Author Archives: Lisa Burke

What I loved about Diane Arbus was the intimacy she captured in her portraits. She was able to make each photograph personal without causing it to become uncomfortable. She formed a connection with her subjects, understood and learned from them, which comes across extremely well in her photos. I admired how she explored the beauty of the female body, femininity and marginalized groups during a time where this would be deemed inappropriate and unheard of. She was not afraid to challenge gender and societal norms for the sake of photography. I was drawn to this femininity found in a lot of her photography, particularly in the female impersonators. As someone who is a member of the LGBTQ community, I loved how she exposed the world to this group of people and gave them a spotlight to unapologetically be themselves. She was able to look beyond these societal stereotypes and see the beauty hidden within. Another thing I loved about Diane Arbus was the use of black and white in her portraits. This lack of colour creates a raw and unfiltered side to the subjects, showing who they truly are and how they fit in with the world around them.

Despite Diane’s work being from the 1940s up to the 1970s, I still feel that it is extremely relevant today. Many people still view the female body as something that should be hidden away, as the thought of a woman being confident in her skin makes people uncomfortable. Men expressing their feminine side and marginalized groups simply existing, still create this sense of fear and unease in those who are unwilling to look past their prejudices and accept people’s differences. I believe that Diane was ahead of her time and if she was still alive today she would continue to break the mold, and create a positive impact through the exploration of these taboo topics.

I attempted to create a self portrait inspired by the portraiture of Diane Arbus. My goal was to try and capture some of the intimacy and femininity found in a lot of her photography. I applied a black and white filter to further go along with the style of Diane Arbus’ work.

My name is Lisa Burke and I am a first year Multimedia student at DCU. Something that fascinates me about humans is their desire to leave breadcrumbs of their existence wherever they go. I discovered these “breadcrumbs” on my morning commute to college, where I took notice of the amount of graffiti I encountered within the span of ten minutes. I was intrigued as it made me wonder, “why do so many people share the same desire to leave their mark?”. By carrying out this project I hope to gain a better insight into the psychology leaving behind a semi permanent piece of evidence to prove you were there.

For this project I intend to capture photographs of the different ways people have left their mark in the world for the next generation of people to find. I will mainly be focusing on graffiti, however inscriptions on things such as trees, desks and rocks will also be included. Humans don’t want to be forgotten after they’re gone and I want to capture this desire through a lens, further solidifying these random peoples mark they’ve left behind for me to find.

I will take these photos around my hometown Drogheda, the DCU campus and around Dublin city centre. I plan on using these places as they are easily accessible to me and I am also quite familiar with them, so I will know where to look. I will particularly focus on popular social hubs, for example parks, as these tend to have the most inscriptions, epigraphs and graffiti.

I plan to capture all twenty of my images between late October and mid November, so that I will have plenty of time to edit each of my photos accordingly before the deadline. As I will be shooting the majority of these photos outside, I will aim to shoot during the daytime so that natural lighting can be used.

These marks left behind have a story attached to them, whether it be a political statement, a declaration of love or even just for a laugh. As stated by author Roger Gastman, “Overall people want to write on things to be known, To be everywhere at once yet nowhere at all”. This statement is not only relevant to the people of this era but also to the people throughout history, as graffiti was discovered in Pompeii simply saying “Gaius was here”.

To complete this project I will rent out a Nikon D3500 camera for the communications building. I plan on using a standard 35mm lens as it is a wide angle lens and can fit a lot into frame with it. Everything will be shot in colour to really capture the vibrancy of the graffiti and so that no detail is lost. I will write out an itinerary of all the necessities involved for this project, such as a timeframe for each shoot. I will try my best to stick to this itinerary as closely as possible to ensure I do not fall behind schedule and end up rushing through the project.

Q1. Who invented photography?

Photography was invented by Louis Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot.

Q2. What is camera obscura?

Camera obscura is an optical phenomenon where a dark room contains a small hole that projects an image opposite of the hole.

Q3. What is a Daguerreotype?

Daguerreotype was invented by Louis Daguerreotype. It involves a mirrored metal plate where light is reflected back through the image. It only produces one off images like a polaroid camera. People look barely there and at the edge of being present.

Q4. What did Chuck Close say about photography?

Chuck close said that photography was an intrusion into the flow of time. He stated that there is no physicality to a photo.

Q5. What is Muybridge’s contribution to photography?

Muybridge contributed mammoth landscapes and a 360° panorama photograph of his city. He also contributed the idea of motion in photography and invented the zoopraxiscope.

Q6. What is Eastman’s contribution to photography?

Eastman made photography more affordable for everyday people. He invented the Kodak camera which allowed people to have fun and experiment with photography. The pictures on the camera could be developed and shipped back with a brand new roll of film. People now smiled in photographs and there were more accidental masterpieces of photography.