John Grenville Stezaker was born during 1949 and is a British conceptual artist. Stezaker attended an art school in London, Slade School of Art, in his early teens, he then later graduated with a higher Diploma in Fine Art during 1973. During the early 1970s, he was among the first wave of British conceptual artists to react against what was ten the predominance of Pop art. For a while it was rare for Stezaker to do a Solo exhibition, however in the mid-2000s his work was rediscovered by the art market and he is now collected by several international collectors and museums. Stezaker has become renowned for his unique approach to found imagery, often utilising vintage photographs, postcards, as well a movie stills to create new visual narratives. His work can be characterised by his use of juxtaposition and his layering techniques where he typically cuts and combines images to create new meaning and context which explore themes such as memory, identity and time.

Marriage

’Marriage’ is one of John Stezaker’s most recognised series of images. In this series he overlays portraits of couples with images of landscapes or abstract forms, this creates a tension between the intimacy and love and the vastness of the places that they inhabit. Aside from this series he has also created several others including ‘cards’, in which he uses playing cards and other found materials, along with film stills which includes imagery from cinema. His work usually creates a sense of nostalgia as he invites the past into his work with the medium of collage.

Photoshoot 1: Portraiture

For my first photoshoot I will focus on taking portraits based off of old photos I have collected from albums. These portraits will include photos of people together as well as alone. I will try to make the poses as similar to the original image as I can. This photoshoot will be mainly based on the photographer Irina Werning as she takes new photos based on older ones.

Photoshoot 2: Landscapes

For my second photoshoot I will focus on Taylor Jones’ photography where he holds up old photographs and photographs them against the same place they were originally taken. This shows how things change overtime as well as how things also remain the same. I will do this by collecting various photos from photo albums where I know where they have been taken. I will then produce multiple photoshoots in response to these in different environments.

Taylor Jones created the movement ‘Dear Photograph’. He was inspired to do this when he was sitting with his family and an old photo album was taken out including hundreds of old photos. In one of these photographs Jones’ brother was sat in the exact spot he was sitting in this photograph. This prompted him to take his camera and take a shot of the old photograph lined up to its original location. He then posted this photograph along with six others on a blog. This blog had gone viral within days, he later called this blog ‘Dear Photograph’. The success of this movement enabled Jones to leave his job and create a book inspired by Dear Photograph that will feature stories along with some shots. He has also met Tv and Film executives to discuss projects based on the site such as a screenplay a friend wrote about using photographs to travel into the past.

Dear Photograph

The idea of Dear Photograph revolves around memory and nostalgia and it involves holding an old photo up to the same environment where it was originally taken. This concept has resulted in powerful, emotional reflections on time, loss, and connections between past and present. Each of the photographs in the book is partnered with a sentence or note from the person who took the photograph which provides the reader with more information on the photograph as well as personal stories which enhances the viewer’s understanding of the images.

This is the original photo taken by Taylor Jones which started the whole idea of ‘Dear photograph’.

Back to the Future

Irina Werning became world-famous as a result of her project ‘Back to the Future’. In this project Werning photographed people as they reenacted their childhood portraits. This unique series shows how people look and feel 20 years after their childhood portraits, Werning took her camera and portrayed hundreds of people as they go back to their future. She was inspired to create this project after she scanned some older photos and after she ended up in one of the locations where one of these photos had been shot. I find this project interesting as your able to see how people change overtime.

Analysis

 

This photograph by Werning shows the way that the subject has grown since the original photo. It has been well done as she was able to position the new photograph in the exact same way the old one was taken, including the same object in the background and view in the window. They also paid attention to detail by using the same clothing and almost identical glasses.

Statement of intent

I will be focusing on binary opposites for my personal study, these will be ‘old and new’. For my personal study I intend to recreate various old photos of my family members to show how people change overtime. To do this I will look at old photo albums to find photos which I can recreate. I will edit this new photos and compare them to old ones, I may also try combining these photos. I might also explore landscape photography through using older photos and holding them up in the landscapes where they were originally taken, this will not only show how people change but also how the landscape around them has changed overtime.

