Tuesday, September 11, 2012
"The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" by Nan Goldin
As I continue this journey with the OCA, periodically I come across a milestone that reminds me of how far I have come. One of those arrived through the post a couple of weeks ago, the 25th Anniversary reprint of Nan Goldin's "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency". In early reading tackling the history of photography and how it relates to contemporary art, Nan Goldin's work appeared again and again, however, I simply did not get it. Why were these badly lit, oddly coloured, often grotesque images seen as art and why as an exemplary piece of work?
Today, I look at Nan's work and see the immense courage and strength it must have taken to create this story. I see a work that is both a personal record, but at the same time a damning comment on the sexual mores of late 20th century America. I enjoy the narrative and find myself visually exploring the lives of the people she portrays. In other words my own experience of art has changed, my visual education has progressed and most importantly I have shed many preconceptions and biases that got between me and a personal reading of the image.
In assignment 1 I turned the camera on myself, exploring who I am and how I feel at this point in my life. I only looked at a single facet of my world and opened the door for a very short period of time. In the Ballad Nan spent 15 years chronicling the often abusive and dysfunctional relationships that she and her friends experienced. Drug and Alcohol dependency suffuse the photographs, violence is used as a metaphor for love. And yet Nan treats her subjects with great tenderness and respect. Even very private moments seem to say something about the individual that is deeper than a first reading permits.
There is a very clear thesis at work within the photographs, that men and women although very different need each other, often to the extent that two people might despise one another and still be bound by the sexual dependency of the title. The images are very carefully sequenced starting with almost saccharine images of couples, through sets that address the nature of men and women, back to relationships without the sugar coating. It ends in photographs of death. In the afterword, she reveals her loss, many of the people photographed, although young, have gone, AIDs and drugs took their toll on her friends.
There is much to learn as a documentary photographer from this work. The sequencing of the images is exquisite, it builds the narrative she wants to portray. The photographs are not all that technically good, if they were the sense of being there would be lost. The snapshot aesthetic she employs holds the set together across the many years of creation, maintaining continuity. Possible with film, I this could be done with ever changing Digital technology. The key takeaway here is that a narrative sequence of images will hold together better if shot in similar style with similar equipment. Whilst the photographs make the book, the foreword and afterword bookend the images and provide context within which the photographs can be read. This is a personal weakness in my work and an area that deserves greater attention of the book is to be the primary creation of my photography.
Before closing this review of the Ballad, I was struck by what Nan wrote in the afterword to accompany this 25th anniversary edition. It was about the reality of photographs. The "trueness" of a photograph has been called into question so much that it is now conventional wisdom that photographs contain no evidential value, in other words a photograph is not a true recording of reality. Nan utterly rejects this idea for her own work. She sees the Ballad as a record of real events and people that occurred through her life. She mentions that she started taking photographs when she was so hopped up on drugs and alcohol that she no longer remembered what she did the night before, the photograph became a surrogate memory. For her these photographs are real.
I find this book inspirational, it shows the power of the camera as a documentary tool, but also the ability to build a narrative from a disparate set of photographs that carries a true societal meaning. It reveals that an in depth study of society is not done over a weekend or the length of an assignment, but over a life time. As a student I merely scratch the surface of the possible, understanding my limits is key, however, Nan shows that there really are no limits.
Monday, September 10, 2012
P10: high viewpoint
With assignment 1 in the post and a number of philosophical questions asked if not answered, it is time to get back to the projects and the gradual build up of material for Assignment 4. I am back to colour, not necessarily for good, but at least for the next few months. Robert Frank has always used B&W, even his newer imagery remains mono, however, it is not his medium that I want to bring to my photography but his observational style and way of constructing challenging photographs. Colour or B&W, it really should not matter.
I am still approaching my social documentary work through the model of street photography, using a small discreet camera to try and capture the essence of the people of Munich as they go about their lives. With each project I am trying to address a different aspect of life in the city, yesterday it was the River Isar and the city "Beaches".
The Isar is an Alpine river, ferocious in the Spring as the snow melts, but placid in Summer if there is little rain. As it passes through the city center the flow is managed and in the location I have chosen for this project is shallow and although fast flowing quite safe for bathers. The banks make for an ideal escape from the heat of the summer, and large crowds of people emerge to enjoy the sun and cool off in the river.
Every few hundred meters a bridge crosses the river permitting an overlook, ideal locations to experiment with this project on high viewpoints. I have taken two approaches to the photographs, a shallow angle that captures the sense of the crowds and places the people into the landscape or a near vertical look down that isolate sunbathers or walkers from the surrounding environment.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Assignment 1: Submission Notes
Well I finally got my finger out and assembled the 8 photos and video that make up my submission for assignment 1:
Introduction
Starting Social Documentary coincided with the beginning of my busiest period as an employee of Hewlett Packard. My role in the company is heavily tied to the financial cycle, (the new fiscal year starting on the 1st November), from May onwards we move into overdrive to prepare for the upcoming year. On May 23rd HP announced that 27,000 people would be removed from the payroll. The upshot was that my team ended up with double the work and half the people. Long days ensued and as the days turned into weeks fatigue and stress became a constant companion, there was no end to the mountain of work we had to complete.
The OCA is relaxation, an escape from a world of numbers and deadlines into one driven by aesthetics and philosophy. But, it is hard work and added to my “normal” working life the sheer amount of stuff I needed to do was becoming overwhelming. Doing a little street photography as part of on-going project work was a welcome diversion, but developing and executing an Assignment was weighing heavily.
The nature of Assignment 1 was troubling. Getting close to a person for a day, or the many days needed to develop a concept is something I am not comfortable with. My normal photographic working practice is standoff and objective, perhaps reflecting the remote and very analytical role I have at work. I spend time researching a subject, develop a concept, and then execute over multiple shoots. During Landscape this often extended over months and included 20-30 visits to a given location. So what to do? I had potential subjects in mind, but all would require time I did not have and energy that was at a very low ebb.
