3—30 APRIL 2014
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Festival Venues 1. Belfast Exposed 2. PS2 3. University of Ulster 4. Grove Library 5. Odyssey Arena 6. Platform Arts 7. City Hall 8. Big Screen 9. Victoria Street Subway 10. Waterfront Hall 11. Shankill Library 12. Cultúrlann 13. Mandela Hall, QUBSU 14. Ulster Museum Activity: Photohunt Area See pages 18 & 19.
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Contents FESTIVAL AT A GLANCE 04 WORKSHOPS 05 TALKS 11 ACTIVITY BOOK 13 EXHIBITIONS 29 COMPETITIONS 34 ESSAYS 36 Welcome to a new Festival for young people in Northern Ireland, the Belfast Photo Festival Youth Edition. Building on and complementing the existing work through the International Belfast Photo Festival, this new Festival runs programmed events throughout April 2014 for young people aged 4 – 18.
Selected work produced during the workshops and from our open competitions will form part of the Festival exhibitions therefore involving young people within their community, offering encouragement and an improved sense of self-belief and achievement.
Photography enables young people to capture their view of the world and their interests. Through this event we aim to discover, inspire and develop the photographers of the future. By working with key photographers/artists and providing innovative photography based workshop opportunities, we have aimed to provide a programme that does not just occupy time but builds skills through having fun.
I would like to thank our volunteers, including the Festivals voluntary board, as without their help the Festival would not take place. The Belfast Photo Festival Youth Edition is the only photography inspired Festival in Europe created and catered for young people but being a new Festival we are fortunate to welcome new and maintain the loyalty of existing sponsors and funders. Only
through their support we have been able to make this Festival bigger and better than we could’ve imagined. We invite you to view, participate and experience the joy and fun of photography. Michael Weir Festival Founder
Festival at a Glance Sunday 30 March
Venue
Time
Page
Workshop: Photography the Game
Odyssey Arena
3pm
6
Thursday 3 April
Venue
Time
Page
Opening: Doug Dubois: Last Day at Seventeen
University Gallery, University of Ulster
6pm
30
Opening: How We Learn
Belfast Exposed
7pm
29
Friday 4 April
Venue
Time
Page
Artists Talk: Julian Germain
Belfast Exposed
1pm
12
Friday 11 April
Venue
Time
Page
Curator’s Tour
Belfast Exposed
5pm
12
Saturday 12 April
Venue
Time
Page
Opening: Phoshow
Platform Arts
2pm
31
Workshop: Stop Motion Animation
Ulster Museum
10.30am - 1pm
5
Sunday 13 April
Venue
Time
Page
Workshop: Birds Eye View
PS2
11am - 2pm
5
Workshop: Birds Eye View
PS
3 - 6pm
5
Thursday 17 April
Venue
Time
Page
Opening: School Dinners
Ulster Museum
11.30am
32
Monday 21 April
Venue
Time
Page
Workshop: Photo Collage
City Hall
12 - 5pm
7
Workshop: Super Hereos Photobooth
City Hall
12 - 5pm
7
Tuesday 22 April
Venue
Time
Page
Workshop: Alter Egos Photobooth
City Hall
12 - 5pm
8
Workshop: Space Photobooth
City Hall
12 - 5pm
8
Workshop: Pinhole Camera
Waterfront Hall
12 - 3pm
9
Wednesday 23 April
Venue
Time
Page
Workshop: Editing Digital Photos
Grove Library
10am - 12pm
9
Workshop: Pinhole Camera
Waterfront Hall
12 - 3pm
8
Workshop: Editing Digital Photos
Shankill Library
1.30 - 4.30pm
9
Thursday 24 April
Venue
Time
Page
Artists Talk: Wendy McMurdo
Belfast Exposed
6pm
12
Friday 25 April
Venue
Time
Page
Talk: Kids Photo Journal (Japan)
Belfast Exposed
2pm
11
Saturday 26 April
Venue
Time
Page
Tour: Architecture, Design & Photography
Lower Garfield St.
11am
10
Workshop: Photograph the Band
Mandela Hall
1 - 4pm
6
Workshop: Photograms
Belfast Exposed
2 - 5pm
10
Tour: Family Exhibition
Belfast Exposed
11 - 11.40am
12
Wednesday 30 April
Venue
Time
Page
Symposium: How We Learn
Belfast Exposed
2pm
12
4
2
Workshops
Ages 8-14
Stop Motion Birds Eye Animation View of the Ages Masterclass City 7-15 Ulster Museum Saturday 12 April, 10.30am-1pm Free
Join us for a fun-filled creative masterclass on the A-Z of stop motion animation and filmmaking, from concept and development to scripting, character design, storyboarding and filming. Stop motion animation is used everywhere- in commercials, music videos, television shows and feature films! Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride was shot with the Canon EOS-1D Mark II, making it the first stop motion feature film captured with a digital still camera. Participants, aged 8-14, will get a hands-on experience with Cinemagic and Flickerpix, and learn about the magic behind the animation process, how the art of photography is used in creating a sequence of consecutive images that create the illusion of motion. Booking: 028 9024 6609
PS2 (Meeting point) Sunday 13 April, 11am-2pm (Ages 7-11) Sunday 13 April, 3-6pm (Ages 11-15) Free
Turn a simple balloon and camera in to a high flying Aeriel Mapping system and view your city in a way you have never seen it before. All the images will be collected, printed then you get to build your own aerial map of Belfast. This workshop is in partnership with PS Squared and The Bridge Gallery, New York. Booking: 028 9024 6609
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Workshops
Photograph Ages the Band 14-18 with Go Swim
Mandela Hall, Queens Student’s Union Saturday 26 April, 1-4pm Free Learn how the professionals shoot a live gig by doing it yourself with a professional! Local band, Go Swim will be preforming just for you at your very own private concert. Experience a great gig by a major up and coming act while learning professional practice and enhancing your photography skills. Booking: 028 9024 6609
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Ages 14-18
Photograph the Game with Belfast Giants Odyssey Arena Sunday 30 March, 3pm Free Ever wanted to photograph a sports event? The Belfast Giants have invited us to host a one off workshop at the sidelines of one of their exciting games. You will learn everything you need to know from a professional photographer AND maybe you will get to meet the team after the game to take some team portaits. Booking: 028 9024 6609
Workshops
Ages 4-11
Ages 4+
Belfast Photo Superheroes Collage Belfast City Hall Monday 21 April, 12-5pm Free
Belfast City Hall Monday 21 April, 12-5pm Free
This is your chance to be the hero Belfast deserves. Come along to our photo booth where you will be kitted out with everything a super hero needs and waow your friends with photos of you flying high over Belfast.
