Pictorialism

Time period: Late 1860s

Key characteristics/ conventions: Pictorialism is an approach to photography that emphasizes beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality. It approached the camera as a tool that, like the paintbrush and chisel, could be used to make an artistic statement. Thus photographs could have aesthetic value and be linked to the world of art expression.

Artists associated: Henry Peach Robinson, Julia Margaret Cameron, George Davison, Alfred Stieglitz, Fred Holland Day, Clarence H. White, Gertrude Käsebier, Robert Demachy,  Edward Steichen, Émile Joachim Constant Puyo, Anne W. Brigman, William Mortensen,

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: By manipulating the appearance of images through what some called “ennobling processes”, such as gum or bromoil printing, pictorialists were able to create unique photographs that were sometimes mistaken for drawings or lithographs.

Realism / Straight Photography

Time period: mid-20^th century

Key characteristics/ conventions: Straight photography for the first time, since the invention of photography, respects the medium’s own technical visual language. The camera’s distinctive vocabulary includes form, sharp focus, rich detail, high contrast, and rich tonalities. Straight photography is also synonymous with pure photography, since both terms describe the camera’s ability to faithfully reproduce an image of reality.

Straight photographers visualized the image before taking the photo. Straight photography, identified with a pure approach to the medium, was used across all fields of photography and different styles: from avant-garde photographs, documentary and street photography, to abstract photography. Each photographic style adapted the approach to emphasize its own treatment of form, sensory experience, or the changes in the social and cultural environment.

Artists associated: Diane Arbus, László Moholy-Nagy, Ansel Adams, Frederick Henry Evans, Paul Strand, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, Robert Capa, Eliot Porter, Rineke Dijkstra, Alison Rossiter

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Straight photography includes a process- and time-based approach. It represents immediacy, the passing of time as in history, or the freezing of time as in a snapshot. In a photograph, time is described by the movements of the subject.

Modernism

Time period:  Early 1900s – 1940s.

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

Artists associated: Gino Barsotti, Max Dupain, Alfred Stieglitz, Gino Barsotti, Paul Strand, Irving Penn, Man Ray, George Platt Lynes and Edward Steichen

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Paul Strand took modern photography by screwing in a false lens to one side of his camera pointing ahead while concealing the real lens under his arm facing his subjects.

Post-modernism

Time period: Second half of the 20th century

Key characteristics/ conventions: Postmodern photographers are particularly interested in the selective, constructed nature of the photograph.

Postmodern painting was often characterized by an abstract, or non-representational, approach; works often appeared to be random colors or scribbles without an overriding design or meaning. Postmodern photography takes the same approach, but the medium offers special challenges for the postmodernist. The camera captures a perfect representation of whatever is in front of the lens.

Artists associated: Cindy Sherman, William Eggleston, Jacky Redgate, Robyn Stacey, Yasumasa Morimura, Tracey Moffatt, Anne Zahalka

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Cindy Sherman creates staged, mock film stills in which she photographs herself dressed and posed in the style of the femme fatale, the vindictive housewife or the lovelorn teenager, exposing the stereotypical representation of women in art and film and revealing how identity is actually fluid.

Tracey Moffatt creates complex series of pictures that are consciously artificial, borrowing from both high art and popular culture to tell epic stories.

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Lewiz Baltz

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Clement Chapillon is a photographer based in the south of France. His work explores the territories, their people, and the links that unite them through a personal style borrowed from “poetic realism”. His narratives, at the border between the real and the imaginary, draw from current testimonies or old writings to document the geographical and mental space of places.

He made his first long-term documentary in Israel/Palestine entitled “Promise me a Land” to explore the various dimensions of the promised land. The series was published in an eponymous book by Kehrer Verlag and edited in many media (L’obs, Le Monde, Libération, Arte,…), won the Leica prize in Arles in 2017, and was exhibited in several institutions from Paris to Jerusalem (104, Tbilisi, MAC, Willy Brandt Center, CNAM…).

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Clément Chapillon’s latest book explores notions of solitude on a remote Greek island

Clément Chapillon had been visiting the picturesque Greek island of Amorgos, the easternmost island in the Cyclades archipelago, for 20 years. Amorgos’ dramatic terrain, both arid and scenic at once, compelled him. However, the isolation engendered by the wild landscape and geographical remoteness of Amorgos ultimately intrigued the artist.

