Daily Archives: October 5, 2015

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Exhibition

Tom Pope

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Before the summer holidays we met Tom Pope for the first time at the Jersey Societe where he talked about his projects planned for the summer. I recently visited his exhibition in town where his final work was shown. There was a several different works that all were associated with Jersey as an Island.  Overall I found Tom’s work very interesting as it was created off of a contextual background, I liked seeing how he worked the Jersey archive into his projects.

The Film

The main piece of Tom’s work that I found interesting was the film. This was presented on a projector down in the ‘dungeon’. Tom’s film was about his adventure that he had where he travelled across Jersey with an old fisherman’s boat that he had bought locally. His Journey started at the Hungry man, and finished out at St Ouen’s bay with a beautiful sunset. Tom had a group of constantly changing people who helped him push the boat to the other side of the island. Alongside this group of helpers, Tom organised for some local musicians to come and play along side him as entertainment. He also encouraged the public to come and take part.

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Here is a photograph of Tom’s film being presented in the dungeon

I really like the experimentation that Tom used in his video through sound, it was all sounds that were relevant to the action going on in the film. For example the sound of footsteps, or the sound of drilling when making the wooden crate with wheels on (which the boat rested on so it could be pushed easier). I think that the use of sound made the video more exciting as a viewer as it is appealing to more than one of the senses, hearing, as well as visual. Because of the use of sound, I found that this film differed from Tom’s usual style of work as he usually does not edit the video’s and just presents them as they are filmed. I think its interesting that Tom has experimented with editing the video, and shows that his work is beginning to change as he experiments with new presentation tools.

Throughout the film, black and white images appear, These images had been selected from the Jersey archive by Tom, and had given him inspiration to create the projects that he did. I really like that Tom’s projects have more depth to them, and hold some context of Jersey’s history. A further way that Tom used the Jersey archive in his work was his Badge Project.

The Badge Project

Tom Pope enjoys using the element of change and playfulness through his work, to make it more exciting and random. A project where he expressed these ways of working was through his Badge Project. Tom looked at over thousands of photographs in the Jersey Archive and selected some that particularly took his eye. These photographs he copied and enlarged.

“Many of Pope’s works are interdisciplinary, combining performance, photography and moving image” -Gareth Syvret

Tom bought these archive photographs out to different events with him and asked members of the public to flip a disk onto one of the photographs. Wherever the disk landed, he would use that circle of the photograph and make it into a badge. Tom did this project as he wanted to start getting old photographs from the Jersey archive back into everyday life. So rather than doing this in a more traditional way he decided to do it in an abstract way of creating an accessory.

I like the selection of images for the project, because they are all in black and white, therefor give that ‘old photograph’ feel. I also think that these photographs come from a range of different times which makes the project even more abstract and intriguing for me. All of the photographs were presented in a pile with the cut out badge holes in them. I like that the images presented at the exhibition were the original photographs used in the games however I didn’t like they way they were presented. They were all in a pile, therefor you couldn’t see any of the images except the top one.

An interesting way that this project could have been developed, would be if the old archive images were connected, in a visual way to recent photographs. For example the badge project to have also been played on recent images, to bring the whole collection of Jersey’s images together.

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This is one of the archive images that Tom had selected for his badge project. You can see were parts of the image have been removed to make into badges

Here are some other images taken from Tom Pope’s exhibition;

Mr T instruction, Research

Standards and Ethics in Documentary Photography

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Photographers actually have a code of ethics when making documentary photos. This mostly consists of photographers not taking advantage of a staged photo opportunity. This is only for photojournalists as they are simply supposed to be bare witness and should not manipulate the scene to make for a more interesting and visually pleasing image. I think that this is the best concept for photojournalists as they shouldn’t manipulate the truth as it is news reporting and will be shown across the world as fact. I believe that this method of photojournalism is important to be followed and agreed upon in the photographic world. I think that this code of ethics does not apply to documentary photography in itself as I think that photographers are able to make stronger images if they are able to slightly manipulate and remould the way the photograph is going to turn out. Documentary photographers are able to collaborate with their subject in order to make great images, like asking them to look directly at the screen emotionless. Photographers are able to send out a message to the world and to challenge spectators views on different issues including, political, social and economic ones. For me tableaux photography has no limits and no rules, it is completely staged and the photographer has complete control. Here photographers are able to freely express themselves often with hidden meaning that includes the political, social and economic meanings behind them.

