Part One – Martyn Rainbird

P1. Proj 5. The Manipulated Image

Technological advances have provided us with digital images which have allowed us to manipulate them for honourable but some times dishonourable purposes. It should not be forgotten that photographs have been manipulated since they were invented. Dark room processing allowed contrasts to be adjusted using techniques such as dodging and burning. Composite images have been created throughout the life of photography to produce artistic works. However they have often been used to deceive.

In the case of the Tony Blair Selfie [1] a composite was used to portray a different version of the truth. A truth that Tony Blair would never admit to. The authors of the composite had used an image of Tony Blair taking a selfie in front of a group of military personnel. They then replaced the background with a burning oil field. The joy on Tony Blair’s face makes you immediately question the validity of the image. Although the result is satirical it has a serious point regarding illegal war and potential war crimes.

The discussion in the Liz Wells ‘Photography: A Critical Introduction’ [2] looks at the digital age and observes that the historical definition of the nature of photography has changed. Previously photography was regarded as a true record but now that is no longer true with the latest digital transformation technologies.

At this point I have to admit that I have struggled immensely with Photoshop and understanding the multitude of tools and functions available. I have started with something that I thought was simple but found that this was an art form in its own right and requires a lot of skill and patience. I have attached the following screenshot to show my use of mask and text layers to create a composite from 3 images.

The scene I have manipulated is the ‘Balloons and Laughter’ shop that has been the subject of my Witham housing development series. On my initial visit in 2016 I took the image in the late afternoon when the shop was closed and cones were placed at the entrances. On my visit in 2017 the shop was open and so no cones were placed outside.

My manipulated image attempts to show that I could make the shop appear closed by adding two cones and amending the sign to say ‘Closed’. I also added a suspicious aspect of placing someone inside the building as if they were inside without permission or maybe the shop not closed at all.

The results are sloppy and I will have to continue to put more work in to it to get it anywhere near convincing enough. However I have written it up for now as I need to progress with the course and assignment submission.

Before

After

Original (2016)

References

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/oct/15/tony-blair-selfie-photo-opimperial-war-museum [accessed 12/09/17]
Photography: A Critical Introduction, Wells, L, pp92-95, Fifth Edition

P1. Proj 4. Ex. – Public Order

The Public Order series of images by Sarah Pickering are set in a police training grounds. The images are a combination of clean, geometric scenes and some more untidy and dirty. Each image gives a clue that these are not real street scenes. There is no human presence so the images convey a cold, clinical feeling.

My feeling is that these are good images showing the training environment and offer the viewer something that they would not normally see. However, once you are aware of the location the images don’t really offer anything extra than a true record of the venue.

The policing aspect doesn’t come across that strongly and there is no insight in to the life of a police officer or the danger involved. It looks more like an admin office team build location. An alternative approach would be to show the training action as it happens.

References:

Sarah Pickering – Public Order

P1. Proj 4. The Gallery Wall – documentary as art

Paul Seawright interview discussing criticism of his work:

Sometimes my work will be criticized for not being direct enough, for not being explicit, for being too ambiguous That the narrative is obscured or difficult. There’s a fine balance there. If it is too explicit then it becomes journalistic. I guess if it’s too ambiguous it becomes meaningless. The holy grail is to make work that visually engages people, that draws them in but gives itself up, gives its meaning up slowly. Good art does that and yet still gives its meaning up. You still have to be able to access what you are talking about. I think the work does that. Once you know its context, where the photographs were made, then each work is very resonant with all kinds of ideas. An exciting thing about art, the way people engage with art, the construction of meaning is not done by me its done by the person looking at the art work. You must leave space for that to happen. If you don’t then you really are going back to an editorial picture in a magazine that has to function in a different way. It has to be quick. It has to give up its meaning quickly because people will look at it for no more than fifteen seconds and turn the page. So there has to be a difference between that and what you do as a photographic artist. Finding that line is, I guess, the challenge.

I had looked at some of Paul Seawright’s work [2] about a year ago on the recommendation of my EYV tutor. Although I didn’t write it up in my course notes I admired the work as it made a political statement but didn’t take sides. It wasn’t judgemental. In fact if you didn’t know the context of Seawright’s work, his home, the titles or accompanying text you would be unsure as to what the point of the image was. The criticism of his work is a result of that lack of context and understanding.

The content of the work, such as ‘Police Force’ is not obvious enough to be journalistic but is there enough in the images to be regarded as art? Colour, composition, lighting? I think the answer to this is, yes.

