By Isabella Qian

Colour in photography plays a vital role to adding artistic elements. Throughout the development of cameras and photography technology, we only achieved obtaining multi-coloured photography in the later stages. Photography was invented by Nicéphore Niépce in 1822 and was then called Heliography. Niépce applied a coat of asphalt bitumen on glass or metal, hardening when exposed to light. The plate is then washed with oil and the hardened areas remain, forming the image. The first photograph in history is Niépce’s View from the Window at Le Gras (1827).

Colour photography was only created in 1895, drawing on James Clerk Maxwell’s colour additive theory. The colours in the photography were produced by adding various proportions of red, green, and blue. Later, American photographer Frederic Ives invented a photography system based on three colour-separation negatives using colour filters called Kromograms. Irish physicist John Joly improved the Kromogram system by combining all three colour filters by creating extremely fine lines of red, green, and blue onto glass plates, showing colours on the screen. However, both the Kromogram and Joly processes were too complex and expensive to carry out, hence failing to be accessible to the public.

The first commercially successful screening process was invented in 1907 by brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière, called Autochrome. Autochrome was developed with colour-dyed pulverised starch grains spread over a glass plate and with charcoal powder filling the gaps in between the grains. This process was soon widely utilised and soon other microscopic colour filters started to appear on the market using different geometric patterns using grains.

Often, colours are associated with certain emotions, such as cooler tones are being associated with melancholy and isolation and warmer colours representing energy and passion. Colours in photography are often similarly manipulated to create these certain effects. American photographer William Eggleston, considered to be the pioneer of colour photography, used colours to carry out poetic artist intentions. One of Eggleston’s famous works, Greenwood, Mississippi (1973), features a lightbulb on a red ceiling created by dye-transfer processing. The colour red is used in this photograph to create a sense of unsettling beauty with dimmed lighting and popping red colour. Eggleston described his photograph as if “it is like red blood that is wet on the wall”.

Colours can also be perceived differently in people’s eyes. For example, critics have said that Eggleston’s work is overly simple and boring just focusing on the portrayal of one single colour. In later times, such use of colours has been applied films, such as David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003), and Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides (1999), creating a sense of unease using striking colours.

Black and white (BNW) or monochrome photography deduced the element of diversity in colour in artistic expression. However, BNW photography often emphasized presenting other elements of photography such as form and contrast. Even though various colours, such as complementary and analogous colours can be used in photography to emphasize certain elements in photography, colours can also be distracting for human vision processing.

Japanese photographer Daidō Moriyama is well known for his BNW photography works. He once mentioned that “black-and-white photography has an erotic edge” which we can observe from his work. Often employing strange compositions, such as the extreme facial close-up in Eros or Something other than Eros (1969), or the bizarre viewpoint of an obscure alleyway in Yokosuka, A Japanese Town (1971). Such unusual compositional choices heighten the emotions portrayed by the artist’s choice of only using black and white, forcing the viewer to pay more attention to the forms, shapes, space, and textures of the photography.

Overall, colours in photography are actively utilised in various ways to present the artist’s intention. With the development of the use of colour in photography, we can see more possibilities in expression in this specific artistic medium.

Illustration by Anna Kuptsova

There’s some controversy in the photography world as an AI-generated image won a major prize at a prestigious competition, PetaPixel has reported. An piece called The Electrician by Boris Eldagsen took first prize in the Creative category at the World Photography Organization’s Sony World Photography Awards — despite not being taken by a camera. Eldagsen subsequently refused the award, saying “AI is not photography. I applied […] to find out if the competitions are prepared for AI images to enter. They are not.”

Eldagsen’s image is part of a series called PSEUDOMNESIA: Fake Memories, designed to evoke a photographic style of the 1940s. However, they are in reality “fake memories of a past, that never existed, that no one photographed. These images were imagined by language and re-edited more between 20 to 40 times through AI image generators, combining ‘inpainting’, ‘outpainting’, and ‘prompt whispering’ techniques.”

In a blog, Eldagsen explained that he used his experience as a photographer to create the prize-winning image, acting as a director of the process with the AI generators as “co-creators.” Although the work is inspired by photography, he said that the point of the submission is that it is not photography. “Participating in open calls, I want to speed up the process of the Award organizers to become aware of this difference and create separate competitions for AI-generated images,” he said.

Eldagsen subsequently declined the prize. “Thank you for selecting my image and making this a historic moment, as it is the first AI-generated image to win in a prestigious international photography competition,” he wrote. “How many of you knew or suspected that it was AI generated? Something about this doesn’t feel right, does it? AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this. They are different entities. AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award.”

Shortly thereafter, the photo was stripped from the show and competition website and organizers have yet to comment on the matter. Eldagsen actually traveled to London to attend the ceremony and even got up on stage (uninvited) to read a statement in person. 

It’s not clear if the organizers knew the work was AI-generated or not (Eldagsen said he told them it was). In any case, rather than shrinking from the situation, they should be embracing it. AI-generated art has entered the culture in a huge way over the past year, with AI winning both photo and art competitions over the past few months. Eldagsen’s piece is bound to create conversations about how to handle it, particularly when it encroaches into traditional mediums. 

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BREMERTON, Wash. — The Walla Walla ferry ran aground Saturday afternoon outside of Bainbridge Island on Rich Passage, stranding over 600 people for hours. During that time, people were coming up with all sorts of things to pass the time until they could board off the ship.

Britt Jazek, a photographer out of Port Orchard, was on her way to a last-minute proposal photo shoot in Seattle went the ship stopped working.

“What could happen on our ferry ride? I have tons of time,” Jazek said.

She says things were concerning at the beginning, but people quickly started to relax and talk to each other to pass the time. She says when she was people-watching, she noticed some people were incredibly dressed. She found out they were supposed to go to a Naval ball in the area, but of course, their plans changed.

“But then there was a bunch of beautiful people dressed to the 9′s, right? Like suit and tie,” Jazek said.

She came up with the idea because she had all of her gear to see if they would like their pictures taken. She had to get permission from the captain before taking pictures.

“I have the gear. I have the time. You deserve to be documented because this is a piece of art,” Jazek said.

She says that was the last place to think of a photo shoot, but she knew she had to do something to cheer people up.

“It was all so comical. It was so much fun and it was so light-hearted and the photos ended up looking great,” Jazek said.

In all, she says she did about 9 free photoshoots on board. But, she believes the photos she took tell the story of how a bunch of strangers came together during a weird and difficult situation.

“And I feel like the situation was less than ideal, but I got to see the best of humanity and I wouldn’t change my experience for the world,” Jazek said.

The Walla Walla remains out of commission and it’s not clear when it will be back up and running.

©2023 Cox Media Group

• One of the highest prizes among mobile photography awards
• The awards also offer winners training, and exhibition opportunities
• World renowned photographers including Alec Soth, Tang Hui, Tina Signesdottir Hult, Wang Jianjun, Yin Chao, are among the prestigious judge panel

SHENZHEN,CHINA – Media OutReach – 17 April 2023 – OPPO, a leading global technology company, officially launched the imagine IF Photography Awards 2023, a mobile photography competition that pushes the boundaries of creativity beyond the limits of existing images and expressions.

One of the Highest Prizes in Mobile Photography Awards

The vision of “Beyond the Image, Beyond Imagination” reflects OPPO’s commitment to driving progress through technological innovation and igniting the creativity of users worldwide. OPPO’s professional mobile photography technology is designed to inspire maximum aesthetics and inspiration, empowering non-professional users to create timeless masterpieces.

As a testament to OPPO’s commitment to inspiring mobile photographers, the awards offer one of the highest prizes in the industry. The OPPO imagine IF Master of the Year (Golden Award) includes a prize of CNY160,000, participation in the Hasselblad Image Training Camp, and international photo exhibition opportunities. There are also four Silver Awards (CNY 60,000), ten OPPO Bronze Awards (CNY 20,000) also offering attractive prizes as well as opportunities for training and exposure.

Additionally, there are four Honorable Mentions in each of the eight categories as well as Partner Channel Awards and Monthly Activity Awards to include more inspiring works.

Prestigious Global Judges

OPPO has assembled a prestigious panel of judges composed of world-renowned photographers who bring diverse perspectives and extensive experience to the competition.

