Learning Log, Photographers

Joel Sternfeld

1 Comment

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

Leave a comment

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.

‌

 

Learning Log, Photographers

Bettina von Zwehl

2 Comments

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).

2940372
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?

10-fragment013-cutout-jpeg10_orig
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.

BVZ_Meditations-in-an-Emergency_2018-16
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].

‌

Assignment 1 - The non-familiar, Reflections on assignment 1

Assignment 1 – Rethink

1 Comment

I had a very interesting discussion with my tutor about assignment 1. In which he said:

‘It’s clear that you have engaged with the assignment and produced an appropriate response to the brief. Photographing strangers can be a fairly daunting prospect so it’s great to see that you embraced the situation and assignment brief. Your idea to set up a table and photograph outside of your house is an interesting concept. It’s evident that you made your subjects feel comfortable resulting in their willingness to sit for you. As we discussed, it’s clear that you could have taken more control over the portrait sessions, remember that you are the creative, you are the author, the one with the vision. In future try and take more control over the situation, you are the director. Mostly it’s about confidence and the more you engage with portrait photography the more accomplished you will become – so make sure that you continue to pursue this genre.’

Further discussion was around the fact (that I was already aware of) that all the people were smiling. He suggested I went through the images again and tried for different edits:

  1. All the people with a deadpan face
  2. All the people looking in different directions.

We also discussed that I could have been more directive with where I wanted my subjects to stand – to avoid the problem with random variations of background.

Deadpan Edit:

Assignment 1 redo (5 of 5)
The Plumber
Assignment 1 redo (3 of 5)
The Lady (retired)
Assignment 1 redo (2 of 5)
The Businesssman
Assignment 1 redo (1 of 5)
The Postman
Assignment 1 redo (1 of 1)
The Teacher

Different Directions:

Assignment 1 redo (1 of 5)
The Court Usher
Assignment 1 redo (2 of 5)
The Businessman
Assignment 1 redo (5 of 5)
The Lady (retired)
Assignment 1 redo (3 of 5)
The Entrepreneur
Assignment 1 redo (4 of 5)
The Social Worker

Both sets have a very different feel, and also a different feel from the original edit. Overall, I think I prefer the ‘Deadpan’ set. I was fascinated to find how such a relatively small change in the edit could make such a difference to the project.

I further change I have experimented with is to make all the deadpan images black and white which I think suits the style and also takes the focus away from the clothes and the bright colouring onto the faces. It also deals with the background variation problem.

Assignment 1 redo (1 of 5)Assignment 1 redo (2 of 5)Assignment 1 redo (3 of 5)Assignment 1 redo (4 of 5)Assignment 1 redo (5 of 5)

Summery and Learning Points:

  • Make sure you are in control of the image
  • Decide in advance what ‘feel’ you want to the series
  • Be in control of the exact placement of the person you are photographing

 

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

Walker Evans

3 Comments

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).

3428-018-web
Walker Evans
cri_000000188601
Walker Evans
2180
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].

 

‌

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

Assignment 1 – Initial Thoughts

Leave a comment

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.

Assignment 1 - The non-familiar

Assignment 1- The non-familiar

Leave a comment

The brief was to take 5 portraits of people from your local area who were unknown to you.

 Until starting the OCA course portrait photography was something I avoided at all costs. I would happily take snapshots of others using there’re cameras if asked to do so, I have a plethora of shots of my children growing up, all informal – but no formal, or even semi-formal portrait images. The first project my first tutor asked me to do was in assignment 2 – Collecting, when he asked me to do the collection of faces. I was terrified. I went down our local park with my dog and allowed her to choose who we approached – I then asked them for an image and surprisingly few said no. Since then I have become more confident, but mainly with people I know. I took many of the pictures at my daughter’s wedding – not the formal ones, but those of her friends and family. I have taken pictures at ‘work do’s’ – and given people the resulting images. However, I still approach taking pictures of strangers with trepidation.

