Larry Sultan

"Photography is there to construct the idea of us as a great family and we go on vacations and take these pictures and then we look at them later and we say, 'Isn't this a great family?' So photography is instrumental in creating family not only as a memento, a souvenir, but also a kind of mythology." (Larry Sultan, We are Family - Episode 5, The Genius of Photography, BBC DVD, Wall to Wall Media Limited)

My tutor suggested I research two photographers in particular who have focused on their own families, Sally Mann, whom I looked at and discussed earlier in the course (here and here) and Larry Sultan, along with an exhibition called Presumed Innocence curated by Rachel Rosenfeld Lafo. 

This post is about Larry Sultan's work which I found extremely moving and emotional.

Larry Sultan (1946 - 2009)grew up in American suburbia and returned there during the 80s when he photographed his mother and father, post-retirement, over a 10 year period calling the work Pictures from Home.  He also photographed the porn industry in The Valley, working in similar suburban houses to his parents' in the same area, creating two contrasting strands of a story within the same setting.  Larry Sultan worked extensively up to his death in 2009 photographing alone, in collaboration and for editorial.  The blurb on his website states: 

"Larry Sultan’s work has been exhibited and published widely and is included in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon Guggenheim Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where he was also recognized with the Bay Area Treasure Award in 2005.  Sultan served as a Distinguished Professor of Photography at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.  Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1946, Larry Sultan passed away at his home in Greenbrae, California in 2009."

I cannot look at the images of his family without weeping.  They are so moving and emotional when looked at as a series because the tenderness, respect and feeling which pours out of them is raw, honest and extraordinarily real.  Larry Sultan says in an interview during an episode of The Genius of Photography that he specifically didn't want his father to smile which was very uncomfortable for Mr. Sultan senior. He wondered what was being projected onto him, he says, if he could not smile. ( The urge to see family photographs as something where everyone is smiling and happy is a very powerful one that is learned early.  My own 2 year old picked up one of my cameras this morning, held it up to his eye and said 'cheese' which is bizarre because that isn't what I do - but he must have seen it somewhere.  When I take photos of families the parents are often most interested in the smiley ones.  We generally want our family snaps to portray a happy version of ourselves.)

These are not happy, holiday snaps or snaps of any description (unlike Richard Billingham's disturbing 'snaps' of his alcoholic father which were processed at Snappy Snaps (or something along those lines)).  The photographs are mostly posed and Larry Sultan gives a lot of direction about where and how his subjects should sit or stand.  However, he admits that these images are not about subjects in the traditional sense as he too, the photographer, is a subject in these photographs.  "It's about Us," he tells the interviewer.

What I see in this work is a story about a family that includes the mythology that all families carry around in order to remember, to make sense, to hold themselves together, but it also tells the story of a family that have had to deal with the familial wars and battles that take place in all families one way or another.  You can see the wounds - the frustrations, sorrow, anger, regrets: you can see it in the way the mother looks at her son or how she might look at her husband, or how the father looks at his son taking the pictures.  What is so striking though is that this is a family that have been through these very human conflicts and come out the other side.  There is evidence of deep knowledge from each about the others' less 'smiley' aspects, and an acceptance too.  They each know that the other is a real human being.  There are no pedestals or fantasies taking up the space.  This is a family who have reached some level of peace with each-other and I think you see that happening within the photographs, perhaps through the act of taking them over that 10 year period. 

What a wonderful thing for those parents to have done - in light of the fact that their son did not go down the expected route of 'corporate' career but chose an artistic one and quite a difficult artistic genre at that - to support their son's art by becoming part of it.  And he seems to have responded to their generosity and understanding by being incredibly respectful and tender but still managing to create truly moving, non-sentimental images.  For me, the love that the pictures communicate is remarkable.  And they just make me cry each time I look at them.

Larry Sultan's work can be viewed here.

Curves

Take 4 photographs using curves to emphasise movement and direction.

Children: The curves of the arches which are much bigger than the children are very pretty - the whole building is beautiful.  I have actually cropped this image far more than I usually do in order to emphasise the arches, but that has made a rejected picture much more viable. There is a timelessness and grandness to the old building compared to the children who seem so very small.  I also like their different postures.  200 ISO 55mm f8 1/1000

Roof: I liked the bumpy curves of the roof and the tiny plants growing in it.  I was actually thinking about diagonals when I took it because of the perspective lines but in the end have included it in curves because I think the regular bumps are more prominent.  I can't say that I was doing anything other than trying to fulfill exercises.  If I said anymore I would be shoehorning meaning into an image that was about shapes and lines to me. 160 ISO 28mm f2.8 1/1250

Curvy: This is a close up picture of a strange object that I think may have been used to inflate something at one time (wider image of the whole object here).  I thought it was a vacuum cleaner to begin with but I don't think that is right.  It has been discarded behind an enormous climbing center that exists in a pretty rustic and medieval Italian village which was quite controversial when initially built as it is totally out of place, ruins the picture postcard image of the village and is surrounded by mountains that can be and are frequently climbed. The climbing frame doesn't seem to be utilised very often.  Mostly it has become a giant store area for objects used in the village's annual Festa where visitors get to see the entire history of mankind acted out over the course of two or three hours in a promenade style theatrical event.  It's lots of fun and full of spectacle.  Props and scenery are stored, many open to the elements here, and this object seemed like it had been dumped, a discarded dead alien. 250 ISO 50mm f2.8 1/1250

Steps: The curves of the steps going off into the horizon could have been used in the horizontal exercise too. 500 ISO 23mm f5.6mm 1/200

The Emerald Forest: I did not intend to add this last one, but as it is very different to what I usually do - here it is.  I have been interested in repeated patterns in nature for a long time - they are known as fractal patterns and I find examples of such patterns fascinating and beautiful.  I didn't like the original green of this cauliflower so changed it to make it obviously unreal which is not something I do often but I didn't like it in black and white either so made it emerald.    However, I can't help wondering about my unconscious choices - why emerald?  I do think such patterns are reflected in much of our existence, throughout our lives as individuals and as groups. I chose square format because I wanted as much of the vegetable without any gaps included but the regularity of having equal sides suits the regularity of the patterns.  250 ISO 48mm f2.8 1/320

Feedback Assignment 1

I received feedback from my assignment while away and had to read it on my phone having waited ages to download it through some very skinny broadband.  After submitting the assignment I was eager for some kind of external validation to stay on track which is probably quite usual for people new to this way of studying.  So, when I did manage to download the email eventually I was really happy and relieved to receive positive feedback.

Some points:
'an eclectic set of photographs' - this was good to read but I do worry that this is really a way of saying I'm a bit of a magpie and copy anything I see (which I do) but have no actual direction of my own. I know that lots of people can take competent photographs but far fewer take photographs that are instantly recognisable as their own.  However, saying that I am aware that some photographers who's work I look at is wonderful, powerful and interesting but much of it looks very similar indeed.  I can see why someone would do this but I do not feel even remotely ready to limit myself in anyway.  Does this mean I will never have a style of my own, a distinctive voice, a readily recognisable aesthetic?  Perhaps I won't! Perhaps that is okay.  Or maybe I am mistaking what a distinctive voice actually is.  When I think of a 'voice' I wonder if I am thinking about it in too superficial a way.  If I think beyond the superficial then I wonder if developing a voice is about more than how images look - and rather what or how authentically the photographer is communicating. And perhaps related to communicating something that is a genuine, human, honest statement or ideas unhindered by - I'm struggling to find the right word - possibly, ego or affectation, and that is what finding a voice is about.