Agreement made by photojournalists:   https://nppa.org/code_of_ethics

I believe that there is a certain point in documentary photography where it can all become too real in that the photographer might be photographing during a war and suddenly they come across a soldier covered in blood. The question is should they make the photograph or should they try and help them? There has always been a lot of controversy with this topic but for me I believe that taking that one photograph can change the world. The photographer doesn’t need to make the photograph and walk away as if there is nothing going on, they have the opportunity to share the torment and the troubles that these individuals go through in order to reach a broader audience. It is one thing to hear someone say that a small child was washed up on the shore but it is another to actually see it. These kind of documentary photos really put your own life into perspective, they provoke change making more and more people want to go out and help whether that be raising money or changing who they vote for or even going out to that country and personally helping those in need. So yes I think that that photo should be taken because through that single image we as a society are able to provoke change in the way people think. Spectators will see these hard hitting images and want to make change. Without these images we wouldn’t be able to really visualise what others across the world are going through. These types of images may anger people and make them wonder why someone who make an image rather than help a person but ultimately they will be the ones getting the message out and getting more people to help.

The link below is from a photography competition. The photographer used a drone with a camera attached to this to make these images, they are supposed to represent the drones that the US send out intelligent airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. These attacks have been going on since 2002 and have resulted in large numbers of fatalities, this includes hundreds of civilians. These images were made across the US that are usual airstrike locations and events abroad [funerals, groups of people exercising or praying and weddings]. This photographer made these images to get the message across to the US of what they are doing to average and innocent civilians in their own country doing their own thing. This reminds me of the image of the young girl with her clothing burned off by the acid bomb attack America made on Japan, but more this image reminds me of the Banksy version of that photograph.

Banksy’s image is world known and really sends out a message to the rest of the world as this young girl is crying and screaming as her clothes and skin are being burned she is holding hands with Mickey Mouse and Ronald Mcdonald who are known to the world as American ‘icons’ in that people would associate them with America. I think that this is a very strong image and makes the spectator rethink and understand that what the US was doing was affecting innocent civilians and not the people that it was actually aiming for. This is where Tomas Van Houtryve’s work ties in as he is showing that the places that he has photographed with a small drone and his camera attached to it is what the US is attacking in other countries. It doesn’t make sense and is constantly effecting innocent civilians lives. I think that these images are very strong as the shadows on a lot of the images are so huge and the people are so little, I like that it has a political meaning behind it in the hopes for change and for America to stop ruining innocent lives as the places the US has and is bombing are the places that many Americans enjoy everyday of their lives and do not know what it feels like to feel that they cannot express themselves or go to pray in the fear that they will be killed by US airstrikes.

Thomas Van Houtryve work: http://www.worldpressphoto.org/collection/photo/2015/contemporary-issues/tomas-van-houtryve

Exhibition, Mr T instruction

Tom Pope Exhibition

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On Friday 25th September our group went down to the old police station in town to see Tom’s exhibition. This was interesting to go and see as we have worked with him on a workshop earlier in the year as well as going to France for the day with him and the Archisle people to explore performance photography. Here we were able to express ourselves in the public eye, this was fun and we got to see what it was like to be a performance photographer like Tom Pope. Most of Pope’s work is based on weak anarchy that he has already explored, as seen on his blog. Pope wants to challenge the way people think and to challenge authority by doing things that aren’t necessarily illegal but they are deemed as unacceptable. I think that this is a vey interesting concept and think that Pope can work with so much for this too.

Pope’s Weak Anarchy: http://www.tompope.co.uk/weakanarchy.html

Pope’s Archive Exhibition: http://www.tompope.co.uk/iamnottompopeyouarealltompope.html

Tom took us through his exhibition explaining the meaning behind a lot of his work. Most of his work was inspired by John Baldessari as well as using his film camera for his photographs. The best part of the exhibition for me was the room filled with cutout faces of people from the archive. I found this really interesting to go around and look at all of the different people that lived in Jersey at some point throughout history. I think that this was a really great idea as well as Pope taking these cutouts around with him and randomly asking people that he met to wear one so he could make a photograph of them. I thought this was a really great way to spread the archive and get it out and around to the people in Jersey.

