Friday 27 February 2015

A5 Photography prohibited in prisons

I'm gutted - there is no way I can do any sort of project inside any prison (I bet if I was working for the Sunday Times I could!) because I have received an email back from Wandsworth Prison saying the Ministry of Justice prohibits all photography.  Will have to rethink that idea!

Thursday 26 February 2015

narrative prep

Today I have written to the Wandsworth Mind office and also the prison.  I am not sure if will be possible to photograph in either of these places but I would like to if possible.

I am not sure what I will do if they come back and say no.  I guess I will have to rethink my ideas.  I'm also thinking I should pop into the Mind office if they don't email back as it's very small and local and I may have more luck that way.  The prison is trickier, and the prison museum which I wanted to visit has now closed down.  So I guess these are the problems one comes up when trying photograph anything sensitive. Let's see if anything comes of it....

Wednesday 25 February 2015

Study visit 21st February with Michelle Charles

I went along to The Tate and perhaps felt a bit worried about being the only photography student amongst a bunch of very impressive drawing and art students but I do love it at The Tate and I am also loving learning about art forms other than photography, and especially as I begin to see how I might tie in my interests and skills with work I do using a camera.  I tentatively wonder what is possible but remember advice from Andrew C about not worrying about being self-indulgent (which I said I was) as that will only stop me from exploring and finding out what I might do.  I guess for now, I feel that most of what I am doing is either highly derivative or over-processed and pretty crass or both.  But every now and again I look at something I worked on and think it's going in the right direction.  Seeing as much other work as I can and as wide a variety of work as possible I know is the answer, and allowing that work to influence and affect me.  I wish I could see what it was I was aiming for - that might help, but I can't really, so all I can do it keep going the way I'm going and not worry to much about it, or worry about it later as advised.

Anyway, we spent time in the Structure and Clarity: Minimalism Gallery to begin with and then looked at the Louise Bourgeois exhibition including plates and accompanying parables from her book He Disappeared Into Complete Silence, drawings she did towards the end of her life called Works on Paper and finally a collection of red paintings she also did towards the end of her life.

I found it really interesting to hear about the different artists tutor Michelle Charles had known or worked with and she was a fascinating guide.  Her evident interest and enthusiasm for the artists we looked made the visit even better than it might have been.  I will discuss some of the people we looked at although there were several more.

Ellsworth Kelly;  This was interesting for me because of the way in which the works interacted with the space and the walls.  Beautiful shadows were created by the work so the gallery becomes part of the art.  Michelle used the word expansive: the art does not simply stay within itself.  It leads the eye up and out and across and makes the viewer work to take it in.  When I think of photographs which are usually framed within a square or rectangle I am struck by the difference.  Photographs are flat two dimensional representations of a world within a frame.  The Ellsworth Kellys are not framed and continue to work beyond the confines of themselves.  This art is about art and how it relates to the world in which it exists.  I wonder if and how photography ever does this.

Hans Haake: The Condensation Cube was very compelling because inside a perspex cube there is some liquid which then creates condensation so in effect a little bit of life is going on inside there. The way the curator has placed the object looks like the cube is relating to and watching work by Jo Baer.  I'm not sure if this is what the artist would have wanted or if it suggests too much to the viewers, or if that was just my own very personal and particular interpretation.  The condensation reminded me of breath, of life.  I enjoyed photographing this object. I love it when you are allowed to take photographs in a gallery as they offer great opportunities but I always feel somewhat like a thief, taking other people's art and trying to make something of my own with it - maybe that is the nature of photography, that it is a little bit like 'stealing' moments, trying to retain aspects of what we see and experience where ever those moments take place.  I suspect there are some artists who would like that people 'keep' their work through photography and some that wouldn't at all.

