This weekend I will do a test shoot with my most recent idea. I will be above my subject and and have two lights. My subject will be looking up at the ceiling and I will place objects and mirrors on the floor below. I want to create a scene where the subject is refusing to look at the mirror or is appearing to look out from the mirror and not acknowledging the truth.
On Tuesday I presented my ideas and research. In this presentation I started by introducing the structure in which the prevention will go in, which was early stages of portraiture, process, staged narratives and truth, theory/research and finally I concluded with my concept. I then followed this with a quote that helped me (and hopefully others) understand what I wanted to start talking about, which was the truth in portraiture.
I then moved onto the daguerreotype. Here I talked about when the daguerreotype was introduced and that it was the first accessible process for people within this new process. I explained that it was exclusive only to people that could afford it, which meant mainly the wealthy. This being a new process meant that it was expensive and because of the long exposures meant that it slowed down production, meaning that in order to make money from it they had to put the prices up which meant only wealthy people could afford to have their picture taken. The reason I discussed older process will become apparent later in the presentation.
Following this I introduced the photographer Nadar. Nadar was a portrait photographer in the 19th Century and people would praise him for capturing their true identity and exclaimed that the portraits he took were true depictions of how they themselves looked. With all new process people started demanding more from photography. This meant in order for Nadar to deliver to his clients he had to think of new and exciting ways to keep this process moving forward so he introduced retouching. Nadar stared to remove blemishes and spots from the image and he also started to add different colours in the prints to give them an artist appearance. The reason I included this part was to give an example of the decline in truth in portraiture and photography when Nadar started to add and remove things from the image.
Moving on I then introduced ‘staged narrative and truth,’ which has made up of a large part of my research and experimentation so it was important to include this. I talked about two photographers. Philip-Lorca dicorcia and Jeff Wall. In diCorcia work he plays with the idea of documentary and fiction. In the image I have attached on this slide I talked about the woman sitting in a hotel room looking out the window. I used this as an example of documentary and fiction because everything inside the room appears to be staged and except what is happening on the outsise. DiCorcia has introduced artificial lighting and on the TV which has a surreal image of a twister on the screen has a level of fiction to it. This image actually remind me of an image I took as part of a practice shoot a few weeks ago. The next slide was another of diCorcias and it was a picture of a man walking down the street unaware that he is having his picture taken. I explained that I believe that this is a strong example of truth in portraiture. It wasn’t until I started to read more into this image that I concluded that it wasn’t as strong as I first believed. The reason for this is that the diCorcia has said he has no interfered into these man daly routine but I challenged this and said that because dicorcia has chosen to place a flash above a carefully chosen point on the street and waited for this man to step underneath it means that he has interfered into this mans daly routine because these images where shot in daylight and there was natural light source available he did not need to introduce the artificial lighting. And the moment he did he has depicted this man in a whole different and new way. Next I talked about Jeff Wall and how he works mainly with staged narratives. I gave a brief example of how he constructs images. Wall takes memories and stages them on how he remembers them so by doing this we either choose to believe the image or not.
Following this in the next slide I introduced three process that filled each other in photographic history. The three process were wet-plate collodion, film and digital. I explained that the wet plate was used during the American Civil war and I gave a brief example of how it was used and that it wasn’t manipulated much. I then introduced film and briefly explained when it was invented and it could be manipulated more and you could do more things to the images such as dodge and burn and I explained that with digital we can do anything to the image. The reason I talked about these three process was because from wet-plate to digital the technology got much more advanced and we started to manipulate images much more which in my opinion means that the truth of photography has declined true the years.
Next I discussed my experimentation with wet plate collodion. This is what I said about this slide, The reason I did this was to show the difference between reality and fiction. In the first image I didn’t project a different image of myself in an untruthful way. I simply sat there for over three minutes staring into the lens. As I sat there memories from different parts of my past crept into my mind. I realised afterwards by holding still and unconsciously thinking of times in my past made the experience completely real. What I am trying to say is that, in my opinion, because I was not being forced to think of my past, or future I wasn’t thinking about how I wanted to be perceived in the image. There for this is a strong level of reality in a portrait.
