A double thing
I read this quotation from the famous landscape photographer Ansel Adams today on the Aperture Instagram feed. It reminded me of some thoughts that were beginning to take shape at the end of the summer holiday.
I cannot demand that anyone receive from the image just what was in my visualisation at the time of exposure. I believe that if I am able to express what I saw and ‘felt’, the image will contain qualities that may provide a basis for imaginative response by the viewer.
-- Ansel Adams
If the meanings or effects of photographs can't be determined by the photographer, all s/he can hope is that the photograph itself carries within it (somehow) a trace of the feeling (not a very good word) the photographer had when s/he clicked the shutter - the moment they said "Yes, that's interesting." The kind of photography that I like to make the most involves a direct response to the world, usually on foot, with a 35mm camera. Recently, I have been taking pictures of people (after not doing this for a while). I feel a bit confused about this, mostly because of the ethical considerations. I like to think that I am celebrating diversity and community in these pictures. I avoid images which might be hurtful or demeaning. However, I don't ask permission because this would change the image. I want to avoid posing or performance. The other type of picture I like to make is of objects discovered on the roadside, patches of wall, tree shadows, ephemera and abstract patterns. This type of picture often reminds me of other kinds of art, mostly contemporary sculpture. I like the idea that people are naturally creative and even when they throw something away or otherwise interact with things in their surroundings, they are inclined (subconsciously) to create an aesthetically interesting installation.
The following pictures were taken at the beginning of the Autumn term using a Leica R4 SLR and Ilford XP2 super400 film. They combine my interests in two different kinds of documentary style photography. I don't yet know how to make sense of these images together. Perhaps I need to narrow my focus (no pun intended) and concentrate on a single location or some other constraint if the pictures are ever going to cohere as a project.
The following pictures were taken at the beginning of the Autumn term using a Leica R4 SLR and Ilford XP2 super400 film. They combine my interests in two different kinds of documentary style photography. I don't yet know how to make sense of these images together. Perhaps I need to narrow my focus (no pun intended) and concentrate on a single location or some other constraint if the pictures are ever going to cohere as a project.
I was particularly pleased with this image below. It's an example of how photographs can make things in the real world seem to be related when, in fact, they aren't. Photographs flatten 3D space into a 2D picture. In a picture, the background, middle ground and foreground all appear to be on the same level. This can generate some surprising and pleasing correspondences. I've tried to illustrate below how the design of the picture imposes a kind of order on the chaos of reality. The most important feature of a photograph, of course is that it has an edge. This edge forces everything within the picture frame into relationship.
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A focused photoshoot
I recently acquired an Olympus XA rangefinder camera and was keen to test it out. It's an ideal street camera so I spent about an hour walking up and down Oxford Street photographing people. Choosing a single location and a limited period of time helped to concentrate my looking. Here are some of the results:
Whilst this shoot was only really a test for the camera, a couple of interesting things emerged. This image below, for example, reveals the tension or gap between what the eye sees just before and at the moment of exposure and what the camera is able to capture.
What I think I saw at the time: |
What I only saw later in the image: |
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I've only recently returned to making candid photographs of people on my photowalks. I'm not really sure why this is. There is a certain kind of excitement in attempting to photograph a moving subject in a busy situation. There is a lot of risk involved, especially when shooting on film, since the chances of the picture not working are quite high, either because of technical failure - focus, lighting, blur etc. - or because the composition is weak. The high stakes intensifies the experience. I have also been troubled in the past about some of the ethical considerations. Are people entitled to privacy in public situations? Is photographing in this way a process of objectification? Seeking permissions is impossible since that would result in an entirely different kind of (staged) picture. Perhaps I have moved away from photographing static subjects - buildings, trees, objects - simply because I enjoy variety? Perhaps it was to challenge myself in a new situation? It would seem odd to make a series of pictures in a busy city like London without including people, but is candid street photography still a viable, ethical practice?
A FOCUS ON PHILIP PERKIS |
I recently saw a few posts about Philip Perkis' book 'Teaching Photography' on Instagram. It prompted me to do a bit of research.
