This was a book recommended by my tutor. This book considers the work of some eighty artists/photographers and is divided into seven sections - portrait, landscape, narrative, object, fashion, document, and city. The author considers the genres and why photographers are attracted to certain genres and how certain themes such as memory, time, objectivity, politics and everyday issues are tied to certain approaches.
Each photographer's work is accompanied by their commentary and quotations offering invaluable insights into the meaning and making of their work. I must admit to finding this interpretation particularly useful as I frequently fail to understand 'the message' and my experience of talking to three of the seven photographers exhibiting at Ffotogallery's Turner House in "Wish You Were Here" proved to me that interpretation helps me in what is a new world for me - art photography.
I found this book easier to follow that some of the books I have read recently. Maybe it IS because it's well written or maybe it's because I am understanding things a little better! It starts off by explaining how photography was originally seen as something mechanical in nature to today, where it is no longer challenges and is definately seen as art. I was interested in Susan's statement that some image-makers see themselves as artists, whilst others call themselves as photographers. I see this within my own circle of friends. My tutor calls herself a photographic artist. It's interesting how, in all walks of life, what you are called in terms of your vocation, career or life in seen as important in the British culture.
I was very interested in how the book illustrates the journey of photography as an art and how the various influences such as events, culture and technological developments have influenced things. Susan says, "So as we seek for a definition as to what photography really is and the varied ways it has become accepted as art, we repeatedly see a collapsing of boundaries that may seem rather at odds with the more genre-based way in which this book is structured." She adds however that most of the work in the book would refuse to be pidgeonholed and could easily fit into another chapter. I like the genre approach as it certainly aids my understanding of the wide variety of work we call photography, despite the fact this form of classification is not perfect.
I like certain genres more than others of course. Portraiture in one of my main areas of interest and the triangle of relationships - sitter, photographer and spectator - is something I had not thought too much about before this course. The examples in this book are very different to the half dozen or so 'how to do it' portrait photography course on my bookshelf. Some of the photographers are weird in what they do and I am not going to devote time to negatives here but more to learning points.
Landscape is one of the weaker areas of my photographic life due to my inability to 'see' pictures but this section of the book fascinated me in terms of how photography has expanded from the classical landscape interpretation to the modern landscape urban environment. Joel Sternfireld's photographs which capture industrial dereliction are of great interest. If only I had photographed Cardiff's Tiger Bay in the 1960s and compared it with the modern Cardiff Bay. Other interests dictated my photography in that period however! Eric Kim writes about how Joel moved from street photography to travelling across America in a Volkswagon van for three years to capture the landscape. I recently heard a photographic critic stress the importance of titles to assist meaning. Joel gave up using titles and ended up cataloguing his work with just the location and date thus leaving the viewer to interpretate.
I thought I would be more interested in the Fashion chapter than I was. Again, I think some of the styles were strange and I wondered how they might fit into today's context. The author's explanation that there is constant re-evaluation of fashion photography and the art world and how there is a strong commercial output interested me and perhaps explains what appears to be a complexity and confusion in this area. I will look more at how fashion is reflected today and was recently interested in the work of Walter Hugo in the Independant Magazine supplement which is mentioned elsewhere in this blog.
I found the most fascinating photographer to be Melanie Manchot, who, against a background of legislation restricting peoples rights to do certain things such as demonstrations in public places. She says, "I work performatively on location with people who happen to pass by. All are strangers to me and each other." She selects locations of cultural or political importance. "The combination of working with people spontaneously as well as being under threat of police or security intervention brings a certain tension to the working process which I think informs and changes images." The subjects stare at the camera.."Each person's expression, stance and relationship to the camera become crucial." I see so many street photographers capturing candid pictures of individuals against billboards in the street. I liked Richard Renaldi's photographs in this chapter where he actually poses people in this type of situation. Like many portrait photographers who are trying to enhance the experience by the use of large cameras instead of 35mm cameras he finds people react "in a m ore serious way." I researched Richard and being only 44 years of age guessed he must be active and perhaps at a creative peak. One of his current projects is "Touching Strangers" which gets me thinking once again about different approaches in street photography. It's described as follows, "Renaldi meets strangers on the street and asks them to touch or embrace one another; he then photographs these arrangements as group portraits. Rather than recording what he encounters in the city, Renaldi acts as a catalyst. He creates a moment that wouldn’t otherwise have existed, cajoling people to interact in ways they otherwise wouldn’t have. The contact Renaldi coaxes out of his subjects ranges from holding hands or a touch on the shoulder to a full, romantic embrace." I like the approach of organising people 'on the street' that these photographers have undertaken.
I find the final chapter in Susan's book - Transition - the most exciting because it is up to date and is looking to the future as to where photography is going. She considers the future role of museums and galleries and how they will have to 'radically adjust the ways they collect photographs as photographs increasingly come in an array of different shapes, many larger than when museum storage facilities were conceived, and with digital prints requiring different storage from analogue archives." She writes about discovery of photographers through their online presence, and how particularly liberating that is for young artists. Photographers will have to engage more with digital techniques as analogue kit becomes outdated and commercially unviable. (As I have seen since the 1960's in audio and broadcast media with the now outdated reel-to-reel tape, the compact cassette and now shortly, the CD).
Susan ends this final chapter by explaining that this current transitional phase of art photography, " will continue to motivate artists to grapple with the medium and its materiality, and to think of new ways to present work that challenges twentieth century readings of photography. What will not change however is the desire and compulsion to photograph, and the magical possibilities photography offers it whatever new forms it may take."
