Category Archives: Learning Log

Coursework, Part 2 - Street and studio, Photographers, Project 1 - The unaware

Project 1 – The Unaware 1

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Taking portraits of people who are unaware of you needs a certainly needs a degree of stealth and a place where there are plenty of people who are engaged in their own thoughts. One of the commonest places for this to be done is on public transport. If you google ‘images of the underground in London’ it becomes obvious that this is a very common place for photographers to take pictures. Many of these are of the underground architecture, others are of general crowd scenes and yet more are portraits, usually taken without the knowledge of the people being photographed, although some are obviously posing for the camera.

The genre probably started with the subway images of Walker Evans, although similar portraits were also taken by Helen Levitt, who was his apprentice, at much the same time. The two of them often went out together as Evans thought that people were less likely to see him taking photos if he was with someone else. Levitt revisited the subject much later in 1978 taking a range of images of similar scenes, this time against a background of graffiti (Silverman, 2017). They can be seen in Manhattan Transit: The Subway Photographs of Helen Levitt.

Helen Levitt
© Helen Levitt

Stefan Rousseau, a London photographer also took images on the London Underground. There is a recent photoessay available on this in which he says ‘Suddenly I became aware of a new world of phone-obsessed, sleep-deprived, makeup-wielding commuters so absorbed in their own world that I felt I had to photograph them. I’m astonished by the skill of the women who are able to apply their makeup while hurtling through tunnels and those who can watch last night’s TV standing up in the smallest of spaces’ (Rousseau, 2019). The whole essay can be accessed at:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/29/riding-the-tube-a-photo-essay-by-stefan-rousseau

Stefan Rousseau
© Stefan Rousseau

Lukas Kuzma is another photographer who has taken pictures on the London Underground in the series Transit (Kuzma, 2015) in which he shows a mixture of images of people, some aware of him, others clearly unaware. Some of his images are amusing, some fascinating, others almost cruel.  Some of his images can be seen on Behance.

Lukas Kuzma
© Lukas Kuzma

For other photographers who work on images taken on public transport see:  Martin Parr Christophe Agou and Walker Evans

Edited 04/11/19:

I have just come across another photographer who worked extensively on the London Underground in the 1970’s. Mike Goldsmith has just produced a book London Underground 1970 – 1980 which shows images from a slightly earlier underground scene, although the people have similar world-weary expressions.  The pictures can be seen at:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-50261478

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© Mike Goldwater – Northern Line 1975

Given the number of articles and relevant photographers I have found in a fairly short exploration of this topic, I suspect that a whole PhD could be written on it.

Reference list

Candid moments on the London Underground. (2019). BBC News. [online] 4 Nov. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-50261478  [Accessed 04 Nov. 2019].

Kuzma, L. (2015). Transit. [online] Behance. Available at: https://www.behance.net/gallery/23661963/Transit [Accessed 1 Oct. 2019].

Levitt, H., Campany, D., Hoshino, M. and Zander, T. (2017). Helen Levitt – Manhattan Transit. Köln Galerie Thomas Zander Köln Verlag Der Buchhandlung Walther König.

Rousseau, S. (2019). Riding the tube – a photo essay by Stefan Rousseau. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/29/riding-the-tube-a-photo-essay-by-stefan-rousseau [Accessed 1 Oct. 2019].

Silverman, R. (2017). The Subway Portraits of Helen Levitt. [online] Lens Blog NY Times. Available at: https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/the-subway-portraits-of-helen-levitt/ [Accessed 20 Aug. 2019].

