Subjective Sense of Place

 Looking at photographs is a passive occupation, we view, we interpret but we don’t interact with the subject. We need never move from our own comfort zone. Chris Killips photographs show alienation, disassociation and implications of violence, but we do not experience a real sense of fear. James Ravilious invokes images of a simpler more community based life, but how much of what he portrays is real? We rely totally on the image one person has chosen to convey. Did Ravilious realize when he took photos of rural life in Devon that his sense of place would have such and impact. Did Killip show only one side of life when portraying industrial decline in the North East. The photographer chooses and the viewer interprets, can photography ever really convey the essence of a place if how we experience somewhere can vary so much?

Having lived overseas in developing countries for 20 years, I had many opportunities to talk to people who had never visited the UK before, and many had only encountered the UK through photographs, television and sometimes the Internet. Their image of England was predominantly of London tourist points such as ‘Buckingham Palace’, Big Ben, and the Underground. Manchester United was also well known though very few had any idea where Manchester was and assumed it was in some way connected to London. So do the photographs below convey a true sense of place or are they simply manufactured to sell the image a commodity. From this point of view, sense of place is can only be predisposed and manufactured.So where does this leave the photographer trying to convey  a less commercial or predisposed sense of place? Is it possible? My own work conveys what I see but also what fulfills others expectations. It seems that if I put across what I see as ‘my sense of place’ it isn’t acceptable, because it doesn’t give a recognizable sense of place ie. it could be anywhere. The people are not ‘Cumbrian’ just people, they are not unique to this place. Yet in actuality they cannot be anything but unique, and what my critics are saying is that the subjects of my photos are not, how they expect them to be. So as a photographer, should I compromise on what I see and what is expected?

  

It's what we have and how we use it

'It’s what we have how we use it, where we place it and it’s importance in our lives that helps those we meet get to know us, on a personal level it provides a sense of place …. Our place our space'

A TV show begins a scene with an establishing shot of a city or a building before we see what is going on inside? And how once inside, the set designers create rooms that are unique and reflect the personality of the characters? Storytellers know that when defining characters, place is important.

Paint your house a different colour than the 100 matching homes surrounding it. Hang photos in your living room that you or a local photographer took rather than buying them at Target. Shop at the small-scale grocery store. Appreciate and emphasise the unique things about the places around us and allow them to shape and explain our personalities.

Sense of Place in photography may work in a similar way, setting the scene, creating the characters and showing the detail, but this doesn't have to be in one single image. In a series of images, a wide vista may set the scene, the characters are created and defined not only by the inevitable people and place shots where they are placed in their immediate environment but also by closer shots showing detail that is related to the overall concept of the specific place and what it means to the photographer. 'Sense of Place' is subjective. Overall the tourist visiting the lake district sees the beautiful vistas and the quaint shops, they see the Herdwick sheep and buy Kendal mint cake but how much of this is manufactured and sold as the character.
(Photos by Annabelle Studholme)

Out of the ordinary

In the article below Martin Parr talks about his approach to sense of place and how he  reveals beauty in the banal and says how even mundane objects have charm - you only have to notice them.

Martin Parr

The Guardian, Saturday 4 April 2009

As we travel around Britain, I am convinced most of us cannot really appreciate what we are seeing. We take too much for granted, because it is all so familiar.

We float through our cities and countryside with our eyes half closed. However if we go abroad, especially to countries which are very different to 
our own, our sensibilities are awakened; everything is fresh and exciting. I am proposing that same approach should be rekindled when we look at our own environment.

I have made a career as a photographer and my main subject matter has been the normal; I try to show how extraordinary it really is. I have taken supposedly boring subjects such as supermarkets and the English seaside and shown them as new and appealing.

Most of us, when we go out with a camera in our own country, try to find exotic subject matter to photograph.

I am sure you know what I mean: a glorious sunset, a beautiful old building, the picture postcard view. We are also influenced by expectations of what interesting views or photographs should show: the unusual, the unfamiliar as well as the pretty, cute or beautiful. In fact, everyday objects are unusual, but we are not able to see this clearly.

I want to put forward a case for taking more seriously the everyday object, we should appreciate those objects that are so familiar we usually don't notice them. Take the scarecrow, a wonderful example of outsider art, and made with a real purpose. If you were to say to their farmer creators that they were sculptures, they would look at you as if you were mad. However if you take photos of them in splendid isolation, the results are both compelling and surreal.

