Thoughts coming together

I have gathered a number of images that describe communication devices in the village where I live, they are explicitly connecting the village and it's inhabitants to the world beyond it's boundaries. The short (still growing) list is as below.

Definitely not finished yet - need to refine to firstly ensure the assignment brief is met - may need to do some more exercises - and, ensure the underlying narrative is clearly developed. The first image linking to the last, the need for the village to communicate to survive, the insularity of the village over time being eroded.

Tracks, paths and bridleways.

The oldest means of communication (after speech of course) being travel. The tracks, paths and bridleways that, whilst now used infrequently, are still part of the fabric of the community that established links with neighbouring villages and trading . As the residents have changed and the rate of evolution seeming to rapidly increase in the last few decades, the links to the outlying villages and communities have dwindled in use. These old routes seem to offer a corollary to that change, where the tracks and public footpaths are now longer used as arterial connections they are used by the villagers to walk, to enjoy, to forage amongst the wild fruits that were sown either purposely by the former villagers or, accidentally, by those same villagers as they went about their business of communicating via trade with others.

The track on the left leads to a barn on the smallest farm in the area. The farmer (Brian) has had to supplement his income by not only taking work as a builder but, has also allowed the use by mobile 'phone companies to site their base stations and masts on his land, more later. The photograph on the right above has a curved path that leads bottom right in an arc to almost bottom left, following a footpath between Westcote Barton and Middle Barton.The image below left is the track to Purgatory, which is now a derelict settlement and the track is almost impassable through most of the winter. The triangular structure leads the eye into the image, though whilst the graphical image resolves easily, I sense a foreboding and that may be because I have heard all the local rumour about the reason for this remote settlement. That it was perhaps to do with the plague and isolationsim, certainly the nearest church yard has a covenant that forbids the digging of a certain part of the grave yard for a few hundred years yet. The photograph opposite Purgatory is Mill Lane in the centre of the village, connecting South Street to North Street. Mill lane was, of course, where one of the mills in the Bartons was sited (there were several) and, as such, was a major thoroughfare in the community. The sweeping curves takes the traveller around the "run-off" from the mill, which is still there, and, subsequently, to the ford across the river Dorn the flow of which was used to power the mill.

Signs: working, subliminal and, well, simply incorrect.

The sign-post on the image below left shows a bridleway to Duns Tew; this takes the traveller via Brian's farm (Holliers Farm) and the mobile 'phone base stations. The track is used reasonably often, that is assuming Brian hasn't placed his rather large Charolais bull in the field. The image contains a number of verticals, an implied triangle or two and the photograph is dominated by two points, the fence post and the sign post. The kissing gate below right was originally sited to link the public footpaths that crossed the divide denoted by the fence; but interestingly the rope is now tied such that the gate cannot be opened and the public is therefore ushered to a walk this side of the fence. I focussed the camera on the rope, though the knot is hidden, to highlight this idiosyncrasy, But, nevertheless, the image is constructed on two crossing verticals and the single construct dominates the photograph.

This signpost does (currently) lean this far over; it has clearly been shifted by some force or other, maybe a 4X4 reversing up the lane in which it is situated (the footpath actually leads away from the lane across the fields). There are several elements of design in the picture, but I thought it an interesting allegory for how villagers tend to give information to "new-comers". If you are a villager you don't need a sign to tell you where the foot paths are - so why have a sign? And if you aren't a villager you will need to work some stuff out for yourself! Make an investment! Those of us who have moved to a village will recognise that early (half a generation or so) alienation that comes from being a "new-comer". We have been in the village, once described by a estate agent as "the village of the damned" because once you arrive you never ever leave, for nearly 30 years. Curiously, we intend only to leave when courting our mortal coil.

The two views of the same sign post give another sense to the previous image. The signs are there for anyone else - the insiders can read the obverse side of the sign and still have a better idea where they are. I also like the way the sign bends around the corner, I have absolutely no idea how or why the signs are distorted - but there they are. Apropos the brief, well these are weak on that score I think and may be culled. Clearly there are a lot of verticals and horizontals , but they may not enough.

