Research Point: Contemporary Awareness 3

Jeffrey Stockbridge

Another photographer that, for me, has an inspiring body of work is Jeffrey Stockbridge. 'Kensington Blues' made on the streets of Kensington Avenue, North Philadelphia, features portraits of the area's inhabitants. The area is consumed with drug dealing, crime and deprivation. With that said the portraits, always made outside on the street, portray the subjects with an inner calm. A calm before the storm perhaps, as the visual narrative that can be read on the subjects faces and bodies tells a different story. The subjects are mostly youthful, and their youth gives them a strength to hold out against the abuse of their bodies - but the strain is there to be seen.

'Tic Tac and Tootsie' a portrait of twin sisters that are homeless and addicted, took third place in the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize in 2010. Alongside the portraits Stockbridge has documented Kensington Avenue itself from a Social Documentary perspective. Images of empty houses, boarded windows and rubbish strewn back alleys are photographed along with letters and found objects.

The street scenes and found objects add context to the portraits and the series is a substantial piece of work.
http://www.jeffreystockbridge.com

Paul Floyd Blake

'Personal Best' featuring portraits of young Olympic athletes, is Blake's best known piece of work. He won the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize for his image (from the series) of paralympian swimmer Rosie Bancroft. The subjects look calm and contemplative and have a quiet determination about them. Blake uses a 5x4 film camera to slow down his image making and I'm wondering if this is translated to his subjects as he works through his artistic process. I remember at a talk by the photographer Tom Hunter that he mentioned how more seriously his subjects took the session when what was perceived as a 'professional' camera was used.

Blake states in an article for The Guardian that:

"The series is probably less about sport than it is about young people growing up and the transition from childhood into adulthood," he said. "These teenagers exist in this ultra-professional world that can often be very isolating. It is about them growing up and how the experiences they have now shape them for the future." Guardian (2012).

The images of these young athletes certainly show a different side to their character compared to the usually overly slick action packed commercial photography that we are used to seeing of sports people.

The other work of photographer Paul Floyd Blake shows how portraits can be done in a much less formal style. The work feels like a mixture of portrait and social documentary. Posed shots to the camera, often taken on the street, look so much more natural than traditional studio work. Portrait images are interspersed with landscape and detail shots using a visual language that reminds me of Alec Soth. Portraits are also taken in the subjects home adding another layer of context.

I prefer this kind of informal portraiture to the more traditional studio shots that used to be the stock in trade of more traditional portrait photographers; particularly celebrity and famous people work. They look so terribly contrived to me. The performance by the subjects are usually cranked up to the maximum and so easy to spot. Actors want to look serious, comedians funny, writers thoughtful, etc. Of course we all wear masks and even the subjects of the more natural looking street portraits are still performing in some way. I suppose the more contemporary work just feels fresher - maybe it will look just as contrived in twenty years time - who knows?

http://www.paulfloydblake.co.uk




References:

The Guardian. 2012. [online] [Available] http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/nov/04/taylor-wessing-photography-prize Accessed 27th May 2015.

Deutsche Borse Prize 2015 - The Photographer's Gallery

Nikolai Bakharev

His day job a communal services factory photographer in 1970s USSR, Bakharev also photographed families relaxing at the beach. The images are small, tightly framed B&W photographs in the tradition of social documentary photography. The images are mostly posed with the subjects looking directly at the camera. They were taken at a time under the Communist regime when photographs of personal intimacy and nudity were frowned upon (the subjects are mostly wearing bathing costumes). The photographs are well composed and aesthetically pleasing.

During the student discussion of the work afterwards it was mentioned that they had a surreptitious feeling of being behind the bike sheds; that as images they felt tight and closed. I didn't pick up on this feeling myself. I actually made a note at the time that the people look relaxed and happy to be taking part in the making of the portraits; that there is 'no sense of restrictive behaviour' as indicated in the artist's statement; I wonder if the small print size, and tight framing helps to direct the viewer towards the closed reading. I feel I want to go back and take another look at these photographs to see if I can discern an alternate reading to my first reaction.

Zanelle Muholi

This work was the standout exhibit for me. Muholi photographs black LGBTI people in South Africa. Her portrait work shows people solidly united in the face of prejudice, intimidation, violence, torture and often murder. The portraits are B&W, printed to poster size, and pinned with no visible wall space between them. They form a solid block of people united against adversity. To me the subject's eyes all speak one message; the words of Mulholi herself. "If I wait for someone to validate my existence, it means I will shortchange myself." Mulholi (2015)

On a side wall two video screens tell the stories of Lesbian women that have been tortured for their sexuality by their own communities. These are quite horrific and too much to listen to at times. The events are simply told almost matter of fact, such as a woman's teeth found scattered around the area of her murdered body - these details stay in the mind. The term 'Curative Rape' is mentioned. It seems that some men and supportive women will use any justification to freely abuse their power over others. I've often noted that Homophobic hate crimes can be extremely sadistic and the perpetrators often seem to relish their ability to cause pain and torture.

On the opposite wall to the video screens is a sheet that has a number of written messages of support from the UK LGBT community. Although we have legal protection in the UK this added element to the exhibition is a reminder that in many societies there is still much to be done to achieve full equality and that hate crimes still take place everywhere. There is no getting away from the fact that some people just wished that LGBTI people didn't exist; that we should just shut up about asking for something as basic as wanting equal rights with the rest of society.

