Some Recent Reading

It has been a while since I recorded any reflections on my reading in here.  It isn’t that I havn’t been doing any – just that I havn’t got round to writing up.

A good place to start would be ‘Context & Narrative’ by Maria Short.  This book was originally recommended by Photography course leader, Jose, on the WeAreOCA blog.  I bought it immediately and have actually read it twice.  It is a book that has the feel of quality about it – well produced, nicely printed (though many of the images are on the small side) and with a good tactile sensation to it (always an important starting point for me when it comes to books!).  Whilst the title might be taken to imply a specialised volume, it is actually quite wide ranging and covers a lot of ground without ever going into a huge amount of depth.  After two readings, my overall reaction is a positive one, but with a few ‘mixed’ feelings.

The book is structured in short sections, with relatively sparse text but lots of examples and case studies – from photographers at all sorts of ‘levels’, students, professionals, well-known names’ and some less well-known.  As I say, it covers a lot of ground and is highly relevant to so many aspects of a degree in photography as a creative art.  Despite the lack of depth, there are so many visual examples that it encourages you to think about the topics in a practical, applied, non-theoretical manner (even though it doesn’t shy away from the theoretical topics).

I would see it as a resource that one could go to frequently, dipping in for ideas and inspiration, but certainly not using it as an in-depth study for a critical review, for example.  I’m glad I’ve read it twice, to know my way around it, but I don’t think it is an easy book to ‘read’.  It isn’t that the concepts are especially difficult; it’s more because it doesn’t develop ideas, rather prompting & then illustrating.  Overall – a good book, a quality publication, and I’m glad I’ve got it; not sure that I have learned a huge amount from it, but useful to go back to, and has the kind of easy reference style that makes it easy to do so.

Some other recent purchases/reads have been designed to try and develop my knowledge and understanding of critical theory.  I won’t be doing the OCA ‘Understanding Visual Culture’ course, but I’d like to improve my awareness of the theoretical background to some degree, at least.  To that end, I’ve recently looked at three very different books.

‘Basic Critical Theory for Photographers’ by Ashley Grange – The title gives a very clear indication as to why I bought it!  Having read a three or four chapters (Berger, Szarkowsi, Sontag & Barthes), I put it down because I was disappointed by it.  I’ve already read the work of three of these four and was hoping for some clarity from this book, some pulling together of the ideas into a sort of summary, but I didn’t feel I was getting that. It does supply and kind of synopsis of each, and it may be that I need to look at it again, but I felt that it read a bit like the notes that one might make from reading, say, Sontag’s ‘On Photography’, rather than something the clarifies and explains her thinking.  It does have practical suggestions for further discussion, and so it might work better as a resource for classroom work.  I’ll go back to it – but disappointing.

‘After Theory’ by Terry Eagleton – This one came up from a recommendation, again, having been referred to by another OCA course leader, PeterH. I’ve skim read it once and am now looking at it again – so this will be a brief comment that I might pick up again later.  Eagleton is more of a literary specialist, of course, but the background on cultural critical theory is perfectly relevant.  More to the point, here is an academic who can write in an authoritative, wide-ranging, but at the same time engaging, and even funny, style.  It is a relatively small book, but the first three chapters give the kind of overview of the development of cultural theory, leading to the postmodern, that is definitely lacking from the Ashley Grange book.  Fundamentally, he is exploring where the cultural critical studies will go after postmodernism; and I have to say that I don’t feel entirely comfortable with his catholic/Marxist dimension.  But, this is a genuinely readable and highly thought-provoking book, which is probably doing more than any other has to help me engage with what cultural critical theory is about.

