Zarina Bhimji at the Whitechapel Gallery

The OCA organised a study visit on 11 February to see the work of Ugandan born British photographer/film maker Zarina Bhimji. 

Having not even heard of her before and not seen how film can be used alongside stills in an exhibition, I was interested in going to see how she used film narratives to explore her heritage and ancestry.

Bhimji was born in Uganda in 1963 to Indian parents and moved to Britain in 1974 a couple of years after Idi Amin expelled the Asians from the country.  Landscapes and buildings haunted by their layered past are the subjects for images. 

The exhibition traces 25 years of her work including the premiere of her latest film Yellow Patch which was inspired by trade and migration across the Indian Ocean.   Haveli palaces and the colonial offices in Mumbai harbour provide the subjects for some close up painterly images together with the desert, the sea and the boats which set the atmospheric scene for several different journeys.

Out of Blue her first film is included in this collection.  The film is a visual journey across the Ugandan countryside with the sounds of fire, birds and humans.  However, in both her films there is a distinct lack of humans only the traces that they were there, that the places she shows us were inhabited but are now empty. It is almost as if the places she introduces us to has its own story to tell us, the abandoned homes, the empty graveyard and the deserted countryside.  It is a narrative of the Asians leaving Uganda, their homes and the breaking up of families.

The collection also includes a series of stills from Out of Blue and Yellow Patch along with other photographs.  Bhimji made the decision to work with film instead of digital as she felt it gave her more depth and achieved the artistic effects she wanted to achieve.  This can be seen very much in her photographs from the series titled Love with the saturated colours and painterly effect. 

Her decision to move away from still images and into film was because she felt that her images and subjects had more to say and needed a different medium that would allow for this. To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect when I sat down to watch Out of Blue. The museum guide had spoken about the disjointed sound and the lack of people in her films.  This is something we are not used to.  I wondered how she achieved a 25 minute film in this way.  The impact was almost instantaneous.  From the beginning the booming sound set the dark and eerie atmosphere that something was not right, it invoked a sense of fear. 

The image titled Frightened Goats from Love stood out to me.  Here we could see a series of graves near a small building which looked like a house.  Some of these looked half dug.  The sense of abandonment in this image is very strong.  There are no people.  This is what remains when people are forced away from their families and the graves of their parents.  This is the void that is left after expulsion.

Illegal Sleep is an image of a row of rifles laid up against a wall taken from Out of Blue.  I liked the colour in this image.  In the film this images comes to life as we see the shadows of people walking past the guns.  This drives a fear through us.  These guns come to life with the introduction of man.  Her work is very much about the echo it creates rather than bare faced facts.

Polaroids from her research were also displayed.  As I am now studying narrative and looking at my workflow I found it very interesting to see work from her lengthy recces and insight into the way she worked.

Her work commissioned by Harewood House examined the hidden histories of black people and the slave trade.  I especially liked the mirrors that contained etched newspaper copy about the details of the servants that ran away.  We are all forced to look at ourselves and those around us as we read. 

Other images in this collection made use of transparency lightboxes which gave a surreal effect. 

 She Loved to Breathe – Pure Silence combined black and white photographs with the colourful spices, turmeric and chilli powder which was arranged on the floor.  This work comments on the controversial immigration protocols in Britain during the 1970s. 

Before I visited this exhibition I would say I had never considered using film for a narrative.  Since the visit I can’t help but think of ways it could work alongside my work and my interests.  Being Irish and having experienced the abandoned countryside in the 80s due to widespread emigration, I can see the beauty in the land which has its haunted layered histories from invasion, independence, civil war, immigration and most recently from boom to bust.  Maybe one day I will dare to explore this further. 

More information:

Whitechapel Gallery

Zarina Bhimji

Clip from Out of Blue

http://flamin.filmlondon.org.uk/showcase/assets/showcase_items/out_of_blue

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. 

Narrative

Narrative is the way in which we tell a story using a set of pictures.  We could refer to this as a picture essay.

A narrative treatment suits subjects that are made up of several parts or events that have a sequence of how they occur.  This could be a wedding, a football match, a school play or the preparation of a meal.

Plotting the story is very important.
Take an event for example - when and where is it happening, what is the order of events, who is participating and what exactly are they doing and when.  If this is an event that occurs regularly you can do some research on the internet to see what images have been taken in the past.  Do a recce of the event and where it will take place.  Locate prime viewpoints for shooting. Check with the organisers about any restrictions. Is there a rehearsal? Can you go to it? List of potential shots.

Get variety in your shots.

• Vertical and horizontal shots
• Images taken at different scales from distant to close up
• Use lenses of different focal length
• Variety of colour, like including pictures that are mainly in a single colour
• Variety of lighting

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Narrative and Illustration

This part of the course focuses on the subject in our imagery.  Up until now on this course a lot of my focus has been on creating attractive and pleasing pictures.  I suppose this is not just down to the exercises I had to complete but also down to the fact that I was learning a lot more about using my camera and the best way to get the effects I wanted.  


