Paris idea and Photography Project based on D&G Fall/Winter 2009-2010 Ad Campaign

D&G Ad Campaign for Fall/Winter 2009-2010

The following is a repost of a note that I wrote on Facebook. I thought I would share on this blog. This is one of my favorite ad campaigns that I have seen lately.

As the new semester began, I decided along with the many other things that I manage to put on my plate to take yet an other photography class at the University of South Florida. This semester I am taking a special topics class involving lighting and large format film. It should be a very exciting class and the opportunity to learn and work large format is to me all too exciting. So as usual and as in every college class, one gets the syllabus for the semester. As with any photo project, advance planning can do much to improve the success of your final result. So here I am planning and thinking about the projects I will be working on for the semester. On Sunday while at the lighting studio at the University of South Florida working on my first project assignment, I came across a Detail magazine being used as a prop for one of the photos. Going through the magazine I came across a D&G advertisement for their Fall/Winter 2009-2010 fashion line. Bam! I got an idea.

D&G Ad Campaign for Fall/Winter 2009-2010

For D&G Fall/Winter 2009-2010 season, the brand put together a classic photoshoot inspired by traditional French aesthetics. However, they incorporated a unique urban twist within the context of the French aesthetics. After researching their campaign, I thought to myself -- Self! Fine Art photography is and so often stands at opposition to fashion photography. So, why don't I merge the two in one sense but firmly in the school of fine art photography, create a project that makes a commentary on both fine art photography and fashion photography. Further, why not use the new D&G campaign as a starting point to build from. So here I am wanting to put together a photo shot based on this campaign. Therefore, I need models. However, not like D&G, I am not looking for the model but the person - a real person. There is the twist. Next I will have to find or see if I can get D&G to donate such outfits... lol... probably will not hold my breath on that part of the idea.

D&G Ad Campaign for Fall/Winter 2009-2010

Following are additional images from the D&G ad campaign for their Fall/Winter 2009-2010 line:

D&G Ad Campaign for Fall/Winter 2009-2010

D&G Ad Campaign for Fall/Winter 2009-2010

If you would like to continue to follow up on this project, contribute, or even model, please contact me. lol.

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Presidents Past, Present and Future - The Rhetoric of a Photograph

There is Rhetoric in image production. Symbolism and iconography play a role in communicating messages. What is important is being able to identify the symbols that are key in interpreting an image. These can be a marker of some sort that act like a "key" that guides the image to its underlining message. Is it is important to note that the way one comes to an image is built upon his or her lived experiences and enculturation. Therefore, there is inherent with interpretation a built in bias from both the producer and the on-looker of the image. But with that said, the following are images found in the New York Times and several other publications of the living presidents of the United States coming together in the Oval Office. I use these pictures as an example of what I am talking about. Notice the ties and the color of the ties and who is wearing what color and how they are choreographed in the picture.

You know that old saying "A picture is worth a thousand words." On or about January 7, 2009, the New York times published a couple of photographs of the five living presidents coming together for a "Caucus" in the Oval Office of the White House. The series of pictures are very interesting and I wonder what is the underlining message of these photographs.

Photographic composition and framing does a lot to tell a story. The way a picture is choreographed helps to create a message that speaks to the on-looker or in some cases a very specific intended audience. Symbolism and relationship of symbols in a picture are key to the interpretation of an image. Individuals wearing the same color tie standing together as compared to other individuals in a photograph wearing different color ties standing next to each other in contrast to the others in the picture (blue vs. red ties) may actually be very symbolic and their relationship in composition and frame cannot be ignored. So a picture is worth a thousand words. Then what do these pictures tell us:

The above pictures are remarkably different in composition as compared to the last time the five living presidents met together as seen in the following pictures:

These are definitely telling of a different message.

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Taking Pictures of Stars

A few months ago, I wrote this with regard to the Orionids Meteor Shower. Thought it would be good to repost it here.

Last night provided a great opportunity to review some of the basics in photographic methods while attempting to photograph meteors from the Orionids Meteor Shower. While I saw a few meteors here and there from time to time, none dashed across the sky where my camera was aimed. While I was not successful in capturing a meteor, I did experiment on taking pictures of stars, more specifically, the three stars of Orion's Belt, or more generally the whole constellation.

