Essay Plan
Make a plan that lists what you are going to write about in each paragraph

• Essay question:

How does Mitch Epstein express the notion of family and relationships in his work?

• Opening quote
• Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
• 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. 
• Pg. 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
• Pg. 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
• Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
• Bibliography: List all relevant sources used

Bibliography

Surname of Author first (year of publish), title, city, publishing house

Epstein M. (2003), Family Business, Göttingen: Steidl.

In text reference –

“The business of family can never be separated from a family business” (Epstein, 2003: 11)

• Research and identify 3-5 literary sources from a variety of media such as books, journal/magazines, internet, YouTube/video that relates to your personal study and artists references .
• Begin to read essay, texts and interviews with your chosen artists as well as commentary from critics, historians and others.
• It’s important that you show evidence of reading and draw upon different pints of view – not only your own.
• Take notes when you’re reading…key words, concepts, passages
• Write down page number, author, year, title, publisher, place of publication so you can list source in a bibliography

Bibliography
List all the sources that you have identified above as literary sources. Where there are two or more works by one author in the same year distinguish them as 1988a, 1988b etc. Arrange literature in alphabetical order by author, or where no author is named, by the name of the museum or other organisation which produced the text. Apart from listing literature you must also list all other sources in alphabetical order e.g. websites/online sources, Youtube/ DVD/TV.

Quotation and Referencing:

Why should you reference?

• To add academic support for your work
• To support or disprove your argument
• To show evidence of reading
• To help readers locate your sources
• To show respect for other people’s work
• To avoid plagiarism
• To achieve higher marks

What should you reference?

• Anything that is based on a piece of information or idea that is not entirely your own.
• That includes, direct quotes, paraphrasing or summarising of an idea, theory or concept, definitions, images, tables, graphs, maps or anything else obtained from a source

How does Mitch Epstein express the notion of family and relationships in his work?

“The business of family can never be separated from a family business.” (Epstein, M., 2003: 11)

Introduction

Family and relationships are very often explored within photography, but certain artists, like Mitch Epstein, explore these themes slightly differently. For example, Epstein explores family through discussing his father’s family business and what he does, using stills from interviews, archival material and more. This is how I will be exploring these themes throughout my personal study; I was particularly interested in Epstein’s project Family Business as my family own a local bakery named ‘Vienna Bakery’. I will be exploring how the business came into my family and how it has been a large part of my life growing up leading me to have a lot of nostalgia surrounding the bakery. Most of my family have at some point worked in the bakery, proving Epstein’s comment to be true, that “the business of family can never be separated from a family business” (Epstein 2003: 11). Epstein chose this project in 1999 when he returned to his hometown of Holyoke, Massachusetts, to record the demise of his father’s two businesses—a retail furniture store and a low-rent real estate empire. The resulting project assembled large-format photographs, video, archival materials, interviews and texts written by Epstein. The book, Family Business, combined all these elements together to tell a story. This piece of work was specifically interesting to me as Epstein provides context into the background of his father’s company and his life growing up around a family business, which made me feel as though I could personally relate to it even though it’s two completely different companies.

P.g 1 

Documentary photography is used in nearly all of Epstein’s projects and is usually executed in a similar manner within his work. Documentary photography took the idea of telling a story with a picture to another social level however discussing the photojournalistic style is very problematic because trying to offer a single definition of the term is difficult as every photograph is in one sense or another a ‘document’.” Using this phrase, Epstein’s images of his father’s business could be read as ‘documents’. Epstein himself has said in an interview that the cinema has a significant influence on his work, showing his love of storytelling through the medium of photography. This is showcased in all of his work, but it is especially prominent in the project that I am exploring in this essay, Family Business, a multiple media project, where he uses photographs, video, archival material, interviews, storyboards, and a personal essay to document his father’s life through work. He uses this photojournalistic book to question how the ‘American Dream’ went awry. Epstein also studied photography under Garry Winogrand at the Cooper Union in New York. In my opinion, this is where Epstein is influenced by Winogrand’s street photography style. This influence can be seen in his project The City. Within Winogrand’s work, there is also a slightly performative style that can be seen in a lot of his images which can also be seen in some of Epstein’s work, for example, his projects Recreation and Common Practice, which is a technique that is rarely seen in the documentary photography genre. During an interview where he speaks about the project, he says “To me, the key challenge was to find the balance between being honest, very forthright, and direct with the work, and at the same time allowing it to be personal,” in my opinion, he uses this balance of the two to create his narrative from both a photographer’s and a family member’s perspective, using the sensitivity of a family member and the bluntness of a professional photographer.