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Coursework, Learning Log, Part 2 - Street and studio, Photographers, Project 1 - The unaware

Christophe Agou

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© Christope Agou – from -in the face of silence

Christophe Agou (1969 – 2015) was a French photographer who lived in New York and, like Walker Evans, took a series of images of the New York subway – Life Below (Agou, 2004). He said ‘Trust your heart and open your eyes’ and ‘There is a certain honesty underground, a certain truth. The sense of enclosure is sometimes oppressive, but I love the feeling of the pulse beneath the city’ (Hogarth and McLaren, 2010). Agou worked in both black and white and colour, across the city of New York and in the countryside of the Forez hills in France. In the  New York subway he took mainly images of people who were unaware of him ‘an intimate rendezvous with people in a meditative state from every conceivable walk (Agou, 2011) while for the work in Forez, published as in the face of silence (Agou, 2011 a) he spent time getting the know the community of farmers over eight years. As well as a a photographer Agou was a gifted writer. His website describes his interactions with the people he photographed using lyrical prose ‘… underneath the wooded volcanoes, the furrows of poor earth, the thick fog, the scent of damp clover, the cry of the crows, the entanglement of the forest after a storm, the peace in the heart of the vines, the paths dug up into ruts, the fields lying fallow, the snow swept away by the north wind, the mysteries of the night, the silence… this reality inspires me’ Agou, 2017).

While Agou used the underground as a way of exploring people’s emotions, he was not intrusive. Although he did not always ask about taking the images, he would engage with the people involved and, unlike Evans, he did not hide his camera. However, his images in this series do act as an updated view of the subway.  I find some of his other images, from in the face of silence more revealing. The time he spent with the farmers has allowed a more intimate view, the details are both heart-warming (a cat and a cup) and heart breaking (a picture of Christ under a pipe in a wall).  He has filmed ‘their life as it is’ – with details, but no sentimentality.

Reference list

Agou, C. (2004). Life Below: the New York City subway. New York: Quantuck Lane Press.

Agou, C. (2011a). books | christophe agou. [online] Christopheagou.com. Available at: http://christopheagou.com/books/ [Accessed 1 Oct. 2019].

Agou, C. (2011b). In the face of silence. Stockport: Dewi Lewis.

Agou, C. (2017). face au silence (in the face of silence) | christophe agou. [online] Christopheagou.com. Available at: http://christopheagou.com/face-au-silence/ [Accessed 1 Oct. 2019].

Howarth, S. and Mclaren, S. (2010). Street Photography Now. London: Thames & Hudson.

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Coursework, Learning Log, Part 2 - Street and studio, Photographers, Project 1 - The unaware

Martin Parr

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Grand National Ladies Day
Martin Parr: The Grand National Ladies Day © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos

Martin Parr is a British photographer (born 1952) who is mainly known for his images of the British public, shown with loud, brash colours and often very satirical in nature. On his website they are described as ‘exaggerated or even grotesque. The motifs he chooses are strange, the colours are garish and the perspectives are unusual (Weski, 2019). He has looked at the way we live over the years, ranging from images of socialites, to people on the beach in various states of dress, via food and the Grand National racing events. Many of his images are not ‘pretty’ – he shows things as they are, rather then as we would like to think they are. He has published a plethora of books of his own images, his website lists 121 since 1982, together with many others he has edited and is a renowned collector of other people’s photo-books.

Although we tend to think of him as a British (or mainly English) photographer he has travelled and taken images (and produced books of those images) across the world, from Benidorm to Belfast, India to Italy and also Japan. Japonais Endormis (Japanese Asleep) (Parr, 1998) is a collection of images taken on the Tokyo subway of sleeping commuters.

 These salarymen (and women) often travel for long hours every day, to and from work. Parr has taken images looking down on them. They are clearly not aware that he is taking their picture and are vulnerable in the moment. The sharpest focal point of the image is usually the hair, their eyes are closed, they look exhausted.  Although his website describes his style as garish and often grotesque, in this case the images are tender, and he appears to have sympathy with their unending need to travel (and sleep while travelling. This is not echoed in the images of Japanese people shown in The Phone Book (2002) (Parr, 2002) which shows people on their mobile phones, also seemingly unaware that they are being watched, let alone photographed. Here he returns to his more usual brash colours and aggressive imagery.

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© Martin Parr

One of the themes Parr has returned to on many occasions is the multitude of people who take pictures of themselves at historic sites. He has dwelt on this theme for many years, and one of his recent projects returns to this topic. Parr was one of five artists who were commissioned by the Palace of Versailles to make work that echoed its spirit and took images of others taking images (Pegard, 2019)  Parr has  discussed this at some length in his blog (Parr, 2012) but ends up admitting that, of course, he is doing exactly the same thing. He does, however, turn is upside down by photographing the people who are taking the photos of themselves.