And then, from the sublime to the ridiculous – and I am probably doing myself no favours by admitting to buying and reading this book – there is ‘Critical Theory – A Graphic Guide’ by Stuart Sim & Borin Van Loon, which I bought in the bookshop at the Whitechapel Gallery when I attended the Struth exhibition.  I hadn’t seen this series of books before, but there are ‘Graphic Guides’ to all manner of ‘difficult’ theoretical areas, including several of the key ‘players’ in the field of critical theory.  I may find that I pick up, for example, Barthes, Postmodernism, Foucault, Heidegger – to name just a few of the many volumes available.  And, yes, as the title suggests, this one does Critical Theory in pictures – cartoon-style – with short pieces of supporting text and even ‘mock’ dialogue.  Of course, it isn’t an academic book and I’m not going to suggest that it is a great source of wisdom, but as a rapid overview of the origins and development of critical theory, from Marxism to, for example, Black Feminism, and as a very quick reference guide to how they relate to each other and who is who, it is superb.  There, I’ve admitted it, I did buy and read this book!

‘Street Photography Now’

‘Street Photography Now’, by Sophie Howarth & Stephen McLaren, published 2010 by Thames & Hudson, is a collection of images by leading protagonists of this genre, supported with four ‘essays’ from the authors, brief notes on each photographer, and some dialogue from a discussion between seven of them.  It was published around the time that I started out on this course, and has obviously proved to be a popular book because it took me some weeks to get a copy through Amazon.  I have spent some time working my way through it and found it to be quite a useful source of thoughts and ideas in connection with ‘People Unaware’.

Some of the photographers whose work I have particularly noted are the following (some of them being totally new to me):

·         Christophe Agou whose ‘Life Below’ is reminiscent of Luc Delahaye’s L’Autre that I mentioned earlier in my log, which is in turn reminiscent of Walker Evans’ subway project, of course.  That led me to look at more of his work here http://www.christopheagou.com/.   It was also interesting to read his short written pieces on this site & I particularly note that his work comes across to me as very personal, as an emotional response to the world.  I also see that he has a new collaborative project ‘Face au Silence’ coming out in 2011.

·         Melanie Einzig, whose work I seem to have missed before, looks to be very much in the tradition of New York street photography, with Winogrand, Meyerowitz etc; colourful, witty, strong observations of people.  I find her reference to street photography involving ‘wandering’ – which also comes up in the discussion at the end of the book.  Her street work appears here http://www.witnessx.com/.

·         Osamu Kanemura is a surprise inclusion in my list.  His work is here http://www.amadorgallery.com/Osamu_Kanemura.html.  I havn’t always felt I could relate to Japanese photography, and I have always tended to favour colour, but I really like his high contrast, complex images of Japanese street scenes.  I suppose, in some ways, with few people in the images, they almost fit into the landscape context – certainly more into the ‘Place’ side of this course than the ‘People’.  I find their chaotic complexity attractive – so many wires and cables and shadows, a bit like a Jackson Pollock painting.

·         Trent Parke I certainly had seen before, but not necessarily looked at closely - http://www.in-public.com/TrentParke - fantastic use of light and shadow.

·         Bruno Quinquet’s ‘Salaryman’ project - http://www.brunoquinquet.com/salaryman%20project/salarymanprojectstart.html - is a kind of photographic diary of Japanese businessmen, but always ‘anonymous’, with their faces obscured, blurred, distorted, or some such, so that they are unrecognisable.  I like some of the very clever framing and composition.

·         Paul Russell is very much in the British tradition of the likes of Tony Ray Jones.  Subtlety, gentle humour, as can be seen here http://www.paulrussell.info/.

·         Peter Funch is totally new to me - http://www.peterfunch.com/ - and the book has some images from his ‘Babel Tales’ series, where he has produced ‘constructed’ street images.  It looks as though he, in simplistic terms (though the work certainly isn’t simple!) photographs people doing similar things, in the same place, and then combines the individual images of people into the same street scene.  He captures several ‘moments’ and combines them to construct a ‘moment’ that never happened, but which nonetheless has something significant to observe about human behaviour ‘in the street’.

There is great breadth and variety in this book; loads of inspirational work and ideas that make you want to get out and have a go.

Actually, I have been out and ‘had a go’, and I am going to put some of the results in here shortly.

More Avedon, some Kander, and the Process of Portraiture

A number of thoughts, discussions, questions etc have been drawing closer together in the last couple of weeks and I am going to try to document some of that here, if only as a record that I can come back to, but maybe to actually make some progress in the quest for a ‘portrait making’ process.

