Photographers – Martyn Rainbird

Red Saunders

Red Saunders is a professional photographer who combines his photographic practice with cultural, artistic, musical, and political activism. (RED Saunders, 2018). He started out as a photographic apprentice, then as photographers assistant and then branching out on his own. His work includes images for Sunday Times supplement, advertising imagery and a lot of political and social projects across the world. He is also involved in film production and has directed films and advertising campaigns.

Saunders is a political activist and was a co-founder of ‘Rock Against Racism’ in 1976 as a response to racial antagonistic comments from influential musicians at the time. On that occasion his creative output led to a concert but his more recent ‘Hidden Project’ highlights significant social moments form the past.

William Cuffey and the London Chartists, 1842 (2008) is a tableaux using actors and props to recreate the signing of the petition demanding amongst other things the vote for all men over the age of 21. William Cuffey was the leader of the London branch of the Chartists, a movement for the rights and suffrage of the working class. Cuffey became so prominent in the movement that in 1848 The Times referred to his section of chartists as ‘the black man and his party’. (Craig. H, 2017).

These social movements and significant events are rarely known in popular culture. The 19th century arts of literature and painting were usually produced by and for the upper classes. In today’s society a movement such as the socialist group Momentum is seen as a threat to society by a large majority, but history shows us that these movements can make a huge change to people’s lives.

Red Saunders has used photography to bring such key ‘hidden’ social historical moments to the attention of a wider audience. The recreations are key moments in the long struggle of working people for democracy and social justice. Leveller Women in the English Revolution, 1647 was used on a banner during the TUC anti-austerity march in Manchester 2015 highlighting how projects like this can have an influence on real lives and not just on a gallery wall.

Leveller Women in the English Revolution, 1647 by Red Saunders (2014)

For this project he creates group scenes using actors, period costumes and make-up. They are constructed tableaux where he takes images of each person or small group that tells it’s own story and then digital re-touching is performed to piece it all together. There are similarities to the painting The First General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland signing the Act of Separation and Deed of Demission on 23rd May 1843 by David Octavius Hill (1802-1870). Robert Adamson (1821-1848) was Hill’s photographic partner and each of the key characters was photographed by Adamson individually to allow Hill to paint the entire scene of characters accurately.

The First General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland; signing the Act of Separation and Deed of Demission – 18th May 1843 (D.O. Hill RSA). Image © Free Church of Scotland, Photograph by George T. Thompson LRPS.

I have also made a similar comparison of this painting in my Teun Hocks post as he combines painting with photography. It is really interesting how these three artist/projects are linked across nearly 2 centuries and the influences and connections that can be made. The aim of Hills painting was to record all the people that were present at a key point in the Free Church’s history. Allowing people in the future to see in to the past. Red Saunders on the other hand has used his place and technology of the present to look in to the past.

I have attempted social and political subjects in several assignments on this course. They have been fairly basic documentary street photography type submissions with little use of creativity and no staging or props. It is certainly an area that I would like to explore as I have a keen interest in political and social democracy issues.

References:

RED Saunders (2018). Red Saunders Photo. At: http://www.redsaundersphoto.eu/home.html (Accessed 23 March 2018)

Craig, H (2017) The National Archives. http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/black-man-party-william-cuffey-chartist-leader/#note-34962-3

Bibliography:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cuffay

Red Saunders interview with UAF in 2016 – http://uaf.org.uk/2016/10/40-years-since-the-birth-of-rock-against-racism-rebel-music-that-broke-down-fear/

http://www.redsaundersphoto.eu/hidden-video.html

https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/specialcollections/collectionsa-z/hilladamson/hilladamsonbiographies/

Teun Hocks

“Performing as the everyman in his photographs, Hocks invents scenes that are confrontations with failure, puzzlement and wonder. The staged scenes show the man being thwarted, trapped, and frustrated with seemingly no solution. The mundane becomes heroic, the trivial task becomes a Sisyphean ordeal. Through it all, Hocks, acting as a stand-in for the viewer, endures with a Buster Keaton-inspired performance.” (PPOW Gallery, 2009)

Teun Hocks (b. 1947) is a Dutch artist who produces self portraits combining photography and painting. He paints his own backdrops then photographs himself within the scene. He prints the images in black and white applying a sepia tone. He then paints over them using transparent oil paint. He used this process for a body of work called Analogue Works.

