Prejudice and photography

I was cycling on Sunday, on the way to pay a visit to my mum. A regular visit for me on most Sundays. I have recently just started cycling again after a 6 year moratorium which followed 20 odd years of commuting on my bike. So something can happen every now and then when you exercise, you can have the right combination of adrenalin & state of mind & general condition of your body and perhaps a few other elements as well. These elements come together in a positive harmony which leads to a sudden upsurge of euphoria. It is wonderful and I experienced this feeling as I flew down the hill on my beautiful new Bianchi. I called out to the world ‘f*ck this is fantastic’!

My state of mind was as good as it gets for me ( that’s pretty good, but I don’t have anything to compare with ). On my left I saw a family; black, young mum & two kids dressed to kill. My mind immediately concluded isn’t that wonderful. My state of mind leapt from euphoria to what! in an instant. Why should I think this is wonderful, is this some kind of weird positive response to some latent prejudice I have. We all have right? No it was actual, full on, up front prejudice. This young family were on their way to church, it was obvious and I have never been religious in any way. Cut me open and i read Athiest all the way through. In fact I have a bit of a negative response to church and the people who go there, have done all my life, the whole idea depresses me. Then it struck me, it wasn’t religion it was age. This was 3 young people, looking great and headed somewhere they wanted to go. Church for me is not like that, it is old and dusty and depressing. So I am ageist, that’s the route of this prejudice.

Prejudice is nothing to be proud of for sure, to recognise it in yourself though is something and perhaps is some way towards personal growth and rising above. This is a strange one though. I was on my way to see my lovely mum and she is certainly getting old so this is not an all consuming prejudice, but there is something. In the recent Scottish independence referendum I was a Yes supporter and voter. I am not a nationalist, far from it, I am a one world, lets all work together, egalitarian socialist, child of Thatcher. I wanted Scotland to be free to take it’s place in the world as a new forward thinking, modern democracy alongside and as an equal partner with the rest of these isles and firmly at the heart of Europe. Most Yes voting Scots are the same. It’s like we saw it coming, the state our bag of nations is now in is the saddest I have seen it, torn apart by actual English nationalism, superiority and prejudice. At least that’s what it looks like; Farage, Johnson and Trump have a lot to answer for in the way they have seized upon a mood and exploded the zeitgeist to overtake the collective minds of the good folks of England ( one of my favourite countries. I lived in Somerset in the early years of bringing my kids up, a truly wonderful part of the world ). I have voted SNP since 99 but I am a natural labour supporter, where is the soul of the labour movement? Now more than ever we need a hero from the left who can challenge this madness.

I remember commenting during the campaign for Scottish independence that I thought people over 65 shouldn’t vote, I meant it. They won’t be around long enough to really feel the impact, the referendum was for our children and their children, not for our parents and grandparents. Ageist! This Tory party leadership contest is going to be decided by a bunch of aged rich folks who may well have at some point been less well off, many will have been rich all their days, but will have been more than comfortable for many decades now. How in touch are they with what this country needs now and in the decades to come. None, they haven’t a clue. Ageist! ( OK classist too!). Prejudiced!

ageism

So I think about prejudice and photography and look into Gordon Parks.

Coming from a large family and growing up in Kansas in the early years of the 20th century Parks was formed in poverty and hardship. In a career of over 6 decades Parks created documentary addressing poverty and racism and became the first African American to work for life magazine. Park’s career delivered portraits of Muhammad Ali Dr Martin Luther King Jnr and Malcolm X. Parks went on to direct the 70s classic movie Shaft.

The era is described perfectly here in this quote from the guardian. [2014]

“Gordon Parks’s images of everyday American life under segregation were first published in 1956, one year after Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama. By then, the bus boycott she had triggered was transforming the fight for civil rights into a national movement, and thrusting a young minister called Martin Luther King into the spotlight.”

An example of Parks work below taken from AnOther. [2019]

parks

Department Store Mobile, Alabama, 1956© Photography by Gordon Parks. Courtesy and copyright the Gordon Parks Foundation

The decisive moment charged with the gravity of real world human condition, to provide an historical document of power and importance.