Bus stop

Keeping to a chronological scheme, public transport in the village is becoming another vestigial service; barely hanging on to provide a continuum that has barely lasted a century. This bus stop, one of two in the village with a roof, standing next to a "lock-up" has certain characteristics required in the assignment brief. It was/is also a meeting point, so local rumour has it, for trade in what are euphemistically termed "social" drugs. The trader arrives, in what has to be private transport, with the delivery, to meet the local market needs, just as the horse drawn carriage would have done a couple of centuries ago, with other goods I suspect.

Post box and notice for all.

The photograph opposite delivers extra in colour. It was taken to provide two distinct points - the red of the post box which matched with the red of the sign on the telegraph pole. In deriving the image in a similar treatment to the rest of the series it loses it's impact. The post box which has for a century or more been the formal means to communicate to the outside world; again a dwindling communication means, the sign however warns the the world that "This is a Country Watch Area". Who is watching whom? 

New (relatively) roads

Interconnectedness, the village has its hardware connection via the road system. I say hardware as the internet is the other way of connecting. But the infrastructure has developed considerably even in the time I have been in the village, the existence of the village is now predicated on "outsiders" coming to live in the cottages that were occupied by villagers who have either left or simply expired. The young villagers now are leaving, either to seek a broader canvass or lower cost dwellings. The road sweeps around a curve as it exits the village.

The next image of the same road a little closer to the village shows a divergence to another village, again there are sweeping curves, but I see the sign - for road narrowing" as a sort of plea to try and hold onto the people from the village, or to at least not to go at too fast a pace.                                            The photograph below is a contrary image to the above photographs in that is an entrance shot, it guides the viewer into the village. I focussed the lens on the post to the right and kept the depth of focus as short as possible singling out the post as the dominant point in the image.

Telegraph pole (interesting they are still referred to as telegraph and not telephone) with and without signs.

What I saw in the first image is the multiple use of the telegraph pole as a communicator, there are police notices, public notices, technical information notices and around the village there are all sorts of notices on these poles turning these passive erections into communicants to and for the community. However the first image, whilst it does have an array of geometric elements isn't a very strong graphical image so may be culled. However I do like the message the pole brings to communication and may seek out a better example for the assignment.

The other "pole" shots have a veritable profusion of angular, triangular, diagonal elements providing a geometrician's utopian view of the village I reside in. I notice that some need further work as they tend to suggest a less than vertical world!

There are two images amongst the "Poles"here that might stand for "single points, but the photograph below would fit the two point requirement I think. I like it because the one pole echoes the other, and there is a direct link between the two. Additionally there are plenty of examples of design that are built in via composition.

Leading to the latest communication device the mobile 'phone

The fence that separates the viewer from the mobile 'phone base station has a very regular rhythmic patten that itself provides some cover for the ventilation slits in the box, also a very set patten and the the main panels equally dividing the image into two distinct labels. Pattens and rhythms. But the metaphor of the fence keeping us away from the means of communication is very strong in this area around the twin base stations owned by Orange and T3.

The sinusiodal barbed wire offers an sensuous curve as it seeks to protect the base station from intrusive outside intervention. Whilst the mast, composed across the diagonal occupies a very dominant single point in the frame, the wisp of cloud suggesting the smoke of an overheated amplifier?

These last two photographs both offer patten, rhythm, angular elemental construction and continue with the theme of isolating the means of communication from the people who increasingly come to depend on it for that very thing. Without it, this Mercurial monument situated in Brian's field amongst the medieval tracks and Charolais excrement the village would be less stable, less integrated into the wider and narrower community and potentially more prone to further diminution and dilution.

Back to the future

Resisting all temptation to try and provide literal superlatives for the EoD assignment I shall try and assemble a series of images that exhibit the requirements of the assignment but start to draw together some of my thoughts regarding a narrative. I have been considering how I should contextualise my photography going forward and whilst I have an eye on the later demands of the course I am mindful not to jump too far ahead at this stage. However I want to try and lay some foundations for the work that will come.