Subject
Practicality drove my selection of subject; a portrait of a corporate wage slave struggling to get through yet another day. In other words – Shaun Clarke! To date I have not turned my camera on myself, concerned that this could be seen as a form of conceit without there being a good reason to do so. On the other hand this was a good time to be introspective, to evaluate where I am in life and where I am going.
Such a choice clearly brought with it the advantage of access and a subject who was unlikely to get fed up with the process and tell the photographer where to stick it.
I decided to chronicle a typical long working day, trying to illustrate the confines of my world. It would be a single day, but shot over several. I habitually wear jeans and black t-shirts so continuity would not be a major issue. It would have to be done fairly quickly, more than a few weeks and my hair would start to indicate the passage of more than a day! I work from home so that took removed any issues of access and permission.
Given that I had a subject, a location and a potential narrative, the question was then how to portray this photographically. My own feeling at the time was of being closed in; my home was progressively becoming a prison. I rarely crossed the threshold of the front door and had no time for many of the normal activities make up modern life. I got up, eat breakfast, worked for 12-14 hours, drank a lot of coffee, eat some supper, and returned to bed fretting about the next day and what had not been achieved on this one. About the only non-work related activity was eating lunch and washing the dishes from the night before. The process of going from a disordered pile of dirty dishes to a neatly stacked drainer providing an odd form of mental relief.
The photographs would need to capture this sense of gloom and self-imprisonment, but at the same time contain enough visual interest. They needed to tell the story of me, who I am, what I am interested in, as well as what I do on a daily basis.
Practice
Creating a convincing “day” in the life over a period of two weeks required some early decisions:
Deciding when and where to shoot would determine the tenor of the set. I wanted an honest and un-posed set of images, as objective I could be with what is an intrinsically subjective study. Once a location was chosen, I selected a position for the camera that worked with the available light and offered a wide angle of view, conscious that I could crop the images later. Using a timer remote control I would take a single shot to ensure that lighting, position, and framing was where I wanted it to be, then set the camera to shoot every 30s for about an hour at a time.
My goal was avoid taking a series of carefully planned individual images, rather to take so many that after a time I would forget the camera and simply get on with whatever task was at hand. My intent was that this would result in a series of natural portraits with a documentary style as opposed to a home based studio shoot. The 8 images come from 6 separate days but together represent what I consider to be a “typical” day in my life.
Although the guideline was to present between 6 and 10 photographs, I have elected to break that rule somewhat. In addition to the 8 conventional images I am including a further 1,660 photographs combined into a time lapse video. The 8 individual photographs capture moments in time, representative of my daily activities, but they fail to convey the sheer grinding monotony of being locked to a deck for an extended period of time. As I was already using time lapse for the “regular” images I experimented by shooting a complete day capturing a frame every thirty seconds. The day I chose turned out to be longer than I had expected, but that was fine.
I placed the camera attached to the gorilla pod on a table facing my work area with a continuous power source. I chose a wide angle of 17mm, fully capturing half of my home office space. I set the aperture to f/5.6 at ISO3200 and opted for a JPG format that would enable an 8GB card to last a day, but permit me to render a 1080p HD video. The camera was running from 9:20am to 11pm. I combined the images in Premiere Pro at 30 frames per second, each photo occupying 4 frames, condensing the 14 hour day into just less than 4 minutes. Prior to loading the stills into video I performed global edits in Lightroom, such as the conversion to B&W.
I made a few technical errors, the main one being that I left the camera on autofocus. This resulted in the framing slightly shifting between shots, although I do not find the effect disturbing, it is quite reminiscent of the flickering of early B&W movies.
This document uses still photographs to create a vision of how I spent a day of my life stepping from one conference call to another. It captures the progressive change in my body language as the day got longer and fatigue kicked in.
Learning
This assignment required the development of a number of techniques, new to me in terms of both the still photography and the creation of a time lapse video. It also required thought about the development of a narrative that illustrated my world. The approach I have taken with this assignment resulted in significantly more work in the edit cycle than in capture, although I am increasingly finding that editing (both from a selection and a processing standpoint) has become the larger part of project development.
The greatest learning came from looking at myself as a subject rather than a photographer, asking questions about who I am and what is it that motivates and troubles me. Completing the time lapse left me in a state of shock, I really had no idea of the degree to which my body language reflected my state of mind. I watched myself grow older on the screen. Since finalizing this project I have taken steps to try and rebalance my work and personal life. It is not easy, the corporate world is unforgiving and computer companies are not the money machines they used to be. But I cannot continue to work 12 hours a day week after week. In my small world photography has become a tool for change.
I have been reluctant to draw parallels to other photographers whilst presenting this work, however, I found looking at Larry Clark’s “Tulsa” and Nan Goldin’s “Ballad of Sexual Dependency” a source of inspiration. I also considered Sally Mann’s “Immediate Family” and Annie Lebowitz’s photographs of the dying Susan Sonntag. Clearly what I have created here is a small insight into the life of one rather unremarkable man. It does not compare to the works I have mentioned, however, I have learned that there is great value in turning the camera around to look at my world. Even the mundane has its place in the record of society.
I start the day still fatigued from the one before, the shower a place of warmth and refuge and yet somewhere I cannot stay forever. I cross my hands on my chest to allow the warm water to accumulate around my neck, a comforting feeling.
The light shining across my eyes was good fortune; it takes away personality from the photograph, letting the shape of the body tell the story.
First order of the day is coffee. With this image I want to not simply illustrate that I like coffee, but also to include some clues about me, the knives suggest someone who likes to cook, the fridge decoration that there is a life outside, somewhere.
As with all of these images, the lighting is marginal. I put the camera on the kitchen counter and it has captured the underside of the cupboard above adding to a closed in feeling.
