words and images

Personal statements for me are not important in some of my work. Can someone view my photograph and just find it visually pleasing or does text have to accompany it?

The relationship between word and image, photo and description is interesting.

A photo may denote one thing or something else entirely, based on how it is described.

Which raises a question, can a photograph stand on its own or does it need a description?

“We could easily see these marks as something else-as an arrowhead or a pointer

Indicating a direction. To see this as an image of a tree means assigning that label

to it, giving it that name.”

(‘Word and Image’  W.J.T Mitchell)

 “works of art do indeed ‘speak for themselves’”

‘Art in theory, 1900-2000: an anthology of changing ideas’ By Charles Harrison, Paul Wood

Joel Sternfeld

This is the crab apple tree in Central Park under which Jennifer Levin’s body was found on the morning of August 26, 1986. 

But with this image from Sternfeld, with text accompanying the image, the image is far stronger and Sternfeld is using text to make his conceptual work stronger.

repetitions

Bern and Hila Becher


The Becher's were fascinated with the design of buildings and industrial structures. The images shown were shot on a large format camera, to capture the scale of the buildings along with great detail. . The Bechers' goal is to create photographs that are
concentrated on the structures  themselves and not qualified by subjective interpretations. so with this in mind, they used identical composition and lighting throughout the series to make the series flow evenly. The viewer is key when displaying these works. From a distance they look identical, whereas if you look closer you will the variations in the structures and buildings. The buildings do mirror each other, but they are archival in terms of documenting these places. The thing about these projects is that they can be ongoing. There's more of the same out there to shoot and add to the series.

globalisation

For a globalisation post, I feel the best view on globalisation is a film by Ron Fricke, titled Baraka.

Baraka shows the many different networks of human society, showing the interrelationships of globalised and localised societies. The film presents realities of globalisation and how they are present within the networked societies of the world.  The film successfully composes a visual representation of the many socio-environmental settings of the globe, intertwined in this visual representation is a demonstration of the presence of globalisation as a structural force in underpinning cultural production and action. 

Andreas Gursky
Andreas gursky tackles issues of globalisation in his work by using large scale photographs to show the effects. This image shows the effect of financial globalistion, Gursky is warning the viewer. The photographs are displayed large, shot on large plate film, the viewer is engaged in the huge photograph, with the use of a long depth of field the attention to detail is stunning. The over scaled size of the photographs when displayed shows how people are just a small part of the vast landscape we live in.

gaze

Rineke Dijkstra Olivier Silva, The Foreign Legion, Camp Général de Gaulle, Libreville, Gabon, June 2, 2002


This is a photograph by Dijkstra from a series of photographs of the same man. Dijkstra made her photographs of Olivier Silva over the course of thirty-six months, starting when the seventeen-year-old left his home to sign up to the regimen of the French Foreign Legion. A Legionnaire usually knows virtually nothing during his training outside of the Legion itself. Dijkstra used an Extra-diegetic gaze with this image, to let the viewer in on Silva's life. There's a stern facial expression on his face, leaving only the gaze as an insight to his feelings. The gaze I feel connects the viewer and subject, the relationship between viewer and subject, just by the subject looking straight down the lens is very intimate even though the viewer does not know the subject.

the rhetoric of images

Sherrie Levine http://www.afterwalkerevans.com/
This is a series created by Levine copied Walker Evans' photographs of workers in America during the great depression. Evans' work was very important as it showed "the poor farmer" and is still a very important series of photographic work, the series was used for the FSA to document the great depression for the press and also for educational purposes. Levine scanned these photographs in and displayed them as her work. Levine made no changes to Evans' work, she displayed them as Evans did. Levine's work questions originality and authorship and for me undermines the creativity that art is supposed to bring to the viewer. Reproducing work that has already been made, is she making this work viewable for a wider audience? yes.
http://www.aftersherrielevine.com
Sherrine's work was then reproduced again. How many times can ones work be reproduced? I feel it does devalue the original work. I believe that art is creativity, and that the reproduction over and over again loses the original artist's intentions.

truthful documentary photography?

Jeff Wall The Arrest

“The Arrest” looks at ethnic discrimination in the artist’s home of Vancouver. The photograph shows a Hispanic man being handcuffed by two police officers. The photograph is staged outside of the studio, which shows that Wall is bringing this photograph to life, if the photograph was shot in the studio it would give off a total different impression to the viewer. In a sense, the photograph looks realistic; the stern facial expressions on the police officer’s faces look real. But then when you strip down the components of the photograph, the people in this photograph are actors and were told by Wall exactly where to stand and how to look. The use of cinematic lighting on set enhances this image and makes it more dramatic. The photograph is displayed on a lightbox, which shows the image bigger than life, which also shows to a certain degree how the photograph is un-realistic: larger than life. The use of props and costume is pretty much spot on, to the un-educated eye, this photograph could look real. Roland Barthes has commented about the use of pose in photographs. “I inevitably include in my scrutiny the thought of that instant, however brief, in which a real thing happened to be motionless in front of the eye.” “in the Photograph, something has posed in front of the tiny hole and his remained there forever (that is my feeling) ; but in cinema something has passed in front of this same tiny hole: the pose is swept away and denied by the continuous series of images.”(Barthes, 1980) These two quotes by Barthes helps understand documentary photography compared to staged documentary shots. The immobilization of the figures in the former image is an element of the work itself: these figures, it seems, will pose this way for entirety” (King, 2003). This again reiterates the fact that this is a posed photograph, can it be a realistic view of an arrest? This image has been staged, Wall has decided upon a lot of factors in this photograph. Unlike a documentary photograph when something does pass by the camera, it is the decisive moment that is spoken about a lot in photography. Wall had time to create his ideal image, whereas documentary photographers wait until that moment happens in front of their lens.

This photograph by Magnum photographer Leonard Freed, shows a black man being arrested by policeman in the USA, 1963. Looking at this image, the viewer can draw many comparisons to this piece of work and Wall’s “The Arrest”. As a piece of documentary work, Freed was there at the time this happened. As a documentary photograph, Freed wouldn’t stage the photographs; he would wait for the image to come in front of his viewfinder. This is a single moment from a single time. Touching on that quote by Barthes again, this is a passing by the camera. The photograph was shot on film, like Wall’s. This means that this image like Wall’s was thought about, but within a very shorter time scale. Freed had to react to what was going on in front of him, whereas Wall had months to plan a shoot. With film as well, because of the integrity and carefulness when shooting, Freed had to get the shot right. There is some motion blur and the composition in the photograph is unorthodox. This shows that the action was happening in front of him, unlike Wall, Freed’s image wouldn’t have been taken on a tripod, he shot on a 35mm camera rather than a large format like Wall. The composition is more inviting and realistic, it draws the viewer in and represents the struggle of the moment. The motion blur makes this photo realistic, would you believe it to be true if the man was calmly posed while arrested, of course not, you would imagine there to be a struggle involved. Natural light is used whereas Wall used external light sources, Freed wouldn’t have had time in the moment, to use lighting to his advantage in this image. Freed would have shot a number of photographs in this situation, to try and get the best photograph. Wall most probably only took one, as he was in control of the moment, whereas Freed wouldn’t know what was going to happen next. He would have had to go through an image selection after determining which was the best shot, to show how he wanted the arrest to be displayed. The outputs of both images are very different too. The Wall image, was of course, displayed on a large lightbox, whereas the Freed photograph would have been seen in a newspaper. This is a major factor in the comparison of the two works. As a documentary photographer, Freed would be payed to document what happened at the time, and then displayed in a newspaper to show the world what happened at that single time of the arrest. These two different outputs show the difference between the two works.

I Chose to explore Jeff Wall in this task as many people do not see him as a documentary photographer, but he does push the boundaries of documentary photography. Paving a new way for future photographers to interpret documentary photographs they see, and to question the reality of these photos.

surveillance

Laurie Long The Dating Surveillance Project (1998)
This series of work by Long combines videos and photographs of dates that she has been on. The intriguing concept about this project is that it was all captured on a hidden camera by Long. Long wanted to create this project as she said that she has no time in her life for romance, with her busy schedule. The unorthodox composition in this project works, the hidden camera sees what she sees on the date, which ultimately shows the viewer an insight to the date. She wouldn't tell the man on the date that she was filming which means this project gives a true insight to the person. The viewer feels involved with the date, especially in this photograph. The man is leaning forward towards Long, enabling her to capture a view of the man's face. The main aspect of this series that I enjoy is the way that the date doesn't know he is being filmed. It's raw footage, an insight to a person's life you wouldn't normally see. Unaware of being filmed the man reaches over to try Long's food, a normal thing you'd expect on a date. If the man knew he was being filmed, he would be conscious at all times of where the camera was, not showing the reality of the date.
“Each date is a kind of reconnaissance mission: my outfits are disguises, my behaviour is a persona, and my questions are interrogations.  I am a spy in my own life… The experience of covertly filming my dates is similar to that of being a private detective – there’s a lot of waiting around for something exciting to happen.”  Laurie Long

Shizuka Yokomizo Stranger (1998)
Stranger is a project by photographer Shizuka Yokomizo that explores the confrontation between two people who are complete strangers to one another. Yokomizo sent her subjects an anonymous letter asking to stand at their window at a specific date and time, then Yokomizo would turn up outside and take their photograph. Unlike Long's series the strangers know that they are being photographed. Yokomizo can however construct the image how she wants and use photographic equipment that Long wouldn't be able to with her hidden project. But the viewer still gets a personal insight to the stranger. This photograph raises many questions; Why did the man decide upon wearing no trousers? Aswell as on the phone? But this is a very different surveillance project compared to Long's. This man knows he is going to be photographed at this time, whereas Long's subjects didn't. It's the unawareness in Long's project that makes it work whereas in this project it's the awareness of the man knowing he is being photographed that works. Both projects are very different in terms of the relationship between the photographer and subject. Long interacted with her subject, although they didn't know they were part of an art project, the role between photographer and subject is far more relaxed and this is conveyed through the composition of the photographs. Whereas in Yokomizo's project the only interaction between photographer and the subject was an anonymous letter, the pair wouldn't meet. The man knows he is being photographed but has no idea who the photographer is. He's staring out of the window into dark. Both project are about the encounters with the subject with very different outcomes.