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Mr T instruction

Explore theme of Community

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Objective: Explore theme of Community in Documentary Photography

DEADLINE: Wed 21st  October

Case Study: Atlantus – A Transoceanic Journey

In January 2014 I embarked on a major transoceanic photography project in collaboration with Gareth Syvret at Archisle: the Jersey’s Contemporary Photography Programme hosted by the Societe Jersiaise Photographic Archive. Prompted in part by the 350th anniversary in 2014 of Sir George Carteret naming of the State of New Jersey, USA after Jersey his island home in 1664, the project asks how two places that share a name on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean perceive each other within archives and cultural memory? Essentially Atlantus is a story about communities on the west coast of Jersey and the east coast of New Jersey. In five stories responding through image and text to the people, politics, landscapes, industries and identities of these places the Atlantus Project connects memories, archives and imagined lands on opposite side of the Atlantic World. Atlantus is a transoceanic story in which estranged lands of incomparable scale come together in poetic gestures that ask: what’s in a name?

ATL15_XXX Atlantus - Wall DEF 2 Promo

A multi-functional newspaper and DIY exhibition
80 pages
56 colour and 5 monochrome ills.
5 stories

As a photographer you have to think about your audience and how you would like people to engage with your story and project. Produced as a multi-functional newspaper and DIY exhibition you can read Atlantus as a newspaper and with two copies you can create your own exhibition display.

Blog: Produce a number of posts that show evidence of the following:

Task 1: Consider different approaches and aesthetic considerations used to tell this story; classic documentary (i.e. camera bearing witness) compared with staged photography (Tableaux). Identify different types of images produced in Atlantus e.g. a combination of portraits (formal, environmental, observed), landscapes and still-lives (interiors/ objects). Consider the editing, sequencing and grouping of images and how they relate to the text, story titles and use of image caption. Provide further context by comparing Atlantus to works or specific photographs from other photographers/ artists. Situate it within the history and theory of documentary photography

For more background information visit online gallery with a wider selection of images and project blog. Two films are also available for viewing, the first one include sound and interviews with some of the main characters from our story and in the second one you can browse the newspaper.

Atlantus Gallery
Atlantus Blog
Atlantus Film

Atlantus Newspaper

Your task is to tell a story in a series of images and finding your own voice. 

How you are going to that in a unique and personal way is essential for you to achieve top marks. There are many different ways and approaches to achieve this. Below are a small section of photographers who are storytellers within documentary practice.

Task 2; Artists references: Select at least one photographers who are exploring the theme of community in their work. Select key works and analyse images in terms of style, form, approach, subject-matter, aesthetics, meaning and what story/message the photographer is trying to communicate.

Alec Soth (Sleeping by the Mississippi, Niagara, Broken Manual, Songbook), Rob Hornstra (The Sochi Project), Chris Killip (Isle of Man: A book about the Manx), Mark Power (The Shipping Forecast), Martin Parr (The last Resort), Lars Tunbjork (Country besides itself), Oliver Chanarin and Adam Broomberg (Ghetto), Stephen Gill (Hackney Wick), David Goldblatt (In Boksburg), Josef Koudelka (Gypsies), Robert Frank (the Americans), Bruce Davidson (East 100th Street, Central Park, Subway), Esko Manniko (The Female Pike), Mary Ellen Mark (Ward 81, Falklands Road), Ken Schles (Nightwalk), Tom Wood (Bus Odessey, All Zones off Peak), George Georgiou (The Last Stop), Robert Adams (The New West), Lewis Baltz (The new Industrial Parks Near Irvine), John Divola (Three Acts), Gary Winogrand (the Animals), Sebastio Salgado (Workers), W.Eugene Smith, Anders Petersen (Cafe Lehmitz), J.H Engstroem (From Back Home – together with Anders Pedersen), Jon Tonks (Empire), Ken Grant (Flock), Vanessa Winship (Schoolgirls, She Dances on Jackson, Black Sea), Lauren Greenfield (Fast Forward, Girl Culture), Ricardo Cases (Paloma al aire), Heikki Kaski (Tranquility), Robert Clayton (Estate), Jason Wilde (Silly Arse Broke It, Guernsey Residency, Estuatry English), Tom Hunter (Le Crowbar), Valerio Spada (Gomorrah Girl), Pieter Hugo (Permanent Error, Nollywood), Alejandro Cartegena (Carpoolers), Janet Delaney (South of Market), Martin Gregg (Midlands) , Lorenzo Vitturi (Dalston Anatomy)

