Final Thoughts on Context and Narrative

08/05/19

The whole of the Context and Narrative course is aimed at making you think:

• About what you see in other people’s images
• About what you are trying to show in your own
• About what the story is and how you can tell it
• About how things can be misconstrued

So – what have I learnt:

• What is truth? – Ok that is a massive question, and I certainly haven’t learnt the answer to it over the course of one year. What I mean is how can you use images to tell part of the truth about a subject and, equally importantly, how easy it is to tell lies with images. What you remember of an event may not be the truth. It certainly won’t be the whole truth and will be different from what other people have seen, understood and remembered.
• How you interpret an image depends on your own experience, both in life, and with looking at images. What I see is not the same as what my husband or children see, and we all come from roughly the same background. So, someone from a completely different background, age, part of the world, with different experiences and stresses may interpret an image totally differently.
• How you take the image has an impact. Black and white versus monochrome. Film versus digital. Phone versus camera. 35mm versus large format. (And I could go on).
• What happens when you repurpose an image e.g. hang a documentary picture on a gallery wall? Do you change its meaning, and if so how and does it matter?
• Context is crucial. But – will the viewer understand the context. Do you need to add text? Do you need to write an explanation? Does the fact that other people apply different contexts to your work matter? And what can you do to stop that happening?
• All images will have several layers to their meaning, they may be obvious or not. Even an apparently simple landscape image tells you about where, when (the time of year) and something about the interests of the photographer – did they concentrate on a flower, did they show the sky (and how much sky)?
• Is a single image best, or a series, or a whole project of multiple series? What tells the story?
• Research and reading as widely as possible is essential. But there is a risk of ‘diving down a rabbit hole’ and never coming out. You need to think as well as read. Keep notes – what is the best way? There is nothing more frustrating than remembering a quote or an image that is relevant to what you are doing – but not being able to find it again.
• Self-portraiture can be done in a myriad of ways. You can be in the picture, or not. You can act out a story. You can use other people’s images to tell something about yourself. You can use found images.
• All storytelling has a degree of personal exposure. It has no value otherwise, but that does not mean that it has to be obvious.
• Think about the edges, both when you take an image and when you look at one. What is left out, or left to the imagination can be as important as what is put in. Think about the small things. Think about the background – what does it show?
• Constructed images can tell a story more clearly than a snapshot. That does not mean it has to be complex – just carefully thought through and planned. And it does not mean that a snapshot has no value – it may be the only way of recording something.

 How this will impact on me, my photography and my learning:

• I have started to think more clearly about the use of colour versus 8monochrome and why I am making the choices I make.
• I think more about why I am taking images and how. A picture that is simply to show ‘I was here on this date’ is more likely to be taken with my phone. My camera is used less, but hopefully with more thought about projects.
• How am I going to show the context of what I am doing? Do I need to add text? Handwritten or typed? Who am I going to show the image to? That is going to alter how I take it and present it. Sometimes the decisions can be almost paralysing, and I end up not showing the work at all. An even greater risk is that I end up not even making it.
• I have trialled several methods of keeping research notes, a paper journal, an extra blog, a spreadsheet – none seem entirely successful as yet. This needs more work – to avoid frustration at least!
• I am starting to be more aware of what is going on around me when I am taking an image. In the past I might think about what is in front of me – but what about what is to the side or behind me? How will that effect the light? Will it distract the attention of the person I am photographing – and is that good or bad?
• History is relevant. Well, that’s obvious- but I really mean that the use of archival matter can add into your images, either directly or indirectly. I did not realise quite how many archives I have direct access to until I went searching, and that’s without using the internet or any library resources.
• I have started trying to plan out my images more. Not just street images, but whole stories and to think about where I am taking my photography. I never used to take any form of portraiture – but am finding it more and more interesting.

Final Thoughts:

• The area of this course that was the most comfortable was looking at photography as documentary. This is the area that I have had most experience with and it was the ‘easiest’ to think about. However, I found turning it around and realising that documentary evidence in photography (like in all else) is not always what it seems was enlightening. However, I do not feel that this is ‘my’ way forward. I have learnt that I am more interested in exploring feeling rather than facts, possibilities rather than actualities.
• I had never looked at constructed images before. Initially I thought that I did not appreciate them and was somewhat uncomfortable with the staged nature of the images. I then realised that this was no different from any other form of art – novels, theatre, cinema, and was just another, possibly more complex way, of telling a story, and, that as long as it demonstrates something worthwhile it is a very valid way of taking images.
• Looking at images intensely and researching around them was particularly fascinating. I have to do ‘research’ in my ‘day job’ constantly, but, prior to this, had never thought to use those skills to explore photography.
• To my great surprise, I found the work on portraiture fascinating. This is something I want to take further, both in looking at self images (something I have always avoided in the past) and more generally. I am interested in using photography to describe mental health issues, especially autism, and reflected and refracted images may well help with this as many people find showing themselves to a camera extremely painful, especially people with feelings of low self worth.

