What is ‘Common Sense’ all about?

‘Common Sense’ is a photo-book by Martin Parr, published in 1999. It is a collection of images he has took from the period 1995-99, looking at trends in British consumerism.

The images in this photo-book are extremely bright and colourful, and use the typical language of advertising, something which Parr has openly admitted to doing. The images are both attractive through their colour and vibrancy but at the same time are in many cases vulgar and grotesque.

The core principle of this book in my opinion is to explore through the language of advertising what a product looks like – in a more vulgar and perhaps realistic way then a company trying to advertise their product would dare intend to do – showing more how a product actually looks, then how it is manipulated to appear. Subsequently, it can be argued that Parr turns the theme of advertising on its head, by using the techniques of advertisers to show exactly what they don’t want to viewer to see.

What is it about Parr’s images which are so powerful?

Parr’s images in this book are so effective because of the fact that they poetic and make the viewer think and consider what they have seen – they are a form of visual poetry; Parr’s own unique way of looking at the world. One example of this can be seen through the way Parr has photographed a teapot. He uses his imagination to envision the connection between the shape of the teapot as being the same shape as an elephant tusk. Parr has subsequently created an image with these two similar shapes together, photographing a teapot in the foreground, and blurred out in the background, the inclusion of a blow-up elephant statue. He is therefore made a clever connection which is visually interesting to the viewer.

Furthermore, Parr achieves a sense of distinctness about his work through his style of  photographing close-up. In doing so, he subverts the traditional concept used in marketing that something is better when viewed from further back. Instead he shows objects in their fullest detail, which is often uncomplimentary and unattractive as a result. This style in many cases creates abstract images, and the viewer must use visual clues to determine what the object is that has been photographed. In this sense, Parr often confuses the viewer and forces them to read into the image to subtract the meaning behind it, adding a sense of uncertainty to the viewers visual journey.

Simplicity is key to Parr’s work in ‘Common Sense’. What he photographs is often very ordinary and basic, such as a close-up of an apple or many cigarette butts. Parr gets away with this highly simplistic style because of the way he photographs the object. Through the use of flash photography and other techniques such as manipulating natural lighting and photographing at an obscured abstract angle, Parr is able to ensure what he photographs is as visually interesting as possible, even if the context of what is photographed is simply not that exciting.

How important is colour in ‘Common Sense’?

Colour is a fundamental part of the images in ‘Common Sense’ because it enables Parr to make his images as vivid  as possible. Parr’s use of a ring flash means that his images are highly saturated, and therefore bright and colourful.  As this series of images shows, the more colourful the image, the more vulgar and visually aggressive it will appear. In many cases, the overly bright images go beyond reality, and are slightly surreal in appearance.

The effect colour creates visually is extremely powerful. Colour has he ability to alter the viewers emotional response to an image; for example red is known to resonate feelings of aggressiveness and anger. Parr’s subsequent use of sharp, luminous colours such as red, pink, orange and blue makes the viewer interpret images with a sense of urgency, as if the colours on the page are racing to the attention of the the viewer. These bright colours can be in many cases unwelcoming to a viewer, and when taken to the extreme, can be simply grotesque and repulsive, more example the of the extremely sunburned man’s chest.

The use of ring flash in this instance serves to enhance the redness of the chest, to the extent that it is simply vulgar and in many ways, unrealistic. This is contradictory to the expected intent of advertising images, which is to excitedly invite the consumer in. Whilst retaining a sense of energy, Parr goes essentially over the top  with colour saturation to the extent that the viewer is not attracted, but instead made to be repulsed.

What is your favourite bit about ‘Common Sense’? 

I think one of the most memorable and effective qualities about this body of work is Parr’s ability to link images together. Page by page, it is apparent that his images are inherently connected by certain patterns and themes, for example one page links a picture of Jesus with fish and another links birds and bread together – links between contrasting themes are also noticeable, for example a banana with a sugary doughnut; a contrast between healthy/unhealthy eating. Parr’s linking of images add a sense of interaction and fun to the images, as the viewer is invited to find and search for their own creative links.

Martin Parr is a British photographer best known for his unique style of documentary photographs. As well as being one of the most successful and widely acclaim photographers of his generation, he is also one of the most controversial. I have recently watch a documentary of his life entitled: ‘The World According to Martin Parrr’. I found this documentary useful because I gave a in-depth insight into Parr’s experiences an influences, explaining how this has affected his unique and distinctive photographic style, based on “finding the extraordinary within the ordinary”.

Introduction

“this man is stalking me; he is waiting for my phone to ring, he’s obsessed ….. so far he has taken over 10,000 images of them, all over the world”

This is the opening quote of the documentary ‘The World According to Martin Parr”. Martin Parr is considered one of the most unique photographers of his generation. His style is very unique and interesting. Unlike many photographs to seek to photograph something exciting which has never been done before, Parr will photograph things which have already been photographed millions of times – ordinary, everyday objects, such as mobile phones, everyday foods and other consumer items.

 This opening of this documentary implies that Martin Parr thrives of the normal, a view which is epitomised through the quote: “the more mundane the image, the more it excites him” and later through Parr’s exertion himself that “we are surrounded by things which are surreal, we just don’t see it”. Throuh such statements it is clear even to a viewer who ha sno prior knowledgeable of Martin Parr, that he is someone who has been able to capture the essence of the mundane, a photographer who has been greatly succesful for interpreting the ordinary in a way which is interesting, exciting and most importantly, thought provoking.

Parr’s Early Life

Parr was born 23 May 1952 in Aston, Surrey. Parr has described his upbringing as “completely bland …..content but at the  same time momentous and boring” where “nothing really happened”. He claims that this upbringing fuelled his desire to take photographs, because it allowed him the opportunity to get out into his community and meet with all sorts of people, as Val Williams explains:  “Martin would have reason to be there, because he was the photographer”. It also allowed him the chance to use his imagination and express himself creatively. Although he had a very conventional and essentially unexciting upbringing, Parr does not criticise or hold his upbringing in bitterness: “blandness of suburbia was an essential part of my upbringing – it made me the person and photographer that I am today”.

One early experience which has greatly impacted the style of Parr’s work is his experiences of bird-watching. As  a child he would accompanying his fanatical bird-watching father on a weekly basis. Rather than developing an interest with bird watching himself, he focused his interests on the followers of this hobby, studying with a keen eye, the absurd nature and behavioural patterns of those involved in bird watching. Parr found their behaviour and enthusiasm for what many would consider to be monotonous, un-fulfilling and boring to be fascinating in itself. It made him realise that even the most ordinary of things, could be perceived and therefore expressed in an interesting way. Parr himself, later became a train spotter, a hobby he cites as an experience which has fuelled to a great level, his “fascination with obsession”. 

Hebdum Bridge Project, Yorkshire – 1974-78

In the 1970s Martin Parr, along with 3 other fellow photographers, moved to a small village community, Hebdum Bridge, in Yorskshire. As a child Parr had always been interested in the north of England, often visiting his Grandparents in Yorkshire. Parr was drawn to the north because he admired the their sense of community, where everyone knew and depended on each other, in stark contrast to his experiences of separatism and hostility growing up  in suburban Surrey.

Over the course of 4 years, Parr totally “immersed himself in every aspect of life”, getting to know the people who lived there very well and photographing them lots. As Parr became more deeply involved in the Hebdum community, so did his understanding and appreciation of the traditions of northern life. Rather than exploiting the community as outdated or plain, Parr instead set himself the challenge of celebrating and creating an essentially positive view of the quirky traits of Yorkshire life, documenting how traditional attitudes and values of the community gave it a sense of charm. His work during this period was also meant to be somewhat sad and reflective, a documentation of disappearing working class life.

This project, with its quaint and quirky images full of energy and life, very much extended Parr’s fascination with celebrating the beauty in simple things – the excitement in the ordinary. 

Work in the 1980s

In the 1980s, Parr documented how Thatcher’s policies were changing Britain. Parr sought to challenge the impression Thatcher had presented herself, that she was changing Britain for the better, sacrifices for the good of communities. In protest to this view Parr went into small seaside communities of the north of England. The images he produced during this time were in many cases shocking and grotesque, showing people in the north to be in horrible conditions and suffering greatly. Rather than photographing the closing down of factories and the effects of northern cities, Parr work during this period was more subtle and poetic, photographing how one of the most romanticised British cultural areas, the seaside, had changed in this period, a metaphorical look into the degradation of Britain in this period.

His series ‘The Last Resort’, made up exclusively of these sea-side images, is a classic example of Parr being able to challenge and poke fun at ideas and preconceptions. Parr himself is not afraid to admit he exploits people in his work, claiming that “all photography is exploitation”. This series is a good example of Parr’s take on documentary photography, because his images both realistic, but at the same time somewhat surreal and animated, highlighting his ability to both be objective in what he produces whilst also adding his own colourful and imaginative twist on his images. This style makes his work descent, because he documents what he sees in his own way – he controls how the audience sees something, but not what they see; therefore manipulated but truthful at the same time.

1990s – Present: Consumerism and Advertising

This aspect of Parr’s work and style is what has attracted me most, because it is extremely revevant to the focus of my work, looking at the language of advertising. Referring to ‘Common Sense’ in the documentary, Parr mentions how his intention of photographing was to challenge advertising techniques by the very act of copying and embracing them: “I am using the language of advertising; I am using these bright, saturated colours to slightly subvert it”. It is a direct statement which highlights what Parr sets out to do in his style of photographing close-up with flash, to show detail to the event where it goes beyond the benefit of being well detailed. This style is clever because he is exploited what he wants to expose, in many ways hypocritical and a contradiction of his intent. Parr in ‘Small-World’: 1987-1994 , extends upon his study of British lifestyle and consumerism, exploring how these issues affect other cultures – a challenge in all of mass tourism and global advertising, looking at the broader picture in terms of how consumerism has affected all cultures around the world.

From ‘Common Sense’

From ‘Small-World’

Conclusion

This was a very interesting and fascinating documentary. I learned that Martin Parr is a photographer who seizes the opportunity to exploit the way something is perceived in an ironic manner, through the language and style of advertising. Parr was someone who had a very plain and bland upbringing and so used these personal experiences, emphasis blandness as a key part of his identity and thus affecting what he photographs, in the case of ordinary everyday products. Parr is a clever photographer who has benefited from the way society expanded and changed in the 1980s Britain, he look at the decline and society and the effects this had on the working class, to produce work which had both elements of truth, as well as elements of fantasy.

This is a video I came across during my research process when analysing Alec Soth’s work ‘Niagara‘.  I felt this interview was very beneficial when exploring his prospect of the project and his thoughts on love as an open force within the location.

Bio

Alec Soth is a photographer and artist from Minneapolis, United States.  who makes “large-scale American projects” featuring the midwestern United States. His photography has a ‘cinematic‘ feel with elements of folklore that hint at a story and a narrative behind his images.

New York Times art critic Hilarie M. Sheets wrote that he has made a “photographic career out of finding chemistry with strangers” and photographs “loners and dreamers“. According to The Guardian art critic Hannah Booth, his work tends to focus on the “off-beat, hauntingly banal images of modern America”. Soth’s work has been compared to that of Walker Evans and Stephen Shore and is a member of Magnum Photographs.

The Context behind Niagara Falls

For hundreds of years, couples from around the world have made their way to Niagara Falls to reaffirm and celebrate their love. Niagara Falls has earned its title as the

“Honeymoon Capital of the World”

in the early 1800‘s as the world’s most wealthy, notable and elite people began to travel to Western New York for its Great Lakes, jaw-dropping vistas and,  the scenic wonder of Niagara Falls. This location became a rich haven for people most fortunate to visit, and was instantly labeled as an upper-class gold mine for romance and tranquility. When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River, Niagara Falls suddenly became more accessible. Couples were drawn, not only to its thundering, majestic waters, but also to Niagara Falls State Park and its many green, secluded nooks and paths. The spacious, sublime scenery was an idealic place for love. Today, Niagara still lives up to its glorious reputation, whether on your honeymoon, wedding, an anniversary treat or to honor a long-standing family tradition of love, couples embrace this special destination for the one-of-a-kind attractions that have charmed millions for centuries. From Niagara Falls itself to the Maid of the Mist- couples can get up close and personal with the Horseshoe Falls and get kissed by the mist. This special location provides a honeymoon you’ll treasure and fondly remember throughout your years together.

“Niagara”, 2006

Soth uses a range of landscape and portrait images to re-connect the idea of love with the picturesque monument Niagara Falls. This location sparks various emotions connected to romance, as it can be seen as an notorious spot for Marriage, proposals, and even breakups within relationships. The dramatic sequence of Soth’s impacting work “Niagara”, narrates love as a histrionic force, embarking its truth and purpose within American culture.

“I went to Niagara for the same reason as the honeymooners and suicide jumpers,”
(2008.)

Soth explores  various uses of mixed media; collections of love letters which have been found in various locations surrounding Niagara, such as motels and lets,  surround the extreme emotional ties this location has in terms of love. This clever narrative form allows the reader to understand love as a round perspective, questioning the truth between Soth’s original photographs and peoples’ personal archival diaries. Soth adds thats when he photographs people, he feels nervous at times:

“My own awkwardness comforts people, I think. It’s part of the exchange.”

Soth’s persona within this series counteracts his relationship with the subject he’s photographing. For instance, his comfort in finding love within relationships could be a manipulated subject, he doesn’t know himself what the definition of love is therefore approaching the aim in a rounded way. The inclusion of actual “love letters” and “confessions,” using actual documents and artefacts as devices to tell his story make the book overall more personal and invasive.

“I became interested in the idea of Niagara as a metaphor for love and passion and began e exploring those themes. Why do people have honeymoons in Niagara Falls? Why is it associated with sexuality and passion and new love?”
Magnum in Motion. (2007).

One of his photos is of “Melissa” in a bridal gown sitting outside what appears to be a motel; he describes having made an arrangement with a particular wedding chapel in Niagara Falls which let him take pictures of couples getting married, by photographing them after their weddings. The sort of simplicity and bareness behind the photograph underlines it stereotyped feel, it can be easily repeated and sanctioned for people to copy. The fact Soth has decided to photograph her in a non-recognised, less significant area, makes the reader feel compelled more to her facial expression. Soth’s closely analysed photographs brings out the common ground within American Society.

Soth also uses the falls as a constant referral within his book. Every so often there would be a break within portraits which shows a repetition of different images of the falls. This symbolically could represent a constant reminder to the reader of the main source of love within this series. This also can present different forms of love in a very effective, clever way, as Soth plays with the idea of how Landscapes bring out emotions in Portraits, much like Rita-Puig Serra Costa in my previous study of “Where Mimosa Bloom”. Soth does this very regularly throughout his study, for instance his work “The Great Leap Sideways, 25 Niagara 28 Falls” (below), may suggest an anger, and a negative affluence with connection to his images, as the darkness within its frame suggests Niagara for some a place of violence and deceit. On the other hand, the image below shows a parallel with those images associated with passion and desire, as the red colours illustrate these positive emotions.