For this assignment I expanded on a thought I had had earlier in IAP when we were asked to think over our very first assignment The Square Mile. I had thought it would be interesting to take portraits of people in my street and ask them why they were there – so I decided to do exactly that. I picked a site just outside my house, where I could set up a table and chair and where a reasonable number of people might walk past in a day. I was initially worried that none of them would be strangers as I have lived in that house for 25 years, but in practice that was not the case

Research:

Prior to doing this exercise I read the link provided by OCA and found it interesting that so many people are anxious about talking to and photographing strangers – but that most had similar experiences that when they actually did it people were generally friendly and helpful.

Shooting Strangers

This assignment was heavily based on the work done earlier in part one looking at portraiture and typologies.

Planning:

  • I decided that I needed to inform the people who I was and what I was doing – so I had some very simple business cards made up with my name and an email address.
  • I needed to test out the site, my son and our neighbour became test subjects.
  • This led on to some cutting back of overhanging tree branches to minimise distractions.
  • I needed a day with reasonable weather – so people would be prepared to stop and talk to me – this was a case of being ready to use the first opportunity.
  • I thought I should have something to offer people in return so baked cakes.

Assignment details:

  • I set up my stall (a table and chair, with cards and cake) outside my house.
  • I linked my camera to an iPad so I could show the subjects their images immediately
  • I waited!
  • Over the day I managed to get 12 portraits of people. I offered them all a card and said that I would be happy to send them a copy of the portrait – but nobody has asked for one (everybody took a piece of cake).
  • I spent some time talking to each person, recording their first name, their occupation and why they were in the street.

Thoughts:

Talking to the strangers was easier than I had expected. Almost everybody was prepared to stop and talk to me, even the postie, the dustbin man and the person digging up the burst water main.  They were happy to tell me about themselves, some were very chatty, others fairly brief. I got 2 refusals, with just a wave, and a ‘too busy’. I got one person who stopped for a long chat, saying he took photos himself – but he was always the person behind the camera and didn’t allow any pictures of himself to be taken.

Most of the people walking past were complete strangers, even the ones who also live in the street. Two had just moved in, but one had also lived there 20 years. It is worrying how little I know about my neighbours, even in a quiet, residential street, where most people live long term. Two of my close neighbours also asked to be photographed when they saw what I was doing – but I have not included them in this collection.

Everyone was interested in looking at the images I had taken on the iPad. Some asked for me to redo them as they were not happy with their pose. Some pulled very silly faces, then couldn’t stop laughing.

The light changed dramatically over the day, with changes between flat light under cloud cover to bright sunlight. I was also out all day, so the position of the sun changed, initially to one side then overhead then directly behind me shining into the people’s faces. This caused some problems with reflections. The project could  have been  carried out over a much longer period of several days, going out at the same time every day, but I was interested to catch the group of people who went down the street over one day – so had to allow for the changing light.

I wondered about cropping the images to a square format – and am still not sure about the better option – more space versus close detail.

I also considered a black and white conversion to echo the images of Sander more closely – but decided that these were 21st Century images, not 20th – so felt better in colour.

Final Images:

I took pictures of: the postman, the dustman, a water repair man, a teacher, a policeman, a retired businessman, a social worker, another teacher, an entertainments manager (his description – he puts up bouncy castles), a sheriff  court official, another retiree and a stay-at-home father.

Assignment 1 (1 of 1)-3
The Social Worker
The Teacher
The Teacher
Assignment 1 (4 of 5)
The Policeman
Assignment 1 (3 of 5)
The Dustbin Man
Assignment 1 (1 of 5)
The Postman

Contact Sheets:

Coursework, Exercise 1.4 - Archival intervention, Part 1 - Origins of photographic portraiture, Project 3 - Portraiture and the archive

Exercise 1.4 – Archival intervention

Leave a comment

The brief for this exercise is to look though your own family archives and find a series of portraits that have not been linked together before and use them to tell a story.

 Looking though my family archives was an interesting activity in itself. There are 5 sections:

  1. My own images – mostly now in a digitised format and on Lightroom. However, I was not good at sorting them until recently – so finding particular pictures still means skimming at high speed through around 80 000 images, some of which are duplicates. Luckily the human brain is very good at recognising images of faces.
  2. My husband’s early photos – in a series of albums
  3. My mother’s photo album together with several shoe boxes of completely unsorted snapshots.
  4. My father’s photo album
  5. My father-in-law’s boxes of unsorted snaps.

