Artist's statement

Sometimes when you are working on a project, you realise that there is another way of looking at your subject; or something surprises you that you had not thought of. 

When walking the the Offa's Dyke Path National Trail, I became aware of how the written word complements the visual experience, such that the journey becomes about the wider realisation of the significance of the Trail: the context; the history; the subliminal messages. All are enhanced by the complementarity of word and image.

Offa's Dyke Path sends us messages, not just of the the beauty and contrast in the visual sense, but also by integrating the written word with the landscape. This set of images seeks to enrich the visual experience by focusing on the ways that words (including a verbal surrogate) are used to generate different types of messages, from the obvious to the indirect to the subliminal. There is no preconceived plan, just the pleasure of unintentional discovery.

Exercise 5.7 Prepare your artist's statement

"Photographic description alone will never be inspirational, never make a heart beat faster, never bring a tear to another's face. To achieve these things emotional messages must somehow be woven seamlessly into the photographic representation. But beyond what is baldly described by the light captured in a scene, the exact meaning of photographs is elusive. We read them but it’s not like reading prose, there’s no dictionary that we can refer to for definitions. Every viewer reads them in a subtly different way and their meaning may also alter for different viewings by the same viewer. Photographs’ descriptive power is almost overwhelming, sometimes it’s as if the images shout about the contents of their frame. Yet, almost lost in the cacophony of detail, deeper messages are being whispered. Despite the difficulty of hearing them, we know that the messages are there because we know that photographs can move us." (Ward, 2012)

As the course notes suggest, too many artists take a somewhat arrogant view that their work is 'out there' and it is up to the viewer to make of it what he or she thinks. You can get away with that as an established artist but they represent the summit of a very large mountain; for the rest of us struggling up the path I accept that there has to be some accountability to our audience, to guide the viewer, and to accept that doing so invites comment as to whether the aims are achieved or not. Be prepared to be shot at because that is the only way to improve. You don't have to agree with all the comments, but some should strike a chord else you are living in a self delusional bubble.

I found a very useful tip sheet at the top of the search for "photographers' artists' statement". The six tips are:

1. Start with basics -  basic information about the photos, including the theme;
2. Try not to get too technical- do not bother with camera or post processing details;
3. What do you wish someone else to say of the work - have your aims been met;
4. Share your background and history - why are you doing it?;
5. Try not to pat yourself on the back too much - probably the reason some people shy away from statements;
6. Does it have to be a traditional artist's statement? - think about alternative ways of presenting.

These are sound principles. Say something but not too much.  

This is an example from the above article:

"If these photos have a mission, it is this: capture rarely viewed scenes and environments and present them in an interesting way.

It may be a lonesome tree on an isolated hill or the dark interior of an abandoned building. Whatever the locale, on the best of days these images will stir up unexpected feelings and thoughts in the viewer.

Studio Tempura is based out of Baltimore, MD and has been creating photographs for over a decade."

Simple - to the point, neither understating nor overstating.

The link to community website - http://community.ucreative.ac.uk/index.cfm?articleid=18407 - does not work so was not possible to use the document.


A good example of an overstated statement is this from Elisa Paloschi:

Artist Statement - Faces and Places

I use photography as a means of self-expression – I make pictures for myself, to identify with hidden qualities of my character, to better understand my reality, and to express my interpretation of the world around me. A clearer understanding of myself and of my world allow me to explore fragments of life as an abstract form, and also to interact with people I would otherwise not be able to engage with. My goal is to use my camera like Alice’s rabbit hole, to open an unexplored world, a place of curious self-expression, but also a world of new relationships, new chances new beginnings and most importantly new stories.

My choice of subject comes from a place of intuition and is fuelled by an impetuous desire to partake in the stories that unfold around me. I seek the unknown and I look for the light within the shadows, the stories that are not at first obvious and the uncommon in the common. I photograph people in their environments because I am curious of what lays behind their eyes, where they have been and where they hope to go. My photography evokes the passage of time. I use slow shutter speeds and double exposures to explore the nuances of movement and the modulation of time as it passes from past to present to future. Recently I have begun to work with landscapes, attempting to illustrate abstract, evocative scenery as a motif to epitomize the idea of imagined space, a reminder that what I create through the viewfinder is only real to me.

