I have been thinking about Lee Freidlander recently and read a little review of a book of his which came out a couple of years ago compiling all his self portraits. I guess I am interested in this because my A4 is once again turned inwards rather than outwards (I actually do hope that by the time I get to A5 I find a way to look externally!).
I was really struck by the following sentence in Sean O'Hagan's review in The Guardian:
"One of his most famous photographs is of his own shadow falling on the back of a blonde woman in a fur coat, an image that says much about the often predatory nature of street photography. It is, I guess, a self portrait of a kind, albeit a metaphorical one."
I also read in Gerry Badger's The Genius of Photography "the wanderer with an unseen camera, a stalker and a hunter after images, not of exalted images but everyday life in the modern metropolis" referring to early street photographers.
Both these sentences suggest that street photography is somehow an aggressive act. I know in Susan Sontag in On Photography discusses how it is better to be using a camera rather than a gun which is what people (men) would have done in the past. That somehow street photography is fulfilling an innate human need to hunt, to stalk, to capture but that it does it less destructively but the predatory nature of street photography is nevertheless troubling. Lying in wait to take an image of someone unbeknown to them or in defiance of their wishes, or at best with some level of complicity but not requested, simply taken. It's difficult.
Yesterday I took a photograph in the doctor's waiting room because the light was doing what I like at the moment, creating very deep shadows which contrast greatly with bright sunshine and the woman in the frame got quite upset with me - I explained that she couldn't even be seen, that I was actually taking a photo of the light and not of her - but I don't blame her for being cross. There is something unpleasant about candid photography that has been totally uninvited whatsoever by the subjects being photographed.
Lee Freidlander was a prolific, street photographer who recorded "the American social landscape" which, despite my reservations about street photography expressed above, seems an important and worthwhile things for him to have spent his life doing. His work is filled with reflections, odd angles and images of himself taking the photograph within the photograph. His style and content are informed by ideas and concepts making the work not only a rich document of US culture but also an astute lifetime of comments and questions.
Friedlander's work, as with the shadow on the fur coat or with his face in the wing mirror, includes his self portrait fairly frequently, hence the book released a few years back which is all about his self portraiture. In the book Why Does It NOT Have To Be In Focus, Jackie Higgins' discusses Friedlander's self portrait where he places a light bulb between his face and the camera 'debunking the age-old myth of the artist as a hero'. There is an awareness in Friedlander's images which makes them highly intelligent. His style 'defies traditional composition' making them 'metaphors for chaos that is modern life' as described by Lewis Baltz, a photographer quoted in the aforementioned book.
When I look at Friedlander's later self portraits there is a boldness and total absence of apology to them which I don't expect to see in similar women's work although off the top of my head Tracy Emin and Freida Kahlo break with with expectation. This is interesting for me - I have been busy snapping myself again for A4 and feel a certain level of discomfort, although clearly not enough to change tac for now. Since that is where I am heading I ought to dispense with the girly self depreciation and just get on with it! At least I am involved, entirely aware and give permission - no one is stalking me, I'm not stalking anyone else and the whole predatory nature of candid photography is bypassed altogether.
I find Friedlander's work very interesting and am eager to look at it a but more.
Wikipedia
On Photography, Susan Sontag, Penguin Published 1977, Reissued 2008
Why Does it NOT Have To Be In Focus, Modern Photography Explained, Jackie Higgins, Thames & Hudson, September 2103
The Genius of Photography, Gerry Badger, Quadrille, Edition published 2014, Text copyright 2007
Showing posts with label Susan Sontag. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Susan Sontag. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 January 2015
Monday, 3 November 2014
Chris Friel Photographer/ Artist
For some time I have been wondering to myself if there is a difference between photographers whose work is so profound and evocative that it is rendered Art and artists who use still cameras to create their work rather than paint or stone or objects or film or sound. I'm sure there are many who will tell me I'm wrong because by creating those two distinct and separate groups I'm basically saying that not all photography is art. Doesn't Susan Sontag says in her book On Photography that even the most amateurish photograph is rendered Art by its age once it becomes old, but I cannot for the life of me find the quotation which is quite annoying. (Her book slipped down the back of my headboard a week ago or so and has been there ever since... I have not stopped reading but am reading two other photography related books and of course will retrieve Susan Sontag's book soon enough. She is quite hard going - harder than Roland Barthes and his devotee James Elkin I think). The conundrum I have in my head is not an easy one to address, I should think.
Chris Friel is an artist. He was born in 1959. He used to be a painter. Then in 2006 he picked up a camera and, so every entry about him across the internet tells us, has not painted since. He is a prolific photographer and says in an interview when he first started this process his success rate was 1000:1, i.e. for every 1000 he took he arrived at 1 image which went some way towards achieving what he was after. His ratio is now much smaller. But he recommends taking as many photographs as it takes. This is good news for me given the amount I took for the last assignment - and even then I feel I should have kept trying as many of my images fall short for me.
