For my project, I would like to explore personal identity and the visual elements of abstraction and imperfection within a photograph which is taken spontaneously; as a response to things around me, a collection of portraits, landscapes, and objects as a way of documentary and observational ‘snapshot aesthetic’ photography. I would like to present my images taken of my friends, myself, my family, and various locations and objects with a photobook. In this book, I could possibly present these photos alongside accompanying text or a notebook page, and manipulation or change of my photographs, either by applying paint, ripping/tearing/burning them, cutting a subject or something out, or re-joining the same or a different photograph with thread. Another way I could possibly change the photographs is merging or overlaying these photos digitally to create a blurry effect in certain areas.
To develop my project, I have looked closely at the photographs and books of Nan Goldin, Ed van der Elsken, Cindy Sherman, Francesca Woodman, and Josh Kern, to inspire the way I take and present my own photos. Goldin’s intention especially behind taking her photographs resonates with how I feel about capturing photographs for this project, where for a part of it, not entirely planning who I will photograph and where – instead the people I am with at a certain time and observe where I see a photograph opportunity, or not, and making it appear somewhat randomised, focusing on the disjunctions and juxtapositions of the individual photographs.
These types of candid, documentary photographs can only be genuinely captured through carrying a camera around with me in order to capture unexpected moments, in a variety of different locations, both inside and outside. Because of this, some photographs will be captured on my small digital camera, for times I don’t have my digital film camera. Although, I will have some photographs which are staged, I would like them to still have an almost spontaneous appearance, and these ‘photoshoots’ of a subject in an environment may not initially be planned beforehand. This take of impetuosity on these photographs links back to the ‘abstract’ part of my mind map – for example, a use of abstraction of portraits with parts of the body blurred, obstruction between the subject and the camera, imperfections in the photo, camera movement/slower shutter speed, or flash photography.
I may also sequence frames from videos taken on my small digital camera and present them as a small component of my book, an idea I have is through a film strip layout. By aligning the photographs in this way, I’ll be displaying both the clear and blurry frames side by side as a juxtaposition, along with presenting an object (e.g. film strip, receipts, or any ‘rubbish’ I have collected from when I am out taking these photos) through possibly photocopying them or editing them in digitally to the layout. The layout of my other photographs will be presented differently from image to image, as some might be a double page spread, or one photo on its own, two beside each other, or in a grid sequence showing ‘unused’ photographs (crossed out with pen, depicted as a physical contact sheet), etc. This decision to include multi-media and text into the project I believe will make it more personal to me, as I can directly express more through how my images are presented.
‘Nan one month after being battered’, Nan Goldin, 1984
Nan Goldin
Nan Goldin was born in Washington, D.C. on September 12, 1953, and is a photographer and activist. Goldin began photographing at the age of fifteen, and when she was nineteen she lived in downtown Boston, where she started documenting her life in the subcultural community she made home, ultimately solidifying her interest in photography. In 1978, she moved to New York, where she continued the documentation of people she spent time with, driven by her need to remember her ‘extended/chosen family’.
Goldin’s work documents her life and the lives of these people close to her in a tableaux, uncompromising manner, showcasing stories and intimate details of their lived experiences. Goldin explores the intimate emotions of the individual, in relationships, and in LGBTQ subcultures, where her beginning interest in photography was found in her loved ones who were drag queens, and she admired them for stepping outside of societal and gender norms. These photographs she took during this time and earlier were included in her first book which compromises fifteen years of work, ‘The Ballad of Sexual Dependency’. This book is a very personal depiction and documentation of her life from 1979 and 1986, and the photos hold a raw intensity which feels spontaneous. She stated about her way of capturing these moments; ‘I don’t select people in order to photograph them; I photograph directly from my life. These pictures come out of relationships, not observation.’ With her photographs, she is able to capture the world without glamorisation or glorification, and preserve the sense of peoples’ lives, to make those in the pictures stare back.
