Text in art

17th July 2015

In a similar manner to Richard Long's "textworks", write down 12-24 brief observations during a short walk or journey by some means of transport....Consider how you might present your observations.

Based on Richard Long's "textworks" I walked the Park and Ride journey  (Citylink 2 from the racecourse) into Nottingham which I was considering  for Assignment 2.

Along the route I found a framed poster which is not noticeable from the Park and Ride Bus. The roadworks and cars were reflected into it and it reminded me of the Mark Kitchner and Barbara Kruger work I had been looking at. I was not intending to take photos on this walk so used my mobile.

Thinking about Richard Long's work, I noted 2 of the slogans I saw into the text about the walk. I felt the Harley Davidson slogan "It's not the destination it's the journey was quite fitting for this part of the course.

The image and text combined:

This took me out of my comfort zone and encouraged me to look at art in a creative way. 

Bibliography
http://www.richardlong.org/Textworks/2011textworks/walking.html
http://barbarakruger.com/art.shtml
http://www.marktitchnerstudio.com/#&panel1-1
http://static.tate.org.uk/1/onlineevents/podcast/mp3/2009_06_24_Richard_Long_Curators_Talk_by_Clarrie_Wallis.mp3
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/may/10/art-richard-long

All last accessed 17/7/15

May 2016
Came across a link to Ash Dome, a secret plantation in Wales planted by David Nash (1977). The video link http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/05/ash-dome-david-dash/ Shows the transition of the plantation over 40 years with various artworks made using natural materials. I can associate with this living land art as it will change over time and season. However, the difference between the natural and the sculpture form is that the artist is deliberately changing the shape of the plant. This could be seen in the same light as topiary or gardeners of large landowners estates creating a plan and managing it over time. Nash's living sculpture, photographed / filmed over time show the transitions through the seasons and over time. What I like about it is that it fits in well with nature; being different from but not dissimilar, or at one with nature.

Watching the programme by Dr James Fox on land art in the forest, sea and sky, http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b079ckkf/forest-field-sky-art-out-of-nature has extended my knowledge of land art in a way that broadened my outlook. So whilst I didn't particularly enjoy the above exercise on text in art, I gained more insight into land art and thought Richard Long's 10 mile walk would have made a good project for assignment 2 across access land.

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/05/ash-dome-david-dash/ accessed May 2016
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b079ckkf/forest-field-sky-art-out-of-nature accessed May 2016

Is appropriation appropriate?

June 2015

Look at the artists mentioned who appropriate images taken by other people and write around 300 words describing your response to photographers who work in this way. 

Is appropriation appropriate?

Artists who have used appropriation in the past such as Andy Warhol or Marcel Duchamp used every day objects such as a tin of Campbell’s Soup or a urinal and turned them into art. In the 1980’s Andy Warhol was a popular artist producing images of the soup tin which was accepted as art. However, on further investigation, Warhol was not sued by companies such as Campbell's soup - only by photographers for work such as his Marylin Monroe. So what is appropriation? The Oxford Dictionary describes it as “The deliberate reworking of images and styles from earlier well known works of art.” So the issue is actually about copyright.

To apply the same logic now would make photographers like Michael Wolf, John Rafman, Doug Ricard and Mishka Henna who use Google street view to find and make their images acceptable. These photographers acknowledge Google in their images. These artists can be compared to Paul Strand (who used a dummy lens) and took a different subject to what people thought he was taking, or Walker Evans who had a hidden camera to photograph New York subways.

With the advent of social media, there is plenty of material on platforms such as You Tube, Google Street View, Instagram, Facebook which artists could use to make photographs. The latest addition to the Photography Show in March this year was a stand of drones. These have also made the news as a copyright issue. Does the person on Facebook who shares a video or photo acknowledge the artist? Or was it taken without acknowledgement in the first place? I agree with Wolf‘s comment that his images from google “highlights double standards relating to government’s attempts to regulate street photography while google is creating an unauthorised photographic map of the world”.(http://photomichaelwolf.com/#introduction - accessed July 16th 2015) Wolf feels that he is reasserting “the role of the photographer”.(http://photomichaelwolf.com/#introduction - accessed July 16th 2015) The Google street view and drone images are classed as surveillance photography and there is a market for it. But how socially acceptable is appropriation? 

