Monthly Archive for September, 2007

Michael Kenna

Published on 2007-09-30 in Art, KIDI and Photography. 0 Comments

Michael Kenna, The landscape photographer, was born in England in 1953. Michael created dream-like scenes by combining innovative and traditional photographic techniques. He traveles around the world to countrues such as Brazil, Mexico, China, India, and Japan to take that beautiful and attractive photos.

Kenna’s works are characterized by their attractive composition and beautiful prints. Most of his work are taken in night using technique of exposure. As he said “Nothing is ever the same twice because everything is always gone forever.”. However, it is not just abou his technique that makes great pictures. He also said “In my photograph I try to be senstive and responsive to whoever or whatever I meet.”The ability to bring out its beauty inside of the motif is what makes his photos special.

This photograph is from a famous project named “Impossible to forgrt”. In this project he took pictures of Nazi camps. He captured and expressed an unusual and dark atmosphere. Moreover, his style is suited well to shoe such a place in photos. Looking at the photo, the very high wall and the barbed wire give us the feeling that it is impossible to escape and people felt being surrounded with this wall. Michael Kenna creates photos that convey the atmosphere of places.

Man Ray

Published on 2007-09-27 in Art and Photography. 0 Comments

Man Ray was an American Dada and Surrealist artist. He born Emmanuel Radnizky in 1890 Philadelphia. When he was seven years old, he moved to New York, and there he was influenced by important modern art movement in “291” gallery Stieglitz. He learned drawing in high school, and then he worked as a merchant artist but he continued painting pictures. In 1915, he inaugurated the New York Dada movement with Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia. Then he became interested in taking pictures. In 1921, he went to Paris. Duchamp introduced him to Pablo Picasso, Andre Breton, and Jean Cocteau. He became an active member of Dadaism, and then he also became an important Surrealist artist.

Man Ray had a long career. He made many works using a lot of media, such as paint, lithograph, sculpture, and collage. He would get one idea, then he express it in a lot of ways. He discovered new photographic techniques by trial and error. He put an object on sensitized paper, and exposed it to light. The technique was called a ‘Rayograph’. Furthermore he discoverd ‘Solarization’. Solarization changed the relative darkness by overexposure to light during the development process. He also developed a lot of other new photographic techniques.

The next to top picture, taken in Paris in 1924, is of a star in Montparnasse called Kiki. At that time, she was in love Man Ray. He took a picture of her back, and then he added an f-hole to her back. This picture is called ‘Violin d’lngres’, and was inspired by a ‘Turkish bath’ painting by Jean August Dominique Ingres. Who always played violin at his exhibitions even though people didn’t want to hear it. In the case of Man Ray, people admired his photo works, but not his paintings, objet d’art, and other art works. He thought ‘My art is terrible hobby too?’ He insisted that ‘My photo works are not just photos.’ He elevated photos to art. He later said ‘We can’t close the door of history, because history has a break in the door. You must be proactive in history, and not walk slowly. You should run and go for history. ’

August Sander

Published on 2007-09-27 in Art and Photography. 0 Comments

August Sander was a Germany photographer famous for his mastery of document photography. Born in 1876, his career started as an assistant of commercial photographer, later he founded his studio. He got many prizes for his picturesque farmer’s pictures. However, in 1918, he met many modern artists of Marxism. Later that he thought of big project “People of 20 century” under the influence of Marxist’s thinking. That project is took any kind of classes people, race, and worker. Their thinking was “Art is expression for open dual structure. ”

August Sander also made Neue Sachlichkeit. It is kind of an art movement, artists catch objects calm and objectivity, it also had a tremendous impact on young photographers. For example, Mr. and Mrs. Becher. They were moved by Neue Sachlichkeit in the 1920s, and they took pictures water towers, cooling towers, blast furnaces, garages, excavated towers. They also took kind of Typology.

The above picture was taken in German in 1928. It’s called “Lay brick’s workman”. The man in that picture looks like to have pride in his job. We can watch unstable social conditions in German in those days by this picture, and we can also watch survived workman. His pictures took truth, and they teach us about reality.

Tsubasa Hoshi

Flood

Published on 2007-09-21 in Environment and Highlights. 0 Comments

Every year, many people are affected by floods. They lose their homes and infrastructure is destroyed and in a large flood many people can die. Victims of flood are increasing with about 50 million people affected each year. More than 25,000 of these people die, and millions more are affected by injury and disease. Flood also kill domestic animals and farmland. The human and economic cost is huge.

