Eliot Porter: Intimate Landscapes

I have long been inspired by the work of Eliot Porter and was required to photograph in his style for L2 Landscape and researched him towards the end of L2 PWDP and wrote up the research in my blog.  As a result I bought a copy of his Intimate Landscapes, second hand as cost precluded a new copy.  Intimate Landscapes is the catalogue for the 1979 exhibition of the same name at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In his forward to the book Philippe de Montebello (director of MOMA) says that Intimate Landscapes was the first one man exhibition of colour photographs ever presented at MOMA.  He continues by writing that Porter's first work exhibited at MOMA in 1949 when Georgia O'Keefe presented a collection of images from the estate of Alfred Stieglitz, which he, himself, had assembled.  De Montebello goes on to say that all of the images in the exhibition reflect Porter's high standards of excellence.  (De Montebello, 1979, P9)

In his preface Eliot Porter suggests that abstract art refers to work inspired by the imagination of the artist but this is more difficultto sustain in photography.  An optical image, he says, is always an abstraction from the natural world.  When the selected image is self-explanatory and does not imply more that what lies within its area it is usually referred to as abstract, that is, independent of its surroundings. eg a pattern of rock, or lichens, or grasses.  He stresses that he does not photograph for ulterior purposes, only for the thing itself with no thought as to how it might be used.  The natural world as a subject had always appealed to him, especially grasses and sedges. (Porter, 1979, P11)

In the afterword to the book, Weston J. Naef, curator, writes that Porter's photographs satisfy comments made by both Emile Zola: "A work of art is a detail of nature seen through a temperament" and Paul Klee who said that "The purpose of art is to make visible the invisible".  He suggests that choices made by the photographer: camera, light, point of view, printing paper or psychological atmosphere, are just as important as the subject matter itself.  Naef argues that a photograph is a magical illusion of reality on a flimsy piece of paper whose power to affect the viewer emotionally springs from fundamental decisions on the part of the photographer.  He feels that Porter's strongest compositions have the look of carefully planned randomness.  He continues that the photographs are based on an act of contemplation and mood sustained by the precise control of colour relationships.  He also feels that to appreciate Porter's photographs close attention should be paid to the writings of Henry David Thoreau.  He was a 20th century Thoreauvian whose inspiration came from a series of camping trips in the Canadian Rockies and his time spent as a boy on Great Spruce Head, an island owned by his family.

Naef says that, initially, Eliot Porter's approach had more in common with the metod of the scientist than that of the aesthete, or of the meditative observer he later became.  He writes that Porter's early inspiration came from Ansel Adams and Alfred STieglitz and his work was first exhibitied by Stieglitz in An Ameican Place in December 1938.  Partly as a result of this exhibition Porter gave up his teaching career for photography and began working exclusively in colour.  Porter went on to reread Thoreau after his wife pointed out the similarity between his work and Thoreau's writings.  He then began using the writings as direct inspiration for photographs; for instance plate 11 in the book Aspen, Yellow Leaves and Asters is based on Thoreau's journal entry for October 1852.  The work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, especially his1835  essay Nature also became an inspiration.  Perhaps Porter's work that is most linked with Thoreau is In Wilderness is the Preservation of the World, published by the Sierra Club.

Despite stating that he had no ulterior motive for his photography, with the publication of  The Place No One Knew: Glen Canyon on the Colorado in 1963, he came to be considered exclusively as a propagandist for the conservation movement.

One aspect of Porter's work, Naef writes, is a tendency to degeographise the image.  In Intimate Landscapes the photographs could be of anywhere rather than attached to any specific place. (Naef, 1979, PP 126-134)

Intimate Landscapes is a large format book comprising the 55 images from the exhibition.  Each photograph fills one page with the caption on the preceding one.  The caption includes the day of capture.  All the photographs are beautifully printed on quality satin paper.  Particular favourites include Plate 1, Foxtail Grass, Lake City, Colorado, August 1957, where white flowers peep out from between the grass stems.  There is very slight movement blur in the grasses which give it life.  The photograph was taken looking staright down as was Plate 2, Maple Leaves and Pine Needles, Tamworth, New Hampshire.  October 3, 1956.  I like the attractive use of colour in Plate 12, Trunks of Maple and Birch with Oak Leaves, Passaconaway Road, New Hampshire.  October 7, 1956 and also in Plate 22, Pool in a Brook, Near Whiteface, New Hampshire.  October 1953 and, particularly, Plate 48, Puffer Pond Brook, Warren County, Adirondack Park, New York.  May 23, 1964.

De Montebello (1979) Intimate Landscapes, New York: MOMA

Porter, E. (1979) Intimate Landscapes, New York: MOMA

Naef, W.J. (1979) Intimate Landscapes, New York: MOMA

On Photography; Susan Sontag

On Photography by Susan Sontag was originally published in 1977 and I have the Penguin edition, published in London in 1979.  Sontag explains in her very brief introduction that the book is a collection of her essays.  She began with one essay and, almost by chance, this led to another and another....  These essays were first published in The New York Review of Books.

