How can technical elements in Doug Dubois’ and Jeff Walls approaches to photography be used to analyse the identity of their subjects?
Identity/ʌɪˈdɛntɪti/noun 1.the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. (Oxford dictionary)
It is often stated that one does not have a true identity and that identity is something constructed by individual experiences. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment” (A Word To The Wise, January 13, 2014). My study will be exploring convoluted themes surrounding the idea of identity. These themes will be developed through the medium of photography and my own responses more specifically through the operation and style of insider documentary photography. Growing up as a young male in South Africa, I was taught lessons many young men are taught. A lot of these lessons where taught through a sport that has been a been a part of my weekly life since a young age. Weather it was running around barefoot on the dry, frost covered pitch at the local rugby club on a South African winters evening, or gathering in numbers with friends over a braai to watch a big fixture on the summer weekends, rugby has always been a part of who I am and a segment of my identity. Rugby has always been a sport that carries with it many stereotypical notions of identity. I believe rugby carries pride, patriotism, brotherhood and endurance within it. It was always a measure of toughness and strength. Two elements that are held in high value. However, these notions can loose their value when seen from the wrong perspective. Often these ideas associated with rugby can mutate into very toxic pressures placed on individual players. Hypermasculinity can have quite a negative effect when talking about identity. These pressures are ones that I have felt growing up under a traditionalist, rugby loving roof. The idea that ‘big boys don’t cry’ is something that has been planted in mine and many of my peers heads growing up. These discourses are what I want to explore when undertaking this study, overall proving they have a major affect on a young mans identity and how they present themselves amongst a community. I have chosen to analyse the work of Doug Dubois along with the efforts of Jeff Wall to gain inspiration and footing for this project. I have chosen these artists due to their narrative focused approach to photography as well as the straight aesthetic quality and ability to capture subjects exact emotions. For historical and contextual references and I will be studying pictorialism and straight photography. My own photographic responses will include an insider documentary style of a sequential narrative exploring the identity of an individual sportsman in his personal life as well as responses showing the scene of these individuals in action and in a team environment.
Historical and Theoretical Contexts
The premise of my hypothesis will require an understanding of the theoretical and historical contexts associated with the medium of photography. Realism is a photographic and artistic movement that emerged in the photographic world in the 1910s. The approach to my study concentrates on the genre of documentary photography which is a form of straight photography, categorized as realism. Realism was a break-away from pictorialism which included more tableaux methods apposed to straight documentary works. Pictorialism focused on the establishing photography as an art form rather than a way of documentation. It focused on migrating away from commercialism and making photography a handmade process overall aspiring to achieve an aesthetic which made photographs look like art pieces, such as paintings and drawings using a variety of way to manipulate photographs from smudging lenses, scratching negatives and using chemicals in the darkroom. Unlike pictorialism, realism was associated with making imagery that looked the same as what the photographer saw in the viewfinder of the camera. Realism took on an emphasis on geometric framing and a focus on shape and form taking on an almost abstract aesthetic which was noticeable in two early photographers of the realism movement, Alexander Rodchenko and Jaromir Funke. These two images give insight into how realism was introduced into the medium of photography. I have chosen these images, more to begin the analysis of the technical elements of an image relating to form and shape, which realism focused on, rather than typical straight photography that emerged from this movement, for example Blind Woman, 1916 by Paul Strand.
Alexander Rodchenko’s image on the left contains harsh natural light to create the intense shadows bordering each of the subjects. He used a narrow aperture to create a deep depth which is supported by the leading lines running parallel through the image. His image has been infused with sharp highlights and deep blacks to accentuate the shadows and the images tonal range. Rodchenko’s image also includes repetition, this is seen through all the duplicating steps. This image also has a sinister essence with the baby’s face emerged in a shadow it almost juxtaposes that an innocent being could be portrayed as having an evil soul. Jaromir Funke’s image contains abstract light experimentation that plays tricks on the mind. He uses a harsh fluorescent looking light to draw out shadows and create the images contrasting tones. The image contains a lot of sharp geometrical features which frame certain streams of light and let through others. His image is slightly under exposed to add depth to the shadows. A high ISO has been used to add sensitivity to the film which has created a slight grain and given the image texture. The space in the image is quite populated with little negative space. He has also shot the shapes at an angle instead of straight on which gives a unique perspective to how the shadows elope and given the image more depth. In order to further analyse how this realism can be used through a documentative eye and begin developing a narratology viewpoint in order to answer my hypothesis I looked at the work of Jeff Wall.
