I have been thinking a lot about 'style' recently. Mine is still all over the place but I am beginning to have an opinion about my photographs which I don't think I had before. For instance, I look at some and think "Uuugh! Over processed rubbish" even if there has been a fairly positive response on Flickr and then look at others and think "OK, I'm OK with that" even if it doesn't get much response.
I have this incredibly ambivalent relationship with Flickr - deleting my stream one minute, starting it up again, hating the whole thing, finding it enjoyable and fun and feeling compelled to keep posting for some crazy 21st century reason. But what is really useful about it is that I put photos up there and then see it through different eyes. It's a very helpful thing to be able to do at the moment.
Anyway, I am trying hard to get the exposure spot on and keep things as simple as possible for A4. It's a departure from A3 & A2 for me - but simplicity, integrity and absolute honesty are what I'm after in these images - I'll talk about it more in the intro when I'm done and submitting it.
I am so glad I read James Elkin's book. At the time when I was finished with it I was so appalled by the violence in the images at the end that I basically accused the man (whom I've never met!) of being a narcissist - I must have got a bit carried away. But the book really upset me - however, it it has stayed with me and I think a lot about all that is discussed within. I think it has had a profound effect on me really. I'm not 'there' with my images; by there I mean at a place that I am happy to be stylistically. But I posted something a moment ago which I was pretty sure I didn't like - and yes, as soon as I posted it I could confirm in my mind it was not the sort of image I want to be producing. I do however, think the work I'm aiming for with A4 is heading in that direction - well it is for the moment anyway.
Tuesday 20 January 2015
Sunday 18 January 2015
Study group/tutorial day with Tutor, Sharon Boothroyd and other students
I was very pleased to have attended the Thames Valley Study Group for the first time yesterday. Apart from the the fact that it was really lovely to meet other students all at different stages and at various levels, it was of course also great to see such a variety of work. Some very inspiring work - (and I'm afraid I can't remember the student's name but will insert it here as soon as I can find out) in particular there was a project which was a 'fictional hidden history' consisting of photographs with a narrative and objects that might be part of an accompanying installation. This work was so interesting, distinctive and original; I was really amazed. It was great to see because the possibilities for me as someone interested in performance, writing and photography suddenly seemed much greater - or at any rate less disparate and I can begin to see how I might draw in some or all my interests and work with them together to create something in the future, maybe.
Another project that I remembered (again, I have no name, apologies!!!) was one where a student had put together an album containing two sets of photographs; one some holiday snaps (well taken snaps!) of her own from Venice and the other snaps of the same places from taken from Flickr. It was so weird to see how the exact same photographs had been taken by strangers. I thought this asked really interesting questions about the nature of photography.
It was also great to see the level of work achieved by the students in Level 3. The photography was of a very high standard and their knowledge was really impressive - mind you I'm always impressed by people who know the ins and outs of technical 'stuff'.
One of the other really positive things that came out of attending was that I became much more aware of Sharon Boothroyd who isn't my tutor but whom I drove to the tutorial day. I felt it would be a little rude not to look at her work beforehand and I really enjoyed spending time on her site. What stood out for me just from a technical point of view was how clean Sharon's images are. I've been thinking a lot recently about how I can sometimes over-process things and I was really struck by how that was very much the opposite in Sharon's work. I also took on board how important the concepts behind the images are in her work and that the ideas, stories, narratives are really key - in fact it seems to me that what informs the work is crucial and is what separates work like hers from the plethora of images you might see on Flickr for instance, some of which are terribly impressive but often without context; that isn't to say there isn't any context to be had, it's just not focused on in that medium. It was good to see the probable final collection of her prayer project "They all say please" and really useful to chat to Sharon during the day. I was given some good ideas to work with at the tutorial and also some helpful work to look up in relation to ideas we were chatting about - thanks!!
Another project that I remembered (again, I have no name, apologies!!!) was one where a student had put together an album containing two sets of photographs; one some holiday snaps (well taken snaps!) of her own from Venice and the other snaps of the same places from taken from Flickr. It was so weird to see how the exact same photographs had been taken by strangers. I thought this asked really interesting questions about the nature of photography.
It was also great to see the level of work achieved by the students in Level 3. The photography was of a very high standard and their knowledge was really impressive - mind you I'm always impressed by people who know the ins and outs of technical 'stuff'.