In the next slide I went back to talk about the photographer Nadar. There was a very important reason why I went back to this photographer. During the 1860s Nadar was working as a portrait photographer and in this time the exposure rate in photography went from over a minute to 20 seconds or lower. This meant that Nardar could lower his prices because he could take more images in a day and charge less money but have more customers which meant more money. This meant that not only the wealthy could afford to get their picture taken, it was now accessible to the working class. This is where things got very interesting and Nadar ran into some trouble. During this time in the 19h Century these working class people were not familiar with their refection. This was because mirrors were a thing of luxury, only the wealthy could afford mirrors and the only time poor people seen their reflection was in windows. This meant that these people Nadar were photographing were unsure of what they actually looked like. An interesting thing happened after Nadar took these portraits. People would either be mortified, extremely happy or embarrassed by what they saw. Sometimes Nadar would accidentally give people back the wrong portrait and when he realised his mistake he would go to these people and request the portrait back and in return Nadar would give them their actual portrait to them. Most people said no because they believed that the portrait Nadar was their portrait and not someone else. This was because these people were unsure of what they actually looked like.
This is how I got to my theory and the concept I want to explore.
I then moved onto a quote that helps introduce my idea.
“I dream of a mirror. I see myself with a mask, or I see in the mirror somebody who is me but whom I do not recognise as myself”
-Jorge Luis Borges
I explained what this quote meant to me. When we look in a mirror sometimes we don’t like what we see looking back and we try to wear masks to cover this up.
In the next Slide I explained my key throes and concepts. I would and already have researched, Roland Barthes, The Gaze, Freud’s Id, Ego and Superego, Freud’s Uncanny and I will be looking into the mirror and its relationship to truth.
I then discussed two images that have helped me with my ideas. And I ended with an outline of what I want to achieve whit this concept and what the outcome will be.
I went back to this book because I recently stumbled upon the idea of not recognising ones self or reflection I remembered researching old process such as the daguerreotype and how they are compared to as mirrors. “The notion that man possesses, in addition to a physical self, a symbolic self is widespread, perhaps universal. A mirror corroborates this. It does more: it revels the symbolic self outside the physical self. The symbolic self is suddenly explicit, public, vulnerable. Man’s initial response to this is probably always traumatic.”
This article goes on to say; The daguerreotype was therefore a mirror in a double sense: literally, a polished silver-coated metal plate (‘it is nature herself which reproduces herself as reflection’), and figuratively, a ‘mirror with a memory’, a ‘mirror of nature’, ‘a permanent mirror’, even a ‘magic mirror’.
I like the simplicity of what is being said here. The more I research into his the more my creativity starts to become more enthralled with ideas.
I have read quite a bit on portraiture and on truth in portraiture. In a few books I read I found they mentioned photography as a ‘one way mirror’. I like the idea of a one way mirror and I like the sound of this quote by the short story teller and poet Jorge Luis Borges,
“I dream of a mirror. Isee myself with a mask, or I see in the mirror somebody who is me but whom I do not recognise as myself”
– Jorge Luis Borges, 1985
This quote has sparked an idea. When I read this I instantly thought; take portraits of people on the subject of anxiety that are unable to recognise themselves. Where they do not only have a distancing feeling towards their inner self, but they have surpassed that and do not recognise the person in the reflection. This quote is beautiful and it says a lot in only a few lines.
In a past project I did a series on the mirror but that was a personal project about me not being able to confront myself in the mirror. The only thing that is similar to the last idea is the word mirror. I do not intend to use a filter like I did last time but I do intend to become very creative and express this idea on a non obvious manner.
