Drawn by Light Exhibition

I went along with OCA students and two tutors to see the Drawn by Light Exhibition.  It was hosted by Wendy McMurdo who chose several photographs for us to focus on. She has written her review here.  After we'd been guided through those specific photographs we were given some time to look around ourselves before sitting down together to chat.  It has taken me some time to get round to writing about this study visit for various reasons but one of them was that I wasn't sure what I thought until now.

I have been to many more galleries this last year that I would normally have done although I have always visited exhibitions from time to time.  I really enjoyed some visits, been absolutely exhilarated by others and left a little cold by a few.  I loved Hannah Hoch and Richard Hamilton, both of whom use photographs in one way or another but not exclusively.  Lillian Bassman and Alexey Titarenko are the two photographers that I have looked at in the last year that stand out for me and whose work I have found riveting, extraordinary and astounding.

I understand that the Royal Photographic Society is a fairly conservative organisation but that within its collection there is a terrific and extremely comprehensive example of early photography including very big names such as William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Alfred Stieglitz, Roger Fenton for example; as well as later giants of the photographic world like Larry Burrows, Steve McCurry, and Martin Parr.  I think my favourite of all the photographs is one by Ansel Adams called called Aspen (1958) of some tree trunks, which to be honest I didn't even see in the gallery but instead in the accompanying book I bought home with me (a shame).

I was really intrigued to see some of the very early work, especially the Daguerreotypes which are so precious and intriguing.  I can by looking at them get a sense of what it must have been like to see such things for the first time.  And I was of course, given my interest in mental health, fascinated by the photographs of psychiatric patients by Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond who was one of the first to use photography to document science in this way - although it has to be said the portraits are very much an expression of the photographer and his time rather than merely documentation.  The still, formal poses which were necessary for the long exposure time makes for a strange dichotomy given the expressions of the patients.  Martin Parr's Badminton Horse Trials (1985) is a fabulous photograph which I find absolutely astonishing to look at - the physical expressions, not only in the faces but the subject's bodies and how that is carried through to the framing and composition is so powerful.  I was also utterly bowled over by the colour photographs by Lieutenant Colonel Mervyn O'Gormon which are presented on glass with backlighting because of his unusual and idiosyncratic process.  Because of this they look like they are being displayed on a computer screen and that along with the incredibly sophisticated colour makes them appear as if they were taken yesterday.  It's quite extraordinary, especially as the largest photograph which has been used as the headline image for the whole exhibition resembles a young woman whom you might see in a magazine or any photo-sharing site you choose to look at today.  I love it when history does that - jumps out and says, look, we're no different from how you are today.

However, maybe it was the mood I was in, or maybe there is something else going on with me but overall I was not as excited by the exhibition as I thought I would be or as I would expect to be.  I am going though a tricky moment with photography and I'm not sure quite what it's about.  I have stalled on my current section of TAOP.  On the one hand I think a little pause is no bad thing as perhaps it gives me a moment to consolidate what I have learnt so far. But on the other hand I think about the other things that are going on.  I deleted my Flickr account recently.  There were various reasons but I would not have done it at all had I looked at the work on it and gone - yay!  I actually looked at it and thought, I'm fed up of all of this stuff.   It doesn't excite me or thrill me at all.  In fact it bores me and makes me feel a bit unwell because of the sheer relentlessness of it all - millions of people uploading the same stuff, some excellent, some not so good but more or less just a huge online photographic regurgitation.  Anyway, I stumbled about for a bit and then opened up another Flickr account because I didn't know what else to do as it has been so much part of my life for 2 years, something that I have become habituated to.  This second account has been going for a couple of weeks but apart from a couple of images I'm again bored by it.  In fact I just want to stop again.  Perhaps it doesn't feel right to be shovelling more meaningless crap into the ether.

I know I want to use photography in some way to express something but I'm not sure where I'm going with it at all and I'm in a bit of a funk with what I seem capable or incapable of creating.  I feel like I need to pick up the exercises from Part 4 of TAOP and just get on with it but I can't help wondering what is going on with me here.

The Drawn by Light exhibition was very interesting.  There were some amazing and fascinating images but it didn't thrill me in the way some of the less photography based exhibitions I've been to have done.  I'm confused and perplexed by this and feel perhaps a little sad and lost too.

I guess the thing to do is just hang on in there and wait and see what arises out of the next assignment and then go from there.  I was glad I attended for sure as it was of course wonderful to see the early experiments, and I look forward to the next study visit but my reaction to it along with my sense of detachment from photography itself at the moment has left me feeling somewhat confused about where/what I should be aiming for right now.