Major Project Influences (18) and Book Review: Richard Billingham - "Ray's a Laugh"

(Re-printed edition by Errata Editions (New York) as part of their "Books on Books" series)

It would be remiss of anybody attempting to produce a photo book referencing members of their own family not to cite Richard Billingham’s classic photo book, ‘Ray’s a Laugh’, first published in 1996, as being of relevance. The book, which features Billingham’s photos of his dysfunctional family (in particular his father Ray, who was an unemployed chronic alcoholic), has become a classic of post-modernist photographic realism. The photos were taken between 1990 (when Billingham was 20) and 1996, shortly before the book was published. I first saw some of Billingham’s prints of his family a few years ago in an exhibition at The Fitzwilliam Museum, in Cambridge. However, the book has long been out of print and copies of the first edition (the original print run was for 3000 books) sell second hand for several hundred pounds – well beyond what I would be prepared to pay for it. Luckily the book has recently been made available as a ‘facsimile’ edition as part of a series by Errata Books (New York) and I have purchased a copy. Although the quality of the prints in this new edition is poor the power and emotional charge of the published photographs is still very evident.

What I find remarkable about this book is not the powerful day to day photo-realism of seeing a socially deprived ‘problem family’ living a disempowered day to day existence on the bread line, but the fact that the photographs were taken by a member of that family, somebody who had the strong will and artistic drive to move to the University of Sunderland to study for an art degree whilst regularly still returning and re-integrating with his family and taking more photographs of them. When Billingham started taking photographs of his family his parents had separated and he lived with his father, taking intimate and emotionally charged photographs of Ray that were for his own personal use – Image 1 is a typical example.

Image 1. Ray (Richard Billingham: "Ray's a Laugh")

Later, Ray moved back in with Billingham’s mother Liz at her flat and Billingham’s younger brother Jason returned to the household, having been in social care. The family portraits, now taken in the new environment of Liz's flat (complete with a menagerie of animals, decorative furnishings and wallpaper), continued to provide an intimate and brutally honest portrait of family life, featuring Liz and Jason as well as Ray (for example see Images 2 and 3). The book features photos of cats, dogs and a pet rat taken in the flat, together with a single (urban) landscape and three appallingly bad wildlife photos, the latter representing the only photographs in the book that were taken outdoors as Billingham sought to escape family chaos for a short time.

Image 2. Jason and Ray (Richard Billingham: "Ray's a Laugh")

Image 3. Liz (Richard Billingham: "Ray's a Laugh")

Photojournalism often highlights the lives of people in socially deprived areas of society, for example those living on the streets, migrants, prostitutes, drug users and abusers. However surely nobody had, prior to the publication of this book, produced anything so brutally honest about their close family. Billingham’s images take us into his home. They make us feel emotions that must have manifested themselves in his mind and they make us shudder and think “there but for the grace of god….” And yet, for all the sadness, for all his father’s drunken antics that are captured on film (see, for example, Image 4) and all the hopelessness of his parents’ situation there is still a feeling of a family bond, even of love between family members.

Image 4. Ray (Richard Billingham: "Ray's a Laugh")

Why did Billingham take these intimate photos in the first place? As Charlotte Cotton describes in her essay describing the evolution of “Ray’s a Laugh” in the ‘Errata’ book, they were never intended for publication. Billingham describes taking his first photographs of Ray at home (Ray was living with Richard after Liz had left) as a means of documenting what was happening to them, physically (for Ray), as well as psychologically and emotionally for both. He has commented that he felt like a wildlife photographer, documenting the behaviour of a particular species (his family). He took a shopping bag full of these family prints to the University of Sunderland, where some were used to produce sketches and paintings of his father. Here the photographs were seen by a tutor (Julian Germain) who alerted his friend Michael Collins (then picture editor of The Daily Telegraph) regarding their potential. Thus a process started, which ended with the publication of “Ray’s a Laugh”.

How can I relate “Ray’s a Laugh” to my own project work? The family photos that I took were, unlike Billingham’s images, never candid. All the archival photos that I have used were relatively formal and often posed. Nevertheless the deterioration in my mother’s health and mental state can clearly be traced photographically, from the ‘early years’ following my father’s death to the photos taken at Christmas 2006, a month before she died. The fact that I am confident enough to use these latter images, which I still find hard to look at, in a photo book that will be viewed by people who are not a part of my family stems from the confidence gained by studying the candid nature of Billingham’s images. “Ray’s a Laugh” is an important stepping stone in the photographic journey from Modernist formalism to Post-Modernist realism.

Research and Book Review: “The Photobook: A History volume III” by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, Phaidon, 2014.

The primary output from my current project will, all being well, be a photobook. My tutor has encouraged me to study and learn from other photobooks in order to help me to choose a suitable style and format for my own book, which should conform to current practice. “The Photobook: A History volume III” is the final (?) volume in the definitive reference series dealing with the worldwide evolution and development of the photobook in all its forms. It deals with photobooks published from the late 1940s until shortly before its publication in 2014. As such, it is an important source of information both for me and for others who design, study and/or simply enjoy purchasing and reading photobooks. At first I was rather put off by the price of the book and spent some time at my local Waterstones (as close to a local photographic library as I can get) glancing through its pages. Eventually, however, I ‘bit the bullet’ and purchased my own copy.

Image 1: Front Cover of “The Photobook: A History volume III”

The book is divided into chapters dealing, often loosely, with photobooks in relation to propaganda, protest, desire, modern life, place, conflict, identity, memory and finally with books that “represent and re-present the medium”. I have looked in detail at the section ('memory') which is of most relevance to my project work and dipped into the other sections – this is, after all, a reference work that I will come back to many times in the future. The editors incorporate works by well-known and respected artists and art photographers such as Roger Ballen, Sophie Calle, Pieter Hugo, Joel Meyerowitz and Stephen Shore. At the opposite end of the scale relative unknowns have had their books singled out for attention. Photographers whose reputations have been cemented by the publication of one book (Cristina de Middel’s “The Afronauts” is a good example) are also represented here. Each chapter begins with an overview of the subject matter discussed within, together with a discussion to its relationship with the chosen books. Selected images of single pages or (more commonly) double page spreads for each of the chosen books are then accompanied by brief overviews of these books in relation to their subject matter, design and historical and artistic context. A typical double page spread is shown below (Image 2).