My thoughts at this moment are to do with transition, historical and contemporary, and not necessarily in that order. I have had the idea to fix this in the village where I live and have lived for over a quarter of a century, and as things stand it will be where I live when I meet my end (some time away I hope at the moment).
Coming to this village we, as a family, were keen to settle in, we had two very young boys aged three and four and I worked away a lot (abroad). My wife, with the boys, had an access card to the community with playgroup, then pre-school, to meet others and we found there were a few families with a similar background to us who were keen to engage, to find a sense of belonging. These acquaintances soon become friends and then, in the absence of a stronger verb to describe them - very good friends. The transition of a set of people, settling by pure coincidence in a foreign place and making a new life.
There were also the roots of the village, the families who had been here for generations and it took a lot longer for them to accept us - and some have yet still to do so! So another transition is there, a changing population, the previous solidity of a community being invaded - most of the "new people" had moved into a small new estate, whilst the older inhabitants were still in the cottages or the "social housing".
Relatively close by is the airbase at Upper Heyford. This base was a RAF base until the payback to the Americans for their "help" in the second war whereupon they took it over and for a while it was an operational base for F111's - they flew to Libya from there to have a go at Gaddafi. During that time there were a lot of officers in the village - officers were allowed to live off-base and they contributed to our life and village life; they have all now left as the base closed - more transition.
I'm concerned to research the transitionary forces that affected the village in a generation or two before we came here - how the war affected life here, there were soldiers billeted in the village, the economic conditions of the depression, the first world war - maybe even as far back as the acts of (in)exclusion as the shape of the countryside is dominated by estate owners who have farm managers - who are by their nature transitory. I can start with the village's history group.

As for the present I am interested to view the ebb and flow of life on the village today - there is a view that life is speeding up, we need transportation in the village, we need access to technology (our broadband speed is slow by global standards), we need mobile communication - we have three mobile 'phone masts in the village - all in the same farmer's land (well it is the highest elevation in the village). There is a fear that further development will be made inside the and on the periphery of the village - so the fear of transition.

Whilst I'm aware that I may have got an idea, it is still too big and needs to be researched, pared down into bite size chunks and developed for the various assignments I have to do.

Post posting note(s):

Communication - juxtapose the modern and the historic - e.g. mobile telephone masts, roads with inter-village tracks to Duns Tew, Purgatory, Steeple Barton, Kiddington.

Ideas: Barbed wire around the base station - rhythm; barbed wire, diagonal, triangle,,
          Fencing - rhythm, horizontal & verticals, diagonals, triangles,,
          Mast - verticals, triangles,,
          Barn - triangles, diagonals, single points,,
          Track leading away - curves, horizontals

Finding the right lens

I have been thinking about things a lot recently. Things happen. We had a birth in the family and I am now a grandfather. We had the loss of a very dear and close friend, which has hit me harder than I thought it would - telegraphed though as it was. And I also feel I may be at a transition point (again) with respect to what I want to do with photography and how it can give my thoughts some expression and presence.
It isn't melancholia that has brought about this point of inflection, rather the continued concentrated focus on photography and art that, combined with these personal events, have maybe precipitated the process a little earlier than it might have occurred otherwise. This minor crisis of confidence centres around whether I should consider the exercises/assignments as purely technical requirements that I should prove mastery of or, whether I should start/continue with the artistic journey that I have been on, albeit falteringly, for the best part of my life? I am inclined to throw caution to the wind and try and let go. I feel that the exercises are designed to try and instil some common currency into the students, some common terms of reference, some common language that can be used in the middle and later stages of the course, and if so I think that it might affect my language and possibly inhibit my expression.

This image of the pavement in Dubrovnik was taken to provide stock for the first assignment, but also knowing that it could be used as part of the Elements of Design - which theoretically I am working on now. In fact, I had taken enough images in Dubrovnik to cover off both assignments and did the same in Montenegro a few days later. However, whist I can find the images to suit the "bill" I am resisting the temptation to "cover-off" the assignment, rattle off the exercises with some array of tedious images because they won't have any resonance with what I want to feel about photography. I started to get frustrated during the trip to Dubrovnik and Montenegro in that I found an underlying echo of the the relatively recent wars, the latent animosity that lies barely submerged in the psyche of the peoples and the buildings - pocked as they are with bullet damage. But I wasn't brave enough to let that determine my eyesight. I did start (here I am trying to ameliorate my conscience) to record some of the collateral damage in the architecture, but it was too little too late. I did start to comment on the role of state and church in the preface to the first assignment, but I had no comment back from my tutor on the relevance of my observations and I clearly let it slip - pragmatism winning out on the day I suppose; as to do more with that subject would probably incur a great deal of time in the Balkans.

