I believe that my final outcomes and photo book were successful in achieving my aims. I wanted to show the theatrical process from rehearsal to opening night, using creative responses and archival material from my own experience to make the project personal to me.
Virtual Gallery
These creative responses influenced by the works of Yinka Shonibare and Oscar Gustave Rejlander show different parts of the theatrical world. From living history and public re-enactments to stylised on stage performance to the goings on behind the scenes and in rehearsal.
Photobook
I believe that my photobook clearly shows the story that I wanted to convey and has a clear structure to the narrative. I believe that if I had more images of the theatre and and from specific performances, I could have padded out the story a bit more but overall, I believe this project to have been a success.
For the front cover, I knew that I wanted to have a dust sheet over a plain black hardcover. But when designing it, I was unsure of the layout. The simple idea was to
Page Layouts
Structure
After looking at other photo books for inspiration on how to layout my own, the one that stood out the most for me was ‘The Epilogue’ by Laia Abril. This followed a very personal story of a young girl who died after battling with mental health issues and eating disorders. Firstly, it made me realise the importance of a title. On its own ‘The Epilogue’ has no relevance but it is very poetic when put into the context of what is inside the book as it establishes this idea of what comes after the story and reflecting back on the past. Therefore I knew that I couldn’t a simple title like ‘my theatre’ or ‘the theatre’. I knew that I wanted to establish a clear way of describing the content of my book but in a way that it seems both artistic and documentary, coming up with ‘From Studio to Stage’.
Abril also uses medical documents and inserts, alongside quotes from interviews with the girls family and friends. It was this specific idea of using quotes to develop a story that intrigued me and I knew that each section of this narrative needed some kind of title, which I found in quotes. In planning each section has an obvious title but that is embedded in each quote within the final outcome.
Front Cover
Blank Page 1
Section 1: Rehearsals
Quote
“It takes a lot of rehearsal to become yourself.”
~ Jennifer Stone
Images
Section 2: Pro-shots
Quote
“Every artist is a walking business. Your marketing tools are your headshots and your reel. That’s what people see, that’s what you’re there pushing, trying to get a rep and that isn’t easy.”
~ Jay Ellis
Images
Section 3: Get-in and Final Notes
Quote
“Tech week is always a train wreck of missed cues, forgotten lines, malfunctioning set pieces and short tempers.”
~ S.M. Stevens
Images
Section 4: Performance
Quote
“You have had good equipment to work with. You’ve had a theatre with everything you’ve needed, and you are involved with the play; but all the way through you have been handicapped. One essential has been denied you. Tonight the audience is there; now they are sitting in front of you; you have everything you need.”
~ Hallie Flanagan
Images
ENDING?: Must conclude the book and be as strong as the beginning
Quote?
“Theatre is alive and it is now, and then it’s gone”
Image?
The ending was the most difficult aspect as I was unsure of how to conclude the book. Should I use a single image that summed everything up or perhaps two or three? I ultimately decided to create a collage of images as shown in the final outcome of a mix of both monochrome and coloured photos. When designing the book, this idea made me realise how my own memory of shows is scattered and this is probably quite universal. Some memories seem more faded and harder to make whereas others are the complete opposite and vivid in your mind. It was this idea of using odd dashes of colour within the collage to represent the fewer but more vivid memories of my past performance experience.
1. Research a photo-book and describe the story it is communicating with reference to subject-matter, genre and approach to image-making.
‘The Epilogue’ – narrative structure exploring the life of Mary Cameron Robinson (Cammy) who passed away at the age of 26 on September 2nd 2005. Presents archival images from family albums, letters written by/to Cammy as well as official medical records. Those are all cited as to who is in the image and where, which clearly distinguishes between images that the photographer made herself.
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.)
Created by Laia Abril who had no direct connection with Cammy or her family and brings to light the dangers of eating disorders. Uses interviews with Cammy’s family, friends and therapist to illustrate the effect that she had on each of their lives and add context to some of the images shown.
3. Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design of the book and apply theory above when considering:
Hard cover with smooth debossed rectangle on the front and back cover with the title and extra information within. Use of old coloured images as well as modern images, includes inserts of letters written by/for Cammy. Format: A5 portrait pages with mixed sized and orientated images – 60-80 pages
Title: Poetic – “The Epilogue” meaning what happens after the story. details that it is about the effect of Cammy’s suicide on those around her and its aftermath.
Book in hand: Feels rough on the outside (age) but carefully preserved inside.
Paper and ink: use of different paper (photographic and rough writing paper) coloured images.
Format, size and orientation: portraiture / A5 / 60-80 pages.
Binding: hard cover / saddle stitch
Cover: linen / embossed
Title: Poetic – “The Epilogue” meaning what happens after the story.