The blurb tells us that Sontag examines a wide range of problems, both aesthetic and moral, raised by the presence and authority of the photographed image in the lives of everyone in 1977.  John Berger in New Society says that it was the most original and important work yet written on the subject.  The Washington Post says of it that it is a brilliant analysis of the profound changes photographs have had in our way of looking at the world.  It has been suggested that that the book is literary and and contentious rather than being academic writing; it contains no bibliography, for instance, and very few notes and there is no in depth analysis of any one photographer and some critics such as writer and curator Colin Westerbeck gave it a hostile reception.

I enjoyed the book and could have wished that I had read it before writing my essay for Progressing with Digital Photography: The Rebirth of Pictorialism in Photography. Is a return to Pictorialism Finally Threatening the Dominance of 'Straight' Photography?  I would then have found the following quote useful:  "The cult of the future (of faster and faster seeing) alienates with the wish to return to a more artisanal, purer past when images still had a handmade quality, an aura." and this: "....Right now there are mini-revivals of such long-despised pictorialists from another era as Oscar Gustav Rejlander, Henry Peach Robinson and Robert Demachy."

Another quote with particular reference to my current work is: "Some photographers set up as scientits, others as moralists.  The scientists make an inventory of the world; the moralists concentrate on hard cases."  I think that maybe with the work I started on originally for my Body of Work is from the point of view of photographer as scientist, documenting and recording nature (I like to think well) rather than actually saying something, having a story to tell.

Level 3 Study Weekend, Barnsley. 20/21 June 2015

All photos courtesy of Amano Tracy

On the weekend of 20/21 June I visited Barnsley for a Level 3 study weekend organised by fellow students Penny Watson and John Umney.  We were also fortunate to have the help and advice of two of our tutors: Sharon Boothroyd and Jesse Alexander, as well as inputs by two professionals: John Davies and Laura Pannack.  It was good to meet up with students who I had only known through their blogs, but it was my first experience of such an event so I arrived on Saturday morning with some trepidation.  The first day began with a PechKucha session where each of us presented and spoke about 20 of our photographs for 20 seconds each, the timing being strictly controlled as they were shown as a timed PowerPoint.  The idea was to introduce ourselves to the group by providing an overview of our photographic journey so far.  John kicked off and his presentation was slick and professional.  I, and some others, thought that it looked as though it should be straightforward, but when it came to it 20 seconds per slide was a very short space of time.  Although I found it quite stressful, having experienced it once, I would look forward to doing another one and being much better prepared.  It was an excellent way to be introduced to the group and to see each other's work.

The next session was to look at and discuss a wide range of photo books that both students and tutors had provided.  I think we floundered a little here and became too involved in what we did or didn't like; whereas John and Penny had hoped that we would have more conversations centred on editing and sequencing issues

Following lunch we had an input by professional landscape photographer John Davies, illustrated with his images from the 1970s to the present.  Son of a coal miner and born in 1949, his grandmother was a school teacher with a rural background and this influenced his work.  Whilst at art school in Mansfield, he became interested in how politics and art could work together as well as using photography to capture surreal events.  However, his work began with black and white landscape work.  He used a mix of preconceived ideas and responding to a particular setting.  Initially he worked with 35mm but moved on to a 6x4 Mamya press camera in order to be able to make large prints without losing quality.  Having researched several types of black and white film and finding that they responded to coloured light in different ways he opted to use yellow filtration as standard to rebalance the tonal range of the film.  Gradually his work changed from photographing the sublime.  His work sold well, but he wanted to make a response to 'Thatcherism' and he began to photograph industrial and post-industrial landscapes, preferring to work from an elevated position in order to get away from the limitation of the footpath.  He was interested in the way that industry shaped the landscape in Northern England.  He has an interesting catalogue of before and after industrial landscape images, which illustrates how an inconsequential shot one day might be important in the future.  He feels that his images contributed to a stereotype of industrial Northern England.  He moved on to work abroad and feels that he is now better known in France than the UK.  This was a very interesting talk despite the brightness of the room detracting from his projected images.

After John's talk we moved on to several critique sessions where we each had 20 minutes to display (mostly) prints of our current body of work. These sessions were concluded on the second afternoon.  Seeing other people's work was at the same time daunting and inspirational and it gave me much food for thought, particularly after my own 'crit'.  For my body of work I have been working on a set of images in a local woodland based on Eliot Porter's 'Intimate Landscapes' and bird photography. and had brought along a set of A4 prints on oyster paper.  I also has a couple of examples of flowers with an industrial background and landscapes with industry in the background.  The first lesson I learned from displaying my work and looking at others was on printing style.  In future my work needs to be printed on A3 with a wide (35mm) border and possibly on matt paper.  The tutors and other students felt that the work I presented was too much within my comfort zone and not risk taking or challenging enough with only three images moving into this category.  It was suggested that I look at the work of Jem Southam, Helen Seer and Clive Landen.  Whilst not throwing this body of work out altogether, I have decided to concentrate on certain aspects of it; for instance one photograph looking straight down at the woodland floor was felt to be more challenging, and I would like to work on some abstract macro images.  I will also experiment with more shots of industry within the landscape and flowers within an industrial setting. I also have a couple more ideas based on psychgeography that really excite me but I will expand on these in another blog.  Susan Sontag says in her book 'On Photography' that some photographers set up as scientists, others as artists. (Sontag, 1977, P59) and think that I have been photographing as a scientist rather than an artist, certainly with my wildlife work.

