Here is the link to my final photobook ‘ loved ‘

How do images of P.H.Polk and Khadija Saye, show change of representation of black identity?

‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character’. –  Martin Luther King, Jr. March On Washington, 8th August 1963

In this essay, I will be looking at the way that the depiction of black people has progressed over the last 150 years. I will be comparing and contrasting with the 19th century when photographic records began to emerge with modern day technologies, such as social media platforms. YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, where an individual is in control of their own representation. With old technologies, such as newspapers and TV one person or group of people were in control of the messages that would be broadcast to the public, as discussed by David Gauntlett. However, since the growth of the internet, there are multiple platforms in which a person is able to express their voice. So audiences have a much wider range of direct sources of information in which they can use for their opinions on topics, groups, or people. The 18th to 19th century was the height of colonialism, at this point in history slavery was being used all over the world. Slaves were being transported largely from Africa, this continued until 1835 when Britain abolished its slavery throughout the whole of its empire by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. The U.S abolished Slavery in 1865 with the 13th Amendment, but segregation in America was not ended until 1963. In modern day society, all nationalities legally have equal rights, but there is still some social inequalities. Such as workers who come over from countries such as Poland and Romania, they face prejudice from many white English groups, due to them living and raising families in the UK, this tension had only been made worse by events such as Brexit. I will be looking at the works of P. H Polk, who photographed acute portraits of African Americans post civil war that first gave black people an equal photographic representation. I will compare him to Khadija Saye, her self portraits express her multicultural background. I have chosen to analyses these artists due to their links to my personal project on ‘Political Landscapes’, in which I am looking back at my life growing up as a mixed-race child in a mainly white society in the island of Jersey and having little connection to black culture. These artists look at the expression of the black identity through photography, when the images are compared it is clear how the view of black identity has changed.

The first documentation of Black People in Photography

As western society progressed much quicker than other countries in the world, due to colonization and economic progression, they developed many new technologies faster as they had a larger amount of resources to draw on. Louis Agassiz 1807 -1873, was the founder of comparative zoology at the University of Harvard who had an avid interest of photographic data. Due to his photographic documentation interest, he authorized the portrait commission on the front, back and side views of slaves from a North Carolina plantation in 1850. These were one, if not the first images of black people for scientific purposes. He wanted to provide visual evidence for his theory that the races were created separately at different times in the world. Whites being developed first then other nationalities, because at this time many people believed that humans were created from God.  An idea that slavery supporters felt would have scientifically justified their use of slavery and saw no problem with racial inequality. Fifteen daguerreotypes of the slave who was name ‘Jack’ where taken by J.T.Zealy. In the image below Jack is romantically lit, emphasizing facial features that make him appear noble, pensive and unassuming. This romantic side lighting has been used to intensify his facial features and prove Agassiz’s theory. Although these images were meant to be compared and contrasted with other physical body types to prove his theory, no other images of compatible exposed white men and woman went along with these daguerreotypes. The main purpose of Zaley’s image were to convince viewers that racial inequality was acceptable because blacks, had been created later and therefore are less intelligent. His way of thinking has been influential in the term. Theorist Edward Said theory of Orientalism describes their reasoning behind their actions. ‘Westerners had no evidence apart from their upbringing and experiences in life in to which they made the judgments on other races. So they showed it in a limited way as it was too different from the culture that they had experienced'{6}. Agassiz was validated that what he was doing was right as it was accepted by his peers who had the same viewpoint on the world. In their eyes, the western imperialist invasion and colonization was justified as they were saving themselves as they were the superior race. This photographs contributed ideas to the Eugenic Movement’s viewpoint of white racial superiority, these ideas were later adopted and promoted by the Nazis who actually invaded and occupied Jersey in 1940.

Pictorial and Straight Photography 

The straight photography movement began in 1905 as a reaction against the Pictorialism movement, the dominant style of photography at this time. Pictorialism, aesthetic emphasized beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality. The images tended to look similar to romanticism in paintings which tended to be very fantasy and dreamlike. To create this effect pictorial photographers would often smear Vaseline around the lens of the camera to make the image distorted. Straight photography became the trademark style of many Western photographers the most famous being Ansel Adams. Straight photography emphasizes and engages with the camera’s own technical capability to produce images sharp in focus and rich in detail. Straight photographs have not been manipulated, either in the taking of the image or by darkroom or digital processes, but sharply depict the scene or subject as the camera sees it. The movement became associated with masculinity due to the sharpness of the images to contrast the femininity of the Pictorialist movement. My work on political landscape has links to both the Straight photography, and Pictorialist movements movement as all of the images that I have produced have been in a documentary approach, by looking back on the life that I have lived in Jersey. When shooting the images I have used s straight photograph approach. But on the shoot when I went around Jersey and visited places from my childhood I have manipulated the images to be blurry and fuzzy to show a disconnection to me as a teenager, so my editing process has been greatly inspired by the Pictorialist movement.