Learn how to turn a stack of photos into a beautiful photo collage!
OR you can be seen as the worst super villain Belfast has known reaking havok in the cities skyline.
AS PART OF BELFAST EASTER FESTIVAL
Show your family and friends what food you love, what food you hate and what the best thing about easter is in your hand made photo collage!
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Workshops
Space Photobooth Ages 4+
Ages 4+
Alter Egos Photobooth
Belfast City Hall Tuesday 22 April, 12-5pm Free
We invite you to take a giant leap into space and pose for your own intergalactic souvenir photo!
Belfast City Hall Tuesday 22 April, 12-5pm Free
There are two sides to everything, so come along and explore your good and evil side! Choose your backgrounds and see your good and evil side merged together in a funny, monstrous photograph of yourself that we will print for you to take home!
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Brought to you by Belfast Photo Festival Youth Edition and Jessops (High Street, Belfast).
AS PART OF BELFAST EASTER FESTIVAL
Workshops
Ages 9-18
Pinhole Cameras
Waterfront Hall Tuesday 22 April, 12-3pm (Ages 9-13 years) Wednesday 23 April, 12-3pm (Ages 14-18 years) Free Learn how to make and use your own home made camera and capture your world. Using this traditional form of lenseless photography, expose and develop your own photos in a real darkroom and take them home. Places are limited for this free event, so we advise booking early. Booking: 028 903344 23 | farrenb@waterfront.co.uk
Ages 16-18
Editing Digital Photographs
Grove Library | Wednesday 23 April, 10am - 12pm Shankill Library | Wednesday 23 April, 1.30 - 4.30pm Free Pick up some tips on editing digital photographs and improve your chances in the Belfast Photo Festival Youth Edition! Basic sessions for beginners aged 16-18 years will be held in Shankill and Grove Libraries. You will learn how to send photos from your camera to your computer, how to save them, make adjustments and print. These sessions are FREE and light refreshments will be provided. Booking: 028 903344 23 (Shankill Library) 028 9050 9244 (Grove Library)
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Workshops
Ages 5+
Photograms Belfast Exposed Saturday 26 April, 2-5pm ÂŁ5 per family group (up to 2 adults and 4 children)
Introduce your family to the magic of the darkroom in this unique photogram workshop. Please note that slots must booked in advance, each session lasts 45 minutes. Booking: 02890 230 965
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Architecture, Design & Photography Ages Tour 12-16 Departs 7 Lower Garfield Street, Belfast Saturday 26 April, 11am Tickets ÂŁ5
Architect Eva McDermott will lead a casual wander of Belfast city combining architecture, design and photography. PLACE is the Northern Ireland Built Environment Centre. Our vision is a better place to live, work and play, inspired by communities making a difference. No booking required.
Talks
Kids Photo Journal Japan
See p.32
Belfast Exposed Friday 25 April, 2pm Free
3/11 Kids’ Photo Journal is a photography project involving children affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Come along to our talk and hear first hand from Yumi Goto who has been leading the project, which has been documenting the effects the Earthquake and Tsunami has had on the home town’s of these young people. This talk will provide an insight into the kid’s daily lives and how much has changed for them since the disastrous events of 2011.
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Talks
See p.29
How We Learn
Belfast Exposed Photography Gallery A series of supporting talks by the Curator and Artists of the How We Learn exhibition in Belfast Exposed. See page 29 for exhibition details.
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4 April, 1pm 11 April, 5pm 24 April, 6pm 26 April, 11am
Talk with artist Julian Germain Curator’s Tour with Ciara Hickey Talk with artist Wendy McMurdo Exhibition Tour for Families
30 April, 2pm How We Learn Symposium in partnership with VAI Speakers: Artist Marysa Dowling (London), Annie Bicknall (TATE, London), Mobile Art School (Dublin), Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership (Dublin)
Activity Book
Colour me in! Ages 4+
Twin Lens Reflex Camera A twin-lens reflex camera (TLR) is a type of camera with two lenses of the same focal length. One of the lenses takes the picture, while the other is used for viewing and focusing the image. The two lenses are connected, so that the focus shown on the focusing screen will be exactly the same as on the film. They use medium format film which typically produces a 6x9cm negative. The piece at the top of the camera body is a pop-up hood surrounding a viewfinder. The viewfinder has a reflex mirror (at a 45 degree angle) reflecting the image onto a matte screen which makes it easier to focus the image and enables viewing from above. Looking down into the camera means it can be kept much steadier than if it were held up to your eye. Double-lens cameras were first developed around 1870 and are still produced today. A very popular twin-lens camera is the Rolleiflex, first built in 1929.
