Assignment 2 – Reworked

I have not made any changes to the images in this Assignment but following tutor feedback I have expanded on the context of the photographs.

The House of Tomorrow

The brief for this assignment was to create a series of six to ten photographs choosing things, views or heads as the subject matter.  My understanding of this was to build a narrative between the images so that each one might stand on its own but that taken together they took on a broader if not entirely new, meaning. 

Landscapes are my usual fodder and I wanted to try something different I shied away from making a series representing things as I felt, after seeing Ishiuchi Miyako’s images, that I could not do so without it seeming trite. I had played with the idea of using vegetables or kitchen utensils, such as spoons and spatulas before deciding to use real people to photograph.  

Having decided to work with heads I looked at the suggested photographers for research Martin Lange’s series featuring birds and Bettina Von Zwehl who apart for a foray into dogs, concentrates on humans.  Her models show little if any feeling except in those where they have been contrived by the photographer.  I also came across Philip-Lorca DiCorcia and his series Heads.  Researching this series showed he used strobe lighting and a fixed camera in a busy location, to take photographs of random people.  The light caught an instant in these people’s lives without them being aware of what was going on. This type of candid photography was intriguing. Because diCorcia fired his camera off remotely, there was no interaction between himself and the subject and no way that he could influence them (Buchanan, K 2020).  

I decided that the images I wanted to capture were 10% Von Zwehl, in that I had influenced the subjects’ reactions by introducing the rose, and 90% diCoricia in my attempt to get candid emotions. 

I drew from Mona Kuhns’ view that the better she knew her models the more they were prepared to share of themselves (Kuhn, M. 2014) so I asked my son and daughter in law if they would sit for me.  Knowing my subjects well allowed them to relax and if not completely, then at least partially ignore me.  Sitting my models on a garden bench I asked my daughter in law to present the rose to my son and see what happened. I did not tell them when I was actually shooting.  DiCorcia is quoted in Deutsche Borse Photography as saying ‘Pictures are usually a reflection of the person who produced them… I wanted as far as possible to fade out my presence as the photographer’ (diCorcia, p. 2020) and this is what I was aiming to do.

There are actually three heads in my images as I included a flower head (as Lange had shown, the heads didn’t have to be human).  The rose also represents a third, but as yet unseeable, person who is present. Together the series forms a constructed narrative.

These photographs were taken on the day that my son and daughter in-law announced that they were expecting a baby. The way that the photographs are laid out is intended to capture the process and emotions (even though here they are being played out for the benefit of the camera) of my daughter-in-law telling my son and the baby is represented by the rose. The dark squares are there to represent the unknown.

Although I have a close relationship with my daughter-in-law there is still more of a distance between her and me and that will influence how she looks to the camera – she has put on her ‘I’m being photographed’ face. My son although more comfortable with my presence, has done the same. This is the way they want to present themselves to the world, a mask, if you will.

I felt very aware that this exchange and the visible happiness the couple were experiencing was a private thing and in a way I felt guilty about displaying this in public. In fact there were two photographs which I took when they were completely off guard that I decided not to include in the series – they were too personal and I felt I had no right to do so. Both Sally Mann and Jock Sturges experienced a great deal of criticism over the photographing of their families (Buchanan. 2020)

I had to come up to speed very quickly with technical skills for this section of the course, especially trying to nail aperture priority, I was quite irritated when focus dropped off a subject before I had intended.  I wanted the focus to be on their faces and the rose and for the background to be soft.  However, because I was not sure quite how much movement they would make I couldn’t use too shallow a depth of field.  Each photograph leads into the other and I have framed the models accordingly towards the edge of the frame. Although the rose is a bit big, I feel it works like a ‘point’. I also tried to create a sense of cohesion with colour; blue, yellow and green.

I used a tripod to keep the shots steady, shooting with a focal length of 60 so that the subject filled the frame and aperture of 5.6 to mute the background.

There is a limitation with sending this work digitally as context and how a work is presented is often integral to the feel and impact.  These photographs are not portraiture in the traditional sense and if I were to print and hang them, I would create large prints and hang them offset so that you could walk between them in a given order.

References

Buchanan, K (2020) Bettina Von Zwehl – Research [Online] Available at: https://katie9.home.blog/research/bettina-von-zwehl/ Accessed on: 20.08.20

Buchanan, K (2020) Philip-Lorca diCorcia – Heads – Research [Online] Available at: https://katie9.home.blog/research/philip-lorca-dicorcia-heads-research/ Accessed on: 20.08.20

Buchanan, K (2020) Sally Mann and Jock Sturges [Online] Available at: https://katie9.home.blog/research/sally-mann-and-jock-sturges/Accessed on: 20.08.20

Buchanan, K (2020) Ishiuchi Miyako – Research [Online] Available at: https://katie9.home.blog/research/ishiuchi-miyako-research/ Accessed on: 20.08.20

Buchanan, K (2020) Mona Kuhn [Online] Available at:  https://katie9.home.blog/research/mona-kuhn/ Accessed on: 20.08.20

Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation (2020) Artists- Philip-Lorca diCorcia [Online] Available at: https://www.deutscheboersephotographyfoundation.org/en/collect/artists/philip-lorca-dicorcia.php Accessed on: 30.07.20

Los Angeles Review of Books: Photographer Spotlight: Mona Kuhn (2014) [Online Video] Available at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-mcZcvWmog&has_verified=1 Accessed on: 20.08.20