Avedon came up in discussions on the OCA website, in connection with the recent decision by PM David Cameron to dispense with his retained photographer; the connection being Avedon’s ‘The Family’ portraits of powerful US citizens, including politicians, in 1976 for Rolling Stone magazine - http://www.richardavedon.com/.  As well as leading me to explore this website in more detail and find Avedon’s own words on his ‘process’, of which more below, this also reminded me of another piece of work that I had seen much more recently, Nadav Kander’s ‘Obama’s People’ - http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/magazine/2009-inauguration-gallery/index.html - in which, prior to the actual election in 2008, Kander was commissioned by the NY Times Magazine to make portraits of Barak Obama’s team.  These two pieces of work bear comparison, potentially on all sorts of different levels and themes, but I’m not going to attempt all of that here.  What does interest me, in particular, is the process of making the portraits, and since there is commentary from Kander at the site linked above and an interview with him in Hotshoe magazine (June-July 2009 edition) on exactly this subject, there is a chance to make at least some comparison with his words and those of Avedon.

First Avedon and some extracts from various articles and interviews that appear on the Richard Avedon Foundation website (I have not, at this stage, had the time or the opportunity to research further than that – but there is plenty to go at there anyway).  I can’t think of a better way to approach this than a series of bullet points summarising and paraphrasing interesting aspects that emerge from what he has to say (about portraits in general, not specifically about ‘The Family’).

·         The background is usually a sheet of white paper, approximately 9 feet by 7 feet.  The source of light is to be ‘invisible’, in order to neutralise its role in the appearance of the portrait.

·         He would stand next to the camera (not behind it), several inches from the lens, and about four feet from the subject (I am assuming the use of a large view camera, and might even have read that somewhere).

·         From that position, he would ‘imagine’ the pictures he was taking and not look through the lens (though one assumes he had looked through to set up in the first place).

·         He describes the first part of the ‘sitting’ as a learning process for both parties.

§  For him, partly camera placement, framing, lens height, but also observing movements, reactions, expressions – so as to ‘heighten what the subject does naturally’ when it comes to making the portraits;

§  For the subject, becoming familiar with the fact that he/she cannot shift around, but also learning to relate to the photographer, accepting a degree of discipline and concentration.

·         The exchange with the subject, he says, involves manipulations and submissions.  One depends on another person in order to make the portrait, someone willing to take part, but with different ambitions. However, he says, ‘the control is with me’.

·         The process has a rhythm to it, punctuated by the click of the shutter.  Sometimes he would speak and sometimes not (and occasionally react too strongly and destroy the tension that is a photograph).

·         He was using disciplines, strategies and ‘silent theater’ to achieve an illusion – that everything in the photo simply happened; the person was always there, never told to stand there, never asked to hide his hands, ‘not even in the presence of a photographer’.

·         He said that ‘a portrait is not a likeness’ and also that he was not interested in the ‘secret of a person’.  But he does seem to have been interested if the subject had qualities that they were trying not to show to him – and it was the fact of their unwillingness that became the portrait.

·         He talks of a ‘kind of embarrassing intensity’ in these ‘peculiar intimacies and needs’ – the need of the subject to give something to the camera and to him plus his own need to take that in order to express himself.

·         ‘Portraiture is a performance, and like any performance, in the balance of its effects it is good or bad, not natural or unnatural’.

·         In the introduction to ‘The Family’ on the website, it says that ‘Avedon avoided expressing his personal opinions of his subjects by allowing them to choose their own pose and clothing, so that his biases would not skew the resulting photographs.  (Perhaps, it occurs to me, he knew that some of the subjects would feed those biases and opinions through their own choices anyway!)

There is lots more on the site, including some specific discussion of the Henry Kissinger portrait that includes reference to Roland Barthes, but this will suffice to describe his approach to making portraits.

So, what does Kander have to say about his approach with ‘Obama’s People’?  Following a similar approach, I am drawing out and summarising some key points from the online source above and the Hotshoe article.

·         He worked with a white background and aimed to shoot all the portraits ‘basically the same’. Keen that the results should not ‘date’ he avoided any specific type of lighting, just using two big softboxes to achieve simplicity and subtlety.