I am inclined to consider my "subject" to be the village that I live in - I have had some conversations in the Forums around this and I have considered only one other subject. My other "subject" would/could possibly be my father. Both subjects will have memory associations, my father died of a brain tumour when he was 69. The village's memory will have to be researched and then associated with the present, much in the same way as using my predecessor in that my relationship with him was not one that I would wish inflicted on any father/son combination. I see too much of Turgenev's Bazarov from "Father and Son" in me and I do not see in this course some effort of reconciliation - however that weight will bare down on whatever I try and create.
The photo of the dandelion - taken within the village - initially with a view to EoD's "round" suggests something that the village has become to mean to me today. I have been in the village for 26 years or so, our sons, whilst born elsewhere, came here as babes and know this place as their home, their anchor. Our life here is supportive and supported, connected and whilst not homogenous, its leaks are acceptable . The dandelions "show" of interconnectedness, of mutual support and reliance, of a determination to hold together in a multi-stranded way against the elements. I appreciate that the analogy may break down when the wind blows the seed heads to their fortune, but the dandelion has evolved to try and make that determination under it's own terms and our son's have left the village now under their own terms, their seed having been sown now producing more sons - and maybe daughters as well. Who knows.
This isn't some bucolic vision of middle England, Middle Barton isn't the warm toned idyll of Downton Abbey, but maybe, just maybe it could be the germinating seed of inspiration that I need to help me shake off this anchor around my neck.

Toshio Shibata

I'm not entirely sure why, but my tutor suggested that I look at the work of Toshio Shibata a contemporary Japanese photographer - and I'm very glad he did.

I have a high regard for what little I know of Japanese art and what I do know seems to have some parallels and that is maybe why I am drawn to Shibata's work. Until now I had been aware of Japanese literature in the form of (amongst others) Ishiguro and Murakami, both of whom I have read (I think) all they have had published. The link between them is the West. Ishiguro moved as a child to the UK and is now a UK citizen, Murakami travelled extensively and lived in the USA whilst Shibata studied in Belgium. I wonder if I find it easier to connect to these artists because of their sensitisation to Western culture? It is true that Ishiguro is the least "Japanese" of the three, the others having resettled back in Japan, but both Murakami and Shibata created work whilst in the West - something to think about later.

Shibata studied fine art at the Royal Academy Ghent and started to use the camera as part of his creative process. The camera, and the mages he created with it, started to become his metier and is now his primary form of image creation. Later Shibata was impressed by the work of American photographers such as Adams at an exhibition in Paris and later, when he went to America he found others, such as Weston and Meyerowitz - these were to become a major influence on his later work.

When he returned to Japan he started to photograph mainly at night, at toll booths and garages - as below.

These shots are typical of his early period and are dissimilar with his oeuvre that he has become synonymous with. It is interesting that he was unafraid of using negative space in these shots and there is very little in his later work.

Note the lack of Sky!

However, the work that has brought him attention is his "Infrastructure" project; it is monumental in scale, in fact the subjects are so large that they are in danger of losing their proportions in the frame and the viewer is constantly looking to reinforce the understanding of the photograph by looking for a scale reference. Shibata notes in an interview (referenced below) that the Japanese are proud of their  infrastructure projects, they positively rejoice having one in their own back yard - no nimbyism here! - and it is worthwhile noting also that Shibata is taking (see note on not being able to make a photograph) his images from completely accessible places - I wonder if they would be cordoned off in the West?

 These hugely impressive photographs are exactly that to me - huge in scale but dispassionate, they adhere to a some of the very basics in composition: diagonals for dynamism, thirds and  symmetry for balance. But, they do not show the sky at all. I have looked to try and find some evidence of the sky and I found one picture that had a twilight sky. The night shots do not have any detail in the black space above the subjects - just a curious point.

Toshio Shibata quoted as below;

I employ a particular kind of sensitivity for approaching landscapes and sceneries like still lives. It's in way as if I was placing them right in the palm of may hand for examination. That's why I never included the sky. Showing the sky would mean going back to depicting landscapes.

There are a few other things that I always keep in mind when photographing. Grasping the subject matter instantaneously, for example, and leaving the scene before beginning to think about the subject's meaning.

