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.
Staying true to my plan, I photographed my step-dad; a Chartered Accountant who works and almost lives in his office. The company he owns himself and tries to keep exterior costs to a minimum, meaning he tries to do the majority of work that a company needs himself. This image displaying him at a desk really coincides with the environmental portrait theme as the model is in his own domain.
I tried to stay loyal to the style of environmental portraits as I instructed the model to maintain a sombre and melancholy facial expression to create this sense of ambiguity. I thought by getting a close-up shot, I was able to depict the stress upon his face; especially his eyes as they glare at the viewer, revealing their own story of what they think its like to be in their environment. The main light source is artificial and rather white, which helps portray the model’s face as pale, connoting a worried and confused impression. The secondary light source is that of the computer as it reflects against the model’s face, drawing our attention to his face like the computer draws the model’s attention, reinforcing how much work ties down the model. Furthermore, the model holds the mouse in his right hand, demonstrating he is in fact at work and does work.
As it was an environmental portrait, I thought it would be important to capture his accountancy qualifications in the background with the model in the foreground. Despite his extremely prestigious qualifications, he still depicts a sombre and unhappy mood, proving that there’s more to life than just work. Due to the positioning of the lighting and the way I positioned his chair, there is a shadow created in the background, almost hanging over him, acting as a burden much like work is. Furthermore, there is a small quantity of shadow on his face, portraying how work has a heavy impact upon adult life and that your occupation can slowly take over who you are.
A hidden feature within the photograph is the clock in the background, which rather obviously, tells the time. It shows 4:51 PM, nine minutes until he gets to leave; a time that most people who work in a banking occupation leave their job. This time adds story to the image as my step-dad would’ve been at work from nine AM and demonstrates the long hours he puts in, adding further strain to his facial expression. I thought that by including the clock which depicts the time ‘9 to 5’, reflected the time period that my step-dad works. However, due to the neutral look, we cannot tell whether he is excited to leave or not, relating back to this sense of ambiguity.
I have chosen these two artists, Larry Sultan and Ray Billingham because after looking at Billingham’s photobook, Ray’s A Laugh, I was instantly drawn to his work, in an emotional sense. I found his work very powerful and I think that it really told a story of his life and his background, consisting of his parents. In his book, he told a narrative of how his parents live and through the images, he depicted this is as very obstructive to the lives of the people around them – as if the way his parents live have affected him and his brother having to grow up with it. Both Billingham’s parents have an addiction of some sort – his father being a very heavy alcoholic and his mum being very reliant on cigarettes. He told a story through snap-shots of the conditions they live in on a daily basis in their council estate in a flat. The style of Billingham’s work really resonated with me and I found it very captivating to the see evident boundary that splits the two lives of Billingham’s parents and Larry Sultan’s parents who love, what seems like, very luxurious lives looking at the way they dress, eat and live within their home – Billingham’s family life looks very insignificant when put together with that of Sultan’s and the two contrast makes it very satisfying to notice differences and infer these differences to draw conclusions.
Cover of Ray Billingham’s book, Ray’s A Laugh
Both artists have taken a documentary approach in their series of works. They have both set out to document and produce a catalogue of images that depict their family lives in order for the audience to either sympathise with the photographer as they photograph a subject close to their heart that has a effected them, or to sympathise with the subjects of the images, in Billingham’s case. However, Sultan’s purpose out of his series, ‘Pictures from Home’ is to give the audience an insight into the lives his parents leads. He doesn’t wish to tell as much of a story for his viewers to question him about, like Billingham but a pendant for his parents. He says “it has more to do with love than sociology”. He used his photography to provide something that will last a life time for his parents.
Cover of Larry Sultan’s book, Pictures from Home
Larry Sultan
Larry Sultan was an American photographer from California and was a very influential photographer for many reasons and he definitely shaped photography for others who would follow, following his sudden death in 2009 at the age 63. During his active time as a photographer he carried out many series which were described as, like he was, very guarded, sincere and seductive. He was a great success and this was evident from his teaching career at the San Francisco Art Institute for 10 years. His dedication to photography earned him the Guggenheim Fellowship, an award dedicated to those “who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts”. and he also had his work exhibited in museums of the United States.
With regards to his series, ‘Pictures from Home’, this was something he worked on for nearly 10 decades. ‘Time’website writes, it is, in some sense, an aggregate of mini-collections: Sultan’s aging parents, stills from old home movies, transcribed interviews with his parents, and family snapshots appear side by side, creating a quiet but profoundly stirring portrait of familial intimacy. What makes Sultan’s family photobook different from the countless other artists who attempts it is the such intimacy that is delivered through the pages which touch the reader. He alternates between past and present in the book and puts together a collective that holds personal meanings through the use images and text which engages with class, memory and physical and emotional beings.
A Collection of Images from the Book
Sultan captures moments as far as his parents in bed together enjoying a time together as a couple -something which would be quite intimate but he depicts their life to the fullest as the pair look completely oblivious in order to get the fullest effect of it being a snap-shot.My Father Sleeping, 1984Other accounts within the series shows his parents looking directly into the camera, a technique I like in order for the audience to feel with the subject is feeling
One thing I admire about Sultan’s images is the colours he captures from each image. I believe this in mainly due to the décor that his parents house possessed. It is obvious from the colours, bright and eccentric, that his parents house was luxurious for the them. An image that is evident of this is the image where his mother and father are both in the lounge/dining room together and they have bright green walls surrounding them as well bright green carpet underneath them.
Artist Analysis
This sort of image reminds you of the retro rooms you see in houses of vintage films. It is very 70s but to the luxury we see here in comparison to Ray Billingham’s council flat was a novelty to them.
Relating this image to documentary and the functions and features of documentary photography, it is very clear to see that this particular (above) plays the role of a source of imagery that simply documents what goes on the household of the Sultan’s during the time taken. From looking at the image, I get the sense that Larry Sultan has simply held his camera to his eye in this position he found himself in what seems to be the lounge and, like the style suggests, snaps this one second in time which features his mother and father conversing with each other. The composition is very basic and Sultan would have intended to frame both his parents in the shot in order for the audience to get a sense of their day-to-day lives which consists of relaxing at home and enjoying the company of one another. You can see that the image is slightly slanted and is not completely straight but this adds a likable amateur look to the photograph.
I would imagine that his parents would not have been expecting Sultan to take this image at the time; they would have been going about their evening normally and it is very unlikely that this scene is staged, like a tableau because the whole point of documentary imagery is to capture the lives of ordinary people, most of the time, when they are not watching or expecting it. This is what makes the image above so captivating because you, as the viewer feel as though you are a fly on the wall and are supposed to be viewing inside these strangers lives – documentary photography, in some ways is a means of being nosy and intrusive of other lives – something I find very enthralling when I come to producing my own.
Something I have noticed about the photo, which I really enjoy and think is perhaps an unintentional addition to the photo is the way Sultan’s parents are sat apart from each but there is a empty chair in the middle of them. His mother is on the sofa and his father is at the dining table with his wine glass, seeming as though they have just finished their evening meal and the lady of the house has gone for a sit down. Sultan has captured the scene from his point of view where on one side is his mum and the other his dad, but in the middle of the two is a lonesome chair with no one occupying it. The chair is facing the camera and for someone who would be sitting in it, they would be looking straight at the camera, however, his mother is looking towards her husband and this empty space in the middle seems quite disconcerting and unnerving for the viewer. It’s as though they are waiting for a presence to come along or there is this invisible presence splitting the two. Looking at the facial expressions of the subjects. they are looking quite dull with no emotion, perhaps they have just had a row.
Sultan on hs website in his statement about the series comments on how the works are more about love and it is about showing this familiarity of love in families and the members within them and the relationships which are held. He says he wants his parents to live forever and this is a dedication to them. This is has allowed him to construct his series very thoughtfully in order for it to be a time-travelling tool to relive history that would have passed.
In the series, the boundary between documentary and the staged is blurred as Sultan includes efforts to position his mum and dad in positions and poses fro the camera at times but at other points, the format of images is so very informal and relaxed like inn the above where there is no thoughts of showing any emotion for the camera. The reality of living normal lives without presenting anything false for the camera is backed up by the clutter that lies around on the table and on the side unit.
A page from ‘Pictures From Home’
Ray Billingham
and artist comparison
Richard Billingham, you could say is completely on the other end of the spectrum to Larry Sultan in the way his parents live and in the message that Billingham wanted to force through to the viewers of his series ‘Ray’s A Laugh’. His parents led completely different lives of that of Sultan’s and it is evident in this very captivating catalogue of works for may different reasons compared to Sultan’s. Billingham as a photographer has become a household name for documentary photography and he received lots of reception, mostly positive about the way he addressed the topic of alcoholism in his father and audiences, including myself have loved looking through his published book about the state of which his parents lived in their council flat. He said ‘I just hated growing up in that tower block’ and this is what spurred him to photograph it. The Guardian Online published an article about the series and wrote ‘The photographer was a pioneer of ‘squalid realism’ with his images of his parents’ dreary, drunken existence in the Black Country, which won him a Turner prize nomination. Now, with the help of ‘White Dee’, he’s turning their life into a feature film’.
