OCA Level 3: Body of Work/Contextual Studies

Author: Michael (Page 2 of 6)

Howells and Negreiros: Photography


In their chapter on photography, Howells and Negreiros survey some of the historical developments in responses to photography as an art and the relationship of the medium to reality. The paper contains much useful information and debate, however I found myself strangely disengaged from it. I previously read this when I studied both UVC and documentary and found it useful then, so I am struggling to understand what has changed. Perhaps it is me and my thinking – having extensively considered whether photography is an art (answer = it depends) or the relationship between photography and reality (answer = it is a mixture of truth and fiction) I have explored these topics as much as I want to. That is not to try and suggest that I am an authority on this, far from it, simply that these debates  are not the ones that I find most engaging or relevant to my current practice. I also find myself increasingly engaged with texts that have a strong point of view or argument to make and considering if I am convinced or share the arguments being presented. Despite all of these rambling thoughts, there is much to engage with in the paper, here are some of the quotes that resonated with me:

  • Quote from Bazin’s Ontology of the Photographic Image:
    • “the photograph is like a ‘fingerprint’. It is not the finger itself, but a record of the thing itself made by the thing itself.” (p. 199)
      • A succinct yet deceptively simple metaphor. Anyone can recognise a finger but to truly be able to read the information contained in a fingerprint in a useful way requires specialist knowledge.
  • Mike Weaver – the photograph is like a novel based on a true story. 
    • This quote enigmatically encapsulates the push/pull relationship between photography, reality and truth. It particularly chimes with my thinking as I become more comfortable with being unconcerned about notions of impartiality in my personal work and embrace ideas of authorship and presenting a personal view point. I should research the text quoted further.
      • Photography is “a meeting of the actual and the imaginary, where each adds to, rather  than detracts from, the power of the other. When we view a photograph, we are stimulated by the hallucination and the fact at the same time – and receive the compounded stimulation of both. The effect is doubled, not halved. The relationship between photography and reality is, therefore, a complex one, but it is a complexity that explains the deep and articulate richness of the photographic image.” (p. 200)

Bibliography:

Howells, R. and Negreiros, J. (2012) ‘Photography’ In: Visual Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press. pp. 183-206

BoW A2: Self Reflection

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Background:

I used a methodology of walking/exploration and memory for A1 and I wanted to continue and expand this for A2. I also wanted to continue to experiment with using a film camera as I found the limits that shooting analogue presented appealing – making images this way forced me to work differently, and perhaps most importantly, made me consider my editing choices more closely as I had a smaller amount of images to make my selections from.

Having decided on the subject of consumerism for CS I wanted to investigate what I could find on the high streets of the towns closest to me. I am interested in how the retail environment is in a state of accelerated change with many chains going out of business in recent years. Received wisdom suggests that the high street should be full of empty retail units and I wanted to investigate if this was the case. Rather than using a 35mm camera, I shot the photographs on a Holga ‘toy’ camera. The camera produces extreme lo-fi results – exposure control is minimal, framing is difficult and haphazard and the lens is made of plastic. Yet, the strong vignette, soft focus and scratched negatives create a distinctive aesthetic that I felt would fit my aim of photographing empty shops. I shot in seven locations – Stanley, Consett, Gateshead, Metro Centre, Newcastle, Durham and Sunderland. Despite finding empty shops in each of them, I would not describe any of the places I visited as being defined by this. Choosing to photograph and present only empty shops suggests otherwise, and while I am not attempting to provide a document of impartiality or truth, there is a strong question mark about these images and what they are saying. Focusing on dereliction and decay is something of a photographic cliché, superficial and only gives a partial representation.

Presentation and selection:

Originally I planned to include text as part of the images as a continuation of the strategy I had employed for A1, albeit in a more subtle form. I had the idea of including part of the now closed retailers advertising strategy as a way of drawing attention to the gulf between the hopes and promise of their advertising/brand message of the past and the reality of today. Toys R Us was the stimulus for this – whenever I think of the brand I recall the song from the advert “It’s a magical place/we’re on our way there/with toys in their million all under one roof.” (See here.) The word “magical” superimposed onto the image of the empty and decaying store was a prospect that seemed too good to miss. Unfortunately, when I tried to research advertising from the other retailers I struggled to find the information I needed so had to put this idea to ones side.

