Exercise 3.4: A persuasive image.

A persuasive image.

The advertising of cars has from the very beginning been both beguiling and dishonest.  They try to convince the potential buyer that this product is the best, the most coveted and sexiest car in the whole world and that the ownership of it will bestow special status and, possibly, mystical powers.   What is not mentioned is the nose diving depreciation on a new car; the fact it was likely built in a factory riven by disputes and poor management practice, or that due to the likely poor reliability the free AA membership is not just a option but a necessity.  

This is amply illustrated by the first of my examples, an advert from the 1990s for a Range Rover.

The car is parked in a rugged landscape which appears to be the USA with oil drilling towers on a distant plain.  The caption hints at the driver of this vehicle owning the oil field.  This car can only be enjoyed by men who have made a success of their lives.  Men in charge.  Men in control.

If the image were a true one then the owner of the car is broke.  The drilling towers have no additional machinery and there is no sign of either pumping or piping.  This is the site of an abandoned oil field.  It is more likely the the poor man has driven out to this desolate place to shoot himself.  

The landscape looks like a composite of an English landfill, a mismatched mid ground section, added background mountains and some clumsily drawn and out of perspective oil derricks. 

The next is a VW advert with a Andalusian like landscape.  The car is as hard and sharp as the surrounding hill sides, the handling equal to the winding road with the driver looking cool and mysterious behind the smoked glass.  

The landscape in the image works well and conveys its message, this is a car made for adventure and excitement.  

On the critical side the photography is less than perfect.  The shadows are all over the place, falling in one direction off the white road marker and in another off the car.  The cloudy sky seems to have the sun illuminating it from a point behind the hill so the presence of any shadow is a bit of a mystery.  The reflection in the side of the car bear only a passing similarity to what is there.  There is a certain randomness to the blurring of the scenery with a lot to the right and little to the left.   

At first glance the image is a good one and I doubt that anyone who was swayed by it and bought the car even noticed the errors.

The last one is of a different order with what looks like real a landscape doctored to add a message about the car.  The image is of an anonymous salt flat, which itself is a metaphor for speed, with two twisters approaching from the mountainous region at the back.  The addition of the twisters adds a feeling of threat and danger and also alludes to the twin turbo chargers with which this, already powerful car, is fitted.  The low angle works well giving the car a feeling of superiority, presence and masculinity.  This image is about latency and the promise of what will be available when you turn the key.  

Car adverts are all about image as most buyers are little interested in much else but this, the colour, a decent warrantee and the price.  How else are cars to be sold except by their image? 

Exercise 3.3: Late photography.

Late photography.

• It was obvious since the earliest days of photography that it was an ideal medium for reporting news, especially from far of places about which the public knew little.  The long exposures and bulky equipment meant that action shots were out of the question so images from those times were either staged or records of earlier action.  It was in fact the earliest late photography.
• With the arrival of smaller cameras and faster films it became possible to photograph action as it happened and the still image became the standard method of making a visual record of moving events, be they war, celebration or murder.  This situation appertained until the movie camera, and later the video camera, improved sufficiently to be usable in similar situations.  The public’s appetite for movie news became insatiable.  
• Many still pictures were being taken from film or video footage.  The still camera had to find a new role and that role was reflection.  The take pictures, not of the events as they occurred but, of the effects of that action.  How debris of war, the injuries left by violence and the aid, or lack of it, that followed.  To allow the viewer time to reflect on what had occurred rather that watch it occurring and then moving on to the next news item and the weather.
• This use of the still image is a throw back to the earliest days of war photography but here as an alternative to the action shots of the video camera.  A still image allows the viewer to dwell on its detail and take in the true horror of an event rather that watch the event and miss the detail.
• The work done by Joel Meyerowitz at Ground Zero is a case in point.  Anyone with access to a television or computer cold watch the horror of the event unfolding in front of them recording of the first strike to the live footage of the collapses.  Meyerowitz took an unwieldy plate camera to the scene of devastation and recorded the results.  He recorded the destruction, the rescue workers, the demolition crews and the machinery sent in to clear the site.  These images allow one to view the detail of the event and perhaps savour the feelings of the men working there.  The reflective nature of these images allowed them to be used in a television programme instead of video footage.  The suggestion is that the still image makes a better historical record that the moving image.  
• Late photography is not there to record the live event but is an ideal way of showing haw people have reacted to it and their feelings about it.  When looking at Joel Meyerowitz’s late photographs of Ground Zero one has time to contemplate the true horror of that day, to spend time thinking about the 2,996 fatalities and 6.000+ injuries, to wonder about how anyone could contemplate carrying out such an outrage.

