“FLORENCE LEONA THOMPSON Migrant Mother – A Legend of the Strength of American Motherhood.”^[20]

Dorothea Lange is an American documentary photographer and photo journalist born in New Jersey, she was the second generation of German Immigrants. She is best known for her photographs during the depression era in America during 1920’s and 1930’s , she photographed the consequences of this great depression. Dorothea  was educated in photography at Columbia University in New York City.

Florence Ownes Thompson born on September 1st 1903 born in Indian Territory, which is now Oklahoma. Florence is most well know for the iconic photograph taken by Dorothea Lange of her and her children. The photograph was taken on a camping site where they had set up temporarily while her husband had gone to get the car radiator repaired . Dorothea Lange drove past the camp site and decided to take photograph of Florence and her family , she took 6 photographs in the space of 10 minutes.  This encounter happened differently according to Dorothea, Dorothea said that she  did not ask Florence’s name or her history. Florence told her, her age which was 32 at the time. Florence had also said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food.

According to Florence,  Lange promised the photos would never be published, but Lange sent them to the San Francisco News as well as to the Resettlement Administration in Washington, D.C. This picture had an immediate influence of the public along with the news  that 2,500 to 3,500 migrant workers were starving in Nipomo, California.  Within a few days, the pea-picker camp where Florence was camping  received 20,000 pounds of food from the government. However Florence and her family had moved on by the time the food arrived at the camp and were working near Watsonville, California. The photograph because a type of symbolism to represent what was happening in America at the time.

I choose to research Dorothea Lange because the work she produced has some links with the work I am doing for my personal study. Both my work and Dorothea’s are of the life of migrant mothers. I am photographing my mum her working environment and as her role as a mother in a documentary style. I am going to use Dorothea’s work in my essay and compare the links between mine and her work.

http://www.moma.org/collection/artists/3373 – her work

Pieter Hugo – KIN

In Pieter’s photography book “KIN” he said “About eight years ago, I started to photograph the notion of “home” whatever that might mean, as both intimate and public place.” Pieter wanted to ensure his investigation with the place or inanimate thing called home was and what it is like for one’s self. “Home is where belonging and alienation coexist.” I really admire Pieter’s work and how he decided to photograph how the word “home” can mean and look so different with different people. His adventure into Africa is what really inspired me as a photographer. In his book, he has taken images of people from African tribes and made them pose on a typical, standard bed. Then visa-versa with British people in more a tribal environment is interesting to look at. His essay is very interesting to read, rather than explaining why his photographs were taken, he let us imagine the reasoning behind it and instead, told a unique story about the type of people in the images and the society that surrounds them.

Phillipp Ebeling – Land without past

Phillipp Ebeling’s book is a combination of both archive and present photographs.  This idea coincides with my idea of using the archive photographs to present how time changes things and show the change by using powerful images. Phillipp lived in village near from where his grandmother lived during the second world war. Her village was destroyed and all that was left was rubble. He moved to London when he was 19 years old and stayed there, he decided to venture back to his village where he used to live as it was part of his identity and shaped part of the way he functions as a person.

His images reflect what his childhood was like and I like how quirky some of the images are. I especially like the image of the loft where the children’s toys are placed. I love the colour popping in the photograph, it shows a real sense of childhood. The image of his father mowing the lawn is also one of my favourites as it one that relates to my topic and gives me inspiration for the kind of images that I want to take of my dad.

The photo book called ‘The Middle Of Somewhere’ is a family journal that Sam Harris kept of his children, Yali and Uma growing up in their remote home in the South West corner of Western Australia. This photobook is a follow on from his previous work called ‘Postcards from Home’- this project was based on his family migrating from London to Australia in 2008.

“As I witness my daughter’s transformation in what feels like the briefest of moments, I’m compelled to preserve something of our time living together”

Sam Harris is a photographer and educator. As a teenager he taught himself photography, turning his London bedroom into a makeshift darkroom. Throughout the 90’s Sam photographed portraits and sleeve art for numerous recording artists. He also worked as an editorial photographer for publications such as The Sunday Times Magazine, Esquire, The Sunday Telegraph Magazine and Dazed & Confused.

Sam’s photobook Postcards from Home (a self published limited edition) has received several awards including the Australian publishing industries Galley Club Award ‘Australian Book of the Year’ 2012.

I really like the style of photographs that Sam Harris takes, he try’s to capture the excitement of a moment, which in some of his photographs means; not all of the subject are in the photograph, it might be out of focus or there could be movement blurs. He pieces his photo books together by using other resources other than photographs. For example he has shopping lists and post-it notes also included.