This is where I spend my day; the speaker phone is relaying yet another conference call. As I spend so much time in my office, I have made sure it is comfortable, good chair, multiple monitors, and a decent hands free telephone.
If I was to create a truly representative sample of my day, there would be 7 of these and 1 other. This is my life. Once again there are clues to my broader existence, the book shelf behind is full of photography titles.
Lunch and washing up, my favourite part of the day, from chaos I can make order, not something I can easily do in my job.
With this image I want illustrate my day, but also reveal a little more about myself, the racks behind again point to someone who loves to cook.
OK, I stop occasionally and do a little non-work stuff. Here I am gluing a Robert Frank book catalogue into my Social Documentary log book. In the upper left corner one of the greatest self-portraits casts its eye on my project.
Again lighting was an issue. I could have fixed this with a reflector, but that went against the ethos of what I was creating – but, I have brightened the dark side of my face in Lightroom.
Back to my desk. A faceless voice on the telephone. I have yet to meet my California based manager of the past 2 years; he is also simply a voice on the phone.
I am unsure about this photograph; it is a very simple image, perhaps too simple. However, it is very representative of how I see myself.
Multi-tasking. Logging back onto my work computer whilst Assignment 1 clicks away.
I realized that there was little in the set that captured the fact that I am a photography student, so I have included a photograph of me creating this assignment. In the end I did not use the images from this sequence, an attempt to capture the detail of my hands. On the screen to the right, Assignment 4 begins to take shape.
Aftermath. Relics of the past day sit on the coffee table.
Taken the morning after this is the only photograph that omits my explicit presence, however, it contains many symbols. An empty beer glass, an ice cream wrapper, remote controls, cat treats and finally the hint of a female presence. Heidi was keeping me going at the time; her absence in these photos is yet another damning indicator of a life out of balance.
Introduction
Starting Social Documentary coincided with the beginning of my busiest period as an employee of Hewlett Packard. My role in the company is heavily tied to the financial cycle, (the new fiscal year starting on the 1st November), from May onwards we move into overdrive to prepare for the upcoming year. On May 23rd HP announced that 27,000 people would be removed from the payroll. The upshot was that my team ended up with double the work and half the people. Long days ensued and as the days turned into weeks fatigue and stress became a constant companion, there was no end to the mountain of work we had to complete.
The OCA is relaxation, an escape from a world of numbers and deadlines into one driven by aesthetics and philosophy. But, it is hard work and added to my “normal” working life the sheer amount of stuff I needed to do was becoming overwhelming. Doing a little street photography as part of on-going project work was a welcome diversion, but developing and executing an Assignment was weighing heavily.
The nature of Assignment 1 was troubling. Getting close to a person for a day, or the many days needed to develop a concept is something I am not comfortable with. My normal photographic working practice is standoff and objective, perhaps reflecting the remote and very analytical role I have at work. I spend time researching a subject, develop a concept, and then execute over multiple shoots. During Landscape this often extended over months and included 20-30 visits to a given location. So what to do? I had potential subjects in mind, but all would require time I did not have and energy that was at a very low ebb.
Subject
Practicality drove my selection of subject; a portrait of a corporate wage slave struggling to get through yet another day. In other words – Shaun Clarke! To date I have not turned my camera on myself, concerned that this could be seen as a form of conceit without there being a good reason to do so. On the other hand this was a good time to be introspective, to evaluate where I am in life and where I am going.
Such a choice clearly brought with it the advantage of access and a subject who was unlikely to get fed up with the process and tell the photographer where to stick it.
I decided to chronicle a typical long working day, trying to illustrate the confines of my world. It would be a single day, but shot over several. I habitually wear jeans and black t-shirts so continuity would not be a major issue. It would have to be done fairly quickly, more than a few weeks and my hair would start to indicate the passage of more than a day! I work from home so that took removed any issues of access and permission.
Given that I had a subject, a location and a potential narrative, the question was then how to portray this photographically. My own feeling at the time was of being closed in; my home was progressively becoming a prison. I rarely crossed the threshold of the front door and had no time for many of the normal activities make up modern life. I got up, eat breakfast, worked for 12-14 hours, drank a lot of coffee, eat some supper, and returned to bed fretting about the next day and what had not been achieved on this one. About the only non-work related activity was eating lunch and washing the dishes from the night before. The process of going from a disordered pile of dirty dishes to a neatly stacked drainer providing an odd form of mental relief.
The photographs would need to capture this sense of gloom and self-imprisonment, but at the same time contain enough visual interest. They needed to tell the story of me, who I am, what I am interested in, as well as what I do on a daily basis.
Practice
Creating a convincing “day” in the life over a period of two weeks required some early decisions:
- Camera choice was straightforward, the Canon 5D2 would provide the flexibility I needed and is the only camera for which I have a time lapse trigger essential for the self-portraiture I had in mind.
- The tight space I planned to work in suggested a 17-40 or 24-105 zoom.
- From the outset I knew that I committed to use available light to preserve the mood of my world. For the sake of visual consistency I shot all images at ISO3200 irrespective of the lighting level. Even at ISO 3200 almost all of the photographs necessitated opening the lenses to f/4
- The only exception is one shot that included the 5D, taken with a Samsung NX20 with a 20mm lens.
- I rendered the photographs in B&W as I felt that would capture the way I felt better than colour.
- Most of the time I mounted the camera on a table top tripod (gorilla pod), occasionally using a full tripod when space permitted.
Deciding when and where to shoot would determine the tenor of the set. I wanted an honest and un-posed set of images, as objective I could be with what is an intrinsically subjective study. Once a location was chosen, I selected a position for the camera that worked with the available light and offered a wide angle of view, conscious that I could crop the images later. Using a timer remote control I would take a single shot to ensure that lighting, position, and framing was where I wanted it to be, then set the camera to shoot every 30s for about an hour at a time.