If I walked in to a gallery and there was a room entitled ‘Police Force’ by Paul Seawright showing those images I would definitely get a sense of a message being conveyed and an uncomfortable feeling. There is ambiguity in the title. Is he criticising the amount of ‘force’ used by the RUC or is it a document of their role in Northern Ireland.

These images being displayed on a gallery wall allows the viewer to contemplate the meaning, the photographers thoughts and intentions. Admittedly without context the ‘Police Force’ set of images would be too ambiguous.

It is, maybe, for this reason, and past criticism of his work, that his ‘Sectarian Murder’ series was accompanied by text. The interesting aspect of this work is Seawright’s use of newspaper reports. A clever choice when trying to distinguish your ‘artistic’ work from journalism.

References:

Paul Seawright interview [accessed 23/08/2017]
Paul Seawright – Sectarian Murder [accessed 23/08/2017]
Paul Seawright – Police Force [accessed 23/08/2017]

P1. Proj 3. Exercise Street Photography B&W

I set out on a sunny day to my local high street and captured the colour images and black and white images in camera. I took the images as a colour and B&W pair using the same exposure settings. The only thing that changed was the difference in time to change camera setting between colour and B&W. Framing was usually similar but significantly the subjects in the frame vary between the colour and B&W.

I had decided to capture the two different formats in camera rather than just import them in to Lightroom and make a copy to create a B&W version. I wanted to use the experience to review the image immediately after taking it using the results to influence the next image as I progressed up the high street. The attached images have not been manipulated in Lightroom and are straight out of the camera.

On completing the exercise and initially reviewing the images I felt that composition was one of the most important aspects of a successful image. More so than the colour aspect. An image will be uninspiring no matter whether colour or B&W if the subject and/or action is not well framed or composed.

The more successful B&W images were of the older buildings where texture of the bricks and structures stand out due to the contrast between the highlights and the shade. Alternatively the better colour shots were of shop fronts containing bright ‘contrasty’ colours such as the polish supermarket and clothing printing shop.

The skill in a successful colour image is to ensure that surrounding and background colours are not distracting. This can be seen with the the colour Dorothy Sayers statue images. In one there is a distracting hanging basket with orange and whit flowers. In the other it is the green job centre sign.

The ‘Prezzo’ image works in both colour and B&W as the colours are complementary and overall fairly monochromatic.

The least successful B&W images are the flat shop fronts where there are no shadows. A certain amount of manipulation in lightroom could enhance an image but in most cases seeing an image and capturing in the moment is always best.

I don’t feel that one set is stronger than the other. One thing that B&W provides is a simpler, less distracting image but is overly used by amateur and student photographers to make up for poor framing and positioning. The choice of whether to present an image as Colour or B&W should have been decided before setting out and taking the image. That choice will be determined by the project you are producing and the feelings and message you want to convey to the viewer.

P1. Proj 3. Reportage – Street Photography

“The term ‘documentary’ has come to cover a variety of genres (news, journalism, art). ‘Reportage’ has an equally ambiguous definition within the wider documentary arena. While some news coverage may be done in a reportage manner (on the ground, close to the action), generally speaking reportage is more closely related to a subjective way of storytelling than the more objective intentions of photojournalism. In reportage what is implied is a story from the point of view of one person, showing expression and movement, as though one is experiencing the story for oneself. This is in contrast to a more distanced style, often described as cold, which lends itself better to typology and other categorical and informative uses of the medium. – OCA Context and Narrative Course Notes

Before discussing specific practitioners of ‘reportage’ I want to revisit my take on the colour and black & white discussion. I have briefly touched on the subject as part of the street photography exercise and using it as a creative choice prior to capturing an image. Certainly this should be the case if you are presenting images as ‘art’.

I’m not sure the likes of Robert Frank on his road trip for The Americans had a creative concept at the outset. At that stage in his career he was looking to be part of the Magnum group as he set of across America with his camera. It is possible that the ‘Americans’ concept and social critique only transpired on editing the images on his return. As a street photographer he just captured a reality that others hadn’t seen just by photographing as he travelled. Did he have an image in mind? A concept? Possibly not.

Did he have the choice of colour? No. That was in its infancy and not up to the standard required or accepted for his type of work. At some point in the mid to latter 20th Century colour was only regarded as suitable for advertising and family snapshots. It wasn’t a valid choice for street photography. William Eggleston and Joel Sternfield were early practioners of colour photography whose work started to be accepted as serious and entitled to hang on gallery walls.