My favourite images from while doing C and N. These are not always the best. They are not all directly linked with the course, but they are the ones that reflect my year.

Conclusion:

• Think about the story (plan)
• Think about what has already been done (research)
• Think about the context (and how you show it)
• Think about the viewer (now and in the future)
• Think about whether you need a series or a single image (one may be more)
• Don’t forget to get out there and take the pictures!

With thanks to my tutor, Dr. Derek Trillo, who went over and above the call of duty in encouraging me to take risks and believe in myself.

Reflections on Part 4

07/05/19

Part 4 of C and N is about various ways of looking at images and what they mean – reading the image.

What I learnt

• It is very easy to look superficially at an image, a quick glance and think you know all there is to know
• The context of the image is crucial, this includes
  • When it was taken
  • Who took it?
  • Why were they taking it?
  • What story did they mean to tell?
  • How it was taken?
• Denotations – what is in the image
• Connotations – how it makes you feel – and also how it might make other people feel
• You need to be aware of your ‘target’ audience – but also be aware that other people may see the image
• Be aware that other people may use an image in a completely different context – which might totally invert the meaning
• Think about the small things, both when taking the image and when looking at it
• It is not always necessary to include the whole of an object for it to be recognisable – and showing a part object allows the viewer to make up their own stories.

What I might change in my photography:

• Increased awareness of the viewer and what they might think
• Remember the small things
• Remember the edges
• Think about implied meanings as well as obvious ones
• Think about how I demonstrate the context:
  • Does it need text?
  • Is it better as a series?
  • Should it be shown on the wall, or in a book?
• What story am I trying to tell?

Assignment 5 – Reflected Image – Final

03/05/19

Brief:

Produce a constructed image that tells a story, building on what you have learnt in the whole course.

I spent time before starting this exercise thinking about several possible ideas including work using mirrors, either in self-portraiture or still life, an image based on folklore (the red thread) and a series of images based on the defence of Scotland’s coastline. I worked up two in more detail but chose to use the reflected self-portrait as a final piece.

Assignment 5 – Initial Thoughts

I dislike having my photo taken. If you look over our family archive I am rarely shown, I am usually the photographer. I rarely even take selfies. I have tried to develop this aspect of my photography by taking regular selfies, with little success and also previously looked into some research on why people take selfies however the group discussed have little in common with my demographic and this didn’t explain my near phobia.

Selfie Research 1.

Research:

In earlier exercises in context and narrative I looked at self-portraiture by other artists and photographers and also self-absented portraiture. When I did assignment 3 on my diary, I chose to use self absented work to describe myself and my life.

https://scottishzoecontextandnarrative.wordpress.com/2018/07/30/autobiographical-self-portraiture/

https://scottishzoecontextandnarrative.wordpress.com/2018/10/20/self-absented-portraiture/

https://scottishzoecontextandnarrative.wordpress.com/2018/11/12/assignmemt-3-rethink/

For this assignment I decided to work on self-portraiture but using a reflected image that showed multiple layers and partially disguised the image. In assignment 4 I looked in detail at a series of images where the photographers (Mizutani and Bailey) used deliberate camera movement and stacking of images to give blur and depth to the final image. When I tried my initial photograph of a reflection in my window, I found that the double glazing gave a similar effect of movement and layered images but also distorted the image slightly. I then added in a mirror behind the window to give a further layer and produce a triplicate image.

https://scottishzoecontextandnarrative.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/assignment-4-redo/

Mirrors have had a long history in art and photography. Initially the only way an artist could produce a self-portrait was by looking in a mirror. Photography has somewhat negated that, with the possibility of using a tripod or delayed release and timed photography but the use of mirrors is still common. Davis Campany says ‘Pointing the camera at mirrors is a common strategy among photographers when they begin to explore the medium. It is more than just a coming to terms with the nature and possibilities of the apparatus. While discovering what photography is for them, they attempt to confirm or recognise themselves as photographers. The two go together in a private moment of self-assertion that says: ‘I am curious about this’ or even ‘I am serious about this’ (Campany, 2011).

Clementina Hawarden

Vivian Maier © John Maloof

One of the earliest images that shows a mirrored reflection is by Lady Clementina Hawarden (1822-1865) in her image of her daughter, Clementina Maude, 5 Princes Gardens, made in about 1861. The image shows her daughter’s back together with a reflection of her face and the garden behind her (Friedewald, 2018).  Vivian Maier (1926-2009), among her huge archive of photographs of life in Chicago and New York, took many images of herself reflected in windows and mirrors. Some of these show multiple reflections and are clearly carefully planned and positioned. Maloof describes her, and her images as ‘a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’ (Maloof,2019).

