Visual research and analysis - social contrasts

May 2015

Find photographs depicting at least two different social perspectives of the same place. ‘Place’ could refer to a province, a village, an event, an entire city or a small area of a city. For example, find a photograph depicting the affluent side of a city, and one that shows the poorer side. You may wish to use this as an opportunity to take a closer look at some of the photographers we’ve already discussed, or to look at completely new ones. You might find two or more contrasting images by the same photographer, or contrasting images of the same place by two or more different photographers. 

Then see if you can find two photographs where social contrasts are present within a single image. 

Having studied Stieglitz's "The Steerage" recently at an exhibition, I can now see the similarity with Paul Seawright's "Bridge" from Invisible Cities. The sentiments are similar; the first class passengers are looking down on the lower classes. It has been suggested that Stieglitz's image was taken whilst the boat was in anchorage. Stieglitz's image contains metaphors of the class struggle- the viewer is looking directly across at the man with the straw hat who belongs to the wealthy class on board and travelling in the luxury of state rooms. The viewer (and the first class travellers) look down on the steerage, which was a space for third class travellers and had really cramped, dark, unhealthy living  conditions. However, when the whole image is viewed, the shallow depth of field and crowding of people enable these people to be in a state of being in between, as in there is nothing to tell the viewer where they are going, what their ambitions are, or whether we belong with them.

In Seawright's "Bridge", the bus on the flyover is similar to the passengers on the top deck, whilst the people underneath are living in squalor reminiscent of the people in the steerage.  

I came across the work of Beatriz Veliz Argueta on The Association of Urban Photographers. She photographed the changing landscape of Tbilisi, Georgia following the changes from soviet to democratic times. Her images show views of the old buildings, where development and regeneration is planned for and the shiny new buildings already being erected. In this urban space, there is a distinct difference between the housing and space they occupy compared with the impressive, shiny new builds and paved footpaths. She illustrates the images with people who show the viewer who uses each space. In one of her images, she includes a street with fairly old car and on street bin, people walking along the road and the new build and landscaped trees and lamp-posts which gives the sense of two worlds in one.

Within Roland Barthe's Camera Lucida is an image from Koen Wessing of Nicaragua (1979) which depicts two nuns crossing through a rebellion. This would have been a picture of daily life at the time except for the nuns.

Bibliography
http://www.urbanphotographers.org/members-beatriz-veliz-argueta accessed may 2015
http://www.paulseawright.com/invisiblecities/ accessed may 2015
http://jasonfrancisco.net/alfred-stieglitz accessed may 2015
Barthes R (2000) Camera Lucida, Vintage, UK p22