Taking a closer look at photographs

As part of this course I have visited a number of exhibitions.  From these visits I have identified a need to learn more about how to interpret and read photographs and pictures.  Stephen Shore’s The Nature of Photographs is a very useful book as it has helped me to interpret what I see in front of me when looking at images but has also introduced me to new ways of thinking about exactly what a photograph is. 

Although we often speak of capturing a moment with a camera, I never really thought too deeply about the process of transforming the world in front of us into a photograph until I read this book.  I never really thought so much of my learning on The Art of Photography course as learning how to use the tools that define and interpret content.  Instead I believe I thought of them as skills, but skills are a completely different concern when applied to photography.

Photographs are two dimensional whereas we see the world three dimensionally.  This monocular vision can throw up some frustrating results when shooting but can also provide some interesting outcomes.  For example, in some images the background can have an effect on the foreground.  I’ve lost count of the amount of times I have taken an image which looked fine at the time of shooting only to see that my subject has a tree growing out its head or similar.  Our eyes can distinguish between the foreground and the background but the camera can’t.  This is referred to as a product of photographic vision.

Photographs differ to paintings.  Shore refers to the photographer as being faced with the messiness of the world and imposing order on a scene to create an image.  Painting is very much the opposite.  As photographers it is our job to select and simplify the mess in front of us and transform it into a rectangular image.  This is done by choosing a frame, exposure, vantage point and a plane of focus. 

Shore writes about the visual language that we use when talking about photographs.  I found this section of the book very relevant to me and the stage at which I am at on my work. 

The Depictive level

The formal character of an image is a range of optical and physical factors which define the physical level of the photograph.  The four central ways in which the world in front of the camera is transformed into a photographic image are:

1.       Flatness. 

As I mentioned earlier photographs are monocular.  When we look at the picture plane (field the lens’ image is projected) we choose a variety of ways in which to add depth or the illusion of depth to our images.  For example, aperture – depth of field and shallow focus.  Some images are opaque and some are transparent.

2.       Frame

Photographs have edges whilst the world doesn’t.  These edges create relationships between the lines and shapes of the image.  The frame can be passive or active.  An active frame where the frame works inward and draws the viewer in.  Passive usually relates to the subject working out of the frame.

3.       Time

Not just shutter speed but more so the static nature of the photograph.  The world keeps moving but the camera provides a static image of this moving world. We can look at time under the headings of Frozen time, Extrusive time and still time.

4.       Focus

The camera sees monocularly from a particular vantage point.  It creates a hierarchy in the depictive space by defining a single plane of focus which is parallel to the picture.  The spatial hierarchy can be removed only by photographing a flat subject parallel to the picture plane.  This is why we get distortion in our images which is something we don’t see without eyes.

I have noticed that I see my pictures and the pictures of others differently since I invested in this book.  The next section in the book is the Mental level and I plan to move onto that shortly.  

America in Pictures: The Story of Life Magazine

Some months ago BBC4 aired a documentary about Life magazine presented by Rankin.  I watched this at the time and recorded it to review it when I started the Narrative and Illustration section of the course. 

America in Pictures: The Story of Life Magazine included interviews with several staff photographers from the magazine, their work, their stories and what inspired them to cover the stories they did. 

The first issue of Life magazine hit the shelves in 1936 and changed the way news was reported to people across America.  It is credited with being the magazine that created photojournalism and the picture essay.  The publication was about the pictures, not the text.  It was about the writers carrying the photographers bags and been led by their images. 

Life celebrated America and all things American.  It charted the history of a country on the brink of war to the birth of a super power.  It explored the cities and countryside of America, its people and the development of the nation. 

In the beginning there were four photographers – Thomas McEvoy, Peter Stackpole, Alfred Eisenstaedt and Margaret Burke-White.  Burke-White got the front cover for the first issue.  She was renowned for her use of flash lights and was very meticulous in her work as the first female war photographer.  It is widely known that she used her sexuality to give her professional advantage and would frequently bed generals to get her the best wartime scoops.  A rival photographer at Life was chastised because she was getting all the stories which led to one of the most famous telegrams being sent back to HQ – “Burke-White has a piece of equipment that I don’t have.”

Thomas McEvoy was known for his use of disguise to capture people unawares; whilst Stackpole earned himself the honour of being the mad scientist inventing an underwater camera and constantly looking for new ways to get that picture.

Alfred Eisentaedt is probably one of the greatest photographers of Life.  He worked on assignments throughout the lifetime of the magazine.  His most famous shot is Times Square VJ day with a soldier and a nurse kissing.  It captured the jubilance of the people as the war finally came to an end.  It paved the way for the new generation of America. 

Eisenstaedt used a rolleiflex camera and shot from the hip to make his subjects unaware he was shooting them.  He wanted to capture them as they were naturally and unaware of the lens. 

