Hello everyone. I hope this finds you all fine and dandy. A while ago I posted a few digital images from my trip to Paris but I mentioned that I had put the majority of my efforts into my 35mm film shots. It has taken a while to get them developed. It turns out that the green HP5 is not widely processed any more. It has therefore taken a bit of time to source somewhere I could get my rolls done.
Happily it was well worth the wait as I received back around 100 images of black and white Paris, looking glorious and charismatic. I have had to whittle down the images into a select few to begin sharing with you. Because I am a bit of a fool I only got back 7×5 inch prints, nothing on CD. So in order to save myself having to scan in every image, I have instead rephotographed the prints with my digital camera. There is therefore a slight cropping to each image and they are not quite as good as the ones in the flesh.
I personally am very happy with them. I had a bit of an issue with the Olympus OM-10 camera I was using before embarking on the trip. The films I was getting back were sadly streaked with a line down each image, which we think is caused from shutter bounce. SO it was with great apprehension that I opened up the folder to look at these beauties. PHEW!! They were all clear of the streak barring two, which obviously made me very happy. I think I had this preconception of Paris looking good in black and white from all the movies that I have seen over the years which influenced me. I think the city lends itself perfectly to 35mm film, and I hope you agree.
The images are mainly of the Citroen 60th anniversary celebration, however I did take a few touristy architectural shots too, just to fill my tourist quota.
Annoyingly some of the images have a slight blue tint to them where I have tried to just bring them back to as close as the prints I was looking at. The on screen versions do not do the originals justice but hey, you can get the idea.
You know that I love this kind of imagery; shots that combine the new with the old, images that look back at past memories whilst also appreciating the present. As many of you also know, a lot of my own recent work within the last year has revolved around a similar concept as the images in this series titled ‘Echoes of Lofoten’ by Robinson. It is fantastic to see another practitioner using a similar approach to photo-montage with some spectacular results.
Hebe Robinson tells the story of hundreds of people who lived in the most isolated and rural areas of northern Norway after the Second World War. Focusing on one part in particular named Lofoten, Robinson brings to life the slightest snapshots of a past way of living. In the 1950s the families from these areas were part of a scheme developed by the new Government to relocate the country into a more centralized form of being. This meant that the families literally had to pack up their things and move away from the coast and settle further inland. They promised as part of the agreement not to return their past locations. What Robinson has done is to gather old images from the coastal dwellings that documented that past way of life and with those has then integrated them back into how the current landscape looks.
The images that work best are the ones which so seamlessly change between the new and old, maybe down to a lot of lines being matched up in places where aspects of the landscape have barely changed in sixty years. I just find the effect of looking in through a photograph to the past to be such an interesting experience. The stunning ragged landscape looks like it was a terribly tough place to live, yet the lives were beautifully simple, full of hard work.
Here is some beautiful work by Anderson-Staley. She creates her images with a technique which has been around for quite some time and which you would normally find on portraits in America during the early 20th century. The technique is called Tintype, otherwise known as a Melainotype or Ferrotype. It is wet process in which the photographer has to create a positive on a thin sheet of metal which has been covered in photographic emulsion. The problem with these though was that you had to make the sitter remain perfectly still, otherwise blurring would occur.
What is nice about these images is that they make you re-imagine what it is to be photographed. There are two main arguments that have come forth in favour of the analogue approach during these highly digital times. The first being that no matter how hard you try a shot taken on film always seem to look nicer than a digital file. And then the second being that with film, or in this case a collodion process, always slows you down and makes you think harder about what you are photographing. There is no element of just being trigger happy and photographing willy-nilly, you have to stop, set up and make sure that it is all perfect before you can make an image. This is what is happening in Anderson-Staley’s work; she is forcing herself to slow down, to savour the process of actually making an image. This Tintype method isn’t widely used any more sadly. These shots though work so well as a collection. We are used to seeing very formal, highly controlled and regimented poses for the sitters in days gone by, but by using the process in the modern era she has freed herself from those society shackles and photographed how we tend to do nowadays, in a close up and detailed manner.
