Phillip Toledano

‘When I was six’ is a book  produced by Phillip Toledano based on the remembrance of his sister who died when he was six years old. The project is a work of memories, sadness and silence based on a profound absence of a family member. The book combines words and images, photographs that are new, old and found. Lots of the photographs are of items found in a box from the attic his mother hid away but still cherished, which he discovered after her death. Little momentoes that belonged to his sister such as; a lock of her hair, a fan letter written in crayon and a personalised pencil. All of these items create a narrative of remembrance, each photograph has an intense personal meaning attached to it. Toledano photographs them in an almost forensic way, as if it were evidence that she was alive. He is included photographs of planets and space travel, this is symbolic of his feelings regarding the absence of his beloved sister. Toledano wanted to represent a vast and empty world which his life became, possibly an untouchable and distant world much like death. 

I think Toledano’s ‘When I was six’ project has been influential when researching family themed photographers, he takes a different approach compared to other photographer and experiments with a difficult topic to photograph. I found the idea of memory inspiring as you are able to photograph memories that represent the individual that you no longer have. 

Another project of Toledano’s is ‘Days with my father’, a simple journal of intimate photographs of his father after his mother died in 2006. The images taken were of his father in his final years, focusing on their relationship and the importance of family. There were funny, sad and loving observations, an honest and emotional documenting of excepting and coming to terms with an aging parent.  ‘I like photographs to be unfinished sentences’- Phillip Toledano. 

Julian Germain

Julian Germain’s body of work ‘For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness’, is a detailed, honest and earnest portrayal of an old man’s life. Germain photographed Charles Snelling in the early nineties,  photographing this elderly man was the not the main premise to begin with, the companionship was the primary reason. Despite this Germain still managed to fill two third’s of a book with the images she produced. The other third Germain used scrapbook albums, the design of the pages reflected a true representation of the actual albums for example yellow pages and dog-eared covers. The scrapbook allows an insight into Snelling’s life before Germain began photographing him, his beloved wife Betty who died was the central figure. The authenticity of the book is one outsiders are not able to capture. The snapshots have a cinematic feel to the image and through using scrapbook images a sense of time shifting is brought to the project.

Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism (the collecting, editing, and presenting of news material for publication or broadcast) that employs images in order to tell a news story. They’re still images that tell a story usually to exploit news to across the world. Photographing news for an assignment is one of the most ethical problems photographers face Photojournalists have a moral responsibility to decide what pictures to take, what picture to stage, and what pictures to show the public. The public is attracted to gruesome photographs and dramatic stories. A lot of controversy arises when deciding which photographs are too violent to show the public, but ultimately it gets their attention.

There are 3 types of photojournalism:

Timeliness – The images have meaning in the context of a recently published record of events.

Objectivity – The situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate representation of the events they depict in both content and tone.

Narrative – The images combine with other news elements to make facts relatable to the viewer or reader on a cultural level.

Examples of Photojournalism:

Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer. He has had around 40 solo photobooks published, and has featured in around 80 exhibitions worldwide.

“He is known for his photographic projects that take an intimate, satirical and anthropological look at aspects of modern life, in particular documenting the social classes of England, and more broadly the wealth of the Western world.”

His work caught my eye as some of the photos he has taken are a similar kind of style to what I would like to do with my project. Although this is not the focus of his photography, some of his photos show places where people have gathered for some reason, which interests me a lot.

Some of the photos show places where the people are all there for their own separate needs. For example, the Diamond Hill Cemetery, as shown above, and the Ferry below. These people are here by themselves, but they are all their for similar reasons.

Then there are places where something has been organised, so people are purposely all gathered in that place for the same thing.

This is the kind of thing I would like to explore within my work, places people accidentally gather, and places people purposely gather for specific purposes and events.

“Martin goes to Benidorm and explores further what is possible with the telephoto lens.”

“Over the summers of 2013 and 2014, Martin explored life on the Amalfi Coast, Italy.”

Street Photography relates to study of people in public places, usually, but not always in an urban environment. The person is usually photographed without any awareness, or only half-awareness of such. Street photography is a form of social  documentary which aims to capture interesting moments of people, in ordinary settings. Because street photography is spontaneous and candid, it is very difficult to properly frame a photograph. Therefore street photography takes a great deal of patience and practice, because the photographer must develop an intuitive sense of knowing exactly when to take a photograph.

Street Photography began in the 1950s and 1960s.  During this period of history there were great social and political changes around the world as a result of the end of WWII, triggering Cold War and accelerating the collapse of Empire around the world, leading to many people changing and questioning the outdated conservative views of societies all around the world. During this period technology was also greatly advancing, and people’s perspective of the world was rapidly changing as a result. The lives of everyday people was altering rapidly and photographers needed a way to reflect this. Photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank took to the streets during this time, exploring how ordinary people went about their everyday life, undisrupted. Street Photography was a protest against the belief that photographing people had to have a particular focus or genre (War Photography had dominated Documentary Photography during the time). Instead,  street photographers would literally photograph anything that interested them on the street, and so would work very spontaneously.

Street photography can be seen as quite controversial due to the fact that the people being photographed usually do not consent to the image being taken, regardless of whether the subject is happy with it or not. In the UK photographers have a legal right to photograph members of the general public, permission is however needed to publish photographs. Nevertheless many people view this as an invasion of personal privacy. I find it interesting how over time this idea has become more extreme, as the possibilities technology and social media has grown to an extent that people are often fearful of being photographed  by complete strangers.

This website gives an overview of the legal and moral considerations street photographers need to take when taking photographers.

Finding the right moment to take a photograph is a common ambition and theme that many street photographers strive to achieve. Street photography is very much about the element of luck and chance, being in the right place at the right time. I addition to this, street photographers are also required to know exactly how to frame the  photograph right, as an effective street photograph is the balance of effective mood ad composition.Henri Cartier Bresson termed this as the ‘decisive moment’

This YouTube video is a tutorial by Magnum Photographer Bruce Gilden, himself a famous and suucesful street photographer. It is a very honest and blunt insight into Gilden’s opinions of what makes a good street photograph