Text has been an important part of the last few projects I have made. Having to discount my original idea made me think more about this and wonder what the effect of using no text or captions with the images would be. Despite not imposing text onto the images myself, the signage present on each store front is integral to the reading of each photograph. 

Context:

I approach most projects with a strong idea of the artists that are influencing and informing my work. Here, I was driven by an idea and methodology rather than having any particular artist in mind. In retrospect I can see how similarities with the work of Eugene Atget both in terms of aesthetic and subject matter. The photographs could be classed as documentary, but the use of film and the Holga mean they are no longer straight documentations. (Alternatively the indexical nature of film could be read as more truthful than digital.) As I reviewed the pictures, and also considered work that combined image and text, I was reminded of Martha Rosler’s ‘The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Methods’ and her essay “In, Around and Afterthoughts (on Documentary Photography)”. In ‘Bowery’, Rosler chooses not to include humans. Jeffries (2021: 33) describes this as a “poignant absence [which] haunts each of Rosler’s shots”. While my images also exclude people, something which accentuates the emptiness of the shops themselves, it does not have the purpose and intent of Rosler. Indeed, what if anything do the images say except there are some signs of dereliction on the high street? While the aesthetic created by the camera and film is initially appealing to me, the more I consider this the less comfortable I am – is this an affectation or even fetishistic?

Thoughts on where I go next:

While the approach I have taken so far of engaging with place with an open mind and allowing ideas to form has served me well so far, this is something I need to develop in a more structured way as I progress my BoW. Now that I know what my subject will be I need to find a way to say something cohesive about this. My instinct is that a critique of capitalism and consumption is too simplistic – I need something more nuanced. I am interested in the state of retail now, but I need to be realistic and not try to be too all encompassing. Rather than branch out further, both geographically and conceptually, perhaps I should narrow my gaze and concentrate on what is closer to home? One of the themes I am exploring in CS is the tension between large, homogenous chains and small, independent retailers. The shops near to me broadly fit the second category and this is perhaps the direction I should take and explore further. 

A3 offers a final opportunity to experiment before committing to a direction for the final two assignments. I have three broad ideas currently:

1. Documentary approach:

Local Retailers:

As I allude to above, I am attracted to the idea of photographing local independent businesses. This could involve a collaboration with the owners, interviewing them to understand more about their business and the place it holds in the community. Text from the interviews could potentially be combined with the photographs to give context and provide a fuller understanding.

Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s series ‘Byker Revisited‘ is an inspiration here. For this project, Kontinnen developed her earlier ‘Byker‘ work, a traditional documentary project shot in black and white, collaborating with the people she photographed rather than pointing the camera at what she saw. (This excerpt from the accompanying film ‘Today I’m With You’ (2010) gives a fascinating insight into the process, although it should also be noted that the final decision about image selection ultimately lay with Kontinnen herself, sometimes these were not the shared by the people in them.)

Shop windows:

The working title of ‘shop windows’ refers to an idea I have about photographing retail premises and presenting them in a way to compare and contrast the differences and similarities. The most obvious subject is shop window displays and how they are used to entice shoppers inside. Presenting these as together is a possibility and I am influenced by the work of Penelope Umbrico in this regard. (See ‘Suns from Sunsets from Flickr‘.)

2. Visual Culture approach:

The retail landscape is covered in imagery designed to appeal and influence the shopper, from signage to product packaging. The idea that these stay on the periphery of our perception is something I am interested in and I have made a couple of experiments taking still images from short sections of video I have made while walking around shopping centres. (See here.) I am not sure if this idea has potential, but it is something that keeps coming into my mind so I need to spend some time working further on it to see if it takes me anywhere. 

Debord’s ‘Society of the Spectacle’ is a key influence for this idea, although the enigmatic pronouncements of this text, their opaque nature and the bleak outlook is becoming less appealing to me of late. Researching ethics recently I came across this podcast with Jennifer Good in which she discusses the importance of visual literacy and encountering images in the world:

“[T]he average person is…much more visually literate, than we even realise ourselves…when we encounter photographs, they shape our views in a split second. And all we’re doing when we try to analyse that process is just slowing it down, slowing it down and unpacking something that is already happening [we’re] trying to slow down and account for those very subtle ways in which images impact our politics and our ideas and our consciousness and our movement through the world.”