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© Martin Parr

Parr’s images are often fascinating and have opened the way for other photographers to take less reverent images and also to have a sense of humour in their work. I found the Japanese Sleepers collection to be both telling and touching about a way of life I know little about. It is a very human piece of work.

 Reference list

Parr, M. (1998). Martin Parr: Japonais endormis = 眠る日本人. Paris: Published by Galerie Du Jour Agnès B.

Parr, M. (2002). The Phone Book: 1998-2002. London, Eng.: Rocket; Essen, Germany.

Parr, M. (2012). Too Much Photography | Martin Parr. [online] Martinparr.com. Available at: https://www.martinparr.com/2012/too-much-photography/ [Accessed 27 Sep. 2019].

Pégard, C. (2019). Versailles, Visible invisible: Dove Allouche, Nan Goldin, Martin Parr, Eric Poitevin, Viviane Sassen : [exposition, Versailles, Château de Versailles, Domaine du Trianon, 14 mai-20 octobre 2019]. Paris: Éditions Dilecta, Dl.

Weski, T. (2019). Introduction | Martin Parr. [online] Martinparr.com. Available at: https://www.martinparr.com/introduction/.

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Learning Log, Photographers

Joel Sternfeld

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Joel Sternfeld (born 1944) is an American photographer who is known for using large format colour images. He started using colour early on, when most serious photographers were still using black and white. He is clear that he chooses what he wants to show, to tell a story. In an interview he says ‘no individual photograph explains anything. That’s what makes photography such a wonderful and problematic medium. It is the photographers job to get this medium to say what you need it to say’ (Higgins, 2004). His earlier work American Prospects came from a trip in a campervan around America and includes a wonderful (and well known) example of how what the picture apparently shows may not be the reality of the situation. InMclean, Virginia, December 1978 he shows a fireman apparently nonchalantly buying pumpkins while other firemen work on a massive blaze in the background. It was actually a training exercise for them fire service! In a recent interview he is described as ‘A native New Yorker, he has roamed though America constantly……obsessed with “the great underlying theme of my work: the utopian vision of America contrasted with the Dystopian one”’ (O’Hagan, 2017).

McLean, Virginia,December 1978 ©Joel Sternfeld

In Stranger Passing, Sternfeld again travelled around America. This time concentrating on taking portraits of people he met in their own surroundings, raising the question of what we can know about a stranger from one, singular, portrait. He made a ‘document’ of Americans at the end of the 20th century which could be considered to be an updated version of Sander’s ‘Face of Our Time’.

A Homeless Man With His Bedding, New York, New York, July 1993
A Homeless Man With His Bedding, New York, New York, July 1993 © Joel Sternfeld

The people are mainly taken outdoors and the choice of the background is significant and related to the person or people in the image. There is a wide range of race, age and economic status.  The images are titled by their occupation, what they are doing and when they were taken. A Homeless Man with his Bedding, New York, July 1993. Summer Interns Having Lunch, Wall Street, New York, August 1986. The people are central in the image, full length and looking at Sternfeld. The details are important. The woman carrying a rabbit, the tramps red shoes, the woman at home exercising with several half-eaten plates of food on the table. They invite you to invent a story about the people and become more personally engaging than the Sander images.

Reference list

Higgins, C. (2004). False witness. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/mar/10/photography [Accessed 20 Sep. 2019].

O’Hagan, S. (2017). The drifter: Joel Sternfeld on his sly glimpses of wild America – seen from the endless highway. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/jan/11/joel-sternfeld-photographer-america-interview-colour-photographs-1977-88 [Accessed 20 Sep. 2019].

Assignment 1 - The non-familiar, Learning Log, Reflections and tutor reports, Reflections on assignment 1

Assignment 1 – Response to Tutorial

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I had an interesting Skype tutorial with my tutor which was, on the whole, positive. He reminded me that, as the photographer, I should be in control, rather than my subjects being in control. A piece of advice I have tried to take on board, although, so far, with limited success. It is difficult to tell your daughter how to pose without being told that she will do it how she wants!