Narrative: Details that it is about the effect of Cammy’s suicide on those around her and its aftermath.
Structure and architecture: continually has full pages of quoted interviews with family and friends – titles different sections with important dates
Design and layout: mostly fit pages landscape and often centred but not all the time / mix of single page + double-spread/ images/ fold- outs/ inserts.
Editing and sequencing: Sequencing seems to be in chonological order of events, but with small interjections of family memories that lighten the mood when it gets worse nearing the end.
Images and text: Continual use of familial quotes to keep the narrative moving but no introductions or essays to accompany the work.
In what ways have Rejlander and Shonibare explored narrative in their photography?
“The use of actors, assistants and technicians needed to create a photographic tableau redefines the photographer as the orchestrator of a cast and crew, the key rather than sole producer.”
David Bate (2016), ‘Art Photography’. London: Tate Galleries
INTRODUCTION
Stories and tales have been told in various ways for millennia, from word of mouth, to the page; from stage to camera. The pictorialist movement and tableau vivant photography are key styles for this topic where, as David Bate puts it, the photographer is redefined as the ‘orchestrator of a cast and crew’ becoming the ‘key’. This suggests that the photographic process in tableau image making matches that of creating scenes on the stage. If we take a generic proscenium arch theatre to create the frame for our image, a director must understand the relationship between what is within the frame, the audiences ideal reaction and what occurs behind the scenes simultaneously; when these aspects are translated into a photography studio, a direct link between the two disciplines is displayed. Tableau imagery historically began on the stage and conveys a single narrative through a series of still images created by extensive theatrical groups. This style of performance found its way into the photographic medium and heavily influenced the works of Oscar Gustave Rejlander and Yinka Shonibare. These two artists explore narrative in similar ways to each other, establishing links to the traditional . The ideas behind narrative photography are to reveal a story in one single image. It compresses an entire story within a single frame and removes the ideas of typology, documentary, and film.
TABLEAUX + TABLEAU VIVANT
Directly translated from French to ‘living picture’, tableau vivant displays one or more actors, often fully equipped with costume, set and props to create a frozen image combining theatre and the visual arts. On stage the style began 300 BCE by the Greeks at their festivals worshiping the Gods. They could tell elaborate stories from still but large and accentuated positions that allowed the tale to be seen from hundreds of meters away. Tableau vivant was also loved in the middle ages before the Tudors brought about Shakespeare and Georgians adoring opera and commedia dell’arte. When the Pictorialist movement established ideas that photography was an art form and not simply a scientific tool, tableau vivant was restored to theatres in the late 19th Century when photography was being seen as an art form and not just a scientific practice of documentation.
Today we recognise tableau imagery as being a possible basis for works created by Rejlander and Shonibare; where a single image holds an entire narrative. Rejlander took on the approach of a tableau director where each aspect of the performance must be decided and controlled by a single person so that every inch of the performance adds to the story and the final outcome of the display. When creating ‘Two Ways of Life’ in 1857, Rejlander took 30 negatives and combined them to create a single large combination print that showed the scene on stage as elaborately detailed as the cameras of the time would allow. More recently, Yinka Shonibare used a similar style of tableau imagery when creating his series ‘Diary of a Victorian Dandy’. Each photograph displayed different aspects of ‘a day in the life’ of a rich man from the Victorian era but changed the specifics of racial discrepancies so that the British-Nigerian artist starred as the ‘Victorian Dandy’ for each image. His series clearly displayed the intricacies of tableaux vivants that I believe allow the exploration of narrative in both of these artists’ works.
Oscar Gustave RejlanderYinka Shonibare
OSCAR GUSTAVE REJLANDER – ‘Two Ways of Life’
Oscar Gustave Rejlander’s ‘Two Ways of Life’ was one of the most ambitious and controversial photographs of the nineteenth century. It was an elaborate allegory of the choice between vice and virtue, represented by a bearded sage leading two young men from the countryside onto the stage of life. Because it would have been impossible to capture a scene of such extravagant complexity in a single exposure, Rejlander photographed each model and background section separately, combining them to create an innovative and complex print that pioneered the world of combination printing.
Rejlander was first known as a painter and lithographer, studying art and antiquity in Rome before exhibiting his paintings the Royal Academy, England in 1848. He later learned photography from Nicholas Henneman in 1853 and just four years later created and displayed his ‘Two Ways of Life’ at the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition and at the Photographic Society of London. The narrative behind this image explores the allegorical choice between vice and virtue where a bearded sage (played by Rejlander himself) leads to young men to the choices. One rushes to the pastime of drinking and gambling while the other seems to glide to the virtues of marriage and religion. The narrative displays the allegory of choosing the right path in life.
