Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman (1958-1981) was a female photographer based in New York. Her work was predominantly self-portraiture, but also at times she used other female models. Francesca often shot the naked female form, using movement, masking the identities of her subjects and also allowing the subject, be it herself or others to merge into their surroundings. Other signatures of her work included the use of props and abandoned buildings. Unfortunately, much emphasis has been placed on her suicide and the state of her mental wellbeing at this time. Diagnosed as clinical depressed during the last year of her life and suffering some major mental setbacks which may have informed her reasoning on taking her own life, I fail to see this as the underlying influence on the majority of her work.

My reason for this belief comes from statements given by people that were close to her and also the fact that I understand her work to be playful as opposed to be a portent. As her mother states in an interview with Rachel Cooke of The Guardian in 2014, ‘She had a good time. Her life wasn’t a series of miseries. She was fun to be with. It’s a basic fallacy that her death is what she was all about, and people read that into the photographs. They psychoanalyse them.’ (Cooke, 2014). To me it seems easy to make statements of prophetic wisdom after the fact, to draw conclusions with the benefit of hindsight, to steer argument in one direction only. I like to see her work as playful, that she’s acting out her fantasies and dealing with issues of the gaze and female form. Perhaps now in the era of #MeToo her work should be seen more about female empowerment and the taking control of her own body. If anything, I think the supposed darkness of her images just tallies with her own sense of humour and that her work was as much an experiment in photographic surrealism.

Woodman, Angel Series, 1977.

Bibliography

Cooke, R. (2020). Searching for the real Francesca Woodman. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/aug/31/searching-for-the-real-francesca-woodman [Accessed 26 Jan. 2020].

MCA. (2020). Francesca Woodman, From Angel Series, Roma, September, 1977, 1977. [online] Available at: https://mcachicago.org/Collection/Items/1977/Francesca-Woodman-From-Angel-Series-Roma-September-1977-1977 [Accessed 26 Jan. 2020].

En.wikipedia.org. (2020). Francesca Woodman. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Woodman [Accessed 26 Jan. 2020].

Case Studies

I was hard pushed to make a choice between Peter Mansell’s work and Dewald Botha’s. I’m not being dismissive of Jodie Taylor’s project, I just have a familiarity with it in the form of my own assignment; The Square Mile, the first assignment completed for OCA. In the end I developed the greatest connection to Dewald Botha’s project; The Ring Road.

I guess I have a greater empathy with Botha’s notion of self-reflection, whilst searching for calm in a busy metropolis, of trying to find your feet in a new environment, where language and culture can stir up tumult of unsettling emotions. From my own experience there is solace to be gained from walking in new environs and calming down the thinking processes by seeking quiet. Walks of discovery can become a reflective process of self-discovery.

Regarding the idea of loss of authorial control when a viewer projects their own emotions and experiences on to our created work, I would argue that we don’t really lose control. We create work with our own views and ideas in place at the onset and this is where we take our meaning from whilst the work is being developed. On completion we may ourselves have evolved a different meaning from its creation. There is fluidity in the process as much as there is fluidity in other’s perceptions of the work. A viewer is entitled to their own ideas relating to work, as much as I am in its creation.

Bibliography

Dewald. (2019). Ring Road. [online] Available at: https://www.dewaldbotha.net/ring-road.html# [Accessed 26 Nov. 2019].

Exercise: Poem

I think the last time I read poetry was when my daughter had some homework for English Literature prior to sitting her GCSE’s – she’s now 21. As a young man I was taken by the war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon and also Rudyard Kipling’s IF. I tried my hand at William Blake but for all of my efforts his work might as well have been written in Sansrkit. So, it was that I turned to an old favourite; Benjamin Zephaniah.

Money make a rich man feel like a big man

It make a poor man feel like a hooligan

A one parent family feels like a ruffian

An those who have it won’t give you anything

Money makes your friend become your enemy

You start to see things very superficially

Your life is lived very artificially

Unlike those who live in poverty

Money affects your ego

But money brings you down

Money causes problems anywhere money is found

Food is what we need

Food is necessary

Let me grow my food

An dem can eat dem money

Money can save us

But yet we feel doomed

Plenty money burns in a nuclear mushroom

Money can make you happy

Money can help you when you die

An those who have it continually live a lie

Children are dying

Spies are spying

Refugees are fleeing

Politicians are lying

An deals are done

An webs are spun

An no one keeps the third world on the run

An the brother feels better than the brothers next door

Cause his brothers got money an his brothers got more

The brother thinks a brother’s not a brother cause he’s poor

When a brother kills another that is economic war

Economic war we call it economic war

It may not be the east and west anymore

But the north and south third world far lord

Coffee an isle

That’s what it’s about

Economic war

Economic war

Shots fired from the stock market floor

So we work for a livin’

An we try an we try

With so little time for chillin’

