• Portfolio
  • Blog
    • People and Place
    • Digital Photographic Practice
    • Landscape
      • Landscape Part 1
      • Landscape Part 2
      • Landscape Part 3
      • Landscape Part 4
      • Landscape Part 5
      • Landscape Part 6
    • Research for Landscape
    • Study Visits for Landscape
    • Documentary
  • Assignment 1 – Landscape
    • Work Leading up to Assignment 1 – Landscape
  • Assignment 2 – Landscape
    • Work Leading up to Assignment 2 – Landscape
  • Assignment 3 – Landscape
    • Work Leading up to Assignment 3 – Landscape
  • Assignment 4 – Landscape
    • Work Leading Up to Assignment 4 – Landscape
  • Assignment 5 – Landscape
    • Work Leading up to Assignment 5 – Landscape
  • Assignment 6 – Landscape
  • Gallery
    • Seascapes
    • Landscapes
    • London at Night
    • London by Day

Johnathan Hall Photography

  • Portfolio
  • Blog
    • People and Place
    • Digital Photographic Practice
    • Landscape
      • Landscape Part 1
      • Landscape Part 2
      • Landscape Part 3
      • Landscape Part 4
      • Landscape Part 5
      • Landscape Part 6
    • Research for Landscape
    • Study Visits for Landscape
    • Documentary
  • Assignment 1 – Landscape
    • Work Leading up to Assignment 1 – Landscape
  • Assignment 2 – Landscape
    • Work Leading up to Assignment 2 – Landscape
  • Assignment 3 – Landscape
    • Work Leading up to Assignment 3 – Landscape
  • Assignment 4 – Landscape
    • Work Leading Up to Assignment 4 – Landscape
  • Assignment 5 – Landscape
    • Work Leading up to Assignment 5 – Landscape
  • Assignment 6 – Landscape
  • Gallery
    • Seascapes
    • Landscapes
    • London at Night
    • London by Day
Menu

Copyright © 2017. All Rights Reserved.

Category Archives: Landscape Part 3

Assignment 3 - Landscape, Landscape, Landscape Part 3 |

November 10, 2015

| admin

My Proposal for Assignment 3 – Landscape (‘Spaces to Places’)

My response to the brief for Assignment 3 – ‘Spaces to Places’, was comprised of the notion that without people (distinguishable or not) evident within a space, the space would remain only a collection of structures and objects making up a space, without any character. With the addition of people though, there would be a transformation from an inanimate scene, to a place; now with some semblance of soul.

However, I also felt I was following the brief a bit too literally and I aimed to play upon this relationship between these ‘empty spaces’ and the people inhabiting them; as well as more prominently, play upon the relationship between the different kinds of people inhabiting the spaces. This, I would suggest, adds further interest to the space by drawing the viewer’s eye into the relationship between the different kinds of people, within the eventual photograph; thereby creating a place.

My target audience would be mainly for people who knew London well; as the contrast between the flow of tourists and the various ‘still’ workers of London might be best appreciated by people, who had traversed the city (and other cities too) a lot, like me. They might also have picked up on a pattern like the one described above. However, I felt that the contrast would be so strong between these two ‘user groups’ of the city in the photographs, that many other observers of the photographs would notice this contrast and understand it; once they had seen this relationship between still and moving within the photographs.

Comment
Landscape, Landscape Part 3, Research for Landscape |

November 2, 2015

| admin

Notes on The Memory of Photography by David Bate (2010)

I found The Memory of Photography – (Bate, 2010) very interesting and raised some pertinent questions and perhaps answers inside my head for my own photography and photography in general going forwards.

I would argue that this talk of a photograph being finite instead of infinite, practically/in the real world makes sense but that there remains too much focus upon this constraint of photography, particularly in the digital age. At the least, if you were to look past this ‘constraint’, other, less-travelled ideas would begin to reveal themselves, to do with the photograph’s unique potential ability for each one to be accurately mass-produced.

The photograph was seen historically as infinite – an indefinite memory or recording of a scene. Now, even though digital is in my opinion more resilient than analogue was/is, the photograph is often seen as finite because photographs are printed relatively rarely in typical people’s workflows nowadays unfortunately and it is mainly seen only on screen.

Yes, a photograph can wear away or be lost or damaged but it usually requires deliberate intervention for this to happen. An example of this was the project Rubbings (Strand, 2015) in the exhibition Getting Better and Worse at the Same Time (Strand, 2015). Alternatively, more generally with limited edition prints, the prints are made intentionally only a few times, presumably for commercial reasons. Sometimes the negatives are themselves destroyed to preserve the integrity of the limited edition prints as was the case with P.H. Emerson early on in photography’s history.

If you take a photograph at ‘face value’ literally, for what it could be considered as a permanent record, while forgetting momentarily about it being (academically) finite, then you can start to see the unique role photographs have and may well continue to serve in history and life. That role would be, a tool, which expresses what is seen in any scene. This tool can be used in many ways, with the most obvious one being a memory/record of a scene from one person – (the photographer) to another (either the photographer themselves or to share with others).

