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

Assignment 1 Beauty and the Sublime (Revised)

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.

“Spontaneous memorials re-enchant a site for they are the first step in dislocating the location from the ordinary city or landscape location. Here, landscape keeps vigil, the place of loss and remembrance assumes a presence in the life-world.” Wilson Baptist (2013:37) Wilson Baptist explains that the bereaved mark carefully the place of death because death changes the nature of a site from just another part of the landscape into a sign of death, enabling the grieving family and keep the memory of the deceased alive.

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. Perhaps the true power of roadside memorials 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 the memorial site of Harrison Carlin, 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.

Burke’s description of beauty can be seen as a little outdated. For example, when describing a beautiful flower, it should have the correct proportions, or flowing curves, or be frail, or pale in colour. Today we have different standards, shaped by the social and economic factors of our time. Beech argues that beauty can be divided into two perspectives; beauty being universal with human nature, such as the form, colour or fragrance of flowers, and subjective beauty whereby not everyone will appreciate the memorial. Perhaps the beauty in some images lies in the wild flowers and trees growing in the place of a collision and the landscape changing back to how it was before the collision or memorial? “For a picture to be beautiful it does not have to shocking, it must be in some significant respect unlike what has preceded it” Adams (1996:27) Beauty could be in the care shown by the creators and maintainers of the memorial. When visiting the memorials, there is beauty in the sublime silence which is experienced. Crane (1905:32) suggested that “Each generation has a different ideal of beauty or that perceiving a different side of beauty each successively ever seeks some new form for its expression.” This is still relevant over 100 years later.

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 over 68 fatalities on Nottinghamshire’s roads. The signs were removed by the public, so more speed cameras and a speed reduction scheme was introduced. Newark and Sherwood District Council 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 (2000:53) also mentions that Janouch told Kafka that “we photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds”. Perhaps this is partly true, in the sense that photography has become an art form and artists explore the subject and use the medium to improve on original ideas. Todd Hido explains that he knows when a subject is finished because he can move on from the subject – and maybe the journey develops an artist’s understanding of the subject? 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 express my images as fitting into the landscape sublime, enabling 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 desaturating 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 in the structure of the image by using diagonals, foreground, middle and background, trees and hedges, use of thirds, horizon in the upper third, and a moment frozen in time (although they are photographs as they capture movement and distortion of perspective which is not depicted in painting of this era). 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 focuses 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.

Rafal Zaborowski (25) 26^th March 2012 Minibus driver

A collision occurred on the A617 Mansfield Regeneration Route when a 23 year old drunk driver did not stop at a red light, crashed into a minibus killing the driver and seriously injuring one of 11 passengers. The drunk driver was disqualified from driving for 7 years, being nearly three times over the legal blood alcohol limit. The deceased left behind a wife and a 3 year old child.

Philip Dawn (34) 2^nd May 2012 Cyclist

A cyclist wearing headphones crossed the Kings Mill No.1 level crossing at 16:32 whilst listening to his MP3 player. According to the train’s CCTV and an eye witness account he had not looked before crossing the track. The train was running 5 minutes late, and this was the cyclist’s usual route home from work. He was hit by a passenger train travelling at 56mph and died at the scene, leaving behind 3 children.

Keron Dawes (28) 5^th May 2012 Motorcyclist

Motorcyclist involved in a collision with a Nissan Micra on A617 near a village at about 11:30. The Air Ambulance landed and the road was shut for the afternoon. The deceased left behind a partner and 2 children.

One of 2 possible motorcycle deaths in 2009 and 2010 on the same stretch of road; the A6097 Oxton Bypass. Lucie Stone motorbike rider (27) died on A6097, Sunday 5^th July 2009 at 14:45 after colliding with a Mitsubishi Space Wagon. Maciej Gackowski (31) motorbike rider died on A6097, Saturday 12^th June 2010 at 20:50 after performing a stunt on the dual carriageway which ended in fatality.

Marcus Karrigan Atkinson (29) 25^th January 2014

A pillion passenger died after the motorbike he was on crashed in Woodthorpe, Nottingham late one night. One man was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and two on suspicion of assisting an offender. All 3 men were bailed.

Ross Johnson (19) Jay Thompson (18), Josh Drinkwater (18), Tom Hudson (16)
23:00 13^th February 2009

The car driver and passengers died when their car was in collision with an oncoming car on the A614 at Bilsthorpe, a road notorious for blind spots and hidden dips. An overtaking manoeuvre caused one of the cars to spin out of control, hitting an oncoming car and bursting into flames on impact. Following this loss of 6 lives, average speed cameras were installed and the speed limit was reduced from 60MPH to 50MPH.

Harrison Carlin (15) 14:20pm 1^st July 2012 Cyclist

The cyclist was cycling along Forest Road in Papplewick towards the A60 when a car travelling in the same direction collided with him with a car driving at possibly 60-80MPH in a 30MPH zone. At the time, no charges were brought against the driver. A death had occurred here 10 years before.

References

Adams, R. (1996) Beauty in Photography, Essay Beauty in Photography p23-48. New York: Aperture.

Barthes, R. (2000) Camera Lucida. UK: Vintage.

