Exercise 2.3: Typologies.

Typologies.

ty-pol-o-gy

The study or systematic classification of types that have characteristics or traits in common.

The above definition seemed a good place to start this exercise. It meant that when I looked at the work of the named photographers I had ready made hooks on which to hang  my immediate thoughts.

Frank Gohlke: Stark. Devastation. Patterns. Bleak.

Robert Adams: Street photographer. Traditional landscapes. Urban landscapes.

Stephen Shore: Pure USA. Finely balanced.  Colour.

Lewis Baltze: Few people. Symmetric or internally balanced. Stark. Strong use of white.

Nicholas Nixon: Faces without context. Families rephotographed.

Bernd & Hilla Becher: Industrial. Repeat patterns. Same lighting. Stark. 

Ed Ruscha: Abandoned gas stations displayed a la Becher. Stark  Signs. Words.

Walker Evans: Cold. Unsympathetic. People within context.

Andreas Gursky: Large scale. Patterns and repeats.  Aerial. 

Paul Graham: Street. Candid urban.

Candida Hofer: Stunning interiors. Balance. Lighting.

Each of these photographers brings something different, and with the exception of Candida Hofer and Andeas Gursky the word that comes up most often is stark. There is a detached feel to many of their pictures.  Even where people appear the photographer  seems rarely in communication or have any connection with them. In the Tate piece Lewis Baltz states that the only people he wants in his photographs are the viewers.  The pictures are unsympathetic to their subject as though the aim is always to show the worst of a scene.  

Their photographs are extremely political, highlighting the impact man has had on his environment and on his fellow man.  The use of monochrome gives then impact but has prematurely dated them.  

They are, without doubt, a  conscious break from the earlier school of landscape that is typified by the likes of Ansel Adams with its large sweeping vistas and open skies.  These are earthy, urban and edgy, getting close to what is now called street photography.  Where the likes oh Michael H. O'Sullivan showed the impact of man upon the New World  these photographers show us the finished product in all its miserable glory. 

Frank Gohlke.

Frank Gohlke's images fit well into this genre.  They are superbly framed and executed with each taken for a purpose.  The subject, be it a tree, silo, house or mountain is usually the only argument in the picture and is placed in the centre.  His horizons vary.  Sometimes high, sometimes low but more often than not, straight through the centre of the shot.  Gohlke's world is one shorn of people and that gives that stark feel to which I alluded above.  His bleak world looks forlorn and abandoned as though any previous inhabitants have given up and moved on.  These scenes are not just temporarily devoid of people, they look as though the people will never return.  

There is one image that includes a figure The picture, AfterMath: The Wichita Falls Tornado of 1979, features a small girl on the pavement surrounded by the total destruction of her town.  The fact that this child is the only person in frame makes the destruction all the more devastating.  Take the girl out of the picture and it's just a wrecked town but have the girl there and it becomes a tragedy.

Exercise 2.2: Explore the road.

Explore the road.

The street I chose to photograph was Deal High Street.  To make me see it in a new way I shot in mono.  This made me look for texture and shape rather than hue and tone.  The day was heavily overcast and raining steadily.  This again suited the choice of mono.  I walked the length of the street trying to ignore the familiar and see it as for the first time.

The first featured image is of a door high up on a garage wall.  The door serves no purpose as it leads out to a drop of some 10 feet.  I like both its dereliction and its uselessness. 

The second is a long closed tobacconists that still has a Senior Service cigarette machine by its door.  The mono treatment gives a feeling of timelessness.  The last time the machine was used a packet of twenty cost 3s 9d.

The third featured image is of a piece of graffiti in an alley leading to St. Georges Church Hall.  Deal is thankfully free of graffiti so this rather tasteful piece stands out.

The last I wish to feature is a view into an alley where one of our many cafes can be seen.  Deal is a maze of such alleys each sheltering its own gem.

Below is the contact sheet showing all the shots.  As I said above I have not gone for the obvious or tourist shot but tried to see my town anew.

Road to Perdition. 2002. Directed by Sam Mendes.

Watching this film again, and not having to worry too much about the story line, allowed me to see how much the roads and streets in this film lead one through the action.

The film opens and closes on a beach scene where Michael Sullivan Jr., the son of the  main character Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks), is narrating the story.  The scene is a blank canvas of pale sand and a calm blue sea.   