I have researched William Eggleston in the EYV module – Portraits and one of his best known works ‘The Red Ceiling’. So far I have established that Eggleston’s work is an insight to him and his world. His work tells as more about him that it does the subjects and scenes he captures. In interviews he shies away from explaining what the images are about. For the ‘Red Ceiling’ his main fascination was the colour red and how this could be printed with the techniques at that time. So not really reportage…

…Joel Sternfeld however brings reportage and colour together with my favourite work being American Prospects (1987). In an interview he explains that his work has a serious political side even though the images contain humour such a s McLean, Virginia, December 1978. The scene of firefighters tackling a blazing building while a single firefighter buys a pumpkin from a farm market stall. I read this image as a critique of government where time is spent on sideshow actions rather than tackling the real problems. He goes on to say “In the era of iPhones and prolific social media uploads a photographic artist can no longer simply be aesthetic”. This may be the reason he has used text to accompany images in his 1996 book On This Site and his latest as yet untitled work.

P1. Proj 2. Aftermath and Aesthetics – ‘late photography’

David Campany discusses the problem of ‘late photography’ in an article called ‘safety in numbness'[1].

A definition of ‘late photography’ found on a Google search is as follows:

Late photographs picture material remains left in the aftermath of events that often involve forms of violence. These photographs are usually high in detail, but formally simple, framing aftermath sites in ways that suggest the reservation of judgement and commentary upon the things they picture.

‘Late’ photographs provide a thoughtful and reflective moment for the viewer. One question is ‘Has ‘shock’ imagery worked to decrease the number of wars and decrease the loss of life resulting from these events?’ I think not.

I have found it is too easy to stray towards making images precisely composed resulting in aesthetically pleasing. Although it is a simplistic example, my Languages of Light [2] assignment was intended to show the unsafe and intimidating environment of the local shops at night. The resultant images could have provided a more rugged and unpleasant feel as opposed to the strong clean lines and geometric shapes that I delivered.

Joel Meyerowitz – World Trade Centre Archive

David Campany had a similar criticism of images which he felt were aesthetically beautiful. A recent example of aftermath photography that successfully portrayed the devastation of a horrific disaster was an image of the Grenfell Tower fire released by the Metropolitan Police. It was published in a lot of the Sunday newspapers and rather than glamorise the incident or offer the usual ‘Exclusive!” status it provided the horror and devastation of a typical domestic scene. It’s a straight forward black and white (predominantly) composition as if you have just walked in the room.

Grenfell Tower image released by Metropolitan Police

This can be compared with another Grenfell Tower fire image below. Although it certainly does not glamorise the incident it tends towards the aesthetic by not only being in colour but also using the window openings to frame the cityscape views. The above black and white image provides a human aspect that the viewer can relate to. The colour image is far more neutral in terms of feelings evoked.

References

P1. Proj 2. Photojournalism

“Photography is the truth if it is handled by a truthful person.” – Don McCullin (2013)

Susan Sontag wrote in 1979 [1] that horrific images of war numb viewers’ responses., that they became immune to the impact. Although she revised this view later to ‘compassion fatigue’, it is still an important issue for photojournalism.

Recent Manchester terrorist attack resulted in some citizen journalism images being shared. One ‘citizen’ justified sharing graphic images by saying that she wanted people to see how horrible the world can be. I think a lot of people do know how horrible the world can be and that this could be seen as another ‘I was there’ moment.

One twitter user who was a survivor from an overseas terrorist attack a couple of years earlier pointed out how victims families and survivors are hounded by the media in the aftermath of these terrible events. She needed space to handle her thoughts and emotions but journalists didn’t give her or her family that opportunity. All they wanted was an angle and story to sell their newspaper. She said they moved on to a different story a week later. Her view was that media coverage of these types of events is irresponsible and adds stress to victims lives. She also identified that people who weren’t even there can suffer PTSD purely based on graphic images and descriptions of the events.

Don McCullin provides an insight in to war photography in the film documentary (2012) [2] by Jacqui Morris and David Morris. The film covers his career from the mid sixties to the eighties where he mainly provided images for the Sunday Times magazine. The images are harrowing and he does not hold back from showing the inhumanity of war. His dilemma is that he needs a picture but also wants to help. In most circumstances he did not have the power to help but he did have examples where he did.

Interestingly, the film interviews him in 2012 where he recounts his experience and these are interspersed with interview footage from previous decades. In the archive footage he discusses his work in a matter of fact fashion. He admitted that he enjoyed going to a war and wanted to go to more but realised that this increased the risk. It was only in the 2012 footage that he was reflective and emphasised the inhumanity of the world.

