How do Rita Puig Serra Costa and Linda McCartney both share their relationships and memories with their family through the medium of photography?
Family Photos have been taken for hundreds of years as a way of capturing precious moments of people with their loved ones. In this essay I am going to look at two different photographers who have studied members of their family in their work. I will compare and contrast their work in a hope to gain a greater understanding of their photographic style and meaning behind their work. I want to look into the relationship between the photographer and their subject to see how and if it effects the the end result. I also want to explore how this relationship is communicated to an audience, and how these private and personal photos can also be seen and read by outsiders. I also want to look at the theorist Roland Barthes, a philosopher, who amongst many things wrote a book on the nature of photography, I will be looking specifically at the idea of studium and punctum and how he was affected by different photographs. The two photographers I am planning on looking at have developed their work in very different ways but both manage to show great connection with their subjects and tell beautiful stories with their work. Rita Puig Serra Costa created a book surrounding the loss of her mother, the book contains a variety of images, from portraits, still life, landscapes and archival copies it creates a broad description of her relationship with her mother and the memories she has of her. Linda McCartney, on the other hand was originally a professional photographer of celebrities until she met her husband and musician Paul McCartney. As they got to know each other and build a family she captured and shared a large selection of photographs. Being in the public eye, the family were regularly photographed however there is something very special about the connection they had which came across in the images. By researching this area I hope to gain a greater understanding of family, relationships and memories in photography to help me with my own project about my Grandpa.
Roland Barthes wrote the book ‘Camera Lucida’ talking about the nature and essence of photography, in this he spoke highly of his late mother and used photos of her as a way to cope with his grief. In the book he also looked into the effects of individual photographs on the spectator. Barthes found that most images did not move him emotionally, they simply pleased or displeased him, he called this the ‘stadium’ “Many photographs are alas, inert under my gaze. But even among those which have some existence in my eye, most provoke only a general and, so to speak polite interest” (Barthes, 1980) He also describes stadium as the parts of an image which are simply for aesthetic reasons, for example the composition and colours things which can been seen by everyone. The punctum, on the other hand is the part of an image which pricks the individual viewer, this could be through any signifier with resinates and had a bigger impact for an individual. “A photograph’s punt is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me)” ( Barthes, camera Lucida, 10 pg 27,1980) In his book he describes a photo of corpse lying on a torn up street covered by a white sheet, an image captured after a bombing in Nicaragua. This photo, to Barthes has punctum due to its emotive narrative, the success of this photo on having an effect on the audience could be simply down to skill or luck, being in the right place at the right time to capture this bleak scene.
Rita Puig Serra Costa’s book displays some of the memories she has of he mother in a delicate and personal way. The book as a whole is not intended to be seen and viewed by a large audience, but by a more niche group who can pull their own meaning from the pages related to loss and memories of their own loved ones. As a viewer of the book, not knowing the subject personally we are intrigued by the interesting narrative and aesthetic images but also drawn in to a personal story, the details of which are left open ended for us to put together ourselves. We get the sense that we knew her due to the images being so varied but specific to her, for example the archival family images seem familiar to us since every family has boxes of these stored away and help us relate to how Rita is going back to her memories, some of which purely from photos. It is interesting how a photograph has the power to spark a memory that would have otherwise been forgotten and although they only capture a split second in time, they can unravel and mean so many different things. “I remember you when I’m on my own too. You are always with me. Sometimes it’s difficult and I can’t seem to find the way. It’s as if no matter how hard I try, I can’t hold on to any memories of you.” ( Rita Puig Serra Costa’s, 2015) Here Rita talks about how the memories of her mother are fading, I see the book and photos in it as a way of her hanging onto these memories. Capturing a thought or feeling within an image and creating a visual story out of it. This book would mean a lot more to Rita than anyone else looking at it due the personal connection she has with it, however, I also think other people can derive a similar feeling from the overall sense the book gives.
This image is a double page from Rita’s book “where mimosa bloom” displaying two photographs, one a still life and one a portrait, which work together conceptually and aesthetically. The image on the right where peoples eyes will be drawn to first, is a portrait of a women with red hair, wearing a light floral shirt in front a of a textures pale blue background. The image on the left shows a type of calendar with blue and pink card, these colours have connections with the opposite image and share a pastel aesthetic. It is perfectly composed in the centre of the frame with an off white background. These are both naturalistic images showing important parts of the photographer and her mothers life and relationship. The circle shape on the left is parallel with the woman’s face and help to draw the viewers eyes to the important parts of the image. The format of the images next to one another is important, the simplicity of the image on the left doesn’t take away from the portrait too much but they compliment each other well. The Background colour of both images is in the same tone, the on the left appears white at first glance but is more of a pale grey blue which matches the blotchy, slightly darker, textured background on the right image. The portrait image looks like it was taken in natural lighting but not direct sun light, this is because of the subtle shadows on the subject’s face. The space in this image has also been represented by the foreground and background, which are distinguished with different focuses from the small dept of field. In both these photographs the subject has been placed in the centre of the frame intentionally so the page spread is balanced. Compared to real life the portrait image has been slightly manipulated to look paler and more gentle with a romanticised feel. When I look at these photos the first thing that stands out to me is the woman’s red hair which is one of the darkest parts of the two photos. The image of the left has not been much affected by flattening what we can see in real life to the 2D image because the object is flat anyway, however seeing it in a simple set up would make us appreciate it more than we would when just coming across the item in real life. On the other hand the portrait captures a split second of what was happening, meaning the facial expression pose and setting could have been very different in person. If I could ask the artist anything it would be about the relevance of the two images being placed together, I would like to know if their is a specific story behind it or if they just fit the theme and aesthetically match. The book does not explain the reasoning for the photographs in anyway other than a title page at the back of the book listing the name of each photo.
My second artist reference is Linda McCartney whose work surrounding family has also be viewed and consumed by a variety of people both publicly and privately. Wife of Paul McCartney and photographer in her own right she became known after being randomly selected to a take photos at a promotional party for the rolling stones on the SS Sea Panther on the Hudson River. She documented the event and took relaxed and intimate photos of the band, the magazine was so impressed with her candid style they published her images in an editorial feature. I am interested in the photos she took of her family over the years and the relationship she created with her subjects to make the photos so natural. “She would have the camera with her but wouldn’t hold it up in your face for a long time, so she wouldn’t be clicking all around you – she’d chat with you, take a snap, put the camera down, so you didn’t have time to start posing and feeling self-conscious. She never intimidated people.” (Mary McCartney, 2011) making her subjects comfortable and treating them all the same as she would treat her family when photographing them makes her photos so special. This image of Paul McCartney, taken by Linda was used on the back cover of his self titled album and has become a well known image. The photo of his daughter, Mary, poking out of his shearling coat will be valued most by Paul, Linda and the child herself due to their direct connection to the moment and the memories they have of the time. To fans of Paul McCartney the photo is the face to the album and may trigger personal memories of a time in their life where they listened to this music. The image reflects the message of Home, Family and love which was the albums ultimate message.
My personal response after looking at these artists work and the themes of memories and loss along with public and private images is a photographic book displaying my own memories of my Grandfather through the use of his poems as a source of inspiration. I Have decided to split my response into 3 sections each one correlating to a poem which he wrote and I have a personal connection to. Similarly to Rita I am using the book as a way of collecting and hanging on to memories of a lost loved one through the use of photographs. The book will collate a variety of mediums and types of photographs to help build up a story and narrative for the book. Archival images of my Grandpa writing poetry and playing with me as a child will help to connect the new images I make to old memories. In terms of audience, these archival images will give people who did not know him or that do not share the same memories a better understanding. I will also make scans of the notes he wrote whilst creating poems as a form of image making and use these throughout the book to show the naturalistic process and writing and bringing ideas together to create poetry. The new images I make will be a mixture of landscapes specific to those mentioned in the poems and portraits of family members who share memories on the topic.
In conclusion both Rita Puig Serra Costa and Linda McCartney utilise the medium of photography in similar ways to connect with family members, whether this is by displaying and holding onto old memories or by creating special images which show a connection between the subject and photographer. Both these photographers create work which displays Barthes idea of studium and punctum to different audiences. With Rita’s work the puncture is probably more personal to her however Linda’s could be seen as more universally meaningful to a wider audience. Finally my own work plays around with memories for two perspective, those of my grandpa displayed through the written poems and mine from the responsive photos I then created.
Bibliography
http://blog.photoeye.com/2015/02/book-review-where-mimosa-bloom.html