The story proper starts with Young Michael on his paper round riding his bike on a snowy road against the heavy pedestrian traffic.  On his return to the store he hands over the unsold papers, pinches a chocolate bar and is paid.  

The family is brought together for the evening meal by two roads, one ridden by Michael Jr. and one driven by Michael Sr.  Neither of the sons, Peter and Michael, know what dad does for a living but Michael gets a hint when he sees his father take a pistol from inside his jacket and place it on the bed.  

At a wake held in a large mansion owned by John Rooney (Paul Newman) it becomes obvious that Michael Sr. is a hit man for the Irish mafia.  

The film comes awake when Michael Jr. sees dad carry out an assassination. He is spotted by dad and another gunman, Connor Rooney (Daniel Craig).  He tries to run off but the road is blocked by large gates.  Not only do these gates bar his escape but also seal the fates of many people.

The Rooneys decide they can’t trust Michael Jr. to keep quiet so Connor visits the Sullivan house.  The two Michaels are out but Connor executes Mrs. Sullivan and Peter.  

The two Michaels are forced to run.  As they drive off the camera settles on Michaels bicycle which is laying, where he left it, in the snow. It stands as a neat metaphor for a life now over and them driving off towards an unknown future.

The decision is made to drive to a town called Perdition where an aunt lives and where young Michael can be safely left.  The straight roads and flat ground over which they drive hint at a mission and a plan.  The passing of a large cemetery hints at what is to follow.

Unfortunately for them a gunman named Harlen Maguire (Jude Law) is aware of the plan and is in pursuit.  He is thwarted at a diner but this alerts Michael Sr. that their plan of going to Perdition is wrecked.  

The long straight road now leads back to town and to action necessary to protect Michael Jr..  It is a U turn in their journey and a U turn in their plans.  The new plan is to kill Connor Rooney.  A rival gang boss, Finn McGovern, refuses to help and even tries to have him killed.  

To force things to a head the two Michaels head out on a bank robbing spree but with the twist they only take money belonging to the gangs.  There is a lovely scene where dad is teaching his son to drive so that he can be the get-a-way driver.  They also obtain papers and books that belonged to John Rooney.  During this raid, which was really an ambush set up by Harlen McGuire, both Michael Sr. and McGuire are injured.  

The next drive is one of desperation with son at the wheel and dad passing out.  Where will this journey take us?  They hide out at a neglected farm house owned by an old childless couple who nurse Michael Sr. back to health.  On leaving they leave the couple a fortune in used notes.

They return to town to finish their business.  As the Rooney clan and minders emerge from an hotel into a rainy street and walk towards their cars a lone gunman opens fire from the streets enclosed end and kills them all, leaving John Rooney till the last.  The closed end of the street standing for the end of a era.  

Connor Rooney is traced to his hotel room and shot in his bath.

The drive to Perdition is now seen as safe and the filming of it reflects this.  Gone is the urgency and the poor weather.  There is now a positive feel to the drive.

On arrival at aunt’s house on the beach at Perdition the story turns again as Maguire, who was laying in wait, shoots Michael Sr. and prepares to take his photograph.  Michael Jr. distracts Maguire long enough for Michael Sr. to draw a gun and kill him.

The last drive is the one Michael Jr. takes back to the farmstead and the old couple where it is assumed they will bring him up.  This marks the end of the journey and this much travelled road. Michael parks the car at the roadside and walks up to the farmstead.

The roads in this film take us on a journey through the story and are used as a lead to the next chapter.  The use of metaphor with the poor weather, the cemetery, the U turns and the dead ends act to hint at what is coming.  The lack of threat in the last drive to Perdition sets us up for the final act and the almost inevitable death of Michael Sr.

Exercise 2.1: Territorial photography.

Territorial photography.

Summary of Joel Snyder’s essay Territorial Photography.

Early photographers were seen by established art critics as mere mechanics who were not capable of interpreting or enhancing a scene but could only reproduce it as it was.  This exclusion from the art scene, and having no way of reproducing their work in sufficient quantities to reach a wider audience, made them band together and exhibit to each other. 

Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, an art critic, said that such inhuman mechanical reproduction could not pass as art.  There was a distinct social divide that grew up between the upper class guardians of what was then understood as art and newly emerging commercial photographers.