The following morning saw a session where Jesse updated us on the Sustaining Your Practice part of the course.  It would seem that at a suitable juncture it will be suggested that we apply to start this course and we have the option of choosing one of our current tutors or, possibly, a third tutor.  Also there will be only one Level 3 assessment per year in March and all three aspects of our Level 3 work will be assessed at the same time.  There was some concern among the group of the possibility of a 'work experience' aspect to this part of the course, but this can be more about extending our network in the professional world than working for someone else.

The second input from a guest professional was by Laura Pannack.  I was not familiar with her work so looked at her website before the weekend.  I found her a very articulate speaker and a great presenter of her work.  Her work is mainly in a  portrait style, but with a social documentary slant.  Early work was of teenagers and young British naturists, mixing tableaux with a documentary style.  Although she has found inspiration in the work of Gregory Crewdson and Philip-Lorca diCorcia, she is very cautious never to imitate.  Editorial work has been undertaken for the Sunday Times, NGOs, One World Press and Save the Children.  She doesn't feel that she needs to fit into a category and enjoys genre hopping.

Whilst being in part daunting this was a very enjoyable and inspirational weekend.  I have much food for thought, new ideas and a very long 'to do' list.  I found everybody extremely warm, friendly and helpful and hope that contacts made will continue.

Conceptual Photography

Wikipedia tells us that conceptual photography depicts an idea and that one of the earliest examples was Self Portrait as a Drowned Man (1840) by Hippolyte Bayard.  It goes on, though, to explain that Conceptual Photography has evolved from the Conceptual art scene of the late 1960s and today it can be used to describe a methodology or a genre.  As a genre, it argues that it might refer to photography when it is being used in Conceptual Art or in contemporary art photography but that the term is not used consistently.  Wikipedia argues that as a methodology conceptual photography is most often used in advertising to represent an idea.  It says that, with the advent of photoshop, digital manipulation has made the realisation of the portrayal of an idea through conceptual photography more of a possibility.  It gives as exponents of Conceptual Photography Cindy Sherman, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Demand and, more recently Aaron Nace and Rosie Hardy who was commissioned by Maroon 5 to create a piece of conceptual photography for their Hands All Over album. (Wikipedia, 2015)

John Hilliard states, in the Source photographic film, that very few contemporary photographers use the term Conceptual Photography.  He argues that it is a term used by curators and critics to describe photographers and artists.  Critic Loucy Soulter also posits that it was a term invented by critics in the 1960s.  The critic John Roberts suggests that the new generation of photographers in the 1960s/70s had to begin to do the thinking for themselves as they were faced with American Modernism that was different to the relationship between art and thing and also there was no critical industry as there is now. (Source, 2015)

John Roberts says of Hilliard's work that he pays a great deal of attention to technique.  Hilliard agrees and says that if he is to pay attention to technique he might as well incorporate it into a photograph as he did in his 1970 image 60 seconds of light.  He explains that his work is very prepared and he begins by drafting out ideas and draws a photograph before it is ever made.  He uses Scarecat, used to advertise a garden cat deterrent, as an example. (Source, 2015)

Lucy Soulter suggests that a visitor to a gallery often has no access to the ideas and motivation behind an image and so calling the work conceptual may give a clue to the fact that there is more to the image than meets the eye.  She goes on to say, though, that conceptual photography is anti-personal, anti emotional and anti-subjective.  Continuing in Part 2 Guardian critic Sean O'Hagan argues that conceptualisation became a market commodity in the 1980s.  It was what galleries wanted to the exclusion of other types of photography.  He adds to this by saying that going out into the world and photographing things that resonate with the photographer is just as valid as conceptual work and this style of photography brought us Lee Friedlander, Dianne Arbus and Robert Frank.  Should their work be consigned to the bin, he asks, because they are not deemed conceptual?  He feels that work should have a humanist thrust and tell us about how and where we live.  Contemporary photographer Suzanne Mooney states that the term conceptual photography is derogatory to other types of photography, assuming that they do not require thought or research. (Source, 2015)