In 2001 I was a driving instructor.  At 3.30 pm on 11th. September I went to collect a pupil, Amelia Lewis, from her home address.  Amelia was normally a happy and bubbly girl but on this day she was upset as she had just watched the first footage of the Twin Tower attack.   There was no way we could carry on with the lesson until she had talked it out.  During lesson breaks I listened to radio reports as the disaster developed but my first opportunity to see the event was in the evening when I finished work. 

I watched the first impact in total disbelief and then turned off the TV.  That view acted to verify what seemed too much of a nightmare to be real.   Having seen the first impact I didn’t need nor wish to see any more.   To watch any more seemed like a validation of the hijackers actions.  The following day the morning papers were, predictably, full of pictures of the impact, the collapse, the bodies of the jumpers, the ash cloud and the brave but hugely overwhelmed firefighters and policemen.   

Again I looked these pictures with a feeling of disbelief, still not really understanding how this could have happened.  The most sickening of all the pictures were those of cheering Palestinians and jubilant North Africans celebrating their martyrs deaths.   To dwell on these images again seemed to endorse the actions of those who were celebrating.  

It was only when late photographs started to emerge that I was able look with any detached feeling at the site of Ground Zero.  The true horror of the event was unveiled in the skeleton of the towers and the faces of the workmen.  One didn’t need to see the bodies to know what was buried in the rubble.  One didn’t need to be there to imagine the smell of decay or the sound collapse.  By looking at these late images I was able to see a more complete picture and view the scene with a feeling of reflection and detachment.

Exercise 3.2:Postcard views.

Postcard views.

Not having received a post card in about 20 years I went out and bought 6 from a local shop.  They all feature local views but fall in to three distinct categories: historic, realistic and enhanced.

The picture on the first card appears to be from the early part of the last century and shows a view that has hardly changed and is still popular with photographers today, namely looking north from the pier.   It shows the seaside town of Deal at play with folk messing about in boats and ladies under parasols.  A typical wish you were here postcard that buyers are now more likely to keep.   A hand tinted black and white image. 

The second is of a reproduction of a British Railway poster advertising the delights  of Deal.  It is a simplified and stylised view and is typical of the art work of the late 1940s and 1950s.  This is another novelty item that buyers are more likely to keep than to post

The third is a photograph of fishing boats on Deal beach.  This is a fairly recent image as I recognise the three featured boats as ones that are still in use.  A snapshot of Deal that is designed to be posted. 

The last three were taken by a local photographer/shopkeeper by the name of Ralph Greencade and enhanced to give the appearance of paintings.  They each feature a list building and are again more likely to be kept than posted.  I think Ralph would like visitors  will go out and find the buildings for themselves.

The last four are from a large book of postcards that my wife’s grand father collected on his way from India to the UK prior to WWI.  They cover his journey through the Middle East, the Holy Land and on through Greece and Italy.  They consist mainly of monochrome and and tinted photographs.  The subjects range from vistas and ruins to the local people and their animals.  As it is highly unlikely that he could afford a camera so these were bought as mementoes of his trip and were never posted.

Response to Graham Clarke’s comments.

As soon as a camera is placed between the scene and the viewer the viewer has disconnected himself from it, in that rather than judging the scene for himself and accepting it for what it is he is now planning for the image that will be seen by a future viewer.  He is thinking about how the image, and not the view, will be seen and judged.  Even with modern equipment the photographer must think about how the image is to be recorded: the framing, the balance of the elements within that frame, the depth of field, the exposure, and any message he wishes the viewer to receive.   The photographer’s manipulation of the scene as he records it separate him from it.  He can no longer see the image without a frame or a message until he has finished the task of recording it.