Several observation: 1) When attempting to take pictures of stars, urban environments are not so good of areas for photographing heavenly bodies. While it may appear to be dark, there is enough background light to really effect the picture and create (in my opinion) significant distortions. For one, the background light from such sources as street lights makes it difficult to focus on the stars you are attempting to take pictures. An other issue, metering is rendered to somewhat a trial and error game. 2) Need a real good tripod, especially one that allows for the camera to be positions with the lens facing directly above.

With the above said, a basic review of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, is in order before looking at the pictures I took.

Shutter Speed: The shutter blocks all light from exposing the film UNTIL you press the button. Then it quickly opens and closes, giving the film a brief flash of light. You can control the length of time the shutter remains open by setting the SHUTTER SPEED. Longer shutter speeds = more light and shorter shutter speeds = less light. The longer exposures ( like 1 second ) give much more light to the film than a 1/1000 of a second exposure even though the number may look bigger on the camera.

Examples:

A half second exposure is ONE STOP darker than a one second exposure.

A 1/125 exposure is TWO STOPS brighter than a 1/500 exposure.

A 1/1000 exposure is THREE STOPS darker than a 1/125 exposure.

Shutter Speeds (more light) 1, 1/2, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000 (less light).

You can have the shutter open as long as you like with the bulb setting. It is the shutter speed I used for the star pictures as most of these images were taken with long exposures ranging from 3 minutes to 10 minutes.

Aperture: Before light reaches film, it must pass through an opening called an "Aperture". The aperture is like a pupil. You can control the aperture by setting the "Aperture Opening", also known as an F-Stop. Smaller F-stops numbers = larger openings and larger openings = more light.

Like the pupil in a human eye, the aperture on a camera controls light.

It does so by closing up to restrict light, and opening up to let it through.

Examples:

moving from f16 to f8 is:
TWO STOPS brighter.

moving from f5.6 to f8 is:
ONE STOP darker

moving from f4 to f2.8 is:
ONE STOP brighter.

Aperture settings: f2.8, f4, f5.6, f8, f11, f16, f22

Exposure is about different combinations of shutter and f-stop settings.

If he exposure is made with a wide aperture ( like f2.8 ), then objects farther away from the subject are thrown farther out of focus. This effect is referred to as "depth of field".

if the aperture is small (like f22) then objects in the background (and foreground ) will appear sharper.

ISO is the number that represents the film's sensitivity to light. A higher ISO number indicates the film is more sensitive and requires less light for a proper exposure. It can be said that this is a faster film. For example, 400 ISO Film is more sensitive to light then say 100 ISO Film and therefore requires less time for the shutter to stay open for any given aperture setting.

With this said, I will now show my attempt to taking pictures of the Stars. Let me remind you it was an attempt but sure a lot of fun.

These images were taken from 3:30 A.M. to around 6:30 A.M with a digital Nikon D50. You will notice that pictures with long exposure times show the movement of the stars as the planet rotates and spins.

Shutter Speed: 72.0 seconds at an aperture of ƒ / 5.6 using an ISO 400. 55 mm (focal length)

Shutter Speed: 249.0 seconds at an aperture of ƒ / 22 using an ISO 400. 18 mm (focal length)

Shutter Speed: 339.0 seconds at an aperture of ƒ / 22 using an ISO 400. 18 mm (focal length)

Shutter Speed 95.0 seconds at an aperture of ƒ / 3.5 using an ISO 400. 18 mm (focal length)

Shutter Speed: 635.0 seconds at an aperture of ƒ / 22 using ISO 400. 18 mm (focal length)

Shutter Speed: 251.0 seconds at an aperture of ƒ / 22 using an SO 400. 18 mm (focal length).

Shutter Speed:152.0 seconds at an aperture of ƒ / 13 using an ISO 400. 18 mm (focal length)

Shutter speed: 151.0 seconds at an aperture of ƒ / 8.0 using an ISO 400. 18 mm (focal length)

Shutter Speed: 57.0 seconds at an aperture of ƒ / 3.5 using ISO 400. 18 mm (focal length)

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About Fred Pirone

I am a man of many hats. I am a lawyer, archaeologist, and a photographic artist. Currently, I am working on finishing my Ph.D. in Applied Anthropology at the University of South Florida and work as a lawyer and Photographic Artist in Tampa, Florida.

I have many interests as well including topics in History, Art, Science, Religion, and Philosophy. I see these topics as being interrelated and many of my projects incorporate all these areas in order to address specific sets of questions that I am trying to answer.