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Philip Perkis on correspondence
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Philip Perkis on the truth |
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Both of these clips come from:
A Film Portrait of Philip Perkis: JUST TO SEE - A MYSTERY by Jin Ju Lee, 2017 |
Here are some of my favourite Philip Perkis pictures, sequenced so that they correspond with one another, forming a kind of visual narrative:
I am really interested in what Perkis has to say about correspondence between an inner life and the life going on outside the body, especially in relation to the notion of the "double thing". A camera might be the perfect tool to insert between these two realities, a kind of intermediary or conduit. Perkis writes about various tensions that exist in a certain type of photography: inner and outer; abstraction and description; push and pull. I also like the idea that the connection between inner and outer reality (a kind of intuition that is captured by the click of the shutter) is best achieved wordlessly. Words, and the naming of things that comes with words, has a distancing effect, preventing us from really seeing things in themselves. This notion is reflected in the words of another photographer I admire, Henry Wessel:
Once you name a telephone pole, you’re less aware. But if you’re not naming anything then you’re aware. More animal-like. So the mind’s always in there saying, “Look at that. Telephone pole. Macadam. Move right, move left.” So you wind up in most cases making 5 or 6 pictures of the same stuff but the first ones, you can see how different they are before your mind got in there. When your mind gets in there they start to look like photographs you already know. They look like problems that you’ve already solved.
-- Henry Wessel from'Why it's better to see without recognising' SFMoMA, 2010
An exhibition, a book and a zine
- Rene Matić and Simeon Barclay at South London Gallery. I really enjoyed the combination of photographs and installation/sculpture in both these exhibitions. The Rene Matić images were beautifully framed, sequenced and displayed. The video (watched from church pews in a dark red room) was very moving. I enjoyed the mystery in Simeon Barclay's exhibition. The room was divided by a barrier with only one door allowing access. Every 15 minutes, dry ice would appear from beneath a wall!
- Rene Matić 'Flags for countries that don't exist but bodies do' Arcadia Missa, 2021. I bought this hoping to study how Matić combines very personal portraits (and self-portraits) of family and friends with more documentary style images of south London. The snapshot approach reminded me of Nan Goldin's practice. The work explores complex identities - racial, sexual, religious and the sense of belonging to various subcultures who identify as British.
- Manuel Osterholt 'Labrynths' self published zine, 2022. I saw these images of Buenos Aires on Instagram. I love photozines and really enjoyed the way these images were displayed at the top of each page, touching in the gutter.
iPhone - Autumn 2022
Olympus XA - September 2022
These pictures were mostly taken in south east London with my Olympus XA camera and Ilford XP2 Super400 film. The camera is very compact and easy to use. It has a sharp 35mm f/2.8 lens, giving these pictures more of a snapshot feel. I was particularly interested in the quality of the light and only used the flash once. I should have used it for the third image of the railings because the aperture priority selected a slow shutter speed resulting in some motion blur. I relatively pleased with the images. I tried to respond to what I was seeing as directly as possible, not really questioning the subject matter or spending too long composing the shot. I think I prefer the 50mm field of view although this camera enables me to get pretty close to the subject and still retain lots of information.
My favourite images
Iran Protest
Walking back to Charing Cross recently, I noticed a demonstration taking place in front of the National Gallery. It was in support of Iranian women after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini on 16 September. It was a very impassioned gathering and I was surprised to see so many men in attendance.
Peckham and beyond
These pictures were all shot on a Nikon FM with Kodak Portra 400. They are visual notes of various journeys across the city. There's nothing in particular that unites them other than my having noticed something and the urge to photograph it. I've got better at not questioning this urge. Not all the pictures work, by any means, but they are documents of the way I have seen the places where I've been with my camera.
A double thing
Some making experiments:
I decided to edit my images down to a manageable number and, given my interest in doubles, chose images which contained two of something. This was a fun activity in itself but then I began to wonder how to present them. My first thought was in the form of a loose leaf publication. I downloaded a template from Newspaper Club but quickly realised that I would not be able to afford to have it printed. Having created the PDF, I uploaded it to Calameo so that I could create a digital version of the zine (see below).