John Baldessari

Baldessari Portfolio:  http://www.moma.org/collection/artists/304

Pope was inspired by Baldessari’s work, including his work on throwing a ball up in the air editing it together to make three balls inlined with one another up in the air. This is where Pope did a small workshop with us when we tried to throw oranges at one another and catch it while making a photograph. I think that this was a unique way to respond to Baldessari’s work. In Baldessari’s image it looks as if he was throwing oranges which is where I think Pope gained inspiration for his mini workshop challenge. This was fun and a unique way to make photographs which allowed us to broaden our minds when it came to performance photography as well as just photography in general.

John Baldessari work

Another aspect of Baldessari’s work that has inspired Pope was the specific use of the colour blue. This makes his images stand out and capture the spectators attention straight away as the colour blue is very inviting. Pope applied this to his exhibition using it as a background for the images that were done in threes [like Baldessari’s image of the balls in the sky] and he dropped them onto the table. They fell in their position by chance and Pope changed this everyday for his exhibition so that they would constantly be changing. I found this interesting and fun to look and and try to spot the copies of each photograph from the archive. These images were taken from the archive again to bring it out from where it is hidden, into the public eye and so that as many people as possible are able to see these images.

One particular image that I really liked was titled, Jeffery’s Leap. Here Pope went to a cliff edge, with a wooden board and threw it into the ocean while someone else made the image. Pope went out to the bottom and got the board back. He then printed out the image 12 times to go along with the film camera that he has, Hasselbald, that has 12 exposes. This was interesting as Pope is using old film cameras instead of modern digital ones, meaning that the one photo that is taken at the time is the only one and it has to work straight away because film is very expensive to buy nowadays. Now Pope printed it out 12 times, he drilled a hole and added a bit of string to the board so that he could retrieve it easily when throwing it in. He added one image at a time and screwed it down then throwing it off the cliff and into the ocean. Each time he added another of the same image until all 12 had hit the water. Whatever had happened to them while hitting off rocks and being thrashed about in the ocean was how it was going to look and end up. This was all by chance and whatever the turn out was, was what Pope was going to add to his exhibition. I really liked this part of the exhibition as it was interesting to hear the story behind it as well as it looking really great and standing out almost like it was on a canvas, compared to the rest of the images that were all in orange frames.

 

Analysis

Tom Pope’s Exhibition

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When I first met Tom Pope, I thought he was very creative with his ideas. He defiantly inspired me when we went to St Malo, I really enjoyed doing spontaneous things with my friends and recording them. He connected with us as a young photographer and wasn’t scared to share his thoughts and his ability to push the boundaries with no fear was encouraging. I can tell he is passionate with what he does and his finals shows that. His exhibition in Jersey was interesting to look at, I really liked the final room which is where he had presented his own pictures with photographs from the archive. Especially the photos from the high jump, he Incorporated photos from the first winner of a high jumper back in the olden days and photographs from this years winner in the Island games and aliened the photos so the poles were at the same level. This made the pictures all at different heights which made it more interesting to look at. This connection from the archive made his work extra special as Tom is trying to exploit photographs from the archive back into our society. This enabled us to notice the differences of what it was like back then and how it is now. In the high jump, the equipment was just a bamboo stick and only the floor to land on, so to see the development from then to now is fascinating.

I also loved the slideshow he produced of old postcards from the archive with written quotes on them. Quotes that don’t even relate to the photograph, it made the postcard more intriguing and makes you look at it more. His connection with the archive was very interesting and something no other photographer has encouraged so much before. I think it was a great idea to spread what he could from our past society in Jersey.

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Research

Memory and the past

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What is the value of memory? Is there responsibility when one person has all the memories? Do memories have meaning in the modern world or are they just fuzzy interpretations of the past?

Memories are a source of emotion, wisdom and teaching. Memories are meant to be shared, they are secrets of the past which can be passed on to the next generation. They can enliven people or events we miss, they challenge our original ideas and give light to thoughts we may not of considered. The idea of memories stemmed from looking into my grandfather’s past, because he died when I was much younger I don’t have many vivid memories of him. However, the limited memories I have I am going to photograph them in order to symbolize my only thoughts of him. In my opinion memory is an extremely valuable characteristic human beings possess. There are several photographers that focus on the theme of memory in their work. 

Socially Speaking: Photographs of the Socially Privileged, Denver, Colorado, 1986-1989
Socially Speaking: Photographs of the Socially Privileged, Denver, Colorado, 1986-1989

1984 Democratic National Convention