Photographic
Genres
Tableaux
As
a lead in to the first Body of Work Assignment, we are required to research a
set of photographic genres that are not the traditional ones of Portraiture,
Documentary, Landscape etc, but sit within these. They are:
·
Tableaux
·
Personal
Journeys and fictional autobiography
·
The
Archive
·
Psychogeography
·
Conceptual
photography
·
Genre
hopping.
I
have begun to take images for assignment 1 centred on a woodland in the
Lincolnshire Wolds and an associated house and small farm. My initial reasons for choosing this location
was the inspiration I have gained from researching Eliot Porter's Intimate
Landscapes and wildlife photography. I
felt that this would be my personal photographic journey and I found it
difficult to see where that work would sit within the above genres. Since I started this work I have been doing a
great deal of reading both for the contextual studies part of the course and also
my Body of Work. A book I am finding
extremely interesting is Liz Wells' Land Matters: Landscape Photography, Culture and Identity. In it she discusses the ways photographers deal with
issues about the land, its idealisation and destruction. She looks at the history of landscape
photography in the US and Europe. She
appraises the work of key photographers, both historical and contemporary. Crucially, for me, she looks at the way
contemporary landscape photographers have related to landscape and this has
given me ideas to influence my own work.
Although I still want to work in the location I have described I am
developing new ideas on how I can progress my work and some of these, I feel,
may well fit in with the genres listed.
At the moment my mind is absolutely buzzing and I am not quite sure
which way to go!
Tableaux
The Tableaux section of the course notes begins by looking at
the self portrait by Hippolyte Bayard Self-Portrait
as a Drowned Man, which he stages as a protest at being overlooked as the
discoverer of photography. Not only is
this a very early example of the genre it also points out very early on that
the camera does not always tell the truth.
Interestingly modernist theory posits that there is only one reality and
the camera doesn't lie whereas postmodernists would argue that there is not just
one narrative; any one story. Surely
this early image by Bayard sits well within post modernism.
Other photographers are listed who work with Tableaux:
·
Jeff Wall
The website white cube tells us that Jeff Wall, a Canadian, specialises
in large format, often backlit photographs and elaborate tableaux. These images have some of the quality of
Gregory Crewdson about then in that they have an unreal quality, certainly in
the 2010 image Boy Falls from a Tree. I find this fascinating and it makes one
wonder how it was staged.
·
Philip-Lorca diCordia
The V&A website informs that the American photographer 's
images are a mix of documentary and fantasy, carefully lit and staged. He would pick 'actors' off the street and pay
them to be part of the scene. He preferred
in the Hollywood series at twighlight and used flash to achieve the desired
lighting effect. Again there is a sense
of the unreal in these images and some are quite unsettling.
·
Andreas Gursky
The Tate website tells us that ' Tableau is used to describe a painting or
photograph in which characters are arranged for picturesque or dramatic effect
and appear absorbed and completely unaware of the existence of the viewer' It goes on to say that in the 1970s artists
such as Jeff Wall and Andreas Gursky began to produce large scale tableaux
designed to hang on a wall and so had to take not of the same issues that confronted
painters. Gursky is certainly noted for
his large scale work.
·
Luc Delahaye
French photographer Luc
Delahaye made a name for himself as a photojournalist and war photographer. In 2003 he caused great controversy when he
combined his war photography with art photography. In 2004 he gave up photojournalism for art
photography and now produces monumental work in the style of Andreas Gursky.
·
Hannah Starkey
The course notes discuss Hannah Starkey and feature two of her
images. We are told that hers is a
gentler form of tableaux which includes a blend of documentary and staging. The Saatchi Gallery website informs us that
Starkey, a British photographer, born in 1971, uses female actors to portray
women carrying out regular routines: loitering in the street (regular?) ,
sitting in cafes or shopping. I think these
still have some of the unreal about them.
·
Julia Fullerton-Batten
Born in Germany in 1970 and trained in the UK her tableaux also
have that unreal quality but they have about them a much gentler, ethereal
feel, rather dream-like.
Gregory
Crewdson
The White Cube website tells us that he works in the documentary
style of William Eggleston and Walker Evans but he works much as a film
director to stage his elaborate set piece images in the mould of Stephen
Spielberg. His work relates very much to
film as they are very much like stills from a film, in fact, in an interview
with Crewdson it is suggested by Allyssa Loh and Alma Vescovi that in one image
the bathroom is a reconstruction of that in the film Psycho. The V&A website also explains that his work is akin to
making a feature film, every detail being meticulously planned and staged. He pays particular attention to lighting and
special effects. Although the American
Reader website suggests that his images are unnerving, as do I, Crewdson,
himself finds them 'optimistic'. The
rich and very detailed images are open to interpretation by the viewer and each
one can tell many different stories.
Having just visited the Royal Photographic Society's exhibition Drawn by Light at the National Media Museum, Bradford, I was fascinated to find several examples of tableaux in the exhibition. The first of these was Henry Peach Robinsons narrative tableau from 1858 Fading Away.He combined five negatives to produce his final set piece where a young woman lies dying, probably of tuberculosis, surrounded by her family with her father staring out of the window in despair. When this was first shown it was a very controversial image because of the subject chosen. The same photographer also produced The Lady of Shallott, a tableau made from two negatives. Another tableau that courted controversy because of the subject matter was the 1898 self portrait of Fred Holland Day as Christ on the cross, The Crucifixion. It was meticulously stage managed and he starved himself for months in preparation. The most popular and widely produced image by Francis James Mortimer was a 1917 tableau entitled The Gate of Goodbye which depicts soldiers going off to war from Victoria Station. It is a composite of 20 different negatives.
In all of the examples I have looked at, the work appears to be
social and documentary but they are all stories and either open to interpretation
by the viewer or designed to make a particular statement by the photographer. Although fascinating and interesting to look
at and find out about I don't see my work fitting into the category.
References
Loh, A. and Vescovi, A. (2015)
In Conversation: Interview with
Photographer Gregory Crewdson [online] The American Reader. Available from:
http://theamericanreader.com/interview-with-photographer-gregory-crewdson/
[Accessed 10.6.15]
O'Hagan, S. (2011) Luc
Delahaye Turns War Photography into an Uncomfortable Art [online] The
Guardian. Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/aug/09/luc-delahaye-war-photography-art
[Accessed 10.6.15]
Saatchi Gallery (2015) Selected
Works by Hannah Starkey [online] Available from: http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/hannah_starkey.htm
[Accessed 10.6.15]
The Tate (2015) Tableau [online]
Available from: http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/t/tableau
[Accessed 10.6.15]
V&A
(2015) Philip-Lorca diCordia [online]
Available from: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/photographs-by-philip-lorca-dicorcia/
[Accessed 10.6.15]
V&A
(2015) Photographs by Gregory Crewdson [online] Available from: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/gregory-crewson/
[Accessed 10.6.15]
White
Cube (2015) Jeff Wall [online]
Available from: http://whitecube.com/artists/jeff_wall/ [Accessed 10.6.15]
White
Cube (2015) Gregory Crewdson [online]
Available from: http://whitecube.com/artists/gregory_crewdson/ [Accessed
10.6.15]
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