Jo Spence - Beyond the family album (1979)

Beyond the Family Album by Jo Spence looks at the typical family album and in a sense flips it. She captures the Kodak Moments you don't normally see or include within a family album such as family in hospital, a photo of someone beaten up. Spence sees the family album and photographs the stuff that happens behind the scenes. This is the type of stuff that would probably be frowned upon, especially in a family album, she questions the family album and who decided what should be included.
I like this work a lot and it questions the Kodak moment and what should and shouldnt be considered one, it gives the whole thing a different outlook and I think even to an outsider on photography maybe just the famil album type would it would make them question and wonder and also probably agree.

Photo 1 - http://www.jospence.org/assets/beyond_family_album/9.jpg
Photo 2 - http://www.jospence.org/assets/beyond_family_album/2.jpg
Website - http://www.jospence.org/index.html

27 Million Followers.

A few days ago (26/02/15) Kim Kardashian West, on Instagram reached 27 million followers, since then (28/02/15) she now has 27.1 million followers. Now although some of them may not be fully open accounts (forgotten passwords, robot accounts, etc) there might be 2 million of them maximum, if you think about that, that is 25 million people she reaches when she posts something on the application, every time! Now to my knowledge she isn't payed to post on the platform (I may be wrong) like she has been on the other social network Twitter but for her to reach at least 25million people worldwide at the snap of a picture, that could work out to be some good publicity a companies behalf as well as her own. Thats how powerful social media and more importantly photographs within social media can be these days.
Photographs are becoming a new and easier way of communication, as they say 'a picture is worth a thousand words' and it is becoming more apparant and time as social media is evolving.

Here is Kardashian West's Instagram profile - https://instagram.com/kimkardashian/

Using Kodak moments for work (Nikki S Lee - Projects)

Nikki S Lee, bornin South Korea, based in New York City at the time created a body of work over 4 years called Projects from 1997- 2001. In this body of work she would take on a persona, from multiple ethinicties, work her way into a certain group by dressing like them, acting the same, etc. Once she was comfortable with the group (this could take various amounts of time) she would get he film camera out, and take a few snapshots with her newly found 'friends' as you normally do. Once Lee had the work she needed she would cut ties with the group and stop talking to them, vanishing from their lives. She would even leave the timestamp ino the picture to get that sense of time and when she was in which group.
These are perfect example of Kodak Moments and using it to her advantage to create a body of work is ingenius in my opinion and I admire the work a lot.

 

Black group - https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/93/f4/ce/93f4ce59e2e06fe74e89cc865af948ae.jpg

Work group - http://www.phillips.com/Xigen/lotimg/Nikki-S--Lee/NY040311/265

Tourist group - https://oscarenfotos.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/nikki_s_lee_23.jpg

Kodak Moments coming back around.

Old media formats are making their way back around into our culture today, VHS, tapes, vinyl and even film.
Last year vinyl reached an all time high for the first in 18 years. Along with vinyl, The Impossible Project the new producers of instant film taking over the former Polaroid Warehouse in Enschede, Netherlands, Achieved their first 1 million sales in a year last year. That news is great for both parties, for them because since 2008 when they started to 2010, they have had to start from scratch and re-engineer a new formula as Polaroid didnt leave it (Surprisingly). Always tweaking the ingredients, making the film better, re-introducing formats such as 8x10 and 1200/spectra so to make their first 1 million sales is a big milestone. It is also great for us because it means the more they produce, the better the products get and eventually the cheaper they will become. Film is on the rise with some shops developing more traditional formats than digital! Poundland, The cheap item chain store has probably had a hand in the re-rise of film selling a mixture of Kodak and Agfa 35mm film for £1 a roll! good quality or bad quality it will be getting people interested in film experimenting and later on moving on to better film and funding the market again.
Your beloved Kodak Moments could become common again sooner than you think.


https://blog.the-impossible-project.com/1000000-instant-films-an-historic-impossible-milestone
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/27/vinyl-sales-1m-2014-pink-floyd-artic-monkeys-jack-white
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8525839/Traditional-camera-film-makes-a-come-back.html

Nokia Moments (Lifeblog).

Lifeblog was made by Nokia the mobile phone industries giants at the time of 2004 as an application around phone application introduction. Nokia was aiming to be the digital version of the precious 'Kodak Moment' with their always upgrading phones and Lifeblog was there to help support that cause. The application that cost around $30 was a digital way of scrapbooking your daily photographs, videos and even text messages, this meant that you didn't have to spend time transferring them to a computer to then print them out and stick them in. You could digitally file them on your phone and it also meant you could show it to your friends without having to carry your scrapbook!

http://www.fastcompany.com/50517/mobile-nokia-moments Here is some more information.

Kodak Moment Adverts.