H. Polk

H. Polk was an African American photographer born in 1989 in Bessemer, Alabama, he first became involved with photography after he met C.M.Battley, who was the head of Tuskegee’s Photography Department, who later became his mentor. He was speaking of the potential of the photographic movement and was encouraging students to come and see if they had any interest in the subject. After this meeting, Polk went up to Chicago to further his study of photography with his blessing. He then returned to his home town and opened his own studio and then took over as the head of Tuskegee photography department. In which he documented many critical moments in the civil rights movements on the campus. In much of his early work, he photographed his subjects on a Kodak box camera with a Graphex lens, in which he has been praised by credits for his technical mastery of the medium but not having the best equipment. His book Through These Eyes: The Photographs of P.H. Polk is a collection of over 100 hundred photographs that depict southern life in all of its different forms, the images range from the African American scientist George Washington Carver to images of the farmers working the land the cotton fields in Macon County. These collection of images are essential in my eyes, in showing the differences of how African/ Americans saw one other, to how white Americans saw them. One of his most influential series, ‘Old Characters’, in which he documented ex-slaves from Macon County. One of the reasons that I decided to pick P.H.Polk as one of my photographers to references is because of that way that he documented African Americans. In his images, they are presented with class, dignity, and humanity. When compared to the first documentation of African Americans, in which they are shown as specimens of nature, and photographed as freaks of nature who need to be studied. Polk’s images show a great comparison of how the civil rights movement started the change of attitude towards blacks in America culture.

This image was taken in 1932 and is entitled ‘The Boss’. The image looks as if it was taken in a studio using artificial lighting that looks to be coming from the left-hand side of the frame. The woman in the frame who looks to be from the working class from the look of what she is wearing has been positioned in a powerful stance with her hands on her hips. It looks as if the camera was taken from a lower angle as the woman in the frame is looking down into the frame, which is in turn giving her the power. She is looking directly down the lens to the viewer which, draws the onlooker into the image makes the images more personal.

Khadija Saye

Khadija Saye born in London in 1992 was a British – Gambian artist and photographer, who tragically lost her life in the Grenfell tower Disaster in 2017. At age 16 she won a full scholarship to the prestigious Rugby school where her passion of photography first began to grow, she then went on to take a BA in Photography at UCA Farnham, where she first began to experiment with her Gambian identity in relation to photography. In early 2017 Saye, completed nine tintype photographers from she project she entitled ‘Dwelling: in this space, we breathe’ these self-portraits where on Gambian spiritual practices.  This project was set to be exhibited at the Venice Biennale, which is a prestigious international art exhibition held every two years in Italy. Her works were meant to be included in a project entitled ‘ Diaspora Pavilion’, in which a group of contemporary artist from racially diverse backgrounds presented work on the theme of migration and displacement. Each image was a self -portrait, in which Saye performs a different, time-honoured, Gambian spiritual ritual. For the project she drew on her own self-interest and explored the emotions, feeling and consequences of her journey and heritage.

These images were created to look a certain way, inspired by the Victorian era of tintype photography, in which the image is created by using a wet metal plate and collodion solution. Tintype photography is affected by the environment that they are developed in such as the consistency of the light and the temperature. I personally think that she decided to present her work in this format because there are very few portraits of black woman in the 19th century when this type of technology was being used. It gives the images a sense of incongruous to them which then makes the viewer think about the historic documentation of black people throughout photography. When I look at the image the first thing that I connect it with is images of slaves from the 19th century when black people were being photographed as a part of their plantations owners property. Making the images became impactful for Saye, ‘whilst exploring the notions of spirituality and rituals, the process of image-making became a ritual in itself ’.{4}.In the images, Saye in wearing a traditional Gambian headwrap, and is holding an incense burner which is an item considered to be sacred in The Gambia. The image looks as if it was taken in a studio, it is unclear if Saye took this image using a shutter release so she would have been pressing the shutter, as her hand is out of the frame, or whether there was somebody on set with her. Saye’s eyeliner looks as if she is looking up to the burning incense, this may be a symbolic sign because the incense is used is spiritual practices, that maybe she is trying to seek approval from a higher power. The fact that she is facing away from the camera in his image, maybe representing the fact that she like many other black woman face prejudice, and are seen as the stereotypes set around they are seen to be connected to.