In the afterword from 2012 of this book, Goldin has expressed her view on this time of her life, describing it as distressing to look back on, and almost encapsulated with a sense of paranoia about people denying her experiences. ‘I was going to leave a record of my life and experience that no one could rewrite or deny.’ She then states that; ‘it became a more obsessive kind of documenting’. These photographs also act as a way to remember those who have passed since documenting these events. She closes this afterword with; ‘I look at Ballad and see the dynamics of both love and hate, tenderness and violence, as well as all kinds of ambivalence in relationships.’
‘Nan and Brian in bed’, Nan Goldin, 1983
In Nan Goldin’s work around this time, her photos were dominantly taken inside and by night, they embodied a sort of ‘snapshot aesthetic’, where the subject matter is often presented without an apparent link within the images and instead rely on the juxtapositions and disjunctions of the individual photos. Goldin stated; ‘That series is stark. It’s all flash-lit. I honestly didn’t know about natural light then and how it affected the colour of the skin because I never went out in daylight.’
Through capturing photos of familiar subjects in domestic or seemingly unknown, juxtaposing locations, the photographers Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Ed van der Elsken, Josh Kern, and Silken Weinberg could be exploring a deeper personal perception of the photographer’s self and the world around them. I am inspired by these photographers for my project because their photos appear to depict the world and their experiences in an uncompromising manner.
Cindy Sherman
Nan Goldin
Josh Kern
Ed van der Elsken
Silken Weinberg
Through capturing either a candid or staged photo of a familiar or unfamiliar subject(s), the photographers Daidō Moriyama, William Klein, Janette Beckman, Richard Bellia, and Henri Cartier-Bresson observe the people around them with their photography. The feel of impetuosity, or a ‘decisive moment’ within these photographs inspires me for my own photographs.
Daidō Moriyama
Janette Beckman
Henri Cartier-Bresson
William Klein
Richard Bellia
Photographers who connect the human form and nature through a series of juxtapositions, photos of a natural form, or an abandoned man-made building overtaken by nature are Eva Voutsaki, Carla Ellens, Robert Frank, Stig Marlon Weston, Diane Fenster, Jeff Cowen, María Tudela, and Alicja Brodowicz. Some of these photographers also adapt and change their photographs after it is taken using a variety of different medias, either applying a layer of paint or texture on top or writing over the photo, and also such as Josh Kern.
Eva Voutsaki
Robert Frank
Diane Fenster
María Tudela
Carla Ellens
Stig Marlon Weston
Jeff Cowen
Alicja Brodowicz
Caravaggio, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, and Édouard Manet are artists I have looked at for this project to inspire different compositions for my photos, and to further consider the depth and lighting of a photo in relation to how a painting/drawing of it would appear.
Caravaggio
Rembrandt
Frans Hals
Édouard Manet
Definitions
OBSERVE
To observe means: Watching, noticing something – exploring/observing
Read two texts above (John Szarkowski’s introduction and review by Jed Pearl) and select 3 quotes from each that is relevant to your essay.
Select two images, one that represent a mirror and another that represents a window as examples to use in your essay.
Use some of the key words that you listed above to describe what the mirrors and windows suggest.
Essay plan Introduction (250 words): Reflect on the origin of photography and describe in your own words the difference between the two photographic processes, Daguerreotype and Calotype. Consider how they could be viewed as either a mirror or a window of the world according to John Szarkowski’s thesis. Choose one quote from Szarkowski’s text and comment if you agree or disagree.
Essay draft
Mirrors and Windows, an exhibition of American photography since 1960, is John Szarkowski’s attempt to categorise the work of photographers which largely seek to explore outside of themselves. Whether an image is a mirror or a window is dependent on the photographer’s own sensibility, and whether or not it is a reflection of self.
Photography was said to be invented in 1839, that was the year that Louis Daguerre, a Frenchman, and Henry Fox Talbot, an Englishman, played an important role in announcing rival processes that would ‘fix the shadows’, to adopt a physical form to these images. The beginnings of photography were ultimately about the struggle to see which method would thrive. With how money and industry was a huge focus within the early beginning of photography, and had huge impact on what photography looks like at the present date, the method which photographs could be reproduced at a quick and commercial rate triumphed.
