Larry Sultan, Pictures from Home

This photograph fascinates me because of the use of documentary style photography but how also how elements of Tableaux photography are incorporated.  For example this appears to be a quite a middle to upper class setting.  Evidence to suggest this is the well lit environment, the high quality clothes, and the general objects in the photograph that appear of value.  This is interesting because the objects, especially the women doesn’t necessarily appear happy which emphasizes the meaning of how money can’t buy you happiness.  It is almost as if they are trying to impress us with all the objects in the photograph that they are trying to mask some of their own difficulties.  In this sense this shows the documentary side of the photograph as it is documenting the daily life of these people and is expressing to us quite intimately their feelings.  Interestingly, focusing on the woman she appears to reflect feelings of isolation.  I can tell this because she is standing up against a wall, something that reminds me of a prison photograph, telling us how she feels trapped.  She has a TV next to her where presumably her husband is watching that.  This shows the fact she is stood next to a TV and brushed aside suggests that her husband is giving more affection and time to his TV  than her and so she is subordinate to the TV.  Clearly the couple are elderly and so this reflects the days where women are seen as objects.  By how she is staring at us through the eye contact shows she is trusting us, a stranger and that perhaps explains how insecure she feels.  However the fact, that this photograph appears slightly staged, giving reference to how well presented the environment is and so which appears quite fantasy like, it shows a more of the Tableaux side in how this composition is trying to tell us a story.

Richard Billingham, Ray’s A Laugh

This photograph is somewhat different to Larry Sultan’s work of documentary photography.  I believe the subtleties in this compared with the previous photograph are much more refined and intricate, showing a much more accurate picture of most people’s lives.  That is not to say the previous photograph, doesn’t show real life, it does, only just from that women’s perspective.  Here however we see a man and woman who are despite both sitting and standing in a similar way as to the couple in the previous photograph, appear much more active, open and authentic in their relationship than before.  For example the man and woman are facing each other in a more open manner but  still look as if there is some sense of unhappiness or worry between the two. However where both artists  strikingly differ is the fact that previously it displayed the problems of middle class issues, whereas Billingham’s parents show more of a lower class environment.  Interestingly this photograph conveys the struggles of every day life from the perspective of a joint and collective struggle that somehow the issue of poverty concerns everyone within the household.  Whereas before it showed the daily struggle form the perspective of the woman.    On this idea of a collective struggle, this is particularly interesting because it makes us the viewer feel somewhat inclusive in the environment and it’s objects.  I believe this is why the couple appear much more active together due to  the fact that what is bringing them together is the struggles of daily life.  Therefore this binding relationship is one that is so focused on economic principles, that it doesn’t have time to allow other principles such as social and family principles to grow.  This is clearly  a great shame and we can  see the direct results from this in terms of the couple’s relationship.   Therefore this communicates the problems money creates on a wide scale.