Assignment 4: First Thoughts

Assignment 4 belongs with Assignment 3, indeed it should follow on from 3, but I seem to have developed a phobia towards essay writing, I am sure I am not unusual in that sense.  This is down to simple laziness, essay writing is too much like work, I take photos because it is fun, essay writing isn't...

Ah well, I will fix that soon, however, in the mean time here is some musing on Assignment 4.  Although, this is my first formal post on the topic of Assignment 4, I have been working the material for the assignment since the day I started the course.  The subject for my essay is Robert Frank and although I do not plan to place my focus on "The Americans", that book is the motivation for the subject of this assignment.  When I started the year I though about creating a book from this assignment, however, my struggle with the Fest book for assignment 2 showed me that I need to take care not to be led astray from the primary goal of creating 12 photographs.  I still believe that the photobook is my ultimate expression as a photographer, the gallery wall does not appeal (yet).  However, books are complex things that take considerable time to develop.  Whilst I found creating Fest completely exhausting it was also a great learning experience, but one that I do not need to repeat now.  I probably will create a book from this and other material, but after I finish this assignment.  I still need Christmas presents for friends.

So what is it about Frank and the Americans that I want to "be in the style of".  First of all, I have no intent to try and replicate his visual style or content.  That has been done, it was his great contribution, but it is not mine.  What I want to do with this assignment is to adopt his way of looking, to place myself in his shoes, in his case a European looking at America and recording his response to the place and people through the medium of photography.  In mine, a Brit looking at Germany.  I will retain the small camera and also black and white - I am still interested in the qualities of B&W and want to explore further in this assignment.  The small camera is easy, it is all I have.  However, I am not using my DSLR for this assignment, I am using a mix of different mirrorless compacts, both interchangeable and fixed lens.  But, this is not about technology it is about narrative and context.

Although I planned a year on this project it fell into the stupor of my disillusionment.  6 months passed without any new material.  I am back and am now adding new material to what I captured a year ago.My subject is also more constrained, I don't have the time or money to span the country shooting 80 or more photos a day for a year.  Currently I am thinking about the following, the people of Munich is the subject and their leisure the narrative.  Subsequently this will be about people and what they do in their spare time, although I will also look at those tasked to service their leisure.  Conceptually this is not as well developed as Assignment 5, but is more mature in terms of material.  I probably have what I need for a sound response to the brief, but am not yet ready to say stop.  I plan a few more shoots in and around the city, hopefully later today which will yield another post with new material.

This post is designed to present my current visual thinking and establish a start point.  There are a few more than 12 images here so this is not intended to act as a candidate set.  

I start with people sitting down, nicely arranged in rows for my camera.  The first is a favorite, I simply like Joe Cool in the center, totally relaxed and confident, surrounded by a group of girls who look anything but relaxed. Not quite sure what the narrative is, but it has potential

I like layers and reflections

This is all about being grumpy

Michael Jackson fans hang out at the memorial to his life.  Weird, they are always there on the weekend and it is a while now since he passed.  Like this one a lot...

Back to people in boxes

It is all in the expression, group of American tourists, Muencheners for the day

Shopping

More cool in the city

Listening to a political rally - the mayor is just off camera to the left

Another favorite, I am drawn to people taking photographs.

As with most societies, isn't it odd that most sponsorship for healthy living and sports comes from the companies whose products make us fat in the first place.  More layers and straight lines...

Echoing my work at the Oktoberfest

Bavaria is one of the most conservative parts of Germany, but Munich the state capital is the exact opposite, reveling in it's alternative lifestyles.  This is the annual Christopher Street parade when the gay community celebrate in a mad explosion of sound and colour (well B&W colour).  This photo is made by the people watching.

A visual puzzle for a rainy Saturday afternoon in the center of the city.  Munich is gradually improving the underground railway system, these hoardings hide building works.

Maybe work rather than leisure, but this works with the other images

As I have often stated elsewhere, people do not like being photographed.  This is someone who serves the beer in the beergarden, his shyness might reflect the fact that he is almost certainly not German and probably not legal.  Many people working in the service sector do so in the grey

Service at a large beerkeller.

In the Keller, wonderful place, superb beer and the rudest waiting staff in Munich, well worth a visit.

The mayor, Christoph Ude pitches to the crowd at a street beer fest.  Frank was very interested in the American political process, I am less so in that of Germany, but this is still a possible element of the narrative

Summer

Summer

Summer at the lake.  The last two photos were in the city center, this is lake Amersee, a popular day out for the population of the city.

Impromptu brass band.  They had been playing at a local church parade and then did what people in lederhosen do on a bank holiday afternoon, went for a beer or two.  The beergarden offered said beer for free in exchange for an occasional song.

