In my logbook and blog I have
discussed the influences that many artists and photographers have had on my
course work and output. In some cases the artist’s influence has changed the
direction of my project work. In other cases it has changed my way of thinking
about my work, helped me to crystallise my ideas, assisted me in translating
memories into images or hinted at how I can evoke emotion in the viewer,
through the use of my text and images. These influences have been critical to the
development of the project to the stage where the end point (a photo book) is
in sight.
However, along the rocky road to
the completion of the major project I have been influenced by single images
produced by photographers whose output has otherwise often had no effect on my
work. A small number of examples are highlighted here.
Jack Davison
Jack Davison is a young English
portrait and fashion photographer, some of whose work appeared in an article
for the December 2015 issue of the British Journal of Photography. One image
(Image 1), part of a commission for ‘Garage’ magazine, caught my eye. The use
of torn paper, revealing a second subject through the split in the man’s head,
spoke to me of division, torn emotions, stress and the juxtaposition of two
different experiences - all relevant to memories of my relationship with my mother. How and why Davison produced this image is unclear – it may
have been a single photograph of an old advertisement hoarding or fly poster in
which the torn top poster reveals a second poster underneath. This is not as
important as the effect that the image had on me and the ideas that it gave
me, some of which have been incorporated into more than one image from my (as yet)
unfinished photo book, with the possibility of more to follow.
Image 1 (Jack Davison)
David Jimenez
I know of David Jimenez’s photo
book ‘Infinito’ only through a few images, including one of the cover (Image 2),
and a short description of the ‘mysterious’ contents that are incorporated on
page 271 of Parr and Badger’s ‘The Photobook: A History Volume 3’ (Phaidon).
However, the cover page did provide one solution to a problem that I had had in
photographically representing the time towards the end of my mother’s life when
I was spending most of my time with her dealing with her financial affairs,
cooking and doing pretty much everything except giving her the emotional help
that she so badly needed. The resultant image (Image 2a), which visually
represents part of the accompanying text, may not be incorporated into the
final photo book (I’m looking at alternative representations), but the
connection with the Jimenez image is clear to see.
Image 2 (David Jimenez)
Image 2a (Martin Johnson)
Anne-Marie Glasheen
Although I didn’t realise it at
the time the ‘Memories’ themed issue of the Journal of London Independent
Photography (LIP; winter 2008, no.11) would prove to be very influential for my
current project. The journal included an article in which writer, poet and
photographer Anne-Marie Glasheen used double exposures of women from several
generations of her family, against a wooded background, to represent her
memories of them (e.g. Images 3a and 3b). The effect is quite ghost-like and
mysterious and has been influential in my portrayal of my own family members in
a number of images, although for my project I have tried to juxtapose and blend two or more
photographs where there is a strong connection between each of the images. The
type of double exposure used by Glasheen has cropped up on a few other
occasions – wherever it does, study of the image(s) evokes memories and
emotions inside me. Note that the wooded background for images 3a and 3b is the
same.
Image 3a (Anne-Marie Glasheen)
Image 3b (Anne-Marie Glasheen)
John Levett
I have written elsewhere about
the influence on my work of the photographer John Levett. In the same ‘memories’
themed issue of LIP (see above) he writes movingly about his relationship with
his parents and, in particular, his mother. Not only was his writing (which
takes the form of an imaginary ‘question and answer’ session with himself, a
device that he uses rather well in his work) both moving and very relevant to
my own project but his photographs, which initially appear to be rather crude
and poorly exposed and presented, are actually strongly evocative of the past
and his relationship with his mother. The strongest of the images, which is
used for the cover of this issue (Image 4), uses the photographer’s hands to
provide a human link between the artist and the photograph of his mother. A number of my own
images use a similar device in different ways. This image has provided the
largest influence of any single photograph for my current project work.
Image 4 (John Levett)