Two current issues in the news concerning appropriation are the use of landmark buildings such as the London Eye or Eiffel Tower and the copyright issues of concert photographers following the contract issued by the Foo Fighters (who actually owns the photograph?) With the landmarks, it has been suggested that photographers could not use images containing landmarks for commercial use. It all comes down to cost, and not even appropriation of the architect will be acceptable if the law is passed. 
"We are concerned that the well-intentioned proposals to ensure that architects are paid for the use of images of their work by commercial publishers and broadcasters would instead have negative implications and represent a potentially damaging restriction of the debate about architecture and public space,' the organisation said in a statement to The Times." (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3136945/Absurd-new-EU-law-mean-ll-face-legal-action-taking-pictures-famous-landmarks-Photos-punished-breach-copyright.html accessed 16/7/15)

So whilst I appreciate that these issues need airing, I think there should a standard that people work to. As a student I have guidelines to follow such as not plagiarising others work etc. and have to check the rules from time to time. I feel it would be enough to credit the original photographer provided the work is different enough from the original, otherwise it may look like a copy. But there again, in the student world, we are encouraged to emulate photographers whose work we like when learning a new subject. I do use images such as street view when planning a shoot or before I go to a new place if travelling on my own, or even before booking a holiday cottage! But I would not have considered publishing my investigative work on my blog before this exercise.

References
http://photomichaelwolf.com/#introduction - accessed July 16th 2015
http://photomichaelwolf.com/#introduction - accessed July 16th 2015

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3136945/Absurd-new-EU-law-mean-ll-face-legal-action-taking-pictures-famous-landmarks-Photos-punished-breach-copyright.html accessed 16/7/15

Bibliography
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/14/google-street-view-new-photography?intcmp=239
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/jul/15/photography-google-street-view
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/14/google-muse-street-photographers-interviews
http://www.google.co.uk/maps/about/behind-the-scenes/streetview/
http://weareoca.com/fine_art/whos-afraid-of-appropriation/
http://weareoca.com/fine_art/photography-meets-textiles/
http://photomichaelwolf.com/#introduction
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/feb/20/google-street-view-nine-eyes-in-pictures
http://www.dougrickard.com/articles/wall-street-journal-the-fine-art-of-spying-2013/
https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/pop-art/appropriation
http://www.quora.com/Did-Andy-Warhol-need-Marilyn-Monroe%E2%80%99s-or-Campbell-Soup%E2%80%99s-permission-to-use-their-likenesses-in-his-iconic-paintings
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/appropriation
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/14/google-street-view-new-photography?intcmp=239
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/jul/15/photography-google-street-view
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/14/google-muse-street-photographers-interviews
http://www.google.co.uk/maps/about/behind-the-scenes/streetview/
http://weareoca.com/fine_art/whos-afraid-of-appropriation/
http://weareoca.com/fine_art/photography-meets-textiles/
http://photomichaelwolf.com/#introduction
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/feb/20/google-street-view-nine-eyes-in-pictures
http://www.dougrickard.com/articles/wall-street-journal-the-fine-art-of-spying-2013/
https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/pop-art/appropriation
http://www.quora.com/Did-Andy-Warhol-need-Marilyn-Monroe%E2%80%99s-or-Campbell-Soup%E2%80%99s-permission-to-use-their-likenesses-in-his-iconic-paintings
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/appropriation
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/law/article4478291.ece
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3136945/Absurd-new-EU-law-mean-ll-face-legal-action-taking-pictures-famous-landmarks-Photos-punished-breach-copyright.html

All bibliography websites last accessed 16th July 2015

Ideas for Assignment 2 


Having chosen a couple of ideas to work with, I discovered the inaccuracies with Google Street View. It all depends where the van stops to capture the images. It is enough to give a flavour of the area although as I discovered in Worksop, it looked OK on Google street View, but in real life it had a completely different atmosphere - more akin to the segment label on Strava's cycling app!