The depictions are autobiographical with references to his previous jobs, successes and failures. Having been a performer in his earlier years he uses this to create humorous but thought provoking images.

In one image he is standing on the beach smoking a pipe looking at a cruise ship with smoke emanating from its funnel. Placed by his side is a suitcase. It appears that he has ‘missed the boat’.

In another he creates a space theme of himself blindfolded walking on the moon wearing a party hat and streamers hanging off of him. This is a surreal image which shows that his fellow partygoers have left him to keep venturing forward without knowing where he is. We know he is lost but he continues as if the party is continuing in someone’s home.

He uses shapes and mirroring of form, such as the pipe/funnel smoke, in another image which appears to be a reference to sleeping rough in a cardboard city. In the background he has painted a tower block city scape. In the foreground he has constructed a mirror image of those structures using cardboard boxes. He is found sleeping, in his suit, lengthways inside the cardboard boxes.

The colouring of the final images is fairly grey and subdued giving the feel of 19th century painting. The effect is ‘other wordly’, a fantasy or dream. The viewer is given a lot to consider. First and foremost is it a painting or a photograph. Who is the man in the photograph? Why is he doing what he is doing?

His ideas and the process to achieve the final product combines drawing, photography, painting and scenery construction. Although staged, the end to end process is a solo endeavour unlike a Gregory Crewdson production. This is apparent in the final outcomes of both of these artists. Crewdson’s are large scale cinematic creations whereas Hock’s are very personal, cartoon like simpler stories. However, both show off their individual qualities and skills even if the results are vastly different.

Although I do not have any painting skills or access to large cinematic lighting rigs I feel that this type of work is within my reach. Hock’s work especially shows off his personality as a witty fellow with a reflective serious side. I like that and feel I can use that to express my personality with photography.

Teun Hocks use of photography and painting reminded me of the process used for the painting The First General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland signing the Act of Separation and Deed of Demission on 23rd May 1843 by David Octavius Hill (1802-1870). Although the subject matter was different it is internationally important as being the first work of art painted with the help of photographic images. (University of Glasgow, 2018). Robert Adamson (1821-1848) was Hill’s photographic partner and each of the key characters was photographed by Adamson individually to allow Hill to paint the entire scene of characters accurately.

References:

University of Glasgow (2018). David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson. At: https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/specialcollections/collectionsa-z/hilladamson/hilladamsonbiographies/ (Accessed 23 March 2018)

PPOW Gallery (2009). Teun hocks: New Works. At: http://www.ppowgallery.com/exhibition/767/press-release (Accessed 23 March 2018)

Bibliography:

http://teunhocks.nl/

https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/teun-hocks-art-221116

https://whitehotmagazine.com/articles/work-by-teun-hocks-ppow/1707

Philip-Lorca diCorcia

“I’m not exactly misanthropic, but the idea that you can manipulate people and the world is an interesting and compelling motivation for me“.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia (2014)

Philip-Lorca diCorcia (b. 1951) is an American photographer who combines a street photography style with well staged scenes. A kind of staged candid street photography. To achieve this he researches sites and sets them up, usually without the actual subject in place. He then sets up a camera to capture his subjects, sometimes, unknowingly and other times to recreate a grabbed street photography moment. His lighting is theatrical and is a combination of natural daylight and studio lighting.