One of the other really positive things that came out of attending was that I became much more aware of Sharon Boothroyd who isn't my tutor but whom I drove to the tutorial day. I felt it would be a little rude not to look at her work beforehand and I really enjoyed spending time on her site. What stood out for me just from a technical point of view was how clean Sharon's images are. I've been thinking a lot recently about how I can sometimes over-process things and I was really struck by how that was very much the opposite in Sharon's work. I also took on board how important the concepts behind the images are in her work and that the ideas, stories, narratives are really key - in fact it seems to me that what informs the work is crucial and is what separates work like hers from the plethora of images you might see on Flickr for instance, some of which are terribly impressive but often without context; that isn't to say there isn't any context to be had, it's just not focused on in that medium. It was good to see the probable final collection of her prayer project "They all say please" and really useful to chat to Sharon during the day. I was given some good ideas to work with at the tutorial and also some helpful work to look up in relation to ideas we were chatting about - thanks!!
Friday 16 January 2015
A4 thoughts
I am going to reshoot some images - the images I have so far are not the final ones I want to use as I still have time to find more, but there are some that I think I may want to include but nevertheless am unhappy with certain aspects. Reshooting and trying to recreate the same sort of thing is a pain and I'm not even sure I'll be able to capture what I've found but something new will come out of it anyway.
Things I'm not happy with - exposure, skin tone, lack of clarity - one or two images don't seem clean enough for this sort of work. It's so tempting to over-process things in Lightroom and that is the opposite of what I'm after with these particular images.
I've been looking at work of other photographers and the thing I notice in some is how clear the images are. I've been looking at mine and I've over-sharpened, over clarified, and over coloured. And having blurred it all up for the last two assignments I'm really after as much simplicity as possible with these. I can see that using and utilising light is the key to this.
I don't mind lots of massively-processed stuff and in fact still really enjoy colouring in on my phone with apps and creating little bits of nonsense there - some of which work quite well, others not so well, but that's the wrong thing entirely for the work I'm doing here for this assignment. I think I've really learnt something about how I approach some images - and at the moment it's all too hit and miss!
And I also think I should have used a full-frame camera but I've started with a cropped sensor so am going to stick with that - but it's something to think about for the next assignment.
Things I'm not happy with - exposure, skin tone, lack of clarity - one or two images don't seem clean enough for this sort of work. It's so tempting to over-process things in Lightroom and that is the opposite of what I'm after with these particular images.
I've been looking at work of other photographers and the thing I notice in some is how clear the images are. I've been looking at mine and I've over-sharpened, over clarified, and over coloured. And having blurred it all up for the last two assignments I'm really after as much simplicity as possible with these. I can see that using and utilising light is the key to this.
I don't mind lots of massively-processed stuff and in fact still really enjoy colouring in on my phone with apps and creating little bits of nonsense there - some of which work quite well, others not so well, but that's the wrong thing entirely for the work I'm doing here for this assignment. I think I've really learnt something about how I approach some images - and at the moment it's all too hit and miss!
And I also think I should have used a full-frame camera but I've started with a cropped sensor so am going to stick with that - but it's something to think about for the next assignment.
Thursday 15 January 2015
Hiromi Kakimoto
I came across Hiromi Kakimoto's work on Twitter and thought I'd share it here. I generally respond to work that is exploring dream like states, things that feel slightly off kilter. I'm very attracted to work that is exploring states of being or the slightly strange feelings we all have and I think Kakimoto is certainly doing that.
“I am interested in the process of devising a story, first creating a mental image that I can translate into an actual photograph, then using that photo as a source of inspiration for new, related images, and taking new photos. While these images sometimes reflect everyday life, there is a constant undercurrent of the dream world, which reveals images from the unconscious, and of synchronicity, mythology, and the sources of stories.”
Copied from Hiromi Kakimoto's website
An image I really like is The Signs/The Omens ii which can be found in The Time of the Cocoon/and others. At the time of writing I am not sure this will click though to the actual image or just the set but it is the photograph of a blurry figure standing next to a tiny zebra with something on it's back. It's peculiar and reminds me of dream states from childhood. The sense I get sort of takes me back to a time in the 70s, when I looked at those weird images though a toy, the ones on round white cards viewed through little red machines and the images were sort of 3d - the sense I use to have when I looked at those was one of another world that was like ours but different and sort of tantalisingly unreachable - perhaps the unconscious world.