In Part 3 both critic Lucy Soulter and curator Louise Clements suggest that there are two types of photographers: those who like to think of themselves as photographers and those who like to think of themselves as artists.  Clements says that she never uses the term conceptual photography and Soulter postulates that all contemporary photography is conceptual to some degree so the question is - what isn't conceptual?  Sean O'Hagan's issue with conceptualisation is that the idea over-rides everything else, but it is much closer to the art world than other types of photography.  He takes issue with the work of conceptual artists Adam Boomberg and Oliver Chanarin who went to Afghanistan, ostensibly as photojournalists, but refused to take any photographs as such.  Instead, periodically, in response to some event they would unroll a huge roll of photographic paper and expose it to the light and filming what they were doing.  They argue that the point of the project was to point out that photojournalists are operating within a bubble of censorship.  Sean O'Hagan was scathing and asks "Did it not dawn on them at any point the arrogance of what they were doing, that they were in a war zone and fooling around with some conceptual joke."  He regards them as patronising and arrogant.  He argues that that is where conceptualism becomes self important, narcissistic and inward looking. (Source, 2015)

I think that the upshot of these three videos is that it is not totally clear what Conceptual Photography is.  My thinking is that an idea comes first and then that is translated into a photograph.  But, how does that differ from the work of Ansel Adams and others who previsualised their work and then realised it.  As Lucy Soulter  and the course notes say: all photography is conceptual to some degree.  Although I wouldn't consider myself a Conceptual Art Photographer I do go out with an idea in mind.  Normally my flower photography is fairly traditional, such as the early purple orchid below, but two days ago I wanted to show wild flowers within an industrial context and went out with that idea or concept in mind and then realised the concept as the second two images show.

Early Purple Orchid

Dog Rose, Container Terminal

Common Mallow, Sea Wall

Aaron Nace is regarded as a Conceptual Photographer and he is an expert at digitally manipulating images through photoshop and, in fact, teaches this to people.  He doesn't try to hide this and he is totally upfront about it.  There is a great deal of humour to his work, which is planned out following an initial idea.  Rosie Hardy's work, on the other hand, is otherworldly and ethereal and in some cases slightly disturbing.  In many of her images she uses herself as the model.  I really like her Maroon 5 album cover; it is fascinating to conjecture where all of the hands come from.  Cindy Sherman achieved international recognition for her conceptual tableaux photography Untitled Film Stills which are self portraits where she poses in different roles and settings to produce photographs reminiscent of stills from films of the 1940s and 50s.  Yet another conceptual image that I really like is Anorexia by Santiago Alvarez which features an apple eaten down to the core in front of a mirror; the reflection in the mirror is of a whole apple.

Source (2015)  What is Conceptual Photography [online] Available from: http://www.source.ie/feature/what_is_conceptual.html [Accessed 17.6.15]

Wikipedia (2015) Conceptual Photography [online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_photography [Accessed 17.6.15]

Psychogeography

I feel drawn to psychogeography more than the previous genres explored in this part of the course and I feel that, so far, this where my work sits, although not strictly to the letter.  We are told in the course notes that it is "..about mindfully engaging with a physical place, looking at the geography, landmarks and architecture and responding to them in a literary or artistic manner".  Traditionally the place would be a city but I can see no reason why it couldn't incorporate the land and landscape and the wildlife within it.  I am a keen mountain walker and have recently returned from a trip to Scotland where we completed three planned walks and photographed as we went.  I include some of these images at the end.  We are told that psychogeography is linked to the Situationist International movement which was a group of Marxixt artists who believed that capitalism was destroying community.  Although it began as a group of artists, it ended up as a political group.  Wikipedia tells us that it was a group of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals and political theorists and it was active from 1957 - 1972. (Wikipedia, 2015)  Guy Debord defined psychogeography, in 1955, as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals".  It is just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape. (I would argue also just landscape.) (Wikipedia, 2015)

Two main terms are used in psychogeography: flaneur/flaneuse and Derive.  According to Wikipedia  a derive or drift is an unplanned journey through a landscape on which the surrounding architecture and geography directs the travellers with the goal of encountering a new and authentic experience. (Wikipedia, 2015) The flaneur or flaneuse, on the other hand, is the participant in such a derive.  So, according to the course notes psychogeography becomes a thinker who wanders or drifts through the landscape responding to the things that take their fancy, and, presumably in the case of a photography, photographing those things.  The course notes also point out that a more considered or planned route may be taken, often using a map to plan a route.

I was intrigued by the work of Pedro Guimaraes and the commitment it must have taken for him to visit all of the locations on his map.  He has taken to more planned option, although he has made his own map.  The random aspect comes in when he place an image of the Queen's head over the map of London.  The planned aspect is when he plots his locations.  When his images are examined, they could really be from a new town so how real or imaginary is 'Blue Town'. (Guimaraes, 2015)

Debra Fabricus describes herself as a Flaneuse and her project explores the nine mile route of the Regents Canal in London.  I like the way her images concentrate on the bottom section of each building and give as much emphasis to the wonderful reflections.  She doesn't say if the images were taken on the same day and she waited for calm conditions or had to pick several calm days or, even, did she use a very long exposure to eradicate the ripples on the water?