All of the Below are previous adverts for the 'Kodak Moment'. The Kodak Moment was an advert to encourage people to buy their product and take photography into their own hands and make their own memories rather than hiring out a camera or paying people to take photographs for you.

 

Kodak gone wrong - http://argonautnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/14.jpg

Kodak app - http://wpuploads.appadvice.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/kodak.png?showGallerySet=false

Kodak square - https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-1/p160x160/1012394_10151843651796755_741704967_n.png?oh=761877a065c8a36ac856517acd84d1c6&oe=554D7C83&__gda__=1431670805_5edaa5d328c6fe360c61df5d06876f7b

A Kodak moment - http://images.rapgenius.com/05067f8e18925c2e59ec2c6b05f51d79.580x388x1.jpg

Instagram as a platform.

Instagram as a platform has paved the way for many peoples careers, such as bloggers, models, video artists and even photographers because it can work as a blog or a portfolio for someone that can also be seen by many people in the palm of their hand wherever they are (as long as they have signal or wifi).
I think one of the biggest examples of this happened in June last year when a liverpool based photographer Conor McDonnell got called in as a replacement for Annie Leibovitz for the heavily anticipated Kanye West and Kim Kardashian wedding. The reason he was chosen? Kim had somehow managed to spot him on Instagram and he was flown out 24 hours. The main photograph of the wedding went viral on the app and is now the most liked and probably viewed photo on the platform with 2.4million+ likes! (Along with 58,000+ comments). It just goes to show that social media in a sense can be just as powerful as reputation and or word of mouth. Some people say digital is the death of print which to some extent I agree with but in this day and age could print provide an opportunity like this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/27996193 - Story on Conor McDonnell

Instagram Moments are becoming life changing...

In our world today, looking your best is one of the most important things for some people, whether it be the clothes you where, your hair, your figure or your make-up but because of the recent influx of 'The Selfie' it has been taken one step further.
Since the introduction of the mobile phone self portrait, 'The Selfie' has came on to be a popular worldwide hit! From getting itself into the dictionary to (in a sense) having a app based on it (Snapchat) 'The Selfie' has taken over social media feed's all over the planet but they have became life changing moments for some people. People are now going to plastic surgeons with pictures from their Instagram asking to look like themselves but how a filter has made them look. From an edit option made to make your photographs look like a different photography format or maybe to look like you shot in a more exotic area, these filters are now becoming the basis for plastic surgery so peoples 'Selfies' can look the same all of the time, even without a filter!
To me this is social media rather than instagram itself doing this as you wouldn't feel like this for a 'Kodak Moment' or especially from a 'Nokia Moment'! The camera's were rubbish! I can understand it in a sense and plastic surgery isn't anything new but I still think it's a little crazy!

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/instagram-fuels-new-wave-plastic-surgery-article-1.2102389
Here is an article talking about the topic.

Photographing ourselves now (Kodak moments/Nokia moments).

For my project, I am choosing to cover 'Photographing ourselves now'.
I have chosen this as I feel it's the most relevent to society at the minute and to me in a sense.
Having experienced the back end of a 'Nokia Moment' portable photographing devices have always been a big thing for me. Although when I was younger I took to videoing more than Photography, capturing myself and my friends skating. Then one of my friends got a camera to start taking photographs on and once I had a go I was hooked, that was around 2011. Since then I have tried lot's of mediums such as digital, 35mm, polaroid, medium format, 5x4.
Having had a form of an iPhone for around 3 years and having instagram maybe just as long, I have posted 596 photographs and counting. Instagram is an application in which you share your photographs to possibly the world. It is like the modern day Kodak/Nokia moment, In where you take a photograph of your chosen subject there and then but with a few differences. Before even truely leaving your phone there is a few things; it is square format, unless you have an app inwhich you can frame your photographs. Once you have your chosen photograph you can edit your photo's, give it different 'filters' which are different effects, you can adjust saturation, contrast, brightness and a lot more. There is also a lot of third-party applications that can do this along with Apple iPhones having the effect on camera now as well. Once you have your photograph ready with your preferences, you can caption your photograph and publish it. On instagram you have to have a profile in which to post your photographs, you can follow people so you can see their photographs such as celebrities, your friends, artists, etc. and they can also follow you back to see your 'Feed'. When you post a photograph it goes to whoever follows you. I have 363 followers so as soon as I post a photograph it instantly reaches that many people, which is a sense is a lot, but you can reach more.
There is a thing called a hashtag, which if you hashtag a photograph e.g. #polaroid, you can click on that hashtag and it put's it in to a collective along with other photographs in which people have used the same hashtag, which could be only 50-100 or it could be millions who have used the hashtag, in turn reaching worldwide as well as whoever follows you.
Instagram is in a sense like a blog, documenting your day to day life but you can also put up videos and even your own work making it probably one of the best platforms to get your work out there (especially for us) without having to make print or hold an exhibition.