A little different from the other images here, this is the dancing at a Turkish engagement party that I photographed and blogged a couple of months ago.  Not quite sure whether to include it, it certainly illustrates a great part of modern German culture

So far I have been very much focused on people as the subject for this assignment, however, not all of Frank's images included people.  Mid winter and at the time I was playing with shape and form.  However, the advert on the bus shelter is very telling of German society.  First of all it is fashionably in English providing a degree of cool, secondly it is for cigarettes, and finally the phrase seems very prophetic to me.  I am sure that "No More Maybe" is not meant to convey what I read; I read no more maybe cancer, this product really will kill you.

As an aside I am also thinking about working a project around cigarettes and the smoking culture in Germany...

A start and I think a reasonable one.  I have been working this for over a year and so should be in a reasonable position.  It needs refinement and perhaps a few new photographs.

Assignment 5: Progression

My biggest question for this assignment is finding the meat in the sandwich that I have created.  The two strip photographs that started this train of thought work and I believe are an interesting way to present a study of a street.  The problem is then creating the story, finding imagery that makes the space between the buildings come alive.  First of all this is very firmly a street photography exercise, in name, but most importantly from the standpoint of style and approach.  However, I need to be careful, this is my neighbourhood, somewhere I live, a street that I cross almost everyday, containing my pub and my cafe.  Street photography can be intrusive and prone to confrontation in today's suspicious world.  I don't want to risk becoming persona non grata in my own home.  This is already a challenge, I have had one small confrontation, not a problem, but something I need to manage carefully, especially with my dodgy German.  Although, that actually might help, officials snooping on the locals are most likely to speak the local language rather well.  Germany and in particular the immigrant community have a healthy and understandable distrust of officialdom.  Street photography is quasi-legal here, so I need to take care.

My approach so far has been to simply take a half hour every so often and walk up and down the street camera in hand.  I am relying on serendipity, I have no specific topic in mind, simply opening my eyes to the world and grabbing opportunities as they arise.  I also look for places where I can stand and observe waiting for a photo to coalesce in front of me, trying to blend into the background. Once I gather enough material to form a basis for a set, I will then need to think in terms of specific elements that might be missing.  Where I am going with this study is an illustration of modern German society in the context of where people live their lives.  The risk is that this might be bland, there is no sensational aspect, I am not digging into poverty, homelessness, abuse.  I could do this, but it would be dishonest, Germany is a real place containing real people, doing the ordinary things that make life work.  Too often Germany is painted either through the medium of the past or as a jolly knees up in leather and silk.  I want to show the Germany I know and love, a place to live.  Assignment 2 started in colour and fun, but ended in misery and grime.  This time I want to present a counter to that view.

A big change for this assignment will also be a move from B&W back to colour.  Colour is my medium, madly saturated bold hues, building on my first photographic love - the kaleidoscope of the coral reef.  With this course I wanted to explore a different approach, taking a chance to play in B&W before the more serious world of final year work.  However, a study of modern Germany needs colour, Germany is very colourful, colour are used far more boldly than in other societies. This is very visible in the buildings that make up Richard-Strausse Strasse, but also in the clothes people wear, although not in the very boring car colours popular at the moment. SO colour it is!

A street offers many different subjects, but they can be grouped into 3 essential elements, people, details, and architecture.  I am covering the architecture using the strip photos, but there are still some elements that might warrant closer attention.  Details are fairly straightforward to capture, the challenge is more around the context and making a photograph that offers more than a simple record.  People are my primary challenge.  In Germany it is illegal to publish a photograph of a person without their written permission, exceptions exist for the newsworthy, however, the general public are protected.  On the other hand you can present a photograph in which a person is incidental to the scene, not the clear subject of the photo.  The net effect is that German street photography does not exist, German photographic artists tend to be studio based or work with landscape, Helmut Newton  and Andreas Gursky are good examples of the two.  I am prepared to break the rules and have done so in the Fest series, but these were people in a very special place and often pissed out of their brains.  The gentle folk of Richard-Strauss Strasse take their privacy rather seriously and so it is unlikely that I am going to create many close up photos without carrying around a set of legal documents. Not my style. 

The result is that many of my photos involving people will be stepped back, not the in your face street style that characterizes Garry Winogrand or William Klein, perhaps more the observational style of Joel Meyerowitz.  My first example and a photograph I like very much is the following.  The two guys on the right were chatting away, but as the girls approached their attention clearly shifted and the sizing up process is clearly present.  All are probably from the Turkish community, the largest non-German ethnicity in the city.  A simple thing, but a daily part of the too and fro between the sexes.

Another large immigrant community in Munich is Asian, often Vietnamese, the former link between East Germany and communist Vietnam led to many Vietnamese coming to Germany for education and then staying on.  This family (no idea if Vietnamese or not) run a local beauty and massage business, they have a shop on the west side of the street.  Here I had my first confrontation, they were not happy with me photographing the shop, although that dissipated once they relaized that I was not German.  It is possible that all is not fully legal, many people work in the Schwarz (Black) economy, taxes not fully paid, resident status not quite as it should be.

