As I write this post, it is Christmas 2020 which is the culmination of a tumultuous year for sure. I’ve just submitted Assignment 5 of Context and Narrative to my tutor for review and am now getting on with tidying my coursework ahead of assessment in March. It is during this final phase of the course unit that I find myself reflecting on my OCA experience so far, having nearly completed the first two units of Level 1. How has this course, and EYV before it, changed me as both a person and as a photographer?
The first thing I have noticed is how my perspective on creativity has changed. Prior to enrolling on the course, I would say that I had always had a vivid imagination. My earliest memories of childhood involved imagining stories based on whatever was happening around me. The outlet for these stories was of course school and in particular the creative writing part of our English lessons. As I grew older though, I developed much more of an interest in understanding how things worked, which usually meant taking them apart and not always being able to put them back together. My interest became studies in Engineering and a career followed for the next 30 years. When I started studying with the OCA, my engineering brain was completely confused by the concepts in the first unit. It was hard to switch off wanting to understand how a photograph was made and instead focusing on the ‘why’ – I struggled with some of the exercises where we had to practice thinking about what we wanted to say with our photographs. I initially focused much more on the technique and composition than developing my voice, but as the unit progressed I found myself thinking about what I wanted to say and worrying less if I had ‘got it right’ in the eyes of my tutors. My final assignment in EYV [1] was a very personal story of my recovery from depression, which was not only challenging because of the subject matter, but also because the initial assessment of the work by my tutor highlighted some key concerns about my reliance on the technical aspects of photograph. I learned at that point that this wasn’t a failure, but an opportunity to revisit the series and make it stronger. The re-shoot of 3 of the 10 images certainly achieved this, which made the series something I am immensely proud of.
In C&N, the concept of storytelling was where I started to find my creative side winning the battle against my logical side. Using photography to tell linear and non-linear stories was new to me, but I found the way the artists developed their ideas to be fascinating. I particularly connected with the artists who used theirselves either as a canvass for the story or as an observer or commentator on a social or cultural issue. The works of Morrissey, Brotherus and Lee were all instigators of perhaps my biggest departure from my comfort zone; to use myself as the subject of my series for Assignment 3[2]. As the unit progressed, I started to learn about the artists who had told a story through creating something fictitious that appeared to be real. Wall, diCorcia and Crewdson’s influence on my Assignment 5[3] submissions is obvious – with these approaches to storytelling, I was able to reconnect with that imagination I once had as a child.
The second thing I noticed about my progress through EYV and C&N was the way that my passion for photography had changed. Prior to study, I would regularly go looking for beautiful landscapes to photograph and stand in a field for hours trying to get a technically perfect representation of them. This meant looking for the best times of day to shoot, the best weather conditions etc and it often meant driving for long periods of time to be there when these elements coincided. If I happened to be using on my my vast collection of film cameras, the experience included preparation and processing (which I do myself) to add to the experience that I really enjoyed. Now, I find myself less interested in that type of photography. I have since learned that perfect exposure, perfect sharpness and classical rule-following composition don’t necessarily make a good photograph. If they are present but there is no artistic voice or story being told, the image is simply a document of what was in front of the camera. I’ve learned in C&N how even the seemingly simple act of documentary photography has a voice or bias associated with it; photography is in fact subjective rather than objective and in some cases dishonest. More than this, my interest in traditional landscape had diminished along with the idea of just shooting things. For C&N Assignment 2, I shot a series of images of disused and open spaces to represent the emotions of someone reacting to trauma. The series was said to be good but with lots of room for improvement, which got me thinking about documenting how these landscapes change with time as well as events in society or culture. Like David Hockney’s paintings of the same Yorkshire scenes throughout the seasons, I started to find myself walking the same routes with a camera and looking at how shops, buildings, green spaces changed over time. In some cases during 2020 that has been something enforced rather than by choice as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold of the country; government-sanctioned exercise periods restricted where I could travel with my camera. However I the limitations also introduced me to artists like Michelle Sank [4] who had adapted to the pandemic lockdown by incorporating it into her work. As someone at higher risk from COVID-19, she had to isolate from people so her series Portraits from a Distance told the story of others in a similar position to her. The images were paired as diptychs with the subject and their environment to add context to their situation, which I found interesting and very moving. With regard to shooting things for the sake of it, I discovered that I had lost interest in wildlife photography, something that I have practiced before only in an effort to get better at the technical aspects. A group of my friends are keen wildlife photographers and we have unsuccessfully attempted to meet up in 2020 to shoot wildlife at a number of nature reserves. It became clear to me as the year progressed, that I wanted to spend time with them much more than I wanted to shoot the animals. While still enjoyable, it marked a major shift in my passion for photography. Instead I am thinking about series of work around stories and life events that surround me. How can I make images that tell the story without it being so severely signposted to a meaning that the viewer loses interest? How might I use myself to convey the observer of play a part in something that might be affecting me in some way? How can I document something in a way that is more Robert Frank than my albums of holiday snaps?
The Future
At the time of writing, I am preparing for my engineering career to come to an end following being made redundant because of the pandemic. I made the decision to leave and focus on my studies because the opportunity to learn more about being an artist excites me. My longer term plan is to teach photography, first as a technical discipline for people just starting out with a camera and later as an art form once my OCA studies are complete. One of the things that I want to achieve to progress to the first goal is Associate of the Royal Photographic Society or ARPS. When I looked at the requirements for this accreditation level, I was surprised to see that storytelling through a series of images was at the heart of the assessment criteria for one of its genres [5]. I intend to take what I’ve learned in Context and Narrative and try to apply it to a panel for ARPS. This level of confidence and lack of fear of failure is all to do with studying Photography 1 as prior to this past 2 years, I would have been reluctant to try without being sure of ‘getting the right answer’.
Onwards to Identity & Place, which is the final part of Level 1 of the degree. Having read the sample from the OCA website, I’m confident that it will be every bit as challenging and interesting as what I’ve completed so far.
Construct a stand-alone image of your choice. Alternatively, you may choose to make a series, elaborating on the same theme.
As the culminating assignment for the course you may wish to draw upon skills learned from Parts One to Four – using various forms of narrative, using yourself as subject matter, telling stories and reading images. The only stipulation is that you produce work that has been controlled and directed by you for a specific purpose. Remember to create a story with a specific context like the artists you’ve looked at in Part Five. This means that you need to have an artistic intention, so a good place to start would be to write down some ideas. This could then be form the basis of the 300-introduction to the proceed. You may find it helpful to draw storyboards to help you visualise your ideas.
The aim of this assignment is to use props, costumes, models, location, lighting etc. to contribute to the overall meaning of the image (Use flash/lights if required but available light is fine as long as it is considered)
If the narrative is set in a different era then the elements fo the image must reflect this. Also consider the symbolic meanings of the objects and try not to be too literal in your approach. For example, don’t automatically use red shoes in a love scent but try to be subtle in your ideas to obtain a more true-to-life scenario.
For this final assignment, you should also include an illustrated evaluation of the process you went through to produce your final image(s). Include snapshots of setting up the work and write about how you felt your direction went, how you found the location, props etc. How did this process affect the final outcome? Write around 1000 words (including your 300-word introduction).
Introduction
For this assignment, I wanted to tell a story in a single picture in a way inspired by the works of Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson and Philip-lorca diCorcia. My initial idea was to tell a story about my wife and her family which in recent years was just her and her parents. I started by looking through the family photograph albums for inspiration; the first thoughts were about Jayne and her father, whose relationship had been close but difficult during her teenage years. Although there was a strong physical likeness and shared traits such as their sense of humour, they had different goals in life and different interests. During the search through the albums, I discovered the following pair of photographs stored as a pair in the same sleeve.
Main image: Jayne’s father Bryan in his greenhouse (c1990s). Inset: Jayne’s grandfather Johnny in his greenhouse (date Unknown)
These photos depicted Jayne’s father and grandfather, both keen gardeners in their retirement, in their greenhouses. Both men are shown surrounded by the fruits of their labours and both have a sense of pride about their expression. The way that they were stored in the album interested me as perhaps Bryan had recognised this similarity when he put them together. It was when I realised that Bryan’s greenhouse was still in the garden, albeit in a state of decay that I had the idea to use it as a set with Jayne as the central focus of the shot. My idea was framed around the idea that the tradition of gardening had passed between generations and that it had ended with Jayne (who has little or no interest in gardening). I planned too recreate the image of Bryan in a way that highlighted their likeness but also this difference in the direction of their lives. I started to storyboard my original intention in a blog post called “Preparing for Assignment 5″[1]. However, during a brief discussion with my tutor during a feedback session for Assignment 4, I was encouraged to sharpen up the story as it felt a little too vague to be told in a single photograph.
The Story
In re-examining my idea, I asked myself what it was about discovering these two photographs that had interested me and how it made me feel. The answer was that I could imagine Bryan’s reaction to discovering the picture of his father and carefully adding it to one of his own. He was a nostalgic man, so I believed that this gave him a great deal of pleasure as he remembered his Dad. When I realised that we could still go to the greenhouse where the photograph was taken, I had that same feeling of connection and nostalgia. These two reactions were actually more powerful than my original idea to highlight the differences between the two men.
The story was now about grandfathers, fathers and daughters and in particular the strength of the emotion around finding some tangible link with the forgotten past in what is left behind.
The Storyboard
The concept of putting Jayne in the greenhouse was still valid for the revised idea. I wanted to picture her in a similar pose to Bryan but with contextual elements that lent themselves to a different narrative than being a reproduction of the original photograph. I started with one of the test shots I took when I first looked at the location[1]
Storyboard with the first ideas of prop placement, lighting and the model
I needed a way of incorporating the image of Jayne’s father and grandfather into the shot. I considered scattering the picture of her father among other photos from the album on the table on the right hand side of the frame. The picture of her grandfather at only a couple of inches square would be too small to see in any composition, so I thought about projecting it using the same system I used for Assignment 3[2]. The set itself would contain more subtle links to the past through the use of items from the derelict greenhouse. These items includes ceramic pots with gravel but no plants, pots with dead plants in them, rusty tools and rotting bamboo canes. There was also a chalkboard on which Bryan kept notes of his plantings, which could contain some other obscure visual references. For Jayne I wanted her clothing to be utilitarian but not obviously garden wear. The final details would be how she interacted with the space and props. I was going experiment during the shoot to try to capture a sense of affection for her past, sadness at the loss and contemplation of the peace of the space.
Shooting the Photograph
I started by clearing the interior of the greenhouse to leave just the benches and shelving in place. The camera and lighting were set up as in the sketch below.
Shoot sketch showing the lighting arrangement, camera position etc.
I used studio strobes with 60cm square soft boxes. The key light provided the effect of moonlight streaming through the glass and ivy of the greenhouse and would light Jayne from the front in pose. The fill light was positioned square on to reduce the harsh shadows forming on Jayne and also to light the objects along the left hand side of the space. The camera was fitted with a wide angle lens to create a sense of depth in the scene; the lens aperture was set to f/13 to make as much of the scene’s depth as sharp as possible. Two photographs were taken. The first was with no lights and the projector unit (hidden in the scene behind a plant pot) throwing the picture of Jayne’s grandfather onto the chalkboard at the back of the space. The second shot had no projection but used both strobes to light the rest of the scene. The two images were then blended together in post-processing to create the overall ethereal feel of her grandfather being part of the present day scene.
The Photograph: “Sanctum”
Sanctum (2020)
The final processed photograph can be seen above. For the title, I wanted to sum up my intent for the image while not wanting to lead the viewer to a conclusion. I settled on Sanctum because it is defined as “a private place or room where someone is never interrupted”[3]
The post processing done to achieve this final version is shown in the annotations below. Along with the layering of the two shots taken, the white balance was set to replicate moonlight at 4100k and selective edits were made to elements in the frame to increase their impact.
Annotated version showing the edits made in post processing
Reaction and Reflection
As with previous assignments, I decided to share this photograph with a number of my friends to get a feel for the narratives they would naturally create from it. I asked for feedback via social media and had 18 responses from people, some of whom knew Jayne well and some who had never met her. I collated the responses in a separate blog post [4] but the key narrative points are discussed here.
In all of the responses, there was a deep personal connection identified between Jayne, the photograph she is holding and her surroundings. Some saw that it was her father and recognised that the greenhouse was once his. Jayne’s expression and posture were read by many as fondness, sadness and longing, while some saw her as mourning the death of her father despite there not being any clear references to his loss 4 years ago. This was a narrative created by people who didn’t know Jayne or anything about her family, so I assumed the contextual elements of his old cap, the dead plants and neglected greenhouse all served to trigger that response in those viewers. Memory and the desire to revisit somewhere that held special significance also came through in the different narratives with most people seeing this as a special place for Jayne.
I found the reactions to the picture fascinating. In reality, the greenhouse isn’t a particularly relevant place to Jayne (I’m not sure she has been in there for many years, even when her father was alive). The state of the building and it’s contents tell a story on their own of neglect, but putting Jayne in the same place as her father and her grandfather watching on, somehow created the sense that this is a place that joins the three of them together in a way that is very private and intimate. The reaction that interested me the most was the contemplative sense of mourning, which is very real for Jayne in other regards but not in this context. One of my friends told me that the photograph made him cry – he related to the sadness in some way that I didn’t push him to explain, but I guess must be related to his own emotional state in some way. Others who responded also said that they could relate to the strong emotion of the image without that relationship being to do with the subject, elements or composition.
Overall, I am delighted with the way that the image was received by everyone. Far from being a validation of my intent, it signalled that this particular piece of work had the power to provoke some strong emotions in a variety of people. The reactions did work in conjunction with my intent for the picture, which as diCorcia said was the responsibility of the artist; to give enough to help with the viewer’s journey but not complete it. The development and shooting of the picture was a challenging, but rewarding experience for me, the latter being something I was completely comfortable with. Having a good idea for what the picture should look like and experimenting with the props and lighting were key to what I see as the success of the image. I had tried to incorporate elements that highlighted the differences between Jayne and her father, such as references to sport, feminism and professionalism. However, the problem was that even the most subtle elements distracted from my intention that this should be a love story rather than about rebellion or contrast. Eventually, I settled on fewer elements that would work in unison with the wonderfully natural greenhouse set. Although I didn’t rush the creative process, I was under some natural time pressure with new COVID-19 lockdown restrictions coming into force and my mother-in-law’s ambition to tidy the space and potentially even demolish it. For me, this felt like the sort of pressure that might be experienced by a film director with the time taken for the shoot having financial implications. One thought that occurred to me as an enhancement was to create a series of photographs along the theme of special places where emotions and memories are revealed. The creative process would then incorporate other ideas, emotions and storytelling, while maintaining the relationships between each image in the series. I have found working in tableau to be both interesting and challenging for this assignment, so this is something I plan to pursue in the future.
This blog post contains the responses to a request that I made via social media, with a view to understanding the different narratives that could be created when looking at my photograph for Assignment 5[1]. As the people asked were a mix of mine and my wife’s friends, I wanted to establish some ground rules in order to avoid them specifically using any prior knowledge of her or her family in reading the image. At this point, I had also not told them what the title of the picture was.
The Request
Firstly, thank you for agreeing to help me with this. As always, it’s greatly appreciated. As I mentioned in my Facebook post, I have created a photograph for Assignment 5 of my current unit which has the theme of ‘the fabricated image’. What this means is that it’s a real photograph, but the scene is carefully constructed to tell a story in a single frame. This unit has been about context and narrative and how the former is incorporated through the work of the artist while the experiences and imagination of the viewer create the latter. The post-structuralist philosophers stated that the responsibility for the narrative lies very much with the viewer and that it was the job of the artist to leave just enough contextual interest to help them interpret what the work might mean.As I mentioned, there are no special skills or knowledge about the visual arts needed to be able to do what I’m asking of you. The job is to look at the photograph carefully (for say 5 to 10 mins) and consider what the meaning might be. There is no right or wrong answer.
There are some ground rules though:
1) Please look at the photograph on the largest screen possible. Other artists that create these sorts of pictures do so with large format cameras that result in huge prints. These prints show every detail very clearly. However, this is a picture from a 35mm camera which produces a much smaller picture, so you will probably need to zoom in and look around the frame to see the contextual elements.
2) Most of you will realise that the model is Jayne and some of you know her really well. Please try to disregard what you know about her (interests, personality, shared history etc) and keep your review to what you see in the frame. This is going to be difficult for some of you, but please try.
3) For the purposes of this review, I’m not interested in whether the picture is technically good or whether you like it or not. I’m just after what you think the story is. The story that you see will be shaped by your own life experiences and some things may resonate with you that don’t with others. That’s what I’m interested in, so if you want to point out any elements that you noticed that support your story, that would be great.
4) Finally, please send me your review as a short paragraph of no more than 200 words privately via Messenger or to my email address. I don’t want stories to affect or inspire what other people see.
Thanks again for your help.
The Responses
“The lady – Jayne is sitting in a greenhouse, to me it’s her dad’s one. The photos (at first I thought they were seeds) tell me that he was a keen gardener, and the Black and white one tells me her grandfather was too, The father became ill or infirm and the greenhouse was left untended and the garden became overgrown. I know it her Dad’s because his hat is hanging up. Sadly he has passed away and the house has been inherited by Jane, Jane has put some clothes on to sort the place out ready for sale. They are not old clothes though, which tells me she is not a diy or gardening type up to now. Jane is wrestling with whether she should restore the house and garden to its former glory and take on the family mantle of gardener or just move on. Her heart says do it, her head says get real.”
“I see a story of love, remembrance, loss and, perhaps regret. Remembrance of a loved one departed surrounded by things that that person held dear and hold importance to the memory of the departed for the sitter. For me, one item in the photo evoked memories of my father, sadly departed 32 years ago, and made me sad for both my mother and myself for the ‘lost years’.”
“In this emotive image I see a woman fondly reminiscing by looking at photographs in a place of personal importance. The photographs are placed in a manner suggesting that they depict a special person. The greenhouse setting appears to be missing some of the life that was present when this special person was around. There are dead plants, rusty tools, empty pots and ivy creeping in indicating a lack of love and attention. She is surrounded by personal things which provoke memories and the image gives the impression that were a significant part of this special person’s life. The personal items and photographs indicate an older person who loved gardening and nature. Her posture and facial expression indicates that she is thinking of someone who was important to her and is trying to connect with this person. There is a clear difference in the depth of colour and shade as my vision scans from one side of the image to the other. Where the woman is sitting there is more light and colour which shows life and the present, which is further enhanced by the greenery outside. The other side is an image of darker shades and the past.I feel the woman in the photograph is seeking warmth and comfort by spending time alone in what look like her late fathers greenhouse. I’m guessing late father by the way she is deep in thought and lovingly looking at a photograph of an older man. His cap hangs from the green house frame, probably where he left it… She appears to look content with her thoughts, it’s clearly a place that gives her strong happy memories.”
“My first impression was of time travel, and going back in time. Perhaps that we were time travellers but arrived back too late to see again the owner of the greenhouse. Rather fanciful perhaps but I definitely felt that we were looking back to an earlier era when this greenhouse used to be full of lush plants lovingly tended. The flat cap and picture were very moving and brought back memories of my own father who wore exactly the same cap and was also an enthusiastic gardener. He had a greenhouse very similar which was always full of plants those that over wintered and full of tomatoes in the summer. The empty pots and lack of plants emphasised the fact that the person was not with us anymore. The greenhouse was becoming overgrown with creepers and looked unloved. We/the person in the picture were looking at photos and remembering him with a mixture of emotions of love and sadness but also remembering happier times when they were part of our life.”
“Reflection. The heart felt need to take the time to preserve, to capture in sharp focus, treasured memories of a love. A love not lost (it could never be lost), but one which has been forced to move on. The gathered artifacts help the memory focus and bring further memory senses; a smell, a touch, a smile, a tear. Memories of time spent together in perfect harmony; time, dealings and feelings shared. Reflection – a few moments to bask again in a glorious light which will slowly, but inevitably, fade.”
“A lady is sitting in a greenhouse that has fallen into disrepair probably following the death of the gardener. The lady is thinking about the gardener and judging by the look on her face he would have been someone close to her. She is clearly sad looking at his photograph remembering him, his love for gardening and the former glory of the greenhouse indicated in the photographs of previous harvests. His cap hanging on the peg is poignant and suggest the owner was elderly maybe her father or grandfather, the tools in pot and the general tidiness of the greenhouse indicates that former gardener’s illness and ultimate demise was probably unexpected. The teapot on the shelf reinforces that feeling of unexpectedness and brings a sadness of its own. The missing panes of glass and the plant growth appearing through the broken window gives a timeline to his demise, not that long ago suggesting that this is the lady’s first visit since the demise of the gardener and the grief is still quite raw. The black and white photograph of the man, presumably the gardener behind the lady is strange. I understand the colour pictures that she has but the B&W left me wondering.”
“My thought is that Jayne is sitting in a greenhouse because it was once the happy place for her Father (or Grandfather) and that he has died, possibly some time ago. She is looking at photos of him and his garden as that was his great love and she is missing him so wants to be where they spent time together and she can feel close to him. It feels like it could be the anniversary of his death or his birthday, or he was perhaps ill for a while and neglected the greenhouse for some time.”
“I can relate to this totally, although whether this is your story or just a reflection of my own life I’m not sure. (When I visit the greenhouse at my late parents’ house there are dead plants in pots, a broken window, and vestiges of lives past.) So I’m leaning towards a similar photo-story here. The cap suggests it was the property of an older man, but there is no older man in the picture. This would have been a man whose hair was thinning; the cap used to keep the sun from burning his head or kept the cold draughts off in winter. He may have died or he may no longer be able to look after the place and has gone into a care home (I need to revisit the photo so see if this is answered by visual clues). The woman is the man’s daughter, or maybe even his wife. She looks contemplative, certainly not happy, but not sad either. She seems to be reconciling herself with reality and looking back at memories. The photos show the man’s garden when it (and the man) was in its prime. There are flowers and plants that probably started off from seeds and cuttings in this very greenhouse.”
“The lady in the picture has returned to her childhood home after the death of her last remaining parent. The greenhouse was the pride and joy of her father and he spent many happy hours here tending to his plants. Since his death no one has really been in there and his cap is still hanging where he always left it. She hasnot set foot in the place for a long time, but on finding some old photos of her dad she felt compelled to go and look at them in the place where he so loved to be. As a child she was constantly sent down the garden to find her father and tell him his dinner was ready or that someone needed to talk to him on the phone. That always made him grumpy at being disturbed. She could never understand the attraction of the place then , but now on her own with her memories it seemed the perfect place to remember.”
“Lost in memories but keeping them secret.”
“The person in the photo is having a moment of quiet reflection. She has chosen to sit in the greenhouse and look at pictures of someone that means a lot to her, and who has passed away. The greenhouse is somewhere that the person who passed away spent a lot of their time, and they were always happy here. She is surrounded by things that belonged to the person – the checked cap, the gardening tools – which all hold memories for her. She has sought the peaceful solace of the greenhouse to think about the person to whom the greenhouse belonged. This is someone she misses a great deal, but she finds comfort in the familiarity of her surroundings. She is grieving a loss, hence time spent in this special place is precious to her; it is healing, and it is cathartic. She feels the need to be here, to bring herself closer to the person she has lost. This place to her is a sanctuary, an oasis of calm in a busy, turbulent and sometimes chaotic world”
“I think the picture shows the end of a chapter in a man’s life, to whom the person (Jayne) in the photo was close. The end of the chapter could be that he has died, or that his health has deteriorated and the house is being sold. The plants growing through the glass to the right of the picture imply that the gentleman has not been able to pursue his gardening for some time. Everything in the greenhouse is well kept, and has a place and purpose, so he would have cut the shrubbery back if he was able. We know it was an older man’s domain, as the hat is a gentleman’s flat cap. The greenhouse has been a place where the gentleman has been happy and proud of his growing. This is shown by the gardening tools in the terracotta pot, they have been carefully returned to the pile in the pot. The teapot on the shelf reminded me of my granddad, who had specific containers for jobs in his greenhouse. I felt strongly that the teapot would be used for plant food! Jayne was close to this person and she is taking time to remember the times they shared in his greenhouse and the man who is no more. She is closing her personal life chapter and mourning it’s passing”
“The story that I see being told in the picture is of someone who is dealing with grief and the loss of a loved one. The person is sat in a place that was very special to the person she has lost and is looking through pictures that also reflect the past glory of the greenhouse. From the objects around the shot, you can see personal objects of the person who has passed, the scissors in the foreground are rusty and tell, alongside the missing panes of glass that the greenhouse has been allowed to fall into disrepair, it also indicates that that person passed a while ago, as does the plant in the far right background and again, ivy growing into the greenhouse through the missing panes reflect the neglect. The personal possessions in the greenhouse, the flat cap and the teapot are reminders of the person who once spent time in this place. It’s interesting to wonder the relationship between the person in the B&W picture and the person in the picture being held. Did the greenhouse get passed down from Father to son, does the state of disrepair reflect that the greenhouse is no longer needed or will be passed down and relocated?”
“The subject is not wearing gardening clothes and looks sad and thoughtful. She is viewing photos, some containing an elderly gentleman in a gardening setting. Together with the B&W photo this is clearly his shed and with the level of decay is shows he is no longer able to live there or, more likely alive. Some time has passed as scissors are rusty all pots are barren and vegetation outside is encroaching inside through broken panes. The B&W image further emphasises that the glory days were a long time ago. The cloth cap has not deteriorated the same as its surroundings and may have been placed there latterly as a homage. This is where the subject goes to feel a connection with the man in the photos. The setting helps the subject to reminisce in a location that was very important to the man and was the place where he was most happy”
“It looks to me like a woman is taking some time away from the rest of the world to remember someone who’s passed away – my assumption is her father based on the pictures of an older gentleman. Based on the photos and the hat that’s hung, I believe the greenhouse that she’s in belonged to her father and it’s been kept and she visits due to its sentimental value. As there aren’t any plants flourishing and tools have rusted, I’d suggest that some time has passed since he’s gone. As she’s in the greenhouse at nighttime, I took that to mean she might be visiting in secret so she can be alone with her thoughts. Based on the fact there are photos there, I also took that to mean that there may be a frequency to her visits”
“There are two ‘angles’ for me. Firstly having worked in health and social care for much of my life I have seen and experienced loss and how it can impact different people in different ways. The second angle is more personal, being of the age now that we are, beginning to attend more funerals than weddings, I’ve experienced loss of friends and family and the associated grief quite a bit recently. As a keen gardener too I can appreciate the before and after state of the green house. So I don’t know Jane but if I were sitting there I would be grieving, this includes the sadness you’d expect but also filled with the happy memories of sharing that space with my relative in the picture on the wall. I have plans to do them proud and get the greenhouse back to it’s former glory. But for now I sit and remember happier times…”
“I see a lady sat down at a table that is in a greenhouse. She is staring at a selection of images of a gent and his plants. There is a hat hanging on the side that would have been worn by the gent in the pics. The greenhouse was his pride and joy, but he has been unable to make use of it recently due to his advanced years. Gardening was his hobby for a very long time. Competitions were not his thing, but anyone calling round would comment on the variety of plants and how they would like a garden like this. The glass is broken, the plants are intruding, nothing has been planted recently. The tools in the pot are rusting. The teapot on the shelf would have contained used teabags for use in the garden. She is reminiscing about the times she would find him in there when she called round to see him. Unfortunately he has recently passed away and the house will be sold soon”
“In this emotive image I see a woman fondly reminiscing by looking at photographs in a place of personal importance. The photographs are placed in a manner suggesting that they depict a special person. The greenhouse setting appears to be missing some of the life that was present when this special person was around. There are dead plants, rusty tools, empty pots and ivy creeping in indicating a lack of love and attention. She is surrounded by personal things which provoke memories and the image gives the impression that were a significant part of this special person’s life. The personal items and photographs indicate an older person who loved gardening and nature. Her posture and facial expression indicates that she is thinking of someone who was important to her and is trying to connect with this person. There is a clear difference in the depth of colour and shade as my vision scans from one side of the image to the other. Where the woman is sitting there is more light and colour which shows life and the present, which is further enhanced by the greenery outside. The other side is an image of darker shades and the past”
Assignment 5 is the final piece for Context and Narrative and is the culmination of understanding how stories are told through photography in a variety of ways. We have looked at a number of photographers who have created linear stories within the documentary genre, as well as those who use metaphor to more subtly articulate their intent. In Part 3 we were introduced to narratives that could be created through the use of self-portraiture, whether literal or metaphorical. My submission for Assignment 3 was a significant departure from what I had done previously and as well as being outside of my comfort zone as a photographer, it was from this point in the course that I began to understand the concept of the ‘unrea’l image. Now, having completed Assignment 4 and working through Part 5, I am starting to form an idea about what to shoot for the final assignment.
The Brief
Construct a stand-alone image of your choice. Alternatively, you may choose to make a series, elaborating on the same theme.
As the culminating assignment for the course you may wish to draw upon skills learned from Parts One to Four – using various forms of narrative, using yourself as subject matter, telling stories and reading images. The only stipulation is that you produce work that has been controlled and directed by you for a specific purpose. Remember to create a story with a specific context like the artists you’ve looked at in Part Five. This means that you need to have an artistic intention, so a good place to start would be to write down some ideas. This could then be form the basis of the 300-introduction to the proceed. You may find it helpful to draw storyboards to help you visualise your ideas.
The aim of this assignment is to use props, costumes, models, location, lighting etc. to contribute to the overall meaning of the image (Use flash/lights if required but available light is fine as long as it is considered)
If the narrative is set in a different era then the elements fo the image must reflect this. Also consider the symbolic meanings of the objects and try not to be too literal in your approach. For example, don’t automatically use red shoes in a love scent but try to be subtle in your ideas to obtain a more true-to-life scenario.
For this final assignment, you should also include an illustrated evaluation of the process you went through to produce your final image(s). Include snapshots of setting up the work and write about how you felt your direction went, how you found the location, props etc. How did this process affect the final outcome? Write around 1000 words (including your 300-word introduction).
Initial Thoughts
I started by thinking about the research work done so far in this course and how it has changed my perspective on photography. Previously, I tended to work in the literal. My photographs almost signposted the viewer to my intended meaning. By Assignment 2 I was beginning to use metaphor more clearly, but I then started to struggle with not having a structured approach to my creative process. The result was a very stressful experiences of trying to force creativity to happen, looking for compositions to present themselves and being disappointed when they did not. Assignment 3 saw a more structured approach that allowed me more freedom to focus on what I wanted to express. Having the approach under control, I then started to focus on not overthinking what I was trying to say and to experiment with my subjects and compositions. Although Part 4 led to a written essay assignment rather than a photographic project, the analysis of the many layers of narrative within a single image was a core skill learned. This gave me a greater appreciation of all photographic art, whether singular images or as part of a collection. My thoughts at this point were that I wanted to create something that would stand up to a level of analysis. Instead of images that occur naturally, e.g. the decisive moments of street photography, the brief called for something ‘directed’ in the spirit of Wall, diCorcia or Crewdson. At the heart of the brief was the idea that the photograph or series needed to be ‘made up’, suggesting either an entire or partial fiction controlled by me as the artist. I had enjoyed Exercise 3[1] where we had to recreate a childhood memory as it allowed me to think laterally about the kinds of props that I could use to help tell the story. For this assignment, I would start with a story idea and then plan how I wanted to create the contextual elements using props. I’d then plan how to shoot the image from a compositional and technical perspective that would be an experience similar to that of a motion picture director.
Thinking about stories
In Part 3 I discovered how interesting a self-portrait series could be as a way of telling a story. My tutor’s feedback suggested that I think about whether I would consider using self-portraiture as part of my future work. This was my first thought but I quickly dismissed it for the simple reason that I’ve told bits of my story throughout EYV[2] and during this course; to be honest I was a little bored of my storytelling being about me. I wanted to tell a different story that still involved a person or people, however. The next thought was about my wife and her family. Jayne’s immediate family has always been small; when I first met her, all she had were her parents and an uncle. Although her father’s extended family is larger, the connections with them are fairly distant with them not really featuring in each others’ lives Her relationship with her father wasn’t always easy, although for the last years of his life it was more evident how close they actually were. I am reminded of him everyday, not just because my wife has his height and looks like him, but also because they share the same very dry sense of humour. Her mum is very different, both in stature and personality – in Jayne I see her phenomenal strength, kindness and capacity for empathy, something her father sometimes lacked. When I think about it, all families are like this but what struck me was the way that these likenesses and differences are accentuated when the family unit is small like theirs. My own family is considerably larger, so these subtle characteristics are spread more widely.
My conclusion from these initial thoughts was that I wanted to make my story about Jayne’s family in some way. Coincidentally, we were due to visit her mother so I took the opportunity to look through some of the family photo albums for inspiration. Like most families, there were many photo albums ranging from the beginning of the last century through to recent events. It was when looking through one of the albums, I found these pictures in a flip sleeve:
My father-in-law Bryan in his greenhouse, circa 1986 with a photo of his father in his greenhouse (date unknown)
This immediately got my attention. The main picture is of Bryan sitting in his greenhouse in the mid-1980s. He had just retired from teaching after a long and successful career and was indulging one of his passions that he hadn’t had time to do when he was working. What interested me was that Bryan had tucked a smaller photograph of his father in a similar situation into the same sleeve. Bryan had seemingly found the older print and related to its similarities to his own photo, electing to store them together. There was something deeply significant about this act as the album isn’t viewed often these days so the connection between the two photographs could be thought of as everlasting in some way. The actual similarities between the images in terms of composition and context were also striking – to explore this further, I deconstructed both images as I did in Exercise 3 and Assignment 4.