P.g 2  

Using Abigail Solomon-Godeau’s academic paper Inside/Out, I will be looking at whether Epstein is an insider or an outsider while exploring his father’s business during the making of Family Business. When hearing that it’s his father’s business, you would assume that he’s looking at it from an insider’s perspective, but I think that there may be certain things that he’s looking at from a distance and this could be because at this point of his career, he had been travelling and had missed out on a lot of the events that had occurred to cause the downfall of his father’s business. In Inside/Out Solomon-Godeau says “The insider position – in this context the “good” position – is thus understood to imply a position of engagement, participation and privileged knowledge”. (Solomon-Godeau, A. (1995), Inside/Out: 49) In my opinion, this is seen in Family Business, Epstein got to photograph and film his father talking with tenants who were leaving the apartments, or telling those who refused to leave to get out of the building. If someone else other the Epstein did this as an outsider, he or she would probably be refused access as Epstein’s father would show his vulnerability or trust the image maker. He is also privileged enough to be able to photograph certain staff members that he probably would have grown up knowing and they would’ve felt comfortable and trusted him enough to be in front of the camera for him. However, Solomon-Godeau also says “the outsider’s position, is taken to produce an alienated and voyeuristic relationship that heightens the distance between subject and object.” (Solomon-Godeau, A. (1995), Inside/Out: 49) In Family Business this can first be seen in the way that Epstein photographs and films the tenants’ interactions with his father without knowing who they are and what their situations may be which gives him a voyeuristic view. The second way he has an outsider relationship with the subjects in the project is by recording the success and downfall of the town of Holyoake where his father’s business was located. Although it was the town in which he grew up, he had moved away to do his photography studies quite young so, in my opinion, a lot of the town and a lot of the people living there would have been foreign to him. I think that in his project Family Business, Epstein is both an insider and an outsider, but primarily an insider, considering the project documents his father’s business. In Andy Grundberg’s review of the project, he says “But here the artist works from the inside out; having left Holyoke to pursue his career as an artist decades earlier, he can be unsparingly frank about his parents, brother and aunt without glossing over the horror he feels about what has happened to them and to his hometown.” (Grundberg, A. (2003)), I think that this solidifies my previous point of Epstein being both an insider and an outsider within his project Family Business in saying that he can be “unsparingly frank” about his family’s point of view but also has to be careful what he says about his hometown that he had moved out of years earlier.