I would suggest it is when the photograph plays on itself (within the role of permanence on a flat surface) that it begins to become a paradox. As the photograph is a meta entity and yet records things which have the potential to be records themselves of past events, each memory (photograph) preserves another memory.

These memories are ‘artificial’ in that they aren’t stored in our own brains. Perhaps, we now rely on artificial memory so much that natural memory isn’t as sharp as it once was. Photographs serve as a major source of artificial memory and yet it is linked strongly to natural memory in form: ‘All the forms of auxiliary apparatus which we have invented for the improvement or intensification of our sensory functions are built on the same model as the sense organs themselves’ – (Freud, 1925). It is no surprise then, why we default to photography as a perceived form of remembering as it also has the potential to capture more more of a moment’s detail than a natural memory. As well as this, because of its potential permanence, less is ultimately forgotten. These artificial memories in the form of photographs can be personal like in family albums but also collective like with photographs of famous historical events. Photography nowadays, in archives both analogue and digital has affected our actual memory significantly with private collections but also collectively with famous photographs. It is like we have singular mystic writing-pads but also more pertinently a collective Mystic writing-pad in the ether of media, which incidentally is growing at a rapid pace.

My mind was also moving at a rapid pace after reading about this! I started thinking if the aide-memoire (artificial memory) was taking over and becoming more prevalent than the memory, the aide-mémoire was becoming the reality. Then would the person/people using the aide-mémoire be living in a kind of virtual reality? Photographs for example, could be the instruments for another world. Another question I raised to myself was: ‘Why is memory and the methods for recording memories so important to us?’ You could theoretically live a life, where everything was in the present or looking forwards. Instead, we tend to naturally gravitate towards collecting memories and since its invention, photography was and still is seen, by the majority, as the way of recording these precious memories. With the increasing technological advancements in artificial memory archives, will people rely on their natural memory much at all? Memory is one thing people naturally ‘cling’ to but it might still be affected by these artificial memory archives of photographs and other forms of media. Perhaps, because of this attachment to natural memory, when digital photography started to take over, there became present a lot of controversy over the validity of photography going forwards. This was because of the amount of manipulation possible ‘after the fact’, with digital photography. If the subsequent photographs were affected internally, with processing technologies, distrust could become a factor by part of the eventual viewer. Nowadays (just about), a famous photograph expresses the truth of a collective social remembrance. This is in comparison to: ‘The family album expresses the truth of social remembrance.’ – (Bate, 2010), where the social remembrance is ‘limited’ to the family. I would say with digital photography in particular there is increasing distrust towards a famous (or personal) photograph expressing the truth of a collective (or singular) social remembrance because of sometimes there being manipulation after the fact. This is magnified because of the wild scale of digital media consumption these days.

Another reason this distrust may grow amongst certain social groups and generations would be for the reason: because photography historically was only specific to a limited number of countries and of course a certain time, largely these ‘memories’ in the form of photographs presumably only apply to certain groups of people. The culture of the artificial memories in the form of photographs (probably Western) helps Western people identify with these memories more strongly.

‘an archive not a question of the past’ – (Bate, 2010) but rather, ‘It is a a question of the future, the question of a response, a promise and of a responsibility for tomorrow’ – (Derrida, 1995). This goes back to the concept of ‘late photography’ as suggested by Campany (2003) which I looked at in: ‘Late Photography’. Meanwhile, it could possibly point to a reason the Western countries were so powerful when they had a monopoly over photography’s history. As Bate (2010) remarks: ‘the ability to inscribe events, descriptions and traces is a site of social power; a means for some social groups to impose their will over others’. This for me shows how powerful any genre of photography was historically and the implications for this on not only cultures utilising these resources but also those cultures, who have, more recently made photography more integral in their history.

While I agree partially as Bate suggests: it is true that ‘Artificial Memories create uncertainty for the human faculty of memory’ so we ‘no longer trust our memory as our own’ – (Bate, 2010), overall I would say without the images as a meta-archive for collective memory anyway, the world would be less conscientious about its history, even if this history has been somewhat biased. Applied to landscape, postcards advertise places a lot of people haven’t been to yet the people feel like they’ve been to these places themselves.

Photography (digital) behaves as: such is the plethora nowadays of undiscovered yet familiar records (photographs) of different places on the internet or in exhibitions, it is like we have a permanent visual memory bank waiting to be tapped into – not unlike our long-term natural memory, except that it is accessible whenever – it doesn’t need to be triggered to be accessed. Like our long-term memory, photographs, while always being stored, can be mistrusted due to ’steering’ of the truth by protagonists of photography. Postcard views in particular, make us feel like we’ve been there before. Popular internet search engines are readily accessible.

