Bio

“when you experience a world of culture you start feeling a desire for self-expression and you want to do something yourself”

Yuri Toropstov is a Russian Photographer who has worked on the theme of family. Yury was born in 1974 in a small village called Vladistov, at the time a special administrative region of to U.S.S.R, near the border of China and North Korea. Yuri is of Eastern Siberian origins, and grew up in the Soviet Union until the collapse of communism in Russia in 1991. Growing as an ethic minority in Communist Russia gave Yury a unique perspective of life. Yuri’s father died when Yuri was  1 year old, and he was brought up by his mother.

Yury left Russia in 1998 to study at the New School for Social Research in New York, winning a prestigious scholarship to study project management. He was inspired by the social changes taking place in Russia at the time. Yury travelled to America working as a translator of an Non-Profit Organisation. This trip greatly inspired him, broadening his mind to different cultures and ways of life as he states in a JEP newspaper newspaper article, “when you experience a world of culture you start feeling a desire for self-expression and you want to do something yourself”. At age 30, Yuri decided he wanted to become a photographer, and so he left his job working at the United Nations and became an assistant for a fashion photographer.

Since then Toropstov has been working as a documentary photographer based Paris. He has completed various projects, made into slide-shows, films and books. His projects include ‘Deleted  Scene’, ‘Why was I born in Russia’, ‘Define Retribution’ and ‘Marylin and I’. In 2014 Yuri worked for 6 months in Jersey as the ‘Archisle International Photographer in Residence’. This 6 month project was finalised  with an exhibition entitled ‘Fairyland’.

Yury’s ‘Fairyland’ Exhibition Display

Video of  Yury’s project ‘Marylin and I’. Yury tends to make video’s summarising all of his projects

Deleted Scene

“I never knew my father. There is not much one can do about that, you just have to find a way to live with it”

Deleted Scene is a photo-book by Toroptsov, recently completed. It is a collection of images, documenting the isolated and remote region  of Eastern-Siberia. In this project Yury combines a combination of landscapes which reflect the beauty of the region, along with subtle close-up images, giving a glimpsing perspective into the communities that live their. Deleted Scene is also a personal journey for Yury. His father died when he was only one year old and so at the time he knew virtually nothing about him as Yury reflects, “his untimely death turned him into an abstract character existing on the verge of oblivion”. Yury used this opportunity to learn something about the father he never knew, studying where his father grew up, incorporating old archival images of him into the photo-book.

The story also focuses on the chance meeting between Japapese film-maker Akira Kurosawa and Yury’s parents when he visited the village to shoot his Oscar-winning film ‘Dersu Uzala’. By sheer chance, Yury’s parents appeared on a small section of the film.

There is no text to this narrative, and so it is up to the reader to make up their own interpretation of Yury’s father based on the images they are presented with. I like this series a lot because it documents a very personal journey of the photographer to document a man he never got to know. The images ‘Deleted Scene’ are in many ways a collection of self-portraits that show Yury’s background, where he is from and his influences.

My initial impression of this story is that what is revealed is only very subtle. This idea reflects on the fact that there may still be a lot more that Yury does not know about his father, hinting a sombre reflection that the book can never be fully revealing as he will never meet  his father in person, but instead is a brief insight done with the limited resources Yury had to work with.

I like how Yuri has incorporated his family archive in this series. I find that he did it in a way that does not limit the narrative to focus entirely on the past but instead balances Yury’s search to find out about his father both through historical account as well as through observation of his present day findings.

Studying this book and Yury’s personal story has greatly inspired me in exploring my own theme of family. It is important to make my own work meaningful and personal to me, even if that means exploring subjects which are potentially difficult and emotional. I will search for a topic point I feel I can relate to personally, like Yury has done in this series.

Link to the  series on Yury’s blog: http://toroptsov.com/en/projects/deletedscene.htm

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

Nancy “Nan” Goldin is an American Documentary Photographer born in Washington D.C. in 1953. Goldin is a highly successful photographer, renowned for her exploration of extreme subject matters, counter-cultures and personal stories.

Born in Washington D.C in 1953 to middle-class Jewish Parents, Nan’s family moved to Boston, Massachusetts when she was very young. Goldin had a troubled upbringing, getting involved in alcohol and drug-taking from a very young age (these early experiences would shape her later work). Goldin left her home at the age of 13, where she joined a group of young people occupied with drugs, violence and sex. In the midst of her troubled lifestyle, Golding enrolled at ‘Steya Community School’, where at age 15, her school-friend introduced her to photography. Photography was a form of escape for Goldin, allowing her to express herself creatively. It gave her chaotic life a sense of direction and purpose. Goldin’s early artistic influences included visual artist Andy Warhol, surrealist film-maker Fedrico Fellini, and fashion photographers such as Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton. These influences, along with her own experiences inspired Goldin to use photography as a way of exploring extreme counter-cultures such as sexuality, lifestyle, dependencies etc.