By prepping the plates only just in advance of the shot being taken, we are left with traces of photographer on the plates with fingerprints and slight smudges. This connection between the photographer and the sitter is pretty cool. As is the depth of field on the shots, which is super shallow and really draws attention to particular details of the sitter.
Time to take a moment to look at one the greats. Don McCullin is by far and a way one of the best, if not THE best photojournalist. His long and distinguished career has seen him photograph conflicts in Africa and Vietnam as well as issues closer to home with gangs in England. Due to the fantastic sense that he has for being in the right place at the right time McCullin’s images can be pretty harrowing. He has been greatly praised for his work including winning the ‘World Press photo of the year award’.
The two most iconic shots that McCullin produced would have to be, firstly, the shot of the soldier clasping his gun, looking absolutely terrified. If there was one image in which you can almost feel the nervousness then that is it. We don’t know what the soldier is looking at, I believe he is in shell shock after a near miss, although he may be in silent prayer. I think that is all part of the enigma of the shot though. All that needs to be conveyed is done so through the man’s body language. He sits hunched and taut, with not one but both hands wrapped tightly around the barrel of the gun. It is such a powerful image and reminds us of the great trauma’s that war brings.
Secondly is the shot of the homeless Irishman living on the streets of London. The man’s face and hair are just so worn and leathery. This looks to be a man who has lived a tough existence, yet looking into his eyes you can sense that there is a degree of wisdom, eve for a man who is so down on his luck.
I think these two images are so strong that I don’t need to put up other pieces of his work. McCullin, now in his seventies has turned his hand to something a less dangerous and is now photographing landscapes and still portraits.
Woodman is a curious character to research. She seemed to accomplish so much in such a short time. However her life came to a tragic end.
I have to admit that I had forgotten that she died at the still young of twenty-two having committed suicide. I couldn’t remember why so much fuss was made about her work and why people spent so long trying to replicate it. After a little bit reading into the background history of her life and work it is now crystal clear as to why she is so popular. She created some ruddy good images!
Her technique was to use a very long shutter speed on a cable release system and then incorporated those two aspects with body movement. The outcome was a surreal image packed with emotion. Woodman seemed to push the boundaries of what photography was about back in her day, photographing nude self portraits, whilst also conveying anguish and melancholy in many of her images. You can immediately picked up that she wasn’t necessarily happy in her photographs as the surroundings and body posture seem to ooze a kind of sadness. You could also say that she was maybe vulnerable, judging from the way she holds herself or cowers right back against the wall.
Woodman seemed to be very good at using a very simple space, in a lot of instances she photographs herself in a single run down room of what looks to be an abandoned house, maybe it was a set she created in her own house, who knows, but the point I’m trying to make is is that she used the space and then added a prop, sometimes two, in order to play off and then went about creating the image.
What I find staggering is that even though she died aged 22 she still managed to photograph over 10,000 negatives, using a medium format camera. 10,000! On film! I mean that’s crazy; I reckon I might be nearing the 10,000 mark with digital shots, but I find that total very impressive.
Sadly it wasn’t until after her death that Woodman’s work started getting the recognition that she had craved. However now there are many books published with collections of her images in them, and I’m sure that many universities still include examples of her work during lectures just as mine did.
Woodman’s work acts as a good starting inspiration for those people who want to express themselves through self portraiture, she shows that movement in imagery can be hugely powerful.
For those of you who are new to my blog my aim is to bring you all contemporary photography so that as many people as possible can enjoy the imagery. There are some photographers that you will have heard of and then there are others that are lesser known, but who deserve to be household names. There are plenty of undiscovered gems out there.
I for one would have loved to have had someone writing a blog on photography whilst I was at university, I look back at the collection of posts that I have accumulated see some fantastic photographs. I hope that some of you out there are able to use the blog for research or inspiration purposes.