* Squalid / (of a place) extremely dirty and unpleasant, especially as a result of poverty or neglect.
Richard Billingham had a very touch upbringing and I believe this is what contributes to us as the audience being able to sympathise with him in terms of the way he was brought up, yet he still manages to capture a series so beautiful in it’s narrative. The brief of his teenage years goes as follows: he didn’t even take a photograph until he was nineteen. This was when he was living with his alcoholic father, Ray in flat on the seventh floor of a council block in Birmingham. He’d actually just begun an art foundation course at Bourneville College and was working every night to pay his way stacking shelves at the local Kwik Save supermarket, as ‘The Guardian’ writes.
The first pictures Billingham took, with a camera bought on credit after he persuaded the shop assistant he was a librarian, were of geese and ducks in the park, “just to see if they would come out”. He then trained his viewfinder on Ray. (words from The Guardian). He also said that the pictures he took of his dad were rare and that the film cameras he used own were to expensive to develop. This suggest that maybe Billingham always wanted to get into photography was always eager to be creative but never had the chance due to the circumstances he and his family were in. This series he produced could maybe have been a compensation for the times lost when he was younger as he watched over his mother and father physical and mental state deteriorate – a conclusion I can draw just from looking at the photographs included in the book as you see his mother and father slouch on the sofa eating their dinner with food-stained clothes and junk food packaging strewn across the grim carpet.
A Collection of Images from the Book
An image of Billingham’s mother grinning as she weans a new-born kitten, presumably from the new litter she would have bred as Billingham claimed she loved animalsHis parents eating their dinner together on the sofa. You can see a very noticeable contrast between the living conditions of Billingham’s parents and Sultan’s as this image represents two recluses sat in the living room eating dinner as opposed to a dining room. They are surrounded by washed out wallpapers and dirt-covered furnitureYou can see Billingham may have used the flash of is camera at points throughout the series when you look at the dog’s red-eye as it licks the substances off the ground and you wonder how the pets survived in conditions like this.
There is something about the images that I see in this collection by Richard Billingham that makes me feel very uncomfortable and on edge to look through them because I can sense, just by looking at the images that the tension within the house of the Billingham’s would have been very unpleasant to witness, especially between the two parental figures, who seem to be the most vulnerable yet should be the ones with their loving eye gazing over their sons yet, in the image above, it looks like the mother has her fist up at Ray’s face mid-way through a row. The facial expressions from both halves portray a sense of anger yet regret or upset. However, as much as it is not pleasant to observe the events that occur in the images, it is essential to do as it opens your eyes to the reality – once again – this is what documentary is; reality being forced directly to the viewer. I feel very connected when analysing the events that occur in the images because each photo has a meaning behind it, a story – this is a similarity between Billingham and Sultan, that each image represents a moment in time and that the collection of photo produced tell a story. Looking at the two contrasts re-defines the meaning of family as I am being told about two different situations – one of love and one of agitation.
Artist Analysis
This image, to me holds a very strong and powerful message as it sums up the whole meaning behind the series, ‘Ray’s A Laugh’. It shows Ray’s wife bringing him his dinner, which looks like two boiled eggs and some toast. The simplicity of the dinner reiterates their need for simplicity and being basic in their life choices. It shows Ray sitting don on the sofa with his dogs and his wife coming over to him with his dinner as conjures up a smile as this moment in the day is probably his favourite. He puts out his hands as his wife looks at him drearily and it is a shot which makes the audience think of family. It is a typical scene of the lady of the house bringing dinner to her man as he relaxes on the sofa ready to enjoy a relaxing evening with his wife. This usually occurs in men who have ben at work all day and women who have spent the day at home cleaning and cooking, however, for these two, it is likely they have spent the day on the sofa and what is seen above is there everyday life – it has the sense of repetitiveness an this is what is ironic because something so simple for Ray is what brings him joy as he probably doesn’t have much else to provide him excitement.
The state of the house is shown by the surroundings. The walls are caked in dirt and grease and filth, there are cardboard boxes with what I can only imagine is junk which has been hoarded over several years. There are cheap-looking decorations hanging off the walls which at ornaments which Billingham’s mother has collected as he claims she loves little knick-knacks. The two subjects themselves don’t look clean and it is though they fit it with their surroundings perfectly and they have become part of the house over-time. The whole look of the image is very sad and the audience can sympathise with what is going on.