This photo captures another element of Munich life, people here walk, run, and cycle a lot.  Although the traditional image is the jolly fat beer drinking Bavarian, they are in general a very fit people, even the overweight use their bikes for local shopping.  Cars are an obsession, but for long distance travel, anything less than a couple of miles away is accessed using leg power.  Jogging is very popular, even I have been know to go for a run,

Basic is an institution here, although a very middle class one.  The supermarket is organic, everything inside is "Bio", pronounced Bee-Oh.  This is a full service supermarket selling everything you need, not just food, soap, toilet cleaners, paper products, everything is naturally produced,or with very low environmental impact.  The downside is that it is also very expensive compared to the Rewe next door that I normally go to.  Like mos supermarkets there is a also a small seated area outside so that you an snack on what you just purchased

Another view of Basic, one that appeals more to my desire for things in boxes.

Not sure about the following photo, I like the structure and the giant Wein sign in the right.  The man is loading a Mercedes, well done to Dewald for spotting that.  It speaks to the fact that even on an ordinary street in Munich most of the cars are Mercedes, BMW, Audi, or for the poorer or young VW.  Other makes exist, but Germans buy German cars and are very proud of them.

The Wein sign is painted on the side of Garibaldi's an Italian wine importer that makes for an enjoyable visit.  Once again a few seats outside enable them to supplement their income and for customers to try their wares in a comfortable setting.  Licensing laws are not a big issue here.  Not sure that this works, but like the reflection in the window.

Turning from people to details.  We have an election in a week, with local and national seats up for grabs.  The city is pasted with posters, they are everywhere.  You see fewer billboard images here, it is mostly small signs planted into the ground like the following.  I will use one of these in the set, not sure yet which.

I like the next one, she is appealing to the traditionalists, the dirndl and the fredensengel in the background. Many politicians like to adopt a traditional stance, often pictured with a liter glass (Masskrug) in hand, "Vote for me, I like beer", absolutely!  Beer and politics are a combination still very much alive in German culture.

Although the bookends for this project are a study of the architecture of the street, I still think their might be mileage in a couple of images that study the shape and form of German businesses or dwellings.  This is an optician.  Note the bikes, people really use them as a primary transport.  Also it is very clean, very tidy.

Not all is well on the street, some business have had a harder time.  This used to be a tattooist.  Empty and vacant, but still clean and tidy.  If you rent any form of premise here you are legally obliged to leave it as you found it, which generally means painting everything white.  I have bumped the exposure a little on the Buddha.  Again a photo that appeals to my sense of orderliness, guess I am starting to go a little native.

A couple more simple architectural details, the entry to an apartment block and a small business offering driver education.

Aargh, in two weeks it is the Oktoberfest once again.  Two weeks of stinky drunken insanity, but worse a year since I worked on my last finished assignment.  What a lazy git...

Couldn't resist playing a little with reflections and perspective, probably not good for the assignment, but fun for me.

Very few Germans use satellites for TV, the city is cabled and like me most people get Sky through outlets in the house.  However, that is Sky Germany, if you want your own language TV a dish is often the only way.  Subsequently a dish is a good indicator that the people who live there are immigrants.  It is generally forbidden by the House Ordinances to mount a satellite dish, landlords think they spoil the look of the building, rightly I guess.  However, in law people have a human right to broadcast TV from their own culture and if the only way to get that is satellite then that right overrides the House rules.

This is an odd shot, it does both, reflection and perspective.  Not terribly documentary, but an alternate view of the street.  The effect is created by the fact that the building I am imaging has a triangular cross section and the buildings are not being reflected by the back windows but another window an inch or so in front of the camera.

Mix of comment and architecture.  I need somehow to portray the  obsession with the car.  Yes Germans are fit and love to ride bikes, they are green and terribly energy efficient, but they would die for the right to drive massive cars at 155mph on the Autobahn.  155 is a limit the car makers impose for safety reasons, go figure.  Not a great image, something that needs refinement, maybe a few cyclists going past in the background.

This is a beginning and I think not a bad one.  There is much work to do, and hey this is Assignment 5, I haven't started 3 yet.  But that is now my plan for the course, complete the final 3 assignments in parallel and prepare for next year.

What I hope this is beginning to convey is a picture of an orderly people, but diverse in their lifestyles, not conforming to the English stereotype, but at the same time valuing tradition .  On the whole Germans are not very wealthy, they have a median wealth lower than that of the Greeks they so famously are accused of driving into poverty.  There is a lot of money, but it is generally held by a small percentage of the population.  The split of wealth is quite similar to the US, a small number of the very rich and large number on low income.  The difference is that tax is collected and used to improve the lot of all, not bombing the crap out of the enemy de Joure.  People are not rich but also not poor, things are not too expensive and the government makes sure that stuff works.  Germany is a social and socialist place, where people get along and on the whole try to contrubute to society.  This is the story I want to tell.