Part One - Photograph as document: Project Four - The gallery wall - documentary as art: Research Point - Documentary and art

This research point is about the work entitled "Sectarian Murders" by Paul Seawright.  These works show images captured by Seawright that show the sites of Sectarian attacks during the 1970s in Belfast, Northern Ireland: "The texts are from newspaper reports at the time and document the murders of innocent civilians, killed for their perceived religion. Reference to Protestant or Catholic background was removed from the text", Seawright (date not known) [accessed 25 August 2014].

• How does this work challenge the boundaries between documentary and art?
• What is the core of Seawright's argument and do you agree with him?
• If we define a piece of documentary photography as art, does this change its meaning?

In order to answer these questions, it's first essential to understand the meaning of documentary and art (in terms of photography) and where the boundaries are.  Here is my understanding:

• Documentary photography to me is as close as you can get to a record of reality.  This interpretation is however already slightly ambiguous when you take on board the fact that the photographer is selecting a viewpoint; they are choosing what to include and what to exclude in the frame.  So a documentary photograph is can only ever be one perspective of a situation.  The boundary in this respect is therefore already blurred.  In Imperial War Museums ("IWM") 2013, Seawright talks about the function of editorial images which have to convey their meaning almost immediately because of the speed at which they are looked at.  Street photography is an excellent example of where the boundary between art and documentary is blurred; sure it's a record of reality, but that record is highly contrived by the photographer to give it (in some cases) an almost surreal, and certainly selective, viewpoint.
• Art photography in my view is everything else, plus it can also include documentary photography in certain contexts.  It is photography where the meaning is slightly ambiguous, where the reader has to dig deeper to understand or derive meaning from the images, and possibly relate back to his or her own experiences in order for the image to say something to you.  In IWM, 2013, Seawright makes the point that with art forms the construction of meaning is done by the person engaging with the art and not by the artist, and I think this is the core of his argument, and on this point I agree with him.  If an image can evoke a reaction that will differ from person to person, i.e. a subjective response beyond the mere receipt of information, that to me is art.

Looking at the images on the Sectarian Murders website, I find them chilling.   I think particularly the viewpoints the Seawright has chosen contribute to the sense that something hidden and subterfuge has happened.  And I think that this reaction would be even more so for people who are from the area or who have lived through that violence (either the same or similar situations).  But I'm also wondering, if the text wasn't there and the knowledge of history wasn't there, whether the images would have the same impact?  These images depict scenes where children play and people walk their dogs, yet because we know the history behind the images, it conjures up feelings of extreme incongruence, discomfort and disbelief.

For instance, taking the image from Saturday 9th June 1973 as an example, if you take away the text (and therefore context), this could simply be a lovely picture of a child playing on the swings, and therefore, art?  But with the addition of the text, and also the viewpoint that implies the angle of view that a marksman might have if he/she were hiding waiting to take the shot, or they could also be from the victim's view where they fell or were left, pins the image to history and adds an editorial feel, and therefore, documentary?

In terms of how this work challenges the boundaries between documentary and art, I think there are two answers:

• It doesn't, because the boundaries are actually very blurred anyway, or
• It completely challenges the boundaries because provides a series of record shots or "traces of traces of events" (Campany, 2003) but taken from a subjective viewpoint forcing an emotive reaction by the inclusion of the text and meaning.

To conclude, the answer is probably that the boundaries are blurred.  These are certainly not journalism or editorial shots - they are much more creative and selective than a simple record of events, and are they neither forensic style photographs of the brutality unlike those of War Porn by Christoph Banguert (Butet-Roch, 2014 pp 62-65).  But they are illustrative of a moment in time and a historical event, but from a highly interpretive perspective involving the engagement of the viewer to derive meaning.

What is important though is that this piece of work has been created to serve as a memory; to echo the sentiments of Meyerowitz in Campany 2003 about Ground Zero: "I felt if there was no photographic record allowed, then it was history erased", or in Campany's view that documentary photography after the event (or late photography) is used figuratively in contemporary art: "It seems clear that contemporary art has a predilection for the ‘late photograph’. It has become a central trope in its current dialogue with documentary. The works of Willie Doherty, Paul Seawright, Sophie Ristelhueber and Richard Misrach are some of the more interesting examples" (Campany, 2013).

I can't find any evidence that defining documentary photography as art reduces its meaning (assuming the work is genuine and not contrived), in fact the opposite - I think it increases its meaning.  For instance, Seawright's images are equally meaningful as art and I think possibly more evocative.  We have become used to seeing graphic or shocking images, either in real life news bulletins or through CGI or film special effects.  The lack of graphic or factual information in the Sectarian Murder series delivers a more conceptual impact rather than a journalistic impact, but the meaning is still there.  In fact maybe more so.

To compare with one of Meyerowitz's Ground Zero images, Five More Found in Howarth et al, 2011, pp 130-131.  To me, this is documentary, but it is also art (it has meaning, composition, form, colour contrast, light, drama) - but the fact that it can be considered art does not make the image have any less meaning; in fact quite the opposite, evoking a bitter/sweet response.  In fact, I think in this case meaning is enhanced by the artistic nature of the image, for one thing it's so beautiful and striking you want to keep looking at it.  My arguments with this image are that it is not street photography and it is therefore not clear on why it was included in Howarth et al, 2011, I see it as documentary produced in a very artistic way.

Another image with blurred boundaries, also related to the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001 is one by Melanie Einzig seen at the Cartier Bresson: A Question of Colour Exhibition in 2012 (previously posted in TAOP), Einzig, 2001 in Positive View Foundation, 2013.  The image in question shows a man walking down the road carrying a package with the airstrike happening behind him. This is documenatry, as it shows an event happening in a very matter-of-fact journalistic way, but it is also art - it's street photography - the random occurence of different events, the extraordinary amongst the ordinary, the oblivion by one subject of another, incongruence etc.  But does that make it less shocking?  Probably not.  If anything more shocking as the inclusion of the context of the ordinary makes it look less like move CGI and more that it will have an impact on everyday people.

To conclude:

• boundaries between art and documentary are not rigid, they are blurred and overlapping
• an artistic approach to documentary, or the overlay of art onto a documentary topic can enhance the emotive response
• the meaning of art depends on the experiences and response of the viewer.

References

• Butet-Roch, L. (2014) Invisible War. British Journal of Photography 161 (7827), pp.62-65
• Campany, D. 2003 [available online] Safety in Numbness available from http://davidcampany.com/safety-in-numbness/ [accessed 25 August 2014]
• Einzig, M. 2001 September 11th, New York, in Positive View Foundation 2013 Cartier-Bresson: A Question of Colour Exhibition Catalogue,  p202 [Einzig, M. (2001) [online image] available from http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00354/116220147_354024j.jpg [accessed 25 August 2014]]
• Howarth, S. and McLaren, S. (2011) Street Photography Now, London
• Meyerowitz, J. 2003 in Campany, D. 2003 [available online] Safety in Numbness available from http://davidcampany.com/safety-in-numbness/ [accessed 25 August 2014]
• Imperial War Museums, 2013 [available online] Catalyst: Contemporary Art and War at IWM North available from http://vimeo.com/76940827 [accessed 25 August 2014]
• Seawright, P. (date unknown) [available online] Sectarian Murder available from http://www.paulseawright.com/sectarian/ [accessed 25 August 2014]

2020 Vision Exhibition - Grange-over-Sands

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped by the 2020 Vision Exhibition on The Promenade at Grange-over-Sands in Morecombe Bay.  I got to know about 2020Vision from a talk I went to in 2012 by Peter Cairns (see previous post during TAOP).

To quote their website: "2020VISION is the most ambitious nature photography project ever staged in the UK. It aims to engage and enthuse a massive audience by using innovative visual media to convey the value of restoring our most important but often fragmented natural habitats - to show that healthy ecosystems are not just for wildlife, but are something fundamental to us all" (2020 Vision 2014).

The exhibition itself was outdoors set up on the Promenade (with sandbags to boot due to the storms):

And this was a great setting as Morecombe Bay itself is one of the areas that the project supports:

so it was fantastic to see the exhibition in this marshland context:

I was really pleased to see images by some photographers that are familiar to me (my other passion being wildlife photography), including marine biologist and underwater photographer Alex Mustard, and Ross Hardinott and his beautiful damselfly:

My dogs weren't very happy about being dragged along to this, but I'm glad I went!  Wildlife photography with a purpose :) and it made me realise that I should try harder to find wildlife on my doorstep instead of waiting for travel opportunities!



Websites

• 2020Vision (2014) [online] available from http://www.2020v.org/ [accessed 24 August 2014]
• Hardinott, R. (2014) [online] available from http://www.rosshoddinott.co.uk/
• Mustard, A. (2014) [online] available from http://www.amustard.com/
• Northshots (2014) [online] About Peter Cairns available from http://www.northshots.com/about_peter_cairns.asp [accessed 24 August 2014] 

The Street Photographer's Manual by David Gibson

Well, judging by Facebook at the moment, there is no self-respecting street photographer that has not promoted The Street Photographer's Manual by David Gibson.

Logical, easy-to-read, and informative, The Street Photographer's Manual offers explanations of and tips and techniques to help the student street photographer.  Gibson works consistently through the various facets of street photography from busy to quiet to still, abstract to defined subjects, and references what to me are now household names (maybe not to my mum) such as those that are members of the collective In-Public, plus other names that I am less familiar with, and also references to less contemporary photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Colin O'Brien.

Gibson takes the reader through an organised route of learning different facets by explaining the theory in the context of a project and then introducing masters of that theory.  Of particular value to me was Project 18 on Projects, Gibson (2014) pp 168-171; I have recently started to organise my street photography into projects and reading this section has reinforced my conviction that this is a great way of keeping momentum and inspiration going in this practice.  Plus the photos look great when they are grouped together around a theme.

Also pertinent, is Project 2 on Events, Gibson (2014) pp 58-61: recently I realised that when I go to photograph events, e.g. this year I tried to get street photography at the Naked Bike Ride and London Pride, that I was focusing too much on the event itself rather than the peripheries (see commentary about Dave Mason in my post about research into street photography).  I think the advice Gibson gives about wandering off around the edges of the event without an agenda - you will find a lot more than if you try to capture the parade or whatever the event is.

All-in-all, this is a great book: you can dip in and out of the various different projects, or follow the book as a sequential process.  It is just what it says on the cover: a manual.

References

• Gibson, D. (2014) The Street Photographer's Manual, London: Thames & Hudson pp 58-61, 168-171

Assignment One - Two Sides of the Story - Preparation and Execution

Assignment One asks that we choose a theme and prepare 5-7 images for each of two sets of photographs telling different versions of the same story.

23 August

For my theme, my first idea was to show life in a zoo park from two different perspectives: outsiders looking in, and animals looking out.  The idea for this has come from two different sources: firstly because I want to try out my D810 plus new lenses on animals (it has only been used for street photography so far!) and particularly to test whether the ability to handle dynamic range i.e. black creatures in midday sun, is better than the D5000 I was previously using (and for reasons of time I need to multitask!), and secondly I'm intrigued by the image taken by Count de Montizon in 1852 in London of the Hippopotamus at the Zoological Gardens, Regents Park, see Bate, 2013, p24 (which I first wrote about during Digital Photographic Practice - see here for a summary).

Bate uses the image to demonstrate the that there may be different points of view within a photograph.  In this instance, we know from our general knowledge that it is extremely likely that the hippo is the one in the cage, however, looking at the photograph, the onlookers appear to be in the cage.  There is a realism that we know to be true, and then there is doubt about where the viewer is placed, and indeed where the hippo is placed in relation to the viewer (Bate, 2013, pp37-40).  It asks the question whether humans been imprisoned by nature.

So, I'm going try to take 5-7 pairs of photographs showing the perspective of the animal, or the viewer inside the cage, looking out, and the perspective of onlookers looking in, to produce representations of the juxtapositions of these two worlds that are forced to co-exist.

I don't know yet whether these will be colour or black and white, or square or rectangle format.  Being right-brained, I will decide later!  A lot will depend on the lighting, background detail, what stands out.  I suspect the outcome will be colour and rectangle landscapes, but we will see.

24 August
So I tried to put my idea into practice at Drusillas and realised very quickly that I would end up with 5-7 photographs that all looked the same and which would not demonstrate any great technical or creative ability...so idea abandoned. 

But, on a spontaneous trip to Worthing on the way back from Drusillas, another idea came to mind.  I could try to show two different perspectives on English life - "This is England or is it?", with one perspective being themes that are quintessentially English and the contradiction being themes whereby due to the framing (e.g. a palm tree against a hotel) could be from somewhere that is not England.  Back to Worthing tomorrow to try it out!  Themes could include (and not necessarily be tied or limited to this):

• Ethnic diversity
• Food
• Plants
• Buildings
• Restaurants
• Street signs in different languages or the London tube map / Hong Kong tube map in Newport Court in London WC2
• Customs e.g. tea and scones / drinking starbucks coffee  

Inspiration for this partly comes from work by Martin Parr and his portraits showing English life and images of English things.  Other photographers that also come to mind that show a truly English perspective also include Paul Russell from a satirical perspective!  Venues for shooting include central London, Keswick and perhaps a September trip to the seaside if the weather improves....

7 September 2014

I missed the boat on the last idea.  The season for people eating ice creams on the pier is really over.  I love the theme of English summer and Englishness, so I will save this for another occasion.  But, fortunately, another idea has come to mind!  Through my participation in the Bleeding London project, I've got to know my local area, Feltham, very well.  And I've noticed that there are two very distinct sides of the same story.  The area is typically run down, lacking investment, rough, dilapidated and so on, but there are pockets of more attractive qualities, which if photographed selectively and shown out of context, would present a very different story and also present a distinct series of contrasts:

• confinement vs space (Young Offenders vs the open space in front of it)
• dilapidation vs regeneration (building opposite Macdonalds vs the new academy being built)
• struggling economy vs booming economy (empty restaurant vs full (and happy) kebab shop
• neglected front garden vs elaborately tended front garden (multiple gardens to chose from full of junk vs the lovely one with the amazing happy hedges in Cedar Road, which although awful just makes me smile)! (see photo below taken earlier this year - to be reshot though)
• rowdiness vs peace (outside the Weatherspoon Pub vs the cemetery)
• crowded living space vs beautiful house (blocks of flats with railings vs original beamed house on Ashford Road)
• angry scary people vs happy people (people at bus stop vs people exercising dogs)

Cedar Road

My intention is to process the positives in colour, and the negatives in black and white (to enhance a gritty and more documentary feel and reduce the risk of colour/light making it seem more positive).  My only reservation on that is that I have been told many times not to mix colour with b&w in the same project/series, so I'm taking advice on that from fellow students/Crossing Lines members. 

These images are most likely to be viewed in an academic context only, so by my tutor, the assessors, other students, and also members of Crossing Lines.  I think I will be unlikely to show these images to people in a social context or to print and hang them on my own walls, although with any photos I take, there is always a chance that they will be entered into an exhibition!   

Am I taking any risks with this?  In a word, yes.  Walking through Feltham with a DLSR is always a risk, and especially with a D810 (it is insured!); taking the pair of street photographs of people might be tricky....might get punched.... ;-)

15 September 2014

So my thoughts are evolving - along the lines of the above, I'm thinking of looking for contrasts that I can shoot by being in the same position and pivoting 180 degrees - and also finding resonance and contrast within each pair in the process:

• weapons bin / cash machine
• dilapidated building / new look shop
• pub / church or cemetery
• young offenders / open space
• garden opposite / garden with hedges

22 September 2014

In the end, I went with the option described on 7 September 2014 above, but with the colour option only.  I decided it was too cliched to present the negative concepts in black and white.  I wanted to present the opposite views with resonances also and colour would help significantly with that.

The objective of this exercise was really to see if by careful framing, I could produce a convincing series of the better qualities of Feltham.  This illustrates the point made by Susan Sontag (2003) about a photograph:

"It is always the image that someone chose; to photograph is to frame, and to frame is to exclude".

What I would be doing is, as photographers do with every shot, presenting a selective and subjective view.  Hopefully by looking at each set, the viewer would be able to form an opinion of the area dictated by choices I made.  I will comment on whether this is successful in the reflections post.

I tried the 180 degrees option described on 15 September 2014, but found very quickly that this wouldn't work with the sun shining in my face...and I didn't have the time flexibility to make two trips to each point.  Unfortunately, I didn't get my hedges - the sun was in the wrong place at the wrong time, plus there were cars parked outside the house each time I went to have a look :(.  But I did get seven sets of contrasts:

• weapons / cash machine
• dilapidated building / new building
• end of life (cemetery) / new life (conkers)
• bust business / thriving business
• abandoned toy / rescued toy
• cramped living (flats) / detached living ground (house)
• confined (young offenders) / open (green space)

The execution took place during two days towards the end of September - one day with beautiful light, and I also used four pictures taken on the previous day which was dull and flat; this accounts for the different lighting in the series, which would not have been my preference, but it is what it is.

My approach to editing and processing is very simple.  For a start, I did not have to make many choices, all the good light photographs were deliberately shot, and the four with flat light (pairs B and E) were in fact chosen from a bank of Bleeding London photographs taken on the previous day that were better in terms of concept and composition than two of the pairs intended.  All were shot with Nikon D810 body and a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G lens.  Processing took place in ViewNX 2 and followed a simple routine: straighten, crop, exposure adjustment, shadow protection adjustment, (in same cases picture control reset to Landscape) contrast, colour boost and sharpening.  As the lens is new there were no blemishes to remove.  That's all I do.  I'm capable of a little more in Elements, but for this piece of work, there really was no need.

All pictures submitted are in square format.  This is a personal preference from a creative perspective, which I can't really explain.  I just really like square images!  Matt Stuart told me that I need to be able to answer this question if I'm going to continue to use square format, so it might be because I like pictures that are straight to the point and which exclude unnecessary information.  But I can't be certain of that theory!  In some cases, I prefer rectangle pictures (landscape), so it just depends.  I tend to avoid vertical rectangles if I can.  In any case, for this submission, square format seemed to work well in terms of composition, so I will be interested to see what the feedback is.  In addition, I think square format works for viewing on personal devices.

These photographs were mostly taken for the purposes of the assignment, with the exception of pairs B and E, as previously mentioned.  It is likely that they will only be seen by my tutor, fellow students and the assessors, plus the Crossing Lines group that I'm going to show them to (on account of their interest in urban conditions).  Pairs B and E are online on the Bleeding London submission site, and hopefully will be included in the Bleeding London exhibition (if they are selected).

See submission for the final results.

References

• Bate, D. (2013), Photography The Key Concepts, London: Bloomsbury Academic
• Sontag, S. (2003), Regarding the Pain of Others, London: Penguin Group

Websites

• Martin Parr (2014) [online] available from http://www.martinparr.com/ [accessed 24 August 2014]  
• Paul Russell (2014) [online] available from http://www.paulrussell.info/ [accessed 25 August 2014]

Part One - Photograph as document: Project Three - Street Photography: Exercise - 60 shots from one street

On Sunday 14 September I went to:

30 shots in colour:

30 shots in black and white:

Which do I prefer?  Overall I prefer street photography in colour, including for my own pictures, and especially seaside scenes; I think you get a much better sense of the atmosphere and light that is so "Brighton" with colour.  All the images that I converted to monochrome looked better in colour than they do in black and white, with the exception of the M&M image (which bizarrely is the image that is closest to my "In-Public" take on street photography described in my previous post), the shot with the coffee barrel and the chap putting on sun cream pulling a face (better cropped in, colour and under-exposed!).  I also like the picture of the old lady looking at a gentleman's piercings, but this one could have been composed better.  As I noted in my previous post, the black and white adds a more documentary feel, and I think the exclusion of colour in this particular setting takes away the "joy" of Brighton.  Clearly, the images with better shadows are more successful in black and white than the flatter images. 

Not all of these images meet my criteria of street photography previously described, but some of them do.  But, as a collective piece of work, they document a day in the life of Brighton with its diversity of residents and visitors!  And this is the kind of photography I love doing - right-brained, fun, spontaneous!  And looking at these, if I could learn to slow down, look and frame the shots better, I would get better results.