Assignment 2 – Photographing the Unseen – ideas, planning and research

Photographing the unseen
Start by doing some reflecting in your learning log. What kinds of subjects might be seen as un-photographable? How might you go about portraying them using photography?  List a few examples of things you’re experiencing now or have recently been thinking about. This doesn’t have to be too in-depth or revealing, but it can be if you want. Equally, it might be something as apparently trivial as how you’re going to fit everything into your busy day. At first you may come up with literal examples, but the more you think about them the more those ideas will develop into specific and more original ones. 
Make a list of at least seven ideas. Try and keep to things you have a personal interest in or curiosity about. Keep a notebook with you at all times and make notes when ideas strike you as interesting. (This is good practice for all stages of the degree and beyond.
Ideas books are something to be revisited time and again for ideas and hints for the photographer you’re becoming.)
Now implement one of your ideas. Aim for a tightly edited and visually consistent series
of 7–10 images.

So here’s the reflecting in my learning log 😉

I was immediately drawn to this one of the two options and did keep my notebook with me at all times.  In fact it’s amazing how many times, I woke in the middle of the night and added something to it.

What kinds of subjects might be seen as un-photographable?

  • Connections (between people or environment) you can place a person within an environment or next to another person, but it’s very difficult actually capture the emotional connection between the two things.
  • time – you can photograph the effects of time on a person or object but how do you capture time or the concept of time itself.
  • Memories – 
  • Emotions / feelings
  • thoughts
  • touch
  • dreams
  • ideologies – religion / politics
  • sound
  • absence
  • love

most of these things are things that are experienced by a person within by your senses.

Fraenkel Gallery 2013 – The unphotographable [accessed 02.01.2019] 
The Unphotographable, s an interesting article about an ambitious exhibition exploring the history of that which cannot be photographed. A lot of these images are abstracted and distorted, does this imply that to represent something unseen, it has to be unrecognisable. they are said to represent sound, absence and love.

Touch – this is the one that really interests me – I’m really drawn the idea of trying to capture how it feels to touch something.  Not photographing the act of touching an item but trying to represent how it feels.

The video I found here about photographers trying to represent food they were eating blindfolded.  The results were really different and very interesting.

using your senses to create an image

As photography is a visual medium and I want to create a visual representation of the feeling, it seems logical to remove the visual element of my senses and try to create an image that is inspired by touching something.

My idea is therefore to ask 10 different people to give me an object to touch whilst being blindfolded.  I will write a brief and ask people to help me. I will expand on this more in a separate post.

Assignment 1 – Two sides of the Story – Ideas and Planning (i)

https://www.bjp-online.com/2018/05/dorley-brown-corners/


Sandringham Road & Kingsland Road 15th June 2009
 10:42am – 11:37am, from The Corners © Chris Dorley-Brown

Corners ideas

I have been working on an idea inspired by Chris Dorley-Brown’s Corner’s series.   It also reminded me of an image I liked when I was doing EYV, by Guy Bourdin.  

“The aim of the assignment is to help you explore the convincing nature of documentary, even though what the viewer thinks they see may not in fact be true.”

brief for assignment from Context & Narrative p 45

I have played with the idea of taking images of corners in the town where I live. The first set will be the real images and second set will be ‘reconstructed’ corners.

These four images are the first I’ve tried to test my idea, the first two images are the real images and the second two are ‘reconstructed’.  The third images is an amalgamation of the first two images and the fourth image is a mirror image of the second image, but I have reversed all of the signs so that they still read properly.

The fact that these were taken on dull grey days, means that the light is flat and the sky is almost monotone.  This makes it easier to merge the images so I think I will use that idea for the rest of the set.

Assignment 1 – Two sides of the Story – Ideas and Planning

So having thought about the Yangtze River examples, and the different approaches taken by the various photographers, I like the idea of exploring the town I live in from two points of view.  I moved the south coast in my late 20s so don’t have the benefit of school acquired knowledge of the area.  I have photographed the seafront quite a lot and used the promenade for “The Square Mile”, the first assignment in my last course but was more interested in how people use the space.

I’ve decided to research the history of the town to see if I can use this as the perspective for the first set of images.