This prejudice I have always despised above all others, perhaps this is because I grew up through the years when we ( our society ) was coming to terms with it’s racism. To look back on 70s media now is a shocking and troubling experience. Where then is ageism and how should this be tackled. I fear for now my hope is that the young take control of our world and fix it before it is too late.

Bibliography

the guardian. 2014. A segregation that was never black and white: Gordon Parks’s photographs of 50s Alabama. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/nov/12/-sp-segregation-american-south-gordon-parks. [Accessed 25 June 2019].

AnOther. 2019. The Man Who Fought Prejudice with Photography Daisy Woodward. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/9931/the-man-who-fought-prejudice-with-photography. [Accessed 25 June 2019].

Brassai’s use of light to strengthen composition

Extract from the interview in American Suburb X. [2011]

T.R-J: What for you is the relationship between composition and subject matter?

B: There are two things: I think that there are photographers who compose very well but who have no understanding of life or human things. There are others who have much human understanding but no feeling for form. I feel that it is important to have both because one must convey a living thing with strong composition. Form can be many things in photography. Photography has nothing to do with painting, but even so there is a frame in which the photograph must be composed. Photography has one leg in painting and one leg in life but the two things must be combined. I like well composed pictures: I don’t like disorder in a photograph. Photography in the beginning began by imitating painting and then there was a revolution in different countries. Stieglitz in the United States and Emerson in England, and Atget in France. They all tried to do something different, they didn’t want photography to be taken for painting but wanted something especially for photography.

Brassai likes ‘well composed pictures’. With respect to part 4, I consider how Brassai uses light to create good composition. Generally speaking Brassai compositions appear simple and strong, there is not much complexity to distract the observer.

In Prostitute in the Quartier Italie, Paris, 1932, Brassai further uses light and shadow to to emphasise what is important in the image to bring forward the message he has. The subject is well lit, but only partially. The street where she operates and lampost where she may linger between encounters are also lit well, everything else is allowed to fall into shadow to some degree.Perhaps Brassai is commenting on the subjects shady occupation; Prostitution is right here in front of us, always has been and everywhere, but we prefer to keep this out of the limelight, shaded from our sensibilities.

Bibliography

American Suburb X. 2011. Tony Ray-Jones Interviews Brassai” Pt. I (1970). [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.americansuburbx.com/2011/08/interview-brassai-with-tony-ray-jones.html. [Accessed 2 June 2019].

Street photography or not street photography

“Time and patience are essential in street photography. One has to walk a lot, and, sometimes, one has to wait for the photograph to happen. In some cases, the photographer will wait until a subject enters a chosen stage–the foreseen composition.”

Magnum photos [2019]

Reading through this article, I found this statement to sum up aspects of my experience in taking the shots for assignment 3. In most of the shots that made the final set I visualised the photo i wanted first, set it up and waited for it to happen. Some more successful than others of course but as a strategy to take the shots it was enjoyable.

From this article I discovered Susan Meiselas and her photographs from Nicaragua in the 1970’s interesting and powerful. https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/susan-meiselas/

Images of conflict situations are often very powerful, transport the viewer right there to the scene even decades later. “A car of a Samoza informer burning in Managua” is particularly moving.

Susan Meiselas is not considered a street phitographer by Magnum yet is considered to have produced street photographs of the highest order. “Hence, some Magnum photographers who might not be considered “street photographers” happen to have made street photographs of the highest order.”

What makes street photography is ubiquitous and in this way many artists can create without dedication to the style, perhaps.

Bibliography

Magnum photos. 2019. The joy of seeing magnum street photography. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.magnumphotos.com/theory-and-practice/the-joy-of-seeing-magnum-street-photography/. [Accessed 28 May 2019].