© Jeff Wall Picture for Women

© Hannah Starkey – Untitled, March 2013

Mirrors are also frequently used in constructed images. Jeff Wall’s image Picture for Women (1978) shows a very formally constructed image of two people, a female and himself, set either side of a camera. There is an implication that the image is reflected – although there are no edges of the frame visible. The woman and man (Wall himself) are both looking towards the assumed position of the camera. This image is based on, or more correctly connected with, Manet’s painting ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergère’ – although in Manet’s image the mirror is explicit, the girl is reflected, and the male viewer is only seen in the reflection. The ‘male gaze’ made overt. Hannah Starkey also utilises both windows and mirrors in her carefully constructed images such as Prism, September 2008 and Untitled, March 2013 where she shows a multi-layered reflection of buildings and a person in the glass of a fish tank. This multi-layered effect and the need to look carefully at them at the influenced my production of this image.

Practical work details:

 I started by simply trying to catch a reflected image of myself our front window, which is double glazed. This was a steep learning curve.

1. The initial images were lost because of the lack of clarity in the glass. I had not realised quite how dirty it was, but every speck showed in the photographs. It needed a thorough clean, both inside and outside. I wonder if all the reflected images you see are clear by luck, or if the photographers waited until the glass had been recently cleaned.
2. When clean, the images were confused because not only could you see the reflection (actually a double reflection because of the double glazing) but also what was going on inside the room. This was dealt with by hanging a black curtain inside the window.
3. I then experimented with adding in a mirror behind the glass so that part of the reflected image was much clearer.
   1. This was initially held up by an assistant, but we couldn’t work out a way of not showing his hands
   2. I then balanced the mirror on an easel – but the paint tray, which was a light wood, covered with old paint, was obvious and became the main focal point in the image. This need to be painted black to match the rest of the easel.
4. I discovered that the exposure was critical, as the light reflected in the mirror was much brighter than the light reflected in the window, and, although I could sometimes get it balanced, at other times either one was grossly overexposed, or the other underexposed.
5. I also found that the background was crucial. At one point some street workmen set up a bright red barrier on the road behind me, which I didn’t notice at all when taking the pictures, but which was clearly showing in the photographs when I looked at them on screen.
6. My position was also critical, the combination of effectively three reflective surfaces meant that in some images there were multiple versions and parts of me showing, which made for a very confusing image and moving around gave different effects.

This was a fascinating experiment, looking at layers of reflections and the effect this had on light and exposure, and also emphasising the importance of being aware what is going on in areas of the picture that you do not have control of.

I tried out some of the images in black and white, taking the colour away removed some of the distractions and made the image more about me rather than about the background – so the final effect depends, as always, on what I am really trying to show. However, on consideration I felt that the colour images were more interesting and linked into the earlier work on looking at movement and layered images in landscape photography.

Final Image:

Conclusion:

Producing any piece of work that is not in your ‘comfort zone’ involves research, both theoretical and practical together with repeated attempts. I am pleased with the final image, and am grateful for my tutors’ input who encouraged me to go with something less conventional than I might have chosen.

References and Inspiration:

Bailey, V. (2016). Fragile. Triplekite.

Campany, D. (2011). Jeff Wall, Picture for Women. London: Afterall Books.

Friedewald, B. (2018). Women photographers. Prestel Verlag, pp.78-81.

Maier, V. and Maloof, J. (2011). Vivian Maier street photographer. New York: PowerHouse.

Maloof, J. (2019). About Vivian Maier. [online] Vivian Maier. Available at: http://www.vivianmaier.com/about-vivian-maier/ [Accessed 30 Apr. 2019].

Mizutani, Y. (2018). HDR Nature. Tokyo: amana.

Starkey, H., Cotton, C. and Jobey, L. (2018). Hannah Starkey Photographs 1997-2017. Mack.

Wagstaff, S. (2005). Jeff Wall Photographs 1978-2004. London: Tate Publishing.

Contact Sheets:

Reflections – Contact Sheet 1

Reflections – Contact Sheet 2

 

Reflections on Part 5

27/04/19

Part 5 of C and N is about narrative and how you can form an image to support your narrative

What I learnt:

• You need to think about the story. This is essential. Once you know what you are trying to say there are various ways you can say it
  • You can construct an image, this is similar to writing a fictional story, rather than using a found scene (more like describing a factual event)
  • You can use your own material, or you can use archival images
    1. These can be your own
    2. Appropriated from somewhere else
    3. Found by accident
• A constructed image can be simple – just using your own body, or extremely complex, needing a whole team of people to produce it.
• Archival material can be mixed with current images to tell a story across time
• What you remember from an event or scene is only part of the whole. Other people may recall completely different things. The ‘truth’ may be both, or neither.
  1. You can use a memory of an event to feed into a constructed image
  2. You can also use other people’s memories to make an image – which might be entirely different.
• Constructing an image takes time and planning, even a simple one
  1. What you are looking at is not the only thing the camera will see, so you need to be aware of the surroundings
  2. You need to be patient – repeating an image can produced a much better one (or it could turn out that the first images are actually the most effective)