A history of Littlehampton: [accessed 14.12.18]   http://www.localhistories.org/littlehampton.html

Old pictures of Littlehampton [accessed 14.12.18]:   https://www.gravelroots.net/history/199.html#here

On reflection: I am going to park this idea, as I don’t think it meets the brief, but I do like it, so want to record it in order to remember at a later date

Assignment 1 – Two sides to the Story – Research

Eureka!

I have been struggling with this piece, trying to think of something inivitive and yet simple.  I have used my new job as an excuse not to get on with it! to be fair it has been a bit, but I was really struggling with what story?, how will I find the time.

As a proverbial ‘kick up the bum’ to try and get myself back on track, I decided to have a look at some other students blogs to see how they had approached this.  In doing so I came across some tutor feedback to one student which I think became my eureka moment!

“Overall Comments
. . . . . . This assignment is essentially about the same subject matter, but shot in two different ways. It is a test of the input of the photographer to produce two viewpoints (often in both senses of the word). To see yourself and your work objectively like this – questioning how you produce work and what this communicates – is a difficult task . . . . .

https://scottishzoecontextandnarrative.wordpress.com/2018/05/11/assignment-1-response-to-tutor/

source: https://scottishzoecontextandnarrative.wordpress.com/2018/05/11/assignment-1-response-to-tutor/ [accessed 14.12.18]

“Suggested reading/viewing
I suggest you look at three projects on the Yangtze river. Comparing different photographers work in this way should illustrate how it is the photographer and (in this case) their differing methodologies, which can produce very different outcomes. This relates directly to this assignment, where the subject matter can be largely similar, yet the results diverse. The Yellow River by Zhang Kechun http://www.zhangkechun.com/the-yellow-river/  Mother River by Yann Wang Preston http://www.yanwangpreston.com/projects/images and Nadav Kander’s The long river https://www.lensculture.com/articles/nadav-kander-yangtze-the-long-river  I recommend reading On Being a Photographer: a Practical Guide by David Hurn and Bill Jay, LensWork Publishing, Portland (2007). This book is more about a photographer’s approach, attitude and their mind-set, rather than technicalities (as the title might suggest).”

Looking at the three examples above, I was particularly struck by the work of Nadav Kander but also the difference in the approaches to the three bodies of work.  Some subtle and some less so.  Kander was definitely struck by the pace of change and how people were feeling because of it, where as Wan Preston’s images were very structured and placed based.

This has given me a much clearer idea of my goal with this set of images now.  I found a cheap copy of ‘On being a photographer’ so will have a look at that when it arrives and in the meantime will have a think about my subject for this assignment.

Paul Seawright – Sectarian Murder

Research point

Look online at Paul Seawright’s work, Sectarian Murders:

  • How does this work challenge the boundaries between documentary and art? Listen to Paul Seawright talk about his work at: http://vimeo.com/76940827 [accessed24/02/14]
  • What is the core of his argument? Do you agree with him?
  • If we define a piece of documentary photography as art, does this change its meaning?

Video accessed 27.10.2018

Seawright describes himself as a  photographic artist and is talking about his images as art rather than journalistic.  He describes a balance between it being too explicit and leaving some room for the viewer to access the meaning.  

He is wanting his viewer to take time to look at the images and learn more from them and their context in taking that time.  He compares this to journalisic images which he says need to give up their explicit meaning quickly, so that the viewer can keep turning the page.  

In both Seawright’s sets of Sectarian Murders (Above) and Hidden (below), he hints at previous aggression and conflict, by showing what is left in the places where it happened.  That coupled with the factual text under the images allows the view to look around his images as he describes in the video.

All of images in Sectarian Murders are complex and you see different things each time you look.  However, they are much more than just a documentary images, there is an artistic quality to the composition.  It appears that he has tried to give a feel of area and from a person’s point of view.

I think I do agree that presenting documentary photography as art it does change the meaning.  Seawright’s images definitely take on the ‘aftermath’ aproach showing us the place where something HAS happened.  The viewer has to react to the context and or narrative that goes alongside the image.  It makes you look for the meaning in the photo

Had these images just been shown in the media, they would have been looked over quickly.  I kind or relate it to the annual poppy festival, it’s a way reconnecting people with things that have happened so that they don’t happen again. 