Jodie Taylor's photographs fascinate me.  Has she deliberately selected this type of location from where she lived or are these places she used to play as a child or did the family keep their car in the lock up.  The work asks several interesting questions with, perhaps, as many different answers.  I chose to look at her images before reading her excellent blog where she does answer these questions.  Maybe when they were/are exhibited it would be interesting to ask the viewer to look at them before reading the explanations to see if their story was the correct.

Is it possible to produce an objective depiction of a place or will the outcome always be influenced by the artist and does this matter?

I think the first thing to consider, here, is the route that a person takes.  If it is to be totally random how is it to be done.  On way that I have thought of is, from the starting point walk to a junction and turn left, walk to the next junction and turn right etc.  That would make it random in a location unknown to the flaneur/flaneuse.  If the location was familiar it would make it less random as they would always know where they are. I think that Pedro Guimaraes went someway to doing this by placing the Queen's head on the map of London.  He then made it less objective by choosing the actual location unless he had no knowledge of London.  Debra Fabricus walked the length of the Regents Canal, but did she choose/plan this route; if so it decreases the objectivity.  In Jodie Taylor's case she was very familiar with her location and must have known what she would encounter on her route.  How to make the images objective though.  Surely a photographer is always going to photograph what interests them and I think that is what these three photographers may have done.  Perhaps if three other photographers had repeated their journeys they would have photographed different things.  A way to make it more objective would be to devise a random plan: at location 1 face north and take an image, at location 2 face east and so on.  It still doesn't make it totally objective as the photographer would still select what interests them and make selections on focal length of lens and depth of field among other things.  I actually don't think that it matters and it would be interesting to walk someone else's journey and compare one photographer's images and interests with another.  I think it should be a very personal journey and objectivity isn't an issue.  In a couple of weeks I shall be visiting Lille, a city I have never been to or have any knowledge of so it will be interesting to try out this genre.

Two other literary exponents of psychogeography are Will Self (I have ordered his book and look forward to reading it) and Robert MacFarlane.  I have read several of MacFarlane's books and two come to mind with regard to psychogeography: The Wild Places and The Old Ways.  In these books he makes many such journeys, many unplanned and he writes evocatively of what he sees. These journeys are all on foot, apart from one in a sailing boat in The Old Ways, and often they are multi-day trips and he always sleeps under the stars.  He begins The Wild places with a quote from John Muir who writes " I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found I was really going in."  On of my favourite chapters in Wild Ways is 'Forest'.  In it, in December, he walks into the wilderness east of Rannoch Moor in Scotland to explore the Coille Dubh or Black Wood.  He spends all day wandering in the wood, a flaneur, and spends the night there the only way, he argues to really experience the wild places.  He is not a photographer but a writer and he crafts beautiful word pictures of the thing that resonate with him.  He also collects things.  He tells us that his habit of collecting stones and other talismans was a family one.  His parents were collectors.  Shelves and window-sills in his house were covered in shells, pebbles, twists of driftwood from rivers and sea.  For as long as he can remember they had picked up things.  He begins the chapter by telling us that he placed a piece of dolphin-shaped wildwood pine on a shelf above his desk. (MacFarlane, 2007, p.88)  So not only does he give us evocative word pictures he makes personal and emotive collections.  This is so true of our myself and my wife.  In The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot Robert MacFarlane follows the tracks, holloways, drove-roads and sea paths that form part of a vast ancient network of routes criss-crossing the British Isles and beyond.  As in The Wild Places he creates word images and collects found objects.  In the chapter 'Granite' he describes a journey through the granite wilderness of the Cairngorm Mountains through the highest pass in the country: The Lairig Ghru. At 835m it is higher than most Lake District mountains a nearly at Munro height, yet still the mountains tower on either side.  It is a route I have walked myself on several occasions and, like MacFarlane, I have slept out under the stars.  He says in this chapter that it was a ritual walk across the Cairngorm Massif from south to north, and these were the things they met with in its course: grey glacial erratics, river sand, siskins, pine cones, midges, white pebbles, the skeleton of a raven, footpath, drove roads, deer paths, dead trees, sadness, rounded mountains and fire. (MacFarlane, 2012, P.185)  The previous chapter is called 'Gneiss' and in it he describes a journey to the Isle of Harris after first crossing Lewis.  He writes of Lewis "Dawn: two more eagles circling above.  A big easterly wind meeting the sea wind from the west; the sky above the beehives (beehive shaped shielings) full of crashing air.  I walked on south-east all that day towards the Isle of Harris, following the shieling path, croft path, drover's road and green way, stitching a route together." (MacFarlane, 2012, pp163- 164).  On Harris he meets sculptor Steve Dilworth who  "...makes ritual objects for a tribe that doesn't exist."  Among the materials that he uses in his work are the skulls, beaks, bodies, eyes, skins and wings of herons, wrens, guillemots, gannets......and dragonflies; tallow, lard, blubber, seawater collected during equinoctial gales.......eggs, feathers and sand. (MacFarlane, 2012, pp171-172)  We were privileged to see some of Steve Dilworth's sculptures for sale in may in a gallery near Beauly in Scotland.  His work is intriguing, unusual to say the least but absolutely beautiful.