I also avoid gathering too much information about the location of a shoot. Not letting knowledge affect the work is essential. And ultimately, I'm eradicating my own presence, as ideally I only exist as something that quietly releases the shutter between the film and the subject. 
This is how I try not to charge my photographs with emotion, but present the subject matter plainly, as I believe that this method takes me to new and unknown areas that I can explore. I'm considering photography as a medium that involves these kinds of possibilities.

My works are sometimes classified as abstract photography. I am in fact keen to depict my subjects faithfully and without missing out the tiniest details, so this idea seems a little odd.

Abstractness in photography surely does not refer to superficial elimination imitating the characteristic presentational forms and features of abstract painting. On the contrary, I would rather say that it's about a variety of connotations and possible interpretations evoked in the imagination from a distance that is created by depicting the subject matter in as plain and impassive a manner as possible.


Note in the above quote - first paragraph That's why I never included the sky. Showing the sky would mean going back to depicting landscapes. Yet his books have the titles "Landscape" and "Landscape 2". 


It is both curious and interesting to me that both Murakami and Shibata have abstraction/surrealism a base element in their art. Murakami is a great aficionado of Jazz - he ran a Jazz club for a long time in Tokyo and his affection for modern jazz from the likes of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane whose abstractions would have been very different to the rigid formality of Japanese culture, both then and now. 


Shibata's imagery, by his own admission is dispassionate, devoid of emotion, a record - all of which is very typical of Japanese culture - he is very careful NOT to place himself, or his shadow, in the picture. It has nothing to with him. These images, that he says could be held in the palm of one's hand, are in reality, huge human projects to wrestle with nature, to attempt to tame it. He doesn't attempt to comment on the image and I don't think he intends to celebrate it either - they seem more like statements of fact, abstracted from their position, without reference in many cases to depict their enormity.


http://www.eyecurious.com/interview-with-toshio-shibata/


http://www.someslashthings.com/blog/toshio-shibata-dams-in-somethings-magazine-chapter004.html




"The only elements that you can control are contrast and tonality, light essentially. With painting all the 'unnecessary' parts in a scene can be eliminated. With photography, you just have to accept what is there. That is where the difficulty of photography lies. Photography is not something that you can make. It cannot be forced. You have to accept the subject. "  http://www.eyecurious.com/interview-with-toshio-shibata/

Notes from 3 exhibitions. Friedlander, Day and The Hungarians

Three shows when I only anticipated two – thanks to Miriam, who had spotted a Corinne Day show close by the Friedlander, that we fitted in between the latter and the Hungarians at the RA.

Lee Friedlander

The Timothy Taylor had two bodies of work: America By Car and The New Cars 1964. Typically (for me) I started to view the prints from the end of the show and worked backwards – this has the drawback of not getting the notes surrounding the images at the appropriate time, but it is something I’ve also found to be a benefit in that I’m not preconditioned to respond in any way. The America By Car series has been well documented so I wasn’t surprised by the structure of the prints and my initial reaction was that Friedlander, it would appear, has come from a background in “fine art photography”. 

 Lake Louise

The images are generally well processed, quite sharp - as you’d expect from the equipment he used - and fine grain monochrome. I found it interesting that in a number of the shots there were snatches of he great American landscape – the Tetons, Montana, which suggested a connection between what this series was about and the tradition of Adams, Weston etc., something that I might look into later. However I also thought that the technical quality could have been improved with some spotting and cleaner processing.

The “America” series relied on a very limited set of viewpoints and (most of them) had a dynamic composition that moved the eye across the image in a natural way. The compositions being:

            Across from the drivers position to incorporate the wing mirror, side window, the top of the driver door (at the base of the window).

            Through the passenger window, with a similar construct as above.

            Through the windscreen, slightly to the right of the steering wheel.

            Straight out of either the drivers window, or the same again through the passengers window.

The mirror – in some shape or form - appeared in all but about six prints. The mirror is a very creative device and can be used to deliver all sorts of information, messages, allegories and I’m not sure whether the mirror is there because of the angle of view, or whether it was deliberately placed in the frame. For some of the shots the case is clearly made for its deliberate inclusion with either Freidlander looking at us looking at him and, when another person is captured clearly moving into the frame via their own reflection. Other mirror inclusions had a blank screen and at the moment I am undecided on this point.