The wife is holding in her other hand as she oases over the boiled egg for at some breadsticks which you can only bare to imagine that this could be her dinner as she has had to focus on pleasing her husband. You could draw a conclusion that perhaps if Rau does not get his evening meal, if may get aggressive and retaliate and this prospect because it is breaking his routine. He is an alcoholic and Richard Billingham stresses this as in almost every shot in the series is a greasy recycled bottle filled with a brown, thick liquid said to be the homemade brew his father makes.
I find it hard to believe that Billingham has he courage to construct such a personal visual documentary of images because it is such a personal subject that encapsulates the hardship his parents have been living for the most part of their lives and how it has affected the ones around them, including himself but the context of the series is what makes it so thrilling to view.
His video art piece which re-imagines scenes from his book released in 2000, ‘Ray’s A Laugh’.
Jonathon Bielaski is a Canadian environmental photographer specialist based in Toronto. Although environmental portraits are restricted to often just the place of work for the model in question, Bielaski visits more diverse and a variety of work places. Bielaski’s photographic range gives his collection of work an edge on other environmental portraiture photographers which is also enhanced by the body language of the model. Throughout his work, the model avoids eye contact, creating this sense of ambiguity and the viewer of the image immediately questions the image – does the person enjoy their job? Are they happy?
Presumably, the man in the image is the butcher, the man who butchered the seven pigs in the image. Although pork is a very popular meat, especially in the UK, to see meat in this formation is quite disturbing and grotesque, perhaps coinciding with the closed body language of the man in the image. The crossed arms, ambiguous side profile, aged skin and grey hair allude to an experienced butcher whose guilt of killing animals has caught up with him as he is surrounded by the corpses of pig bodies. Bielaski would have crafted the image in this way to show the struggles a butcher would face and perhaps the guilt the job accompanies. Alternatively, it may be other factors that are causing this man to be stuck in deep thought during his work hours and this may affect his performance. Perhaps his job is an escape from the strain of everyday life but due to the posture the model holds, the images emotion is ambiguous and open to interpretation, which is the key method to an environmental portrait.
Following the knowledge I attained from meticulously analyzing Jonathon Bielaski’s environmental portraiture work, I researched and reminded myself of how to take a successful environmental portrait of a family member, to stay inclined with the task and the main topic of family. I used the following links to help me conjure a plan of action…
Larry Sultan was an American photographer who framed his wealthy and prestigious family in the style of environmental portraits. Like many environmental portraits, the blank facial expression depicts a story open to interpretation, giving different dimensions to his photography as it becomes real although it is so clearly staged.
Initially, I plan to photograph my step-dad, a Chartered Accountant who jointly runs his office with brother. I’m going to tell him to model in the photograph as if he’s writing, on the computer, an image looking away from me and an image looking directly at me. I’m hoping by attaining a variety of images of the model, I am able to select a definitive picture that can portray the stress I see him experience. The working strain usually implements onto our family as it is clear when he is stressed.
Secondly, I want to photograph my little sister either in her bedroom or the garden on the trampoline. For this photoshoot, I’d have to find a perfect angle to get my sister and the objects I hope to capture with it. At the tender age of five, my sisters main aim is to have fun so if I’m going to capture images of her on fun apparatus, I’ll have to instruct her to keep a straight face, which may be a challenge.
Finally, for the environmental portrait study I will encapture images of my friends drinking and playing pool, which seems to be the culture since we’re turning eighteen this year. Personally, I consider my friendship an extension to my actual biological family, which allows me to incorporate them into my work.
Inspiration is the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative. In photography being inspired by something is key because otherwise you would take boring meaningless photos that have no significance or real meaning to why you have captured them. Most people don’t realise when they are really inspired because it is easy to be inspired without really knowing, for example just seeing a photographers working and having and thinking you like it and then subconsciously creating a piece of work similar not even meaning to. or you can look for inspiration and search for artists and things that have meaning to you and want to look more into that and this tends to be how we start a project in photography by finding general inspiration of things/artists/objects which may capture our personal interests and make us want to explore this specific area further.
I find being properly inspired by things really rare because i have to be passionate about the topic, really interested in it and for it to have meaning and significance that is going to capture my interests. In the past i have found inspiration off pinterest and the internet of artists that i liked there work. But i have also always been inspired by social matters and what is going on in our environment and others environment. I based a photography project last year on the idea of ‘self reflection’ and how other view themselves through editing mirror reflections showing in the foreground who they are and then in the background was there mirror reflection with the words of what they saw themselves as. I was inspired by this idea because i thought it had true meaning of how no one is really happy with themselves, their image, or who they are as a person. So i felt it portrayed a strong message which would impact a lot of people.