Through Robert MacFarlane's writings I became aware of another Flaneuse: Nan Shepherd, who lived all of her life in Aberdeen and wrote beautifully about the Cairngorm Mountains. In The Living Mountain she writes "Summer on the high plateau can be as delectable as honey; it can also be a roaring scourge." (Shepherd, 1997,  p1)  Another flaneuse, although she had probably never heard of psychogeography, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland.  Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this majestic landscape.

Richard Long is another artist who has worked in the style of psychgeography.   According to Wikipedia "Long made his international reputation during the 1970s, but already with sculptures made as the result of epic walks, these take him through rural and remote areas in Britain, or as far afield as the plains of Canada, Mongolia and Bolivia. He walks at different times for different reasons. At times, these are predetermined courses and concepts; yet equally, the idea of the walk may assert itself in an arbitrary circumstance. Guided by a great respect for nature and by the formal structure of basic shapes, Long never makes significant alterations to the landscapes he passes through. Instead he marks the ground or adjusts the natural features of a place by up-ending stones for example, or making simple traces." (Wikipedia 2015) 

Towards the end of Land Matters by Liz Wells discusses journeys  She begins by mentioning two English Exponents of what I thing must be psychogeography: Kate Mellor and Mark Power.  Both used maps as the basis for selecting observation points.  In Island Kate Mellor planned a journey round the British coast taking a photograph every 50 kilometres.  The work was published in a book which also includes the map.  In A System of Edges (2005) Mark Power used a London A-Z to explore the city boundary.  He went to the edge of each of the 56 pages and photographed a place just beyond the edge. Power remarked that, although he had a structure, it was only once the photography was completed that he realised that the project was about social identity, about inclusion/exclusion and the significance of being in - or beyond - London. (Wells, 2011)

Finally I like Will Self's definition of psychogeography in the Guardian newspaper: they study of how places make you feel.

 References

Guimaraes, P. (2015) Bluetown [online] Available from: http://www.pedroguimaraes.net/studio/sets/personal-work/ [Accessed 16.6.15]

MacFarlane, R. (2007) The Wild Places London: Granta Books

MacFarlane, R. (2012) The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot London: Penguin Books

Self, W. (2015) Non Fiction Review, Book of the Week; 60 Degrees North: Araound the World in Search of Home: Malachy Tallach, London, The Guardian

Wells, L. (2011) Land Matters: Landscape Photography, Culture and Identity Kindle London/New York: I.B.Tauris

Wikipedia (2015) Derive [online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9rive [Accessed 16.6.15]

Wikipedia (2015) Psychogeography [online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography [Accessed 16.6.15]

Wikipedia (2015) Situationist International [online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International [Accessed 16.6.15]

Wikipedia (2015) Richard Long (artist) [online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Long_(artist) [Accessed 16.6.15]

I include some images below from the walk I completed in Glen Affric with my brother this May.  My diary for the day can be found on my personal Natural Musings blog by clicking the link.  I think these images reflect my emotional engagement with these hills and the views that resonated with me as a flaneur.

Drawn By Light: The Royal Photographic Society Collection, National Media Museum, Bradford

What an amazing exhibition this proved to be.  The exhibition booklet tells us that it celebrates photography in all its myriad forms, as revealed by the remarkable Collection of the Royal Photographic Society.  Eclectic, moving, intriguing, often surprising, it embraces the many different ways of seeing that photography represents. (Harding, 2015)

The exhibition is another example of the use of an archive.  I don't know how the RPS store and catalogue their images but they were extracted from their archive  to tell a particular story.  They were spread over two galleries, although this was most likely due to space constraints.  Gallery one was in two sections:  Continuity and Change and A Period of Optimism and Progress.  Continuity and Change showed photographs from different genres and periods displayed alongside each other, creating dialogues which reveal both continuity and change in vision over nearly 200 years. In A Period of Optimism and Progress a replica of an early RPS exhibition has been set up to illustrate the importance of exhibitions to the society.  The work in Gallery two is entitled Personal Vision where pairs of groups of photographs by individual photographers are displayed alongside each other.  These juxtapositions show how an individual's work has evolved over time. (Harding, 2015)

I was amazed to see so many images represented in this exhibition and thrilled to find work by so many photographers that I had researched over recent years.  The absolute highlight for me, and perhaps my favourite photograph of all time, was the large print by Steve, McCurry of Afghan Girl, Sharbat Gula.  I researched this image as part of my workfor PWDP and was so inspired by it that I purchased, on e-bay, the whole set of 1985s National Geographic in order to get that one magazine.  Next up on my list of favourites were two of Ansel Adams' images: Aspen, New Mexico 1958 and Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941  I like the way that the aspens in the foreground of the first shot are lit up and in the centre with those in the background receding into shadow giving a triangle structure to the image.  It was good to see images by Edward Weston, who I have always admired, and a particular thrill to see famous images by Alfred Stieglitz: The Terminal, 1892 and The Steerage, 1907.