I almost never got onto doing the exercise!

Research:

I started by looking at the images of Hardman’s service chronotypes. I considered using my archives to replicate some of this as my father was in WWII. I have several images of him in uniform, and later images of him dressed much more informally. There is an extensive essay discussing the Hardman collection by Keith Roberts, which, along with issues about ownership of the images, and right to look at them, discusses the theories of nostalgia and how it can be evoked by looking at archival portraits. Nostalgia can be ‘reflective’ – looking at an individual history and ‘restorative’ looking at the past of a nation. (Roberts, 2015). My father died when I was young – age 8 and all I have of him are limited memories – but these are always sparked by looking at these photographs.

Lorie Novak, in her work Past Lives looks at at how images from her childhood, snapshots, bring back evocative memories and how important photographs of family members can become when the people are lost, either to death or simply missing and how we learn to understand both ourselves and the world through photographic images.

Valentin Sidorenko in Roots of the heart grow together talks about his extended family. He says ‘Family members died before I could get to know them, talk to them, love them. Years later I started meeting them separately via our family photo archive’. He collected family photographs and has collaged them together to show the links between different branches of the family. He says ‘I started with a photo album of my mom and dad, which they kept at home. I wrote letters to other relatives, and in the end, I got about a thousand pictures. It was like a detective story. I think it was one of the most exciting experiences in my life.’ (George, 2019).

Planning:

I decided to concentrate on images of my mother, who is now 95 and very frail. This still left me with an impossible number of images.

So, I carried on selecting down:

  • Images including my mother (Oma)
    • Images also including other family members
      • Images spaced well over time
        • Images that told a story.

At each stage I eliminated near duplicates.

This gave me a starting point. I have a recent image of her in a pensive mood. It is a ‘snapshot’ taken while she wasn’t looking at me and is very true to how she is now, in her chair, surrounded by blankets and scarves, next to her trolley with her essential items (pills, glasses, phone). I imagined her thinking back over time about important events in her life. I do not have pictures of all of these, for instance, I don’t have any pictures taken at either of her weddings. I don’t have a picture of her with my father, or with my stepfather. I don’t have any pictures of my grandparents – although I might be able to get these from my cousin.

Final Images:

I have a very early image, sepia toned, and poorly focused (probably because it is a photo of a scanned image of the original) of her age 4 and her two brothers (aged 3 and 2). It is composed with the 3 children standing in a line – although the youngest clearly was not co-operating. It was taken in 1928 in Germany – and this seemed a good starting point. I then chose an image of her holding myself at my christening. A formal image, with my mother in a suit and hat. The original image is small, black and white and there are several copies of it. Clearly it was an important day. Next comes an image of her holding her oldest grandchild (Alice) just after she was born. We have now moved on to colour. The picture was originally taken on colour film and has been scanned. The final image was taken in colour on a camera phone. The 4 images cross 91 years, a continent and 3 generations. I considered changing all the images to either black and white or sepia to reflect on the fact that they are memories – but decided to leave them in their original colours to both show the change of styles of photography over the time and also to imply  the more recent memories with the increasingly clear images.

 

Oma's Family (4 of 4)-2

Thoughts:

It is difficult to imagine my mother as a child. My memories centre around her playing with her grandchildren. In a longer exercise, with far more images, it would be interesting to include pictures of myself and Alice at much the same age as Oma, as she is known, as a child. I have printed the images and will take them to show my mother and ask her what she remembers about them.

Contact sheets of initial family images:

Reference list

http://lenscratch.com/author/daniel-george (2019). Valentin Sidorenko: Roots of the heart grow together. [online] LENSCRATCH. Available at: http://lenscratch.com/2019/07/valentin-sidorenko-roots-of-the-heart-grow-together/ [Accessed 6 Aug. 2019].