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DID YOU KNOW?
The word photography derives from the Greek words ‘photos’ – meaning light and ‘graphien’ – to draw.
1726c.: Johann Heinrich Schulze discovered that silver nitrate darkened upon exposure to light.
Large Format Field Camera Large format means they make large negatives. To do this, large format cameras don’t use roll film but seperate sheets of film, most commonly 4×5 inches in size. The main advantage of large format is higher resolution so the image can be enlarged greatly while keeping lots of detail. In early 19th century cameras, heavy wooden boxes encased the mechanism. These were developed by adding
1800c. – Thomas Wedgwood imagines making permanent pictures by using a durable surface coated with a light-sensitive chemical. He produced silhouettes and other shadowy images but was never able to make a detailed image, or make them permanent.
bellows which can be folded back into a smaller frame, making them easier to carry around and use outside. Large format, both film and digital is still used today for many purposes especially dramatic landscape photography, advertising, for scientific use and in any case where the image needs to be very large and very detailed.
1826 French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce developed a camera obscura to burn a permanent image of the countryside onto a chemical-coated pewter plate. He named his technique “heliography,” meaning “sun drawing.” The black-and-white exposure took at least eight hours and has faded alot, but an image is still visible on the plate today!
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Photo Wordsearch
COLOUR PIXELS ISO PORTRAIT RETOUCH
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CLICK TRIPOD SNAP SHOT ANGLE
CAMERA DEVELOP SHUTTER BLACKANDWHITE PINHOLE
DID YOU KNOW?
LENS LANDSCAPE CHEESE LIGHT FILM
Ages 6+
FRAME ZOOM FOCUS EXPOSURE FLASH
1839 Louis Daguerre introduces his daguerreotype process, which produces highly detailed permanent photographs on silver-plated sheets of copper. Over time improvements to the process reduced the exposure time to a few seconds. Now photography had suddenly entered the public consciousness and Daguerre’s process soon began being used worldwide.
Make a Pinhole Camera Ages 8+
You will need: • A shoe box with lid (these instructions can be adapted to suit any shape or size of box) • Scissors • Tin foil • Pin • Film or Photographic paper • Black tape Photography literally means ‘drawing with light’. To understand how this happens your can take your camera apart (not recommended!) or build your own pinhole camera with basic craft materials. Pinhole cameras can be made of ANYTHING - sea shells, coke cans, biscuit tins, wheelie bins, old fridges, cars, even entire rooms. Basically a pinhole camera is a ‘box’ that can be sealed tightly, with a tiny hole at one end and film or photographic paper at the other. Download pinholes cameras to build yourself, and find tips on making your own images at corbis.readymech.com Many art centres and schools have darkrooms where you can learn to process your films or develop your papers. Find your nearest darkroom and start experimenting!
1848 Edmond Becquerel makes the first full-colour photographs, but they are only laboratory experiments. They need an exposure lasting hours or days and the colours are so light-sensitive that they sometimes faded right before the viewer’s eyes while being examined!
Steps 1. Take your empty shoe box and remove the lid. Check all the sides of the box are intact so that no light would get in. Use black duct tape to cover any holes or gaps round the edges. 2. Cut a circle with a diameter of approx 4cm on one of the smaller sides of the box. 3. Next cut a square out of your tin foil that will cover the circle hole, being very careful not to crease the foil. 4. Place the foil over the hole and tape it in place. 5. Use your pin to prick a small hole in the centre of the tin foil. Make sure you pull the pin straight out again neatly, this tiny pinhole is your aperture. (If it is too large then too much light will get in and the images will overexpose!) 6. Next you will need a shutter to control the exposure of your shots. Make this by measuring and cutting a small square of foil or card to cover your aperture/pinhole. 7. Fasten this along the top and tape in place along one edge to make a neat flap, so that it can be lifted up to open the shutter and closed down flat again. (When it is closed, it should sit right against the pinhole covering it completely. It should open and close quickly and easily without disturbing any other part of the box!) 8. Make sure you do the next steps in a completely dark room! Any light on your photographic paper or film will fog it and you won’t get an image! 9. Place your photographic paper or film inside at the opposite end from the pinhole. 10. Position it carefully and tape in place. 11. Put the lid back on the box and tape loosely round the edge so that no light can get in, but so that you can easily open the box again after you make the image. 12. Now go and compose your image! Check how sunny or how dark it is where you are taking your photo – pinhole exposures in bright sunlight can take roughly 3-4 mins, if it is cloudy it might take 10-20 mins. You can use a light meter to get a better idea of exposure times. 13. When you have your shot lined up just lift the shutter at the front and time it for however long you need. You can experiment to get it just right. 14. Each time you make an exposure you will have to go back into a completely dark room to replace the paper or to move along the film. Carefully store them in a black bag or box making sure NO light gets to it at all! 15. To develop your pictures, take your exposed papers or film to a darkroom.
