Bio

Richard Billingham is an English Photographer, born in Birmingham in 1970, the eldest of two children born to Ray, a factory worker and Liz, a housewife. Billingham is from a working class background, and when he was 10 the family faced great hardship when Ray lost his job, forcing the family to sell their home and move into council housing. Ray became an acoholic, forcing Liz to eventually move out. Richard’s younger brother Jason was taken into care, leaving Richard on his own to care for his father.

“Jason says Ray’s a Laugh but doesn’t want to be like him” – Ray with Jason 

Ray’s a Laugh

Billingham was a keen artist with a talent for drawing and painting. Billingham gained a place at the Bournville College of Art, studying painting. He decided to create a series of paintings based on his father Ray, documenting his struggle with alcoholism and depression for one of his exams. Billingham could not get Ray to pose for long enough, so decided instead to photograph Ray as an aid to help his painting, using cheap film and processing. When Billingham presented some of his paintings to an art examiner, he asked Billingham if he coud see the aids he used to make the images. Billingham showed the examiner his photographs and he was immediately impressed by what he saw, advising Billingham strongly to forget about painting and concentrate on photography instead.

Billingham’s art examiner was more impressed by the photograph used to base the paintings on then the paintings themselves

Over the course of the next 6 years, Billingham continued extensively to photograph Ray, as well as his mother Liz who moved back in to the family home, and his younger brother who returned from care. Billigham also transferred from Boruneville College of Art to the University of Sunderland, obtaining a degree in Fine Arts. In 1995, Billigham’s first photographic exhibition was held in The Antony Reynolds Gallery London. entitled ‘Ray’s a Laugh’. The series was recieved both positive and negative responses, but overall was an overwhelming financial and critical aclaim. The photographs from this  exhitibition was made into Billingham’s book of the same title, the defining work of Billingham’s career. This book shot Billingham to instant fame as a photographer. In 1997 ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ was  featured in a major exhibition entitled ‘Sensations’ at the Royal Academy in London.

Ray’s a Laugh was a brutally honest insight into the struggles of working class British life during the 1990s

One of the major criticisms Bilingham received for ‘Ray’s a laugh’ was the claim that his work was nothing more than a shameful exploitation of his family. Billingham was only 26 at the time ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ was released and so some critics, perhaps unfairly attacked Billingham, citing his work as ‘insensitive’ and ‘exploitative’. In reality Billingham had no idea how much success he would generate, and creating the series did in fact have a profound  emotional impact upon him. Billigham has defended himself over this issue numerous times, denying he exploited he parents.

Later Career

After this initial success Billingham explored landscape photography, incorporating his unique style to highlight the landscape of modern Britain with a similar sense of honesty and realism explored in ‘Ray’s a Laugh’. A series of Billingham’s landscape work was made into a book entitled ‘Landscapes: 2001-2003’. Other works credited to Billingham include; Fishtank 1998; 1998, Liz Smoking 1998, Tony Smoking Backwards 1998, Ray in Bed 1999 Playstation 1999; and Dewi Lewis, 2008.

Billigham is a lecturer in Fine Art Photography at the University of Gloucestershire and a third year tutor at Middlesex University.

www.saatchigallery.com/artists/richard_billingham.htm

Martin Usborne spotted Joseph Markovitch in a park in East London about 8 years ago. His main intention was to photograph Joseph to try and win a photo competition. However after speaking to Joseph and discovering some of his querks he decided to use him as a project, and make a book about him. I very much like this book and after reading the words and studying the pictures in detail, I feel like I know Joseph Markovitch quite well.

Joseph had lived in East London, Hoxton for 86 and a half years, and went on daily walks around the city. On these walks he would talk to many people as he loved to discuss his views on action movies, Nicolas Cage, how technology might blow up the world ext. He walked around the city in an oversized blazer which slipped of the shoulder and a plastic carrier bag in hand, which always contained a carton of orange juice.

Here are some of my favourite photographs from Martin Usborne’s book about Joe;

This is one of the first photographs presented in the book ‘i’ve lived in East London For 86 1/2 years’. It is captioned with Joe saying

‘A lot  of young kids do graffiti around Hoxton… it’s nice. It add’s a bit of colour don’t you think?’. 

I think that this photograph it really attractive because of the explosion of colour behind Joe and the spray painter. The painting of Donald Duck looks like it is reaching out and grabbing onto the two men which I think adds a comedic effect. From looking at this photograph you can tell a lot about what was going on at the time. The spray painter is still holding his can of paint and all of his stuff is still laid out on the pavement, which says to me that Joe went over whilst the painter was still painting and interrupted him in order to have a conversation with him.

Here are some other photographs of Joe;

Documentary Photography

Documentary photograph is telling a story through the use of photographs, it is a device that have been used for hundreds of years. For example biblical stories being told through Stained Glass windows, tapestries, illustrated manuscripts ext. Documentary photography’s main aim is to show the everyday lives of ordinary people, an example of this would be Martin Parr’s collection of work, ‘The Last Resort’. This is about  a seafront in New Brighton. The images taken for this collection do not show a stereo typical sea side with images advertising the holiday resort. But images that show a run down but still very much alive resort.

Street Photography

Street photography is an unbroken tradition stretching back into photography itself. Most street photographs like to take their photographs in populated and prouder urban areas; markets, high streets, subways ext.The father of street photography is considered as Eugene Atget, he was famous for his photographs of the streets of Paris.

Here is some of Eugene’s photographs;

However a more modern street photographer is Eddie Wexler. He wins several competitions with his work.

Social Documentary Photography

Social documentary photography is the recording of humans in their natural condition with a camera, it is a form of documentary photography. Often it also refers to a socially critical genre of photography dedicated to showing the life of underprivileged or disadvantaged people. It has been created to document social problems such as rural poverty. This genre is rooted in the 19th century by people such as Henry Mayhew and Jacob Riis. However a more modern social documentary photographer would be Leslie Alsheimer.

With images, she creates metaphors that honor the richness of life that accompany the enduring human spirit; celebrating life, play, family, culture and community through the joy, pain and love of everyday living.

Here are some of Leslie’s images;

I particularly like Leslie’s images because of the attention she pays to detail. For example all of her photographs are very rich with different textures. There is  heavy feel given to the photograph in the bottom by the stormy skies which is very contrasting to the flat, bare floor. This photo has also been constructed with lots of leading lines, leading the eyes to the brick cottage in the centre left of the photograph. I also like that all of Leslies photo’s are in black and white, which magnifies the detail even more.