' A few more notes next to your actual photos would be welcome next time- not ones that are overly-focused on technical issues, but that talk about the images and what you were hoping to communicate/ achieve with them.' - I have endeavoured to do this and hope I am not merely babbling.  One of the things I don't do very well, which I imagine may be to do with lack of experience,  is plan ideas and then photograph them - because when I do they sometimes tend to end up being somewhat contrived as was accurately pointed out with a couple of images.  Instead I am more familiar with finding signs and symbols and stories in the work when reviewing it.  Saying that, I know I had ideas and thoughts as I was wandering round snapping on holiday and it was these 'thoughts' or 'themes' that I looked for when editing.  Although I do not use Photoshop extensively and am most definitely not a concept photographer I do think of the editing stage as integral to the whole process of creating an image and will highlight, darken, occasionally crop to create a final image - ditching much of what I photographed and keeping just a few that seem to accurately reflect where I was at the time.  (And sometimes photographs can actually inform or enlighten me about where I was at the time, surprising and illuminating life in retrospect.)

'A minor gripe concerns navigation- it would have been better if the whole assignment and reflections were under one heading, rather three separate posts. Likewise, the navigation is ok at the moment, but if you continue to write and shoot with the enthusiasm that underpins everything (and I seriously hope that you do!!) pretty soon there’ll be a lot of material on your blog, so being able to get round it clearly and efficiently is a must. Lastly, it would be better for my purposes if thumbnail images linked to ones that could be viewed at full-screen a little more efficiently.'

The thumbnails simply enlarge when you click on them in all the browsers I use - Safari, Firefox etc so I don't really understand what is required to satisfy this issue.  Would it be best to have a link to Flickr or my website with all the photos I include at the end of each exercise so they can be viewed as a slide show there? 

I must get on with reading and viewing other people's work and have been recommended some.  I will have to make a special effort with this as fitting everything is (as I am sure it is with most students) always a struggle and this is the area that I allow to fall behind.  I love looking at work but I wish I enjoyed reading about photography as much as I did about sociology/anthropology/psychology.  It would make the task seem much less onerous.

All in all I was pleased with my feedback and feel the start to the course has gone well.

 

Diagonals

Take four photographs which use diagonals strongly:

The diagonals are evident in the tiny bits of barbed wire at the forefront of the photo and also in the perspective lines in the rest of the image.  I chose this because it symbolised discomfort, potential pain not to mention disease (rusty things used frequently to kill us off before penicillin) and the wire at very front of the image is out of focus and somewhat annoying, like having something in your eye which you can't remove. ISO 250 31mm f2.8 1/800

The diagonals here are created by the different shades of grey as you move across the image and each band seems to mirror a subsequent band - i.e. shadowed wall, sunlight baby's back, shadowed baby's face and torso, sunlit wall and then finally shadow again.  I chose it because of the tenderness of the smooth baby which contrasts with with rough paint-peeling wall that is old and weathered.  ISO 160 28mm f4.5 1/640

I made these diagonals by turning the image when editing.  I took two images and in one I highlighted the horizontal aspect seen here but I actually think the shutters which were naturally diagonal work nicely with the roof echoing their shape.  I left the tiny bird in, which in this thumbnail seems odd but hopefully when seen in a larger rendition (click on the image) it makes more sense. The colours of the bird seem very similar to the colours of the building.  The contrast between something very earthbound and concrete - a house, a home, one in which the people are at home (open shutters) and the bird which is tiny and distant and free  - but still connected by its presence and the matching colours seems to resonate.  ISO 100 28mm f8 1/250

This photograph was a lucky steal - one of my children was messing about with his seat-belt so we had to stop at which point I took the opportunity to photograph the completely empty road standing right in the middle of it.  I must stop the car more often for photographic purposes - traveling to see rather than merely to get there is a very appealing and lately unfamiliar notion! The diagonals are created by perspective and I am so grateful for the snow poles on either side which seem to emphasise the shapes and lines.  Roads are emblematic of journeying and have been photographed a million times.  The perspective makes the image strong I think, traveling towards mountains and in the distance you can see Castellucio, a hill side town on the right and to the east a conglomeration of trees in the shape of Italy. The mountains are definite, sturdy and steadfast.  The weather is dynamic. ISO 160 17mm f8 1/640