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Belfast Photo Hunt
Have you ever looked at all the amazing buildings in Belfast City Centre? You can find some amazing animals, mythical creatures and even people hidden in the architecture, all you have to do is look up! Seek within the big white dot on our
 Do you think they will find us?
map (see page 2) and try to work out our clues and you can see these amazing (and elusive) creatures for yourself! Don’t forget your camera so you can take your own photographs! Tick the picture as you find and photograph the creatures.
I can see the City Hall from here! I sure hope not! You’re only noticing now?
Looking at all those american sweets makes me hungry!
If you want a burger, you have to get past me!
I’m Art Deco, so why can you buy computer games in my shop?
Ages 6+
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DID YOU KNOW?
How long do I have to keep my head in here?
1860 James Clerk Maxwell began working with colour in photography by taking three exposures, each one with a different colour filter (red, green, blue), and then projecting the three images using three lanterns with the corresponding filters.
What do you want to do today?
Dude you don’t have any feet!
Go for a trot around town!
I might get some new hiking boots!
Let’s go shopping!
I can watch TV from here!
Yay! I love shopping! I have the best view in the city!
Ooh...I... hate... shopping!
Wow...those buses are pink!
1878 Eadweard Muybridge a row of cameras with trip-wires to make a high-speed photographic analysis of a galloping horse. Each picture is taken in less than the two-thousandth part of a second, and they are taken in such rapid sequence (about 25 per second) that they make a brief real-time “movie” that can be viewed by using a device such as a zoetrope —a photographic “first”!
Those curtains weren’t as tasty as I thought!
1888 The Kodak n°1 box camera, the first easy-to-use camera, is introduced with the slogan “You press the button, we do the rest.”
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Make a Zoetrope
Here is quick and easy way to make a fully functional miniature zoetrope. You can put this together in half an hour (plus paint drying time) from easy-to-find materials. This one is made from an empty hot chocolate container! You will need: • Cardboard hot chocolate can or similar strong cylinder • Black paint. Spray paint is quick, but put newspaper down to avoid mess! Steps 1. Cut out the two template pieces above with the notches and tape them together to form one long strip. 2. Wrap the strip around the cylindrical container and tape it in place. It will be easier to cut round the template from the top of the container, but the zoetrope will spin better if you work from the bottom.
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DID YOU KNOW?
Ages 8+
3. Using a craft knife or scissors, cut the cylinder to size (be very careful or ask an adult to help you!) and cut out the slots. Remove the template. 4. Poke a hole in the middle of the bottom of the can and push a pencil partway through the hole. If your container has a metal bottom, you might need some help with this. 5. Paint the outside of the cylinder black. This is an important step as the designs on the cylinder can be visually distracting. 6. Cut out two strips with images, tape them together to form one long strip, and place it inside the zoetrope. 7. Look through the slots at the images on the inside of the zoetrope as you spin it. It helps to hold the zoetrope under a bright light. 8. Now you see how it works, draw your own animation using the blank strip provided on the template!
1889 The first commercially available transparent celluloid roll film is introduced by the Eastman Company, later renamed the Eastman Kodak Company and commonly known as Kodak. The owner of Kodak (George Eastman) named his company after the sound the he thought the camera shutter made.
1900 Kodak introduces their first Brownie, a very inexpensive userreloadable point-and-shoot box camera. (see colouring in picture page 14)
1948 The Hasselblad camera is introduced.
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Photo Apps Edit, retouch and share you photos on the move with these fun photo apps!...
Snapseed
360 Panorama
If you like taking your photography further then snapseed is for you. Right now it is one of the most fully featured camera and photography apps in the app store. Included is a powerful auto correct function as well as plenty of fun filters and effects.
iPhone/Android/iPad, 69p 360 Panorama is an app for taking panoramic photographs, stitching the images together on your phone right away. You spin around in a circle snapping and can then share images on Facebook, Twitter and via email. Paper Camera
iPhone/Android, 69p Paper Camera is another app that involves applying visual filters to your photographs, but here the emphasis is on cartoon and comic-book-style effects. You can see the effects applied before taking your photo!
iPad and iPhone, £2.99
PocketBooth
iPhone, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia, 69p PocketBooth takes snapping photos with friends one step further. It’s like a portable passport photo booth on your phone which can then print and ship snaps to your home. Again you can share photos to Facebook and Twitter
Slow Shutter Cam
iPhone, 69p
Now you don’t need a DSLR camera to try slow shutter-speed effects. Perfect for creating moving atmospheric images Photoshop Express
iPad, iPhone and Android, Free This is a photoshop app that is a good all rounder for any budding phone photographer! You can buy additional apps to use within it for even more effects and tweaks. iPhoto
iPad and iPhone, £2.99 Launched alongside the new iPad, iPhoto for iOS is the best way to manage snaps on your iPhone or iPad. With a typically clean and easy to understand user interface, plenty of photo editing options and a great album management system you can take your photos and share easily
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DID YOU KNOW?
Prismscope
iPhone, 69p
Touchnote is a way to share any photo you have taken with family or friends. The difference is that Touchnote turns your snap into a postcard and sends it to them!
1948 Edwin H. Land introduces the first Polaroid Instant Camera.
1963 Kodak introduces the Instamatic!
Touchnote Postcards
Pad, iPhone and Android, Free (with in app purchases) Touchnote is a way to share any photo you have taken with family or friends. The difference is that Touchnote turns your snap into a postcard and sends it to them! Popset
iPhone, Free Popset boast the fastest multi-shot camera on the app store, letting you rapidly create series of images. These pics can then be shared instantly with friends via Facebook or Twitter and have filters and edits applied in app.