Look up also Picture Agencies/ Photo Collectives:
Sputnik Photos, Document Scotland, A Fine Beginning (Welsh Photo collective), Magnum Photos, Institute, Agence VU, Panos Pictures, World Press Photo

See this folder with artist that exhibited as part of Guernsey Photography Festival 2014

M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Resources\Documentary & Narrative\Research\GPF Open Call Submissions\COMMUNITY

Task 3: Photo-Assignment 2: Explore the theme of Community and make a set of 5 images/ or a 3 min film.

Finding your voice and unique way to tell a story: As a photographer you are always looking for photo-opportunities and for stories that only you can tell. Try and find a personal angle on a story which will make it unique and choose a subject you have access to and can photograph in depth. It could be that you, or someone you know, have a passion for something outside work; a hobby, sport, pastime where you could photograph ‘behind-the-scenes’. Record events e.g. cultural festivities (Battle of Britain), sports competitions, protest/rallies etc. You could also expose something hidden or reveal something about our society and a particular group of people across class, gender, race or ethnicity. Maybe you live in a rural area and wants to highlight life in the country-side, photographing farm communities or parish life. Or, explore the town of St Helier with its hustle and bustle of life on the streets. You could also photograph a particular place, site or landscape which shows traces of human activity in what we refer to as Aftermath Documentary. Look at everyday life and the familiar from a new angle. Be curious and make the ordinary look extraordinary.

Task 4: Editing/Evaluation: Upload pictures from photo-shoot and process in Lightroom. Put contact sheets and           edited prints in your blog. Annotate and evaluate pictures.

Presentation: Print out your set of 5 images and present in class for a group crib (Wed 21st  October)

For further starting points and inspiration see these videos, read articles , and visit websites and do your own independent research.

An interview with Alec Soth and Aaron Schumann. Link to his website

Video with Lauren Greenfield on her 6 year project, Girl Culture. Link to her website

Rob Hornstra and writer Arnold van Bruggen spend five years working in the Sochi Region where the 2014 Winter Olympics where held. Here is a link to The Sochi Project

In this video, Mary Ellen Mark describes capturing iconic photos, pushing one’s limits and finding intimacy in a shot. Link to her website

South-African photographer David Goldblatt on his celebrated work and photo book, In Boksburg. Link to his website

J.H. Engstrom discussing his recent project and photo book Tout va Bien which won him the Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2015.

Interview with British photographer Chris Killip. Link to his website

2.Photo-Assignment 2: Explore the theme of Community and make a set of 5 images/ or a 3 min film.

As a photographer you are always looking for photo-opportunities and for stories that only you can tell. Try and find a personal angle on a story which will make it unique and choose a subject you have access to and can photograph in depth. It could be that you, or someone you know, have a passion for something outside work; a hobby, sport, pastime where you could photograph ‘behind-the-scenes’. Record events e.g. cultural festivities (Battle of Britain), sports competitions, protest/rallies etc. You could also expose something hidden or reveal something about our society and a particular group of people across class, gender, race or ethnicity. Maybe you live in a rural area and wants to highlight life in the country-side, photographing farm communities or parish life. Or, explore the town of St Helier with its hustle and bustle of life on the streets. You could also photograph a particular place, site or landscape which shows traces of human activity in what we refer to as Aftermath Documentary. Look at everyday life and the familiar from a new angle. Be curious and make the ordinary look extraordinary.

3.Editing/evaluation: Upload pictures from photo-shoot and process in Lightroom. Put contact sheets and           edited prints in your blog. Annotate and evaluate pictures.

Presentation: Print out your set of 5 images and present in class for a group crib (Wed 21 October)

Analysis, Evaluation, Planning, Research

David Moore – Family Artist Reference

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From the book ‘Photoworks’, David Moore explores the life of ‘Family and Community of the 1980s‘ Britain. In his project ‘Pictures from the Real World’, Moore elevates the routines of his daily life, stories of his relatives overthrowing the mundane home-based lifestyle of his childhood. Contextually, you retrieve a sense of history from his work, the muted colours which are harsh and sharp reflect the quality of the photography: initially captured at the time of documentation.