I thought I'd just pop this link up here as I thought these images would be worth referring to again.
White balance
I have been having trouble with one particular image for A4 - the skin tone is blueish and I'm quite good in Lightroom but am having trouble getting it the skin to look less blue without wrecking the whole image. I couldn't work out if this was white balance or exposure. Another student said if I shot in RAW it shouldn't matter what white balance I used as I can set it in post to get it right. I guess I'm a bit confused. From what I've been learning if you get it right in-camera then you have less work to do in post. I know from past experience setting WB correctly in-camera when working with strobes makes a big difference although of course it's correctable in LR if shot in RAW. And I once had my camera set to daylight, I think, but was shooting under a tree or something like that and the images all came up a bit yellow and it took me ages to get the WB right, I was really annoyed with myself. When shooting commercially now I always shoot in AWB unless using strobes without any daylight, in which case I set it to flash. This makes life a lot easier in Post.
The WB on my Fuji images I have noticed sometimes can be a bit green but I wonder if this is because my exposure isn't quite right rather than the WB.
Anyway, I have searched up RAW & settings and this article is quite useful.
The WB on my Fuji images I have noticed sometimes can be a bit green but I wonder if this is because my exposure isn't quite right rather than the WB.
Anyway, I have searched up RAW & settings and this article is quite useful.
Wednesday 14 January 2015
White balance
Today I realised that problems I am having are to do with white balance - I think really need to start setting it myself probably in certain situations. Not sure what to do now... reshoot or try to fix it in Lightroom, which of course I've done already and with most images it's not a problem but it is in a couple I think....
Grrrrr.... what to do????
Grrrrr.... what to do????
Lee Freidlander, (self portraits and predatory street photography)
I have been thinking about Lee Freidlander recently and read a little review of a book of his which came out a couple of years ago compiling all his self portraits. I guess I am interested in this because my A4 is once again turned inwards rather than outwards (I actually do hope that by the time I get to A5 I find a way to look externally!).
I was really struck by the following sentence in Sean O'Hagan's review in The Guardian:
"One of his most famous photographs is of his own shadow falling on the back of a blonde woman in a fur coat, an image that says much about the often predatory nature of street photography. It is, I guess, a self portrait of a kind, albeit a metaphorical one."
I also read in Gerry Badger's The Genius of Photography "the wanderer with an unseen camera, a stalker and a hunter after images, not of exalted images but everyday life in the modern metropolis" referring to early street photographers.
Both these sentences suggest that street photography is somehow an aggressive act. I know in Susan Sontag in On Photography discusses how it is better to be using a camera rather than a gun which is what people (men) would have done in the past. That somehow street photography is fulfilling an innate human need to hunt, to stalk, to capture but that it does it less destructively but the predatory nature of street photography is nevertheless troubling. Lying in wait to take an image of someone unbeknown to them or in defiance of their wishes, or at best with some level of complicity but not requested, simply taken. It's difficult.
Yesterday I took a photograph in the doctor's waiting room because the light was doing what I like at the moment, creating very deep shadows which contrast greatly with bright sunshine and the woman in the frame got quite upset with me - I explained that she couldn't even be seen, that I was actually taking a photo of the light and not of her - but I don't blame her for being cross. There is something unpleasant about candid photography that has been totally uninvited whatsoever by the subjects being photographed.
Lee Freidlander was a prolific, street photographer who recorded "the American social landscape" which, despite my reservations about street photography expressed above, seems an important and worthwhile things for him to have spent his life doing. His work is filled with reflections, odd angles and images of himself taking the photograph within the photograph. His style and content are informed by ideas and concepts making the work not only a rich document of US culture but also an astute lifetime of comments and questions.
Friedlander's work, as with the shadow on the fur coat or with his face in the wing mirror, includes his self portrait fairly frequently, hence the book released a few years back which is all about his self portraiture. In the book Why Does It NOT Have To Be In Focus, Jackie Higgins' discusses Friedlander's self portrait where he places a light bulb between his face and the camera 'debunking the age-old myth of the artist as a hero'. There is an awareness in Friedlander's images which makes them highly intelligent. His style 'defies traditional composition' making them 'metaphors for chaos that is modern life' as described by Lewis Baltz, a photographer quoted in the aforementioned book.