How this changes what I do:

• I had not considered either constructed images or archive work in the past
  1. This gives me a whole new series of possibilities of images to take
  2. It also has made me look at several photographers whose work I had not seen before
• Reading and looking as widely as possible continues to be important
  1. Analysing an image in detail can tell you a lot about the photographer and how they think, I would not have thought it possible to write an entire book about one image before, but , of course, it is not just about the image – but about an images place in the whole of photographic history
• I need to think more about the story before, not after, I shoot!

Response to Tutor – Assignment 5

26/04/19

I had an interesting and helpful feedback discussion with my tutor. He encouraged me to use the more potentially risky (he said interesting) self–portrait as my final image.

For the final write -up to go with A5 he encouraged me to:

1. Define why I chose the topic
2. Look at links to previous assignments and explain how they developed into this piece of work
3. Explain how I took the image, with what worked and what didn’t
4. Discuss research
   1. Remember that practical experimentation is just as much research as reading
   2. Discuss the impact of other photographers on my thoughts processes

Other things to do:

1. Check learning log for clarity and brevity
2. Final observations on what has been learnt in both this assignment and in C and N as a whole

Further reading:

1. Jeff Wall – ‘Picture for Women’ and the David Campany (Company, 2011) book talking about it

I have managed to have a (fairly) brief look at this image. Wall describes it as a response to Manet’s image of a barmaid reflected in a mirror ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergère’. It shows a woman, a camera and a man (Jeff Wall). The whole image is reflected, although, as the edges of the frame are not visible, that is not immediately obvious. There is also no obvious reflection visible. It is a complex image that merits intense study, together with reading of the book, and a further essay by Merritt (Merritt, 2009).

2. Uta Barth – photography where light is the subject, rather than illuminating the subject She says “My work is about perception – ……. My desire is to make the viewer become aware of their own perceptual process …. The light is literally the medium for this work” (Barth, 2012).

Both of these photographers will repay much further study – although whether I will get it done prior to submitting Context and Narrative is doubtful!

References

Barth, U. (2012). Conceptual Photographer Uta Barth: 2012 MacArthur Fellow | MacArthur Foundation. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxYcpPDq5iQ [Accessed 26 Apr. 2019].

Campany, D. (2011). Jeff Wall:Picture for Women. London: Afterall Books.

Meritt, N. (2009). Manet’s Mirror and Jeff Wall’s Picture for Women: Reflection or Refraction?. Melbourne Art Journla, (4).

 

Thoughts on Assignment 5

16/04/19

Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills:

• This assignment gave me several learning curves
  • The need to be aware of everything around you, even in a constructed image
  • The problems involved in using reflections and glass
  • The difficulties with exposure using a layered approach
• I felt I worked though these with a degree of success in trying the reflected portraits and then used those lessons when constructing the still life images
• Design was difficult – I was completely out of my comfort zone here as had never produced constructed images before

Quality of outcome:

• I ended up with several different images that I felt followed the brief.
• I started with a very wide series of possibilities and narrowed them down to exploring 2 options, both of these were using the ideas of mirrors and reflections

Demonstration of Creativity:

• This was particularly difficult, as I had to ‘start from scratch’ rather than starting from observation of a scene or something happening
• I tried to work in a way that is new to me – inventing a scene for one set of images and building a scene for the other

Context:

• I used ideas from earlier assignments, the double images of Mizutani, and the self-absented images from the diary project to act as a starting point
• I looked at the use of mirrors and reflections, especially as related to portraiture – finding the images of Maier inspiring.

 

Assignment 5 – Initial Thoughts

14/04/19

The aim is to construct a standalone image or a series of images to form a story – possibly developing earlier work.

Initial Thoughts

This assignment needed considerable thought. Possible ideas were:

1. I am aware that I avoid ‘straight’ self-portraiture. I even avoid the ubiquitous selfies. When looking at the diary work in assignment 3 I chose to use self absented images of chairs to show my life. I found the work of Hannah Starkey using mirrors and reflections fascinating, as are the images of Vivian Maier, where she only shows herself reflected in windows or mirrors. I thought that trying to take a reflected self-portrait might be a helpful way of conquering my almost phobic dislike.
2. Some form of still life images, using an item or items that were informative of my interests, again possibly using mirrors and multiple reflections.
3. I have always been interested in our coastline. Fife has multiple war defences, including many from WWII. In view of the changing nature of Scotland’s relationships with both the United Kingdom and Europe I considered using these with a soldier in modern battle dress, possibly using old items, or even toy items to play on our lack of readiness for any real defence of our coastline. Marc Wilson in The Last Stand, Northern Europe has shown a series of images of these defences, including those of Scotland, but his images are totally devoid of people, showing eerie photographs, often in a half-light of structures that are decaying and well past any useful defence role. Donald Weber in War Sand also looked at coastal defences and war zones during WWII, although he concentrated on the Normandy landing beaches, looking at desolate places, telling the story of the changes to even the make-up of the sand that was wrought by the intense battles fought there.
4. The red thread is an idea mainly based on Asian folklore where you are bound to another person by a red thread of fate. This idea has been taken up in several songs (K.T. Tunstall and Lucy Kaplansky among others) and stories, including web comics.

I looked at all these possibilities, some more briefly than others.

The Red Thread:

I attempted some images of a person with a thread running from their hand out of the image but decided that this, while an interesting idea that might be worth continuing with in the future, did not seem what I wanted for this.

The Defence of the Realm:

I explored this in rather more depth, finding a series of old images from my archives of the places that were interesting to explore, and also looking at the possibilities of a person to act out the soldier, with appropriate gear. This is definitely something I want to explore further in the future, but to do it justice I think it need a fairly major series of images, taken over a considerable time and all around the coast. I did do something similar in the past, but then I concentrated on the places, not the role of the people.

Reflected portraiture:

This was one of the two areas I explored in depth. I started by simply trying to catch a reflected image of myself our front window, which is double glazed. This was a steep learning curve.

1. The initial images were lost because of the lack of clarity in the glass. I had not realised quite how dirty it was, but every speck showed in the photographs. It needed a thorough clean, both inside and outside. I wonder if all the reflected images you see are clear by luck, or if the photographers waited until the glass had been recently cleaned.
2. When clean the images were confused because not only could you see the reflection (actually a double reflection because of the double glazing) but also what was going on inside the room. This was dealt with by hanging a curtain inside the window.
3. I then experimented with adding in a mirror behind the glass so that part of the reflected image was much clearer.

   1. This was initially help up by an assistant, but we couldn’t work out a way of not showing his hands

   2. I then balanced the mirror on an easel – but the paint tray, which was a light wood, covered with old paints, was very obvious and became the main focal point in the image. This needed to be painted black to match the rest of the easel.

      

      Problem 3 – a

      

      Problem 3 – b

      
      
4. I discovered that the exposure was critical, as the light reflected though the mirror was a much brighter than the light reflected in the window, and, although I could sometimes get it balanced, at other times either one was grossly overexposed, or the other underexposed.
   

   Problem 4

5. I also found that the background was more obvious than I expected. At one point some street workmen set up a bright red barrier on the road, which I didn’t notice at all, but which was very obvious in the photographs.
   

   Problem 5

6. My position was also critical, the combination of effectively three reflective surfaces meant that in some images there were multiple versions and parts of me showing, which made for a very confusing image.
   

   Set-up

This was a fascinating experiment, looking at layers of reflections and the effect this had on light and exposure, and also emphasising the importance of being aware what is going on in areas of the picture that you do not have control of.

I tried out some of the images in black and white, taking the colour away removed some of the distractions and made the image more about me rather than about the background – so the final effect depends, as always, on what I am really trying to show.

Possible Images:

These are 3 possible photographs of which my preferred image is shown below. This image does show what I was aiming for in this series. It is a picture of me, in fact, two pictures of me. It shows a degree of movement and double imagery, somewhat influenced by the photographs of Mizutani and Bailey discussed in my essay for assignment 4, and a mirrored and slightly distorted  reflection influenced by Maier.

Still Life with Mirrors:

© Vivian Maier – John Maloof

Another thread I took further was looking at still life that in some way showed my interests and personality. I took inspiration from a Vivian Maier image that shows her reflected multiple times in mirrors and played around with a set of 4 mirrors. I used a number of objects that in some way reflected my personal interests:

• A teasel (a very Scottish plant that you find everywhere and which I grow in my garden)
• A small toy sheep (I spend a lot of knitting)
• A model of a parrot (I tend to collect things)
• A blue and white cat ornament (made locally)
• A granite ornament of a cat (looks very like one of our cats)
• A freesia – my favourite flower
• A vase with flowers from the garden
• A Japanese doll (following on from earlier work thinking about Japan

Mirrors setup 1

Mirrors Setup 2

I then varied the number and placing of the mirrors, starting with one and moving on to 2, 3 and then 4, playing with the angles and the type of reflections they produced. I kept the background the same, placing the objects on an old wooden table against a stool, both of which are the same colour blue and are very weatherworn. The light was natural sunlight and I experimented with different times of day, both when then sun was shining directly on the setup, thus giving shadows as well as the reflections, and when there was no direct sun.