In one series he set up a tripod in with overhead strobe lighting. The camera triggered as passers-by walked past resulting in Streetwork (1998) and Heads (2001). In these series he does not know the subjects never speaks to them, doesn’t seek their permission and doesn’t pay them. Unfortunately he was sued by one of the people in the Heads (2001) series for using their image for commerce and advertising. The case eventually ruled in diCorcia’s favour because the person was walking in a public place. In addition he had not hidden himself away and also was not portraying them in a negative fashion.

DiCorcia discusses this difficult situation in this YouTube video: Philip-Lorca DiCorcia – Exposed at Tate Modern uploaded by Tate on 15 September 2010. He seems sympathetic to his subjects as he admits to probably not liking it if it happened to him. However, he maintains his right to do. In fact this is one of the points this work highlights, there are CCTV and surveillance cameras across large cities and people are unaware of how many times they are captured.

His study was to show, not how people are different, but how they are all the same. He was not trying to hide from them, he was “trying to show how they were trying to hide from those around them“. This is a trait of most of his work where what a person shows on the outside is not necessarily who they are on the inside.

In a 2014 video by HepworthWakefield published ion 19 February 2014 diCorcia creates everyday scenes and adds “dramatizing’ elements staging, lighting and coloured props, which viewers see as a narrative. The curator Dr Sam Lackey describes how diCorcia work blurs the line between what is real and what is fictional…what is documentary and what the artist is in control of. “It questions the fundamental premise of when you see a photograph you are seeing the truth“.

Because his work is cinematic he understands why people think his images contain stories. However, his process is based on what he calls a persons ‘interiority’ and how it is very different from their external appearance and how “to some degree life is a performance“.

He admits to not being comfortable taking pictures of people and has always distanced himself from the subject, rarely knowing them or even speaking to them. As the photographer he does not have a privileged relationship with the sitter which is unlike a traditional shoot. This comes across in the images and enables the viewer to bring there own meaning to the work.

His early work of the 70s and 80s was based indoors where he captured friends and family in mundane domestic scenes. Mario (1978) is a prime example of use of light, one from the refrigerator and a flash under the kitchen wall cabinets, to create a surreal atmosphere. The late 80s saw him move outdoors to produce the series Hustlers (1989) which was produced at the time of the AIDS crisis. His subjects were male prostitutes. He paid them the equivalent amount of their usual services to be photographed in a scene where he had already scouted the locations and planned compositions. This preparation was not only to control production values but to speed up the end-to-end process and reduce the legal risks associated with negotiations with prostitutes.

This work raised controversy from various quarters. Right wing politicians and religious groups were against federal money being used for exhibitions to display ‘scandalous’ work. Others felt that diCorcia was exploiting his subjects and that the work did not improve or raise awareness of their plight. The inclusion in the image titles of the amount he paid was also felt to be a moral boundary that art should not cross. He revisited similar territory to anger right wing groups with a series of scantily clad pole dancers Lucky Thirteen (2005).

Philip-Lorca diCorcia is not a prolific photographer and will be due to the time he puts in to the set up and production of each of his series. It is very thoughtful and most of his outdoor work has pushed boundaries of acceptability which I believe is one of the intentions of his work. Obviously critics and reviewers are going to place standards on him, the author, but he is asking questions of the viewer and making them consider there own views and what type of people they are.

Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson was born in 1962 in New York. He is famous for his staged cinematic scenes of small-town America and neighbourhoods. Initially he worked on his own but over time has increased collaboration to create large scale crews. The crew size on Beneath the Roses (2008), for example was approximately 200 people.

His lighting and sets are built to a high budget movie standard. His role is equivalent to a Director/Cinematographer and does not actually handle any camera. Even his outdoor scenes are staged in ‘closed off’ roads and neighbourhoods with striking lighting giving an otherworldly feel. He generates surreal scenes and creates multiple levels of narrative, strong visual colours and clarity. His work differs from someone like Philip-Lorca diCorcia in that Crewdson’s are completely staged with actors and set design.

In an interview with the SCI-Arc channel (2016) he describes photography as a singular and lonely activity in spite of working with lots of people. His emphasis is on lighting and colour to create as mysterious and beautiful a picture he can. Locations are also important and although he uses places that he knows he says they could actually be anywhere.

One interesting aspect that is discussed in the interview which I had not realised before was how his work contains “no contemporary”. In fact it is as he describes it “outside of time”, non-descript, ordinary but aged.

His work combines outside and indoors, sometimes creating rooms on a soundstage and others on location in real buildings. Architecture and domestic are re-occurring themes in his work.

Untitled (Brief Encounter) by Gregory Crewdson

He specifically states that he wants the viewer to decipher the story although obviously Crewdson’s sub-conscious does come through. Most of his work contains a psychological darkness which are not his main aim but he admits it is there.

Having listened to Crewdson and Philip-Lorca diCorcia it starts to surface how they are telling stories about themselves and each new series is an attempt to create a new way of telling that story. It is now clear how art photographers differs from amateur / professional wedding or sports photographers. The aim of the latter is to record what they see in the most technically precise way possible. They still have an eye for beauty and their skill and knowledge of their equipment is essential for a successful image. However, the majority of images produced this way are fairly generic and standard in composition. The resulting images do not convey their own personality and although they are taught to capture the story in a single frame an art photographer uses a whole series to build a narrative.

Unfortunately for a lot of viewers, art photography is not accessible. Crewdson at least creates cinematic style scenes that the majority can appreciate as they have all been to the movies.

Gregory Crewdson – Cathedral of the Pines @ Photographer’s Gallery post

Abelardo Morell

Abelardo Morell is a fine art photographer and teacher born in Cuba in 1948. He Moved to the USA and studied for a BA in Bowdoin College, Main and an MFA at Yale University of Art. He has spent most of his career combining personal photography projects alongside teaching at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston.

His early images are family snapshots, and during his education he followed the path of Robert Frank and Cartier-Bresson with street street photography capturing quirky moments around the streets and in shops and hairdressing salons.

He went in to teaching in 1983 having decided that ‘his own additions to the street photography canon would probably never be of the order of Frank’ [1], p8. Having married, and following the arrival of his son Brady in 1986, he produced a series of images from a child’s perspective resulting in the ‘Childhood’ series in 1987.

In the Clarice Smith Distinguished Lecture Series [2] Morell places significance on his early years as a boy in the troublesome environment of Havana before his family moved to New York.

In his Artist Talk at Brown University [3], the birth of his child in 1986 was the point that he realised he was a grown up. This started to influence his photography and he decided to take pictures in a different way. He was interested in the idea of viewpoint and how photography is good at acknowledging different heights (standing up and sitting down). He observed that photography can show two different worlds . In the ‘Childhood’ series he is mimicking the behaviour of a baby crawling around the floor. ‘I felt I was just beginning, like a baby, to be a photographer… it liberated a certain kind of imagination.‘ [3], (6:14).

These images are the ones that brought Morell to my attention and having researched a lot of his later work, it is these that remain my favourites. Probably because they are everyday scenes but with an artistic eye, light and viewpoint. These types of images should be within my grasp. He has chosen a subject and delivered some great images. Enough to admire for the casual observer but a little extra for those willing to spend the time.

His subsequent work was around the properties and physicality of photography. ‘Light Bulb’ (1991) arose from teaching students about cameras and appeared on the front cover of the MoMA exhibition ‘More Than One Photography’ in 1992. This brought him to the attention of the critics. The exhibition itself being a sort of acceptance of a change in Art Photography where artist presented ideas rather than a complete narrative within the frame.

Camera obscura image of the eiffel tower in the hotel frantour, 1999

He followed this up with some Camera Obscura work in black and white. He stayed in various apartment and hotel rooms in big cities and captured cityscapes and well known structures and projected them on to the walls. This was an obvious progression of his Light Bulb image and it is interesting how an idea develops.