I have dabbled a little with focusing on the subject when I experimented with street photography but felt that I didn't torn between making the picture pleasing but also interesting from a contextual point of view.  


This section of the course will enable to direct my attention to the subject.


In the introduction to this section I have been asked to find two photographs from magazines/newspapers to find the most contrasting examples of subject and treatment. In one of the images the subject should be of little importance but the image making skills paramount.  The other images should have the opposite qualities where the subject is important and the image handling unremarkable.  These images will mark the ends of the tug of war scale between the subject and its treatment or between content and form.  

This image of sardines on a bbq was taken from a website and it what I would call graphically pleasing.  The lighting is enhanced by the flames from the bbq and the horizontal and vertical lines make for a good composition.  However, there is no story to be found only form.  

On the contrary, this image is from a news website for a story about the Olympic Games.  Mo Farah is a big contender for a gold medal in the long distance running.  The image is all about his previous success, he is smiling, with the British flag held behind his back.  This picture is not particularly well balanced one of his arms has been cropped out of the shot. The crowd in the background is barely visible.  He is smiling but this is for the cameras in front of him.  It is posed and looks like a snapshot. 

This part of the course is going to challenge me to take pictures of my subject whilst showing what is important about it, and why it is interesting instead of on the grounds of it being simply graphically attractive. 

Light - moving forward

This part of the course introduced me to working with photography at night or low light photography and working with artificial lighting. I think this introduction was a very brief one.  There is a lot more out there for me to learn.  


Whilst I'm not sure that working in a studio is for me I can say that I find the idea of it more interesting and appealing than before.  I still have a lot more to learn about light and I personally don't think I'd be fulfilled as a photographer if there was a big gap in my skill set.  This gap being the use of photographic lighting.  I think photographers encounter enough restrictions in their line of work without adding a self-imposed one to that list. 


The next model I will be signing up to on this degree course is People and Place and I feel being able to work better with all forms of light will be beneficial for me.  


I have been thinking about steps forward and these are some I could take:

• Focus more on shooting with flash and look for ways in can enhance my photography
• Enrol on a studio lighting course
• Read more literature on the practical side of working with light
• Take some time between this module and the next to dedicate some time solely to working with artificial light
• Do more indoor shoots as opposed to relying on the great outdoors

What I've learnt about flash photography

Flash is a supplementary light, like your very own personal miniature sun, which fills in the detail your camera can't see.  As we know the dynamic range of the camera is much lower than our own eyes' dynamic range.

Where does flash fit in the photographic triangle?
Aperture - a correct flash exposure relies 100% on aperture.  If we dial in the aperture we want the flash will give us the correct flash-to-subject distance scale.  This is the distance the light has to be from the subject in order to get a correct exposure using the aperture you have selected.

Shutter speed - determines how much ambient light appears in the picture usually -2 stops to let enough light through.

ISO - can be increased to make the camera more sensitive to light which will enable you to extend the range of your flash.

You can get weaker light by powering down the flash.  This is helpful when the flash-to-subject distance is not practicable as in macro photography and also when you want a softer light on your subject.

High speed sync
Allows you to select faster shutter speeds.  But there is a trade off as it reduces the power of your flash.

Fill light
You can use your flash as fill light on a bright day as your camera will have problems exposing all the highlights and shadows.  This is particularly useful when shooting outdoor portraits.

Bounce flash
For softer light you can bounce your flash so the light hits the ceiling or a wall and then falls on your subject.  This produces softer light.  If you use a catchlight panel this produces a catch light in the subjects eyes and adds that little sparkle which makes a portrait.

Off camera flash
Taking your flash off the camera allows you to shape the light and get contrasting and interesting shots especially in portrait work.

Rear-Curtain Sync
Cameras focal plane shutters contain 2 curtains. The first opens when you press the shutter release button and the second curtain closes the shutter once the exposure has been recorded.
The flash usually fires when the first curtain is opened at the beginning of the exposure.  Rear-curtain sync is when you set your camera so the flash fires when the second curtain is beginning to close.  This enables you to  capture a longer exposure where motion is involved.


Manual V TTL
TTL works on the premise of sending out a 'pre-flash' an infrared beam that strikes your intended subject and then travels back to your camera telling your camera's computer how much power is needed to create a correct exposure.  This calculation is based on the camera's meter reading and as I found out when re-visiting exposure this reading doesn't always give you the results you want especially when working with blacks and whites.

In saying that TTL is brilliant when you don't have the time to set apertures and workout flash-to-subject distances for example in situations like photographing events and street photography.

I think for the moment I prefer working with manual opting for TTL when the flash is off camera.  However, I am sure that will change once I start using my flash more.

Exercise: Concentrating Light

You can may light fall on just part of a scene and have the surrounds in shadow.  This can be done by using a snoot.  This adds drama to your shot and directs the viewers interest.  


For this exercise I used a home-made snoot which I created using a black piece of card which I then attached to the flash head.  


It took a little time at first to work out where the light was falling and which angles worked best.  Here is my best  picture: