16th March 2014

So many people keep pissing me off.

If you have in the last 4 weeks posted any sort of status on any social network I may follow you on, alluding to or in any way indicating that you are bored, or disinterested in leaving the house then this probably applied to you.

I know there are people in worse situations than me, and I'm sure people will argue that to some extent this is self inflicted, but the people that are probably going to argue that this is self inflicted are also probably the ones who inflicting boredom upon themselves.

Now, there have been times whilst I've been injured, where I have gotten so bored it has resulted in me taking (and thankfully deleting) countless 'selfies', but for the main part, I have not really been faced with any gaping holes of boredom where I felt the need to share this with the other people on my Facebook timeline or Twitter feed.

I have been housebound/limited mobility now for a little over 4 weeks and in that time, any time that I have had free (which is a lot) I have spent, either talking with my family and friends, watching movies or television, reading, writing (though somewhat neglecting this blog already), sometimes drawing, surfing the internet. This I have done from the comfort of my own home, well my parents.

This is why it really pisses me off when people who have the option to leave the house whenever they want can be audacious enough to complain they are bored. Go for a walk, go to the shops, go to a gallery, go to a library, just bloody go outside, or you could even partake in one of the activities I have been killing time with. I'm sure theres a movie or two you haven't seen, or a book you've never read. Maybe instead of refreshing Facebook on the Internet, you venture out, after all there are a billion and one other website - (sidenote: stumbleupon is a really great site for helping to find these other websites).

If I, whilst housebound can find something to kill the time, then I'm pretty certain that you can too.

Apologise for being all high and mighty, but I was bored so I decided to write this blog, and this was the first thing that came to mind. - There you go, maybe you could start a blog.

In terms of my actual injury, I think it's healing, but I won't know for sure until I get x-rayed in 2 more weeks (fingers crossed).

At the end of my last blog I said that in this one I would start to break down some of my ideas about the context in which a photograph is taken, and before I begin I would like to stress that these are MY PERSONAL OPINIONS and I am not trying to belittle anyone else's opinions of photography or say that my opinion is the right one, I am open to other peoples views.

I would like to address this subject by trying to answer the simplest and age old question of 'Is Photography Objective or Subjective?'

I will begin by first looking at what the different between objective and subjective is, as it is something which has baffled me ever since I began studying photography, 7 years ago. Objectivity can be defined as something which is not influenced by personal opinion or feeling, something which is unbiased. Subjective on the other hand can be defined as something which has been influences by personal opinion or feeling.

When applying this to photography, an example of subjective photography could be a holiday snap, which evokes memories when you look at it.

Whereas an example of objective photography could be given as one of Bernd and Hilla Becher's topographical studies of water towers, where its doesn't resonate any emotional impact to the viewer, more serves as an documentation of this particular type of structure.

There are however times when these overlap, for example the holiday snap, this might create a certain feeling to certain viewer, but to others it holds no emotional merit, so to them it becomes and objective image, a documentation if you will.

I found this great description of both (http://artsattrinity.weebly.com/subjective-vs-objective.html)

Objective: To record a fact, even(sic) or happening or

Subjective: To comment on something, or to give an opinion about a scene, person or issue

I know I haven't been very in depth about this, but the basic point that I am trying to make, although probably not expressing it very well, is that I don't think that photography can be classed as being either subjective or objective I think maybe that it is a bit of both, in many cases, but ultimately it is the viewer, and nature of the work which decides, where it sits.

Maybe I will try and make a poll on my next blog to see what other people think, I'm going to try and talk about an exhibition I went to a couple of years ago, which I think fits into the subjective category quite well, but has also been described as an objective look at the world.

Hope I haven't wasted your time/helped in someway to alleviate your boredom. 

P.S. Again, apologise for any bad grammar and spelling, I'm an artist, not a writer.

Blue Room