Junction of A38 in Mansfield. Chose to screenshot this view because of the pedestrians.

With this junction (A6191) I realised I could not look at the road junction. The reason for this is the position of the car. The 9 eyes did not capture the end of the road. With this assignment I would have to give it some artistic licence and choose a building or point of interest to photograph. 

Once again, I could not do a 360 degree turn on the road - hence the reason to explore a little way up the road from the junction. The idea would be that each road would have a different style of architecture or be in a different area from each other.

Typologies

 29th June 2015

"Almost the same thing - Some thoughts on the collector-photographer" David Campany 

http://davidcampany.com/almost-the-same-thing-some-thoughts-on-the-photographer-as-collector/

Notes

In 2003, the Tate Modern exhibited Cruel and Tender; a collection of works by different well known photographers such as August Sander (Face of our time 1929), Walker Evans (American Photographs 1938),  Robert Frank (The Americans 1958/9), the Bechers, Garry Winogrand, Martin Parr, Stephen Shore and more. The images were "characterised by a sense of disengagement[...] analytical and descriptive in its approach to landscape." (http://www.tate.org.uk/about/press-office/press-releases/cruel-and-tender-real-twentieth-century-photograph) Lincoln Kirstein in 1933 labelled Walker Evans' work as "tender cruelty" The Tate Modern review of the exhibition describes the exhibition as comparing the myth and mundane - or looking at the real wold around us.

Historically people have collected things. Museums collect artifacts arranged in groups or time periods. Photography is divided- in pictorialism in the 19th and early 20th century, photographs were not grouped together although straight photographs were. Pictorialism (or art photography) seems to rely on symbols and the viewer reading more into one image than requiring a series or body of work to explain / show the truth. Modernisation was concerned with the numbers and types of images. Campany suggests that this is because people began to see images in daily life and the amount of magazines and printed material made photobooks acceptable. By organising photographs into a book, types of images were grouped together and the books reached new audiences. The books took photography to a wider audience than displaying in a gallery.

As television became more popular, printed media began to decline. Pop, conceptual art and Postmodern art became popular and viewers wanted a single image instead of several. These images still fitted into land and cityscapes, still life and narrative.

The disadvantage of a photobook (catalogue, archive) was that the individual images described but did not articulate on their own. "Visual facts don't speak very well for themselves." (http://davidcampany.com/almost-the-same-thing-some-thoughts-on-the-photographer-as-collector/ accessed 29/6/15) Campany cites Walker Evans as saying "a document has use, whereas art is really useless." (http://davidcampany.com/almost-the-same-thing-some-thoughts-on-the-photographer-as-collector/ accessed 29/6/15)

The Bechers' placed their images centrally in the frame; Baltz' images were abstract and this created a challenge for the viewer not knowing how to read a single image because the brain prefers to look at contrast, differences, comparison, dialogue between the images, repetition etc.  Once the images were grouped together they were easier to look at. In a way, the viewer looked at the work twice - once as a stand alone image and as a montage.

When television viewing overtook photography as an art form, it enabled photography to be critiqued as art. Videos became the norm and photography was slow. It described things rather than instants.

The difference between a straight image and a snapshot is that a straight image describes people or things and a snapshot dramatises the event. With snapshots, the photographer takes hundreds of images (veracity and voracity) Winogrand and Egglestone. Two methods - reportage style versus amateur family album. All images are connected under capitalism - manufacture, leisure, consumption, work etc. Campany's final comment was that photography accumulates like modern life, so make one say something about the other.

This reminded me of an exhibition at Format Festival in Derby in 2013 looking at negatives retrieved from a rubbish dump of family life of the Chinese who had cameras. These amateur family snapshots had been grouped on the wall in categories such as the annual holiday, a trip to McDonalds, bedrooms decorated with posters of Western icons, documenting China's rise in capitalism.