Exercise 4.1: Michael Schmidt

In [AXS. 2010] Michael Schmidt wrote “I prefer black and white photography because it guarantees the viewer a maximum amount of neutrality within the limits of the medium. It reduces and neutralizes the coloured world to a finely nuanced range of greys, thus precluding an individual way of seeing (personal colour tastes) by the viewer.”

In combination with overcast skies diffusing light, removing shadows and producing a flat reduced depth and contrast image, the image is simplified, easier to consume and comprehend by the viewer.

In considering this aspect of light and photography I think about my own experience and think ( confess even ) that I feel more relaxed, comfortable and confident when taking shots and the sky is overcast. Classically good exposure is easier to attain and dynamic range much reduced. A good quality outcome is nearly always more likely in this case all be it that drama may be harder to achieve. In viewing the images in https://www.prixpictet.com/portfolios/consumption-shortlist/michael-schmidt/ drama does not seem to be what Schmidt is looking for.

Bibliography

AXS. 2010. Michael Schmidt: Thoughts About My Way of Working. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.americansuburbx.com/2010/10/michael-schmidt-thoughts-about-my-way-of-working-1979.html. [Accessed 5 May 2019].

Exercise 4.1: Daylight – Sally Mann

Personal view on light quality.

With Southern Landscapes, and other series (Battlefields, Family Pictures etc), Sally Mann uses the wet plate collodian method. A method dating back to the early days of photography, this adds a level of mystery to the photographs in Southern Landscapes that complements the quality of light; early morning or late afternoon.

In particular the images below with their deep shadows created by the low sun provide a depth of image that makes the viewer feel very much ‘in’ the image. There is a richness alongside the depth which would be far less pronounced had the photographs been taken at mid day or with dispersed light of cloud cover.

[Sally Mann:2019]

Southern Landscapes 1

Southern Landscapes 2

The quality of light in these photographs is critical to their success, delivering a fundamental component to the emotional impact.

I wonder how much of the impact can be attributed to the collodian method with it’s high flaw contingent. Sally Mann herself says “I guess, because I was so immersed in that whole glass-plate, nineteenth-century aesthetic, it was natural to want to learn how to do this.” in [art21:2011]

bibliography

Sally Mann. 2019. Sally Mann. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.sallymann.com/. [Accessed 5 May 2019].

art21. 2011. Collodion Process Sally Mann. [ONLINE] Available at: https://art21.org/read/sally-mann-collodion-process/. [Accessed 5 May 2019].

Considering Nortre-Dame

Considering the disaster that has befallen Nortre-Dame Cathedral, I think a disaster for the people of Paris, France and for all of us. Just last night as the Cathedral was engulfed in flames and one of the spires collapsing the people of Paris took to the streets in collective shock and mourning and the comfort of being together to bare witness.

I think of Paul Graham’s photobook The Present as discussed here the antithesis of the decisive moment is connected to the urban experience of middle America. It is hard to think of a city or building which represents the opposite of mundane middle America. In this I see an idea forming for my assignment 3, an idea which has been brooding away at the back of my mind for a few weeks now as I have been working through the course and starting to tackle assignment 3. I live in a city which itself is very far removed from mundane middle America, Edinburgh, Scotland. Gothic and spectacular the old town of Edinburgh is but that does not stop the the moments in time experienced by it’s citizens being indecisive. For the good people of the city the gothic and the spectacular become a faded backdrop and life is simply life with all it’s mundane indecision. So the idea forms to express the juxtaposition of mundane within a spectacular context.

Of course, as shown in Paris, when in danger we will snap out of this state and recognise again our surroundings. I suspect the same would be true of any middle American town or city although without the added wrench of hundreds of years of history being torn from us.

Thankfully it looks like the cathedral will remain and shall be rebuilt to its former glory.

Presentation and sequence – more

Mentioned on blog entry presentation and sequence, my tutor recently advised me to consider, the medium of presentation whilst creating my series of photographs for the assignments in EYV. In the blog i considered a photobook as the medium for presentation ( other media could be; magazine, art gallery, internet etc ). In this blog I consider how to think about your photographs in the context of an art gallery. I have selected a few shots which are in the contact sheet for my assignment 3 which I am currently working towards. Using photoshop to resize cut-n-paste I embedded the shots within an image of an art gallery. This gives a really good indication of how these photographs would look in this setting.

