Saturday 27 June 2015

JIm Mortram Small Town Inertia

"While it covers difficult subjects – disability, substance abuse, self-harm – Mortram's work is rarely without hope, and never without dignity. It is also deeply moving, focusing upon the strength and resilience of the people he photographs. " Dave Stelfox, The Guardian

Jim Mortram is a photographer working in Norfolk.  According to an interview with The Guardian he only works within a three mile radius.  He photographs people who are on the margins of society; people struggling and perhaps living on benefits for a variety of reasons.  His work challenges the status quo that suggests people struggling are somehow 'scroungers' or trying to live of the system.  His subjects are often vulnerable people who are ill or caring for others, as he does for his mother, and who for one reason or exist on the peripheries of the economic system.

His photographs remind me of Chris Killip's, whom I wrote about earlier in the course, and the writer of The Guardian article also connects them.

The reason I am writing about Jim Mortram's work here in conjunction with A5 is because he portrays intimate and difficult scenes of people in way that is not about vanity, or prettiness, revealing fear, darkness, vulnerability and awkwardness but also strength and immense presence where people might assume it doesn't exist.  He works collaboratively and gets to know the people he photographs.  He does not see them as objects to be used but by getting to know them and spending time with them, he enables the people in his photographs to have a voice.  His photography, as far as I can make out, is not coming from the place of 'the gaze'.  He is a positive enabler rather than a metaphorical 'collector of butterfly wings', or specimens of humanity, like so many other photographers far more established or famous than he (although that will change and I suspect his work will be become extremely well known in time.)

I am impressed by his approach and attitude towards the people in his photographs and compare that to how I photographed my mother for A5.  (I'll talk about that further in the A5 supporting statement rather than here.)

As well as photographing the people in his town, Jim Mortram cares for his elderly and unwell mother.  He fits the work he does around that.  Many of the people in his work (I hesitate to use the word 'subjects') are also ill or caring for people who are.  There is a great deal of empathy in his work and he puts it down to his caring role.  He feels he has learnt a great deal through that.

I feel as I look at Mortram's work and read about it, that his photography is about so much more than 'photography'.  He is really using the medium to communicate, and not only his voice.  Somehow he manages to make it possible for a whole community to express their frustration, sadness, anger, despair as well as hope and strength.

Jim Mortram's site

4 comments:

  1. Recently I have listened to a number of practicing artists and the key 'thing' I have taken away from all of them is the commitment to the project. Mortram works on the 'long-form' documentary which I don't think is entirely unique, but it is certainly marked out by its direction viz - Pannack, Hewitt, Davies Caruan... I think I have about a year to create a body of work for this course which seems paltry by comparison. It is not a light touch process.

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    1. Yes, tenacity and commitment do seem key. Not sure I have it in me... hopefully as I move further from 'babydom' I've been living inside for so long :-)

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  2. Thanks a million, really appreciated, and keep on fighting the good fight! X

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