My goal was avoid taking a series of carefully planned individual images, rather to take so many that after a time I would forget the camera and simply get on with whatever task was at hand. My intent was that this would result in a series of natural portraits with a documentary style as opposed to a home based studio shoot. The 8 images come from 6 separate days but together represent what I consider to be a “typical” day in my life.
Although the guideline was to present between 6 and 10 photographs, I have elected to break that rule somewhat. In addition to the 8 conventional images I am including a further 1,660 photographs combined into a time lapse video. The 8 individual photographs capture moments in time, representative of my daily activities, but they fail to convey the sheer grinding monotony of being locked to a deck for an extended period of time. As I was already using time lapse for the “regular” images I experimented by shooting a complete day capturing a frame every thirty seconds. The day I chose turned out to be longer than I had expected, but that was fine.
I placed the camera attached to the gorilla pod on a table facing my work area with a continuous power source. I chose a wide angle of 17mm, fully capturing half of my home office space. I set the aperture to f/5.6 at ISO3200 and opted for a JPG format that would enable an 8GB card to last a day, but permit me to render a 1080p HD video. The camera was running from 9:20am to 11pm. I combined the images in Premiere Pro at 30 frames per second, each photo occupying 4 frames, condensing the 14 hour day into just less than 4 minutes. Prior to loading the stills into video I performed global edits in Lightroom, such as the conversion to B&W.
I made a few technical errors, the main one being that I left the camera on autofocus. This resulted in the framing slightly shifting between shots, although I do not find the effect disturbing, it is quite reminiscent of the flickering of early B&W movies.
This document uses still photographs to create a vision of how I spent a day of my life stepping from one conference call to another. It captures the progressive change in my body language as the day got longer and fatigue kicked in.
Learning
This assignment required the development of a number of techniques, new to me in terms of both the still photography and the creation of a time lapse video. It also required thought about the development of a narrative that illustrated my world. The approach I have taken with this assignment resulted in significantly more work in the edit cycle than in capture, although I am increasingly finding that editing (both from a selection and a processing standpoint) has become the larger part of project development.
The greatest learning came from looking at myself as a subject rather than a photographer, asking questions about who I am and what is it that motivates and troubles me. Completing the time lapse left me in a state of shock, I really had no idea of the degree to which my body language reflected my state of mind. I watched myself grow older on the screen. Since finalizing this project I have taken steps to try and rebalance my work and personal life. It is not easy, the corporate world is unforgiving and computer companies are not the money machines they used to be. But I cannot continue to work 12 hours a day week after week. In my small world photography has become a tool for change.
I have been reluctant to draw parallels to other photographers whilst presenting this work, however, I found looking at Larry Clark’s “Tulsa” and Nan Goldin’s “Ballad of Sexual Dependency” a source of inspiration. I also considered Sally Mann’s “Immediate Family” and Annie Lebowitz’s photographs of the dying Susan Sonntag. Clearly what I have created here is a small insight into the life of one rather unremarkable man. It does not compare to the works I have mentioned, however, I have learned that there is great value in turning the camera around to look at my world. Even the mundane has its place in the record of society.
The light shining across my eyes was good fortune; it takes away personality from the photograph, letting the shape of the body tell the story.
As with all of these images, the lighting is marginal. I put the camera on the kitchen counter and it has captured the underside of the cupboard above adding to a closed in feeling.
If I was to create a truly representative sample of my day, there would be 7 of these and 1 other. This is my life. Once again there are clues to my broader existence, the book shelf behind is full of photography titles.
With this image I want illustrate my day, but also reveal a little more about myself, the racks behind again point to someone who loves to cook.
Again lighting was an issue. I could have fixed this with a reflector, but that went against the ethos of what I was creating – but, I have brightened the dark side of my face in Lightroom.
I am unsure about this photograph; it is a very simple image, perhaps too simple. However, it is very representative of how I see myself.
I realized that there was little in the set that captured the fact that I am a photography student, so I have included a photograph of me creating this assignment. In the end I did not use the images from this sequence, an attempt to capture the detail of my hands. On the screen to the right, Assignment 4 begins to take shape.
Aftermath. Relics of the past day sit on the coffee table.
Taken the morning after this is the only photograph that omits my explicit presence, however, it contains many symbols. An empty beer glass, an ice cream wrapper, remote controls, cat treats and finally the hint of a female presence. Heidi was keeping me going at the time; her absence in these photos is yet another damning indicator of a life out of balance.
Friday, September 7, 2012
30 Years Ago ...
I was driven up the M1 by my parents, in a car full with my worldy possessions, destination Leeds. My life was about to profoundly change, the apron strings would finally break and I would be left on my own in a strange city sharing a flat with 4 people I was yet to meet. I can still remember the good byes, the sense of utter loss and bewilderment as I sat on my new bed staring out at a bleak landscape of terraced houses and industrial estates. An hour or two later my next door neighbour arrived, announced that the pub had opened and life as a University student began.
Apart from the obvious parallels of once again getting down to degree level learning in Leeds, the weekend seminar was a chance to walk down the streets that had been my home for 3 years. It was an interesting experience, a blend of sadness for a youth long past mixed with surprise at how much and how little things had changed. The flat I spent that first hour in has gone, recently demolished for a new development. It is still there on Google maps, an echo of a past that was part of me.
The pub was just around the corner from the flats, you can see them in the background. we never went because they served fizzy beer and we did not drink fizzy beer - well actually I drank lager, but my mates... it's a long story.
Here I find a clear parallel with the presentation of Mishka Henner's work, I can no longer visit this place, even if I tried, for me it only exists as imagery in Google Maps and even there it will gradually fade away as newer satellite passes pick up the replacement buildings. Google maps seems so real, so authetic, miraculous and yet it is only a very large photograph of something that once was and may no longer be.