Assignment 1:

He suggested trying different edits of the images which I have done. I definitely prefer one of the edits he suggested – the deadpan look. This made me really think about the need to consider exactly what you are attempting to show rather than taking the simplest option. Assignment 1 – Rethink

Research:

He also gave me several fascinating photographers to research. Bettina von Zwehl, Joel Sternfeld and Paul Graham.

Chandler says ‘ our received understanding is that a portrait should be a kind of penetrating analysis, and , furthermore, that the most effective and enduring portraits are those that are the result of some connection, or even chemistry, having existed between the artist and the sitter’ (Chandler and Von Zwehl, 2014).

Von Zwehl, Sternfeld and Graham all use portraiture as a way of describing their world. Of showing what is important. However, they are very different. Von Zwehl uses minimalistic images, sometimes just a silhouette with little or no visible background. The images are often black and white, or, if colour, muted. Her recent work is small and relies on the series to tell the story, which is more about the feeling and emotion rather than the individual person. Chandler says ‘the profile is a form of distilled representation – the rendering of some emblematic essence of the person depicted …. both accurate and unsentimental’ (Chandler and Von Zwehl, 2014).

Sternfeld’s images in Stranger Passing are large scale. They tell a story about that person in that time and at that place (although it is an imagined story and someone else’s interpretation might be different). In this case Sternfeld took images of strangers who he met while travelling – they remain penetrating studies of the person – so this raises the question of how rapidly you can make a connection with someone to be able to take a valid portrait. This may well be a skill that can be acquired, but I suspect to acquire it one needs an interest in people that goes beyond the superficial who, what and where. Why – is probably the most important question of all.

Graham’s recent book Mother shows pictures of his own mother towards the end of her life. Like Von Zwehl in Made Up Love Song he is concentrating on one person (his mother) using images taken in the same place (her retirement home). However, unlike Von Zwehl he starts the series with a close relationship (child to parent) and the images are reflecting on how this relationship has altered with time. It is a very personal piece of work, haunting in nature as one is aware that these are likely to be some of the last images he will take of her.

In Sontag’s work Regarding the Pain of Others (Sontag, 2003) she makes several statements that are relevant in the context of portraiture –‘‌a portrait that declines to name its subject becomes complicit, if inadvertently, in the cult of celebrity that has fuelled an insatiable appetite for the opposite sort of photograph: to grant only the famous their names demotes the rest to representative instances of their occupations, their ethnicities, their plights’ and ‘Photographs objectify: they turn an event or a person into something that can be possessed. And photographs are a species of alchemy, for all that they are prized as a transparent account of reality.’ She also talks about memory and mourning and how photographs help with memory, how they can ‘haunt us’. She says ‘Memory is, achingly, the only relation we can have with the dead. So the belief that remembering is an ethical act is deep in our natures as humans’ – Sontag is discussing this in the context of images of war, terrorism and similar acts of violence but it also applies to memory of those near to us, friends, relatives, those we know.

Reference list

Chandler, D. and von Zwehl, B. (2014). Made up love song. London: V & A Publishing.

Sontag, S. (2003). Regarding the pain of others. New York: Picador.

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Learning Log, Photographers

Bettina von Zwehl

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Bettina Von Zwehl is a German photographer who lives and works in London. She concentrates on portrait photography and has held several artists residencies in museums both in Britain and abroad. Her early work included photographing people in very precise conditions, such as holding their breath or standing in the rain, soaking wet. Later work has moved more towards miniatures, with a clear aim to simplify the portrait while maintaining the central concept of the series.   The later miniatures are jewel-like in their intensity.

Made Up Love Song (2011):

http://www.bettinavonzwehl.com/made-up-love-song.html

This series done was made as part of an artist’s residency in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Inspired by the portraits in the gallery, but especially by the painted miniatures, Von Zwehl took a series of images of staff in the gallery, but the core of the work revolved around a series of portraits of Sophie taken 3 times a week over 6 months. The photographer and the subject started out as complete strangers and they gradually developed a relationship. The portraits are all posed in the same way (in profile) and in the same place, taken by a window in natural light.