Conclusion

There are more similarities than differences between P.H.Polks and Khadija Saye work, but both of them show black self-expression, in its purest form. The person in front of the camera is in charge of the message that is being expressed. Which is greatly important as for a lot of history, the way that the black identity was depicted in images and history was the way that white people saw ‘the other.’  The main difference between the two artists work is that Says, has taken more of a tabuex approach to her project ‘ Dwelling: in this space we breathe’. As she is recreating parts of The Gambia spiritual practices, rather than taking a documentary approach to these traditions. Whereas P.H.Polks images, are more formal and were trying to communicate to the audience at that black people are equal, what this project did at the time was show them as individuals with humanity behind them, as at this time there was still a massive racial divide in America. These two photographers have greatly influenced the way that I have looked at myself, in the Political Landscape project. In the project, I haven’t taken any images of myself in the present day, but studying these photographers it has made me see how these images could be interpreted in a different way. Because I grew up in a white society, I forgot to look at myself and see that I was different from most of the people that I was surrounded by. Which did help my experience growing up in some way as I was oblivious to the differences that society saw, but the society that I grew up did see me as different. Which I mainly think was due to the fact that I had a very happy childhood, and I felt accepted in the environment that I was in so I had no need to have a sense of longing for anything else. One of the ways that I expressed this in my project was through the editing of the archival images that I used.

In this project I have distorted the pictures of me and my father together he was the only black person that I had around me when growing up to look up to. I wanted to get across that the image of black/mixed race families in the media is often distorted, and makes out that the child of the relationship will not be as happy as a child of a nuclear white family. One of the things that I really liked about Kahijas images was use of The Gambia headscarf that she can be seen to be wearing in her images, by wearing this it shows a connection to her country and to her heritage. One of the ways that I did this is my project was thought the techniques of ‘Rephotography’. In which I found images of myself as a child and then went back to these locations now and line up the images with what the area looks like now, by doing this I felt as if really drew the connection of Jersey becoming apart of my identity and how the island has shaped me into becoming the person that I am today, into the project in a visual way. To conclude, Saye and Polk have shown a dramatic change in the way that black people and the black identity have changed by taking control of the messages that are being communicated to the audience .

Bibliography

1.Wikipedia ( December 2018), P.H.Polk, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.H.Polk

2.Wikipedia ( November 2018 ), Khadija Saye, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khadija_Saye

3.Wikipedia ( February 2018 ), Straight Photography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_photography

4.Christies (27 September 2018), ‘Heat warming and haunting – two works of Khadija Saye’ https://www.christies.com/features/Heartwarming-and-haunting-works-by-Khadija-Saye-9410-1.aspx

5.Mary. W. M (2002), Photography: A Cultural History. Laurence King Publishing

6. MACAT.(4 April 2018), Edward Said – An Introduction to Orientalism.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aNwMpV6bVs

H. Polk was an African American photographer born in 1989 in Bessemer, Alabama, he first became involved with photographed after he heard C.M.Battley, who was the head of Tuskegee’s Photography Department, who later became his mentor. He was speaking that the potential of the field and was encouraging students to come and see if they had any interest in the subject. After this meeting Polk went up to Chicago to further his study photography with his blessing. Hw then return to his home town and open his own studio and then took over as the head of Tuskegee photography department. In which he documented many critical moments in the civil rights movements on the campus. In much of his early worked he was photoghing his subjects on a  Kodak box camera with a Graphex lens, in which he has been praised by credits for his technical mastery of the medium but not having the best equipment . His book Through These Eyes: The Photographs of P.H. Polk is a collection of over 100 hundred photographs that depict southern life in all of its different forms, the images range from African/ American George Washington Carver , to images of the farmers working the lads the the cotton field of Macon County, these collection of images are essential in my eyes, in showing the differences of how African/ Americans saw one other, to how white Americans saw them.  He photographed a range of African/ American subjects such as George Washington to poor working class citizens. One of his most influential series, ‘Old Characters’, in which he documented ex-slaves from Macon County.