The subject for this post is Wolfgang Suschitzky. He is a photographer who created the bulk and it could be argued his best work during the 30’s and 40’s. I am reminded by the work of Bert Hardy, who I covered earlier in the week, who photographed during the same period but with a slightly different aesthetic. Suschitzky’s images are far more based on the middle to upper classes of London living. We can see a fair few examples of a vital moment being captured. Once again the photographer manages to capture a lot of the day to day activities that were undertaken during the era.
It feels as though there is a genuine interest in the subjects that are photographed, a kind of eye for detail that way maybe not so apparent in Hardy’s images. The work looks as though it the start of a more art based aged for photography rather than simply documentary street level images. There is a lot of attention paid to the composition of the images as well as a focus on how the images are lit.
There seems to be a wonderful mixture between capturing shots in the heat of the moment as well as a good amount that feel as though they have been structured and composed by Suschitzky. I prefer the more composed ones, they evoke a sense of calm and tranquillity in what we know to be one of the busiest cities in the world even back then.
You notice that the subjects are quite natural in the way they act in front of the camera. It is clear that this is because the images are observational, with a lot of the subjects facing away from the camera, their backs turned.
Black and white photography is not as regularly used as colour nowadays but I think there is always something slightly more special looking at a black and white film photograph. The quality and slight grain cannot be beaten.
I am sorry that the images are quite small and low in quality but they were tricky to source.
For this post I am back amongst the kind of images that I like the most, wartime photography. It just seems all so fascinating and Hardy was an expert at getting close to the action and making the viewer see the day to day life that the inhabitants of London led. Without ever really truly showing much of the destruction that occurred in the city Hardy still manages to paint a portrait of the constant toiling and anxious anticipation that hung over London like an ominous smog.
The images are all black and white and show a a side of war that you maybe only experience through television series like Dads Army, the kind of civilian level of things. With all the soldiers laying down their lives it is easy to forget the millions of people that were back home who were also having to make huge sacrifices. Quite a few images contain children as their subjects, and their innocence in front of camera really gives a sense of the emotion at that time better than any adult could have. We see them standing on street corners, in amongst the rubble and standing receiving a scolding from their teachers.
What I think is nice about this series of work is that Hardy doesn’t forget include some of the lighter moments the happened during the war as well. They act as a pleasant reminder that the British spirit was always a strong one, unbreakable. We see beauty pageants at holiday camps and women laughing while on beach front, we even see a shot of the royal wedding. It is these natural snapshots that are able to tell us the most about the situation.
Ok I want everyone to put on their contemporary art hats and have a look at this work by Clavarino.
First thoughts are that it is a viewpoint from someone trying study and get in close to the location in which they live. Then, having read a bit about it, I found out that the purpose of the work is to show the history, politics and art of Italy.
By focusing in on just a few subjects or artefacts the viewer is able to see a far bigger picture than they thought they would. Shot in black and white the images appear to contain not very much substance. I do think that this is one of those series that does require a little bit context to go along with it, otherwise it would be a very subjective viewpoint that people would take away with them. Yet you can definitely sense that there is more to the image that photographer is trying to get across. I would say that some of the images are metaphors for what is occurring in the country maybe. Political I know nothing of Italy, but I can see that certain things have captured the eye of the photographer such as a web of string or what looks to be a couple of straws leering out from a sculpture of I don’t know who. Could these have alternate meaning to them, maybe a web of deceit in the government, or the power of religion looking down upon you unrelentingly, who knows.
After a little more reading and I discover that the work is aimed at asking questions rather than answering them which is an interesting point. Perhaps you are supposed make your own interpretations. These images feel like a collection of small observations that when pieced together culminate in a hazy, weird and disjointed tapestry of Italy.
Everyone has always held Edward Muybridge’s images as the pinnacle of motion photography and one man has decided to update the way in which we can use images as a source to view the human body one frame at a time.