Like we’re livin a lie

Money makes a dream become reality

Money makes real life like a fantasy

Money has a habit of going to the head

I have some for the rainy day underneath me bed

Money problems make it hard to relax

Money makes it difficult to get down to the facts

Money makes you worship vanity and lies

Money is a drug with legal highs

The parents of poor kids

Some are not coping

Some are just managing

Books that need balancin’ Property is theft

No money means death

You pay for your rent

An then nothing left

Some will pick your pocket

Some will pay to stop it

Those who will pay to stop it

They happy cause they got it

Some go out an fight for it

Some claim they got the right to it

An people like my grandparents

Live long but never side it

Money made me go out an rob

Then it made me go looking for a job

Money made the nurse

And the doctor emigrate

Money buys friends you love to hate

Money made slavery seem alright

Money brought the Bible

An the Bible shone the light

Victory to the penniless

The gospel shows us

We come to mash those market forces

The paper giant called market forces

I’ve always been taken by the honesty and sense of humanity in Benjamin’s poetry, but also his anti-establishment viewpoint.

I chose to illustrate the poem by focusing on a couple of lines from it that highlight the disparities between rich and poor. The first is the very first line of the poem ‘Money make a rich man feel like a big man’.

In the Eighteenth Century the pineapple was lauded by the rich strata’s of society to the point that they were shown off at parties as an example of a personal financial reputation. Often they were hired out to enhance peoples societal standing. Gold also acts as a symbol of wealth.  

I next looked at the lines ‘You pay for your rent. An then nothing left.’ To me nothing represents poverty more than mould on the wall of a rented property. I think the images work as a set in representing some of the concepts within the poem. I had further ideas such as burning fake or play money; the use of poker chips to represent wealth or a trying to represent market forces by screenshotting analytical financial graphs presented in a multiple over-laid composite.  In the end I was satisfied that two images were enough and that the use of direct flash also gave an aesthetic link.

Bibliography

Google Docs. (2019). Money-Benjamin-Lyrics+M-e-O. [online] Available at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eHgzRUpZaIM_rrK_LVWM2GQsRo6izg55PyfmirF6o8g/edit [Accessed 19 Nov. 2019].

For this exercise I bought a physical copy of The Observer dated 27^th October 2019. I did consider buying a right leaning newspaper to try and give some political parity, but… would rather have sandpapered my eyeballs instead.

Original headline: Greta Thunberg is old enough to scare the world. Are teens like her really too young to vote?

Alternative anchor: Their future is in our hands. Why not their own?

Relay: Who’s the child in the room?

Original headline: From a ‘great deal’ to a Halloween nightmare: how Johnson’s scare tactics fell apart.

Alternative anchor: Time is running out for the politics of fear…and for Johnson.

Relay: Who really is painting a new political landscape?

Original headline: England stride past All Blacks towards rugby’s greatest prize.

Alternative anchor: Dominant England give fans reasons to cheer.

Relay: How long will the joy last?

The words that are applied to images give meaning in forming a context to frame it in, but this can be so easily altered by reshaping the structure of the wording to give a completely different outcome. Often, syndicated news images are shared among media outlets and these images have differing connotations depending on the political stance of the proprietors. It seems to me that the best way of applying relay is to ask a question in the text as this insures ambiguity and differing interpretations.

The main thing that springs to mind when comparing W. Eugene Smiths ‘The Country Doctor’ with Briony Campbells ‘The Dad Project’ is the differing levels of emotional connectivity between the two photographers and their subjects, and the differing levels of sensitivity emitted through the works.

There are many factors at play that influence the differing approach of both photographers, but it mainly boils down to the way the photographers engage with their subjects. With Smith he has become a pure observer to the scenes playing out in front of him with minimal or no interaction with his subject – taking a more objective approach to his story. His subject (Dr. Ceriani) is so used to him being there that he ignores him.

Briony’s images on the other hand are full of emotion and tenderness, she is an active participant in the story and often features in the images herself. Her approach is more subjective; this subjectivity allows her to portray a sensitivity within her body of work, which in turn allows the viewer a greater level of connection to it. The collaboration with her father in making the work also gives the viewer a greater opportunity to connect, because through this act of collaboration it is as if we have been given permission by them to be a participant as well. Briony’s images certainly convey more feeling and often these feelings are hers.

Although the work is about the end of life, the story for Briony never really ends, she has the memory of the collaboration with her father and the closeness that the project gave them during his last year and also the document that allows his memory to be ever present.

Bibliography

Time. (2019). https://time.com. [online] Available at: https://time.com/3456085/w-eugene-smiths-landmark-photo-essay-country-doctor/ [Accessed 23 Oct. 2019].

Brionycampbell.com. (2019). [online] Available at: http://www.brionycampbell.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/The_Dad_Project_Briony_Campbell.pdf [Accessed 23 Oct. 2019].

Has truth ever been a constant in photography? Even in its earliest guise the photograph has been manipulated to enable myriad readings, whether that be actual physical manipulation of a negative or the subjective approach of the photographer to elicit a certain response from the viewer.