When I look at Friedlander's later self portraits there is a boldness and total absence of apology to them which I don't expect to see in similar women's work although off the top of my head Tracy Emin and Freida Kahlo break with with expectation. This is interesting for me - I have been busy snapping myself again for A4 and feel a certain level of discomfort, although clearly not enough to change tac for now. Since that is where I am heading I ought to dispense with the girly self depreciation and just get on with it! At least I am involved, entirely aware and give permission - no one is stalking me, I'm not stalking anyone else and the whole predatory nature of candid photography is bypassed altogether.
I find Friedlander's work very interesting and am eager to look at it a but more.
Wikipedia
On Photography, Susan Sontag, Penguin Published 1977, Reissued 2008
Why Does it NOT Have To Be In Focus, Modern Photography Explained, Jackie Higgins, Thames & Hudson, September 2103
The Genius of Photography, Gerry Badger, Quadrille, Edition published 2014, Text copyright 2007
I was really struck by the following sentence in Sean O'Hagan's review in The Guardian:
"One of his most famous photographs is of his own shadow falling on the back of a blonde woman in a fur coat, an image that says much about the often predatory nature of street photography. It is, I guess, a self portrait of a kind, albeit a metaphorical one."
I also read in Gerry Badger's The Genius of Photography "the wanderer with an unseen camera, a stalker and a hunter after images, not of exalted images but everyday life in the modern metropolis" referring to early street photographers.
Both these sentences suggest that street photography is somehow an aggressive act. I know in Susan Sontag in On Photography discusses how it is better to be using a camera rather than a gun which is what people (men) would have done in the past. That somehow street photography is fulfilling an innate human need to hunt, to stalk, to capture but that it does it less destructively but the predatory nature of street photography is nevertheless troubling. Lying in wait to take an image of someone unbeknown to them or in defiance of their wishes, or at best with some level of complicity but not requested, simply taken. It's difficult.
Yesterday I took a photograph in the doctor's waiting room because the light was doing what I like at the moment, creating very deep shadows which contrast greatly with bright sunshine and the woman in the frame got quite upset with me - I explained that she couldn't even be seen, that I was actually taking a photo of the light and not of her - but I don't blame her for being cross. There is something unpleasant about candid photography that has been totally uninvited whatsoever by the subjects being photographed.
Lee Freidlander was a prolific, street photographer who recorded "the American social landscape" which, despite my reservations about street photography expressed above, seems an important and worthwhile things for him to have spent his life doing. His work is filled with reflections, odd angles and images of himself taking the photograph within the photograph. His style and content are informed by ideas and concepts making the work not only a rich document of US culture but also an astute lifetime of comments and questions.
Friedlander's work, as with the shadow on the fur coat or with his face in the wing mirror, includes his self portrait fairly frequently, hence the book released a few years back which is all about his self portraiture. In the book Why Does It NOT Have To Be In Focus, Jackie Higgins' discusses Friedlander's self portrait where he places a light bulb between his face and the camera 'debunking the age-old myth of the artist as a hero'. There is an awareness in Friedlander's images which makes them highly intelligent. His style 'defies traditional composition' making them 'metaphors for chaos that is modern life' as described by Lewis Baltz, a photographer quoted in the aforementioned book.
When I look at Friedlander's later self portraits there is a boldness and total absence of apology to them which I don't expect to see in similar women's work although off the top of my head Tracy Emin and Freida Kahlo break with with expectation. This is interesting for me - I have been busy snapping myself again for A4 and feel a certain level of discomfort, although clearly not enough to change tac for now. Since that is where I am heading I ought to dispense with the girly self depreciation and just get on with it! At least I am involved, entirely aware and give permission - no one is stalking me, I'm not stalking anyone else and the whole predatory nature of candid photography is bypassed altogether.
I find Friedlander's work very interesting and am eager to look at it a but more.
Wikipedia
On Photography, Susan Sontag, Penguin Published 1977, Reissued 2008
Why Does it NOT Have To Be In Focus, Modern Photography Explained, Jackie Higgins, Thames & Hudson, September 2103
The Genius of Photography, Gerry Badger, Quadrille, Edition published 2014, Text copyright 2007
Constructing Worlds at the Barbican 10 January 2015
I was so pleased to go to this exhibition especially after my reaction to the Drawn by Light exhibition. There I found the work fascinating and was glad to have gone but left feeling a little bewildered by it all. For me the Constructing Worlds exhibition was really well curated and I left with a sense of having been to something cohesive, informative and also profound. To look at how human beings express themselves through the way we organise and build our environments was fascinating and compelling. What was so interesting too was the vast differences and range of habitats and cultures we humans exist within.