Louise Bourgeois: We saw a lot of LB's work but He Disappeared into Complete Silence which was probably some of the oldest on show has probably made the biggest impression on me.  I found this art highly relevant to the current section of TAOP.  Here LB has compiled initially 9 but later 11 engravings and presented them in a bound book each (except the final two in the later editions) alongside a short parable which she wrote herself.  I bought a book about this as I felt it would be a useful bit of inspiration for the narrative section of TAOP.  However, I am of course slightly concerned that I am once again heading off into the wilderness and about to do something that maybe wasn't asked for or expected.

Depending on what you read the parables should not relate directly to the images.  They are images that are open to interpretation, less so the parables although they too are strange and surreal at times. The words in them (for me anyway) give you much more direction and trigger ideas that seem familiar such as loss, motherhood, relationships, loneliness, anxiety.  The images are more troubling because they are harder to pin down and seem like motifs from dreams, from childhood sensations.  I read quite a disparaging review of LB in The Guardian and I cannot say whether that journalist has any validity in what he says but it seems to me that for someone to be able to tap into that level of unconscious creativity so effectively they must have a fairly impressive ability.

The book I bought is a collection of essays in relation to he He Disappeared into Complete Silence. In the introduction we are told by Laurie Cluitmans and Arnisa Zeqo who compiled the book that some art works are 'like an inexplicable love, which holds some kind of hidden power over us' and that this is how LB's book is for them.  Her subjects are phobias and that she 'eschews the Freud-filled mystifications of classic surrealism in favour of devastating plainness.'  (Perhaps this is what the journalist mentioned above finds so awkward to accept.)  I found LB's work to be direct and frank about loneliness, female sexuality in all it's guises - i.e. from eroticism to the basic plain facts of reproduction.  The writers also state that the book explores 'intimate alienation, simultaneously "being with" and "being apart" - LB's sense that her loneliness was not alleviated but worsened by being with others whom she could not relate to, and that is why in the end she surrounded herself with lost souls who became her family.  I found it weird and wonderful that Melanie Klein and object relations are mentioned (I discuss this in A4): although there is some reluctance on their part to accept any Kleinien interpretation:  'we might now be in a position to free Bourgeois from autobiography and symbolism without allowing her to disappear completely into Kleinien part-objects".

I loved the suggestion that one of the parables, about a son who is loved to distraction but who does not want to be loved that way, who slams the door and doesn't come back could be how LB feels about her work. She finds it so painful to make and create her art, give birth to it in effect, nurture it into existence, only to have to let it go and be absorbed by the world who will understand it as it sees it and not how she intended.  

I have not read all of the book yet but am learning about narratives that are open to understanding.  I am thrilled by by these ideas but wish I were more educated and found some of the ideas less alien, less difficult to get my head round.  It will take me time but I do feel inspired by what I have seen.

Finally there was also a room filled with red roughly-made paintings which were of breasts and childbirth and family.  The red reminded me of menstruation and childbirth.  There is so much about motherhood and nature and sexuality in LB's work and I can't help thinking, "Yay!" I have spent the last 12 years reading and trying to understand all I can about the nature of motherhood across all species, not only our own.  And so there is a lot I feel able to take away from LBs work and hope it will inform some of mine.  I have been contemplating using red as a colour for something - either my own work or something to do with TAOP Narrative and so it was extraordinary timely that I went to see this exhibition just now.  So, even though I was the only photography student there and felt a little like I was intruding (I know I wasn't really, just a silly worry) I am very glad I went along and feel I will go again quite soon to look at LBs work.

Quotes from:  He Disappeared Into Complete Silence, Rereading A Single Artwork by Louise Bougeois, De Hallen Haarlem/Onomatapee complied and edited by Laurie Cluitmans and Arnisa Zeqo, 2011

Some photographs from the exhibition 





Sunday 22 February 2015

A4 - Further reflection

I have looked at the images I submitted for A4 and hate some of them.  There is too much awful noise on quite a few of them and I need to think very carefully about that in future, I think, for this sort of photography.