Away from the shock of finding my first independent home a hole in the ground, I was able to find many places familiar to me and recorded them with my camera, something the 18-21 year old never thought to do, idiot boy. But, to set the scene this is me, then - the photo taken at the start of my second year (I lost my first student union card) when I was 19
and this is the Physics graduating class of 1985, I am 4 from the right in the front row, wearing the tan leather jacket - oh boy how I have changed, but thank god I lost the mullet, what was I thinking - I blame the 1980's.
Last weekend this scene was rather different, no students, just me and my camera. It is a few weeks until the start of term so it is understandably deserted and yet this further deepened a strange sense of absence in a place I felt I should belong to.
I amused myself for a while taking some images in the brutal concrete architecture that made up the area just in front of the main lecture theatres
The Physics and Computer Science Building
The steps leading down from the older part of the University
This is about as close as I ever got to the library, I was a lazy git as a student
The lecture theaters seen from the Maths department
Whilst photographs are powerful documents, they still only carry a faint imprint of all that makes up a place. The corridor above leads to the physics department and is a space I am so familiar with and yet it was not seeing it that brought me back, it was the smell of the rubber floor tiles, 30 years later no different than it was back then.
Turning to the left in the corridor above this is the view out onto the main campus and the red brick that places Leeds within the typography of Universities
The student union had not changed much, at least not externally, other than the removal of the road and replacement with a pedestrianized zone. Good move, I fell out of that place a few times.
Just inside the doors and to the left is a small concert/theater venue, where I saw Mud and Steve Hackett during freshers week. The rest of the Union though was utterly changed, the grimy smokey, sticky place I remember was gone replaced by bright shiny spaces with supermarkets, banks, a bar that actually looked fun to be in. That really was the biggest shock of the day.
Turning away from the University I passed a few spots that were regulars parts of my life. The Morissons we used to shop is was as grim as it was back then
The beautiful old BBC building had sprouted an ugly friend
The first bank I ever used a cash point at was still thriving
Now the horror, this used to be one of the best fish and chip shops in the North, a place where the frying fat came in blocks and even a bag of chips was strictly not for vegetarians or Hindus.
It was just across the road from the Pack Horse, opposite the engineering departments.
And just a few doors down from the Ale Shop. What a combination, a few beers in the pub, brilliant fish and chips and an off-license that sold real ale in whatever quantity needed.
Even the house I rented with 6 friends in my 2nd and 3rd years had changed, although that came as no surprise, this was a case of repair or demolish. It is now a nicely appointed private house with double glazing, a badly needed improvement, that place was cold in the winter
This was my room in the basement (we never used the door). The house was on a steep slope, hence the basement being on level ground at the back.
Recently I have looked at myself as a subject as well as a photographer. This introspection has not been easy, but has helped me rationalize my current working situation and start to mend a dysfunctional lifestyle. Going to Leeds offered another chance for photographic self analysis, but an exploration of past, a study of where I come from. I have not dug all that deep, this is quite superficial, but still very important to me as an individual. Perhaps with more time and a stronger will I could have made more of it.
Leeds had a profound affect on my life, it was the bridge between home and the world of work. These are deeply personal images, of no interest to anyone but myself. This speaks of the subjectivity of photography, what I as the photographer see in these images is the passage of time and a sense of history. A few other people might have a similar reaction, but to most they are simply pictures, perhaps worth a passing glance but carrying no special narrative. These pixels store my past, but only my past!
Apart from the obvious parallels of once again getting down to degree level learning in Leeds, the weekend seminar was a chance to walk down the streets that had been my home for 3 years. It was an interesting experience, a blend of sadness for a youth long past mixed with surprise at how much and how little things had changed. The flat I spent that first hour in has gone, recently demolished for a new development. It is still there on Google maps, an echo of a past that was part of me.
The pub was just around the corner from the flats, you can see them in the background. we never went because they served fizzy beer and we did not drink fizzy beer - well actually I drank lager, but my mates... it's a long story.
Here I find a clear parallel with the presentation of Mishka Henner's work, I can no longer visit this place, even if I tried, for me it only exists as imagery in Google Maps and even there it will gradually fade away as newer satellite passes pick up the replacement buildings. Google maps seems so real, so authetic, miraculous and yet it is only a very large photograph of something that once was and may no longer be.
Away from the shock of finding my first independent home a hole in the ground, I was able to find many places familiar to me and recorded them with my camera, something the 18-21 year old never thought to do, idiot boy. But, to set the scene this is me, then - the photo taken at the start of my second year (I lost my first student union card) when I was 19
and this is the Physics graduating class of 1985, I am 4 from the right in the front row, wearing the tan leather jacket - oh boy how I have changed, but thank god I lost the mullet, what was I thinking - I blame the 1980's.
Last weekend this scene was rather different, no students, just me and my camera. It is a few weeks until the start of term so it is understandably deserted and yet this further deepened a strange sense of absence in a place I felt I should belong to.
I amused myself for a while taking some images in the brutal concrete architecture that made up the area just in front of the main lecture theatres
Recently I have looked at myself as a subject as well as a photographer. This introspection has not been easy, but has helped me rationalize my current working situation and start to mend a dysfunctional lifestyle. Going to Leeds offered another chance for photographic self analysis, but an exploration of past, a study of where I come from. I have not dug all that deep, this is quite superficial, but still very important to me as an individual. Perhaps with more time and a stronger will I could have made more of it.
Leeds had a profound affect on my life, it was the bridge between home and the world of work. These are deeply personal images, of no interest to anyone but myself. This speaks of the subjectivity of photography, what I as the photographer see in these images is the passage of time and a sense of history. A few other people might have a similar reaction, but to most they are simply pictures, perhaps worth a passing glance but carrying no special narrative. These pixels store my past, but only my past!