Annotated with formal elements (yellow) and potential meanings (red)Annotated with formal elements (yellow) and potential meanings (red)
From the two images I could see some common elements. Both men are were the centre of the greenhouses and also the composition. They were both surrounded by the fruits of their labours, which were very healthy looking tomato plants. The photographs were both taken on sunny days with light streaming through the roof of the greenhouses. Both men were wearing the clothes of their era, Johnny in a formal three piece suit and Bryan in 1980s-casual wear. At first they seem at odds with each other, but from what I know of Johnny, he was a smartly-dressed man. So, while he may not have been necessarily dressed for working in the greenhouse as Bryan is, the picture feels spontaneous as if he is showing off what he’d grown.
In terms of themes, the key ones that were common to both pictures are:
Pride – in the achievement
Passion – for their hobby
Nature – wonder of the natural. The black and white even creates a sense of green by the dominance of the plants in the frame. The sun plays a big part in
Father to son – passing on the mantle and it being received
Hierarchy – Johnny has more than in his greenhouse than Bryan. Perhaps the passion isn’t as strong down the generations.
Order – both are neat and tidy spaces
What the deconstruction taught me about these photographs was that both men had a shared interest, likely passed on from father to son. They had the same approach and the same sense of pride in their efforts as amateur gardeners and rightly, given the success of what they had grown. When looking more closely, though both men adopt different poses. Johnny is looking straight at the camera with a beaming smile, but Bryan is not engaging with ‘the viewer’ at all. His shot was definitely posed and he clearly intended that the two images were kept together because of their strong similarities. So why the enigmatic expression? Bryan was certainly comfortable in front of the camera, but perhaps this was more about being surrounded by his plants rather than being about him. Or perhaps it just was that he was not exactly like his father. This got me thinking about what my story could be about.
My Idea
I decided to shoot a single photograph that captured the essence of how these two men came to record the same sentiments in two images separated by so much time. How Johnny passed his love of gardening to Bryan but how the resulting interest evolved through the differences between father and son. The added element would be the fact Bryan’s daughter has no interest in gardening; her passions went down a completely different route to both of them. I want to create a narrative about ‘inheritance’ through the generations and planned to weave the likeness and contrasts into the image, using metaphors and props that stand up to the kind of ‘reading’ that was the focus of Part 4.
Location
While looking at the greenhouse in the ‘Bryan’ photograph, I asked my mother-in-law where the picture was taken, naturally assuming it would be some previous house they had lived in. The answer was the same house she lives in now. The greenhouse still stood in the same place in the garden as in 1986. However, when Bryan became infirm towards the end of his life, the greenhouse wasn’t maintained and had fallen into disrepair. For me, this was a stroke of good fortune as it meant that I had a potential setting for my photograph. I took a series of contextual shots during that visit to capture the scene as it is now, including one of my wife sitting in the same position as Bryan.
The Greenhouse and Contents
The greenhouse contained many potential props, but their use would need careful planning to give enough of a sense of time passing without dominating the frame and potentially any narrative from the image.
Potential Perspectives
I took the following pictures to experiment with perspective – which angle and how much of the greenhouse would I include? I put Jayne in a similar position in the space as Bryan in his photograph. At this stage, this was just for a reference as I hadn’t yet decided on what to do with Jayne in my composition.
Looking at these test shots, the first thing I noticed was that I could easily replicate the composition of the Bryan photo if I wanted to. This is likely because the mobile phone camera that I was using for these context shots has a wide angle lens, which is likely similar to the compact film camera used for the original photograph. Only in the shots taken outside the greenhouse is Jayne fully in the frame, but this increases the depth of the image as well as introducing the doorway into the shot. I could see potential issues with the increased depth lessening the impact of any props that I decided to use and the door frame being a distraction (although it did ‘frame’ Jayne in the image). Looking at these images informed me of how I might go about shooting the picture from a practical perspective. In the past I had been guilty of focusing on the technical aspects of a composition rather than what I want to say with it, so with this photograph I wanted to get that part out of the way first. I would shoot this picture with a wide angle lens from just inside the door to recreate the look and feel of the Bryan photo (as in the first of the test shots above). I could elect to shoot both digital and film to experiment with the look of the final image, but that would be easy once I had the composition ideas firmed up.
Ideas for Composition
The central theme was about inheritance, what we get from our parents and how we make our own way, so my ideas for the picture fell into two parts:
The things that connect Jayne with her Father and Grandfather.
The things that separate her from them both in terms of ‘fashion’, that is the passage of time and what makes her different from them.
Connectors
Physical Similarities – Height, facial features
Origin – Yorkshire, same region
Surname – Ackroyd
Middle age – Eldest to Youngest but in the 50 to 70 category.
Love of outdoors
Intelligence – Formal education and intellectual interests (theatre, drama)
Direct, no nonsense – functional clothing, smart without being high maintenance
Sense of humour – dry witted, sharp
Confident – forthright but not arrogant
Focused – work hard for an outcome
Separators
Gender
Career – Engineering over teaching and plumbing
Only child.
Sports – marathon running, 6 major marathons of the world, Team GB duathlon and aquathlon, Euro and World Championships
Studious – Self Study MBA, Triathlon Coach
Non-judgemental – difficult relationship with Dad but not Grandad
Outwardly emotional – gets from her mother
No children – conscious decision
Potential Props
Clothing – traditional Yorkshire attire or that associated with the region – flat caps, scarves, heavy coats.
Jayne’s outfit – either glamorous or sporty. Something you wouldn’t wear to garden in. Some references to her track record, e.g. the medals or bike helmet.
Books – titles that metaphorically describe evolution or change. This could also be used to tell something about Jayne and her interests. Could be a mix to titles.
The photographs – getting them into the composition somewhere there they can be seen but are not obvious signposts.
Candle – represent the passage of time.
Tea cup – there is a stainless steel teapot, so perhaps something that complements that in some way. Could be a broken one to tie in with the decaying aesthetic or something that contradicts the natural world in some way.
Bouquet of flowers – something that suggests this is the limit of Jayne’s ability as a gardener but also pays tribute to her dad and grandad.
Artificial flower – could say the same thing.
Discussion with my Tutor
At this point in my thinking, I had a call with my tutor to discuss my recent submission for Assignment 4. As this had been an essay, the conversation was shorter than the usual feedback on the photographic assignments. After some recommendations on further reading/thinking about the subject of the essay, the discussion moved on to my thoughts for this assignment. I tried to describe my idea about the inheritance from grandfather to granddaughter and my tutor fed back that she thought it would be difficult to capture that breadth of scope in a single image. She advised me to hone the idea into a more focused story if I really wanted to do a single tableau image. She also recommended using the greenhouse in a more unexpected way than a straightforward setting for the picture. This conversation, like many during the earlier parts of this degree, shook me. I was continuing not to learn the lesson about becoming fixated on an idea in a way that narrowed my perspective on it – I had already planned out the work to a point where I was reluctant to make significant changes. I needed to learn to keep my options open during the planning phase so that feedback like this would not feel like an abandonment of the core of my idea.
Evolving the Idea
With the objective to hone the idea into a stronger story, I started to look at what the photograph and the greenhouse actually meant to me. As I mentioned previously, the relationship between Jayne and her father was not always easy and perhaps initially the presence of the greenhouse in its state of decay reminded me how different they were -we have no equivalent at our home as Jayne has no interest in gardening. When I thought again, I realised that the actual connection was the opposite of this difference; Jayne adored her Dad, particularly in his later years. The same was true of her grandfather who had died many years before. The story was actually about the discovery of the photograph and the way the greenhouse connected her with them both in a more affectionate way. I started thinking about how people revisit places that they have a strong emotional connection with and that if the passage of time has been great, the place can be very different from how they remember. This nostalgia is heightened by the memories of how it used to be, so perhaps the greenhouse and its decaying condition were the gateway to Jayne’s fond memories in this case. My idea was shifting toward this being a story of the love of family, with the decaying greenhouse also creating a sense of sadness at both the loss of loved ones as well as highlighting how some traditions are lost with them.
With the idea now clearer to me, I started to revisit the way the picture would be shot. My tutor’s advice to consider the greenhouse outside of the usual context led me to think about emphasising the impact of the space at any time of day. I therefore decided to shoot it at night instead of during the daytime. The greenhouse would now be a comforting space outside of the context of its intended purpose, i.e. growing plants. The ideas I had previously for composition and props were still valid, although I found that I no longer saw the more obvious contextual elements such as the candle, flowers, etc to be as important as making the setting work with my revised theme. Instead, I would keep the contextual elements subtle in order not to overburden the viewer with signposts to what I intended the picture to be about.
Initial Conclusions
As I have increasingly found over this unit, the creative process and preparation for the assignments is very important. Having a structured approach to the planning and seeking feedback from others have become powerful tools in helping me form my ideas. I was happy that the revised idea, after the feedback from my tutor, was stronger than originally conceived. However, I need to accept that not every idea that appeals to me at the outset will ultimately work as a project. I definitely need to be more patient when it comes to the suggestion that I pivot an idea or even elect to stop developing one. In taking a step back during the preparation of this assignment, I believe I concluded with a much stronger idea to take forward.
Question for the Seller re-situates images in a different context and in doing so allows for a new dialogue to take place.
Reflect on the following in your learning log:
Does their presence on a gallery wall give these images an elevated status?
Where does their meaning derive from?
When they are sold (again on eBay, via auction direct from the gallery) is their value increased by the fact that they are now ‘art’?
Look online at the Zoe Leonard and Cheryl Dunye series The Fae Richards Photo Archive (1996). You might be forgiven for assuming the images to be remnants from an old family album documenting the life of the beautiful actress Fae Richards. The images appear to chart Richards’ life from her birth in the 1920s through her glamorous career in the 40s up to her involvement in the civil rights movement of the 50s. Fae Richards is an entirely fictional character, however. Leonard and Dunye drew upon historical records and, noting the distinct lack of information about African-American women, they invented one. The purpose of this fictional archive is to question the truthfulness of the archive and how history is recorded. Who gets included in our written histories and why? More importantly, who is left out? And who is in control of this information?
Do you have any archives that you could have access to? Might you be able to use it for the beginnings of a project?
Blog about some ideas that you could come back to some day
Questions for the Seller
Does their presence on a gallery wall give these images an elevated status?
The idea that something can be elevated in status by calling it art is something that has been hotly debated for many years. As I was growing up, I had an inherent cynicism about ‘art for art’s sake’, with the most notable examples being what is considered to be ‘modern art’. Whenever I visited a gallery or museum, I was often left with a greater appreciation of the building architecture than the pieces contained within it; Tate Modern in London and Hamburger Bahnhoff in Berlin being good examples. However in researching what makes something art, it’s clear that the main attribute is what it is being said by the the artist. One philosopher who sought to define art in objective terms was Martin Heidegger. His hugely complex essay The Origin of the Work of Art published in 1950 discusses the relationship between what we understand of an object being represented as art and how that understanding is built. In a review of the concept of art[1] Jon-Paul Stonard states:
At the outset Heidegger says that it is the work of art that ‘gives credit to the master’, enabling them to emerge as an artist. The work of art and the artist exist in a circular relationship, depending on a third, mysterious thing – art itself. You get the sense that he is talking not about the moment of creation, but rather about what happens when works of art emerge into the world – when they are seen and thought about.