This is an image that I have taken from Sam Harris’ photo journal. This photo tells a story of the mother telling the child off for something. The little girl is upset and is crying, there are motion blurs from the girl crying which I think are very effective as they emphasize that the girl is upset and make the photograph more relatable.

This is a very busy image; as well as the two subjects, which is the main focus of the image,  there is also a busy background of a family home. The overall coloring of the photo is fairly dull and contains neutral colors, this is so the main attraction to the image is the two girls.

 Greek classical sculptures/ ideal forms

Images and icons:

Mapplethorpe’s pictures and self-portraits are described as ‘photography’s handmade nature’. His images show the history of art and the movement of the muscular body. 

‘While we may admire the form, the grace, of a sculpted nude, when we learn its name, say Apollo or Hermes, our comprehension of the significance of the form blossoms to include a narrative that lies beyond the plainly visual’

‘I went into photography because it seemed like a perfect vehicle  for commenting on the madness of today’s existence’ 

‘I have boundless admiration for the naked body. I worship it… sometimes, looking at a model, you think you have found nothing. Then, all at once, little by little, nature reveals itself, a strip of flesh appears, and the shred of truth conveys the whole truth and enables you to rise at a single bound, to the absolute principle of things’  (Mapplethorpe 2004: 47)  

ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE AND THE CLASSICAL TRADITION

In Robert Mapplethorpe’s book ‘Robert Mapplethorpe and the classical tradition’ he focuses on images from around the 16th century of Greek classical structures and sculptures of men but also women. The people in these images are very muscular, which when taken in the 16th century it is not something that you would think everyone would be interested in looking like. Also these images from the 16th century raise questions as to whether this is why people nowadays have been so interested in going to the gym and getting them self the ‘perfect/ideal’ body that they want. When going through the book most of the images are from the late 16th century in part of the book but parts are also of Robert Mapplethorpe’s images which he has taken of body builders, most of which are of the body builders naked, from different angles. In these images it shows the different muscles of the body builders. Some of the images are portraits of the bodybuilders or of different people, these images show the faces of the bodybuilders. Most of Robert Mapplethorpe’s images he is trying to replicate the images from the late 16th century to show the human physique. 

The Longest Way Round: Chris Dorley-Brown:

Chris Dorley-Brown creates a visual journey of his family’s history through archival images joined together with new photographs captured since his parents death. The project is an alternative narrative of the course of events that shaped his family’s life. The work investigates personal experiences, memory and identity. It offers an intimate story of a unique view of the world war and the impact on a British family. During World War Two Dorley-Brown’s parents Peter and Brenda had known each other as childhood friends for many years. Peter who was 19 at the time, volunteered as a heavy artillery sergeant and managed to survive the Battle of Crete. He also survived four years as a prisoner of war in German camps and a ‘death march’, consisting of more than 500 miles in extreme weather towards the end of the war. At the same time, Brenda has married twice and given birth to one son from each relationship. She traveled to the US in 1945 with her two young sons, however, when he relationship in the US quickly broke down she decided to come back to Britain in 1946, although with only one son, leaving her second child behind with his American father. Peter and Brenda met again in Southern England in 1947 and married. They traveled through Europe in order to visit friends from the wartime and what remained from camps, during a precious time of recovery from the war. Both were dealing with the trauma of their own personal experiences and began to attempt to build a life of normality. ‘The Longest Way Round’ includes lots of wartime letters that reveal what life was like. Dorley-Brown’s images explore the postwar journey of his parents. The purpose of the work is to emphasise the hardship of war and a love story that followed as well as sense of closure for the author’s story. 

Personally, I have connected to this project and this particular artist the most compared to others I have studied. This is due to the concept of wanting to find your history and story. My grandfather was a massive influence and part of my mother and grandmother’s life, and in some respects mine as well. However, because I was only eight years old I did not know him as well as I would of wished. I think the project explores the relationship between his mother and father and the love they had for each other but also the difficulty and struggles they found with life before they met. Dorley-Brown uses a lot of archival images which reflect the state of society at the time of war, it shows the individuals lives before they met. I like how there are letters included because it brings about some sort of feeling of personal and closeness. It is like a mini insight. 