Revisiting Colour
The biggest learning point from the Leeds workshop related to my current working practice for Social Documentary. I have made an early decision to work in B&W for the course, hoping to explore more deeply what the medium can deliver and to better parallel the work of many social documentarians, such as Frank, Clark, or Winogrand. Clearly this also meant I was going against the more recent tradition for colour in documentary work.
I progressed quite happily reveling in the contrast and structure that mono brings to imagery, right up until arriving in Leeds. I took 12 photos with me to share during the portfolio review; printed on matte paper these were very dark, deep blacks contrasting with the highlights. This was a risk, I wanted to explore this facet of B&W and was concerned I had gone too far. Well that was obvious from the get go, although not helped by the poor lighting of the room we used. What came as a surprise was the tutors very blunt question, why was I working in B&W? My somewhat feeble reasoning did not dig me out of the hole I was in. A little later in the day I shared a couple of photobooks that I was also seeking an opinion on. That nailed it, in particular "U", my study of the Munich underground.
His feedback can be boiled down in the following terms:
In each case the clear feedback was that one or two images were better as B&W, but that for most colour was preferred. This is especially important as these images were selected for their B&W strengths. Returning to colour left me with images that I may otherwise have rejected, i.e. even images selected for their strengths in B&W looked better as colour.
Luckily I am working in RAW and so retain the flexibility to switch later in the day, however, it is not so simple. I am developing a set of images over a prolonged period, how the set develops will change based on the final destination of the photograph, colour or B&W. Colour will influences how the photos are sequenced, it changes how I crop them, and finally whether I even use an image. In the above sequence, the image of the man squatting next to a guy playing guitar is a favorite of mine in B&W, however, the red sweater kills it as a colour image.
Balancing all the inputs I have so far, my head is now nodding towards Colour, but not without reservation. The goal of any course is to learn and develop. This might be the biggest learning so far, I am a colour photographer! Or maybe not?
Wow, how wishy-washy and on the fence can I be? OK decision time. For assignment 1 I am going to stick with B&W and submit it as such. For assignment 2, I am going to revert to colour, the Oktoberfest deserves a colour treatment. Assignment 4 will be left up in the air for the time being, however, I will start working in colour in the blog. Once I get closer to the essay stage I will revisit this decision.
Going to Leeds was well worth it, this is a small but important breakthrough for me.
I progressed quite happily reveling in the contrast and structure that mono brings to imagery, right up until arriving in Leeds. I took 12 photos with me to share during the portfolio review; printed on matte paper these were very dark, deep blacks contrasting with the highlights. This was a risk, I wanted to explore this facet of B&W and was concerned I had gone too far. Well that was obvious from the get go, although not helped by the poor lighting of the room we used. What came as a surprise was the tutors very blunt question, why was I working in B&W? My somewhat feeble reasoning did not dig me out of the hole I was in. A little later in the day I shared a couple of photobooks that I was also seeking an opinion on. That nailed it, in particular "U", my study of the Munich underground.
His feedback can be boiled down in the following terms:
- Black and White needs to be used for a good reason - I did not have a good enough reason
- He often suggest that students work in mono to develop better understanding of structure, U demonstrated that I was there already
- Modern documentary photography is largely colour, after all we must document a coloured world
- Perhaps most damning of all was a quiet statement that he saw himself as a colour photographer. The implication being that it is important to understand your photographic self. I also see myself as a colour photographer, but one playing with mono.
So where does this leave me, I have received advice to rethink my current strategy from a senior tutor. Other students have made similar observations and I have taken the opportunity to request specific feedback from a couple of people I trust. In each case I asked for comments on whether the following set works better in B&W or Colour:
Luckily I am working in RAW and so retain the flexibility to switch later in the day, however, it is not so simple. I am developing a set of images over a prolonged period, how the set develops will change based on the final destination of the photograph, colour or B&W. Colour will influences how the photos are sequenced, it changes how I crop them, and finally whether I even use an image. In the above sequence, the image of the man squatting next to a guy playing guitar is a favorite of mine in B&W, however, the red sweater kills it as a colour image.
Balancing all the inputs I have so far, my head is now nodding towards Colour, but not without reservation. The goal of any course is to learn and develop. This might be the biggest learning so far, I am a colour photographer! Or maybe not?
Wow, how wishy-washy and on the fence can I be? OK decision time. For assignment 1 I am going to stick with B&W and submit it as such. For assignment 2, I am going to revert to colour, the Oktoberfest deserves a colour treatment. Assignment 4 will be left up in the air for the time being, however, I will start working in colour in the blog. Once I get closer to the essay stage I will revisit this decision.
Going to Leeds was well worth it, this is a small but important breakthrough for me.
Learning Points
I did not take many photographs during the event last weekend, although I was spending 2 days talking nothing but photography, taking pictures were not really a part of it. But, I took a few. They show a diverse group of people having a really good time. In particular the final image in the sequence is the happiest I have looked for a really long time.
This post is intended to reflect on what I learnt whilst at the event, knowledge that can be taken forward to inform my future work and perhaps change how I address Social Documentary over the coming year. I start with a more profound observation, at least for me, and that is that I was more relaxed and happy last weekend than I have been for many months. As I have documented previously, my work load has been grinding me down, stress has climbed and I have been simply lurching from one week to another trying to hold it all together. OK, I still need a job and am not nearly close enough to retirement to take the early option, but I must find a way to maintain the good vibe from Leeds and reduce the stress. Work is not the problem, it is stress, Leeds was mentally demanding and pretty full on for two days, but it was fun. I learned some time ago that pressure that can be handled is good, it is pressure that cannot be handled that turns into stress and brings with it the health risks we are so familiar with today.