Jon-Paul Stonard (2018)[1]
What Stonard suggests is that art is about the artist and what they are trying to achieve with it. It doesn’t become art though, until it is seen and interpreted by others in a way that connects with the artist’s intent. We have learned in this unit that context and contextual elements are key to the viewer being able to form their own narrative. Perhaps what Heidegger and Stonard are saying is that the artist themselves, being the enabler and curator of their work, is also a contextual element. In the case of Bird’s work, the photographs themselves are not her original work. Arguably the only tangible thing that she has done is to add the text and arrange them pictures in a particular way. Of course, this is what emerges as the art. The people going to see the work at Belfast Exposed responded to her treatment of the images; creating a sympathetic archive where none existed previously. The act of displaying them in a gallery with the artist’s intent being on display, does elevate them for me. We should also not underestimate the role of the gallery in the creation of art. Most displays contain some background information on the artist, which can often be the first introduction to the person and their work. The setting and arrangement of the pieces reminds us that we are there to try to derive some kind of meaning from the work, even if the act itself is subconscious.
Where does the meaning derive from?
I would say that the meaning comes from two places. The first is from the context that the artist places with the groups of images. They were bought in lots, so there is a natural grouping by seller. However, the backstory that Bird includes with the series sheds some light in some cases on the lives of the subjects. Bird contrasts the very human stories with the fact that these images were essentially being discarded by their owner. In the interview she did with Boothroyd [2], Bird traced this contrast back to an experience she had in the US prior to this series:
I was in a picture archive in the US. On another table was a contact sheet of Elvis Presley in the 1950s, at a formal dinner table surrounded by immaculately dressed women. There was a picture editor’s pencil mark around his head – indicating the part of the photo they wanted to use. This cropping revealed in an instant the value of the picture and how they weren’t interested in the unidentified group of women.
Nicky Bird talking to Sharon Boothroyd[2]
This idea that archives somehow exist at the behest of their owner and as such only tell the viewer what the archivist wants them to, is a similar experience to Broomberg and Chanarin. In Bird’s case, the pictures were not wanted at all which the artist uses to highlight the fragility of our place in the world and in history.
The second place that their meaning comes from is how we see them out of the context of their time. We tend to linger on an image when presented with it in a gallery setting, which offers us time to write our own narrative that may support or contradict that of Bird. That narrative may simply our reading of what’s in the picture or a very personal connection with what is familiar to us about the image. What elevates the image is perhaps the challenge of ‘this is what I think, what do you think?’ For me, art must be a challenge to the viewer set by the artist that fuels the circular relationship that Heidegger referred to in his paper[1].
When they are sold (again on eBay, via auction direct from the gallery) is their value increased by the fact that they are now ‘art’?
This is an interesting question. In the first instance there is evidence that the individual photographs had an increased monetary value as a result of being in Bird’s series. The video clip on the artist’s website [3] shows a picture with its accompanying ‘title’ selling for £12, which we assume is considerably more than the bare minimum that it was originally purchased for. Being introduced to the public as an artwork and gaining more exposure than it had ever had in the lifetime of the owner [3], the interest in the photograph had grown many times over. That value is more interesting than the financial for me. In seeing the photographs together at a gallery, the viewer is being presented with them as art that has been created by an artist as I mentioned previously. The value may have something to do with that simple fact and Bird’s reputation as an artist and photographer, but for me there is more to it than that. When we see these images, we see the lost history that interested Bird in the first place and because everyone has imagery of some sort that documents their own lives, we emotionally relate to that. The fact that Bird came to the rescue of these uniquely personal documents, saving them from destruction appeals to our own sense of place in the world. The sentimental connection with the past and the narratives that we write for the pictures as we see them, creates value to the piece. The mastery of the work is in the way that it started and ended with an auction, the re-situated archive that Bird created becoming transient [4]. For me, it serves as both an artwork and social reminder that our lives are so brief in the context of history, that some things are worth preserving in some way for the next person to appreciate. The irony of the sale is that not only is the archive transient, but it also becomes disbanded with the images going to a whole variety of new owners.
Leonard and Dunye: The Fae Richards Photo Archive (1996)
The first thing I noted when looking at The Fae Richards Photo Archive was the huge amount of effort that went into creating this fabricated reality. Leonard collaborated with Dunye for a film that the latter was making in which a young black film director was looking for as much as she could find about a Black film star of the early days of modern cinema. The central character in the film essentially investigates the mysterious Fae Richards and narrates her story towards the end of Dunye’s film. In a review discussion of the work [5], it is revealed that the photo archive was created to such a convincing standard that they even employed a number of techniques in the darkroom to age the prints to the appropriate time period. Each photograph was meticulously planned to tell the story of Richard’s struggle as a Black lesbian actress trying to be taken seriously in Hollywood. The story itself is almost a biography in its own right, discussing moves that Richards made in her career and her personal life as well as leaving some elements unsaid. The ‘narrator’ in the film tries to piece together the ‘what happened next’ elements from what she ‘knew’ of Richard’s life.
This is all very clever, but the most interesting point here is the impact the archive has. We are introduced to the central character of Richards and the people who feature in her life and the thread of the story follows a pattern that is familiar to us. A young Black woman who is also lesbian, trying to be taken seriously against a backdrop of the institutional racism of 20th century America. Her beginnings, which tell of being given parts as ‘the Black maid’ or ‘the Black cook’ all fall into what we know as a wretched time in the history of prejudice. Her failed romances with women also point to the difficulties of same sex relationships with the prejudices of the time. However, Richards is a fighter who leaves Hollywood for an independent film studio where she rises to greater roles until eventually retiring from acting. She becomes part of the movement for equal rights and campaigns as an activist in her later life. The problem I have with this is that as a single story, it is a total Hollywood cliché. What we don’t see are the more mundane parts of Richard’s life; the things she admires or the things that she avoids, the accidental snapshots of her just living her life. We don’t see any real evidence of domesticity or how her life changes with her success. The archive very deliberately leaves out any of the things that we would want to know about someone or a situation. When we consider the size and complexity of the curated archive for The Troubles that we encountered previously[4], we see precious little real detail in the fabricated archive about Fae Richards. The feat of creativity and technical attention to detail in Leonard’s work is remarkable, but for me it drives home that photography can be exploited as a pseudo-factual document that convinces the viewer of a version of reality. The director and artist both want to steer the viewer to seeing this incredible life of their character as one might expect in a Hollywood movie. The archive is carefully controlled to steer the viewer through the plot, but leave enough room to create their own impression of the central character. When we think about it, the director is now the archivist which begs the question as to whether any archive is really a historical record of events or merely a version of events. Taking the example of Richards, there we clearly many people in history who fought prejudice against their colour, sexuality or simply their way of life. However, not all of them led lives of signposted narratives and not all were able to change the perceptions of themselves. The Richards archive is a pastiche of all the things we hope that people did when facing the extremes of that period in history. As the notes suggest, this was the intention of the archive that was used in the film. When the work was displayed in its own right, i.e. without the accompanying film, Leonard deliberately included the cast list of each image, to make sure that everyone viewing it knew that it was a fiction[5]. I admire the way that the artist tells a story that is veiled in truth, exercising the control of the context while allowing some freedom for the viewer to fill in the gaps as they see it. The archive, it would appear is a good way of lending credibility to the creation which we want to engage with as if real. I’m reminded of the first time I saw Insomnia by Jeff Wall, when I spent a few moments wondering if this was real or fictional. The longer I looked at the picture, the more I began to notice the way that it was constructed. It didn’t actually matter that I then knew it was a fiction as I could relate the sense of dread, the depressing harshness of not being able to sleep etc with my own experience. The way the picture’s constructed reality merely lent my own narrative some credibility; the same is true for when I look at the Richards archive.
Do you have any archives that you could have access to? Might you be able to use it for the beginnings of a project?
As I started to work on this exercise, I immediately thought about the thousands of slide photographs that I was given by my father a few years ago. My dad was an amateur photographer throughout my childhood and became a professional towards the end of my teenage years. He shot many formats, but slides were the traditional way of showing photographs in those days using projection. I had asked him about photographs of the family which he duly said he had sorted out for me. When it came to being given them, the collection was actually all of his slides with subjects ranging from family holidays to his professional portfolio work. They weren’t really all that organised and not all of them had annotations but some did – they don’t really exist as an archive although I’ve always intended to create one when I have the time. An idea for a project came to mind as I worked this exercise. My childhood was a very happy time in the sense that we were loved and always provided for. My dad had a great job and my mother was a wonderful homemaker, which left me feeling like we were somehow blessed with amazing good fortune. However, at an early age I started to be dogged with the anxiety which would eventually lead to my struggle with depression in my thirties. When my mother became ill and died shortly afterwards, any notion I had of our family being fortunate died with her. The photographs in the collection show the happy side of growing up, but perhaps that could be coupled in some way with the darker side of life in a way that seems real but isn’t. I could either insert altered reality in the form of slides (I shoot positive film fairly regularly) taking inspiration from the artists studied here or simply add some textual context and unrelated imagery from the boarder set of slides. This is an idea that I may explore with time as the raw material is certainly available. The problem that I see currently is that I don’t have the time to devote to it, which rules it out as an idea for Assignment 5.
Conclusions
In conclusion, I’ve found this exercise very interesting. The idea of an archive being used to elevate seemingly disconnected items to a work that has new meaning, is something I hadn’t appreciated before. The artists are challenging the idea of an archive as an accurate depiction or record of real events, but still using our interpretation of them being factual to increase the impact. In the case of Bird, she acts as a temporary landlord for other people’s photographic records of someone else’s history. In her elevation of the photographs, Bird re-energises the interest in these long lost people and incites the viewer to take their ownership of the story. She has this concept of filling in the narrative in common with Leonard and Dunye, but in their case what is provided to the viewer is done so by their design. Like the tableaux photographers, the careful construction of the key messages are left for us to fill in the blanks. The archive in both cases serves as a referee for what is real or believable.
In this project we are introduced to how artists use archived material as the basis for their work, whether creating their own or challenging the concept. Like the other artists in Part 5, they are using other media as the inspiration for their version of reality. Here we will look at two approaches, one that takes a view of material through the way that people engage with an archive and one that seeks to build order from seemingly unconnected material.
Broomberg and Chanarin
Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin were invited by Belfast Exposed, an organisation that manages an archive of photographs taken by photojournalists during The Troubles, to create a response to it. Their approach was to first look at how an archive works, from the selection of images to the way that people interact with them. The Belfast Exposed archive contained over 1.8 million photographs arranged as contact sheet prints stored with their negatives. During the many years that the archive has been curated, it has been maintained by a group of archivists working within the constructs of the local authorities as well as in terms of what the public are allowed to see. The artists started by looking at the contact sheets as articles their own right rather than the photographs within them. The evidence of the many years curating, cataloguing and even censoring the images was evident by markings on the sheets; many techniques were used from hand annotation to the use of stickers and sticky notes. What the artists realised was that these annotations were only made on the printed sheets and the negatives remained untouched in the accompanying files. This was brought home to them when they looked at the damage caused by the visiting public. In some cases, those who appeared in the photographs objected to being in the images and scratched themselves from the contact sheets. In a video presentation of the work [1], the artists realised in both cases, some were using the archive to hide part of the story from the viewing public, whether out of shame or personal embarrassment. What the artists also became drawn to was the use of coloured round dots on the contact sheets that were used to obscure particular elements in the pictures that gave some concern to the archivists. Far from being the straight documentary that we were introduced to earlier in the course, these edited images only revealed part of any story that the original photojournalists observed. In removing the dots, the artists could see what was being hidden. The archive had become more of a document of what wasn’t in the photographs as much as what was included. In the presentation[1] the artists discuss the concept of responding to what is considered to be an accurate historical document. The Troubles in Northern Ireland were a brutal time of protest and suffering which the archive intended to document. However, in censoring some of the images, such as the behaviour of some of the law enforcement agencies at the time, the archive offers a particular narrative. In their response the archive, Broomberg and Chanarin invert the notion of documentary. Their approach for their first series was to use a circular mask in the darkroom which could be positioned when reproducing the original photograph (from the untouched negative).
