Topic 1: Where Are You Now? - Reflection

Consider whether or not any photographic ‘characteristics’ are important to your own practice.

The characteristic that is important to my practice as a photographer is Time from John Szarkowski’s The Photographer’s Eye. An image records the moment that I have chosen, it freezes it and holds it. This can be then considered and analysed outside of that moment. This moment can be extended through a sequence of photographs. It can be abstracted through a longer exposure.

Continuing to look at Szarkowski’s characteristics I want to be able to reject The Vantage Point, but I do not think I ever would be able to. In 1966 the ability to photograph for ‘new’ vantage points was interesting and exciting, however, I feel today this idea is overused and uninteresting. I am not rejecting it because I feel photographys have moved passed the need or want to use different angles and vantage points, a large number of photographs are improved by the photographer finding a different perspective. I am conflicted by it as I am not interested in the vantage point and feel the extreme view point should be left to the worlds of advertising and commercial photography.

Potentially, The photographer or human could be added as a characteristic involved in photography. The person controlling the camera, their mood, their background, their upbringing, social status, political opinion, gender, race or age could mean that the same subject or object may be photographed in many different ways by many different people.

It might also be worth considering as part of this the education of a person relating to photography.

              ‘To photograph is to confer importance. There is probably no subject that cannot be

beautified; moreover, there is no way to suppress the tendency inherent in all

photographs to accord value to their subjects.’

(Sontag, 1977: 28)

I would happily photograph a piece of rubbish, a corner of a house or a portrait if I thought it would contribute to a project I was working on. My Father would not. His interest follows what he is interested in, and here lies the difference between the enthusiastic and the ‘professional’.

Of the people that I have shown Nigel Shafran’s work to the majority have been critical if not rude (sorry Nigel). I have used Shafran’s work as an example before but there are multiple photographic artists I could reference to prove my point. Sugimoto, Parr, Soth, Sekula, Graham, Winship Barth, Hoare, Hill, Luxemburg, the list could be endless.

At the end of the day beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. As Sontag suggests, the photographer and photograph holds power and what is photographed could and should be considered important, maybe not to you, but to the (be)holder of the camera.

Are we looking at a divergency in photography? The original photograph was taken using chemicals, wet plates, crystals and printed on paper.

Now we are looking at a difference, squares (pixels), digital screens, rear lit imagery, and presentation via screens.

Has photography fundamentally changed?

It is not the same as it was before, it is now square, affordable, accessible, postable (at least online, general, social).

How is this the same as the origins or even developments of photography? To challenge Szarkowski, the vantage point introduces the accessibility but also downfall of original photography. By granting speed and access to all photography started its journey away from the art world and into the media world.

The definition of photography has changed. It used to be for the special occasion, family portrait, marking a birthday, school photograph, even as a memorial.

Now it is a social tool, snapchat and images are the excuse to send a message, ‘I’m in this location, come and meet me’ or just as a way of sending messages. ‘This is me, right now, in this location, how are you?’

What is special about the everyday?

But is this not what I am interested in. How would Shore or Eggleston respond to this kind of conversation? Democratic or not, organised or ‘not’, I think all photographs have some organisation, even if subconscious.

The camera and the photograph allows us to record existence and celebrate it and this all comes back round to Sontag and the conveyance of importance.

Even to the person sending a snapchat message of their forehead and adding text to it, this conveys importance, even if it is considered minimal to some or even most.

Identify any approaches/ practices/practitioners that specifically resonated with you.

Chris Hoare’s work reaontes with me and the way I like to work. He is clearly involved with the people he photographs and breaks that rule of distance, varying his images so he has fully length, mid-range and close up portraits, and also landscape shots.

Phil Hill and Robert Darch also have a poetic narrative style I would like to include in my work. This could be through a journey or focusing on a specific location.

Outline/Summarise your independent research (eg interviews or reviews of relevant practice/reading)

I am aiming to focus my current work on the Oxford Road, this is a high street in Reading that has been described as the most Reading place in Reading. It is diverse and interesting. Due to this I have researched the Dreamlines: Photographing Bristol’s High Streets project to get an idea of the different ways key veins of a city are photographed.

I have also looked at Cian Oba-Smith’s Andover and Six Acres project as it is focused in one area and explores the truth behind an areas reputation.

Evaluate the development of your own photographic practice to date.

My work has mainly focused on Reading as a town. The survey I have produced has been successful and has given me lots of people and places to photograph. As part of my tutor feedback, it was said that the project is too wide, broad and big to focus on in this module of the course. Which I agree with. It was suggested that I divide down the project and focus on what is most exciting to me, which is how I landed on Oxford Road and developing my project in that direction. Recently I have been walking up and down Oxford Road, speaking to people about the project, producing portraits and landscape images examining the place that is considered the most Reading place in Reading, but is a place that has a negative reputation.

Each person I have met so far has had a story to tell, even if they aren’t willing to be photographed, they would like to talk, which encourages me to interview and talk to more people about the project and continue focusing on the people in Oxford Road.

I also heard a rumour. Theo Walcott lived in a nearby village. None of the local hair dressers knew how to cut ‘black hair’ so he used to go to Oxford Road to get his hair cut. This has been a great way for a white man to introduce and photograph in black hair dressers. I suppose the project or focal point now is the search for Theo Walcott’s hairdresser.

What are you action points? Where are you going next?

Get out and take photographs. The best way to focus this project is to get out into the world and particularly Oxford Road to produce images.

The community on the road maybe cautious of a person with a camera, however, the longer I am there and making people aware of my presence the better.

I want to produce portraits of the people on and around Oxford Road. My first point of contact will be shop workers, owners and hairdressers so I can build a reputation in the community and then as I visit more regularly I can become accepted and the project, both focused and more general, can be understood.

• SONTAG, Susan. 1977. On Photography. London: Penguin.