Image 2: Double Page Spread from “The Photobook: A History Volume III”

This reference work clearly provides an invaluable reference point in charting the development of the photobook, current trends, important and influential single books by (often) internationally recognised photographers and developing current trends in the production of photobooks. However, I was particularly interested in the design and layout of the selected works. The following generalisations are of relevance to my own work:

·         Most of the photographs are presented in portrait or square format, one to a page.

·         Where a single photograph is shown on a double page spread this is almost invariably on the right hand side. In these books the left hand page is often left blank or perhaps has just a caption for the image.

·         There is usually little or no text visible on the selected double page spreads. Explanatory text (where present) presumably comes as an introduction or preface to the book. In discussing individual works Parr and Badger sometimes indicate that the viewer is left to come up with their own interpretation of the set of images contained therein, perhaps with no more than the book title for guidance.

·         In some books the images are bled to the corners of each page and in other books the images are bled to the horizontal or vertical edges only. However, in many books the images sit in the middle of the pages, with edging of varying thickness around them. Occasionally images are spread across two pages and sometimes two or more of these production methods are used within the same book. In other words there is no favoured method for presenting the images on the page and I could not detect any obvious changes when comparing current practice with 20^th century practice.

·         A few photobooks (presumably very limited editions) come complete with very ornate packaging and even, in one or two cases, with additional objects that are of relevance to the photobook story.

Whilst the selection of the photobooks for inclusion in this reference work was subjective I am sure that this book is very representative of the styles and developing trends in photobook subject matter and design over the last seventy years, with the emphasis in the book being rightly placed on 21^st century photobooks. It is clear that my proposed book will contain far more text than these works, which is a concern, although I cannot see an obvious way round this. “The Photobook: A History Volume III” has also given me some design options. It seems that “anything goes” as far as image design and placement is concerned. My tutor, for example, favours bleeding my images to the corners of the pages whilst I am not so sure about this. However, the “A4 Landscape” image format is rather uncommon in the photobooks discussed here. As a consequence I am now planning to produce square images, which could be fitted into the book in a number of ways, whilst I am more limited in what I can do with my current mixed set of A4 landscape and portrait images.

“The Photobook: A History Volume III” provides me with much food for thought, not just in terms of designing my own photobook(s), but also in terms of how the choice of subject matter for a book can make a big impact. This book will no doubt repay further study in the coming weeks and months.

Research, Book Review and Major Project Influences (11): "Ukadia" by John Goto (Djangoly Art Gallery, 2003)

John Goto is a photographer who uses his images to satirise and poke fun at society and the establishment, whilst raising important socio-political issues (in particular the gulf between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’) that are current in today’s society. His works often use photo-montage in order to explore these themes and, mainly because of the relevance of this technique to my own work, he was recommended for further study by my tutor.

‘Ukadia’ is essentially the book of an exhibition organised by the Djangoly Art Gallery, which featured three of Goto’s best known works, ‘Capital Arcade’, ‘High Summer’ and ‘Gilt City’, these works being produced between 1997 and 2003. The works seem to represent well both Goto’s style and his philosophy, based on other research and my study of the galleries on his web site. I’ll look at each series in turn and give an overview of his work and its relevance to my project afterwards.

‘Capital Arcade’ (1997-99) features ten satirical photo-tableaux, relating to “the collapse of socialism” in ‘New Labour’ Britain. The tableaux feature managerial and consumerist society, set in an imaginary ‘out of town’ new shopping arcade. Each of the composite images relates to a specific work of art by artists ranging from El Greco to Joshua Reynolds. Goto clearly has a deep and sophisticated understanding of art history, which allows him to relate the messages in the original art works to his own ironical messages about modern day society. To be honest I found the messages hard to follow and had to rely on the essay in the book by Robert Clark to appreciate their significance. ‘Unit 3, Capital Arcade’ (Image 1) gives a flavour of Goto’s style.

Image 1: John Goto, "Unit 3, Capital Arcade"

Based on El Greco’s ‘Christ Driving the Traders from the Temple’, the temple porch is represented by McDonalds’ foyer and the Christ figure by an oriental person, who is surrounded by trendy people in brand name gear, representing the traders and apostles. Notice also the man with the 1990s mobile phone!

Whilst Goto’s coded messages are sophisticated and political and his images undoubtedly must have taken a lot of time and effort to put together, he makes no attempt to hide the fact that they are montages. I imagine that he must have drawn from a library of hundreds, perhaps thousands of images of people photographed in the streets. The images are impressive in that they were put together digitally at a time when image manipulation using digital technology was in its infancy.

‘High Summer’ (2000-2001) takes Goto’s Britain away from shopping malls and out into the idealised arcadian landscapes of Poussin and Lorrain, 17^th century French landscape painters who are much admired by the photographer. He has combined the classical landscapes of Stowe, Rousham and Stourhead with (often) fake Palladian temples and classical ruins and re-positioned these, in montage with contemporary landscapes (beaches, valleys, hills, lakes and streams) to produce visually ravishing, if entirely artificial landscapes. These scenes are then deliberately spoilt, or at least changed, by the addition of people engaged in various contemporary activities. The myth of the perfect landscape becomes the reality of a landscape used and often abused by joggers, cyclists, hunters, joyriders, the army and the air force. Indeed, Goto’s vision is often doom-laden with visions of impending flooding (image 2 – an early reference to global warming?)