One Mirror

Two Mirrors

Four Mirrors

I found I needed very careful positioning of the angles of the mirrors to avoid images that were very confusing (although some were interesting) and also to avoid getting myself and the camera reflected multiple times as well.

The most effective images were either the simplest, with one mirror behind the stool, or the ones with 4 mirrors lined up almost in parallel, giving multiple reflections. I found the simplest shapes such as the granite cat and the teasel worked best.

The image I felt most followed my original inspiration was the one of the teasels, which showed the reflections of both the plant and the background.

Final Choice:

I found both these two projects interesting to do. They were very different although they both used mirrors and reflections. They were also both very personal. In the reflected portrait I tried to overcome my dislike of having my own image taken by taking control of the situation. In the still life images I used items that are personal and mean something specific to me. Both sets took some considerable experimentation with set-up and choosing a day and angle of light that was effective. Overall I think I find the still life images more interesting and, of these, the teasel is my favourite.

Sources of Inspiration

Bailey, V. (2016). Fragile. Triplikate.

Maier, V. and Maloof, J. (2013). Self Portraits. [online] Vivian Maier. Available at: http://www.vivianmaier.com/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].

Mizutani, Y. (2018). HDR Nature. amana.

Starkey, H., Cotton, C. and Jobey, L. (2018). Hannah Starkey. MACK.

Weber, D. (2018). War Sand. Polygon.

Wilson, M. (2014). Last Stand – northern europe. Triplikite.

Appendix – Contact sheets

Red Thread Contact Sheet

Mirrors Contact Sheet 1

Mirrors Contact Sheet 2

Mirrors Contact Sheet 3

Reflections – Contact Sheet 1

Reflections – Contact Sheet 2

 

 

 

 

Exercise – Conversations and Narrative

12/04/19

I held a 10 minute conversation with my son while recording it. He was aware of the recording, but fairly rapidly seemed to forget about it and the conversation followed a fairly normal pattern for one between us. I wrote an account of the conversation immediately afterwards and, for interest, also got him to write his own account. We both covered all the main topics discussed, I gave slightly more detail than he did. Even writing the report straight away I found I missed a lot of the detail and nuances; I tended to abbreviate the topics and summarise them. As is usual when talking to my son it was a fairly one-sided and rambling conversation rather than chitchat (he is a very intelligent, autistic adult). He went back to earlier topics several times, and a listener would have had some difficulty following it. When I listened to the recording, I added extra detail to the written information, shown in a different colour, original notes are blue, added info is black.

I found it interesting how lacking in detail my summary was. I take notes of conversations and meetings on a daily basis in my work. These are taken while we are talking (sometimes with pauses to allow my writing to catch up) and are a lot more detailed. This might be because:

• They are taken while talking
• The conversations are more structured
• They tend to be more explicit questions and answers
• I am not emotionally engaged in the conversation

If I was rewriting the conversation to use as the basis of a story, or in a play, maybe a sitcom or a soap, I would have made it more logical, more organised and with less chopping and changing between subjects. Much of the real conversation was very random, and odd bits of information were thrown in – such as about a broken toenail, or the need to do the dishwasher. I have followed Big Bang and can recognise many of the scenes and conversations on that as similar to those we have at home – equating Sheldon to my son and Penny to me! – but this exercise made me realise how clever the writing is to tell the story, show the frustrations involved while still allowing the viewer to follow what is going on. The TV series is totally believable (at least to someone with experience of the situations) – while clearly has needed very careful structuring.

Memory alone, at least my memory, is not accurate enough to tell the entire story. It only gives a very brief snapshot. However, that does not mean it has no validity, just that you need to be cautious about assuming the entire accuracy of what is recalled. The longer the time from the original conversation the more it is changed in my brain. I make it into a structured narrative, I remember the bits that were important to me – which are probably entirely different from those that were important to my son.

© Nan Goldin

© Gregory Crewdson

If you think about this in terms of photography the difference is similar to the one between a ‘street scene’,  or a ‘life shot’ – think of Nan Goldin, where there are a lot of apparently random items in the image and the carefully built scenes of Gregory Crewdson – where every detail is planned and adds to the story.

The recorded conversation could give the basis to an image, the notes taken acting as a storyboard, fleshed out by re-listening to it – but to form a readable story, or a constructed image, the details need to be carefully considered, with some items removed or simplified and others expanded or brought to the fore. This consideration does not necessarily mean that what you are showing is not ‘the truth’ but that you have chosen to emphasise the important pieces of information and minimise the distractions.

This comes back around to the whole question of what truth is, and how you tell it, which is the whole purpose of this entire unit. Taking a fact, an exact replication of an event or a conversation, with all the messy details left intact is one kind of truth – but converting it into a carefully constructed narrative, with the main features brought into focus is another type. How truthful the narrative now is depends entirely on what you choose to say.

