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

Two things and some other stuff (Chris Friel, Jame's Elkin and Camera Lucida)

Anyone who dismisses Flickr is bonkers. I've read of people (tutors and students) saying it's mostly derivative and no-one bothers with it anymore.  Well, I find that not to be the case and have come across some incredibly talented people there.  I have been following Chris Friel whose work I think is extraordinarily powerful.  It's like he is making images that go straight to the unconscious part of ourselves, dreams and memories from all of history, not just one's own - I remember reading that it was now known that we carry memory in our genetic makeup which made perfect sense to me.  I also think that this long historical memory is part of a collective consciousness and Chris Friel's images for me explore some or much of that.  Last night he followed me back and sent me a link to all the people he is influenced by.  I would never have had this opportunity otherwise, so thanks to Flickr for providing it.

I will write an entry of Friel's work another time when I have thought a little more about it. 

In the meantime, I am also enjoying James Elkin's book, What Photography Is far more than I thought I would.  When I have finished it I shall of course write about it here; but yet again this is something I discovered on Flickr.  Although only because he was being accused of elitism by another person on the site.  I should think he is extremely elitist but reading through the book he dismisses practically every photographer and every genre, for some purpose which I'll discuss later, but also to be provocative so I can't see the point in getting upset by him.  It's a very useful book to be reading so soon after reading Camera Lucida.

Finally, before I go - I am feeling frustrated and torn between two different and seemingly opposing routes.  I desperately want to continue heading in the direction I've been going and feel frustrated I'm not there (which is of course daft because where on earth is there? At the end of the rainbow no doubt!) but am also pulled towards something that seems virtually impossible anyway, so why am I even thinking about it when the blurry arty stuff beckons?  Maybe because it is a possible route to earning something out of this venture.  I am a little envious of photographers who are photographing issues and people to tell stories that need telling.  I have been looking at some incredible work tonight and in the last few weeks by photographers and think that would be amazing to do.  Far away though - as I have children who need me here.  Maybe that's why I look at these people and think about it - a fantasy!  Perhaps there may be a way to pursue such photography in a few years locally by which I mean the UK - there are after all plenty of issues here that need looking at.  I'm not even sure as I write that  that sort of photography is what I would want to do - perhaps I just feel I ought to.  Something to think about in the months to come.

For now I do feel like I'm sliding about all over the place on legs that don't quite work in shoes that don't quite fit as I try to figure out where it is I'm aiming for.  Or what is it.  Of why I'm even doing it!