The modern exception to this is the selfie where the photographer puts himself in the picture.  This movement has given rise to the Selfie Olympics where, mainly young men, place themselves in dangerous situations, take a selfie and post the result.  This has resulted in fantastic images of people perched on high towers with whole cities stretched out below but has also led to some unfortunate falls.

After the work is finished and the image is taken it is still nice to relax and view the scene for what is and just admire it.  

Exercise 3.1: Reflecting on the picturesque.

Reflecting on the picturesque.

The essay shown in the reading has been removed.

I used instead a piece on the picturesque by William Gilpin.

After looking up a couple of definitions of picturesque:

dictionary.reference.com/browse/picturesque‎

Picturesque definition, visually charming or quaint, as if resembling or suitable for a painting: a picturesque fishing village. 

Merriom Webster

pic·tur·esque adjective \ˌpik-chə-ˈresk\

: very pretty or charming : like a painted picture: telling about something in a way that makes it very easy to imagine : causing someone to have a very clear mental picture of something.

These definitions also tell us what picturesque images are not.  They are not frightening,  sublime or awe inspiring.  They are not political or too thought provoking.  They do not challenge or threaten nor should they be too maudlin or sweet.

In 1770 William Gilpin instructed England's leisured travelers to examine "the face of a country by the rules of picturesque beauty".   What he seems to be saying is that the picturesque sits midway between the beautiful and the sublime. A picturesque image should invite you in, to have you wish you were there.  The picturesque focuses on the pictorial balance of a scene and show nature in harmony with man.

Enter “picturesque painting” into a search engine and the screen is full of images of perfect landscapes populated by very few animals and even fewer people.  every stream cuts a perfect line and no feature appears out of place.  

Repeat this exercise for photographs and one is confronted with images of mostly wild country that still looks safe and welcoming.  Gone are the wild storms of Ansel Adams’ Yosemite Park to be replaced by fluffy clouds in azure skies.  

The picturesque scene is one that the viewer would be glad to visit and be a part of, unlike the more menacing sublime image which should tingle the spine and make the viewer fearful.

When I take picturesque images I try to have the picture exude tranquility, stillness and calm.  To give the viewer feel that this is a restful place, a place of reflection and peace.  The subject is immaterial, it is the feeling that it exudes that is important.

Assignment Two: The journey.

Assignment Two: The journey.

From Deal to Sandwich via Golf Road and Guilford Road. Abandoned.

The area over which these roads pass was sea until about 1000 years ago and was formed by the silt deposited by the River Stour.  It is protected from invasion by the sea by a dyke that runs from Deal in the south to the river estuary in the north.  Because it is flat and low it is very prone to flooding, which the present weather is demonstrating.  The only permanent buildings are a few farms, a bird observatory, a pub/restaurant, the Cinque Ports Golf Club, the private Sandwich Bay Estate, and a toll gate and booth.

As the land consists mainly of sand and is liable to flood it is given over to a mixture of grazing and golf.   Much of it is too wet for farming or recreation and is left as a wetland reserve.  

My transport will be a bicycle and my camera a Canon G1X.  I can’t do a Richard Long and just follow a line but taking his work as a starting point I will take only those images that are available from the road.  

My aim is to show current land use and evidence of former use.  There are in fact three routes that form this route which join up and then separate at various points: a footpath which is a new addition, The Ancient Highway which is the oldest and the road itself which forms part of the National Cycle Route 1.  

First dry afternoon for a while saw me out on my bike taking photographs.  Even while I was out I realised that this exercise was not working.  There was nothing to guide me but the scenes on offer.  I found myself seeking for the obvious and not that which described the journey.  There was not direction and nothing to guide me.  I was just looking for the pretty or interesting.  

Below are a few of the 102 images I recorded.  These are not submitted as part of the exercise but as 

illustrations of what was wrong.

 A journey.

From home to The Albert.

Having abandoned the concept of a ride across the floods I went back to the drawing board.  

What I needed was some discipline and purpose: some reason for taking the images.  I looked for inspiration from what others had done.  Throwing a stone and taking a photograph from the point where it lands or walk a straight line on a map like Richard Long: not very practical in Deal.  Take a walk round Britain and shoot every 50 miles as done by Kate Mellor in Island (1997): too long.  From these concepts, however, I formed the idea of taking pictures at regular time intervals along a given route.  I needed a system of randomising the shots.

My first plan was to use stills from the camera in my car.  The camera records continuously and stores the recordings in three minute slices.  Take the first still of each new three minute slice and I have my random shots.  The idea is OK but when I looked at the quality of the images I was forced to think again.  I liked the idea of the fixed time shot taken on a given route, so adapted it to suit a walk round Deal.  The three minute interval seemed good as it would ensure a change of scenery for each shot.  The route was one that took me from home, down through the High Street to Deal Castle and returning via Beach Street.  I estimated that the taking of the images, plus the three minute intervals, should take about one hour.  The choice of shot would be left to the timer on my phone: the antithesis of Cartier-Bresson's decisive moment.

By employing the 7-14mm lens on my Olympus E3 set on its widest setting (equivalent to about 14mm on a full size sensor)  I was ensuring that each image would give the widest general view and remove the choice I had of framing or selection of subject. I was planning that the resulting images would be both random and illuminating: showing Deal for what it is and not the series of chocolate box pictures that are normally presented.  Not quite the Edgelands of Deal but certainly the Deal as seen every day by its inhabitants rather than the one sold to tourists.

Map of walk showing the stopping places.

0 Minutes.  View from front door.

3 minutes.  

6 minutes.

9 minutes.

12 minutes.

15 minutes.

18 minutes.

21 minutes.

24 Minutes.

27 minutes.

30 minutes.

33 minutes.

I found this to be an interesting assignment as it gave me the choice of subject but not the choice of how to present it.  On a normal walk round Deal with my camera I would be looking for the picturesque, the unusual or the amusing.  On this walk I past Deal Castle, the fishing boats, the Time Tower and many other worthy, and much photographed features, but was not able to photograph them because of the restraints I had placed upon myself.  The only image I cold be certain of was the one taken as I left my house, the rest were decided by the timer on my phone.

On this first such exercise I limited myself to what was in front of me.  I achieved roughly what I set out to achieve which was a view of my town as we see it every day and not as seen by tourists.  One thing I will try when I try this again will be to use the timer as before but perhaps give myself more freedom as to the subject by not limiting myself to only that which is front of me but looking round from the spot where the timer has stopped me and seeking out the best shot.  

I will be taking other walks round other towns and will most certainly use the same wide lens and the interval of three minutes.  I also intend to use my car mounted camera for a similar exercise.  Perhaps a circuit of the M25 or a run across the Romney Marshes and Dungerness.

The work of Richard Long and Kate Mellor were major influences on how I have tackled this assignment.  I believe I have adapted their approach to the urban environment quite well.

I cannot comment on why I chose certain views as they were imposed on me by the constraints I imposed and were therefore self selecting.
 

Exercise 2.6: Edgelands.

Edgelands.

Comments on the essays Wire and Power from Edgelands, Journeys into England's True Wilderness.

Thoughts on Wire.

• Close to where I live in Deal is the Cinque Ports Golf Club.  It is a typical links course with the sea running down one side and open country on the other.  On the sea side runs the Saxon Shore Way footpath and on the other a public road which, this being a very rural area, is used almost exclusively by drivers and cyclists.  For part of its road side boundary the course is delineated by a water filled ditch  and a newly erected fence.  On the footpath side there is no barrier or fence of any kind and walkers are, should they wish, free to walk onto the greens and fairways.  The thought seems to be cars ‘bad’ and must be fenced off, even it there is no chance that they will or would ever trespass on the course, but at the same time walkers ‘good’ and can be trusted not to trespass.  

• Some fences are known to those to whom they are important: a post code to an inner city gang, a stretch of street for a prostitute or working patch for a beggar.  To the outside they are totally invisible but to insiders to trespass can bring on pain or death.

• I thought the radar domes at Fylingdales were the USSR’s primary target but lets not spoil a good story.  The presence of Greenham Common, and many other bases, broke the USSR, and that means I am not speaking Russian and am free to read and think pretty much what I wish.  Despite the distraction of the peace camps and their attacks on the fence this base, and others, stayed long enough to see the threat from the USSR collapse.  The demolition of many walls and the tearing up of miles of razor wire in Easter Europe was as a result of these fences remaining firm and the people behind them doing their work.