·         Working, as he would be, with a group of ‘no bullshit’, ‘intelligent’, ‘new contemporary’ people, it had to be done in colour.

·         He shot with a (relatively small) hand-held, digital camera, tethered to a computer – though he makes it clear that he doesn’t like to see what he is shooting at the time, other than looking through the viewfinder as he does it, of course.

·         The process of making this series of images is described as ‘athletic’, in that they did 52 people, in five locations, on two visits to the USA – shooting 13 in one day at one point.  Many of them were not used to having portraits made of them.

·         Whilst he says that his usual approach to portraits is to ‘have a real opinion pre-session’, he clearly didn’t have that luxury here.  He needed to watch them carefully as they came into the room, interacted, waited, looking for what he calls the ‘economy of gesture’ so that he could respond to it.  The tiniest of gestures would stand out against the white background.

·         Each person was asked to bring something with them, something that ‘seemed to define them’.

·         The framing was ‘instinctual’ – responding to those who seemed better standing or sitting, full frame or cropped tight – and he saw it as one way of achieving some variety within the sequence.  (Interestingly, he makes a comparison with Avedon’s set – commenting that there was little variety of dress in the modern group compared to ‘The Family’).

·         He talks about ‘a kind of one-on-one’ in which he wants to have the subject respond not just to his words but to his ‘willingness to make a good photograph’, and the talks about this being ‘very unspoken’.

·         He says that humans have a part of them that they put forward when being photographed, sometimes the person they want to be, and sometimes the person that they think you want them to be – but that this happens less with more experience and confidence.

·         There is much reference to the informality of the process and the people – ‘possibly the people of our generation’ were ‘standing so casually’.

·         He sees it as very important to make ‘accurate’ portraits and not direct too much; with this group of human beings, shooting them ‘as they are’.

·         ‘These people were the authors of their own pictures’ and ‘I just composed, photographed and edited.’

·         The use of digital with tethered computer meant that those working with Kander, and many of the subjects, were able to view the outcome immediately, and there was some element of input from the latter.  The major part of the editing was done ‘on the fly’.

·         He added the shadow digitally afterwards – his only piece of ‘post-processing’.  Recognising that one would not normally expect to see a shadow with this type of lighting, he says that it ‘sends a message that something is a little odd’, describing it as his ‘little bit of mustard in the pudding’.

Most of Kander’s commentary that I have looked at is about this particular piece of work, and most is taken from interviews, rather than being the considered presentation of an artist’s work on his posthumous website, but there seems to be some useful scope for comparison between these two.  Some of my own thoughts and comments follow.

·         Both work with plain white backgrounds and both use deliberately simple, subtle, unobtrusive lighting.  The black and white versus colour choice reflects contemporary convention as much as anything, though the Avedon pictures do display high contrast and tonal range compared with Kander’s.

·         Both use careful observation early in the process, looking for small signs that can be used effectively in the portrait session.

·         Both identify a softer, unspoken, emotional tension in the relationship between photographer and subject; and both, in their different ways, see it as a collaborative process – Kander much more so, of course, especially with the opportunity for the subject to contribute to the editing process.

·         I feel that both are concerned with accuracy, albeit expressed in their different ways.  Kander expressly sets out to achieve an accurate portrait, whereas Avedon famously said ‘All photographs are accurate.  None is the truth.’

·         The physical processes are quite different, with Avedon standing beside his large camera, closely observing gestures and looks, punctuating the process with the click of his shutter (and change of plate, one assumes), speaking from time to time.  Kander, partly because of the circumstances, is engaged in an ‘athletic’ activity, camera in front of his face much of the time, one assumes, able to move his position if he wishes.  That certainly throws up the question of some very different techniques for establishing the relationship.

·         Perhaps not unconnected to the previous comment, comparing the outcomes, almost all of Avedon’s subjects stare directly into the lens, whereas most of Kander’s look out of frame, which does produce a more detached result as per my own comments in some of my Projects.