Image 2: John Goto, "Deluge"

In ‘High Summer’ Goto’s satire is directed both at the perceived eccentricities of human behaviour and at our dual capacity for creation and self-destruction. By setting his scenes in beautifully composed, atmospheric imaginary landscapes his work becomes far more aesthetically appealing and perhaps carries a stronger message than does ‘Capital Arcade’.

‘Gilt City’ (2002-2003) sees Goto return to the urban landscape. The 20 images in this series mainly depict urban ‘outsiders’, such as beggars, flower sellers and touts, against a backdrop of corporate city buildings. In many images reflections of suited ‘city types’ in the windows of the buildings emphasise the differences between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ (a recurring theme in Goto’s work). A typical example is ‘Beggar’ (below), in which a man begs using a McDonalds drinking cup, holding it as if in prayer. The dome of St Pauls, an icon of London’s financial centre, is conveniently reflected in glass behind him. Is there a connection between McDonalds and begging or is the cup simply used to connect the beggar with the capitalist society?

John Goto, "Beggar"

In contrast to the earlier works, here Goto dressed and photographed friends and associates in the studio, then digitally placed their images into his many images of the ‘square mile’. These images are technically simpler and (presumably) more straightforward to produce than his previous series, but their meaning is often harder to place – in many cases, as noted in the essay by Mark Durden that accompanies the series, his work carries mixed messages. In particular, his images of the ‘Bear Tamer’ and ‘Bullfighter’ (a reference to the ‘bulls’ and ‘bears’ of the Stock Market) reverse their relationship with the ‘bull’ being represented by a cute calf and the bear appearing as a reflection in the window behind the ‘Bear Tamer’, apparently ready to pounce. The subtlety of some of the other images would have been lost on me if there had not been a discussion and explanation in Durden’s text. The bottom line of this work appears to be that “Capitalism has become a pervasive, monolithic force, which assimilates any signs of subversion or defiance”.

Whilst the images of this final series have lost some aesthetic appeal when compared with ‘High Summer’ they do seem more focussed and more contemporary. They are also more closely aligned to the type of image that I am attempting to produce for my own project work.

Final Comments and Learning Points

In these three visually very different series of works John Goto uses photo-montage in order to present a satirical, socialist, at times almost apocalyptic view of the state of modern society, with its inequalities and injustices. As digital imaging technology has developed, the sophistication of his montages has increased to the point where in the final series it is quite possible to believe that the images were single snapshots. Whilst the ‘High Summer’ images have the greatest aesthetic appeal their message is tempered by the fact that they are clearly montages. The ‘Capital Arcade’ series, with its fairly rudimentary collaging of multiple images, appears over-complicated in its message, except for art buffs and those prepared to put in a considerable amount of time in order to understand their message. The ‘Gilt City’ images are simpler and have a more realistic appearance: their messages are hard to glean, but their relative structural simplicity allows the viewer to have a go at deciphering this meaning, even if ultimately even the expert may fall short.

How does Goto’s output affect my own work? As with the first two series discussed here I am making no attempt to conceal the fact that the images for my project are photo-montages. Furthermore, I have produced one or two images that, whilst much less aesthetically pleasing, place human figures in a landscape environment. These have not been successful and, at the time of writing (November 2016), are likely to be dropped. However, I think that I can develop some ideas along the lines of the third series, juxtaposing two or more images to make a point or tell a story, perhaps encouraging the viewer to find the key to their significance from within the picture. Coincidentally, one early image that I produced, which my tutor likes (and is therefore likely to be incorporated into the final portfolio!), is Image 4 (below), a composite reflecting on my mother’s move into residential care. This image has some relation to ‘Gilt City’ in the manner in which it juxtaposes (in this case) two images to make a point.

Image 4

However, Goto’s composites fail to move me. Together, they carry a message and that is not an emotional one. I will have to look elsewhere for inspiration in that regard.

Major Project Influences (9) - Sophie Calle and Book Review: 'Double Game' (Violette Editions, 2007)

Sophie Calle is a French conceptual artist, producing works and installations of a personal and/or autobiographical nature and using photographs to document her art. Her works often take the form of rituals and frequently involve interactions with others on streets in cities, detective work, journeys and performance incorporating arbitrary rules, recorded in intimate detail and in a self-deprecatory manner. However her style is, as far as I am aware, unique and impossible to categorise. I first came across her art at the ‘Walk On’ exhibition in Birmingham a few years ago, where the text and photographs of ‘Suite Venitienne’ (see below) were pasted along approximately forty feet of wall space. Fascinated by her pseudo-detective story, I spent half an hour reading through it from start to finish. The book ‘Double Game’ contains ‘Suite Venitienne’, together with several others of her best known works. The book references American author Paul Auster’s 1992 novel ‘Leviathan’, in which a number of her earlier works are used by Auster in creating a fictional character called Maria. These works are all included in ‘Double Game’. Auster created some additional rules for Maria to follow and Calle used these rules to produce further conceptual works. Finally Calle went to New York and invited Auster to invent some new rules for her to follow, in performance, in the city. The resultant work of art, ‘Gotham City’, concludes the book.

Calle has borrowed one or two of the ideas from Auster’s book and introduced them into her own art, but the bulk of this book consists of the photographs and text from some of her best known art works, including ‘The Striptease’, ‘Suite Venitienne’, ‘The Detective’, ‘The Address Book’ and ‘The Birthday Ceremony’, which are all referenced in Auster’s work.

In ‘The Striptease’ Calle mentions how, at the age of six, she used to undress in an elevator on the way to the sixth floor of the block of flats where she lived with her grandparents and run naked along the corridor to their flat entrance. In 1979, twenty years later, she was performing striptease on the stage of a strip club, not far from her grandparents’ home. The performance was recorded for her on camera (early stage: Image 1).