I am inspired to compose by the contrast of light and dark, while I use the changing light of day to arouse the mood of my dreams.  Strangely, colour has appeared in my work, slowly and without intention, concealing the black and white imagery of my past. This colour conjures images of my favourite foods – mangoes, chocolate and spicy masala chai, and surprises me.  Gone with the black and white is my concerned with documenting a story, rather I find myself interested in the results of immersing myself in the story and recording my own reactions and actions to my world.  The photographs of Faces and Places come from that immersion.

Elisa Paloschi

This is too long and self-indulgent, it does not empathise with the reader.

I found an article by Siber (2009) useful as it reinforced the points made above and added a few more, notably:

• keep to one or two paragraphs;
• be specific;
• avoid romanticisation and flowery language;

 This is a better statement, that captures the artist's aim and use of techniques: 

Project Statement: "The Measure of Light"

Cast your eyes to the horizon and you’ll see how quickly the mind measures, frames, and categorizes the scene, latches on to form and shape, and instinctively divides the world into categories such as “earth”, “sea”, “sky”. Is it possible to see past these mind-made boundaries? What remains when we shift our gaze and distill the horizon to its pure visual essence?

To explore these questions, I spent months photographing the same spot on the distant ocean horizon at different times and different days. I deliberately de-focussed the lens to create a softened gaze that transforms sharp boundaries into seamless transitions of color and dissolves familiar forms: no “sea”, no “sky”, no “clouds”, no “horizon”. In this way, the eye is liberated from the familiar constraints of form, and is released into an immeasurable field of pure light.

I then rearranged strips from these formless photographs into triptychs. This allows the eye to explore and compare the variations of light and color that naturally occur from hour to hour and day to day. I print these images large to create an immersive sensory experience that places the viewer on an equal footing with the images. (Yudelman, 2016)

 

It is perhaps slightly strong on the 'how' rather than the 'why' but it inspires and describes the techniques admirably.

Another very good article (unreferenced), concludes:

Remember:  The artist statement is speaking to the viewer in the artist’s absence.  Therefore, the artist statement should be short, concise and well written in a conversational language.

References:

Siber, Matt (2009) Writing an Artisit's Statement. Available from http://siberart.com/wp-content/uploads/artists_statement.pdf. Accessed on 16 March 2017.

Ward, David (2012) On Meaning in Photography. Available from https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2012/02/on-meaning-in-photography/. Accessed on 16 March 2017.

 Yudelman, Jane (2016) Photography. Available from http://janeyudelman.com/statements/. Accessed on 16 March 2017.

Exercise 5.6 Context and meaning

The exercise is to read John A Walker's essay 'Context as a Determinant of Photogpraphic Meaning' and add some personal reflections.

A photograph is contextualized by the location in which it is viewed, and relocating the image results in a change of context, and therefore its meaning.  Context itself can change: it can be media, socio-historical, architectural, for instance. There is a physical sense of context - where the image is situated - and a mental one, a more subtle context of why the image is situated where it is. In semiotic terms, context adds the signified to the signifier to make a sign. 

The advance of technology means photographs (and thereby to an extent any artistic work that can be photographed) loss any sense of identity coupled to a specific location; they can be viewed in a gallery, on a wall, in an album, online in a social media context or in an online gallery. The idea of  photograph being internalized by a mount, being self contained, is moribund.

Walker contends there is a life to a photograph, as it moves through time and space from context to context. Jo Spence transposed images of family from the private sphere of a family album to the public sphere of a gallery, adding images from advertisments to show the stereotyping of women within specific genres of photography.

Photographs have meaning for someone and therefore must account for Gombrich's 'beholder's share', in crude terms the already primed emotional and intellectual baggage with which people approach works of art. It is not entirely an individual experience as people have much that is shared: language, social norms, cultural identity, for example. As Walker points out: "Context is a troublesome determinant of meaning for artists because so often it lies outside their control."

This is a thoughtful analysis, that is quite prescient. Walker wrote before the explosion of digital imagery that was covered in Assignment 4, but he was already aware of the plethora of imagery even nearly 40 years ago, when he wrote:

 "It is, however, problematic to judge the impact of a single image when we are exposed to a veritable flood tide of visual imagery daily,...."