Only the hair style changes. The expression on the face gradually softens. The images were shown as miniatures and eventually published in book format (Chandler and Von Zwehl, 2014).

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Image from Made Up Love Song © Bettina Von Zwehl

Invitation to Frequent the Shadows (2014 -16):

http://www.bettinavonzwehl.com/the-sessions.html

This is a series of related works done in response to a residency in the Freud Museum. She uses the idea of psychoanalysis to spark ideas related to grief, loss and personal exploration.  One of these works The Sessions consists of 50 fragmented silhouettes which she describes as ‘A voyage to the core of my practice …. It reflects the love/hate relationship with my medium. It’s a glimpse into that dark, magical void’ (Von Zwehl and Cohen, 2013). The pieces show partial images of the silhouette of a young girl that appear to have been torn up. Destroyed, but not quite. It would appear possible to recreate the initial image – but do the individual fragments tell you more – or less?

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Image from The Sessions © Bettina Von Zwehl

Meditations in an Emergency (2018):

http://www.bettinavonzwehl.com/meditations-in-an-emergency.html

This series was taken during an artist’s residency at the New York Historical Society. These are 17 portraits based on the mass shooting in a Parkland, Florida High school in 2017. The teenagers in the images stand in for those killed, and also reflect on the protest ‘die-ins’ performed by teenagers in front of the White House. The portraits are done in black and white, showing prone teenagers who had responded to her call for volunteers to the schools in New York. She reports in an interview with Alyssa Coppelman that ‘it was all quite casual to make the teens feel comfortable ……. Some of the teens expressed their anxiety about going to school knowing that another school shooting could happen on any given day …… I worked with the effects of gravity and highlighted the weight of strands of hair or small necklaces’ (Coppelman, 2019). The also said that she had been working with subjects in profile for 18 years, having been influenced by the Renaissance paintings. She also is working to reduce the information – hence the use of silhouettes. This particular set was inspired by a series of very simple black and white profile portraits by Tappen from the 1790’s which she found within the museum’s collection.

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Image from Meditations in an Emergency © Bettina Von Zwehl

Summary:

Von Zwehl’s work is fascinating. She uses series of portraits to show ideas rather than individual people. She has gradually moved away from overt personal representation to representation of the concept.  What is friendship? What is fear? Her work echoes that of the much earlier Renaissance painters, with their silhouettes and miniatures but used in a modern context. She concentrates on the person, not the background, which is rarely visible – so the images become timeless and of any place.  The profile view is one rarely used in vernacular imagery at present, especially within the vast ‘selfie’ culture and acts to formalise the image. A quick look though my own images shows how rarely I use it. A fascinating and different take of portraiture.

Reference list:

Chandler, D. and Von Zwehl, B. (2014). Made up love song. London: V & A Publishing.

Coppelman, A. (2019). Bettina von Zwehl’s Haunting Tribute to the Parkland School Shooting Victims | Hatje Cantz | fotoblog. [online] Hatjecantz.de. Available at: https://www.hatjecantz.de/fotoblog/?p=11167 [Accessed 14 2019].

Von Zwehl, B. and Cohen, J. (2013). Invitation to Frequent the Shadows – Interview with Bettina Von Zwehl | LensCulture. [online] LensCulture. Available at: https://www.lensculture.com/articles/bettina-von-zwehl-invitation-to-frequent-the-shadows [Accessed 19 Sep. 2019].

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Coursework, Learning Log, Part 2 - Street and studio, Photographers, Project 1 - The unaware

Walker Evans

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Walker Evans (1903-75) was an American photographer who had previously worked for the USA Farm Security Administration taking, among other images, photographs of the people with their complete awareness, to show the lives of the farmers in the Depression.  He went on to produce the book Let Us Now praise Famous Men together with the writer James Agee, which described, in detail, the lives of farmers in Alabama. He then had a major exhibition in The Museum of Modern Art American Photographs accompanied by a book of the same name which showed what had been described as a portrait of America of that time showing the ‘the tangible expressions of American desires, despairs, and traditions’ (Metmuseum.org, 2004).