VICEVIRTUE
The image became one of the most controversial of the time with the semi-dressed women on the Left of the photograph. Rejlander was open to criticism from Victorian society and the image was first refused by the Photographic Society of Scotland and later displayed there with the left side hidden by a sheet. The two sides of the image both displaying the opposites of one another reflect the biblical ideas of the right to be righteous and the path of God while the left is seen as the side of the devil. Society had always deemed that left-handed people were the spawns of the devil and with the ideas of Left and Right Wing politics on the verge of existence within Europe, Britain was most definitely on the Right and therefore, in line with the ideas that Rejlander’s image presents, is righteous and Godly.
Diagram of the layout used by Rejlander for ‘Two Ways of Life’
Rejlander sees his work within the narrative style as a way of expressing his thoughts and feelings through images. He said:
“I regard art as a means of making thought visible. If I can make a thought visible in a picture which people can understand, and be moved by it to laughter or tears, it is a work of art whether I produce it by the aid of a camera or of the pencil. It is the mind of the artist, and not the nature of his materials, which makes his production a work of art.”
This idea that Rejlander follows allows the narrative of the image itself to display the clarity and detail required to allow people to understand exactly the artists intended message for the piece. The single image that he produced creates this complex fable that uses the ideals of religion and biblical understanding to connect with its audience. Every aspect of the image has been meticulously arranged and coincides directly with the style of tableau vivant. The formatting of the image, the poses that each actor performs, and the scenes within the frame outline the full story within the single image, clearly displaying Rejlander’s interpretation of the narrative style in photography.
YINKA SHONIBARE – ‘Diary of a Victorian Dandy’
“I realised … that I didn’t have to be painting on canvas to be an artist. Painting is so historically loaded, anyway – it’s like a sign of white male dominance.” (Yinka Shonibare, 2020)
Shonibare’s modern works illustrate ideas of narrative and tableaux imagery, allowing more intense messages to be conveyed. He attempts to examine race, class and the construction of cultural identity in all of his works, but a prominent example of this would be his series ‘Diary of a Victorian Dandy’, showing the artist himself a ‘pretentious, status conscious figure who seeks acceptance in aristocratic milieu.’ (Museum, V. and A. 2013) Being British-Nigerian, Shonibare has dealt with racism throughout his life and engages with his “‘outsider’ status as a black, disabled artist” investigating the conditions of postcolonialism and globalisation.
Diary of a Victorian Dandy: 14.00 hours
The image above, titled ‘Diary of a Victorian Dandy: 14.00 hours’ shows the artist as a single black man in a room filled with white businessmen and servants. Put into historical context, the artist is the single figure that seems out of place and puts to question why has the artist decided to build a narrative with a stereotypical and historical title, then present the opposite of what audiences would expect to see in the series. In accordance to his artistic aims for the series, it is a clear commentary on colonialism and the tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe. I believe the fact that all but Shonibare seem to have eccentric expressions with their characters which comments on the racial oppression faced by many African’s taken by Europeans as slaves to the Americas. Shonibare’s lack of expression suggests that although he is depicted as the well-loved gentleman in the room, he still feels that racial differences prevent him from enjoying this high position. The series is a clear reflection of British heritage and forces its audiences to understand that despite the progression of society to the acceptance of one another, nothing can change the impact that the past has on our lives today.
11.00 hours17.00 hours19.00 hours03.00 hours
The way in which Shonibare explores narrative matches techniques used by Rejlander in creating his ‘Two Ways of Life’ but solely by the usage of tableaux. Shonibare chose to create five images that told one story as opposed to Rejlander’s singular outcome. Rejlander composes a single scene where every aspect is choreographed; Shonibare takes this further, following the traditions of tableau vivant where multiple frozen scenes (each meticulously planned and positioned) combine to tell the overall narrative.
CONCLUSION
Rejlander and Shonibare have both created their own responses that differ greatly from one another when exploring narrative in their imagery. Rejlander has utilised the well-loved theatrical style of tableau vivant, “posing their models in allegorical arrangements that addressed such themes as childhood, the virtues of motherhood, and the beauty of nature” (Thomas, A. London: Merrell Publishers); solidifying a theatrical style as well as a story within a single image. Shonibare’s work uses historical oppression and reverses it to create an intricate retelling of history, his way. Both use a clear basis, a story that already exists, and either employed ideas provided by society or moulded them to establish their own comments on the world. Either artist can be considered a pioneer in their artistic careers, perhaps not for the same reasons, but they most definitely created works that had a profound impact on the way we look at the world, achieving every artists ambitions: to influence their audience to think about their own lives and their positions in the world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Thomas, A. (2006) ‘Modernity and the Staged Photograph, 1900-1965’, In: Pauli, L. (2006), Acting the part: Photography as theatre. London: Merrell Publishers, pp. 102–108.