Jeff Wall
Jeff Wall is best known for constructing and photographing elaborate mise-en-scènes, which he displays in wall-mounted light boxes as large-scale colour images. He takes his cues from the neorealism of Italian cinema, working with nonprofessional actors to stage scenes of everyday life. The above is Jeff Wall’s image titled, ‘Passer-by’ (1996). It is a street photography image where Jeff has captured a naturally occurring event. An event that he has encountered almost by accident that portrays a scene and can be interpreted beyond the frame by using intuition. This encapsulates one of Wall’s strong views of what makes an intriguing and meaningful image. “I think the pictorial problems emerge from the accidental encounter that reveals the subject” (Quote from David Company’s So Present, so invisible)
The image is of a sidewalk in what seems like an urban American suburb. Framed in the centre of the image is a tree, and on either side of the tree we see two men. The man in the foreground is wearing denim jeans and a denim jacket, we cannot see his face as he is looking over his shoulder at the other man while continuing to walk. The other man in the background is running towards a stop sign in the distance in the opposite to the man in the foreground. Overall the image has an overwhelming feeling with a low exposure and abundance of shadows the image has a sober emotion throughout. The image has a wide tonal range with the man in the foreground being well lit, along with an illuminated white wall which possesses the images highlights. In the background where the man is running is very dark and underexposed giving the images its pure black’s and therefore this wide tonal range. This tonal range connotes a sense of innocence for the well exposed man in the foreground who can be seen looking over his shoulder into what can seem like a world of darkness he is leaving behind. The man in the background is presented as a more corrupt character in the scene as he can be seen to run towards the theoretical ‘ dark side’. This lighting looks as if it has been achieved using an artificial source of lighting during the night time to achieve the vast contrast between the foreground and background. The lighting casts long shadows from the subjects and the tree in the centre of the image. These shadows aid in making the image significantly more dramatic as it adds more to the dark, ominous aesthetic while introducing a sense of depth. These shadows also connote to the theme of innocence and corruption, almost insinuating the man in the foreground is leaving his dark side behind him. The lighting also adds a shiny highlight to the leaves of the tree in the middle of the image. This gives it a glistening texture adding to the innocence of the foreground, while the background remains without light and therefore keeps a grainy texture adding to the theme of corruption. Analysing the method Wall used to create this theme of corruption in his image can be recognised as a fundamental ingredient to the way in which I will be studying the tenets of identity in a way where discourses of masculinity can corrupt and battle a young rugby player’s sense of themselves. Returning to the notion of Jeff’s use of an aesthetic created by photographic methods, I think this method of casting shadows shouldn’t be overlooked. It can bring more meaning to how photography is interpreted. The development of modern photography has preached a certain aesthetic to be correct, I think Jeff’s work challenges this. Having these drooping shadows can be undesirable by the modern photographer seeking to achieve this ‘correct’ aesthetic with a lot of photographers using fill-lighting to cancel out shadows in the background. Jeff challenged this view and believe in a balance between aesthetics and narrative. He used the shadows to add to the narrative of this image. “it’s not about some divide between the documentary mode or documentary style and cinematography – photography lives, I think, by means of the infinitely nuanced interplay between those modes.” (David Company’s So Present, so invisible)
Jeff used a narrow aperture to achieve the depth of field in the image and get everything in focus which allows him to tell relay the narrative of innocence and corruption between the foreground and background. Shooting with a closed aperture also aids in underexposing the image and making it appear darker. The way the image is framed where the tree separates the two men and the man who represents corruption is hiding behind the tree almost representing hiding from his true identity.
“I don’t agree about the weak or strong claim dichotomy. I don’t think there’s a better or best way to make any art that can be known in advance and turned into a guidance or criterion.” (David Company’s So Present, so invisible). Jeff Wall’s perspective of photography presents the importance to investigate pictorialism and how imagery can create art. He talks about how photography is like poetry where all elements of a photos narrative and aesthetic qualities evoke emotion and relay purpose like a poem does. This aligns with the above Quotes from David Company’s So Present, so invisible where Jeff discusses the relationship between the vernacular and the pictorial and how there is no one way to create art. I believe that the strongest pictorial images originate from a documentation of accidental circumstances that outline a subject. I believe art can be interpreted in all images that relay a narrative and also the importance of imagery in accurately documenting in an artistic fashion. I therefore wholly agree with Jeff’s view on photography. Another photographer who explores narrative through documentary photography is Doug Dubois.
Doug Dubois
Doug DuBois (born 1960) is an American photographer living in Syracuse, New York.
Most of DuBois’s photographs are portraits, and he is best known for his intimate family shots. He is part of a group of contemporary American photographers, including Philip Lorca diCorcia, Laurie Simmons, Cindy Sherman and Tina Barney, who have depicted domestic spaces predicting transformations of family life in a “tide wave of individualism and late capitalist aspirations”. (Knelman, Sara (Spring 2020). “Domestic Comfort”. Aperture.)