Salvation comes in the form of a camera and a renewed spirit of not letting the buggers grind me down. Like many other corporate citizens I get pulled into endless hours of conference calls which demand my time but not a great deal of engagement. I will start to push back unless there is a real need. Another simple trick is to replace time wasting activities with ones that either add value or simply go do something else for me. Hence the camera. This week my doctor informed me of the need of middle aged men to take some bloody exercise. I live in an interesting place, an hour a day wandering the streets with my camera will help my health, but also contribute to my course work.
Returning to the topic at hand, the goal of this post is to record a number of points reflecting learning from the weekend. I want an itemized list versus prose as this will enable me to more easily look back at this post and see what I have taken on board. So here are the key things I learned from the event:
- Multimedia is an essential element of modern photographic practice. So far I have been reluctant to engage with new media, preferring instead to create photographic documents reminiscent of the film era. Consider the inclusion of voxpop in "Die Muenchener", but be careful, this can be badly overdone.
- Creating innovative and creative photographic work does not necessarily require a camera and physical presence, appropriation and then further manipulation of imagery can generate new and interesting work
- Images are Texts, they are read by the viewer and interpreted within their value system, not necessarily that of the photographer. It is, however, possible to build within an image meaning beyond the superficial reading. I need to think about this when composing and then editing my images. I tend to look more at structure than meaning.
- Psychology might help me to understand how a photograph is perceived by the viewer. I need to get a basic introduction to psychology. In a sense I need to learn how to direct the reading of my work, not simply leave it to the viewer.
- For my work the photobook is the destination. This is reinforcement of an already held belief. However, I need to rethink my strategy somewhat, Blurb is good for the present, but I want complete visual control and so need to look at self printing and use a book binder to finish the work for me. A Laserprinter is on the way to make producing marquettes easier - it even does duplex.
- Projects can be very long term, it might take years to develop and complete a body of work. This is also something I already buy into, but I do need to develop deeper and more compelling ideas.
Some of these are very personal, others in the room may have a completely different list - indeed if we all go away and do the same thing it would be a little tedious. There are fewer points than I expected, but perhaps that is also a good thing, starved of personal contact on a remote learning degree, it is easy to place too much emphasis on the small amount of group learning that is possible.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Leeds
After what seemed like an age of waiting the workshop now seems to have passed in a blur of ideas, challenges, discussion, reflection, and at the end sheer good fun. I am still in Leeds, just waiting to check out from the hotel before taking the train to Manchester airport and then my flight home to Munich. It has also been a strange weekend, walking down streets for the first time in 25 years, marveling at the changed landscape of the city and reflecting on how like Munich Leeds actually is, an old city with strong civic traditions that is embracing the modern, yet respecting the old.
When I first arrived I walked around the University and places I used to live, descending into a rather melancholy nostalgia for times past. This was not surprising and I guess inevitable given the 30 years since I last arrived here as a fresh student. It was heartening however, that as soon as I started to meet other attendees at the workshop that the ghosts of the past evaporated in the face of my new student friends and colleagues. The following two days brought back that sense of being a student, of learning for the sake of learning and enjoying the flow of intellectual debate.
Looking back on the weekend, it worked and it worked very well, with perhaps one small problem. I get a sense that students on the course sometimes look at the relationship with the OCA as a customer vendor transaction, expecting all that comes with the purchase of an expensive item. However, as Peter rather forcefully pointed out this is a Tutor Student relationship. As degree students it is our job to learn, but not the OCA's job to teach. They exist to guide and motivate, only the student can work out what it is they need to achieve. This and the ongoing debate about submission for assessment derailed the first session and in a sense stopped a key element of the courses purpose, a discussion of the transition from 1st to 2nd and 3rd year study. Perhaps it reflects many of our origins in the sciences and engineering where tuition is more structured than in the arts, but this continual argument, on the web and here in the classroom, about what students should expect from the OCA and how they should submit for assessment was very disappointing.
Fortunately Mishka Henner arrived and the whole weekend came alive with inspiration and new ideas. This and the session from Duckrabbit introduced the real world of art and photography, providing a neat contrast between the potentially starving artist and the commercially viable production company. In both cases photography was subverted to create new meaning using cutting edge technology. In each case I was filled with ideas of the potential of these new media, but also a sense of the immense amount of work needed to produce relatively short pieces of work, whether a book or a photofilm. I just bought an introductory ebook on video production to read on the way home. I have a sense that video or at least audio could become a key element of what I do. Recently I have produced two very basic photofilms, a slide show with music and 14 hours of time lapse. The workshop has provided ideas and made visible techniques that could substantially improve my approach to this type of project. It has also legitimized this technology on my mind, hopefully also in that of the OCA assessors - OK, I am not going there.
The visiting artists were balanced by two thought provoking lectures (OK seminars) from Peter and Jesse addressing Semiotics and Project development respectfully. Each used the case study model to introduce complex subjects that would generally need a term to study. Both were basic introductions, but heavily couched in the speakers own experience and practice. As a theory student from back in the day, semiotics very much appealed and is worthy of further study, but only when I have time to set aside, this is not something to breeze through. The project development session highlighted dedication and patience. Again this is a vaste topic and rather than provide an A-Z of planning a project, Jesse stepped through his own student experience. What came out was that these works take time, a lot of time, the 7 day exposure of one image illustrated that degree of commitment needed to do unique and interesting work. On the other hand taking one photograph a week for 4 weeks leaves plenty of time for other student pursuits.
Rounding this off were two workshops, book design and a portfolio review. The book design session was also case study based, in the sense that we looked at Jesse's student books and then evaluated the success of a number of different works. This was the weak point on the weekend, I would have rather spent a little more time on design principles, typography and do's and don'ts. I get it, but I also spend a huge amount of time looking at a reviewing photobooks. I was looking for something a little more practical here. On the other hand the portfolio review did give me an opportunity to share two of my own books which were well received, that feedback was something I was looking for as I have not had either book formally looked at. The portfolio review on the whole was very enlightening, a wide variety of generally very well though out work. We all needed a steer, but we also had a good grounding.