References

http://www.tate.org.uk/about/press-office/press-releases/cruel-and-tender-real-twentieth-century-photograph accessed 29th June 2015

http://davidcampany.com/almost-the-same-thing-some-thoughts-on-the-photographer-as-collector/ accessed 29/6/15

Bibliography
http://davidcampany.com/almost-the-same-thing-some-thoughts-on-the-photographer-as-collector/ accessed 29/6/15






New Topographics

Notes from Sean O'Hagan's article on New Topographies 

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/feb/08/new-topographics-photographs-american-landscapes accessed 29/6/15

Nearly 40 years ago, William Jenkins curated an exhibition in New York entitled "Photographs of a Man altered Landscape" featuring 1970's urban America. It was not well received by the public. Mundane, surburban, reaction to ideological landscape images, going against tradition such as Adams and Weston.

Exhibiting photographers included:

Frank Golke

Robert Adams - political statements - empty streets, pristine trailer parks, suburban development, uniformity

Lewis Baltz- stark - office walls and buildings, industrial

Nicholas Nixon - inner city development, sky scrapers, grids, freeways, unreality, pedestrians seen as interlopers

Stephen Shore - colour. Influenced by Ed Ruscha. "Heightened sense of detachment of anonymous intersections and streets." 

The Bechers -stark salt mines, european

Walker Evans - billboards, motels, shop fronts, nostalgia

Described as mundane, banal, although at this time it was not acceptable to photograph this subject. People did have a concern in the world becoming urbanised. Students captured views of visitors.



Topographics Movement

Banal subjects are photographed, exhibited and collected as art. Other photographers include Andreas Gursky, Donovan Wylie, Paul Graham.

All the photographers featured use a different style to photograph the banal or mundane urban landscape. What constitutes a mundane subject, and is it mundane or uninteresting to everyone? In my opinion not all subjects are mundane to everyone. I think it depends on whether you are interested or bored with the familiarity of the subject. 

I was aware of the topographics movement and had previously studied the work of the Bechers, Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz. Their work interests me - the Bechers because of its uniformity and lack of people, Robert Adams for his political stance, especially his work on deforestation and Lewis Baltz's geometric designs. I think topography has an audience, and as O'Hagan suggested, the audience was not ready at the time. Contextually, the USA was enjoying capitalism and perhaps did not want to be shown how the landscape was changing around them and the countryside was being built on. Maybe it was too political an issue? Perhaps we look back with nostalgia at how American urban landscapes used to be, so our opinion of the work has changed because the images are now accepted. We may not have been directly involved with the political issues of the time and change for some people is never well accepted. However, this aside, reading another article by O'Hagan (2012), Gursky's Rhein III fetched £2.7m in 2011 at Christies Auction. So now there is an audience for topography. This image could be described as a banal subject, and I appreciate that it may fit in with a colour scheme in a minimalist modern house or office. 

Personally, I like the work of Robert Adams and Nicholas Nixon. Nixon's urban images of towns with skyscrapers or large buildings follow all the conventions of a landscape photographer and remind me of John Davies's work which I think follows similar conventions.

Having experimented in Photography 1 with topography and revisiting  the Lewis Baltz clip, I appreciate how this subject is about the angles of the buildings. I studied bridges across the River Trent (a banal subject) and I was surprised at just how many attempts it took me to get the angle right so that it became a straight image rather than a snapshot. 

I also looked at the Watchtowers and Maze Prison images by Donovan Wylie. To me there is repetition; however the images I could associate with were the cells with different curtains, allowing the prisoners a little individuality in a uniform building. I associate with the idea put forward by Campany that the viewer looks at these images twice. I think if they were exhibited in a group, The viewer would go from one to another looking at each individual image and then look at them as a whole.


