The Global Image reflection and summary

It is interesting for me to note I have been delighted to learn that there are as many reasons for an image to be perceived to be a "Global" one as there are people making, or looking at those images. 

I must admit that this concept of a "Global image" has taken me by surprise a bit. If I had been asked to name a global image previously, I probably would have cited the obvious easily spotted corporate logo or symbol. It had never occurred to me that apart from the big news pictures, Lee harvey Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby, or later, President kennedy's young son saluting his fathers coffin, 
(which were global because of the possible resonance that assassination might have on the world), or on a lighter note the gangnam style video going viral on social media, there wasn't really anything I would have associated with the term "Global".

I now look at things very differently. I can see that global status can be conferred through many different ideas. For instance, my image of the sun behind an electricity pylon below

I originally took this photo because I wanted to make the point that here was a problem, the greenhouse effect caused by overuse of fossil fuels to supply electricity among other things, and there was a part of the solution, solar energy which is free, clean and doesnt contribute to global warming on it own account. 

Having thought about it for a while, I can see how this is a global image because it deals with a problem that the whole world is facing, that of global warming. 

I found the webinar on this subject educating too.

 Chris Northey showed us an image of a man who chose to be anonymous. I can see the globality in this image because of the subject matter , a person, and the issues surrounding anonymity in a world where everybody else seems to know more about us than we do ourselves.  

Gerry hughes showed us images including a semi candid shot of some guys around a pickup truck, and some construction workers going about their business at the top of some steel girders. I can see the globality in this because one might contrast it, as Chris pointed out with the well known pictures of men drinking coffee sitting on girders at the top of skyscrapers from the middle of the last century. Both sets of men have no safety equipment, for example. So we see the same occupation with a fifty year gap.

I think we also have to ask ourselves why any particular photograph is taken in the first place. The photos I referenced at the beginning of this essay were news items, taken to inform. The video's main function was to entertain. I took the photo above to make a point, Chris's was part of a series and Gerry's was something he saw that resonated with him. All different reasons but all ending with images which could be classified as "Global".

To sum up then. Most of the images that end up with a classification of "Global" were not intended to, apart from news photos, advertising photos and photos making a political point. I think we need to question why any particular photo was taken, rather like we might look at a particular painting and ask why it was painted, and we need to ask ourselves why we might be taking a particular photograph.

It's also to remember that with this power to capture and disseminate images come responsibility-just because we think something is okay doesn't mean it is, and we have to have empathy with and sympathy with other viewpoints and ideals. especially in a world where a touch of a button can send one image to a billion places in the blink of an eye

 The Global image pt 2

Another truly global image is that of the golden arches, the trademark of MacDonalds.




from  https://nietubiera.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/mcdonalds.jpg?w=604&h=424

 It has been estimated that 98% of the worlds population recognise this symbol. How many would link this one with it?
 






 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/mcdonalds-palm-oil-pledge_b_7104982.html

This is an image of deforestation for the production of palm oil. Losing rainforests is a global issue. 

Obvious then, that there are different types of global image. The arches are a corporate image serving as an advertisement. A trademark recognised the world over.
The lonely Orangutan can be looked at a warning of what can happen when corporations are not regulated, or just as an ape wandering down a road cut through the forest. It has many meanings , it becomes a piece of propaganda for people who are anti corporate as well as those concerned about the  effects of global warming.

What does all this tell us?

Possibly that there is no strict definition of a global image, and that the agenda the image is made for is relevant to its global status.
 




 

The Global image

This has got me thinking. How would you describe an image as "Global"? 

A picture of the Eiffel Tower? Niagara falls? A new born baby? The ruins of Syria?

All of these things would be recognisable to most people, and some recognisable to all. Does that make them global though?

Are we looking for images that have global issues implied or are we looking for things most people would recognise?
 

This image, of a baby Orangutan sticking close to its dead parent is as tragic as you will see, but what makes it a global image? Do we assume this is a byproduct of deforestation and logging in the rainforest, which harms our environment, so making it a global issue? What do we think when we find out the image is actually from
 https://endtrophyhuntingnow.com/2014/02/26/deforestation-and-palm-oil/evironmental-deforestation-orangutan-dead/








Or does the image have to be something more familiar?
 

Something more familiar, something more comfortable, does that make it global?
Or are  both global in different ways?

Photography M A blog

Three trees Yeovil 2016

I love monochrome pictures.
That is pictures with a very limited palette. Not always Black and White either. 
Photography as art may be controversial sometimes-look at the work of Man Ray or the pictures of northern slums and thier tenants taken by Bill Brandt in the 1930's , which having been taken as documentary are now seen as art and collected as such. 

Northumbrian miner eating his evening meal Bill Brandt  1937

 

 At what point does the image above stop being documentary and become art? The miner represents a way of life which exists no longer. His dwelling is of a type we will only ever see in films or photographs. So this piece of documentary becomes social history, just like those pictures of Great Grandma in her cloche hat sitting staring at the camera out of the window of the Charabanc. But is it art?

About me

This image, entitled Rain Steam and Speed, was painted by one of Britains most reverred artists, JMW Turner. He had cataracts. You can see a disturbance to his vision on the left side of this painting.

I am attempting an MA in Photography. I am registered blind after a stroke 3 years ago.
The stroke has made me have to look at what I see more closely. This  has resulted in my becoming more analytical of the world around me. It might sound like a cliche, but every image is precious simply because I can see it.

My aim is to prove in some way that a lack of optical acuity does not have to mean a lack of visual creativity.