Unit 9 How its going pt3

Well after much deliberation I have decided to go with the Pennines project. The more I visit the area the more I am compelled to return. I have a project, it started with the invisible boundaries we create, mankind's need for ownership. It actually is from my first ever project when i first started my foundation degree in 2012, it was about boundaries and here is the original photograph:

So here's were I came in and it looks like where I will inevitably finish my Fd in Photography. My work has changed dramatically since this photograph was taken. Originally I thought we need to make the image more beautiful, but now I have realise it was already beautiful and my job is now to capture that beauty. In Fact here is one I took only a few days ago and I am going to add it to my end of year show. Firstly because it reminds me of where I started and these issues are still important to me. secondly because it is still in keeping with the body of work I have just produced:

Unit 9 so far Part 2

I have still been working on my Bus Shelter project, however a bit of still life in the studio and a couple of trips to the Pennines with my camera have sparked some interest, in a different genre of photography... landscape. I have a few images from each project I am doing at the moment. I have not decided as of yet which project will be my final body of work. Perhaps the Landscape as it seems appropriate. The Pennines is a place i have visited many times throughout my life, especially when times have been hard. it was great to just get in my car and drive into the space, beauty and freedom the moors has to offer me, solace.

Bus Shelters:

Still life:

Pennines:

August Sander

August Sander

Born 1876 in Germany. He spent 7 years as a miner, he undertook his role of compulsory active 

Military service until 1899. Sander went on to study painting in Dresden from 1901 to 1902 and it is here he developed his interest in art and photography. In 1904 he opened his own photographic studio August Sander für Kunstphotographie und Malerei, he sold this studio and returned to Cologne. and in 1910 he founded his own studio in Lindenthal. At the opening of his studio in Lindenthal Sander created a brochure and in this he states:

"I am not concerned with providing commonplace photographs like those made in the finer large-scale studios of the city, but simple, natural portraits that show the subjects in an environment corresponding to their own individuality, portraits that claim the right to be evaluated as works of art and to be used as wall adornments" (Cited in: George Steeves, 2013, August Sander: Objective Romantic, (Halifax, NS, Canada: Mount St. Vincent Art Gallery) [Exhibition catalogue, September 7 - October 20, 2013], p. 11)

In 1910 Sander started which was to be his most famous body of work "Menschen des 20, Jahrhunderts" The theme started when Sander had been producing photographic portraits of the Westerwald Farmers, Sander saw in these farmers his ideal of the archetypal contemporary man. "Building on this, Sander developed a philosophy that placed man within a cyclic model of society."  (Reinhold Misselbeck From Grove Art Online © 2009 Oxford University Press).

So the peasant class was the basis of society, sander then moved on up through the classes, skilled workers, civic life, lawyers, soldiers, bankers the list goes on finishing with the insane, gypsies and beggars.

"... his Citizens of the Twentieth Century, remains one of the most sustained attempts to define individuals within their time and culture. sanders subjects are above all social beings" - (Clarke, 1997, p.113)

August Sander. The Man of the Soil. 1910

Farming Family, 1912

Farmer and Wife 1912

It was important to Sander to match the sitter with the correct setting, even down to the smallest detail “Nothing is more hateful to me than photography sugar-coated with gimmicks, poses and false effects" wrote August sander 1927. 

Sander never got to publish his full body of work in his lifetime, he did publish some in the publication of "Face of Our time" 60 portraits published in 1929, so the principles surrounding his work could be viewed by the public. Eventually after Sanders death his son Gunther went through his father’s archive of over 540 photographs and published them "Menschen des 20, Jahrhunderts.The People of the 20th century), in 1980.

Viennese Jockey 1929

Bohemians 1925

Bricklayer 1928

Philip-Lorca diCorcia at the Hepworth Gallery

This is one of my favourite images by Philip Lorca diCorcia and I managed to see this photograph at the Hepworth gallery in Yorkshire, along with a further 100 photographs taken from diCorcias varying photographic works. This particular image is taken from his series 'The Hustler' created in 1989-1990 and first exhibited in 1993. He received a fellowship from the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) under strict guidelines the photographs must not be Obscene. Earlier in 1989 Andres Serrano had exhibited a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine, this caused outrage and led to the changes to funding policies of the NEA. Along side this came the AIDS pandemic in america, indeed diCorcia's brother died of aids in 1988, diCorcia created this body of work as a direct response to the bigotry around homosexuals, especially those working in the arts at the time.

“while AIDS made death commonplace. My brother, Max Pestalozzi diCorcia, died of AIDS on October 18, 1988. How much is too much? My brother was very free. I loved him for it. Freedom has its price, and we never know at the onset what the toll will be. He died unnecessarily. I dedicate this book to him.”- Philip-Lorca diCorcia

The set of images from Hustler look like colour film stills with purposeful narratives behind each image. diCorcia plans and directs his images to the last detail, arranging the sets and lights before the shot is taken creating a photographic film still narrative, entwining with those is the truth of the subject which relates back to social documentary, creating a photographic contradiction which works.

In his book Graham Clarke states "The portrait photograph is, then, the site of a complex series of interactions-aesthetic, cultural, ideological, sociological and physiological. In many ways it simultaneously represents the photographic image at its most obvious and yet its most complex and problematic." diCorcia not only took the photograph but by social circumstance and his direct involvement with the subject matter created something spectacular, atmospheric and haunting.

I am on the 2nd year of a digital photography course and I am only now seeing the merits behind medium and full format photography. The depth you gain through using film is immense, the clarity is excellent and the photograph as art is atmospheric filled with sadness and longing.