Horizontal & Vertical Lines

Produce 4 examples of the horizontal and 4 vertical lines and as far as you can avoid repeating the way in which the line appears:

Driving seat: Although placing things in the very middle sometimes doesn't work I have tried it with this one; using the pillar which cuts he photo in half.  In one half there is a driving seat and in the other a bench.  The reality behind the pillar is connected despite the forced separation at the forefront of the image.  The driving seat is empty. The verticals in the background echo the vertical of the pillar and although they are ostensibly made by the stands, the different coloured lighting enhances the vertical pattern. ISO 125 10mm f2.8 1/60

Storeroom: The main vertical lines are the window frame by those lines are echoes by the reflections in the background on the glass bottles.  I like the contrast between the light and dark.  Again there are two separate halves in this image.  ISO 1000 48mm f5.6 1/500

Trout farm: This photo annoys me.  I wish I had had the foresight to make more of the vertical line of water on the right that is hardly there at all.  I'm not sure if you anyone can see this is a tiny mini waterfall or if it is too abstract.  To be honest it is simply an image that aims to fulfill the exercise and I'm not sure I can talk about what I aimed to communicate here.  However, I am pretty big on unconscious communication and motivation so I am sure there will be something about swimming upstream here and again there are two halves, one with a curvy female shape inside and the other with froth at the bottom.   I have chosen monotone to highlight the vertical nature. ISO 125 48mm f22 1/15

The right side of the bars: I noticed this grille as we wandered round an Italian hilltop town and before I could snap it my son was in front of the camera which is unlike him - normally avoiding it or pulling funny faces and making rude signs so I was pleased with this.  I was also pleased he chose a stance that mirrored the horizontal bars making it a contender for this exercise.  I like the contrast between the old and young, historical and modern and light and dark.  It is difficult for me to discuss what this communicates here but I will say that I think this a very honest and true portrait of him. 400 ISO 28mm f5.6 1/100

Electricity: As is often the case when there is a large space of single colour there is a bit of digital noise after uploading here which is a shame.   The man made lines try to compete with nature.  This a reminder of how transient our species is.  Long after the lines here have stopped bringing electricity to houses making light inside possible the moon will still be shining.  We're hopeful, deluded and insignificant in the long run. 160 ISO 55mm f3.2 1/50

Italian sky: This a different view of a building creating a horizontal shape.  The photo to me is mostly about shapes. The horizontal line created by the roof and sky meeting is a strong one - made by a strong contrast.   100 ISO 21mm f8 1/250

Ducks in a row: I like this one but am unsure if it meets the criteria.  The horizontal lines are made by the landscape - trees, stream, ducks, bricks and paving.  There are dark bands and light bands and the dark duck stands in the light paving while the light ducks are slightly behind against the darker river.  I'm not sure it communicates that much although the title I have given it is quite positive in relation to my personal life.  I feel from that sense it is a strong image - one with purpose like the ducks.  And it is also a little fun.  250 ISO 55mm f5.6 1/320

This vertical one seemed to insist on being at the end of the page so forgive it for seeming out of place - Poles: The vertical poles are probably a repeat of the first image although the photograph is quite different.  I should have found a photo of the kids creating a vertical image but there are some of those for later in other shapes.  But I really liked this one.  They are the male and female of the street lamp world.  All the electricity boxes, one hanging precariously (not great for an electricity box) seem to be connected and related to the poles and each-other.  I chose black and white again to emphasise the vertical nature. ISO 250 23mm f5.6 1/640.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Multiple points

6 photographs - Set up your own still life with a background that is unfussy but not entirely plain.  Use between 6/10 objects, each compact in shape.  You should fix the camera firmly in one position, aimed down at the background (ideally use a tripod)  The idea is to control the composition by rearrangement, not by changing the framing with the camera.

"'The most revolutionary of Arp's collages were those made 'according to the laws of chance'"
Dada and Surrealism on Hans Arp's use of chance to create collages and also poetry.
Page 63, Matthew Gale, Phaidon, 1997

I have to say when it come sot still life I have no idea how some people can get some truly amazing images by placing objects so strategically.  It must come from a great deal of trial and error and/or innate talent because I think it's a pretty hard thing to do.