Today I have been researching about portraiture. In the introduction of ‘Face the new photographic portrait’, it discusses the photographer Nadar. Nadar was an early portrait photographer using historical process. In this introduction the use the mirror as an example of how people identifying themselves. The the early stages of photography not everyone owned a mirror so they were not fully aware of what they looked like. When these people went to get their portrait take they would be either impressed with how they looked or horrified. In one example ‘Numerous photographers’ accounts relate how clients had little or no objective idea of their appearance and were often struck dumb when confronted with their first-ever portraits. Nadar tells us that his clients were sometimes angry, refusing to accept that they appeared less good-looking than they had believed themselves to be. And on one than more occasion when the clerk mistakenly handed someone else’s portrait to a client, the client none the less went away completely satisfied, even commenting favourably on its marvellous accuracy! When Nadar discovered hie error and tried to make the switch, as often as not the person refused to believe him”.
What I like about this part is that people had no real idea of how they truly looked. Not having a mirror can almost blind you of your own appearance or identity. A mirror revels the symbolic self outside the physical self.
Reading on past Nadar the portrait came under much scrutiny because people wanted more from the photograph. It wasn’t long until photographers started to add tints to the image creating different tones. I my opinion this is around the time that portraiture became less truthful. Some photographers had different views on this and a painter recalled how, as the photographic portrait was first introduced, “We were all fascinated by the marvellous accuracy … and with the newborn wonder of children, we forgot the absolutes of higher truth”. Professional photographers started to realise that with more artistry photographs might well justify high prices. “Without artistic knowledge to correct its blemishes, photography is not entirely truthful.” This also compares to todays photoshopped images that are everywhere. If people are not changing their images in photoshop, or taking away whatever ‘truth’ that is left in the image technology on our phones can help to altar the image in an untruthful way.
Going back to my idea about anxiety. In this paragraph discusses retouchers and how they hide or covered up certain things. “Disderi photographed every royal court in Europe as well as the Prince of Wales, who apparently had a deformed hand the he tried to hide,” ‘the anxiety of the spectators to make out its shape is quite typical of the interest which anything concerning royalty no matter how significant – creates.’
What I have learned; I learned that early stages of photography misled people to thinking that they looked different from their true selves and this was because during this time not everyone had access to mirror and because of this it meant that their own identity was blurred and they could not identify their own image. The arrival of retouching and manipulating images meant that people who were not visually attractive could become attractive with the help of these new retouchers.
One thing I am interested in is the subject of how people cover things up and put on a front and pretend to be fine in the public eye but behind closed doors they suffer with anxiety. I have some ideas of how to approach this. I could show that person in the environment that they feel safe to let themselves express their own struggle. This idea challenges me as a photographer. It still involved truth and identity in portraiture.
I now need to research different practitioners.
Being a foreigner in Paris and feeling slightly de-rooted, I tried to get closer to the things and people around me by studying and understanding them, and that is by photographing them. Thus I started to make portraits of Parisian women, who I first felt a little distant and who I found quite different from myself and also different from what I had thought they would be. My wish was to explore what hides behind their public behaviour and how they really are when they are in their own intimacy. I love undressing people in front of my camera because I belive that it sends them back to the idea of who they are. Having nothing on to cover their bodies, my models seem to envelope themselves in their souls. It is this magic moment I am trying to capture in my lense.
“My project ‘Memories and Nightmares’ is concerned with making images inspired by narratives of individual experiences, both real and fictional. At the beginning of 2008 I asked several of my friends to send me written accounts of early childhood memories or nightmares and have discovered a rich vein of fascinating stories.
We all have our own tales and myths which we use to tell our lives. In many ways, memories are an essentially human experience, and over the years they can change; for instance, an early childhood memory will be retold and re-remembered, and the way one person describes an event may be different to others’ memory of it. In recounting nightmares, some people remember a clear narrative, others only a particular feeling or location. And of course the surreal or impossible elements of the dream, which at the time of dreaming seem entirely logical, are often the most fascinating. Our memories are part of the collection of human stories, and by using them as inspiration for these images I hope to celebrate them and encourage us to tell us more about ourselves.”
Davis account of other peoples memories and nightmares are amazing. The images are greatly detailed with the photographer constructing her own surreal sets. I find the memory images the strongest because they have more depth. There is an extremely large amount happening in each images, this make me examine them for a long time. The nightmare images are much too obvious. I think the images are aesthetically amazing but because how the devil and the woman are posing gives the images less of an impact.
