Pictorialism:

Time period:

1880s – 1920s.

Key characteristics/conventions:

• Allegory.
• Naturalistic photography.

Artists associated:

• Peter Henry Emerson (1856-1936)
• Julia Margret Cameron (1815-1879)
• The Vienna Camera Club
• The Brotherhood of the Linked Ring (London)
• Photo-Secession (New York)
• Sally Mann (1951-)

Key works:

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Methods/Techniques/Processes:

The main idea behind pictorialism was to make photography an art form and move away from using it solely to document scientific observations. To this photographers often tried to make their images look like paintings.

Realism/Straight Photography:

Time period:

1910-

Key characteristics/conventions:

Opposing reaction to pictorialism. Recording the real world.

Artists associated:

• Walker Evans
• Paul Strand
• Alfred Stieglitz
• Social Reform Photography
• Dorothea Lange

Key works:

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See: 21. Reviewing and Reflecting:

Statement of Intent:

For my personal study I want to focus on mental health, specifically, what its like to experience a mental illness such as, anxiety and depression. For this reason my study to focus more on the ‘Occupation’ side of the theme. I hope to use my images to give people a better understanding of what mental illness is like for a student.

Artist references:

• Francesca Woodman
• Mary Ellen Mark (Ward 81)
• Maren Klemp

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I intent to do at least one shoot for each artist, repeating shoots for the artist that I think will best fit my ideas.

1. From your Personal Investigation based on OCCUPATION vs LIBERATION write an overview of what you learned and how you intend to develop your Personal Study.
   
2. Describe which themes, approaches (LANDSCAPE, PEOPLE, OBJECTS), artists, skills and photographic processes/ techniques inspired you the most and why.
   
3. Include examples of current experiments to illustrate your thinking.
   
4. Produce a new mind-map and mood-board based around how you interpret the theme of OCCUPATION vs LIBERATION now.

Overview:

In June, we began our personal investigation based on ‘Occupation Vs Liberation.’ To begin with, due to the nice weather, we focused on the bunker fortifications left behind by the Nazi occupying forces. This would be the focus of our first zine. This was followed by looking at the people involved in the Occupation, including those who are still alive today, and how objects and still life could be used to tell the Occupation story. This would be our second zine. Where as I had looked at still life and portraiture during AS, landscape was an area of photography I had yet to explore in detail or try out for myself. I thoroughly enjoyed the project as a whole, I found myself continuously lost in the landscape shoots while also discovering a new interest for portraits. This is what I hope to use in my personal study to show a new take of the idea of ‘Occupation Vs Liberation.’

New skills and inspiration learnt:

From day one, I had already been introduced to a way to improve and research my photography in a way I had never considered before. This was the use of archive images. We are incredibly lucky in Jersey to have access to our very own photo archive at the Societe Jersiaise. It was incredibly interesting to see some of the old photos from 1940-45 because I realized that maybe I didn’t know as much as I thought I did about the Occupation. However, the use of these images never really crossed my mind after that until much later. If I’m being completely honest, I had no intention of ever incorporating archive images with my own, at least not during the landscape part of the project. With archive out of my mind, we began our first shoot for landscapes. A permanent reminder of Nazi occupation are the remains of the concrete bunkers they built to fortify the Island. This was of course the perfect thing to photograph for this project. While visiting Battery Lothringen at Noirmont, we were given the opportunity to go inside one of the bunkers and take photos of the displays inside. This meant that we had to adjust the settings on our cameras to accommodate for the lack of light. I was reluctant to rise the ISO above 1600 as I didn’t want my image being grainy. To compensate for this I had to use a low aperture to allow for as much light as possible to enter the camera lens. I then went on to use this when taking photos at Jersey War Tunnels.

A second major skill that I was introduced to was zine making. I had never used InDesign before, but quickly caught on with how to layout my images in a way that created a narrative that told showed the relationship between Islanders and their occupiers.

Examples of current experimentation:

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Occupation Vs. Liberation:

To get a better understanding of the Occupation, Jersey Heritage kindly allowed us to borrow some object from their collection to photograph.

The best way to photograph object is by placing them on a table top and with a continuous background. Documents can be photographed by placing them on top of a table and photographing from above.

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Image one:

Context/Concept:

Food shortages were common across Europe during WWII and despite rationing, people often went days without food. By December 1944, Jersey was short on food, fuel and medical supplies. The SS Vega first arrived in St. Helier on December 30th 1944, bringing with it much needed Red Cross packages. While the SS Vega sailed from Lisbon, its packages were from Canada and New Zealand. Without the Red Cross packages, many islanders across the Channel Islands would have starved to death.

