I liked the concept of multiple people in one photo, where the viewer has the freedom to hone in on any subject. Each person in the photo is telling their own story and could be considered the subject if the image. In response I captured head shot photos of friends stood together but each with their own character.
Response 2:
I enjoyed the humour of this image, yet the genuine nature of it. This candid shot embodies a sense of fun and a less serious side to photography, which I recreated by taking candid shots of the subject in a situation where humour and fun was inevitably going to arise and be able to be captured in an image.
Response 3:
This image in another that shows multiple subjects in the frame but the differentiating factor in this image is the fact that the subjects appear at different heights. As well as conveying the activities of the subjects, having this structure helps to bring the image together in a new way. In response I incorporated myself and a friend in the portrait image, showing us both at differing heights, separate in stature, but visibly both important to the image.
Response 4:
This image is relatively busy. People’s legs can be seen in the background making the only fully visible person in the photograph the focal point of the composition. It is here that a story is being told. The image captures the man’s inebriated state, emphasised through the blurry nature of the image to show the subject’s perspective of the situation. To recreate this I lowered the shutter speed to create a double exposure effect of a moving figure, similarly to Gilden’s piece.
Response 5:
I enjoy the candid nature of this image and fact that the subject is in the middle of an action when the photograph is captured. The photograph is framed by the man cupping the lighter to spark the cigarette in his hands. In response I took candid photographs of the subject as he was drinking from a water bottle, which allowed me to capture the hand holding the bottle clear bottle which almost gives the illusion of reflecting Gilden’s image..
An Iconic street photographer with a unique style, Bruce Gilden was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1946. He first went to Penn State University but he found his sociology courses too boring for his temperament and he quit college. Gilden briefly went with the idea of being an actor but in 1967, he decided to buy a camera and to become a photographer.
Although he did attend some evening classes at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Bruce Gilden is to be considered substantially a self-taught photographer. Right from childhood, he has always been fascinated by the life on the streets and the complicated and fascinating motion it involves, and this was the spark that inspired his first long-term personal projects, photographing in Coney Island and then during the Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Over the years he has produced long and detailed photographic projects in New York, Haiti, France , Ireland, India, Russia, Japan and now in America. Since the seventies, his work has been exhibited in museum and art galleries all over the world and is part of many collections. The photographic style of Bruce Gilden is defined by the dynamic accent of his pictures, his special graphic qualities, and his original and direct manner of shooting the faces of passers-by with a flash. Gilden’s powerful images in black and white and now in color have brought the Magnum photographer worldwide fame.
Gilden has received many awards and grants for his work, including:
National Endowments for the Arts fellowships (1980, 1984 and 1992),
French “Villa Medicis Hors les Murs” grant (1995),
Grants from the New York State Foundation for the Arts ( 1979, 1992 and 2000),
A Japan Foundation Artist Fellowship (1999)
A Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, in 2013.
Bruce Gilden has published 15 monographs of his work, among them:
Facing New York, 1992; Bleus, 1994;
Haiti, 1996 (European Publishers Award for Photography);
After The Off, 1999;
Go, 2000; Coney Island, 2002;
A Beautiful Catastrophe, 2004;
Foreclosures, 2013;
A complete Examination ofMiddlesex, 2014.
Face, and HeyMister Throw Me Some Beads!, his new book, 2016.
“Do you think of the things you’re photographing as ‘dark’?“
“The world isn’t great, ok? Look what’s going on in the world. from the environment, we’re polluting the world, to terrorism, to everything. Then you have all the governments and the politicians who are all full of shit, they never tell the truth, they’re always promoting what the best deal is for themselves… I mean, come on! So, my pictures are showing that there are problems in this world. I think that the only way you can solve a problem is by confronting it. I’m an optimist.”
In some of your most iconic pictures, one can indeed get the feeling that you can see the soul of the persons you shoot. It seems that what you show is beyond the physical appearance of the subject. Is it the sole goal of your work or just one of its facets for you?
It’s not the sole goal, I don’t think about that really. I put my own soul into it. This is why I can tell you or tell somebody “With all I’ve done, you’re not going to be able to do the same as me. Maybe you’ll do worse, maybe you’ll do better, maybe you’ll do equal.” But the thing is I’ve had a very tough background, emotionally. My parents were pretty strange and I suffered. So I’m putting all of that into my pictures. If you look at the Face (Dewi Lewis – 2015) book, there was a quote by Oscar Wilde that I found two days before printing (interestingly enough, Oscar Wilde and I were born on the same day, October 16): “Every portrait that is painted with feelings is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter”. So those people are me in some way, shape and form. And I put a lot in. I’m not doing it for anyone, it’s not about money, I just have to do it! Just think now, I’m 69 and yet I’m doing new work. How many photographers at 69 are doing new work? I’m not talking if you are using photography to create in a studio, I’m talking about going out there with people. You would be hard-pressed to find many people at 69 doing good work. That means I’m passionate about it and I compete with myself. Even if I had to stop shooting for three months because of a leg injury but now it’s healed. It’s tough to go out there now and sometimes I question myself. Because once I can’t do it, then I’ll stop. I wanted to do the Face project for 20 years, maybe 30 years, a long time ago. I had an idea to do it and then I found the right camera: the Leica S. But I don’t research, I’m not a researcher for equipment. So I found the right camera and that’s how this came about. For the last few years in New York, I was really bored and I needed to do something differently. I would go out but it was really an effort. I mean, it’s always an effort, but it was really an effort. You have to push yourself. The good photographs make it all worthwhile but who knows when you’re going to get a good photograph? I also should say that with the faces, it’s a lot easier to do good pictures than candid photography because when you combine a lot of stuff in the street, anything can go wrong. The stage set is set for you. In my pictures, people are walking. I’m a perfectionist so I couldn’t feel good about a picture unless it’s very good. Even with the faces, I’ve done those for about two and a half years and they got a lot stronger. I have some good ones from the beginning but as I went further, I saw how much more I could get out of it. It’s a learning process.