Quite a few of the images had a deliberate inclusion of text, from various signs: road signs, hotel signs, entertainment signs, religious signs which all invite us, as the readers, to conclude and propose a context for the images.

The America series focused on America, the land and the people – more specifically on the “blue collar” life – there were no privileged situational shots. It was trucks, trailers, parking lots, shopping areas, seedy bars and almost devoid of people – there were a few, maybe five or so, that featured people.

Movement, the lack of it, was another key element in this series. The “Car”, being the tripod to ensure both that the shot is not suffering any camera movement is used to ensure the view is clear. The camera is static, the subject is static, the monumental exteriors whether they are mountains, parked trucks, building’s and even the very few people seen in the shots are static. It is therefore then a record of a time and space as seen through a car window with the car not performing it’s function as the emblematic consumer product that typified the American dream of freedom more than any other product in American history. And it is Friedlander himself who provides the only movement in the 192 prints in the “America By Car” series. It is he alone, in the parting shot entitled “Lee”- a self-portrait of Friedlander, looking into the “Car”, at us, the viewer, that by pressing the shutter release cable with his finger, reveals the only movement. And he must surely have known that would have done so, he would surely have seen that in the negative and the print that he used as his parting shot for the series.

My overall impression from the “Americans” was that it may have started as an accident – a shutter released whilst getting out of a car, which produced serendipitously both an interesting composition and a reflective image, both from the detail within the frame and with the inclusion of the mirror – but it sparked the generation of a body of work that reflects personally on the USA. The use of a car perhaps emphasizes the continual transience of that society at that time, is still relevant today. There were 192 prints in this set which all seemed to be saying the same thing; taking the viewer to similar uncompleted resolutions, similar ambiguities, similar unfinished puzzle and relying on the viewer to conclude.

The New Cars.

Again I started the viewing of the set from the end of the show and worked backwards. My clear impression as I did so was that this series, whilst it featured cars, had nothing in common with the other set. It recorded the car in its environment, bringing it to the fore and setting it in the background, but always the automobile and it’s position within the society was the key to the shot. No mirror shots this time!

It therefore came as no surprise that this set was a commission to produce accompanying pictorial content for a magazine featuring new cars for the current year 1964! Well, despite, the editor spiking the shots which weren’t seen for many years, Friedlander succeeded – well at least as far as I was concerned. The images often sublimated the car within the environment using various devices such as a reflection in a shop window (where he sometimes included himself) or behind a stack of used car tyres. But it was the “Car” that provided all the context and reference, whereas in the previous series it is often left to the viewer to provide the context and reference – based on signage, what was in the mirrors or what was outside the automobile. This advertising set succeeded to portray the car front and foremost, even when sublimated and the editor seems to have missed an opportunity. The series seemed to suggest that the “Car” was an integral part of the community; it’s physical presence and it’s spirit is omnipresent in the life and culture of American life and when there wasn’t one “car” in shot there were multiple cars.

There was less to bring to this series than the “American By Car” series and its substance was less for it.


http://www.galeriezander.com/de/artist/lee_friedlander/works

Jan's blog entry for this which helped me locate some images;

janfairburnoca.blogspot.com/2011/09/lee-friedlander-timot...

I certainly felt challenged by these prints, I wanted to question almost all of the "America by Car" set and to that extent it was a worthwhile experience.

Corinne Day

The Face at the Gimpel Fils Gallery.

The exhibition had twenty prints taken from Day's work with "The Face" magazine. The images are of Kate Moss in the main and I think reveal nothing about Day - they were in the main fashion shoots and therefore say more about the model or the clothes/lifestyle; which in turn says something about Day in as much as she hasn't imposed herself on the image. With only twenty shots it is difficult to draw any conclusions. So I didn't.

The Hungarians

The exhibition at the RA covered Hungarian photography from most of the last century – with a copy of Kertesc’s “The Boy Sleeping” his oldest know surviving print. My initial impression is that whilst these photographs come from a very wide time period (in photographic terms) it has been curated to depict a common desire for pictorial images. Whilst there are significant number of surrealist images there isn’t a hint of post-modernism. These are photographs from the pictorial school, it’s a take-away exhibition, very little investment is required from the viewer as the photographer has provided the context the references (maybe in some cases too many, I’ll come to that later) and delivered with very high quality – I took away the print book and I have to say that I’m slightly disappointed with that as the print quality is about a grade, to a grade and half short of the real thing – I suppose cost is the issue.