The images in Martin Parr’s ‘Common Sense’ are very energetic and colourful. Parr uses the same language of advertising through the bright vibrancy of the images which makes them stand out and entice the viewer in. Parr however produces his own satirical twist on this, through evoking this style not to depict beauty but instead a more vulgar aspect of advertised imaging. In doing so Parr forces the viewer to question the manipulative effect of advertised images

Documentary photography

For my personal study I looked at Dorothea Lange who was a documentary photographer who worked for The Farm Security Administration (FSA) which was Initially created as the Resettlement Administration (RA) in 1935 as part of the New Deal in the United States, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) was an effort during the Depression to combat American rural poverty and make people aware of what was going on. I am going to look further into this by researching Walker Evans who also worked for the FCA.

Walker evens

I want my work to be – “literate, authoritative, transcendent”.

Walker Evans is a documentary photographer who is most well known for his work while at the FCA which was documenting the effects that The Great Depression had on people.  During 1935 Walker photographed in the South of America.  In 1936, he was sent by Fortune Magazine on a project to Hale County, Alabama where he stayed with three tenant white families photographing them during the depression. The photographs he took were not published by Fortune Magazine but later in 1941 these photographs were published and considered to be a ground breaking book called ‘Let Us Now Praise Famous Men’. This book included detailed accounts of the three farming families living in rural poverty. These photographs like the ones of Dorothea Lange were used as ‘ icons’ to represent poverty and the depression era in America. Walker Evans continued to work for the FCA until 1938, he then became an independent  photographer with his own first exhibition held later that year at The Museum of Modern Art.

https://lis471.wordpress.com/walker-evans/

I think that Walker Evans photographs particularly the photographs from the Alabama series achieve what most documentary photographer want. I think they look very raw and credible. As well as interesting.  Being used to seeing portraits of people in a very glamourous way, looking at some of Walker’s photographs make me feel a bit uncomfortable.  I think they portray the true likeliness of the person, although most of his photographs look as if they gave been staged I think they still manage to capture something genuine although I can not pin point what this is.

Examples of portraits from ‘Let Us Now Praise Famous Men’

Un Chien Andalou

Un Chien Andalou is a 17 minute long surrealist film and was created in France in 1929 and is a black and white silent film. It is basically a film where a man uses a blade to cut into a woman’s eyeball. Within the first few moments of the short film the audience see the moon, the blade and the eye being cut. You don’t actually see the eyeball being cut into but instead you see a thin cloud passing by the moon, which obviously represents the eye. I like old films like this as they seemed to be more creative and left more to the imagination and allowed spectators/audiences figure things out for themselves and make them think that they had seen something when in fact it was just the trick of the camera shots/angles. I love that old cinema would do this all the time purely because there wasn’t the budget to spent on elaborate special makeup and effects whereas nowadays technology has moved on and audiences almost want to see everything, like they need to see every detail of a scene just to believe it more. I find this short film so random and strange, which kind of made me laugh because it was so out of the ordinary. I like the transitions and how a character could be in one place and suddenly be transported into another. I find this concept interesting and adds more to the short film, making it so much more inviting for the audience to keep them guessing and to move them away from the ordinary and passive way of thinking. For me this short film was made to provoke thinking and to really make audiences think for themselves and start to interpret things for themselves too instead of constantly being told exactly what is going on and what is happening in a film. After watching this short film I was left wondering what I had just watched. It was so random but strangely enough I found it amusing. It is one of those things that are just so strange and out there that you can’t help but laugh at it but also question how strange it is. I thought the cutting of the eye ball at the beginning was a signifier that they were living in a surrealist world and it was also gross to see and split open eye. The ants made me think that the man was dead and they were for some reason feasting on his dead hand, like bugs do when people die. The leading male protagonist literally seemed insane to me and was the most random in the short film but he really did intrigue me with his facial expressions and the eyeliner around his eyes.

Notes | Thoughts

-holding ants in his hand and is in a frozen position staring at it
– woman with hair slicked back pocking at a severed hand that she had in  a box in the middle of the street while police try to push spectators away
– characters always freeze in a moment
– woman run over in the street, man looks so excited about it
– the man gropes the womans boobs [so odd]. she doesn’t want him to but he makes her and he images her with no top on and seems to be dribbling
– very theatrical performance and they use there facial expressions as obviously they never used to speak in these silent films
– doesn’t make any sense, he appears in different rooms etc
– the man is strange and somewhat creepy
– the man seems to be a bit delusional or just really weird as he seems to get excited for the gory and unsettling painful parts of the film
– books turn into guns
– transported to another place, in a woods somewhere. touches womans bare back before he falls to the floor possibly dead
– she looses her arm hair which ends up on his face. she leaves through a door in the house and ends up on a beach with some other man

KOYAANISQATSI (Life Out Of Balance)

Koyaanisqatsi is a 1h23minute film that brings to the light the beauty of our natural world alongside contemporary urban society. This is something that I want to focus on in my own photographic work and so this film is a perfect example to gain some inspiration from. This film shows the true horrors of our urbanised world and how it is constantly being destroyed, re-built and is taking away natures natural beauty. I love this film as it is really relaxing to look at with the music per the top and being able to see these beautiful landscapes with the sun and clouds moving showing the time-lapse. I have always been a lover of the natural world and often find myself going down to the ocean when I need to de-stress or relax. Something about the natural world is so therapeutic and more beautiful than any building ever could be. The main thought that I left with after watching this film was how often destruction does on in our urbanised society and how often we abuse our natural world, throwing rubbish around and not caring about the consequence that future generations are going to be focused to face because of the people of todays selfishness and carelessness. This film has really helped me with my thoughts on my project and inspired me to make a really great series of images that will really give a clear message on what I want my spectators to see and the movement that I want to follow.

Notes | Thoughts

-aboriginal drawings
-earrie , with soft calming music
– the voice makes it sound like some sort of ritual
– the music makes the destruction look almost poetic, as it falls you feel more empathy towards it and just watch as it slowly falls to the ground
– beautiful landscapes with music playing over it
– showing off the natural world with slow pan shots as well as the music making it more fascinating to look at
– shot of bats in a cave, sound of their voices and flying
– one huge time lapse
– cloud time lapse replicates fire and smoke, going fast pace
– water fall blue sea and clouds of smoke
– calm ocean
– different shots transitioning across smoothly
– clouds moving fast to transition into the ocean making a smooth transition that blends well
– clouds look like the ocean going over all of the mountains, looks amazing
– really relaxing to watch
– film made using a drone, flowing across water and miles of land with crops and flowers
– visually beautiful shots
– large truck, black smoke, electronic systems build over the natural world to make roads and garbage disposals
– giant connect pillions that carry electricity and holds the wires that the internet and electricity goes through
– power station throwing out gas into the natural world
– unnatural gases coming out of these stations
– roads and pathways being built over the natural world, confining it
– construction building, moving around dirt and remoulding it to suit people
– mass construction
– explosions
– amazing shots make it look almost sad that the natural world is slowly being taken away to make room for the urbanised society that we live in
– people on a beach next to a large construction site
-tourists coming to see these buildings
– skyscrapers are so tall, reflection of the clouds in them
– plane out of focus, blurred moving as if staring from a reflection in the ocean or showing the fuel that is used for planes that infects the air [pollution]
– you could make a photo book out of the shots made in this short film, it’s almost poetic
– the film is more effective as it makes you focus on one thing for an extended length of time, making you focus on the little details and think more about what we are doing to the natural world
– highways, hundreds of thousands of cars using fuel and polluting the earth. people don’t use their legs anymore because it isn’t convenient
– war, explosions, people dying and nature suffering, cluster bombs
– intense explosions constantly in nature while tall building and cities are doing just fine
– buildings are all geometric shapes, perfectly constructed and lined while nature is suffering and being abused and ignored
– rubbish and destruction everywhere
– people living in dirt and human waste
– mistreated
– dirty and disgusting
– repetition of buildings, cars etc
– everything in nature is different and unique in its own beautiful way whereas urban society looks all the same
– tall, ugly buildings
– smashed windows, destruction
– emphasis on how the urbanised world is mistreated and a waste of space
– constant destruction and being blown up, remoulded and changed to suit people
– formation of the clouds is dull and gloomy
– seeing the destruction of the buildings made me feel more on edge, it was horrible to watch. made me more tense
– so unnatural and everything looks the same
– floods of people, in masses walking around
–  people looking into the camera stood in front of machines that people made, fast pace trains, large plane with pilot staring into carema
– huge lights and cameras behind a group of women staring into the camera
– sun setting through the reflection of windows of a huge building

Julian became interested in photography when he was at school, he went on to study it at the Royal College of Art in London. He published many books which include combinations of both his own photographs and family archive photographs. Julian believes in the value of of amateur photographs which is shown in one of his recent books called ‘ For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness’ which was published in 2005.

Julian’s website – http://www.juliangermain.com/

‘For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness’

‘ He was my antidote to modern day living’ 

This book is about an elderly man names Charles Albert Lucien Snelling from Portsmouth who Julian photographed for 8 years. He met Charles through a coincidence in 1992 when he was on his way to photograph the Portsmouth V Nottingham Forest cup and was attracted to the house because of it’s bright yellow colour. Through out the photo book there is a substantial amount of photographs which include flowers this is because Charles sold flowers and plants outside his home. ‘ He loved flowers and the names of flowers’.  Which helps us to understand his personality a bit more. Julian included scans of pages from Charles personal archive which include his wife who had past away 2 years before, but is a big part of his life. He shows this by including various archival portraits of  Charles’ wife.  I think this is really important and gives us an understanding of what his life was like before and what it is like now. However i’m not sure how the title links to the story but I think it may be something to do with Charles’ wife.

I decided to do some research about Julian Germain because although he is a documentary photographer he takes a different approach to it than most other photographer for example Eugene Smith. This is because he photographs are staged, Julian manipulates the way the photographs look by telling his subjects what to do and planning what he wants the photographs to look like in advance. Where as Eugene Smith has a more traditional approach to documenting. He doesn’t interfere with the subject and uses the camera as more of an eye witness and ‘documents’ the situation. Therefore Julian Germain pushes the boundaries between what is real and what is not because he is staging the photograph it could be argued that the scene is not real which links in with the exam title truth and fiction.

Tableau Photography can be seen as a ‘Visual Fiction’: 

Tableaux ‘vivants‘ have been around for tens of centuries. The recreating of famous scenes and paintings was a popular pastime and in our contemporary world,  the digital age  brings us new stories and narratives that can be created with the revival of the tableau photograph.

A “tableau vivant” is a French phrase meaning “living picture.” Before photography was established, it was a popular pastime to re-create scenes from famous paintings at parties and other social events. Participants would dress up, use props, appropriate backgrounds and poses to re-stage the original image, to almost ridicule or mimic, encouraging more audience interest and participation. This technique saw large radicalisation, as people were going against traditional norms to suppress different emotions within photographs.  A good example of this is included in Goethe’s series “ELECTIVE INFINITIES” where the Count in the story suggests:

“There are many well proportioned people here who are certainly capable of impersonating the movements and postures of paintings. Such tableaux demand a great deal of troublesome arrangements, I know, but they produce an unbelievable effect.”

Since the time photography came about, ‘tableaux vivants’ have remained a popular method to recreate old paintings as photographs and to create new narrative scenes in a tableau style captured as photograph. Early pioneers of the tableau photograph were David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson who, in the 1840’s, created many staged portraits of famous men of the time. They also staged images of local fish wives, fishermen and working people.

The Revival of Tableau Photography, 1970s 

The 1970s was a time of experimentation in photography, showing a rise in the use of performance art and photography among women. Photography almost acted as a ‘sanctuary’ for women, as their liberation and freedom grew from being able to experience art forms that men originally performed instead. Cindy Sherman is a good example of how women began to express themselves through photographs in the public domain. Cindy Sherman’s “Film Stills” series dating from the late 1970s to early 1980s are all narrative tableau constructions that create archetypal women from B movies: posed, staged and lit to convey meaning and message.

Sherman starred in every image, turning herself into an art form. Sherman still creates tableau scenes that use herself in the image in a managed way to expose a character or tell a story.

Bernard Faucon is another example of the revival of tableau photography, and differently to Sherman, uses mannequins in his tableau photography, giving his work a surrealist edge. The line between fact and fiction becomes increasingly blurred as some of his images used a mixture of real people and mannequins; making the viewer look deeper into the image to discern what is real and what is not. Faucon’s career took off in 1976 with his exhibition “Les Grandes Vacances.”

This work explored themes of childhood, with the children being replaced with mannequins who play with the elements fire, earth, water and sky. Faucon was obsessed with childhood and in 1995 his obsession came to an end as he retired from photography stating, “I had to eventually make true my claim to finish, my obsession with closing. This became The End of the Image.”

Contemporary Tableau Photography: Ryan Schude

Contemporary artists and photographers have used the tableau to create stunning imagery that reflects modern society and has an underlying narrative. The use of theatrical or filmic lighting adds to the effect of the images. Ryan Schude is a great example of how tableau photography as an art form has allowed him to manipulate any situation in a ridiculed way. Schude’s American lifestyle allows him to play in versitile scenes, as America is known for its variation in scenery, as well as its reputation to always commit to its vibrant character. In the words of Aline Smithson of “LENSCRATCH”,  Fine Art  Articles,  she describes Schude as “creating new photographic worlds by combining a mixture of humor, chaos, constructed environments, and ironic fun. Ryan is a photographer who does it all, producing commercial, stock, editorial, and fine art imagery ” . Below are pictures from his series “TABLEAU VIVANTS“. This series surrounds a range of images surrounding the abnormal lives of people in American Lifestyles.

Appropriation – The action of taking something for one’s own use, typically without the owner’s permission.

The idea of appropriation in art, is to use already existing objects and images, and recontextualising them to give them a completely new meaning. It has been a concept used by photographers and artists so that they can give something that has no meaning and give it a meaning by presenting it as art, or giving something that already has a meaning a new one. It allows us to question these pieces, and think to ourselves ‘what is art?’. Are we able to blatantly use someone else’s art, and not change it, but consider it our own?

An example of this is Sherrie Levine’s ‘After Walker Evans’. In 1979, Sherrie Levine rephotographed Walker Evan’s famous picture of a sharecroppers wife and didn’t manipulate or change the image in anyway, and stated that it was her own piece. Talking to Arts Magazine in 1985 she said ”The pictures I make are really ghosts of ghosts,”. With this mindset, we have to try and think of the truth and fiction behind her work. Some people describe it as innovative, as she was able to take a photograph of a photograph and call it her own photo, because in essence it was. Other people such as the estate of Walker Evans, believed it to be copyright infringement, so bought the whole collection to prevent anyone else from doing so.