Fotofitti
iPhone, £0.69 Create graffiti style artwork from your photos using this app. Simple and easy to use, this is a fun way to do something different with your photos. PhotoToaster
iPhone and iPad, £1.49 PhotoToaster is an incredibly full featured photo editing app with over 60 effects and 80 different one click settings.
Photosynth
iPhone, iPad and Windows Phone, Free Photosynth is a panorama app. It also lets you upload and share images straight to Facebook and Twitter. Vizualizr
iPhone, iPad and Android, Free Vizualizr is a location based photo sharing app which aggregates images taken by everyone who uses it. A great way of getting a diverse album of images of an event. Vapp
iPhone, Free This clever application lets you take photos using your iPhone without touching it. Controlled by voice, you can snap family and friends without the camera shake!
1973 Fairchild Semiconductor releases the first large image forming CCD chip: 100 rows and 100 columns of pixels.
Everyday
iPhone, £1.49 Everyday reminds you once per day to snap photo of yourself, then stitches together a long string of images and creates a video. Instagram
iPhone and Android, Free Instagram is one of the best and most popular photo apps. Instagram has a vast number of users, one of the easiest to use user interfaces and a great set of photo editing effects. Share various Polaroid style photos between friends and followers.
1986 Kodak scientists invent the world’s first megapixel sensor.
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Belfast Photo Hunt Photographic treasure hunts! Take your camera on an imagehunting trip around the city, the park or even round your
home. Watch carefully, especially around traffic! Print and stick your favourite images in the frames on this page!
In the City...
Buildings give us lots of clues about where we live. Look UP at the stone carvings and sculptures around the city, ZOOM in and try to spot all the details. Who put them there, when and why? What do they tell us about the work going on behind the walls? Or what do they tell us about the original purpose of the building? “The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.” - Robert Doisneau
People...
Take a portrait! Portraits don’t need to be realistic or flattering, they might show a face fully, in profile, or not at all! They might take in the person’s whole body or just a part of them. But a portrait should tell us something about the person in it. You can take portraits of friends, family and pets, people you meet in the street... or a self-portrait! Think about what clues are in the background, what colours or objects are included and what they might tell us about the person. Facial expressions often reveal a lot; are they happy, angry, sad, tired, funny, thoughtful? “When I say I’d like to photograph someone, what it really means is that I’d like to know them.” - Annie Leibowitz
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DID YOU KNOW?
1988 Fuji DS-1P became the first digital camera that captured images as a computerised file. A digital camera captures images in a digital format, unlike a traditional camera, which captures images using a photographic film.
Alphabet...
An Antisocial Animal, a Ball-Bouncing Boy, a Car-full of Cowboys, a Dreamy Day...try and make a photograph for every letter of the alphabet. Each photograph should contain something that begins with each letter. If you’re in a town, remember to look out for interesting letters on signs – they’re everywhere!
Don’t worry if you can’t find an ‘exciting’ subject for each letter, as Henri Cartier-Bresson said, “in photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject.”
Abstract Thinking...
Here is a list of things to find and photograph, play with your friends and compare what each of you have chosen to photograph that represents the following descriptions... something strong / something light / something blue and fast / a beautiful smell / something round and heavy / something that makes you smile / something sticky / something alive / something sad “ Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.” - Cecil Beaton
The first digital camera offered to consumers was only 1.4 mega-pixels and cost around £8,000
2000 J-SH04 introduced by J-Phone, the first commercially available mobile phone with a camera that can take and share still pictures.
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Dot to Dot
Photograph name: ‘Flower Power’ Brice Chatenoud b.1987.
He lives and works in Paris Brice Chatenoud’s photographs are manipulated to create surreal still life settings, sometimes in dramatically unreal landscapes, sometimes in quiet empty rooms. He often photographs human bodies, or parts of bodies and yet they are not horrifying pictures but rather they call to mind the idealised torsos and limbs of ancient roman sculptures in a clever and funny way. His images make us think of science-fiction stories
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DID YOU KNOW?
and fantasy worlds with monsters and man-eating plants. The dark humour in his work sits alongside what seems to be a serious concern for the fate of mankind in an increasingly scary world. Certain themes run through his work such as loss of identity, and the destructive power (or the desire for revenge) by plants, and the rest of the natural world. www.bricechatenoud.com
2008 Polaroid announces it is discontinuing the production of all instant film products, citing the rise of digital imaging technology.
Photograph name: ‘Enosis’ Petros Chrisostomou, b.1981.
He lives and works in New York. Chrisostomou photographs small-scale, ordinary objects within architectural models that he constructs himself, often using lighting and other theatrical staging devices. His photographs play with scale and ideas of real and imaginary space, challenging and confusing the viewer in a very playful way. The constructed sets and the objects photographed in them are almost like jokes about the real The most expensive camera in the world named “Daguerreotype” is 168-year-old!