I was lucky that I had been reading about the prolific French photographer Eugene Atget a couple of days before the study visit - as one of the tutors pointed out in the talk afterwards his work might have been included at the Barbican since he is really one of the first major recorders of architecture and environment. His work was not there but Berenice Abbott who had worked with him in Paris before heading back to New York was and he was a major influence on her.
I've jumped ahead though as the exhibition starts with Walker Evans and it was brilliant to see his work having read so much about him and seen his name so often this last year as I make my way through various books and documentaries. There is a famous portrait of the farmer's wife which was so wonderful to see: in it you see the whole of her life in that face from the infant within her to the old lady she will one day become, presumably quite quickly due to the hardships of her existence. There are also details from inside the houses and one photograph in particular struck me which was of the farming couple's bed - long, long before Tracy Emin created her unmade bed. Evan's photographed this seemingly mundane piece of furniture and although there is very little else in the image it seems to suggest so much about who the people are. The way it is set at an angle, the simplicity, the weapon up on the wall behind, the tiny glimpse of another bed nearby (as was the norm prior to our affluent lifestyles nowadays whole families shared sleeping quarters throughout most of our history and still do in many parts of the world - separate bedrooms for each and every member of the family is a very modern expression/habit).
Then back to Berenice Abbott who photographed NYC at a time when it was still really being built - there are so many contrasts, the poverty and claustrophobia of the tenements as well as the hope in newly built tenements, set against the hubris, ambition and excitement of the skyscrapers and bridges that surround them. Aside from being a wonderful record of that time the photographs convey so much about the people who were existed there - there is such a strong flavour and sense of NYC, you can almost smell it and hear the people living there. I just loved the Court of first model tenement house in New York, 72nd Street and First Avenue, Manhattan, March 1936. The way she has composed that photograph is really something - I could look at it for ages.
Out of Thomas Struth's room I was so interested in the image of Clinton Rd, London 1977. (Not that I am Londoncentric or anything.) I thought about Elkin's book and how he discusses that photography can show us life being uninteresting and I thought about how interesting this uninteresting aspect of us is. The photograph shows a simple London Rd with cars and a train line at the end. Nothing is happening, there are no people, there is no decisive moment and yet you get such a strong sense of place - I read that photographs might be thought of as memory traces and in this particular photograph I get such a strong sense of Struth's memory trace of that place and that time. Again, you can really feel the environment come alive as you look at that photograph. It's very powerful. That's what is so interesting for me - feeling the buzz of absolutely nothing going on at the surface of life when looking at a flat black and white representation. About his photograph of Shinju-ku, Tokyo, 1986 I have merely written 'WOW!' in my notes and looking at the accompanying book I bought I can see why - it's an incredible statement, both the architecture itself and the photograph. And his Buskoe Dong, Pyongyang, 2007 photograph immediately bought to mind E.O Wilson, a sociobioligist who is the world's leading expert on ants and who has likened their societies to our own. Looking at these huge structures in Struth's images reminds of ants, termites, 'organistic' creatures who operate as a whole in much the way it has been suggested we do, despite out current (desperate) individualistic self-perceptions. (I'd love to read more about Wilson's theories but the book I ordered is in some sort of inaccessible storage; from the tiny little bit I've read about him he suggests that ideas can 'travel' from one area of society to another without any direct contact as we exist as a super-brain organism in much the same way ants do - sure I've oversimplified things here - must get hold of that book!)
The idea of a photograph being a 'memory trace' was also really evident when looking at Stephen Shore's work. His Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21st, 1975 says so much about the American psyche - the huge Chevron sign which dominates the frame and points down to the ground looks like some sort of talisman or, if thinking about ancient societies such as Egypt where huge structures were erected to signify gods, the godlike presence of oil and the car in that culture.
The car and its salience in US culture also dominates Ed Ruscha's fascinating flat arial images of structures surrounded by vast car parks. He manages to photograph these places while they are empty and seen from the viewpoint of above he demonstrates now man has such a tremendous impact on the landscape. Parking Lots: Dodgers Stadium, 1000 Elysium Park Ave, 1967/99 is an extraordinary photograph; the patterns made by the empty car park and stadium are really quite beautiful and magnificent and I feel that Ruscha is celebrating as well as questioning man's ingenuity and conscious expression.