Selected quotes:
“The world isn’t great, ok? Look what’s going on in the world. from the environment, we’re polluting the world, to terrorism, to everything.”
“I’ve had a very tough background, emotionally. My parents were pretty strange and I suffered. So I’m putting all of that into my pictures.”
“Every portrait that is painted with feelings is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter” – Face (Dewi Lewis – 2015) book
^^ Can photographs actually capture feelings and emotions or can they not be taken on face value?
Opening quote
^^” Every portrait that is painted with feelings is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter”
Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study?
^^what I will be studying is whether photographs can capture every daylife effectively, or whether there is more to life/emotions/thoughts that we cannot see in a photo
Which artists will you be analysing and why?
^^Find 2 artists and analyse why they can be useful “I will be studying ** and ** as their work links with my personal investigation in the follow ways
How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
^^I will be responding to their work and essay question through the production of a photobook and final prints which display my theme/take on occupation vs. liberation/photoshoots and a hands on approach which will get me to think about my essay question throughout my work.
Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian. Link to powerpoints about isms and movements.
^^Visual culture (solarization/superimposition) related to my response/postmodernism. Make links to art movements.
Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
^^ artist that shows face value/photographs lie/best of OR artist that shows friendships/how can you convey love/emotions/attachment in a photo
Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
^^ artist that shows deeper sides of lifeeither things we cannot physically show/only express OR the side that we keep hidden from others/personal/shame/secrets
Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced.
^^Similarities and differences to both artist work/approach and my own response/method/final outcomes
After cropping my images, I then led on to create montages with a few of the photos and in this I will use images or objects that represent and relate to an individual within the image. This will add a more p[personal feel to the image an create a different feel.
Quick selection tool.
Ctrl-T so I can move and resize the image I have placed on top.
For my first shoot, I will be looking through family photos and albums to look at the three generations of my family; my grandparents, my parents and me. Through the years of taking photos, it has been highly developed from photos being printed and placed into albums which was mainly what my grandparents and parents did, up until now where phones have been developed to where you can now save the images on your phone, so their has been a decline in physical album making and the use of disposable cameras. Not only has the way of storing photos changed, but the context of the images have changed as well. During my grandparents years, photos were a privileged thing to have and wasn’t a common thing along with photos being staged and directed, however photos are more now candid and capturing the moment as it is, which tends to be a common trend within baby pictures due to the lack of communication between baby and parents, but as the child begins to age and are able to communicate photos become more staged between parents and baby’s, which is a trend through my family photos.
During this shoot I mainly focused on photos that my grandparents and parents took, which allowed me to see how times had developed as photos my parents had taken where in colour and more in focus compared to the photos from my grandparents which where more out of focus and in black and white.
How do family photographers Sam Harris and Inaki Domingo capture everyday life and the decisive moment?
Can the recreation of family portraits show how relationships have developed and changed over time?
Photography and Archives / Memory:
How has
Boltanski, Abril and Toroptsov represented the concept of capturing the
invisible and reflecting the meaning of memory through the medium of
photography?
How have concepts of family, separation and memory been explored in the photo books of Sarello, Casanova and Germain?
Photography and Identity/ Autobiography/
self-portraiture:
In what wat is
identity and autobiography expressed in the work of Chino Otsuka and Tom
Hunter?
How is the work of Corrine Day and Phillip Toledano autobiographical?
Photography and Feminism/Gender studies:
How is the work of Claude Cahun and Cindy Sherman
questioning the politics of gender and female stereotypes?
In what ways do photographers such as Bertien van Manen, Corinne Day and Nan Goldin represent intimacy in their works?
Photography and Portraiture:
Does portraiture idealise or criticise a sitter? Comparing the work of Arnold Newman and Yousef Karsh Does a portrait tell us more about the person portrayed or the photographer?
My question:
Can photographs actually capture feelings and emotions or can they not be taken on face value?