Receiving support from the artist residency Fondation des Treilles in 2019, he set out to photograph his experience of the enclave and the emotions it provoked in him. Employing a medium format analogue camera, Chapillon travelled to the island on five separate occasions over two years, immersing himself in the solitude of his surroundings.

The American novelist Henry Miller reflected that “spiritual apparitions” punctuated his journey to Greece – a sentiment that resonated with Chapillon. His quiet images, drenched in the golden Greek sun, confer a sense of otherworldliness. However, an eerie silence and lethargy also pervade them. 

Collectively, the images question the idea and experience of “islandness”, as the photographer describes it, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in Amorgos’ atmosphere as Chapillon found it. 

Write a Statement of Intent that clearly contextualise.

What do you want to explore?

I would like to explore the theme of identity and how being on an island can disconnect us from other countries which could affect how connected we are with our families. This has led me to think about how we can make our own ‘Jersey family’ with the people we and our parents and meet along the way. I would also wish to explore the past and use older photos of both sides of my family and slowly merge them into recent photos of my ‘Jersey Family’.

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Why it matters to you?

I have decided on this idea as my project as I feel that showing how these people have gone from my parent’s friends when they first came over to Jersey and turned into people who I consider family as I have grown up around them. I also feel that this is a good way to show how I feel about Jersey and what islandness represents to me.

How do you wish to develop your project?

I would use old family photos which are of my parents when they were younger, something similar to my identity project, these photos will also be of my family from both my mum’s and dad’s sides. This is so that there can be a visual transition between the ‘blood family’ and the family that we made in Jersey. I will then take photos of my ‘Jersey Family’ which will include natural images where they don’t realise that they are being photographed so it shows them in a natural state, there will also be posed images, for example, portraits and group photos. I have chosen to use a few different styles of editing which will be similar to my identity project, but also manipulating pictures I had and rephotographing them. I will also explore collaging new and old photos to create new images that will be able to show many different images layering over one another.

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When and where do you intend to begin your study?

I would start my project by looking into old family photos which include when my parents didn’t live in Jersey and when they did. I will use individual photos of some of my relatives from both sides of the family as well as group photos to show my whole family being together. I enjoyed doing this in my identity project so I thought I would carry the idea over into this project. I would then merge photos together and edit them in a similar way to the photos above and below to make more creative pieces of work that will be eye-catching. I will also experiment in collaging with a combination of old and new photos. For my new photos, I will set up photoshoots with the different models I want to include where I will take portraits of some and include group photos which I might edit together. Furthermore, I will also photograph different family events where I will be able to capture photos of the people in my life who are natural and relaxed. I like this technique as I am able to create images that show a different side of a person which contrasts with the more posed images. I will try and photograph my posed images with a background that relates to my representation of Jersey, such a place which have meaning behind them to me and my ‘Jersey Family’.

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Make sure you describe your how you interpret the theme of ‘islandness’, subject-matter, topic or issue you wish to explore, artists references/ inspirations and final outcome – photobook or film.

You may wish to consider:

What makes Jersey special to you?

Jersey is a special island to me, as it has been my home for my entire life, and I have never known different. Jersey is the place where I grew up and found people who have helped to shape me into the person I am today, it has also given me friends and a family who have always been by my side, even if I move away Jerse will always be the special place I was raised. Jersey is also special due to its unique beaches, beautiful views and the amazing summers that have helped me make memories for life.

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What are the distinct qualities of island life?

Living on an island is a very unique experience that not many can say that have done, it has qualities that most people love and that bring people to the island life. Living on a small island allows you to have friends and family close (if they also live on the island) without having to travel far to get to them. Island life is also very safe which is appealing to people wanting g to start families or who have young families as they know there are low crime rates. One of the main qualities that draw people to living on an island is the beautiful scenery, especially the summers, with the amazing beaches and coastal walks. But Island life also has its downfalls where it can be very claustrophobic as there can be limited things to do as well as everyone knowing everyone. Overall, living on an island is a totally unique and surreal experience that not many people get to witness especially having grown up in that special environment.

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Rut Blees Luxemburg

Rut Blees Luxemburg, born in 1967, is a German-born British photographer. Her technique is to take photographs at night, mostly exploring the urban landscape. She is a Tutor at the Royal College of Art. In 2020, Luxemburg was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society, Bristol.  The most comprehensive monograph on her work, Commonsensual, was published by Black Dog in 2009 and includes a critical essay by Regis Durand.