After doing a job last night in really difficult lighting conditions I am really aware of noise.  Having spoken to a few much more experienced photographers I know that they go up very high with their ISO and convert to B&W in worst case scenarios and increase the grain so it looks like film to cover the noise - OK for small images.  But it's also really important to get the exposure absolutely spot on because there is no room for movement in LR or PS.  And I think I have not got the exposure spot on in the photos I'm unhappy with and have created too much horrible noise - which is really evident especially when looked at them on a big screen.  I guess I was so concerned with the story.  Also, without all the blur I relied on in the previous assignments which are quite a distraction really, it is really possible to see the technical flaws in my images.

I have always known that I would be less of a technical whiz kid than others because I find it very hard to engage with that side of things but I now feel I need to pay more attention to it all so I can avoid the issues I have seen in the images I submitted for A4 and found in many of the images I took last night in this very dark place where I was working.


A5 - possible research ideas

Having started looking at Behind the Image by Anna Fox and Natasha Caruana I am beginning to think about possible photo projects to research for A5 or just for my own purposes.

One of the things I am already doing is taking quite a lot of photographs of Wandsworth where I live. I have, as discussed in the above book, begun finding images of Wandsworth from history - I spent an evening filled with excitement as I scrolled though hundred of images of my local area from the early 1900s. They were fascinating and even my children loved seeing them.  It's so amazing to see places we visit and exist within from another time.  I'm not sure how seeing these will influence what I'm doing but I suspect not thinking about it too much and just allowing it to sink in and filter out again unconsciously is probably best.

One of the places that interests me a lot in my area is Wandsworth Prison.  I know the children find it fascinating and always ask about the people that are in there - to be honest, I think my own fascination is somewhat childlike.  I remember living next door to someone who spent a fair bit of time in the prison on and off.  He used to beat his wife and we could hear it happening - it was awful. One day an army of police turned up to arrest him and I witnessed him being taken away after quite a dramatic chase as the police went all over the building.  It was a very disturbing sight.  He looked so small and powerless and the sense of his liberty being taken away was incredibly powerful to be so close to.

I don't know how easy or possible it will be to actually go into the prison and that I guess is something I need to find out about.  I can certainly visit the area and the museum attached to it.

Things that interest me in particular with the prison:
Young prisoners
Mental health
Culture
Drugs
Lack of liberty
Social issues relating to prisoners
Wardens
History
Reputation of the prison
Famous prisoners who have stayed there.

I don't know if I'll end up doing anything in relation to the prison yet but am popping these thoughts down to see if it might go somewhere.

Historical images of Wandsworth Prison
Historical images of Wandsworth

Sunday 15 February 2015

Some general thoughts

I have recently taken started taking photographs of my surrounding area - there are different sets; some of the local common, some of the shops and restaurants at night and many just randomly out and about.  I may have to leave Wandsworth at some point although I have no plans to do so just yet. However, photographing the area I live in and love so much feels like a good way of preserving it for myself if ever I do pack up and move on to a less expensive area. 

When I look at some of the photographs, in fact when I look at many of what I have posted on Flickr these last two or three months I am constantly reminded of James Elkin's phrase in relation to Flickr (and other photo-sharing sites) 'kitschy and tedious images' and I think to myself -  this is what he is talking about.  I see exactly what he is saying and I would like to move away from that.  I have to say I do not particularly like many of the images I have taken despite the positive feedback on some of them - but I do like some.  

The photographs I have recently taken of the pond on Wandsworth Common are a mixed bunch.  I am drawn to the pond because in a story I wrote about two years ago there is a pond beyond a forest which in the story represents my deepest unconscious place, where a battle between a monster and the protagonist ensues, a place that is peaceful at times and then terrifying too. And I have been playing with these images I took on Wandsworth Common and trying to bring that imaginary space to the photographs.  Some of the images are a bit - I have referred to them - as "Disneyfied'.  Other's aren't.  But perhaps the Disney thing I refer to is no great surprise because the story is kind of fantasy, half fairy tale, weird hybrid of thing but I would like to steer away from the Disney aspect, and be truer to what's really going on, what's informing those images.  I haven't even looked at the narrative section in the course folder yet but I am wondering if this is the way to go - I guess it depends on what is required (not that that has prevented me from going in the direction I feel I need to go yet...)