Exercise 5.5 Create a slideshow

I viewed a few AV slideshows on https://vimeo.com. They are very good, albeit many are more about graphic art than photography, this one on Zurich, for example. Most of them have in common that the music is atmospheric and banal. One of the issues with AVs is obtaining rights to use copyright audio material

My experiments with AV are limited. I have used Pictures to Exe for holiday photo AVs. PTE is one of the leading amateur AV software, but there are many out there - see http://www.toptenreviews.com/software/multimedia/best-photo-slideshow-software/ - for example. PTE was quite ground-breaking when it first came out; it had the attraction of not being completely integrated between the visual and the audio, which meant that it wasn't easy to use, and therefore rather suited the technically pioneering practitioners. I used Audacity, an open source program, to record the music and narrative, but htta is not necessary with later versions of PTE.

To be frank, Mark having died a few weeks means it is rather painful for me right now to prepare a Landscape AV, as I made one not too long before he died for him and his fiancee after they became engaged. The photographs are not great, but it stands as part of a tribute to a remarkable and brave young man.

The video may be seen by following this link (embedding failed).

Exercise 5.4 Online exhibitions

For this exercise we are asked to read a short article by Sharon Boothroyd regarding online exhibitions. 

Boothroyd uses an example of a curated exhibition of American landscape and urban scape images:  Looking at the Land.  21st Century American Views. Her prejudice that slideshows 'don't work' is clearly set out:

"[This is] a carefully constructed, visually compelling piece of slideshow....well structured, intelligently considered, thematic, beautiful. Ticking all the boxes of a well curated exhibition.  But it is still a slideshow and even in association with The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, a slideshow isn’t going to break the boundaries of viewing experience.  Probably."

Boothroyd compares the experience to another slideshow exhibition in Sweden, where the images were shown in a dark room with black walls. She felt more 'connected' as she was in darkness.

There is a strange contradiction here: printed images of whatever sort - art or photographs - are generally (not exclusively, admittedly) displayed in well lit rooms in galleries, but somehow it seems the slideshow is better in darkened room. Surely the difference is simply that images are by definition lit themselves? See my post on MOMA in New York: the works of Tiffany Chung and Bouchra Khalili are both shown in a darkened environment; the slideshow element per se is irrelevant - what Boothroyd is commenting on is the display of digital images in general. 

Boothroyd continues with a comment on the pace at which the slideshow takes the viewer through the images. She considers a slow pace works with Looking at Land. This is an intrinsic problem of slideshows: the viewer is no longer in control of how long to spend viewing each image. Some may view that as a disadvantage, but consider also that it directs the viewer to obtaining a wider perspective: what is the connotative element derived from a collection viewed as a collection, not merely as an assembly of individual images?

Exercise 5.3 Print-on-demand mock-up

I set up a Blurb account and uploaded images, but could not get the file saved locally or sent to me. Ihave used photobooks beofre - notably for a wedding album using Bob books - so feel happy that I understand the processes involved.

Assignment Four feedback

Pleased with the comments from tutor, summarised as:

"An interesting and well argued essay that raises some interesting questions about the future of landscape photography in the post-digital age. Well referenced and clearly argued throughout."

I enjoyed writing the essay, but was slightly concerned that it might be seen  as 'anti photography', a renegade piece. Tutor even concludes: "I am left feeling a little depressed about the future of photography to be honest!"

In one sense, I am pleased to have received this response, because the essay is designed as a challenge to photography in the academic context. The subtext of my thesis is that adopting the static two dimensional printed image as the gold standard risks detracting from photography as a method of purveying a message: that strict adherence to 'photography protocols' (e.g. don't overdo post processing; shy away from filters; use a tripod) may be at the expense of  the message of the artist.

The counter argument is, of course, that 'good photography' does not preclude sending a message. A message presented to excellent presentational protocols is every bit a message as one that is not. My point (admittedly made a few times in this blog!) is that it not always possible to conform to these protocols in the circumstances required to produce a good 'story'. I recall writing when doing TATP course about the modest standard of photography in an exhibition for The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, There is a place for beautiful and imaginative photography but this is 'single image' photography more suited to competitions (as with the Wildlife Photographer of the Year at Natural History Museum visited recently), and specifically eschewed for this course. 