I arranged the portrait format images as diptychs, spreading the landscape images across the gutter. I am relatively pleased with the final design which could, in theory, be printed as a mini tabloid sized newspaper. I may try to print some of these spreads in school so that I can experiment further with the way they could be displayed, perhaps hanging them in some way or photographing the pages against the light so that the photographs appear to overlap.
I decided to make a very rough A3 loose leaf zine using the school photocopier. Rather than retain the original sequencing I placed the images in a new arrangement to see what chance associations might occur. Here is a video flip-through of one particular arrangement. Of course, since the zine is unbound, each viewer could decide to re-order the images. Interestingly, the double page landscape format pictures are cut in half and I really like the way that this encourages (or challenges) the viewer to remember the first half of the image as they flip through the book to find the second half later on. This is analogous to the process of seeing a subject, making a picture and then (later) seeing the photograph - another kind of double thing perhaps.
Here are my favourite chance pairings:
I was also interested in creating something sculptural with these pictures, partly influenced by the installations I have seen recently at Sid Motion and South London Galleries. I couldn't afford to do anything on a large scale but I wondered what could be achieved with relatively modest materials.
I experimented with 250mm wooden sticks and 6x4 machine prints mounted on thin plywood to create a model of a theoretically much larger sculptural installation. I wanted to suggest something that could be much larger than a person, a structure that would have real presence in the landscape. However, it would also be open in the sense that the viewer would make their own sense of the combination of images. Certain viewpoint might present whole and partial images. Although the model is quite crude, I'm relatively pleased with the outcome and can imagine this being a much larger structure.
I experimented with 250mm wooden sticks and 6x4 machine prints mounted on thin plywood to create a model of a theoretically much larger sculptural installation. I wanted to suggest something that could be much larger than a person, a structure that would have real presence in the landscape. However, it would also be open in the sense that the viewer would make their own sense of the combination of images. Certain viewpoint might present whole and partial images. Although the model is quite crude, I'm relatively pleased with the outcome and can imagine this being a much larger structure.
Exhibition visits - October 2022
- Trevor Mathison and Hadi Fallahpisheh at Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art
- Rosemary Jane Cronin at Lewisham Art House
- Chris Killip and An Alternative History of Photography: Works from the Solander Collection at The Photographers' Gallery
- Various exhibitions at Photo Fringe Brighton
- Bill Lynch at Brighton Centre for Contemporary Art
- Vanessa Daws at Fabric, Brighton
Another sequencing by chance experiment
Having experimented with selecting images based on the motif of doubles, I decided to leave the choice of images from my archive completely to chance. I was intrigued to see which images would be selected and in what order. I recently subscribed to photographer Georgina Cook's newsletter Fragments and read this post entitled 'A Numbers Game'. She writes:
In today’s letter, I want to share a little game that I play with myself and my archive sometimes. The game involves inputting any 4 or 5 digit number into the search function of either my Lightroom catalogue or my computer to see which corresponding digital image files are found. Sometimes it’s a favourite number like 0013 for example, sometimes dates of significance, sometimes numbers of no significance. I like doing this because most of the time it brings up images that I’ve completely forgotten about, or alternative versions of previously published or printed images. Many are blurred, or just not that great. For some reason I hang on to those ones anyway. Maybe I’m an innate memory hoarder. Maybe all photographers are.
-- Georgina Cook
This struck a chord with me so I downloaded 5 albums (747 pictures) from my Flickr archive (where I hoard my photographs), all of them taken with analogue cameras. I assigned each album a number (e.g. album #1 contained 36 images, album #2 contained 62 image). I then used an online random number generator to select images from whichever album was initially identified. I saved these images with a unique number identifier (e.g. 1.1.9 - picture 1 in the sequence taken from album #1, photo #9 or 15.5.188 - picture 15 in the sequence taken from album #5, photo #188). Here are the resulting images in the correct sequence.
I then decided to add a further layer of chance by overprinting them in either magenta (pictures 1-10) or cyan (pictures 11-20). Picture 1 in the sequence was paired with picture 11, picture 2 with picture 12 etc. Here are the resulting prints:
Some of these combinations are more immediately satisfying than others. The mixture of landscape and portrait formats and collision of content is a bit disorientating at first glance. The magenta tends to overpower the cyan and, in most cases, one of the pictures asserts itself over the other. Nevertheless, I tried to develop a kind of double vision so that I was sometimes able to see both images simultaneously without needing to identify the separate pictures. This may have something to do with gestalt theory, particularly the concept of multistability, the "tendency of ambiguous perceptual experiences to pop back and forth unstably between two or more alternative interpretations".
