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[elsaruffieux]

Mass Media Magazines

David’s lecture - 7.12.2018

The apparition of internet alerted people about books and how nice it is to see printed images (esp. in the genre of photography).

“Newspaper are meant to be thrown away which means that a lot of photographs original context is forgotten or lost, esp. in documentary, photojournalism or even fashion photography.

The many different books about the history of photography have a tendency to give all the credit to photographers with artistic ambition such as Henry Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans or Richard Avedon.

Different photographer or Photography writer have tried to address this problem into different publication such as for example:

Things As They Are: photojournalism in context since 1955 by Mary Panzer

Kiosk: a history of photojournalism by Robert Lebeck

Vu - The Story of a Magazine by Michel Frizot and Cédric de Veigy

The New York Times Magazine Photographs by Kathy Ryan

...

Those books not only looks at the images but also at the presentation, text, layout, ect. Photographers were just part of a bigger scenery. They didn’t have much to say. It still the case right now!

4 Ways to make a living as a photographer by Walker Evans:

1. Pay to take pictures 2. Pay for the pictures you’ve taken 3. Photography is a hobby and you learn your money with another job 4. You’re very wealthy

Newspaper started to reproduce photographic images soon after their invention by the engraving technic. It is only when the half-tone process was invented (a process of different sizes dots being printed in different grey). In the 20′s - 30′s, reproduction started to be more accurate, shaping social and political attitudes which led to a sort of rebellion in the Mass Media. In the 50′s and 60′s, television came in the way. Life Magazine (most popular of those photographic publication) ceased publication in 1972.

Every photographer has to face this:

What are you values?

What are you willing to do to keep those values?

[elsaruffieux]

Architecture as Photography

David’s lecture - 30.11.2018

Walter Benjamin, ‘A Little History of Photography’, 1931 Had a interest in how photography can became a substitut experience (to meeting/ throwing, ...)

The first photograph ever taken was an architecture photograph by J. Nicéphore Nièpce.

View from the Window at Le Gras by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, 1826-27

Different Photographer known for their architectural work:

Berenice Abbott was quite known for her architectural work, sometimes used for publicity but mostly about recording social changes.

Julius Shulman was a photographer usually used by Estate agent. In his images, he wasn’t only trying to sell the house but also the lifestyle that goes with it.

Walker Evans’ work often contained architecture. For example, one of his most famous image call ‘Frame Houses and Billboards, Atlanta Georgia, 1936′ is a good example of how he used architecture photography to communicate how the world isn’t always well composed and how they had to add those walls around the house after the expansion of automobiles. 

Thomas Struth

Stephen Shore

Many others (if needed look back at the power point, you have it)

Walker Evans, Frame Houses and Billboards, Atlanta Georgia, 1936

[elsaruffieux]

Photography, Formalism and the MoMA Canon

Eugénie’s lecture - 23.11.2018

We looked at the notion of “pure form” in photography and how each art should stick to what they do best, (at least that’s what Clement Greenberg believed). Greenberg had a word to describe photographs that didn’t have their place in the photography art world which was “kitsch” (seen more as artists entertainment than art). He had the following rules to identify what he thought was real art in painting:

Flatness of the canvas (ex. Mark Rothko)

Shape of the support (ex. Frank Stella)

Properties of the pigment (ex. Morris Louis)

By using those characteristics, he aimed to create the discourse of good painting and avoid what he called “kitsch”.

Beaumont Newhall: first curator in Photography at the MoMA from 1935 to 1947. Felt strong about creating a sense of tradition in photography.

Edward Steichen: curator (also in photography) at the MoMA from 1947 to 1962. Didn’t have the same believes as Newhall, wasn’t treating art the same way.

John Szarkowski: also curator in photography at the MoMA from 1962 to 1991. Strong supporter of straight photography, only accepted colour photography as art around 1972. He believed that photographs were indexical but when it came to critical photographs, only what’s in within the frame of the photograph.  ‘Photography may suggest but cannot define intellectual pr psychological and political values’.   J. Szarkowski

Connoisseurship (in Photography): Someone with great knowledge of the history of photography, sort of photography expert. Believer that a small number of photographic “masters” made the history of photography.

Fetishisation of print quality: Tell where they come from, how they were made.

There is a believe that photographers are “authors” as they are being in control of the meaning of their photography. Is it true? I am  not so sure (have a look at Roland Barthes, ‘The Death of the Author’). This could be link to the idea of photography as creative expression.

