During this lesson, we had to talk about and discuss all of the different genres within photography. We had to create a mind map of all the different genres we could possibly think of. We then shared our ideas within the group and talked about examples of work/photographers within that genre. In my opinion, I think that this was a good exercise as it made me realise how many different genres and aspects there are within photography! Before thinking about the genres, I genuinely had no idea how many there were! Whenever I thought about photography, I just always thought of the common landscape or portrait etc, but now, I could name a whole bunch!
Here is my mind map (click on to make bigger):
I took a particular interest in landscape photography and all of the sub-genres under that. This is because I have always loved landscape photography as you can capture a moment in time that people can interpret differently. Looking into landscape and the sub-genres, I realised that one heavily stood out to me, and that was photography to do with space, stars and the sky at night.
I looked into this type of photography and found out that it’s actually called ‘Astrophotography’. I found this particularly interesting as I never knew what it was called or even how the photographers managed to capture such moments. After I found this out, I researched a load of information to do with astronomy photography and the best photographers within this genre. I went onto Vimeo and watched videos to do with Astrophotography, which included stills and amazing time lapses! I also found out that the Astronomy Photographer of the year 2013 was an Australian man called Mark Gee. I looked at his photographs that won him this title – they are breathtakingly amazing!
Here is his website – http://markg.com.au/
I noticed that in all of his photography, Mark Gee incorporates two factors – the Earth and Space.
In all of his photos he uses a product from Earth, such as, a human, a car, the landscape etc. Normally, these products are silhouetted against the sheer beauty of the night sky/space that he captures in the background.
He successfully brings together these two factors to create a totally unique feel to all of his photographs. Most of the frame is space and stars, but he always includes a landscape silhouetted into the background, or people on the horizon etc. This shows the great atmosphere and intensity of space and the unknown, whilst incorporating things that we are familiar with.
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