“Why would you photograph in black-and-white if the world is in colour?”

“My work, in one way is rooted in reality but on the other level it is all about fantasy.”

Biography

Julian Germain, born in London, 1962 started photography at age 18, taking it up as an extra O Level option at his Sixth Form College. Germain became inspired by the work and practise of his photography teacher, known for his eccentric and subsersive artistic nature. As Germain describes, “he was the first person who got me interested in art and using creativity to get your message across”

Germain then when on to study photography at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham and the Royal College of Art in London.  During this time he became interested in the work of a variety of photographers including, Paul Strand (Time in New England), Robert Frank (The Americans), Gary Winningram (The Animals), Nan Goldin (Ballard of Sexual Dependency), and Chris Killip (Isle of Man: A Book about the Manx).

Germain’s style is very poetic and metaphorical. I would regard his style as something in between formal and vernacular photography. He is one of the earlier colour photographers in Britain and contributed greatly to the transition of British Art and Photography in the 1990s, along with other artists including Richard Billigham, Tracey Enimem and Damien Hirst. He is perhaps however, not as recognised as some of these artists, but nevertheless credible and noted greatly for his contribution.

He regards himself as a documentary portrait photograph, working with subjects to create a narrative on different themes and subjects. Interestingly, he was one of the editors of Richard Billigham’s extremely famous ‘Rays a Laugh’.

Here is a list and brief overview of different publications by Germain.

‘Steel Works’ (1986-90)

In this series Germain looks at the post-industrialisation of Britain in the period of the early 1990s. The series  is a look of the effects of Thatcherite Britain (1979-1990) on the working class. The series presents combination of Germain’s own photographs, alongside historical images and pictures from various sources including family albums. It examines the effects of the closure of Consett steelworks as well as broader issues of post industrialisation.

“I was photographing something which wasn’t there”

“I collected pictures on the way. I realised that they were just as much a part of Consett as my pictures were”

Soccer Wonderland’(1994)

Soccerland is a photo-book exploring the theme of ammeter football. It is an extensive look at all aspects of the sports: players, fans, community involvement, groundsmen, park football, football games, traditional history, local rivalry etc.

“Germain offers his audience a multi-layered view of the subject of football. Like a good piece of drama, we are encouraged to consider the subject from a range of different perspectives – we can for example choose at any one time to empathise with the young football fan obsessed with her hero or that of the football “widow” immortalised in her red and white garden.” –

Brett Rogers, In Soccer Wonderland exhibition catalogue, the British Council, 1995.

Face of the Century ‘1999’

A series of chronologically sequenced portraits of 101 individuals, commencing with a 100 year old, ending with a newly born baby.

“Very nice and easy to do”

“I just hung around on street corners. I would just stop people”

Classroom Portraits ‘2004’

This ongoing series began began in schools in North East England in 2004 and was extended to schools throughout the UK the following year. Since 2005 the archive has grown to include schools from North and South America, Europe and the Middle East. The children are photographed in their classrooms oppose to the whole-school portraits which does not actually reveal anything about the classroom.

“I wanted this be be an examination of the school”

“I wanted to challenge traditional school photography”

“It is a unification of different cultures”

Generations

Generations was inspired by Germain’s previous ‘Face of the Century’ project, engaging with similar themes concerning the life cycle, the ageing process, human biology, characteristics and questions of nature and nurture. It specifically and sequentially records direct biological lines of descent.

“I wanted to show a clean, genetic line”

“The clothes of the different generations are wonderful, they add to the story a lot”

“Nature and nurture come together in this project in a really beautiful way”

For every minute of anger you loose sixty seconds of happiness ‘2005’

A series of photographs made over 8 years of the quiet, contemplative existence of Charles ‘Charlie’ Snelling, an elderly widowed man living alone in a small house in Portsmouth. Charlie was an elderly shopkeeper selling plants. Germain visted the shop in 1992 and befriended him. He visited he over the course off 8 years, photographing him during this time.

Charlie died in 2000. Germain then went through all the images he took of Charlie, and in 2005 produced a book and exhibition.

“he showed me some photo albums. I was very touched by the way he photographed his wife – very intimate, open and totally unpretentious.”

“I visited Charlie off and on, occasionaly for about 8 years.”

“I wasn’t working towards anything, I was going to see Charlie.”

“I loved the way he dealt with the world.”

“Charlie would leave little notes to let customers know where he was – he would save the notes and use them for another time.”

“One of Charlie’s notes inspired the title of the project. He had a a lot of wisdom did Charlie.”

“I monumented the photo-album. They are such an important part of all our lives so I thought it was an appropriate thing to do.”

I found these two talks by Julian Germain to be very interesting and helpful in finding out more about him.