Roger Fenton, appointed honorary secretary of the RPS, was well represented and it was fascinating to see not only some of his famous war photography, but some excellent landscapes such as View on the Lugwy, North Wales and Nat Francon pass both from 1857.  It ws also interesting to see his 1856 portrait of Queen Victoria as well as a still life from 1860: Still Life with Ivory Tankard and Fruit.  I liked the way that the tankard in the centre of the shot was pin sharp, whist sharpness decreased towards the edges of the picture and the background was out of focus and plain to reduce distraction.

I have always been a fan of Don McCullin and two of his photographs were shown to illustrate is contrasting styles: Still life with Bird's Nest, 1991 and Refugees from Pakistan on the Indian Border, 1971.  The former is quiet and calming, whilst the latter is full of horror, pain, despair and fright.

I was fascinated to see an image I used to illustrate my essay in PWDP, A Sea of Steps 1903 by Frederick Henry Evans.  This is his most famous photo and took him several attempts in order to be satisfied with the result.  It is a shot of the steps in Wells Cathedral and must have taken some doing to be devoid of people, or perhaps a very long exposure.  I love the contrasting curving lines of the steps in this shot.

Other photographs I enjoyed included work by Yousuf Kaosh of Churchill, Julia Margaret Cameron, Martin Parr, Peter Henry Emerson, Lewis Carroll, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Edward Steichen, Paul Strand, Ed Lacey's Streaker from 1974, Margaret Bourke White and Brassai's image of dew on nasturtium leaves.  Of course, of particular interest were the rarest and oldest photographs in the world: the 1826/7 heliographs on pewter by Joseph Nicephore Niepce

Having just been researching the genre of Tableaux for the Body of Work part of the course, I was fascinated to find several examples 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.

Harding, C. (2015) Drawn by Light: The RPS Collection Bradford: National Media Museum

Responding to the Archive

Reading and Archive: Photography between Labour and Capitalism, Alan Seluka

  In Alan Seluka's essay he uses an archive of photographs  made by a small town photographer in Cape Breton between the years 1948 and 1968.  The photographer, Leslie Shedden, ran a photography business and made a living by photographing the local community and also taking publicity material for the local coal mining company.  When he sold his business to another, younger photographer, in 1977 he also sold all of his negatives which form the basis for the archive.  Seluka discusses the different ways in which this archive could be made public.  He argues that it could be done taxonomically, presumable, under different headings such as the coal mine, other local business and private customers.  It could also be looked at purely chronologically.  Apart from the logistical issues with publishing the work Seluka also suggests that it has to be considered whether the images are to be regarded as an historical document or should they be looked at purely artistically; is Shedden the next new discovery?  He argues that one of the problems with using the photographs to portray the history of the area is the fact that there may have been a hidden agenda for taking the photographs.

This is an interesting essay and were one to come across such an archive, it would make a fascinating project.  Perhaps on a smaller scale 'ordinary' family archives could be used in a similar way.

Liz Wells in Land Matters: Landscape Photography, Culture and Identity refers to another use of archive photographs when discussing the work of John Huddleston in Killing Ground (2002) when he used his own contemporary colour photographs made at American civil war battle sites and juxtaposes them with archive materials.  Wells says that the archive images include studio portraits of those newly enlisted for family and friends and they testify to fear of not returning.  She goes on to argue that this montage tactic is effective poetically as well as for historical detail. (Wells,L. 2011 Kindle location 1527)
I have recently visited the Royal Photographic Society's exhibition Drawn by Light at the National Media Museum Bradford. The exhibition is another example of the use of an archive.  I don't know how the RPS store and catalogue their images but they were extracted from their archive  to tell a particular story.  They were spread over two galleries, although this was most likely due to space constraints.  Gallery one was in two sections:  Continuity and Change and A Period of Optimism and Progress.  Continuity and Change showed photographs from different genres and periods displayed alongside each other, creating dialogues which reveal both continuity and change in vision over nearly 200 years. In A Period of Optimism and Progress a replica of an early RPS exhibition has been set up to illustrate the importance of exhibitions to the society.  The work in Gallery two is entitled Personal Vision where pairs of groups of photographs by individual photographers are displayed alongside each other.  These juxtapositions show how an individual's work has evolved over time. (Harding, 2015)

There are, then, other ways of using archive photographs.

Harding, C. (2015) Drawn by Light: The RPS Collection Bradford: National Media Museum
Wells, L. (2011) Land Matters: Landscape Photography, Culture and Identity Kindle London/New York: I.B.Tauris

Personal Journeys and Fictional Autobiography

Personal Journeys and Fictional Autobiography

The course notes tell us that photographers who use their own lives and the lives of their friends and family demonstrate how effective it is to hang a body of work on. Several photographers are suggested as examples and these are listed below.