One of these processes innovated by Louis Daguerre, daguerreotypes, are photos which have a different kind of connection which is more intimate, as the process features no separation between the material the image is being shot with and the finished result. This is because the same plate within camera is the same plate which is eventually displayed as the photograph. Despite this method’s unbelievable range of values and detail, presenting the brightest whites and the deepest blacks, these photographs, if not gilded, could easily be wiped off with the slightest touch. Although a downside of this method was that only one image could be made from daguerreotypes, which was not ideal for the market photography was creating, which focused on money and industry.
The other process innovated by Henry Fox Talbot, calotypes, are photos much more reproduceable, ‘Talbot recognised that human communication was through paper’. Ultimately, Talbot’s method of making photographs dominated the Daguerreotype as multiple copies of the same captured image could be created, instead of one which could be lost quite easily, which was not in the market for photography at the time, as businesses wanted photographs for commercial use instead of sentimental purpose.
Paragraph 1 (250 words): Choose an image that in your view is a mirror and analyse how it is a subjective expression and staged approach to image-making. Choose one quote from Szarkowski’s thesis and another from Jed Pearl’s review which either supports of opposes Szarkowski’s original point of view. Make sure you comment to advance argumentation in providing a critical perspective.
Images that are mirrors in photography are a romantic expression and a personal reflection of the photographer’s sensibility, as they project themselves onto things and sights of this world. Cindy Sherman, a photographer who explores this intimate aspect of photography, explores a personal perception of self identity and behaviours within the world around her. The collection of photographs named ‘Untitled Film Stills’ which Cindy Sherman produced in the 1970s and 1980s seem to deliberately rely on caricatures of female subjects in movies, staging these photographs by taking on the role of the actress, instead of adopting a performative approach in the creation of her works. She stated, “Once I set up, the camera starts clicking, then I just start to move and watch how I move in the mirror. It’s not like I’m method acting or anything. I don’t feel that I am that person. I may be thinking about a certain story or situation, but I don’t become her. There’s this distance. The image in the mirror becomes her—the image the camera gets on the film. And the one thing I’ve always known is that the camera lies.” (C. Sherman, quoted in Ibid., p. 23).
Sherman delves deep into exploring an enhanced personal perspective of self identity and the world around her, aiming to address how she perceives the projective eye which invokes a violent penetrative gaze on women during the 1970s and 1980s for the viewer, rather than expressing her own identity. Her performative artistic production of what could be an untitled film still of a woman under the pressure to act for the male gaze in film and other types of media relates directly to the concept of a mirror photograph, reflecting Sherman’s own sensibility. The idea of Szarkowski’s mirrors and windows theory is a very binary stance on photography, and I believe Cindy Sherman’s photographs, whilst objectively being viewed as a mirror extend further than simply that, and are able to criticise a much deeper issue within the world of public media.
Paragraph 2 (250 words): Choose an image that in your view is a window and analyse how it is an objective expression rooted in the notion of realism. Choose one quote from Szarkowski’s thesis and another from Jed Pearl’s review and follow similar procedure as above ie. two opposing points of view and commentary to provide a critical perspective.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, On a train, Roumanie (1975)
Images that are windows in photography act as a window for the viewer to see something primarily factual and external to the photographer’s own sensibility, where the exterior world is explored in all its presence and reality. Henri Cartier-Bresson, a photographer who coined the term ‘decisive moment’, explores a factual and documentary-based way of photographs, and capture a moment in time which is usually not staged.
Conclusion (250 words): Refer back to the essay question and write a conclusion where you summarise Szarkowski’s theory and Pearl’s review of his thesis. Describe differences and similarities between the two images above and their opposing concepts of objectivity and subjectivity, realism and romanticism, factual and fiction, public and private.
What are the differences between photographs that are Mirrors and Windows?