I see the camera as a means of recording the observations and findings I make as I go through life and the resultant image the art that I create from the pictures that I take. I want to use art to make a statement about my findings and to present the material of my work through artistic expression in order to reach a wider range of people. So often I find words limiting and not fully able to completely capture and transfer to others what I am fully seeing and understanding in the universe around me. Therefore, I find artistic expression as means to help in that communication process.

Being An Artist

My creative work is deeply rooted in my desire to capture the divine in nature and in human interactions and form and to create narratives with my photographic art that comments on the nature of a contrived world and what is real in a way that pushes beyond the limits of comfortability and understanding in order to bring into the forefront of the mind a new reality. A lot of my work incorporates my fascination and interest in spirituality, cultural constructs, and self-identity. I like to explore ways to create self-contained narratives in the images that I create that bring about new meanings and emotions. I look to challenge people’s ideas of what they have come to understand about the world they live in and to engage them with images that forces each person to consider the idea: Are you willing to abandon everything you have come to believe for absolute truth?

Further, I am also interested in exploring the relationships of body, camera, and the resultant image in terms of challenging notions of self and other by coming to terms with body and space in a process of giving over to otherness through being both the subject and object. In this regard I am currently working on projects that explore masculinity and the contrived nature of our cultural understanding in what it means to be a “man” in the binary dichotomy of male-female perceptions and what is considered appropriate masculine behavior. Several projects that I am working on include exploring how identity both in terms of the male and female form and the sense of self function in relationship to the structures of visuality and the discourse of the male or female nude breaking away from the entanglement of eroticism without compromising the sexual identity and aesthetic of the sexual embodiment.

I like to experiment with new photographic techniques and more established techniques that I have not employed previously in my work. I like to focus on the process and do not see the final image as an end point but a starting position for further investigation and creation.

A lot of my work has been informed by the photographic artists Robert Mapplethorpe, Jerry Uelsmann, Sally Mann, Collier Schorr, Barry Underwood, Gary Schneider, Ma Liuming, and Zhang Huan; as well as from surrealist artists like Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, and Hans Bellmer. I also think that my work has been influenced by the writings of critic and writer, Nicolas Bourriaud along with Peter Denney and Kenneth Slessor.

Besides photographic methods, I am also interested in performance art, art installations, video art, and sculpture.

I tend to see life as in terms of being an Epic. Therefore, I like to live life in Epic.

Being An Archaeologist

Currently, I am working toward my Ph.D. in applied anthropology with a concentration in archaeology, archaeological science, and visual anthropology. My interests lie in answering questions about material culture, cognitive theory as it relates to cultural artifacts such as works of art, trade and movement in the cultural landscapes, iconography of ancient cultures, ancient texts and manuscripts, societal organization and development, and cultural systems. My geographical areas of interest are the cultures centered in the Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Levant. My research currently involves an XRF study of pottery found in Malta and Sicily in order to answer questions about trade and societal organization of the Ancient Maltese people during the Neolithic.

Being A Lawyer

As a lawyer, I specialize in business law, intellectual and cultural property, art law, international trade and project finance, and property law. I am a member of the Florida Bar and received my J.D. and MBA with a concentration in Finance from American University in Washington, D.C.

A Woman Pope

The following is text written by the Dominican, Jean de Mailly, in his chronicle of Metz, Chronica Universalis Mettensis, written in the early 13th century. I have pasted the text in part for your reading. There is some proof that the story is true and that the actual woman who served as Pope upon her discovery was systematically removed from the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Because there is no verifiable and for certain proof (and I will use the burden of proof for academic purposes here as beyond a reasonable doubt), the evidence is circumstantial and the story is more than likely a legend. But, I tend to think it is real but regardless, the fact that as early at least the 13th century, there was talk of woman serving God as priests.

Here goes the text in part:

" Concerning a certain Pope or rather female Pope, who is not set down in the list of Popes or Bishops of Rome, because she was a woman who disguised herself as a man and became, by her character and talents, a curial secretary, then a Cardinal and finally Pope. One day, while mounting a horse, she gave birth to a child. Immediately, by Roman justice, she was bound by the feet to a horse's tail and dragged and stoned by the people for half a league, and where she died, there she was buried, and at the place is written: 'Petre, Pater Patrum, Papisse Prodito Partum' [Oh Peter, Father of Fathers, Betray the childbearing of the woman Pope]. At the same time, the four-day fast called the "fast of the female Pope" was first established" ...

