Major Project Influences 14 - Robin Grierson's Images of John Laidlaw

John Laidlaw lived alone close to the colliery at Fishburn, County Durham. He was a bit of a local character, known for his old-fashioned clothes and bad stammer, but although he preferred the isolated life he was apparently on good terms with the local youth.

Robin Grierson lived nearby and produced a portfolio of photographs of John, which were published as a small, limited edition (750 copies) photo book. The work was exhibited at the original Photographers’ Gallery (London) in 1992, four years after John’s tragic death (he was killed in a road accident) and the closure of the Fishburn Colliery.

I first came across a couple of images of John at the “Uncertain States 2015” exhibition (see my review). A photograph of John consulting a map (Image 1), which I originally and incorrectly thought was a double exposure, caught my eye and made me want to find out more about Robin Grierson’s work.

Image 1 (Robin Grierson)

Unfortunately, my research turned up little. Robin Grierson is still very active as a photographer, but his work now consists very largely of editorial portraiture. His submission of a fragment of his original work for the 2015 “Uncertain States” exhibition hints at a revival of interest in John Laidlaw but the photo book is unavailable and has largely been forgotten – as has John. However, I did find a review of the work as part of a blog by the photographer Ken Grant (http://www.landscapestories.net/dreambooks/205-2014-ken-grant?lang=en), who cited it as one of his ten favourite photo books and provided a few additional photographs (see Images 2-4) from his own copy of the work. Grant describes the book as “an elegant, astute, human and emotive piece of work” and “an example of photography with soul”. He also clears up one mystery: the apparent double exposure shown in Image 1 is in fact a “straight” photograph of John Laidlaw, taken through a window, with the reflections producing an eerie effect. Somehow the over-laying of his face with the clouds intensifies his studious pose, despite the loss of detail. A similar effect is seen in Image 4, where John Laidlaw’s hand is seen through glass.

Image 2 (Robin Grierson)

Image 3 (Robin Grierson)

Image 4 (Robin Grierson)

Grierson goes beyond portraits to feature personal possessions, such as Laidlaw’s single bed (Image 2). All of the photographs come together to produce a portfolio that Grant concludes is “a touching and fitting celebration of a single man.” Although I can only relate my own observations to a handful of photographs it seems that Grierson’s work has much to teach me about producing images that capture the spirit and soul in the life of a single individual. I hope to be able to capture this soul, albeit in a melancholy way, in documenting my relationship with my mother. Of course I must try to do this in a very different way to Grierson, because my mother has been dead for 9 years and all I have at my disposal are standard, archival family portraits. My challenge will be to merge these with other images and reflect upon my own thoughts and feelings when my mother was still alive, in order to try to capture the spirit of the subject matter and the period that I am describing, as a series of photographs.

Major Project Proposal: "Depression in the Family"

(First draft: December 2015)

Overview

This proposal sets out my plans and intentions for the project that will form a dominant part of my work for the Level 3 Advanced module of the degree course on Photography with the OCA.

My intention is to produce a portfolio of images that will be incorporated into a photo book, describing both my mother’s battle with severe clinical depression during the last few years of her life and my relationship with her during that period. The images will be presented for assessment as A3 sized photographic prints. It is also my intention to produce a multimedia presentation, incorporating video, in order to document her story whilst re-visiting some of the places that were important to us during her final years.

I plan to combine archival and current photographs, in order to produce multi-layered images that attempt to portray the mood and emotions during a dark period in both of our lives, in a way that I hope will resonate with viewers. I intend to do this by using digital double- and multiple-exposure overlays although I may use other techniques, such as photo-collage and photo-montage, as well. Single photograph images have not been ruled out at this point.

This is a very personal project and is one that I will use to try to come to terms with the guilt that I feel at not having done more to help my mother during the last years of her life. As such, it goes beyond the confines of simply being produced to satisfy the requirements of a module of the degree course – I would have carried out this project anyway. Nevertheless, it is critical that I should make every effort to engage any viewer with my photography in such a way that they can identify with the issues raised and empathise with the subject matter.

 1         Aims and objectives of the project

Aims: 

• To create a portfolio of photographic images, documenting the final years in the life of my mother following the death of my father in 1995, her battle with severe clinical depression and my relationship with her during this period.
• To use the project as a means of coming to terms with the guilt and regrets that I feel, for not having done more for my mother at her time of greatest need.
• To develop the skills needed to produce a strong picture story about a very difficult, personal subject that cannot easily be documented by the use of text alone or through the use of a set of single photographs.
• To tell the story in a way that encourages empathy and understanding from the dispassionate viewer.
• To produce a photo book, combining pictures and text, in order to document the last few years of my mother’s life and to act as a suitable memorial to her.