Photographs with some historical context within them are powerful, they can trigger involuntary memories. This doesn’t necessarily have to mean direct records of the historical moment but rather can also be renditions or interpretations of famous historical memories. Alternatively, the photographer could make interpretations of childhood memories so the reenactments are personal. I could try ‘twisting’ photographs I make to act as triggers for cultural or personal memories which means something socially or personally (for myself) respectively. This reminded me of the work of Tom Hunter where he draws upon inspiration from other historical artists: ‘The restaging of historical painterly tableaux in a contemporary setting for which Hunter is perhaps best known’ – (Slyce, n.d.). For example with Death of Colotti (Hunter, 2009), he ‘draws on Delacroix’s mammoth tableaux Death of Sardanapalus, 1827′ – (Slyce, n.d.) for inspiration.

 

References:

Bate, D. (2010). The Memory of Photography. [Online] Taylor and Francis Online. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17540763.2010.499609?scroll=top&needAccess=true [Accessed 2 Nov. 2015].

Delacroix, E. (1827). Death of Sardanapalus. [Oil on Canvas] Paris: Louvre.

Derrida (1995). In. Bate, D. (2010). The Memory of Photography. [Online] Taylor and Francis Online. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17540763.2010.499609?scroll=top&needAccess=true [Accessed 2 Nov. 2015].

Freud, S. (1925). In. Bate, D. (2010). The Memory of Photography. [Online] Taylor and Francis Online. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17540763.2010.499609?scroll=top&needAccess=true [Accessed 2 Nov. 2015].

Hunter, T. (2009). Death of Colotti. [Photograph] Available at: http://www.tomhunter.org/unheralded-stories-series/ [Accessed 2 nov. 2015].

Slyce, J. (n.d.). In. Hunter, T. (2009). Unheralded Strories Series. Available at: http://www.tomhunter.org/unheralded-stories-series/ [Accessed 2 nov. 2015].

Strand, C. (2015). Getting Better and Worse at the Same Time. [Exhibition] 29 Apr – 6 Jun 2015. Grimaldi Gavin, London.

Comment
Landscape, Landscape Part 3, Study Visits for Landscape |

October 15, 2015

| admin

Richard Long Study Visit – 3/10/2015

These are my thoughts on a study visit I attended on 3/10/2015, concerning Richard Long and his exhibition: ‘Time and Space’, located in the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol.

 

I had already heard of Earth Art and Land Art and after reading their definitions, my initial impressions were they were similar in concept to what Capability Brown had done in the 18th century, where the landscape itself was altered for the people who used the land at the time. However, with Land and Earth Art, the landscape was being altered for the eventual piece of Art. I saw this as a kind of permanent installation on the Earth. If landscapes are reliant to a large extent on the land before the camera looking a certain way, then Earth Art, where the landscape is sculpted by the artist, is very important to how the final shot is seen. This was interesting to me because I had come to realise with my landscape photography, how dependant I was on the landscape to ‘cooperate’ in terms of subject matter like foreground interest and yet at the same time also include other objects in the middle ground/background, which complemented the foreground but also compositionally suggested something meaningful. Perhaps with Earth Art, where the eventual photographer had some input over some parts of the landscape, especially with foreground interest, I could have greater control over how the photograph looked aesthetically. Slightly contradictory to this though, was my inclination to keeping the landscape image ‘realistic’, so how much of the foreground for instance was changed was something I would pay attention to.

There were varying degrees to how extreme this Earth Art was sculpted in the land; from mammoth structures to much more subtle implementations by the likes of Richard Long, with ‘Blue Sky Circle’ (Long, 2002), for example. I felt my interest was peaked more by the subtler work of Long, not just because it was more feasible for me to experiment with but also because it addressed my previous concern of keeping the landscape image ‘realistic’, where if the effect on the landscape was subtle, I would be more comfortable with the changes made to the landscape and eventual image.

‘A Line Made by Walking exists now only in a photograph.’ – (O’Hagan, 2009). This quote from the article: One Step Beyond in The Guardian (2009), made me realise how some types of art; in this case Land Art by Richard Long, could be so fragile. At the same time; seeing as I had been contemplating photographs as finite in nature, it made me think that even the photograph was quite frail and yet it was also so important, as it remained as the only thing left to document that particular piece of Long’s Land Art.

I was very excited to attend this visit, mostly because I had looked at some of Long’s work already and admired some of the principles and ideas he incorporated into his inspiring and varied work. In short, this study visit didn’t disappoint at all, as I found it indeed very inspiring, as well as thought-provoking, in terms of how the the landscape medium is presented; specifically (for me) in regards to photography.

 

When we got to the Arnolfini Gallery, I started looking at one of the sculptures on the ground (New Slate Piece ‘Time and Space’ (2015)) to start with. The first thing that struck me was how detailed and intricate it was; with lots of rhythm and patterns evident in the sculpture. This was offset by the scale of the sculpture; it was quite large, filling most of a room of the gallery in an ‘X’ shape. However, interestingly, similar sculptures were present inside photographs, in a room nearby to that sculpture. These sculptures inside photographs appeared of similar size and comparable detail, once you put to one side imagining them in the context of their respective landscapes. This made me question: why did Long choose to display the sculptures in their ‘natural’ surroundings the majority of the time and of what significance was this to him. The ironic thing to me was that within the landscapes they were in, they often appeared as a kind of foreground detail within the landscape. Having seen a sculpture up close in the Arnolfini, there was clearly detail (the sculptures) within detail (the foreground detail present in the photographs), within the presented photographs.

A Fellow Student Looking On at One of Long's Photographs

A Fellow Student Looking On at One of Long’s Photographs

 

 

Looking closer at these photographs, which intrigued me so much, another realisation came to me when I looked at the varying compositions of the photographs on display in the gallery. The compositions affected how the land art was viewed in respect to the landscapes they appeared in (their size and location within their respective surroundings). This in turn affected potential meaning inferred by the viewer of the photographs. However, I would question whether Long was simply intending to make a record of his own Land Art or trying to make a piece of Art have meaning through the photograph itself. Certainly, Land Art can be impermanent, like other mediums of Art (photographs to a lesser degree themselves), which could explain why Long was trying to make records of his own Land Art. Contradicting this, was the observation that as I had found out recently (Bate, 2009): ‘the temptation to make any scene picturesque was hard to resist’. Whether Long intended to make the scenes containing his Land Art ‘picturesque’ is debatable but I decided, from the, in my opinion, high quality of photographs on display, some thought had gone into the placement of the Land Art within its surroundings. Therefore, composition is rarely simply a composition. Rather, perhaps he had found the angle that would: ‘”would give the best view”’ – (Watkins, 1858) In. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2013). However, because his Land Art actually changed the landscape significantly, this would then alter his eventual composition of the scene in the photograph, had the Land Art not been there. Photography’s arguable impermanence itself, makes for another, slightly pessimistic consideration: if the record (the photograph) is impermanent anyway, does it really matter whether Long records his Land Art in this way?

A couple of examples of these photographs, which caught my eye were: ‘Manang Circle’ – (Long, 1983) and ‘Blowing in the Wind’ – Long, 1981). They contrasted in style of treatment (black and white and colour, respectively) and also structure of the Land Art (circular and straight, respectively). Lastly, the compositions and general feel of the photographs were very different, where ‘Manang Circle’ – (Long, 1983) was much more oppressive without the horizon line, in comparison to ‘Blowing in the Wind’ – (Long 1981), where a much more conventional horizon and diagonal lead-in line (coincidentally the Land Art itself), was employed. Both worked for me but ‘Manang Circle’ – (Long, 1983), possessed a greater sense of depth and scale, despite not including an horizon. ‘Blowing in the Wind’ – (Long 1981) meanwhile, felt like more of a record of the (eleven day) journey Long had undertaken in this landscape.

Long not only makes Land Art sculptures but also texts and sculptures on walls and of course photographs, so the exhibition was very varied. My take on why he uses such varied methods to present or represent his journeys, was that he wants himself to have a record of these journeys and to share it with others. Perhaps, he feels different journeys require or encourage different methods of recording and so he presents them accordingly. Perhaps they represented his mental state at the time, because I understood from the exhibition that he becomes quite meditative and charged while out on the walks that make him want to record these works. The texts in particular were different to what I was used to seeing in a gallery and the creative use of the number of words on a line and the descriptive words, I found clever. I found they complemented other works well but only as a side to the visual works, which to me were more striking.

A photograph of ‘Boyhood Line’ - (Long, 2015)

A photograph of ‘Boyhood Line’ – (Long, 2015)

 

 

Afterwards, some of us (eventually!), found our way to a piece of Long’s work called: ‘Boyhood Line’ – (Long, 2015). Long had created this piece of Land Art in the general area he had grown up and so, presumably had some real significance to him. It was nice to see some of his Land Art work outside of the gallery or not represented in a photograph. This particular piece of work, for me seemed to fit in with the surrounding landscape, as well as stand out at the same time. The grass it was built on had begun to grow up around the white stones it was made up of, which helped with the ‘natural’ tendencies it had on me, while the actual line of stones was fairly straight and not as winding as I had expected. All of this meant it looked like a usual path, apart from the fact that it was, well, made on purpose! This made me wonder: what would it look like in a few months/years, when the grass had grown up/encroached upon the stones more and people began to treat it just as another part of the landscape and maybe not so much as a piece of Art. It was quite telling for me that there were two fainter paths on either side of Long’s path; suggesting many people had come to look at the path closely but had refrained from treading on the path. This could have maybe been out of respect for Long’s Land Art, where visitors, like me, were unsure whether the path was to be looked at or perhaps walked upon. This further made me question the path’s (and indeed other Land Art by Long’s) eventual permanence or lack of it and therefore the arguable need to document it in other ways like in photographs.

 

Overall, I learnt a lot from this experience and from a photographic perspective it was inspiring to see this kind of subtle intervention to the landscape; even if the artist Long had been more preoccupied with the journeys themselves and the documenting of it photographically came second to this. The text-based work was interesting for me also because I could maybe incorporate some of this into my own work going forwards, where single, descriptive words could be used to describe the scene as I remember it; as well as the photograph.