“The camera allows what you called a transformation. Something other than what you see during your mundane, everyday experience of the city to emerge. Something which is there, but can be sensed better than it can be seen. A camera allows this to be unveiled or show.”

This quote implies that photography is a better way to view the world, with the camera being referred to as providing a different point of view for people, making life a lot more interesting and showing individuals how much more exciting photography can make our world appear. This quote stands out to me as quite inspirational as it means that the whole concept of photography and image making is one that can alter someone’s perception of the world, making them more optimistic about the life they live.

“The poem seems like one soul speaking to another but within a public place… It is writing of the body. So I came and photographed it. It seems private. I’m attracted to the Heimlichkeit of a space in public. A space that allows for a moment a repose.

This illustrates that the interviewer has very much read between the lines of the meaning of the book and the point of the view in within it has been written it. The interviewer’s opinions regarding how the book has been constructed is then supported when Rut Blees Luxemburg states “I’m attracted to the Heimlichkeit” which translates to ‘secrecy’ in Germany. This provides evidence that Luxemburg likes to explore how private matters can appear so public, and alternatively the opposite too. With public matters seeming so hidden at time of need.

“The idea of Liebeslied suggests that intimacy of communication. An attention to another experience of the public. Not the great, grand declamation but the small theatrical spaces and gestures.”

In this section, its being suggested that communication is something which is subjective and something very person to individuals. I think that this is very important to note as the photographer has really considered how their images will impact other as the theme of intimacy is one which could be considered one that is challenging to photograph.

“To dare to have this encounter, which might be an encounter with the self, or with what goes beyond the experience or appearances. It looks deeper to levels of experience beneath.”

This is a complicated quote which is filled with highly sophisticated speech throughout this part of the interview. However, this explains that learning about your full truth through photography is not just withing the images you create, it can be about how you take your images, your moral standpoint when it comes to creating images, or even the ideas and concepts that you have when creating images. Image making can also be a reflection of your life experiences and how you have challenged and went through them.

“Water at night is a very powerful image… It suggests an immersion. In my past work I was very interested in vertiginous sensations. In this one I am much more interested in the sensation of immersion. Of course the river reflects, so it has this curios relation to photography.”

This provides evidence that the water is a vital party of Luxemburg’s work, and it has a lot of emotional towards in as it is a moving aspect of the images, that can tell natural and unnatural stories. Additionally, the photographer is invested in the senses that can be created and implied through photography, as images can convey and create image even though they are just visual.

“It’s not so much so much a fascination with photography, but a fascination with the possibilities of the large format camera and the long exposure which allows me to let chance enter the work. The long exposure leaves space for unexpected things while the shutter is open. So contingency is a big part of my way of taking images, of letting in that which is outside of my control.”

The use of the camera and its settings is very important as it can make images look very aesthetic or destroy the quality and potential of work. Especially considering that some books that Rut Blees Luxemburg all only filled with low light and high-resolution images, it means that this is specifically very important to her, this is another vital aspect component throughout her work.

“I edit before I shoot, which means I take a very deliberate number of photographs. The consideration and the chance come before taking the photographs. The consideration and the chance come before taking the image and during the image and not afterwards.”

Luxemburg really considers how the process she goes through before going out on photoshoots and this is very important, and it means that she thinks about the good and bad consequences of throughout planning her photographs. This could mean that her work lacks some abstract pieces, but Luxemburg may not value this kind of photography or aim to produce it.

Image Analysis

This is one of my favourite pieces of Rut Blees Luxemburg’s work, this is a very legible image that could stand out anywhere it was placed. The vibrancy of this image almost makes it look fake and very much edited. I think that this is important to note as the impact of human life on the environment is one that is very much edited and significant, as this could be shown through the editing of this image. I think what’s significant about this image as it links to Luxemburg’s Liebeslied project which is the idea of public and private intimacy. This links to this image as it is of a block of flats, and each window will probably contain and capture different people’s lives. Meaning that collectively this image contains a very private place, someone’s home, but in a very private and intimate way, as this is suggested through the lighting and composition of the image. The building being in the centre of the photograph could suggest that the concept of privacy was the main focus of the idea being this image.