This new wave of early photographers were less interested in the established rules of composition and more interested in obtaining the perfect print with fine detail with a broad range of tone and a good finish.
Art was seen as coming from the imagination, while the photograph was seen as fact.  Charles Baudelaire accused photography of poisoning the mind and corrupting art.  Oliver Wendell Holmes took a different view that paintings were but fanciful and photographs were truth.

Photography had by the 1860s been popularised and used to record nature.  These new photographers drifted further from the conventions of landscape painting and concentrated on accuracy and fineness of detail.  Photographers wanted to record the scene as seen and not as interpreted.   However, by removing the “art” from their landscapes they were producing images without a hint of the sublime or feeling of awe and wonder.

The problem was recognised by a San Francisco photographer, Watkins, who, during the 1860s, combined the conventions of the old and new traditions.  With his 24” x 24” negatives, the employment of painter’s traditional techniques and choice of subject, Yosemite Park,  Utah, Nevada and the West Coast he set the standard for the next 40 years. 

Despite the work done by Watkins the critic Holmes still described the photograph as images that anyone standing at that same spot could see.  There was no artistic intervention or interpretation.  

This, so called, limitation of the photograph, the accurate recording of a scene, was used to record the new frontier as North America was opened up.  As well as taking his own pictures Watkins worked for various pioneering companies such as The Californian Geological Society, The Transcontinental Railway, and mining and lumber interests.
The subject matter was often the brutal exploitation of pristine land, but by careful framing, toning, printing and presentation he would produce sublime images that lessened the impact of industry but still include it.  

The world of painting started to take a lead from Watkins’ view of the West and painters such as Albert Bierstadt, William Keith and Thomas Moran were influenced by him.  The criticism that photographers were mere mechanics was turned on its head as they were now praised for the manner in which they employed established landscape techniques to recorded their images.

Watkins seems to have avoided the politics of the time by ignoring the fate of the original inhabitants of this “empty” land but still including the changes that were taking place.     

The first surveys of the USA were carried out by The Army but this changed in 1867 when a twenty one year old geologist named Clarence King was entrusted with carrying out two surveys, one of the 40th. Parallel and another of the 100th. Meridian.  The photographer Timothy H. O’Sullivan joined the party.  O’Sullivan’s images were far more factual and scientific that those of Watkins.  His aim was to record and not interpret what the Survey discovered, however bleak and unforgiving that may appear.  

Ever since these images were taken arguments as whether they are are art or only scientific records have risen.  According to his employers he was engaged to provide “generally descriptive” photographs of the places visited and to “give a sense of the area.”   They were never meant to back up any scientific claims made by the survey.  They largely dropped out of sight until when, in 1939, Ansel Adams found them and sent them to New York’s Museum of Modern Art.  They were seen as prototypical modernist photographic landscapes and as such, have entered into the modernist history of photography.

O’Sullivan’s images show a landscape bereft of man’s influence; empty, sublime and without the enticement of the promised land that was implicit in Watkins’.  Where O’Sullivan has included the human figure it is not as part of the natural landscape but as a means of demonstrating the scale of something within it.  

Watkins showed the promise of riches to come in a land full of opportunity.  O’Sullivan depicted a land as God had left it and where man is not welcome.

Two Photographs.

The first photograph is by Andrew Joseph Russell.  It was taken in 1868 and is titled, "Temporary and permanent bridges and Citadel Rock, Green River."  It was one of a series that Russell took while employed by the Union Pacific Railroad to record their progress as they worked west from the Omaha Nebraska to Promontory Summit where they joined up with the Central Pacific Railroad who had been building out east from  Sacramento.  It' very title hints at a prosaic use and non artistic audience. 

Russell was employed to record the progress made by the railroad and to demonstrate to their current, and any future backers, that there were business opportunities a plenty in this newly opened land.  The most famous of Russell's images is the one of the the meeting of the tracks at Promontory Summit.

The scene depicts the crossing of a wide valley and shows the difficulties encountered by the engineers as they worked through this terrain.  The plain they are crossing leads up to the hills and bluffs in the background where no doubt the track would be blasted through the rock.  The temporary light track is still in place indicating that this is very much a work in progress.  There are hints as to the work that was involved in getting even this track laid with the clear signs of blasting and buttressing. 

