators have talked about a ‘flood’ or a constant ‘bombardment’ of images, permeating ever deeper into our lives. Depending of course on where you live, the intensity of this will vary a great deal. To try to get a sense of this, dip your toe into the floodwater and re-photograph every photographic image that you encounter on a single day.
The quality of the image doesn’t matter – use a camera phone or compact camera. You should include videos as well as still photographs; just shoot one frame to document a sequence.
- Construct a grid or compile a contact sheet of all your images.
- Write a short reflective piece in your learning log about this exercise. What have you learned from this exercise? Has it alarmed you? Has it confirmed any preconceptions? What do most of the images you encountered show? Does this tell you anything about the environment you live in?
My village
Reflection on Exercise
I live in a small provencal village at the foothills of the Luberon mountains. It is a very typical french village for this part of the world. What I think would strike city dwellers, who visit, is the lack of posters or publicity. It is a very quiet understated place. There are notice boards around the village on which publicity for local events or facilities can be placed. We have one medium sized supermarket, a pharmacy, three bread shops, a biological shop, a cinema, a library, a photographers studio, my printer, a newspaper shop, three estate agents and some tourist shops. There are no obvious publicity posters. Photographs are used in small posters, in the cinema publicity, in the pharmacy window, in the estate agents and in the tourist office. Other than this we live in an almost publicity free zone.
Digital Image & Culture 