world, or surreal versions of reality. In the combination of luxury and mass-produced objects, high- and low-brow cultural references, real and imaginary, he makes us think about how we look at the photographs all around us in newspaper and television, and how we look at art. www.petrosc.com
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Exhibitions How We Learn 3OPEN APR Belfast Exposed Photography Gallery 3 April - 25 May Opening: Thursday 3 April, 7pm
How We Learn is a major new exhibition at Belfast Exposed that explores the contexts in which children learn, and the psychological and physiological transformations that take place through different methods of learning. The exhibition includes work by leading artists working in the field of collaborative practice with children including Wendy Ewald and Julian Germain. The exhibition also represents a significant body of research into a child’s psychological and emotional development through photographic practice in the portraits by James Russell Cant and Wendy McMurdo. The exhibition will include new work produced in a collaborative project between artist Marysa Dowling and four partner schools in Belfast; St Malachy’s Primary School, Meadowbridge Primary School, Sacred Heart Primary School and Loughshore Educational Resource Centre. The exhibition will include a major talks series and will support an extensive programme of school tours and workshops. How We Learn is supported by Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Arts Council of Northern Ireland Exhibition Events: See page 12. Hours: 11am - 5pm, Monday - Saturday Contact: 028 90 230965
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Exhibitions
Gaelscoil na bhFál Doug Dubois
Mochara My Mucker Ballaí Bána Gallery, Cultúrlann 7 - 25 April
OPEN 7 APR
A photographic exhibition based on the theme ‘Mo Chara’ for Belfast Children’s Photo Festival Youth Edition. Under the instruction of photographer Fionntán Ó Mealláin, the children of Gaelscoil na bhFál will take and process their own pictures to create an exhibition in Cultúrlann’s Bállaí Bána gallery. Hours: 9am-9pm, Mon-Thu | 9am-6pm, Fri-Sat
OPEN 3 APR
Last Day At Seventeen University Gallery, University of Ulster Belfast 4 - 26 April Opening: Thursday 3 April, 6pm
In the summer months a number of young people collaborated with Doug to create this collection of photographs, a somewhat fictional, somewhat documentary account of adolescence in Ireland and a coming of age story centred around this housing estate in Cobh - a place not unlike hundreds of other housing estates around the world. Doug’s photographs consist of portraits, interiors; improvised and directed scenes of neighbourhood life. He concentrates on the youth from the neighbourhood, varying in ages up to their early 20s.
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Dubois is a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient and has exhibited in prestigious galleries such as the Museum of Modern Art (New York). Hours: 10am - 5pm, Monday-Saturday
Exhibitions
PhoshowOPEN Platform Arts 12 - 26 April Opening: Saturday 12 April, 2pm
12 APR
Camera phones and mobile communication are at the centre of almost everyone’s day, making photography available in an instant. People document their days using the cameras on their phones; take a look at your phone and what will you find? This exhibition presents a timeline of events documenting peoples daily lives, from pets and friend’s, to food and places!
Birds Eye View of the City15OPEN APR PS2 15 - 19 April
We turned a simple balloon and camera in to a high flying Aeriel Mapping system to view our city in a way you have never seen it before. All the images have been collected, printed and built into this stunning exhibition peice, our city, from the sky! See page 5 for details of the related workshop.
Submit for this exhibition before 6 April. See page 34 for details. Hours: 11am - 4pm
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Exhibitions
OPEN School 17 APR Kids Photo Dinners Journal Japan OPEN 10 APR
Underground subway, Victoria Street 11 - 30 April Talk: Friday 25 April, 2pm (see page 11)
3/11 Kids Photo Journal is a photography project by children affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Since its establishment in June 2011, children from all over Japan have been taking photographs, writing about the progress of the recovery in their hometowns, and as a result, giving an insight into their daily lives. These moving images show much has changed for them since the events of three years ago and expressing the reality of life in the affected areas from their own points of view. (Above) This is a picture of young Rui Ogawa’s third little sister who was born a month after the disaster in April 2011. Many say she is the reincarnation of his great grandmother, who was swept away by the tsunami.
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Ulster Museum, Belfast Room 17 - 27 April
The influence and power that an image can have is represented in this exhibition by Martha Payne. Taking photos of her school dinners and compiling them into her blog, “Never Seconds,” becoming an Internet sensation and backed by Jamie Oliver in his campaign for healthier school dinners. Her blog raised over hundreds of thousands for the Charity Mary’s Dinners and is being used to build a new kitchen at the 1,963-pupil Lirangwe Primary School in Blantyre, Malawi. Martha has been featured on BBC Radio 4 and has won awards such as Public Campaigner of the Year 2012 at the Scottish Politician of the Year awards run by Glasgow newspaper The Herald and Human Rights Young Person of the Year at the 2012 Liberty Awards Martha’s work will be accompanied by the work of young people throughout Northern Ireland from our National School Dinners Open Competition. See page 35 for details. Hours: 10am - 5pm, Tuesday - Sunday
Phoshow Competition
UNTIL 6 APR
Call for submissions: 10 March - 6 April Exhibition Opening: Saturday 12 April, 2pm Exhibition Dates: 12 - 26 April Camera phones and mobile communication are at the centre of almost everyone’s day, making photography available in an instant; when you look at your phone and what do you find? A timeline of events documenting your daily life, pets, food, friends and family! We invite you to submit photographs using your smart phone (or any camera you like) on these 4 themes:
pictures related to the themes, you can submit to one theme or all! Send your images to:
#people #things
Selected images will be displayed in the PhoShow exhibition, as part of Belfast Photo Festival Youth Edition, in Platform Arts Unit gallery.
#places #moments
You can submit images to us through twitter, instagram and email. The guidelines are simple, We ask photographers between the ages of 15 - 18 years, send between 1-6
Email: phoshowplatform@gmail.com Blog: phoshowbelfast.tumblr.com Instagram: @phoshow_belfast Twitter: @PhoShow_
Submit for this exhibition before 6 April. See page 31 for details of the exhibition.