In order to put a modern spin on things, Sebring shot in 3D and created an app, for his series, which is jolly nice of him. To make the images he worked collaboratively with software developers and engineers to make 15-foot geodesic dome rig housing 100 cameras that could be fired at once. I would imagine that it looked pretty impressive. It reminds me of the way in which they shot some of the scenes in ‘The Matrix’ where the bullet time effect comes in and you are able to see a 360 pan around the character.
Sebring wanted to document as many different postures as possible and so sought a model that had been a part of ‘pose-off’s’ (who knew) called Coco Rocha and set about making every conceivable position.
The final shots are a combination of over 800 different poses that Rocha performed. The images themselves are beautiful black and white examples of how fluid the human form can be.
When given the choice about which era they would like to have lived in, most people I’ve spoken to have said the 1920’s. A lot of people wish they could have experienced that iconic era. They usually quickly add that they would only have gone back if they had plenty of money. I think this is the key because without it I imagine it would have been an extremely difficult time. For those who did have the cash to splash then it was a time of lavishness and grandeur. The fashion was jaw dropping with its the brilliant flapper dresses, the smart tuxedos and ornate furniture. To be honest I would have to agree with these people. I think though I have been heavily influenced by Baz Luhrmanns interpretation of ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F.Scott Fitzgerald. That movie pulled no punches with regards to extravagance, who wouldn’t have loved to attend one of those high class, money-no-object parties?
One man who had the pleasure to live through, document and make money during the era was Edward Steichen. His series entitled ‘In High Fashion, The Conde Nast Years’ was on show at The Photographers Gallery and it seemed like to good an opportunity to pass up. This man has led a glorious life; the amount of people that he has met and photographed is astounding. For almost 15 years he was the worlds best paid photographer as he worked for classic names including Vogue and Vanity Fair. Even though he pioneered the way in which we see modern fashion photography, he wasn’t limited to it, as he also photographed politicians, dancers and literary icons. Basically what wasn’t in his portfolio at the time wasn’t worth photographing. His list of subjects includes Greta Garbo, Fred Astaire, Winston Churchill, W.B. Yeats and George Gershwin and many more.
Thankfully unlike the Tate I was able to take some shots of the general layout of the exhibition to act as proof of me actually being there. I will change tact in this post and mainly talk about the show as a whole, rather than focus on individual images.
I love viewing photographs, it is an endless enjoyment, and I like exhibitions that show a lot of imagery. This Steichen show did not disappoint. It has over 150 images on show. The gallery has curated the images in a way that you view individual shoots, maybe four to six images at a time. I felt like this was a good way to view them as you were able to see the subject grow within just a few frames. The reason Steichen is held in such high regard is the way in which he took his photos. ‘He borrowed from a range of aesthetic movements including Impressionism, Art Nouveau and Symbolism’ (thephotographersgallery.org.uk) in order to create very striking portraits. These portraits always explored shape, form and lighting leaving the sitter looking the epitome of elegant. You almost become jealous at the idealised world that these people appear to be living within the frame.
The way the images were presented deserves a mention too. I think they got it spot on, with the black frame, and a simple uniformity to the images drew upon Steichen’s approach and continued the elegance to the show itself.
I think that is an important point, for me this can be seen as a turning point where the photographer started to try and sell a way of life rather than focusing on a particular product or in this case fashion garment. It allowed people to dream and aspire to reach the upper echelons of class system.
Another nice touch that Steichen seemed to implement was to photograph the sitter with subtle hints as to their profession. Whether this allowed for a more natural shot, who knows?
To finish off I thought I would include a couple of myself enjoying the gallery in a rather swanky jumper.
Here’s me enjoying the exhibition. Photo credit Becky Brice
Small captions and poor eyesight means having to lean in quite drastically. Photo credit Becky Brice
I think we can safely say that I would fitted right in with all the elegance repping that christmas jumper!
If you had the money the 1920’s seemed to be a better time, a simpler time, with sophisticated tastes and limitless grace.
The exhibition runs until the 18th January so there is plenty of time to check it out if you are in the big city.
adamhersey 