Photographers

Irena Werning

Taylor Jones

My personal study will be looking at binary opposites, specifically old and new. I will do this through comparing old photos with new ones that I have taken in a similar way to these old ones. My project will relate to nostalgia as it will be looking back on old memories and tying to capture them again within new photos. I will focus on observe, seek, and challenge within my photography through observing old photos, seeking new photos through creating them, and challenging the concept of time by showing the effects of it on things such as people and the environment.

Binary Opposites

Binary opposition is a pair of related terms which have opposite meaning, for example good and evil, man and woman, black and white. The two terms I will be focusing on are old and new.

Theory of Binaries

According to the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, meaning is often defined in terms of Binary oppositions, he stated “one of the two terms governs the other.” For example the binary opposition of male-female, where the male is often seen as the dominant gender and women are subservient. This is linked in with the patriarchy, a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.

Claude Levi-Strauss

In this blog post I will review some projects which I believe have been successful.

Deadpan Photography

Deadpan photography is a type of photo which lacks all sense of emotion, it is mainly seen within landscape images. However it can be seen within portraits as well and the subjects of these portraits will tend to be in their natural state, without showing any emotion. For my photoshoot I chose to respond to the photographer Lewis Baltz.

These two images were my best shots within my Deadpan project. I completed my photoshoot in various areas within St Ouens, which is where these two photos were taken.

I also investigated leading lines within photography which are typically used for drawing the viewers attention to a certain area within a photo. I took this image on the road in St Ouens where the white lines lead your eyes deeper into the image.

Evaluation:

I think my deadpan photography went well as I was able to create some similar images to Lewis Baltz. If I were to do it again I would take more photos in different areas, not just St Ouens.

Femininity

Another project I believe went well was my project based on femininity in response to the photographer Cindy Sherman, an American Photographer who mainly takes self-portraits portraying herself as multiple different characters.

In this photoshoot I chose to focus on photographing my model doing cleaning, cooking and more. I did this as I wanted to focus on photographing the out-dated stereotypical views of what women should do.

These are my best images from this project, I chose to make them all black and white as this is what Sherman does in her photography.

Evaluation:

I liked how my final images turned out in this photoshoot especially after making them black and white. If I was to re-do this photoshoot I would focus more on the ideas which Cindy Sherman focuses on, such as domestic violence and I would try to capture more emotion in my images.

Anthropocene

One of my favourite projects I have done is my the one based on Anthropocene where I responded to the photographer Zed Nelson.

For my response to Zed Nelson I chose to visit Jersey Zoo, where I photographer a variety of animals. This related to the subject of Anthropocene as it shows has humans have had a negative affect on the lives of animals by making them live in cages for their own enjoyment.

This is one of my favourite images which I produced. I edited it to make the background blurred to make it appear that everything around the animal is moving however the animal is constantly stuck in the same place, similar to how they are constantly in the zoo.

Evaluation:

Overall this project was successful as I was able to create photographs with meaning similar to Zed Nelson’s photographs.

What are the differences between photographs that are MIRRORS and photographs that are WINDOWS?

Photographs which are ‘reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it‘ – John Szarkowski, 1978, are considered to be mirror photography, as they are giving insight to the artists personal life. Mirror photography is often subjective and open to interpretation. Whereas window photography gives you a view into someone else’s life and experiences. Window photography allows you to explore the world and it can be a form of documentation, which is often objective. It allows you to understand more about the world as John Szarkowski said, ‘through which one might better know the world’ –  John Szarkowski, 1978.

Mirrors:

• Subjective (open to interpretation)
• Reflects artist
• Reflections
• View into your own life
• Manipulated
• Synthetic
• Personal

I believe this image is a form of mirror photography as it is personal to the photographer. It is an image of the photographers freezer which contains their food, this makes it quite a personal image as it is showing the world what they have got inside of their own home, and what they eat. It is also subjective as people may have different opinions about the freezer and its content, making it a mirror image.

Windows:

• Objective (not open to interpretation)
• Outside world
• Documents
• Real
• Public

This is a form of window photography as it is a view of the outside world, and it is real. It can also be a form of documentation as they are photographing what appears to be factories, making it a window image.