“….‘For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness’ is a template model for what critical engagement should try to achieve in our day and age: forget the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ and provide examples of people who operate in a different forcefield. People who are not grasping, not filled with self-importance and not embittered, people with a profound understanding of who they are and what they stand for, something that cuts across all cultures.”   – Hans Aarsman

Background

‘For every minute of anger you lose sixty seconds of happiness’, is a  photo-book made by British photographer Julian Germain, published in 2005. The subject of the photo story is a man named Charles ‘Charlie’ Snelling, an elderly man who owned and lived in a small house/flower shop.

Germain meet Charlie in April, 1992. Germain, on his way to a football match to photograph, stopped into Charlie’s flower shop because he was attracted to its unusual orange and yellow colour. He brought some flowers andd started chatting to Charlie, who inivited Germain to look at some old photos he took of his late wife. Germain stated later on: “I was touched by the way he photographed his wife. It seemed to me to be very intimate, open and totally unpretentious” .

Charlie was an elderly man who lived alone since his wife died. Charlie lived a very simplistic life, with passions for flowers, music, crosswords and photography. Charlie, as Germain remarks “was a simple, gentle man. He loved flowers and surrounded himself with flowers. He loved colour and surrounded himself with colour”. Charlie lived out the last years of hiss life in his small seaside town, a quiet and contemplative existence. He collected flowers and studied the names of flowers, as well as collecting old polaroid snaps he took of his wife ad putting them into colourful photo albums.

Over the course of 8 years, Germain visited Charlie off and on, sometimes a week at a time, and sometimes going months without seeing him. Germain claims that the photographs he took were not for a specific project but meerly for fun, documenting the time he spent with Charlie.  When he died in 2000, Germain started the process of gathering the images he took during his visits to see Charlie. Germain finished this process a few years later and published his final images in 2005, entitled ‘For every minute you are angry you lose sixty second of happiness’, one of Charlie’s regular sayings.

‘For every minute of anger you lose sixty seconds of hapiness’ is considered one of Germain’s most famous series. It is a very personal and inspiring account of his close friendship he gained by chance with Charlie, a shy, quiet old man. Charlie left a personal mark on Germain: “He showed me that the most important things in life cost nothing all all. He was my antidote to modern living”.

Style of Photography

The style of photography by Germain in this book is Vernacular, a deliberately ‘amateur’ appearing, rustic style. Vernacular style photography is done to evoke a raw, subjective mood into images, making them powerful in terms of the mood and feel they evoke not meerly aesthetic considerations. It is quite hard to pull off successfully and requires careful planning/consideration.

Unlike some vernacular photographers such as Richard Billingham (Rays a Laugh), Germain has a much more subtle and considered approach to taking vernacular photographs. In contrast to Billingham for example, Germain will stage his images beforehand, creating his desired composition, whereas Billingham will shot candidly, relying on accidents to make his work interesting.

Overview and Evaluation

Germain’s images in ‘For every minute a anger you lose sixty seconds of happiness’ are very subtle and poetic in what thy convey. It is a sensitive interpretation of a man in his final years of life, living alone but contended in his simplistic way of life. The theme of flowers is a recurring theme in the story and Germain uses it as a basis to tie different directions/themes of the narrative together.

I find the story conveyed in  ‘For every minute a anger you lose sixty seconds of happiness’ to be very entertaining. There is a very natural flow to the storyline, achieved through the subtly of Germain’s style.

The story is very much a retrospective look into Charlie’s past, and the inclusion of archival photographs which Charlie took himself is Germain’s way of representing this concept. Archival images a synonymous with Germain’s style and it is not the first time he has used it. Germain’s use of archival images in this book is something which I can explore for my own study as like the story, mine also incorporates a retrospective look into the past.

Analysis of Images

This photograph is a portrait of Charlie holding two flowers. It is a formal portrait, carefully considered in terms of form and composition. It very much relates to the theme of flowers, a passion of Charlie’s.

The lighting in this image is soft. This is caused by the curtain restricting how much light enters the room, and subsequently diffusing it. The softness of the light makes for a light and positive atmosphere. This mood evoked serves to reflect the optimism which Germain acclaims Charlie to have. It is a very ‘happy’ image, firstly through the mood it evokes and secondly through the direct and confident manner in which Charlie holds up the two flowers. It is clear that Charlie enjoys collecting and looking at flowers, a personal hobby he entertained a great deal of his time with. Therefore this image is very positive because it represents Charlie as happy and enjoying himself.

There is a vibrant and colourful mood created as a result of various different components of the image, such as, the flowers and wallpaper. The colourful atmosphere is visually striking and establishes a sense of depth to the image. The presence of these bright, vibrant colours serves to maintain the positive atmosphere created through the lighting.

The style of this image is very simplistic. This is attainable because of the formal manner in which Germain has considered composition. He has created a sense of structure and order; firstly through positioning the subject in the centre of the frame; secondly through the sense of balance created through holding up the two flowers on either side; and thirdly because of the fact that the image is composed with a clean and minimalist background. These components make for a well balanced and orderly image that nevertheless evokes a strong mood.

