David Hockney

About David Hockney

David Hockney was born in Bradford, United Kingdom on July 9th in 1937. Hockney was preoccupied with art from a young age and attended Bradford College of Art from 1953-1957. Following this, he attended the Royal College of Art London 1959-1962, where he achieved a gold medal in the graduate competition.

Hockney is an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s and is considered one of the most influential British artist of the 20th century. Hockney, although a talented photographer, is most famous for his paintings, here are some examples:

He has won many impressive awards such as the Independent Publisher Book Award for Fine Art and the Shakespeare Prize.

His work has sold for millions at auction, for example, his 1972 piece Pool with Two Figures sold at auction for over £70 million in 2018.

This is an upcoming David Hockney exhibit at the Lightroom in Kings Cross from the 22nd of Feb to the 4th of June. There will be an incredible sound system and it allows the audience to experience the world through Hockney’s eyes.

Analysis

This is a collage of digital photographs by David Hockney of Pearl Blossom Highway in 1986. The mise en scene presents a road with several road signs, rubbish on the floor and surrounded by a barren desert, the sky is a serene blue. This image has been created by hundreds of separate images that have been collaged together. The image seems very saturated and warm. There are some wide images and some close up, but all are in focus. The shutter speed is very fast due to the crisp images. It does follow the rule of thirds however, there are many leading lines that lead us to the end of the road, as shown.

David Hockney states: “The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.”

Opinions

Personally, I really like Hockney’s photography, it is so interesting and creative. I especially like all the vibrant colour he uses. I would love to recreate some of these images possibly in town. I think it would look great around the aqua splash and cinema with the water slides.

It also could look good in liberation square.

GUSTAVE LE GRAY

Jean-Baptiste Gustave Le Gray was born 30 August 1820 was a French painter and photographer who was often referred to the “the most important French photographer of the nineteenth century” because of his innovate and famous techniques. He began by studying painting in Switzerland and lived in Italy between 1843-1846 and painted portraits and scenes of the countryside. He then crossed into photography in the early years of photography’s development.

DAFNA TALMOR

Based in London, Dafna Talmor is a artist, photographer and lecturer. She creates her work by cutting up two negatives before merging them back together while being developed in the darkroom.

Both could be described as landscape pictures. What kinds of landscapes do they describe?

Both describe seascapes.

What similarities do you notice about these two pictures?

They both have film cut ups, Dafna Talmors may be more obvious but Gustave Le Gray also cut and stuck his photos back together to create collages of the pictures. They both used a similar technique of cutting up the image into multiple pieces before taking them back to the darkroom to reconstruct together. I have highlighted the areas in these two photos:

What differences do you notice?

Gustave Le Gray focused more on more on seascapes whereas Dafna Talmor pictured everything from mountain landscapes to seascapes. Gustave Le Gray also used to images of the same place (each with different exposures) and put them together whereas Dafna Talmor cut up the same images and put them all back together instead of two individual pictures.

What words/phrases best describe each of these landscapes?

Gustave Le Gray: classic, simple, moving, exciting

Dafna Talmor: artistic, different, abnormal, mysterious

These 8 page spreads all began with a simple white background and by positioning different images in as man6y different positions as possible. From this simplicity i explored the Adobe In Design software and tried adding drop shadows, coloured backgrounds, text etc and created the outcomes above.

Double Page Spread

I found it difficult to squish text and a vast range of images onto a single page spread then decided to create two with the exact same background and design and share images and information across the two, finally presenting them together once printed.

Text Development

I also experimented with the backgrounds of the spreads by using my own images to create them. This created an amazing effect; however, disrupted the clarity of text making it difficult to read (example shown above). Therefore I added a simple layer of translucent grey which allowed the text to come across more distinctly and easier for people to read (shown below).

Favourite Outcomes

The outcomes below are those that I wish to print but before properly mounting them, I want to have them peer assessed to establish which layouts work the best, are the easiest to read and understand, and which are simply the most liked.

From the findings of the peer assessment, I will print and mount the favourite three or four outcomes.

Here is a presentation of images taken from St Malo.

But they aren’t all completely telling the truth.

How many of these images would you say are generated through AI software?

Street Photography

Street photography simply is photos taken on the street of the street, people on the street, things happening on the street. It is an easy way to show life and typical happenings in a society. It can comment on peoples’ livelihoods or be completely fabricated simply through the photographers approach. Cartier-Bresson took the hidden approach of taking photos without people knowing he’s there; whereas, William Klein actively goes up in people’s faces and talks to the people he photographs. Each approach produces completely different outcomes.

Photoshoot Plan

As quite a shy person, I want use Cartier-Bresson’s technique of taking photos at the ‘decisive moment’. By taking pictures without the models knowing, I personally feel less intrusive, but I also can get more natural images where the model won’t pose or change their personality for the camera. It also means that not a single photo would be the same as I would be constantly moving never staying in one place for longer30 seconds.

However this isn’t always the best plan and so I also want to find a well framed alley way and just sit their with my camera pointing at a busy street or in a shop window, waiting for something to happen in a very still setting, waiting for the ‘decisive moment’.

Seeing as St Malo isn’t accessible to me 24/7, I also wish to take some images as a tourist, taking photos of the beautiful side of the town, depicting a typical point of view of someone in a new place, creating memories. This would allow me to explore the theme for this project, nostalgia.

“life is once forever”

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) explores his own ideas of the ‘decisive moment’ and is considered as one of the fathers of photojournalism. “It’s a bit like hunting” – he attempted to capture the ‘everyday’ and was primarily interested in recording humanity.