Developing on Levine’s work, in 2001, photographer Michael Mandiberg set up the websites aftersherrielevine.com and afterwalkerevans.com and made the photographs from each one of the projects available to download in a high resolution format, so that it is possible to print the images out at exhibition standard. This is to develop the argument on how information, art and a number of other things are becoming easier and easier for us to access within this digital age, and making us think about how easily art can now be created. With this idea of a developing digital world, in 2015 Mandiberg created the project ‘Print Wikipedia’, where he  printed out the 7,473 volumes of Wikipedia as it existed on April 7, 2015. Mandiberg says there are two reasons to why he created this project, the first of which was because he had his own personal interest on wanting to know how big it really was. The second reason behind this project was because Mandiberg usually works with found materials, and tries to see what the smallest move he can make that will transform them. So with ‘Print Wikipedia’, it was taking a text form in a database or website, and turning them into books, which Mandiberg felt that the transformation was enough that the meaning of the information became different.

For my project, I’d like to take inspiration from these appropriation artists by using material that is accessible online and incorporating it into the idea of my project. For the project I want to explore the online personas of politicians in Jersey, compared to what they are actually like in real life.

“Most photographers seem to operate with a pane of glass between themselves and their subjects. They just can’t get inside and know the subject.” – W. Eugene Smith

Documentary photography 

I have chosen to do some more research on Eugene Smith because he is one of the most well known documentary photographers. He’s work  links in with the exam theme truth which is an area I am considering exploring  in my project.

Eugene smith is an American photojournalist photographer he is known for his dedication to projects and ethical standards. He developed photo essays into visual forms. His most famous work includes: World War II photographs were he was on the front line documenting the effects of war, the clinic of Dr Schweitzer in French Equatorial Africa and he joined the Magnum photo agency in 1995 where he began his project on the city of Pittsburgh. Smith began his career by taking photographs for local newspapers.

In January 1972 he was attacked by employees from Chisso Company in Japan near Tokyo in an attempt to stop him from publishing photographs of the effect of Minamata disease. Although he survived this attack his vision in one deteriorated which stopped him from working for a period of time. I think this shows a lot about Eugene’s work and how much he is willing to show the world the reality of some situations. Which could upset quite a few people. I think this links in to a quote from the exam book by TS Elliot which says ‘ Humankind can bear only so much reality…’  I think this situation puts the quote into context. This also brings back the ethics and standards of photography which questions where the line of photographing is and what should and shouldn’t be photographed.

Eugene Smith Magum photographs-  http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL5347YF

Eugene Smith also produced a famous photo essay about the Country Doctor which is something I looked at for my personal study. From this I found that Eugene photographed the Dr’s  work life and personal life with his wife and children as well as his patients and surroundings therefore he spends a lot of time photographing his subjects and gets to know them well so he is able to produce photographs with an intimate perceptive which gives the viewer more of an incite and allows them to make a connection to them.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADVERTISING

William Bernbach   – “Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art”                

As establish in the previous blog-post, the nature of advertisement changed forever as a result of “mass-production”, it was now easier than then ever for companies to advertise their products. Whilst creating obvious advantages this also created a significant barrier to companies trying to sell their products to consumers, a rise in competition due to this increased practicality and availability.

As people now had a much greater market in terms of available products, it was now more important then ever for companies to ensure that consumers were most likely to be drawn into and attracted to that particular companies product alone. For example, if a consumer has a choice of 10 available cigarette brands, than they will be bound to go for the one which appeals to them the most.

From the 1920s onward, companies began to tap into consumer psychology, realizing the link between how presentation of an advertisement may effect the connections/associations the viewer has with such a product. As psychology slowly began to grow in influence and the impact it had on the consumer, this was met with criticism from various writers and philosophers at the time, seeing the artistic methods used by companies as exploitative – a form of opportunism playing on sub-conscious urges, thus manipulating consumers into purchasing products. On the other hand many avant-garde artists were prepare to dismiss any moral restrictions, in celebration of the opportunity this allowed artists for creative expression.

GROWING LINK BETWEEN ART AND ADVERTISING

Modern advertising began to emerge and develop soon after the First World War. In the U.S. Various advertising groups and agencies can be largely credited for this growth, groups such as N. W. Ayer, J. Walter Thompson and McCann Erikson, who formed part of the ‘American Association of Advertising Agencies’.

Additionally 1920 led to the creation of the Art Directors’ Club, which helped to create the bridge between art and the commercial work, creating an organisation whereby artists could be commissioned to produce work for these newly developed advertising agencies – an incentive for better and more insightful artistic work to be produced for advertising purposes . Also in Germany, designers and photographers were brought together through the establishment of the Deutscher Gebrauchgraphiker, another example of the link between art and design.

Specialized magazines encouraged the use of photography and colourful graphic design, to create more realistic and visually exciting formats of work – moving away from less accurate and tedious methods of design and artistic presentation, such as sketching and line-drawings.

RISING INFLUENCE OF PHOTOGRAPHY 

By the mid 1920s, advertising found a new and powerful way which photography could have an influence on advertising – using photography to show with clarity, the usefulness, comfort , luxury, (along with other benefits) of a particular product. A growing number of photographers including Edward Steichen and Andre Vigneau, began to specialize in ‘publicity photographs’. Steichen for example, was commissioned to photograph Camel cigarettes, in which he experimented with chiaroscuro lighting to create dark, gripping and enticing images of cigarettes, showing them in a charming and exciting way.

Although the health effects of smoking were perhaps less known or considered in 1920s, it is still interesting to consider that photography could be used to promote a product such as cigarettes, in such an attractive manner. From a modern perspective at least, it is easy to question the morality of such forms of advertising – the use of lighting and other photographic techniques to manipulate a ‘realistic’ interpretation of a product which is extremely unhealthy and highly addictive (to the extent that it is banned as a form of advertising in the UK nowadays).

However, soon many photographers working in the advertising industry soon sought to distance themselves from the restrictive and controlling task of ‘promotional advertising’, and instead venture into more experimental, avart-garde work. Many previous publicity photographers began to concentrate on creating a mood associated with an object, rather than just objectively recording the object alone. In order to achieve this, photographers started to follow the ideology and principles of the ‘Bauhaus Art School’ and the surrealists, evoking techniques such as tilted camera angles, lining up rows of objects, photograms, superimposition, solarization altering images and X-Ray techniques.

As a result of this change in attitudes – photographers began to diverge into advertising for things other than basic consumer products, such as manufacturer brochures and seasonal catalogs of big department stores, expensive jewelry and designer products. Subsequently the type of work photographers were required to do altered dramatically. At first, photographers had a degree of control over their equipment and photo-shoots,  free to delve into different and varied means. However, soon a much greater degree of control was imposed on photographers concerning what they can and could not do, as photographic agents, copy-writers and editors became increasingly involved in the production of images, commissioning and the organisation of photo-sessions.

During the Second World War, advertising  was inspired mainly by the exploration of patriotic themes. Whilst going about the selling of ordinary products, they sought to incorporate slogans, posters and news articles in support of the Government and War, some for financial gain other simply due to feelings of patriotism and loyalty for their country. During this period, Photography was used by all nations as a means of reassuring civilians, boosting the morale of soldiers, and preserving national security. Increased censorship on photo-journalist was introduced to ensure that the images they created did not undermine and disrupt the war effort, which the Government wanted to convey to the general public as successful.

In the post-war years, U.S. industry expanded at a rapid rate, whilst Europe also experienced a period of relative return to growth and prosperity. During this period, as commercial industries sought to recover, and so quickly needed to find a way of encouraging people to resume spending and consuming after a drop in such activities due to the disruption of war. To achieve this, companies recognized the need for new and refreshing advertising campaigns and slogans, to encourage and motivate consumers to buy in a period of uncertainty, Luckily, this was made easier by improvements in printing techniques and the improved quality of colour film – greatly increasing the attractiveness of images.

The commercial opportunities for professional photographers to sell their images also enhanced dramatically during this period, with the rise of colour photographic magazines such as, Time and Life, giving photography as a visual art more status. The powerful documentary photographs which were produced during the periods of the Great Depression and later the war were very powerful and effective,  to the extent that text soon began to be compromised and reduced to meet the needs of photographs.

One of the most prominent ways in which photography influenced the masses was through the various ‘general interest’ photo-journalist magazines such as Time, Life and Weekly Illustrated which looking at ordinary lives and changing trends expressed largely through photographs, in the process reporting on, changing and influences cultural trends and patterns in consumerism, television, fashion etc. As a result many companies sough to associate themselves which these extremely popular magazines through selecting advertising slots and paying for special commissions for editors to include the companies own ‘promotional images’. This even caught on to the point that  large companies created their own general interest magazines, targeted at selling their specific products.

Now photography was not just influential in advertising but equally, it played a substantial part in reflecting and challenging commercial trends. It grew in commercial value and large corporations started to respect the powerful and influential nature of photographs; whereby the photographer has a greater degree of freedom to express and explore creative ideas.

I found this video during the research process of ‘The Science of Love’, module of my project. I thought this module of my project would really draw in contextual perceptions of love, but in an alternate way of ‘science’ instead of the mainstream ’emotional’ meaning.

A Modern Perspective of Love in Literature

A Psychological Perspective of Teen Romances in Young Adult Literature: Cheryl L. Dickson

Cheryl L. Dickson is a high school literature teacher and explains in her article “A Psychological Perspective of Teen Romances in Young Adult Literature” Dickson finds it impossible to ignore the “bantering of teenagers in love”. Dickson works against stereotypes of love when stating”

“I question who gives them the impression that love is always fireworks and roses”.

Controversially, Dickson blames the ‘media’ as she gives examples of teen movies such as “She’s All That” and television programs like Dawson’s Creek, she states: “It’s no wonder adolescents have unrealistic views of love”.  “Teens watch these programs for a number of reasons. Most viewers enjoy the fantasy world they can enter, or they enjoy seeing other teens facing situations similar to situations they encounter. A problem occurs when teens expect their lives to be like their favorite character. Just as violence on television is hypothesized to increase real-life violence, television romance can likely affect views of real-life romance”.

Dickson adds that being a literature teacher creates the hope that  literature could “undo television’s mistakes and bridge the gap between real love and fantasy love”. In our modern day and age it’s understandable that teenagers are influenced daily by the ‘next best thing’. Dickson sympathises with this, and compels the reader to empathise with her:

“In my mind, the literature had to be real fiction, not the supermarket romance novels. I believed teen romance series were likely to be just as damaging as teen movies.”

She then adds that she ‘predicted‘  that quality literature would more accurately portray images of teen love than teen romance novels. However, during my comparison of two novels from the Love Series published by Bantam Books and two novels recommended by the American Libraries Association, I learned that I had made some hasty assumptions.

Dickson creates a difference between ‘teen love‘ and ‘romance‘

Teen: a person aged between 13 and 19 years, (synonyms) a young adult, adolescent

Love: a strong feeling of affection and sexual attraction for someone, (synonyms) affection, fondness, tenderness

Against

Romance: a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love, (synonyms) passion, ardour, adoration, devotion; affection, fondness, intimacy, attachment.

Here, Dickson established how romance is a ‘mysterious‘ and a delved part of love. Against the definition of love, Dickson almost suggests that love, even though associated with romance, contradicts the idea that there is much more to romance than a ‘teen love‘; for instance, know one really understands love until they experience it, yet adolescents are melded with the harsh stereotypes of love in the media, and therefore are ‘let down‘ in a way when experienced.

“The Art of Loving” is a 1956 book by psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm, which was published as part of the World Perspectives Series. Fromm presents love as a ‘skill‘ that can be taught and developed, rejecting the idea of loving as something magical and mysterious that cannot be analysed nor explained, and is therefore skeptical about popular ideas such as “falling in love” or being helpless in the face of love.

“I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and not in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me”.

Because modern humans are alienated from each other and from nature, we seek refuge from our lonesomeness in romantic love and marriage . However, Fromm observes that real love “is not a sentiment which can be easily indulged in by anyone.” It is only through developing one’s total personality to the capacity of loving one’s neighbor with “true humility, courage, faith and discipline” that one attains the capacity to experience real love. This should be considered a rare achievement . Fromm defended these opinions also in interview with Mike Wallace when he states:

“love today is a relatively rare phenomenon, that we have a great deal of sentimentality; we have a great deal of illusion about love, namely as a…as something one falls in. But the question is that one cannot fall in love, really; one has to be in love. And that means that loving becomes, and the ability to love, becomes one of the most important things in life.”

“Loving oneself is quite different from ‘arrogance, conceit or egocentrism’“. Loving oneself defines along the lines of caring about oneself and taking responsibility for oneself, respecting oneself, and knowing oneself, for example, being realistic and honest about one’s strengths and weaknesses in awe for giving constructive criticism. In order to be able to truly love another person, one needs first to love oneself in this way. Fromm calls the general idea of love in contemporary Western society égoïsme à deux: a relationship in which each person is entirely focused on the other, to the detriment of other people around them. The current belief is that a couple should be a well-assorted team, sexually and functionally, working towards a common aim. This is in contrast with Fromm’s description of true love and intimacy, which involves willful commitment directed toward a single unique individual. One cannot truly love another person if one does not love all of mankind including oneself.

According to to the creation of myths of the Abrahamic religion, Adam and Eve where the first man and first woman ever to set foot on Earth. The story created by God was for people to believe that humans would live an idealic lifestyle, and were created to endure pure paradise to its most form. However, Adam and Eve both end up falling away from that state, and live under the realistic world of suffering and injustice for their unruly consequences.

In the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible, there are two creational narratives with two distinct perspectives: In the first, both Adam and Eve are not references by name, yet instead God created humankind in ‘Gods image” and instructed both of them to become custodians of all of his creations. In this essence we don’t receive the same purposeful affiliation with that of normal humans, as they are controlled by someone, and stripping them of their own individualities. In the second narrative, God fashions Adam from dust to which he then places him in the Garden of Eden. God commands that he is allowed to eat and devour anything in the garden, everything but The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve however, is carved from one of Adam’s ribs, to be known as Adam’s companion. As a reader of this story, you immediately come to the assumption that Eve is created from Adam purely to be demised sexually and powerfully; he is her owner. Symbolically, this has changed the way the modern reader perceives love, as this creation started the roles in relationships we see today. During my re-creational processes, I would like to consider using essences from the original stories of sin and love to suppress the religious definitions and representations of its perceptions. Further along in the story, a serpent appears and tricks Eve into delving into the Tree of Knowledge, questioning her venerability. Like all females today, the stereotype to perceive women as the ‘weaker sex’ could possibly remise from this original story. Generously, Eve seen as the ‘care-giver’ offers fruit to Adam for the result of his own happiness. This also represents the stereotypical view as women as ‘housewives’, providing for males in return for their strength and well-being. God ends up killing the serpent, and prophetically tells the woman and the man what will be the consequences of their sin of disobeying God, he then banishes ‘the man’ from the Garden of Eden

Art Interpretations of Adam and Eve

JAN BRUEGHEL D. J.

Brueghel was born in 13 September 1601, in Antwerp and is a Flemish painter and draughtsman. Breughel’s depiction of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden creates a  myriad variety of forms and motifs with bright and intense colours, creating the ‘jewelj-like‘ effect so prized in his œuvre. This illustrates the sublimity within his work, and bringing out the idea of nature and natural creation, as religion is a big part of Breughel’ s depictions. The image of The Tree of Knowledge surrounded by nature and creatures suggests Breughel almost sets boundaries for the reader to understand, as there is  narrative presented in the whole image.

PETER PAUL REUBENS 

I have decided to explore the ideas of all three applications to photography. I feel there can be some exploration to do with my personal study: the concept of love. Love can be appropriated, performed and conceptualised, and I wish to explore that aspect in a greater depth.

Appropriation in Photography

“The deliberate reworking of images and styles from earlier, well-known works of art.”

Appropriation in art and art history refers to the “practice of artists using pre-existing objects or images in their art with little transformation of the original”.  Appropriation can be tracked back to the cubist collages and constructions of Picasso and Georges Braque made from 1912 on, in which real objects such as newspapers were included to represent themselves. The practice was developed much further in the readymades created by the French artist Marcel Duchamp from 1915. Most notorious of these was Fountain, a men’s urinal signed, titled, and presented on a pedestal. Later, surrealism also made extensive use of appropriation in collages and objects such as Salvador Dalí’s Lobster Telephone. In the late 1950s appropriated images and objects appear extensively in the work of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and in pop art.

However, the term ‘appropriation’  seems to have come into use specifically in relation to certain American artists in the 1980s, notably Sherrie Levine and the artists of the Neo-Geo group. Levine reproduced as her own work other works of art, including paintings by Claude Monet and Kasimir Malevich. Levine’s aim was to create a new situation, and therefore a new meaning or set of meanings, for a familiar image.

Appropriation in art raises questions of originality and authenticity  belonging to the long modernist tradition of art that questions the nature or definition of art itself. Appropriation artists were influenced by the 1934 essay by the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, and received contemporary support from the American critic Rosalind Krauss in her 1985 book “The Originality of the Avant-Garde” and “Other Modernist Myths”.

Conceptualism: Alexandra Bellissimo 

“The theory that universals can be said to exist, but only as concepts in the mind.”

The Conceptual Art Movement is probably the of the most radical and controversial planes in modern and contemporary art. Conceptual art is based on the notion that the “essence of art is an idea, or concept, and may exist distinct from and in the absence of an object as its representation”. Many examples of conceptual art (well-known works or statements) questions the notions of art itself. Some conceptual artists believe that art is created by the viewer, not by the artist or the artwork itself, for example Bellissimo (pictured above) connotes that the eye of the reader is there to manipulate the subject, in any way shape or form. Ideas and concepts are the main feature of art: aesthetics and material concerns have a secondary role in conceptual art. For example, Conceptual artists recognise that all art is essentially “conceptual“. In order to emphasize these terms, they reduce the material presence of the work to an absolute minimum, for example, a tendency that some have referred to as the dematerialisation of art, counts as one of the main characteristics of conceptual art. As many conceptual art examples show, the conceptual art movement itself emerged as a reaction against the tenets of formalism. Formalism considers that the formal qualities of a work, such as line, shape and colour, are “self-sufficient for its appreciation”, and all other considerations, such as representational, ethical or social aspects and are secondary or redundant.

Performance Photography: Tom Pope

“The action or process of performing a task or function.”

What are the connections between Marcel Duchamp‘s gesture of painting a moustache on the iconic painting of Mona Lisa?  

Simply, Duchamp’s gesture nominates The Mona Lisa as a male figure. Arguably, Duchamp created an iconic sort of ‘mask’ that reads instantly as male but does not even pretend to conceal the woman behind the mask. In a sense, “L.H.O.O.Q.” is an artificial hermaphrodite, an image of a woman with that most superficial and nonfunctional characteristic of maleness, a moustache. (The beard is superfluous to the effect of L.H.O.O.Q., and in one version of the piece does not appear at all.) Both, however, acts as backward- looking in that their most immediate effect was to redefine the Mona Lisa itself. At the same time, both are prophetic in the way they project major shifts in the grounds of art as a system of knowledge. Duchamp uses appropriation in order to ridicule and radicalise the history of art, in a contemporary light which changes the normal social representations of women. This also suggests women as various role reversals – women are usually depicted as the ‘weaker‘ sex, and Duchamp toys with this idea possibly to lift female and male equality

What are the connections between a photograph of a cup of tea by Martin Parr and Andy Warhol‘s paintings of Campbell’s Soup Cans?

 Martin Parr’s series is a good example of contemporary Pop Art as it depicts an everyday object. Everyday objects were often used as subject matter for Pop artists such as Andy Warhol’s ‘Campbell’s Soup Cans’ as he was able to manipulate mundane objects in his widely elaborated prints.

“Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle both significant and relevant to history and historical events and everyday life.”

Documentary photography is a form of storytelling, usually with one powerful photograph and deeper meaning which often moves people. This form of photography is used to ‘document’ events and people in everyday real life situations which in the past has been used to bring the attention of an audience to a particular subject, change their perspective and create a social change for example: a photograph taken by Nick Ut in Vietnam in 1972 of children running from a bomb explosion caused outraged protests in America and changed the outcome of the war. Views on documentary photography are controversial as some people believe that certain situations should not be documented which  also brings in social and political associations such as whether or not it is deemed ethical or moral to take these pictures and publish them.

Today many people are pushing the boundaries of what can be defined as documentary photography, and if photographer should still abide by the rules and ethic codes of documentary photography. Below is an example of an article about  the World Press panel discussing the rules of documentary.

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/news/2015-07-01/awards-days-discussion-recap-rules-documentary-photography

Photojournalism 

Documentary photography are  generally related to longer term projects with a more complex story line, whilst photojournalism concerns are more about breaking news stories.

Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism which involves collecting and editing news material for a news publication or a broad cast. Photojournalism uses photographs in order to tell a story, it’s different to other types of photography such as documentary and street photography because of it’s rigid ethics  which demands that the photos are honest and impartial and are only telling the story in journalistic terms. The objective of photojournalism is to have images which are a fair representation of events of situations. Illustrating news story’s with photographs began in the mid 19th century in The Times newspaper of Lord Horatio Nelson’s funeral. The first newspaper with weekly illustrations was the Illustrated London News.

From Wikipedia: “Visionary art is art that purports to transcend the physical world and portray a wider vision of awareness including spiritual or mystical themes, or is based in such experiences.”

Visionary art has been prominent in different art movements throughout the centuries, with artists such as Salvador Dali and Max Ernst exploring the ideas of a fantasy reality. Twisting the thoughts and ideas of life, with their own interpretations of how they view the world. For example, Dali’s famous painting ‘The Persistence Of Memory’, depicts a scene with melting pocket watches in an outdoor landscape. The piece of work is a surrealist piece which Dawn Ades describes as “The soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, a Surrealist meditation on the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order”. It shows how Dali was able to grasp this idea of time, and turn it into a tangible work of art, exhibiting the way in which he understands and views the world from a surrealist perspective.

In today’s modern art world, artists have been able to develop on this surrealist ideals, by distorting reality and creating a fantasy world that explores the subconscious. One of the fore-running artists today is visionary artists Alex Grey. Grey has created his own unique style by taking his own ideas of reality, such as a simple family portrait and transforming it into a fantasy piece.

As well as looking into reality as a way to base his work off, he has also delved into the subconscious with pieces that portray an idea of fiction.  He has explored dreams, death and tried to picture the way he feels certain situations may look like.

In the above painting ‘Wonder’, Grey has looked at the subconscious and how you are able to put dreams, thoughts and fantasy onto a canvas. He has painted a image of a young child looking up to the moon, trying to paint what he thinks it might feel like for a child to dream of the universe and the world itself. He uses bright colours and intricate details, such as showing  the inside of the brain, as a way for the audience to really delve into the painting and think for themselves on the particular topics he covers.

With this in mind, moving forward I am going to be taking inspiration from these visionary artists, in a way that will help me connect these ideas of truth, fantasy and fiction and merge them into one idea that will showcase all three of the topics.

OVERVIEW

Post World War One led to the emergence of modern marketing techniques; television, newspaper advertising, magazines and artistic posters, among others. This meant that advertising was now more powerful and viable than it had ever previously been, and impacted people to an extent that had never previously been achieved.

As the technology of printing progressed and became a more viable option, photography as a form of advertising soon began to greatly expand and develop. This led very much to a new genre of photography known as ‘commercial photography’. Through this genre many photographers saw  a viable market in working for cooperate companies, selling their images to companies looking for attractive and striking images to appear in various advertising formats.

CHANGING IDEAS AND ITS IMPACT ON ART

Post WWI Europe was very much based on people trying to progress and move on from the trauma of war.

President Woodrow Wilson spoke highly of ‘self-determination’ for all nations, the right of small ethic groups and cultures to establish and form their own nations, after the break-up of the Empire who ruled over these territories. In the 1920s, whilst some nations had already fallen under the vail of totalitarian rule, such as Russia and Italy, the majority of people Europe seeked to enjoy new and attractive principles of democracy and individual freedom, a prime example being Germany.

These new ideals greatly effected the progression and development of art, with artists embracing this time of enlightenment to celebrate new artistic ideas and challenge the old. This was subsequently a turbulent period of history, with tradition and modernity coming face to face. During such a time, photography through the development of the film camera  which started to emerge in the late-1920s, proved to be an effective and affordable means of photographers across Europe spread a variety of ideas and lifestyles. This was very much made possible because of the role the media played in advertising and publishing.

THE RISE OF ADVERTISING IN THE “MACHINE AGE”

One of most powerful and effective art forms in the last 100 years is arguably, the art of marketing/advertising. The general basis of an advertisement is to put forward an argument to a consumer in a manner which is persuasive enough to attract the consumer into investing in the product being sold.

In the early 20th Century, sales techniques relied on powerful writings distributed in posters, leaflets and newspapers, accompanied maybe by the occasional drawing. The main drawback to this method is that it takes an extremely power and sustained argument to captivate the readers attention, and the reader is not necessarily attracted straight-away to what is presented to them.

However the 1920s saw the development of more visual methods of advertisement being introduced; such as, canvas paintings, photo-prints and the enhancement of posters – larger and more visually inclusive in their design. This style of advertising can be considered more attractive to viewers because it is more striking and attractive to the viewer as it creates a quicker and more immediate impression. This enhancement, development and sophistication of presentation coincided with the arrival of the “machine- age”, which revolutionized production and sales methods, going from small batches of production to suddenly a wave of mass-marketing and publications through the invention of printers and machine presses.

This new commercial trend, ‘mass-production’ would bring about a huge increase in consumption. This led greatly to the enchancement of corporate adveritising, nowqdays a multi-billion pound business. It is very true to say that photograpphy played a significant part in this rise, both through its rich and attractive visual quality combined with its ease for mass production.

EXAMPLES OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN 1920s ADVERTISING

by Edward Steichen, 1927

by Florence Henri, 1929

Bright visual poster from the 1920s

Background 

After WWI, artists in Germany and the USSR began to experiment with an avant-garde technique known as the ‘photo-montage’.

‘Photo-montage’ is the making of a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. These images are then merged together in a way that make it appear like a single image. It is a very general term which allows for a degree of interpretation.

Traditionally a photo-montage often formed part of a larger collage, through the inclusion of other photographs, text, words and even newspaper clippings.

The 1917 Russian Revolution led to the formation of a young Communist state that was celebrated by many artists and intellects, who saw this revolution as an opportunity to end the corruption and poverty that existed in Russia.

Propaganda in the press, literature, radio and visual art was part of the post-revolution process, allowing the government to control and manipulate the public into supporting and tolerating the regime, using creative expression to insight and enlighten. The state increased its control of artists, using fear and threats to ensure the artists used their talents to the benefit of the new regime.

This is certainly the case in the various photo-montage posters which were commissioned by the government in the 1920s, work by artisits including El Lissisky, Alexandder Rodchenko and Vavara Steponavo. In this blog post I will look at how photo-montages at the time, served both as measures of creative expression, as well as regulation and suppression. I will use the work of ‘constructionist’ Vavrara Steponavo to support my findings.

PHOTO-MONTAGE: THE MANIPULATION OF REALITY 

Photo-montages are essentially images which are combined and constructed in a manner which express whatever message the artist wants to convey.  In the USSR, the photo-montage was considered to be the artists interpretation of events, but under strict supervision.

The ‘Five Year Plans’ was a period of extremely radical and supressive measures, which led to extreme poverty and widespread famine. Therefore, what started off as a positive propaganda programme soon became a cover-up of disastrous economic policy.

VAVARA STEPONAVO – PIOONER OF CONSTRUCTIVISM

Vavara Steponavo was a Russian ‘constructivist’ who produced a vast collection of photo-montage posters  throughout her lifetime. The term ‘constructivist’ refers to a trend of art that saw art as a practice for social purposes, instead of just a form of expression. Stepanova, among other such as her husband Alexander Rodchenko, used constructivism to serve the political ideals of the Soviet Union, linking the policies implemented by the regime to the supposed benefit of the people.

By the end of the first ‘Five Year Plan’, the USSR was a leading industrial power. The ‘photo-montage’ was designed by the state to be an ‘ideological image’ which established through visual ‘evidence’, the great success of the plan. This was done by the photographer cutting out newspaper a series of newspaper clippings and sticking them on a large canvas. This can seen as one of the many examples of heavy experimentation during the 1920s in terms of art and what its meaning was.

STEPONAVO …. ‘USSR IN CONSTRUCTION’

‘USSR in Construction’ is a propaganda publication by Stepanavo looking at the various ‘successes’ of industrialisation during the ‘Five Year Plans’. This poster was a foreign publication, designed to show countries such as France and Great Britain of the success of Communist Russia, a nation who were a ‘leading force in the global market and economy’

In this photo-montage, it is apparent that everything is carefully constructed. There are only three types of colour and tone: (different ranges of) black-and-white, and sepia, and the integration of geometrical planes of red to structure the composition. This balance of colour tones ensures that there is a measured range to how the image is viewed.

In this poster the artist has used symbolism to link the visual and written elements of the poster together. Such is apparent through the artists insertion of public address speakers, on a platform with the number 5, symbolising the ‘Five Year Plans’, along with the CCCR (USSR).

The most recognisable aspect of this poster is the large image of Vladimir Lenin, which has been cropped and oversized. The intention of this is to draw emphasis to Lenin in a striking way, to draw the idea to the viewer of his cult like status in contrast to the smaller representation of a crowd of people, indicating ‘mass appreciation’ for this ‘large figure’.

CONCLUSION

I find photo-montages to be very interesting because they are a clever way of photographers working with multiple images to create a response. Photo-montages allow a degree of creativity and are fun and interactive, thus appealing to the audience.

It is clear that during the early period of the Soviet Union, photo-montages, along with the many other experimental forms of art were an exciting and innovative way of the Party and Government drawing public attention towards their ideology. The early photo-montage of Lenin and Stalin speak of hope and prosperity for the future, whilst using clever techniques such as extending the size of the face of the two leaders to represent them in a cult-like, demi god form.

I find that a lot of the Soviet photo-montages look almost a bit like drawings and sketches. They go beyond ‘straight’ or ‘pure’ photography and instead are more abstract and experimental, thus creating this obscured appearance.

A photo-montage is something I could definitely look into creating for my own final outcome, and it is something which would be very fun and experimental to construct.

Background

Since 879, Russia was ruled by the Romanov family, a long lasting dynasty. For hundreds of years Russia was a agricultural feudal system and power lied with the landowners and the masses, who were suppresses, peasants who were tied to the land.

Over the course of the 19th and early 20th Century, Europe underwent an Industrial Revolution – a dramatic period of political and social change whereby the old agricultural systems which existed for thousands of years were replaced by the creation and expansion of industrial societies, with large numbers of peasants moving to the cities and becoming ‘workers’ in factories.

These social changes put pressure on the old autocratic systems of monarchy which existed throughout Europe. Many Governments – Russia included – were extremely reluctant to introduce reform to meet these growing demands. Growing dissent among the workers led to a rise of a political ideology known as Marxism, which advocated the ‘workers rise up against the proletariat’ and establish a new system of Governing known as Socialism (Communism), through which means of production was distributed evenly across all members of society.

In  October 1917, Vladmir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party organised an armed uprising against the newly formed Russian Provisional Government (after the Tsar’s abdication in Feb. 1917), leading to the creation of the world’s first Communist state.

Lenin turned Russia into a totalitarian state, which meant that the government had complete control of every aspect of life – and individual rights and freedoms suppressed brutality by the Bolshevik Secret Police. One of the key characteristics of a totalitarian state is the belief that the masses should embrace the ideology and actively love the regime.

An effective way Lenin, and later Stalin, ensured this was through the introduction of State Propaganda.

State Propaganda in Russia was intended to brainwash and manipulate the masses into supporting the regime. Both Lenin and Stalin used propaganda to make themselves appear in to be brave, honourable, loving and courageous. As a result the masses were subdued into total and absolute admiration for their dictator. In Stalin’s case in particular, propaganda was used to make the masses both love him whilst simultaneously fear his enormous power.

PROPAGANDA  POSTERS 

STALIN – PROPAGANDA AND THE CULT OF PERSONALITY 

BACKGROUND

RUSSIAN ART AND CULTURE BEFORE STALIN

In the early days of Communism, the Soviet authorities were prepared to tolerate a great deal of diversity in revolutionary art and culture. Art during this period (1920-30s) was revolution in many senses, deliberately experimental and different from traditional art forms

• Kasimir Malevich = abstract paintings such as ‘Black Square’

• Leon Theremin invented world’s first electronic musical instrument – the theremin

• Filmaker Dziga Vertov, Kino Pravda; slow-motion, freeze frames and playbacks – films with no sets actors or plot

Thiis period also Celebrated modern industrial technology – abstract geometrical          shapes that resembled shapes in factory buildings

• Composer Alexander Mosolov – ‘The Iron Factory’ and ‘Steel’

… and promoted revolutionary heroics

• Sergei Einstein = trilogy of films celebrating the struggle of the workers against the Tsar

RECONSTRUCTING THE ARTS

1930 – Stalin expresses his discontent with Soviet Art. In ‘The Bolshevik’, he argues that revolutionary art should ‘express government opinion’ rather than ‘individual creativity’

Art meant nothing to the average peasant or worker – abstract shapes, surrealist films and experimental music were incompatible with the Soviet masses

REORGANISING SOVIET LITERATURE – SOCIALIST REALISM: ‘ART FOR THE WORKERS’

Art was re-organised in April 1932, following the ‘Decree of the Reformation of Literary-Artistic Organisations’. This decree established ‘Union of Soviet Writers’ which defined the style appropriate for Russian authors

Ivan Kulik of ‘Ukrainian Writers’ Union’ argued all Soviets writers who supported the revolution should adopt ‘Socialist Realism’. In 1934 – ‘All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers’ officially adopted ‘Socialist Realism’

‘SOCIALIST REALISM’

Refers to art which provides a ‘true reflection of reality’ whilst ‘participating in the building of socialism’

Based into three concepts …. Partynost (party spirit), Narodnost (national spirt) and Ideinost (new thinking)

Primary aim of Government = ‘educating the workers in the spirit of communism’ to deliver ‘art for the workers’….. using art to sell Communist ideology

Return to traditionalism was part of Stalin’s ‘Great Retreat’, a return to traditional values based on modesty and morality

ART FOR THE WORKERS

1929 – ‘ALL-Union Co-operative of Workers in Representational Arts’ established – worked in very similar way to the ‘Five Year Plans’ …. Members were set targets to complete a certain amount of pieces of work on a subject matter they were told to complete

1930 …. 200 artists were sent to collective farms and construction sites with the task of recording the ‘heroic work’ they witnessed

1936 …. ‘Committee for Art Affairs (KPDI) …. KPDI, under Yezhov, began to purge Soviet artists

Soviet Government and supports saw this period of a ‘creative atmosphere of enthusiasm’, however in reality artists were controlled, suppressed, and like industrial workers/managers, force to reach unrealistic ‘targets’

INSPIRATIONAL ART

‘Socialist Realism’ = designed to inspire the workers

Artistic required to ‘reflect in art the spirit and experiences of life out in the major sites of socialist industry’

Sculptures celebrating achievements of ‘Five Year Plans’ such as Dnieper Power Station and 70 metre long model of Dnieper Damn

Propaganda posters …. Gustavs Klucis commissioned to produce poster – ‘In the Storm of the Third Year of the Five-Year Plan’, portraying heroic workers mining

Novels …. Valentine Kataev = ‘Forward, Oh Time!’

ACHIEVEMENTS OF COLLECTIVISATION

Russian Artists attempted to glorify the achievements of collectivisation

Anti-Kulak Propaganda …. Samuil Adlivankin’s painting ‘Voting to Expel the Kulak from the Collective Farm’

Joy of Collectivisation … Aleksei Vasilev’s painting ‘They are Writing About Us in Pravda’ – depicting happy peasants eating a plentiful meal

Dziga Vertov’s film ‘Three Songs about Lenin’ described the way in which new technology had created farms in the desert

‘Socialist Realism’ continuously expressed they people enjoyed and benefitted greatly from collective farms despite the suffering and hardship and famine the policy resulted in

CITIES FIT FOR HEROES

Urban workers = heroes of Socialist Russia

Stalin commissioned the ‘Union of Soviet Architects’ to redesign Russia’s cities …. Cities designed to ‘demonstrate that there is no country in the world as blessed as the Soviet Union’

Stalin wanted to reconstruct the architectural design of Moscow to create ‘a truly socialist city’

Plan followed Five Year Plans by trying to transform the city in an extremely short period of time

Moscow Metro Station – underground station designed like a palace, decorated with grand columns …

Landmark that Russia could show off to the rest of the world

Achievement the workers could be proud of – triumph for Socialism

Distraction from poverty and suffering in the city

Connecting architectural advancement to convey the successes of Stalin’s policies

ART FOR THE LEADERS  

Part of totalitarian system = demands complete and absolute respect for dictator

Various forms of art designed to establish the ‘Cult of Stalin’ – making up myths, exaggerations and re-writing history to present to view of Stalin as a revolutionary and ideological genius and the father of the nation

THE ‘MYTH OF TWO LEADERS’

By the late 1930s, Soviet history = extensively re-written

Stalin created the ‘Myth of Two Leaders’ – myth putting himself alongside Lenin as a hero of the revolution

Greatly emphasised Stalin’s role in the early days of Communist rule, at the expense of many important figures of the revolution, including Trotsky

Propaganda created, history re-written and photos manipulated to fuel the idea that Stalin was Lenin’s closest friend and ally and thus his natural successor – evidence in Lenin’s Testament very much counters this idea

REMAKING THE PAST

1938, two ‘historical’ novels = central to creating and developing the ‘Myth of two Leaders’ – Erasing Trotsky completely from history and emphasised/fabricated Stalin as the most vital and significant contributor to the Communist Party …..

1. ‘The Short of the History of the All-Union Communist Party’
2. ‘The Short Biography of Stalin’

History was written and made up to fit around ‘The Cult of Stalin’

Novel’s supported newly formulated history …. Maria Krickova’s ‘The Tale of Lenin’, telling the story of Lenin’s death … Lenin is the ‘sun’ and Stalin is the ‘light’ that overcomes the ‘darkness’ which is Trotsky

Various paintings constructed fictional historical situations from 1917-24 to show Stalin always by Lenin’s side

Photographs altered, replacing Stalin’s rival and ‘old Bolsheviks’ with Stalin and his supporters

Nature of the Purges meant art had to be constantly changed – after former NKDV leader Yogada’s arrest for example, Dmitiri’s painting of ‘Stalin, Kirov and Yogada at the White Sea Canal’ had to be re-printed

‘THE CULT OF PERSONALITY’

1930s and 40s there were two ‘Cults of Personality’ – Lenin and Stalin; Lenin = teacher + Stalin = Lenin’s star and favourite pupil

1930s, Lenin Cult had a god-like hysteria; Dziga Vertov’s ‘Three Songs about Lenin’ – Lenin literally seen as a ‘ray of truth’ who ‘brought life to the deserts’

Building of Lenin’s mausoleum – Lenin wish was to be buried next to his mother but Stalin had his body embalmed and put on public display – immortalised in a god-like way ….. Mausoleum = effectively a Communist shrine met by masses of Lenin’s ‘followers’

‘Lenin Cult’ = crucial to totalitarian regime – powerful new symbols and rituals which replaced Christianity and allowed Russian citizens to form an emotional bod with the regime

Mid-1930s – Soviet artists and journalists generated a ‘Cult of Stalin’

Implied Stalin was Lenin’s naturally, divine successor and in many ways the embodiment of Lenin’s immortal revolutionary spirit

Some artists even implied that Stalin was the ghost of Lenin: ‘Long Live the Stalinist Order of Heroes and Stakanovites’ in which Stalin stands in front of a ghostly apparition of Lenin

‘Pravda’ praised Stalin’s ‘divine’ wisdom on a daily basis

Birth of a new ideology – ‘Marxism-Leninism-Stalin’: linking/connecting Stalin to Marx and Lenin, the legendary figures of the revolution

Stalin’s birthday becomes a national celebration – organised parades of marching troops, happy children and workers

Purpose of Cult = allow ordinary citizens to identify with the regime – discontentment with local conditions and economic hardship blamed on regional leaders and general ‘sabateurs’ whilst good things in life were associated directly with Stalin

1940s ….. ‘Cult of Stalin’ had progressed significantly

1941-45 = stressed his role of war leader …. Proganda posters, news reports and propaganda films showing Stalin and the ‘Red Army’ as a fierce force who resited the evil force of Nazi

Post WWIII – Stalin presented as a world leader

Soviet media presented Stalin as the hero who ‘liberated’ Eastern Europe from Nazi Control…. Eastern European nations taught to respect Stalin and encouraged to embrace Communist ideology + a union with the USSR

1950s – Stalin the intellectual: Wanted to be viewed as a master theorist and genius of communism …published ‘Marxism and Problems of Linguistics’ …article appeared in 1950 and was praised in the Soviet Press, described as an intellectual breakthrough

THE ‘CULT OF IMPERSONALITY’

Stalin’s biographer, Robert Service, has suggested that the Stalin cult is best understood as a ‘cult of impersonality’

In spite of the Russian people being taught to worship and respect Stalin in an obsessional, ‘god-like’ manner …… very little in fact was revealed about his history and character

Kept his personal life extremely private …..

Pre-1936 = no mention in the official press of Stalin’s children or family life

Stalin actively discouraged the publication of his early speeches and any attempts to write officials biographies

Rather than focusing on Stalin’s personality, the cult concentrated on the glamorous/appealing side of the Soviet regime ….

General view of Stalin as a mysterious, brilliant embodiment of socialism rather than any insight into Stalin’s life – focused of Stalin’s professional life and achievements rather than Stalin as an individual – he was in many ways a symbol of the regime rather than a person himself

Stalin was a complex and unstable character driven by hatred and paranoia …. This had to be disguised and kept from the public

CONCLUSION

Stalin’s regime = built on fear but not fear alone

During the famine, terror + hardships of Five Year Plan, Soviet Art/Propaganda offered the people a vision of a new society designed to inspire them and to continue the struggle to build socialism

Leadership cult gave the impersonal nature of the Soviet bureaucracy a human face, and created a point of emotional contact between the regime and the people

Art = allowed the people to escape the fustrations of everyday life …. Escapism which tied them to the ideals of the regime

‘Socialist Realism’ = very much a form of Social control.

Id, ego and superego 

The id is the most basic part of the personality, and wants instant gratification for our wants and needs. If these needs or wants are not met, a person becomes tense or anxious.

• Present from birth
• Unconscious
• Primary component of personality

The ego deals with reality, trying to meet the desires of the id in a way that is socially acceptable in the world. This may mean delaying gratification, and helping to get rid of the tension the id feels if a desire is not met right away. The ego recognizes that other people have needs and wants too, and that being selfish is not always good for us in the long run.

• Deals with reality
• Both conscious and unconscious
• Ensures impulses can be expressed in the right way

The superego develops last, and is based on morals and judgments about right and wrong. Even though the superego and the ego may reach the same decision about something, the superego’s reason for that decision is more based on moral values, while the ego’s decision is based more on what others will think or what the consequences of an action could be.

• Makes judgement’s
• Starts around the age of five
• Moral standards – right and wrong

Francesca Woodman 

Francesca Woodman is an American photographer who photographs a perception of herself. Many of her pieces of work include black and white photographs of herself or of other female role models. Many of the photographs are of her nude, in surrounding which she is merging herself into, the photographs are often blurry and her face is obscured. She started photographing at the age of 13. Her photographs are usually 8 by 10 inches which is designed to produce an ‘intimate’ experience between the viewer and the photograph itself. Many of her photographs are untitled and are known only by a location and date, after she killed herself at the age of 22 in 1981 and left behind a substantial amount of work.  Today Francesca’s work still creates a lot of critical attention.

I chose to research Francesca Woodman because her work links in with the theory of id, ego and superego and the idea of exploring different personalities and the perception you have of yourself and the perception that others have of you. Her work also includes elements of surrealism for example photographing unrealistic scenarios. The blurriness in the photographs make her have a ghostly presence in the photos both these things linking to the idea of fantasy.  I think this is an intriguing topic to luck at under the themes truth and fiction. However it is hard to portray through photography. Her work also includes elements of surrealism for example photographing unrealistic scenarios.

Picasso and the Art World

Pablo Picasso was one of the most dominant and influential artists of the first half of the twentieth century. Associated most of all with pioneering Cubism, alongside Georges Braque, he also invented collage and made major contributions to Symbolism and Surrealism. Below displays some of the major influence Braque had on Picasso, as their styles are easily suggested as similar.

He saw himself above all as a painter, yet his sculpture was greatly influential, and he also explored areas as diverse as printmaking and ceramics. Finally, he was a famously charismatic personality; his many relationships with women not only filtered into his art but also may have directed its course, and his behavior has come to embody that of the bohemian modern artist in the popular imagination. This ‘imagination’ fits in well with how love was a greatly prominent part of Picasso’s artwork. This became clear during much of Picasso’s work as the female’s pictures in his series’s dictated the perception of women of the time, contextualising his representation of art.

Picasso first emerged as a Symbolist-influenced by the likes of Edvard Munch and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. This tendency shaped his so-called “Blue Period”, in which he depicted beggars, prostitutes, and various urban misfits, and also the brighter moods of his subsequent ‘Rose Period”.

Also, there where a confluence of influences from Paul Cézanne and Henri Rousseau to archaic and tribal art, encouraging Picasso to lend his figures more weight and structure around 1906. And they ultimately set him on the path towards Cubism, in which he deconstructed the conventions of perspectival space that had dominated painting since the Renaissance. These innovations would have far-reaching consequences for practically all of modern art, revolutionizing attitudes to the depiction of form in space.

Picasso’s immersion in Cubism also eventually led him to the invention of collage, in which he abandoned the idea of the picture as a window on objects in the world, and began to conceive of it merely as an arrangement of signs that used different, sometimes metaphorical means, to refer to those objects. This too would prove hugely influential for decades to come.

Picasso and ‘Truth’

Picasso claims that Art is not considered ‘truth‘ or more in-fact ‘earnest‘. Art in Picasso’s world is considered a ‘lie‘ that makes people envisaging Picasso’s art ‘truth‘. Margritte’s painting ‘La Trahison des Images‘, in which he painted a picture of a pipe with the words “C’est n’est pas une pipe“, goes some way towards an explanation. Art is not considered a reality but can however, examine and model reality.

Picasso uses art to use as a mask to cover up usual perceptions of  everyday life. Picasso famously said:

“We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realise truth”.

Picasso’s outlook of art explores the varied perception of the reader on his pieces. This outlook on an audience gives Picasso a reason to illustrate subjects like love in a way people perceive the truth of an artwork.

The Cubist Revolution: Picasso’s Strife to change Art History

Picasso discussed in an interview with The Guardian 

Art journalist Jonathan Johns explores Picasso’s art in the light of truth and the beauty behind his ideology.

“Picasso’s eyes perceived the infinite complexity of life”.

Within the interview, Jones focuses on the evolution of Picasso as an artist, and the way he has set his own guidelines to work against. His first work, “Brick Factory at Tortosa“, is “an experiment in how brutally you can reduce, simplify, solidify and abstract forms and still produce a picture that is not simply recognisable, but profoundly full of life.” It is a study in dryness and heat. The factory’s buildings and chimney offer Picasso perfect, geometric shapes to play with. Picasso’s simplistic form of art

Picasso and Braque 

Brick Factory in Tortosa was a quiet moment during the revolution, and Picasso, together with Braque, moved rapidly towards the style that is already being nicknamed (in a review of Braque’s new paintings in spring 1909) “cubism“. The word denotes a way of seeing already manifest in Picasso’s brick factory: “the systematic transformation of surfaces into planes of colour, their jarring arrangement in rough geometries, the harshness of palette“. As a reader you can see very clearly how much Picasso and Braque owed to their discovery of Cézanne’s landscapes. The brick factory in the heat has the toughness of Cézanne’s Provencal rocks – but it has a 20th-century quality that makes it different. Factories had only been acknowledged by 19th-century landscape painters as smokestacks in the distance. Picasso looks the modern world squarely in the eye.

In the months to come he and Braque will bring their revolution further into the open and by 1910 Picasso will be painting such masterpieces as his Portrait of Kahnweiler.

It is the centenary of Picasso’s factory and of the naming of cubism – a centenary marked by a new triumph for Picasso, as for the first time he gets an exhibition at London’s National Gallery. Picasso: Challenging the Past will concentrate on his fascination – full of rivalry and respect – with the great tradition of European art. I’m looking forward to it but I hope it won’t make him too respectable. Picasso was a rebel and it will be a long time before his art settles into history enough for him to be caught in the toils of that horrible expression, “old master”. Picasso’s eyes stare into our time and challenge us. Where’s our cubist revolution?

Picasso discussed in a talk with Austin Kleon, author of “Steal Like An Artist” and a few other books.

Amongst the prevailing types of theories which attempt to account for the existence of love, there are however many types hich define these theories. For example: psychological theories showing the vast majority of which love is considered to be “healthy behaviour“; there are evolutionary theories that hold love as part of the process of natural selection; there are spiritual theories that may, for instance consider love to be a ‘gift from God‘; there are also theories that consider love to be an ‘unexplainable mystery‘, very much like a mystical experience or what can be described as a philosophical theory.

Philosophical Theories 

“The love of all-inclusiveness is as dangerous in philosophy as in art”  – George Santayana

The philosophy of love is within depths of social philosophy and ethics that attempts to explain the nature of love. The philosophical investigation of love includes the tasks of distinguishing between the various kinds of personal love, asking if and how love is or can be justified, asking what the value of love is, and what impact love has on the autonomy of both the lover and the beloved.

Many different theories attempt to explain the nature and function of love. The explanation of love  to a person however can be ceased as difficult to someone who wouldn’t know what the concept is and what it feels like, therefore making the theoretical philosophy a concept in itself.

There were many attempts to find the equation of love. One such attempt was by Christian Rudder, a mathematician and co-founder of online dating website “OKCupid“, one of the largest online dating sites. The mathematical approach was through the collection of large data from the dating site. Another interesting equation of love is found by in the philosophical blog ‘In the Quest of Truth’. Love is defined as a measure of selfless give and take, and the author attempted to draw a graph that shows the equation of love. Aggregately, dating resources indicate a nascent line of variables effectively synchronising couples in naturally determined yearning.

Rene Margritte is a Belgium surrealist artist who is well known for his thought provoking images often of normal objects in an unusual context, he gave familiar objects a new and different meaning .  Context defines the meaning of a work of art. Rene’s work influenced pop, minimal and conceptual art.

One of his most well known pieces of work is a painting of a pipe.  The painting is of a model pipe with a plain background that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Bellow the pipe it says  “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” which literally translated means this is not a pipe.  Rene argued that it was not a pipe it was a painting of a pipe . When he  was once asked about this image, he replied that of course it was not a pipe, just try to fill it with tobacco. This links in with one of Picasso’s famous quotes, “we all know that Art is not truth. Art is a like that makes us realise the truth.” This quote and Rene’s work makes us question the difference between reality and representation.

Magritte painted The Treachery of Images when he was 30 years old. These images are still relevant today are currently on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art .They fit in with the exam title Truth, Fantasy or Fiction because they make us questions the reality of art and how much fiction is involved in the process of making a piece of work. The difference between a real pipe and a painting of a pipe and reality of them or any other object is something that I hadn’t thought about yet, however from researching this in more detail I have come to the conclusion that all Art including photography is a representation or an interpretation of something no matter how alike it looks compared to the real thing.

Truth – Definition: ‘the quality or state of being true.’                   – True: in accordance with fact or reality.

For many people, truth is something that can be defined as a fact. For example, we know that China having the biggest population is the truth as it can be classed as  a fact. But what constitutes something to be a fact? Can certain people perceive truth and fact as something completely different and interpret it to be fiction?

The BBC defines a fact as “something that can be checked and backed up with evidence.” This can be seen as the truth, but what if to some people the evidence provided isn’t sufficient enough to make them believe something is a fact?

Fantasy – Definition: ‘the faculty or activity of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable.’

Most of us to think of fantasy as something that is impossible to happen in our lives, and features things that we’d never be able to see/experience. Although this is what I believe to be true, a lot of people have shown that they can make their fantasy a reality. For example, many musicians, athletes, actors etc. all dreamed of the fantasy of being able to pursue their dream career, and now they are living it. So in perspective they were able to turn something that was once and dream and fantasy and transform it into their reality.

Fiction – Definition: ‘invention or fabrication as opposed to fact.’

Fiction in essence is something that began as a way for people to express themselves from the very early days of basic story telling to today’s multi million holly-wood films. It’s something that was created for people to think of different ideas and make things up while also keeping people safe and not scared as it was something that is not true in reality. Such as trolls living underneath bridges in fairy tales,  they are not real, but sometimes fiction made people believe they were.

With this project I’d first like to research photographers and artists that look at these themes of truth, fantasy and fiction, and how they have their views on what they perceived to be the truth and fiction in reality, and how we can bring these fantasy ideas to life through photography and art.

A good way of explaining my thoughts on the images of my family is the work of René Magritte.

Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist, who’s work shows ordinary objects with an unusual context. The one image which I specifically thought of with my project was ‘La trahison des images’ (The Treachery of Images), in which he has painted an image of a pipe, with the words “Ceci n’est pas un pipe” (This is not a pipe). This image demonstrates a similar way of how I have been looking at the digitalised slides.

Whilst Magritte had painted an image of a pipe, it is not actually a pipe, and when Magritte was once asked about this image, he replied that of course it was not a pipe, just try to fill it with tobacco.

In a similar way, whilst these photos are of my mum, they aren’t my mum as I know her now. These images are also not how my mum would remember those moments, because she was seeing the other perspective, looking at the person taking the image, which is a perspective I will never be able to see.

These photographs also don’t allow me to know how the people within the pictures felt at that time, what was happening in my mums life at that time, who was she friends with? What had she been doing in school? Not being able to know these things makes it very difficult to build up a picture of what my mum, and all of my relatives, were like at that time.

Allow the unconscious to express itself

Dictionary definition: Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.

Surrealism was a  revolutionary cultural art movement starting in the 1920’s. It is best know for it’s writing and artworks.The leader of surrealism was Andre Breton. The aim of surrealism was to  “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality.”  The surrealist artists created paintings of everyday objects but turned them into strange creatures which allowed them to express there self’s. Surrealism was created out of Dada which was created in the first world war which originally started in Paris and in the 1920’s it became a global movement and affected literature, film and music. I think that surrealism has a really interesting concept. I like the idea of using photography to try and manipulate and push the boundaries of reality. This links in with the blurred lines between what is real and what is fiction. I like the idea of manipulating real photographs so that they become something of your own fiction/ fantasy.

In a recent study conducted by doctors at Rutgers University in New Jersey, United States bases on  the topic “science behind the love” and reveals that there are ‘three stages‘ behind the process and development of love when experienced in the connection of human beings. Each stage involves different types of chemical reactions within the body (specifically the brain), along with that there are different hormones present in the body helping to excite all these three stages (lust, attraction, and attachment) – separately as well as collectively. This article really helped me understand that there is a science behind love. This, in response, underlines the dual definitions of love as an emotional response and a chemical reaction.

Stage One – Lust 

Definitions:

“An intense sexual desire or appetite”

“an uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite; lecherousness”

“A passionate or overmastering desire or craving”

Lust is said to be the initial stage of involvement in love. The feel of lust is backed up or instigated by the sexual hormones within the body: Oestrogen and Testosterone are the two basic types of hormones present equally in men and women’s body that excites the feeling of lust within the brain. A limbic processes in the brain in response to lust have health-promoting and stress-reducing potential. In addition, lust, love, and pleasure ensure the endurance of mankind through mating and reproduction. The mating process is a discrete interrelated process initiating attraction.

Stage Two – Attraction

Definition:

“The act, power, or property of attracting”

Second stage of acquiring love is attraction. This phase is said to be one of the beautiful moments of life. This is the phase when a person actually starts to feel the love. His or her impatience for attracting somebody leads to excitement, and the individual is left with no other option but to only think about that specific person. Scientifically, it has been concluded in the study that there are three more sub-stages of attraction that portray drastic changes over the individual’s personality. The three sub-stages of attraction are adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin.

Adrenaline

Scientists have elaborated that initial symptoms of attraction toward someone involves: Stress response, Increase in adrenalin and cortisol and Attitude reaction.

It has been specified in the study that any person who falls in love will acquire a slight or drastic change in the above stated three factors. Furthermore, attraction is one of the charming effects of life and slight changes in personality are not only natural but are also positive. For this reason, whenever you bump into your admiration, your senses decline and your reactions increase drastically, reason as to why you feel nervous, on-edge, and other emotions resultant of making a good impression on someone.

Dopamine

To follow the theoretical research, a physical experiment was also conducted to prove the veracity of physical evidence. The brains of a new couple struck with love were observed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRIs). It was genuinely shocking to discover the minds of both male and female have large spikes of neurotransmitter dopamine, a chemical that stimulates the feeling of pleasure within the body. After this discovery, scientists described both the male and female minds as “equally high as if they had taken cocaine or somewhat similar drug” Dopamine is a natural stimulant providing you with ecstasy. The couple furthermore revealed the following facts about themselves from the time they feel in love until the date they were examined: a surge of energy, an observed  significant decrease in appetite, sleep deprivation which has occurred previous to falling in love and that a persons attention has been more focused than ever before. This notion further elaborates on the connection between scientific discovery against the human perception of love. The common phrase ‘love is a drug’, or similar to that, ensures this comparison as a similar instance, as it ha genuinely even proved that each feeling subsides to the same emotion counteracting the admirable feelings of love as what feels like a ‘drug’.

Serotonin

Serotonin has been found as one of the most important chemicals involved for exciting the feeling of love. Serotonin initially diverts your mind and bounds you to think about your lover and nothing else. It becomes a path for the mind. Sandra Langeslag and her colleagues (2012) report serotonin levels are different in men and women when in love. The men in love had lower levels of serotonin, while the women reveal the opposite. The participants in love reported engrossing in thought about their beloved 65% of their day.

Stage 3: Attachment 
When a couple passes through the above two stages of love successfully, the time of bonding with each other becomes powerful. Attachment is a bond helping the couple to take their relationship to advanced levels. It instigates the feeling of bearing children and falling in love with them wholeheartedly.

While investigating the “attachment factor,” scientists discovered two sub-stages involved. The two sub-stages are hormones in the body that attract an individual to retaining the feeling of love with his or her partner. The two hormones, namely, oxytocin and vasopressin are discussed below.

Oxytocin

Oxytocin, also known as “the cuddle hormone,” is one of the most powerful hormones released equally by men and women, especially during orgasm. Oxytocin (OT) formulates the depth of love and forges the attachment the partner. The study was second by another research based on “sexual activities between a couple and the out-comes.” The more a couple opts for sex, the more substantial the bond of attachment is. OT plays a key role in affiliation and attachments in humans.

Similarly, oxytocin helps build a strong bond between a mother and an infant during the time of birth. In addition, it is such a sensitive hormone that it automatically signals the breast to release the milk upon the baby’s sound or touch. OT mediates specific female behaviors such as lactation and parturition. Social interaction with your loved one requires affective “mind reading,” or interpreting faint cues from your partner. Humans infer internal feelings of people from external expressions to predict the other person’s behavior. In a double-blind study of 30 healthy volunteers the administered oxytocin caused a substantial boost in the ability of the individuals to interpret cues from the region of the other person’s eyes. OT improves the interaction between couples by improving this social connection.

Vasopressin

Vasopressin, known as an anti-diuretic, it performs its operation along with the kidney, therefore controlling thirst. This hormone is released in major quantity quickly after sex. Although the brains of women and men are structurally different, they both secrete vasopressin from the pituitary gland. This is a vital role in copulation and partner preference (Hiller, 2004).