It was an overnight success and its coverage of WW2 became part of the American psyche.  It was the first time images of the war could be seen as it was actually happening.  Robert Capa landed on Normandy for the D Day landings and sent the rolls back of the horrors of the battle.  It was the first time an image of a dead body had been published and it was a big ethical decision to make.

The photo essays brought an intensity to news stories that hadn’t been experienced before.  The “Career Girl” series by Leonard McCoombe was a very intimate portrayal of women in the workplace.  W Eugene Smith’s “Country Doctor” brought a human element to the narrative of a deeply personal level.  You got a true insight into the lives of the people, the dilemmas they faced and tragedy that often unfolded.  In a clip from an interview with Eugene Smith he speaks of how he “becomes immersed in their life, part of their life and speaks of what he is participating in.”

In the 1950s Life covered the boom years of America showing industrialisation and modernisation of the country that was becoming a super power. 

The 1960s saw its coverage of the Vietnam War.  Life was such a powerful force that when it took an anti-war stance it successfully changed the view of the people of America of their country’s involvement in the war.  Larry Burrows covered the Vietnam War shooting over a nine-year-period until his death when he stepped on a landmine.  In old footage of him he spoke of his guilt of capitalising on others grief and said that he had to do so to make his contribution to show others what people are going through.

Burk Uzzle was interviewed at his home by Rankin.  Burk is still working but focussing and producing some of his best work in fine art photography.  After working for Life he went on to become a Magnum photographer.  Burk comes across as very much a free spirit where everything is about capturing the moment when the subject reveals itself.  Burk never took Life up on the opportunity to become a staff writer preferring to work on a contract basis.  His anecdotes about heated argument with picture editors probably points to why. 

One assignment Burk was sent to shoot was the Playboy mansion.  Rankin unwittingly asks him what that was like to which he gets the reply “well it made me horny.”  I suppose if you ask a stupid question…

Another photography featured in the programme was Bill Eppridge who was particularly skilled at embedding himself with his subjects.  His coverage of a couple who were heroin addicts was published after spending 6 months with the couple.  He also got the ‘shot’ of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy.

At this point in the programme you have to worry about the BBC’s choice of Rankin as a presenter.  Eppridge asks him to go fishing with him whilst they talk.  As they walk to the river Rankin quips how he in not dressed for this to which Eppridge replies “I’m sure the fish won’t mind.”  You would expect there to be more pressing matter on Rankin’s mind other than whether he got his shoes dirty or not, especially when in the presence of a great documentary photography that risked his life to get the picture. 

Harry Benson the Glaswegian celebrity shooter talked about his life as a ‘rat’ snooping around trying to get the image required.  His techniques for building up relationships with the people he shot varied but he maintained that he never took them up on dinner invitations because they were not his friends.  They were people he shot.  Being friendly and seeing them outside of a professional environment would open the door to them trying to influence his decisions in what images made the cut.

The programme concluded with a brief interview with John Shearer who captured the civil rights movement in New York during the 60s and 70s.  He claimed he didn’t see the danger in his work and the places he found himself – it was all about the pictures.  To protect his work he used to stash his films at different delis around the city in case it got damaged in the field. 

The programme was a very general overview of Life magazine through the years.  It didn’t go into detail too much about the photographic techniques used by the photographers or their work in particular.  I can only assume that this was because it was geared towards a very general audience.  Rankin I felt was a weak presenter and asked timid childlike questions at times and his attempt to capture a modern day version of Eisenstaedt’s Times Square image absorbed too much time.  Time that would have been better spent fish with Eppridge. 

Since watching the programme I have put together these online resources for the people either interviewed or mentioned in the programme. 

Burk Uzzle

John Shearer

Harry Benson

Robert Capa - Magnum

W Eugene Smith - Magnum

Visual Language and Narrative and Context

I have a degree in English.  I have trawled my way through Dickens, Defoe, Spencer’s The Fairie Queene, medieval delights and Anglo Saxon battlegrounds.  I’ve been enlightened by Shakespeare and the American poets; liberated by Yeats. 

I have spent many years since graduating working within the confines of the rules applied to the English language.  I have written copy, features, proposals, information leaflets, letters, poems and the odd short story.  I have overcome the mental block that stood in my way when faced with grammar and its application.

 

I have found a way to use the tools available to me.  And in turn those tools have helped me find out more about who I am, what life experiences have taught me and where I belong in the world around me.

As I approach the end of this module The Art of Photography I know what makes me tick and although I can communicate that through words I now have to explore the reality of communicating it visually.  Visual language is an entirely new proposition. 

I’ve been reading Maria Short’s book Context and Narrative and several questions have arisen about my work to date and where I go to from here.  How do I communicate my ideas visually? How do I breathe life into a concept? How do I ensure audience engagement?  What technical considerations do I need to contemplate?