Anyway, how to avoid the kitschy but still express the slightly gothic thing I'm thinking about is probably what I'm trying to say.  Perhaps I can't avoid the kitschy - perhaps that's just who/where/what I am!

Thursday 12 February 2015

Assignment 4: Light - My Mother's Name is Eve

Images available here on a website dedicated to all TAOP assignments  - please use a desktop computer to view in fullscreen mode.

"We are not supposed to talk about being lonely.  Loneliness is shameful condition that should be cured, that we sort out by ourselves.... The act of photographing myself allowed me to become comfortable in the present"  Jennifer McClure, fine art photographer, quote from her Laws of Silence set of images.  Read the full quote here.

I have been a bit perplexed about this assignment especially since becoming aware of the fact that it is really a technical exercise which asks us to create eight images of one object showing “shape, form, texture and colour”.    I have chosen me again as in previous assignments: I am the object, but photographed in relation to other objects in my most personal space, my bedroom. This is a development from earlier assignments where I was not relating to other objects.

Perhaps I have once again taken liberties with language – I know the literal point was to photograph one object (I like to think that when I first read the assignment criteria I understood I would photograph me and that I alone would be the object; and that it grew from there).  

The work has been important as far as I am concerned regardless of any possible grading (if I decide to submit for assessment) as it is a definite development in terms of photography from A2 and A3.  It also represents personal development too which is expressed in the images.

All my assignments are really an expression relating to the discovery of a new sense of identity as well as recovery following a painful and difficult divorce.  A4 continues with that but here I also explore my relationship with objects that are reflective of the internalised 'objects' within me. Objects under this term relate to internalised 'interpersonal relations especially between the mother and child'(1). The objects, my relationship with them and how they relate to other objects in the room in my images could be said to be symbolic of infantile relationship structures, which inform the way we relate to people later as adults(2)

Previously my work was very blurry – I loved that and will no doubt return to motion and more abstract images again.  Playing with movement and camera speeds felt absolutely the right thing to be doing at that moment.  I began to see photography as a kind of paintbrush with which I can create more than mere pictures, rather images or sets of images that aim to be very expressive. 

For this assignment I gradually reached the decision that I wanted these images to be in-focus, honest and with as little artifice as possible - perhaps in an attempt to 'face my own soul'.  I looked at lots of photographers but Jennifer McLure and OCA tutor, Sharon Boothroyd’s work struck me as powerful, honest, complex and extremely direct; and I wanted to aim for something along those lines.

The word 'light', with all its various meanings, has been fairly critical for me over the last two years.  I am constantly bearing in mind a well-known Jung quote ‘There is no coming to consciousness without pain.  People will do almost anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.  One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”(3)

As well as playing with light in the literal sense, I certainly explore loss and loneliness, therefore 'making the darkness conscious', and I very much hope I have achieved that in as non-self-pitying a way as possible; the reality of divorce is somehow not valued quite as it ought to be by our society, where marriages and long-term relationships end frequently, when in fact working through them might in many cases be a more positive option, although of course abusive situations can be difficult to address.(4).  I would like to think the images provoke thoughts about that aspect of our culture.

I also look at being unable to see clearly, unable to hold things and to feel things due to their intangibility. Objects are partly hidden, tantalising and hardly there, empty, lifeless or absent altogether.

I hope the ideas behind the images go further than looking solely at my own identity, but also feminine identity in wider terms as well as the realities of divorce/separation.  The use of the name Eve in the title refers to my own mother as well as Eve of Garden of Eden fame who according to The Book of Genesis in The Old Testament bit into the forbidden fruit shortly after God created light, thereby 'ruining' the whole paradise thing for all mankind ever after.   

Finally the clothes and the colours and the objects are all carefully considered and symbolic and I am heavily influenced by the plays of Frederico Garcia Lorca in that regard. 