One of the reasons that I decided to pick P.H.Plok as one of my photographs to references is because of that way that he documented African Americans. In his images they are presented with class, dignity, and humanity. When compared to the first documentation of African Americans, in which they are shown as specitls of nature, and photographed as freaks of nature who need to be studied, shows a great compassion in how the civil rights movement many fret changes in America. This image was taken in 1932 it is entitled ‘The Boss’ In the image looks as if it was taken in a studio using artificial lighting that looks to be coming from the left hand side of the frame.The woman in the frame who looks to be from the working class from the look of what she is wearing, has been positioned powerful stance with her hands on her hips. It looks as if the camera was taken from a lower angle as the woman in the frame is looking down into the frame, which is in turn giving her the power. She is looking directly down the lens to the viewer which, draws the onlooker into the image makes the images more personal.

Rita Puig Serra Costa is a documentary photographer who lives and works in Barcelona, in which she combines personal projects based on events in her life, such as her 2014 work   ‘Where Mimosa Bloom’ which is a project that focuses on the life of her late mother and how her death effected the people closest to her, this project won her numerous awards and was published in the ‘Ruby Star’ magazine. She studied Humanities at Ba level and after completing a degree in Comparative literature she studied photography at  CFD School of Photography.She is now working on a project with Salvi Danés and David Bestué with the support of Terralab.cat.

‘Where Mimosa Blooms‘

Dealing with the grief that the photographer suffered following the death of her mother, Where Mimosa Bloom takes the form of an extended farewell letter; with photography skillfully used to present a visual layout of her life and the people who played a part in it. Where Mimosa Bloom” is the result of over two years of work that Rita spent collecting, curating materials and taking photographs of places, objects and people that played a significant role in her relationship to her mother.  In my opinion Rita skillfully avoided  giving the impression of grief’s self-pity, isolationism, world-scorn and vanity. 

In this image taken from the book, a tiny baby bird can be seen tucked up in a person’s hand for protection, as baby birds are not able to do much by themselves are are very easily to be attacked. Which may be a representation of how Rita felt in regards to her mother, that Rita was weak and was just learning about the world and the way it works but want ready yet to be left by herself. And that her mother would always be there for her to protect her, take care of her and comfort her. But not that she is gone she is weak. In the image the bird is huddled up in a human had but normally baby birds are left in the mother nest while they wait for the mother to come back from hunting. This might suggest that she is having to relay on mother people and not her mother ‘nest’. The images looks as if was taken inside due to the dark background, but the main source of light is natural light which looks as if is coming from the left hand side of the image. The depth of field looks high as only the bird is in complete focus, this may be due to the fact that Rita wanted to be the main focus of the image, rather than the tattoo on the person wrist.

Responses to her work 

Kajia Saye born in London in 1992 was a British – Gambian artist and photographer, who tragically lost her life in the Grenfell tower Disaster in 2017. At aged 16 she won a full scholarship to the prestigious Rugby school where her passion of photography first began to grow she went on to take a BA in Photography at UCA Farnham, where she first began to experiment with her Gambian identity in relation to photography. In early 2017 Saye, completed nine tintype photographers from she project she entitled ‘Dwelling: in this space we breathe’ these self portraits where on Gambian spiritual practises.This project was set to be exhibited at the Venice Biennale, which is a prestigious international art exhibition held every two years in Italy. Her works was meant to be included in a project entitled ‘ Disopra Pavilion’, in which a group of contemporary artist from racially diverse backgrounds presented work on the theme of migration and displacement. Each image was a self -portrait, in which State performs a different, time- honoured, Gambain spiritual ritual. For the project she drew on her own self interest and explored the emotions, feeling and consequences of her journey and heritage.

These images were created to look a certain way, inspired by the Victorian era of tintype photography, in which the image in created by using a wet metal plate and collodion solution. Tintype photography is affected by the environment that they are developed in such as the constancy of light and the temperature the the area. I personally think that she decided to present her work in this format  because there are very few portraits of black woman in the 19th century, when this type of technology was being used. It gives the images a sense of incongruous to them which then makes the viewer think about the the historic documentation of black people throughout photography. When I look at the image the first things that I connect it to is images to slaves from the 19th century as black people where only send document in this type of photography, when then where being documented  as a part of their plantations owners property. Making the images became impactful for Saye, ‘whilst exploring the notions of spirituality and rituals, the process of image-making became a ritual in itself’. In the images Saye in wearing a traditional Gambian headwrap, and is holding an incense burner which is an item considered to be sacred in The Gambia. The image looks as if it was taken in a studio, it is unclear if Saye took this image using a clicker so she would have been pressing the shutter, as her hand is out of the frame, or whether there was somebody on set with her. Saye’s eyeliner looks as if she is looking up to the burning inses, this may be a symbolic sign, because the inse is used is spiritual practices, that maybe she is trying to seek approval from a higher power. The fact that she is facing away from the camera in his image, may be representing the fact that she like many other black woman face prejudice, and are see as the stereotypes set around they are seen to be connected to.