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The front page of a local newspaper tells of an ongoing trade union struggle, but the reader, as you can see, has resigned to the sofa. Moore doesn’t strike as the familiar photojournalistic depictions of factory closures and striker – police confrontation out of his private lives of struggling families behind those battle lines.

Moore’s family which he depicts ceases unease about the more politically manifestations of collecting working class identity. Moore hoped to reinforce the socially stabilising cement of the traditional family structure, strong, and able to stand on his feet financially, then they could have only been perplexed by reality. This brings to question issues relating into Moore’s work. The reader asks themselves: how half hearted were the governments attempts to do much about the social revolution? And what was the scale and speed of change of this lifestyle? I believe that from Moore’s images, you understand the struggles and imperfection of living a working-class lifestyle in the 80s, never the less thought out willingly that this is the only life they’ve ever led.

David Moore’s Pictures From the Real World reminds us that the stock images that are endlessly reproduced this family and life in 1980s Britain was more often captured what was exceptional rather than commonplace about that decade. Moore’s photographs show

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Here is a link to an article written by ‘The Guardian’ Entitled: “Photographer David Moore’s dingy, deteriorating Derby is the real deal”.-http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/apr/10/photographer-david-moore-real-world

“This chronicler of 80s working-class England peers behind closed doors to capture a community indelibly marked by Margaret Thatcher.”

Sean O’Hagan, the producer of this Article writes on the chronicles of  Moore’s life. My most favoured quote:

“That it does stop is down to Moore’s social conscience, which is on the side of the marginalised whose lives, under Thatcher, were rapidly becoming more precarious – and have remained so ever since. You could say that Moore’s photographs record the the beginnings of a new social class recently dubbed the precariat.”

 

Exhibition, Mr T instruction

TOM POPE EXHIBITION

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We went to go visit Tom Pope’s exhibition down at the royal spare where he showed off his pieces of work. Tom took us around and explained to us the meanings behind his images. First off we walked in and there was a video Tom playing with dice that was on a TV screen, this was on repeat so that every time you started watching the video you saw it from a different point each time. In this video Tom was trying to place 5 dice on top of one another by angling them so that they all stayed up and did not fall back down again. In the room there was other images that were placed on the walls that were in orange frames, Tom said that they were in orange frames just because he likes this colour and that this had no significant meaning to his images. DSC_0424 edit DSC_0409 edit DSC_0408 edit DSC_0406 edit DSC_0407 editThese are some of the photographs that Tom took that was on the walls. In these images Tom went out into the community and took images of people in Jersey, in some of the images he told the person how to take the photograph if he was in it, but in others he left it up to the person taking the image, which to Tom meant that in the photograph was a part of Jersey community.

In the next room we went into there was a room with different masks in, theses masks were of faces of people from the archisle that Tom took out and blew up to life size sizes and placed a string around the back to make them into masks.

tom pope

In this room there was also photographs on tables that had been cut up. These images had been blown up from the archisle and Tom on many of his workshops and through meeting people got them to throw a coin onto it and where the coin landed he made them a badge for the person to where, Tom did this with people that were from the Island Games also, which means that Tom’s badges are all around the world now. In another room that we went into there was photographs from Tom’s series called ‘high and low’ in these images Tom took images out of the archive of people doing the high jump but also took images of people doing the limbo, he placed these images so that the pole was in the same place and they all made a perfect line. In this room there was also a photograph on a piece of wood called from Jeffery’s leap, Tom took a piece of wood and kept throwing it over Jeffery’s leap, he did this repetition 12 times because he used a film camera called Hasselblad only took 12 different shots. Tom had this inspiration from John Baldessari who has done something like this before.

Analysis

Sally Mann

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“In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality” – Alfred Steiglitz (quote used to describe this photograph)

This photograph was taken by Sally Mann of her eldest daughter for her publication Immediate Family. This photograph can be seen as controversial because it’s of a girl who looks around 12 years of age holding a cigarette. I think the controversy makes the photo more powerful because it draws your attention. The girl is holding the cigarette in what can be deemed as an ‘adult pose’ which could also be described as the girl ‘playing adult’.   The background is blurred you can just make out that they are in woods outdoor type of environment.  This is done to make to main focus of the photograph the girl. There is also a strong contrast between black and white this makes the subject stand out more. In this photograph we don’t know what happened before or after, I think in this case the less we know about what is happening the more interesting the photograph becomes.

sally_mann_01