• It is not only disused military areas that contain a wide variety of wild life.   The  mlitary training areas at Bagshot Common and Salisbury Plain are a haven to many species that are left undisturbed and happily live with the army.  The fact that the public is excluded is a godsend. 

• In Cologne the chain link fence across the rail/pedestrian bridge over the Rhine is adorned with so many love tokens in the shape of engraved padlocks that the structure of the fence is hardly visible.  Even fences with the most mundane uses can have a fun and romantic use.

Thoughts on Power.

• I was working in Croydon in the 1980s and 90s and watched the closing, and final demolition, of Croydon B Power Station.  The removal of the furnaces, boilers and turbines left a debris filled space that became variously a film set, a place to burn out stolen cars and a vast perilous playground.  The dropping of the cooling towers was left till last and I was on hand to record it.  After the charges went off there was a pause before they started to fold in on themselves, toppling like giant beasts.  There was no cheering or shouting as the towers came down, just a feeling of loss.  There had been moves to try and preserve them but once not in use they started to deteriorate and would eventually have become dangerous and fallen on their own.  The two chimneys stand to this day and mark the site of IKEA.   

• I moved to Deal just over two years ago, just in time to see the chimney and cooling towers of the Richborough Power Station dropped.  Again there was a movement to save them.  It failed and the sound of the explosion that destroyed them could be heard over 10 miles away.  Although most people realised that this had to happen there was still a feeling of loss.  Strange how something as utilitarian as a cooling tower can bring on such feelings.

• I recently visited the Kempton Steam Museum west of London.   Up until 1980 the pumping of London’s water was entrusted to two triple expansion Worthington and Simpson steam engines that had been installed in 1928 and had run continuously throughout that time.  You could put your ear to any mains pressure water pipe in London and hear the beat of these mighty 62 ft tall engines.   After their decommission a preservation group was formed with the intention of having at least one of these engines running again.  In 2002 the first one was up and running, albeit not under load.  The main control valve for all this might and power is a hand wheel no bigger than  a saucer.  The gauges, valves and general appearance would not look wrong as a set for a remake of Brave New World.  As with the power workers in the Power essay the operators of these engines were alert to changes in pressure that would signal a burst main or sudden increase in demand.   

• How strange it is that men object to the new and unknown: railways, power stations, road, wind farms and airports but at the same time attempt to preserve the old and now cherished: steam locos and once closed lines, stationary engines and chimneys, ancient highways, windmills and vintage aircraft along with the WII airfields from which they fly.

• So where are the Edgelands?  There are certainly not where I once remember them.  They move with the ideas of acceptance and use, from new and unloved to old and cherished.

Exercise 2:5: Text in art.

    Text in art.

The journey below is one I took from Walmer Castle to Sandown Castle following the cycle route along the sea promenade in the rain.  During the walk I encountered three castles.  Walmer Castle is the most impressive and the home of The Warden of the Cinque Ports.  Deal Castle is near original and as built by Henry VIII.  What was left of Sandown Castle was demolished 1983 after heavy seas breached the outer walls.  I had demonstrated their status by the use of font size and word presentation.  

                                                                                                                               SANDOWNCASTLE     

                                                                                                                                                                                                            C                              R M

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          E      

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     H            A

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 S 

                                                                                                                                                                                                             Y          F I                       N

                                                                                                                                                                                                             C

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         D        A     L    P   I      R       CAFE

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             E                          E    

                                   W                                                                                                                                                                     L        

                                 I      I                                                                                                           

                               N   R   N       

                             D            D

                                     A                                                                                                                                                                     E                BEACH

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        FISHING

                                      I                                                                                                                                                                                              FLEET

                                                                                                                                                      DEAL                                      T                                                                                                                                                              

                                      N                                                                                                          CASTLE

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      BEA

                                                                                                                                                                                                              R     CH

                                                                             

                                                                                                                                                                                                                     HU

                                                                                                                                                                                                               A   TS

                                                                                                      AN                               

                                                                      B  . . . . D                                                         C

                                                                      S . . . . . D

                                                                         TAN

                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                           LIFEBOAT                                                            K

            

                                                                                                                          CAFE

                                                                                  WALMER               N      O      N      .

                                                                              C A S T L E       C    A