Lecture: Post-Fordism and Contemporary culture

Following this lecture I started to think about how Post-Fordism and Contemporary culture has effected Photography and how this relates to my practice as a Photographer.
Overview of the main ideas:
Post-Fordism is the idea that modern industrial production has moved away from mass production in large factories as pioneerd by Henry Ford towards specialised markets based on small flexible manufacturing units.
Contemplating contemporary culture and Post-Fordism has been quite difficult. Within the medium of Photography it is clear that image uses and consumption have changed with contemporary culture but I would have to say now more than ever photographs are being mass produced. The image is being used as a commodity.

London January 2012

Going to London for an exhibition trip seemed like the best thing to do over the christmas break. Coming close to the hand in for the project 'This must be the place' framing, hanging, gallery space and installation was much needed research for my final print.

The context of the gallery is where my work is intended to be shown so I wanted to look at how photography along with painting and sculpture are displayed and how this can effect their meaning.

Japenese Photography and the Bauhaus

The common framing of photographic works seem to be the classic thick white border and black frame. Each photograph is contained within its own space, this works well with images that need to be set apart and focused on individually. The black frame works best with black and white photography but in some way relates the photograph to the common frame you would use in your home. After contemplating the border and the frame it doesn't look like a good option for my image. This is because I don't want my image contained as a photograph, it needs to be open as it's relationship lears more towards sculpture.

Having looked round the Tate at the photographs, paintings, installations and sculpture; framing seemed to be becoming a bad idea. The next visit was to the Saatchi gallery which became a very inspiring visit.

This sculpture reminded me of my final piece on a plinth, sculptures aren't contained in any way, they are placed with plenty of room around them.

These two photographs really inspired me towards keeping my final image un-framed because I don't want my image to have any boundaries of be contained within the space of a frame.