From a technical point of view I have used available light in all the images.  I work most of the time whilst my youngest is at nursery, so many but not all of the images are taken between midday and 3pm.  It would have been nice to do a project showing images progressing through the day but that would take me a lot longer to plan and execute.  I have deliberately left all the dents and knocks in the walls rather than remove them in PS.  I used a cropped sensor and kind of wish I'd used a full frame camera although the cropped sensor is inside a Fuji X100s which provides good image quality.  

I have actually included 9 images as I cannot quite make up my mind about removing one of them;  I think they all play a part in the story and it would be incomplete without.

A collection of rejected images including some that are here can be found on my Flickr page in an album titled Light.  

Please find brief lighting notes following each of the assignment images below - but remember, you can view them via the link at the top of this page in a slideshow.

This was one of the first images I took with this assignment in mind, although I didn't take it thinking I would include it.  The sun streams through the windows into my room and the blind pulled down half way makes this shape which travels round the wall of my room through the afternoon. I can change the shape of the light a little by moving the blind up or down. Taken at 2pm on 8th January ISO 200 f11 1/200

The overcast sky makes the best natural diffuser and I always pray for overcast weather when doing head shots outdoors.
The gentle light works well for modelling and creating form.  The sky is over-exposed really but this was an acceptable compromise for me as I wanted the body to be as well as lit as I could get it but still retaining shadows; I have used a reflector just directly below me and at an angle to bounce some light back.  I didn't quite achieve what I wanted here - I hoped to have some light lighting up my face in a bit of glow, just a touch, as I had that in another image but the mood in this one was right so I went with it here. Taken at 1.30pm on 22nd January ISO 320 f5.6 1/50

The weather was partly cloudy in this one; so quite strong light but still diffused.  It comes again from the windows in the roof.  I think I did use a reflector here to soften the shadows a little, but not too much because I wanted them to be fairly deep.  I nearly included an image with an apple in it with reference to the title of this work but I felt it was too crass in the end.  Taken at 1.20 on 27th January ISO 320 f4 1/200

Again window light through the roof with the shape made by the blind.  It was very strong light and nothing diffused about it at all.  I had to be careful not to blow the highlights especially on the shiny cotton applique.  I just about got away with it  towards the left of the image.  When I printed this to take to the South West study group I should have been aware that the darks needed lightening ever so slightly for paper as they were too dark but they are just as I want them here lit up by the computer screen.
Taken at 2pm on 8th January ISO 200 f11 1/200


Strong sun, no diffuser.  Shapes made by the shadow of the chest of draws and the light coming though the window in the roof.  I like the matching pattern made by relationships between various objects - drawers, window, wall.
Taken at 1.45pm 14th January ISO 640 f2 1/1000 (I should have reduced the ISO for this and used a slower shutter and can't quite remember why I didn't - not thinking properly)

The light coming though here was very strong and quite orange and I had to play around with WB quite a lot to remove the orange as I didn't really want it.  I liked the strong contrast - it highlights the texture of my hair and the folds in my clothes.  I did not use a reflector. The shirt in places could be dangerously close to being over-exposed but isn't.  The light is again shaped by the window. Taken at 2.40pm on 22nd January ISO 250 f5.6 1/250

The blind is fully open here so no shape.  I think this is where there was a thin film of frost on the window too adding yet more diffusion to the light which was already coming from quite an overcast but bright sky. Taken at 9.50 on 28th January ISO 320 f2.8 1/30
This is taken at dusk with the WB set to incandescent.  There is some banding.  I have changed the file to 32 bit in PS but it's still not entirely gone.  The shapes are made by a lamp on the floor.
Taken at 4.40pm on 12th February ISO 200 f2.8 1/100
This is a small crop because I was just setting up and working things out so sadly the reflector takes up rather too much of the original image but the light changed very suddenly as a storm passed over and created this lovely mood which was perfect for what I was trying to achieve.  If I had to print it might be quite degraded which is a shame.  In fact there is some weird blotchiness in the wall which I have tried to fix by changing the image to 32 bit in PS - not sure it's helped that much.  Perhaps I should have deleted this from the assignment submission altogether because the quality is not good enough or tried to reshoot it.  The red is well exposed as I had earlier attempts where the highlights were ever so slightly over-exposed - the cloth and the colour were tricky to get right and I had quite a few attempts from another day where the images seemed underexposed too. Taken at 12.10 on 28th January ISO 400 f2.8 1/40

