After narrowing my selection of images I started bringing them into the book wright app to form the layout. I knew I wanted to split the book into 3 sections each based on a poem written by my grandpa, I would then construct the following pages as a response to the poems and create individual narratives surrounding the themes. I am looking to create a few basic templates for the format and repeat them throughout the book according to the style of each photo, this will create a more uniform and organised aesthetic.

I wrote out the poems and tested their placing on the pages, I wanted them to appear similar to how they did in his anthology, with centred writing and an a long columns. Initially I thought of placing it on the right hand side so it is right there when you open the page however alongside the image it looked more natural on the left hand side with the archival image on the right.

I experimented with the size of this archival image, firstly making it full page and then the size of a 4×6 photography that people would have in a family album. The second layout fitted the personal family aesthetic better and didn’t take away from the writing too much.

For my portrait image in the book I wanted it to be a stand alone image so the bold colours and characteristics could show. The image has a simple colour scheme but the patterns and textures are complex, with the diagonal lines on the top half of the image traveling back and the black leaves hanging down I didn’t want to take away from I by placing it next to another photo.

I played around with the placing of the image on the right hand side page, firstly I make its the tradition 6×4 photograph size but due to the style of image I don’t think it suited this. Next tried it full page which looked better, without the white border to distract from the colours. I think this image is powerful on its own and having it a big size shows it off best. The framing on the photo wasn’t quite right as the bottom of my subjects coat was just above the bottom of the frame and she filled almost the whole page. As there was excess image not shown on the pages I just moves the photo down so there was some empty space above the subjects head and the bottom of the coat was cropped out, this makes the photo more balanced.

For the third poem “Stefi’s Castle” it was very long and in the original anthology it covered two pages. To keep the format is used for the other two poems I would need to squeeze in onto one page to allow the archival image to go opposite. I tested this out and although it fitted all on one page I thought it looked over crowded.

To resolve this I split the poem onto two pages allowing the text to be centred to the page this was much more spacious and gave a more minimal effect.

Throughout the layout process I looked at an overview of all the pages to help me gat an idea of the order of the pages and how they fit together. At this stage I thought the pages looked to cluttered and random. I refined the designs to fix this and made templates so that there was a theme and structure throughout the book.

Some images I have chosen to have as double pages with no white boarder, these are images with small detail which I want to stand out more. For example this photo of the medieval character toy is mostly out of focus however the key part of the photo with most intricate details is focused and I wanted to blow it up so they were clear and almost larger than life. I wanted the perspectives in this image to to be blurred and the small toy to appear life size.

final book layout

The final layout for my book displays a variety of images, from archival to natural landscapes and even manipulated images. I have constructed it with three sections each following similar layouts. The final thing I had to think about before ordering the book was the cover, I though of using an image of my Grandpa, perhaps one of the layered edits I had made using his poem notes. However I decided to use one of my simple landscapes of the beach linking to the ‘tunnelling’ poem, this is because how it links to the cover of his anthology which is a landscape painting of a beach. By doing this the colours and simple style match. The image will be a wrap around cover with the parallel horizon along the centre of the cover.

For my editing process I chose to enhance the colours in each photo which I think lifts each image’s content and my subjects within them. I wanted to preserve the idea of femininity by keeping the images soft, contrasting the vibrance in colours while toning down the initial intake of visual representation.

Marina Abramovic and Izumi Miyazaki influenced my photoshoot a lot. From Abramovic I took the idea of performance and directed many scenarios in my project that displayed the characters and traits of my subjects. I shot my whole project in one room, my subjects personal space which I interpret as her landscape, decorated in an organised mess that represents many characteristics of the individual in each object that lies around her room and the interactions she has with them. My concept behind the series is influenced behind the history of women in art and Miyazaki. Miyazaki has control over the representation of her sex because she is taking them herself. Miyazaki purposely produces pictures that move away from the classifications of female stereotypes. As a female, I thought it was important that the representation of my subjects displayed them as individuals and not as objects, therefore keeping them in their personal environments and disregarding any ideas of perfection or social ideologies of how women should look and what women do. Women taking pictures of other women allows complete control over representation. I wanted the effect of getting to know the subjects when the series is viewed rather than seeing someone who looks ‘aesthetically’ pleasing in terms of beauty standards within the western world, with no character behind the individual. The series is a personal look into a stranger’s life, using the notion of scopophilia but with consent and without the expectation of female stereotypes.