This is a still-life image of Charlie’s dresser. In this image is a flower-themed wallpaper, a note by Charlie and an old polaroid snap of Charlie’s late wife.

This photograph incorporates to different contexts, the polaroid snap and the hand written note. This effect is known as ‘layering’ as the photographer is combing two separate objects to create a single image. This makes for a  somewhat complex image as the viewer’s focus is constantly shifting to-and-throw from the different themes. The strong background (orange at the bottom and the flowery pattern at the top) helps to link this to themes together by creating strong visual base.

This polaroid snap of Charlie’s wife is an example of Germain making use of old archival images to enhance his visual narrative of his photographs. He is engaged in the archive in a creative way, photographing the pre-existing images he has, thereby including the image as an aspect of this new, original image. By engaging in the archive in this contemporary manner, the photographer is bringing to life these retrospective themes. On a deeper level, this is interesting because the photograph in question, a portrait of Charlie’s dead wife, is metaphorically being ‘brought back to life’.

The handwritten note is one which Charlie wrote himself as Germain recalls”Charlie would leave little notes to let customers know where he was”. The note therefore is a way of the viewer gaining a sense of the quirky and gregarious nature of Charlie, steep in politeness and tradition. The fact the note is handwritten means that it is very personal. It also gives Charlie as sense of direct input into the photograph because what he has written has gone into the image thus effecting the viewers interpretation of such. Along with the polaroid this image is very much a construction of Charlie input as observed by Germain.

 

 

 

 

Chance, Challenge and Change

1.Reflect on your previous projects/modules and write and overview of what you learned. Link your chosen area of study to your previous work, knowledge and understanding based upon your chosen theme of FAITH, FAMILY and COMMUNITY. Include examples of previous work to illustrate your thinking.

Part 1 – Chance, Challenge and Change

Our first A2 module was set in June, entitled ‘Chance, Challenge and Change’. For this module we had to explore these three different concepts, using the idea of ‘subversion’, incorporating this idea in our study. The idea was to learn about the idea of ‘Performance in Photography’, making a series of outcomes at the end of the six weeks.

The 2015 Archisle Photographer in Residence Tom Pope worked alongside us in this project. We went to St Malo half-way through the project to see first-hand the type of work that Tom does, whilst making our own responses at the same time. Tom was very much a case study which we used to learn about the core characteristics of the topics.

On reflection I struggled a lot with this topic. I found it quite hard to create ‘performance’ in my work and my overall outcomes were not outstanding. I enjoyed some of the work we did, for example learning about some of the early 20^th Century artists movements such as Dadais, aswell as learning about the work of comtemporary artists/dramatic performers, Remy Gillard and Dynamo. All in all however the work we did I found challenging and it was definitely at steep learning curve.

This was in my opinion, my most creative outcome from this module

Part 2 – Family and Community

I have enjoyed the most recent module a great deal more than the previous.

The concept behind ‘Family and Community’ was to study these two themes and then make a series of responses related to one of the two. Before this however we looked at a mini-topic entitled ‘Documentary Photography and Photojournalism: Standards and Ethics’. In this project we looked at definition/principle of photojournalism, and researched the history of this photographic genre. We then explored the ethical questions and concerns of photo-journalism. My favourite outcome of this topic was a news article style blog post I made. I think it was creative, thorough and well argued.

https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo16a2/2015/09/16/news-or-propaganda-everyone-is-a-journalist-so-what-can-be-trusted/

Family

I studied the theme of family to begin with, looking at the work of photographers such as Yury Toropstov and Richard Billigham. During this period I started to explore the style of vernacular photography, which over time I have continued, practised and improved.

The basis of my photographic response was the continuation of part of my AS Photography task where I visited my Grandma (as a do every Wednesday) and made photographs of her and her house. I have completed a variety of shoots during this time (including an audio recorded conversation) and have an extensive both of work, which I will continue for my personal study.

During this time me and Mr Toft came across a concept to explore, a retrospective exploration of my Grandfather who died 30 Years ago. The basis of this project is to learn more about him.

I enjoyed this topic and have improved greatly as a result.

This is my favourite image from the topic. It is an environmental portrait of my Grandma in her Salvation Army Uniform.

Community

After ‘Family’ I then studied then explored theme of Community. As I had already (more or less) decided that I wanted to continue with my Grandfather project for my personal study, I therefore didn’t make any direct responses to the theme of community – expect for existing street photographs I made over the course of the summer holidays, and a photographic response to ‘Battle of Britain’ day. Instead I use the theme as an opportunity to extend upon my own research and understanding in relation to my project and the theme of family.

During this topic I explored the work of photographers such as Martin Toft, Alec Soth and Jonas Bendiksen.

This blog post of a case study of Martin Toft’s ‘Altanus’ is my favourite piece of work from this theme.

https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo16a2/2015/10/13/atlantus-analysis/

Picture Story

For the final few weeks of this term we have been looking at the design of picture stories. We then experimented in making our own. This is one of my outcomes.