- Essay question:
In what way have Rut Blees Luxemburg and Peter Bialobrzeski explored suburban and urban environments in their work?
“If I could tell the story with words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera!” – Lewis Hine
The theme of my personal study is Nostalgia, mainly in relation to childhood, and two artists I am wanting to respond to are Rut Blees Luxemburg and Peter Bialobrzeski who make photographs of city and urban environments. I want to explore the places from my childhood, such as the Watersplash, sand dunes at St. Ouens, the campsite at Greve De Lecq, Beuvelande, Fort Regent, Millbrook Park, and even abandoned places that I have not visited in a very long time. These places mean a lot to me because I spent a lot of my childhood in these areas. I used to go to Millbrook every day after school and every summer I would spend a lot of time at St. Ouens Bay and Greve De Lecq. On a rainy day when there’s nothing to do I would go to the jungle gym at Fort Regent and I’ll always remember the times when me and my friends would sneak into abandoned places. Places like the unfinished car park at the Fort, the abandoned brewery and even the abandoned cable cars when they were still up. Developing my project, I want to make a mix of observational photos and tableaux photos. I want to explore a general aesthetic for all of my images by trying various editing techniques to make the photographs look distorted and more interesting. I can do this by adding blur, changing the colour levels and using things like AI to enhance the images. In addition, I want to try putting the photographs on a polaroid printout too, to really convey a nostalgic feel.
My photos will be taking some inspiration from several artists such as Will Lakeman, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Gustave Le Gray, Stephanie Jung and Robert Clayton. I want to take inspiration from these artist’s in particular because of the things each one specialises in. Will Lakeman with his AI work, the Bechers and their deadpan approach to photography, Le Gray’s sea photographs, Stephanie Jung’s city images and shaken editing and Robert Clayton and his estate/urban photographs.
Historically speaking, Art, and later Photography since it’s inception in 1839, has been used as a platform to express and represent the artist/photographer’s views and thoughts on the world and life in general. The framing of an image, its composition and colours have all been carefully decided to make the most accurate depiction that reflects their views and thoughts. Whether that be on memories they have, certain events they have been through or people and friends they have made on their journey. Before the tech we have today, to experiment and edit their image to what they see fit, photographers would put coloured gels as makeshift filters on their lenses to get a certain shade or colour and would also colour over an already printed photo with ink. Photography has changed along with the world too, with the industrial revolution probably being one of the most dramatic shifts in human history. New technology was improving, cities were being built, the world was becoming the world we live in today. Many photographers throughout history have reacted to this change in the world, mostly known photographers like Robert Adams, Bernd and Hilla Becher and Henry Wessel Jr. who all of which took photos involving buildings in natural environments that were also in black and white – possibly to bring back a sense of “old times” as colour photography would have been invented around those times too. Many photographers around this time didn’t support colour photography as they believed it was a “distraction” and that black and white photos were a “truer form of documentation”. Two photographers I want to talk about in more detail are Rut Blees Luxemburg and Peter Bialobrzeski.
Luxemburg’s images, being taken at night, rely particularly on nearby lighting to brighten and bring life to the image. The colours are very familiar to most people, the orange colours from the street lights combined with the red lights from cars. All casted across the scratched and cracked concrete walls and grounds. The multiple puddles in the streets filling up every nook and cranny in the tarmac that reflect more lighting. The photos feature no people, yet the presence of people still remains because of the lighting and the man made areas. It makes the photos feel empty of human life yet at the same time retaining all the things humans have made. Perhaps to reflect that of the world, we humans have changed every aspect of the planet to our satisfaction and to the way we see fit, but perhaps Luxemburg’s images are asking; Was it really for the better? Did all of our advancements through history really lead us here, to this cruel and dark world? In fact, when an interviewer asked Luxemburg about whether she intentionally removes people from her photos and if they cause a disturbance in her work, she replied with ‘Yes, because I’m not thinking about individual stories, but around the space as a site of ideas and immersion. The human presence is absent. The city in my photographs is a structure in which the individual narrative does not dominate, but becomes a template to try and locate something that can be described as common. One can also think about the city as one that’s alluring, open, glowing even… yet also ambiguously wet, slippery and dark.’. I believe this quote very well speaks for all of her photos, she isn’t targeting people in these photos because they are simply not the targets, it’s the city. Almost as if the city is it’s own entity, has a soul and is sentient. The photos themselves show mostly buildings and streets. The building images are usually showing only a fragment of the building, like and edge or corner. There is an image of a corner of a building which takes good advantage of the lighting. It shows two different colour lights being casted on each side of the corner. One side is green and the other is yellow, the two lights each meet at the edge and they cut off. This defines and highlights the lined edge. Almost as if the lighting helps define the shape.