Untitled (Girls Deflecting) from the series People in Trouble Laughing Pushed to the Ground (Dots) (2010) by Broomberg and Chanarin [3]
For their second series, they reproduced the obscuration seen on the original contact sheets in larger prints.
Sheet 27, Frame 9 from the series People in Trouble Laughing Pushed to the Ground (2011) by Broomberg and Chanarin [2]
Both series are curated in a way that tell a different story of The Troubles to the archive. The story is now more a fiction than a series of ‘facts’ that the artists took control of. Now the people of Northern Ireland are seen almost out of their historical context, which means that the viewer can only bring what they know about the conflict to the pictures. In the first image above, the two girls are shielding their faces from being photographed. We are left wondering why this might be because we cannot see what else is happening in the picture. The artists are showing us something previously obscured and out of context. This photograph could be anywhere and in any time period; the artists have elevated the girls from The Troubles and are asking use to think what they might be doing or involved with. In the second image, we see a man whose face has been obscured with a black marker. The immediate thought when I look at this image is that the obscuration reminds me of the classic redaction used in official documents that are somehow classified. Whoever did this was trying to keep the man’s identity from us but as we look closer, hasn’t been completely successful. Who was the man and why didn’t he want to be identified (assuming he was the culprit for the redaction)? Was it out of embarrassment, concern for his privacy or perhaps fear for his life. If we apply no external context, it could be any of these reasons and more, but if we consider against the context of the situation in Northern Ireland, it could well be the out of fear. In both images, the point about their elevation from the context of the archive is further emphasised by the factual titles that the pictures are given. The titles make no reference to any history, merely point out the obvious subject in the frame.
Nicky Bird
Nicky Bird’s take on the archive is slightly different to Broomberg and Chanarin, but the end result is similar. We are told in the notes that Bird purchased photographs from eBay that nobody was interested in. They images of people and families had found their way onto the auction website with the obvious sentiment that they were unwanted. Immediately this idea of people discarding a family history provokes a response in the viewer; what has happened to make the seller reach this conclusion? Is there some historical reason or is it merely a clear-out? Are the people in the photographs even related in any way to the seller? I know from experience that the resurgence of film photography has created a demand for old cameras that have been lurking in people’s attics etc (I have purchased many of my collection this way). Sometimes, these cameras contain partially used film and sometimes they are kept with negatives that were shot by the owner. This phenomenon of ‘found film’ has led to many images that have remained unseen for decades being viewed for the first time. They are out of their own time and being viewed in the context of the present. What Bird did with her purchases was to ask the seller how they got hold of them and whether they knew anything of their history. The answers were included by Bird along with details of the purchase as context for the collections of photographs. This approach, similar to diCorcia’s Hustlers (where the men’s names and their fees were included) is very factual and its impact entirely dependent on the granularity of the information provided by the seller.
The first purchase, by Nicky Bird. From the series Questions for the Seller (2002)[4]
We can see from the photographs in the collection above that there is an intimacy to them. When we read the notes from the seller, the photographs take on a greater sense of emotion which, coupled with where they eventually ended up (on eBay) asks the viewer to evaluate their response to them. Bird explored the way that people connect with historical photographs during an interview with Sharon Boothroyd[5]
eBay is interesting as a sort of house clearance – in one way the photos can be seen as thrown away, but in another sense, it is a type of postponement i.e. why do people not just throw these photos in the bin? In fact, one eBay seller had rescued a batch of photographs from a skip, while another said that eBay sellers and buyers were new ‘custodians now’ for such materials… so it was interesting that both examples (the brutal and the benign) had a presence in Question for Seller.
Nicky Bird[5]
With the idea that Bird was the new custodian of the images, we now see how her role as archivist has evolved. In curating a collection of groups of images in a a disparate collection, the archive that she creates is one that both preserves the history, but allows us to write our own stories based on the subjects themselves and the journeys the photographs themselves have taken towards being viewed.
Bird held her own auction of some of the photographs in her work for charity, which in a sense passes the historical preservation and maintaining of their impact on to the next generation of custodians. In doing so, Bird’s archive is transient; the opposite of our understanding of the traditional definition. Like Broomberg and Chanarin, the artist takes control of how people will interact with it, fabricating reality and suggesting new meanings as she goes.
References
[1] London Consortium TV, “Broomberg and Chanarin: Presenting Four Projects on Vimeo”, Vimeo online, https://vimeo.com/32622798
We are introduced to Cindy Sherman as an example of an artist who has made her name through fabricating realties in a slightly different way to those we have studied in Part 5. Sherman stages herself in her compositions in a similar way to the artists that we studied in Part 4, but uses the fabricated reality to tell stories about women in a number of social contexts. Sherman carefully constructs her images to subtly subvert how we see women, directing each element in a similar way to the artists working in tableaux that we have looked at in this section.
Centrefolds (1981)
In this series, Sherman recreates the typical scene found in a centrefold of a softcore pornographic magazine. Everything from the lighting, the few set props and the oversaturated look of a studio film shoot are present. The model is posed in a typical ‘seductive’ way that dominates the whole frame, something that was used by the photographers in that genre to emphasise the female form. However the first and most obvious difference is that Sherman is clothed, which immediately challenges the viewer to figure out what is going on.
Untitled (1981), by Cindy Sherman from the series ‘Centrefolds'[1]
In this photograph, we see Sherman reclined diagonally across the frame with her arms placed in a revealing pose as was popular in the magazines of the period. Her gaze away from the camera is distant but suggests that she is looking at someone, taking on a more seductive meaning. However her clothing almost completely contradicts the feeling that this is somehow a sexual scene. Her plain jumper and gingham skirt take on a potentially more sinister theme than erotic. Instead of being seductive, the woman looks vulnerable. What is happening to her? When we look more closely, we see that she is clutching a crumpled piece of paper in her hand. Perhaps then, she has just received some bad news and she is fearful of what might happen as a result. The reclined pose itself now suggests someone submitting to a situation. Perhaps the woman has been threatened or attacked by the person she is looking at outside of the frame. What Sherman does with this image and the rest of the Centrefolds series is to almost mock the sexy poses of the glamour and softcore pornography world by telling stories of the objectified women and how our perceptions may not be reality. The photograph cleverly weaves narrative by the careful placement of the contextual elements, much like the tableau practitioners, but by using herself as a canvass Sherman asks the viewer directly to consider the way that women are subjected to objectification and categorisation against a backdrop of the largely male fantasy of pornography. The irony of the series being rejected by the magazine that originally commissioned it is not lost on me[2] as the whole idea of women being vulnerable wasn’t the aesthetic that the magazine would have been looking for. In her portrayals, Sherman creates an alternative reality that makes us feel uncomfortable, yet the message is clear that we should look beyond the female ‘object’.
Conclusion
Sherman’s take on the fabricated reality is a subtle, yet powerful way of taking a familiar context and altering it to tell a different story. While I focused on the Centrefolds series, the same approach can be seen in Untitled Film Stills(1977-80) and Society Portraits(2009). In the former Sherman explores the way that women are seen in society through the medium of cinema. In the latter, she portrays America’s wealthy women in a way that highlights them struggling to maintain their status rather than trying to defy the ageing process [3]. In both series, we see Sherman playing many different women with many different outward images, but each has a sense of the vulnerable about them. Perhaps this sense is stronger from the male perspective as the series are all set against a male dominated environment. Either way, I find the work highly charged in its emotion and very clever in its execution, perhaps the reason why Sherman’s work is prized in the world of fine art photography.
Record a real conversation with a friend. (It’s up to you whether you ask permission or not!). Before listening to the recording, write you account of both sides of the conversation.
Then listen to the recording and make a note of the discrepancies. Perhaps there are unfinished sentences, stammers, pauses, miscommunications etc.
Reflect upon the believability of re-enacted narratives and how this can be applied to constructed photography. What do you learn from the conversation process and how can you transfer what you learned into making pictures?
The Conversation
For this exercise I decided to record a conversation between my wife and I about a goal I plan to set for 2021. I asked her permission to record the conversation beforehand, but asked her to put aside this fact in order to keep the discussion as natural as possible. The conversation was something that I had considered over the Christmas period, following a difficult December which resulted in my being made redundant and electing not to get another job in the short term. As well as focusing on my studies and building my experience as a photographer, I wanted to focus on a goal that I had set myself before COVID-19 took hold last year. As a keen open-water swimmer I wanted to complete the longest single lake swim in the UK, an 11 mile endurance race in Lake Windermere that prospective Channel swimmers use for practice. My wife, who is an accomplished athlete was the first person I needed to discuss training with.
I started by laying out what I needed from her in terms of advice on preparation, specifically the program of getting back in the swimming pool after being away from it for most of 2020. We talked about the potential distances that I would need to cover to get to a level of stamina that would accelerate my first lake swims, due to start in May. We talked about having structure to my day once I had finished my full-time job in January, part of which would include my daily exercise. Jayne talked about the quieter times that were available at the pool for swimming and how I could balance this training with my rowing machine, cycling and walking. We also discussed working on elements of my swimming other than just the stamina. Instead of just racking up the miles, Jayne talked about strength and speed sessions in the pool for the obvious benefits as well as keeping it interesting.
Listening to the Playback
The first noticeable detail in the recording was the relaxed manner in which it took place. This shouldn’t be a surprise, given that it was a discussion between husband and wife about a shared interest; my training for a big challenge. However, I noticed that the volume and tempo of the conversation didn’t change throughout the recording. It was clear from the dialogue that this was a subject that both parties had knowledge about, so while the conversation was essentially me asking Jayne for advice, the tone was one of agreement rather than ‘challenge’. Each point that was made was met with agreement from the other party in the form of ‘yeah’ or ‘uh huh’ which is different from a written discourse. Another observation about conversational communication was that the answers to questions or points were constructed in real time, which led to both of us starting a sentence and then starting it again, for example “It would be nice to…er..it would be nice to…”. This ‘live’ narration is something that we only see in verbal communication to the extent that when we are presented with a consummate public speaker (using a prepared autocue), it is noticeably absent. I was reminded of this recently when viewing the last of President Obama’s speeches at the White House Press Corps dinner in 2016 [1]. Obama’s impeccable delivery was aided by the fact that the speech was in front of him, but reading lines has the same pitfalls as talking off-the-cuff. His skill as an orator was more about taking his time, judging the reactions to his many jokes and not filling the silences that most people would naturally insert into such dialogue.