And an other account (text in part):

"John Anglicus, born at Mainz, was Pope for two years, seven months and four days, and died in Rome, after which there was a vacancy in the Papacy of one month. It is claimed that this John was a woman, who as a girl had been led to Athens dressed in the clothes of a man by a certain lover of hers. There she became proficient in a diversity of branches of knowledge, until she had no equal, and afterwards in Rome, she taught the liberal arts and had great masters among her students and audience. A high opinion of her life and learning arose in the city, and she was chosen for Pope. While Pope, however, she became pregnant by her companion. Through ignorance of the exact time when the birth was expected, she was delivered of a child while in procession from St Peter's to the Lateran, in a lane once named Via Sacra (the sacred way) but now known as the "shunned street" between the Colisseum and St Clement's church. After her death, it is said she was buried in that same place. The Lord Pope always turns aside from the street and it is believed by many that this is done because of abhorrence of the event. Nor is she placed on the list of the Holy Pontiffs, both because of her female sex and on account of the foulness of the matter." (Martin of Opava, Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum).

The exact time when the Woman Pope existed is debated but there is a general idea she was Pope somewhere from 700 to 900 A.D.

The Catholic Encyclopedia states the following with regard to this issue:

“Between Leo IV and Benedict III, where Martinus Polonus places her, she cannot be inserted, because Leo IV died 17 July 855, and immediately after his death Benedict III was elected by the clergy and people of Rome; but owing to the setting up of an Antipope, in the person of the deposed Cardinal Anastasius, he was not consecrated until 29 September. Coins exist which bear both the image of Benedict III and of Emperor Lothair I, who died 28 September 855; therefore Benedict must have been recognized as Pope before the last-mentioned date. On 7 October 855, Benedict III issued a charter for the Abbey of Corvey. Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims, informed Nicholas I that a messenger whom he had sent to Leo IV learned on his way of the death of this Pope, and therefore handed his petition to Benedict III, who decided it (Hincmar, ep. xl in P.L., CXXXVI, 85). All these witnesses prove the correctness of the dates given in the lives of Leo IV and Benedict III, and there was no interregnum between these two Popes, so that at this place there is no room for the alleged Popess.”

Rosemary and Darrell Pardoe, authors of The Female Pope: The Mystery of Pope Joan. Presented what some consider the first complete documentation of the facts behind the legend of the female Pope known as Pope Joan. They theorize that a more plausible time frame would be 1086–1108, when there were several Antipopes, and the reign of the legitimate Popes Victor III, Urban II and Paschal II was not always established in Rome, since this city was occupied by Emperor Henry IV, and later sacked by the Normans.

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Xanadu

In Xanadu I thus decree a new genesis for all to see, and in my garden I shall erect a temple dedicated to me. In the temple I shall place the stone of destiny. The walls shall be bare and from the sanctum sanctorum shall shine the brilliant blue light that marks the path to eternity. Thus in Xanadu there shall be both the glory that comes by day and by night. And, upon its completion I shall cause all to exist.

And in that day, the ground shall bring forth the invitation. And in that night, a feast shall be held and a dance. Upon the new morning as the new sun rises, those invited shall rest and I shall set upon the platform a seat and a lectern. Upon the lectern shall be adorned the measure and the way. And upon the seat the eye, the key of life, and the reed. And upon the close of day two, I shall cause to come forth the waters and bread made from gold. Life everlasting Life evermore. Eternity to turn into Infinity. And in the third day I shall sit upon the seat and make my argument before God and his company. On the forth in Thanksgiving for the Divine blessing, I shall fill the floors of the outer court with roses and the floors of the inner court with gardenias.

On day five I shall usher into existence the rod of peace and the helm of salvation. I shall place upon the pillars of strength and beauty the burden of stability. On day six, I shall raise the arches of the vault of the skies to behold the radiance of the heavens. On day seven, I shall behold my work and see that it is good and render it all to the divine. I shall step down from the lectern and take my position prostrate upon the stone in humble adoration before the one truth that which passes all understanding. And at the close of day seven I shall rise and open up the doors of the temple and fill it with music and shall rest for all of it is good and all are happy in peace.

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