Bialobrzeski’s work covers places in cities too, but his photos are taken in the day rather than the night. His photographs cover abandoned buildings that have gone to ruin. In the photos framing, he tends to show in the background or nearby, buildings that are still in use and are newer. Almost to show some contrast between them. A difference too is that the newer buildings tend to be higher up than the old ones, this conveys the idea they are a higher class and simply better than the older ones as they are literally “higher ups”. The better buildings are tidier and have a more refined look due to their straight edges as apposed to the old buildings were time has caused them to decay and crumble, they have impurities all over. The more single photos, without any comparison between buildings, have a different comparison instead. For example, some photos take advantage of slow shutter speeds. They do this by involving in their frames, a collection of buildings and a busy road. The final image will show an abundance of red and white streaks trailing through the entire road while the buildings will come out completely still. This is because as the cameras shutter is open it catches all light, including motion. The road will of course have heavy use from cars using it constantly which leads to the streaks which choreograph the movement of the vehicles. While as the buildings, being inanimate objects, of course wouldn’t move at all during the opening of the shutter and will appear completely still on the photograph. This shows a contrast between the lively and the non-lively. His work has motivated him to travel the world and document multiple cities. He’s been to big and rich cities, poor and small cities and cities which have rich parts and poor parts. One of his images show an abundance of poor homes in a city, they are dirty and run down, in the background there are taller buildings that are more presentable and are newer. The name of this photo is called “Nail Houses”, which is a term used to describe a house which the owners refuse to move out from in order for development to be made. This implies that the higher class buildings are wanting to expand and are being prevented by the lower class ones, so when they are asked to move away they refuse, likely because they have no where else to go. When Bialobrzeski was asked why he likes to take photos of certain environments like this one, he said ‘For me, the urban environment is what is interesting. In a way, I’m like a 19th century photographer. When I was invited to a festival in Dhaka, I did a Google Image search of Dhaka and the only images that you find are colour pictures of the sites and poor people in black and white. But you don’t actually find what the city looks like, and that happens to a lot of cities. I can show people what they can’t see, and at the same time make an archive of the city.’. I think he very well explained why he takes these photos. To simply educate the world about the cities and places that have ugly parts that have certain issues and are often overlooked. He likes to show people the parts of cities that you don’t normally see, the abandoned and left behind.
In conclusion, I believe both artists have efficiently explored and documented city and urban areas. They have interesting stories and messages behind their photos and the photos themselves are very good and high quality, they look appealing and were very interesting to talk about. I like both of the photographers and their work. Both artists are similar in category and image subjects, yet have very different messages and meanings. The most notable difference of course would be the use of lighting. Luxemburg’s images are darker and appear more gloomy, Bialobrzeski’s images are more brighter and serious. Both artists cover cities and urban areas, both show a somewhat gritty and dirty environment, similarities like cracked crumbled walls and streets, gloomy street lights and places which are reasonably old are shared between each artist’s work. However, Bialobrzeski’s photographs involve people, which can make some appear more crowded and fuller, as opposed to Luxemburg’s empty and spacious environments she has created. While Luxemburg has made some use of slow shutter speeds on roads, Bialobrzeski has made much more of an effort with this method, for what seems to be for longer times too on busier roads. The time periods are different too, Peter Bialobrzeski started photographing cities sometime around 2013 and Rut Blees Luxemburg started around 1995. Which makes it interesting to see how time has changed the world, in the 90s the cities/urban areas were likely not as big as they are today, which can be seen when compared to Bialobrzeski’s work, where the cities are bigger and more full of people. All of these differences and similarities helps outline the importance of the photographers work. To be able to see that they are trying to convey different messages about the world, and the places we live in.
- Bibliography: List all relevant sources used
Roberts. P (2007). The genius of Colour Photography. London: Carlton Books Ltd.
Bergmann. S (2018). City Diaries: An Interview with Peter Bialobrzeski. Berlin art Link.
Unknown Interviewer (2017). Interview: Rut Blees Luxemburg. Photoworks.
Links:
https://photoworks.org.uk/interview-rut/
In-text referencing:
This is the point that Roberts makes when she writes, ‘by far the most popular solution to remedy photography’s colour deficiency was to add colour by means of a brush, using oil and watercolour paints or ground powdered pigments.’ (Roberts, 2007: 13) It is telling us about how photographs used to be coloured, by going over the original photo with these different methods. Compared to now where you can simply edit the original photo on your computer, or even in some cases on the device used to take the photo.