Between 1938 and 1941 Walker Evans took a series of portraits of people on the New York City subway.  Unlike his previous images these were taken covertly. Evans used a set-up where he blacked out his camera, strapped it under his coat and allowed the lens to show out between the buttons. He then threaded a release cable down his sleeve into his hand. Using this method, he took a series of images of people at close range, he was often sitting opposite them and able to observe them in their private and unguarded moments. Evans said “The guard is down, and the mask is off, even more than when in lone bedrooms (where there are mirrors). People’s faces are in naked repose down in the subway” (Metmusuem.org, 2004). These images were eventually published in a book Many are Called in 1966. The book was reissued in 2004 associated with an exhibition and is discussed in an interview with Jeff Rosenheim which is available at:

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4156233?storyId=4156233&t=1565772143009

Rosenheim says, ‘The pictures work intimately because you feel Evans sitting there…the other passengers could probably tell this guy was up to something…. some of them are looking at him…. Evans had always been interested in the social facts of his time…. he was trying to understand his time … these pictures, both then and now, was another way of looking at the great struggle by individuals to survive… a true documentary product’ (Ludden, 2004).

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Walker Evans
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Walker Evans

The pictures are fascinating. They show true snapshots of life. A person leaning back asleep next to a person leaning forward also apparently asleep. Two women, both looking severe, one clutching a bag, the other with a fur coat, they look as though they are from very different parts of the social spectrum – but both are on the subway. A pair of nuns. A mother holding a bored child. People reading newspapers. Women in fancy hats. With the exception of the number of hats being worn, most of these images could be taken nowadays. People were doing the same thing then while traveling as would happen today, talking, sleeping, reading, controlling the children, clutching the shopping or a handbag. Their expressions are, in Evans’ words ‘naked’. If you take a ride on a crowded train today – would they be as off guard – possibly not on the subway, because of fear of pickpockets, but on a long train journey probably yes.

Nowadays we have long discussions about the ethics of taking pictures covertly. Legally it is allowable, at least in the United Kingdom, although not so in all countries. Everywhere we go pictures are taken, by people, by security cameras, by Google. In Evans’ era this discussion was not open. People in general were aware of the profusion of cameras – but would almost certainly not have consciously thought they would be the subject of an image that would be published, not unless they were already famous. The book and exhibition showing these images was not published until many years later. Was Evans deliberately giving people their privacy as has been suggested, or was that simply that that was the time he wanted to show the image?

References and Sources:

Evans, W. and Agee, J. (2004). Walker Evans – Many are called. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

Evans, W. and Kirstein, L. (2016). American photographs. New York: The Museum of Modern Art.

Ludden, J. (2004). Many are Called – Walker Evans Subway Photographs. [online] Npr.org. Available at: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4156233?storyId=4156233&t=1565772143009&t=1566290520744 [Accessed 20 Aug. 2019].

Metmuseum.org. (2004). Walker Evans (1903-1975). [online] Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/evan/hd_evan.htm [Accessed 20 Aug. 2019].

 

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Assignment 1 - The non-familiar, Learning Log, Reflections and tutor reports, Reflections on assignment 1

Assignment 1 – Initial Thoughts

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Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills:

  • The portraits are well composed and central in the frame, with enough space around them to not look cramped
  • I considered cutting them to a square format, and bringing them much closer in to concentrate more on the faces – I am still not sure whether this would be a better option as it removes the distraction element of the background
  • There were alternative images for each person – some of them looking serious, some pulling silly faces or laughing but I deliberately chose a set where the expressions were similar to focus on the similarities of people rather than their mood at the time of taking the image.
  • I tried to put the people at their ease by chatting (and offering cake) – I feel this has come across in the portraits as they all seem relaxed, in spite of having a photograph taken by a stranger with minimal warning.