During Doug’s tertiary education studying a Bachelor of Arts, his father experienced a near fatal accident and spent several years recuperating at home. Dubois noted the process as a “Kind of emotional protection” (All the Days and Nights, 2009). His mother was the primary caregiver of his father and during this time Doug experienced the decent of his mother into a deep depression resulting in subsequent decay of his parents marriage as well as the maturation of his siblings. Family portraits formed the basis for a group of works around his family that would continue for twenty-four years and eventually be published by Aperture as a picture book titled All the Days and Nights. DuBois’ concern for his family, both himself and others, was also evident in a later set of photographs, “Avella”, which presented life in the mining town Avella, where his father grew up. Themes of economic turmoil and provincial life are also central to a recent series of photographs by DuBois, published under the title My Last Day at Seventeen. This is the project I want will be taking inspiration from for my study. This is because Doug is able to unveil the true identity of the subjects in this project. He does this by capturing the scene in which they live and their personal styles that give us great personal insight into the subjects he shoots. His work forces the viewer to interrogate the subject by his use of central framing and and neutrally arranged compositions. His images are usually taken with a 4 x 5 large format camera which allow his to capture great amounts of crisp detail while laying down a blanket of warm hues used to accentuate gestural echoes, emotion and plays of light and texture.
The above image is part of Doug’s collection; “My Last Day at Seventeen”. This collection was published in 2015 and was a project to highlight themes of economic turmoil and provincial life as well as the idea of teenagers coming of age in these conditions. “Doug DuBois was first introduced to a group of teenagers from the Russell Heights housing estate while he was an artist-in-residence at the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh, on the southwest coast of Ireland. He was fascinated by the insular neighbourhood, in which “everyone seems to be someone’s cousin, former girlfriend, or spouse.” Little can happen there that isn’t seen, discussed, distorted beyond all reason, and fiercely defended against any disapprobation from the outside. DuBois gained entry when Kevin and Eirn (two participants of a workshop he taught) took him to a local hangout spot, opening his eyes to a world of not-quite-adults struggling — publicly and privately — through the last days of their childhood. Over the course of five years, DuBois returned to Russell Heights. People came and left, relationships formed and dissolved, and babies were born. Combining portraits, spontaneous encounters, and collaborative performances, the images in My Last Day at Seventeen exist in a delicate balance between documentary and fiction. A powerful follow-up to DuBois’ acclaimed first book, All the Days and Nights, this volume provides an incisive examination of the uncertainties of growing up in Ireland today, while highlighting the unique relationship sustained between artist and subject” (Aperture Foundation, 2015).
The image features a natural lighting scheme which brings authenticity to the idea of capturing the true nature of the location as well as the subject. This allows the image to be consistently exposed with no artistic efforts to create a darker mood but rather to capture detail from the scene. The image has a warm hue which accentuates a homely mood and the orange hair and warm skin of the Irish teenager. This hue helps achieve a smooth glow over the whole image.
Doug uses a narrow aperture to ensure both the Irish boy as well as the whole kitchen is in focus, this allows the viewer to see the coffee cups and the curtains and the syrup which gives insight into the subject and the themes of economic turmoil and provincial life.
The subject is positioned slightly left of centre frame, this allows focus to be placed equally on the subject and the scene around him to place focus on the aesthetic of provincial housing. It also gives the image a structure adherent to the rule of thirds.
The subject is seen to have his head resting on his hand with his facial expressions signalling he is unimpressed or bored. This presents ideas of the turmoil’s associated with growing up in an impoverished neighbourhood as an Irish teenager that Dubois was trying to capture. This emotion that Doug captures is part of an arranged tableaux encounter, however it is stated that the image in terms of its whereabouts and aesthetic formal elements are planned yet the emotion captured from the subject is not ‘staged’ for the most part. This complex, yet naturally occurring conversation between the photographer, the subject and the viewer is how the narrative of the subjects experiences and identity is captured. This relates back to the theories of Jeff Wall. Jeff states that “pictorial problems emerge from the accidental encounter that reveals the subject” (David Company’s So Present, so invisible). This approach of documentary photography will be the direction my personal investigation will follow in order to answer my hypothesis. This direction will allow the identity of a sportsman to be stripped and analysed through imagery, overall attacking the notion of identity .
This being said, it is evident that the photographic medium is effective in investigating, as well as portraying the identity and narrative of an individual. The combination of photorealism supplemented by a more tableaux approach allows for an insider viewpoint and a thorough narrative to be formed. By studying the technical elements of works from these photographers it is clear that certain photographic visual elements can be used to analyse the identity of their subjects. Overall showing that these approaches to imagery can be applied to my response to prove the adopted identity of young men in sports.