The Image manages to portray both the sublime nature of the terrain and the impact that modern man was having on it.  Prior to the arrival of white settlers the land had been occupied by Native Americans who's impact on it was slight.  Their philosophy was to graze off the land and its animals rather that tame the land and farm it.  The white newcomers viewed the land in a very different way and set out to exploit its riches to the full.

This image demonstrates that impact very well with the virgin country to the left and the impact of the newcomers to the right.  The two tracks act like an arrow driving into the distance and future.  

The second is Coast View Number One.  It was taken by Carlton Watkins in 1863 for the California State Geological Society.  

Here we have a view of the Pacific Ocean and a bay that has no evidence of man's influence.  It is a pristine landscape on which those who follow can put their mark. 

As an image it follows some basic rules with an horizon at close to the 1/3 mark, a balance of land masses each side of the central rock and clearly defined fore, middle and back grounds.  

The evidence of a long exposure is to be seen in the milky appearance of the water where movement of the waves has become blurred.  This gives the image a dreamy quality and raises it above the level of pure topography towards that of art.  Here is an image that cold be used both in a geological text book and sold as pleasing landscape.

With its strong central rock feature and mid ground promontories this my have been taken with the intention of use as a stereograph.  The strong contrasts and sharp focus would have leant themselves to the 3D effect.  Watkins produced a series of stereographs  featuring the California coast and this with its rounded top corners and general look appears to be one.  I have tracked down a number of these stereographs but not this one.  

These pictures share a common purpose: to show the folks back East what a land of opportunity awaits them should they wish to move West.  

Assignment one. Beauty and the sublime.

Assignment One.

Beauty and the Sublime.

My original intention was to carry out this assignment in Malta but for reasons stated elsewhere in this blog this was not possible.

Living, as I do, close to the sea I based this Assignment on the seaside as it is now,  in winter, closed and empty.  I didn’t want just empty spaces and beaches devoid of people but to demonstrate the emptiness through that very English seaside feature; the beach hut.  

I varied my approach to demonstrate the various aspects covered from linear perspective to placing a single object in a frame and to having huts reduced to mere patterns.  

The single image in a scene has been a feature in painting and photography since the time landscape painting was recognised as a art form in its own right.  The difficulty was in finding a new way to interpret it.  For the first of these I had a look at Monk by the Beach by C. D. Friedrich.  In this the lone figure is but a small part of the whole, and although muted in tone dominates the scene.  This seemed a good place to start.  At Kingsdown stands a lone beach hut, that although at some time may have been white is now a gentle grey. On the day I took the picture the weather was grey and wet.  The scene has the emptiness and feeling of abandonment that I was aiming for but also the feeling of better times  to come given by the canoe.  The tones in this picture are  muted and and without strong contrasts but the feeling I wanted to get across comes through.

Also at Kingsdown are a line of huts.  I have isolated these three in an attempt to put them in context with the rather wild beach which in turn runs out at the white cliff to the left of shot. 

The next two replace two of my original images that I was not very happy with and my tutor said were weak.  The theme of the empty sea front has been kept.  
Dotted along the sea front at Bexhill-on-Sea are a number of old seaside shelters.  I recorded the following two images one evening. The street lights trailing out behind the first almost gives a sence of motion as it seems to hover in the darkness..  I used the the Diane Diedrich image, Classic American Diner, as my inspiration.

This is the second of the Bexhill shelters.  It shines like a jewel in the night.  I though about getting rid of the lamp-post but have left it in to give balance.

By the beach below Marine Parade Whitstable stands a lone lifeguards hut.  To make it stand out it is painted bright yellow.  I wanted to make this a very small but important item in  a large scene.  I photographed it from low down against the blue sky, and at waist height against the sea.  It wasn’t until I climbed back up the hill towards Marine Parade that I saw the image I wanted.  The small yellow argument balanced by the vastness of the blue sky.  The grass triangle at the bottom left acts as an anchor for the picture.  The path leads the eye from bottom right up to the hut where the groins and the sand bar turn the eye back to the right.  I chose a time when the sun was behind me and hidden behind a hill.  This gave even lighting under a blue sky.  In the summer this beach is packed but here is a feeling of peace and quiet.

While at Whitstable there is an area of beach huts I have photographed before.  I wanted in this picture to render the huts to an abstract shape where the overlapping, multicoloured huts formed a muddled singularity.  There is no single focal point but the various vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines lead one through the image.

This was also taken at Whitstable and has the huts in echelon tumbling down the slope towards the viewer.  There are a number of leads through the picture from the dark base and sloping roofs through to the  darkening colours as the huts recede.

Strengths and weaknesses?  The images I am most pleased with are the two featuring a single object and the abstract.  The rest I am less pleased with but within the limited frame of reference I set myself I am fairly happy with the overall result.  

Exercise 1.9: Visual research and analysis - social contrasts.

Visual research and analysis  - social contrasts.

The South East of England is seen by many as the affluent corner of the UK.  It certainly has its share of wealth but it also has its share of problems.  

With its decline as a holiday resort Margate's small hotels and B & Bs have become a dumping ground for London's problem families and wayward children.  Dover is the first port of call for many who have fled their own country and wish to settle here.  All this puts a strain on this very small corner of the South East and its welfare services.

The first image is of a Roma child brought to this country and dumped.  I know no more of this story but here is a child in desperate need of help who cannot be returned home and must be cared for here.  I dread to think what circumstances would lead a parent to abandon their child in this way.

The second is a more traditional picture of children in Dover.  In school, safe and  enjoying themselves.

The next two deal with the inequality to found in London's west end.  The first is of a lone drinker outside a theatre.  With all the gaiety around him he drinks alone.   No only does he look glum but the flyer advertises Les Miserables.

  

The next is of a street sleeper in what looks like Regents Street.  The contrast between the clothing on show behind him and his clothing could not be starker.

Exercise 1.8: Zone system in practice.

Zone system in practice.

The zone system is one I am aware of and employ.

The modern camera has taken away most the guess work and need for too much bracketing as with the use of spot metering, live histograms and out of gamut displays all the required tools are in place.  These aids are however just that, aids.  The old exposure problems of the black cat in the coal hole or the bride in white against a pale ground still exist but with a little thought and use of the 18% grey card these can be overcome.  The question as to favour the high or low end of the exposure range is choice still to made according the subject and the intended result.

I had intended to spend Christmas week in Malta where as well as spending leisure with my family I was hoping to take the images for Assignment 1 on the theme of Malta's repeated invasion and occupation.  Thanks to the rain, Easy Jet and the idiot who built the North Terminals electrical sub-station next to the River Mole I was three days late in flying out.  I quickly realised I was never going to complete the task I set myself.  

The trip was not a complete photographic  wash out as I was able to take a number of high dynamic range images that I have used here.

The first is of rough seas hitting dark rocks that produced a fine mist that rose up the slope of the land.  The clouds reflected off the sea giving very bright highlights.  The histogram for this image very high at each edge with almost no reading in the centre range.

The second was taken at Golden Bay, previously called Military Bay, and features building dating back to Britain's military presence on the island.  I have managed to keep both ends of the exposure range within gamut by taking my reading from the darker building at the and of the main building.  A C.P. filter darkened the sky to add more contrast to the image.  All just within range.

I took the third from inside one of the old officers houses looking out through the broken window on to a British forces chapel.  The problem was to not burn out the exterior part of the image and yet still give sufficient exposure to retain some interior detail.  The sky shows slight burn out but retains sufficient detail.  My base reading for this image was the green shutter outside the window.  I checked the results on the display histogram. 

These pictures are always a challenge but with a little thought and planning good results are possible.   

Exercise 1.7: Assignment preparation.

Exercise 1.7: Assignment preparation.

I have looked at three sites that I thought suitable for the final assignment.  

The first was a garden, and former cemetery, at the rear of St Georges Church in Deal.   It is an enclosed area with many and varied trees.  Its appearance will change through the year but I am not convinced the changes will be sufficiently dramatic to support the assignment.

The second was the view back from Deal Pier towards the town.  After pursuing this for a few weeks I realised that the little was likely to change.

The third is the view of the cliffs and foreshore south from Kingsdown looking towards Dover.  I have taken some some preliminary shots and think this is the strongest candidate.

I will continue with all three until I make a final decision.