For my personal study and the narrative I am going to be exploring the photographical approach I will be using is Documentary photography.

The definition of Google for documentary photography is : “Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life.”

I watched a couple videos on the history of Documentary photography and who’s work contributed to this approach.

The video above is a from a Ted Talks from a man called Billy Weeks. In his video he explained that his voice was going to be used through photographing things, people, objects and that’s exactly what he done. The video being titled “two views” is a high indicator that in every image there is always 2 people, the subject and the person behind the lens. We doesn’t see one person but we as the viewers know that they’re there. Without documentary photography many great social issues would not be publicised and would be censored into the unknown, therefore by having practices like this its opening views and doors for people that they might not even know existed.

Later on in the video Weeks also talks about several photographers associated with this practice like Robert Capa a famous war photographer who once said that ‘If your photos aren’t good enough its because you’re not close enough…’ Unfortunately for Capa, he was later killed in the battle field but, what made him so different from other documentary photographers is that he knew that in order to tell the narrative you needed to live in that narrative.

Robert Capa was born on October 22nd 1913 to a Hungarian family and was later discovered through his journalism skills and his photography skills. Capa fled political repression when he was younger, moving too Berlin. He also watched the rise of Hitler which then lead him to moving to Paris where he met and began to work with Greta Phoroylle. During his time as photographer he conquered 5 wars . The Spanish Civil war, the second Sino- Japanese War, World War 2 across Europe, the 1948 Arab- Israeli War, and the first Inodchina War, with his photos published in major magazines and newspapers.

What I learned from this video and Weeks’ practice that in order to capture that documentary style image a piece of the photographers background has to be captured. For this project I will be trying to incorporate importance in the setting of each image and the subject or the object I will be photographing.

The book I have chosen to look at is called “Mother” published by Mathew Finn. His book contains a series of images of his mother. He explains that over a 30 year period he took images of his mother and reveals that they weren’t set out orderly and that it wasn’t something he put a huge amount of thought into until later on in his life. None of his images include his dad which is significant to him as his dad wasn’t present during his childhood or even adulthood. He had half brothers and sisters he wasn’t even aware they existed until the day after his dad’s funeral. He explains in his biography ” the more I knew about my father, the more I felt the need to protect my mum…”

There wasn’t a particular reason to him beginning to photograph his mum, apart from the fact they lived together and they were a lot closer due to his dad not remaining in this life. Mathew Finn was the photographer however he explains his mum was more of the director. She was aware of what angles she looked best and became more aware of how much lighting would be need in order to produce the best image. He explains that for his mother and him the roles switched when she was diagnosed with dementia. She fell silent and started to lose herself therefore their collaboration began to crumble. He explained that he no longer existed to her and what remained were those pictures to show her. On Christmas Day he shown her the images and asked her if the images described her to which she replied “I don’t know… maybe they do..”

The book he made is a hardback book A4 with most pictures being a4 but a couple of the images he has overplayed across both pages creating an A3 image. All the images in his book are black and white with a few images taking up the whole page and some images quite central to the paper. There are a couple examples he has put a very minimal and empty image next to a blank page which then leads the viewers to question why he has done this? There isn’t a set layout for the images in his book some are full page others are A5 with a white border around it. There isn’t any text on the images

FAMILY / CHILDHOOD / ABSENCES

Photographers

• Carolle Benitah
• David clumpner
• Diana Markosian

How does the work of Diana Markosian and Yoshikatsu Fujii explore childhood and family breakups?

Can the theme of absence be explored in the works of Diana Markoisan?

Is the theme of family prominent in the works of photographers like David Clumpner?

How does Mathew Finn’s work show the idea of love within family?

Why does documentary photography link best when exploring the idea of family breakups and childhood?

How and why does Carolle Benitah explore childhood and family breakups?

First Paragraph: Why I have chosen this topic and chosen the two photographers.

Second paragraph: FIRST PHOTOGRAPHER context behind their work and example analysis behind one of their most popular images.

Third paragraph: Repeat for next photograph and analyse one images that best suits an example of their work and one that could have inspired my images

FOURTH PARAGRAPH: Which approach best suited. (Ism)

MY WORK: examples of my experiments and how and why I chose to do it like that

Fifth: Conclusion how and why do the photographers explore (chosen theme)

After having completed my first photoshoot I decided to play around with some of the images that I took.