 Quality of outcome:

  • The images are of a reasonable quality, sharp and stand out from the background
    • It might have been better to take the people standing further away from the trees so that I could put the trees more out of focus, but the positioning was limited by the width of the pavement
      • I could have chosen a better photographic place to allow for the above point – but then I wouldn’t have been able to take the people on my street

 Demonstration of creativity:

  • I extended a previous piece of work The Square Mile as the basis of the assignment
  • The work was loosely based on Sander’s typology – with each person titled by their role rather than name, but the background does not give any additional information

 Context:

  • The whole assignment was based on the work done in part 1 and as such I did not reference any additional research into portraiture
  • The work was based on the theory of typologies, although the group was chosen by place rather than role.
  • More explanation could be put into the written accompanying piece, but it might be repetitive
    • Could deal with this by linking better to earlier pieces of work in part 1.

Overall, I am happy with this piece of work – although I am still not very confident about taking pictures of strangers. It is definitely a skill that needs practice.

Learning Log, Notes from books

The Nature of Photographs

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Stephen Shore’s book The Nature of Photographs is also called ‘a Primer’, and that it exactly what it is. The initial edition was published in 1998, the edition I have (2nd) was updated in 2007. Shore describes it as ‘drawing from’ Szarkowski’s Photographer’s Eye. Both books use images to explain the concepts rather than relying on words as many theory books do. Shore’s book looks at the way photographs function, how they work as images and what the photographer is doing when he takes a picture. He aims to describe the ‘physical and formal attributes of the print. While the book is mainly discussing print on paper images many of the concepts also apply to digital photography, especially as so many images are now looked at on a hand held device, a phone or a tablet, and passed around in the same way a print image would have been in the past.

The Physical Level:

The picture is flat and has edges, which form the boundaries of the image. It is static, was taken at a particular moment, and may be colour – which is the way the eyes naturally see, or monochrome – which we may interpret differently.  It can be saved, bought, copied, shown in a book or a museum. These factors (the context) alter the viewers interpretation.

The Depictive Level:

Unlike a painting, where the artist starts from a blank canvas, the photographer starts with the world and imposes their order on it. S/he selects what theory want to show. S/he has a style and the way the image is taken gives it structure. Shore describes four ways that define the way an image is formed:

  1. A picture is 2D, not 3D (unless it is a stereograph, as was very popular in early Victorian photography). The image is taken from a specific vantage point which needs to be chosen, and although it may give an illusion of depth, it is an illusion. He compares two images by Struth – one of his forest images (Paradise 9) which appears flat and dense, with one of the Pantheon in Rome which gives an illusion of distance, drawing you in to the picture. A minimal shift in the position the image is taken from can alter the meaning of the picture.
  2. The edge matters. What is included and what is left out. What is implied by just showing part of something? Lines leading out of the images (streets, paths) imply something else might be happening elsewhere.
  3. The exact moment the image is taken. What is shown in one particular instant will be different from an image taken a second later. Time freezes things – but this can be a very short time with a clear, crisp image (a decisive moment), or a longer time frame with blur implying movement or a very long time frame when the movement is lost completely (a example is the pictures taken in the Museum of Modern Art by Michael Wesley ).
  4. The camera lens depicts a plane of focus (the depth of field). This may be shallow or deep and, except for a few cameras, is parallel to the plane of the camera. Focus can be used to draw the eye to the main point of the image.

The Mental Level.

What you see in a picture is not only exactly what the image shows, but what your brain interprets it as. When you look at a picture that has an illusion of depth you feel as though you are refocusing at different points of it, but your eyes are not changing focus – your brain is doing that work. By choosing carefully exactly how to take an image the photographer can encourage the viewer’s mind to see what s/he wants them to. To follow their line of vision. What a photographer pays attention to will affect what is seen. Shore says ‘The quality and intensity of a photographer’s attention leave their imprint on the mental level of the photograph. This does not happen by magic’ (p. 110). The mental model is dependent on conscious thought. Each level, physical, depictive and mental builds on the earlier ones. What you see leads you to change how you look, to change in turn what you are thinking to further change what you see.

Shore’s book is simple to read, but I return to it to remind me of the basics of what I am doing and to remind me to think about what I am seeing and how I can make that visible to my viewer’s.

Reference list

Shore, S. (2007). The Nature of Photographs. London; New York: Phaidon.