Image 1 (Sophie Calle)

Why she chose to do this, even as a way of producing performance art, is not covered in the book (although Auster presents some possible causes in his own book, a section of which [relating to Maria] is incorporated into Calle’s book). However, Calle’s audacity at taking on this role, presumably mainly for the sake of art, characterises much of her work.

In ‘Suite Venitienne’ (1981) Calle acts out one of her favourite roles, playing the detective as she visits Venice to find and then follow a man whom she had met at an opening shortly beforehand. Having discovered where he is staying she follows and photographs him as he moves around the city (Image 2). What I find particularly interesting about this work is how the seemingly bland and uninspiring documentary photographs cleverly combine with the text to immerse the viewer in an atmospheric and intense adventure.

Image 2 (Sophie Calle)

In ‘The Birthday Ceremony’ (1980-1993) Calle decided that, every year on her birthday, she would invite the number of people corresponding to her age, including one complete stranger chosen by one of her guests, to dinner. She kept her presents from these occasions, showcasing and photographing them every year (Image 3). However, it appears that the ritual was frequently interrupted, due to her need to attend events elsewhere around the time of her birthday as her fame (notoriety?) grew. She eventually abandoned the ritual on her 40^th birthday.

Image 3: Birthday Presents 1985 (Sophie Calle)

The final section of the book deals with a project, entitled ‘Gotham Handbook’, in which Auster asked Calle to carry out “personal instructions for S C on how to improve life in New York City”. These included smiling at and talking to strangers, performing small acts of kindness towards beggars and homeless people and cultivating and beautifying a small spot on the streets of the city, imbuing it with her own identity. Calle’s interpretations of these instructions, which included taking over and decorating the right half of a double phone booth (Image 4), are described in some detail. The end of the project came shortly after the telephone company returned the booth to its original state.

Image 4 (Sophie Calle)

I really enjoyed reading this book. Sophie Calle stretches conceptual art to its limits (if, indeed, there are limits) in these works and yet makes her art very accessible. She is undoubtedly a ‘one off’, perhaps very difficult to understand or to relate to but also incredibly creative. I admire the bare-faced cheek and bravado of some of her works, which sometimes lead her into deep trouble. She writes well and her photographs, superficially bland, run together with the text describing her projects to create atmosphere and emotion, apparently without effort.

What can I take from this book to inform and enhance my own work? Perhaps the most important learning point is that the intelligent combination of text and a portfolio of photographs can be used to not only document an event but also to provoke interest and emotion in the viewer.

Major Project Influences (8) - Adrian Clarke and Book Review: 'Gary's Friends' (West Pier Press, 2007)

My tutor recommended that I look at ‘Gary’s Friends’, both because of the relevance of the subject matter and because as a photo book it might give me some ideas about how to construct a book about my relationship with my mother.

Adrian Clarke gave up his career as a lawyer, specialising in cases of miscarriage of justice, in order to become a professional photographer. However, he retained his interest in human interaction, swapping clients for sitters. ‘Gary’s Friends’ is a collection of portraits of people affected by violence, alcoholism and drug addiction in former mining villages in County Durham and in Middlesborough. Each of the 40 portraits is accompanied by an account from the sitter of how they had lived their lives. In addition, Clarke includes some ‘gritty’ urban and rural landscape photographs of the area in which the sitters lived.

The book, which was published nearly ten years ago, has met with critical acclaim from a number of sources, both as a photo book and as a social statement.

Review

Children of broken marriages, violent and/or alcoholic parents, juvenile delinquency, early exposure to drugs, gangs, alcoholism, prostitution, violence and heroin addiction are themes in a bleak picture of shattered lives, surrounded by an industrial wasteland following the closure of local mines. Clarke paints a bleak picture of his subjects, all of whom are connected, in some cases tenuously, to Gary Crooks, ex-drug addict, drug dealer, gangster and armed robber. Each portrait is placed opposite autobiographical text, succinctly paraphrased by the photographer.

When I first opened the book I started reading the text before looking at the portraits, but I soon switched to first observing the portraits and then trying to second guess the story of the subjects before reading the text. It seems that other readers of this book may have used a similar technique – in his introduction, Alexander Masters memorably suggests that Kay (Image 1) “might be a holiday operator testing a hotel bed in Tenerife, but is actually an alcoholic sitting in her rehab room”. It soon became clear that there were few winners in these stories, although many talk about making new beginnings.

Image 1; Kay Moore (Adrian Clarke)

Amidst all the personal carnage there are stories of minor heroism, in particular from the mothers, such as Christine Crooks (Gary’s aunt), who never abandoned her son Philip (see Image 2) despite his continuing heroin addiction.

Image 2; Christine and Philip Crooks (Adrian Clarke)

Image 2 is a great example of how Clarke brings out the character of his subjects very well in the family images, where the subjects can and do interact. When the sitters are alone it becomes harder to predict how their lives have turned out. Nearly all the portraits were taken indoors, either in the sitters’ homes or in institutions, using natural light. Sometimes they are cropped tight but on other occasions their surroundings (usually in a sitting room) give the viewer the chance to get a feel for their immediate environment. It was only when I looked through the portrait photographs again, ignoring the text, that I realised how much of the sitters’ characters were revealed in the photographs.

The landscape photographs further add to the bleak picture created by the text. Cemeteries, dead end streets, motorways and urban and rural decay all feature, with the image of a man walking his dog past a derelict garage (Image 3) being typical.

Image 3 (Adrian Clarke)

Those of us who read this book are likely to be in far better shape than the subjects that he describes. This should not allow us to be critical of them. What would have happened to me if I had been born in one of these villages, perhaps to a single mother who could only make her living out on the streets? Perhaps I might have been born a heroin addict (an example is described in the book). Only the strong and/or lucky can make good having been brought up in an environment such as this and how strong you are as a person is dictated, to some extent, by your genes – it’s a vicious circle, in which the easy solution appears to be to turn to crime and/or to take to drink or the needle. Clarke delineates a major social problem that is not limited to the communities that he so eloquently describes, but he does not offer a solution.

Photo Book Organisation

Following some introductory images and the written introduction by Alexander Masters, Adrian Clarke’s book sticks to a rigid format. Text is placed on the left hand page and portrait images are opposite the text on the right hand page. If, as it often does, the text goes onto a second page, it is accompanied by a non-portrait image opposite. I am planning to also place passages of text on the left hand page, but to follow each passage of text by an odd number (1,3,5) of images, to be placed starting on the right hand page but then alternating between right and left until the final image is placed on the right hand page. A new piece of text will then be placed on the next (left hand) page unless a new chapter is to be started (my current intention is to split my photo book into four or five sections, although this may change in the future). Clarke’s is the first photo book that I have found where there is a substantial amount of accompanying text and where the formatting has some similarity to the way I would like to format my own photo book.

Final Comments and Learning Points

Adrian Clarke’s text and images speak eloquently of a broken or crumbling community at a certain time, where lives had been and were being ruined by social deprivation, shortages of jobs, boredom and social decay. As such, this work carries a powerful punch. Will it change (or has it changed) society? This is doubtful, because it is likely only to be read by the ‘converted’. We are also, of course, looking at an unrepresentative cross-section of the community. Surely not everybody in the area was taking drugs, was an alcoholic or a prostitute. Some people would have tried to break out of this apparently dead end existence and doubtless some will have succeeded. New housing estates (mentioned in the book) will have brought comparatively well off commuters into the area: new supermarkets to serve them and industrial estates to replace the rubble will have brought jobs. The community will be changing, hopefully for the better.

The use of a combination of text and images here produces powerful and at times emotional messages. This is exactly what I am trying to do in my own project, so Adrian Clarke’s book represents an excellent lead for me to follow. Likewise, the construction of the photo book provides a useful template for me to investigate.

Research, Book Review and Major Project Influences (6): 'The Complete Untitled Film Stills' (Cindy Sherman), Museum of Modern Art, 2003

Generally regarded as being one of the most important and influential achievements of postmodernist, conceptual and photographic art, the 69 self-portraits from Cindy Sherman’s three year (1977-80) project, “The Untitled Film Stills”, are brought together in this book, produced by the Museum of Modern Art (New York), which owns the images. In this series of self-portraits Sherman delights in dressing up and acting out female roles inspired by the movie culture, mass media and advertising. Her black and white images explore the themes of contemporary culture, voyeurism, sexual desire and feminism at the time whilst simultaneously looking at the Hollywood society and exploitative advertising. A handful of Sherman’s images have become extremely well-known, but I had never seen most of the series before I read this book. In an introductory essay Sherman explains how the series came into being and how it developed, as well as commenting upon some of the individual photographs. She also arranged the sequence of pictures in the book.

Many pages have been filled with detailed interpretations of Sherman’s work, so it was refreshing to read her matter of fact introductory essay, about her interest in performance art, how she originally planned a series of stills about the same young actress’s career and then expanded her roles to include older women. She actually played male roles as well, although none of the resultant photographs were included in the series (“I guess I wasn’t in touch with my masculine side”). Interestingly, she struggled to think of more than a handful of male stereotypes whereas she could find so many female stereotypes.

The images themselves vary, both in technical quality (some of the images are blurred or [accidentally] out of focus) and in complexity. On the one hand there is a simple photograph of Sherman, wearing a snorkelling mask, face only above the water in a swimming pool (#46, taken by her niece, so not a self-portrait), which resists any kind of interpretation. On the other hand, #14 (Image 1) features a sophisticated set-up, employing a mirror, which hints that Sherman is not alone in the room where the self-portrait has been taken. This image compares well with the complexity of some of the tableaux produced at around the same time by Jeff Wall.

Image 1. Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #14 (1978)

Some of Sherman’s images (deliberately) provoke emotion. Untitled Film Still #48 (Image 2, one of her best known photographs) shows a young actress complete with suitcase by the side of the road, waiting to hitch a lift. Her vulnerability is clear for all to see. In another image (#27) Sherman is seen sitting at a table, apparently “all cried out”. Sherman’s undoubted sex appeal, particularly in the early images, will also have had an impact on the (predominantly) male voyeur (the “male gaze”).

Image 2. Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #48 (1979)

I was particularly interested in the tableau shown in #33 (Image 3). Sherman sits on the edge of a bed, staring at an opened letter and envelope which is also on the bed, nearer to the camera. In the background a portrait of a man (actually Sherman herself, role playing again!) can be seen in the frame.  Unfortunately this is another photograph that has not reproduced well in the book – Sherman explains some of the reasons for the reproduction problems in her essay. The picture tells a story, although we do not know what the story is. Perhaps this image is closest to the type of work that I am trying to produce for my own project, which will incorporate several self-portraits, with accompanying text, that try to convey various types of emotion.

Image 3. Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #33 (1979)

In her essay Sherman explains how she was helped by friends and relatives during her three year quest, how she investigated using colour for the series and how the finished series ‘took off’. She tells little stories about individual images (for example the shadowy figure at the top of the flight of stairs in #65 (Image 4), which adds enormously to the atmosphere of the photograph, was a complete stranger who just happened to be coming down the steps at the moment the shutter was triggered). I was impressed by the straightforward, unpretentious style with which Sherman describes her work, which is in direct contrast to the way in which the work of her contemporaries (Jeff Wall springs to mind) is described and discussed. She even comments that she is “a little sick of these pictures”! Maybe her project was a perfect fit for the time and place, but there is no doubt that the simple but profound concept of “Untitled Film Stills” and Sherman’s determination to keep working on the project for three years, as it changed shape and became more complex, has produced one of the most important works of conceptual photographic art.