This notion that we are simultaneously reading visual culture in a sophisticated way while being only semi conscious of the process is fascinating, as is the debate about how much this changes our outlook, if at all. Rephotographing ‘found’ images, such as adverts, transforms them from ephemeral to objects of consideration. An example of recontextualising advertising and drawing attention to the subtext of the imagery is Richard Prince’s ‘Cowboys‘ series. Removing branding from adverts for Marlborough cigarettes, Prince drew attention to the myths of masculinity and the American identity that the adverts used to provide an aspirational lifestyle. Investigating the different types of imagery that are available in the real world could be something to explore further, perhaps presenting together by subject or type.

3. Cost of living/commodities:

Currently there is huge concern and debate about increases to the cost of living and the pressure this will put onto households. I have been wondering if I can make something from this and have been thinking about commodities that can be stripped of their marketing to be photographed. Food is the most obvious example of this, and bread a potential candidate because of the wide variety available and varying cost from mass produced factory loaf to a hand made artisan one. (See here.)

Bibliography:

Jeffries, S. (2021) Everything, All the Time, Everywhere: How We Became Post-Modern. London: Verso.

The Messy Truth: Conversations on Photography (2020) [Podcast] Dr. Jennifer Good – On Ethics. At: https://play.acast.com/s/themessytruth/drjennifergood-onethics (accessed 30th July 2020)

BoW A2: Empty Shops

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Shopping centres and high streets were once the focal point of the community, but internet shopping and our 24/7 online culture mean one in five shops in North East England currently stand empty. (Butler, 2021) For this project, I have photographed some of these empty premises using a ‘toy’ Holga camera. The resulting black and white exposures are grainy, scratched and distinctly lo-fi which fits the subject matter, giving a sense of nostalgia and melancholy – potentially both misplaced and projected. 

The speed of the decline of the high street has been accelerated by the Covid pandemic. What, if anything they will become remains uncertain. The vacant, decaying retail units seem to have little chance of being taken over by new tenants – they are an elegy of a time and way of life that is now left in the past.

Bibliography:

Butler, S. (2021) One in seven shops now vacant across the UK. The Guardian, 20th July 2021. At: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/30/one-in-seven-shops-now-vacant-across-the-uk/ (accessed 5th August 2021)

Bread (1)

Bread lends itself to this project as there is a wide range of products available, from mass produced to hand made and artisan. The process and cost is highly variable for each loaf and I wondered if this would be evident when photographed. The language used in advertising and marketing is also highly evocative and has potential to be used as accompanying text or captions.

For this first experiment, I took some photographs of individual slices and also made some scans. (The bread I had in the house at the time was white bread with sourdough and multigrain batch.)

Photographs:

Scans:

Further development ideas:

  • Either a plain white or black background could work to remove any distractions.
  • A cloth background over the bread while making scans could help prevent the overexposed areas around the edges of the crust.
  • Lots of different bread slices put together as a grid could work. (Like Penelope Umbrico’s ‘Suns from Sunsets from Flickr‘.)
  • Combining image and text could be an idea, for example, the price of each slice either over the image or as a caption or appropriated text from the packaging in a similar way to Martha Rosler’s ‘The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems‘.

Empty Shops: The High Street

As I brought BoW A1 to a resolution I arrived at the subject of consumerism for my dissertation. For A2 I decided to advance some of the methodology I had used in the previous assignment and begin to explore the retail landscape as it is now. I planned to visit towns nearby and photograph empty shops using my Holga camera. The intention was to begin exploring high streets in the area with the intent of primarily making these images, but also having one eye on how my body of work could progress and advance.

Below are links to separate posts of images from different shops I encountered. I have included both the Holga images and others taken with my main camera and my iPhone. The places visited were: Stanley, Consett, Gateshead, Metro Centre, Newcastle, Sunderland and Durham City:

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