Nan Goldin

After a troubled upbringing when she ran away from home and was fostered on more than one occasion, Nan Goldin made her life among her new family the drag queens, junkies and prostitutes of New York.  She made this family the subject of her work over the years and it takes the form of a picture-and-text diary of her personal experiences.  In the Telegraph article and interview by Drusilla Beyfus  Goldin is quoted as saying that, outside her commercial work she would never photograph anyone that she wouldn't want to live with, giving as her reason that nobody has the right to photograph a stranger.  Much of her work is presented as a slide show and what is considered typical is the body of work The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.  Although the relationship with her parents failed early on, some of the damage has been repaired over the years and she has since photographed her mother and she says that she is sensitive to her parents feelings about her sister who committed suicide at the age of 19 after often being in trouble with boys and confused about her sexuality. (Larkin, C. 2006)  Critics have commented that her sister's death influenced much of her work. (Beyfus,D. 2009) When she moved to New York from Boston she began to make he 'family' the subjects of her photographs and they became her family album.  She says in  The Ballad of Sexual Dependency  that this family was bonded not by blood or place but by a similar morality, the need to live fully and for the moment. (Befus, 2009)  Her photographs are shot in colour as snapshots and are of her family and lovers at their unconsidered moments in the bedroom, bathroom or bar, where daylight would be an intrusion.  Beyus tells us that many artists have begun by photographing the people around them, but what sets Goldin apart was her habit of living the life of her subjects. (Beyfus 2009)  She has been accused of making heroin use appear glamorous but in a 2012 interview with the Observer she called said that using heroin chic to sell clothes and perfume was reprehensible and evil.  She does admit to having a romantic view of drug culture when young and wanted to be a junkie, but she gave up drugs when she decided to use the idea of memory in her work. Her work has been censored in Brazil due to its explicitly sexual nature. (Wikipedia, 2015)

Certainly fascinating, Goldin's images are full of life and character and of a world that the vast majority of us cannot possibly comprehend.  Does that make us voyeurs??

Larry Sultan

The BBC series Genius of Photography tells us of Larry Sultan that he photographed his father and family over a 10 year period in the 70s and 80s as part of an elaborate project that included his parents own photos and home movies.  It was undertaken during the Reagan years which held dear to the values of family life, but a version that wasn't familiar to Sultan.

His images are posed and directed, rather than being straight portraits or documentary images rather like the genre of Tableaux.  To me they seem rather bland and false.

Elinor Carucci

Israeli-Americam Elinor Carucci lives in New York with her husband and two children where she works for The School of Visual Arts.  Her autobiographical work features very intimate images of herself and her family, far more intimate than most people would want to be made public I feel.  Many I feel are very private, some filled with obvious emotion and a few that make me laugh.

Richard Billingham

Richard Billingham has also photographed his own family in less than flattering circumstances making these very private images public.  The BBC Genius of Photography website says that Billingham didn't worry about how his family ought to look when he began photographing them and their situation at the heart of working class life in Thatcher's Britain.  He wanted to paint his alcoholic father, but he was either comatose of wouldn't stay still so he took to photographing him instead.  Again these are in snap shot style and have created a family album that no ordinary family member would make never mind show, but they turned him into a celebrated photographer. (BBC, 2014)

Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe is famous for his often erotic nude photography often featuring black males and Patti Smith.  He is also well known for his still life images of flowers.  Unlike the work of Goldin, Sultan and Billingham, which cannot be said to be beautiful, Mapplethorpe's images are beautifully executed and printed black and white images.  Although not a fan of his nudes, beautiful though they may be, I find his flower images fabulous.

Again I do not see my work fitting into this category.

References

BBC (2014) Genius of Photography: We Are Family: Larry Sultan [online] Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/gallery/sultan.shtml [Accessed 12.6.15)

BBC (2014) Genius of Photography: We Are Family: Richard Billingham [online] Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/gallery/billingham.shtml [Accessed 13.6.15)

Beyfus, D. (2009) Nan Goldin: unafraid of the dark . [online]  The Telegraph Available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/5648658/Nan-Goldin-unafraid-of-the-dark.html [Accessed 12.6.15]

Larkin, C. (2006) Nan Goldin: Chasing a Ghost [online] Art Critical Website Available from: http://www.artcritical.com/2006/07/01/nan-goldin-chasing-a-ghost/ [Accessed 12.6.15]

Wikipedia (2015) Nan Goldin [online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Goldin [Accessed 12.6.15]

Wikipedia (2015) Elinor Carucci [online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Carucci  [Accessed 12.6.15]

The Hepworth, Wakefield.

On 27th January this year, just as I was finishing PWDP and contemplating the start of my Level 3 work, my wife and myself visited the Hepworth, Wakefield.  As it was Barbara Hepworth's birthplace there was an excellent exhibition about her and her work which I found fascinating.  I also enjoyed photographing some of her work and the gallery itself.  Excellent food too.

Photographic Tableaux and Gregory Crewdson.

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]