For my first photo-shoot, I will be focusing on the liberation of male gender stereotypes and roles. I have decided to dedicate a photo-shoot to this, as I think including both male and female stereotypes, and struggles related to the pressure of abiding to a strict “gender model”. In being able to showcase men breaking from the gender norms of being strong, unemotional, adventurous and competitive, I will be able to show a new perspective, where men are presented as being delicate and emotional human beings, and are not confined to the characteristics that society has laid out for them. For this photo-shoot, I will take a lot of inspiration from photographer Phoebe Jane Barrett, as in her work she portrays the delicate, emotional side of men, and draws attention to the unrealistic belief that all men must be emotionally detached and constantly strong in order to qualify as having masculinity. In taking inspiration from Barrett, I will be showing contrast between stereotypical femininity and masculinity in my work, and will be highlighting this contrast through overt and obvious visual examples, such as placing a masculine object/action/concept directly next to a feminine one, or merging the two together.
I have decided to take the approach of merging together both feminine and masculine traits in an obvious but thought provoking manner, and in order to do so, I will be using a male subject, and will be placing him in stereotypically feminine situations and scenarios, all the while keeping his identity hidden from view. In doing this, the viewer will be forced to only consider the contrast between the male model and feminine activity/scene, and will only be able to develop an opinion on the actions themselves, rather than the identity of the subject. Removing the identity of the subject also allows for the conclusions that the viewer develops, to be generalized to all individuals and scenarios in which there is a contrast between the stereotypical “gender” of a specific activity/scene/scenario, rather than focusing on the identity and individual scenario that the subject is in.
I have produced a mood-board in order to collect some of my ideas for my 1st photo-shoot:
To what extent can we trust documentary photography to tell the truth about reality?
“The process of manipulation starts as soon as we frame a person, a landscape, an object, or a scene with our cameras: we choose a portrait or landscape format” (Bright, S. and Van Erp, H. 2019; 18)
The quote above raises a valid point on how artists are constantly manipulating photographs, even when they are not aware, in order to create a captivating images for viewers. This point allows us to consider how photography is a form of secondary data, making our analysis of what seems to be reality within the image unreliable, creating the argument of how documentary photographs do not truthfully depict reality
My personal investigation looks at my grandparent’s lifestyle and how it has been influenced by the time period they grew up in, the 1940’s. I have explored the influence of religion and spirituality, gender roles within the family structure and social norms during this time period which are still present in their lifestyle to this day. Holding strong connections with my grandparents led me to want to base my project on them, as I know I will be able to easily retrieve useful insight into their lifestyle, enhancing the imagery I produce, on top of forming a piece of work in which my family will cherish. In this essay I aim to discuss the extent to which documentary photography accurately portrays reality, with reference to two documentary style photographers, Sam Harris and Walker Evans. In this essay I will be referring to Walker Evan’s photographic series entitled ‘let us now praise famous men’ and Sam Harris’ photographic series ‘The Middle of Somewhere’. Utilising photographers who captured imagery in two different periods of time, contextual and contemporary comparison, allows me to illustrate whether the reliability has changed overtime or stayed consistent, providing a valid argument.
The art movement of realism and straight photography looks at creating imagery which showcase life how it is, this emerged in the 1840’s. Artists who work within this area look at raising social and cultural issues relevant within society at that time, in order to make the audience aware of this issue in hope something can be done to make a change. This area looks at documentary photography and photojournalism to document the events which are occurring. Artists stick to the original techniques and purpose of photography, the use of photography for science, to create detailed, sharp images showcasing real life. With my topic being based in my grandparent’s lifestyle, I felt that using documentary photography would be the most appropriate to showcase this, as well as the project looking social issues of family structure and gender roles being raised, thus drawing connections with realism.
Bibliography:
Bright, S. and Van Erp, H.(2019), Photography Decoded. London: octopus Publishing House
The first photoshoot in my personal investigation will introduce the setting of the current ‘spare room’:
Explore lighting in the room using shutters/curtains for best ambience,
Highlight bareness and clear lack of use of the room itself,
Opportunities to show its previous uses as a spare bedroom and playroom,
The first steps towards the redecoration of the room begin with new paint and simple wall decorations,
Portraits of subject painting,
Close ups of paint/card swatches/brushes/rollers/paint on hands,
(Paint/card swatches for photo-book).
Photoshoot 2:
The next photoshoot in my personal investigation will take place in a small social setting. The aim of this shoot is to compose several images, both portraits and close ups of objects:
Two parts of the shoot: day time/night time,
Explore lighting in the car both during the day and at night; shade from trees/street lights/weather/car lights/glare,
Portraits of subjects socialising,
Use of wing/rear view mirrors to frame the shot,
Close ups of objects used by subjects/interior of car/reflection in mirror/chiaroscuro,
Eye contact/posing/candid,
Take photographs from both inside and outside the car/windows up or down/headlights on,
I went out on a photoshoot to Devil’s Hole and set off around 4:30pm, I unfortunately timed my photoshoot badly and found it difficult once reaching the cliff edge as it had settled to be completely dark, unfortunately this fell badly in using the camera and trying to generate well lit and produced photographs.
I was able to gain a happy accident out of the photoshoot however with an image I did not know I had taken, a blurred photograph that I feel generates a lot of effect with placing the idea of mystery to the photoshoot and the story I was trying to replicate and be influenced by. I experimented with the photograph in both black and white and in colour, I personally prefer the colour photograph due to the dark blue hue being produced in the background as well as the shape given to the figure with the red, orange and yellow tones.