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/dec/04/chris-dorley-brown-father-hidden-past-nazis-in-pictures

Still Here: Lydia Goldblatt:

Goldblatt’s project stemmed from the idea to capture the inevitable changes brought about by her elderly father’s looming death. She endeavors to explore perception and the inner experience as much as a physical presence. ‘Still Here’ tells a story of the ever changing being and its constant flux. The offers a concentrated interpretation of mortality, time and love. It traces the indefinable holds that sculpt our individual existence. Goldblatt began photographing her father in 2010. He was 91 years old and his health had been getting worse over the years. She had continued to photograph her parents in their home until her father’s death in 2013. Goldblatt said the experience allowed her to connect with her father, clearly highlighting the invisible bonds of love. The project engages with the nature of shifting time.  

“Further down the line, he became more absent than present, but there were points when I’d pick up my camera and it gave him a sense of purpose,”

The work is mainly about the photographer’s family, but it cannot be ignored the highlighting of the nature of life. It presents photographs as a way of opening up an poetic interpretation. The images in the project are a combination of close up shots of the human form, as well as, still lives, portraits and abstracts. A story which has been told with tenderness addresses the delicate issue of growing old with the consideration of the changes we all must face in life. I really enjoyed looking through Goldblatt’s book, I think she has managed to photograph a difficult and personal topic in such an insightful and remarkably beautiful way. She has made the images have a certain effortless feel at the same time as addressing poignant issues. I especially like the close up images because they give you a different perspective. They allow the audience to visually see a unique view which can bring new ideas about as well as connect people with recognising themselves in the image. The book is a true piece of art in my opinion.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/10312393/Lydia-Goldblatts-Still-Here-an-essay-born-of-the-intimacy-of-family-love.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/photography-book-review-still-here-by-lydia-goldblatt-8874246.html

Time photography

The idea ‘chronophotography’  was invented by French physiologist Etienne-Jules in the 1880’s, Jules did this so he could make accurate physiological analyses of movements, this term was also later applied to a range of images that are in a sequence. These were used by scientists to help analyse how the human body worked while we moved. Scientists began to make single-place chronophotographs, where multiple image were taken on one plate which overlapped one another. In the late 1850’s the measurement of the duration of an electric spark was measured by Bernhard Feddersen. Multi-plate chronophotography was later used, this is where a full range of movements was recorded on a series of individual photographic plates, this was first invented by using a battery of separate cameras, this was first introduced by Eadweard Muybridge. Movements were later captured in the 19th century where it was found that chronophotography methods could be reproduced into an illusion of natural movement, for example in a zoetrope, a zoetrope is a ‘optical toy consisting of a cylinder with a series of pictures on the inner surface that, when viewed through slits with the cylinder rotating, giving an impression of continuous motion’.  https://www.google.com/search?q=zoetrope+definition&oq=zoetrope+definition+&aqs=chrome..69i57.1895j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8&surl=1&safe=active

The four main figures of choronophotography are Muybridge, Marey, Ottomar Anschutz, and Georges Demeny. 

Eadweard Muybridge took a series of chronophotography images of someone riding a horse, and Muybridge was the first person who found out that when a horse galloped that at one point when the horse is galloping, all of the horses hooves are off the floor at one time, so at one point the horse is completely off the floor. Muybridge’s images were mainly used for scientific basis, as Muybridge was a photographer, his works were used for scientific study. To make this image of the horse Muybridge lined a raceway with 15-foot sheeting, which lines were also drawn at 21-inch intervals. While the horse raced the 12 cameras took the images as the horse rushed past.  

Muybridge inspired others such as Marey, he was interested in human and animal locomotion, and he was influenced to experiment using photography. Marey invented a gun camera which he used in the early 1880’s, this made exposures fast enough to record the bodily movements of a bird flying. 

Lockean Memory Theory:

John Locke suggests that an individual’s personal identity extends only as far as their own consciousness. There is a key connection between consciousness and memory. The self is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and evaluation. He proposes the idea that in order to be a self, one must be a thinking being and due to consciousness always being intertwined with thinking therefore one only can extend itself to consciousness. The consciousness which Locke is referring to is parallel to memory. ‘If one cannot remember some experience, then one did not have that experience.’  Therefore, Locke thinks memory is a necessary condition of personal identity. Forgetfulness is when we lose sight of our past selves, which Locke then doubts whether we are the same thinking thing. 

‘Human life is embedded in time: we remember the past, we plan for the future and we live in the present. We swim in an ever-rolling stream.’

Greek philosopher Seneca’s idea, `If we do not live now, then when?’

In today’s modern world we are urged to live in the moment yet we are still constantly drawn back to the past which has influence over us still. Therefore the question remains of what we regard the value of memory to be. Not all memories are as clear as others, we have distinct memories and then we have hazy distant memories, so which memories are more powerful or instrumental? How do we categorise such abstract concepts?