Palestinian Protester

Captured on October 22 by Mustafa Hassouna of Turkey's Anadolu Agency (Getty Images)

This image just came up in my facebook feed: it was taken just a few days ago by a photojournalist in Gaza, Palestine.  I think this demonstrates beautifully the distinction between photojournalism and art.

The image went viral on social media, such as twitter because of is likeness to a famous painting by Delacroix’s, Liberty Leading the People.

Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People

The first article I read about this focused more on the asethics of the image and likeness to the artwork than the real story and context in which this image was taken and that shocked me!

But having researched more, it seems that the argument about art versus reality is allowing other writers to push forward the realities of this very real modern day struggle.

Another article by the Independent argues that we should not be romanticising about this and gives a more balanced report.

The Aljazeera News told how Laleh Khalili, a SOAS University professor person, who posted the image on twitter also linked it to Delcroix’s painting generating agreement from other users and ‘creating the narrative’.

google search for Palestinian Protesters, showing less iconic images, which over more context and reality

Like Dorothea Lange’s migrant mother, the man in the image, Aed Abu Amro, may not personally benefit from this image, but he may indirectly bring the situation to a wider audience.

As it was reported that this idea of ‘liberty’ has been floated before in Gaza, one one wonders if like Lange, the photographer was sent out with list of images to get.  After all it is quite clear from the google search that many people carry flags whilst they are protesting!

Research List

Introduction

Part 1

Project 1, Eyewitnesses?

  • Dorothea Lange
  • Martha Rosler’s 1981 essay ‘In, Around and Afterthoughts (on documentary photography)’
  • Lewis Hine (1874 – 1940)

Project 2, Photojournalism

  • La Grange, A. (2005) Basic Critical Theory for Photographers. Burlington, MA: Focal Press
  • Martha Rosler
  • Susan Sontag
  • Abigail Solomon-Godeau

Research point
If you’re interested in the critical debates around photojournalism, try and make time to find out more about at least one of these critical positions during your work on Part One.  

Here are some questions to start you off:

(extract from Photography 1 Context and Narrative, page 27)
  • Do you think Martha Rosler is unfair on socially driven photographers like Lewis Hine? Is there a sense in which work like this is exploitative or patronising? Does this matter if someone benefits in the long run? Can photography change situations? 
  • Do you think images of war are necessary to provoke change?  Do you agree with Sontag’s earlier view that horrific images of war numb viewers’ responses? Read your  answer again when you’ve read the next section on aftermath photography and note  whether your view has changed. See also: http://lightbox.time.com/2014/01/28/
    when-photographs-of-atrocities-dont-shock/#1 [accessed 24/02/14]
  • Do you need to be an insider in order to produce a successful documentary project?
  • Roger Fenton
  • David Campany
  • Joel Meyerowitz

Project 3 Reportage

  • Eugene Atget’s frontal views of Parisian buildings and their inhabitants
  • Nan Golding

Research point
Do some research into contemporary street photography. Helen Levitt, Joel Meyerowitz, Paul Graham, Joel Sternfeld and Martin Parr are some good names to start with, but you may be able to find further examples for yourself.

  • What difference does colour make to a genre that traditionally was predominantly black and white?
  • Can you spot the shift away from the influence of surrealism (as in Cartier-Bresson’s work)?
  • How is irony used to comment on British-ness or American values?

Project 4 The gallery wall – documentary as art

  • MoMA 1967 – John Szarkowski
  • Tate Modern, Cruel and Tender, 2003
  • Tate Modern, Street and Studio (2008)

Research point
Look online at Paul Seawright’s work, Sectarian Murders.

  • How does this work challenge the boundaries between documentary and art? Listen to Paul Seawright talk about his work at: http://vimeo.com/76940827 [accessed 24/02/14]
  • What is the core of his argument? Do you agree with him?
  • If we define a piece of documentary photography as art, does this change its
    meaning?
  • Sarah Pickering, Public Order, 2004
  • Alessandra Sanguinetti, The Adventrues of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of their Dreams

Project 5 The manipulated image