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These images I used an app on my iPhone called PicsArt. This edit allowed me to manipulate a somewhat cartoon line drawing over each of the portraits I have explored. I did this because I want to bring in artistic elements to create a more visual and exciting image. For some of my next edits I am going to explore a range of material and sources in photoshop and other apps I may find to create blurred effect as my book will go on.

I played around with the images above in photoshop as well to see if I could create this old, edgy and faint look. As the images are a few years old i wanted to contrast them with a photo that is more up to date.

My final outcome with this experiment is below:

http://www.dianamarkosian.com/father

Diana Markoisan is an American documentary photographer but also a writer and a filmmaker. Markoisan was born in Moscow but moved to California with her mother and brother whilst her dad remained in Russia. One of her most famous final projects was her ‘Inventing my father’ which is the project I am focusing on. She has an experimental approach as evident through her first image where her mother has cut out the image of her father. She began this career at the age of 20 which has led her to travel around some of the most pristine areas of the world.

ANALYSIS

Technical – the image above is an archival photograph as Markosian said so herself she doesn’t not have many images of her and her father. Therefore the lighting in the image is most probably natural lighting that she has used coming through a window. There is a range of tonal shades on the photograph. The main beam of lighting is on her and her father, the darker and not so lit areas are on the other individuals in the image, perhaps other family members. Markosian has purposely done this so that the main area of focus is on her and father. The depth of field her in the image above is right on the focus as you can see the other people are more blurrier than them two. The lighting in the image is a fairly warm tone however having more tones of brown and black rather than orange and yellow.

Visually, the main colors that makes up the image is dark browns,blacks and then the dark blues that she and her father are wearing. I think she has chosen to shine a light on the blue making it more vibrant therefore stand out in the image. The way she has composed the lighting to only shine on her and her father I think is important as she only wants her viewers to focus on them two and not where or who she is with. From what we can see in the image she and her family are what looks like a cafe or restaurant with maybe her brother and uncle. However her mother is not in the image which leads me to believe she may be the person that is behind the camera.

Context – Markoisan chose this image to publish and to be part of her project as she did not have many photos with him. The project for her in a sense was for closure and to establish something that she had no power and control over. Her style of photography links well with realims and straight photography as she is documenting her life by what it is really like. She uses no filters and no editing that marks her images as unrealistic. Images emerged from walking and thinking, from spending time with the freedom of ideas unhooked from the psychological demands of the assignment. “It’s a form of meditation. There’s a mental archive of images that I am making, they are not for anyone but me. The walk serves as a form of inspiration. The walk becomes the art.”

The main reason I have chosen to focus on Diana Markosian’s work is because she has created a whole set of images and a project called “inventing my father.” The link to her website is above. I think this links well with my personal study due to the focus being primarily on her Dad’s absences.Most of her images have a small caption showing and explaining what each of the images contain and what’s happening in them. Most of her captions are short and direct which is what she’s trying to express with her relationship with her father. She expresses that the last time she saw her father was at the age of 7.

Although, some aspects of her project link well with mine I’m choosing to focus more half on my dad but the majority of my project on my mother. I am going to incorporate some of my art skills into this project like she has done through the use of cutting out the old images to make it look like a missing puzzle.

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The Red String was a book produced by a man named Yoshikatsu Fujji. The first page we are confronted with a separation between 2 striking images. The first picture on the left, is of his young father with a him as a baby whilst the one on the right is his mother holding the same child in the same environment.

Right from the beginning, we are presented with an element of separation which is what Fujii is trying to incorporate through the split of his parents. Right from the beginning, the separation is evident. Already the mother and father figure in the photo are also separated but the child stays In both pictures.

A direct link to his explanation of the event is below; https://www.yoshikatsufujii.com/red-string

What follows on the inside is a well thought out, properly constructed, book to capture the theme of separation and how and why it affected him the way it did. Flipping through each page contains a meaningful archival image either his parents wedding images, family photos, snapshots from his youth and objects with sentimental value. Fujji having done some interviews on this piece of work once said ” “My family will probably never meet all together again. But I can feel without a doubt that there is still proof inside each of us that we once lived together.”

As Fujii explains in the text at the back of the book, there is a Japanese legend that says predestined lovers are tied together by an invisible piece of red string, from the moment they are born. While that red string between his mother and father was apparently sundered, Fujii offers his Red String as a way to bind these losses back together.

Thus, the structure and layout of the book, combined with the fascinating mix of photos (old, new, black and white, color, abstract) blend together perfectly, offering an intimate artistic experience. It is exactly the kind of experience that is the unique province of this ever-changing, but loosely bound together thing we call the photobook

EXHIBITION JERSEY ART CENTRE

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On Friday afternoon we went down to the Jersey Art Centre to look at an exhibition called “Invisible Hands.” This exhibition shines a light on Jersey from a migrant workers perspective.

The hard work that seasonal farm workers put in has been more than important for Jersey’s economy for more than 150 years yet their presence on this island continues to be undocumented despite the impact they have. This exhibition is based so that people realise what some people have to go through to have even the smallest of happiness. A polish artist named Alicja Rogalska teamed up with some ordinary migrant workers and asked them to photograph “a day in the life..” to which she also teamed up with a group that discuss local issues called ‘The Morning Boat”

From Rogalska’s work she did several interviews with the migrant workers to which they explained in detail what its like to live a week in their life.

“I hope that this will be the trigger for change, but also that people will get some perspective and empathy from it. I guess it’s really about empathy, especially in the images taken by the workers,’ Ms Rogalska said. ‘You really see them as people with their lives – it brings it back to the human level rather than just talking about waves of immigration.“

‘It’s very easy to take things for granted if you are born in an affluent place. You don’t have to leave your families and your children and work in an unfamiliar place. But they may be terrified that something might happen to them because they don’t have the money to go to hospital. That’s what I wanted people to understand through this exhibition, a bit more on a human level.’

Chapter we looked at; “Is it Real?”

Example

Harvard Referencing;

Bibliography – BrightS. and Van ErpH. ( 2019 ) Photography Decoded. London; Octupus Publishing House. Page 17.

QUOTES;

“The mirror can serve as metaphor for reality…”

“If manipulation is the first thing someone thinks of in connection to photography, what does that say about the value of the photograph as a reflection of reality?

“Under what circumstances are these images to be trusted as real?”

1 st one – Text in book

2nd – online article

• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walker-Evans
• written by: Szarkowski. J (October 30, 2019)
• Walker Evans American Photographer

3rd – Youtube interview

Harvard System of Referencing –

Bibliography:

Sherman,C. (1997) Cindy Sherman: Retrospective .

New York: Thames&Hudson

How to incorporate a quote inside my own writing.. critic/ writer/ artist/ Cindy Sherman says; ‘The adoption of femininity as a sign of the ways in which particular subjects are allowed to experience themselves produces the subject ( whether anatomically male or female) as an object trapped within the inexorable purview of the projective gaze.” (Sherman 1997:38)

Post Modernism was first discovered through ‘Pop Art’ in the 1960s which was then developed into the aspect we know now which was made in the 1970s. 

• Cindy sherman
• Pablo Picasso
• Barbera Kruger
• Edgar Degas

Key Characteristics/ Conventions- Postmodernism is known to be a reaction against ideas as well as values of modernism. Modernism’s dominance in cultural theory is associated with irony and philosophical concepts of universal truths. There is a known distinction between high and low art which incorporate popular elements making the overall postmodernism. Key themes of postmodernism makes references towards outside art work which adds to the contextual work. 

Methods/ Techniques/ Processes- Photographs are usually blown hip, edited, cropped etc to be used used in newspapers and billboards. Others use repetition to create emphasis on the image.

MODERNISM

Modernism is a style or movement in arts that aim to depart significantly from classical and traditional forms. It often characterises a quality of thought, expression and lots of technique.

Artists associated:

• Walker Evans
• Alfred Stieglitz
• Alexander Rodchenko

Definition: a movement towards modifying traditional beliefs in accordance with modern ideas, especially in the Roman Catholic Church in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A style or movement in the arts that aims to depart significantly from classical and traditional forms

Time period: 20th century

Key Characteristics: Common characteristics of modernist images include clean lines, sharp focus and repetition of form.

Artists associated:

• Paul Strand
• Alfred Steiglitz
• Olive Cotton
• Cecil Bostock
  

KEY WORKS:

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Methods/ Techniques/ Processes- Black and white edits are used for emphasis, sharp focus images in order for them to be seen clearly, as well as a large frame size.