When I first started to get into photography I went to see an exhibition at the Tate which included Bernd and Hilla Becher's work and I was a bit confused by it I must admit. But looking at it now I understand their desire to show how human beings create artwork even when building functional, ubiquitous structures. Ruscha seems to be doing something similar - finding the art where no art was consciously intended; something that is perhaps so unique to human beings. What is it about us? Why do we have this innate need to create, even when we're building things that are seemingly mundane such as a water tower?
And sometimes we aim to build something beautiful, it goes wrong but ends up being rendered useful anyway, and then beautiful by a photographer who comes along and sees and then records the miraculous such as Iwan Baan who has taken such amazing images of the doomed Torre David complex in Caracas which was built but never finished but has been utilised anyway in the most ingenious way by people who needed somewhere to live. This miracle of a community have taken that unfinished and abandoned building, used left over bits of building material to make it as habitable as possible in new and interesting ways and have created a whole city where you can find shops, a gym, homes, and common areas which are looked after by the people who live there. It's a such an amazing story and a fabulous set of images that celebrates humanities good points as well as highlighting our follies.
I also loved looking at Simon Norfolk, Guy Tillim and Nadav Kander and really, really loved the formalism of Lucien Herve's work. In fact there is so much work to look at in this exhibition that I must admit I feel I ought to visit again. I could not concentrate for the amount of time that is needed to see and absorb all this work.
I think the exhibition is excellent. It gives you a very clear and robust sense of how humanity shapes and exists in the world. All of the work is powerful in different ways and all of it not only records architecture but also asks questions about our place here, about how we shape the landscape and why, and about what these structures and how we use them say about us. I loved this exhibition.
I was lucky that I had been reading about the prolific French photographer Eugene Atget a couple of days before the study visit - as one of the tutors pointed out in the talk afterwards his work might have been included at the Barbican since he is really one of the first major recorders of architecture and environment. His work was not there but Berenice Abbott who had worked with him in Paris before heading back to New York was and he was a major influence on her.
I've jumped ahead though as the exhibition starts with Walker Evans and it was brilliant to see his work having read so much about him and seen his name so often this last year as I make my way through various books and documentaries. There is a famous portrait of the farmer's wife which was so wonderful to see: in it you see the whole of her life in that face from the infant within her to the old lady she will one day become, presumably quite quickly due to the hardships of her existence. There are also details from inside the houses and one photograph in particular struck me which was of the farming couple's bed - long, long before Tracy Emin created her unmade bed. Evan's photographed this seemingly mundane piece of furniture and although there is very little else in the image it seems to suggest so much about who the people are. The way it is set at an angle, the simplicity, the weapon up on the wall behind, the tiny glimpse of another bed nearby (as was the norm prior to our affluent lifestyles nowadays whole families shared sleeping quarters throughout most of our history and still do in many parts of the world - separate bedrooms for each and every member of the family is a very modern expression/habit).
Then back to Berenice Abbott who photographed NYC at a time when it was still really being built - there are so many contrasts, the poverty and claustrophobia of the tenements as well as the hope in newly built tenements, set against the hubris, ambition and excitement of the skyscrapers and bridges that surround them. Aside from being a wonderful record of that time the photographs convey so much about the people who were existed there - there is such a strong flavour and sense of NYC, you can almost smell it and hear the people living there. I just loved the Court of first model tenement house in New York, 72nd Street and First Avenue, Manhattan, March 1936. The way she has composed that photograph is really something - I could look at it for ages.