Bibliography

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/feb/08/new-topographics-photographs-american-landscapes accessed 29/6/15

https://fraenkelgallery.com/portfolios/new-topographics accessed 29/6/15

http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/tateshots-lewis-baltz accessed 29/6/15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQekhfX73zE (Donovan Wylie - Outposts) accessed 29/6/15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naoxP-iLvqU (Donovan Wylie - The Maze Prizon) accessed 29/6/15

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/nov/16/sean-ohagan-photography-art-form accessed 29/6/15

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL53Z3Z3#/CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL53Z3Z3&POPUPIID=29YL530X3SO5&POPUPPN=13 (Donovan Wylie) accessed 29/6/15

Explore a road

June 2015

...roads are all something we have in common. Make a short series of photographs about a road near where you live...use this exercise to develop the observational skills that will be challenged in Assignment 2. The object is to try to think about something that is familiar to you in a different way. ...Work intuitively and try not to labour the exercise. Compile a digital contact sheet from your shoot and evaluate your work, identifying images of particular interest-to you or, potentially to a wider audience.

Kirklington Road, Rainworth, Notts

My village is experiencing a growth period with the development of new housing estates and building of new playgrounds for the children. Services such as health care and schools have expanded and the way to sell a new house seems to be to make a "youtube" video of the new build to welcome people in. I found this quite limiting as it does not tell the interested party anything about the village itself. The village is based around a crossroads - one of these being the A617 which runs from Chesterfield to Newark. As the amount of traffic increased, a bypass was built around the village. This has not altered the use of the services and amenities.

I aimed to show the potential resident some of the facilities, amenities and historical points of interest along just one road in the village; from a range of houses, football ground, petrol station, fish and chip shop, village hall, miners welfare, function rooms, school, surgery, dentist, scrap metal collection and public transport. Pavements are wide for children and pushchairs, safety has been considered, houses are cared for and there are plenty of seats - for sitting and watching the world go by.

I considered taking the images in the style of Lee Friedlander's America by Car, because I often drive down this road. As it was a pleasant evening, I walked and found it more sociable as many of the older residents stopped to chat when they saw my camera. I learnt much more about the current affairs of the village and the vandalism to the newest play area which is just off this road. I would not have had this experience in the car. This is what appealed to me about the journey made along the HS2 line by Toby Smith.

This work could be developed by including people; for example a group of people playing bowls on the lawn, a resident sitting on one of the many benches, an event happening at the Village Hall. By photographing earlier in the day, the gates on the surgery would be open and the village would look more lively.

My selection - I discovered when narrowing down the images that I should have had a clear idea of what I was trying to show first. I could show for example, cigarette butts in the layby next to the bus stop, the wine bottles in the bin, the plaster peeling off the houses but does that fit with the audience I am trying to show? This will be important for my Assignment 2 plan.

Still thinking about Friedlander's work, I considered how the A1 might be represented  by a photographer using his style of work. My daughter took a couple of images for me when I was driving, such as moving traffic e.g. being behind a lorry and roadworks - typical of many a journey. I was able to experiment when I reached the destination. I can see how restrictive the view is with parts of the car in, and as a viewer I want to see what is around the corner or further to the left/right. The viewer is only seeing what I want them to see.

Watch one of the films mentioned in this section or any other "road movie" of your choice. Write a short review (around 500 words) focusing on how the road features within the film's narrative.

Road to Perdition (2002) Director Sam Mendes

The synopsis of the film is that a child whose father works for gangsters stows away in the family car to discover the occupation of his father. Upon witnessing his father at work, the son unintentionally puts the family at risk. His mother and brother are killed by gangsters and father and son flee on a road trip to Chicago, (perdition or Hell) during which time the father sets out to create an emotional bond with his son and teach him how to survive. The father robs banks of his former employers to survive and eventually Al Capone dispatches a hitman (photographer) to kill the father. By the end of the film the boy is safe.

The meaning of the film is that the father chose the road he was on which was not the best and he hopes that his son will choose differently.

At the beginning of the film, the boy rides his bike around the frozen town, symbolic of the boy’s emotionally cold relationship with his father. It gives a sense of place to the town which is referred to during the journey when things are not going well.

As the film moves to the road trip, there are beautiful shots of the car in wide open countryside with soft lighting (used throughout) and a sense that life will be alright. These scenes are light and airy, and features greens and browns as the predominant colours. The car is seen from all angles; inside the bonnet, an aerial shot and from inside observing the boy’s interest as the scenery changes from country to big city. The snow disappears and they carry straight on through the crossroads.