Other observations about our conversation were how different messages were delivered through the tone and pitch of our voices, as well as the use of interruption to pick up on a point and re-emphasise or contradict. An example of the former was when Jayne was talking about mixing the training schedule up with swimming drills rather than just focusing on distance. Her voice changed pitch at this suggestion as if drawing my attention to a specific piece of information in her advice. Also, when the conversation drew to a close, the ‘conclusion’ that I described about how I would train tailed off in terms of pitch, as if introducing a finality to the discussion.
The believability of re-enacted narratives in constructed photographs
My initial thoughts after listening to the recording of our conversation were that it generally reflected I had believed it to have gone from memory. The discussion was helpful in gathering thoughts about my training program and I got what I needed from my wife’s experiences as an athlete. The main difference was that I had a great deal of contextual information before and during the conversation. When I listened to the recording, the inflections, hesitations and two way dialogue was different from my memory. As with the visual, the audible response is open to interpretation of only what is presented (think our emotional reaction to music). In that case, if the discrepancies in communication are detected audibly, the same can be said for the elements included in an image. If our conversation was represented visually, the picture might convey a polite, loving relationship with nobody taking the role of teacher or student, so how would the viewer know what the conversation was actually about? If the inflections were represented by strong visuals over other weaker ones, how would that affect how the viewer reads the picture? If the viewer is responsible for the narrative (Barthes)[2], does the artist have any accountability for the ‘meaning’ of the photograph?
For me, the artist creates the image with just enough context to help the forming of a narrative in the viewer, that will differ from person to person. If the picture is intended to recreate an emotional sensation or invoke a memory, the more the artist includes to make it more real for them, the less likely the viewer is to read the meaning. For example, Paul Seawright stated that he had been criticised for creating work that was impenetrable because of the lack of contextual elements; the viewer struggling to create a narrative from what was presented. The work may have been important to Seawright, but if the image didn’t get the message across in a way that the viewer could understand, its impact is diminished. I think the ‘believability’ of an image comes from the way that the elements are treated as a language, such that there is a clear story distinguished by the contrast between the signs, studium and punctum. If the artist wants to draw attention to the mood of a particular element, it is their responsibility to ensure that the viewer sees if as they prepare their internal narrative. For example, in Wall’s image Insomnia, the passage of time is represented by the setting being at night and the trace evidence of there having been a clock on the wall. If the artist wanted to signpost the meaning, he could have left the clock in place. In choosing to leave just the mark on the wall where the clock used to be, he introduces the question of just how long the subject has been in the kitchen. When coupled with the clear nighttime feel incorporating the blacked out window, the artist suggests that time is dragging or has even possibly stopped completely for the sufferer. There is no uncertainty or debate about the hopelessness of suffering from insomnia and the imprisonment it creates, no gentle debate between the artist and viewer but instead the relationship of clear communication.
Conclusion
In preparing the submission for Assignment 5, I am considering the learning from looking at Wall, Crewdson and diCorcia, all of whom created fabricated realities through very careful placement of elements in the scene. If any component introduced confusion in the viewer, it was left out or re-imagined to be more impactful. It has been interesting to contrast my understanding of a conversation vs. the actual verbal dialogue that took place. It is little wonder that we encounter misunderstanding in our daily communications, particularly non-verbal. My conclusion from this exercise is that clarity of the written word, with its intentions or unintended consequences is more akin to the way that fabricated images appeal to the viewer. Viewers should have room to explore the work and create their narrative, but the intent, whether atmosphere, political statement or emotion should be clear enough for that process to be able to begin.
Do you think there is more to this work than aesthetic beauty?
Do you think Crewdson succeeds in making this work ‘psychological’? What does this mean?
What is your main goal in making pictures? Do you think there is anything wrong with making beauty your main goal? Why or why not?
Introduction
I first encountered the work of Gregory Crewdson in 2013 when I watched the BBC documentary series The Genius of Photography[1]. Crewdson was one of the artists who featured in the series, specifically highlighting his large scale shoots and meticulous attention to detail in creating his images. The picture that was being shot was Untitled(Brief Encounter), one of the series of Beneath the Roses(2003 to 2007), featuring an American street scene during a snowy winter. The main theme of the documentary was the way that Crewdson worked. He created a huge set by closing off an entire street so that the snow could accumulate undisturbed and placed very specific details, actors and lighting in the composition. Crewdson’s attention to detail became clear in the film when he notices someone entering the set and disturbing the snow. After evicting them, machines were brought in to resurface the area where they were walking. Other details such as the traffic lights being under his control for the duration of the shoot pointed to someone leaving as little to chance as possible. The end result was an large format 8×10 film negative that could be blown up to the massive prints that show off Crewdson’s elaborate tableaux. For this research task, I focused on Cathedral of the Pines (2013 to 2014), which was series prompted by Crewdson’s relocation to rural Massachusetts following his divorce in 2011. Inspired by a walking trail that he discovered in the area of his new home, Cathedral of the Pines is considered be the point at which Crewdson altered the approach to his art, favouring a more intimate, small scale production to the large, cinematic style of Beneath the Roses. In choosing this series instead, I wanted to examine the work with regard to the questions being posed in the brief.
Do you think there is more to this work than aesthetic beauty?
Consider the photograph below from Crewdson’s series Cathedral of the Pines (2013 2014).
Father and Son (2013) by Gregory Crewdson[2]
Here we have a scene of a man lying in bed in a pose that suggests that he is either dying or has recently passed away. A soft, ethereal light streams through the open window at the head of the bed and illuminates the man’s pale skin with very little contrast between highlight and shadow. We see a reflection of a boy sitting by the man’s bedside in the mirror but cannot physically see him as he is obscured by a partial wall on the left of the frame. The expression on the boy’s face is one of sadness akin to that of a visitor to a hospital bedside or a mourner. This image is a classic Crewdson tableau with a mixture of natural and artificial light and a carefully constructed set. Every detail within the space is lit in a way that draws the eye around the composition looking for meanings. For example, Why is the dresser drawer partially open? Why is there no physical connection between the two subjects? Is the man posed as if lying in state, i.e. has he already died and is this the calm aftermath we are witnessing. There is no escaping the emotional feel of the photograph.
Do you think Crewdson succeeds in making this work ‘psychological’? What does this mean?
However, there is also a psychological element to the picture. The way the boy is hidden creates a feeling of the supernatural, with us only being able to see his reflection in the mirror. As with Hannah Starkey’s use of reflections, there is something unreal about the boy’s appearance in the photograph. He is lit in a similar, soft way as his father, which creates the physical connection between them. Perhaps the man has passed away and his son is greeting him from the other side having died previously? The way the boy is not looking at his father points to his being present to support, but he is not willing the man to recover or wake up. When I looked at this photograph, I was reminded of the immediate aftermath of my mother’s death, where everything took on a stillness once the immediate release of emotions had passed. We were sitting with what remained of her but what made her our mum had already left and that felt ok. The final element that supports this almost supernatural feeling is the relationship between outside and inside, something that Crewdson made a central theme to the series. The beauty of the pine trees outside of the bedroom window and the small painting of a pine landscape on the wall suggest a peaceful place in which to die. The way the light comes through the window is similar to the way that we are shown souls transcending to heaven in modern visual art. The shaft of light only really picks up the man’s body and the boy rather than flooding the whole room. For me, this suggestion that all is well, that the man has passed into the afterlife with his boy to help him is a deeply psychological meaning that we all hope is waiting at the end of our lives. Crewdson said in an interview[3] that his pictures were derived from his personal psychological anxieties, fears and desires. He went on to make that point that he, like many photographers, feel disconnected from the world, his work being a way of seeking connection with the people and places while at the same time being a remote observer of the same emotions in them. For me, the psychological meanings of the works in Cathedral of the Pines come through clearly. Crewdson depicts lovers in terms of affection and total absence of it, young people at play or in lonely isolation within their environment and older people struggling with the realisation that they are late in life. Yet he does this without the pictures having a sinister aesthetic; each incorporates light in a subtle but revealing way as if highlighted by some supernatural entity.
What is your main goal in making pictures? Do you think there is anything wrong with making beauty your main goal? Why or why not?
Prior to starting this degree, my goal was to make photographs that ‘looked good’, which essentially meant getting the technical aspects right. As I learned my technique, naturally I developed more of an understanding of composition, but it was still largely focused on making images that were pleasing to look at. I guess that pictorial beauty then extended into the subjects that I chose to shoot, which were primarily landscapes and architecture that used light to show them at their best. Since joining OCA, my ambitions for my pictures have grown beyond my original interest in photography. The main goal of my work now is to create something that challenges the viewer into asking what the picture is about. My work in Assignment 3[4] was the first time that I’d asked the viewer to make up their own mind about meaning. Combining the projected words and the extracts from my diary offered some insight into my life, while the use of my skin as a canvass and the lighting behind gave some idea of how I felt during each day of the series. When I showed the work to my friends, I had to stop myself from explaining it – this was a difficult thing to achieve because previously I had planned every element of my ‘static’ pictures in a way that an explanation came naturally to me. Now I was stepping back from the pictures and letting them speak for themselves, or not as the case may be. What the portraits are not is classically beautiful, so I had subconsciously moved away from this as an idea.
However, as with everything I have a tendency to explore the boundaries of ideas before settling on what makes me interested or happy. In the case of my work, I actually see no problem with making beauty a central theme to my photographs. Crewdson and diCorcia in particular have demonstrated the ability to combine beauty with deeper meaning such as fear, sadness and corruption through their use of light, contrast and saturation. diCorcia worked for many years for a fashion magazine, whose primary goal was to interest the readers in the latest fashion. By definition, the work needed to showcase the fashion items in the most beautiful way possible in the context of whatever the story might be behind it. It’s the subtle layering of the contextual elements that now appeals to me more than the aesthetic beauty which is why I’ve found the work of the artists in this section fascinating. The impact of their work doesn’t for me reside in the beauty of the image and even in a subject that is clearly beautiful, it’s in the use of light and very deliberate composition of the elements that helps create the ‘feel’ of the photograph. Part of the enticement of Crewdson’s work and the way the images draw us in is that they are very easy to look at. The huge negatives he produces with his 8×10 camera capture the tiniest details that the artist has placed in the scene and the production aesthetics mean that it’s easy for the viewer to spend time fully engaging with the photograph. So, while beauty is one of the elements that is at our disposal, consideration must be given to the wider context of the artwork when we make it a theme.
Since being introduced to the works of Jeff Wall in Part 4, the most striking thing about his work is actually highlighted in Part 5. Wall’s attention to the tiniest detail of composition is similar to the way that a cinematographer and director create the look of a movie film. The notes refer to his image After ‘Invisible Man’ Ralph Ellison, the Prologue(1999-2001) which is interesting because it takes its inspiration from literature as opposed to an experience that the artist is trying to tell us about. The novel (not to be confused by H.G. Wells’ classic tale of scientific experimentation gone wrong) is the story of a black man subjected to persecution by white society and his subsequent involvement in the growing racial war in New York. The story starts with the central character, also the narrator, reflecting on the physical and metaphorical invisibility of his life, represented by him living in a derelict basement lit by many bare light bulbs. Wall’s picture looks as if it could be a still frame from a movie adaptation of the book because it faithfully reproduces the scene being described by the narrator. However, as we know the visual representation is ‘directed’ by the storyteller, in this case the photographer. We also know that a movie has time to introduce contextual elements to help the viewer build a narrative around the action[1]. In a still photograph, we know that the artist must include all of the elements that help the narrative and in this case, the viewer is not expected to really appreciate the literary inspiration, in this case the novel[1]. Wall’s picture shows a black man sitting in a chaotic space that is littered with elements that tell us about his life. Clothing hanging up to dry and discarded washing up show a man who is making do with his environment but doesn’t care about its neatness. The space is littered with papers and notes, as if the man is trying to either order his life or document it in some way. The main focus of the picture however is the huge collection of light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. This direct connection with the novel also emphasises the desperation of the man in the image. Wall’s attention to detail that includes the amateurish way the lights are rigged up to the electrical supply (the character in the book is stealing the power from a nearby station), which shows the care that went into the picture. The viewer has enough elements to create their own understanding of what the man is going through and if they have read Ellison’s novel, the picture serves as a visual representation of what is a powerful prologue to the story. Until now, I’d considered these tableau works to be generally inspired by the artist’s experience, whether something that happened in their life of just something that they had seen. The idea of work being inspired by a different art form is interesting and we are introduced to a number of artists that adopt similar approach.