Out of Thomas Struth's room I was so interested in the image of Clinton Rd, London 1977. (Not that I am Londoncentric or anything.) I thought about Elkin's book and how he discusses that photography can show us life being uninteresting and I thought about how interesting this uninteresting aspect of us is. The photograph shows a simple London Rd with cars and a train line at the end. Nothing is happening, there are no people, there is no decisive moment and yet you get such a strong sense of place - I read that photographs might be thought of as memory traces and in this particular photograph I get such a strong sense of Struth's memory trace of that place and that time. Again, you can really feel the environment come alive as you look at that photograph. It's very powerful. That's what is so interesting for me - feeling the buzz of absolutely nothing going on at the surface of life when looking at a flat black and white representation. About his photograph of Shinju-ku, Tokyo, 1986 I have merely written 'WOW!' in my notes and looking at the accompanying book I bought I can see why - it's an incredible statement, both the architecture itself and the photograph. And his Buskoe Dong, Pyongyang, 2007 photograph immediately bought to mind E.O Wilson, a sociobioligist who is the world's leading expert on ants and who has likened their societies to our own. Looking at these huge structures in Struth's images reminds of ants, termites, 'organistic' creatures who operate as a whole in much the way it has been suggested we do, despite out current (desperate) individualistic self-perceptions. (I'd love to read more about Wilson's theories but the book I ordered is in some sort of inaccessible storage; from the tiny little bit I've read about him he suggests that ideas can 'travel' from one area of society to another without any direct contact as we exist as a super-brain organism in much the same way ants do - sure I've oversimplified things here - must get hold of that book!)
The idea of a photograph being a 'memory trace' was also really evident when looking at Stephen Shore's work. His Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21st, 1975 says so much about the American psyche - the huge Chevron sign which dominates the frame and points down to the ground looks like some sort of talisman or, if thinking about ancient societies such as Egypt where huge structures were erected to signify gods, the godlike presence of oil and the car in that culture.
The car and its salience in US culture also dominates Ed Ruscha's fascinating flat arial images of structures surrounded by vast car parks. He manages to photograph these places while they are empty and seen from the viewpoint of above he demonstrates now man has such a tremendous impact on the landscape. Parking Lots: Dodgers Stadium, 1000 Elysium Park Ave, 1967/99 is an extraordinary photograph; the patterns made by the empty car park and stadium are really quite beautiful and magnificent and I feel that Ruscha is celebrating as well as questioning man's ingenuity and conscious expression.
When I first started to get into photography I went to see an exhibition at the Tate which included Bernd and Hilla Becher's work and I was a bit confused by it I must admit. But looking at it now I understand their desire to show how human beings create artwork even when building functional, ubiquitous structures. Ruscha seems to be doing something similar - finding the art where no art was consciously intended; something that is perhaps so unique to human beings. What is it about us? Why do we have this innate need to create, even when we're building things that are seemingly mundane such as a water tower?
And sometimes we aim to build something beautiful, it goes wrong but ends up being rendered useful anyway, and then beautiful by a photographer who comes along and sees and then records the miraculous such as Iwan Baan who has taken such amazing images of the doomed Torre David complex in Caracas which was built but never finished but has been utilised anyway in the most ingenious way by people who needed somewhere to live. This miracle of a community have taken that unfinished and abandoned building, used left over bits of building material to make it as habitable as possible in new and interesting ways and have created a whole city where you can find shops, a gym, homes, and common areas which are looked after by the people who live there. It's a such an amazing story and a fabulous set of images that celebrates humanities good points as well as highlighting our follies.
I also loved looking at Simon Norfolk, Guy Tillim and Nadav Kander and really, really loved the formalism of Lucien Herve's work. In fact there is so much work to look at in this exhibition that I must admit I feel I ought to visit again. I could not concentrate for the amount of time that is needed to see and absorb all this work.
I think the exhibition is excellent. It gives you a very clear and robust sense of how humanity shapes and exists in the world. All of the work is powerful in different ways and all of it not only records architecture but also asks questions about our place here, about how we shape the landscape and why, and about what these structures and how we use them say about us. I loved this exhibition.
Tuesday 13 January 2015
A4 assignment notes
Much of what I am photographing is meant to be low key or at any rate filled with deep shadows. I am finding that by underexposing I am coming up with all sorts of problems. The colours are tending towards a greenish tone and I am concerned this is because I am underexposing too much. Also, especially with a shot hat has red in it, by underexposing I give myself very little room for any movement in Lightroom because the red seems so unstable and if I lighten the highlights the red goes wonky. Having taken hundreds of shots I have two I think I will certainly use and another which I think I might need to reshoot. I have also rejected two that I thought I'd use but now think I won't after thinking about them. So it's very slow going now. And I still have a handful of exercises to complete - maybe I should have done those before embarking on the assignment and I might have learnt about the problems I am coming up against.
And...out of the three images I have one works best at 8x10, one at A4 and the other I can't work out. Am I going to have lots of different dimensions? Will this matter? Os should they all be the same - will it hang together?