Szarkowski, J. (2009). The Photographer’s Eye. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

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Coursework, Learning Log, Part 1 - Origins of photographic portraiture, Photographers, Project 2 - Typologies

Huebler- Variable Piece #101

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huebler
Douglas Huebler – Variable Piece #101 ©unknown

Douglas Huebler (1924-1997) was a pioneer of Conceptual Art. He started as a painter, moved towards sculpture and then to making his series that he called ‘Duration Pieces’, ‘Variable pieces’ and ‘Location Pieces’ in which he documentaries places, people or everyday activities using photographs, maps and drawings. One example of this is Variable Piece # 101. In this piece he took 10 pictures of Bernd Becher who was asked to pose, in the following order, as: “a priest, a criminal, a lover, an old man, a policeman, an artist, Bernd Becher, a philosopher, a spy, and a nice guy.”  Some months later, when Becher had presumably forgotten exactly what he did, he sent the images back to Becher and asked him to identify each face. Huebler then exhibited these pieces together with the list of what he had asked Becher to act out and the list of Becher titles. He was very clear “Ten photographs and this statement join together to constitute the final form of this piece.” The whole work of art was constructed from both the images and the list – but he only identified the images by number and did not say whether the list of titles belonged to his original order, Becher’s order, or indeed a completely different order. It was further confused by the fact that the work was exhibited twice, once in the Los Angeles Museum  of Contemporary Art and once in Limoges and catalogues lists exist showing both of these, but the images are shown in different orders in the two places and only numbered in the Limoges catalogue. Two of the images are actually different between the two catalogues.

Pitheads 1974 by Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher 1931-2007, 1934-2015
Hilda and Bernd Becher

Bernd Becher himself was a notable typologist, usually working with his sister Hilla Becher. They photographed industrial structures such as water towers, and factories, always in black and white. They showed the images in sets (typologies), usually layed out in a grid pattern. A quote from them on the Tate website says ‘We photographed water towers and furnaces because they are honest. They are functional, and they reflect what they do – that is what we liked. A person is always what s/he wants to be, never what s/he is. Even an animal usually plays a role in front of the camera’ (Tate, 2016).

Huebler’s work in Variable Piece 101 plays on the typology work of the Bechers, both by using Becher himself as a participant and also by laying the black and white images out in a grid. However, unlike their work where there is no ambiguity, the piece by Huebler is full of it. Which image is which? Which image did Becher identify as what? And why did he change the pictures between the two exhibitions – and which set did he show to Becher to be sorted? The title causes confusion rather than clarity. In an illuminating essay by Hughes, he points out that Becher turns the whole exercise back on the Bechers, confusion not clarity, a person rather than buildings (Hughes, 2007).

Catholic Priest 1927, printed 1990 August Sander 1876-1964 ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Lent by Anthony d’Offay 2010

Huebler also comments photographically on the earlier work of August Sander and his typologies. The ‘types’ that Becher is asked to perform are some of the types that Sander divided his portfolio into; philosopher, policeman, priest, old man, criminal, and artist. However, Sander showed his images as individuals, rather than in a grid pattern. Huebler is subverting Sander’s work in that it is impossible to tell which face is supposed to be which character, and, of course, they are all images of one person. It is possible, and an interesting exercise, to cut out the faces from some of the less well-known photographs by Sander, present them to another person in a random order, and see what ‘type’ they would be identified as. Even if you gave a list of possible types I suspect that everyone would order then differently.

This piece of work emphasises how crucial it is to know the intention of the artist. The meaning of the images here are elusive. The titles are potentially misleading not clarifying. The piece needs to be seen as a whole.   What is Huebler telling us? The clearest reading is not to believe the obvious. To be aware of potential for confusion. Nothing is fixed, all is variable. The meaning is what you see which may be different from what the person next to you sees.

References:

Hughes, G. (2007). Game Face: Douglas Huebler and the Voiding of Photographic Portraiture. Art Journal, 66(4), pp.52–69.

Tate (2016). Who are Hilla and Bernd Becher? | Tate. [online] Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/bernd-becher-and-hilla-becher-718/who-are-bechers.