Among the distinguished judges is Alec Soth, one of the most famous contemporary photographic artists and a member of Magnum Photos. Pete Lau, Senior Vice President, and Chief Product Officer of OPPO, adds his valuable insights to the panel. Tang Hui, a top Chinese portrait photographer, and Hasselblad Master, brings his wealth of experience to the judging process. Tina Signesdottir Hult, an internationally recognized art photographer and Hasselblad Master, also graces the panel with her discerning eye. Wang Jianjun, a top landscape photographer and member of the Chinese Photographers Association, lends his expertise to the competition. Yin Chao, a top Chinese fashion photographer, and Hasselblad ambassador brings his expertise to the judging process.

Eight Categories to Explore Artistic Expressions

The competition features eight different entry categories, including The Distant View, Portrait, Night Scenery, Colors, Landscape, The Taste of Memories, Light & Shadow, and Chapters of a Life, aimed at inspiring creativity among OPPO users worldwide.

Submissions for the OPPO Imagine IF Photography Awards 2023 are open until 24:00 GMT on July 25, 2023 and can be made through OPPO Imagine IF official website, or partner channels-500px.

For more information, please visit the official OPPO Imagine IF Photography Awards website at https://imagine-if.oppo.com/en/

Hashtag: #OPPO

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About OPPO

OPPO is a leading global smart device brand. Since the launch of its first mobile phone – “Smiley Face” – in 2008, OPPO has been relentless in its pursuit of the perfect synergy between aesthetic satisfaction and innovative technology. Today, OPPO provides a wide range of smart devices spearheaded by the Find and Reno series. Beyond devices, OPPO also provides its users with the ColorOS operating system and internet services such as OPPO Cloud and OPPO+. OPPO has footprints in more than 60 countries and regions, with more than 40,000 employees dedicated to creating a better life for customers around the world.

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BELLA VISTA — Rick Tramposh will be sharing his expertise on gardening and photography Thursday at the meeting of the Bella Vista Photography Club.

The topic of Tramposh’s presentation is how and what people can plant to attract birds, butterflies and bees to their gardens, creating opportunities for close-up and macro-photography.

Tramposh was a Master Gardener with the Kansas State University Extension in Johnson County, Mo., a suburb of Kansas City, for 17 years. During that time he was on the Speaker’s Bureau, where he spoke and taught in a variety of venues about landscaping, soils, bulbs, annuals, perennials and other horticultural topics. All of that was in addition to helping build landscaping and gardens in the community with other Master Gardener volunteers.Seven years ago Tramposh retired to Bella Vista. He has been a member of the Bella Vista Garden Club and is also a board member of the Bella Vista Photography Club.

The photography club meets from 6:30-8 p.m. the third Thursday of the month at First Community Bank located at 1196 U.S. 71 in Pineville, Mo. Meetings are free and open to the public.

Brett Leigh Dicks shuffles his feet and tripod slightly to find the exact spot where another photographer stood 100 years earlier.

Metaphorically, it’s the same amount of digging, just a different kind.

Mr Dicks, a Fremantle-based photographer, is artist in residence at WA’s Museum of the Goldfields.

He is recreating photographs taken between the 1890s and the 1920s by two photographers, John Joseph Dwyer and Thomas Faulkner Mackay, who had a studio on Kalgoorlie’s main street.

On the Goldfields’ dusty streets, he looks for four-walled relics.

Some of the buildings portrayed in the Dwyer-Mackay collection are easy finds, federation-style landmarks that shape the cityscape, like the York Hotel, a St Mark’s Basilica of the outback.

But locating anonymous houses requires some digging, using tools as old as telephone records from the 20s and 30s, or as modern as Google Earth.

He looks for distinguishing elements, details that can help identification, following clues that survived time.

Even reflections in the windows of buildings opposite the road are markers.

In their footsteps

It’s a grey afternoon in the Goldfields. The light, filtered through the clouds, is soft on the rounded façade of the Palace Theatre.

It’s the light Mr Dicks needs to recreate Mackay’s picture.

He scribbled in his notebook it was taken on an overcast afternoon, as he wants the new pictures to be shot under the same conditions of the original ones: same angle, perspective and lighting conditions.

Sometimes that means rolling a wheelie bin out of frame, waiting for an orange car to zoom past or reschedule the shooting because you find the site cordoned off by forensic detectives.

Mr Dicks says photography is subjective, a personal view of an objective reality.

But this project puts the photographer, quite literally, in someone else’s footsteps. 