 

References:

Encyclopedia Britannica. (2013). Carleton E. Watkins | American photographer. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carleton-E-Watkins [Accessed 15 Oct. 2015].

Long, R. (2015). TIME AND SPACE. [Exhibition] 31 Jul. 15th Nov. 2015. Arnolfini, Bristol.

O’Hagan, S. (2009). One step beyond. [Online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/may/10/art-richard-long [Accessed 15 Oct. 2015.

Comment
Landscape, Landscape Part 3, Research for Landscape |

September 18, 2015

| admin

‘Late Photography’

I read ‘Safety in Numbness’ – (Campany, 2003) and found it raised some interesting questions surrounding the idea of ‘late photography’, which I then attempted to answer:

Why is/was a photograph often seen as more ‘memorable than those that move [videography]’ – (Campany – 2003), in the eyes of ‘the popular consciousness’ – (Campany – 2003)?

Maybe because a photograph is like a ‘slice’ of reality.

Why this is seen as more sacred than a much bigger ‘chunk’ of semi-reality may be for the reason that video is often regarded as only a semi-reality, not a reality that the photograph has come to possess an aura of. Where I believe this ‘aura’ comes from, would be the photographs’ place in history and how we have come to recognise the photograph as a symbol of something official in the world, while future generations might perceive other media like video as ‘official’.

However, there remains something else to consider; in that taking a chunk of reality (video) for future generations may not be as special as the slice of reality (photographs) is now for current and prior generations. This would be because although the notion of what is ‘official’ may have changed for future generations, the photograph is still more ‘digestible’ than the larger piece of video footage.

This is interesting because, while TV footage is still many moments in time pieced together, the photographs, by taking a single slice of time, makes that moment special and in doing so creates a ‘fleeting’ reality.

 

Is recording (a photograph) different from documenting (footage)?

It gets more complicated when a single frame is taken from a piece of video footage, as the observer, at least from my experience, would want to verify whether the single slice was taken from video footage or whether it was indeed a ‘genuine’ photograph.

However, that was true and clear when photographs were obviously distinguishable from video footage ‘frame grabs’, in the past, where the frame grabs would typically have been of a much lower quality in terms of sharpness, because video technology was not as advanced as it is nowadays.

Nowadays, it can be much harder to distinguish the frame grab from a ‘genuine’ photograph as video technology has improved and so it raises questions over the value of photographs as a single frame can be chosen from many hundreds of split images from a few seconds of video footage.

Countering this argument, I would naturally think of the famous ‘decisive moment’ terminology in photography, where the photographer uses their skill in creating a timeless, decisive moment, as most famously illustrated by Henri Cartier-Bresson’s street photography.

However, selecting a single moment from many moments in a piece of video footage could arguably mean the decisive moment is captured anyway, as well the surrounding footage being captured more ‘effectively’.

I suppose this would be similar to the work of some appropriation artists with Goole Street View like Mishka Henner’s No Man’s Land (Henner, 2011), although the timing and composition of each potential frame would be much more flexible, with the video footage.

There would be little skill, in my opinion, in creating the eventual image from the video footage but if the result remained ‘decisive’, then it could still be considered a piece of Art or at least a valid photograph.

 

What is done with this ‘slice’ of reality after it has been recorded?

It can be used (via memory – a common association of photography) to change the perception of our world of the past (late photography), the present or for the future, ironically. Changing the perception of our world in the present or future would differ from late photography, by addressing issues through ideas in suggestive manners as or before they happen. This is because the photograph is also commonly associated with permanence – a non-deteriorating segment of time (very arguable) but an association of memory – by looking at the past.

However, this reality can change based upon the state of the world as it stands and it could be possible perhaps, that other cultures/times perceive photography/video and/or the things they represent differently.

 

Is all photography ‘late’ photography?

A photograph can be seen to be simplistic in the way it is commonly observed: as a 2-dimensional object but I wouldn’t call it primitive as what is represented on the flat surface can be complex and even challenge the flat surface. I agree there is a certain ‘allure’ to its apparent simplicity, cutting through the complexities of moving media or diversity of technologies, in an incisive and potentially telling manner.

This is countered by David Campany: ‘it [the photograph] says very little itself, while allowing all that audio-visual information to support it from the wings’ – (Campany, 2003).

However, I believe he misses the semi-reality attribute a moving image possesses, compared to the seeming reality of a single photograph.

Having said this, if an important event was happening, unplanned before me, I would reach for video footage over photography to document it most effectively.

This would be for a present tense situation, where the documenting was most crucial, rather than something where a lasting impact had been made or had to be made.

Therefore, perhaps photography belongs for past and future issues, rather than the present.

It could be argued that while photography could be a viable option for recording future tense issues, so could video footage. However, I would say, in my opinion, a photograph might be more telling in terms of the way these issues were told creatively, at least for the moment. This admittedly, is from the perspective of someone who knows little concerning videography.