Other series include books, maps, dictionaries, children’s stories such as his Alice In Wonderland composites.

Significantly he has remained photographing in black and white until only recently for multiple camera obscura projects, capturing colour scenes with use of a tent and projecting them on to the ground.

I really like ‘Small Vase at edge of a Table which I believe signifyies potential danger and fragility. The spillage on the floor suggests that it has already been knocked once and the next nudge may take it over the edge.

Tent-Camera Image on Ground: Rooftop View of Brooklyn Bridge, 2010

It is difficult to position Morell on the modernist / post-modernist scale which I think is what makes him and his work more interesting. His clean black and white images, no frills or captions suggest he is firmly in the modernist camp in line with his education. But this is countered by his work where the photographic process is the subject. Black and white allows him to study light in greater detail. Images of books and bindings points to the printing process. And obviously his Camera Obscura work in black and white, and now more recently in colour, is a way of recognising the basics of photography coupled with a modern narrative.

Wolfgang Tillmans, *Paper drop, Prinzessinnenstrasse (2014)*

Other contemporary photographers such a Wolfgang Tilmans have used the photographic process as their subject but have combined this with use of colour and technology. Ultimately though, they have taken the same subject and delivered it in different ways.

I like Morell’s work for its close examination of the subject, but, I feel I am always asking the question ‘why stay with black and white for so long?’. The answer is possibly in the timing of his education and the key influencers of that era. The ‘Childhood’ series works in black and white because it is nostalgic and what was the norm when he was a baby. The examinations of process are less easy to understand why he felt black and white was appropriate.

Morell does not strike me as a rebel but he has chosen a more studious approach to his ‘rule-breaking’. I admire this as a human characteristic, not flashy, but quietly confident. It does not get the attention it may deserve but then again it is work that is understood and admired by people that count.

References:

Abelardo Morell, R.B. Woodward, Phaidon Press, 2005
Clarice Smith Distinguished Lecture Series: Abelardo Morell [accessed 27/02/2017]
Abelardo Morell Artist Talk 10.12.16 at Brown University, Rhode Island. [accessed 27/02/2017]

Peter Fraser

Peter Fraser (b. 1953) is a British fine art photographer born in South Wales. He is best known for being an early pioneer of colour photography during the 1980s. A student of Manchester Polytechnic where the likes of Martin Parr also studied. A brief affiliation of William Eggleston was followed by joining up with the art fraternity in Bristol and moved in to the studio immediately vacated by Paul Graham in 1984.

Martin Clark, the Artistic Director of the Fraser’s 2013 exhibition at Tate St Ives, described his work as an ‘enquiry into the nature of the material world and the poetics of the everyday‘. His are ‘found’ photographs from journeys that he takes across the country. Each project has a theme though, such as ‘Everyday Icons‘ (1986), which in part is a study of religion, institutional versus secular. This is not immediately obvious on first viewing and was quite a surprise to me when I read it in the ‘Peter Fraser‘ Tate St Ives publication [1] .

What this type of work highlights are the questions of ‘Why has this been taken?’ and ‘Why was it taken this way?’. Once again I failed to read all of the clues. I saw objects isolated in their surroundings, I saw colour and I was fascinated by the lighting. Clark [1] identifies that ‘Fraser’s photography requires excessive looking and exemplifies the quality of art as a whole by revealing objects and scenes isolating and concentrating on an object. It holds and reveals its truth through its very form and substance‘.

In an attempt to understand the work I researched Fraser’s background, his early life, education and influences.

Fraser’s education was science and engineering based, but no formal Art studies. Having left his Civil Engineering degree in his first term he found work in South Wales and Holland, eventually applying successfully to Manchester Polytechnic. His interest was colour photography but unlike his contemporaries, Martin Parr (b. 1952) and Paul Graham (b. 1956), he had no interest in social observation and documentary. Parr in particular had been influenced by the work of Tony Ray Jones but Fraser felt that this work was too ‘whimsical’.