P.g 3

The way in which Epstein creates the narrative of his project can be seen as quite untraditional, instead of using the images, footage, text and archive material to create a linear storyline, he uses all of these to form a disorganised story, showing his ability to tell and create a narrative even if it’s not in a so-called traditional sense. Telling a story with pictures is an old device and Epstein helps give the idea a new meaning and helps make it more modernised than it once was. Within the media of still-images, he presents the different aspects of the business through, portraits, still-life images and images that would be classed as landscapes. Within the layout of the book, he presents all of these in a sort of mix-and-match way, making it seem as though he hadn’t pre-planned what order he would put the images in and just did it spontaneously. These mixed in with the interview footage with his mother and father, the footage of his father talking and having disagreements with the tenants and the material that he uses from the business’ archives, create a recognisable narrative without realising it. In contrast to Mary-Ellen Mark, who uses a linear narrative in her project Streetwise to help the consumer empathise with the homeless girl she is photographing, Epstein could possibly be using a nonlinear narrative to present the chaos that would have been happening in his family’s life at the time of the business’s demise. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, Mitch Epstein’s project Family Business explores family and relationships in many different ways using many different methods to do so. Using a documentary approach to his photography, he explores his father’s relationships with different people involved in the business like the tenants of the apartments, different employees and even police officers who get involved in the conflicts between Epstein’s father and the tenants. He also explores how, over the years, the business has impacted his family, more specifically his mother who he does numerous interviews with. In his storytelling technique, he uses flashbacks throughout the book, going against most narrative photographers’ traditional linear narrative. Epstein is privileged enough to explore the business from a mostly insider perspective, making the trust and relationships with different subjects in the project stronger and more authentic. Overall, through Epstein’s work, I have been able to explore my own family’s business history in depth, and learn about how family affects, interacts with and influences a family business, whether it’s consciously or not. I hope that my images inspired by Epstein’s project will represent the business well and help other people understand how family businesses work. 

How do Justine Kurland and Theo Gosselin show freedom in their work?

‘To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed’

From their inspiration I will explore the theme of teenage life and ‘girlhood’ and explore the idea of feminism. By doing this it will show how teenage years change and develop. Exploring and experiencing new things, ideas and experiences. By further exploring ‘girl pictures’ by Justine Kurland and the photos of Theo Gosselin. The photos allow us to link to the theme of nostalgia, these years of our lives being the formative years, which help shape our future and we will always be remembered, for good reasons or bad reasons, for the rest of our lives. So by capturing these moments, people may be able to relate to their own emotions, experiences and thoughts. After viewing Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographic studies in Paris I researched modern, equivalent artists who reflected the theme of freedom in their work. The two photographers who stood out are Justine Kurland and Theo Gosselin.

Julia Margaret Cameron

Justine Kurland’s take on the classic American tale of the runaway takes us on a wild ride of freedom, memorializing the fleeting moments of adolescence and its fearless protagonists. Kurland was born in Warsaw, New York. Her mother sold costumes at Renaissance fairs, so Kurland and her sister lived a somewhat nomadic lifestyle. At 15, Kurland ran away to Manhattan, moved in with a sympathetic aunt, and concentrated on becoming an artist. She earned her M.F.A. from Yale University in 1998. The following year, Kurland exhibited in the group show Another Girl, Another Planet, which critics considered a preview of a new generation of talented and innovative female photographers. Both Kurland’s childhood adventures and her current experiences influence her working style and subject matter. She now spends much of her time on the road, scouting locations for photographs and recruiting models. While her earlier photographs of schoolgirls were inspired by her own experience as a runaway, the birth of her son Casper in 2004 shifted her focus to pregnant women and mothers. Kurland also attributes her more recent photographs of trains and train stowaways to Casper’s love of those vehicles.

Kurland talked about her inspirations in an article she said  “I’m always thinking about painting: nineteenth-century English picturesque landscapes and the utopian ideal, genre paintings and also Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs. I started going to museums at an early age, but my imagery is equally influenced by illustrations from the fairy tales I read as a child.” By taking inspiration from Julia Margaret Cameron’s photography of famous Victorian women and interpreting this idea of being able to be a girl and be free to do whatever, it creates a story which many people will be able to relate to. The staging is key here, and creating painting-like images is a form of pictorialism. They are carefully crafted, but look like spontaneous encounters at first glance.

Kurland captures a snapshot of a moment in time which looks Utopian but by further research and questioning of the subjects, fault lines would appear. The life looks idyllic and appealing but would reality be as free from care? In the image above we can see barefoot girls emerging from a stark concrete building and wading through a rocky stream. It is an image of freedom but at the same time they look mystified as if they have just come from an evil place. These girls look as if they have a strong ‘sisterhood’ and will always have each others backs. They are adolescent girls who can be free from everyday commitments and the usual worries of adulthood. They are at an age where they can go off for the day without parents or guardians worrying about their whereabouts, as they are all together and therefore safe. It feels that in this image Kurland is trying to revisit her own youthful experience of freedom. To wear what you want, to go barefoot, wade through streams, explore strange places, be with friends and have little worldly care thinking only of the present.

Edouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass

Edouard Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass has a fairly similar subject and composition to Kurland’s image above. The painting was from 1862 shows that women seem free to be naked whereas the men are fully clothed. In Kurland’s image the girl is preparing to undress and go into the water and the boy is fully clothed. Even though these images are over one hundred years in difference they still show a similarities in the messages the images are trying to portray. There is a sense of abandonment, freedom, joy and discovery in both.

Deliberately cinematic, Gosselin’s photography reveals friends in the act of escaping from their regular lives into newly enticing and perilous modes of existence, ever in search of the persistent though elusive idea of freedom. Born near Le Havre in Normandy in 1990, Théo Gosselin grew up with the sea, the wind, the forest, and the sound of electric guitars, echoing in the deserted streets of this grey city from the north of France. Passionate about drawing, music, and cinema, he chose a path through the art school, and graduated in 2012 as a graphic designer in Amiens. He started photography around 2007, and it Became his reason to live. He loves to capture the simple life, love, good and bad moments, his friends and his adventures. Eternal traveller, Europe and USA and share his way of life with the people He loves ; because the truth is in wide open spaces and in the heart of the characters that meet along the way.

Gosselin captures this image with the sun beaming through the car just before the sun is about to set. This creates a warm light but also a warm feeling to the image, a feeling of relaxation and freedom. He goes along with his friends capturing moments of their adventures as a group while also living the same life as them but behind the camera. The woman in the image seems to have no worries about where she has to be or what she is doing. He portrays this idea of freedom through the story that they have each other and their campervan with no plan in mind. However from this image can we actually see if this woman is actually happy with the life they are living? Some people may say that his images are a glamorised version of what reality is. They are not staged, say Gosselin…but carefully lit, composed and sequenced.

Justine Kurland and Theo Gosselin both show clear themes of freedom in their work. Their ideas of freedom are similar as they both explore the fact that the people in the images don’t have a care in the world for living a ‘normal life’. Kurland captures moments of self expression and liberation. Focusing on subcultures and marginalized groups, showcasing individuals who defy social norms and embrace their own sense of freedom. Her images convey a sense of adventure, empowerment and personal autonomy, inviting the viewers to question her own notions of freedom. Some may say that her work is an exaggerated idea of feminism and that it dose not show the real reality of ‘girlhood’. Theo Gosselins work also expresses freedom, he captures intimate and raw moments of youth and adventure, in a natural setting. His images evoke a sense of carefree abandon and celebrating living in the moment. His models/ friends are often engaging in activities which also defy social norms, embracing their own unique paths and finding freedom in their choses. He invites the audience to explore the world and find their own sense of freedom in whatever way they want to. The lives are fleeting, but the images are permanent and resonate with our inner wildness.

Bibliography

Bengal, R.(2020). ‘The Jeremys’ in Justine Kurland: Girl Pictures. New York: Aperture Foundation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine_Kurland

https://www.theogosselin.fr/bio

For my seventh and final photoshoot, I again chose to photography modern buildings to ensure that I had perfect images for my photobook. Unlike my other shoots I didn’t go to a specific area for this one. Some of my images were out east, some were out west and some were more central. I think that this was one of my more successful shoot and I was happy with how quite a few of them turned out.

contact sheets:

final selection:

SELECTION PROCESS

RATING CODE:

RED – Bad quality images

YELLOW – Average images

GREEN – Good images

BLUE – Best outcomes which I can use for the photobook

EDITING PROCESS

PHOTOSHOOT OUTCOMES

• Research and identify 3-5 literary sources from a variety of media such as books, journal/magazines, internet, YouTube/video that relates to your personal study and artists references .
• Begin to read essay, texts and interviews with your chosen artists as well as commentary from critics, historians and others.
• It’s important that you show evidence of reading and draw upon different points of view – not only your own.
• Take notes when you’re reading…key words, concepts, passages
• Write down page number, author, year, title, publisher, place of publication so you can list source in a bibliography

Essay Plan
Make a plan that lists what you are going to write about in each paragraph – essay structure

• Essay question: How does photography act as an important form of communication of both true and untrue subjects? 
• Opening quote ‘A photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened. The picture may distort; but there is always a presumption that something exists, or did exist, which is like what’s in the picture.’ (On Photography by Susan Sontag, p3)

• Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area of study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?

The area of study I want to explore is physical collaging and altering of the images, therefore I will look at Jessa Fairbrother’s work as she does all these manual image alterations, as well as has a similar subject and context to the images as me. her work, especially the project “conversations with my mother” where she produced images that relate to the relationship between her and her mother. This links to what I am doing as I too will be exploring the relationship with my mother.

• 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. 

the main themes and genres that Jessa explores in her work are mainly: pictorialism, surrealism, and symbolism. on top of that all the above “isms” relate to what I want to explore myself, therefore researching them will help me understanding how they can be in cooperated into the photographs.

• Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.

• Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.

As I want to focus on just exploring Jessas’ work, due to how relevant it is to me I will write more about her and her work, and will be able to analyse it in more depth.

• Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
• Bibliography: List all relevant sources used

For the sixth shoot that I did, I decided to go back to St Helier around the Jersey Museum and Art gallery as in one of my pervious shoots many of my images came out blurry. However, I really liked the architecture that was there and wanted to try and photograph it again. This time my images came out much better. Whilst editing these images, I chose to make them black and white as I think it defines the detail and adds to the old effect of the picture. This shoot was much more successful and I selected a larger amount of final images.

final selection:

1. Write a book specification and describe in detail what your book will be about in terms of narrative, concept and design with reference to the same elements of bookmaking as above.

Narrative: What is your story?
Describe in:

• 3 words mum, connection, belonging
• A sentence Exploring the connection between me and my mother, focusing on belonging and nostalgia.
• A paragraph I want to show not only the connection between me and my mum, but also explore her life as well as mine. to make the similarities as well as differences visible. my mum gave birth to me when she was very young and did everything to give me a good life, to me she gave up a part of her life. this is why I want to show through me the life she could of have. as if I am living out hers the way she wanted to. The story has to have a beginning and end, therefore I want to start it when my mum was born, then when she was a child and a teenager, then a shift to when she had me and the same concept continues but with me, up until the present where I can show similarities and differences contrasting with each other between me and my mum.

Design: Consider the following

• How you want your book to look and feel

I want it to have a glossy finish and be smooth to touch, as well as having links to the images, there should be a theme that carries on, this being a nostalgic atmosphere.

• Paper and ink

The paper to be of not too shiny but not matt finisich and mainly colourful ink to be used as there are not many black and white photographs I will be using.

• Format, size and orientation

I don’t want to produce a large scale photobook as the images I have would look better in a smaller format, and I believe a smaller book holds a bigger personal value.

• Binding and cover

Not too sure about the binding but I know for the cover I would like to have an image which is a full bleed image so that for front and back cover the image stretches.

• Title 

the title needs to be relevant to the book, however I always liked simple titles therefore I wouldn’t want to name the book in more than 3 words.

• Design and layout

I don’t want follow a specific layout which repeats itself, however I want it to all link together so the images are not placed randomly.

• Editing and sequencing

the editing will have to be similar across all images, when it comes to layering them, the ones that look similar, so of the same colour values or shape should be next to or near each other.

• Images and text

I am not planning on adding a lot of text as I want the viewer to piece it together by themselves through the photographs. however I want to use text as an additional hint to what the story is about, therefor I might have short phrases on only a few pages.

