John Baldessari: Wrong
John Baldessari is a famous contemporary artist. He is sometimes referred to as the Father of Conceptual Art. He sometimes uses photography in his work, often images that he has found and changed in some way. This video is a great introduction to his work and ideas.
Mr Nicholls showed us one particular image by the artist entitled 'Wrong'. We were asked to look carefully at the image and suggest why we thought it was given the title 'Wrong'. |
These are some of their comments people made:
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We were asked to write on the picture why we felt it might have been given the title 'Wrong'.
We were then asked to make a list of the hidden 'rules' of photography and what might make a photograph wrong. We attempted to take as many pictures as we could that deliberately broke as many of these 'rules' as possible.
Here are my images:
Evaluation
The subject of the photo on the right is obscured by an out of focus finger in front of the lens. This is an easy mistake to make. Other mistakes I made deliberately include:
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The image on the left could be considered wrong because it is blurry and out of focus. I was moving the camera whilst clicking the shutter. The subject has also been stretched so is out of proportion. The image below is pretty featureless and a bit dark. It doesn't seem to be of anything in particular. The trees and the building have been cropped and most of there is probably too much negative space in the centre.
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However, it could be argued that there is something interesting in all these images. In this sense, there is no such thing as a wrong photograph and, sometimes, breaking the 'rules' of photography can result in really exciting and creative results.