The wall opposite to the portraits had a slideshow projection. These photographs were mostly in colour, less formal at times, and showed wedding groups, displays of affection between couples - a more social side to the subjects. To me the contrast made an important statement; that this is how LGBTI people want to be. The unity portrait posters on the opposite wall are more political. They show how we have to be.

Mikhail Subotzky & Patrick Waterhouse

This work depicts the demise of a high-rise tower block in South Africa. Two, tall light boxes, containing images the size business cards create an impressive visual display when seen at a distance - almost like stained glass windows. When viewed up close we can see that the images make up views out of the Ponte City tower blocks windows, interspersed with interior room scenes. On another side of the light box the inhabitants TV Screens are photographed. The larger wall prints depict scenes in and around the high-rise. Some of the prints had small found photographs pinned to them, adding an extra layer of intertextuality. The found objects continued on another wall with what looked like an old lace table cover, letters and more found photographs. The work was visually interesting, though I understand it suffered from lack of space at the Photographer's Gallery compared to its recent showing at the Arles Photo Festival.

Vivianne Sasson

'Umbra' is Latin for 'shadow' apparently. From a visual perspective this work was much more conceptual than the other pieces. The artist's statement says that the work is 'a manifestation of the human psyche'. The artist has chosen to depict this state in a number of different ways. There are purely abstract pieces that contort and intersect visual planes that confuse the eye. The work reminds me somewhat of Laura Letinsky's folded paper taped to walls, they create the same effect too. Sharon Boothroyd mentioned Jason Evans and I can also see a similarity in the work.

There were also more conventional photographic prints that featured shadows or blacked out sections in one form or another. What was interesting was that some items were framed, some tacked by their top edges only, leaving the bottom of the photographic paper to curl outwards. Was this intentional? The artist must have know that by not tacking all four corners that this curling would occur. Is it to reference the multiple planes of the more abstract pieces?


Context

When I think about my own work I can relate it to Zanelle Mulhoni's exhibit. They are both about identity and in particular LGBTI. Whereas Mulhoni has looked at the subject from a political perspective with social elements, I have taken a more conceptual approach with the fictional hidden history - particularly in terms of the "Rubber Flapper' work. My other assignments too have mainly looked at identity in one aspect or another. I'm still finding my way with this subject - taking different approaches, looking at personal and larger social issues.

I can also take away something from the 'Ponte City' work too. Subotzky and Waterhouse's use of found objects is an element in art making that has always intrigued me. I have used appropriated images from the Internet in my first assignment. Could these be considered a kind of cyber found object? I'm not sure. With Sasson I wonder when I get to my level 3 studies if my work will indeed become much more abstracted. I feel I might be moving that way, but my sense of narrative is probably too strong to ever make a completely abstract piece of work.








References:

Mulholi, Z. Exhibition video excerpt. The Photographers Gallery, London. 2015.

Redheaded Peckerwood - Christian Patterson

This book was recommended to me by fellow students at an OCA TV group meeting (thanks, John). I'd presented my 'Rubber Flapper' work and the discussion had moved on to my ideas for presenting the work in book format.

Redheaded Peckerwood is a book that visualizes the true-life story of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. In 1957 the couple went on a road-trip shooting spree across Wyoming and Nebraska. The book contains a combination of trial photographs from the newspapers of the day, the photographer's images of described events, places the couple visited and reproductions of evidence often found on the victim's bodies. The book has an intriguing mix of the real and the imagined.

The introduction is in the form of a small booklet attached to the inside cover. It looks like it is typed on a mechanical typewriter and the fold-out format is an indication of the overall quirkiness of the book to come.

The layout and picture format are what really interested me. The images jump about from page to page. They change ratio and orientation. Analysing the way the spreads are set out will be really useful in helping to inform my 'Rubber Flapper' book design ideas.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the aforementioned pieces of evidence. They are inserted between the pages in their original ratios. For example, there is a gas station receipt that is much smaller than the book pages. It looked almost like it had been placed between the pages as a bookmark. Later in the book, a larger fold-out sheet, containing a poem, helps to add a sense of being able to touch real life artifacts. These little changes in format are interesting ways to enhance the narrative and are very effective.

Juxtaposition is used very effectively to visually enrich the narrative. We know from the books introduction that Robert Colvert, a young gas station attendant, was murdered by Starkweather. So when we see a brightly painted advertisement 'Ask for Ethyl' facing another image of a luminous oil spill we are left in no doubt about the metaphor - for the life that was shed on the concrete of a gas station forecourt.

There are other metaphors for murder too. Starkweather and Fugate murder a number of 15 year old Fugate's relatives along the way. Bullet holes in walls; a small knife protruding from peeling plasterwork - spilled ink. As we turn the pages we are taken on a death-trip across sombre landscapes; dirty beds with rumpled sheets; telephone wires in old houses - telling a tale of flight through the landscape; sleep captured fitfully and ill at ease.

The most compelling aspect of Redheaded Peckerwood is the seamless integration of real and imagined events, blended and brought together. As the viewer we do not know what is real or imagined - nor do we care. We are on our own vouyeuristic road-trip. Just like Starkweather and Fugate we've seen this movie before. We already know what the ending will be.