There are two categories of everyday objects: those that are constantly changing in terms of design, and those that are reassuringly constant. In the former category, take something as simple as the petrol pump. I photographed one in use in Salford in 1986, and now it looks like it is from another era. What at the time may have been rejected as a photo of great tedium has become a fascinating image.

The benefit of photographing such objects now is that time is on your side. These images will improve with age. The older examples of the everyday become more fascinating in comparison to the modern.

Think also about "timeless" objects. Personally, I love the humble postbox. The simple design, the distinctive colour add up to make this a national icon. For many years now, I have been trying to locate the postboxes with the most stunning backdrops, particularly in the Scottish islands. Here you can find postboxes literally on the beach and at remote and beautiful crossroads. I have also looked for remote phoneboxes, but I believe the postbox has the edge, as it is smaller and visually stronger.

Sadly, the classic red phonebox is in decline and any remaining public phoneboxes are more likely to be the glass and metal variety.

I would urge everyone to start looking at the world in a different way. Spend some time looking at everyday objects, at their design, their shape, their individual characteristics. Think ahead and imagine their significance. Many are interesting and aesthetically pleasing in their own right, if you just give them some attention. And of course, the discipline of taking out a camera and documenting the things around you on film is a great way to start to open your eyes wider.

The Guardian, Saturday 4 April 2009

Martin Parr is a Magnum photographer; martinparr.com

Landscape photography

I seem to be having difficulty uploading or embedding videos, so hopefully this link will point in the right direction. Should it not work then it is posted on my Flickr page (see left of page)
It's an interesting trailer to what I believe is a very useful DVD, at least from my point of view.

http://www.withlandscapeinmind.com/WLIM/trailer.html

Copyright Infringement

Copyright Infringement

This is not really related to coursework but important to photographers everywhere and happening more and more often

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2043264/daily-mail-accused-lifting-flickr-image

Catching up with Focus on Imaging

I'm way behind on the OCA blog, but here are a few thoughts I picked up on.

Interesting comments on the Focus on Imagining show...


"There is a distance and a coldness in the observation which I can’t get past; it speaks of the subjects as other, not fellow human beings who happen to be drunk, but drunks who might also be human". Gareth ...right here right now...first impressions


 "I’m not talking about his photographs of drunks, on which I totally agree with Gareth, I mean the other set of images shown on the slideshow, those tackling the topic of multiculturalism. I find them visually unsophisticated, and that’s precisely why I like them so much. Slanted, unbalanced and off-the-cuff compositions add a layer of instability to his work which perfectly matches the subject matter. I look at his photographs and I get a sense of a precariously unstable exercise in multiculturalism. I’m not making a judgement here; but that’s what I felt when looking at Denche’s images." Jose....right here right now…second thoughts


It's interesting that you both see the photographs of drunks as having a distance and coldness that you can't get past. I find it fits the subject perfectly. How many of us when we encounter drunks in day to day life look at them with compassion and warmth? I would suggest that the majority of people cross the road to avoid a drunk, or if in a social situation they observe from a safe distance, more often viewing with distaste or contempt or at best with humour than with the warmth and understanding of one human being to another. The sober public don't get involved but view from a distance and I believe that Peter Dench's photographs convey this reality very well.


At this point it's worth mentioning that I have lived and worked with people with alcohol problems so I am no doubt biased in my views, or perhaps just subjective?


Overall I like Peter Dench's work, and I agree with Jose's comments on 'ethnic UK'. Multiculturalism is very much an unstable and precarious exercise I think perhaps that while the photographs do convey this to a degree they also err toward the optimistic, I would have like to have seen  a few images which teetered more on the less 'palatable' side of multiculturalism.

It's been a while

I've not been doing much blogging of late. Things have been rather hectic as I've now got a 16-30hr week job to content with as well as my numerous other commitments. I had hoped to have more time to put into my degree work and complete it within a year this seems unlikely now, still I may pick up a few things while I'm working. Before I began the course I had also signed up to climb mount Kenya in September, so some training will have to kick in soon, this actually helps my work as i tend to think more clearly when walking up hills than when sitting in front of the computer being bombarded with too much information. I can watch a program such as that on the work of James Ravilious (link below) and digest it and think about it as I walk, maybe I see similar scenes when I set out to walk along the valley and up to Great Gable. perhaps I see the opposite and consider what style would best convey the realities of modern life in the Lake District. Perhaps I simply clear my mind, empty ready for the thoughts to rush into when I return to my computer.