Presentation and sequence

After some very useful feedback from my tutor on assignment 2, I decided to experiment a bit with presentation and sequencing of the series I created for assignment 2.

The first feedback point i noted was that the series doesn’t work so well as a set of triptychs ( triptychs usually need some internal logic such as symmetry across the 3 to make sense). I had not considered that during building the series.

The second feedback point was to consider how or where the series would be displayed as part of the thought process whilst creating the series and actually taking the shots. For example; will the photo’s be shown in a gallery or magazine etc? Again I had not considered this during creation of assignment 2.

Following this feedback I have experimented with the series for how I could rework the presentation and sequence with the feedback points in mind.

Experimentation method

Firstly ( again as advised ) I printed the series and laid out on the floor, moving the photos around until i settled on the sequence that I felt worked best. In doing this I noticed a few aspects where some photos tended to work to complement others for example the first 2 in the sequence i selected shown below have a similar feel in terms of leading lines from top left/right into the centre of the photo and 5 & 6 have a similarity in both lines and the amount of the frame the lighthouse takes up and so again work as a pair. Another thought here I is; having considered this up front I may well have chosen different photo’s for the series itself.

An alternative sequence –

Next I considered what this would look like as a photobook with this chosen sequence. I have noticed during research for EYV a lot of video’s on Youtube presenting photobooks in the style i have used here. This is also a good way to review your work.

The alternative sequence as a photobook

Project 3 ‘What matters is to look’

What is the decisive moment?

“It is the creation of art through the curation of time.” (The Decisive Moment is Dead. Long Live the Constant Moment, 2013)

In an article introducing an exhibition of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson at the Pompidou centre in the spring of 2014, a quote used in the preface for the photobook itself is used.

The book’s preface opens with a quote by Cardinal de Retz: “There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment.” (FotoRoom,2014)

For Cartier-Bresson, the decisive moment is that point in time, searched for, selected and captured by the photographer that brings together in an holistic way the scene in finest balance, never to be recreated. From the infinite array of decisive moments of Cardinal de Retz, the art of the photographer curates the decisve moment.

Views

Research

Today the decisive moment is often criticised for having become something of a stylistic cliché. In the decades after the 1930s, the most creative phase of Cartier-Bresson’s street photography, thousands of photographers learned the techniques of the ‘moment décisif ’ – leading, inevitably perhaps, to derivative work.

There are of course many exemplars of the decisive moment from photographers other than Cartier-Bresson. One example i take note of is the work of Larry Fink who himself expresses the influence of Cartier-Bresson “This picture came into being under the influence of Cartier-Bresson, with his marvellous understanding of deep space and compositional arrangements of the middle ground, of the whole – of the various syncopations and choreographic elements happening within a frame” (Fink, 2014:34) when introducing the picture sheep meadow. Fink has many examples which appear strongly influenced by the decisive moment as an expressive style and foundational photographic philosophy

Opinion

This is both inevitable and complimentary to the power of any particular style or movement. To ascend to ‘stylistic cliche’ as in the case of the decisive moment the idea must have enough power to influence so many and so deeply. This can be seen in all areas of artistic expression, most notably today I think in music where it sometimes appears that there are no new sounds just an infinite variety of reworking original ideas. Regardless of derivative work or not, the work can still have merit in my view, what it can’t do or have is power to influence in the same way as the original. In this way all ideas run out of steam eventually, a measure of the greatness of the idea is how long it lasts and how many people it influences.

Below photograph is perhaps Larry Fink’s most famous work – Pat Sabatine’s eighth birthday party. This can be seen as a clear example of decisive moment, the significant moment in time which captures the event perfectly.