Delegating every choice — from framing to timing — to Dwyer and Mackay gives him insight into their work.

“One of the things that’s really come to light is that John Joseph Dwyer wasn’t a morning person,” Mr Dicks laughs.

A reflection of the past

This comparative study reveals more than the preferences of a photographer who lived at the turn of the last century. It illustrates how society evolved.

Mr Dicks’s lens is magnifying — exposing by contrast — the changes that shaped architecture and lives.

“Towns and cities will change given the needs of society,” he says.

It is apparent in the disappearance of laundries, draperies, and tailors, replaced by today’s big-box stores.

Mr Dicks says these changes are enlightening, but he can’t help getting a little romantic looking at those old pictures and lamenting what has been lost.

He is struck by the absence of large areas for social gathering in his pictures. They have vanished, or been turned into museum pieces.

“We seem to have lost that, social interaction has gone online.”

He believes these old and new photos, put side by side, give a few hints for the future.

But the Australian-American photographer also thinks his work should make the community feel proud that many of the buildings photographed in the early 1900s are still standing, and well preserved.

“In America, the downtown is decaying, forgotten. The centre of town moved to the outskirts, in box stores,” Mr Dicks says. 

Overseas, he got used to the occasional door being shut on his face, but, in the Goldfields, he found them all open.

Continuing conversations

The public’s interest in the project inspired Mr Dicks to involve the community. He asked people to respond with poems to selected portraits.

He wants others to continue the dialogue he started with Dwyer and Mackay, now, and in the future.

“I hope this project becomes a continuing conversation,” Mr Dicks says.

He likes to picture someone else, in 100 years from now, standing in his footsteps, chasing the same angle and the same light of this grey afternoon.

Warning: This story contains images depicting nudity.

“Start your day with a good breakfast together,” reads the title of one of Pixy Liao’s photographs.

In it, Liao sits at a kitchen table eating a strategically placed papaya. (It’s giving Samantha does-nude-Valentine’s-Day-sushi-dinner, for any Sex and the City fans.)

It’s the kind of tongue-in-cheek relationship advice the Chinese multidisciplinary artist delivers through her ongoing photo project Experimental Relationship: a series of staged self-portraits of Liao with Takahiro Morooka, aka Moro: a Japanese musician and artist – and Liao’s partner of 17 years.

The photos are variously erotic, tender, playful — and captioned with pithy one-liners and double entendres (including the series’ title).

Experimental Relationship has proved hugely popular with audiences; works from the series have been exhibited in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific, including Australia at the National Gallery of Australia, in 2020, and Sydney’s temple of postmillennial Chinese art, White Rabbit Gallery, in 2022.

This month, Australians can see Liao’s work in Sydney at the Powerhouse Museum, Melbourne at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, and Perth at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

A different kind of ‘muse’

In front of the camera, Liao assumes a dominant role with Moro as her submissive.

It’s a dynamic that grew organically from her romantic partnership with Moro, who is five years her junior.

“Because I grew up in China, I always had this doubt [about gender roles]. ‘Why do men have to act one way and women have to act the other way? Why do we always have to date older men?’ But I never had an answer for that, and I didn’t know what the alternative options [were] for me,” Liao says.

“When I met Moro, I suddenly realised there can be another way; maybe I can try a way that I like.”

With that, Moro became Liao’s muse.

Traditionally, the role of the muse in art is to inspire the artist. But the artist-muse relationship is an historically gendered one.

The concept dates back to ancient Greek mythology. The ‘Muses’ were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne and considered goddesses of art, science and literature. They were also the lovers of Apollo, the god of the arts.

Writing about the feminine muse, Germaine Greer put it this way: “A muse is anything but a paid model. The muse in her purest aspect is the feminine part of the male artist.”

Liao’s photography blithely up-ends this dynamic.

Meet-cute

Before she took up photography full-time, Liao worked as a graphic designer in her hometown of Shanghai. Disillusioned with her job and craving greater creative autonomy, she quit in 2005 and moved to the US to study a Master of Fine Arts in photography at the University of Memphis (UoM).

That’s where she met Moro. He was there on exchange from the University of Alabama, studying music.

Speaking to ABC Arts over Zoom, Liao lights up when asked about their meet-cute: “That’s a story I like to tell!

“On the first day of school, there was an international student orientation. I spotted him in a group and he was introducing himself to everybody, [saying] ‘I’m here to study jazz.'”