The main reason I have included this photographer is because she has touched on a similar way of recreating past memories to myself.
‘In many ways, memories are an essentially human experience, and over the years they can change; for instance, an early childhood memory will be retold and re-remembered, and the way one person describes an event may be different to others’ memory of it’.
What Davis has to say about memories above is exactly how I approached my images. Instead of trying to re-create the exact scene I have shown how I felt during time time. The mood I am expressing in my series is one of darkness, and choosing not to leave that dark place in my life.
Barthes, R (1981) Camera Lucida, 67/70
An important feature of cultural resistance and alternative identity stems back to the Freudian concept of “the uncanny”. After the end of World War I, psychiatrist Sigmund Freud theorized about what he called the uncanny, or a notion of both familiarity and threat manifesting through the same person, object, or event (Israeli 379). Basically, he conceptualizes that the things we find the most terrifying appear that way because they once seemed familiar. Freud described his theory of the uncanny as such,
“This class is frightening things would then constitute the uncanny; and it must be a matter of indifference whether what is uncanny was itself originally frightening or whether it carried some other affect…for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something that is familiar and old fashioned in the mind and which has become alienated from it through process of repression” (Israeli 381). http://students.english.ilstu.edu/rrjohns/hypertext/repurposing/uncanny.html
This boils down to the fact that the things that we find to be frightening are things that we have had contact with before, things that are part of our society already. Once something that we are familiar with undergoes change, and appears to be estranged from its original meaning or contexts, that is when we become afraid, or at least wary, of it.
This experience of being attracted to something, yet repulsed by it at the same time, creates a dissonance that often times leads to rejection of the uncanny object or notion. This reaction warrants the formation of subcultures; those who come to embrace the uncanny aspects that dominant culture has rejected and removed from the considered normal traits of society. Uncanniness often times becomes its own culture
Memories can take us to places in our life that we never thought existed. They can bring up times that are not particularly welcomed back into your life, like a death or heartache, but I believe it is how we choose to acknowledge theses memories that result in the way we led our lives.
I want to examine how I look at my past. In my previous project I studied an area in my past where I felt depressed. I looked at my life in a way I never did before. In most cases people will tell you to let your past lay where it is, “in the past’ and to move on with your life, but from my experience digging into your subconscious helps to deal with certain aspects of your life. For example during my last project I focused on a period where I couldn’t bear to look at my reflection in the mirror. By putting this into my work I started to welcome pervious infortune back into my life. As I have discovered these memories aren’t always fact, they are, at times, made up memories that appear familiar but in fact they are not. Freud calls this ‘The Uncanny’.
Freud’s description of the uncanny
“This class is frightening things would then constitute the uncanny; and it must be a matter of indifference whether what is uncanny was itself originally frightening or whether it carried some other affect…for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something that is familiar and old fashioned in the mind and which has become alienated from it through process of repression”
What I take away from this is that, things we find frightening are things that we have come in contact with before. They are things that surround our daily lives. Once the things that we are familiar with start to change or become disconnected with its originality it is then that we become afraid or confused.
Again I am researching this because looking back at my past I cannot remember everything. I start to fill in the gaps with made up images. They appear familiar, but in reality they aren’t.
Freud is essentially talking about the real and not real. In Susan Sontag’s ‘On Photography’ she talks about Plato’s Cave, where prisoners mistake shadows for reality, they perceive the shadows as reality and they forget that reality is somewhere else. Their lives become what is played out on the wall. For example a shadow of a chair would be talked about as an actual chair. The shadows are as close to the prisoners get to reality.