Fig. 1 Pat Sabatine’s eighth birthday party (1977)

Research

Liz Wells

In ‘Photography: A Critical Introduction’ Liz Wells observes that fragmentary moments can be ‘dislocated’ from a greater context that might give them meaning:

‘Increasingly, documentary turned away from attempting to record what would formerly have been seen as its major subjects. The endeavour
to make great statements gave way to the recording of little dislocated moments which merely insinuated that some greater meaning might be at stake.’

The context of the quote from Liz Wells pertains to the environment in which Cartier-Bresson brought his idea of the decisive moment and then the impact this had on that environment. Documentary photography of the time was subject to a myriad of rules used to determine the authenticity of the work.

“We have already observed that any attempt to arrange and structure the location by a documentary photographer would be regarded as illegitimate behaviour, yet the aesthetic demand for well-composed shots remained.” (Wells, 2015:91)

“Thus, the celebrated French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson lay in wait for all the messy contingency of the world to compose itself into an image that he judged to be both productive of visual information and aesthetically pleasing. This he called ‘the decisive moment” (Wells, 2015:91)

The influence of the decisive moment was directional for documentary photography which tended to move away from recording of the obvious and grand subject matter and towards more detailed captures of cultural references of everyday life.

Opinion

As a photographic language, interpreting the world as little dislocated moments which insinuate something greater is in my view an example of evolving sophistication in how we communicate through the medium and so is an indication of a maturing medium.

Research

Colin Pantall

Another criticism of the decisive moment is that it somehow just misses the point of our contemporary situation. Reviewing Paul Graham’s photobook The Present, Colin Pantall writes:

‘…what he [Graham] wants us to see is the antithesis of the decisive moment and the spectacle of the urban experience. Instead we get a very contemporary contingency, a street with moments so decisively indecisive that we don’t really know what we are looking at or looking for.’

http://www.photoeye.com/magazine/reviews/2012/05_17_The_Present.cfm [accessed 19/01/18])

In this article Colin Pantall describes how The Present by Paul Graham challenges the relevance of the decisive moment in todays urban existence. The presentation within the book with many dyptychs and tryptychs across a number of page styles and showing very similar images, causes the viewer to look, move on, re-look. This causes an inability to settle on what is decisive or even what is important in any of the images. In another deviation from the decisive moment these images aim to down play all subjects be they people, buildings, cars etc Described by Pantall, “New York is a bit crappy for a start, an anti-nostalgic place that is run-down and anonymous. It looks pretty much like any other run down place. The people are the same. They�re not glamorous or striking or eccentric, but rather they�re harried, harassed and distant” (Pantall, 2012).

The photobook is shown here (colberg, 2012)

Opinion

In Pantall’s thinking, The Present represents a rejection of the decisive moment as not relevant to our modern urban life and the book certainly introduces an indecisive mood for the viewer. I personally don’t see the connection to modern urban existence and irrelevance of the decisive moment. For me The Present seems more to express the modern urban existence itself can be anonymous and full of indecision and this is a reflection of that. Thats not to say that there can be no decisive moments, when the perfect moment can be captured.

Research

Zouhair Ghazzal agrees that the decisive moment has become more of a cliché than a reality, although he believes it can contain something essential of life. But in a similar way to Pantall’s interpretation of Graham’s work, Ghazzal finds the contemporary urban landscape just ‘too monotonous and dull’ for the decisive moment.

See: http://zouhairghazzal.com/photos/aleppo/cartier-bresson.htm [accessed 19/01/18])

For Ghazzal the decisive moment, mostly attributed to people and their expressions, gestures and body language becomes a cliche. “At its core, the decisive moment is indeed mostly anecdotic—composed of short accounts of humorous or interesting incidents.” (Ghazzal, 2018). In agreement with Colin Pantall with respect to modern urban life too mundane to support the notion of decisive moments. Although Ghazzal goes further into connecting this mundanity to the centre-less mid American urban experience. “American photography, much more than the European, had to come to terms with cities in middle America and elsewhere that were new and decentered, and where not much was happening.” (Ghazzal, 2018)