NATIONAL SCHOOL DINNERS PHOTO COMPETITION Send your: Photographs Name Age School To: schooldinners@belfastphotofestival.com Before Tuesday 13 April 2014.
Essay THE MARTHA PAYNE SCHOOL DINNER PROJECT How has photography been used to bring about social change and how the circulation of images via social media has brought about the concept of citizen journalism. When she was nine, Martha and her class were asked by their teacher to ‘write like a journalist’. Martha wrote about the sinking of the Titanic and loved being a journalist so much that she wanted to continue to be one every day. Her Dad suggested that she write a Blog and Martha decided that she would write about her school dinners. The Principal of her school agreed, and Martha (with the help of her Dad) started a blog on the 30th April 2012 called ‘NeverSeconds’. So named because when she started the blog, you could not get second helpings of the school dinner. Every day Martha took a photograph of her school dinner, wrote a little bit about it and gave it ‘marks out of 10’ for taste (Food-o-meter) and healthiness. She also counted how many mouthfuls there were (a way of measuring how much food was included) and how many hairs she found (she only ever found 1 hair thank goodness!). Martha’s blog went viral and after only four days of photographing and rating her school dinners, over 100,000 people had looked at the blog and one of Britain’s most famous chefs, Jamie Oliver, wrote a tweet in support of the blog. (Jamie led a huge campaign to improve the standard of school dinners in England a few years before this, in 2005.) Jamie and others thought that Martha’s blog was ‘shocking but inspirational’. Most of the dinners got a good score for taste, 8 out of 10 or more, but only a few got a good score for healthiness. Most dinners got a Health Rating of between 5 out of 10 and 7 out of 10, and the portions were not very big in the early days. What made the blog ‘shocking’ were the photographs and what made it inspirational was the difference that it made. The format of Martha’s photographs; the way in which they are arranged, is quite simple – the camera is looking down
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Dorothea Lange, ‘Migrant mother’ or ‘Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California’, February or March 1936. Held by Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington.
at the white dinner tray, which sits on a bluish-grey surface (the table) and fills the whole picture. The tray, which doubles up as a plate, is practical and spotlessly clean. It is not very attractive as a plate and does not enhance the look of the food, but at the same time, from the point of view of the project, this means that there is nothing to distract you from taking a long hard look at the food itself.
And in some of the postings the food does not look appetizing! The first entries feature a plain square of pizza, a thin scattering of sweet corn, a single croquet and a bun, and then the following day, a dry burger with thinly melted cheese, 2 croquets, 3 slices of cucumber and an ice-lolly. The power of the photographs lie in the way they show reality and allow viewers to decide what to think for themselves. Tens of thousands of people viewed her site and were not impressed. In fairness to the school, their response was prompt. By the second week of Martha’s daily reviews, not only was there more fresh fruit and salad available, it was decided that kids could have as much fruit, salad and bread as they wanted. No doubt the flurry of interest on the part of local and national papers had something to do with these changes, but it might also be that the pictures that people sent of school dinners from around the world also had an impact. One of the earliest of these, sent by Annie in Taiwan, looks delicious, very nutritious and more than filling! In Annie’s photograph, the compartments of a silver tray sitting on a red-check background are filled with a ball of rice, several kinds of steamed and stir-fried vegetables, including tofu, a noodle soup and three cherry tomatoes. By February 2014 Martha’s blog has been visited 10 million times! Not only did Martha’s photographs bring about change within her school, they also revitalized a national debate about the importance and quality of school dinners. In addition, the blog engaged children, parents and teachers from more than 18 countries across 4 continents in thinking about and sharing pictures of school dinners. Perhaps most of important of all, people’s interest in and enthusiasm for Martha’s blog helped her to fundraise enough money for a charity called Mary’s Meals to build a school kitchen in Malawi and feed over 12,000 children for a year. Of course photographs have been used to bring about social change from the early days of photography. In 1936 Dorothea Lange’s photograph of the dignity and destitution of a Migrant Mother, Florence Owens Thompson, revealed
the plight of thousands of starving workers during the Great Depression in California, USA, prompting government action. In 1972 a photograph of Kim Phuc fleeing from a napalm attack in Vietnam changed attitudes in the USA to the war. More recently photographs taken on mobile phones and posted on the Internet have changed the way that news is made, and even what counts as news. Newspapers and TV broadcasters often use photographs taken by ordinary people (from images of torture and war to images of natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes) to enhance their stories. And sometimes, ordinary people reporting things that are happening in their locality can be so effective in communicating with the world that newspapers and TV stations eventually have no choice but to tell the story – it took the mainstream media more than 5 days to begin covering the Occupy Wall Street protest when it began in New York but the power of social media left them with little choice in the end. The power of social media to distribute images and information across the world has brought new life to the concept of ‘citizen journalism’, and it has given reality to the idea that people’s voices matter and have the potential to create social change. Indeed, Martha’s local council learned this the hard way when they tried to ban cameras from the school dining hall – the flood of protest and renewed interest in the blog changed their minds! Of course, it is important to remember that photographs do not always tell the truth – the famous photograph of the Lough Ness Monster (“Surgeon’s Photograph”) did wonders for the local economy, but was a fake. And even if the photograph is not a deliberate lie, the person taking the photograph decides what to include and what to leave out of the picture, and the photographer also decides what to say about it – all of which affects the photograph’s meaning. So, viewer beware!