 

Following the recent artists I have taken influence to, I want to re-create pictures that stimulate the same agenda as contemporary female artists. Marina Abramovic incorporates performance into her work which is something I would also like to integrate, through directing my subjects in scenarios that summarize their identities through displaying their characteristics and traits in forms of performance. I will shoot my subjects in one location which I have decided to be in a personal space which therefore adds to their identity – these will fundamentally be environmental portraits. I want to capture my subjects interaction within their room though objects and the space itself as I believe every object someone collects has a personal meaning and connection with the person – a reference to artist Iiu susiraja. I also interpret someone’s bedroom as a personal landscape that embodies someones personality. My concept is influenced behind women in art and the struggle to gain a creative outlet that has no dominance in masculinity, like traditional paintings. Instead this photo shoot is significant to me because I am a female producing pictures of other females and therefore representing them without hegemonic hold of masculinity, also presenting them as individuals rather than objects. This is something I have noticed within Izumi Miyazaki’s self-portraits, a movement away from the classifications of female stereotypes of beauty and ‘femininity’. My goal is to create a series of images that are an insight into a strangers life without the use of words.

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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 

https://www.creativeboom.com/inspiration/photographs-by-linda-mccartney-donated-to-the-vas-new-photography-centre/

http://blog.photoeye.com/2015/02/book-review-where-mimosa-bloom.html

WHERE MIMOSA BLOOM

https://www.lindamccartney.com/biography/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/8556941/Linda-McCartney-a-life-through-the-lens.html

https://www.sketchingapresent.com/blog/2015/05/07/reading-barthes-the-double-structure-of-allure-in-camera-lucida-1980

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCartney_(album)

How do Birthe Piontek and Richard Billingham, express the notion of family relationships within their work?

INTRODUCTION

This essay discusses family relationships and how they are explored within the work of photographers Richard Billingham and Birthe Piontek. I have chosen this subject because it is something that is closely linked to my own personal investigation, in which I am exploring relationships and illness within my own family. Many photographers have explored different aspects of family, that being of their own family or exploring events or relationships within other families. One artist that has explored family relationships within their work is Birthe Piontek, in her recent project Abendlied, she explored “how we are shaped by the place we call home” by visiting her family home where she grew up and her parents had lived for 40 years. Another photographer that has explored family relationships within his work is Richard Billingham, he has done multiple projects where he has photographed his family, the most notable one being Ray’s a Laugh, a book focused on his unemployed alcoholic father and his overweight puzzle loving cat obsessed mother.

CHAPTER 1

The first artist that I will be looking at is Birthe Piontek, she was born and raised in Germany, where she lived with her parents and siblings. Piontek’s project Abendlied focuses on her relationship with her childhood home whilst visiting it before her parents who had lived there for 40 years moved out due to her mother’s dementia, throughout the project Piontek explores different aspects of the home and how she and other members of her family have a relationship with the house and how the house affects their relationships with each other. Throughout the book Piontek uses carefully arranged objects that she grew up to create portrait like images that have a nostalgic feeling, in many of the images she has members of her family posing with the objects which creates a good juxtaposition with the images of just the objects and adds more of a sentimental value. The title of the book “Abendlied translates to “evening song” from two well-known German songs, a hymn and a lullaby. Throughout the images there is a strong sense of nostalgia with references to the past and passed away family members and family culture, in one picture of her father she uses a framed picture of her grandfather, which her father holds, in a military cap which bears the Nazi sign, this image has a strong impact on the rest of the imaged in the book as it holds a strong significance as to the culture, heritage and identity of her family.

CHAPTER 2

The second artist that I will be looking at is Richard Billingham, he was born and raised in the west-midlands, this is where most of his work is focused, mostly concerning his family. His book Ray’s A Laugh portrays the extreme poverty and deprivation that he experienced whilst he was growing up, the images mainly focus on his relationship with his parents, the images portray a sense of distance between him and his parents as on creates the images with the with the sense that he is more of an onlooker rather than a member of the family.

Photoshoot Plan: I wanted to do a photoshoot in the area that my Grandpa lived for a lot of his life, the natural landscape and environment surrounding him was very important and would of had a big impact of his writing. I will explore the area and photograph anything that links to my Grandpa and his poems.

I knew I wanted to take photos of birds (preferably a robin) for the book but I had struggled to find one to photograph at tis time of year. When I was on this shoot I found a group of coastline bird nesting in a thorn bush and decided to photograph them using my long telephoto lens. I love the mixture of neutral colours and contrasting textures in them image and how the depth of focus brings out the details in the birds. Although this photos does not directly link to the “little change” poem I think it does reflect my grandpa’s attitude and interest toward wildlife.