As many of my other shoots were based on modern buildings, I decided that for my fifth shoot I was going to photograph some of the bunkers around Jersey. For most of them I went down to St Ouen’s and walked around the sand dunes and the coast. I am happy with a few of my images that I made and I think that the architecture fits well with the heritage of Jersey.

contact sheets:

final images:

1. Research a photo-book and describe the story it is communicating  with reference to subject-matter, genre and approach to image-making.

The book I am looking at is Raised by wolves by Jim Goldberg which explores the subject of kids living on the streets of California and the lives they live. He shot images in a documentary style as he followed them through their struggles with addiction, mental health issues and the difficult choices they have to make to survive in this environment. The images are grungy and dark to accurately portray their lifestyles and capture their unique personalities through the lense.

2. Who is the photographer? Why did he/she make it? (intentions/ reasons) Who is it for? (audience) How was it received? (any press, reviews, awards, legacy etc.)

Jim Goldberg made this photobook to highlight people that are neglected, ignored and invisible to the mainstream population. He believed these people deserved a voice so decided to not only take their photos but also include their writing and drawings in the book.

He stated that:

“Feeling like an outsider enabled me to evoke stories from the people I worked with because I could relate to them. I always aimed to get to a point where empathy and trust were created… Having people write directly on photos was a way to access their thoughts”

His work was so well received that he collected various awards such as a Guggenheim Fellowship (1985), two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships (1989, 1990), the Mother Jones Documentary Photography Award (1989), and many more.

3. Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design of the book and apply theory above when considering:

Narrative – Jim Goldberg follows kids living on the streets of California and specifically focuses on two characters, Tweeky Dave and Echo. They are two charismatic but deeply troubled youths whose lives became intertwined as they lived as runaways.

Concept – His subjects are often people existing on the fringes, who are otherwise treated as invisible by mainstream society, or flattened into caricature.

Design – This book has a mixture of images that are mostly documentary style and drawings/writing from the subjects.

Who is Peter Bialobrzeski?

Peter Bialobrzeski is a German photographer, who’s work has dipped into street and urban photography. A topic I am intending on featuring in my mock exam and essay. His city photos are what mainly peak my interest.

Career

His city photos, in contrast to Luxemburg, are mostly captured during daylight hours instead of night time. His photos feature lots of run down, demolished and abandoned buildings.

Visual

Each of these photos have buildings which have been abandoned and left to decay over time, which looks to be a very long time given the lack of care seen on the buildings. Also due to the fact that newer buildings in the backgrounds of some can be seen, which implies that these abandoned ones have been neglected and ignored. The destruction and crumbling to the buildings walls, ceilings and floors creates many rigid and fluctuated lines, perhaps to show they are not perfect. Being in the day, the images are of course very bright, some of the abandoned buildings however appear to be in slightly darker areas, possibly being overshadowed by the newer and taller buildings. The buildings due to lack of care are all cracked and chipped all over, creating a sort of rough texture. I like how in a handful of photos there is machinery but blurry, obviously because the low shutter speed that was likely used captured the constant movement of the machines, which contrasts with the stillness of the buildings, being inanimate. There is a certain amount of spacing between the newer buildings and the ruined ones, almost to imply that the newer buildings are better and higher up so shouldn’t be anywhere near the old ones.

Conceptual

The idea and meaning behind these images doesn’t seem very clear, if there even is one. The first thing I’d think of is to show the difference between the old and the past and the new and the future, and that the past will always be overrun and sometimes forgotten. The images could have something to do with “Topographical” imagery given the almost deadpan look and the fact the main subjects are dissociated and abandoned things.

Response

Jersey is home to many abandoned buildings, which are often very close to still occupied buildings. I could take advantage of this by going out and positioning my camera to have the abandoned one and still used ones in the framing. In town, it can also provide good landscape backgrounds. I do want to try having the shutter speed set to low and have things within the frame moving while the buildings stay perectly still.