Novak, L. (2005). Fragments and Past Lives – Gender and Culture in the 1950s. [online] Available at: https://lorienovak.com/pdfs/Novak_Fragments_PastLives.pdf [Accessed 6 Aug. 2019].

Roberts, K. (2015). There/Then: Here/Now Photographic Archival Intervention within the Edward Chambre Hardman Portraiture Collection (1923-63).

There Then: Here Now. (2015). Servicemen – There Then: Here Now. [online] Available at: https://hardmanportrait.format.com/untitled-gallery [Accessed 6 Aug. 2019].

 

 

 

Learning Log, Notes from books

The Nature of Photographs

Leave a comment

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.

‌

 

 

 

Coursework, Exercise 1.3 - Portraiture typology, Part 1 - Origins of photographic portraiture, Project 2 - Typologies

Exercise 1.3 Portraiture typology

Leave a comment

Typologies are tricky things. The definition is straightforward. According to Collins English dictionary it is: ‘A typology is a system for dividing things into different types, especially in science and the social sciences.’ A much longer definition/explanation is in an essay by Paul Davis in which he argues that ‘the primary reasons to create a photographic typology would be to either create a connection between subjects that share no obvious visual relationship. Or to compare and highlight differences and/or similarities between subjects that do share a visual relationship. Context frames the work. If creating a visual relationship was the intention, the context will then provide further confirmation. These three factors can be used to assess possible intention and enhance interpretation’.

https://medium.com/@pdtv/can-the-photographic-typology-be-defined-bfa38d5699f3

For this exercise we are asked to ‘create a photographic portraiture typology … to bring together a collection of types …. Don’t make the series too literal and obvious’. It was the last criteria that gave me difficulty. All the collections I could think of were literal.

 I experimented with taking pictures of people who were in a very close ‘club’ – that of train drivers – but specifically of those old trains that have been restored and now are run as a hobby. These people are fascinating, and variable, not all men, not all old! I went to two trains to explore this and it is something I want to explore further- but it is going to take considerable time to do, as they are not close to gather in space, are often only open at the weekends (and not all weekends) and need good weather! This is a long-term project – and one I will continue with.

I then decided to use an opportunity to take images of a group of people I work with. It was l leaving do, a lunch affair. This had its own difficulties. We were inside, so the light was not good, and varied between the two rooms we were in. There were a lot of background distractions, other people, odd pieces of furniture, windows and doors. The group wanted me to take their photos – but did not want to stay still or pose formally. I likened it to trying to herd cats. The group is all female, although not all the people I work closely with are. This is the group that chose to come to the event.

To produce a typology from this somewhat unpromising start I picked out the individual images and cropped them to a square head and shoulders views. I choose to process them as monochrome images, with a slight sepia tint, partly to bring them together as a set, and partly to play on the theme of a retirement, the end of an era. This typology could be titled with a variety of names:

  • Women who lunch
  • Doctors – specifically paediatricians
  • Friends
  • Retirees

This is a typology similar to Sander’s in that it is a close group of people, categorised by their profession, and therefore, inevitably by their social status. However, I suspect he would have been surprised to find the group of doctors consisting solely of women. I have chosen to think of them by their activity rather than their work, as several are retired. A marked difference from Sander’s images is that all are smiling – a change in convention for portraits from his times, and also due to the relaxed situation the images were taken in. The background suggests the informal nature of the event – but does not give clues to their occupation.

Final Typology – Women who Lunch

Learning points:

  • It is difficult to take images for one purpose (a typology) at an event
  • I need to improve my organisational and command skills – they wouldn’t hold still or look at me
  • Moving the whole group outside and doing it as a more formal exercise might have been both simpler and given better (more coherent) images

Positive points:

  • My portraiture skills are slowly improving
  • Everybody was pleased with their photos

Contact Sheets:

Reference list

Collinsdictionary.com. (2019). Typology definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary. [online] Available at: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/typology [Accessed 2 Aug. 2019].

Davis, P. (2017). Can the photographic typology be defined? [online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/@pdtv/can-the-photographic-typology-be-defined-bfa38d5699f3.

A Learning Log by Zoe