For the investigation into a photobook, I will be researching the book ‘Where the Mimosa Bloom’ by Rita Puig – Serra Costa, which focuses on the life of her mother who recently passed away, she tries to capture her life in a documentary approach through objects, places, family and friends. I have paid close attention to this particular book throughout the whole of the project, as the subject matter is similar to my personal study, but I am focusing on my own life. 

Cover of the Book 

There are no words on the front of the book, which is the first indication, that is photobook rather than than an informative book about her mother’s life. The image on the front cover is  faded photo of  Yolanda Costa Rico ( her mother ) in a garden as a child. The spine is a warm yellow the same colour of the mimosa trees, which where her mother mother favourite plant. Later in the book we see a photo of blooming mimosa tree, which are native to her home city of Barcelona, growing in a densely populated area which give an indication of the symbolism of the tree, the title of the book itself.

Design and Layout

The first two and the last two pages of the book are the same colour as the spine which is the colour of the mimosa tree which this a running feature throughout the whole of the book.

• The book is an A5 linen hardcover and consist of 96 pages.
• 18 archival images.
• 5 full bleeds.
• 22 objects.
• 13 blank pages
• 5 pages with sections cut out
• 10 formal portraits
• 0 inserts or fold out
• 4 pages of letters

Sequencing

The first five pages of the book have a small squares cut out to reveal a portrait of what we can assume is Rita’s family tree, as you continue turn the page another portrait is revealed and so on and so forth until we can see all six family members. Throughout the book we seen ten portraits of different people taken using natural light, but there is no indication that they are the people from the family tree. We can assume that these people are friends of Rita’s mother.  The portraits in the book are commonly juxtaposed by photograph of a small possession of Yolanda’s eg a shopping list, small toy or a black page, to draw the attention to the portrait, or may shows that in Yolands life she cared more about the experiences and the people around her than physical objects .

Structure 

The narraitve the book is telling to story Yoloands life through her possesions, her friends, family, places she visited. The book unlike most photobooks nearly entirely consists of photos that don’t seem to have any correlation to each other until you get towards the end of the book and find the index pages in which all of the images are given context, I think that by Rita doing this it gives the audience a better chance to connect the the book in a personal matter. I think that by not having any words next to the image creates a rather pleasant anthetic and makes the audience look at the book in two different way; as an outside having no connection to her at all, then the perspective of Rita, grieving daughter trying to honour her mother and still trying to keep the bond that she had with her mother alive.

Editing 

The book as a whole has a light and bright feel to it, the background for the majority of the book is white as objects that have been scanned onto a computer, or she has taken images of physical objects that wouldn’t have been able to scan in, she has photographed them with a white screen behind them. So this gives some depth to the images rather than them all being very flat from having been scanned in. All of the objects have been edited onto a pure white background, apart from one page.  On this page is a branch of the mimosa tree, which looks as if it is slowing dying, this could be a references to how Rita see the memory of her mother, that all of her possessions bring back happy memories of the times that they shared together hence the bright backgrounds, but when she thinks about her actual mother all she is reminded of is that she is no longer there. 

Text 

The only large amount of text in the book comes at the very back of the book, in which there is an index page of sorts which describes   all of the images that have come before so that the audience can have some of context as to what these objects are, it also gives context to where the images where taken so we are given an idea of where Yoland spent different parts of her life. At the end of the book there is a letter from Rita in which she speaks of the ways that she still feels that her mother is present in her life even though she is no longer there the letter is first written in her mother native language of Catalan and then in English.

 Rephotography

Rephotography is the act of repeat photography of the same site, with a time lag between the two images; a “then and now” view of a particular area. Some are casual, usually taken from the same view point but without regard to season, lens coverage or framing. Some are very precise and involve a careful study of the original. Rephotography was developed as early as 1850 in the natural sciences to demonstrate environmental change, such as erosion or receding glaciers, and has been applied to fields such as sociology to show social change, usually in the built environment e.g., towns and cities.

Morden day Rephotography can be seen in the McCord Museum of Canadian History’s virtual exhibition “Urban Life through Two Lenses.” It shows the nineteenth-century views of Montreal by William Notman, rephotographed by Andrzej Maciejewski in 2002. Another is Douglas Levere’s project, “New York Changing”; here Levere rephotographed 114 of Berenice Abbott’s, “Changing New York” images.