As the danger increases, the road becomes darker, especially when they approach the diner where the assassin will meet the father whilst the son is left alone in the car. At this point the father realizes that he needs to teach his son survival skills so he teaches his son to drive. His attitude changed and he started to enjoy his son. A ground level shot of the boy driving past added some speed.

As they approach the town to rob banks, the boy acted as the chauffer, dropping his father off and picking him up. There are some great scenes through the window of the car driving past with the boy driving. The relationship changed again, with the two acting as a partnership.

The boy drove his father when he became wounded and the journey became more urgent with close ups of action inside the car. They are looked after by an elderly couple and as they leave, the weather is brighter with sunshine and the journey has hope again.

The story takes another turn as the father goes back with the son to end the lives of the gangsters of the town and make life more bearable for the future. Once again, the scenes are dark, the rain is torrential and a little misty adding to the drama.

In the last part of the drive, the boy has his head out of the car; it has turned into excitement and the end of all their troubles; the start of a new life. However, the father is killed. The final part of the drive is long shot of the boy driving to the house with the elderly couple to start a new life.

This film summed up a road trip for me – it had a beginning and an end, was shot from different angles through diverse scenery and showed life inside and outside the car.

Territorial Photography

June 2015

Exercise 2.1 Territorial Photography

Read Snyder's essay and summarize the key points. Find and evaluate two photographs by any of the photographers Snyder mentions. Evaluate, reflecting on some of the key points that Snyder makes, as well as any other references.

Pre 1850 photographers were not competing with other mediums.  Photographers were from a privileged background and used the medium to record personal work. Audiences were small and there was no market for their work due to the cost of printing.

By the mid 1850's photographs were accepted as being a different form of art due to the "mechanical" nature of photographs. Contextually photography fitted in with industrialization. Attracted the middle classes who were able to develop the technology of printing and establish a "high finish and endless detail that consequently were thought to be precise, accurate and faithful to the objects or scenes they represented". (p175) Photography developed through new professionals and became gloss instead of matte and the tones were standardized to sepia.  Mass  production became the norm.

From the 1850's a commercial market developed for travel architecture and tourism. Small printing houses were set up to print and sell to tourists at or near to the geographic site as prints or albums. This was the beginning of commercialism.

Carelton Watkins (1829-1916)
In the 1860's, Watkins developed 20x24" negatives. He photographed places such as the Yosemite Park, Pacific Coast, Utah and Nevada. He set the standard for Commercial Landscape Photographers and was commissioned by California State Geological Survey for Mining and Lumbar Interests. He documented a "visual harmony between the land and new tokens of progress symbolized by the industrial landscape itself."(p187) He recorded the progress and change of landscape "by harmonising nature and industry"(p188) so that people felt they could develop a picturesque area. 

Timothy H O'Sullivan (1840-1882)
In contrast, O'Sullivan started his career as a war photographer documenting battlegrounds and was chosen by Clarence King, a geologist to explore the uncharted interior of the country. King refused military support for his venture, believing in new ways of working. During 1867-1874, O'Sullivan documented the inhospitable landscape during two expeditions; "Clarence King's Geological Explorations of the 40th Parallel and the Geographical and Geological Explorations West of the One Hundredth Meridian. His only brief was to "give a sense of the area" (p192) and his images were not included as evidence in the reports.

O'Sullivan's work was discovered by Ansel Adams who sent them to Beaumont Newhall, acting curator of photography at MOMA in New York who labelled them as prototypical modernist photographic landscapes.O'Sullivan portrayed the landscape as inhospitable, anti picturesque and sublime and not somewhere man would want to develop. If King sent images to the financiers of the project when requested, if the images were received as being inhospitable, King had complete control of the land.

Throughout the essay, I was reminded of the work in part 1 concerning photographers being photographers or art photographers. Watkins is a photographer and an O'Sullivan art photographer.