Assessment Criteria Reflection

Demonstration of technical and visual skills: I think I have shown that I have a reasonable grasp of how to compose a photograph and use my camera - where I have made odd choices with exposure settings such as with the light reflected on the wall photograph I am at least aware it was not the ideal choice. I have included one image that is quite a small crop because the content of the image works within the context of the set but I am aware it would have been better not to have to crop so tightly. I don't think I've done anything terribly fantastic in some of the exercises leading up to the assignment - and perhaps could have put more effort in to a few of those.
Quality of Outcome: I think this is a reasonably good assignment although I have completely gone off in my own direction so perhaps in terms of what was required it isn't.  In terms of where I'm at with photography I see it as a progression.  I am not sure about the new website I have where I have collated all the assignment work - perhaps I just have not found the right template but I do think it works well to have all the work there together.
Demonstration of Creativity: I suspect this is a creative way of demonstrating working with light - and although I have not stuck to the brief I have given an indication I know how to make use of natural light at least fairly adequately. I am aware I have not demonstrated much knowledge of working with lights here.  I chose to use natural light because I was alluding to time passing in my space.
Context: I have looked at quite a lot of other work and in fact have not got round to writing all of it up yet, although I have written quite a bit.  I have certainly been influenced by other work and I think it shows.  I have not read enough about lighting theory.  Instead I have been reading about photographers and also looking at literature which I know will may influence future work.  Finding time to fit it all in is not easy and I have tended to go to the places I feel will be most useful for me at the moment.  I have written quite a lot in my log - perhaps too much blather - but there is more critical stuff to write really and I need to get back on track with that.
Finally, I do not know if baring my soul in this way makes for good art, good photography or is indeed any good for my mental and emotional state.  Jennifer McClure talks about photographing her fears so she can feel comfortable with them and I suppose I have photographed my emotions as they are now and I can't really say I do feel all that comfortable with it.  Perhaps in time to come.

(1) Object relations theory - quote taken from Somoma University Psychology site
(2) Wiki site on Object relations theory
(3) Site about Carl Jung
(4) Cut Loose, Rutger University Press 2006, Kindle Edition

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Francesca Woodman

Vicki who I met at the recent tutorial day Reading suggested I look at Francesca Woodman this evening on Flickr - I may have seen a couple of these images before but have just spent some time looking through what I could find online.

Briefly, she was born in Boulder, Colorado in 1958 and died in 1981 at the age of 22 when her second attempt at suicide succeeded. However before her early death she had created a body of work that is critically acclaimed and exhibited today.  Her parents were both artists and she studied photography as a teen and then at art school in Rome.  Although she grew up in the States she spent a lot of time in Italy as her family owned an old farmhouse there.

Woodman mainly used medium format cameras and nearly all of of her work is black & white.  She used models sometimes, especially in fashion work as she had tried to break into that and was frustrated at not being successful enough (goodness, she was only 22), but she also used herself as a model in much of her work.  Her face is often, although not always, obscured by blurring from long exposure or objects.  She also appears to meld into something: the furniture, building or other surroundings.  

She is said to be influenced by the Surrealists such as Man Ray and Andre Breton.  I think her influences may be quite useful for me and I should probably try to get hold of one of the books of her work.

  • Gothic fiction
  • The myth of Apollo and Daphne 
  • Surrealism
  • AndrĂ© Breton 
  • Man Ray 
  • Duane Michals.
  • Deborah Turbeville.
  • Max Klinger 

Information from Wikipedia