My Archives

09/04/19

My Father – about1940

When thinking about archives I realised that I have direct access to several:

1. My own images, according to Lightroom 82830 of them, although I suspect there are multiple duplicates, partly because they have been saved under different file names over the years, and some will be backups. Even if we assume 50% is correct, 40000 is a lot of images
2. Another tranche of my own image taken with early colour slides that are mainly travel photos. Filed under place in albums.
3. My mother’s photo album from when she was a teenager and a young adult. Many taken on Germany during WWII.
4. Some (although not many), pictures of myself and family when I was a child – oddly enough there are only about 20 of them.
5. My father’s photo album, mainly from a young man, again many associated with his travels during and just after WWII.
6. A box of photos that belonged to my father-in-law. Completely unsorted.
7. Multiple early photo albums of my husband, mainly from his teenage years.
8. File cabinets full of 5×5 colour slides by my step-father who was a professional photographer. These are mainly landscapes and travel photography because that was his speciality. Lots of Spain, Greece, Turkey and the areas around there.

I do not seem to have any from earlier generations – I am not sure why, they were probably taken – but who has them is a mystery, or, of course, they may simply have been thrown away as valueless.

Tank tracks

There is a huge amount of militaria – an interest of my husband’s rather than mine, I get hauled along to take the pictures! However, some of the images are interesting in themselves, or would make good backgrounds or overlays.

So – what can I do with them?

1. A family history
   1. Comparison of a German viewpoint with an English one around the time of WWII
   2. Scottish versus English photos
2. Then and now about places – in some cases I have the potential for 3 generation of images, my step-fathers, mine as a young adult and now. He has pictures of places you simply can’t access nowadays without special permits, and also of places that have been destroyed in the fighting in the Middle East.

 

 

The Archive 2

07/04/19

There are various types of archives and various possible uses. The following artists demonstrate some of them

1. Nicky Bird – takes a found archive and repurposes it
2. Sara Davidmann – takes a family archive and uses it as the base for telling a story
3. Arpita Shah – takes a family archive and expands on it with recent images
4. Dunye and Leonard – invent a fictitious archive to tell a story

Nicky Bird:

© Nicky Bird

Bird says she ‘investigates the contemporary relevance of found artefacts, their archives and sites’ and is interested in ‘how they carry both social and personal histories’ (Bird, 2019. In Question for the Seller she bought a series of family archives on eBay and asked the seller what they knew about the provenance of the images. She then included these responses with the images in her exhibition, and finally auctioned all the images off on the final day of the exhibition in Belfast both at the exhibition and on eBay. The amount of information available from the seller was variable from ‘these were from an ordinary purchase. No further information available’ for a lot of 13 silver gelatin photographs to a detailed history where it was clear the previous owner had taken a lot of interest in the images, together with names and some family history. These images have gone though a series of events:

1. Photograph is taken, with some effort and expense for the era most of these images came from
2. It is hopefully treasured by the family / owners
3. Original family loose interest/ die/ move away
4. Photographs are discarded
5. Found in a rubbish tip/ house clearance or similar
6. Offered on eBay, rarely by the original owner
7. Not wanted, so bought for a low price by NB
8. Re-displayed in a photo-album and as an exhibition
9. Lots of new interest shown by people seeing them
10. Re-sold at the exhibition and on eBay
11. ? – hopefully treasured by a new group of people

That’s a long story for one image to follow. The meaning and importance of them has clearly changed over time from a personal treasure via a lost item to something that could be considered as a work of art.

• Is something art because it is hung on a gallery wall and looked at by a lot of people?
• Is it art because it is old?
• Is it art because it no longer has the personal resonance of an image of a member of your family but talks about the past?
• Is it art because it has a price? And that price somehow validates it?
• Probably all of the above – together with the actual fact of whether it is an interesting image in itself.

None of the above says it is ‘good art’ – however you define good.

I wonder how the prices at the exhibition compared with:

1. The cost of having the image taken and printed (scaled up to todays value)
2. The (usually very cheap) original cost on eBay.

Value versus price:

Value has multiple meanings

• Personal (they are my family)
• Cost in monetary terms (I bought them)
• Information, historical and personal (what can I learn from them)
• They might increase in worth over time (investment)
• Beauty

Price is much more fixed. That’s what they cost. That’s how much they are worth.

So, when you think about whether the value has increased by being ‘art’ you need to consider all the above. The image hasn’t been changed by being collected and hung on a wall, but it’s meaning has altered from a personal object to an impersonal one. The images have collected another layer to add to their historical and informational meaning.