Although pleasing in some ways, I'm a bit concerned that this approach is too decorative and still a bit obvious. I do like the idea of randomising the selection of images from an archive though. I wonder if I could find a way to involve the viewer in the selection process? Could the randomising of the pictures and the construction of a publication with the resulting images become a kind of live (and recorded) performance?
Back to the drawing board.
Although pleasing in some ways, I'm a bit concerned that this approach is too decorative and still a bit obvious. I do like the idea of randomising the selection of images from an archive though. I wonder if I could find a way to involve the viewer in the selection process? Could the randomising of the pictures and the construction of a publication with the resulting images become a kind of live (and recorded) performance?
Back to the drawing board.
London and Brighton - October 2022
While I continue to think through the various possibilities I intend to continue to make photographs. To provide some visual consistency, I've decided to photograph only in black and white using Ilford XP2 super400 film, my Nikon FM and a 50mm lens. Whatever pictures I make in the next few weeks could therefore be the material I use for my exhibition/performance/publication.
RESEARCH - interactive photography exhibitions/performances
I am interested in various ways to engage the viewer/visitor in co-constructing an exhibition/publication of my photographs, introducing a strong element of chance and enabling a sharing (or doubling) of the creative responsibility for the completed work. I have discovered the following examples of this kind of performance experiment:
Takashi Homma - RRREECCONNSTRUCCTTT |
The images in this publication were generated during a two-day performance held in Tokyo. Event participants were asked to select an original print by Takashi Homma. The photographer then cut the print into strips of varying shape. The fragments were handed to the participants, who then freely rearranged the fragments into new configurations. The completed recompositions were stamped by the photographer and then photographed. A selection of the reconstructed photographs were selected for this volume. |
Homma's role in this performance extends beyond simply being the photographer. He allows his images to be re-arranged before authorising them with a stamp. He shares the creation of the new image with the visitor. The book re-presents these reconstructions, allowing the reader to arrange them in any way they choose. There are thus two stages to the reconstruction and two potentially different audiences for the work.
Daido Moriyama - Printing Show
Originally staged by Moriyama in 1974 and re-staged in New York (Aperture Foundation, 2011) and London (Tate Modern, 2012), participants were given control of the selection and sequencing of a menu of images which were then stapled together with a screen printed cover and signed by the artist.
I can kind of see the person's character and taste. I find it very interesting [...] even without seeing the person's face or their daily life and work, I think there is a moment of communication with them through photography.
-- Daido Moriyama
ECAL & Lorenzo Vitturi - Global Market
Perhaps taking inspiration from Moriyama's Printing Show above, the MA students from ECAL acted like stall holders at a market, persuading 'customers' to buy their images. These were then sequenced by the visitor in any way they chose and stapled together in a choice of silkscreen printed covers. Each book was therefore unique and people paid for the number of images they had chosen.
What does a global city look like? Over the course of one week, thirteen students of the newly-launched Master in Photography program at ECAL/ University of Art and Design of Lausanne, Switzerland were invited by Lorenzo Vitturi to explore London. [...] Each student was assigned a different area of London in order to engage with, observe and discover the diversity and specificities of various different cultures, contexts and realities. The work presented here is the result of three intensive days of shooting, one night of editing, one day of printing, ending with a performative presentation during Offprint at Tate Modern, where the images are combined and sequenced in order to reveal a new vision of London. |
A mini zine experiment
I wondered whether it would be possible to design a mini single page folded zine. I searched online for some commercial examples and found a template on the Print on Paper website. I used this to create a 4 page zine which also becomes a poster when folded out (see below) using InDesign. I only had access to an A4 printer at home so the resulting zine is A6 when folded. If I printed this on A3 paper, the zine would fold up to A5 size.