My own work was weak and I do need to go away and think about it. The B&W processing is too strong and the prints overly graphical. That should not be too hard to fix. The more critical comment, was why am I working in B&W when everything else I have done is in colour. It was observed that I can handle the structural side of things and colour management is not a big issue, so why use colour now. I need to think on this and come back to it in a later blog. A key suggestion was to use multimedia in the work to include the sound of the city and the voices of the people. Gonna need to buy a microphone. The last comment was that my work did not engage with the people, but that it actually part of the point, I want to be detached and objective, that is my way of looking at the world and reflects who I am. I cannot engage and do not really want to.
Balancing all of this was the chit chat and camaraderie that accompanies such events. The weekend format meant we had two evenings together and plenty of time for informal debate, valuable and also simply fun. Being in Germany makes me very remote from the OCA, I cannot realistically attend very many study days. I find myself becoming quite insular and isolated, so this weekend was a welcome shot in the arm and a reminder that I belong to a community of students who as well as wanting to learn also look out for each other and provide much needed support. I am hoping that the conclusion is that these are valuable events and that this will form the basis for future extended seminars or tutorials. I would be more than happy to spend a long weekend with my fellow students each year as I progress towards the degree.
When I first arrived I walked around the University and places I used to live, descending into a rather melancholy nostalgia for times past. This was not surprising and I guess inevitable given the 30 years since I last arrived here as a fresh student. It was heartening however, that as soon as I started to meet other attendees at the workshop that the ghosts of the past evaporated in the face of my new student friends and colleagues. The following two days brought back that sense of being a student, of learning for the sake of learning and enjoying the flow of intellectual debate.
Looking back on the weekend, it worked and it worked very well, with perhaps one small problem. I get a sense that students on the course sometimes look at the relationship with the OCA as a customer vendor transaction, expecting all that comes with the purchase of an expensive item. However, as Peter rather forcefully pointed out this is a Tutor Student relationship. As degree students it is our job to learn, but not the OCA's job to teach. They exist to guide and motivate, only the student can work out what it is they need to achieve. This and the ongoing debate about submission for assessment derailed the first session and in a sense stopped a key element of the courses purpose, a discussion of the transition from 1st to 2nd and 3rd year study. Perhaps it reflects many of our origins in the sciences and engineering where tuition is more structured than in the arts, but this continual argument, on the web and here in the classroom, about what students should expect from the OCA and how they should submit for assessment was very disappointing.
Fortunately Mishka Henner arrived and the whole weekend came alive with inspiration and new ideas. This and the session from Duckrabbit introduced the real world of art and photography, providing a neat contrast between the potentially starving artist and the commercially viable production company. In both cases photography was subverted to create new meaning using cutting edge technology. In each case I was filled with ideas of the potential of these new media, but also a sense of the immense amount of work needed to produce relatively short pieces of work, whether a book or a photofilm. I just bought an introductory ebook on video production to read on the way home. I have a sense that video or at least audio could become a key element of what I do. Recently I have produced two very basic photofilms, a slide show with music and 14 hours of time lapse. The workshop has provided ideas and made visible techniques that could substantially improve my approach to this type of project. It has also legitimized this technology on my mind, hopefully also in that of the OCA assessors - OK, I am not going there.
The visiting artists were balanced by two thought provoking lectures (OK seminars) from Peter and Jesse addressing Semiotics and Project development respectfully. Each used the case study model to introduce complex subjects that would generally need a term to study. Both were basic introductions, but heavily couched in the speakers own experience and practice. As a theory student from back in the day, semiotics very much appealed and is worthy of further study, but only when I have time to set aside, this is not something to breeze through. The project development session highlighted dedication and patience. Again this is a vaste topic and rather than provide an A-Z of planning a project, Jesse stepped through his own student experience. What came out was that these works take time, a lot of time, the 7 day exposure of one image illustrated that degree of commitment needed to do unique and interesting work. On the other hand taking one photograph a week for 4 weeks leaves plenty of time for other student pursuits.
Rounding this off were two workshops, book design and a portfolio review. The book design session was also case study based, in the sense that we looked at Jesse's student books and then evaluated the success of a number of different works. This was the weak point on the weekend, I would have rather spent a little more time on design principles, typography and do's and don'ts. I get it, but I also spend a huge amount of time looking at a reviewing photobooks. I was looking for something a little more practical here. On the other hand the portfolio review did give me an opportunity to share two of my own books which were well received, that feedback was something I was looking for as I have not had either book formally looked at. The portfolio review on the whole was very enlightening, a wide variety of generally very well though out work. We all needed a steer, but we also had a good grounding.
My own work was weak and I do need to go away and think about it. The B&W processing is too strong and the prints overly graphical. That should not be too hard to fix. The more critical comment, was why am I working in B&W when everything else I have done is in colour. It was observed that I can handle the structural side of things and colour management is not a big issue, so why use colour now. I need to think on this and come back to it in a later blog. A key suggestion was to use multimedia in the work to include the sound of the city and the voices of the people. Gonna need to buy a microphone. The last comment was that my work did not engage with the people, but that it actually part of the point, I want to be detached and objective, that is my way of looking at the world and reflects who I am. I cannot engage and do not really want to.
Balancing all of this was the chit chat and camaraderie that accompanies such events. The weekend format meant we had two evenings together and plenty of time for informal debate, valuable and also simply fun. Being in Germany makes me very remote from the OCA, I cannot realistically attend very many study days. I find myself becoming quite insular and isolated, so this weekend was a welcome shot in the arm and a reminder that I belong to a community of students who as well as wanting to learn also look out for each other and provide much needed support. I am hoping that the conclusion is that these are valuable events and that this will form the basis for future extended seminars or tutorials. I would be more than happy to spend a long weekend with my fellow students each year as I progress towards the degree.
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