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Ravilious produces photography which are both painterly and social documentary. He captures the beauty of rural life without compromising too much of the reality. His style is perhaps a little on the romantic side and only documentary through chance not design. I believe he set out to capture and convey the beauty of rural living, deliberately leaving out the more ugly realities. Beauty of course is in the eye of the beholder, but Ravilious was brought up in an artistic household and himself originally trained in fine art, this painterly view has carried over into his work. I enjoy the way he conveys an intimate view of day to day routine, recording the passing life and preserving memories. He talked to his subjects and was genuinely interested in them and this easy relationship show in photos.

Disjointed Ideas

This is also on another page 'In the beginning: Assignment 1' however, it seems to have become more a general rambling of rather disjointed ideas than a basis for an assignment...any thoughts on the subject are always welcome......... 

After a few false starts and discarded ideas I think I'm beginning to distill my thoughts into one direction. My initial theme was split into three aspects.
Rural Cumbria: merging of traditional ways of living with modern technology
Cumbria on Show: a collection of photographs capturing the feeling and character of Cumbria’s Agricultural Shows and Fairs
Aspects: Showing the diverse and sometimes contrasting aspects of the county, from Beatrix potter and Japanese tourists to Sellerfield nuclear plant

On reflection perhaps the above is too diverse, the merging of traditional and modern is a stand alone project for another day. Shows, Fairs, and the contrasts of the 'Lake District NP'. I am aiming for an end result that forms a portrait of Cumbria in a different light, more up close and personal.

Cumbria's agricultural shows and county fairs are a rich source of images of the rural community with a sprinkling of the urban and tourist visitor. The Lake District National Park can be anything from a wilderness to a theme park depending on the location and the influx of tourists. The revised Project becomes more focused both in style and content.

I would say my personal style is social documentary/street photography and has been influenced by my past studies of the work of Henri Cartier Bresson and my interest in other photographers such as Steve McCurry and Sebastiao Salgado.  Also, after completing my previous course with a portfolio titled 'Partial Images' I am developing a greater interest in the style of Martin Parr and Chris Steel-Perkins. However I also enjoy more traditional landscape photography and wonder if the two can merge successfully ? Perhaps they already do under the umbrella of Travel Photography? 

A few of my photographs as examples.

Wed Feb 16

I've been thinking about different options and what might be involved. The concept, the style, the research. My thoughts are running in many directions now, but still keep returning to similar themes.

Cumbria on Show: a collection of photographs capturing the feeling and character of Cumbria’s Agricultural Shows and Fairs

Style, along the lines of Martin Partin Parr though possibly without his intense color. A more subdued Martin Parr. This maybe a contradiction in terms, but would perhaps better convey the character of the shows?

Research would be looking at the work of Martin Parr, Chris Steele-Perkins and Frank Horvit. I am interested in the techniques used by Parr ie his liking for flash photography to boost the garish and ‘in your face’ type of image. I am particularly interested in Parrs use of what I term as ‘partial images’ as he uses only parts of bodies, objects and scenes and how this often portrays more than a whole. This is an area I have dabbled in, but would like to expand upon. Other celebrated photographers have also included this approach in their work and it would be interesting to investigate how similar ‘partial images’ when presented with different styles and techniques can produce a very different result.

Aspects: Showing the diverse and sometimes contrasting aspects of the county, from Beatrix potter and Japanese tourists to Sellerfield nuclear plant.

I would like to use a ‘street photography style’ to capture images of tourism in the Lake District, Rural Street Photography? Again Martin Parr is an influence but also Henri Cartier Bresso. I am also drawn to the documentary work of Frank Horvat, in particular, his photographic essay ‘a homage to Catalonia’. Stuart Franklin is also an influence in this area and once again Chris Steel-Perkins. 

Frank Horvat: Homage to Catalonia (2001)

Thursday 17th February 

Well maybe my ideas aren't as 'distilled' as I thought they were. The deeper I look into this project the more interesting possibilities spring to mind. Keeping focused on one theme and style is difficult. The broad subject stays the same....Cumbria. However the theme and style options are vast and varied.

In the Aspects photo essay perhaps there should also be an element of the darker side of Cumbria, beyond the beautiful and uplifting Lakes and Mountains, holidays and fairs to the subdued and sometimes ugly realities of factories, pollution, unemployment and rural poverty. Can this element be portrayed in the same style or would a contrasting style be more effective? The more I think about the project the more questions, options and ideas spring to mind.....