A very interesting book. I am sure I will study this book again from time to time in the future and re-visit some of the forms of working that some of these 80 photographers display in order to develop my own art.
Each photographer's work is accompanied by their commentary and quotations offering invaluable insights into the meaning and making of their work. I must admit to finding this interpretation particularly useful as I frequently fail to understand 'the message' and my experience of talking to three of the seven photographers exhibiting at Ffotogallery's Turner House in "Wish You Were Here" proved to me that interpretation helps me in what is a new world for me - art photography.
I found this book easier to follow that some of the books I have read recently. Maybe it IS because it's well written or maybe it's because I am understanding things a little better! It starts off by explaining how photography was originally seen as something mechanical in nature to today, where it is no longer challenges and is definately seen as art. I was interested in Susan's statement that some image-makers see themselves as artists, whilst others call themselves as photographers. I see this within my own circle of friends. My tutor calls herself a photographic artist. It's interesting how, in all walks of life, what you are called in terms of your vocation, career or life in seen as important in the British culture.
I was very interested in how the book illustrates the journey of photography as an art and how the various influences such as events, culture and technological developments have influenced things. Susan says, "So as we seek for a definition as to what photography really is and the varied ways it has become accepted as art, we repeatedly see a collapsing of boundaries that may seem rather at odds with the more genre-based way in which this book is structured." She adds however that most of the work in the book would refuse to be pidgeonholed and could easily fit into another chapter. I like the genre approach as it certainly aids my understanding of the wide variety of work we call photography, despite the fact this form of classification is not perfect.
I like certain genres more than others of course. Portraiture in one of my main areas of interest and the triangle of relationships - sitter, photographer and spectator - is something I had not thought too much about before this course. The examples in this book are very different to the half dozen or so 'how to do it' portrait photography course on my bookshelf. Some of the photographers are weird in what they do and I am not going to devote time to negatives here but more to learning points.
Landscape is one of the weaker areas of my photographic life due to my inability to 'see' pictures but this section of the book fascinated me in terms of how photography has expanded from the classical landscape interpretation to the modern landscape urban environment. Joel Sternfireld's photographs which capture industrial dereliction are of great interest. If only I had photographed Cardiff's Tiger Bay in the 1960s and compared it with the modern Cardiff Bay. Other interests dictated my photography in that period however! Eric Kim writes about how Joel moved from street photography to travelling across America in a Volkswagon van for three years to capture the landscape. I recently heard a photographic critic stress the importance of titles to assist meaning. Joel gave up using titles and ended up cataloguing his work with just the location and date thus leaving the viewer to interpretate.
I thought I would be more interested in the Fashion chapter than I was. Again, I think some of the styles were strange and I wondered how they might fit into today's context. The author's explanation that there is constant re-evaluation of fashion photography and the art world and how there is a strong commercial output interested me and perhaps explains what appears to be a complexity and confusion in this area. I will look more at how fashion is reflected today and was recently interested in the work of Walter Hugo in the Independant Magazine supplement which is mentioned elsewhere in this blog.
I found the most fascinating photographer to be Melanie Manchot, who, against a background of legislation restricting peoples rights to do certain things such as demonstrations in public places. She says, "I work performatively on location with people who happen to pass by. All are strangers to me and each other." She selects locations of cultural or political importance. "The combination of working with people spontaneously as well as being under threat of police or security intervention brings a certain tension to the working process which I think informs and changes images." The subjects stare at the camera.."Each person's expression, stance and relationship to the camera become crucial." I see so many street photographers capturing candid pictures of individuals against billboards in the street. I liked Richard Renaldi's photographs in this chapter where he actually poses people in this type of situation. Like many portrait photographers who are trying to enhance the experience by the use of large cameras instead of 35mm cameras he finds people react "in a m ore serious way." I researched Richard and being only 44 years of age guessed he must be active and perhaps at a creative peak. One of his current projects is "Touching Strangers" which gets me thinking once again about different approaches in street photography. It's described as follows, "Renaldi meets strangers on the street and asks them to touch or embrace one another; he then photographs these arrangements as group portraits. Rather than recording what he encounters in the city, Renaldi acts as a catalyst. He creates a moment that wouldn’t otherwise have existed, cajoling people to interact in ways they otherwise wouldn’t have. The contact Renaldi coaxes out of his subjects ranges from holding hands or a touch on the shoulder to a full, romantic embrace." I like the approach of organising people 'on the street' that these photographers have undertaken.
I find the final chapter in Susan's book - Transition - the most exciting because it is up to date and is looking to the future as to where photography is going. She considers the future role of museums and galleries and how they will have to 'radically adjust the ways they collect photographs as photographs increasingly come in an array of different shapes, many larger than when museum storage facilities were conceived, and with digital prints requiring different storage from analogue archives." She writes about discovery of photographers through their online presence, and how particularly liberating that is for young artists. Photographers will have to engage more with digital techniques as analogue kit becomes outdated and commercially unviable. (As I have seen since the 1960's in audio and broadcast media with the now outdated reel-to-reel tape, the compact cassette and now shortly, the CD).
Susan ends this final chapter by explaining that this current transitional phase of art photography, " will continue to motivate artists to grapple with the medium and its materiality, and to think of new ways to present work that challenges twentieth century readings of photography. What will not change however is the desire and compulsion to photograph, and the magical possibilities photography offers it whatever new forms it may take."
A very interesting book. I am sure I will study this book again from time to time in the future and re-visit some of the forms of working that some of these 80 photographers display in order to develop my own art.