Sara Davidmann:

© Sara Davidmann

Davidmann inherited an archive of images and letters from her mother that referenced her aunt and uncle. One of the envelopes was labelled Ken, to be destroyed. Ken was transgender. A complete anathema to the generation he lived in and a fact to be hidden from the public. A man outside. A woman indoors. Davidmann re-photographed the images and made her own marks on the surface of some of them. She also produced a series of images of Ken as a female K, using a combination of digital and analogue processes. Davidmann had already worked with the transgender population in earlier series Crossing the Line  and Viewpoint where she says ‘ I wanted to draw a parallel between the image that is seen and the way that transgender people were widely perceived in society at that time (2007) (Davidmann, 2019). Davidmann did not know about the family history when making this earlier body of work, but discovered it part way though,so it did not completely influence the way she took her images.

Davidmann used family images to tell a story, it was a story that had not been told when the participants were alive but one that deserved to be told. She altered the original images to show the despair and hidden nature of the events. It is a very personal way of working and I suspect was heavily influenced by the information derived from her earlier work with the LGBTQ+ community. The end images in Ken, to be destroyed (Davidmann and Williams, 2016) are very different from those in Viewpoint and Crossing the Line (Davidmann, 2003) though, subtle rather than brash, reflecting the hidden life rather than the outspoken one of the present day.

Arpita Shah:

© Arpita Shah

© Arpita Shah

Shah is an Indian visual artist who now lives in Scotland and in her latest body of work Nalini she uses family archival material, both images and objects to tell the story of 3 generations of Indian women, their lives and interactions. She re-photographs and enlarges some of the early portraits and shows them alongside large and beautiful images of landscapes, flowers and recent portraits. Interestingly, although the faces found in the archives are shown in the enlarged images, the recent images of people are shown in glimpses. The back of a head, a hand holding a picture, part of a body. No faces are shown. Pink flowers and blue clothes become the links. The combination of images talk about the cultural stories of the women of the family and draw on motifs such a flowers to link the images in time and space.

Cheryl Dunye and Zoe Leonard:

© Zoe Leonard

Dunye and Leonard have produced an entirely invented archive the Fae Richards Photo Archive Leonard and Dunye, 1996) which tells the story of a fictional, apparently forgotten African-American actress and singer. The book purports to show a golden age of Hollywood, when lesbian behaviour was hidden, black actresses marginalised, and stories about ‘dubious’ characters often left unrecorded or even deliberately scrubbed from the easily accessed history of the era. The book and its fictional archive stand alongside the film The Watermelon Woman, about a African-American lesbian who is researching the life of a 1930’s actress. Dunye says ‘The Watermelon Woman came from the real lack of any information about the lesbian and film history of African-American women. Since it wasn’t happening, I invented it’ (Dunye and Leonard, n.d.).

This piece of work brings into question what an archive is, and equally what it is not. Does it matter that it is a complete fiction?  I suspect museum archivists would be horrified about a ‘made-up’ archive being given equal value to a ‘real’ one. But what about the untold stories? Fiction has always had a role in remembrance, in telling stories of the past that were either too private or too scary tell with real names and facts. Why should photographic stories be any different? It also raises the question of control – who controls the facts and why? Is it personal or political? Is it to do with ethics or morality (which are two very different things, although often confused)? There are multiple areas in history where, for a variety of reasons, the story has been lost. The best we can do to replace them is to take facts from as many areas as possible and attempt to fill in the gaps. In practice, that is what any history is – some facts, some guesses and some outright fiction – always written from the teller’s side.

Summary:

• Archival information can be the start of many possible stories
• Archives can be personal, family or public
• Archives can be inherited or found
• Archives can even be invented
• Archives talk about history, events and people
• Archives can give you access to information that may have been hidden in the past

References

Bird, N. (2019). About – Nicky Bird. [online] Nickybird.com. Available at: https://nickybird.com/about/ [Accessed 7 Apr. 2019].

Davidmann, S. (2003). Crossing the line. Stockport: Dawi Lewis.

Davidmann, S. (2019). WORKS — Sara Davidmann. [online] Sara Davidmann. Available at: https://www.saradavidmann.com/work#/viewpoint/ [Accessed 7 Apr. 2019].

Davidmann, S. and Williams, V. (2016). Ken. To be destroyed. Amsterdam: Schilt Publishing.

Dunye, C. and Leonard, Z. (n.d.). Zoe Leonard & Cheryl Dunye — Archives and Creative Practice. [online] Archives and Creative Practice. Available at: http://www.archivesandcreativepractice.com/zoe-leonard-cheryl-dunye [Accessed 7 Apr. 2019].

Leonard, Z. and Dunye, C. (1996). The Fae Richards photo archive. San Francisco: Artspace Books.

Shah, A. (2019). Nalini – Arpita Shah. [online] Arpitashah.com. Available at: http://www.arpitashah.com/Nalini [Accessed 7 Apr. 2019].