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Essay
AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY: ITS USES AND ABUSES, FROM NADAR TO DRONES Imprisoned in a labyrinth, Daedalus built wings from feathers and wax so that he and his son, Icarus, could fly to safety. Icarus was warned not to fly too high but curiosity and the thrill of flying proved too much for him and up he soared, flying too close to the sun. The wax melted and Icarus fell to his death. Since the days of ancient Greece and the tale of Icarus, people have imagined what it must be like to fly and see the world from above. The very first images that try to picture the world from a bird’s-eye viewpoint are maps, like this one of Ulster from 1603. Bird’s-eye views also have a history in painting going back to the 1600s. Paintings that depicted a view from a high place were called ‘prospects’, and they were intended to show the wealth and power of the person who paid for the painting to be made; the higher the viewpoint in the painting, the greater the importance of the person whose domain was being surveyed.
Despite tales of Icarus and Leonardo Da Vinci’s plans for flying machines, it was not until 1783 that the first ever hot air balloon was launched by the Montgolfier brothers in Paris (apparently, the balloon reached a height of more than 900 metres and stayed in the air for about 30 minutes). Then, in 1858, a French photographer and balloonist known as Nadar took the first aerial photographs over Paris. Unfortunately, the photographs he made no longer exist, so the earliest example of an aerial photograph is ‘Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It’, taken by James Wallace Black in 1860 from a height of 630 metres. Finally, people were able to take pictures of the world from above, and the aerial photographs of Nadar and Black offered us a God-like view of their cities (Paris and Boston). With aerial images – whether drawings, paintings or photographs – we can visualize (and so think about) the city as a whole, as one thing, instead of having to piece together different perspectives and the different parts of the city in our mind’s eye. We can easily imagine that the aerial photograph makes it possible for us to see the ‘true’ city – that the physical distance and unobstructed view can help us to be objective, to take everything in at once and without prejudice.
‘A Generalle Description of Ulster’, 1603. Dimensions 42.4 cm x 56.9 cm. Held by The National Archives, Kew.
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‘Unidentified aerial photograph of the Western Front’, First World War Aerial Photograph, Imperial War Museum.
it often happens that technology gets a lot better very quickly during a war or when people are getting ready
James Wallace Black (American, 1825–1896)
in case there is a war. Aerial photography improved and came to be used a lot during World War I (1914-1918). Pilots used aerial photographs for reconnaissance, and by the end of the war both sides were photographing the entire front line twice a day! After the war, many veterans put their experience as pilots and aerial photographers to good use and set up in business. The first commercial aerial photography company in the UK was Aerofilms Ltd., and you can see lots of their photographs on the Internet because English Heritage owns a huge collection (1.26 million negatives and more than 2000 photograph albums) dating from 1919 to 2006. The collection shows the changing face of Britain in the twentieth century, with urban, suburban, rural, coastal and industrial scenes. In today’s world the technology you need to take aerial photographs has changed a lot. Balloons and kites, as well as planes and helicopters, are still used to make aerial photographs, and since the famous Blue Marble photograph was taken from space in 1972, satellites have become a really important source of aerial images of Earth. But the most important change in the technology that is used to take aerial photographs has to be the invention of ‘drones’. A drone is an aircraft that is either controlled by a ‘pilot’ on the ground or is programmed to follow a certain route before it takes off. Drones are a lot cheaper than an airplane, and some can stay in the air for many hours (the record is 82 hours non-stop). Aerial photography using drones is used for lots of different purposes. Just like aerial photography using older technologies, it is used to: make and update maps; help local government to decide what can be built where; provide evidence when people are arguing about the boundary between properties; study things like archaeology, geography and animals in the wild. The main use of aerial photography using drones, however, is in surveillance. Drones have changed the nature of modern warfare, not only because they have been used to fire missiles but also because of their contribution to reconnaissance and surveillance. The
NASA Blue Marble photograph, 1972: NASA/Apollo 17 crew; taken by either Harrison Schmitt or Ron Evans, 7 December 1972.
use of drones for the purposes of surveillance has been so effective in recent conflicts that police forces across the world are beginning to use drones. Apparently, a school in Belgium is even considering the use of drones to make sure that pupils don’t cheat in their exams! Aerial photography has always been useful as a way ‘to know what human beings are doing on this planet’. And as drone technology improves and becomes cheaper, drones will be used more and more for aerial photography. This is exciting. Communities will be able to see their ‘place’ differently, to imagine how they would like it to be and how it might work better alongside the places around it. All sorts of new knowledge can be created. But there are risks. Some people worry that if privacy laws do not keep up with the changes in drone technology, we could become a ‘surveillance society’ in which our every move is recorded and checked (by the government, by ‘big business’, by anybody!). A more immediate risk was always a part of the dream of achieving a bird’s-eye view: to see the whole picture, all at once, is god-like; it can induce a sense of being all powerful (omniscient) and lessen a sense of being connected to the world below. With the view from above, especially as sent by a drone to a ‘pilot’ on another continent, it is easier to stay focused upon the general event and to ignore all thoughts of the particular place and the actual people being observed. It becomes easy to ignore the personal and specific consequences of your actions. Of course, this is a risk not a certainty. In 1982, at the beginning of the war between Israel and Lebanon, an Israeli pilot who (correctly) recognised his target as a school-type building refused to drop his bombs, and dumped them into the sea instead. The pilot was also an architect and knew from aerial photographs what schools look like from above. He remembered to think about the reality of the people in that place.
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