Colour photography in the 70s was not considered serious and was only extensively used in the advertising world. National Geographic also included colour imagery and it may have been for this reason that Fraser felt that he needed to travel overseas to find interesting subject matter. A trip to Africa unfortunately ended in serious illness, but the visit had already disappointed in terms of quantity of images taken. He put this down to not knowing what he wanted to say about the experience even though he was surrounded by stunning scenes. As a result he learnt to ask ‘Why am I here?’ instead of ‘While I’m here what should I do?’.

Fraser’s first major work, ‘The Flower Bridge‘, was an urban series based around Manchester city centre. On looking through his subsequent projects this was not the type of work he would continue to produce. The subject was a study of routes through urban space and used strong verticals and of course, colour. Stephen Shore’s (b. 1947) ‘Uncommon Places (1982)‘ was also produced around this time and contained similar themes and use of strong verticals in the form of buildings and lamp posts.

The use of a more portable medium format camera resulted in ’12 Day Journey’. This series was the start of what was to come in future projects…concentrating on objects, colours and textures. His idea with this one was to start a journey from one corner of the country, St Just in Cornwall, and commence an unplanned trip stopping off at hostels along the way. The journey ended in Salisbury and the images were a combination of indoor and outdoor scenes. The most striking is what looks like a dismembodied arm that actually belonged to a sleeping youth in the top bunk. Unlike Paul Graham’s ‘A1: The Great North Road (1983)‘, the series does not have an obvious message or theme, apart from ‘colour’. There are some similarities such as bedside tables and fields, but apart from the title there is not a strong sense of a journey.

Fraser was an admirer of William Eggleston (b. 1939) and shadowed him around Tennessee and Mississippi for two months but no working relationship materialised. I can certainly see the influence where colour is the subject more so than the object.

His next project was ‘Everyday Icons‘ (1986) which was the series that brought Fraser to my attention. If I hadn’t been guided to this work I would not have given it a lot of my time. I found Paul Graham’s work easily accessible as the titles of his projects gave enough away to understand why he took what he took. Fraser’s work is surprisingly deeper and more thought provoking. Surprising because there is very little in the frame. The object is right there in front of you, large, central and sometimes at odd angles but ultimately difficult to read.

As stated earlier Everyday Icons has religion as one of its themes. How then can ‘Two Buckets’ or a set of scales on a pantry shelf be part of such a series. The series shows that he is experimenting with colour and attempting to be taken seriously in the photographic art world which must have been difficult at the time.

It probably was not until the release of the Nazraeli Monographs (2006) [2] that an acceptance of Fraser’s work and favourable reviews were the norm. Gerry Badger, in his essay [4] for the Nazraeli Monographs, recollects that it was ‘Hirwaen’ from ‘The Valley Project (1985)‘ that initially left him baffled but came round to see that ‘Fraser had produced a moment of epiphany’ which ‘revealed the ‘whatness’ of a thing‘.

Having looked at the 1985 series, where Fraser revisited the place of his childhood, as part of a project for the Ffotogallery, Cardiff. ‘Hirwaen’ (aka Two Trucks) seems to be the odd image out due to its abstract nature but fits in to Fraser’s study of ‘colour’ and the ‘materialness’ of objects.

There is a lot to like and a lot more to understand such as understanding how this type of work is ‘poetic’. The thing I like about it from a photography point of view is that these type of objects and scenes are everywhere, I just have to notice them. The challenge is to use viewpoint and lighting to convey a feeling or message to viewers. That feeling can only come from within, subconsciously.

Looking, observing and always moving forward is how Peter Fraser has worked for his entire career. I certainly have an empathy with that process and will continue to practice it on future projects.