Szarkowski published a book called the Photographer’s Eye in which he was trying to expressing different category of photography which defined (to him) art photography:

The thing itself

The detail

The frame

Time

Vantage point

To him the camera was singled out what no other medium could. It was a modern way of showing what was the formal qualities.

1. Matthew Brady or staff, Conspirator Payne, 1885 (example for the thing itself) 2. Thomas Keith, Greyfriars Cemetary, Edinburgh; wall ivy, 1852-56 (example for the detail) 3. Jacques Henri Lartigue, Glider Constructed by Maurice Lartigue, Château Rouzat, 1909 (example for the frame)

4. Anonymous, A wedding, n.d. (example for time) 5. Anonymous, Walter Miller shooting from Woolworth Building, 1912-13 (example for vanatage point)

[elsaruffieux]

Trace & Transformation - Chap. 2 Straight Photography, Joel Eisinger

Note from essential reading:

Pictorialism: approach to photography that emphasises beauty of the subject matter tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality. (definition from google)

Straight Photography: (also known as pure photography) refers to photography that attempts to depict a scene or subject in sharp focus and details

To practitioners of straight photography, pictorialism “denied and distorted the true nature of photography”, trying to imitate painting.

Straight photography was clear, founded on scientific processes. At the time, it was consider as “high art”, treated with care and showed to small audience in art galleries.

There were always a fine line between pure and manipulation, which made it difficult to understand why straight technic should be seen as the essence of photography.

Objectivity was also a big argument in the debate as it was seen as an antithesis to pictorialism as it doesn’t show the world directly and simply. Paul Strand believed that seeing photography as an objective medium was to see it as a product of science which could (to him) humanize the technology.

Personal reflection: I don’t always put my notes from the essential reading we get every week, but when I read this chapter, it really pushed me to research the world I couldn’t understand and I have to say that it really helped me to be prepared for the lesson. I don’t think I ever noticed that until now.

[elsaruffieux]

Commentary, Resistance, Dissent: Counter-Cultural Photography

David Campany’s lecture - 02.11.2018

As the mass media emerged, the impulse to resist also started to appear.

Wherever the source from mass media came from, it stays one’s particular point of view. It doesn’t mean it has to be ours. The mass media started in the 1920′s.

In 1924, Ernst Friedrich published a book called ‘War Against War’, showing what isn’t always showed in the Newspapers. He went through hospital or newspaper’s archives to find images from different photographers. He, in a way, appropriate those images. This book is seen as an anti-war statement.

The meaning of an image can also be dictated by the caption that accompanied it. For example, artists such as Rosabel Huguet presented different images using the same caption each time making hard to understand the initial meaning of the image and also showing that what is said isn’t always what it showed. 

Rosabel Huguet, Injuriant un prêtre, 2012

Other good example of this: Ian Walker, City gorged with dreams

Gregoire Pujade-Lauraine, The Significant Savages  Book presenting some of facebook most use profile images showing an alternative way to represent a person

Photocollage was also an art form that emerged over the 1920′s and 30′s. Helmut Herzfeld (also known as John Heartfield) created some really strong anti-nazi collage over the war. He used images found in the media.

John Heartfild, the butter is finished! Goering: “Ore has always made empire strong, butter and lard have made a country fat at most.”, Photomontage for AIZ, December 1935 John Heartfield, Adolf, the Superman, Swallows Gold and Spouts Tin, 1932

Also quite interesting: Stephan Lorant’s photo juxtapositions in the magazine Lilliputt were really interesting as it showed how our mind sometimes associate two different things together when they have nothing in common.

Hannah Höch’s photo-montages

Martha Rosler’s photo-montages were also very strong. She is able to show how different Newspaper’s content can be.

Victor Burgin, Possession, 1976

What does the image above means? Why did Burgin use this image? How does it relate to the text? Our seeing is always motivated by the values and motivation (or expectation) we have. 

Note from essential reading: 

War Primer - by Bertolt Brecht Epigram: a pithy saying or remark expressing an idea in clever and amusing way.

Brecht was known for his poetry and writing on photographs published in Newspapers over the war. He used to have journals where he would stick what ever he found interesting or inspiring which he would use with his poems to present a sort of anti-war statement.

[elsaruffieux]

The Moving History of Stillness

David Campany’s lecture 26.10.2018

We looked at the concept of stillness and how it affected the work of different artists. Photographs could be descript as a still representation of a movement in the world.