I could in theory use the images selected by visitors to generate personalised zines, dropping the images they chose into a template like this before printing, folding and trimming.
I could in theory use the images selected by visitors to generate personalised zines, dropping the images they chose into a template like this before printing, folding and trimming.
I could create a collection of images like those below from which visitors could choose. The images would need to be sorted into portrait and landscape formats and each given a number. Visitors could then select numbers (i.e. in this example between 1-15 for landscapes and 1-25 for portraits). I tested this process out and created two alternative versions of the zine design.
These pictures have all been cropped to 8x10 for consistency.
These pictures have all been cropped to 8x10 for consistency.
London, Erith & Whitstable - October 2022
These images were all shot on a Nikon FM using Ilford XP2super400 film.
An additional set of images for future experimentation
I edited another set of 42 images with a view to adding them to the previous collection used for the mini zine. As before, I altered the ratio of each image to 8x10 and made minor adjustments to tones, sharpness and noise reduction.
Experiments with digital film recipesI've been experimenting with film recipes for my Fujifilm digital camera, using this website. I have really enjoyed using black and white film, especially Ilford XP2 Super 400 which is processed in C41 chemicals. However, it's pretty expensive doing it this way so I wondered if there was a recipe that could simulate the look of this film stock for my digital camera. Here's the recipe that I found:
Acros+R Dynamic Range: DR400 Highlight: -1 Shadow: +4 Noise Reduction: -4 Sharpening: -2 Grain Effect: Strong White Balance: 10000K, +7 Red & +7 Blue ISO: Auto up to ISO 12800 Exposure Compensation: -2/3 to +2/3 (typically) |
Here are a few pictures made using this recipe, cropped and edited slightly in Photoshop:
They're not quite as punchy as the scanned film images so I'll continue to experiment with the recipe settings. However, this could prove to be a more cost effective way to achieve similar results to the Ilford film stock. I'll continue to use film when I can afford it though. I should really learn to develop and scan it myself!
A refined set
The following images were made with some slight alterations to the Fujifilm recipe. I much prefer the contrast:
I also experimented with creating some triptychs. One of the advantages of using digital technology is the ability to shoot multiple exposures of the same subject, like this, without worrying about the cost of development and scanning.
Creating an online exhibition
I have begun to plan an online exhibition of my work using Wix. I wanted to try something other than Weebly and I was able to create a free Wix website that has a different look and feel to these pages. I have created a page here with a hyperlinked image to the new site. The site is still in development but currently contains 6 galleries, the first 5 featuring 21 images each. Gallery #6 features a sequence of triptychs. I would like to experiment with using a chance based process for curating each of the first 5 galleries. Each gallery also features a quotation taken from my Personal Investigation research.
Plan for A Double Thing photozine performance
In an attempt to bring together the various strands of my recent experiments, I decided to design a kind of game in which participants would select pictures from an archive, using a chance-based process, which would then form the basis of a photozine which they could keep as a memento of their participation. Ideally, this could be a performance in which visitors would be transformed into players (actors?) and be rewarded with an artifact to take home.
I finalised my picture archive, creating a set of 39 landscape format and 71 portrait format pictures. I designed a poster for each set and arranged to get them printed at A0 size. Each of the pictures was assigned a number.
I finalised my picture archive, creating a set of 39 landscape format and 71 portrait format pictures. I designed a poster for each set and arranged to get them printed at A0 size. Each of the pictures was assigned a number.
I then purchased a set of darts. My plan was to hang the posters on a suitable surface and ask each visitor to throw darts at them in order to select the images that would become their photozine. They would need to select 2 from the landscape format set and 7 from the portrait format set, using 9 darts in total. The pictures would be sequenced as follows:
Round 1:
Dart 1 - Landscape image for cover
Dart 2 - Landscape image for page 3 (bottom)
Dart 2 - Landscape image for page 3 (bottom)
Round 2:
Dart 1 - Portrait image for page 4 (background)
Dart 2 - Portrait image for page 4 (foreground below)
Dart 3 - Portrait image for page 4 (foreground above)
Dart 4 - Portrait image for page 3 (bottom right)
Dart 5 - Portrait image for page 3 (bottom left)
Dart 6 - Portrait image for page 2 (full bleed)
Dart 7 - Portrait image for page 5 (poster full bleed)
Dart 2 - Portrait image for page 4 (foreground below)
Dart 3 - Portrait image for page 4 (foreground above)
Dart 4 - Portrait image for page 3 (bottom right)
Dart 5 - Portrait image for page 3 (bottom left)
Dart 6 - Portrait image for page 2 (full bleed)
Dart 7 - Portrait image for page 5 (poster full bleed)
I experimented with printing some more example designs on A3 cartridge paper (see below), creating A5 zines. I really liked the look, feel and size of this paper stock.