J. Paul Getty Museum (2019), Oscar Rejlander: Artist Photographer. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum
Museum, V. and A. (2013) Diary of a Victorian Dandy: 14.00 hours: Shonibare, Yinka: V&A explore the collections, Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections. Available at: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1263374/diary-of-a-victorian-dandy-photograph-shonibare-yinka/ (Accessed: 10 November 2023).
Bate, David (2016) ‘Once Upon a Time’ in Art Photography. London: Tate Galleries.
Reilly, S. (2020) ‘The Wit and Wisdom of Yinka Shonibare’, Apollo Magazine.
I had to ensure the ISO was high when taking these images as it was night time in a dark castle – I also wanted to primarily use screens as the light source meaning that there was little light on the subjects. The contact sheet shows the images slowly getting brighter as I work out the optimal sett nos for this shoot.
PHOTOSHOOT 2 – Dance Studio
This was taken of a ballet class focusing on one dancer that I have danced with with during my entire performance career. The studio has a very harsh white light on white walls which will need darkening in post production but the subject will generally need to be brighter in each image.
PHOTOSHOOT 3 – History
The day was brighter than I thought to begin with so the ISO was brought down and the shutter speed sped up. You can see this more clearly with the harshly bright photographs that are among the first in the contact sheet. It was also very difficult to get the exposure setting just right as my involvement in the displays meant that I had to get an assistant to take the images, they did not understand the importance of exposure and how to manipulate the settings
Archival Images
These images have been taken from all shows and everything that I myself have done in the past.
This part of the project is an extra photoshoot that I could get useful images from. As part of the Jersey Militia and working in the role of an 18th Century Gunner, this links to my project as professional character work that I do now. This would alongside images from shows that i have directed will represent where I am now before leaving to study the theatrical world at University. I want to photograph members of the 1781 Jersey Militia in period uniform during their event on 6th January commemorating the fallen of the Battle of Jersey in 1781.
With this photoshoot, I want to show aspects of rehearsal and performance training. For three years of my journey I effectively spent my life in the studio practicing anything that I could do; singing, stretching, dancing. I want to capture this part of my story through a series of motion shots and experiment both in and out of post-production on blurring images and piecing parts together to create a moving image in one photograph.
I have directed Ghost Stories by Candlelight which is currently running at Mont Orgueil Castle. With the idea of staged and tableaux photography, I want to use the cast of the show to recreate scenes in tableaux positions. I want to show a mix of heavily costumed and stylised imagery and the simplicity of crew images working in the background of the show. As the castle will be very dark and the primary light sources for the images would be a mixture of torches, screens and candles; I will conduct the shoot on Aperture Priority mode on the camera.
Raised in Nigeria and then moving to London in 1980, Shonibare became immersed into the art world. He began exhibiting his art in 1988 exploring themes of colonialism, imperialism, and social mobility. His most notable exhibition being Diary of a Victorian Dandy in 1998 displaying staged images of role reversals between Black and White people in the Victorian era.
Shonibare’s artwork not only comments on historical and modern society but as a black, disabled artist his pieces are now created by a team of assistants and he himself works as a conceptual artist. Before this, however, his works included sculpted public pieces like ‘Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle’ that was displayed in Trafalgar Square in 2010 and then shown outside the Greenwich Maritime Museum where it still stands. The most notable works that he has created that I believe to be a key part of my own project is his re-enacted exhibition of ‘Diary of a Victorian Dandy’.
‘Diary of a Victorian Dandy’
“Shonibare’s ambitious photographic suite Diary of a Victorian Dandy has frequently been considered in relation to the satirical art of the 18th-century painter”
This exhibition presents Shonibare as a Victorian aristocrat, commenting on the highly racist society that was Europe in the Victorian era. The series was meticulously staged, with every action decided and choreographed to create the scene. Yinka Shonibare himself, being the centre of attention looks out of place in the images as the only Anglo-African subject in the image. All others are white and follow the rich, victorian businessman stereotype. This forces his series to comment on the racial stereotypes of the time and being an obviously modern image, framed in this ancient style frame, accentuates this recognition of Britain’s racist history.
This image specifically is intriguing as Shonibare has a monotone facial expression and holds himself in way that seems unbothered by the actions of those around him. In the image, all of the other rich men are admiring him specifically, either laughing at jokes or applauding him. Naturally, the subject of this attention would be happy and basking in this minor triumph for whatever reason, but he seems unfazed by the situation which is interesting when put into the context of Shonibare’s aims. When understanding that the artist wanted to comment on racism in Britain’s history, the monotone and unfazed facial expressions suggest the oppression that those of African nationality felt under British rule. It also establishes that the image is fabricated history and a rich Victorian Dandy would have most definitely been white.