Visual:

This image shows an open Red Cross package along with two bandage tins and an emergency rations tin. The objects are arranged as if the three tins were inside of the Red Cross package. A red background can also be seen.

Technical:

I took this image using an aperture of F/16, a shutter speed of 1/2 seconds and an ISO of 100. The objects were placed under soft lighting, with a soft box on the left and an LED light on the right. To give the image a red background, I placed two pieces of red A3 paper under the objects, concealing where I’d joined the paper to created a continuous effect.

Image Two:

Context/Concept:

During the Occupation, radios were banned to prevent Islander from receiving news about the War from Britain and France. All radios were to be confiscated, however, many Islanders hid their radios or even built their own crystal radio sets (as seen above).

Technical:

To take this image I again used an aperture of F/16, a shutter speed of 1/2 seconds and an ISO of 100. Soft lighting was also used from both the left and right and two black pieces of A3 paper used as a background.

Final Outcomes:

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The 21st has opened up opportunities for artists to put a modern twist on still life images. While keeping the original ideas from Vanitas, contemporary still life incorporates what is important to people now, such as technology, with the same ideas about vanity and mortality.

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Ori Gersht:

Israeli photographer and video creator, Ori Gersht demonstrates interesting ideas in his still life, favouring obvious choas and and violence rather than more subtle symbols shown in classic vanitas images.

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Most of Gersht’s photographs focus on what can be considered morbid ideas. He looks at the effects of violence, the distortion and perception of reality and draws inspiration from his own Jewish background. It is clear that Gersht wants to show the harsh truths that many of us are afraid to admit. For example, 2003’s ‘Apocalypse’ shows the effects human activity is having on the environment by capturing the aftermath of an oil spill in Spain.

“In many of my works, there is an act of destruction, which for me is kind of challenging the very notion of the still life because traditionally there is an eternal preservation,”

Analysis:

Visual:

Similar to Vanitas still life, this images represents the fragile nature of life by showing how easily something can be destroyed. Flowers are typically used to symbolise peace, however, Gersht uses his image subject them violence.

The image also clearly shows that the flowers were arranged to form a wreath. Wreaths can symbolise eternity due to their seemingly never ending appearance. However, this would crontradict the message of the Vanitas inspired image, suggesting that life continues or is never ending. A second and more likely meaning could come from the wreaths symbolism in Christianity. In Christianity, the wreath symbolises the circle of life. A part of this includes death. The image may be trying to show that everything has it time and death is part of the circle of life.

Technical:

History of colour photography and the Autochrome:

In 1839, when photographs were seen by the public for the first time, people were disappointed that colour had not been recorded. As an alternative to this artists began to hand colour monochrome prints.

Hand colouring monochromes continued to be popular as it cheap, however it did require a steady hand and it was often difficult to mimic the exact colour and shades of real life.

Before colour could be recorded in prints it had to be understood how colour actually worked. In 1861, Scottish physicist, James Clerk Maxwell conducted an experiment that proved that all colours could be made up of a combination of red, green and blue light. Unfortunately, Maxwell’s idea only worked for the first time practically out of sheer luck, but he had planted the seed for future ideas for successful colour photography.

In the years leading up to the invention of the autochrome, there were several attempted to create colour prints. Dr. John Joly came the closest to commercial success, however the plates used had a very limited sensitivity to colour.

At the beginning of the 20th century, after experimenting with colour prints since the 1890s, the Lumière brothers gave their first presentation of the autochrome to the French Academy of Science in 1904. By 1907, the autochrome was being produced commercially and the best part about them was that photographers could use their existing cameras.

So, how did it all work? During the manufacturing process of the autochrome plate, tiny grains of potato starch were dyed red, green or blue then spread out evenly on a glass plate. Next the plate was coated in a sticky varnish. Charcoal powder was used to fill in the gaps between the starch grains.The starch and charcoal was then flattened used a small roller. Finally, three coloured filter screens were placed on top of the glass plate and was coated with a panchromatic emulsion.

In use, autochrome plate required between 1 and 30 seconds exposure time. When taken light would pass through the colour filters of the plate to create an accurate display of the real life colours.

Emile F. Guiton:

Emile Guiton was a Jersey photographer who was particularly active during the German Occupation. However, his interest in photographs began long before this. Guiton was keen to experiment with colour after the creation of the autochrome in 1904. Stored at La Société Jersiaise, many of Guiton’s autochromes show assortments of flowers.

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Context/Concept:

During the 17th century Dutch artwork was primarily Vanitas still life. The paintings were to serve as reminder of mortality and the consequence of giving in to vanity. The artwork become popular just after the Dutch Republic had suffered two waves of Plague in the 1620s, this meant that people were now more aware of their own mortality. At this time there was also a strong rivalry between the Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity, both of which were promoting having a connection to God. This was also something that Vanitas aimed to symbolize by making people realize that their material possessions would not follow them to Heaven and they should not be something to value above religion.

Visual:

In this painting Willem Claesz Heda presents a perfect example of a Vanitas still life. The image shows the skull and possessions of a now dead man arranged out on a table in a clearly disorganized way. Heda would have arranged the items this way intentionally to show the chaos vanity can bring to a man’s life. During the 17th century it would not have been uncommon for people to strive for riches to better themselves and show off their wealth, however consequentially, they would become reckless and consumed by greed and power. Heda also shows off the gold compass by placing it at the head of the table in the light to represent how man can easily be temped by the promise of wealth.

Perhaps the most striking and unusual object in the painting is the skull and bones. This is obviously supposed to represent death, however, it could also be used to create shock factor for the painting’s observer. This would make this image stay with its observer allowing them to really consider the message of the painting and think about their mortality.

A third key symbol in this painting is the snuffed out candle at the back of the table. This, not only shows the age of painting as it clearly indicates that it was sometime before the invention of electricity (1800s), but also symbolizes that life can also been stuffed out.

One of Heda’s other obvious symbols is the empty goblet in the center of the image. The cup represents two things. The first being riches. A goblet would have been an item found at the dinner table of the wealthy to enjoy wine with their food as they were the only people who would have been able to afford such a well crafted item as well as the wine that would have filled it. Wine again represents wealth as the the grapes used to make it would have likely been imported from Spain or France as part of an expensive trade deal. The second important detail about the goblet is that it it empty. This is to show the reality behind the emptiness of life and to represent how our material goods have no value in the after life.

In the background of the painting a hourglass can been seen. This is to represent time running out. It suggests that our time among the living has a time limit that is constantly drawing closer to its end.

Finally, Heda has placed two books under the skull in this painting, one closed book and one open with sheet music written on it. The presence of the book is to represent pride in knowledge. It was common that wealthy men would become scholars and dedicate their time to learning. Being educated would have been sign of status and wealth as only the wealthy would have been able to afford to send their children to school. The sheet music may also represent this, however it more common for music to be used as a symbol for enjoyment, entertainment or perhaps to resemble to life coming to an end and fading away in the same way a song would.

Still life images typically consist of fruits, flowers or household objects. The image captures a staged assortment of objects, placed to simply show them off or to have a hidden meaning.

17th Century Realism:

During the 17th century, still life painting were an emerging genre in Dutch culture. These paintings were known for their realism and ability to show off the objects in them. Since painting was still an art for the wealthy, many still life images from this time were commissioned by the rich to show off their wealth and economic success.

Vanitas:

However, the Dutch also used still life to communicate a slightly more morbid message. Vanitas paintings are easily recognizable by the presence of a human skull in the image. These painting aimed to convey the consequence of vanity and giving in to pleasure. Symbols of death greatly contrasted those of riches in other still life paintings.

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As a follow up to the interview with Hinualt and Joyce, we were given the opportunity to photograph the pair in the studio.

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Concept/Context:

For this image I wanted Hinault to appear to be remembering the past. During the interview he mentioned that the Occupation was something he now found ‘hard to remember’ but he could ‘never forget’ it. This is something that I wanted the portrait to show.

I also knew when I took the photo that I would later use Lightroom to make the image black and white. This was to mimic the colourless images that would have been taken during the 1940s, before colour photography was available.

Visual:

The above image shows Hinault looking off to the side of the camera. I asked him to do this as I wanted to create a distant, far-off look on his face. This was to show that Hinault was lost in thought, remembering the Occupation. The look of content on his face suggests that he is remembering on the more pleasant experience from that time.

A second feature of the image is the choice I made to make the image black and white. I did this for two reasons. The first being that I wanted to make the image resemble those from the 1940s. The second reason, was to give the image a slight bitter-sweet feeling. While Hinualt’s face shows that he may be reminiscing a positive memory from the Occupation, the monochrome look of the image as a whole adds a sense of sadness that contrasts this. This represents that idea that while there were the occasional good thing that happened, the five year occupation was a tragic time for the people of Jersey and the survivors now find it difficult to think about without tearing up, something that both Hinualt and Joyce demonstrated during the interview.

Technical:

I took this image in the studio using a shutter speed of 1/25secs, an aperture of F/16 and an ISO of 100. Soft boxes were used to illuminate Hinualt’s face and prevent shadows using a light from behind.

Experimentation:

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