Crane, W. (1905) Ideals in art: papers, theoretical, practical, critical. London: George Bell and Sons, Chiswick Press.

Wilson Baptist, K. (2013) Reenchanting memorial landscapes lessons from the roadside. [online] Landscape Journal 32:1 (p.37)Available from: https://www.academia.edu/11018967/Reenchanting_Memorial_Landscapes_Lessons_from_The_Roadside?auto=download [accessed 20/07/16.]

Bibliography

Adams, R. (1996) Beauty in Photography, Essay Beauty in Photography p23-48. New York: Aperture.

Barter, A. (n.d.) Flowers of loss [online]. Available from: http://andybarter.com/main/?p=527 [last accessed 16^th July 2016].

Barthes, R. (2000) Camera Lucida. UK:Vintage.

Bednar, R. (2011) Materialising memory: the public lives of roadside crash shrines [online]. Volume 1, Number 1. Memory connection Journal. Massey University. Available from: http://memoryconnection.org/article/materialising-memory-the-public-lives-of-roadside-crash-shrines-2/ [last accessed 20^th July 2016]

Beech, D. (2009) cited in Alexander, J. (2013) Project: the beautiful and the sublime. OCA, unpublished.

Bell, J. (2013) Contemporary art and the sublime, the contemporary sublime. [online]. Tate research publication. Available from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/julian-bell-contemporary-art-and-the-sublime-r1108499 [last accessed 20th July 2016].

Burke, E. (2015) The Beautiful and the Sublime. UK: Oxford University Press.

Crane, W. (1905) Ideals in Art. London: George Bell and Sons, Chiswick Press.

Croteau, P. (n.d.) Roadside Sublime [online]. Available from: http://www.petercroteau.photography/roadside-sublime.html [last accessed 16th July 2016].

Ginzburg, I. (2005) Lieux de passage [online]. Available from: http://www.murblanc.org/larue/passage/ [last accessed 20^th July 2016].

Hido, T. (2014) On landscapes, interiors and the nude. New York: Aperture

Nance, D. (2004) Descansos: Roadside memorials on the American Highway. [online]. Available from:http://webpages.charter.net/dnance/descansos [last accessed 20^th July 2016.]

Newark and Sherwood District Council. (n.d.) Speed Kills [online] Newark and Sherwood District Council Website. Available from:

http://www.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/speedkills/ [last accessed 20^th July 2016]

Morley, S. (2010) Staring into the abyss, the contemporary sublime. [online]. Tate Etc. Issue 20. Available from: http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/staring-contemporary-abyss [last accessed 16th July 2016].

Riding, C. and Llewellyn, N. (2013) British art and the sublime: Tate research publication. [online]. Tate Gallery. Available from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/christine-riding-and-nigel-llewellyn-british-art-and-the-sublime-r1109418 [last accessed 20th July 2016].

“The Sublime” In our time [radio programme, online] Pres. Melvyn Bragg. BBC, UK, 21:30, 12/02/2004, BBC Radio 4. 45mins. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y23j [last accessed 20th July 2016].

Wilson Baptist, K. (2013) Reenchanting memorial landscapes lessons from the roadside. [online] Landscape Journal 32:1 Available from: https://www.academia.edu/11018967/Reenchanting_Memorial_Landscapes_Lessons_from_The_Roadside?auto=download [accessed 20/07/16].

Worpole.K, Orton, J. (2014) The new English landscape [online]. Society for the Preservation of Wild Culture and Individual Contributors. Available from:

http://www.wildculture.com/article/new-english-landscape/1432 [last accessed 16th July 2016].

Available from: http://emmaharding.weebly.com/personal-memorialisation.html accessed 5/5/15

Tutor Report Assignment 1 (please click on link)

Tutor Feedback from Assignment 1

Really helpful tutor comments which will enable me to develop my critical writing throughout the course. I now have a starting point on which to build my work.

Good points

"Strong feeling for viewpoint, light and framing."
"Thinking seriously about the ideas in part 1- plenty of research and linked the research meaningfully back to your own work."
"Full of good references, flows very well."

Improve upon / recommendations

"Start making prints of assignment work now."
Ambitious work and should make for a visually impressive first assignment
Qualify statements rather than stating a fact
Be suggestive (as in an investigative journey) rather than having already arrived at my opinion
Add factual evidence to notes - date, location and photographic evidence.
Add a shot of self on location.
Add counter argument to Burke - e.g include beauty
Support the association between death and mourning with one or two good references
Learning log - page no's with dates inside brackets (blog in process of being updated)

I always find the first assignment quite difficult to gauge, especially this time with moving up from HE4 to HE5. However, I am encouraged to revisit my assignment and look at providing a counter argument to Burke and also take an image of myself making the photograph.

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.

"Are your images in the painterly tradition of landscape or are they actually more ‘photographic’? I’m thinking of your movement blur, your perspective distortion, your extreme sharpness. In another way you’re right of course, its one point perspective within the frame." Tutor report (2015) When I was putting my assignment together I was still looking at landscape like paintings were constructed. As the course has progressed, my views on "what is landscape and what makes a landscape photograph" have completely change. I would agree now with my tutor's comments.

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 p27) 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”. 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 p53) also mentions that Janouch told Kafka that “we photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds”. 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.