Narrative & Photography and Assignment #4

I hope you have all seen and enjoyed the Gregory Crewdson documentary.  This is a good introduction to the topic of  narrative and storytelling in contemporary photography. Many photographers use pictorial narrative strategies to give the viewer a sense of a story unfolding, and it has become a standard approach for a lot of conceptual and commercial photography. Not all photographers have choreographic strategies as complicated as Crewdson, but they all share the belief in a "documentary" approach that makes the photographs believable.

In elearn you will find a PDF file of chapter 2 of the book "The Photograph as Contemporary Art" by Charlotte Cotton. The physical book is also in the library, and widely available as it is one of Thames & Hudson World of Art series.  If you can afford it, it is a great little reference to the major themes of contemporary photography.

Read the chapter carefully and critically, and also pay attention to how Cotton analyses the various examples.   I enjoy her approach to photography which is centred on the image - many theorists and curators work the other way, i.e. coming up with an idea about photography and then setting out to illustrate it with images. I believe that as practitioners we need to keep our focus (no pun intended) on the image and let the photograph generate the idea rather than the opposite.

After you have read the whole chapter, choose two photographers that you find interesting from the examples she cites. Find some images (2-3) from these photographers that are different to the ones shown by Cotton. Then, write a couple of paragraphs comparing & contrasting your two chosen photographers in terms of their strategies and approach to narrative/storytelling. Include the images in your blog post with the appropriate links and references to the images.

This assignment might seem a bit longer than the others  - it is. The reason is that I want you to start applying visual culture theory as a practice for your final paper.  You can't learn how to write about photography unless you do it!

The photographers discussed in this chapter are (in order of appearance....)

Jeff Wall
Philip-Lorca diCorcia
Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler
Sam Taylor-Wood
Tom Hunter
Yinka Shonibare
Sarah Dobai
Liza May Post
Sharon Lockhart
Frances Kearney
Hannah Starkey
Justine Kurland
Sarah Jones
Sergey Bratkov
Wendy McMurdo
Deborah Mesa-Pelly
Anna Gaskell
Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin
Mariko Mori
Gregory Crewdson
Charlie White
Izima Kaoru
Christopher Stewart
Katharina Bosse
Miriam Backstrom
Miles Coolidge
Thomas Demand
Anne Hardy
James Casebere
Rut Blees Luxemburg
Desiree Dolron
Hannah Collins

Many of these photographers have successful commercial practices, and you will find they have interesting websites. Others do not even have a website but are represented by important galleries.  You should post your assignment response on your blogs by next Friday 1 April.  If you are falling behind in your previous assignments please catch up asap!

Constructed Photography

What is a photograph and what is photography is a question we were asking ourselves at the end of last semester.  Many of you were surprised by the question, assuming that the answer was obvious - but we soon realised that photography as a visual category is complex.

I assume we can all agree now that photography, one way or another, is always "constructed".  The "pure" documentary image is constructed the moment it is framed - what is left out is a conscious decision that privileges representing one part of the scene over another.  In a sense then, there is no such thing as absolute "truth" in photography, although we can talk about authenticity, realism and the intention to be honest.

The "problem" of photography, though, is that inherent sense of realism. The space between the subject and the image is collapsed - so if I show you a picture of my brother I do not say "this is a photographic representation of my brother" I would say "this is my brother". Think how differently we would talk about the subject in other mediums such as drawing, painting or sculpture - in those cases, the medium and the artist are integral to the representation. The "space"between the subject and the object is maintained.  With photography, we think we understand because it mirrors reality. We might also think that a photograph is some sort of universal language - homogenous and transparent across cultures and time.  

Contemporary photographers explore these assumptions in a number of ways. One of these ways is to use the conventional techniques of documentary photography in a completely constructed and choreographed way. One exceptional photographer in this area is Gregory Crewdson:

If you look at this image in the link above you can read interviews with the crew involved - a single image seems like a Hollywood production! Why? What is the difference between this sort of "constructed documentary" and just being at the right moment at the right place to capture an image?

For this topic, you are to see the DVD "Gregory Crewdson" from the library. I have placed it in reserve at the front desk, as there is only one copy of it. It might be best if you arrange amongst yourselves to go in small groups to watch it in one of the library rooms, which you can book before hand.  I have not found anything on the internet that matches this documentary in terms of quality and of understanding the methods that Crewdson uses for his amazing images.

Next week, after everyone has seen the documentary I will post assignment #4 and  examples of other photographers working in this manner.

Some of you have started asking what the final summative assessment will be about - so please note, it will be a research project (written paper plus short presentation) expanding one of the topics we cover during the semester.  You will choose the topic that has most interested you, and I will then give you a number of photographers to research and point you to relevant texts.

Ok, off you go & enjoy Crewdson - after seeing his images most photographers become huge Crewdson fans!

Assignment #3 - The issue of girl models: Bill Henson & Vogue

The ideas around/about ethics that we have started to study are linked to wider issues of censorship and democracy.  The case of Bill Henson and the controversy his images have created is a good case study to start "unpacking" some of these very important issues.  First of all, have a look at Bill Henson's work at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery - if you went to the Sydney trip last year you might remember some of these.

This one is a "typical" Henson from 2005:

I suspect we all agree that the alluring quality of Henson's photography has to do with his mastery of light and composition - see if you can get past these formal qualities and look at images thinking of the subject, the viewer and perhaps the parents of the subject.  Listen to your "gut" feelings about these images - it is a complicated subject that we need to discuss without moralising or demonising.

Then, take 30 minutes to hear this talk by David Marr on Slow TV.  Take notes - it is a dense speech, full of many of the questions and assumptions that underpin the debate of ethics and photography.

If you want, you can then do some further reading - there are many threads discussing Henson on the internet.

Another more recent and relevant example is in the December-January issue of  Vogue which published a spread of photographs taken by Sharif Hamza (and guest editor Tom Ford) of little girls (6-8 year olds) looking like 18 year olds. It created controversy (probably what they wanted) - read this post  written  by Melinda Tankard Reist with links to the various arguments for and against Vogue.

from:http://frockwriter.blogspot.com/2010/12/pretty-babies.html

One of the sessions we will have as a group when we meet in May will address these debates. However, to pave the way for this discussion, I want you to post a reflection/position on your blog - after reading the links above and listening to the David Marr session.  As you think through these issues, explore the values and culture that is informing your position. Think also about those words we have dealt with so many times: agency, consent, context, intention, audience, distribution, meaning... It might help to work with someone else, and take opposing views so you can really debate the issues.