Liao swoons; Moro, who is sitting beside her, blushes.

“[I thought], here is this beautiful young musician who is really my type, and I remembered him from that first day of school and always hoped I [would] see him again,” she says.

A year later, Liao found Moro at an art event on campus.

“I was like, ‘I’m a photographer. Can I talk to you? Can I take photos of you?’ That’s how we met,” she recalls, laughing.

Moro nods: “I liked her too, the first time I saw her. I was trying to talk to her but I was too shy.”

Liao continues: “I was just pretending I had a lot of photo assignments. I [would] always ask him for help, [saying], ‘I need to do another photo. Can you model for me again?’

“I created many opportunities for myself.”

‘A game we play’

The inspiration for Experimental Relationship came a year into their relationship, in 2007, while they were living in Memphis. Liao was working on a photo project that involved staging crime scenes.

“I was asking Moro to play dead bodies. Sometimes he’d have to get naked and climb into a suitcase,” Liao says.

“At first, I thought this was completely normal, for a boyfriend [to be] helping his girlfriend with photos, but then I realised: This is not a normal boyfriend.”

Liao’s photos capture a sense of play. There is an easy intimacy between artist and muse that is palpable in their off-camera dynamic too.

“Moro was very supportive and very open to my photo ideas. I started thinking, ‘There must be something special about our relationship,'” she says.

“At the same time, I [felt] like people didn’t understand it and I wanted to show how natural it is for us to be together, so I started taking photos of us together.”

After graduating from UoM, the pair moved to Brooklyn, New York, where they have lived for the past 14 years. Most of the series has been shot in the three apartments they’ve shared during that time.

Liao was very particular about planning shoots in the early years of their collaboration, but her approach is “looser” now, she says.

“It’s more like a game that we play because we [have] collaborated for a very long time and Moro really understands me. Sometimes he will give me a very good idea during the photo shoot, so it’s half [what I’ve] imagined and half improvised.”

Subverting expectations

Much of Liao’s work is subversive. It’s as if she’s winking at the audience; letting us in on a joke. But audiences didn’t understand Liao’s humour when she first started exhibiting, she says.

“Especially in the US, and [being from an] Asian minority – people see your work and think, ‘Here’s this Asian couple doing Asian things.’ So whatever we’d do, [the audience] felt very remote.

“Then around 2015, 2016, we started to have this movement of MeToo and people [paying] more attention to female voices. Then people started to find a way to talk about my work.”

While Liao has exhibited widely, her work has resonated most strongly with young Chinese women, she says.

“Because it’s not what they’re used to seeing. In China, [the general public] usually thinks there is a right way to do things; a right way for a woman or a man to be.

“I feel like people respond to my [photos] mainly based on their values. They are [asking], ‘Does this type of relationship match, or is it accepted by my values?’

“There’s a big difference with younger women, especially in China. They really understand my work compared to the [older] generations.”

The series also captures what Liao describes as a “love-hate relationship” — in part, a facetious reference to a socialised rivalry between the pair based on Liao’s Chinese heritage and Moro’s Japanese heritage.

Liao explains: “In a relationship, it’s not always nice. A lot of the time, there’s competition going on and sometimes you really dislike each other.

“But I generally like you,” she says, looking at Moro.

“Generally?!” he exclaims.

Liao twinkles at this reaction, then continues: “There’s always that negative side, but I think that’s also part of what really attracts me in a relationship too.

“Besides being [a] partner and collaborator, you’re also rivals to each other in a way. I think that’s really interesting.”

Liao plans to continue the series – she hopes, into her old age.

“I’ll do it as long as Moro lets me take photographs and as long as he doesn’t break up with me,” says Liao.

“Never!” Moro chirps back.

Experimental Relationship runs at Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne from April 21 to July 9. I have not loved (enough or worked) runs at AGWA, Perth until April 23.

New York-based curator K.O. Nnamdie is interested in the state of United States culture as it stands today, pulling together a tight collection of images that could eventually be referenced as a snapshot of where we are — or, were, rather. Displayed at Anonymous Gallery in Manhattan, its title “Photography Then” looked backwards despite the exhibition being organized in present tense with recent work.

Jesse Gouveia

Alyssa Kazew

Thomas Polcaster