Hannah Starkey (1971 – )
With Hannah Starkey’s exhibition in 2010 at the Maureen Paley gallery, the artist drew her inspiration from Tennyson’s The Lady of Shallott, which is about a cursed maiden who can only view the world through reflections in a mirror in her room. When she seduced into looking at the real world directly, she breaks the mirror and dies. The poem, which is long and complex in its story-telling offers a number of potential narratives about personal connection, taking risks and the blurring of reality and fantasy. Starkey’s images for her untitled exhibition use women, reflections and distorted reality as their central theme, but each uses the same approach of including just enough contextual elements to aid the creation of a narrative.
Untitled, November 2009 by Hannah Starkey[2]
In this photograph we see a woman having a cigarette break outside what looks like a corporate building. She looks at her own reflection in the glass of the building, which immediately begs the question “what is she thinking about regarding her own image?” She may be judging her appearance in some way or even regretting the habit she is indulging. What we see from the viewer perspective is more of her expression in the glass than when we look at her directly. The idea of the reflection being an alternative reality is emphasised here. When we look further, we see that the scene is actually a woman sheltering from the rain; the evidence is shown by the contrast of the tone of the dry patch of ground she is standing on to the wet pavement. The left hand side of the frame reveals the wet ground reflected in the same glass building that the woman is looking at. For me, this is a very strong connection with Tennyson’s poem. The lady in the scene can only see the reflection of herself and her environment in the glass rather than turning to look out into the world. While perhaps not as obvious as Wall’s Invisible Man, the image asks the same questions around how and why the woman finds herself gazing on her own reflection. The notes refer to the false sense of intimacy of reflected self-portraiture and I believe this image makes that point. We can relate to the woman on her break and we can see her whole face in the glass but not when we look directly at her. There is almost a sense of connection but detachment in the way the subject is arranged with relation to her reflection. The image also contrasts light and dark in the larger reflection of the street, which for me points to a further detachment of the woman from the rest of the world. Starkey has clearly taken inspiration from literature in a similar way to Wall, but instead of creating a visual for the text that comes through as the main narrative for the image, she makes her work much more metaphorical. In her later work, Starkey declared that she wanted to represent women honestly and without judgement, citing ““I really think that visual culture is the last battleground for women’s equality and freedom” [3]. When we read these words, they starkly contrast the situation that The Lady of Shallott found herself in, unable to connect with or appreciated the world without temptation from the opposite sex. That temptation ultimately led to her destruction. Starkey’s work appears to suggest that while these constraints are clearly not real, they are often the perception of others.
Tom Hunter (1965 – )
In Tom Hunter’s work Living in Hell and Other Stories the use of art and documentary is even more clear than in that of Wall and Starkey. Where Wall took Invisible Man as his literary inspiration and created his own visual, and Starkey combined poetry with her perspective on the struggles of women, Hunter took both newspapers and classical paintings for his tableau. According to the artist[4], newspapers have long sought the macabre fascination and horror in a society story in order to sell copy. In particular he draws on the Hackney Gazette, his local tabloid newspaper, and its obsession with painting Hackney as being degenerate and full of the dregs of society. With the news stories themselves as his inspiration, he created the visual to ‘accompany’ them in the style of a classical painting. Johaness Vermeer, perhaps most famous for his portrait Girl with a Pearl Earring, is the artist whose style can be seen throughout the series with Hunter taking many technical cues in terms of lighting and composition. In an interview with Adorama[5], Hunter talks about wanting to debunk the ideas of his neighbours and friends being ‘scum’ and to portray them with a sense of dignity. He likened this to the struggle that Vermeer had during his working life where the people of Holland were being oppressed by the Spanish who occupied their land. The Dutch fight for independence comes through in Vermeer’s paintings and Hunter capitalises on that style to make similar points in his photographs. The two images below are representative of Hunter’s approach to his work.
The image on the left is called Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, painted in 1659 by Johannes Vermeer[6] and on the right is Tom Hunter’s Woman Reading a Repossession Order (1998)[7]. When we look at these two side-by-side, the similarities are immediately striking. Both portray women in front of a window reading a letter with a bed or table in the foreground. The image by Vermeer depicts a young woman anxiously reading a letter which we assume is from a loved one. The open window suggests that she is awaiting some piece of news in whatever form possible, even listening out for a sign. The girl has a hint of a smile, which suggests that the letter is a welcome one and the point is further emphasised by the use of fruit, in particular the sectioned peach. The peach is believed by art historians to symbolise the presence of an extramarital relationship[7], so the girl appears to be reading a letter from her lover. By contrast, Hunter’s photograph has a completely different tone to it before we consider the title. The woman’s expression is one of sadness and instead of the fruit, we have a baby in lying on the bed in the foreground. Hunter tells us that the letter is a possession order that is demanding the mother and child leave the place they are living in. In his photograph, Hunter uses Vermeer’s technical approach and composition to create a similar look to his photograph, but in doing so is portraying the woman in a similar way despite the obvious difference in circumstances. The young mother is celebrated as being a human being put in an extraordinary position and having to consider her young child. Both pictures have the drama of being embroiled in something that is seemingly beyond their control. The series that Hunter’s image is taken from is called Persons Unknown, a reference to the way that the authorities and landlords of the Hackney slums referred to Hunter and his friends who were squatting in the buildings [5]. The inspiration that Hunter draws from Vermeer and other artists of the era and how he contrasts it with the lives of his subjects is another powerful use of tableau to tell a story.
Taryn Simon (1975 -)
The third artist in this section of the Part 5 is Taryn Simon, whose series The Innocents (2002) depicts men who were wrongly convicted of horrific crimes in a setting that was part of the story of their arrest. This is an extraordinary work in concept alone and when I first viewed it, I was reminded of Chloe Matthews’ Shot at Dawn from Part 1[8]. Like Simon, Matthews used the actual execution sites where deserters were shot in The Great War, paired with the name, date and time of the event as the title. The effect was a sense of what had passed and the trace of the human element that is often lost in historical records. That work struck a chord with me because of the powerful unseen element (the victim) and the meticulous way that the scene was captured by the artist. In a similar way, but using tableau, Simon uses the location and adds the key elements to create the sense of what occurred. As a result her subjects are part actor, part narrator. The underlying theme of the stories is not captured in the photographs but indirectly referred to throughout the series; the unreliability of photography as a truthful representation. Since all of the men in the series were cases of mistaken identity through eyewitness recall and photofit likenesses, what Simon achieves with her work is an ‘is it or isn’t it real?’ feel as with Wall’s work.
From the series The Innocents (2002) by Taryn Simon [9]. Frederick Daye. Alibi location, American Legion Post 310 San Diego, California, where 13 witnesses placed Daye at the time of the crime Served 10 years of a Life sentence for Rape, Kidnapping and Vehicle Theft
In the picture above we have see a black man sitting alone in a room that has the aesthetic of an American dive bar. The lighting is very subdued with the subject, Frederick Daye lit by a key light. His expression is one of resentment as he stares straight at the camera, which suggests that this man is frustrated by the intrusion in some way. When we read the accompanying text, we see that this was where he was witnessed drinking at the time of the crime he was eventually convicted of. He served 10 years for a crime that he couldn’t have committed because of the disregard of witness testimony. When I look at this image, I see an isolated man, which speaks to the police’s unwillingness to consider that he was witnessed by others. The lack of other people in the frame further emphasises that there were ‘no witnesses’. Daye’s pose with a single beer in front of him suggests a man just enjoying a simple pleasure by himself. His expression, which first looked like intrusion now looks like a frustrated ‘I am here, can’t you see me here?”, a direct protest of not being believed at the time. The image is powerful in that it combines real life elements with an artificially crafted set. This really did happen to Frederick Daye and we can see that it didn’t take much in the way of acting to portray his anger and frustration. The set is so well created that the initial thought is that this is happening in real time. What I think Simon achieves with this photograph is a sense of the injustice and the impact of mistaken identity, while challenging the viewer to believe of disbelieve the reality of the composition. The other images in the series vary in terms of the relevance of the scene to the crime and the way that the victim is represented, but they all have the challenge of whether the images are real or not.
Philip-lorca diCorcia (1951 – )
The final artist introduced in this section was Philip-lorca diCorcia, who was the subject of my Assignment 4 submission[10][11]. I have long been a fan of the carefully crafted realities of his work, starting with his career as a fashion magazine photographer. His series Hustlers (2013) has a similar feel to Simon’s series discussed previously. In Hustlers, diCorcia sought to represent the male prostitutes in a scene that we might expect when thinking about their profession. In crafting an artificial scene rather than just shooting them in their usual environment, diCorcia challenges our stereotype views of these young men. He described them as essentially actors of their client’s fantasies, so the scenes he put them in gave them a platform to act on. However, what was diCorcia was also doing with Hustlers was challenging the idea that the outward appearance of a person and our preconceptions are not necessarily the same as that person’s internal self. By adding the name, location and their price he almost suggests that each encounter was a genuine experience rather than a fabricated reality. Like the other photographers here, diCorcia’s skill is in giving just the right amount of context for the viewer to tell their own story, while ensuring that that context was realistic in appearance.
Conclusion
All of the artists here are exceptional examples of the fabricated reality taking inspiration from documentary or literature. They all have a slightly different approach and their relationships with their subjects differ, but they use a common approach to only include only what is believable. What I hadn’t realised before looking into their work was the vast freedom an artist has when they are ‘making it up’. In drawing and painting, the act of changing how something is represented is under the control of the brush as well as the placement of the subjects in the composition. I’m reminded of J M W Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire (1838), which depicted the grand old warship being towed to its final destination to be scrapped. Although Turner witnessed some of the event, it’s well known that he embellished his painting with additional details such as a dark, cloudy sky, where in reality the day was bright and sunny. He did this to add the patriotic drama of the passing of the great ship, the clouds symbolising the darkness descending on the mighty vessel that had been so crucial during the Napoleonic wars. With photography, the only control the artist has is the way the scene is constructed. Clever use of sets, props, lighting and actors create the sense of reality normally only found in cinema. The layers of complexity of the narrative are steered by the inclusion of some elements and the exclusion of others. The level of artist control and licence to play with what is real, was the key learning from the previous section though. In this section we have learned how inspiration can be drawn from other art, literature and documentary. For me, this offers a good starting point for the creative process which could lead to a tableau rather than relying on a memory, observation or political statement. ‘How to start’ has been something I’ve found challenging throughout this course.
Richard Fletcher OCA Photography Blog 