We can look at many photographs from the history of photography and see that even in the traditional form of capture (halides and emulsion) manipulation of a place or moment can lead to misrepresentation e.g. Fenton’s valley with or without cannonballs, the debate concerning Cappa’s Falling Soldier and also Joe Rosenthals reshooting of the Flag Raising Over Iwo Jima, all of which it can be argued, remodel truth. The advent of digital technology has only made the manipulation of truth more sophisticated. In August 2006 Reuters stopped association with one of its contributing photographers Adnan Hajj. He had been found to have excessively manipulated one of his images supplied to the agency. The image was of bombing that had taken place in Lebanon and he had manipulated smoke rising from the bombed buildings for dramatic effect; this was not the only time he had been found out. These examples relate to spot news where it is understood that images must be more objective and be able to represent truth. So, for the case of hard news illustration I believe it is imperative that there is no deviation from the truth and therefore no manipulation of the image that is presented in a factual manner.

Documentary, on the other hand is more about the telling of stories and can be viewed with a more subjective approach. In his book The Documentary Impulse, Stuart Franklin reminisces on a conversation he had with the art historian Olivia Maria Rubio, ‘The history of photography has already shown us that photography can lie … The idea that photography is the truth or the sole basis of reality has been surpassed. Reality is what we construct for ourselves.’ (Franklin, 2016, 193). He concludes his conversation with her by asking the question ‘Where do the boundaries of documentary lie?’ … ‘I didn’t say there were any.’ (Franklin, 2016, 195).

As an example of interpretive documentary story telling I looked at Jack Latham’s body of work Sugar Paper Theories. The photographic series tells the story of a 40 year old murder case in Iceland. Jack uses archive material from the time and combines it with his own recent photography and also illustration. The work is a very successful conveyance of an historic story that can only be delivered through his own interpretation. Although not specifically digitally altered, if it had of been, it would still be an effective form of documentary story telling. The aim of documentary is to tell stories. So, for me, if digital technology can enhance a documentary story then there is no need to dismiss it.

Stephen Bull states ‘…digital technology can be regarded not as representing a revolution, but as a gradual and continuing evolution in photography – and how it is thought about’ (Bull, 2010, 23). Photography is a technology, and like life, technology evolves. The evolution to digital is just another tool in way we convey our stories.

Bibliography

En.wikipedia.org. (2019). Adnan Hajj photographs controversy. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan_Hajj_photographs_controversy [Accessed 7 Oct. 2019].

Jack Latham. (2019). Sugar Paper Theories — Jack Latham. [online] Available at: https://www.jacklatham.com/project/sugar-paper-theories/mwq1qn15us1wvn9py3utnajb4nap1u [Accessed 7 Oct. 2019].

Wells, L. (2004). Photography : A Critical Introduction. Routledge.

Franklin, S. (2016). The documentary impulse. New York: Phaidon.

Bull, S. (2010). Photography. London: Routledge.

I have to start by saying I am not a great user of Photoshop nor am I a great believer in it either. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate work that has been ‘shopped’, I guess it stems from frustrations that I’ve encountered previously, resulting in a lack of confidence with it. Generally, I use Photoshop for image resizing and other simple functions. I saw this exercise and had a feeling of mild dread at the thought of completing it.

I’m into action sports and over the years have seen sequence composites in magazines such as Thrasher (skateboarding), Surfer and Dirt (mountain biking) and have always been impressed with the technique but also the way it conveys a passage of time. I thought I’d use this technique to create a metaphor to highlight the passage of time from child to teenager, by using my son as the subject.

Regarding the technical aspect, it wasn’t as hard as I had envisioned. I took a series of images in sequence with my camera mounted on a tripod. Selecting four images, I then opened these in Photoshop. Selecting a background image, I then created three extra layers and copied the remaining images into these respectively. Next, I used the auto-alignment function and cropped any un-aligned areas. Finally, I used the layer mask function and on respective layers I painted on the figure/figures from the previous layer, resulting in the final image below.

I have to say that I’m pleased with the results and the exercise has given me confidence to use and experiment with Photoshop in future. I also think that it has successfully conveyed the passage of time and has fulfilled the brief in creating a documentary photograph that could never actually be.

Sarah Pickering’s project – Public Order, gives us an uncomfortable reality check on modern social structure. I admit to being unsettled at first view, not because of the images per se but because of the underlying undercurrent of well-practiced state control. The sparseness of her images, often strewn with debris, devoid of human content, gives the impression of a ghost town that has been at the sharp end of something rather sinister. The sombre colour aesthetic further enhances feelings of tension.

When absorbing the context of the images, my feelings are further solidified. The fact that this is a place to drill and drill again the practice of crowd control underlines my feelings of the states potential to abuse its power. I am able to visualise the possible scenarios being played out within the confines of the space. I know there is a need to be able to disperse the unruly mass, but I can’t get away from the fact that protest is often borne from injustice. This work ensures that I reflect on society and state.

For me, this is undoubtedly a very effective use of documentary. The work shows us a place that is not familiar and reveals it to us in incremental steps. We have to engage with it more to understand it, it provokes us to think. I think it is much more effective than work that is laid on a platter.

Pickering, Victoria Street, 2002.

Bibliography

Sarahpickering.co.uk. (2019). Sarah Pickering. [online] Available at: https://www.sarahpickering.co.uk/Works/Pulic-Order/workpg-04.html [Accessed 13 Aug. 2019].