Chris Friel uses long exposures, 2/3 seconds, camera movement, sometimes but not always a tilt shift lens. He also uses an ND filter and a polarisor.
In an interview with Andrew Gibson dated November 2012 Friel says he concentrates on land and seascapes and doesn't think he is very good with people although that must have changed because I have seen a lot of people orientated images of his lately and they are incredibly evocative. I like them in particular.
Most of his work is black and white and very dark. However, he has also produced a series of coloured landscapes which is interesting considering he is reportedly colour blind. Added to the warped, blurred images he takes, he also scratches and distorts the prints too.
What I like about his work, especially the ones with people, is that they seem to come from somewhere outside our material reality. I am reminded of inner worlds, dreams, nightmares. I recognise the scenes as something intrinsically human and am reminded of a collective consciousness because he is producing something so recognisable but difficult to grab hold of. For me he creates a feeling that is universal and perhaps even prehistoric, something that is viscerally tangible and takes me back to a place I can't quite place or remember. I love that about his work.
The list of artists and photographers who have influenced him is extraordinarily long. And he is kind too. I followed him on Flickr - and when I have commented on his work he has replied privately to thank me, which suggests to me a conscious rejection of modern narcissism. He eventually followed me back and sent me a link to the artists he lists as having being influenced by on his site when I said I was studying here. I have had time to look at a few but the list is so long it's going to take me ages! I will of course be writing about the people whose work I particularly like in my blog.
Alexey Titarenko, who I came across a few weeks ago and was so enamoured by is one of three he lists as being key.
I do not fully understand why I am drawn to this sort of photography so much and am torn about whether I want to pursue an artistic style of photography such as Chris Friel's or a photographer's style of imagery. I took some pictures of my children recently and am quite pleased with a couple - I would really want to keep doing that especially from a work point of view. I have no idea what else I might do with it - documentary style photography perhaps? Who knows? It would be wonderful to work for a charity; heh, me and a million others, much younger and less tied down than me. But I also love creating images that are interpretative. I feel utterly compelled to do so especially when I see photographs like the work I've been describing in this post.
Information taken from:
Wikipedia
The Andrew S Gibson Blog
Chris Friel's website
Chris Friel is an artist. He was born in 1959. He used to be a painter. Then in 2006 he picked up a camera and, so every entry about him across the internet tells us, has not painted since. He is a prolific photographer and says in an interview when he first started this process his success rate was 1000:1, i.e. for every 1000 he took he arrived at 1 image which went some way towards achieving what he was after. His ratio is now much smaller. But he recommends taking as many photographs as it takes. This is good news for me given the amount I took for the last assignment - and even then I feel I should have kept trying as many of my images fall short for me.
Chris Friel uses long exposures, 2/3 seconds, camera movement, sometimes but not always a tilt shift lens. He also uses an ND filter and a polarisor.
In an interview with Andrew Gibson dated November 2012 Friel says he concentrates on land and seascapes and doesn't think he is very good with people although that must have changed because I have seen a lot of people orientated images of his lately and they are incredibly evocative. I like them in particular.
Most of his work is black and white and very dark. However, he has also produced a series of coloured landscapes which is interesting considering he is reportedly colour blind. Added to the warped, blurred images he takes, he also scratches and distorts the prints too.
What I like about his work, especially the ones with people, is that they seem to come from somewhere outside our material reality. I am reminded of inner worlds, dreams, nightmares. I recognise the scenes as something intrinsically human and am reminded of a collective consciousness because he is producing something so recognisable but difficult to grab hold of. For me he creates a feeling that is universal and perhaps even prehistoric, something that is viscerally tangible and takes me back to a place I can't quite place or remember. I love that about his work.
The list of artists and photographers who have influenced him is extraordinarily long. And he is kind too. I followed him on Flickr - and when I have commented on his work he has replied privately to thank me, which suggests to me a conscious rejection of modern narcissism. He eventually followed me back and sent me a link to the artists he lists as having being influenced by on his site when I said I was studying here. I have had time to look at a few but the list is so long it's going to take me ages! I will of course be writing about the people whose work I particularly like in my blog.
Alexey Titarenko, who I came across a few weeks ago and was so enamoured by is one of three he lists as being key.
I do not fully understand why I am drawn to this sort of photography so much and am torn about whether I want to pursue an artistic style of photography such as Chris Friel's or a photographer's style of imagery. I took some pictures of my children recently and am quite pleased with a couple - I would really want to keep doing that especially from a work point of view. I have no idea what else I might do with it - documentary style photography perhaps? Who knows? It would be wonderful to work for a charity; heh, me and a million others, much younger and less tied down than me. But I also love creating images that are interpretative. I feel utterly compelled to do so especially when I see photographs like the work I've been describing in this post.
Information taken from:
Wikipedia
The Andrew S Gibson Blog
Chris Friel's website
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