·         One photographer looks to be ‘in control’ whereas the other sees his subjects as ‘authors of their own portraits’ and doesn’t want to ‘over direct’.

·         Kander is photographing a coherent, focused team of people, working together towards a goal, wherein he was partly looking for ways to bring out differences without going too ‘Hollywoody’ (his word).  Avedon’s ‘Family’ is actually a disparate, sometimes competing group of powerful people, and he has used the simplicity and standardisation of the framing to make comparisons and differences more apparent.

There is awful lot more that could be drawn out of this but I think I have probably taken it as far as is sensible at this stage.  Just looking closely into the processes of two different individuals, one very much of this time and the other more of a revered master, is in itself a highly useful exercise.  There is much to bear in mind in approaching my own humble portrait making in the coming months.  Actually, it also relates back very well to something I wrote at the very beginning of this blog – that it was an interest in this process of making portraits that partly drew me into People and Place.  The interest is growing as the course progresses.

The Photographer’s Gaze

Following on from the last comment under Project 5, I have just finished a first read through of ‘Train Your Gaze’ by Roswell Angier.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Train-Your-Gaze-Theoretical-Introduction/dp/294037337X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289916049&sr=1-1

A useful read that warrants further study, the book is subtitled ‘A Practical and Theoretical Introduction to Portrait Photography’, which sums it up succinctly.  It is not (and I never expected it to be) a manual on how to take portraits; and it is quite a wide-ranging, free-ranging book, which will require more careful reading and analysis in order to fully appreciate its messages.  But it is certainly authoritative, contemporary (though wide-ranging enough to look across the scope of photographic history), provoking and challenging, with ‘assignments’ that, if one had the time and inclination, would definitely open up new possibilities.  It also, to my mind, communicates at a ‘personal’, practical level, though willingly embracing more complex theoretical concepts.  It irritated me from time to time – seemingly dismissive of Gregory Crewdson, for example, and elsewhere, putting a different (and potentially contradictory) interpretation on the detail of Jeff Wall’s ‘Mimic’ compared to Michael Fried and even the artist himself.  But those are minor, irritating (to me, that is) details.  I have already got plenty from the book and will get more with further attention.

The main reason for mentioning it here is to pick up on some early definitions or points made about the concept of ‘the gaze’ in a photographic context.  The ‘characteristic’ that defines the presence of the photographer’s gaze is ‘... the felt activity of someone looking, the photographer in person, embedded in the photograph’ (page 1).  And, a little later, when discussing Richard Avedon’s approach to making portrait images, Angier says:

‘The photographer’s eye here does not seek merely to represent.  It looks to persuade.’ (Page 5)

It is the very clear statement of the proactive role of the photographer that I find interesting.  Even this early in the course, photographing family and friends, I am conscious of the need to develop this ‘looking’ and to learn how to ‘embed’ it into my portrait images.  I have spent twenty years in recruitment, and long since developed a technique of interviewing that, I think, successfully ‘persuaded’ my interviewees to demonstrate to me their capabilities and their shortcomings.  I can see some parallels – though I don’t yet have the equivalent technique for portrait-making.  Angier describes Avedon’s ‘rumoured’ approach, in which he did not speak to the subject throughout the whole session, but I don’t think that is for me!  However, I can see how, with practice, one can develop a process that is flexible enough to work with different people in different circumstances, just as with interviewing.

Hotshoe Magazine Oct-Nov 2010

Two interesting and relevant articles from the most recent edition of Hotshoe.

http://www.hotshoeinternational.com/

The first, 'Comfort Women', is represented on the cover that should be viewable by the link above.  Written by Bill Kouwenhoven, it illustrates and reviews the series of portraits, made in recent years, by Jan Benning, of 'Comfort Women' from Japanese Occupied Indonesia in WWII.  The subject matter is sad and disturbing, but that is not for this post.  I really wanted to comment on the portrait-making,