This year i have been inspired by a trip that i found out about a couple of years ago, where a group of people from jersey go on an aid trip to Burkina Faso, Africa and build schools, pharmacies and help out in the local area. After researching a bit about this location i have become really passionate about helping out as much as i can when i go over there in October 2017. I have been inspired by the people there and how well they cope with the tough realities of life that i am going to make a project about them and when i go over capture documentary portraiture images of the people of Burkina Faso in their natural environment and hope to portray the message of their lives through my images and how you don’t always need lots of money to be happy.
Over the course of the summer, I took multiple photographs in a multitude of settings and places. I thoroughly enjoyed this freelance approach, photographing what I liked, espeically as each photograph withholds a personal and sentimental meaning.
Reinforcing this sense of inspiration and linking to the topic of environment, I thought I would post this collection of images in order to demonstrate and give a visual representation of the environments I get inspired by.
Throughout the process of this coming year in photography, I am going to be looking at a variety of different style of photography that will be paramount for me to present my personal study in a creative and new narrative style that I have not attempted before. I have already looked at one of the threes styles, being archival imagery. I have achieved this through looking briefly at my own personal family archive and visiting the archive of Jersey and it’s history at the Societe Jersiaise museum. This was a really enjoyable experience and it has set me up for the year to come because I aim to use these new skills learnt to help me analyse the background context of photographs deeper and I will be able to explain my now photographs better because of this. The other two style of photography will interlink with archival works and the pieces I produce from each aspect will hopefully come together to complement each other in the end result.
I have set myself a personal target this year to explore lots of new techniques and photography styles. Last year I focused solely on what was set and I feel this limited my ability to explore and expand my creativity further outside of the boundaries and therefore my outcomes were often basic and they weren’t always what I wanted in order to differentiate myself from others because I didn’t know what to do in order to make myself unique. Furthermore, my maturity as an artist has develop and artists mind has also advancement, therefore, I feel as if I am eager to try lots of new things and challenge myself in terms of exploring outside my comfort zone to help me understand what I want to be as an artist, the style I feel most attached to and so on. I hope to discover a particular look to my work and I think that looking at new techniques will aid this; this is why my ability to be experimental in photoshoots for documentary, tableaux and archival purposes will be vital for my own success. I see this year as a time for trial and error in an effort to discover myself.
Documentary
Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to record events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life.
Documentary imagery drew on the idea of information as a creative education of life itself and it has been used by a range of photographers to show everyday life of ordinary people – which is what I will be attempting to achieve in the near future.
Documentary photography wished to, when first introduced, pave the way for social change as people often photographed controversial subjects very subtly to get the idea of documenting a particular event as if they shouldn’t be because the subject is seen to be a taboo such as alcoholism, much like Richard Billingham did in his series Ray’s A Laugh.
Richard BillinghamRichard Billingham
Tatesays that Until the mid-twentieth century, documentary photography was a vital way of bearing witness to world events: from shoot-from-the-hip photographs of the Spanish Civil War by Robert Capa to the considered portraits of poor farmers by Dorothea Lange.
Dorothea Lange – one of America’s greatest documentary photographers who worked in War strucken areas and investigated the working conditions of farm workers
For me, documentary photography is a very powerful tool to use in order to get across a message creatively and artistically through the use a camera – a snap shot to allow us to compensate for the resistance that media has when serious topics such as mental illness or suicide are not addressed and are not put in the face of the public due to such topics being regarded as taboo. I am not saying I will be addressing such topics and issues but I believe that documentary is a perfect way to compensate for the lack of publicity it gets and artists such as Richard Billingham or journalists as early as 1880’s who documented the slums in Manhattan shows this in their work. Also, an artist, I am particularly fond of addresses less serious topics but in a humorous way – French illustrator, Cecile Dormeau tells the hidden story of women and the other side to women that society don’t regard as lady-like through her colourful and cartoon-esque illustrations and gifs. She shows women eating junk food in lounge-wear and shows curvy women in strappy tops through the characters she creates in each of her drawings. It is a form of documentary work because it is publicising something that wouldn’t get addressed in other media because it is typical to have a petite models in the public eye through brand advertising.
Cecile DormeauCecile Dormeau
Tableaux
Tableaux photography is a type of art in which the subjects of image are staged. Tableaux is used to describe a painting or photograph in which characters are arranged for picturesque or dramatic effect and appear absorbed and completely unaware of the existence of the viewer.
‘Tableau’ derived from the French term ‘Tableau Vivant’ meaning ‘living picture’. The term is relevant to many art forms including painting, where it first stemmed from and it has since gone on to become popular in photography and sculpture for visual and aesthetic representations. In the theatrical context, the actors/models do not speak or move throughout the duration of the display they are presenting during a play or show etc.
When I think of tableaux photography, bearing in mind I have never performed it myself or photographed due to the prospect of being motivated to due to my lack of interest in it, I personally do intend to concentrate my time too much on it because I feel like it wont suit my artistic style. However, I am definitely up for experimenting with the historical technique which is still in use now, mainly for theatrical reasons however but I feel like I could enjoy this style once I have planned a shoot for it. This is because I enjoy photographing people and faces. I feel like I can definitely envisage what I want to achieve once I have the subjects inf front of me , and, from what I have learnt of tableaux photography so far, it looks like it needs a lot of patience in order to make the position being performed.
An example of tableau photography can be seen when looking at the worm of Ryan Schude. He photographs set up scenes as if they have just come from a movie and I love his work. I cam across him by chance and I was instantly attracted to the images due to the mayhem that is often occurring in each image and it is always at a particular location and the subjects are all performing something different to each other which is what makes it so interesting because there is always something to look at. I also love the colours that are present in the images andf they almost look vintage which is what I presume Schude has attempted to give the idea of original tableau vivants – the costumes of each character aids this effect and the mise-en-scene.
Ryan Schude, Tableau Vivant, Crazy Pool PartyRyan Schude
Tableaux photography, to me is different to documentary because it is not known as much to document serious issues and its aim is not to pave a pathway for social change. This is because of where it derives from, being theatrical purposes.
Seamus Nicholson, another tableaux based photographer
His artist statement explains his work in a sentence and is revolved around documentary combine with tableaux and how he can create a snap shot moment with his camera to get an insight in ordinary peoples lives.
“My work seeks to express the surreal and the unexpected found in ordinary everyday moments. I draw inspiration from cinema and the traditions of tableaux painting as well as from direct observations of life. I am interested in combining elements of documentary and the snapshot aesthetic.”
Some artists explore family using a documentary approach to storytelling, others construct or stage images that may reflect on their childhood, memories, or significant events drawing inspiration from family archives/ photo albums and often incorporating vernacular images into the narrative and presenting the work as a photobook.
Documentary is storytelling through a series of images of people involved in real events to provide a factual report on a particular subject. It also aims to show, in an informal way, the everyday lives of ordinary people.
Documentary photography can be looked through both a objectively and subjective lens. This means the photographer can use a camera to simply record objects, people and events, however a photographer can also document objects, people and events with some sort of purpose or theme in mind. This can be to tell people’s stories and explore their lifestyles or to document more unconventional events that are not covered in the same way by the news or media. Documentary photography that is approached subjectively I personally would like to investigate.
Artist Reference – Larry Sultan Vs Richard Billingham
These are artists who photograph their parents, either using straight photography or a snapshot aesthetics, in both an informal or formal setting.
He grew up in California’s San Fernando Valley, which became a source of inspiration for a number of his projects. His work blends documentary and staged photography to create images of the psychological as well as physical landscape of suburban family life.
Sultan’s pioneering book and exhibition Pictures From Home (1992) was a decade long project that features his own mother and father as its primary subjects, exploring photography’s role in creating familial mythologies, which are myths that are constructed to deny the reality or idealise an aspect of family situations.
Sultan’s images negotiate between reality and fantasy, domesticity and desire, as the mundane qualities of the domestic surroundings become loaded cultural symbols.
In these series of photographs called ‘Pictures from home’ he attempted to preserve the memory of their home, his mother and his father. He clearly felt a lot of love and admired his parents, which is clear from the photographs he produces. When I researched Sultan’s work I came across a quote that supported this:
“These are my parents. From that simple fact, everything follows. I realize that beyond the rolls of film and the few good pictures, the demands of my project and my confusion about its meaning, is the wish to take photography literally. To stop time. I want my parents to live forever.”
The photos taken of his parents show a lot about them as individuals and the family as a collective. It also says a lot about their personalities, interests and what Sultan as the photographer, felt it was important to capture on film. It tells us a lot about his parents as a married couple, who are clearly now retired and would be now spending a lot of time in each other’s company. You can also tell by his photographs that his parents are wealth and well to do, you can tell this by their clothing as they look sophisticated and stylish for their time and also their ‘show’ like house.
His mother, I assume is fond of the colour green as photographs are taken in many different rooms of their house and there is a clear theme of green. His father is presented as a man who has been in profession that required a suit and earned a fair amount of money as in varies photographs he is dressed in a suit or at least smartly dressed, he is also shown engaging in many activities in the photos as he now has time for some well earned leisure.
As I did more research into the meaning behind Larry Sultan’s photography I learnt that his father was an orphan and worked his way up to be a vice president within a company. His father was not happy he became an artist. He started taking images to rediscover his childhood and his family, which helped him and his family ‘bound together’
ANALYSIS
This image is called ‘My Mother Posing For Me’
His mother is leaning against the wall, facing the camera, making eye-contact. His father is in the bottom left of the image watching baseball on the television. His mother is clearly the main subject of this particular image, I feel this image is showing that although they are both living together and spend most of their time together they also have different interests and things that they want to do without the other. But they will also be in each others lives. The couple wear similar outfits throughout the series of photographs, which could be to do with the fashion of the time, but also can be seen as a strong connection between the couple. They are both wearing off white trousers and collared long shirt with a purple or lilac undertone. I find this element of “matching” rather charming as this often occurs with my grandparents which results in my grandmother forcing my grandfather to change. This reminds me of my grandparents, as they often match when going to family events or when they go out together. The image is quite a square shaped photograph and the image is well framed.
Sultan’s photos have a sense of warm despite their often cool colour palette because the people he is photographing are happy in their environment. They are photographed cooking, cleaning, swimming and just generally doing what they do everyday in their retirement; which is doing the things they love and enjoying each other’s company. Sultan’s father can be seen to be a hardworking and traditional man and his mother is shown as eccentric, stylish and glamorous and yet still very caring and warm.
Richard Billingham
by Johnnie Shand Kydd, bromide fibre print, 1997
He is an English photographer, artist, film maker and art teacher. His work has mostly concerned his family, the place he grew up in the West Midlands, but also landscapes elsewhere.
He is best known for Ray’s A Laugh which documents the life of his alcoholic father Ray, and obese, heavily tattooed mother, Liz. I personally, looked through this book, I found it interesting to learn about a family and their story through images instead of through written research. Within the photobook there are varies photos of where he lives, the first image you see inside the book is of the area he lives in.
As you get further into the book you see varies images of the couple arguing or physically fighting. The images appear to show the mother Liz acting aggressively, while the father has a look of almost fear on his face. There are also images of his dad falling over or sat next to a toilet, where he had previously been sick into. This shows how his father was an extreme alcoholic as the images were taken as if this was the norm in their household. There are images of both his mother and his father sat on the couch eating, what looks like their dinner. Both have spilt food down their clothes and round their mouth. This is a different sight to what we seen in Sultan’s photography.
His book contains a quote by Robert Frank about his book saying ‘Flash into the face of Mom and Dad. A british family-album so cool that i can see and hear what goes on between the frames. No room for judgement or morality… Reality and no pretence. Richard Billingham is the son and he knows- his family.’
Richard Billingham describes the book to be about ‘my close family. My father Raymond is a chronic alcoholic. He doesn’t like going outside and mostly drinks homebrew. My mother Elizabeth hardly drinks but she does smoke a lot. She likes pets and things that are decorative. They married in 1070 and i was born soon after. My younger brother Jason was taken into care when he was 11 but is now back with Ray and Liz again. Recently he became a father. Ray says Jason is unruly. Jason says Ray’s a laugh but doesnt want to be like him.’
I feel like it is a chronicle of everything that hurts him. He admits that his family originally lived in a terraced house, but they blew all the redundancy money and, in desperation sold the house. After this they moved into a council tower block and this is where Ray sat and drunk all day, everyday. I think it’s endearing that Richard felt comfortable, showing both his parents at probably their worse and shine a light on how they were living for multiple years. It is not the family life we as a society are used to seeing, not because this doesn’t happen but we are not drawn attention to it. So, it shocked me that he decided to draw our attention to this and clearly doesn’t feel hate or angry towards his family as he describes them as ‘close’.
ANALYSIS:
This is an image of Richard’s dad who is standing on the right and Richard’s brother standing on the left. I found this fascinating as this is a father and son stood side by side. Normally you would be able to see some resemblance between father and son, which I find hard to recognise. His father is extremely skinny and old looking which, could be partly because of the amount of alcohol he consumes daily. It almost can be seen as a before and after image from before Ray became an alcoholic and was healthy. Also a son feeling some kind of aspiration to be alike his father is the social norm. However, this image has a different meaning as Jason admits that Ray, his dad is a laugh but he doesn’t want to be anything like him, which is not a common response you would get when taking about your father.
Comparison:
By Larry Sultan
By Richard Billingham
Both these photographs are of a couple eating a meal, they are both doing the same activity but individually. In the first photograph they are both reading a newspaper, while sitting at a table. In the second photograph I assume they are both watching television or simply sitting on the couch. So, both images are of the same thing, however they both have different meanings and show completely different things.
