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
No comments:
Post a Comment