Vasopressin is termed as an important hormone to promote long-lasting relationships. A study in Biological Psychology (2012) assessed 37 couples by measuring neuropeptide blood levels. Results reveal vasopressin levels were in relation to the following:

• Interpersonal functioning
• Larger social network
• Greater spousal support
• More attachment security
• Relationship maintenance
• Less negative communication

The Bottom Line on The Science and Psychology of Love
Conclusively, love is seen to be one of the most delightful feelings of our lives. The truth behind the saying saying “love is blind” and “love is a drug” underlines the fact you will never know when your brain will encounter love. A significant number of chemical reactions are involved in instigating lust, attraction, attachment, and love between couples, concluding that science has yet discovered the exact bodily reactions behind the complexity of love.

The articles conclusion is  based upon the above studies: it is clearly said that falling in love involves “many mechanisms and chemicals within the brain” . You simply cannot avoid the sensual reaction of love. The partner doesn’t need to be sublime, sexy, or handsome—the feeling is deeper than a physical tactility.

“Love is a natural muse; you will puzzle over it, dream about it, and be lost in thought.”

Here is a link to the full Article: http://examinedexistence.com/why-we-fall-in-love-the-science-of-love/

Erik Johansson is a photographer from Sweden. He currently lives in Prague, Czech Republic and Sweden. Johansson’s goal in his photographs is to make them look as real as possible. A lot of Johansson’s work focuses on the environment and he also focuses on his editing, making images look surreal and stand out. I find his images look very fictional and are really well executed and most look very realistic with few looking a bit more animated. I find some of his work looks almost too perfect for it to actually be real but I guess that is the point of surrealism photography, it isn’t supposed to show reality. I like that his work comes from a vision that he has created.

Erik Johansson website: http://www.erikjohanssonphoto.com

I do like the work of Johansson and find it really brilliant the way that he edits his images to make them look almost like paintings. I like his style of creating new and strange photographs that don’t really make much sense but when looked at for long enough the meaning behind most of the images becomes clearer. I like that a lot of his focus is on the environment and shows how the human race treats its natural environment, which is something that I want to focus on in my own project. I find that he has some good images and then some amazing images that really show political views and are so powerful compared to some of his others.

This image is so powerful to me. I chose it because it really did stand out to me. It reminds me of how people will cover things up and choose to ignore it in the hopes that it will go away. However, climate change is something that is so prominent in every part of the world with 2015 being the hottest year on record. People don’t want to change their ways and so will just keep it up and try to overlook what is really happening to our natural world. I love this image as it really does embody this and speaks volumes of how we are as a human race. We tend to pretend that everything is fine and stay inside our bubbles without caring about anyone else or the world that we live in because it’s likely to not effect us. I loathe that people think this way and find this image so true and real to what people are actually like. I like the outfit that the model in the image as wearing as he looks like a normal person in his back garden trying to paint his fence or something.

I picked this image next as it goes well with the one above and how it shows climate change. I really like this image as it shows how people are trying to cover it up again and trying to, not fix it but to hide it away so that no one will notice or so that we don’t have to think about the damage that the human race has actually done to the natural world. This image is very artistic and looks almost like a painting. I like the position of the model as she stitches up the ruins that humans have done to the natural environment. This image really embodies what global warming is doing to our natural world and how badly the human race has affected the natural world too. I find this image really interesting and think it makes a huge impact on its spectators, which is something that I want to portray through my own images.

This image is strange and I don’t really get it but I like it. It really is a surrealist image and somehow it is really interesting. I wonder about how the subject is walking through his house from his kitchen through to his bedroom, as you can see through the little details on the floor. I like that the kitchen has that checked floor, which people often associate with a kitchen in a restaurant and so would easily be able to identify that as the subjects kitchen and then the little lamp next to the other door with little pictures and details on the door itself tells us that the room he is heading too is more personalised and most likely his room as he is also in his pyjamas/robe taking a hot drink with him to bed. I don’t quite understand why there is a landscape in the background, as if the man’s house is taking over that natural land and possibly how people are constantly building on top of the natural world. I really like this image anyway as it makes a normal/boring landscape image a whole lot more interesting and intriguing raising questions in the spectators minds making them want to figure out the meaning and what is going on in the image. I really like this as a surrealist image and the idea of making a landscape image more interesting, this is something I want to do in my own work incorporating different layers to make it more interesting for my spectator to look at.

Brian Oldham is a fine art photographer, born in Southern California and is 22 years old. He is currently living and working near Los Angeles. In most of his images Oldham becomes the subject and makes unique surrealist images. I really like Oldham’s style as it really is unique as well as fitting right into the realm of surrealism photographers. His work stands out and he freely experiments with different ways of photographing, which is something that I admire. His work is also very political and has clear messages that really make his work that much more interesting and captivating.

“My passion for creating blossomed at a young age as I experimented with self-portrature, and taught myself how to create freely. I make art to replace the words I cannot fathom; each thread holding a love for all things strange and beautiful. I strive to bring life to the quiet whispers at the back of my mind, to make whole the ghosts of my experiences.” – Brian Oldham

Brian Oldham website: http://brianoldham.format.com/#1

I really love the work of Brian Oldham and have previously looked at his work back in summer while finding inspiration for my performance photography experiments. I find that surrealism photography is often the most exciting, it brings to light the struggles that people are going through and shows the inner workings of photographers brains. I like that it brings out the weird and unusual as so many people tend to conform and just do what they are told and taught to believe in certain things, whereas surrealism challenges that and is so creatives and expressive. I find Oldham’s work so captivating to look at and I like to try and figure out how he made some of his images and how brilliant they are. With Oldham’s work he uses a lot of nature and the natural world which is common for surrealism photographers and something that I find really interesting and want to use within my own project.

Image Analysis

When having a look through some of Oldham’s work I came across a new project that he is in the process of creating that really stood out to me. This particular image is almost like a dig at the Catholic Church on how they do not accept gay people or gay marriage. I love that he has made this image and is making a series based upon this entitled ‘”For the Bible Tells Me So”‘. I love this as it is so true with religion that people often follow it without thinking for themselves and some tend to just passively accept this yet those that are ‘different’ or those people that don’t quite agree or fit in with the general expectations are thrown out and abandoned. I love the quote on the side of this image as it really tells a strong message with the image of Oldham being covered in blood. I feel that this image is powerful and actually quite a risky one. The topic of religion is so controversial and can be a really touchy subject for many people but that doesn’t seem to phase Oldham as he has a clear, strong message that he wants to get across. I love that his work is so politically driven and that he thinks deeper than many others. He wants to make a change in how we as  a society see one another and how we see gay people. The entire miss-en-scene of the photograph is just perfect with the almost halo light circle around his head as well as the subjects blank facial expression. This body of work is really powerful and it really does stand out to me as a excellent piece of artwork. I think that in this image the subject is naked as it shows vulnerability and that it is about the blood falling down his body rather than any sort of clothing that he is wearing. It also makes sense with the quote stating that “If a man lies with a man as he lies with a woman”. It’s as though he has been found while with a man and that he has the blood of the other man all over his body. I think that this image is so powerful and quite risky, which is something that will really stand out. It makes me want to find out more and to see the rest of the images that he creates for this particular project.

I chose this image because it made me think about how he edited it together. My guess is that he made an image of himself jumping in the air and positioned himself that way and in editing he turned the image upside down and turned it black and white. This image really interests me as it is as though he is falling out of the sky and bracing himself for when he hits the ground. I like the simplicity of having just a plain grey background as it allows the spectator to solely focus in on the subject rather than whatever is going on in the background of the image. This image could really mean anything and he could just be floating in the air. I like that the subject is centred in the middle of the square image, he stands out much more against the plain background too. Some part of me feels that this photograph shows conflicting views in his own head and it is sending him spiralling, which is why he is covering his face. The way he covers his face looks almost as if he was sitting that way and trying to take everything in until he was flung into the sky. Oldham’s work often features someone being suspend in the air and almost like they are floating.

This image interests me. The title of this project is ‘Pixels’ and is a work in progress. I like this idea of distorting someones face, it makes it more intriguing for the spectator making them want to find out more about who the person is and what they actually looks like. It brings together the digital age with reality and mixes them together by the distortion of their body and face. It is interesting to see these two image alongside one another, one being completely in focus where the spectator is able to see the subject with the other image being completely pixelated and covered up. I find that these images show how he lives in the real world and how in the digital world he becomes a load of pixels or how his identity doesn’t really matter in the digital world.

Christopher McKenney is a photographer of conceptual art and is from Pennsylvania. He specialises in horror surrealist photography. He also does live concert photography. I really like McKenney’s unique and strange style as it stands out and is really in your face photography. McKenney’s surrealist work creates a sense of dystopia and brings the spectator into a scary, more undesirable world with blood, cloaks and seemingly possessed souls. His work ranges from burning people to self-made ‘ghosts’ covered in blankets. McKenney started making photographs back in 2012 where he first found himself in the woods with a sheet, chair and a frame.

“I like taking away identity when photographing and to leave people thinking. I only make the photos I do to express myself and what other people see or think is up to them, as long as I make them feel anything I’m ok with that.” – Christopher McKenney

Christopher Mckenney website: http://www.christophermckenney.com

Originally when looking for surrealist photographers, I came across McKenney’s and really found them interesting. Back in the summer I took inspiration from this photographer and made my own surrealist images in the woods using a sheet to cover up the body of the model in the images. I found this really fun and different and something that I want to maintain and bring back to in my exam as a key project. McKenney’s work is unusual and, unlike most surrealism photographers work, his work is based on horror and he tends to make more dystopian images. I really like that his work is not something you would expect to see from surrealism photographers and he makes his images for himself and has his own meaning behind them. His images are so different and he allows the spectator to make their own interpretations on what is going on in the images.

This image stood out most to me. It’s a really in your face image that strikes its spectators straight away. I find it so interesting. The story that I create by looking at this image is that possibly an American man who works in an office, shown by the creased suit he is wearing, who is giving up and doesn’t want to carry on with his life anymore. It also makes me think of the American dream and how it might not be so perfect and all that it is cracked up to be with this man wanting to end his life. This image is actually quite sad and makes me wonder what went so wrong in the subjects life that he wants to end it. The composition of this image is also strong as the subject is right in the centre of the image with an equal amount of water beneath him with his reflection being shown clearly. I love McKenney’s work as it is so strange yet thought provoking making me want to find out more about him as a photographer and look at more of his work. To me the gun represents the pressure placed on many people to be successful making the subject feel extremely pressured and out of his depth, which is symbolises in with the water being up to his waist. The background looks dull and gives a more chilling atmosphere to add to the main prop of the gun in the image. I feel that this image is a great visual representation of how people may actually feel and does really embody the style of surrealism photography. Also, the reflection of the subject in the water adds more to the image and makes it that much more captivating, as if the subject could be staring through the flag that is tightly wrapped around his head and staring at his own reflection.

I chose this image next as I thought it linked with the previous one with the American flag.  I really like this image as it is unusual and looks almost as if a ghost is wondering around wearing a sheet. This style of pretending to be a ghost and wearing a sheet has been around for so long with little children dressing up that way for halloween. This images brings a twist to this halloween tradition as beneath the sheet/flag there isn’t a body and it looks as if possibly it is a real ghost with the body being invisible to its spectators. I find this image interesting and want to take inspiration from this for my own work on experimenting with how I edit my photographs and to try and use more unique and different styles of photography. This image is captivating as it is so strange and leaves the spectator guessing as to how the image was made and the message that is being brought across. Something that I also noticed has that the subjects hand is on his heart, which is something people do when their national anthem comes on as a sign of solidarity and being patriotic towards their country. I also think that the detail of this is evident with the American flag being what the subject is hiding under. I find it common in surrealism work for the subjects face to not be a prominent aspect of it and that is usually covered up, which is also show in the work of McKenney where you very rarely see the face of a subject.

I chose this image as I felt the colour of the red went well with the images above. I wanted to analyse this image because the red of the grass is so bizarre and something that you would never ever see normally. I like this as a surrealism image as it is odd and is interesting to look at. It makes me wonder why the person’s arm is spread across the middle of the image almost going all the way across. It makes me want to find out more about the person and why they are in that position. It could be the blood of people who have died either in battle or just in general and the arm represents the human form giving a hint to spectators that the colour red in the grass is actually symbolic of blood. I feel that this is the meaning behind this image as McKenney does specialise in horror surrealism so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was that. I find this image more simplistic than a lot of his images and doesn’t really need much work in terms of props and models as it is just one person’s arm and the red grass could have easily been changed while editing, possibly in PhotoShop.

After looking at the exam booklet I think that I have figured out what I want to focus on. I don’t want to do the same stuff that I have been doing for the personal study as I want to experiment and show different skills through editing and making images. I have looked into Surrealism photographers work and want to follow this path too as it is so unique and interesting to me. I have analysed their work, which has helped me to gain some inspiration for my own work. For this project I will be focusing on the environment and how our society has changed that and that nature is becoming less and less within our world due to corporate buildings and the rise in pollution. I have a few ideas of what I want to do for this and will start experimenting with these ideas and see whether or not they actually work well. I want to make another photo book as I feel that the image ideas that I have will look better in a photo book altogether to tell a larger story with different styles and techniques used in my photographs. I really want my work to stand out and be different, I want it to reflect surrealism photography as well as incorporating landscape photography. I want to experiment with different techniques, shapes and layers. This will be an interesting experiment and I think that it will make a good photo book.

In order to break-down the theme of propaganda into its core aspects, I have researched the six main aspects through which propaganda ca be branched into

1. BANDWAGON

Definition – Pressuring a person to join a organisation/buy a product by implying they will be/feel left out if the don’t.

This concept plays on the natural human desire to feel included and ‘fit in’ because it is safe and secure to do so. By implying someone will feel left out if they do not comply to a certain ideal is a very powerful ad effective means of putting pressure on someone to adhere to the demands of what is being offered

2. TESTIMONIALS

Definition: endorsement of a product/ideology by a well known person, usually a celebratory 

The power, influence or credibility of this endorser will sub-consciously have an effect on the viewer and thus may improve the image of the product. This is seen as one of the most popular forms of Propaganda and large cooperate companies will pay celebrities substantial amounts of money to appear in their commercials.

3. TRANSFER

Definition: the attempt to have people view a product in the same manner that they already view a more familiar subject 

4. GLITTERING GENERALITIES

Definition: links a product to general concepts and ideas that can be seen in a positive way.

This is based on the concept of positive reinforcement.

Presenting something in a positive light makes it more attractive and viable. Therefore a consumer will be more convinced to buy something which is presented in an optimistic light. Advertising usually embeds such themes within the consumer’s sub-conscious.

5. PLAIN FOLKS

Definition: use of common ideals which makes a product look as if it is for everyone 

This method will often be adopted when the product available is for a general target market, such as an advertisement for bread or milk. The person included in the commercial will appear like an ‘average Joe’.

This is done to make the product appear more customer friendly and less intimating. It is welcoming and inclusive!

Appearing simple and easy for everyone to use is an attractive quality which draws the consumer in.

 

DEFINITION

Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.