There was a parallel storyline and that revolved around the editorial aspect of the Sunday Times. McCullin worked under the editor Harold Evans when the Sunday Times’ coverage was independent and allowed McCullin a free hand at what he submitted. This stands in contrast to the photo coverage of the Farm Security Administration in America during the Great Depression where photographers were given a list of what types of images and content were required.

This independence changed significantly in the early 80s when Rupert Murdoch bought the Sunday Times and subsequently employed Andrew Neil as its editor. As a result there was a sea change in the independence of the newspaper and the likes of McCullin were no longer required.

An article [3] by Fred Ritchin from 2014 on the Time website highlighted the iconic images from wars during the last century and compared that to a lack of such images of wars in the 21st Century. This is possibly due to a decrease in independent journalism and media outlets – The Sunday Times being a prime example.

The conclusion I draw is that current media practice is to sensationalise everything. Their aim is not to help but to sell newspapers. Story first, impact on people second. Headlines have become more important than supporting images.

References

1. S. Sontag, On Photography, 1979

2. Don McCullin documentary, 2012, Jacqui Morris and David Morris.

3. http://time.com/3426427/syrian-torture-archive-when-photographs-of-atrocities-dont-shock/ (accessed 01/06/17)

P1. Martha Rosler – Documentary and Social Reform

The following post is a summary of the Martha Rosler essay In, Around and Afterthoughts (on documentary) (1981). I will add my own thoughts on how appropriate it is to 2017.

Below are direct extracts from Rosler’s essay. These are what I consider to be the key points and offer, I hope, a fair reflection of her arguments.

How can we deal with documentary photography itself as a photographic practice?

…[documentary photography] meant to awaken the self-interest of the privileged.

Charity is an argument for the preservation of wealth- an argument within a class about the need to give a little in order to mollify the dangerous classes below.

Documentary photography has been much more comfortable in the company of moralism than wedded to a rhetoric or program of revolutionary politics.

…the images might be more decisively unsettling than the arguments enveloping them.

The War on Poverty has been called oﬀ.

…[public opinion moving towards] the poor may be poor through lack of merit

There is as yet no organized national Left, only a Right.

…documentary fueled by the dedication to reform has shaded over into combinations of exoticism, tourism, voyeurism, psychologism and metaphysics, trophy hunting—and careerism.

…mainstream documentary has achieved legitimacy and has a decidedly ritualistic character. It begins in glossy magazines and books, occasionally in newspapers, and becomes more expensive as it moves into art galleries and museums.

One can handle imagery by leaving it behind. (It is them, not us.)

…eighties’ pugnacious self-interest

Documentary testiﬁes, ﬁnally, to the bravery or (dare we name it?) the manipulativeness and savvy of the photographer, who entered a situation of physical danger, social restrictedness, human decay, or combinations of these and saved us the trouble.

What happened to the man (actually men) in the photo? The question is inappropriate when the subject is photographs. And photographers. The subject of the article is the photographer. In 1978 there was a small news story on a historical curiosity:the real-live person who was photographed by Dorothea Lange in 1936 in what became the world’s most reproduced photograph.

Florence Thompson, seventy-ﬁve in 1978, a Cherokee living in a trailer in Modesto, California, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, “That’s my picture hanging all over the world, and I can’t get a penny out of it.”She said that she is proud to be its subject but asked, “What good’s it doing me?

Are photographic images, then, like civilization, made on the backs of the exploited?

…a documentary image has two moments:(1) the “immediate,”instrumental one, and (2) the conventional “aesthetic-historical”moment.

…topicality drops away as epochs fade, and the aesthetic aspect is, if anything, enhanced by the loss of speciﬁc reference

I understand, from the inside, photographers’ involvement with the work itself, …But I also become impatient with this perhaps-enforced protectiveness, which draws even the best intentioned of us nearer and nearer to exploitiveness.

[Arbus’ twins image being reworked in Sunday New York Times] This new work manages to institute a new genre of victimhood—the victimization by someone else’s camera of helpless persons, who then hold still long enough for the indignation of the new writer to capture them, in words and images both, in their current state of decrepitude.

As readers of the Sunday Times, what do we discover? That the poor are ashamed of having been exposed as poor, that the photos have been the source of festering shame. That the poor remain poorer than we are, for although they see their own rise in fortunes, their escape from desperate poverty, we Times readers understand that our relative distance has not been abridged; we are still doing much better than they.

Szarkowski – ‘Most of those who were called documentary photographers a generation ago . . . made their pictures in the service of a social cause. . . . to show what was wrong with the world, and to persuade their fellows to take action and make it right. . . . [A] new generation of photographers has directed the documentary approach toward more personal ends. Their aim has not been to reform life, but to know it.’

[Rosler’s opinion of Szarkowski’s statement] He makes a poor argument for the value of disengagement from a “social cause” and in favour of a connoisseurship of the tawdry.

[Rosler’s summation] Perhaps a radical documentary can be brought into existence. But the common acceptance of the idea that documentary precedes, supplants, transcends, or cures full, substantive social activism is an indicator that we do not yet have a real documentary.

P1. Proj 1. Eyewitnesses?

Find some examples of news stories where ‘citizen journalism’ has exposed or highlighted abuses of power. How do these pictures affect the story, if at all? Are these pictures objective? Can pictures ever be objective? Write a list of the arguments for and against.

Definitions:
An objective perspective is one that is not influenced by emotions, opinions, or personal feelings – it is a perspective based in fact, in things quantifiable and measurable.
A subjective perspective is one open to greater interpretation based on personal feeling, emotion, aesthetics.

Citizen journalism is on the increase and is openly encouraged by the likes of the BBC on their website. At the end of some of their reports they will seek eyewitness stories and images from the public with something like this:

Did you witness what happened in Times Square? If it is safe to do so let us know about your experiences. Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk with your stories. Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:
 WhatsApp: +44 7525 900971
 Send pictures/video to yourpics@bbc.co.uk
 Upload your pictures / video here
 Tweet: @BBC_HaveYourSay
 Send an SMS or MMS to 61124 or +44 7624 800 10
 Or use the form below...

The BBC don’t use this technique for every story. My view is that they select an ‘eyewitness’ for stories that fit their agenda. I have not seen many occasions where they seek an eyewitness to cover issues such as social poverty or government foul play. In essence they are appropriating other peoples images to convey their version of the story.

Events at the recent protest in the US outside the Turkish Embassy was captured by Herbert Maddison and posted on Twitter. Images of protesters being kicked and man-handled by Turkish bodyguards. The story and image were published in NY Daily with the correct attribution to the image taker. Permission for this type of image is via a request via Twitter from the publisher to the Twitter user. It is unlikely that a photographer from a newspaper would be there as the US government position is currently pro Erdogan. Even if they did have a pro photographer there it adds more realism by using a ‘citizan’ image which is low quality and poorly composed.

The comment and image as published in NY Daily is below:

Kurdish student Ceren Borazan was among the protesters who got caught up in the tidal wave of chaos and brutality that some are laying at the feet of Turkish President Erdogan. (Herbert Maddison via Twitter)

The Sarin gas attack in Syria in April 2017 was blamed on President Assad and resulted in bombing of an airfield by USA. Some say the attack was a hoax by the rebels. The following image being provided as evidence and shows people with bare hands washing victims. Experts say that this would have killed them if they touched the Sarin chemical.

The source of the above image is unknown but it is widely published on Twitter and used by many independent news You Tube channels. My assumption is that this is ‘citizen journalism’ due to the fact that professional journalists are now rare in Syria and unlikely to be in the area at the time of this attack. The question is which side is the ‘citizen’ on. Were they part of a “hoax”? Or did they take it to prove it was a “hoax”? Hoax or not, no mainstream news channel covered this aspect of the story or even suggested there may be another side to the attack. Most mainstream news outlets in the West are pro-war.

Interestingly You Tube channels are calling themselves ‘independent’ because they offer up a different story to mainstream news outlets. But how independent are they? Most are funded by You Tube viewers and not by corporate entities but they still have an ideology and broadcast to that mantra. Ultimately I have found you have to watch both and then make your own mind up. Although you will never know which one is true. Certainly not in the short term…maybe in 50 years time you might.

I think there are more reasons to question images by citizens than professional journalists. Usually we know the journalist and which publication they work for. We will know their previous work and can judge them based on that record. We will know what side they are on if we are open minded as viewers.

Citizen journalists, however, are unknown to us apart from a social media profile, which in some cases may even be fake. The image may have been modified and the situation manipulated more so than an image by a professional photographer, who will have to abide by some publishing standards. Although these rules have been proven to be flouted by some in the past at least there are standards in place. This cannot be said for the social media world where control is harder to maintain.

Against

Why was it taken?

Does the image taker have a ‘side’?

Who have they sent it to?

What hashtag have they applied to the post?

For

Adds realism, in the moment?

A passer by is impartial?