And...out of the three images I have one works best at 8x10, one at A4 and the other I can't work out. Am I going to have lots of different dimensions? Will this matter? Os should they all be the same - will it hang together?
Monday 12 January 2015
Jennifer McClure
An image popped on my Twitter feed that I just loved. As I mentioned in an earlier post it was one of two images that I found really interesting in relation the the light project I am currently working on so I have spent some time looking at the photographer who took it. Jennifer McClure is based in New York, has won several prestigious awards and is probably working on quite similar themes to me.
On her website she says, "We are not supposed to talk about being lonely. Loneliness is a shameful condition that should be cured, that we should sort out by ourselves." I think this is what I am so attracted to in McClure's work - this refusal to avoid looking at something awkward, painful and difficult but which is endemic in our culture due to the way we have structured ourselves.
She also says, "The act of photographing my fears allows me to become comfortable in the present", and I think there is something really important here for me.
What I also find attractive in McClure's work is that although she looks at themes that are usually ignored by mainstream culture she isn't self-pitying in the least, anything but. She also manages to incorporate humour although it may be dark such as in this image where she is moving and the spinning top is still, which I thought was great - wish I'd thought of it!
McClure has two sets of photographs on her website in which she is in the photographs and another two sets where the camera is faced outwards. She apparently started taking photographs of herself due to an illness that prevented her from going out and photographing others. I have to say I think the ones of herself are stronger. She really shares her vulnerability with the viewer in a way that feels incredibly brave which is what I think makes her work so powerful.
In You Who Never Arrived you get a real sense of those moments in life where things should be good but they aren't because you're unable to enjoy the moment for one reason or another - loneliness being one of them without or without someone else, or indeed others, beside you. I think lighting plays a huge part in this sense - the way we are affected by light is critical and McClure really uses it in her images: this one is a really clear example and I like how she is slightly out of focus here too.
Looking through her site tonight I think I have clearly been quite influenced by it when I think about my own recent work and what I've done so far for A4, even though I only took a quick look at McClure's site last week!
I am really glad to have come across this work and I'm sure what I have learnt from it will play a big part in my own developing style.
Website
On her website she says, "We are not supposed to talk about being lonely. Loneliness is a shameful condition that should be cured, that we should sort out by ourselves." I think this is what I am so attracted to in McClure's work - this refusal to avoid looking at something awkward, painful and difficult but which is endemic in our culture due to the way we have structured ourselves.
She also says, "The act of photographing my fears allows me to become comfortable in the present", and I think there is something really important here for me.
What I also find attractive in McClure's work is that although she looks at themes that are usually ignored by mainstream culture she isn't self-pitying in the least, anything but. She also manages to incorporate humour although it may be dark such as in this image where she is moving and the spinning top is still, which I thought was great - wish I'd thought of it!
McClure has two sets of photographs on her website in which she is in the photographs and another two sets where the camera is faced outwards. She apparently started taking photographs of herself due to an illness that prevented her from going out and photographing others. I have to say I think the ones of herself are stronger. She really shares her vulnerability with the viewer in a way that feels incredibly brave which is what I think makes her work so powerful.
In You Who Never Arrived you get a real sense of those moments in life where things should be good but they aren't because you're unable to enjoy the moment for one reason or another - loneliness being one of them without or without someone else, or indeed others, beside you. I think lighting plays a huge part in this sense - the way we are affected by light is critical and McClure really uses it in her images: this one is a really clear example and I like how she is slightly out of focus here too.
Looking through her site tonight I think I have clearly been quite influenced by it when I think about my own recent work and what I've done so far for A4, even though I only took a quick look at McClure's site last week!
I am really glad to have come across this work and I'm sure what I have learnt from it will play a big part in my own developing style.
Website
Friday 2 January 2015
Photographers whose work I have noticed especially in relation to light
There are two photographs that have really stuck out for me in the last few weeks (having looked at many) while thinking about light and how it's used by photographers. In both these images the light is not softened and there is no attempt to create a pretty picture; vanity and softening old skin are not the aim here, nor are there any suggestions of a romanticised, pictorial reality. Instead the contrast is harsh and the photographers have both not only utilised this fact but instead made even more of it, hiding parts of the scene in darkness while other parts are still visible. I have thought a lot about both images since seeing them.
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