The French rephotographer Vincent Zénon Rigaud is comparing views of Reims in Champagne before and after the almost complete destruction of the city by first world war bombshells. “Reims avant, pendant et après la première guerre mondiale” Rigaud’s work shows the impact of war on urbanism. War severely damaged The cathedral Notre-Dame of Reims, UNESCO’s utmost masterpiece of Gothic architecture, is still under several heavy restoration processes where accurate rephotography is used as a site supervision and a duty of memory.

Christopher Moloney is a Canadian writer and photographer born August 4, 1977, he is best known for his ongoing rephotography project entitled FILMography.  He studied radio and television arts at Ryerson University in Toronto. After earning his degree, Moloney moved to New York City to work in television working on shows such as Late Show with David Letterman and Erin Burnett OutFront.

In June 2012,he began experimenting with an on-location layering technique of holding up a black-and-white printout of a scene from a movie and taking another photography otherwise known as ‘Rephotography’

The critics are divided on his work. Flare praised Moloney for “Flawlessly [lining] up every brick in a building and curb on the street to make the visuals look as one”. Whilst The Atlantic was more critical, noting “the buildings don’t always line up perfectly; the colors seldom match” 

His photographs have been featured by a number of magazines including Esquire, Complex, Wired,Fast Company and Vanity Fair.In 2013, his photographs were part of exhibitions during the Cannes Film Festival and Ischia Film Festival.

Personally I think the idea is very good and a interesting concept, I had previously seen these images floating around the internet, and  hadn’t heard of ‘Rephotography’ so I think that Chris has brought the style of photography back into the modern era as previously it was only used by scientist  and historians to document time changes, but now i see lots of brands and photographers using this style. But I think that if Chris had taken a bit more time when executing theses images the overall project would look a lot better, such as this image, the sun is reflecting off the paper into the lens so half of the left side of the image is too bright so we cannot see what is on that side, so maybe he could have though ahead and taken the images at a different time of the day so that the sun would have been in a different location. The image taken from ‘The Avengers’ could have been of better quality

Phillip Toledano was the sole inspiration for this shoot, he created a project in which he photographed a box of his sister possession who passed in a car accident when she was only six years, he used the experience to get closer to his sister. Which made me think out of all of my possessions, which are the things that are the most important to me, whether it be because of their practical use that they hold or because of their sentimental value.

Edits

Christopher Phillip Verene is an American fine arts and documentary photographer born on  October 29, 1969 in  DeKalb, Illinois, and is the son of the philosopher Donald Verene. He spent his teens and twenties in Atlanta, Georgia and studied art at Georgia State University. Verene moved to Brooklyn in 1999. In 2000, he was included the Whitney Biennial with his 1998 series Camera Club and the performance installation piece, The Self-Esteem Salon.  

He is most recognized for his work ‘Family’ a project which he began at aged 16 as a simple pastime, which has transformed into a 23 year ongoing project.  Three generations of his family still live in Galesburg and the family, is friends and the city are the subjects of the body of work. Verene began working with a medium format camera and started taking pictures of his family and friends within the small town of Galesburg. While having many diverse interests in music, film, and escape magic, the subject of his photographic career eventually became centered on the town of Galesburg and various events that take place within it. In 1998, The New York Times observed: “… anthropological portraits, like Chris Verene’s of a cousin at her wedding banquet in Illinois… Such portraits tell us less about individual people than about the worlds they inhabit, which is perhaps the main truth of most portraits.” 

The works on the town of  Galesburg, shows everyday life ans the struggling families trying to carry on family traditions and a past way of life in the declining American Midwest.  All of Verene’s images are unstaged documentary color photography, all though they may appear to look staged at some points. With its Arbusian style his work is largely appreciated for its honesty, intense color, and composition.

In a review of Verene’s Galesburg portraits shown at Postmasters Gallery in 2010, Cora Fisher writes in The Brooklyn Rail: “At no point in their stories of separation, divorce, remarriage, and birth across generational ties, class differences, and economic changes do they seem any less than Verene’s co-authors in the construction of their narrative.”

What I like about these images so much of Chris’s is that he had given these images context and given the images real meaning and by having ma small description of why the image was taken it gives the audience so understand of the meaning behind the image. As many photographers take images they are very symbolic and meaningful to them but to the on looking eye it has no real meaning or significance. So this is a technique that I want to incorporate  into my work.