Nicola Hampshire Photography 2 Landscape: Assignment 1: Beauty and the sublime

May 2015

Assignment 1 Beauty and the Sublime - Roadside memorials in the landscape

In Burke’s sublime, there is a power or force greater than us at work which causes us to feel inadequate and question what happens beyond humanity. This is portrayed in visual arts by expressing the subject in such a way that the viewer connects with the work and experiences the emotion which completes the cycle. The understanding of the body, science and the universe has moved on since 1857 when Burke published his book “A philosophical enquiry into the sublime and beautiful.” Thus his categories do not work for everyone. In order to find the sublime and experience the emotion, one has to associate with a subject which has some spirituality / force/ power behind it which makes us question the subject.

When people drive past roadside memorials at speed, they notice them and experience some thought or emotion, even objecting to them being there, thinking they are an unnecessary way of expressing the grief by the significant others, whilst others think they act as a powerful reminder of how dangerous the roads are. Some people experience the meaning of them but the true power of them can only be felt by standing still and listening to the silence (similar to the noise one hears during an outdoors Remembrance Service.) Burke describes the sublime as being tied up in the emotion of the situation; feeling pain, grief, self-preservation and displaying sympathy for the tragic situation. Whilst the mourners will suffer grief and pain whilst coming to terms with an unexpected death, travellers along the road may associate with the tragedy rather like in play or think how fortunate that it wasn’t them involved in the incident. At one memorial, friends and family come together for a yearly celebration of life in the memorial garden created by the father next to the scene of the tragic accident (the last photograph).

On reading part 2 of Burkes’s Beauty and the Sublime, I understood the message of fear and ultimately terror linked to the sublime. The modern sublime gives the photographer a subject such as roadside memorials and questions people’s views on mortality which was once addressed by the church. As the world becomes more secular the opportunity to discuss this is opened up, although some people may consider their religious beliefs are being violated because this is a very private act on a public highway.

Burke talks of obscurity and silence as contributing to the sublime. In the following images, I have concentrated on (where possible) not giving the viewer much information so that they focus on the location. When photographing, I experienced the silence of the traffic noise when traffic lights changed or the traffic stopped flowing, although most of these were shot at very busy locations. By using the landscape and the traffic, I hoped to represent the silence I experienced which travellers do not hear when passing the memorial and show how some of the memorials are being reclaimed by the landscape. The danger was in the locations themselves and I had to wear a high vis jacket. Even when photographing at the last location cars did not slow down when entering the 30MPH zone and for one I had to handhold the camera rather than use a tripod as it was too dangerous to kneel in the verge. Traffic influenced my technical choices in the direction of shooting, and where possible I shot on a cloudy day. However, time was limited and I had to visit when the roads were least busy; if necessary visiting or driving past on more than one occasion. The memorials were chosen for ease of access and were ones I drive past on a regular basis.

I found Burke’s description of beauty outdated. For example, when describing a beautiful flower it should have the correct proportions, or have flowing curves, or be frail, or pale in colour. Today we have different standards, shaped by the social and economic factors of our time. In my opinion the beauty in some of my images lies in the fact that wild flowers and trees are growing in the place of a collision, the land is naturalising and the landscape is changing back to how it was before. My personal opinion is that this is more beautiful than artificial flowers, and dead flowers in cellophane are not beautiful. Also, the beauty of the scene can be that people have taken time to visit and refresh the flowers or plaques. However, others may have different ideas. Reading Adams (1996) Essay on Beauty in photography, I came to the conclusion that beauty is linked to aesthetics and “for a picture to be beautiful it does not have to shocking, it must be in some significant respect unlike what has preceded it” (p27). However, even though this is a seldom photographed subject, I do not see the subject as having beauty. William Crane (as cited in the OCA newsletter accessed 21/5/15) states that “Every generation has a different ideal of beauty or perceives a different side of beauty and successively ever seeks some new form for its expression.” I think this still holds true.

A campaign by the local government introduced a sign with a yellow border, a lamppost and a bunch of flowers with the words “Slow down, better late than never” at high risk sites to raise awareness of the dangers because over the last 5 years there have been 68 fatalities on Nottinghamshire’s roads. The signs were removed by the public, so more speed cameras and a speed reduction scheme was introduced. My local government sees the roadside memorials as stark reminders of the dangers and does not remove them after 30 days. Despite this in place, fatalities still occur on the roads.

Barthes (2000) explained that to affect the viewer, the photographer has to take the sentimentality out of the subject and feel, notice, observe and think. To enable me to look objectively at the subject, I had to research and understand some of the psychology behind roadside memorials. Barthes (2000 ) also mentions that Janouch told Kafka that “we photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds” p53. I believe that this is partly true – in my opinion photography has become an art form and as artists we explore the subject and use the medium to improve on our original ideas. Todd Hido explains that you know when a subject is finished because you can move on from the subject – I think you move on with a greater understanding. I now have a greater understanding in the subject of roadside memorials and would consider documenting it further if it was of use. I have probably reached the end of my personal photography of this because it is a sublime subject and because of the danger involved. The youngest victim was 15, the oldest was 35. It may be possible to work with authorities to help illustrate to young drivers who are being targeted by the council the effects of excessive use of speed and the consequences of dangerous driving. I could also revisit at a later date and see if they were being used differently.

The internet is a discursive site for discussions about roadside shrines with sites ranging from cyber shrines to photo essays to online roadside shrine tour books in the Americas. In the UK they are becoming a business with charity organisations such as BRAKE who work with solicitors to fight cases of shrines being removed. The difficulty is in finding art photography of shrines rather than unconsidered photographs. Photographer Peter Mitchell has published photographs on personal shrines which I am unable to find. Having looked at 2 photographers (David Nance and Ilan Ginzburg) who studied roadside memorials, and read around the subject, I aimed to show that they can fit into the landscape, be a sublime subject and enable viewers to appreciate the meaning and representation of a private place in a public space. .Their images show a memorial in a landscape – Ginzburg uses black and white which I think works in some but not all of his images, and shows that life carries on past the memorials. Nance’s are just about the memorial in the landscape. Although I appreciated both works as being different, I favoured Ginzburg’s which is my main influence. I considered whether I should desaturate my images and decided against it, although used a polariser and underexposed where necessary.

I questioned whether this subject would fit into an art gallery of a museum. This subject is not a collector’s item so it would not appear in a gallery. I would like to think a larger collection of work could be installed in light boxes as an outside exhibition subjected to the elements. My images conform to landscapes which have been ingrained since the 1800’s as they include diagonals, some foreground, middle and background, trees and hedges, use of thirds, horizon in the upper third, and a moment frozen in time. I think I have enabled people to feel some emotion of the subject by showing how I viewed the scene. As this is a sensitive subject I have not moved objects around thereby showing my version of the truth.

I think perhaps my first image is the weakest as this only focusses on the shrine and does not show the context of the road. I took advice from my tutor and decided to include the road and moving vehicles to illustrate the context rather than just have a sympathetic view of the shrine.