References:

Peter Fraser, ed. Martin Clark, Tate St Ives Publishing, 2013
Peter Fraser (Nazraeli Monograph), Nazraeli Press, 2006
Peter Fraser Website, [accessed 09/01/2018]
Eventually, Everything Connects – Gerry Badger (2006) [accessed 15/01/2018]

Mari Mahr

Mari Mahr (b. 1941) is a Hungarian-British photographer born in Chile, married to a New Zealander and trained in London. Moving around the globe and language is found across her work where she produces black and white composite images to convey feelings of the past and memories.

One of Mahr’s images from her A Few Days In Geneva [1] series came to my attention during Assignment 2 research. It was referred to in the ‘Memories and Archive’ chapter of Art and Photography [2] which described her work as “allegorical collages”. She uses a combination of family photographs and objects to evoke a sense of “dreams and dim memories”.

Most of her work relates to the past and memories and all of it is in black and white. This makes sense for her work. But if your childhood was late sixties and seventies then colour would be more appropriate.

I found it interesting to note, whilst watching a talk she gave at the AA School of Architecture [3], that Victor Burgin was teaching at the Polytechnic of Central London (PCL) at the time she was studying there in 1973. Burgin’s work [4] included use of composite style images involving projections, textual and graphical captions.

She has strict control over her compositions and starts with a blank page and uses layers to create simple, uncluttered images where she combines at least two of her own images. One image will be used as the background and the foreground is dominated by images of ‘out of scale’ objects.

In the video she covers aspects of context that can change interpretations of her work. She has one image of burning candles on a photo album in memory of lost family members. The tradition of burning candles in people’s memory is not known in Britain but would be commonly understood in her home nation of Hungary. When she showed it in Argentina it was viewed favourably as a political piece highlighting the plight of the disappeared. She confirms that it wasn’t created as a political piece but she can see why they had interpreted that way.

A Few Days In Geneva (1988) by Mari Mahr

In A Few Days In Geneva [5] she was inspired by a trip across the channel where the cobbled streets and rooftops of Geneva reminded her of her childhood in Budapest. In this series she created two sets (in two rows) one row representing her life walking around her home city.

The second row shows torn pieces of sheet music floating in front of open windows. This represents the music she remembers emanating from a neighbouring window. The music was Chopin’s Polonaise and it is these fragments of sheet music she uses in the images.

The final result produces a nostalgic piece capturing the concept of childhood memories and the flow of memories floating around her mind.

References:

Mahr. M, A Few Days In Geneva, Travelling Light 1988
Campany. D, Art and Photography, Phaidon 2007
Mari Mahr – Daughter of an Architect – You Tube [accessed 09/11/2017]
The Separateness of Things – Victor-Burgin [ accessed 09/11/17]
A Few Days in Geneva – Mari Mahr’s website [accessed 09/11/2017]

Jennifer Pattison – Edward

Jennifer Pattison’s project Edward [1] was featured in the Alpha [2] which was a wider exhibition for Men’s Health Day in November 2015. Her father was the subject and collaborator of the project about growing up in the shadow of his acute depression.

The objects she uses are items he made and collected during his times in occupational therapy. Her process involved going into the dark room producing colour contact prints made from tracing paper negatives. Her idea was to create something physical to mirror the item that was made by her father.

Her challenge was to create something artistic from a painful an emotional experience. I like the fact that she has used objects made by her father and also the fact that he was involved in choosing the items and holding them while they were photographed.

The finished images are square format and all include the border and tape of the negatives. Overall the images have a dark background with the object being well lit with strong colours. The images of feathers collected on walks are the least interesting and feel less personal than the objects that her father actually made.

This is an interesting project and the subject is one that I have personal experience of. This is an excellent piece of work and shows how photography can be used to tackle this difficult subject.

References:

WARNING Contains nudity: Jennifer Pattison.com [accessed 07/11/2017]
http://www.bjp-online.com/2015/11/alpha-jennifer-pattison/ [accessed 07/11/2017]

Joel Sternfeld – American Prospects

Joel Sternfeld (b. 1944) is an American documentary art photographer who is well known for using a large format plate camera. His work covers social issues including human impact on landscapes and run down towns. His best known work is American Prospects, a book containing images from road trips across U.S.A. from 1979 to 1986.