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, U.S.A. 80% of the city was submerged.

The causes of flood are varied. First, major floods are caused by tropical storms. In New Orleans in USA, big floods happened in 1974 and 2005. Second, rising sea levels cause floods. Scientists believe that ice in the Antarctic is increasingly melting every year. For this reason, the flooding problem will get worse especially in some low-lying areas such as Bangladesh. Finally, deforestation in mountains and coasts contribute to flooding. Trees protect from landslides, and protect the coast from the storm, so the cutting down of trees exacerbates the problem.

In Bangladesh, people lost 6 million houses by flood in 2004. 3 billion people were affected, and many people died from bites from snakes, which had lost territory.

Floods affect people all over the world. Asia is particularly badly affected, and Bangladesh is the most affected country. In 2004, a big flood affected Bangladesh. 6 million people lost their homes, and 2 million people had to move to a safe place, but some people had to leave behind their houses, which were submerged in the water. Bangladesh depends on rice, but they lost 1 million sacks. Wealthy countries are also affected. In America, Hurricane Katrina destroyed in New Orleans in 2005.

If you live in flood area, you can protect yourself from flood. First, we have to know weather information. Radio is easy to carry, and we can know information wherever we are. Second, check the nearest safe shelter. Third, prepare emergency food. When flood happened, we can’t obtain food and water. Finally, check your house for structural weaknesses.

Effect of flood will be a bigger problem in future. How to solve these problems will be a major challenge. Holland is one country finding a good solution. Much of Holland is under sea level, but people of Holland are protected by a dyke system. However, it’s not possible to carry out such measure everywhere. In fact, floods are getting worse and to solve the problem, our consumer society will need economic and political changes.

Earthquake!

Published on 2007-09-21 in Environment and Highlights. 0 Comments

The 1755 Lisbon…Historically, earthquakes have caused huge amounts of devastation. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake happened in Portugal. The scale was magnitude 8.5 About 60.000 people were killed by the tsunami. In 2004 a huge earthquake happened in the west coast of Sumatra Indonesia. The scale was Magnitude 9.3 and 226,566 people die. Many people are still missing. Even today, the desire modern technology is the major problem in many part of the world.

What is the cause of an earthquake? The earth is covered in plates. When one moves, it makes the earth shake. The scale of the earthquake depends on how much it moves. It is not fully understood but researchers say there are main four types. First, one plate sinks under another plate such as the Tokai Earthquake. A future earthquake, which may soon hit the Pacific Ocean side of Japan. The scale can be about Magnitude 8. Second, one plate pushes another plate, so a gap is formed between them such as the Kobe Earthquake in 1995. Third, when the maritime plate goes under the continental plate, it breaks up and it makes earth shake such as The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Fourth, when one plate has a weak area, earthquakes can happen such as the Fukui Earthquake in 1948.

Earthquakes can cause huge devastation. For example, in the magnitude 7.3 Kobe Earthquake in 1995 in Japan, 6434 people died, 43,792 were injured and 64,000 houses were destroyed. The cost of the damage was about 10 billion dollars. Secondary effects such as fire can cause even more casualties. The scale of damage depends on time. For example, the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake happened at 11:58am, which meant many people were cooking for lunch. Therefore they were using fire stoves, which they did not have the chance to turn off. This made a firestorm and killed 15,000 people, and destroyed over 31,000 houses. Another secondary effect such as in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was the very big tsunami. Waves, which were an average of 10m heights, hit the coast, killing 226,566 people with many unaccounted for.

On the left, it…

If you prepare for earthquake, you increase your chance to survive. First, you should check refuge areas. This is place to meet and be safe. There should be one near your house in an area like a school or a park. If you make an emergency bag, it can help you survive. People who have experience of a big earthquake say the most important thing is water. Until rescue comes to help, there is no clean water. And also you should put a radio into the bag. Correct information is vital after an earthquake, because there are other rumors and unmissed information.

Earthquake is a power of nature. People cannot prevent all damage so you should prepare for it as much as we can. As mention before, citizen we have to make refuge bag and check where is a closest refuge place. Government needs to educate us about earthquake. With knowledge, we can substantially reduce the number of victims. Internationally, we should share the information and through co-operation, we can perhaps predict when an earthquake will happen.