Early Beginnings 

At the age of 18 Goldin became interested with sexual themes, interests and gender-identities that are consider counter-culture; homosexuality, bisexuality, cross-dressers and trans-sexual people. In particular Goldin studied and immersed herself into the world of “drag queens”. (men who cross-dress as woman for entertainment and enjoyment). This interest was explored in 1973 with a solo exhibition studying Boston’s gay and transsexual communities. Goldin gained a sense of admiration for these groups. After this initial exposure into the photographic world, Goldin studied at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston University. Goldin continued to venture in the underground world of subcultures throughout the course of the 70s.

The Ballard of Sexual Dependency

After graduating from University, Goldin moved to New York City, and began to document the post-punk new-wave music scene. Between the course of 1979-1986 Goldin decided to embark on an ongoing photography project exploring her own perspective and struggles. This idea ventured away from Goldin’s previously objective ‘outsider’ style of photographing, and began to document from an ‘insider’ perspective of her own family and community. This project concluded in 1986 with Goldin’s highly successful publication ‘The Ballard of Sexual Dependency’, originally made as a slideshow presentation. The piece revealed with great honesty an insight in Goldin’s life and the relationship’s she shared with different people, including her abusive ex-boyfriend. Goldin herself described the piece as “the struggle in relationships between autonomy and intimacy”

 A image from Goldin’s ‘Ballard of Sexual Dependency’ 

Nan Talking About ‘The Ballard of Sexual Dependencies’, her evaluation of the series, and an insight into her ideas and inspirations

Later Career

Nan continued to photograph the world of underground sub-subcultures. She ventured in the theme of morality and death, through a series of images called Family of Nan, 1990–92, in reference of Edward Steichen’s ‘Family of Man series in the 1950, documenting her friends’ AIDS-related deaths. She also began to travel outside of America, for example photographed Japanese youths while travelling in Asia, and in 1995 she published those images in the book Tokyo Love: Spring Fever 1994. In 1995 she also worked with the BBC for a documentary film entitled ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ , with film-maker Edmund Coulthard.

Golding has held exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (1996–97) and at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2001).  She has been the received numerous awards for her photography, including the prestigious Hasselblad Award in 2007.

Link to Nan Goldin’s Documentary, ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’

‘Family’ is a social relationship shared between different people, who are considered to be ‘related’ in some way to one another. Family has a very open-ended and general meaning. After researching on thee internet I found numerous interpretations of what family means

• a group of people related to one another by blood or marriage
• the children of a person or couple
• all the descendants of a common ancestor
• a race or group of peoples from a common stock
• close friends or group of friends

The definition of family isn’t hugely important. The important idea to grasp is that  family is effectively a strong bond shared between people or groups of people that is built on trust and understanding. Family whether through friendship, community or blood, is arguably the strongest bond between human beings, and has massive influence over a person’s morals, beliefs, ideas and livelihoods. Family usually lasts through an individuals life and is critical towards the decisions a person makes, there general well-being and personal development, with both  negative and positive effects. Instinctively, people feel a strong need to join into different social relationships and organisations. ‘Fitting in’ to a social group of some description can help to provide a person with a sense of comfort and security. It is based on a survival instinct – people feel less vulnerable to attack if they belong to a supportive group, hence the concept of ‘safety in numbers’.

Exploring Family through different forms of art.

The broad meaning of family makes it an effective topic to study . The openness of the way family can be interpreted allows for creative and original responses. An artist exploring the idea of family has the freedom to question its meaning.

In photography, an insider perspective of family may be easy or difficult to explore dependent on the artists viewpoint. A photographer willing to reveal an honest, emotionally attached perspective may find such a concept very easy. On the other hand, a photographer who finds such an idea difficult to reveal to a larger audience because of personal reasons may struggle much more with this idea. An insider perspective, i.e. photographing members of your family does have a considerable advantage because the photographer is less likely to face challenges getting access. It can however be quite limiting because you are only photographing what you already know, issues that strectch onnly within your comfort zone.

American Photographer Tina Barney is well known for photographing her close friends and family. She therefore explores the idea of family from an ‘insider’ perspective.

An outsider perspective may present similar challenges. Although it allows for an observed, detached perspective which some photographers may find more comfortable to explore, with greater diversity and rang, it is often however more challenging because the photographer is not considered ‘one of the group’, and therefore may face the challenge of gaining trust to photograph different people. Because photography is a very personal form a communication, many people may find the idea of being photographed by a stranger very uncomfortable.