The images range from ordinary landscape scenes to humorous found scenes. The images have a very nostalgic feeling, a combination of bright colours and subdued autumn shades. Some are vast expanses of land with no human presence and others capture newly built residential areas or tent cities with intimate portraits of residents.

The work includes quirky characteristics of American life such as a basket ball hoop in the desert or a portable baby play pen at Glen Canyon Dam. All of the images contain a lot of detail and convey the vastnss of America. The wide landscapes have a painterly feel. In fact ‘Bear Lake’ has look like a composite of painted sky, a lake and hills in the background and a photographic image of bikers in the middle ground.

This book contains one of his famous images, ‘McLean, Virginia, December 1978’. It is a scene of a figure shopping at a farmers market stall surrounded by pumpkins, some ready to buy and some smashed up in the field. The viewers eye then moves to the background where fire fighters are tackling a large house fire. The viewers gaze returns to the market stall to find that the figure is in fact a fire fighter. The reality is this is a training exercise and not the scene of a real emergency. However it is not just a piece of glib humour. Sternfeld is making a political point about the state of America and its government. To me it is a criticism of government at not dealing with real peoples problems and tackling community issues.

One big debate about this type of photography is whether this is art. I believe this documentary style is, as the compositions contain the beauty of nature and the landscape but also offer a thoughtful message for the viewer to take away.

References

Sternfeld, J. American Prospects (1987), Times Publishing, First Edition

Don McCullin

Don McCullin (b. 1935) is a photojournalist whose work covers war and social issues. He is best known for his war images published in the Sunday Times magazine through the 60’s and 70’s. A film documentary by Jacqui Morris and David Morris (2012) covers his career during his time as war photographer.

His earliest work published in The Observer centred around his home in Finsbury Park and captured the gang scene and the downtrodden life of his neighbourhood (The Guvnors). The image on the left shows that McCullin could set up a shot and create images that conveyed the emblematic nature of gang warfare in London. One of his former editors described the image as being ‘beautiful in composition, but having sensitivity and empathy’.

This is in contrast to his war photography where he had to capture images on the move, as they happened. Always with his camera at the ready he was aware of his responsibility to the people and situations that he encountered.
On one occasion he witnessed a public execution and someone nearby said “That was great! Did you get it? Did you get it?”. In fact he did not ‘get it’ He didn’t tell anyone at the Sunday Times because they would think of him as a rank amateur. The question he had for himself was “Did I have the right to take that man’s murder?”.

One image taken in the Cyprus Civil War he captured a dog amongst fighters. Little things in a scene tell much more of a story than something obvious. It shows sensitivity and humanity.

He admits one occasion where he has manipulated a scene and that is an image of a Vietnamese fighter who had been killed and the soldiers had rifled through his belongings. The image he creates portrays a man with simple possessions, a wasted life.

He accepts that there is often criticism of war photographers being vouyeurs and not helping. He told stories of situations where he has helped but acknowledges that he does not have the power to intervene.

In an interview with The Guardian in 2015 [1] he said that ‘…the digital revolution meant viewers could no longer trust the truthfulness of images they see’. He added photography had been “hijacked” because “the digital cameras are extraordinary. I have a dark room and I still process film but digital photography can be a totally lying kind of experience, you can move anything you want … the whole thing can’t be trusted really.”

He has issues with photographers modifying colours to the extent that they are not true to nature. He also questions photography’s place in the art world by saying “I’ve always thought photography is not so much of an art form but a way of communicating and passing on information.” I understand his concern regarding photojournalism but I disagree that photography can’t be used instead of paints and brushes to convey messages and feelings.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/nov/27/don-mccullin-war-photographer-digital-images (accessed 31/05/2017)
McCullin, 2012, Jacqui Morris and David Morris.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-r0IjB44KY