For photography not to turn up ‘late’ to a scene and simply record the ‘aftermath’, it should intervene at some point, with the landscape as it is being created. This would be different from photographing ‘action’ on the battlefield, as it happens, by photojournalists for example. The photojournalists would probably not be intervening beforehand or recording afterwards but rather documenting in the present, where their efforts might hopefully make a difference soon afterwards.

 

My initial responses (or at least my memories of my responses) at the time when I heard and saw via television media, moving images concerning 9/11, were very mixed and included responses of uncertainty, unreality and the unimaginable. Yet all these responses were apparently evident through television media. This, ironically was the same media that made my responses uncertain anyway.

My prevailing memory was that of uncertain shock at what had happened and this was made no more tangible by the fact that I saw it almost wholly through television. My feelings were nevertheless powerful ones but I question whether they would have been more powerful, had they been based upon photographs predominantly? My guess would be probably not; however, I deemed this assertion was because the related photographs that were taken at the time, were unprepared (because of the nature of the event) and so would not have been as incisive as a prepared for shot of say a war scene.

Meanwhile, Meyerowitz’s (2006) Aftermath series, I discovered were a detached and retrospective look at the location where the World Trade Centres had once stood. I found this to be in stark contrast with my initial memories. Although his photographs showed the relative disarray and chaos at the site, it was clearly ‘late’ photography and so reflected many people’s or onlooker’s secondary reactions to what had happened.

There was a subordinate theme going on for me with Meyerowitz’s photographs too. While they were unbelievable in the scale and disorder of the upheaval before there viewer’s eyes, they also remained impassive and still; a quality I would attribute to most ‘late’ photography and one that lent itself towards harsh reality that only a photograph (perhaps only in the aftermath) or someone’s with their own eyes (in the present or from memory) could believe.

 

References:

Campany, D. (2003). Safety in Numbness. In. Green, D. (ed.) Where is the Photograph? Photoworks/Photoforum.

Henner, M. (2011). No Man’s Land. [Photograph] Available at: http://cargocollective.com/mishkahenner/filter/works/2011-4 [Accessed 18th Sept. 2015].

Meyerowitz, J. (2006). Aftermath. 1st ed. New York: Phaidon Press.

Comment
Landscape, Landscape Part 3 |

September 11, 2015

| admin

Some Notes on Part 3 of Landscape Concerning Tourism..

‘The more they [places] are photographed the more soul they seem to accumulate.’ I thought that this quote by John Pfahl (1997) – ‘Introductions to Permutations on the Picturesque’, was true about picturesque places in so much as: the more popular they become, the more vibrancy and character they begin to possess. However, I didn’t think this told the whole story, at least in some of the (very) popular places. My reasoning behind this was how these places’ landscapes have been and are being affected. Detrimentally, is one way to describe the large-scale erosion of footpaths and tourist ‘hotspots’ at some heavily frequented National Parks for example.

Maybe I could implement this in my own photography, where I could photograph this erosion as a form of (natural) land art. Here, composition would be key in getting a message across but the question for me and the eventual viewer perhaps, was: what message? It might be possible, through composition, to depict the landscape how the photographer wants it to be seen and to make certain statements about the place this way. The statement I would be attempting to make could be: are the effects on the landscape detrimentally affecting the beauty of tourist hotspots? Here, a conundrum could be in play; where if no tourists frequented these places, the places might lose their vibrancy and character (their ‘soul’) and monetary funds but become less worn down and retain their beauty. Coincidentally, not so many people would photograph them because they remain… Since photography is often full of conundrums, there could be a possibility for the photographs to mirror this conundrum.

This raises questions about whether the landscape or the photograph is more important… It seems to culminate in a debate over whether beauty (in the likes of picture-postcard places), affects art of those places, because of over saturation of the same kind of photograph being taken repeatedly.

If the landscape is changed by being picturesque, does it simultaneously lose some or all of its value? In my opinion, landscapes are more beautiful when they are pure and unadulterated in nature. By tourists and/or photographers taking photographs in multitude of these popular picturesque scenes, do the early photographs become less valuable through over saturation?

For me, there exist two stances on postcards’ place or value in today’s society. One is to carry over the legacy of the picturesque and idealisms of certain places, while the other is more to act as a way of documenting the ‘important’ and coincidentally desirable places of the world as known by people around it. What constitutes these places as important or desirable for a photographer however, is a good question and I would attempt to answer it in the following way.

When I first started the landscape part of the course, I imagined I would be taking these idealised, picturesque shots a lot and in the process come away with some beautiful and perhaps meaningful shots. I’ve since come to realise such shots would, typically, be your expected postcard type photographs. Moreover, these beautiful and popular photographs aren’t the only possibility when creating landscape photographs.

If I was to find hidden or less-obvious viewpoints, which were more subjective than a typical postcard view, then it might be possible to mitigate the fact I was a tourist/outsider to a place. Also, if I helped or was influential in creating the landscape in any way, then I would be even more of an ‘insider’; although this is often easier said than done. However, as Richard Long and his land art for example show, it is possible. Also, because the land art would intervene with the landscape, to some extent, this could be carried out in settings, which weren’t ‘typical postcard views’. What this might mean would be that these views could become more interesting than they were as well as having more meaning.

For photography not to turn up ‘late’ to a scene and simply record the ‘aftermath’, it should intervene at some point, with the landscape as it is being created. This would be different from photographing ‘action’ on the battlefield, as it happens, by photojournalists for example. The photojournalists would probably not be intervening beforehand or recording afterwards but rather documenting in the present, where their efforts might hopefully make a difference soon afterwards.

In so far as people, ‘photographers’ or not, over-photographing certain viewpoints, because they are beautiful spots, in my mind it creates a harsher landscape overall. However, without people photographing these beautiful places, there would be less documentation of how the place had changed; although you could argue it wouldn’t change but then how would you know!

 

References:

Pfahl, J. (1997: n.p.). In. Wells, L. (2011). Land Matters – Landscape Photography, Culture and Identity, I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 6 Salem Road, London, W2 4BU, Page 60.

Comment
Landscape, Landscape Part 3 |

September 6, 2015

| admin

Postcards and Tourism

Postcards, in my view, offer their prospective buyers a quintessential, ‘defining’ view of a scene that is usually desirable. These views, for the most part, traditionally have been taken from the ‘best’ viewpoint – that is, the viewpoint most conducive to providing a desirable memento of a place the viewer has presumably been to and wants to keep something to remember it by and/or to impress upon other people. The value these travellers want to impress upon other people (often close relatives or friends) would be the beauty of the place they’ve experienced themselves first-hand to the potential recipient in a form, which is easy to absorb.

Nerja Postcard

Nerja Postcard

 

In order to better understand the reasons behind postcards’ popularity, I’ve collected a group of several postcards, which I will analyse briefly for their aesthetic merits. The first postcard of Nerja (which I’ve never been to but my sister sent back), depicts a typical postcard view of a beach (Playa Burriana). It uses an horizon in line with the ‘rule of thirds’, which I’ve found makes for an idyllic composition. This is what I feel the main point of a postcard should be from such a beautiful location. To further draw the viewer’s eye closer in, it also uses a few diagonal lead-in lines from the foreground/middle-distance. These include boats, the shoreline and a wooden fence, leading to the shoreline. Meanwhile, the inclusion of some red flowers in the immediate foreground, adds colour depth, which continues further up through the frame, from orange to yellow to green to blue in the distant background. This is not dissimilar from the techniques used in 17th century neo-classical paintings by the likes of Claud Lorrain. Here Lorrain used a technique, where ‘Recession [of depth] is further emphasized by subtle atmospheric perspective achieved through a gradual diminishing of the distinctness of outline and colour from the foreground to the background.’ – (Kitson, 2010, para 9). Lastly, there are people present; all small in the frame; presumably to add a sense of scale to the picturesque scene.

Tabago Cays Postcard

Tabago Cays Postcard

 

A Tobago Cays (the Grenadines) postcard (also from my sister), is quite similar in terms of compositional devices (diagonal lead-in line of the coast) and also capturing an idyllic view of an island. This time, instead of using people to show scale, the photographer has used yachts, which I feel works just as well. The colours (mainly consisting of blue and green) are very appealing and harmonious, which contributes to this picturesque postcard view. Perhaps the photographer also used a polariser for this photograph as the colours are so vivid and the clouds stand out so much.

Grenada Postcard

Grenada Postcard

 

A very similar postcard to the Tobago Cays Postcard, this time: Grenada, East Coast (also sent by my sister!), is very similar in terms of mood (idyllic) and colour (harmonious greens and blues) but also includes some interesting compositional elements that I thought I would touch on. These include a tethered white goat, in the immediate foreground – very low in the frame, while the horizon sits unusually high up the frame. I think these two elements help draw the viewer’s eye into the centre, where the viewer is pulled into yet another picturesque scene; just this time not taking up the whole frame (the goat’s placement attracts quite a bit of attention).

Porto Postcard

Porto Postcard

 

Changing to a different theme; from rural to urban, a postcard from Porto (a postcard I actually sent myself for once!); shows a bridge, named Ponte D. Luis I. The colours are completely different, as you might expect, moving from rural to urban like this and consist of vivid oranges and magentas at night, which entice the viewer in. However, this postcard still features a diagonal lead-in line similar to the first two postcards I analysed, which pulls the viewer into the postcard further.

Roma Postcard

Roma Postcard

 

A postcard from Roma (something my brother sent), concentrates on classical architecture similar to the Porto postcard but with more emphasis on the historical buildings, which take centre stage here. The buildings appear very grand (or once grand), perhaps because of their historical significance. The architecture dominates in each of these four mini-photographs making up the postcard; with very minimal greenery included. The use of four important landmarks shows Rome’s heritage and in the process gives an idea of what Rome is famous for. This, I felt worked well here because the postcard places the four buildings so centrally in each photograph; thus making Rome’s appeal very clear to the viewer.

Budapest Postcard

Budapest Postcard

 

With a Budapest postcard I received from a friend, there is a lot more variety in the mini-photographs (which total five photographs) than in the Roma one. Buildings are included as well as scenery from various angles including one from an aerial perspective. All the photographs are fairly picturesque in comparison to Roma, which is more majestic, in my opinion. Budapest appeared beautiful from this postcard, which I incidentally hadn’t been able to imagine before receiving the postcard.

St. Vincent Postcard

St. Vincent Postcard

 

This was in contrast to St. Vincent (also from … my sister!), where the four photographs remained varied but returned to the idyllic views and harmonious colours of the Caribbean. The environment looked unspoilt in all four photographs (apart from the tourists in the foreground of the top-right photograph, where tourists were evident, presumably to give some sense of scale). However, the four photographs together didn’t work together for me like the Roma postcard; maybe because the photographs were varied but at the same time very similar in  tone and colour.

Carriacou Postcard

Carriacou Postcard

 

I preferred the slightly warmer tones in the single photograph postcard of Carriacou (sent from … you guessed it (she travels a lot!). This particular shot was taken from “Petite Martinique” and the single format was just a bit simpler and more effective for me than the four in the St. Vincent postcard. I also admired how the photograph gently lead the eye around the frame; from right to left across the slightly warmer foreground, consisting of rocks and grass, up to the vivid sea and then across the fairly high horizon towards the volcano in the distance.

 

Even though, I hadn’t been to many of these places, they largely appeared as tranquil and as picturesque as I would imagine them. When I received most postcards from the senders (mostly my sister!), I felt curious to go there myself, which showed the postcards were achieving their desired effect. One reason behind this desire, I deemed, was because of the compositional devices like diagonal lead-in lines, which showed off the setting to their most picturesque ideals. Also, any buildings featured in the postcards (like Roma and Budapest), were conveniently the most majestic or iconic structures in the cities/places. I was surprised by certain postcards’ compositions because they were quite unorthodox, like the Grenada postcard, for example. With the horizon being so high and the goat being so low in the frame, I felt it was quite a bold composition but one that ultimately worked. The reason it worked for me, was it drew the eye in (via goat and horizon) to the centre, where a more conventional postcard was present in the frame.

 

References:

Kitson, M. (2010). Claude Lorrain | French artist. [online] Encyclopedia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Lorrain [Accessed 6 Sep. 2015].

Comment
Landscape, Landscape Part 3, Research for Landscape |

August 15, 2015

| admin

Picturesque Ideals and How They are Important

The picturesque, in my opinion, works to a certain extent, as long as the landscape conforms and is picturesque itself. While it is (very) possible to compose a landscape in such a manner that even the harshest of landscapes appear picturesque, the photographer, in that instance, has to ‘mould’ the landscape, through composure, into their ideologies of the picturesque (if that is what they are trying to achieve). An example of a photographer who was capable of this ‘moulding’ through composure was Carleton Watkins, with ‘Malakoff Diggins’ – Watkins (1871) for instance, showing a picturesque image, where the actual scene hadn’t been so picturesque. However, this ‘post-rendering’ of the landscape becomes more difficult, the harsher the actual landscape itself was landscaped physically originally; not to mention, more deceiving. The method I could see to counter this difficulty, would be intervention of the landscape itself, so that it renders naturally picturesque beforehand. This would be by means of land art of some sort.

An effective or successful landscape photograph, for me, would be composed in such a manner that when viewed, the landscape photographer appeared to have some control over the landscape’s variables. On the other hand/as well as this, the landscape could potentially be landscaped originally so that it appeared picturesque or idyllic anyway – before the photograph had even been composed.

My reasoning for both these approaches requiring the successful photograph to have some form of control over the variables in the photograph, was that the eventual viewer naturally tries to resolve the components of the photograph into picturesque ideals. Therefore, depending on what the photographer wants to achieve, the components of the photograph should reflect or oppose these picturesque ideals. This would be in order for the eventual viewer to infer meaning behind the photograph, which to some extent, if picturesque, would be based upon a reflection of themselves ideally viewing the landscape, where some kind of order was present within themselves and also the landscape.

 

References:

Watkins, C. (1871). Malakoff Diggins. [Photograph] San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Comment

Post navigation

Newer Entries

Recent Posts

  • Presenting Assignment 6 – Landscape
  • Presenting Assignment 5 – Landscape – As a Photo Book
  • Amendments for Assignment 5 – Landscape
  • Assignment 6 – Landscape: Transitions – Methodology
  • Assignment 6 – Landscape: Transitions

Recent Comments

    Archives

    • January 2017
    • November 2016
    • August 2016
    • April 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014

    Categories

    • Assignment 1 – Landscape
    • Assignment 2 – Landscape
    • Assignment 3 – Landscape
    • Assignment 4 – Landscape
    • Assignment 5 – Landscape
    • Assignment 6 – Landscape
    • Landscape
    • Landscape Part 1
    • Landscape Part 2
    • Landscape Part 3
    • Landscape Part 4
    • Landscape Part 5
    • Landscape Part 6
    • Research for Landscape
    • Study Visits for Landscape