Adbusters

This image which is a spoof advert, shows how people are constantly feel on edge and are under pressure to conform to what we know at 'beauty'. Even in the most provocative of circumstances when are vulnerable and leave ourselves open to judgement upon appearance. This image has been retouched to accentuate the arch of the persons back as well as tones used in the piece present us with the sense of unease.

Gregory Crewdson- Brief Encounter

Here is a picuture taken in Pittsfield Massachusetts. It looks and feels like a cinematic picture frame. But is the result of many props, lighting and actors carefully positioned to create the mood of the final photogragh.

After many photos throughout an 11 day shoot they are only after creating one single perfect moment to visually show a certain effect.

He has built a reputation in hollywood for his outstanding work and unlike most of his predecors he makes a substantial amount more. This is helped by of course the advances in photographic technology and the demand for his type of inspirational work.

Henryk Ross- Playing as Ghetto Policeman, 1943

Political Propaganda

In this picture we see a happy, well-fed Jewish elite and scenes that show some uncomfortable truths about the ghetto system, like a little boy dressed up like a policeman, in his own ghetto-made uniform, playing a game of 'arrest your best playmate'.

Alexander Rodchenko- White Sea Canal, 1933

Radical photographic style was combined with cutting edge graphics in a magazine called 'USSR in Construction'. Designed by Rodchenko, it was a showcase of political propaganda glorifying the achievements of the Soviet system. 'USSR in Construction' displays Rodchenko's mastery of photo-montage, a graphic technique that took its cue from cinema montage. Rodchenko's photo-montages treated photographs as raw footage, suppressing their individuality, collectivising their energies, cutting, pasting, re-touching and re-photographing them to conjure up dizzying visions of the future.

Rodchenko harnessed photography to greatest effect in an issue of 'USSR in Construction' devoted to the White Sea Canal, trumpeted at home and abroad as a triumph of Soviet engineering and enlightened Soviet penal policies. The canal would be built by criminals and other social undesirables who would be rehabilitated through labour. Rodchenko travelled to the canal to take the photographs that would provide the raw material for this masterpiece of political propaganda.

"We can see in the Rodchenko book how the original picture looked – rather grey and flat. Of course, the montage is altogether much more successful as a picture. He's able to put in the text, give more impact for the crowd of workers and of course the figure in the foreground gets more impact in the way he has heightened up the contrast between it and the backdrop. You can see all these different components have been put together to make the picture and although when you look at this you wouldn't think its particularly a montage, its only when you see the original, and you see how its changed in its intention and its meaning that you really understand how photo-montaged this is." (Martin Parr, photographer)

But Rodchenko's virtuoso post-production conceals a grim truth. These determined-looking workers were mostly political prisoners and the White Sea Canal, a 140 mile long gulag. And far from being rehabilitated through their labour, 200,000 of them would die as a result of it, a reality that can still be glimpsed in the unsmiling faces of the untouched original.

Dorothea Lange -Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California

In 1935 a number of leading photographers were commissioned to produce propaganda images for the Farm Security Administration, set up to ease the effects of the depression in rural America.
"Since these photographs were taken at the behest of the government, in order to support Government relief efforts, there's an obvious strategy involved to portray the Government in a very positive light. Not only the Government, more important than the Government, were the recipients of relief, so the most famous examples occur with the idealisation of the 'Dustbowl' refugees, for example, in the photography of Dorothea Lange. In the six photographs of the series, she proceeds to reduce the size of the family which is identified in her captions as seven people down to three young children, one of whom is an infant and thereby the family suddenly conforms to middle class standards on family size." (James Curtis, Photo-historian)

Bichonnade Leaping Jacques- Henri Lartigue

All the jumping and flying in Lartigue's photographs, it looks like the whole world at the turn of the century is on springs or something. There's a kind of spirit of liberation that's happening at the time and Lartigue matches that up with what stop action photography can do at the time, so you get these really dynamic pictures. Most of the time these people look elegant but they are doing these crazy stunts.

Andre Kertesz

Kertesz's 'Meudon' captures something of the elusive genius of photography. With a photograph we can't help but wonder who the figure in the foreground is, where he has been, what he is carrying and where he is taking it. But Kertesz's photograph has no definitive answers. How can something that reveals so much keep so much to itself? There is so much to look at yet we're drawn back to the key figure at the bottom hoping to bring a sense of meaning as the viewer to the overall piece.