• The writer's opening says 'It is the eyes that get you at first ...', which is exactly the comment I made about the portraits of Steve McCurry.  Benning's portraits, several of which are reprinted in full A4 page size in the magazine, are all head and shoulders framing; full face to the camera; looking, without any distinctive expression, deadpan in effect, straight back at the viewer.  They appear to have been lit from above and behind the camera, down onto the women's faces.
• It is indeed the stares that get you, all different but all challenging the viewer in a similar way, and then it is the 'every detail' in the faces that expand the story - all of them with, for me, an elegance and dignity that pays tribute to their strength and stoicism, albeit the accompanying personal stories demonstrate the price they have all paid for the abuse they suffered all those years ago.
• As portraits, they are stunning, complex, and even beautiful.  They cannot, in effect, be viewed in isolation from the background, despite what I said above, but they do, I think, deserve the use of words such as elegance and beauty.

Then there is and article about Brian Griffin, written by Miranda Gavin, in the context of the 'Face to Face: A Retrospective' exhibition in Birmingham, and some of his portraits appearing in the'Road to 2012' exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.  I'm not looking to pick out too much from this article, but 'Portraiture is an immensely difficult genre and hugely underrated' is worth repeating.  With 40+ years experience behind him he should know what he's talking about.  He doesn't believe that a lot of people apply themselves to portraits in a 'considered way' and with enough 'energy and interest'.  He doesn't rate the Taylor Wessing portrait competition - '.. it's pretty awful, really.'  The more recent portraits, mainly groups, illustrated in the article have a 'staged' look about them, and he describes them as 'very TV, very filmic'.  Certainly they are very different from those of Jan Benning!

At the beginning

Predictably, since this is a new course and I am new to blogging, the biggest question on my mind is 'How do I get started?'.  This post is essentially about 'setting pen to paper', if I can use an outmoded but seemingly appropriate expression; in other words, the best way to get started is 'to get started'.
This is my fourth OCA course, so I am reasonably experienced in the distance learning process.  I have completed 'The Art of Photography' and 'Introduction to Digital Photography' at Level 1, and 'Landscape' at Level 2.  The first two have been assessed formally and achieved 'B' grade.  The latter has just been submitted for formal assessment as I am starting out on this course in October 2010.  The decision to enrol on 'People & Place' has probably caused me more thought than any of the previous three.  I need another Level 1 course if I am to complete the 120 CATS points towards a degree, so that aspect wasn't hard.  But, until a few weeks ago, I had more or less discounted this particular option in favour either of a more 'theory-based' course, such as Visual Studies, or something wholly different, such as Starting to Write.  So, what changed my mind?

Firstly, I attended the Steve McCurry Retrospective exhibition in Birmingham a few weeks ago.  In all honesty, I went with a sceptical mind, having (wrongly and on limited information) associated him with travel photography and National Geographical magazine.  The famous 'Afghan Girl' portrait was used heavily in the advertising, and probably contributed to my attitude.  I came away less than impressed by the curation, signage, layout etc, but very drawn to McCurry's portraits - not just 'Afghan Girl' but several others captured in a similar manner (head & torso, looking directly into the lens, strong eye contact and definition, strong colours, often high contrast, printed large and 'sharp').  It wasn't just that they impressed me, though they certainly did, but that they set me thinking about the 'portrait-making' process. I found I wanted to know, for example, what form of communication with the subject enables McCurry to get that highly defined and distinctive look in the eyes, because I felt sure it was more than just a technical issue.

http://www.stevemccurry.com/main.php

Then, I have been reading Michael Fried's 'Why Photography Matter as Art as Never Before' (Yale University Press) and happened to have reached Chapter 7, which looks at portraits by Thomas Struth, Rineke Dijkstra, amongst others.  I won't claim that I can fully understand everything in this book, but the concepts of absorption, theatricality/anti-theatricality, combined with Fried's highly detailed, insightful and challenging analysis of these portraits, and how they were made, further stimulated my thoughts about the process of portrait making.

And finally, finding myself with no focused photographic challenge/direction, having completed the 'Landscape' course, made me realise that I did actually want to continue with something that provided focus & direction; and also, stimulated by the exposure to portraiture just described, that to move outside of the comfort zone of landscape, still life etc, was exactly the challenge that I needed.

So, I have made a start.  I also have the course material now, and anumber of books 'on order'.