Objectives:

• To experiment with digitally combining archival and new images in order to produce double- and/or multiple-exposure images, photo-collages or photo-montages in order to document different events or periods in my mother’s later life and my relationship with her during this period. The experimentation should be unrestricted and wide-ranging and will inevitably encompass techniques and ideas that I have not investigated before. The use of single images (archival and/or current) is not, however, ruled out.
• To produce final images that capture atmosphere, mood and emotion and that encourage the viewer to empathise with the subject matter.
• To relate the images to the text that will accompany them in the photo book.
• To produce a portfolio of images that can be turned into good quality A3-sized prints that are suitable for exhibition.

 2         Rationale

Imagine being elderly, perhaps in your 70s or early 80s. You live alone in a large house in a country village. There are no shops there and you can’t drive. You know a few people in the village but you’re not easy to get on with and prefer to keep your own company. You have children but they live a long distance away and have jobs and other commitments, so you only see them at weekends – if you’re lucky. You have one or two hobbies, but they don’t get you out of the house. The world at large has no interest in you. You could just about cope with all this if it weren’t for the fact that you are also suffering from a serious, chronic illness – severe clinical depression. The illness manifests itself in many ways, but most obviously in the form of very low mood (“feeling depressed”) and extreme anxiety. Now imagine that you are my mother, Mary Johnson.

For this project I want to tell the story of my mother and her illness, as well as my relationship with her, from the time of my father’s sudden and unexpected death in 1995 until my mother’s death in 2007. Her illness profoundly affected her close family, whilst it made her own life almost unbearable. I want to tell her story for a number of reasons, but particularly because I want to show, through prose, verse and imagery, the effect that depression can have on peoples’ lives, to draw a line under the guilt and regrets that I didn’t do more for my mother whilst she was alive and also to act as a personal memorial to her life.

I had been contemplating this project for years. Initially I had thought of just using prose, but this would have meant hardly anything to the “outsider”, one who is not familiar with my family. By choosing to develop it into a photographic project (with accompanying prose) I am setting myself the task of trying to portray my mother’s illness and my relationship with her in a way that will create a mood and hopefully provoke empathy with the viewer. This is a difficult but exciting challenge, which fits in neatly with the principles and expectations of a final year course in photographic art. I believe that a series of individual images, whether archival (taken between 1995 and 2007) and/or current, will not provoke the necessary viewer reaction, so I have chosen to produce images in which two or more archival and/or current images are digitally combined in order to produce an appropriate juxtaposition of subject matter. The techniques used to produce these images will require much research and experimentation in conjunction with further photography, both in the area of Yorkshire where my mother lived and at and around my home. At this stage I do not know in which direction my work will go, but I hope and expect the final images to possess an original and distinctive style.

The images (I plan to produce around 20) will form the project portfolio. Each image will be loosely based on an event or a period in my mother’s life, which in turn will be described as a piece of text that will accompany the image in a photo book. Because of the extreme sensitivity of the subject matter I may, as I go along, place a greater emphasis on dealing with the general topic of clinical depression rather than the specific case of my mother’s illness. I may also place a greater emphasis on its effect on my own life – we will see.

 3           My Personal Practice

This project is totally different to anything that I have tackled before. It is very personal to me and the most important issue is that I should handle the subject matter (my mother, my relationship with her and her illness) with great sensitivity and total sincerity. Beyond this, however, the project does give me the opportunity to experiment with techniques that I have long been interested in, namely the blending of two or more images in order to produce photo-montage, photo-collage and double- or multiple-exposures. In this case I will be blending archival photographs (mainly family portraits) with photographs taken specifically for the project. Whilst the project is essentially documentary it will incorporate street photography, still life, portrait and landscape images: other genres have not been ruled out.

The 20 portfolio images will be based on specific events or periods in my mother’s life between 1995 and 2007. I have already planned a photo book and written 20 pieces of text to accompany each image in the book – the text provides a starting point for me to develop each image. My current intention is to prepare a “free form” 20 line poem for the book, in which each line of the poem relates to one image and its accompanying text. In contrast to most photographic projects, therefore, this project starts with a book and a text story and uses the text to inspire the production of the images, rather than the reverse.

Whilst this project is very much a “one-off” I hope that I will be able to use the skills developed during its course in order to integrate blended images into my photographic practice, as I try to develop a unique photographic style. 

3.1. Capture:

I plan to use digital capture with my recently purchased Nikon D7200 SLR camera. Two other SLR cameras (Nikon D90 and D7000) are available, if required. I normally photograph in shutter- or aperture-priority, occasionally using manual settings under extreme or difficult lighting conditions. I capture in (Raw + jpeg) (see “Post Processing”). Some images may be captured using a “bridge” camera (currently a Panasonic FZ200) or a compact camera (currently a Panasonic Lumix FZ200), when the situation requires. Archival images were captured on a variety of film and digital cameras. The quality of the images (some of which were digitally scanned) is variable – many would be unsuitable for printing as “stand alone” portfolio photographs, but could still play an important role when combined with contemporary images.