CORE ASPECTS OF PROPAGANDA

In my view propaganda is essentially a form of information, usually expressed in a creative, artistic manner, which is created with the intent to shape the behaviour and ideas of the person and group of people who view it.

HISTORY OF PROPAGANDA

The concept of propaganda has existed since the beginning of human civilization. Propaganda is effectively a simplistic concept, a way of an authority figure/leader being able to maintain and keep control of the civilian population. Tribal traditions and rituals that have developed throughout history are some of the earliest examples of behavior patterns which would later be developed into deliberate propaganda techniques. The Maori people dating back to the 13th Century for example, have used the  ‘Haka’ war-dance as a way of showing tribal dominance and to defend themselves from tribal threats imposed on them – many of them still practice this for the process of preserving a sense of cultural identity. Such a dance was seen as a way of creating solidarity between those in the tribe. Being part of such a tradition would subsequently boost feelings of  identity needed to secure the stability of the group.

More deliberate and calculated examples of propaganda being used can date back to the Greek period. Greeks had games, the theater, the assembly, the law courts, and religious festivals – all of which organised structures which gave leaders to opportunity for propagandizing ideas and beliefs. Greek playwrights made use of the drama for their political, social, and moral teachings. Another effective way of the Greeks expressing propaganda was oratory – the delivery of speeches.

Through the development of technology – social structures in society and in general the attitudes of the masses – so has the methods of propaganda. The 20th Century has seen the most significant of these changes – politically, socially and technologically. The way propaganda has changed, developed and improved as a result is substantial. The production of distribution of propaganda has gone from small-scale groups in the early 20th Century promoting various political ideals, to mainstream mass cooperation and Governments controlling millions through diligent and extensive techniques.

STATE PROPAGANDA

Propaganda is a broad term and can be used for a variety of purposes. The strongest association usually with propaganda is State Propaganda. This refers to the information that nations and governments send out to the public, with the intention of manipulating support from the masses  – promoting their ideology, or spreading fear amongst the masses to discourage activities which threaten and oppose the core values of the government. State propaganda is usually carefully planned and organised, and is usually associated with the many infamous dictatorships of the 20th century. This is far from the truth however, as many nations during this period deemed as democratic, such as Great Britain and the USA have also been known to conduct vigorous and highly manipulative propaganda campaigns.

ADVERTISING

Commercial Advertising can also be seen as propaganda because the techniques used are very similar to what is usually seen within State/Government propaganda. The concept is the same, as the particular company/organisation will try to endorse a product to the consumer – the equivalent of a Government trying to endorse their ideology.

Commercial advertising is largely a product of the technological changes of the latter 20th Century and 21st Century to date. The rise in digital advertising and endless possibilities of social media has advanced and improved the ways in which products are advertised.

Advertising uses multimedia techniques to promote products, services and ideas. Although usually factually correct, advertising is usually exaggerated and embellished to make the product look appealing and attractive to an audience. Advertising is very much based on creating hype and sensationalism – persuading individuals it is in their interests to invest in that certain products, thus persuading the consumer to change their spending habits to fit such an trend.

SUMMARY

Propaganda is used to control and manipulate people in buying into an ideology or product either through positive reinforcement (encouragement) or negative re-reinforcement (creating and playing on people’s fears).

Propaganda is incredibility powerful to the extent it can brainwash people to accept and embrace even the most extreme and hateful philosophies.

The concept of Propaganda has existed for thousands of years  – however the development of technology along with developments of societal structures has dramatically advanced and sophisticated the methods and techniques of Propaganda.

Propaganda can be a force for both good and bad.

Examination dates:  Tue 3rd – 6th May ~ 10 hrs controlled test over 2 days

The exam title this year is Truth, Fantasy or Fiction, I really like this title because they are in themselves broad topics which means that there are a wide variety of projects that could be done in response. I also think that it is a really interesting title because I think it will allow you to be much more creative, look deeper into the subject and use your imagination to a certain extent.

Truth:   the quality or state of being true.

Photography is known for being able to capture and represent an accurate likeness of the subject being photographed. Roland Barthes wrote that a photograph could be a ‘certificate of presence’. However this is not so much the case today, today photographers are able to manipulate photographs when they are taking them for example: only portraying one side of the story.  Photographs can also be manipulated after they have been taken through editing. Photographs are also used to record and keep evidence of events, however a photograph is only a second of what is going on at the moment in time which reduces it credibility. Today, I consider documentary photography to be the closest to ‘ true photography’ because it’s a form of photography that is used to ‘document’ events and people in everyday real life situations and documentary photographers follow a code of conduct to maintain the truth in their photographs and manipulation of documentary photography is frowned upon.

http://www.vivianmaier.com/ – documentary photographer

Fantasy: the faculty or activity of imagining impossible or improbable things.

Fantasy photography is the complete opposite of ‘truth photography’. Fantasy will allow you to be more creative and create photographs of things which many not be real and it would require more abstract thinking. When I think of fantasy photography I associate it to surrealism which is a subject I have researched before and found interesting. Surrealism allows you to experiment with different ideas and push the boundaries of reality.  I think that Fantasy also links in with the work that we did Tom Pope because he includes some elements of surrealism such as  the photograph of him standing in mid air. Surrealism was originally started to help “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality.”   I like the concept of what is reality and dream and blurring these two worlds together could result in strong photographs.

http://www.manraytrust.com/ – surrealist photographer

Fiction:  something that is invented or untrue.

Fiction is often associated to a novel which is written based on imagination rather than history or facts.  Therefore I think that fiction is very similar to fantasy because they both incorporate the unreal. However I think Fiction relates more to fairy tales and myths although it does incorporates some elements of surrealism in it . For this part of the title I think that you could create something which doesn’t exist and again blur the lines between fiction and reality. I found a photographer who I think uses fiction in a subtle way. David Hilliard is an American photographer. He mainly works with panoramic photographs. He draws inspiration from his personal life and those around him for his subject matter. Many of the scenes are staged, evoking a performance and a middle ground between fact and fiction.

http://www.davidhilliard.com/ – David Hilliards website.

Surrealism photography is known as a new form of reality and is heavily influenced by dreams. This is the world that we create in our minds, often we come up with these ideas when we are sleeping when we have no control over and often don’t make any sense. Surrealism is the unconscious mind and a world that we are able to share with others that they would never be able to imagine. The movement of surrealism was created in Paris 1924. There are so many surrealist photographer including Man Ray, Christopher Mckenney, Brian Oldham, Dora Maar and Eric Johansson. I love this style of photography as we are able to express ourselves in new and unusual ways that most people might see as odd yet they become poetic and fascinating to look at. One surrealist photographer that I really love the work of is Christopher Mckenney, it is so unusual and different to many other artists work I’ve seen before. I also really like the work of Brian Oldham as his work too is strange yet fascinating to look at.

Christopher Mckenney website: http://www.christophermckenney.com

Brian Oldham website: http://brianoldham.format.com/#1

Surrealism | My Thoughts

I really like the style of photographs that artists create within surrealism. They are so interesting and unique. I love that we are able to create new worlds and enter new realms that we would usually not be able to conjure up in our own heads. These fantasy worlds are constantly changing and developing bringing in different types of utopia and dystopia into our minds. I love that surrealist worlds can be utopian and something that people aspire to want to be in and think of along with the opposite world of dystopia and how we are able to create imaginary worlds that are undesirable. Through this movement I want to be able to carry on my work created back in the summer and make an effective photo book from it. I want my work to evoke meaning and to generate a sense of intrigue with my spectators. I feel that surrealism is such a fun movement  and you are really able to create pretty much anything that you want within the photographic world.

Tableau photography is also known as narrative photography. It’s a staged set of images that tell a story to the spectator. Famous photographers include Cindy Sherman and Gregory Crewdson. I really like the idea of tableau photographs as through this you are able to create photos that you made up in your head and be able to become a whole new persona. This really interests me and I really like the style and work of many tableau photographers as well as many surrealism photographers. Through tableau photography we are able to tell new and interesting stories, either ones that are already around like myths, films or fairy tales or we can create new worlds and bring new ideas to life. I like to focus my own staged photographic work on movements such as feminism and show the stereotypes that are faced with women. I feel that tableau really benefits movements and photographers are able to express political messages that they feel strongly about.

Cindy Sherman website: http://www.cindysherman.com

Gregory Crewdson website: http://www.gagosian.com/artists/gregory-crewdson

I love tableau photography and find it so interesting, especially from artists such as Cindy Sherman. Tableau photography allows photographers to generate a sense of narrative and gives them the opportunity to tell a story about anything they please. I feel that they are able to become new personas and create new and interesting tales. This style is very thought provoking and I feel that photographers are able to incorporate movements within their work. I want my work to provoke change and to change my spectators view on the world and make them want to make a difference. There is always opportunity within the photographic world to make something new and exciting. I feel that so many photographers are able to freely express themselves through their work and successfully stage their images to create unique and interesting images.

Documentary photography is what I see as true photography and is supposed to be series of images that tell a true tale about certain individuals lives. It is a way of putting aspects of different peoples lives on record and maintaining them in photographs. Documentary photography portrays real lives and brings to light some important issues that faces our society and those living in other countries. Journalists are some of the users of documentary photography as their work is seen as factual and there is also a code of conduct that journalists go through to ensure that they are telling the truth. I really enjoy seeing documentary photography as it speaks volumes to actually see how the rest of the world is and what people are going through and comparing it to my own life and privilege. I love the documentary work of so many photographers and have recently discovered the work of Andrea Bruce who makes some really interesting photographs. Much like the extraordinary work of James Nachtwey whose work is truly moving.

Andrea Bruce website: http://www.andreabruce.com

James Nachtwey website: http://www.jamesnachtwey.com

Documentary | My Thoughts

I feel that documentary photography is really important as it shows people in different parts of the world what is going on elsewhere. I find it so important in news and maintaining to true stories and sharing peoples extraordinary lives. I feel that documentary photography speaks volumes when done in the right way and shows the world hard-hitting issues of the world and allows spectators to make change and to think more openly. I think that I will take inspiration from the realm of documentary photography and the idea of truth telling. I want to use this in my own work and show my spectators the reality of what society is like and how it is effective everyone within it. I find that documentary photography can be so powerful and really make a difference in the world provoking change and making spectators want to find out more and to make a proper change to help those less in need and to change the way we work as societies, governments and policies.

After receiving the title for this exam project I decided it would be best to break down all three of these concepts into their basic definitions

These three can be defined as the following …….

TRUTH = something which can be considered true/in accordance with fact or reality

FANTASY = something which is described, but is made up and never happened, usually seen as something impossible or improbable

FICTION = something which is described, but is made up and never happened

My Initial Thoughts ….

The Exam Project Handout gives a few paragraphs outlining different ways these topics can be interpreted. Straight away I was drawn to the final paragraph ……

“Written propaganda has been used to influence and steer public opinion with many political and religious movements claiming to possess the only true path or philosophy. Each movement has commissioned artists to embellish texts and illustrate their beliefs for public consumption and maximum impact. The communist and fascist posters of the early 20th century exemplify the power of this form of communication”

I find the theme of propaganda to be very interesting because I enjoy history a lot and have studied a bit about the role propaganda has had in shaping the course of the 20th and 21st Century. For instance political Propaganda throughout the 20th Century has proven to be an extremely powerful and manipulative tool that various Governments, ranging from the brutal autocratic regimes of Soviet Russia + Nazi Germany to supposedly free democratic nations such as U.S.A (particularly during the cold war) have used to their advantage to incite feelings of patriotism, loyalty, hatred and fear, among many other powerful emotions.

In is not an exaggeration to claim that effective Propaganda programmes have been effective to the extent of brainwashing masses of people in buying into the ideology of evil and hateful regimes which oppose standard moral standards of morality.

Propaganda has not  just been used to aid political ideology. Companies large and small, have used manipulative propaganda techniques within advertisement – drawing consumers into buying/subscribing to a certain product through repetitive commercials, subliminal messages within advertising  and celebrity endorsement, among many other ploys to draw masses of consumers in.

I find the role of propaganda therefore to be extremely interesting. Exploring this theme will enable me to explore how ‘truth’ and ‘fiction’ overlap. I will investigate whether propaganda really is just a really effective way of emphasising the truth? or in itself a mechanism for twisting the truth? or both?

Because propaganda is so hard to define and pinpoint I believe it will be a really effective theme to explore in this exam theme. The excess of propaganda which exists everywhere – both historically as well as present day will allow for an extensive exploration into its important and often overlooked role in society.

To emphasise the importance of propaganda I will ask the following questions . Some of these questions are largely open for debate, but make one think quite how scary the concept of propaganda actually is ……..

• Is it really a coincidence MacDonalds is the largest restaurant chain in the world and has some of the most sophisticated methods of advertising within the last 50 years?
• Is advertising in any way moral, especially advertising aimed at children?
• Would the Cold War even have existed without propaganda to support the masses?
• To what extent did the likes of Moa, Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin use propaganda as a way of continuing their suppressive, murderous and terrifying regimes?
• Did millions of people who volunteered and then died in various wars of the last century go into war through their own free choice/or were they lied to and deceived by Government Propaganda?
• Should major religious organisation be held accountable for their use of propaganda to influence the minds of billions of people throughout the course of history ?
• How may the 20th Century have been different without advances in propaganda/advertisement?
• Is propaganda/advertising really that bad at all and in fact exaggerated by statistics + can it even be a force for good?
• How has propaganda changed overtime and how will it be different in the future?

Summary

I have decided to go along the lines of this paragraph because I believe propaganda is an incredibly important theme to look into. It has undoubtedly shaped the course of the last 100 years because of its ability to ‘steer public opinion’. I want to use this exam time to challenge and break down the fundamentals of propaganda, looking in particular at how photography has been used as part of this trend, and particular how captions and slogans alongside images have influenced how the image is views and thus the audience impression of the intended information.

I believe that marketing of propaganda is in itself was of the most significant and important art forms of the last 100 years. Propaganda MUST be credited as a legitimate form of art because it is a creative way of expressing an ideal and leaves a powerful impact on the viewer. It is also evidence of the power art has not just as a form of expression but as a ploy for commercial manipulation.

My aim is to both embrace the techniques of propaganda but at the same time challenge its ethical and moral standing.

Over the course of my research I will begin to gather ideas of how I can respond, photographically to this theme. I don’t want to commit to an idea straight-away but instead develop a few clear concepts before deciding for sure.

Malcom X talking about the power Governments have in using media to “propagandise the nation”

Truth:  the quality or state of being true.

Fantasy: the faculty or activity of imagining impossible or improbable things.

Fiction:  something that is invented or untrue.

Key words:

• True likeness
• Magical fascination
• Disturbing imagery
• True reality
• ‘ En plein air’
• Artists must be truly faithful to their own nature
• Depict spiritual qualities
• Steer public opinion
• Fascination for human anatomy
• Subconscious urge
• Inner vision

Possible artist references:

• May Ray
• John Stezaker
• Lewis Hine
• Bernd and Hilla Becher
• Irving Penn
• Agust Sander
• Edward Weston
• Ansel Adams
• Nick Knight

Initial thoughts/ideas: