PERSONAL INVESTIGATION
You must produce a coherent body of work that demonstrates your knowledge and understanding of both practical and theoretical issues in contemporary photography and lens-based media. You can explore your ideas across different media from stills-photography, moving image to installation adopting an interdisciplinary approach to image-making by making references to other subjects that you may study or have an interest in, such as English Literature, Psychology, Philosophy, History, Media, Art or Science.
The aim of your Personal Investigation is to critically investigate, question and challenge a particular style, area or work by artists/ photographer(s) which will inform and develop your own visual language and emerging practice as a student of photography. The unit is designed for you to expand your interest, knowledge, skills and understanding of photography, and consider what makes your work special and personal to you!
We began exploring the themes of FAMILY or ENVIRONMENT in June when Tanja Deman and Jonny Briggs delivered a series of workshops to inspire you with new ways of thinking and making.
There is 7 weeks to complete your Personal Investigation and produce a number of quality final outcomes, prints, video, installations that will be submitted for the exhibition, Constructed Narratives at the Jersey Arts Centre 27 Nov. Tanja, Jonny and Gareth Syvret will be curating and making the final selection of work to be exhibited.
Now it is time for you to consider which theme you want to explore in depth, how you will do it and why?
DEADLINE WED 22 NOV
The options are for you to continue to explore FAMILY or decide to focus on ENVIRONMENT, or a combination of both – if possible.
– The focus this academic year is to develop your skills as Visual Storytellers across different genres such as documentary photographyand tableaux photography examining ways that photographers use a variety of narrative and reflective techniques associated with photojournalism and contemporary photographic practice. See here for inspirations from previous students Personal Study where subjects such as Family and Environment were explored.
If you choose ENVIRONMENT we want you to use this past exam paper as starting point for your creative journey. In addition, we have put together other exciting and creative starting points for you to choose as inspirations for your continued work. You should approach this as a MOCK exam where you now have 7 weeks to complete a project.
HOW TO BEGIN: Read the Exam Paper and Contextual References booklet thoroughly, especially pages 2-4 and page 7 which details specific starting points and approaches to the exam theme – make notes! Brainstorm your idea and research artists listed – look also at starting points in other disciplines e.g. Fine Art and Graphic Communication etc. Begin to gather further information, collect images, make a mood-board and mind-map, make plans and write a specification, start to take pictures and make a response to initial research. You must show evidence of the above on your blog– complete at least 4-5 blog posts.
PLANNER – TRACKING: This unit requires you to produce an appropriate number of blog posts that charts charts you project from from conception to completion and must show evidence of:
Research and exploration of your ideas
Recorded your experiences and observations
Analysis and interpretation of things seen, imagined or remembered
Experimentation with materials, processes and techniques
Select, evaluate and develop ideas further through sustained investigation
Show connections between your work and that of other artists/ photographers
Each week you are required to make a photographic response (still-images and/or moving image) that relates to the research and work that you explored in that week. Sustained investigations means taking a lot of time and effort to produce the best you can possibly do – reviewing, modifying and refining your idea and taking more pictures to build up a strong body of work with a clear sense of purpose and direction
Fill in the above 8 Week Planner by Fri 13 Oct.
Use PLANNING-TRACKING-PERSONAL INVESTIGATION-AUTUMN-TERMfor a full overview of what you are required to do in the next 8 weeks. You are required to self-monitor your progress and will be asked to upload Tracking-Sheet with an update on a weekly basis to your blog.
To achieve a top marks we need to see a coherent progression of quality work from start to finish following these steps:
TASKS: Make blog posts with evidence of the following:
REVIEW > REFLECTION
1. Produce a blog post that reflects on your work you have produced so far, including workshops by Tanja and Jonny. Describe which themes, artists, approaches, skills and photographic processes inspired you the most and why. Provide an overview of what you learned and include examples of previous work to illustrate your thinking.
RESEARCH > ANALYSIS 2. Gather as many visual inspirations as possible that may help you to develop your response to your chosen theme. Look at a range of visual material – photographs, films, paintings, drawings, design etc that provide some inspiration for you in the way you want to develop your idea. Make a mood-board and a mind-map and produce at least 4-5 blog posts that illustrate your thinking and understanding. Use pictures and annotation and make a photographic response to initial research!
3. Artists references: Select at least two new photographers and write a thoughtful analysis of each artists and consider how their work is referencing your chosen theme(s) and ideas. Discuss the subject-matter, content, concept, context, construction, composition, camera, then compare, contrast and critique.
Ask yourself: What? Why? How?
Produce a mood board with a selection of images.
Provide analysis of their work and explain why you have chosen them and how it relates to your idea and the theme of FAMILY
Select at least 2 key images and analyse in depth, FORM (describe what you see, composition, use of light etc), MEANING (interpretation, subject-matter, what is the photographer trying to communicate), JUDGEMENT (evaluation, how good is it?), CONTEXT (history and theory of art/ photography/ visual culture,link to other’s work/ideas/concept)
Incorporate quotes and comments from artist themselves or others (art critics, art historians, curators, writers, journalists etc) using a variety of sources such as Youtube, online articles, reviews, text, books etc.
reference sources and embed links to the above sources in your blog post
Make a photographic response to your research into the work of others.
Remember to MAKE YOUR BLOG POST VISUAL and include relevant links, podcasts, videos where possible.
Use this model of critical analysis for looking at images
PLANNING > RECORDING 4. Write a Specification: Finding your voice and unique way to tell a story. As a photographer you are always looking for photo-opportunities and for stories that only you can tell. Try and find a personal angle on a story which will make it unique and choose a subject you have access to and can photograph in depth. Write a specification with 2-3 ideas about what you are planning to do; how, who, when, where and why – based around the theme of Family or Environment and Illustrate with images/ examples.
5. In the next 3-4 weeks you need to plan and record at least 4-5 shoots and make around 250-400 photographs. If you need access to a place, visit family members or a group of people you may need to arrange appointments/ organise dates/times etc. Try and complete one photo-shoot per week. See below for more inspiration and guidelines.
mini-DEADLINE: 1st Photoshoot or photographic response to your project MUST be completed by Mon 16 Oct.
We will have a Masterclass on Mon 16 Octon how to use Lightroom and you must have unedited images ready for processing
Think about lighting, are you going to shoot outside in natural light or inside using studio lights? If portraiture, shoot both inside and outside to make informed choices and experimentation. Remember to try out a variety of shot sizes and angles, pay attention to composition, focusing, scale, perspective, rule of 1/3rds, foreground/ background and creative control of aperture (depth of field) and shutter speed (movement). Process images using Lightroom and select from these 15-20 work prints for further experimentation. Produce 2-3 blog posts from each shoot and analyse and evaluate your photos through annotation showing understanding of basic visual language using specialist terminology.
Half-term: You have one week off school and this is an ideal opportunity to make your final set of pictures, experiment, and make a final edit. Don’t waste this time!
DEVELOPING > EXPERIMENTING 6. Show development of your idea by reviewing, modifying and analysing your images and go out and take more pictures in the same or different location. Experiment with different processes and methods using Photoshop/ Lightroom appropriate to your intentions e.g. cropping, adjusting levels/ exposure, colour correction/ b/w, sepia/ monochrome, blending/ blurring, HDR, panoramic/ joiner, montage/ collage, text/ typology, borders/ frames. Produce at least 3-4 blog posts with pictures and use annotation to explain what you did and how you developed your idea further in a thoughtful and considered manner.
7. Be critical and selective when you edit your photographs. Do they benefit being part of a series or are they best if presented as a single photo? Think about sequence and relationship between images – does your series of images convey a sense of narrative (story) or are they repetitious. Annotate! Make sure you have tested and tried out different ways of presenting photographs e.g. window mounts, foam-boards, frames etc. Finish and refine studies and produce 2-3 blog posts with your final outcomes, including thoughts on how to present them and a final evaluation.
PRESENTING > EVALUATING 8. FINAL PRINTS: final outcomes must be ready for printing no later then end of your MOCK Exam .
Make sure you save your final images in a high-resolution, min 4000 pixles on the long edge and save them in your name into the relevant print folders here:
Show evidence of how you intend to present and display your final prints in the exhibition – make mock up in Photoshop. You should be aiming for about 5-7 images that needs to be displayed as a cluster; for example, 2 x A3, 3 x A4 and 2 x A5. For some of you it might be better to display images as a set of diptychs (2 images) or a triptych (3 images). We will help you making this decision.
Mock Exam: One whole day in class Mon 20 Nov: 13A Tue: 21 Nov: 13E Wed 22 Nov: 13D
9. BLOG:Go through all your blog posts and make sure that you have completed them all to your best ability, e.g. good use of images/ illustrations, annotation of processes/ techniques used, analysis/ evaluation of images and experimentation. Remember to MAKE YOUR BLOG POST VISUAL andinclude relevant, links, podcasts, videos where possible.
Write a final evaluation (250-500 words) that explain in some detail the following:
how successfully you explored your idea and realised your intentions.
links and inspiration between your final images and chosen theme(s) including artists references
analysis of final prints/presentation in terms of composition, lighting, meaning, concept, subject, symbolism etc.
10. Statement: You must choose one image, a title and write a paragraph about your project and final set of images. We need these for the Gallery guide for the exhibition. You should be able to use some of what you wrote in your evaluation above.
See here for previous examples of artist statements gallery booklet
11. Mounting. Once the exhibition is finished (in January 2018) you will need to mount and present your final prints.
Your final outcomes must be presented in a thoughtful, careful and professional manner demonstrating skills in presenting work in either window mounts, picture frames, foam-board, and/ or submit moving image and video based production and upload as Youtube clip to the blog.
Make sure you label with name, candidate number, attach velcro and put in a BLACK folder.
AO1 – Develop your ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
To achieve an A or A*-grade you must demonstrate an Exceptional ability (Level 6) through sustained and focused investigations achieving 16-18 marks out of 18.
Get yourself familiar with the assessment grid here:
To develop your ideas further from initial research of mind-maps and mood-boards on the themes ENVIRONMENT you need to be looking at the work of others (artists, photographers, filmmakers, writers, theoreticians, historians etc) and write a specification with 2-3 unique ideas that you want to explore further.
Follow these steps to success!
Research and analyse the work of at least 2-3 (or more) photographers/ artists. Produce at least 2-3 blog posts for each artist reference that illustrate your thinking and understanding using pictures and annotation and make a photographic response to your research into the work of others
Produce a mood board with a selection of images.
Provide analysis of their work and explain why you have chosen them and how it relates to your idea and the exam theme of ENVIRONMENT
Select at least 2 key images and analyse in depth, FORM (composition, use of light etc), MEANING (interpretation, subject-matter, what is the photographer trying to communicate), JUDGEMENT (evaluation, how good is it?), CONTEXT (history and theory of art/ photography/ visual culture,link to other’s work/ideas/concept)
Incorporate quotes and comments from artist themselves or others (art critics, art historians, curators, writers, journalists etc) using a variety of sources such as Youtube, online articles, reviews, text, books etc.
Make sure you reference sources and embed links to the above sources in your blog post
Plan at least 2-3 shoots as a response to the above where you explore your ideas in-depth.
Edit shoots and show experimentation with different adjustments/ techniques/ processes in Lightroom/ Photoshop
Reflect and evaluate each shoot afterwards with thoughts on how to refine and modify your ideas i.e. experiment with images in Lightroom/Photoshop, re-visit idea, produce a new shoot, what are you going to do differently next time? How are you going to develop your ideas?
To help you get started look at the starting points in the Exam paper on pages 22-25 under Photography. Look also at other disciplines such as, Fine Art, Graphic Communication, Textile Design, Three-dimensional design – often you will find some interesting ideas here.
However don’t just rely on these pages and starting points in the exam paper. Often those students that achieve the highest marks are those that think outside the box and find their own unique starting points.
Photography Agencies and Collectives World Press Photo – the best news photography and photojournalism Magnum Photos – photo agency, picture stories from all over the world. Panos Picture – photo agency Agency VU – photo agency INSTITUTE– photo agency Sputnik Photos – photo collective made of Polish and East European photographers A Fine Beginning – photo collective in Wales Document Scotland – photo collective in Scotland NOOR – a collective uniting a select group of highly accomplished photojournalists and documentary storytellers focusing on contemporary global issues.
Here is a folder EXAM 2017 with a lot of PPTs about various genres and approaches to photography: USE IT !!
M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Resources\EXAM 2017
Here are some thoughts from me on different artists whose work makes link and references to the theme of ENVIRONMENT.
Chris Jordan: Midway Message from the Gyre
Definition in dictionary (noun):
1. the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates.
2. the natural world, as a whole or in a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activity.
synonyms:
the natural world, nature, the living world, the world, the earth, the ecosystem, the biosphere, Mother Nature, Gaia;
wildlife, flora and fauna, the countryside, the landscape
This broad definition encompass almost everything and the obvious approach to thinking about the environment is a place. However the concept of an environment can be interpreted in different ways.
Physical – observed and recorded environment Psychological – constructed and imagined environment
Using binary opposites we can divide these environment into;
nature/ culture light/ darkness east/ west
exterior/ interior private/ public masculin/ feminine
During AS Landscape project we explored exactly this is we began by looking at Romanticism in landscape photography as exemplified by Ansel Adams and his contemporaries in Group f/64 and ended up with questioning this overtly idealised monochrome aesthetics with the advent of New Topographics in the mind 1970s – a group of photographers questioning the prevailing monochrome and romanticised aesthetic of depicting nature at it most sublime and beautiful by making images of the urban man-made world.
As A-Level students we want you to develop the binary concepts of natural vs man-altered environments and combine this with what you have learned during A2 in terms of documentary and narrative and incorporate your understanding of storytelling and use of archives to enrich your photographic study.
See old blog posts here:
Sea / Coast / Marine Environment In the Photographic Archive at the Society Jersiaise there are significant works by early Jersey landscape and architectural photographers such as Thomas Sutton
Remains of ruined coastal defence tower, Tour du Sud, La Carrière, St Ouen’s Bay, Jersey. Plate from Souvenir de Jersey, published 1854.
Other photographesr in the Photo-Archive who explored Jersey landscapes, topographical views, town, countryside, build-environments etc . Samuel Poulton, Ernest Baudoux, Albert Smith , Edwin Dale, AK Lawson, Paul Martin, Godfray, Frith (put in surnames first for searching online catalogue here.
Gustave Le Gray (French 1820 –1884) was an early pioneer of seascapes.
Combination printing, creating seascapes by using one negative for the water and one negative for the sky at a time where it was impossible to have at the same time the sky and the sea on a picture due to the too extreme luminosity range. Combination printing was an early experiment of HDR photography where you expose for bright and dark areas of a landscape scene.
Contemporary approaches to views of horizons between sky and sea, see inspiration from Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto whose monochrome images are minimalist and spiritual in their expression.
If you intend to explore sea landscapes you must do contextual research in relation to the art movement of Romanticism – see below. Technically you must make images exploring diverse quality of light, expansive views and weather patterns at different times of the day. Make sure to use a tripod, cable release and apply exposure bracketing and experiment with HDR techniques in post-production. Other techniques such as panoramic images and Hockney ‘joiners’ and Typology studies are also appropriate.
Jersey west coast has unique identity and geography. For many it is place of refuse from work, school and where they go for relaxation, leisure, beach, surfing, walking. If we think about Jersey and an island surrounded by water and with a one of the fastest tidal moments in the world you can look at photographers who has explored the notion of sea or water in interesting ways.
Michael Marten: Sea Change Excellent use of diptych and triptych and exploring low vs high tides to see how it changes a landscape scene
Mark Power: The Shipping Forecats Intangible and mysterious, familiar yet obscure, the shipping forecast is broadcast four times daily on BBC Radio 4. For those at, or about to put to sea, the forecast may mean the difference between life and death. InThe Shipping Forecast, Mark Power documents the 31 sea areas covered by the forecast,
Subject of water – both studies done on the Thames River in London
Roni Horn: Dictionary of Water
Water is a series of photographs of the surface of the Thames. It is ever-changing: now swirling, now scrunched like black tin foil, now in Turneresque lemon and flame colours, now plucked up into dune shapes. Each is annotated with tiny numbers, which refer to footnotes. The footnotes, hundreds in total, worry away in small type under the images – they happen, in other words, under the surface, and concern what the water suggests and conceals. (“Black water is sexy. / What is water? / What do you know about water? Only that it’s everywhere differently. / Disappearance: that’s why suicides are attracted to it. / You can’t talk about water without talking about oneself. / Down at the river I shot my baby.”)
Mark Dion:Archeaology
Archaeological excavations aren’t limited to ancient Egypt or Stone Age villages. In 1999 during the Tate Thames Dig artist Mark Dion and volunteers collected found objects from the river bed and displayed in the cabinets.
Nature as Environment: In their most recent collection of work, The Meadow, photographers Barbara Bosworth and Margot Anne Kelleyexplore the connections and relationships formed between humans and the natural world. Over the course of a decade, the two have taken numerous photographs of an area of land in Carlisle, Massachusetts. Combined with Kelley’s writing, the collaborative project resulted in this uniquely-crafted work. The land they have chosen serves as an ideal subject, composed of paths and abandoned farmland reclaimed by the vibrant foliage.
Embodying a diaristic style, the final product has the feeling of a handcrafted scrapbook recollected from someone’s bookshelf. Tucked as if by accident between the pages are small booklets bearing the photographers’ experiences, and the occasional fold-out triptych which embellishes the arts-and-crafts vibe. A detailed appendix documents the numerous foliage, fungi, and pebbles found during the exploration of the meadow. They even transcribe the logs of the previous property owner, who chronicled day-to-day the teeming life he discovered on a series of wooden doors.
Finn Larsen, Tracks
Walking 50 km of a train track from one end to another over a 5 year period in different seasons and light recorded the landscape along a track that you ordinary only would see in fleeting glimpses travelling at high speed.
Other who has explored nature vs man-made environments within a confined parameters albeit on a much larger scale is Richard Misrach who for decades have photographed the border and desert like terrain between the USA and Mexico. See books Violent Legacies and his latest installment Border Cantos – a multi-faceted approach to the study of place and man’s complex relationship to it in a unique collaboration with composer and performer Guillermo Galindo.
Galindo fashions instruments to be performed as unique sound-generating devices. He also imagines graphic musical scores, many of which also use Misrach’s photographs as points of departure. A unique melding of the artist as documentarian and interpreter, the book will include several suites of photographs drawn from a number of distinct series, or Cantos―some made with a large-format camera as well as an iPhone.
Culture as Environments
Within the history of landscape photography the wild west hold a particular fascination in the minds of early explorers, settlers, scientist and artists. Early landscape photographers include Timothy O’Sullivan, Carleton E. Watkins and William Henry Jackson whose work was a major influence on people like Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Minor White
In American cinema the advent of the genre, Westerns where frontiers people battle native American indians against a backdrop of sublime Grand Canyon. Another more serene rendition of the American West can be seen in the road movie Paris, Texas by filmmaker Wim Wenders – who also uses photography for location shoots and photographic books.
Others who has explored the unique landscape of the wild west or America’s deep South is John Divola, Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Richard Misrach, Ron Jude, William Eggleston
Narrative as Environment
We looked at Alec Soth during the Documentary module as a poetic lyrical story-teller who combines landscapes, portraits, still-lives and other visual material in his photo books.
By way of a follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut monograph Sleeping by the Mississippi (reveals the unique characters and landscapes Soth encountered during a series of road trips along the Mississippi River) Alec Soth turns his eye to another iconic body of water, Niagara Falls. And as with his photographs of the Mississippi, these images are less about natural wonder than human desire. “I went to Niagara for the same reason as the honeymooners and suicide jumpers,” says Soth, “the relentless thunder of the Falls just calls for big passion.”
Using a large-format 8×10 camera like Ansel Adams Soth worked over the course of two years on both the American and Canadian sides of the Falls. He depicts newlyweds and naked lovers, motel parking lots, pawnshop wedding rings and love letters from the subjects he photographed. We read about teenage crushes, workplace affairs, heartbreak and suicide.
Theo Gosselin goes on roadtrip with his friends and make a set of images evoking a cinematic quality
Ron Jude: Lick Creek Line
Lick Creek Line extends and amplifies Ron Jude’s ongoing fascination with the vagaries of photographic empiricism, and the gray area between documentation and fiction. In a sequential narrative punctuated by contrasting moments of violence and
beauty, Jude follows the rambling journey of a fur trapper, methodically checking his trap line in a remote area of Idaho in the Western United States. Through converging pictures of
landscapes, architecture, an encroaching resort community, and the solitary, secretive process of trapping pine marten for their pelts, Lick Creek Line underscores the murky and culturally arbitrary nature of moral critique.
Typology means the study and interpretation of types and became associated with photography through the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose photographs taken over the course of 50 years of industrial structures; water towers, grain elevators, blast furnaces etc can be considered conceptual art. They were interested in the basic forms of these architectural structures and referred to them as ‘Anonyme Skulpturen’ (Anonymous Sculptures.)
The Becher’s were influenced by the work of earlier German photographers linked to the New Objectivity movement of the 1920s such as August Sander, Karl Blossfeldt and Albert-Renger-Patzsch.
See also the work by Americans, William Christenberry and Ed Ruscha’s photographic works on types e.g. Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1964). Every building on the Sunset Strip (1966). Or Idris Khan‘s appropriation of Bechers’ images.
See previous blog post for more guidelines and a photo-assignment.
Not least of the Bechers’ legacy is their lasting influence on subsequent generations of artists who use the photographic medium today, most notably the students taught by Bernd Becher at the Düsseldorf Art Academy between 1976 and 1996. Among his most renowned students are Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff, and Thomas Struth.
From Germany, apart form the legacy of the Dusseldorf Kunst Akademie headed by the Becher’s another school of photography, the Werkstatt für Fotografie (Workshop for Photography) was founded in Berlin by Michael Schmidt who invited several leading American photographers, including William Eggleston and John Gossage, to teach there.
Responding to the wall between East and West in Berlin Schmidt produced a seminal work, Waffenrufe. Another body of work Berlin Nach 45 show empty streets of East Berlin made in the early hours as a quite testament to post war German architecture and urban city planning
Conceptual approaches to natural/ man-made environments
Tanja Deman is a Croation artists who will be Archisle’s International Photographer-in-Residence in 2017.
Her art is inspired by her interest in the perception of space, physical and emotional connection to a place and her relationship to nature. Her works, incorporating photography, collage, video and public art, are evocative meditations on urban space and landscape. Observing recently built legacy or natural sites her work investigates the sociology of space and reflects dynamics hidden under the surface of both the built and natural environment.
Fernweh series explores the concept of a modernist city through its extreme relations to the landscape. The images are placed on a blurred line between a past which reminds us of a future and a future which looks like a past. Scenes are referring to the modernist ideas and aspiration of a man conquering the natural wild land and subordinating it to the rational order, and the consequences of those aspirations, which switched into the longing for an escape from urban environments.
Collective Narratives is a series staging a moment of contemplation of nature and built environment. Natural spectacles, framed in theatrical space are contemplated by an audience. These constructed images consolidate: geological formations; a projection of an urban environment; an arena; a deep chasm; a theatre and a crumbling slag-heap through a very active kind of watching.
While making the series ‘Collective Narratives’ I was interested in different types of spectatorship and architectural settings in which they are taking place. Moreover, the notion of a ritual in which a large group of people gathers and participates in order to experience something together by observing, intrigued me. I see these spaces for cultural and sports spectacles, as zones of pure potential, where the world must be rebuilt or re-imagined every time they are in use. Having liberated them from their utilitarian, commercial restrains, and the environments in which they were created, I allow them to cross the boundary of reality.
Together these scenes examine time and the strange modes of spectatorship attached to the inanimate world. A collective witnessing of phenomena that are usually experienced in private atmospheres.
Staged / Constructed Environments Land art is art that is made directly in the landscape, sculpting the land itself into earthworks or making structures in the landscape using natural materials such as rocks or twigs
Land art was part of the wider conceptual art movement in the 1960s and 1970s. The most famous land art work is Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty of 1970, an earthwork built out into the Great Salt Lake in the USA. Though some artists such as Smithson used mechanical earth-moving equipment to make their artworks, other artists made minimal and temporary interventions in the landscape such as Richard Long who simply walked up and down until he had made a mark in the earth.
Land art, which is also known as earth art, was usually documented in artworks using photographs and maps which the artist could exhibit in a gallery. Land artists also made land art in the gallery by bringing in material from the landscape and using it to create installations.
As well as Richard Long and Robert Smithson, key land artists include Hamish Fulton, Walter de Maria, Michael Heizer, Dennis Oppenheim and Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Hamish Fulton(born 1946) is a British walking artist. Since 1972 he has only made works based on the experience of walks.
William Christenberry making typological studies of vernacular architecture traditional to the deep American South.
Christenberry also made little sculptures or 3D models of some of the buildings he had photographed
Photography and sculpture
Photographic installations which are site specific and 3-dimensional is very in vogue right now. In the exam paper starting point 4 is about artists exploring the material nature of a photographic image and the idea that photographs can be sculptural. Here are a few artists to explore
Felicity Hammond is an emerging artist who works across photography and installation. Fascinated by political contradictions within the urban landscape her work explores construction sites and obsolete built environments.
In specific works Hammond photographs digitally manipulated images from property developers’ billboards and brochures and prints them directly onto acrylic sheets which are then manipulated into unique sculptural objects. http://www.felicityhammond.com/
Lorenzo Venturi: Dalston Anatomy
Lorenzo Vitturi’s vibrant still lifes capture the threatened spirit of Dalston’s Ridley Road Market. Vitturi – who lives locally – feels compelled to capture its distinctive nature before it is gentrified beyond recognition. Vitturi arranges found objects and photographs them against backdrops of discarded market materials, in dynamic compositions. These are combined with street scenes and portraits of local characters to create a unique portrait of a soon to be extinct way of life.
His installation at the Gallery draws on the temporary structures of the market using raw materials, sculptural forms and photographs to explore ideas about creation, consumption and preservation.
Watch our exclusive interview with Lorenzo.
Boyd Webb (born 1947) is a New Zealand-born visual artist who works in the United Kingdom, mainly using the medium of photography although he has also produced sculpture and film. He was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1988. He has had solo shows at venues including the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.
Initially he worked as a sculptor, making life casts of people in fibreglass and arranging them into scenes. He eventually turned to photography and his early work played with ideas of the real and the imagined. Through mysterious and elaborate compositions created using actors and complex sets built by the artist in his studio. In later years his focus shifted to a cool observational style, his work less theatrical and technique less elaborate.
James Casebere pioneering work has established him at the forefront of artists working with constructed photography. For the last thirty years, Casebere has devised increasingly complex models that are subsequently photographed in his studio. Based on architectural, art historical and cinematic sources, his table-sized constructions are made of simple materials, pared down to essential forms. Casebere’s abandoned spaces are hauntingly evocative and oftentimes suggestive of prior events, encouraging the viewer to reconstitute a narrative or symbolic reading of his work.
While earlier bodies of work focused on American mythologies such as the genre of the western and suburban home, in the early 1990s, Casebere turned his attention to institutional buildings. In more recent years, his subject matter focused on various institutional spaces and the relationship between social control, social structure and the mythologies that surround particular institutions, as well as the broader implications of dominant systems such as commerce, labor, religion and law.
Thomas Demand studied with the sculptor Fritz Schwegler, who encouraged him to explore the expressive possibilities of architectural models at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where Bernd and Hilla Becher had recently taught photographers such as Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, and Candida Höfer. Like those artists, Demand makes mural-scale photographs, but instead of finding his subject matter in landscapes, buildings, and crowds, he uses paper and cardboard to reconstruct scenes he finds in images taken from various media sources. Once he has photographed his re-created environments—always devoid of figures but often displaying evidence of recent human activity—Demand destroys his models, further complicating the relationship between reproduction and original that his photography investigates.
Christian Boltanski(born 1944) is a French sculptor, photographer, painter and film maker, most well known for his photography installations and contemporary French Conceptual style. Boltanski’s subject matters are history and life duration. Vulnerability is his strength, and reflecting upon absence is his way to express his passion for what is real. And so Boltanski builds his own archives, moves shadows around the gallery space, or brings forgotten memories back to the surface through the eyes and faces of strangers that emerge from found photographs; he synchronizes the sound of the human heartbeat to the rhythm of history; he creates settings with old clothing so that individual stories may not be dispersed; he investigates fate and challenges, through irony, the transience of things to propose the art of time.
Documentary vs Staged Photography
If we examine documentary truth (camera as witness) versus a staged photograph (tableaux photography) all sorts of questions arise that are pertinent to consider as an image maker. Remember our discussion we had at the beginning of September when we began module of Documentary and Narrative. We discussed a set of images submitted at the World Press Photo competition on 2015.
Tableaux Photography and the Staged photograph
Tableaux photography is a style of photography in which a pictorial narrative is conveyed through a single image as opposed to a series of images which tell a story such as in photojournalism and documentary photography. This style is sometimes also referred to as ‘staged’ or ‘constructed photography’ and tableaux photographs makes references to fables, fairy tales, myths and unreal and real events from a variety of sources such as paintings, film, theatre, literature and the media. Tableaux photographs offer a much more ambiguous and open-ended description of something that are subjective to interpretation by the viewer. Tableaux photographs are mainly exhibited in fine art galleries and museums where they are considered alongside other works of art.
Tom Hunter, Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson, Duane Michaels, Sam Taylor Johnson (former Sam Taylor-Wood), Hannah Starkey, Tracy Moffatt, Vibeke Tandberg, William Wegman.
Watch video behind the scenes of Gregory Crewdson shoot
See my PPT om Tableaux Photography for more details
Mishka Henner, Trevor Paglen, Doug Rickard, Daniel Mayrit all use found images from the internet, Google earth and other satellites images as a way to ask questions and raise awareness about our environment, state operated security facilities, social and urban neighbour hoods, prostitution, and London’s business leaders of major international financial institutions.
US oil fields photographed by satellites orbiting Earth.
Mishka Henner: I’m not the only one, 2015
Single channel video, 4:34 mins
Photographer Trevor Paglen has long made the advanced technology of global surveillance and military weaponry his subject. This year he has been nominated for the prestigious The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize which aims to reward a contemporary photographer of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution (exhibition or publication) to the medium of photography in Europe in the previous year. The Prize showcases new talents and highlights the best of international photography practice. It is one of the most prestigious prizes in the world of photography. Read more here
Doug Rickard is a north American artist / photographer. He uses technologies such as Google Street View and YouTube to find images, which he then photographs on his monitor, to create series of work that have been published in books, exhibited in galleries.
Months after the London Riots in 2008 (at the beginning of the economical crash) the Metropolitan Police handed out leaflets depicting youngsters that presumably took part in riots. Images of very low quality, almost amateur, were embedded with unquestioned authority due both to the device used for taking the photographs and to the institution distributing those images. But in reality, what do we actually know about these people? We have no context or explanation of the facts, but we almost inadvertently assume their guilt because they have been ‘caught on CCTV’.
In his awarding book: You Haven’s Seen the Faces.. Daniel Mayrit appropriated the characteristics of surveillance technology using Facebook and Google to collect images of the 100 most powerful people in the City of London (according to the annual report by Square Mile magazine in 2013). The people here featured represent a sector which is arguably regarded in the collective perception as highly responsible for the current economic situation, but nevertheless still live in a comfortable anonymity, away from public scrutiny.
See also this book Looters by Tiane Doan Na Champassak
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PERFORMANCE
Tableaux photography always have an element of performing for the camera and the exam themes lend themselves really well to revisit Performance in Photography and explore fantasy, fiction, parody, alter-ego, identity etc.
See blog post here for more creative starting points
Read my blog post from last Summer when we were exploring Tom Pope’s practice in Photography and Performance and the themes of Chance, Change and Challenge . You should be able to find some starting points.
For example, write a manifesto with a set of rules (6-10) that provide a framework for your performance related project. Describe in detail how you are planning on developing your work and ideas. Think about what you want to achieve, what you want to communicate, how your ideas relate to the themes of Truth, Fantasy or Fiction and how you are going to approach this task in terms of form, technique and subject-matter.
A list of art movements that you may use as contextual research. Many of them also produced Manifestos:
Dadaism, Futurism, Surrealism, Situationism, Neo-dadaism, Land/Environmental art, Performance art/Live art, Conceptualism, Experimental filmmaking/ Avant-garde cinema (those studying Media make links with your unit on Experimental film)
Here are a list of artists/ photographers that may inspire you:
Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Yves Klein, Bas Jan Ader, Erwin Wurm, Chris Arnatt, Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, Joseph Beuys, Chris Burden, Francis Alÿs, , Sophie Calle , Nikki S Lee, Claude Cahun, Dennis Oppenheim, Bruce Nauman, Allan Kaprow, Mark Wallinger, Gillian Wearing, Marcel Duchamp and the Readymade, Andy Warhol’s film work, Steve McQueen, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Marina Abramovic, Pipilotti Rist, Luis Bunuel/ Salvatore Dali: , Le Chien Andalou, Dziga Vertov: The Man with a Movie Camera
images
Photography and Sculpture:
Images produced through transformation of materials and making things to be photographed. See work by: Lorenzo Vitturi (Dalton Anatomy), Thomas Demand, James Casebere (see Emily Reynolds work), Vik Muniz, Chris Jordan (Midway Atoll), Stephen Gill.
For those interested in exploring identities, stereotypes, gender, alter-egos through self-portraiture using varies techniques such slow shutters-speeds, use of dressing up, make-up, props, masks, locations (mine-en-scene) Often these images are questioning ideas around truth, fantasy or fiction.
Francesco Woodman, Cindy Sherman, Claude Cahun, Yasumasa Morimura, Gillian Wearing, Sean Lee (Shauna) Juno Calypso
Stranger than Fiction: Should documentary photographers add fiction to reality?
Documentary photography belongs to the realm of truth, yet some photographers are testing the boundaries between reality and fiction in a bid to reach a public that is accustomed to these narrative forms in the literary and cinematic worlds. In contemporary photography today your have what some people call Fictional Documentary (similar to TV genre such as doc-drama) where you interpret real or historical events through fiction. This is often expressed through a personal and artistic vision which are operating somewhere between fiction and fantasy with some elements of truth or historical data that has been re-imagined.
See the work of: Cristina de Middel (Afronauts, Sharkification, This is What Hatred Did), Max Pinckers (Will They Sing Like Raindrops or Leave Me Thirsty), Vasantha Yogananthan (A Myth of Two Souls), Ron Jude (Lick Creek Line), Eamonn Doyle ( i ) Paul Graham (Does Yellow Run Forever), Yury Toroptsov (Fairyland, House of Baba Yaga, Divine Retribution), Gareth McConnell (Close Your Eyes), Joan Fontcuberta
AO1 – Develop your ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
To achieve an A or A*-grade you must demonstrate an Exceptional ability (Level 6) through sustained and focused investigations achieving 16-18 marks out of 18.
Get yourself familiar with the assessment grid here:
To develop your ideas further from initial research of mind-maps and mood-boards on the themes FAMILY you need to be looking at the work of others (artists, photographers, filmmakers, writers, theoreticians, historians etc) and write a specification with 2-3 unique ideas that you want to explore further.
Follow these steps to success!
Research and analyse the work of at least 2-3 (or more) photographers/ artists. Produce at least 2-3 blog posts for each artist reference that illustrate your thinking and understanding using pictures and annotation and make a photographic response to your research into the work of others
Produce a mood board with a selection of images.
Provide analysis of their work and explain why you have chosen them and how it relates to your idea and the exam theme of FAMILY
Select at least 2 key images and analyse in depth, FORM (composition, use of light etc), MEANING (interpretation, subject-matter, what is the photographer trying to communicate), JUDGEMENT (evaluation, how good is it?), CONTEXT (history and theory of art/ photography/ visual culture,link to other’s work/ideas/concept)
Incorporate quotes and comments from artist themselves or others (art critics, art historians, curators, writers, journalists etc) using a variety of sources such as Youtube, online articles, reviews, text, books etc.
Make sure you reference sources and embed links to the above sources in your blog post
Plan at least 2-3 shoots as a response to the above where you explore your ideas in-depth.
Edit shoots and show experimentation with different adjustments/ techniques/ processes in Lightroom/ Photoshop
Reflect and evaluate each shoot afterwards with thoughts on how to refine and modify your ideas i.e. experiment with images in Lightroom/Photoshop, re-visit idea, produce a new shoot, what are you going to do differently next time? How are you going to develop your ideas?
Often those students that achieve the highest marks are those that think outside the box and find their own unique starting points.
Photography Agencies and Collectives World Press Photo – the best news photography and photojournalism Magnum Photos – photo agency, picture stories from all over the world. Panos Picture – photo agency Agency VU – photo agency INSTITUTE– photo agency Sputnik Photos – photo collective made of Polish and East European photographers A Fine Beginning – photo collective in Wales Document Scotland – photo collective in Scotland NOOR – a collective uniting a select group of highly accomplished photojournalists and documentary storytellers focusing on contemporary global issues.
Here is a folder EXAM 2017 with a lot of PPTs about various genres and approaches to photography: USE IT !! M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Resources\EXAM 2017
Here are some thoughts from me on different artists whose work makes link and references to the theme of FAMILY.
Diana Markosian ‘Inventing My Father’
Junpei Ueda:Pictures of My life
I have this desire to sum up my life in the form of a story.
My parents killed themselves, one after the other, in the winter of 1998.
My mother’s depression led her to take her own life, and my father followed her nine days later. Having suddenly a closer relationship with death at just 21 years of age, I decided to write down the things I saw around me, as they were, and to capture in photographs the emotions I would only be able to feel then and there.
I was alone in the house we had all lived in as a family. I had almost completely lost sight of the point in living. But even so, I kept on living. Though my parents weren’t there, I had the many paintings my father left me and the family pictures my mother loved taking. They spoke to me and consoled me.
Happiness is “living alongside the people you love”.
Matt Eich:I Love You, I’m leaving Love You, I’m Leaving is my meditation on familial bonds, longing, and memory. The series borrows from personal experience and the visual language of the everyday in order to create a fictional account that mirrors my reality. Made during a time of personal domestic unease, I photographed as my parents separated, and my family moved to a new city.
https://vimeo.com/102344549
Yoshikatsu Fujii:Red Strings
I received a text message. “Today, our divorce was finalized.” The message from my mother was written simply, even though she usually sends me messages with many pictures and symbols.
I remember that I didn’t feel any particular emotion, except that the time had come. Because my parents continued to live apart in the same house for a long time, their relationship gently came to an end over the years. It was no wonder that a draft blowing between the two could completely break the family at any time.
In Japan, legend has it that a man and woman who are predestined to meet have been tied at the little finger by an invisible red string since the time they were born. Unfortunately, the red string tying my parents undone, broke, or perhaps was never even tied to begin with. But if the two had never met, I would never have been born into this world. If anything, you might say that there is an unbreakable red string of fate between parent and child.
Daniel W Coburn, The Hereditary Estate
Colin Gray ‘The Parents’
Denis Dailleux, ‘Egypt, Mother and Son’
Yury Toroptsov ‘Deleted Scene’
See also photographers such as: Nick Waplington (Living Room), Nan Goldin (The Ballad of Sexual Dependency), Corinne Day, (Dairy), Martin Parr (Signs of the Time, Common Sense, The Cost of Living), Chris Killip (Isle of Man: A book about the Manx), Wendy Evald (This is where we live), Inaki Domingo (Ser Sangre), Lauren Greenfield (Fast Forward, Girl Culture), Nicholas Nixon (the Brown Sisters), Robert Clayton (Estate), Tom Hunter (Le Crowbar), Valerio Spada (Gomorrah Girl), Martin Gregg (Midlands), Alain Laboile, (At the Edge of the World, Sian Davey (Looking for Alice, Martha), Laia Abril (The Epilogue), Rita Puig-Serra Costa (Where Mimosa Bloom), Pete Pin, Carole Benitah, (Photo Souvenirs), Richard Billingham (Ray’s a Laugh), Larry Sultan (Pictures from Home), Matt Eich: I Love You, I’m leaving,Yoshikatsu Fujii: Red Strings, Junpei Ueda: Pictures of My life,Sam Harris (The Middle of Somewhere), Dana Lixenberg (Imperial Courts), Philip Toledano (Days with my Father, When I was Six), Mariela Sancari (Moises is not Dead), Yury Toroptsov (Deleted Scene, The House of Baba Yaga), Colin Gray (The Parents), Daniel W. Coburn (The Hereditary Estate), Tim Roda (Family Albums), Denis Dailleux (Egypt, Mother andSon), Diana Markosian (Inventing My Father), Amak Mahmoodian (Shenasnameh), Colin Pantall, (All Quite on the Homefront), Mitch Epstein (Family Business), Jason Wilde (Vear & John, Silly Arse Broke It), LaToya Ruby Frazier (The Notion of Family),
Family can be interpreted in different ways, one is to consider it in relation to the concept of HOME – which can be interpreted as both family or community. Home is also more than just the four walls of your house where you live with your family. Jersey, the island where you perhaps are born or where you grew up can be considered a home too. Home can be interpreted as a community. If you are away from home you often think about your home with a sense of nostalgia. Home can be associated with memories, feelings, hopes, fears etc.
Or Laura El-Tantawy and her project the uprising and protests in her homeland of Egypt ,In The Shadow of Pyramids
Safeya Sayed Shedeed, the mother of a protester who died after being shot by police officers on January 28, 2011 (a day locals dubbed the “Friday of Rage”), cries as she waits to hear the result of a sentencing trial for former president Hosni Mubarak and former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly who are being tried on charges of corruption and giving orders to kill protesters. ÒI want to avenge my son,Ó she said. ÒWho will get my sonÕs rights back?Ó
Members of Egypt’s central security forces take position on the rooftop of a building on a street near Tahrir (Liberation) Square, where clashes erupted with demonstrators and police fired tear gas on Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013.
A young boy emerges from the water after taking a dip in the River Nile as day turns into night in the Egyptian capital.
View from a rooftop overlooking Tahrir (Liberation) Square as hundreds of thousands took the streets of the Egyptian capital and across the country to support a call by Egypt’s Defense Minister, General Abdelfattah al-Sisi to take to the streets for a popular mandate to fight terrorism and violence on Friday, July 26, 2013.
Consider the issue of being inside or outside of the situation. You can explore your own home as an insiders point of view, or you can choose to photograph someone else’s home as an outsider. This could include extended family such as grandparents, uncle & aunties etc. Your photographs can show an everyday family event e.g. breakfast, dinner, watching TV, playing games, private moments, social interaction etc. You can also choose to follow one person and record their life in private including your own.
Have a look through this PPT
Shots: Think about making a number of different shots, portraits (formal/informal, environmental), still-life (interiors, personal objects, family photos/albums), landscape (house, garden, Jersey etc) Explore different ways of framing shots using wide-angle and standard lens, explore different angles and points of view (low, high, canted, dead-pan). Remember to adjust camera settings and exposure for different lighting conditions.
A few inspirations: Have a look at this five-day workshop in a small village in Greece. Under the guidance of Magnum photographer Jacob Aue Sobol, 21 emerging photographers interrogated their ideas of what ‘Home’ looks and feels like.
Here is one participant’s thoughts
Most of us, we believe that HOME is a place that we sleep at nights, that we have our personal belongings, a place that protect us. Now I believe that HOME is my memories, my feelings, my fears and my hopes but also the place inside my mind that makes me feel nice, secure and warm, the place where my friends are, the place where I can make new friends.
Welcome to my HOME
Read this article about Wendy Evald’s collaborative project, where we live where she worked with different communities in Israel and the West Bank, giving out cameras so people could photograph their families and surroundings from an insider’s point of view.
Bert TeunissenDomestic Landscapes : A Portrait of Europeans at Home
Visit Guernsey Photography Festival 2014 where one of the themes was Family. Also, check out the GPF 2016 edition which begins on Thursday 8 September until 30 September. If you happen to be in Guernsey during this period you must visit some of the exhibitions.
CONTEXTUAL STUDIES: Truth in Documentary Photography Week 3-4: 20th Sept – 4th Oct
Can a photograph lie?
Robert Capa, Death of a Loyalist Soldier, 1936
Are all photographs reliable?
Joe Rosenthal, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, February 23, 1945
A common phrase is to ‘shed light on a situation’ meaning to find out the truth.
‘A picture tells a 1000 words‘, is another aphorism that imply images are more reliable.
Picasso famously said: ‘We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realise truth.’
Magritte’s painting La Trahison des Images in which he painted a picture of a pipe with the words ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ (This is not a pipe) goes some way to towards an explanation.
‘The camera was there and recorded what I saw’.
A certain delivery of facts?
Claims of truth that most people take for granted?
Art or photography is not reality but can examine and model reality.
Traditional documentary believes the viewer to be a receptive subject taking in the objective information of the world through the photograph.
Documentary photography’s central aesthetic, political and moral associations are:
depicting truth
recording life as it is
camera as a witness.
TASKS: Produce a number of blog posts that show evidence of the following
DEADLINE: Wed 4th Oct
In order to complete the tasks successfully read and look through supporting material and consider the bullit points too that may prompt you in your answers . Make notes and include direct quotes sources. Conduct independent research too .
Documentary photography is based on assumptions that the photograph represents a one-to-one correspondence with reality, which is nearly accurate and adequate, and that the photographic image is capable of conveying information objectively.
Traditional documentary believes the viewer to be a receptive subject taking in the objective information of the world through the photograph
Can we rely on its ability to capture a moment in time accurately as historical evidence or as a witness to the world?
Postmodernism points out that all forms of representation is subjective? How? Why?
Digital photography has made manipulation much easier?
2. ANALYSIS: Choose one image (either historical or contemporary – ppts above) that questions the notion of truth and explain why. Follow this method of analysis: Description – Interpretation – Evaluation – Theory/Context
3. PHOTO-ASSIGNMENT: Based on your chosen themes, FAMILY or ENVIRONMENT make two images, one that you consider truthful and one that is not.
4. CASE STUDY – EXTENSION: Using current news images as an example, such as the drowned Syrian boy (read articlehere), consider if photographs can change the world or change people’s perception?
Here is a link to another article about the photographer who took the photos of the dead Syrian boy where she speaks about why she took them.
For a different point of view read this blog post by photographer and lecturer, Lewis Bush where he discuss the above in light of recent images of dead Syrian refugees in Europe. Incorporate his views and include quotes, for or against your own analysis and point of view.
EXTRA READING: For those of you who likes to read theory of documentary practice, see Susan Sontag (1977), On Photography , Roland Barthes (1982), Camera Lucida. John Tagg (1993) or the famous essay by conceptual artist, Martha Rosler, In, around, and afterthoughts (on documentary photography) in book: Bolton, R. (1992) ‘The Contest of Meaning’. MIT Press. See me if you are interested in reading of the above books and essays.
5. CASE STUDY – EXTENSION 2:
Kevin Carter and The Bang Bang Club
Starving Child and Vulture
Kevin Carter
1993
Kevin Carter knew the stench of death. As a member of the Bang-Bang Club, a quartet of brave photographers who chronicled apartheid-era South Africa, he had seen more than his share of heartbreak. In 1993 he flew to Sudan to photograph the famine racking that land. Exhausted after a day of taking pictures in the village of Ayod, he headed out into the open bush. There he heard whimpering and came across an emaciated toddler who had collapsed on the way to a feeding center. As he took the child’s picture, a plump vulture landed nearby. Carter had reportedly been advised not to touch the victims because of disease, so instead of helping, he spent 20 minutes waiting in the hope that the stalking bird would open its wings. It did not. Carter scared the creature away and watched as the child continued toward the center. He then lit a cigarette, talked to God and wept. The New York Times ran the photo, and readers were eager to find out what happened to the child—and to criticize Carter for not coming to his subject’s aid. His image quickly became a wrenching case study in the debate over when photographers should intervene. Subsequent research seemed to reveal that the child did survive yet died 14 years later from malarial fever. Carter won a Pulitzer for his image, but the darkness of that bright day never lifted from him. In July 1994 he took his own life, writing, “I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain.”Read more here:http://100photos.time.com/photos/kevin-carter-starving-child-vulture
Contextual Studies is vital in developing a deeper understanding of photography and its relationship with art, history, politics and culture at large. This year we will be spending one lesson a week (mainly Wednesdays) on theoretical issues relating to your study on Documentary and Narrative Photography.
Contextual Studies will inform your practical work and vice versa. To achieve high marks and make work that is critical, and which engages with contemporary subject-matter it is essential for you to spend time reading, thinking and writing about issues discussed and how they relate to your ongoing projects.
Write 500-1000 words where you try and answer the following two questions. Deadline Mon 18 Sept.
Q1: Define what we mean by Documentary Photography?
Q2:What is Tableaux Photography and how does it construct a narrative different from documentary photography?
You must read the following two texts and include images to illustrate your essay and include quotes using Harvard System of Referencing from sources that shows evidence of reading and understanding.
EXTRA READING: To develop a better understanding in answering the above questions, read these two texts by David Bate from his new book, Art Photography (2016) Tate Publishing
In the first 4 weeks we will be focusing on looking at different ways artists and photographers have explored their own, or other families in their work as visual storytellers.
Some 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 approach > recording life as it is > camera as witness Documentary is storytelling through a series of images of people involved in real events to provide a factual report on a particular subject. Read more here Documentary Photography
Larry sultan vs Richard Billingham > artists photographing their parents > straight photography vs snapshot aesthetics > formal vs informal.
Larry Sultan, Pictures from HomeRichard Billingham, Ray’s A Laugh
Sian Davey vs Sam Harris > artists photographing their children > classic vs spontaneous > environmental portraits vs observational portraits
Sian Davey, MarthaSam Harris, The Middle of Somewhere
Tableaux approach > constructed or staged narrative photography Tableaux is a style of photography where people are staged in a constructed environment and a pictorial narrative is conveyed often in a single image, or a series of images that often makes references to fables, fairy tales, myths, unreal and real events from a variety of sources such as paintings, film, theatre, literature and the media. Read more here Tableaux Photography
Anna Gaskell vs Hannah Starkey > childhood vs adolescent > memories vs fairytales > literature vs cinema
Anna GaskellHannah Starkey
Alfonso Almendros vs Maria Kapajeva > family reflections > memories > childhood
Alfonso Almendros, Family ReflectionsMaria Kapajeva
Archival approach > photographs, moving image, sound recordings, documents and objects from public or private archives, such as family history, diaries, letters, financial and legal documents, photo-albums, mobile devices, online/ social media platforms. Archives can be a rich source for finding starting points on your creative journey. This will strengthen your research and lead towards discoveries about the past that will inform the way you interpret the present and anticipate the future. See more Public/ Private Archives
Rita Puig-Serra Costa (Where Mimosa Bloom) vs Laia Abril (The Epilogue)> artists exploring personal issues > vernacular vs archival > inside vs outside
Rita Puig-Serra Coasta, Where Mimosa Bloom
Rita Puig-Serra Coasta, Where Mimosa BloomLaia Abril, The Epiloque
Carole Benitah (Photo Souvenirs) vs Pete Pin > family > identity > memory > absence > trauma
Carole Benitah, Photo-SouvenirsPete Pin
Ugne Henriko (Mother and Daughter) vs Irina Werning vs Chino Otsuka > re-staging images > re-enacting memories
Week 1, 2, 3 & 4 : 5th – 30th Sept Explore different approaches to family photography
Use PLANNING-TRACKING-PERSONAL INVESTIGATION-AUTUMN-TERM for a full overview of what you are required to do in the next 11 weeks. You are required to self-monitor your progress and will be asked to upload Tracking-Sheet with an update on a weekly basis to your blog.
TASKS > produce a number of appropriate blog posts
PRACTICE > PHOTO-ASSIGNMENTS
Documentary: make one environmental portrait using a family member. Complete by Fri 15 Sept.
Tableaux: construct a childhood memory in a photograph. Complete by Mon 25 Sept.
Archive: produce a montage that must include an archival image from your family/ personal photo- album. Complete by Mon 2 Oct.
RESEARCH > ANALYSIS: As starting points for your tasks, choose to look at a comparative study of the pairing of artists references above in each area of Documentary, Tableaux and Archive.
Write a thoughtful evaluation of each artists and consider how their work is referencing the theme of family – discuss the subject-matter, content, concept, context, construction, composition, camera, then compare, contrast and critique. Ask yourself: What? Why? How?
Remember to MAKE YOUR BLOG POST VISUAL and include relevant links, podcasts, videos where possible.
ARTISTS REFERENCES: Follow these steps to success!
Produce a mood board with a selection of images.
Provide analysis of their work and explain why you have chosen them and how it relates to your idea and the theme of FAMILY
Select at least 2 key images and analyse in depth, FORM (describe what you see, composition, use of light etc), MEANING (interpretation, subject-matter, what is the photographer trying to communicate), JUDGEMENT (evaluation, how good is it?), CONTEXT (history and theory of art/ photography/ visual culture,link to other’s work/ideas/concept)
Incorporate quotes and comments from artist themselves or others (art critics, art historians, curators, writers, journalists etc) using a variety of sources such as Youtube, online articles, reviews, text, books etc.
Make sure you reference sources and embed links to the above sources in your blog post
PLANNING > RECORDING: Plan at least 1 shoot as a response to each photo-assignment above. Show evidence of planning using mind-maps, mood-boards and write a specification with details of how, why, when, where, whom? Be organised and complete one shoot per photo-assignment per week.
DEVELOPING > EXPERIMENTING: Edit shoots and show experimentation with different adjustments/ techniques/ processes in Lightroom/ Photoshop appropriate to intentions. Reflect and evaluate each shoot afterwards with thoughts on how to refine and modify your ideas i.e. experiment with images in Lightroom/Photoshop, re-visit idea, produce a new shoot, what are you going to do differently next time? How are you going to develop your ideas?
EXTENSION: Explore your own family/ personal archives such as photo-albums, home movies,letters, boxes and make a blog post with a selection of material that will inform and develop your Personal Investigation. For example. you can focus on the life on one parent, grand-parent, family relative, or your own childhood and upbringing.
Either scan or re-photograph archival material so that it is digitised and ready for use on the blog and further experimentation.
Plan at least one photo-shoot and make a set of images that respond to your archival research above and/ or Personal Investigation.
Make a folder named: Photo collage workshop (you may already have done this.
You should already have completed 1 – 3 previously
‘1. MY IMAGES’ (it should contain 5 images from previous work on Landsape)
‘2. ARCHIVE IMAGES’ (it should contain 5 images from research at Photographic Archive Societe Jersiaise)
‘3. ARTISTS REFERENCES’ (it should contain 5 images from research of Tanja work and her inspirations/ influences)
‘4. RAW PHOTOS’ (15 SUCCESSFUL PHOTOGRAPHS made from our walk at Gronez to L’Etacq on Tue 20 June)
‘5. NEW WORK’ (2 DIGITAL PHOTO COLLAGES IN PS FORMAT, made from the above images)
When I see the students on our group sessions I would like them to show me the content of these folders in Adobe Bridge.
Wish you all a good rest of the week and looking forward to seeing you on the 11th July where we will be working on photo collages.
Best regards,
Tanja
Following on from Tanja’s workshop on photo-collage we want you to complete the following before the summer holiday. If you want to make something unique you should plan a new shoot where you make a set of images for a photo-collage. Only relying on images from the school trip to Gronez-L’Etacq is not enough.
Produce a blog post with at least 3 -5 digital sketches where you annotate the process and techniques used to construct the photo-collage
Produce at least one final photo-collage that is close to completion and write an evaluation. (In the next academic year there will be time for you to refine or modify photo-collages and you may consider to explore this further in October and November when you develop your project, Personal Investigation in an individual manner)
Prepare a presentation of your photo-collage work for Thurs 20 and Fri 21 July. (Tanja will be back in Sept to give feedback on your work in progress)
HELP & GUIDANCE: When constructing your photo-collage remember to consider the following:
Notes from Tanja’ workshop 11th July
In camera: When shooting new images for photo-collage
Camera settings: Use the same camera settings such as aperture f/stops, exposure and focal length on your lens. It is impossible to combine, in a photo-realistic way, images which are shot with both wide-angle and telephoto lens
Lighting: Choose to shoot images needed in the same lighting conditions, e.g. use overcast weather. Avoid making a collage using images shot outside in natural light and images made inside using artificial lighting or studio lighting. It won’t work!