Here is a short film showing a group of students using the darts and posters to select and sequence my photographs to generate designs for photozines. The process of testing this approach produced some interesting decisions. For example, if an image was hit more than once with a dart, that image would appear multiple times in the zine (rather than the dart being re-thrown). Similarly, if the poster was missed entirely, this would result in a blank image in the zine. Participants felt that this properly reflected the chance-based nature of the selection process, and I agreed with them. This rehearsal has really helped me refine the materials and processes for the exhibition/performance. However, one challenge remaining is the relatively slow pace of manufacture when only one person (i.e. me) is supervising the dart throwing, recording the numbers selected and designing and printing the zine. I could, in theory, recruit and train some helpers for the real thing.
I have also experimented with printing the zines on a variety of different coloured sugar paper, further randomising the process:
Book design
I decided to use Blurb's Bookwright software to design a book of my images, again using a chance-based process. I uploaded 100 images and used an online random number generator to select 16 interior images in sequence and 1 for the cover.
In a sense, this particular version of the book could be one of many given the potential combinations of pictures that could be randomly generated. I really like the idea that both the zines and the book(s) are unresolved and part of an ongoing collaboration either with a real or computer generated 'viewer'.
Concluding thoughts
One of the issues that has troubled me during this investigation is its apparent lack of an organising theme or idea. The notion of photography as a 'double thing' was a way out of this impasse because it emphasises the photograph as a point of transition between photographer and subject. The subject itself is less significant than the photographer's awareness of the correspondence between an inner and outer reality.
I read this quotation by Daido Moriyama this morning on Instagram. Interestingly, he identifies three elements as the basis of (his) photography - documentation, memory and commemoration - but he also discusses the 'double thing' in terms of the memory correspondence between photographer and viewer. Moriyama makes a photograph which contains some "fragment" of his own memory. Then the viewer "projects their own memory onto it".
I also recently watched Gerrit Messiaen's film about the photographer Harry Gruyaert. In a segment based on the streets of New York, Gruyaert talks about the correspondence between the photographer and things in the world:
I also recently watched Gerrit Messiaen's film about the photographer Harry Gruyaert. In a segment based on the streets of New York, Gruyaert talks about the correspondence between the photographer and things in the world:
It's hard to know when to stop a project or when it feels resolved. Having online exhibition website for my pictures using Wix, I decided yesterday to abandon it in favour of a dedicated page on this site. I chose fewer images, added a re-edited video and a sequence of photographs of an early prototype zine. I have also added a couple of quotations, one by Doug Ekland which features in my essay and another by Raymond Queneau which doesn't. Oulipians, he writes, are:
rats who construct the labyrinth from which they plan to escape. |
My use of chance procedures (darts) to select and sequence personalised zines from my image archive is not unrelated to the games played by members of Oulipo, a group of mostly French poets and mathematicians dedicated to the creation of potential literature through the application of games with strict rules. I have therefore also shared the sequence of numbers generated by a group of players of my game which, in turn, dictated the design of their zines:
27 35 33 45 51 48 56 19 22
10 15 22 29 25 32 46 11 27 16 15 29 35 58 57 45 14 27 58 26 35 21 40 38 39 37 28 57 32 9 33 23 29 14 21 18 22 33 24 9 47 50 40 29 14 39 46 29 33 21 17 39 11 14 22 40 27 22 22 15 3 11 2 36 63 45 34 27 34 57 29 21 29 21 58 44 53 20 23 8 19 |
I am relatively pleased with this presentation of my work and happy to bring this particular investigation to an end with a kind of puzzle.