Barbara Probst German Artist who often present of work as a series of images, sometimes two or three. On the one below, the is showing two photographs taking at the same time but from different vantage point, which explore the relation of time with photography.

Eadweard Muybridge, The Attitude of Animals in Motion Sequences of photographs showing what happens animals are walking or running. 24 cameras were sat in line and got triggered by wires which would be set off by the animal (horse) while in movement. This experiment has also been done with humans later on. (When doing it with humans, men were doing manly activities and women were doing more womanly activities, such as making bed). It can be difficult to see how this seemed so innovative at the time because we grew up with cinema  and moving image but at the time it was seen as revolutionary. Muybridge is considered as one of the father of cinema which is quite funny as at first, he was interested in stillness.

Zoopraxiscope: device for animation, sort of projector which would project the images one after the other.

Etienne-Jules Marez, Motion Studies, 1890 Rebecca Solnit: really good contemporary writer who wrote a book about Muybridge Hollis Frampton: also wrote a book about Muybridge

One of Muybridge “animated” image

Instant and spontaneous have also been study in the past by painters. For example, when Leonard da Vinci painted ‘The Last Supper’, he was often missing from his studio as he was sketching people’s movements and reactions outside to get inspiration and idea on how to represent them in his painting.

Also, at first moving blur was seen as a mistake but later on, around the 1950’s, we started to use it in a more artistic way. To be able to concentrate on different subjects. A good example of this is Robert Frank’s image from his series The Americans call Movie Premier from 1955.

Robert Frank, Movie Premier, 1955

Garry Winogrand, World’s Fair, 1964 There were wonders on how Winogrand was able to capture so many different scenes or events in his images. It is almost impossible for someone to pay attention to so many things at the same time. A good example of it is his image ‘World’s Fair’ from 1964.

Garry Winogrand, World’s Fair, 1964

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Movie theatres series This body of work is a good example of still photographs that contains “a whole movie” in them. Sugimoto used long exposures that lasted the lengths of a movie.

[elsaruffieux]

Between Art and Commerce: The Still Life Photograph

David Campany’s lecture - 12.10.2018

Still Life Photograph can be about expressing idea about taste or belief with the use of different objects related to what we are trying to communicate. If we look carefully at images, we should be able to see links between life and object.

The pioneers of photography such as Niepce, Fox Talbot or Daguerre experimented with still life. Those early photographs can give away details about each photographers’ life. For example, on Talbot’s image below we can see a still life of fruits including a pineapple which would have been quite expensive at the time, not something that everyone could afford which shows that Fox Talbot was quite wealthy. When on the other hand on Niepce’s photo, we can see a simple table laid for one, indicating us that he might had not have lots of money.

W. H. Talbot Fox, A Fruit Piece, Plate XXIV from The Pencil of Nature, 1844-46 Joseph Nicephore Niepce, La Table Servie (The Set Table), 1832.

Many painters also experimented with still life, it was seen as a way to show of your skills.

Advertising is one of the field where still life is often represented. The better the product is presented, the higher the chances to sell it and make a profit out of it are. It makes us desire the advertised object. 

Man Ray also practise still life for commercial purpose but keeping this abstraction he is so famous for.

Anastasia Samoylova also photographs still life but in a different way, she prints multiple similar images of the same subject then fold and photographs them display in different way.

Man Ray, Untitled, 1931 Anastasia Samoylova, Lightings, Landscape Sublime, 2014

Photographing every day moment such as a meal can also be consider as part of the genre. Stephen Shore showed it on his photograph Trail’s End Restaurant from his project called Uncommon Places.

Stephen Shore, Trail’s End Restaurant (10 August, 1973), Kanab, Utah, USA

[ygreque]

I’ve been looking through these two books. We touched upon another one of Helen Sear’s projects in last week’s lecture and I decided to pursue her work further. While Spot doesn’t really relate to my project or my interests in any way, I really enjoyed the overall aesthetic of the shots. Wildlife photography is hardly a passion of mine and honestly seems exceptionally boring to me, but these shots are absolutely gorgeous. From a stylistic point of view, I find the color correction on a lot of the included photographs to be a bit excessive, but I wouldn’t call it distasteful.

As for Rich and Strange. It’s a book we looked quite deeply into over the course of the lecture itself, but I found the concept so lovely I wanted to see it in person. To give a little resumé as to the story at hand, it’s a lovely tale of a spontaneous flea market purchase turned artistic project that I found very inspiring. It speaks to the importance of working images, detail and exploration in photography. It shows us that the medium tends to expand much farther than we like to assume.