As I consider the range of images on show I’m thinking that photographers on the course could see virtually all the aspects of “The Art of Photography” in one place, barring the colour work! The essential compositional constructs covered in the course are all in evidence, lines, points, diagonals, triangles and narrative. People and Place is similarly covered with bold coverage of urban, rural, war, nude and fashion all covered – though the curator of this exhibition could have had a wider nude content, but that is a mild criticism. The counter to all this is that a good deal of the images would have subverted the course’s early instruction with compositions that defy the ordered structure of the course, but that is a conversation to be had at a different time.

The work by Brassai is very impressive, the scale of his ambition matched by the ambitious scale of his photographs, the “Festivities in Bayonne” and “Meadows in the Isere Valley. The decision what to include and to discard must be very difficult and whilst “Bijou of Montparnasse” below left and the “Prostitute Playing Russian Billiards” were included but there is a significant body of work that seems to have been omitted such as the nudes and the homosexuals – below.

Bijou of Montmartre, 1932 (gelatin silver print)

Brassai (1899-1984) Bridgeman

Kertesc, perhaps the “father” of the Hungarian school of photography is perhaps my favourite of these photographers on show, he prided himself on recording his subjects – not leaving his “signature” on the image, except by its absence. He was never formally taught photography and after a hesitant start he set a trail that most others have followed. It was Cartier-Bresson who said “whatever we have done, Kertesc did first”.

 The opening print – Kertesc’s oldest original print “The Boy Sleeping”, composed on the diagonal, with triangles, implied triangles liberally sprinkled on the image and this is before he decides to make a career out of photography. “The Lovers”, which seems a very intimate shot for an amateur was again shot before he uprooted to Paris in 1925 ten years after he took this, when he was a serving soldier. Simply composed on the diagonal in much the same way as the photograph above left.

It was after he got to Paris and before he went to America (to escape persecution from the Nazi threat) that he performed his most daring and adventurous photography that others followed in his wake. Keretesc’s work with surrealism and other modern art movements in Paris paved the way for Brassai et al.

I found the print “Elizabeth and I” the most poignant and he has several versions of it the full length version:

 and, for me, the most telling:

Moholy-Nagel and Munkacsi are both well represented as well as a significant number of other photographers. Whilst several of Robert Capa’s images are now very famous I am troubled by the staged manner of some of his photographs, especially “Drinking Tea at the Refuge” London 1941, but his “Woman Who Had a Child with a German Soldier, Being Marched through the Street” Chartres 1944 is a frightful image.

As I have said earlier, this is a take-away exhibition. It seems unlikely that the viewer would not come away with something from this show and probably a lot, the range of images, the different print techniques, many differing sectors of the photographic art-form are all represented.

http://jeux.courrierinternational.com/kertesz/

http://www.elangelcaido.org/fotografos/brassai/imagebrassai.html

http://www.agallery.com/aspx/inventory.aspx?search=&photographer=+Brassai&Sort=

http://apphotnum.free.fr/N2BE53.html

 I enjoyed this exhibition enormously, the variety, the substance. I felt at home and comfortable with the genre.

Moving on

Elements of design

What I thought initially would be an exercise that I would really enjoy has turned out to be difficult to start; not sure why that might be; we've had a mixed bag of news recently. Our youngest son has made grandparents of us and our eldest has announced his wedding plans, but one of our dearest and closest friends may be losing (lost) her fight and against cancer. I was really quite pleased with assignment 1, it seemed to go quite well and the tutors remarks were, on the whole, quite positive. I made one elementary mistake on one of the images - which I plan to correct and maybe one or two pictorial errors of judgement - those I may just leave.

Reading EoD, I am sure that I understand most of the principles (time will tell) and can recognise them when I have used some of them in my personal work to date - which is why I thought I wouldn't have any issues getting into the assignment. There isn't a lack of motivation and I've had lots of ideas but I just haven't got started, not really got up any head of steam, despite working on a couple of my own images from stock.

Single point. 

The couple of linked cottages to the right preface a 

sweep across the picture, with fencing and shadow 

providing echoing lines.

The blue line shows the "flow" of the shot from left to 

right(I still compose most of my shots this way), whilst 

the cottages are close to the golden section - if only I 

had cropped it better

Twin points.

The storm clouds were the initial inspiration for this shot. 

The foreground bathed in glorious sunshine whilst the

impending gloom grew on the horizon. To emphasize 

point (double) I cropped the foreground and cloned a 

couple of small boats from the shot.

My original thought on this shot show's the point of 

resolution not working, the boats lead the eye to the 

horizon but there's nothing for the eye to adhere to, 

an alternate view below may be more realistic. The 

triangle structure is still there, though not not shown

Single points (?)

Not sure about these two lamp images and whether 

they would count as single points. Clearly they 

dominate the image - there is nothing else - but the 

shadows are very strong. The shot on the right has 

been cropped to remove some irrelevance.

Whilst the crossing points are nearly on the thirds, the added 

ambiguity of the shadows adds interest but distracts the eye.

Single points, with implied triangle.

These two shots, of the same subject from different

perspectives, whilst in colour have a monochromatic 

feel. I prefer the top image, which to me has a

stronger dynamic about it despite the horizon sitting

almost dead centre. The top image could be stretched 

into having twin points with the tree wide right 

resolving the implied triangle - I did think about 

cropping the additional (central) post from the shot.

The green lines showing the implied direction for the triangle

The shot above has a single point with an implied 

triangle to the dark "blob" wide right. It is far 

more static than the previous image despite having 

the horizon slightly higher in the frame

This photograph is very easy to resolve the simplicity

 of the image - really only the post, the sand and the sky 

helps to minimise any distractions

Single and double point comparisons

These pressure cookers - used to process Tuna in the Maldives - work better as a single point. There is a difficulty with the twin cooker shot as the eye finds it difficult to resolve, whereas with the single view the lead-i light (from the window above) takes the eye directly to the cooker, where the central roundel sits on the thirds, as easy place to reside. Shot in black and white film, there was no possibility of colour distracting the viewer, however there wasn't a great deal of conflicting colour in the relatively dimly lit factory.

I feel the image left is far easier to resolve, to comprehend that the "twin" shot. Maybe if the twin shot was further back and not holding the centre of the cookers at the centre line of the image. Food for thought - pun intended.

Two more single points

The sunset shot above has a single point derived from the flash of light on the thirds that picks up a outcrop of rock in the sea. I looked at a portrait crop of the same scene but the cloud to the left of the sun starts to conflict with the sun's ray across the sea. The plant left has a fan like appearance and all the leaves resolve at the end of the stalk. Shot with black and white film this has been given a digital Lith' effect in CS5

The sunset shot is the easiest shot to resolve in this series and the fan shot, whilst a simple image maybe more complex - still working that one out.

Thoughts on single point images and how to generate them:

As on p55 TAOP course notes, the background to the "point" could be a plain canvass - grassy meadow in this case. Other blank canvasses could be the sea, the sky and other monotonic scapes such as desert etc. Compositional devices could be scale i.e. make the subject/object dominate by its size as compared to other objects in the frame. Depth of focus could be used to emphasise the subject, as well as colour - although we have been encouraged to think in monochrome for this exercise, clearly colour contrast would be a way to bring forward much in the same way as tonal contrast. Local contrast to bring forward (or push back) parts of an image. Directional lighting as in the sunset picture above........

I need to go and take some photographs now.



This straw bale appears to be part of a "flow" from left to right (I normally read photographs in this way, so probably composed it sub-conciously). It would have been better not to have had its core on the mid point from a longitudinal perspective and rather had it sitting either further up the frame or, I think better place, moved down the frame on a third coinciding with the right third placement.

The single end-on bale has its core at the mid point from a vertical standpoint but on the third and roughly in line with the horizon. I could maybe have darkened the foreground a little more to bring the eye into the focal zone.

This composition is the most pleasing to me. The bale is on the horizon which is placed on the upper third, it forms a triangle with the bale behind and there is another triangle formed by the implied line of the upper triangle and the edge of the grass in the foreground. It is more complex from a construction perspective but doesn't appear so.

Looking to find appropriate subjects for this exercise was more difficult that I thought it would be, but my excuse is that we have had very sad news in the last week, which has affected me more than I thought it would. Hopefully  will get back to normal and get the next exercise underway very shortly.