I do not think single image static photography will disappear any time soon (if ever) but my essay is designed to point out the rapid changes in the way people view the world, (the universe even), and the impact of alternative technologies that most likely will change the emphasis of photography away from the technical (partly due to the accessibility of newer technologies that 'do it all for you', and partly to an exponential increase in image taking) and towards a more electic approach that incorporates a variety of media, and using images that are available in the public domain, that are not even taken by the author.

Tutor mentioned incorporating the work of contemporary photographers to support the thesis. The 2,000 word count precluded this in the essay but the work of two artists (the epithet photographer seems inappropriate when the author does not 'take' the image) come to mind:

Penelope Umbrico started her ongoing Suns from Sunsets from Flickr  in 2006. It is a constantly changing work, this is one example:

  

Penelop Umbrico Suns from Sunsets. Available from the author's blog. Accessed on 18 January 2017.

Umbrico (undated) commenced this project in 2006, when she found 541,795 hits for 'sunset' (the most tagged subject) on Flickr. She describes how she crops the sun  from the images - she mentions no copyright issues - into 6"x 4" images and sets them out as above. Umbrico sets out her rationale thus:

"I thought it peculiar that the sun, the quintessential giver of life and warmth, constant in our lives, symbol of enlightenment, spirituality, eternity, all things unreachable and ephemeral, omnipotent provider of optimism and vitamin D… and so ubiquitously photographed, is now subsumed to the internet – this warm singular object made multiple in the electronic space of the web, and viewed within the cool light of the screen."

In a way that reflects the growth of digital imagery referred to in the essay, Umbrico sets out the growth in hits for 'sunset' on Flickr over the years, up to 30,240,577 by March 2016. She emphasises the collective nature of photographic communities, even claiming that recording the ephemerality of the community is analagous to  taking the image itself (so perhaps she is a photographer after all..):

 "....through the technology of our common cameras we experience the power of millions of synoptic views, all shared the same way, at the same moment. To claim individual authorship while photographing a sunset is to disengage from this collective practice and therefor negate a large part of why capturing a sunset is so irresistible in the first place." (Umbrico, ibid)

 Umrico's example of photographic art as a collective practice chimes with my discussion of the growth of imagery more generally, and the democatization of photogpraphy.

A second example is Jon Rafman's work. Rafman (undated) collects the unusual sights from Google Street View. Examples are in his book Nine Eyes of Google Street View. Like, Umbrico, Rafman collects images and presents them in a random fashion that we may identify as the beautiful and the sublime together. It is not technical in any way, but is a compilation of the way the world is now. In contrast to Umbrico, Rafman uses the static image in a sort of 'balance sheet' way: this is how it is now, a pictorial report of the unusual in a normal setting. Three examples (available from http://9-eyes.com/, accessed on 18 January 2017) are as follows):

The unusual and disquieting sight of a struggling animal in an otherwise deserted scene

A potential competition winning image of a lonely beach walker

A disturbing image that the subjects were clearly unaware was being taken - the power of the remote camera

The last image above demonstrates a further technological development in photography: the use of remote cameras. These are being used increasingly for wildlife photography (see this link for examples) but, as the above shows, have a wider remit.

Other points raised by tutor are incorporated in her annotated comments on the essay. I have incorporated most of these in the Assignment. The summary is as follows:

•  Referencing - have made the amendments where there were omissions. I have left the corporate website references as links rather than Harvard, as there is no individual to whom the quotes may be ascribed. Tutor is not sure of the protocol, and is checking with OCA;
• Inclusion of contemporary artists is included above;
• Discussion over use of 'balder' or 'bolder' is overcome by modifying the statement, which, on reflection was exaggerated; 
• Tutor is concerned (6 in comments) with blanket statements. I have deleted one sentence, as suggested, but the general tenet of the paragraph stands: it is meant as a summary and conclusion of the arguments leading up to this point. 

References

Rafman (undated) The Nine Eyes of Google Street View. Available from http://9-eyes.com/. Accessed on 18 January 2017.

Umbrico (undated) Suns from Sunsets. Available from http://penelopeumbrico.net/index.php/project/suns/. Accessed on 18 January 2017.