3.2. Post Processing:

I currently process images using the Adobe “Photoshop Elements 8” software package, but am considering upgrading in the future, possibly to the latest “Photoshop Elements” package together with Adobe “Lightroom”. I will process the raw images from the Nikon cameras using the Nikon View software. In order to retain as much detail in the images as possible during processing I will try to capture them so as to minimise the need for cropping. I will use the highest quality settings available. Likewise, in processing, I will attempt to retain as much detail as possible in the image and minimise modifications (changes in tone and contrast, sharpening). I am currently minded to produce most, if not all the final portfolio images in monochrome.

3.3. Production and Printing:

I have already made a 3 day visit to the area of North Yorkshire where my mother lived (48 hours of photography) and it is now clear that several more, possibly shorter visits will be required over the coming year as the project develops and I get a clearer picture of what additional images are required. I will also be carrying out some “still life” photography at home, using objects that are relevant to the story, and some studio work. Additional self-portraits will be required. Whilst I already have a library of digital and digitally scanned “archival” photographs from the period I will also need to sort through my archive of photographic slides and select and scan relevant ones in order to build up a bigger archival library.

 Because I am retired I have plenty of opportunity to do location work. Because most of the photographic work will be executed outdoors the weather will be important. The short days and inclement weather of my recent (November 2015) visit were far from ideal, but on the other hand the images of the stark winter landscapes of the Yorkshire Dales (in particular Nidderdale, where my mother lived) will provide mood and atmosphere that I intend to project into my final image set. Other seasons will provide different opportunities and longer working days.

Towards the end of the project I will investigate different types of print paper at A4 size, in order to establish which is the most appropriate for the types of image that I have produced. If, as anticipated, the images are produced in monochrome this will undoubtedly affect my choice of paper. However, the use of monochrome is by no means a certainty at this stage.

 4         Outputs

For the first two assignments I will send single and/or composite images by e-mail or dropbox for my tutor to review, together with planning documents etc. Research will be posted onto this course blog, where it can be monitored by my tutor. This research will also be printed out and submitted for assessment at the end of the course. Images for later work (assignments 3-6) will be posted to the tutor as prints (A4 sized).

The prints will be reviewed regularly. I may choose at a late stage to replace some of the earlier portfolio images with better or more relevant images, prior to printing at A3 size. Once image choice has been finalised I will select a few images for test printing, before getting the final selection of 20 images printed professionally at A3 size.

The self-published book is likely to incorporate 23 images and a similar number of pages of text. Previous photo books have been successfully produced using the commercial organisation “Blurb”.

The multimedia presentation will be produced using “Windows Moviemaker” software, with video input from my SLR cameras and sound input using NCH “Audio Essentials” software.

Printing Cost Projections:

Test prints                                                                                           £60

            20 A3 prints                                         £12.00 per print                      £240

            1 small test photo book                      £40                                          £40

            1 final photo book (50 pages) £40                                          £40

            Total cost estimate                                                                             £380

  

Major Project Influences (1): Annalisa Murri - "Then the Sky Crashed Down upon us"

I first noticed the work of Annalisa Murri at the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards exhibition at Somerset House, London. She had come 3^rd in the “Contemporary Issues” section with a portfolio of images relating to the Rana Plaza tragedy in Savar, Bangladesh when an 8-storey building collapsed, resulting in the deaths of over 1000 people. Murri had visited the area shortly before the first anniversary of the tragedy and photographed survivors and relatives of those who had been killed in the tragedy. She had then superimposed their portraits on settings in different locations, which she believed visually represented her subjects’ feelings. The resultant double exposures, such as Images 1 and 2, were produced in monochrome. Not only are they aesthetically appealing but they do indeed, to this observer at least, portray a suitably bleak mood and atmosphere.

Image 1 (Annalisa Murri)

Image 2 (Annalisa Murri)

Why do the images work so well for me? I suspect that it is a combination of the beautiful, ethereal faces of the (mainly female) subjects and their relationship with an alien, yet strangely familiar backdrop, the low key monochrome exposure, the link with tragedy and the challenge of interpretation and connection that the images pose for the viewer that gives them their quality. In particular, in Image 1 I find the juxtaposition of the sharp, silhouetted figures amongst the rubble with the ethereal forms of the female subject and out of focus man to the left of the frame to be particularly effective. Each picture tells a story: perhaps it is the same story, but told in different ways.

I think that these images show the power of double exposures in documentary photography: a power that I try to emulate in my own work. However, I have to question the morality behind this work. What benefit does Murri’s project bring to the victims of the tragedy? Perhaps there is no benefit to them, but the images (and accompanying text, explaining the circumstances of the sitters) do at least remind us that the pain, the loss and the grieving continue for survivors and relatives long after a tragedy has occurred and those not affected have forgotten about it.

Not only does this work serve as an inspiration for my own project work but also as a reminder of the moral issues that underlie it. How can I produce portfolio images that are both faithful and representative of the final years of my mother’s life: images that will focus on her depression and yet form a poignant yet appropriate memorial to her life? To complete the analogy with Murri’s work I am one of the survivors, turning the camera on myself and questioning, amongst other things, whether I could have done more to lessen the tragedy.

The photographic and moral issues raised here are of fundamental importance to my major project.