Ben's Blog

Exercise 3.2

Nikki S. Lee is a Korean born American (B1970) Best known for her chameleon like identity shifting images of photographs of American subculture. Where she infiltrates these cultures and gets passers by to take her photograph on a disposable camera.

Her self portraits are reminiscent of photographer Cindy Sherman. Dressed and made up in different outfits, Lee posed herself as a punk, Hispanic woman, or black hip-hop star. Lee’s work comes across as voyeuristic, I get the impression she has viewed these groups of people from afar, wanting to engage but not knowing how. The set does not come across as exploitative if anything I believe the transitions of Lee into the characters is more of an homage than any form of disrespect. I think it is more of a statement of her own cultural identity than that of others.

Exercise 3.1

In this exercise we are looking at self portraits, Self portraits, have, historically, been a personal look at an artist. In a world where the self portrait has become diluted and devoid of meaning. Looking at the work of these artists, they are bringing back a sense of individuality and authenticity to the self portrait.

With Brotherus, the images are tightly composed with good lighting, some indoors and some on location. I admired the technical skills in the outside photos, the feeling of stillness of the body against the enhanced movement of the water made me feel the world moves around you at speed, even when you feel you are standing still.

A lot of the images were reflected in a mirror or reflective surface, not only does this frame the image within the frame, it adds to the sense of personal reflection in the self portraits. The face is often obscured by the artist or the reflection, a kind of showing and hiding at the same time. This extra level of distortion generates a feeling of detachment of being just out of reach.

In her book Artist and model, she goes on to explain, “I want to see” Brotherus says, explaining how her work is a kind of game of hide and seek, showing and not showing. She explains how she does not like smiles in photographs, and why she likes the repetition of certain themes, such as reflections and bathing. Brotherus also talks about how she stages herself as a model, creating images that are personal, yet deliberately open for the observer’s projections. How she is revealing and hiding at the same time, how the photos reflect stages in her life, but how at the same time she is “making things into objects”. What we see is after all not reality, but “just a photo”.

Although nude art work is nothing new, the nakedness adds to the whole stripped back atmosphere and minimises distractions. The sense of the exploration of self, is enhanced by the minimalism of the rooms. The fact that Brotherus called this set Model 1-2 etc. Leads us further into the performances rather than how the photographer is actually feeling. Brotherus tends to use herself almost as a material to be used in art, as a sculptor would use clay or stone. In contrast, Gillian Wearings work “Masks” she actually cast herself in clay to create the base of the mask’s she is making, using part of herself as a base for the artwork. This series “Masks” should be applauded, from its creativity, to its concept, aesthetic, execution and commitment. Every part of the project is art, from the sculptures of family faces, to the cast of her own face. Even the rebuilding of the environments the original photos were taken.

Some might say, self portrait’s may come off as narcissistic. I really don’t get the feeling of narcissism from these sets of images. There is a greater feeling of introspection from the photographers and could not be further from the vacuous flood of narcissistic selfies that we are bombarded with every day. Gillians Wearing’s work deserves a special mention. This series “Masks” blew me away, from its creativity, to its concept, aesthetic, execution and commitment. Every part of the project is art, from the sculptures of family faces, to the cast of her own face. Even the rebuilding of the environments the original photos were taken.

This set of images has the impressive quality of making you question what is reality, whilst maintaining a distinctive authenticity and at the same time being completely staged.

On the surface, these artists are very introspective. They’re using the medium of photography as a deep personal examination of themselves, one, they may not be able to put into words. This delve into personal problems may seem completely idiosyncratic. I believe, we are all aware, that, a lot of what affects us personally, are wider global issues. I feel that these issues cannot help but be expressed in the images that are created. The disconnection of society, the anxieties of modern living or the taboo of discussing infertility. These are wider issues, but also personal to the individuals and do not think the two can be effectively separated from the art that is produced.

Assignment Two

After deliberating over the “Photographing the Unseen” and “using props”, I choose the Props project, more specifically the “White Shirt” option.

I wanted to create a cohesive narrative, a story of a “White Shirt” on a daily journey from washing machine back to wash basket and whatever happens in between. On reflection this didn’t match the narrative of the research I was carrying out. I also created a set of images of World leaders, all wearing white shirts, although this set of images were more interesting than the other, it was too oblique an angle to deliver the white shirt brief. I delve deeper into this in my learning log. Once I had chosen this project I wanted to develop images whilst reflecting on the term “White Collar” worker and how we categorise society into groups depending on the colour of their collar.

Once I had chosen the Shirt project I created a storyboard to help me transfer the narrative that was in my head in to a cohesive set of images. The idea was to show the White-collar workers with a link between in each image. I wanted the set to be a mixture people at work shots and self-portraits, whilst maintaining a cohesive narrative in line with the research I carried out

Images for White Shirt Project Assignment 2

During the shooting of these images I researched the term “White Collar” What is now a commonly used phrase. The term “White Collar” can be traced back to the 1930’s by Pulitzer Prize winning author Upton Beall Sinclair Junior to around 1935. It has since become a symbol of education and status over most other workers. There are numerous collar colours, from Blue (Manual Labour) to Gold (Highly specialized knowledge) even Scarlett Collar for Sex Trade workers. It is another Pidgeon hole for society to be categorised. Even using white as the colour creates thoughts of purity, thoughts of wedding dresses and doctors’ coats add to the stigma attached to simple garments.

In his series High Fashion photographer Pawel Jaszczuk, who, between 2010-2018, took a series of photos documenting Japanese business men sleeping where they drop, after working sixty-hour weeks. He delves into some of the same theories of labelling, “is it really his excess or theirs? We should hate those men in their everywhere offices, but that is an effort often beyond us. So, we ask of this man asleep in the street, his real label and it is given unconsciously. And sometimes we also fall, our desires and damaged souls exposed, when we too grow tired of their control.” (Jaszczuk, 2018)

High Fashion photographer Pawel Jaszczuk
High Fashion photographer Pawel Jaszczuk
High Fashion photographer Pawel Jaszczuk
High Fashion photographer Pawel Jaszczuk
High Fashion photographer Pawel Jaszczuk
High Fashion photographer Pawel Jaszczuk
High Fashion photographer Pawel Jaszczuk
High Fashion photographer Pawel Jaszczuk

In this collection, salaryman the men, wearing predominantly white shirts, my thoughts went to my job, working for the Prime Minister, I have done my fair share of 60-hour weeks. This working pattern is not sustainable for any serious amount of time. This seems to be the fallout of events in an ultra-capitalistic environment that, in this case, Japan has created.

In a recent article for Vice website, Jaszczuk goes on to say, “I want to shake my viewer. I want to provoke them to think more about what was going on in society.” Something has to give, people’s mental and physical health has to be considered. “Do we really want to end up like this? Are we just being used?” (Woods, 2019) Since this project, Japan has brought in some “Work Style Reform Law.” It may be heading in the right direction, but are we as a society?

Assignment 2 Reflection

The brief for Assignment two seems simple at first glance, choose a prop and create a set of images relating to it. Once i’d chosen the “White Shirt” category I originally started to storyboard an idea of “a day in the life of a white shirt”, from washing machine to wash basket and all that happens in between. So I shot the series and was fairly happy with the images, the set were a fairly cohesive set that told a story.

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson Visits Ridge Ward at Watford General Hospital

I was fairly happy with the end results, the images worked as a standalone set but I didn’t feel it matched the narrative of the research I had been doing into “White Collar” workers.

During this project, I was in the USA visiting the United Nations with work and during the course of the three day visit I captured images of bi lateral meetings between world leaders. With the white shirt project on my mind i realised that a high percentage of the leaders were wearing white shirts. I put together a collection of images highlighting the point, this tied in with my research with the white collar representing power and success.

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson Attends the United Nations General Assembly in New York 2019

Although this set, is a more interesting set, than the first, it is less cohesive and the narrative is not so apparent. On first look the viewer would be questioning wether it was about World Leaders, Europe, Brexit, United Nations, You could probably look at these images all day and not get to the fact they’re all wearing white shirts, it’s just too oblique.

So back to the drawing board for the third iteration of this project. I have been trying to find the balance between these two projects. One that has a coherent narrative like the first with a more interesting story, with some of the punch of the second set with the storyline more apparent.

I took some more pictures of people wearing white shirts and the jobs they have and how this is perceived. I came up with this set after chatting with my tutor. I’m still undecided as to which set to go with and this is probably a series I will have to revisit again to be completely happy.

Assignment 2 Contact Sheet

Here are the contact sheets for Assignment 2

Exercise 2.5

Photographing the Unseen

Each of these projects have their own merits, from the atmosphere of the “Ring Road” to the Narrative of Peter Mansell’s work and the fond reminiscence of Memories of Childhood.

At first look I thought I would gravitate towards Peter Mansell’s work “Check Up” Having had two lots of back surgery myself, I found myself empathising with Mansell and his struggles. My mind wandering to “what if questions”, his brave, personal introspective set of images were a good example of the relay method with the narrative and the images, amounting to more than the sum of the photographs themselves. Peter’s skill at articulating reality shines through.

In the end it was Jodie Taylor’s project “Memories of Childhood” that really resonated with me. This reminiscent stroll into her past childhood haunts, is, to me, what I look for in photography. Anything that has the aim to stir genuine emotion and succeed, is a triumph.

What Taylor manages to do in this set, is to light the spark of nostalgia that sends you tumbling down memory lane. The framework of the images gives us the opportunity to examine and discuss these memories, good or bad. Our childhood memories still shape us and still make you feel something. Maybe it’s the longing for “simpler times” or a “look how far we’ve come” or even thoughts to the future on how our kids will act or behave.

I enjoyed the austere authenticity of the presentation of the images. The 6 x 4 prints in a cheap photo album, that people of a certain age will remember also chimes another set of memories, these albums were one of the only formats our own memories were presented to us. I think we all have an album like this lurking in a cupboard at home.

Anything that can conjure this kind of wistful sentiment makes us think, that is why this set resonates more with me than the others. The fact you can project so much emotional content on to these kinds of images, negative or positive, is testament to the strength of them. I do not see this as a loss of authorial control but an extension to the authorial power of the images.

Exercise 2.4

Choose a poem that resonates with you then interpret it through photographs. Don’t attempt to describe the poem but instead give a sense of the feeling of the poem and the essence it exudes.

I Am Unique

I come with no wrapping or pretty pink bows.
I am who I am, from my head to my toes.
I tend to get loud when speaking my mind.
Even a little crazy some of the time.

By S Raine

I choose this poem as i am in the 98 percentile in more than a few charts, that meaning, less than two percent of the planet’s population have red hair, one percent of the population have green eyes and less than two percent are over 188cm tall. What makes us individual? our temperament, attitude, thoughts, beliefs, behaviour, and character. Your personality is very unique, and it is what other people see when they interact with you. The way people communicate reflects their thoughts, beliefs, and personality.

If I was to do this exercise again, i think i would use more images and multiple people to show off peoples individuality.

Exercise 2.3 Take Care of Yourself

When Sophie Calle’s boyfriend wrote her a breakup letter by email, little did he know, it would be inspiration for her 2009 exhibition “Take Care of Yourself”.

“Take Care of Yourself” 2009 is a retrospective of her work from the 1980’s to the present. The work mainly concentrates on the break up letter she received from a lover. Once Calle collected herself, she consulted 107 different professional women, all experts in their particular field, to examine and extract notions from the text and respond to them by using their own personal skills.

It would be amiss to write about this project without first reading a translation of the now infamous letter, sent by the man we shall refer to as X. Calle goes on to say

“received an email telling me it was over.

I didn’t know how to respond.

It was almost as if it hadn’t been meant for me.

It ended with the words, “Take care of yourself.”

And so I did.

I asked 107 women (including two made from wood and one with feathers),

chosen for their profession or skills, to interpret this letter.

To analyze it, comment on it, dance it, sing it.

Dissect it. Exhaust it. Understand it for me.

Answer for me.

It was a way of taking the time to break up.

A way of taking care of myself.

Sophie,”

I have been meaning to write and reply to your last email for a while. At the same time,

I thought it would be better to talk to you and tell you what I have to say outloud.

Still, at least it will be written.

As you have noticed, I have not been quite right recently. As if I no longer recognized myself in my own existence. A terrible feeling of anxiety, which I cannot really fight, other than keeping on going to try and overtake it, as I have always done. When we met, you laid down one condition: not to become the “fourth”. I stood by that promise: it has been months now since I have seen the “others,”because i obviously could find no way of seeing them without making you one of them.

I thought that would be enough, I thought that loving you and your love would be enough so that this anxiety – which constantly drives me to look further afield and which meens that I will never feel quiet and at rest or probably even just happy or “generous”- would be calmed when I was with you, with the certainty that the love you have for me was the best for me, the best I have ever had , you know that. I thought that my writing would be a remedy, that my “disquiet” would dissolve into it so that i could find you. But no. Infact it even became worse, I cannot even tell you the sort of state I feel I am in. so I started calling the “others” again this week.

And i know what that means to me and the cycle that it will drag me into.

I have never lied to you and I do not intend to start lying now.

There was another rule that you laid down at the beginning of our affair: the day we

stopped being lovers you would no longer be able to envisage seeing me. You know this

constraint can only ever strike me as disastrous, and unjust (when you still see B. and K. …)

and understandable (obviously…); so I can never become your friend.

But now you can gauge how significant my decision is from the fact that I am prepared to bend to your will, even though there are so many things – not seeing you or talking to you or catching the way you look at people and things, and your gentleness towards me – that I will miss terribly.

Whatever happens, remember that I will always love you in the same way, my own way, that I have ever since I first met you; that it will carry on within me and, I am sure, will never die.

But it would be the worst kind of masquerade to prolong a situation now when you know as well as I do; it has become irreparable by the standards of the very love I have for you and

you have for me a love which is now forcing me to be so frank with you, as final proof of what

happened between us and will always be unique.

I would have liked things to have turned out differently.

Take care of yourself. (yourself., 2007.)

Much like Bryony Campbells “The Dad Project” which we touched on earlier in this course, Calle takes a moment of pain and turns that turmoil, that inner anguish, Into art. This is something worthy of admiration, especially from me, I tend to shy away from the camera when I’m feeling down or lacking confidence, the last thing I think about is picking up a camera and creating a project with the pain or discomfort, I, if anything , opt for a break from the lens.

Calle immerses herself, almost drowns herself in the heartache, uses it as a form of therapy, probably prolonging the experience but giving great catharsis. Not only does she use this work for her own therapy as Sean O’hagan refers to in his piece for the Guardian, “This is art not so much as self-therapy, but as a way of holding up a mirror to human behaviour as it is tested and sometimes unmoored by desire and obsession” (12.00, 2017)

Calle subjects the words and text to an almost forensic level of investigation, although the words are the most important part of this exhibition, they are not her words, they are everybody else’s. The others are giving her a voice when she could not find her own. Even when her anguish over the breakup is over, the project continues, the only fear that the project might end with a reconciliation.

Calle goes on to say in another Guardian article “At first it was therapy; then art took over. “After I month I felt better. There was no suffering. It worked. The project had replaced the man.” (Chrisafis, 2007)

This is a powerful, if not overwhelming body of work. I challenge anybody to view all 106 elements; 7 films, 33 films and prints, 57 prints and texts, 6 wide paper texts and 5 small films and prints in one sitting. The original email helps relay the narrative of this project, as Roland Barthes says in his 1967 essay ‘Rhetoric of the Image’ “Image and text bounce off each other to create a fuller picture that allows for ambiguity and various interpretations.” (Barthes, 1977 ) all of this firmly falls in line with the fundamentals of a sporadic post modern story.

Exercise 2.2

Cut out some pictures from a newspaper and write your own captions. • How do the words you put next to the image contextualise/re-contextualise it? • How many meanings can you give to the same picture?