Topic 2: Methods and Meaning

Fig. 1: Shafran 2008-9. From the series Compost Pictures 2008-9.

When it comes to the photographic ‘faux pas’ there are lots of options. The blinking portrarit, tress coming out the top of a subject’s head, a finger over the lens, purposeful under or over exposure of an image (American Night by Paul Graham comes to mind).

The topic makes me reflect on a conversation I had with my Dad. I had received a £5 Photoworks voucher for subscribing to their mailing list and used it to buy a copy of Nigel Shafran’s Compost Pictures 2008-9. I was very proud of myself because I had got what I considered to be an exciting and intriguing set of images (albeit a publication supporting an exhibition) for free, using my £5 voucher.

I took it home whilst on holiday from university and was looking through when my Dad asked to see what I was looking at. After looking through the images he asked how much I had paid and when I told him it was free with a voucher he laughed and said ‘I’m glad you didn’t waste real money on photographs of rubbish.’

I was taken aback by this because I considered the images to be careful studies of unintended sculpture and particularly of a subject matter that most people want to get rid of or ignore.

My idea for a response to the photographic ‘faux pas’ is the concept of photographing the mundane or every day and how it can be misunderstood. Without spending time or reading into a photographer’s motivations for an image or set of images, photographs with this aesthetic can be dismissed, derided or ignored. Could this present a wider issue between photographer and audience? Is the ‘faux pas’ the fault of the audience or the photographer? I think in the case of my Dad and Shafran’s Compost Pictures, there is an element of disconnect between a person that has used photography to document key family life moments and things he is interested in, to the photographer who is trying to reach out and communicate with an audience. The ‘faux pas’ is the mundane and how it is communicated but I hope to use it to open up debate about the photographer/audience relationship and explore it within my own photographic practice.

List of Figures

Figure 1: Nigel Shafran. 2010. Compost Pictures 2008-9. Brighton: Photoworks.

Bibliography

McMullin, D. (1980). ‘An Interview with John Baldessari,’