He worked with the responsibility of rapidly supplying the world with information, be it from the liberation of Paris to Ghandi’s funeral. Cartier-Bresson aided in the development of street photography, a genre still used and highly influential today. He began his work as second assisstant director to Jean Renoir in some of his films, including what is considered to be one of the most influential moving pictures of the 20th Century, La Règle du Jeu (1939).

The Decisive Moment

He created his photographic book ‘The Decisive Moment’ which has been described as ‘a Bible for photographers’. This title given to the book when it was published English subsequently imposed the motto that is now used to describe most of Cartier-Bresson’s works.

The cover was designed by French artist, Henri Matisse. He uses his signature style of art from the later years of his life when he lost his sight to create the cover, which is very misleading as to what the book holds inside.

“For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to ‘give a meaning’ to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.”

Essentially Cartier-Bresson’s works were sketchbook pieces, all photographic ideas that happened to work. That is what I find interesting within his photos, no-one will ever be able to recapture his photographs – they will be shown in history as his outcomes for eternity.

Image Analysis

The photograph shown above seems to me like a very nostalgic image. It clearly shows Cartier-Bresson’s use of the ‘decisive moment’ as everyone within the frame seems unaware of the camera or chooses to ignore it. The simple monochromatic scene shows an obvious separation between the river bank and the water with a line of division cutting directly across the centre of the image. The divide is masked by the natural shapes of the people depicted as they are sat firmly on the bank but their heads and torsos cross this central line of the photo. The water has a very uniform look with very similar colours in itself but the boat disturbs the calm of the colouration casting a heavy, black shadow onto the water. It clearly utilises Cartier-Bresson’s concept of the ‘decisive moment’ as the group seem unaware of his presence and completely relaxed; either pouring a glass of wine or tucking in to the food.

“Nostalgia is something that is both cosy and comforting but also deceptive and an illusion”

When people hear the word nostalgia, for some reason it seems like it is always a very soothing occurrence. I don’t know if its just how the word sounds when spoken aloud, or if this comforting idea has been drilled into every person from a young age; but something about it relaxes you. Ultimately, it is a memory, a dream of the past where anything could have happened, you could have ridden a bike for the first time, gone on holiday, nailed an exam. It seems like something positive. Simply typing the word “nostalgia” into google with no prompts or filters – these are the first 5 images to be shown.

But is nostalgic thought always this perfect? You often hear adults mention “the good ol’ days” of when they were children and teenagers, going out to party, relaxing without a care in the world. But how good were these “ol’ days”? Even just 20 years ago, there was excessive racism and misogyny and people genuinely feared to be themselves in society. Today, this stuff still exists but everything considered normal then is now the underground opinion, it occasionally shows itself but genuinely people are more free to live the way that they want to.

“Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days” – Doug Larson

This quote from Doug Larson emphasises how nostalgia truly is. It is a memory and people remember different things in their own completely unique ways. It’s very cynical to think like this, but our own memory lies to us, it attempts to show us the best aspects of an event and almost entirely skips over the bad things; but sometimes a catastrophic event can not be overlooked. Therefore, aren’t bad memories also a form of nostalgia, or do people have a different name specifically for them? Past traumas? Unimportant memories?

Lakeman’s exhibition aims to show his childhood memories of Fort Regent Leisure Centre. But Lakeman had so few photographic images from his childhood of his time at the Fort and therefore used AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology as an attempt to reconfigure his memories from all those years ago.

How has childhood memories inspired the imagery?

Will’s exhibition presents the theme of nostalgia as this bright colourful and unrealistic view of the past. The definition of nostalgia is “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past.” and I feel that this is shown very clearly within the exhibition. However, Lakeman also added that despite these amazing memories of the Fort, he doesn’t necessarily want to go back to that time; partly out of fear that his memory from his childhood would be shattered by something pretty boring and not as amazing as he believes it to be, but also he doesn’t wish to go back to a time where racism and homophobia, and a clear disregard for people’s mental health was around every corner. This revelation raises the question of ‘Is this nostalgia, or just a well loved memory being shown to the world?’

Lakeman’s use of modern AI technology brings alive the vibrancy of his own personal dreams. But I know from personal experience that most dreams are bright and colourful. They occur when your brain isn’t fully asleep but close to it, allowing this sensation that usually makes a person feel better and more relaxed. However, dreams can also become nightmares, dark and sometimes horrifying hallucinations that scare people to wake up. There is this idea that dreams help send you to sleep and nightmares do the opposite, perhaps it is the brains way of telling you whether or not its ready to shut down for the night. It is this concept that I believe to be clearly shown in Lakeman’s exhibition – the simplicity of producing dark vs light images shows the two types of dreams that one gets. The piece shown above titled ‘Rails Merge’ itself shows this separation with the left side of the image lighter and more colourful, and the right fading to complete darkness. One interpretation would suggest that this shows the brightness of a dream fading to the dimly lit, more drab imagery of a nightmare. However, Will’s intention behind this image could also be to show the colour of the dream fading into the deep sleep that follows. This idea presents a more tranquil idea to the image and compliments the bright and colourful imagery throughout the rest of the exhibition. Therefore, that is the more likely intention for Will within this single image.

I became very interested in this image, never thinking that a swimming pool could be shown in so many bright and vibrant colours. Lakeman revealed that alongside his autism, he gets synesthetic hallucinations of overly colourful images and this was an outcome after one such occasion. He tells us “Of all the spaces that live on inside my memories, the Fort’s swimming pool is the most powerful.” Will dedicated an entire area of the exhibition to this prominent memory producing a series of images using AI technology to create these eccentric and wonderful memories of something as simple as a swimming pool that many can’t even imagine.

On the whole, I really enjoyed Lakeman’s exhibition and found it as an innovative way of using modern technology to remember and examine the past.