'LAZY' by Sami Kassir - Video Installation

Music Photography Evaluation

The reason I chose Music Photography over the other categories is because I have strong passion and admire the beauty of the magical sound waves and the enjoyment it brings to my ears. The amount of pleasure it gives me is insurmountable, nothing can beat it.

For my project I had to take a total of 10 photos and each one being completely different to the other with a story behind it. My aim was to go for an instrumental feel instead of a live show so what I had to get hold of was a studio which involved a lot of planning (creating the set and getting models) and booking in advance. I created a mind map to come up with as many ideas as possible to help me go in the studio fully prepared work smoothly without wasting precious time.

The whole process went very smoothly even though I had limited amount of time (1 hour) to stay in the studio but with all the paper work done time wasn't much of an issue. The models were ready and so was the set so now I had to take the photos. The theme I was going for was a more relaxed and intimate feeling so I took close-ups of the instruments such as the speaker and guitar for the album cover picture, I used shallow depth of field technique for with the keyboard and I also used iPhoto software to edit my photos, change the colour correction and give them better quality.

I'm going to compare my IMG_9663.JPG to Nick Pickles NJP_2862.jpg seeing as they are very similar except mine is in the studio and Nick Pickles is at a live concert. The most noticeable effect you will find in both of them is the light exposure by using the subject infront of the light creating a shadow effect. The major difference is the background and I think Nick Pickles photo is better because he has a live audience, band and the subject is in mid-air which makes it more exciting.

Mind Map

DVD - Task 1

A DVD is a disc no bigger than a slice of toast, only round. It's easy to use, light to carry and cheap to buy. They are good for transferring a sorts of files from Microsoft Word to Mp3 files and even Films. DVD's were a really big deal in the late 90's - early 2000's because it was the new big thing after the floppy disks. I used to use them to put my power point presentations on them for school and also whenever I went over to my cousins house I would copy & paste all of the latest movies on to my DVD.

DVD's have so many different features, but the feature that is most used is 'burn'. Burning to disc is when you want to watch a movie on your DVD Player that you have on your DVD. It's a very easy and simple feature to use, there is one downside to burning your DVD and it's that you can't use it again to burn or transfer files.

To rap this up DVD's are great but are unfortunately dying out with not only a better invention that came out a couple of years ago called 'USB' which can be as small as your finger tip and have up to 32gb of memory (DVD's have a maximum of 4.70gb) but also because of the 'Internet'. Nowadays people no longer need to worry about forgetting there DVD or USB at home because you can just store it online with websites like YouTube, Hotmail, G-mail and Dropbox. The only future I see for DVD's is in stores like HMV and GAME and unfortunately that won't last long as people have already started to buy there songs online for websites like iTunes and games will soon be bought online. I feel bad adding another negative to this list but it's a classic that we all know, once you scratch a DVD's or any disc it's damaged and has no further use.

Rest in Peace Digital Versatile Disc

Final Pictures

Unit 35 - Task 1

Here are the following video installation artists that I have chosen to write about;

• Nam June Paik was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the first video artist and is also referred to as the 'Father of video art'. He's known for reaching out to his audience through visuals only and very little focus on the audio. I find his work to be so incredibly creative and different to the other artists, it's very hard to compare Nam June Paik to anyone else as his work is extremely rare and unique.

          An amazing structure built by the man himself, R.I.P Nam June Paik - The More, the Better

• Malaka Dewapriya is a Sri Lankan visual artist, He has been engaged in a variety of fields in the arts, ranging from Film, Photography, Theatre, Radio and Print media. He tried to blend a variety of styles in his creatio. All of his work is almost the same every time, in his videos he will just repeat the same 2-5 second shot for a whole 2 minutes throughout the whole video by just doing a few simple changes such as changing the colours or using a mirror effect. As effortless as his video installations may seem they are actually pretty interesting to watch. 

          Some hypnotising visuals by Malaka Dewapriya - Gist

• Gary Hills work is especially significant due to his incorporation of text in video art, evident in works such as Incidence of Catastrophe 1987-88. Gary Hill began working with video, text and sound in 1973. He was influenced by the intellectual orientation of conceptual art which dominated art of the 1970's. I never thought I could get so attached to a video and actually understand an artists work as they are usually very complicated, but with Gary Hills videos I feel that he definitely tries to concentrate on the meaning and the concept rather than the crazy visuals.

          One of his pieces with a very interesting message Gary Hill - Mediations.



Overall I believe all of these artists are talented in their own ways no matter what I have said about them and how harsh my comments may be. I've learnt that through video installation alone you can send meaningful messages and get lost in the deep visuals to people watching all over the world. It is a great way to display art and connect with your audience.