Mirrors and Windows, an exhibition of American photography since 1960, is John Szarkowski’s attempt to categorise the work of photographers which largely seek to explore outside of themselves. Whether an image is a mirror or a window is dependent on the photographer’s own sensibility, and whether or not it is a reflection of self.
“Is it a mirror, reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it, or a window, through which one might better know the world?” – John Szarkowski, 1978
Mirrors
Images that are mirrors in photography are a romantic expression and a personal reflection of the photographer’s sensibility, as it projects itself onto things and sights of this world. Mirrors explore a personal perception of the photographer’s self and the world around them.
Images that are windows in photography act as a window for the viewer to see something primarily factual and external to the photographer’s own sensibility, where the exterior world is explored in all its presence and reality. Windows are factual and documentary-based, and capture a moment in time which is usually not staged.
I believe that this photograph by Nan Goldin is a mirror image. Although the image appears to be staged, it could depict a moment which factually took place in their relationship, exploring the reality of the situation, making the photo a personal reflection of Goldin’s self.
What was the involvement of Jersey mariners in the Canadian cod-fisheries and the Transatlantic carrying trade?
Fishermen in the Channel Islands had set up profitable trade routes between Canada, Europe and America by the 1750s. They established bases on the Gaspé Coast where they could salt and prepare the cod-fish. It was during the 15th century that Jersey mariners reached Canada. Jersey fishermen were among the 10,000 European fisherman by the 1580s to make the transatlantic voyage to these areas every year to fish for cod.
Which ports did Jersey ships sail to and trade with?
There was an established trade route during the Roman period between Alet, in St Servan, and Hengistbury Head in Dorset.
Although these boats certainly called in to Jersey as well, Guernsey was the favoured stop off point, because of St Peter Port’s natural deep water. Furthermore, the Roman cargo boat which was raised from this harbour at St Peter provides information on the type of boat which would have travelled on this route.
What type of goods did Jersey merchants exchange for cod-fish?
Jersey cod merchants exchanged cargoes of wine, brandy, dried fruit, citrus fruit, oil, skins, furs, coffee, sugar, salt, and tobacco for cod-fish. Most of the cod was sold to Mediterranean ports, because of the large demand of fish in those countries. These cargoes were brought back from these ports, and often taken straight to an English or Northern European port, then returning home to Jersey with a third cargo, though some would come straight back to Jersey.
To what extent, has the island of Jersey benefitted from its constitutional relationship with Britain and the legacies of colonialism based on a slave plantation economy during the first Industrial Revolution (1760-1840)?
Jersey benefitted from the constitutional relationship it had with Britain and the legacies of colonialism based on a slave plantation economy during the first Industrial Revolution, especially during the peak of the cod trade. Fishing vessels for the Jersey fleet had moved from being built in the outposts of Canada to Jersey, along with the large scale commercial shipyard starting operation in 1815. By the 1850s, Jersey had 300-400 ships with a tonnage of over 40,000. It is estimated that by the 1860s, the Channel Islands and Jersey-built wooden fishing fleets made up about 6% of the total tonnage of wooden fishing fleets built in the British Isles. This significant growth of the economy could have also been correlated to the population increase doubling from 28,600 in 1821 to 57,020 in 1851.
These are the photos from my Anthropocene project that I chose as my best photos:
Comparing and Contrasting
George Marazaki: ‘A Cure for Anthropocene’
My photographs relating to the Anthropocene:
Evaluation and Critique
For this photoshoot, I chose this location and took photos with inspiration from George Marazakis’ series called ‘A Cure for Anthropocene’. I decided to focus on man-made structures that are surrounded by nature that is predominant to the landscape or overgrown, for example, the radio tower at the top of the rocky cliff, the lighthouse atop the rocks out at sea, and the damaged, abandoned rock quarry surrounded by bushes, all showing the juxtaposition between nature and infrastructure.
I feel like my planning for this photoshoot helped me understand the overall composition and deadpan approach in Marazaki’s photographs, and I was able to take inspiration from those. In my photos, the natural light differed from each spot, which I paid attention to and adjusted my settings accordingly for the different locations. However, In my contact sheets, I noticed that some of my photos were underexposed, and I corrected them when editing by increasing the exposure or applying a mask on the darkest areas and increasing the exposure or brightness.