In her book Short describes what’s needed to be a photographer…”you need to be passionate about communicating ‘something’, as this will inform every choice you make in relation to your work.” She continues, “you also need to interested in the world around you; you need to be interested in things beyond photography. The substance of the work is in your commitment to your subject, as this will show in your photographs, this commitment will make your photographs breathe; this is how your personalise your work.  If you are clear about why you are photographing your subject then you can choose how to photograph your subject, and in turn this should help your audience interpret the photograph.”

This is the way you communicate your ideas; this is visual language; this is how you develop your voice.

There’s a three-way relationship between photographer, subject and audience – a communication triangle.  The treatment of the subject by the photographer and the visual language applied has a direct influence on how the audience interprets the picture in front of them or if they care to interpret it at all. 

Picture making is not divorced from the photographer’s life experiences and beliefs.  In many images the influence of the photographer is apparent.  They construct the image, it is a trace of what they see and how they want the audience to render meaning from it.

What is a photograph?

It is an image of the past, a moment that was captured and frozen in time.  It is a document of what happened or what was present. 

Photographs can be simply records, like medical or forensic images, or they can be something more.  They can tell a story.

 

The key to a successful photograph is engaging with the subject. 

A photograph is a way of expressing an idea, of developing a concept and of storytelling.

What is narrative?

A narrative is basically a way of telling a story.  It usually has a beginning, middle and end.  In photography, a visual narrative works slightly differently.  It can have the basic structure of beginning, middle and end or it might simply imply what has happened in the past or is about to occur.  It may be a fictional interpretation of a given person, place, thing or moment. 

Linear narrative

In photography a narrative can take be communicated in a linear sense, but it can also be cyclical.  It can be a series or images or a single one.  It can be a collection of images that only make sense when brought together. 

Visual continuity

Images can be linked by using visual continuity whether that is weather, subject, location or another linking factor. 

Sequential narratives

Narratives can also be sequential stories or journeys like a pilgrimage that takes you from A to B. 

Visual punctuation

Visual punctuation includes the breaking of the sequence by including a black and white image or one of a different size – something that interrupts the flow.  It can be a one off. 

Juxtaposition can help raise an argument or present a question; the tension between hot and cold, light and dark for example.

The eye of the camera also plays a role.  Is the eye a fourth wall, the eye of the subject or the eye of the viewer/audience?

Symbols and signs

The study of signs is called semiotics. 

To familiarise use with the models and terminology we can look at the work of two philosophers.

Ferdinand de Saussure

Dyadic approach.  The signifier (form which the sign takes) and the signified (the idea/concept it represents). 

Charles Sanders Peirce

Three tiered approach

Representament – the form the sign takes

Interpretant – the sense made of the sign

Object – to which the sign refers. 

Barthes on a more basic level looked at the ‘studium’ which he described as the general interest in an image and the ‘punctum’ which arrests the attention. 

Symbol

Something that represents something else.  In this case the signifier does not represent the signified – this relationship must be learned like rules or language.

Icons

The signifier is perceived as resembling the signified or imitating the signified.  For example, in a portrait, cartoon, with gestures or sound effects etc.

Indexicality

Indexical signifier is physically or casually linked to the signified.  This link can be observed or inferred.  Natural signs like smoke = heat, footprints = footsteps. 

Indexicality is very important to photography because it is a literal ‘trace’ of the original subject according to Peirce.

 Visual Metaphor

Use of a subject as a visual metaphor for something the photographer wishes to express.  This can be seen in the work of Short herself in her collection Gall. In this body of work she uses a horse as a visual metaphor to “express how I felt about the challenges that faced young women in relation to their sense of identity and social placing.”

This enabled her to raise questions such as “when is protection suppression? When is freedom a cliché?”

Enigma and truth

An enigma is something inexplicable.  We can capture something that looking back can never be explained like someone’s actions or an event. 

The truth always brings up the question of ethics in photography.  The camera never lies has long been discounted and even more so today.  Photographers are often faced with situations where visually strong images are captured in a fast moving environment that present questions surrounding ethics and integrity. 

These fleeting moments are part of the visual language and may represent an idea or concept that can become emblematic or metaphorical. 

Stacy Pearsall - Combat Camera

Came across this interesting blog by Stacy Pearsall today courtesy of Scott Kelby.  I thought distance learning was a challenge but Stacy has made my recent decision to do a BA with the OCA look easy! 

I never heard of Combat Camera before and it certainly isn't for the faint hearted.  We all face challenges in our work and know the difficulties getting that 'shot' entail.  I find Stacy's work impressive especially when I consider the dangers and obstacles she faced. 

I particularly like the portrait shots.