Anyway, I am inadvertently continuing with the theme of death although hopefully not in a morbid way.  The objects I have chosen to photograph are some art materials that belonged to a woman who died over two years ago.  She was very old and I never knew her. 

The woman lived off the Kings Rd in Chelsea in a tiny flat and apparently lived and long and very rich (not necessarily rich in the material sense, although I don't think she was destitute by any stretch) and full life.  She didn't have any family.

There are two sets of photographs here.  The first where I didn't follow the instructions fully.  The objects are not compact in shape nor are they of regular size.  But I liked the photos so I have included them - and I was attempting to create a satisfactory shape and arrangement nevertheless.  I also like that the objects mirror some scratches on the table.

The second set are pastels from a set the women had used a little.  Initially I placed a couple of the pastels in specific places.  But I found this quite stifling and ended up tossing them gently onto the table rather than strategically moving them about - allowing them to land according to the 'laws of chance'.  I did however alter them a little after that to create more balance, in particular I noticed that there were quite dark colours in the shadows so changed them for lighter ones.  So - chance gave me something to work with but I played with that was given.

All the objects are placed on a table that belonged to the dead woman too.  It is a good table but very used and scratched.  It has been polished now so in better condition than it was but the table retains all the scars and scratches from it's long useful life.  See after the final images from each set for a description of what I hope the photos communicate, or at least what I see in them myself.

To complete the picture I listened to Antony and the Johnson's I am a Bird Now whilst editing. 

The photos are taken at f2.8, 70mm, 400ISO. I wanted them to be soft and I used the light from an overcast rainy day through a window to cast gentle shadows and highlight.

Set 1  - a dead woman's painting materials

I quite like the single paintbrush here.  And when looking on the back of the camera immediately noticed the scratches.

The texture of the large brush appealed to me and I placed it at an opposing angle to highlight it.

The lines here are quite random but the shadows and highlight create something interesting for me. 

I got bored of the paint brushes and tried something else instead although still planned to include the bushes.  The scratches become part of the object or at any rate support it in some way.

I like all the diagonals and how the paintbrush and extended scratch line just below cut through it.

As above

For me these photos are somewhat celebratory about the dead woman's life.  The brushes and the tin are well used.  To me a great deal of living and enjoyment seem associated with these objects. The marks on the table seem to suggest the woman wasn't afraid to live and made mistakes but that didn't matter in the end - her life, like the table, was well used by her.  A pristine sterile table would fail to communicate how much life there is here.  The light seems uplifting too - it brings the objects to life and gives the whole picture a kind of relief.  There is warmth in the colour of the wood, again life.  I think this is a celebratory image all in all but tinged with something of loss - the absence of the artist is quite resonant.

 Set 2 - Pastels

It is quite hard to place such a small object in a large space and make it seem interesting.  I have seen some great images where much has been made of negative space.  Perhaps I should have tried something along those lines here.

These shapes almost look like letters - signs.

I had started placing things randomly here to see what happened.

By now I was pacing some of the randomly placed objects in more strategic positions.  I placed lighter colours in the dark right hand bottom corner. I also altered the white balance at the end of editing to match the blue pastel.

Here I altered the green and blue and adjacent pink and red to make more the overall space and create a more dynamic impression.  I also seem to have removed another dark pastel from the dark corner.  This second set of photographs is more abstract than the first and it does what was required in the exercise.  When I look at it here I see them as little mouth pieces trying to say something.  The lines are quite angular and strong.  There is a series of pastels across the top, starting in the top right hand corner and each pair becomes progressively more separate as you march across the image.  Looks like they are shouting, becoming more insistent.  They are coloured pastels but the impression I have is of soldiers, loudness and aggression, maybe even war.  Maybe no-one else will see that at all.  In the first set of photos the light was open ended at the top but here the vignetting completes the frame and gives a very different sense.  I wish I had used a higher f stop here now actually as it would have been even harder then.  But perhaps the softening makes it more real, my sort of war - more than a bit fuzzy at the the edges.  I don't know...

Exercise Positioning a Point

3 photographs - Experiment with the different positions in which you can place a single point in a frame.

All three were taken at 200 ISO, 55mm, f8, 1/200 sec.

1. Point to the lower left.  The building in the field stands out anyway but the lines of the branches also take your eye to the point.  The landscape and the way it has been manipulated frame the building too - so the lines of the fence and hedge make you focus on the building. The two hedges behind the building do the same. The trees and bushes behind which I was standing make a good frame.  I will discuss what I hope to communicate at the end of this post.

2. Here the building is to the right and is balanced by another building peeking through the trees.  The frame is sliced into thirds by the vertical line of trees and bushes just to the left of the building.  Although the point has a counter balance in the other building I think this image is less successful than the first one.

3. The building is right in the middle of the image and gets lost.  There is nothing to balance it and although the line of the road sort of outlines the point (building) there is little that seems dynamic or interesting.  

The building I have photographed here belongs to a man who has had to endure some awful, quite harrowing events in his life.  Although surrounded by rugged hunters and farmers and despite growing up in this rural place he became extremely attached to his animals and refused to slaughter them after suffering two dreadful losses in quick succession.  There is little sentimentality here even for pet dogs so the man's position is unusual.  The man is very old now and quite unwell so has had to move away to be cared for and no longer visits this house - where he would sometimes have supper and his goats and chickens lived. The house is not entirely abandoned.  Someone in the village is using the land for grazing but the gate was always locked while we were visiting recently, so it seemed rather a sad place as the man used to come regularly and shout down my mother's drive sometimes bringing gifts of freshly picked zucchini or homemade wine.  He would talk to me very hopefully in Italian despite the fact I know very little Italian and seemed utterly unfazed by my total incomprehension.
The building is situated near the house my mother and her husband lived in when they took early retirement and escaped to the Italian countryside.  She too experienced a sudden and shocking loss after 5 years of living there when her husband died of an unexpected heart attack, aged 61 (only just).
There are many sad stories of early death and loss associated with the people of the nearby village, and not forgetting a local curiosity, a museum where people who were buried in the church crypt became mummified by a combination of a particular fungus and by being locked up in the cool are on show.  Literally - dead calcified bodies, some wearing the clothes they were buried in, displayed in glass boxes.  I wasn't allowed to take pictures when I went this time although perhaps that's a relief for me.  The whole area evokes thoughts of death and loss for me whenever I go  - but perhaps that is simply because I too have often been dealing with difficult emotions whilst there.
So the first picture, which is the one that I prefer as it may communicate something of what I was thinking about during my visit (but I am really not sure), is what I will briefly discuss.
The picture is at first glance a straightforward image of the beautiful Italian countryside in spring when life is regenerating.  It is extremely verdant and fecund looking.  Rebirth, growth, and a new beginning are all evident.  The trees in the foreground are beginning to show blossom although it is hard to detect.  The Judas trees are covered in their purple spring flowers which adds to the richness. It is interesting to me that the Judas trees are so evident  - it is relevant; betrayal and violence.  I have not cropped the photograph although there is an intrusive tree trunk to the right of the photograph.  It's only just in the frame.  The branches, (like the tentacles of death's hand) take up much of the foreground and point to the dying man's farm house. The trunk encroaches.  It's like you can't get rid of it, can't escape it.  But it does contribute to the framing.
For me the photograph looks at rebirth and spring but it is also explores death and dying and how you have to accept the cycle of nature, how you can't escape the nature of 'things'.  Just like you can't escape the tree in the foreground of the picture or it's tentacles.   The photo relates to the impending death of the man who owns the farm building; it relates to my own recent personal experience of loss, betrayal and acceptance of the nature of the people involved, the situation and the death of a marriage.  It relates to nature and humankind's struggle with it.