The assessment declaration . I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration – https://www.rmit.edu.au/students/support-and-facilities/student-support/equitable-learning-services]
Here are my Four Blog entries
Here is my review
Answers Word Count: 1071
- Provide your own definition (in your own words) on ‘photography’, by referring to the readings, additional research and the practice analyses completed in your blog.
Photography is the evolving practise of capturing still images for the use of others or your own interest. The word evolving is key here as the ways in which photography is used and distributed as well as authored are very diverse. Photos can exist in a physical form through print media which was a common purpose for them before the digital era. They were used in the most public platforms that were available for sharing information; newspapers, signs and museums/ galleries.
Photography is also of great importance to the network and online digital space even being characterised as a “flow” of “data” (Kuc, Kamila & Zylinska, 2016, p.g 8) rather than photos being separated to one another. The means in which photographs are taken also evolves and is diverse; some use film cameras, digital photography cameras such as DSLRs or the most popular means of online photography the mobile phone. It’s affordances for online use create a much easier way to send through photos taken on iphone can be distributed on social media’s via the same device. For someone to capture an image on a DSLR camera is still an easy thing to do, yet to transfer the image from the SD card to a computer and make sure that it is formatted correctly is the modern day equivalent to having film from a camera developed in a darkroom. It should be noted that regardless of legacy or online, photography remains at its core the practise of capturing still images.
2. Provide your own definition (in your own words) on ‘videography’ or ‘video practice’, by referring to the readings, additional research and the practice analyses completed in your blog.
“Video practise” is the authoring, publishing and distributing of moving image. The practise itself is unique to every author, with the modern trend of video blogging confirming this. Berry & Bjorkmann’s definition of the term video blog as a “blog that uses video as its main form of expression” (2018, p.g 7-8). This highlights the evolution of the video practise and how it was very focused during the legacy period on often political ventures or rebellion against the mainstream programming. That being said, the documentation of one’s life and family was also a large use for the portable cameras of the time, or even for personal experimentation, without the aim of trying to air the video on television.
The online video era in comparison now asks for the author to be “Network literate” (Miles, 2012, p.g 1) for their video practise, meaning to have an understanding of how social media is used and how video can be incorporated into it. An example of this is understanding that text can be included into a video for Instagram and a comments section is featured on the app for followers to comment and or like the video.
Another way is how one’s video practise of how they shoot a video may change due to the shapes that are preferred on certain social media’s as well as running times of each video. The video practise for online use, requires the assumption that the video will exist in an ever changing, collaborative space with an online digital footprint.
3. What differences and similarities did you discover between the way legacy and online photos are authored, published and distributed?
A game changer in the way that online photography is created and distributed compared to legacy photography is the introduction of social media. Legacy photography was a practise that held more exclusivity both a constraint and affordance). For example due to the limited cameras available to those interested in photography and the factor that image capturing devices were not as technologically advanced as they are today, legacy photography could only be worked on by those who had significant wealth, talent in their craft and were often given assignments from others to be able to take photographs in the first place.
The social expectations around photography during the legacy period was a big influence on how people chose to use it. The main purpose was to document the time period, such as through family photographs being “historical and emotional archives” (Kuc, Kamila & Zylinska, 2016, p.g 2). Another example is for scientific purposes providing photographs for medical journals, for the study of anatomy, and to capture the “wonders of the world” (Kuc, Kamila & Zylinska, 2016, p.g 2).
When discussing online photography, due to the legacy that legacy photography had already created by that time having captured many discoveries of the world, this allowed for a more personal and artistic use for photography. Along with the introduction of the mobile phone doubling as a camera that saved photos digitally and the ability to put them online through social media and the internet, more groups of people had the power to author, produce and distribute photographs that were theirs. Due to the affordances of social media being to easily accessible and exposing new styles of photography other than family portraits or black and white landscapes, this allowed for a revolutionized platform for creativity and self expression.
4. What differences and similarities did you discover between the way legacy and online videos are authored, published and distributed?
Legacy Video was born from the technological advances of the 1960’s and the desire to create something that was not already on television. This is also due to the introduction of Sony’s “first portable, video recording equipment” (2016, p.g 2) and as Horsfield, discusses later in her article “Video immediately captured the attention of artists who saw its potential as a creative tool…to be used to create new types of representation” (2006, p.g 2). Hence, the agency of authoring video in this time was for experimentation and going against the norms of Network Television. A pioneer for this type of video making was Nam June Paik, who worked to publish and distribute his work on TV Lab on channel 13.
Whilst legacy video had creatives who strived to push boundaries, the exposure they received was very much controlled by Networks as television unless an artist was able to create a gallery of work to be shown. Most legacy video was created through analogue technology and in the decades following the 1960’s it began to filter into more and more stations.
Online video differs to legacy video as technologically it is far more advanced having transitioned to digital and much like online photography enables much more creativity from its maker. The maker themselves do not face the constraints of having to be particularly wealthy or have connections. They must simply be connected to the internet. Other affordances of online video are that the editing technologies and experimental technologies are much more available also. One is able to experiment with online video and place it into the online network for a community to see.
Readings:
Kuc, Kamila, and Joanna Zylinska, editors. Photomediations: A Reader. Open Humanities Press, 2016, (pp.7-16 Photomediations: An Introduction by Joanna Zylinkska – download direct from the website)
Horsfield, Kate. Busting the Tube: A Brief History of Video Art. Video Data Bank, School of Art Institute of Chicago, 2006, pp. 1–9,
Berry, Trine Bjorkmann. ‘Situating Videoblogging’, Institute of Network Cultures, 2018, pp. 9–22,
Miles, Adrian. RMIT University, 2012. (Network Literacy: The New Path to Knowledge 201-208)