For my current project I am examining a stage of my past where I was depressed. During this time I remember people trying to help me, but I felt they were turning their back on me. It wasn’t until I overcame this dark time that I realised that I was turning my back on myself. I felt safer to stay in the shadows rather than confronting my issues. By reading about Plato’s Cave inspired this idea. I am representing reality, but with my subconscious. I want to take people inside my mind and show them, that this is how I see myself during this time. Much like Plato’s Cave when the men mistook the shadows for reality I now start looking at the images I have produced from my past as complete reality. I have started to vision myself as I am in my images, believing that this is how I actually was during the time this happened, laying around in darkness waiting for someone to pull me from it. I start to challenge my own concept of reality. The photographer Trish Morrissey has created work that challenges the concept of reality and deals with time. In her series titled seven years she uses old family photographs. Morrissey analyses the family album and how most families produce very similar family albums.
Second Draft
Freud’s description of the uncanny
“This class is frightening things would then constitute the uncanny; and it must be a matter of indifference whether what is uncanny was itself originally frightening or whether it carried some other affect…for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something that is familiar and old fashioned in the mind and which has become alienated from it through process of repression”
What I take away from Freud’s quote is that, things we find frightening are things that we have come in contact with before. They are things that surround our daily lives. Once the things that we are familiar with start to change or become disconnected with its originality it is then that we become afraid or confused.
The photographer Trish Morrissey has created work that explores the uncanny. In her series titled ‘seven years’ she uses old family photographs. Morrissey analyses the family album and how most families produce very similar family albums. Morrissey stages these images exactly how the old pictures were taken, for example if the person taking the image accidently put their finger over the viewfinder, Morrissey would incorporate this small mistake into her series, giving them an ‘uncanny’ resemblance to the originals.
When I look at Morrissey’s seven years series I engage with them on a personal level because the images she is recreating have a strange resemblance to old photos from my child hood, and possibly, most people’s childhood pictures.
In Susan Sontag’s ‘On Photography’ she talks about Plato’s Cave, where prisoners mistake shadows for reality, they perceive the shadows as reality and they forget that reality is somewhere else. Their lives become what is played out on the wall. For example a shadow of a chair would be talked about as an actual chair. The shadows are as close to the prisoners get to reality. They also believe that the echoes are real sounds made by the shadows. The prisoners are completely unaware of reality. Sontag related this analogy to the way we see photographs. If we look at the photograph we instantly relate it to reality but in reality what we are looking at is the paper.
Plato’s Cave, to me is a perfect analogy of how I am looking at past events in my life. What I take away from Sontag is that when I look at my past, I start to think of this in terms of time. I can remember a time I my past that was tough, but because I cannot remember most of what or why I was going through this I too am unaware of reality. What I am taking photos of could be a made up interpretation of what feel when I look back and reflect on this stage in my life. So what people will see may not necessarily be a direct link to my past, it will be how I interpret the way I see that time.
When I think about the uncanny it comes down to how we view time. Roland Barthes book Camera Lucida deals with the photograph in time. Barthes looks at images of his dead mother and discusses the importance of photography.
‘There I was, alone in the apartment where she had died, looking at these pictures of my mother, one by one, under the lamp, gradually moving back in time with her, looking for the truth of the face I had loved. And I found it.’
Here Barthes says ‘gradually moving back in time with her’. This is Barthes using still images to spend time with his mother. He is essentially saying that by looking through old photos of his dead mother helps to transport him back to a time when she was alive. By doing so helps him remember (and not forget) his dead mother.
While looking at an image of his mother titled ‘The Winter Garden Photograph’ Barthes states, ‘I studied the little girl and at last rediscovered my mother.
Barthes looks at images of his mother as a child. What he noticed from the image was expressions, which distinguished her as an adult. Barthes calls the Winter Garden photo ‘accurate’. I believe he thinks that photography can be an accurate depiction of reality. Which is false because the photo is not giving us the full story, but I understand what he means, there are time when we look at loved ones in images and we instantly see things that formed that persons character.
I am researching this because looking into my past I cannot remember everything. I start to fill in the gaps with made up images. They appear familiar, but in reality they aren’t.
For my current project I am examining a stage of my past where I was depressed. During this time I remember people trying to help me, but I felt they were turning their back on me. It wasn’t until I overcame this dark time that I realised that I was turning my back on myself. It felt safer to stay in the shadows rather than confronting my issues. By reading Sontag’s theory on Plato’s Cave made me aware how photography challenges the concept of reality. I am representing a subconscious reality with my photography. I want to take people inside my mind and show them, that this is how I see myself during this time. Much like Plato’s Cave when the men mistook the shadows for reality, I now start looking at the images I have produced from my past as reality. I have started to vision myself through my images, believing that this is how I actually was during the time this happened, laying around in darkness waiting for someone to pull me from it. I start to challenge my own concept of reality. The photographer Trish Morrissey has created work that challenges the concept of reality and deals with time. In her series titled seven years she uses old family photographs. Morrissey analyses the family album and how most families produce very similar family albums.
Memories can take us to places in our life that we never thought existed. They can bring up times that are not particularly welcomed back into your life, like a death or heartache, but I believe it is how we choose to acknowledge theses memories that result in the way we led our lives.
I want to examine how I look at my past. In my previous project I studied an area in my past where I felt depressed. I looked at my life in a way I never did before. In most cases people will tell you to let your past lay where it is, “in the past’ and to move on with your life, but from my experience digging into your subconscious helps to deal with certain aspects of your life. For example during my last project I focused on a period where I couldn’t bear to look at my reflection in the mirror. By putting this into my work I started to welcome pervious infortune back into my life. As I have discovered these memories aren’t always fact, they are, at times, made up memories that appear familiar but in fact they are not. As I have touched on above, Freud calls this ‘The Uncanny’.
My Feedback From Sian
Have you thought of a title yet?
Freud’s description of the uncanny
“This class is frightening things would then constitute the uncanny; and it must be a matter of indifference whether what is uncanny was itself originally frightening or whether it carried some other affect…for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something that is familiar and old fashioned in the mind and which has become alienated from it through process of repression” REFERENCE this would be underneath & to the right – Author (Year:Page).
What I take away from Freud’s quote is that, things we find frightening are things that we have come in contact with before. They are things that surround our daily lives. Once the things that we are familiar with start to change or become disconnected with its originality it is then that we become afraid or confused. Great!
The photographer Trish Morrissey has created work that explores the uncanny. In her series titled ‘seven years’ she uses old family photographs. Morrissey analyses the family album and how most families produce very similar family albums. Morrissey stages these images exactly how the old pictures were taken, for example if the person taking the image accidently put their finger over the viewfinder, Morrissey would incorporate this small mistake into her series, giving them an ‘uncanny’ resemblance to the originals.
When I look at Morrissey’s seven years series I engage with them on a personal level because the images she is recreating have a strange resemblance to old photos from my child hood, and possibly, most people’s childhood pictures. Great… your writing in much improved from when we last went through your essay. These are good analytical passages, you are clearly understanding Freud and being able to apply the theory to image making. Excellent!
In Susan Sontag’s ‘On Photography’ she talks about Plato’s Cave, where prisoners mistake shadows for reality, they perceive the shadows as reality and they forget that reality is somewhere else. Their lives become what is played out on the wall. For example a shadow of a chair would be talked about as an actual chair. The shadows are as close to the prisoners get to reality. They also believe that the echoes are real sounds made by the shadows. The prisoners are completely unaware of reality. Sontag related this analogy to the way we see photographs. If we look at the photograph we instantly relate it to reality but in reality what we are looking at is the paper. Similarly, we spoke about the weightless transparent envelope that Barthes referred to in Wednesday’s lecture. These are similar ideas and are both basically saying that we talk about the photographic image as though it WERE real. (“It’s me”)
Plato’s Cave, to me is a perfect analogy of how I am looking at past events in my life (where?) This is a good place to talk about your photographs. I sent a critical essay over that I wrote at Level 6, have a look how I wrote about my own work…
What I take away from Sontag is that when I look at my past, I start to think of this in terms of time. I can remember a time I my past that was tough, but because I cannot remember most of what or why I was going through this I too am unaware of reality. What I am taking photos of could be a made up interpretation of what feel when I look back and reflect on this stage in my life. So what people will see may not necessarily be a direct link to my past, it will be how I interpret the way I see that time.
When I think about the uncanny it comes down to how we view time. Roland Barthes book Camera Lucida deals with the photograph in time. Barthes looks at images of his dead mother and discusses the importance of photography.
‘There I was, alone in the apartment where she had died, looking at these pictures of my mother, one by one, under the lamp, gradually moving back in time with her, looking for the truth of the face I had loved. And I found it.’
Here Barthes says ‘gradually moving back in time with her’. This is Barthes using still images to spend time with his mother. He is essentially saying that by looking through old photos of his dead mother helps to transport him back to a time when she was alive. By doing so helps him remember (and not forget) his dead mother. Good. You’ve clearly understood Barthes quite well.
While looking at an image of his mother titled ‘The Winter Garden Photograph’ Barthes states, ‘I studied the little girl and at last rediscovered my mother.
Barthes looks at images of his mother as a child. What he noticed from the image was expressions, which distinguished her as an adult. Barthes calls the Winter Garden photo ‘accurate’. I believe he thinks that photography can be an accurate depiction of reality. (You can be confident here and say – ‘He believes that photography can be an accurate…’) Which is false because the photo is not giving us the full story. I understand what he means, there are times when we look at loved ones in images and we instantly see things that formed that persons character.
Such as? Might this relate again to Barthes theories on portraiture? Have you looked at Clarke as well? There’s a chapter in Charlotte Cotton that you might like to read called This Intimate Life…
I am researching this because looking into my past I cannot remember everything. I start to fill in the gaps with made up images. They appear familiar, but in reality they aren’t. This is interesting – why do you think that this is? Doesn’t the photograph take the place of reality sometimes – memory and image can become intertwined. You could start to look at the idea of memory as a part of this writing?
Through photography (?) I am currently examining a stage of my past where I was depressed. During this time I remember people trying to help me, but I felt they were turning their back on me. It wasn’t until I overcame this dark time that I realised that I was turning my back on myself. It felt safer to stay in the shadows rather than confronting my issues. By reading Sontag’s theory on Plato’s Cave made me aware how photography challenges the concept of reality. I am representing a subconscious reality with my photography. I want to take people inside my mind and show them, that this is how I see myself during this time. Much like Plato’s Cave when the men mistook the shadows for reality, I now start looking at the images I have produced from my past as reality. I have started to vision myself through my images, believing that this is how I actually was during the time this happened, laying around in darkness waiting for someone to pull me from it. I start to challenge my own concept of reality.
The photographer Trish Morrissey has created work that challenges the concept of reality and deals with time. In her series titled seven years she uses old family photographs. Morrissey analyses the family album and how most families produce very similar family albums. And how does this relate to your ideas? I think that you could find another author that talks about this work to help you with your references.
Memories can take us to places in our life that we never thought existed. They can bring up times that are not particularly welcomed back into your life, like a death or heartache, but I believe it is how we choose to acknowledge theses memories that result in the way we led our lives.
I want to examine how I look at my past. In my previous project I studied an area in my past where I felt depressed. I looked at my life in a way I never did before. In most cases people will tell you to let your past lay where it is, “in the past’ and to move on with your life, but from my experience digging into your subconscious helps to deal with certain aspects of your life. For example during my last project I focused on a period where I couldn’t bear to look at my reflection in the mirror. By putting this into my work I started to welcome pervious infortune back into my life. As I have discovered these memories aren’t always fact, they are, at times, made up memories that appear familiar but in fact they are not. As I have touched on above, Freud calls this ‘The Uncanny’. You can develop these last couple of paragraphs I think with example of other photographers work that deals with similar issues… You can use the opportunity to compare and contrast approaches to your own work with theirs.
This has come on massively since I read your last draft, you’re getting a very good idea of how to structure and write an academic essay at this level, which is great going in to your third year. You’ve understood the theories that you’ve read really well – and have tie to improve your essay through researching your ideas
more with other authors and targeting your referencing.
There’s a good tool here that shows your how to reference each type of source (on the left tabs): http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nmp/sonet/rlos/studyskills/harvard/
A few more resources with artists that might interest you:
http://www.source.ie/learning/approaches/portraiture.html
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibitionseries/artist-rooms/theme-portraits
In todays lecture we covered Roland Barthes book ‘Camera Lucida.’
Graham Clarke
I have gone back to Graham Clarke’s ‘The Photograph’. I have been reading the chapter on the portrait. It mainly describes the portrait as a documentation of the social classes. The part I have found interesting is on page 114. Clarke discusses the photographer August Sanders portraiture
“Sander’s images suggest an almost hidden sense of self-one asks where is the emotion, the felt dimension of these individual lives”.
Clarke is basically that Sander’s portrait’s are devoid of reality. The hidden sense of self suggests that the subjects are hiding their true identities and supressing their emotion. Personally I don’t believe it is emotion that gives the portrait layer of ‘the real’. In my opinion it can me simply a person looking directly into the lens or away for the lens. To determine what a ‘hidden sense of ones self’ is we have to ask ourselves what makes a portrait real. Everybody will have a different suggestion on what reality in a portrait if for them. It might be candid snap shots where people are dropping their guard (where actually these people may be acting for the camera so in that case are they really candid snap shots?) A candid snap shot suggests that the people being photographed don’t know they are having their portrait taken but for my experience people are mainly aware of when their picture is being taken or if they are aware there is a camera in their company they will preform for this occasion or not preform whatever the case may be. I have started asking myself, what revels a person’s true identity? Is it a mirror is it a candid snapshot? I don’t know but I do believe there is a level of the real in all portraits. As Barthes said, “everything that falls before the camera is real”.
At the moment I am in a dilemma about my project pitch. I started of wanting to explore staged narratives and playing with the idea of truth and fiction. As I have been researching and digging deep into my own mind. I have been asking myself, is this really what I want to photograph? And the answer is no. I always go back to the documentary of Sally Mann for inspiration and when I watched it for the 20th time Mann said in the documentary that you should photograph what you love and if are not photographing what you love then your work will suffer and so will you. I listened to this carefully and made the decision that I cannot waste anymore time working on the staged narrative idea any longer as it would be a waste of my time and I also don’t want my work to suffer because of it.
I have now started researching something that I love, which is portraiture. I still like the idea of truth in the portrait so my idea is not a million miles away form the last one. I want to find something in portraiture that challenges me and I think truth and identity is a good place to start. Portraiture is mainly about identity. If you look at any portrait you will be sure that the photographer was dealing with some kind of personal identity or a concept that surrounded identity. I am thinking about exploring the idea of how we lie to ourselves which deals with truth and identity. At the moment I don’t have much more to go on.
I want to ask Dave and Sian if it would be okay to end with this as I would like to present how I got to this stage, from researching staged narrative to how I arrived at my chosen area of practice. I have a tutorial with Dave in the morning so I will be such to cover this important question then.
While reading about portraiture and the early staged of photography I came across a part where Graham Clarke talks about the daguerreotype. The daguerreotype was the first photographic process that became accessible to the public. The part that interested was how he describes the daguerreotype, “it was a mirrored-image, not as we see ourselves, but as others see us. It gave, that is, the public image of a private person” (Clarke, p103)
This quote says to me that the daguerreotype was able to show the public a truth depiction of a person that is always shielded from the world. If this is true and the daguerreotype was able to show a privates persons true self to the public then the daguerreotype must have been sen as a true and honest depiction of that person in the image. I believe this to be true because the daguerreotype could not be manipulated (in no way that I have heard) so there for the subject would be sitting for a long exposure which would mean it would be almost impossible to keep a fake persona of ones self for that length of time. I recently took a 3 minute exposure of myself using the wet-plate process and I found that you get lost in the moment and because the exposure is so long you cannot possibly express yourself in a way that will led people to think that you are a different person from the one in the image.
Emmett Hunt Photography 