Image 4. Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #65, 1980

Whilst the technical quality of some of the photographs has not stood the test of time well, the originality of the concept and the quality of the ideas behind many of the individual photographs certainly has. This work has been very influential within the art world and has helped to establish photographic art as an important medium. My own project work has already been influenced by studying reproductions of her best known work. Perhaps the success of the series comes from the fact that it will appeal, for diverse reasons, to a wide cross section of people, including those who have little or no understanding of the meaning of conceptual photographic art. In the era of the ‘selfie’, these photographs stand up proudly as a series and they will continue to do so for many years to come.

Major Project Influences (5) - Jeff Wall and Book Review: "Jeff Wall, the Complete Edition" (Phaidon, 2009: reprinted 2015)

The Canadian Jeff Wall is one of the most important and influential artists and photographers currently working. Whilst his photographic output covers a variety of genres he is best known for his carefully and painstakingly constructed staged scenes, reminiscent of “stills” from a film set, which involve actors or “extras” who each play a part in the resulting tableau. His work is often presented in a distinctive manner, using transparencies in light boxes.

Although I have not encountered Wall’s work in exhibitions I have been aware of it for some time, because of his reputation and the frequent references to his art in books, newspapers and magazines. During my present course his work has become more relevant, as some of my major project work involves attempts to produce tableaux in which two or more images are superimposed as a montage or double exposure, with the idea of juxtaposing themes. It is therefore also relevant that in his more recent work Wall uses computational methods in order to create “realistic” photo-montages. In order to take a closer look at his full output I purchased the book “Jeff Wall, the Complete Edition” (Phaidon), which offers an overview of his work from the 1970s until 2009.

The book consists of a series of essays by Wall and other writers, together with a number of interviews in which Wall discusses his work, his influences and his philosophy. The book is liberally illustrated with Wall’s photographs, including most (all?) of his best known work.

I found the interviews and essays hard to follow and keep up with. Wall is clearly a deep thinker and philosopher. He is well read and profound in his views and statements. His philosophy comes across in his work, which often turns what may at first glance appear very straightforward, perhaps bland scenes into carefully nuanced and manipulated statements about the human condition. However, some of Wall’s early work, such as “Mimic” (1982; Image 1) is relatively straightforward for the casual viewer to interpret.

Image 1: "Mimic" (Jeff Wall)

This image is a reconstruction of a scene apparently witnessed by Wall some time before the photograph was staged. The gesture, with its racist overtones, is easy to interpret, but the behaviour of the Japanese man and the girl add substance to the momentary drama and can be interpreted in different ways. This photograph is one of several in Wall’s output that connect street photography with cinematography. The photograph can also be viewed as a “decisive moment”, missed at the time but captured at a later date, in much the same way as painters through the ages have captured dramatic past events as a single scene (for example “The Annunciation”) in their work.

Whilst many of Wall’s works are dealt with in general terms he does throw some light on the significance of specific works in his essays and (more often) in the interviews. One such work is “Stumbling Block” (1991; Image 2).

Image 2: "Stumbling Block" (Jeff Wall)

In this complex tableau one pedestrian is shown in the act of falling over the “stumbling block” whilst to the right another person sits on the ground, apparently having suffered the same fate. Careful examination of the photograph (which would normally be seen as an almost life-sized colour transparency / light box installation) reveals that the “stumbling block” is actually a person, enveloped in a type of uniform. This much is easy for the casual viewer to ascertain, but what is the purpose of Wall’s construction? In an interview in the book he describes how he produced the photograph as a kind of “philosophical comedy”, with human stumbling blocks being employed by a future society to help people change by interrupting themselves in their habitual activities. The stumbling block is “an employee of the city…….he is passive and indifferent……the perfect ‘bureaucrat of therapy…. available for anyone who is not sure whether they want to go where they seem to be headed.”

This photograph and the philosophy behind its production give some insight into the workings of Wall’s mind, but in general I found reading the text of the essays and interviews hard going. He is clearly influenced by other works of art, in particular those by the Impressionist painters (one of his most famous works, “Picture for Women”, was produced as a comment on Manet’s “Un Bar aux Folies-Bergere”) and by essays (his photograph “Odradek, Taboristska 8, Prague, 18 July 1994” was produced after reading the essay “Troubles of a Householder, 1919” by Franz Kafka, which is reproduced in the book alongside the photograph).

It is clear from the book that the genre of landscape photography (both urban and traditional) is very important in Wall’s work. He contributes an essay (“About making Landscapes”, 1995) and some of his best known work, such as “A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai)” and “The Storyteller”, rely heavily on this genre. One fairly recent, lesser-known example of his work, “A Woman with a Covered Tray” (2003; Image 3) perhaps best represents his output. Whilst the tableau (which here just features one person) probably took a lot of preparation to put together it is apparently simple, yet open to interpretation. What is on the tray and where is she heading? Is the season winter (no leaves on the deciduous trees) and, if so, why are the (presumably evergreen) shrubs carrying berries? What is the patch of light on the path in the foreground reflecting? What is the relationship of the woman to the house in the background? Does she live there or is she visiting? These and many more questions are discussed in the book, as is the overall significance of this work. Why was it created? What does it tell us about humanity? And so on…

Image 3: "Woman with a Covered Tray" (Jeff Wall)

The book provides an in-depth look at the life and works of Jeff Wall. Whilst it has taken me a morning to write about the book and the artist, there is enough detail here to keep a postgraduate researcher happy for years. I feel that I’ve only scratched the surface of the man and his philosophy, but I don’t want to go any deeper because I fear that I may not be able to clamber out. The photographs are well reproduced. The visual complexity varies dramatically from image to image – not all contain people, but the ones that do are the most interesting and clearly the most important. For anybody with several days to spare, reading the book and attempting to interpret each of the images could provide worthwhile entertainment.

What have I learnt by studying the work of Jeff Wall? In his world, attention to detail is apparent even in putting the simplest tableaux together. He challenges the viewers to interpret his scenes but doesn’t expect or require them to come up with a single answer. Some of his later work involves the seamless use of photo-montage to produce works that appear to have been generated as a single image. If I can incorporate just a tiny section of his world into my own work, present and future, I will have a chance to create better art. 

Book Review: "Reasons to Stay Alive" (Matt Haig: Canongate)

Introduction

A couple of years ago I had gone down to London for the day by train. When I arrived at Kings Cross station to catch the train home I found that all departures on my line had been delayed and nothing was leaving the station. Communications were, as usual, poor but I eventually ascertained that the cause was that “somebody had gone under a train” north of my Royston destination. After an interminable wait I eventually got home, much later than planned. A few days later I heard that an 18 year old student had committed suicide on the line. He had been bright, intelligent, well-liked by his peers and much loved by his family. The cause of his suicide was a sudden and severe attack of clinical depression. Matt Haig had a similar experience. He came close to throwing himself off a cliff to end it all. He didn’t go through with it, because the rational side of his brain, the bit that argued that the pain and anguish that his suicide would cause to his family and friends would be greater than the terrible conflicts that were going on in his mind, won the day. Haig is now a successful author. This book is an account of his battle with depression and his recovery: as such it stands as a “self-help” bible for others suffering from this terrible illness.

Review

I bought this book in order to try to understand the mental conflicts of those people who, like the author and my mother, suffer or have suffered from severe clinical depression coupled with anxiety and panic attacks. The book is aimed directly at these people, so I felt a little like an outsider when reading it. Autobiographical sections on his descent and subsequent recovery from this most brutal, “hidden” disease are interspersed with common sense sections dealing with how to cope with (say) panic attacks [“First panic attack: 1. I am going to die….” “Thousandth panic attack: 1. Here it comes. 2. I’ve been here before…”]. He doesn’t shirk the suffering caused by anxiety and depression (which, in many cases, go hand in hand), but he does stress how the use of logic and positive thinking, even during the darkest times, helped him to pull through. Whilst not totally discounting medical intervention (anti-depressants didn’t work for him) he emphasises throughout the book the silver linings that the mental clouds of depression bring, as well as the power of positive thinking.

Would this book be of benefit to all sufferers of clinical depression? I feel that it would be of most use to younger sufferers – those who are hardest hit and those who are most likely to attempt suicide. They will identify strongly with the author, who developed clinical depression at the age of 24 and wrote the book in his late 30s. Older people may find it harder to identify with his case and might also find it harder to adapt their thinking from “glass half empty” to “glass half full”. Also, Haig emphasises throughout the book the immense help provided by his family and, in particular, his girlfriend who stayed with him throughout the dark days and who is now the mother of his two children. It would be ridiculous for Haig not to mention the emotional support he received, but how would this affect somebody reading this book and was unable to call upon all this support? Would they be any less likely to have suicidal thoughts?

Towards the end of the book Haig produces a number of lists, such as “How to live (forty pieces of advice I feel to be helpful but which I don’t always follow)”. Whilst some of the advice is, I’m sure, of general use (“Be gentle with yourself. Work less. Sleep more”) other advice (“Go for a run. Then do some yoga” and “shower before noon”) will, I think, work for some but not for others. He also lists “Things that make me better”. Well, these things work for him and that’s fine in an autobiographical account, but some of these things would make me feel worse! Perhaps he should be encouraging the reader to produce their own lists, rather than foisting his own likes and dislikes upon them.

Having made these comments, the book must be an important read for those, particularly young people, suffering from clinical depression. Knowing that they are not alone and that they can recover, even without the need for medication, is very important. With the incidence of suicide amongst young people suffering from clinical depression being alarmingly high a comment such as “if this book saves one life it will have made its production worthwhile” is far more than a tired cliché. One fewer tragedy, such as the one that slightly affected my own life when my train was delayed and caused immense and lasting distress to many others, would be of enormous benefit to us all.

Learning Points

Reading the account of Haig’s mental anguish in the first part of this book convinces me that, despite having been at a low ebb during various stages of my life, I have never suffered from clinical depression. It also helps me to understand some of the mental anguish that my mother must have gone through, particularly in her later years, when she no longer had the mental strength to pull herself out of the abyss that had been dug for her by this terrible disease. As I continue with the photographic portrayal of my relationship with her during her final years for my OCA course work, these thoughts should always be borne in mind.

On Portrait Photography: a Review and some Comments

("Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2015": visited 14 November 2015)
(British Journal of Photography, "Portrait Edition", December 2015)

Throughout my photographic studies I have been dogged by two problems, which refuse to go away. Firstly I have always believed that every project that I work on and every piece of work that I produce has to have a purpose. From a photographic viewpoint the purpose may be as simple as producing an image that has (for my eyes, at least) aesthetic appeal or as complex as working on a photo book that expresses, through text and images, general or specific environmental concerns. Secondly I have never been interested in introducing “posed” portrait photography into my practice.  The only posed shots that I take are of family and friends when on holiday or for special occasions. However, as I read the British Journal of Photography (BJP) and visit graduate exhibitions I feel that, on both counts, I’m in a minority. Every issue of the BJP carries a high proportion of posed portraits and the December 2015 issue was given over to portrait photography. Many of the portrait photographs and projects described in every issue appear to have, at best, superficial purpose and have apparently been created as “art for art’s sake”. The adjective “playful” is sometimes used to describe this work, which for me carries very little aesthetic appeal.

My partner and I visit the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition every year. Whereas the portraits in BJP represent contemporary and “cutting edge” approaches to the genre, Taylor Wessing claims to promote the very best in both traditional and contemporary portrait photography. As I embark on a major project that will of necessity involve the use of old family portraits I wondered if I could learn anything from contemporary portraiture, as represented by the BJP and Taylor Wessing, that I could feed into my own practice. I also wondered whether, by studying the portraits, I could overcome what many might view as a somewhat jaundiced view of contemporary portrait photography.

Taylor Wessing

Let’s start with the Taylor Wessing exhibition. Of the thousands of portrait entries submitted for this, apparently the most prestigious photographic portrait competition in the world, just 50 (including the first to fourth prize winners) were included in the exhibition. I assume, therefore, that this was the “Crème de la crème” of portrait photography. Considering the group as a whole, one thing became very clear: the sitter(s) must not be allowed to smile when having their portrait taken! Only one photograph showed a smiling subject: I’ll come back to that later. Typical of the group was the winning portrait, by David Stewart, of five young women, including his daughter (Image 1).

Image 1 (David Stewart)

This 2014 photograph is one of a pair, taken six years apart, of the same five girls/ladies. Since only the contemporary image of the pair is exhibited, the visual impact of seeing how six years of growing up and changing lifestyles has impacted on the subjects is lost. It is true that the coffee cups and ubiquitous mobile phones tell a story, but the generally glum expressions and the way in which the two girls on the right are looking in a different direction to the others result in what, for me, is a rather cool and detached photograph – not my winner! Elsewhere, there is the usual collection of celebrity photographs (the Obamas look great, but would the image of Benedict Cumberbatch have been included in the exhibition if he had been an unknown, or am I missing the point?).

The National Portrait Gallery has a new head of photography, Phillip Prodger, and one or two changes have been made for this year’s exhibition. A few photographers have been allowed to exhibit two or (in one case) three photographs from larger series, so that the stories behind the portraits can be better understood. However, there are also single photographs from what I know to be large projects. These photographs don’t seem to be particularly strong of their own accord and I struggle to understand how they can be seen as winning entries. Babies feature too – here the props become important because babies can’t be told to smile, scowl or look in a particular direction. Predictably there are also traditional portraits of people who are part of a recent or ongoing crisis situation, such as refugees fleeing conflict in the Middle East. Is a photograph of a refugee more worthy of success than one of a citizen who has never been in a war zone?

My own, probably naïve point of view is that an outstanding portrait should go beyond mere technical excellence and tell us something about the subject(s); their personalities, their situation, their aspirations. If we have to be told the background to the photograph through text on a separate panel in order to understand its origin and meaning then surely the image has, at best, only partly succeeded. For this reason I would have selected the only image of a truly happy, smiling subject, the young Ugandan boy in Mark Chivers’ excellent classroom photograph (Image 2), as my winner. The other pupils’ expressions, as well as the charts on the classroom wall and the desks, tell the story and do this with a smile. What’s wrong with photographs that make you feel uplifted?

Image 2 (Mark Chivers)

British Journal of Photography (BJP)

When is a portrait not a portrait? The December 2015 issue of BJP features portrait images in which the subject’s face has been obscured, hidden, defaced or completely removed. The editor comments that a wealth of suitable projects had been found for this issue – “maybe because…..photographers and curators have become interested in portraits that do something different”. I guess that this is the driving force behind photographic art – the necessity to go in new directions and to try something different. Unfortunately not every new idea works. Some will go down blind alleys and, whilst each of the featured projects clearly impressed the BJP team, many failed to impress me.

On the positive side, Jack Davison’s obscured or defaced portraits (see Image 3) are full of imagination, have atmosphere and aesthetic appeal. Robin Hammond’s photographs of Lesbian and Gay people, living in countries where they could be persecuted or even executed simply because they are found to be practicing homosexuals, show their faces hidden out of necessity.

Image 3 (Jack Davison)

Other featured projects offer less justification for the faces being obscured and Eric Kessels’ discarded beach photographs (Image 4) reach new heights as non-portraits. Polaroids produced by another photographer, in each of which circles have been cut out to remove the sitters’ faces (apparently in order to attach the resultant circular prints to badges) are, to say the least, rather bizarre. Apparently in the absence of the faces (and, in many cases, most of the torso and arms) the viewer is forced to look at and make sense of the subject’s surroundings. I just stared at the white circles: perhaps I lack the sense of humour to appreciate this “playful” series – which was published by Kessels as a book, part of a bigger series called “In Almost Every Picture”. In a BJP interview Kessels asks: “what is the end of the photograph?” I think that I know the answer.

Image 4 (Eric Kessels)

All is not lost, however. Jean-Francois Leroy, founder and director of the “Visa Pour L’image” festival, apparently holds similar views to my own. In a heated discussion at the festival, reported in BJP, he is quoted as saying that portraits can be “a lazy way to tell a story” and that “I’m tired of seeing series where each sitter is interchangeable. What do the faces of 25 earthquake victims, tsunami survivors or Syrian refugees tell me about the situation they find themselves in? Nothing. Collecting individual tales does not tell a collective story”. I agree. He highlights how Steve McCurry’s famous portrait, Afghan Girl, “strikes like a punch would. It stands out, moves you and makes you think. However, had McCurry produced a series of 50 portraits she would not have been as remarkable”. Leroy is talking about photojournalism here, but I believe that his comments could be applied to other genres. He mentions that he is supportive of series, such as Robin Hammond’s (see above), which “breathe sincerity and commitment”. BJP summarises Leroy’s views as:  “illustrative and systematic portraits, bad; stirring one-offs, particularly in the context of a wider story, good. It’s an unfashionable perspective, and one that may come across to some as retrograde….” I guess that this last comment sums up my own views on portrait photography as well: unfashionably retrograde.

Sadly, I cannot say that the portraits discussed here have changed my views about portrait photography or photography in general, although Jack Davison’s work (for example Image 3) is thought-provoking and may be of relevance to my current project. It is, however, pleasing to know that a small minority in the world of photographic art, such as Jean-Francois Leroy, hold similar views to my own.