In the first image they are clearly middle/upper class people, who take pride in their appearance, they will be the type of couple who religiously have dinner at the table as a formal meal every night and will eat home cooked meals for every meal. This is completely different to the second image as they clearly don’t take as much pride in the way they look as they have spilt food on their clothes and round their mouth, with cats sat next to them while they eat, which is not so hygienic.
Both photographers are trying to portray a different style of life, both keeping to the theme of family. Comparing these two artists show that every family is different in their own unique ways and all families contrast with the ways they do things.
Photo-Assignment
“Make one environmental portrait using a family member/members”
I took this image of my three younger cousins, who are from Scotland, they are all brothers and are fairly similar in age. I asked the boys to all wear the same t-shirt and shorts but in different colours, this was to represent the fact they are very similar in many aspects and all have the same view on things as they were all brought up in the same piece by the same parents. However, the different colours show the differences in their personalities, their interests and hobbies. I chose to photograph the image by the sea as they all enjoy the waves whenever they arrive in Jersey and spend most of their time down at St. Ouens, where I conducted this shoot. I decided not take the image in a house because they haven’t grown up in a specific household, this would then mean it would not be sentimental like it would have been for these two artists I have studied. The photograph shows how close they are to each other as a family, they are all laughing and smiling with one another, which is a normal thing to see in their household. The overall theme of this photo is similarity between family members but also that they are all slightly different in their own unique way. The 3 brothers have a strong connection and I feel it was shown in the image. This is similar to the two artists I have conducted research on as they photographed to show some sort of connection between family members, this is what inspired my image. I also feel like there was a connection between the 3 boys and the camera as me and my cousins are close and have a strong bond with one another, which I feel was portrayed through this image. We also scattered our granddad’s ashes there when he pasted away, which makes St. Ouens a very special place for us as a family. The smiles on their make the image bright and happy, which is how our granddad made us feel and still makes us feel in his memory.
One of my first inspirations to get into photography was Fashion Photography. As a typical young girl I would look on fashion blogs and in fashion magazines, which is where I was first introduced to this sort of photography. Fashion Photography is originally devoted to displaying clothing or other fashion items when photographing but has now developed into a way of challenging controversial ideas or creating a mood. What really inspired me was a particular piece by Steven Meisel, which appeared in the Vogue Italia magazine in 2011, but only came to my attention in the last 6 months.
These were the original images I first seen, as you can see the model’s waist is being pushed in by a corset, which makes it almost non-existent. A radical demonstration of the pain some go through in the name of fashion. These photos are apart of a series of photos, which I later found out was called ‘The discipline of fashion.’
As you look and analysis these particular images, you are then made aware of how the facial expression and body language of the model can change the mood and feel towards the image. These types of images can battle controversial matters, Steven Meisel is a Photographer who likes to use theses as his starting point.
I feel these 2 photographs together capture the story and meaning behind these selection of images. They show the pain woman in particular go through to make themselves fashionable and appealing to the public eye. In the first photograph you can see the marks that have been left indented into the skin by the leather gloves she was wearing, these indents shape lines on the skin that almost look like self harming scars, which also relates to pain and expectations. The hand hangs there with no real purpose as if it numb or aching. The second image you can see her tiny waist, which over exaggerates other features in her body such as her hips and shoulders. She is hunched over, almost as if she is in pain while she holds her chest. Her eyes are looking down and she has a serious look on her face as if she is uncomfortable.
These sort of images inspire me because the model is dressed in couture clothes, modelling the clothes and fashion items, which will later be published in a fashion magazine but also has an underlying theme that contradicts the magazine’s purpose. This shows the effects of ‘the discipline to fashion’ in a fashionable and stylish way.
The definition for Inspiration is: “the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.”
Inspiration comes from many places but it is necessary to know where to find it when it is necessary in order to pursue a very specific and precise venture or project. Inspiration comes from anything that is direct or indirectly related to what we are interested in. Then once you have found a particular inspiration, it is how you go about applying this to your work, do you allow yourself to be heavily influenced by it and not give yourself much freedom by bounding yourself to this particular inspiration? Or do you allow it to lightly have an effect on your work by still allowing a generous amount of freedom? This is up to you.
My inspiration most often comes from nature, specifically the beach or forested areas. I particularly like how there is a sense of freedom with nature and how there is such a variety of opportunities available that it can relate to any project I am working on. On a more human base I prefer to look no further than at my own family and other personal relationships and how each individual is different. This can explain a variety of emotions and can be used to illustrate what can’t be expressed through normal words.
Sultan’s images negotiate between reality and fantasy, domesticity and desire, as the mundane qualities of the domestic surroundings become loaded cultural symbols.