Opinion

For photographers the decisive moment still has relevance. All criticism is valid but that does not deny or even reduce that relevance. There is a discipline within this method and philosophy – “What matters is to look” this is fundamental to the art of the photographer. To relax, look and be patient, don’t force the shot wait for the right moment, these are skills to learn and attributes to acquire that will always be relevant. Although true that the style, the typical outcomes have become cliche, a great shot that captures the moment perfectly will still be a great shot.

bibliography

Clayton Cubitt (2013) The Decisive Moment is Dead. Long Live the Constant Moment At:https://petapixel.com/2013/05/22/on-the-constant-moment/ (Accessed on 21.03.19

FotoRoom (2014) The Decisive Moment as Henri Cartier-Bresson Truly Meant it. At:https://fotoroom.co/decisive-moment-henri-cartier-bresson/ (Accessed on 14.03.19)

Fink, Larry (2014) On Composition and Improvisation. (first) New York: Aperture Foundation.

Liz Wells. (2015) Photography: A Critical Introduction (p. 91). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

Coburg, Jorg. (2012) Presenting The Present by Paul Graham. At: http://www.bfi.org.uk/filmtvinfo/publications/pub-repbrief/pdf/filmmakersguide.pdf (Accessed on 28.03.2019)

Pantall, Colin (2012) The Present. At: http://www.photoeye.com/magazine/reviews/2012/05_17_The_Present.cfm (accessed 28.03.2019)

Zouhair Ghazzal (2004) the indecisiveness of the decisive moment At: http://zouhairghazzal.com/photos/aleppo/cartier-bresson.htm (accessed 28.03.2019)

Illustrations

Figure 1. Pat Sabatine’s eighth birthday party (1977) [Photo] At: https://www-bridgemaneducation-com.ucreative.idm.oclc.org/en/search?filter_text=larry+fink (Accessed on 27.03.2019)

Considering sequence

As part of my work towards submission for assignment 2 – collecting, i consider how i might sequence the series of 6 to 12 photographs. I considered how I selected the sequence for assignment 1 the square mile. The sequence was based on a simple rule; group the photographs in pairs to emphasize the chosen theme “Edinburgh at work and play”. For assignment 2 I will invest some thought into possibly more sophisticated sequencing.

To date my thoughts on creating a sequence for a series of photographs, could in my opinion, be described as limited and one dimensional. As evidenced in Exercise 1.4 Frame. In this series the sequence was based on geometric logic and symmetry. Following the brief for this exercise I took 9 shots, each with concentration on a separate section of the viewfinder ( 3*3 grid ). I sequenced the shots mapping directly to the sections where the shot concentrated which i presented in a 3 * 3 grid eg shot with concentration on bottom left corner was placed bottom left in the sequence. This seemed logical and so for me has a merit.

The question I ask myself here however is; does a less logically ordered sequence have more merit or in other words is there some other way to sequence which has more merit?

The original sequence here :-

I researched methods of sequencing a series of photographs and found the following useful insights for consideration from Holly Stuart Hughes. THE ART AND PROCESS OF SEQUENCING PHOTO BOOKS. (2018);

“If you simply select the best 50 images in a series, it’s not an interesting book, because the tension in the photos is always the same,”

“Like in a film or a novel, you have to build up to the tension and then you need to release the tension.”

Considering both points above regarding building tension through not always having the best shots in the series and treating the the series like a film or novel, I reworked the sequencing for Exercise 1.4 Frame, as shown below.

Additionally an added improvement to increased tension and release with this sequence is achieved by presenting as 3 tryptichs rather than the 3 * 3 grid. This helps emphasize the narrative arc I chose for the sequence; to have two shots of journey leading to some reward in the 3rd shot of each group.

I have been collecting a number of shots for assignment 2 for which I have considered possible sequencing. However will consider again in the light of this research.

References

Holly Stuart Hughes. 2018. THE ART AND PROCESS OF SEQUENCING PHOTO BOOKS. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.pdnonline.com/features/photo-books/art-process-sequencing-photo-books/#gallery-1. [Accessed 27 January 2019].