Anthropocene is sometimes used to describe the period of time where human activity had a substantial impact on Earths climate and environment. The Anthropocene began in the 1950s. The word combines the Greek words “anthropo” which means “human”, and “-cene”, which is the standard suffix for “epoch” in geological time. The term was coined and made popular by biologist Eugene Stormer and chemist Paul Crutzen in 2000.
Edward Burtynsky
George Marazakis
Alessandro Zanoni
James Balog
Scientists have agreed that the acceleration of global warming and climate change is mostly through human activity, rather than natural processes. Four of the main causes of the Anthropocene is agriculture, urbanisation, deforestation and pollution.
These human actions cause changes in water cycle, imbalances and destructions of marine and terrestrial ecosystems, an increase of extreme meteorological phenomena, and the acidification of the oceans or disappearance of forests. Some examples of photographers which have focused their photography on the Anthropocene are; Edward Burtynsky, George Marazakis, Alessandro Zanoni, James Balog, etc.
Edward Burtynsky
Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer, who is best known for his global industrial landscapes which represent over 40 years of his dedication to shining a light on the detrimental impact of the human industry on the planet. He was born February 22, 1955 of Ukrainian heritage in St. Catharine’s, Ontario. Furthermore, Burtynsky received his BAA in Photography/Media Studies from Toronto Metropolitan University in 1982, as well as receiving both an Alumni Achievement Award in 2004 and an Honorary Doctorate in 2007.
Edward Burtynsky was a director for the documentary released in 2018 called; ‘Anthropocene: The Human Epoch’, which takes a look at six continents and twenty different countries to capture the catastrophic effects that humans have had on Earth’s climate and environment over the last century. Burtynsky states; “I have come to think of my preoccupation with the Anthropocene — the indelible marks left by humankind on the geological face of our planet — as a conceptual extension of my first and most fundamental interests as a photographer. I have always been concerned to show how we affect the Earth in a big way. To this end, I seek out and photograph large-scale systems that leave lasting marks.” which shows his focus when photographing these types of landscapes related to the Anthropocene.
George Marazakis
George Marazakis is a Greek photographer who considers and approaches the Anthropocene as a concept and title for a series, dealing with human activity having dominating effects on the climate and environment. Marazakis was born in 1976 in Creta Island, Greece. He studied Mechanical Engineering and works for the Municipal of Heraklion.
George Marazakis’ series called ‘A Cure for Anthropocene’ considers how humanity’s impact on Earth’s geology is so critical that the current Geological epoch which began 11,650 years ago, Holocene, is being proposed to be replaced by a new one called Anthropocene. Marazakis states; “If we assume that humans, and by extension, human civilization is a product of nature, considering the way that appeared, as small growing changes in topography, an external observer could describe it as an autoimmune disease attacking its own body. However, what would be considered as a disease is our very existence and the cure, the ecological movement, does not aim at the salvation of the planet but at the salvation of human existence on the planet.” which shows his concern for the Anthropocene.
This is a digital landscape photograph by George Marazakis, from his series “A Cure for Anthropocene”. The composition features a factory emitting clouds of smoke far in the background as the focal point, surrounded by barren fields and mountains behind it. The road acts as leading lines which start in the foreground, stretches past the midground, and draws the viewers eyes towards the background’s industrial buildings. I believe this photo does not follow the rule of thirds, because the horizon is more centred in the image, and the focal point does not fall on any of the rule of third lines. The lighting appears to be natural daylight on a cloudy, overcast day.
No aspects of the photo are overexposed or underexposed, and the contrast appears to be not too strong. The depth of field is sharp so I believe the aperture is f/11, as the background and midground is clear and not blurry. The shutter speed appears to be 1/125, and the image is not grainy, so I believe the ISO is around 100-200. Furthermore, the context of this image aims to shed light on the Anthropocene, and the pollution released from these industrial buildings, caused by humans.