Carelton Watkins

Trestle on Central Pacific Rail Road 1880

This image was trimmed by Watkins to show the Chinese labourers and the Caucasian foreman working in the inhospitable landscape. The curve of the railroad linking the mountains to the foreground is elegant and leads the eye towards the back of the image. This shows man has tamed the land, transport will make places accessible and people would be encouraged to move to the area. Here Watkins has literally emphasized order of the environment. By using a completed foreground building and partially constructed railroad, reducing shadows and highlights, the mid tones do make the photograph easier on the eye. This image is balanced with the workers and reminiscent of his images of Yosemite. The left side looks untouched whilst the right side is busy with well spaced out carts. Watkins labelled this image himself as California Tourists Association.




Timothy H O'Sullivan

Southside of Insription Rock, New Mexico

O'Sullivan used a tight crop on this image giving the impression that the land surrounding this rock may have been inhospitable too. In choosing to photograph  this rock he was acknowledging that others had lived here too. There was a small amount of land visible in the image but not enough to colonize. This rock formation could be seen as a "monstrosity or grotesquerie". It is sublime in its grandeur, and does not conform to contemporary landscapes. If the viewer of the time looked at other photographs of the area, they would probably decide not to venture into this inhospitable land.









References
Mitchell WJT (ed) (2002) Landscape and Power, The University of Chicago Press (p175-201) p175, p177, p178, p192,

Bibliography
Mitchell WJT (ed) (2002) Landscape and Power, The University of Chicago Press (p175-201)
http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/101195/carleton-watkins-trestle-on-central-pacific-railroad-american-negative-1877-print-about-1880/
http://www.carletonwatkins.org/index.php#
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/osullivan/index.cfm
http://petapixel.com/2013/09/02/amazing-19th-century-photographs-american-west-timothy-osullivan/

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.

Rafal Zaborowski March 26^th 2012 Minibus passenger

Philip Dawn 2^nd May 2012 Cyclist

Keron Dawes 5^th May 2012 Motorcyclist

One of 2 possible motorcycle deaths 2009 or 2011

Marcus Karrigan Atkinson 25^th January 2014 Pillion passenger

Jay Thompson, Ross Johnson, Josh Drinkwater,
Tom Hudson 13^th February 2009 Car driver and passengers

Harrison Carlin 1^st July 2012 Cyclist

References

Adams, R (1996) Beauty in Photography, Essay Beauty in Photography p23-48, Aperture, New York (p27)

http://weareoca.com/fine_art/study-visit-manchester-artmmu/?utm_source=Student+Body+%28On+prog%2FDormant+-+Updated+23%2F04%2F2015%29&utm_campaign=f5d8b413bc-E_Bulletin_21_May_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ddfac2d64f-f5d8b413bc- accessed 21/5/15

Barthes R, (2000) Camera Lucida, Vintage, UK p53

Bibliography

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

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

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

Crane, W (1905) Ideals in Art, Chiswick Press, London

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

http://weareoca.com/fine_art/study-visit-manchester-artmmu/?utm_source=Student+Body+%28On+prog%2FDormant+-+Updated+23%2F04%2F2015%29&utm_campaign=f5d8b413bc-E_Bulletin_21_May_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ddfac2d64f-f5d8b413bc- accessed 21/5/15

64600333http://www.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/speedkills/accessed 15/5/15

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/christine-riding-and-nigel-llewellyn-british-art-and-the-sublime-r1109418accessed 5/5/15

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/julian-bell-contemporary-art-and-the-sublime-r1108499 accessed 5/5/15

http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/staring-contemporary-abyss accessed 5/5/15

http://www.petercroteau.photography/roadside-sublime.html accessed 5/5/15

http://www.wildculture.com/article/new-english-landscape/1432 accessed 5/5/15

http://andybarter.com/main/?p=527accessed 5/5/15

http://webpages.charter.net/dnance/descansos accessed 5/5/15

http://www.murblanc.org/larue/passage/ accessed 5/5/15

http://memoryconnection.org/article/materialising-memory-the-public-lives-of-roadside-crash-shrines-2/accessed 5/5/15

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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y23j accessed 5/5/15

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