Perspective: Maintain close to same perspective when shooting i.e. if you photograph from eye-level maintain that throughout. If perspective is not correct, it pays to go back and re-shoot an image rather than trying to’ fit it’ in Photoshop
In post production: Use Bridge to organise images and folders. Photoshop to construct photo-collage.
Blank canvas: Create a new document size A1 = 594mm x 841mm at resolution 300 pixels per inch. Total size of new document should be: 199,4 Mb. Then begin to import images or selections of images into new document and build up your collage.
File management: Organise layers by renaming them and collate in group folders in the layer box
Image adjustments: Use meta layers for colour adjustment/ B&W/ brightness & contrast to sit on top of all the other image layers. It’s easier to adjust individual layers as you go along.
During Jonny Brigg’s workshop we discussed how fear and mistakes can be explored creatively in the image-making process.
Jonny asked: If fear is a good thing? Or, if something good can come from mistakes in a creative process.
Task A: From today’s session please produce a blog post with your thoughts on Jonny’s session, including drawings/ images/ objects that you made and provide an evaluation.
For Jonny’s next session on Tue 18 July he would like you to consider the above questions on fear and mistakes and explore the following:
Task B:How many times can you think about destroying an image.
Choose one of your images which relates to the theme of family (e.g. archive, family album, or new image you have made) and destroy the same image in 5 different ways using both analogue and digital methods
Produce a blog post with your outcomes with an evaluation of creative processes used and overall interpretation.
Make sure you print out 5 destroyed images and be ready for a presentation when Jonny visit us next, Tue 18 July
Extension: Choose a second image and destroy it in 5 new or other ways.
In the first A-Level coursework module, Personal Investigation as Yr 13 studentsyou are going to be taught by two contemporary artists, Tanja Deman (Croatia) and Jonny Briggs (London) who are the current Archisle Jersey International Photographer-in-Residence at the Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive.
Tanja Deman
Jonny Briggs
Over the next 6 weeks a we have arranged a series of lectures, masterclasses and practical workshops that will offer you a unique opportunity to learn new skills and develop your practice as a student of photography. Tanja and Jonny will inspire, challenge and make you think differently about the process of image-making and its meaning.
The themes we will be exploring are: FAMILY or ENVIRONMENT
The work that you produce here will be the foundation and starting points for your continued Personal Investigation when you return in September for the new academic year to learn about visual storytelling in contemporary photography.
We will provide support and guidance for this unit…including essay writing skills and a framework to support your understanding. Much of this will develop into a photo-book and you may even create your own book(s) using traditional book binding techniques which has become a strong and unique feature for many contemporary photographers wishing to publish their own work.
This extended project will culminate in a fully curated student exhibition; Constructed Narratives at the Berni Gallery, Jersey Arts Centre 27 Nov – 23 Dec 2017.
Workshops
Day 1 Tuesday 13 June SocieteJersiaise – all day Inspirations and starting point from the Photographic Archive and introduction to Tanja Deman’s and Jonny Briggs practice.
Day 2 Tuesday 20 June Hautlieu School / location – all day Workshop with Tanja on location in Jersey
Day 3 Tuesday 4 July HautlieuSchool – normal lesson time Workshop with Jonny in the Photographic Studio – bring personal objects/items>
Day 4 Tuesday 11 July Hautlieu School – normal lesson time Workshop with Tanja developing photo-montage skills from on-location shoot.
Day 5 Tuesday 18 July Hautlieu School – normal lesson time Workshop with Jonny developing photo-montage skills from studio shoot
Read here for a full details of the workshop programme IPR Workshop 2017
Use TRACKING-SHEET-SUMMER TERM_2017 for a full overview of what you are required to do in the next 6 weeks. You are required to self-monitor your progress and will be asked to upload Tracking-Sheet with an update on a weekly basis to your blog.
This unit requires you to produce an appropriate number of blog postswhich charts you project from start to finish including research, planning, analysis, recording, experimentation, evaluation, and presentation of creative outcomes.
In the course of daily life, individuals and organizations create and keep information about their personal and business activities. Archivists identify and preserve these documents of lasting value.
These records — and the places they are kept — are called “archives.” Archival records take many forms, including correspondence, diaries, financial and legal documents, photographs, and moving image and sound recordings. All state governments as well as many local governments, schools, businesses, libraries, and historical societies, maintain archives.
Using the Photographic Archive as a Resource for Research and Ideas
For your Personal Investigation you have to engage with a notion of an archive. Archives can be a rich source for finding starting points on your creative journey. This will strengthen your research and lead towards discoveries about the past that will inform the way you interpret the present and anticipate the future.
Public archives in Jersey
Jersey Archives: Since 1993 Jersey Archive has collected over 300,000 archival records and it is the island’s national repository holding archival material from public institutions as well as private businesses and individuals. To visit click here
Jersey Archive can offer guidance, information and documents that relate to all aspects of the Island’s History. It also holds the collections of the Channel Islands Family History Society.
Societe Jersiaise: Photographic archive of 80,000 images dating from the mid-1840s to the present day. 35,000 historical images in the Photographic Archive are searchable online here.
Societe Jersiaise also have an extensive library with access to may publications and records relating to the island’s history, identity and geography. Click here
Archisle:The Jersey Contemporary Photography Programme, hosted by the Société Jersiaise aims to promote contemporary photography through an ongoing programme of exhibitions, education and commissions.
The Archisle project connects photographic archives, contemporary practice and experiences of island cultures and geographies through the development of a space for creative discourse between Jersey and international practitioners.
Private archives:Family photo-albums, objects, letters, birth-certificates, legal documents etc.
Digital images stored on mobile phones, uploaded on social media etc.
Tasks for Summer Term
1. Introduction to the Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive Tue 13 June.
2. Research at least two photographers from the list below in the photo-archive and choose one photograph that illustrates the themes of Family or Environment from each.
Dunham, Percy Smith, Albert Guiton, Emile F Foot, Francis
William Collie
Laurens, Phillip Morel
Ouless, Clarence P
De Faye, Francis George
Dale, Edwin
Baudoux, Ernest
Martin Wyness
Charles Hugo
Claude Cahun
Martin Parr (Liberation)
Michelle Sank (Insula)
Yury Toroptsov (Fairyland)
Tom Pope ( I am not Tom Pope, You are all Tom Pope)
Martin Toft (Atlantus, Masterplan)
3. Analyse each image in detail using this method.
4. Write a 1000 word essay and answer this question: Whose Archive is it Anyway?
To answer this question you need to reflect on Photo-Archive’ talk, read the text by theorist David Bate: Archives, Networks and Narratives and watch the Youtube clip below and consider the following sub-questions:
How do archives function? What are their purpose? How do archives act as repositories of cultural memories of the past? In what way does photography perform a double role within archives? Reference some of the artists and photographers mentioned in the David Bate’s text and use as examples. Imagine how you will look in your archive of adulthood and what type/style of pictures you want them to be? How will looking at archival material enrich your personal study? In what way has looking at archives been a resourceful exercise?
What have you learned?
Read the text, make notes and reference it by incorporating quotes to widen different perspectives. Comment on quotes used to construct an argument that either support or disapprove your own point of view.
Extra research/ reading: Dr Gil Pasternak, Senior Research Fellow in the Photographic History Research Centre (De Montfort University, Leicester), will be part of a BBC documentary film exploring what family photographs say about Britain’s post-war social history.
Watch this Youtube clip where Dr Kelly Wilder, Director of Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester delivers an academic paper, ‘The View from Everywhere: Objectivity and the Photographic Archive’ at a symposium on Photographic Archives at the Getty Centre in Los Angeleswhere she talks about the notion of objectivity when it comes to the use of photographic images. Here is a Review of symposium on Photo_Archives and Objectivity
Here is an essay example from previous A2 student, Rosanna Armstrong
Deadline: Publish blog posts by Mon 3 July
EXTENSION TASKS – SUMMER BREAK Choose at least one option
5. Explore your own family/ personal archives over the Summer and make a blog post with some of the material and describe how it will inform and develop your Personal Investigation. Ask parents, grand-parents and other family members to look through photo-albums, letters, boxes etc.
6. Plan at least one photo-shoot and make a set of images that respond to your research above and/ or Personal Investigation.